Shortbread and Embroidery and Neuroses

Between Adelaide asking why I don't write on here anymore and my half-hearted claims that I still occasionally update this thing in our last Christmas newsletter, I've been feeling a push to get on here and write something, anything, even though I know that the first few times I write after not having written in so long the results are a charming cross between drivel and plain trash.  So now my intention is to get a couple garbage posts up that grease the metaphorical wheels, and see if maybe this is something I can sustain.  I will admit that my expectations are low.

Part of the problem is me.  My writing style is Full Diva; I need a big chunk of silent, uninterrupted time, and that is not something that happens to me anymore.  Someone always needs something from me.  This is not complaint; I know there are lots of lonely humans out there who would love to discuss the inner workings and motivations of professional soccer players or long-dead (or almost dead) British rockers.  When I'm on here, tappity-tap-tapping away and I'm interrupted by a kid or a text or a whatever, I feel instant rage, and that's not fair to whomever is a-knocking.

Okay, so to be perfectly honest, I do get chunks of silent, uninterrupted time.  I make this happen by getting up between 5:00 and 5:20 a.m. most days.  I could spend that hour writing rather than running.  I could.  But I will not.


When last we met, I was in paperwork/red tape/bureaucratic hell trying to get all the various forms for the various school and governmental agencies sorted.  That is more or less done, although the trash company in Iowa only just stopped sending us monthly bills a few weeks ago after we made yet another phone call asking why they were so obsessed with us (gratuitous Mean Girls quote:  five points).

The kids are all doing well in school.  My prayers that the kids would be granted kind, compassionate teachers were answered.  That, or we're living in one of the few states that is known for paying its teachers reasonably well and it turns out that actually does benefit students.  Or it's a mix of the two.  The Lord works in mysterious ways, after all.

I have a full-time job.  I started said job a few days after that last blog post back in August, and looking back I'm wondering why I only mentioned the part-time library job and not the full-time library job I was about to begin at an entirely different library.  Knowing me the way I do, I was probably worried I'd accidentally stitch all my flaws onto my work attire in my sleep (in beautiful, flowing script, because these are still my dreams), my new boss would read them the minute I walked in the door, and I'd be fired straight away.  My fears don't often make sense.  But, here I am, those same fears driving me to curse the motion sensor light mounted on our back shed/barn/thingy as I peer over the bottom of the windowsill and tell myself for the thousandth time that it's probably just one of the neighborhood cats strolling by, not the person who I'm sometimes* quite sure lives in our shed, unbeknownst to the hapless family living only a few hundred feet away.

Let's see, what else?  Kids?  Check.  My newish job?  Check.  Shed dweller?  Check.

Derek!  Derek is really enjoying his new job.  It's sports and oftentimes high pressure, two things at which he excels.  No, I don't understand those parts of his personality.

I'm sure there are many more vitally important things to report, but all I can think to say for tonight is that I made the recipe for Salted Butter Chocolate Chunk Shortbread on Smitten Kitchen's website yesterday.  The three males in the family thought it was decent.  Adelaide and I loved it.  Were I to do it again, I would lessen the amount of flour by 1/4- 1/2 cup; the dough ended up overly crumbly.  It is shortbread, so if you plan on making it, brace yourself for an indecent amount of butter used.

Also, I have taken up hand embroidery.  I've only completed one project, but I'm still allowing myself to say that it is something I now do.  It is delightful and strangely addictive, and doesn't require large chunks of silent time.  I am even now on the prowl for my next pattern so this one on my wall doesn't have to look so lonely.  This newest hobby plus the fact that I am freaking out about how it's almost 10:00 and I won't get enough sleep is enough, I think, to earn my solid placement in the Early Old Lady Club.  I've always been precocious.

This is smaller than it appears, maybe 4x4".

*anytime it's dark out and/or I actually have to go in there alone

Feelings in the Morning, Feelings in the Evening

We told our kids that we were moving about a month ago.  Let me tell you, it was a day.  Actually, it was a weekend because we intentionally told them on a Friday after school so they'd have the whole weekend to process the information.

Here is the internet's and several "family experts" general consensus on how to support your kids in an emotionally healthy way when making a big move:

• Keep a positive attitude!  Your kids take their cues from you!  If you are happy then they will be happy!
• But wait, don't be too happy.  Your kids need to know that it's okay to be sad, and they'll see that by watching you.
• But not too sad!
• This event will build a deep-seated sense of empathy and resilience in your children.
• Don't do it.  Just don't move.  It's too hard and your kids will be wrecked forever. 

What I'm saying is the advice I read was, for the most part, somewhat less than helpful, although I still wasn't afraid to read it to Derek in an increasingly panicked voice.  When we did actually break the news, I like to think we hit somewhere in the middle of all that advice, with Derek remaining calm but also reassuring the kids that they were going to feel many different emotions over a long period of time, and that they were all okay.  He told them that it was okay to be mad at him, it was okay to be sad, okay to be excited, or some mixture of all three of those and more.  I mostly just cried, as did Adelaide.  Caedmon was, ahem, demonstrably upset for around three minutes before he calmed right down and started asking questions about Connecticut.  Atticus took it all in stride after we reassured him that there are sports in CT and that yes, we would be bring the Nintendo Switch.  

Since then there has been a lot of talk about feelings.  So so much.  We talk about how we're feeling on this day and on that day, and how we felt when breaking the news to this person and to that person, and how sick we are of feeling so many feelings.  For a while Caedmon reported feeling sick to his stomach most evenings because he had such a mixture of feelings inside him.  It's been super fun.  

Derek and I are grateful that the kids still want to share these feelings with us, however.  I had feared that at least one of the kids would shut themselves away from the family, and while this still may happen at some point, for now they're still being quite open with us.  We try to encourage this by keeping time open (even when we don't feel like it, or maybe especially when we don't feel like it), and by keeping our reactions to their "feelings" statements very even and validating.  I don't blame you for being mad at us, I would be, too.  I feel sad at weird times, too.  I don't like it when people respond to our news in that way, either.  Yes, we will find a soccer team for you to join out there.  No, you are not automatically getting a phone because we are moving.  No, I will not let you audition for American Ninja Warrior Junior because we are moving.  Uuuh, you want to change your name to Casey when we move and have us all call you that from now on?  Huh.  Let me talk to your Dad about that one.

Sometimes our discussions on feelings devolve a bit.

Tomorrow:  selling a house in the age of smart phones, and why it's amazing! and simultaneously bizarre!

Today's Gratitudinals

1.  FaceTime.  Also I need to know what Tina Fey would call FaceTime because her not-so-subtle name for Facebook on the show 30 Rock- "YouFace"- is so perfect that I feel she is the only person for this task.

2.  Being able to be outside without putting on a million layers just so you don't die.

3.  Middle school track meets. No, Daughter is not in track, but we went last night to cheer on her friends, and MY GOODNESS was it fun.  The pressure is relatively low; (although perhaps it felt that way because none of my kids were actually participating) this is so obviously new to 90% of the kids there.  They're just trying to do weird things like jump over poles backwards and leap around in the sand (can you tell I never did track?).  There is a lot of tripping over hurdles, but also a lot of cheering for a bunch of brave girls willing to go outside of their comfort zones, so much so that I almost lost my voice.

4.  Pinch of Yum's Queso Chicken Chili.  Fast, easy, delicious.

5.  The Popcast.  Particularly the "No's" episodes (the No's of weddings, the No's of Halloween, etc) and the Flavor Town episodes.  Hilarious.

Three Things and a Request

• How did the peanut butter cookie dough fare in the crock pot, you ask?  Eh.  It was fine.  I was never that big of a peanut butter cookie fan until I began making them for myself as an adult, and last night's final product reminded me of any mediocre peanut butter cookie you can get from a deli or grocery store.  Cookie snob that I am, in the future I'll be channeling Lord Capulet and keeping these ill-matched parties separate.  

• It's well-established that I'm just the tiniest bit frugal and that I'm on a lifelong quest to eliminate excess waste from our household, which makes this a beautiful, beautiful thing in my starry eyes:

I've been cutting open our lotion bottles to get all the extra lotion out for many moons, but it didn't occur to me to do the same to my facial moisturizer until a few months ago, and behold!  I discovered an extra 3-4 weeks' worth of lotion in there, coating the inside of the bottle, hiding from the pump, hoping to remain undiscovered.  Of course, you have to keep the bottle you're slowing disemboweling in a container of some sort- I use tupperware- to keep the lotion from drying out, but I was inordinately excited by this whole thing.  For some reason, Derek didn't share my level of enthusiasm over this.  He's a strange man sometimes.

• Something neat that is commented on every time I take this crock pot somewhere:

That little rubber band-thingy came with this, the biggest of my crock pots, and it is so simple but so genius:  It does a marvelous job of keeping the lid on when I'm transporting food from the house to the car to another house, and never slips off.  I assume you could do much the same thing with a regular rubber band of some sort, although the handles on this one have notches on their undersides for the band to slip into.  Who on earth comes up with these things?  Not the likes of me.  

For the curious, that's not the C-grade cookie dough in there but tonight's supper, which has the benefit of being easy, and delicious, and doesn't require the use of our angry oven.  Like all true chefs (lolololol), I began supper prep at 7:30 this morning when I threw a roast in the crock pot and then dumped the contents of this package on top.

Lid on, switch on low, and that's it.  I'll shred the beef and discard the fat about twenty minutes before we eat tonight, but other than that, it's as far as I'll come to slaving over a hot stove today.  Served on warmed tortillas with some cheddar and salsa and sour cream?  Delicious.  I'll throw the leftovers on a bed of spinach for the lunch the next few days, show my anemia who's boss.

I have exactly six more great crock pot recipes, and then I'm tapped out, which doesn't exactly work with our oven being out of commission for the foreseeable future.  As such, I'm asking for your help:  Do you have any tried and true crock pot recipes?  Would you share them, or are they state secrets?  Please?

A List

• Have you guys seen this video?

Our kids are obsessed with this, and no wonder:  Michael Bublé (Caedmon's personal favorite), Idina Menzel (I can count on one hand the number of times our children have seen the movie Frozen, and yet they somehow know every word of the song Let It Go as performed by Menzel), and the whole video is lip-synced by kids?  With the added bonus of mildly altered lyrics to make Baby, It's Cold Outside 95% less Sexual Predator Anthem-ish?  I say YES.

• On our recent trip south, I forgot our camera.  I suppose it's better to forget the camera than all your kids' pajamas (been there) or shoes for your preschooler (done that) or shampoo (almost every time), but it sure felt like a tragedy.  And I'm not even a particularly talented photographer.  I just like to take too many photos of my nieces; is that so wrong?  

Thankfully, my mom graciously allowed us to use her camera and her phone to take photos while we were there.  And by "us," I mostly mean Atticus.  I think he snapped around 3/4 of the pictures during our time there, so most of them are blurry, and many feature his fingers in the corner, but it's interesting to see things from his perspective.

• I finally found a way to make Derek like homemade chicken noodle soup:  Add heavy cream and plenty of garlic.  This recipe for Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup was a winner with our family, which feels like a bit of a miracle; everyone but me in this house seems to be innately suspicious of soup, which makes no sense as we live in the kind of climate for which soup was surely created.

5 Recipes (DON'T WORRY; They're Not Mine)

I'm not sure what statement strikes the most terror in our children's hearts, but I know this one has got to be in the top ten, easily:

"WE'RE TRYING SOMETHING NEW FOR SUPPER TONIGHT."

Now, first of all, come on, children.  JUST COME ON.  I cannot stress how not-scary the food I make for this family is.  Do you know how many times I've tried to sneak things like mushrooms or escargot or backyard rabbit into their meals?  Zero.  Zero times.  I get being a bit picky; I have a serious aversion to cream-of-anything blobs from a can, and if my mom tries to tell me that sugar-free jelly tastes just like the real thing one more time, I'm having her committed.  (Tastes like I licked the inside of a beaker in Chem 120, Mom.  A strawberry-flavored beaker.)  But I cannot eat Lazy Beef Lasagna and Sour Cream Noodle Bake (which are basically the same recipe but with different spices) every night of the week like certain ungrateful underage heathens currently residing in this house.  Sometimes you just have to try a new recipe.  Or five.  In the space of a week.

So, it's entirely possible I brought this whole thing on myself.

I liked almost all of the new recipes.  Derek only once droned, "I love everything you cook," which is his nice way of saying This food is the worst.  Where's the sour cream noodle bake?  

Here's what I've been subjecting our family to, so you, too, can torture your own ungrateful loved ones:

• PW's Chicken Pot Pie.  I had forgotten all about chicken pot pie until my sister made a rather bitter comment recently about how she loved this dish growing up but never got to eat it just because her picky older sister hated it.  I decided I'd try making it for myself, because sometimes food you didn't like as a kid is less scary once you can see for yourself what all the ingredients are, in addition to controlling what exactly goes into it.  Well.  It was delicious.  Derek and I both loved it, and it was possibly even better heated up for lunch the next day.  I'm also not sure why I've been so intimidated by PW's homemade crust; that thing was easy as pie (THAT'S RIGHT.  I WENT THERE).  There's also a delicious kind of irony to loving something now that my sister couldn't have because I wouldn't eat it as a child.  (Really, for the most part I've given up my life of younger-sister torture, but sometimes... well, sometimes you just can't help yourself.  Love you, Kelli!)

• PW's Hamburger Soup.  I liked this.  Derek liked it.  One of the kids liked it, but I really can't be expected to remember which kid likes which thing anymore (don't you judge me).  None of us just really, really loved it.  I liked that it had a lot of veggies in it, and is really pretty easy to throw together, although it took longer than her supposed prep time, probably because there was a lot of chopping and I'm rather attached to all eight of my fingers and both my thumbs.  I'm selfish that way.  I'd halve the recipe next time; if it were something all three kids loved I'd need the whole recipe, but as it was I had a ton of leftovers.  Good for the impending cold weather.

• PW's Cajun Chicken Pasta.  Now, this, THIS I loved.  I was pretty much the only one, though.  Derek ate it and said it was fine, none of the kids cared much for it, although Adelaide really liked the chicken in it.  I do think next time I'll cook the chicken the same way but omit the pasta and double the veggies to make my very own perfect meal that will keep me in lunch leftovers all week.  Even this first way, though, I had it for supper Saturday night, lunch and supper Sunday, then lunch again on Monday and still wasn't sick of it.  I only stopped because I ran out of the chicken and veggies and was left with a big container of noodles.  I can't wait to make this again with my adjustments.

• Foodie Bride's Slow Cooker Honey Chipotle Chicken Enchiladas.  This was super easy and super flavorful.  My family all did this adorable thing where they acted like their mouths were on fire after one tiny chipotle pepper in adobo sauce-bite, and everyone scrambled for milk and yogurt.  I thought the heat was fine, but then, I love spicy food.  I almost never cook it for the fam because this is how they react, and as a result, their heat threshold is depressingly low.  Derek admitted it had good flavor, was just a bit spicy for him, the kids all acted like I was trying to kill them through their mouth-holes.  I thought it was very tasty both for supper and left over for lunch.

• Foodie Bride's Mojo-Brined Chicken.  Now, listen, my people.  If you're going to make one recipe on this list, make this one.  And just in case you've lost interest in this post and are only skimming the remainder, I'll put it in caps to catch your attention:  THIS IS THE ONE YOU MAKE.  It's an easy and quick brine that will render your grilled chicken so juicy and full of divine flavor that you'll give thanks to God for delivering you from the bland, dry chicken wilderness you've been slogging through into the promised land of tasty, tasty poultry.  The end and amen.

FOOD

Last winter, I went through a phase where every new recipe I tried was crap.  It was incredibly discouraging, because when you go to the effort of gathering all the (often unfamiliar) ingredients and painstakingly following the directions and mixing and sauteeing and dicing and on and on and on, you expect to have something delicious to show for it, not a huge pan of  food-like substance that every single member of your family is trying to force down their collective gullets so as not to hurt your feelings.

Over the past week, however, the food pendulum has swung the other way.  Every new recipe I tried was delicious.  Husband was happy.  Children were happy.  I was happy.  A near riot broke out this morning over who got the last of the rhubarb-mint lemonade.  

So here a few quick linky-poos to these belly-pleasing recipes, with my own additional notes, of course, because it would seem that I am incapable of posting a simple link and then leaving well enough alone.

Rhubarb-Cherry Sauce:  I served this over pork chops Derek was kind enough to grill.  I did make a couple variations to the recipe based on what was and wasn't in my pantry- I omitted the large red onions and instead chopped up about half a large white onion, in part because I didn't want as strong of an onion flavor, and in part because white was all I had, and instead of dried cherries, I put in 1/2 cup of my mother-in-law's homemade cherry pie filling that she was kind enough to stash in my freezer a few months ago, again, because that's what I had; I also omitted the granulated sugar and cut the brown sugar down to 1/8 cup because the cherry pie filling was so sweet.  This stuff was dee-lish, and a nice alternative the barbecue sauce I usually serve with pork.

Rhubarb Mint Lemonade:  For this one, you just take a can of frozen lemonade concentrate (or make fresh if concentrate offends your delicate sensibilities), make it according to the directions on the can, add a sliced fresh lemon, three cups of chopped rhubarb, and a handful of crushed mint leaves.  Stir it up, then let it steep in the fridge for at least three hours.  The best part of this one, aside from sucking it down as fast as I could because it was so refreshing, was pulling half the ingredients from my backyard (rhubarb) and kitchen windowsill (mint plant).  

New York Cheesecake:  I wasn't sure about this one, as the author/baker lists its difficulty level as "Easy," while in my (entirely unprofessional, at-home cook) opinion, any recipe requiring a bain-marie should automatically be upgraded to at least "Moderate."  It really was easy, easy, easy, however, especially if you read the directions ahead of time and set out all the ingredients to soften/come to room-temperature and allot enough time for the baking/cooling on the counter (I have got to start reading recipes IN FULL, ALL THE WAY TO THE END before I get to making them), because while the actual work involved is easy peasy, you're going to need to be at home for awhile/not make it right before bedtime.  My only variation is that she calls for a springform pan, and I'm not fancy enough to have one of those.  I instead used two 9-inch round cake pans, and they turned out great, plus I got to skip all that tinfoil nonsense.  I also whipped up a simple graham cracker crust and pressed it into the bottom of one of the pans, because while her recipe doesn't call for one, I love a crust on my cheesecake.  Our family preferred the one with the crust.  This one was easy to make, easily the best cheesecake I've ever made, and one of the best I've ever had, period.

Anyone else have any tried-and-true rhubarb recipes?  Because I've still got a bunch back there, but don't really feel like making the standard rhubarb crisp or rhubarb pie.