dream imagine happen

Ready, Set ... Go?

2010-05-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

We had an ultrasound this morning to check growth and everything appears to be on track. He's small, but not too small, and he appears to be fine. My amniotic fluid levels are on the low end of normal but still within the normal range. We have another u/s and a non-stress test scheduled for next week, so we'll be able to monitor progress. I'm drinking a ton of water today and will continue to make a priority of it, although as our doctor said sometimes that doesn't make much of a difference. I'll start my 37th week on Friday so we're headed into the totally fine realm of delivery, anyway. Our doctor predicts he'll arrive in the next week or two.

I feel like a walking time bomb. I'd forgotten what that feels like.

It is nice, though, to be in a place where we just need to wait. We still have a list of things that need to be done, but aside from packing my bag for the hospital, we're relatively on track for the stuff that really matters--we have his car seat installed, we bought a pack of teeny tiny newborn diapers, and we need to resurrect the changing table and set up Cora's new toddler bed (which arrived in the mail yesterday). Otherwise, we're fine. I think. I should probably at some point determine if we actually have any newborn clothes for the wee lad. :D

I do so much like this stage over the early-pregnancy anxiety. I welcome braxton hicks contractions now (which I've had the past two nights), whereas in the first and second trimesters they just scared me. It's different when I know that he could arrive anytime and it would be okay. He's big enough, strong enough, and by golly, people love him.

So, 36.5 weeks and counting.

A pile of paper

2010-05-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Well, I printed out my novel. I have to say that although I thought I would be prepared for the weight of it in my hand, I wasn't. I've never printed out 277 pages before. It felt a bit heady and, well, exciting. It felt good to write the last lines. I've been reading it during C's nap time and making minor edits. The big editing will happen later.

Although that has been a fulfilling accomplishment, one that I am still savoring for its timeliness (I so wanted to complete it before delivery), I awoke this morning feeling very low. I think it's because my hormones are high. But, also, it feels like the more difficult moments of life sometimes rise closer to the surface, become more visible. The rest of the time we can hide away in the relative bubble of our own lives, focused on the daily goings-on that affect us and our immediate existence. Last night I learned about the loss of a friend's father and I went to bed with a heavy heart and awoke feeling sad and lost. My friend is pregnant, due in a month, and already lost her mother to breast cancer several years ago. I know of a number of people who are very ill, or battling cancer, or dealing with severe financial strain. Reading the daily headlines over at msnbc doesn't help, either. The repercussions of the current economic crisis splash themselves across the page in hectic reality, and then, too, it seems that we have entered a particularly stormy environmental time filled with earthquakes, disasters, and massive oil spills around the world.

I am aware that one of the greatest antidotes to sadness is gratitude. There are many things to be grateful for, in my life and in the lives of my friends and family. And, truly, the view of my daughter as she wandered through the house with her teddy bear this afternoon as she sang him a song before her nap ranks right up there as a reminder of the continuum--the cycle of life and the palpable feeling of watching life beat by, one pregnant moment at a time.

Getting there

2010-05-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

It's getting close. I can see the finish line. 270 pages written and, I think, about 20 or 30 more to go. Three to five weeks until the little guy arrives. I'm almost there. A baby and a novel. Somehow this feels like this might be the most productive (passively and actively) nine months of my life. Still a ways to go, but this feels pretty good.

Things have slowed down lately without the cadence (and the free time) provided by Cora's nanny share. This is our second week without it, and I am finally tucked away in my neighborhood coffee shop again while she enjoys a play date with one of her favorite little girls and our incredibly energetic, fun babysitter--a woman who teaches PE to elementary kids all day long and still has energy to babysit, work at a coffee shop on the weekends, and play soccer several times a week. I left the house listening to Cora and her friend shrieking while they catapulted themselves off the downstairs couch onto a giant pile of pillows, blankets, and down comforters--one of C's most favorite pastimes, as loftily illustrated in the photo above.

Memorial

2010-05-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went to a memorial for my crew coach Senior year. He was also my coach for a short time my Junior year when I rowed as a replacement with the heavyweight JV boat in the San Diego Crew Classics (I was a lightweight for three years, varsity for two of those). It was an emotional day, for a ton of reasons. First, there is no way for me to attend a memorial without needing Kleenex. I went through four sheets. Seeing people cry is enough to move me to tears, anytime. Listening to people cry while saying kind, loving, inspirational things is a heart-filling experience that always makes me brim over.

It was also emotionally exhausting to remember high school sports--the strength I used to have, the competitive spirit, the awkwardness of being a teenager, the things I don't like to remember about being young. And I realized how foggy my memory is. There are so many things I don't remember. Faces, yes. Names, no. Erg tests, yes. Timed runs and wind sprints, yes. Races, strangely, not really. I remember feeling so strong and capable, able to run 30 hills and 30 stairs and run Green Lake in under 19 minutes, hold a boat steady on my shoulders, and sit at the starting line with adrenaline flying through my blood. I miss that. I miss seeing the value of hard work in such a tangible way.

Dave was a fantastic coach and he tested everyone. He tested me, and he made me a better person. It is rare to be able to say that about someone.

"It's not always your height, your size, your weight, a lot of times it's the size of the most important muscle--your heart--that matters." --Dave Baugh

Cora's first flower arrangement

2010-04-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

Cora's aunties helped her pick flowers and arrange them in a bud vase. She loved all the praise for using her small fingers to press the stems carefully into the vase, and took the privilege seriously when she was allowed to carefully carry it out to the table for a fancy dinner of quesadillas (her very favorite meal).

She gave my tummy kisses this morning. She likes to say, "Kick for your big sister!" although he rarely cooperates. He's busy right now, doing a small jig in my belly.

She's asleep. She had an active morning at Sheri's house while I plugged away at my novel. (I'm nearly 260 pages in and I still have more to go. I just wrote another five pages and I'm ready for a break.) We ate a picnic lunch in the backyard and planted carrot seeds in our garden, then raced around and tickled each other. Well, she raced. I guess I sort of waddled. Hopefully she'll wake up soon so we can go for a walk around the lake.

I have been feeling emotional about the changes ahead, about the fact that she will no longer receive my undivided attention. I know it will be a good thing, and that she will handle it fine, but I also know it will be a transition for us all.

Last night I felt him kick and I wanted to pour a thousand words of love into his ears. This pregnancy has been distracted and busy and I wanted to explain to him that he will be another great, bright light in our lives, and that we are getting more and more excited by the prospect of meeting him soon. Only 6-8 more weeks to go.

You know you're pregnant when...

2010-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

I've stopped drinking decaf tea and coffee the past couple of days and I am soooo tired. Clearly the 3 percent caffeine that my body isn't good at metabolizing these days makes a difference in my alertness. I tried to write this morning and managed to get out a few pages before staring off into the distance in a trance-like state. I finally gave up and went to the store.

And now I'm going to take a nap.

Oh, nap. How I love thee.

Oh, Belly

2010-04-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

This morning was the first in a long time that we didn't have a play date or event scheduled. Cora and I went to Green Lake and walked around, picking apple blossoms and counting dogs along the way. We ran into a few friends and played at the park. I say "play," but really all it involved was Cora swinging on various swings for over an hour: the big swing, the red bucket swing, the baby swing, and back again. We took a break for a moment to play on the merry-go-round but it was far too passe for her. The swings are where it's at. She's in a major swinging phase, feels very grown-up, and is trying to figure out how to pump her legs.

The cool thing is that I plan to walk around Green Lake more often. The weather is improving. I don't have constant contractions. And worries about the baby getting enough oxygen have diminished considerably since Monday's doctor appointment (I'll explain that in a second).

My belly is feeling quite large these days: it's a basketball-positioned, right-out-in-front, large and in charge, 31-week-old belly. Phew. I feel huge. And I gained six pounds in 2-1/2 weeks to back up the feeling. Fabulous. (Honestly, as long as the baby is healthy and I'm feeling good, I'm happy. Knowing the path ahead toward being able to run again and having my body back, I can sometimes feel a little, oh, chubbalicious, but that's alright. I can hang, people. It's cool. Just remind me I said that when I stand on the scale two months after delivery and running feels like carrying a backpack of bricks.)

I found out some good news at my doctor's appointment on Monday. At our 18-week ultrasound we had discovered that the umbilical cord was implanted on the edge of the placenta, called "marginal cord insertion," which can sometimes result in growth restriction for the baby due to a potential lack of nutrition and oxygen (since the cord isn't implanted in a more secure, central part of the placenta where the majority of blood vessels are). Considering that Cora was only 5 pounds, 13 ounces at birth, I couldn't help thinking, Well, geez, how much smaller can we go? However, the good news is that our 28-week ultrasound presented great statistics, the baby is well within normal ranges, and also the cord is no longer on the edge of the placenta. My doctor was surprised. She said it was pretty cool, it appeared that the placenta had worked to compensate for the issue and had built itself up around the cord. That made me very happy.

So, 7-9 more weeks to go. I love single digits! I am so excited to meet this little person. We still have a lot to do to prepare.

And, lastly, I'm almost done with my novel. I can't believe I'm finally writing that sentence here. It looks like if all goes well I will, indeed, have a draft before the baby arrives. I have a few more chapters to go, but I can see the end. I'm at 228 pages and anticipate about 30 more. We'll see. I'm getting warmed up here and will soon tuck myself onto our couch and get going.

Baby on the brain

2010-04-06T14:12:00.001-07:00

I'm starting the 30th week this week. THIRTY weeks? With a baby in my belly? He's kicking all the time these days and I'm definitely getting more uncomfortable. And tired. And excited. And intimidated, too...about birth, about caring for two, about months ahead of crazy, lost sleep.

I really just want to meet him. (Not yet, of course, not till it's time. But SOON.) I'd like the next 10 weeks to speed by, but at the same time I feel like we still have a lot to do to prepare.

Like put together their shared room. Buy a bed for Cora. Get a double jogging stroller. Buy more cloth diapers. Prepare for lots of poop.

Over the next year or so, we also plan to finish out the second half of our basement. If it's possible, we'll add a 4th bedroom which will make our five-year plan in this house more feasible, I think.

This year has already felt much more dominated by long-term goals than ever before. Things like four-year-debt removal plans. Remodeling plans. Savings plans. School plans. Writing plans. Career plans. Gardening plans.

I think about them all the time. It is empowering. I can see things rolling out before us. Even amidst all the unknowns, there is a certain kind of security that comes from setting goals. It feels good. We've been sorting through old things, cleaning out the basement, throwing stuff away, visualizing our next steps.

I think what I need to do is buy a teeny, tiny pair of newborn shoes for a little boy and stare at them for a long while. Maybe then it will really, truly set in that our family will soon become four.

It's been awhile...

2010-04-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ooh, it's been awhile since I posted here. I've been writing. I think I have about 60 pages to go before the first draft is finished. It feels good.

And I'm starting my 29th week on Friday. Almost 30 weeks! I'm excited. I can't believe we're getting so close.

A perfect day

2010-03-15T13:52:00.000-07:00

I don't usually like Sundays. They seem too squished from beginning to end. I spend too much time thinking about Monday, and often wish I was born with multiple hands to accomplish everything I see that needs doing. Sundays bring that out in me. Everywhere I look, I see a project. Sundays are usually a great day for a local outing away from the house and all the work that beckons.

I thought yesterday would be a pretty awful day. I didn't sleep well, waking often and pacing the house, getting drinks of water, checking on Cora, falling asleep to too-busy dreams. But in the morning the sun was shining and the day beckoned with possibility. We decided to go out to breakfast, but as soon as I checked our bank balance and saw how much we've managed to spend over the past couple of weeks on birthdays, outings, dates, babysitters, and $400 garden building materials (including soil and compost), I dug in my heels and made a huge breakfast with all the yummy produce in our refrigerator--scrambled eggs with red peppers, onions, and mushrooms, served over fresh spinach with grated cheddar, roasted potatoes with paprika, toast with butter and blueberry jam, fresh fruit, and coffee and tea.

While I whisked the eggs and roasted the potatoes, Brian and Cora played with Play-Doh at the kitchen table. They made trains with wheels and tracks, chug-chug-chugging along.

It was so much better than waiting in line. The sun streamed through our kitchen window. I listened to them talk animatedly. We sat down and ate and listened to each other. Somehow, breakfast turned out perfectly--crispy golden potatoes, acres of flavorful eggs, just-browned toast. All of us agreed it ended up being so much better than going out. And we meant it.

Afterward, Brian played the guitar and then he and Cora headed out to the backyard to pick spots for our garden beds, and replant our indoor plants.

I started cleaning. You might not think this sounds like the beginnings of a perfect day, but hear me out. I cleaned the baseboards, dusted all the furniture, vacuumed under the beds and sofa and chairs, watered the plants, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. Meanwhile, every time I looked outside I saw Brian and Cora in different parts of our yard, bending over to study bugs, picking flowers, spinning and falling down, transplanting our potted plants and sifting through dirt, scoping out areas for the garden while Cora pointed and offered her opinions. Finally they took a break and rested in Adirondack chairs while studying the bird house and searching for bumblebees.

The windows were open, a breeze wafted through the house, everything started to feel organized and clean. By the time I was finished, there wasn't any more dust. I went outside and played with Cora while Brian started building the raised garden beds. I kept getting distracted by the clear view of the Cascades etched in the sky, still partly covered with snow. But in our yard bluebells, tulips, and daffodils are pushing up and blooming everywhere.

Soon, the neighbor kids came out in their backyard to see what we were up to. Shortly after, a little girl who lives behind us climbed the fence and we all started playing soccer in our backyard. Then we migrated over to our neighbor's super cool play structure and zipped down slides and swung on swings and played a hilarious game of T-ball. Meanwhile, just over the fence, I was able to see Brian constructing our cedar gardens.

By lunchtime we were filled with fresh air and sunshine.

It is spring here. It really is. It feels amazing.

We ate an easy lunch of leftovers and put Cora down for a nap, and then Brian and I spent several hours working in the yard. He finished the beds and I raked the yard and swept the patio and just generally looked up at the sky and felt happy. There's still a lot to do out there. There always is. We don't bother with the yard during the winter. The lawn doesn't grow, but the weeds do. We have some major weeding to do. Major. But I'm excited about it.

The garden beds are arranged and ready to go. We just need to fill them with dirt and compost and plant some seeds. I went to bed reading my gardening book. I'm going to start with some of the easy seeds that don't require indoor starts: carrots, bush beans, radishes, corn, spinach, yellow squash, and potatoes. This week I'll start the ones indoors that need it: cauliflower, lettuce, onions...and a bunch more that I haven't decided on yet. Hopefully more greens, but I can't remember the growing cycle for those.

The apple and pear trees are starting to bloom. I'm worried we didn't prune them back last year and thus may have another year of low fruit production, which makes me sad when I think about all the lost apple sauce and apple butter and apple pies. But we'll see. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Today, Cora and I sat in the sun and had a picnic, then wandered around barefoot, feeling springy wet grass and moss beneath our feet, and puttering around in the raised beds. We spent a long time listening to the birds and filling the bird feeder with seeds, then sitting quietly on our blanket waiting for them to come.

"Shhh, Mommy. The birds are coming," said Cora.
"Yes, I'll be very quiet," I whispered.
"I maybe see a bird!" she shouted. Then, "Shhh, Mommy. Quiet. The birds are shy."

We sat like that for a long time. The sun made us drowsy. Now she's sleeping and I'm going to start writing.

Okay, seriously.

2010-03-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Let's be honest. Sometimes being a "stay-at-home" parent is complicated. It's blooming with happiness and contentment on one hand, and rife with scheduling and squeezed personal moments on the other. And there are the goals, the things I want to accomplish for myself and my family. Like, trying to write a novel during 2-hour stretches a few times a week. Or vacuuming the house in the morning and finding crumbs all through the hallway in the afternoon. It can start to feel defeatist. Like, where's the story now? Where did I leave off, anyway? And why bother vacuuming at all? Who the bleep cares whether my house is clean? Why not just live in a hell-hole and call it a day?

But I am on page 157. That's something, right? Making it there slowly, but making it there I am, Sam I Am.

And the dust bunnies are being held at bay by teeny tiny people carrying itty bitty guns attached to the psychic vibrations of my vacuum, which is calling out to them from the confines of its closet: I want to run screaming through the house and get it allllll! Let me out, the dirt is callllling me! I can hear it shouting now.

And things in life, as they are for everyone else, is a series of juggling acts. I am not going to be able to write today because I am making baked macaroni and cheese for a family who just had their second child. I am going to go upstairs and grate the cheese and cook the pasta and enjoy watching the white sauce simmer on the stove. And I'm going to be at peace with that. It is a joyful thing to be able to help friends. I hope the food turns out alright.

All the while, my little one will be sleeping, as she is doing now. And I hope I will always remember the feel of her hand in mine as we cross the street. I want to remember forever what it feels like to take her to gymnastics and watch her swing into a pile of foam blocks and crawl out like a wriggling fish. I want her to always trust me when she needs help, like she did this afternoon when trying to walk on the balance beam alone. And I hope that by writing this down I'll always remember her 2-year-old voice today as she said sleepily, "I'm going to wake up and see you in the afternoon." Then tucking her head in my neck she started singing, "I love you in the morning and in the afternoon, I love you in the evening and underneath the moon. I love you so much, mama."

Ah, crikey. Does she have any idea? My heart is still lying on the floor in her room.

Confessions

2010-03-08T14:24:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to believe that we're going to have one of these in just three months. A lil', wee, curled up, sleepy babe that dozes all day and wakes all night.

I am intermittently overjoyed, shocked (even though this pregnancy was planned), overwhelmed, and awash with feelings of guilt because I dread the sleeplessness yet I can't wait to meet him and cuddle him up in my arms, a real, live, small little being.

Right now he's kicking at my belly, probably protesting the influx of too much food. I seem to be extremely into eating all the time. Breakfast, snack, snack, lunch, snack, snack, snack, dinner, snack. Um, yeah. I just finished a plateful of salt and pepper ridge cut potato chips. They were delish, but not exactly full of the nutrients my growing babe really needs. Fat, salt, starch, yes. Vitamins? I'll have to get back to you on that.

I've also been distracted by how to accomplish a shared room with a 2-1/2-year-old and a baby. Granted, we're not going to attempt the shared room until the littlest is four or six months, but still. Phew. It's intimidating. I have to keep reminding myself that if all else fails, we can move downstairs and put the two kids in separate rooms upstairs. I've staved off anxiety by flipping through a recent spring copy of Pottery Barn Kids, finding peace in the uncluttered representations of perfect shared room bliss. All the combos of pinks and blues and toy boxes and loveliness makes it all look so idyllic.

I'm all for shared rooms. I think it's a great way to get kids to bond and learn important lessons about sharing and boundaries. But the wake-all-night sleep pattern of a newborn and the uninterrupted sleep habits of Cora feel highly at odds with each other.

Still, somehow if I focus on the idea of decorating the room for functionality and harmony, I feel better. I'm not thrilled about painting the room a third time in just a few years, but I feel like it would be a good way to jump start the process. Plus I really want Brian to paint a mural on one of the walls.

Aside from general young family angst, I have a few things I need to get off my chest:

1. I haven't written anything in my novel for TWO WEEKS.

2. One day, instead of writing, I watched Cutting Edge 3 while Cora napped. Yes, in case you are wondering, that is the third in a series of teen ice skating dramas. Don't ask why I chose it. It's enough that I am confessing it to you.

3. We spent nearly $1,100 on food in February, not counting nearly $300 on going out to eat.

4. I recently read (in a magazine in my doctor's office) that cell phone use while pregnant and during young years is linked to a 54% increase in behavioral problems, major depression, and messed up brain waves in kids. It's caused me to feel a bit obsessed and worried about how much I used my phone for conference calls and chats while pregnant with Cora. I think I'm officially going to get a pay-as-you-go phone in April when our two-year contract is up with AT&T. I even turned off the wireless on our modem because supposedly that is bad for their brains, too.

5. I have been looking on Redfin lately. (That's a real estate site.) I'm committed to staying here, but I still like to go there and look at big houses on big lots in areas where I don't think we want to live. Let's face it, I have a problem, people. It's better if I just don't go there, but I do. I'll have to work on that.

6. We are putting in 64 square feet of raised bed gardening space in our backyard and I'm sooo excited about gardening with Cora and harvesting good food. I'm even excited about learning how to can what I hope will be an over-abundance of good produce. However, I am intimidated about growing starts or mapping out how best to use two 4x8 beds, and how to manage Seattle weather. I mean, it was nearly summer on Saturday, 60-degrees and sunny and blue blue blue. Today it snowed. Nothing stuck, but still. Snow? Now? After the crocuses have shot up and the cherry blossoms have started their snowflake descent on our lawn?

7. I miss my body. I miss running and wine and braxton-hicks-free living. I miss feeling in charge of my life.

On the budget front, one thing I've noticed is that January's thrifty days provided some shopping training. Instead of anticipating a cart bursting with hundreds of foods and flavors, I've started to get a better sense of how to walk out of the store for under $100 a week. Along with our CSA deliveries, that means that we might be able to come in at under $150/week, which is great. More on that soon.

Conversation with Cora

2010-03-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

On the way home today, Cora and I shared a little conversation. This is how it went:

Cora: Do you want to talk about jungle animals? (She's learning about these in her nanny share.)
Me: Sure! That sounds like a great idea. I love animals.
Cora: OK. Um. Elephants. Giraffes. Flamingos--they're jungle animals. Lions.
Me: Oooh, those are all really cool animals. Did you talk about those today? What did you learn?
Cora: Yup. We did. And horses and dogs, too. Kitty cats.
Me: Hmm. Do you think horses and dogs and kitty cats are jungle animals?
Cora: Maybe sometimes.
Me: Oh, OK. I guess you're right. They can live in the jungle sometimes too.
Cora: That's the end of the story.
Me: Hmm?
Cora: I'm all done with the story. That's the end.
Me: Oh. Well, that was a great story! Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you're learning about animals.
Cora: Yes. Mom, you know what?
Me: What?
Cora: When I am a big sister I am going to sing Lullaby and Goodnight--like that, hum de hum dee dee dee--to my little brother.
Me: That will be a wonderful thing to do with your little brother. He will really like that. You are going to be a great big sister.
Cora: Yup. I am.

Intention vs. Reality

2010-02-24T13:43:00.000-08:00

I threw out my back last Friday, making it the fourth time it's happened since I first did so in early 2007. Which makes me realize that it could be becoming a chronic problem, my Achilles heel. The problem is that I can't do anything when it happens--can't do errands, clean the house, play with my child, write, cook, get outside...nothing. I have to just lie in bed or hobble from one room to the next before collapsing in pain. It's ridiculous and debilitating, and it can feel very discouraging, perhaps even more so this time around because I couldn't take any pain killers or lie on my back while pregnant.

I felt pretty mopey this weekend, at times downright depressed. It didn't help that it was one of the most beautiful weekends we've had all year--sun streaming through the windows and a warm breeze blowing the curtains into giant, billowing skirts. Granted, it turned out to only be four days of relative difficulty, but it made me reaffirm my goals to get back into shape as quickly as possible this summer following the birth of our baby. And do all the things that worked last time to help support my back--acupuncture, chiropractic, lots of stretching, start running and hiking again. Maybe I'll also try yoga.

I hate not being able to do anything. I hate not being an active parent. I hate hearing Cora say, "Mommy's back is hurting. Mommy's sick." Ugh. I don't want to be that person.

Also, our budget is completely out the window this month. Completely. We're just going to have to start fresh in March because I have given up even trying to track our food spending. I'll just wait till the end of the month and tally it all up and wish we hadn't spent as much.

Which brings up an interesting point. I've enjoyed not worrying about it. I've enjoyed just going out and picking up something from the store that sounds good and going home and eating it. It's a feeling that is diametrically opposed to how inspired I feel when we're living according to a simple, strict budget, like we were last month. More plastic bags are collecting in our recycling. More packaging is going into the garbage. I noticed this afternoon that for the first time in weeks some of our produce was going bad. Granted, it was a bag of spinach I'd designated for a gnocchi recipe that I couldn't attempt making from bed, but still...

It made me wonder, what side am I on? The simple, community-minded, conscious eater who enjoys cooking everything from scratch, feeling ingredients between my hands and enjoying the process as much as the product? Or the convenience-seeking flavor finder who would like to browse through a world of gastronomic delights created by other people at substantially higher price to me and the planet?

I'd like to be the former, but in truth I am both. I woke up this morning wanting to go to the French countryside. Who knows why, maybe I dreamed of France last night and the images seeped into my psyche, or maybe it was because a trip to France is very different from being bed ridden with a backache, or maybe a trip to France is simply always an attractive option that doesn't need any justification. Regardless, I woke with images of a country cottage near a cobblestone village. I imagined waking with our family and gathering our baskets and bags, and walking down a country road to the tiny town, browsing various shops and outdoor markets for perfectly roasted coffee beans, rounds of golden cheese, braided bread, local produce.

I can imagine enjoying doing that nearly every day--here, or abroad. If I lived near Pike Place Market, it's likely you could find me looking through the stands every afternoon and coming home with a little bit of everything--fresh herbs, a surprising fruit, seafood, fresh poultry, as many vegetables as I could carry.

Next month, I'm going to have to start fresh. I'm not sure what the budget will be. I think I'll try to just spend $100 per week on groceries, outside of the $40 we spend on CSA deliveries.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our daughter? I don't think I have. But it must be mentioned before I sign off for the day. I can't believe we created her. I can't believe she exists. She is growing up so quickly. Yesterday as we drove downtown she made up a song that she sang in various iterations for a few miles, making me grin and giggle:

"I like my mommy, I like my house, I like dogs and kittens and cheese, I love my mommy, I love my daddy, I love animals, I love to wear my shoes."

Then she said, "Mommy! I have a bird in my hands!"
I asked, "Where did you find it?"
"Right here in the car!"
"What color is it?"
"It's blue."

She also found a small brown bird and they all had an animated conversation together. Then they flew away.

Finding inspiration--and holding on

2010-02-16T15:40:00.001-08:00

Our budget went out the window last week. It's because I didn't plan--no menu, no blogging about it, no strict rules for myself.

And I discovered something funny. If I'm not accountable to anyone, it's easy to let the rules slip. It seems I'm accountable to you. Brian didn't care. He was all for going out to dinner and spending money all weekend. When we're both feeling weak, it's over. We enable each other.

That's OK. We're starting fresh this week. We'll see how it goes.

And next month we're starting the next phase: spending $2,000 per month on student loan debt. Wish us luck. It's hard when I consider the other things I'd like to do with that money, but when I imagine paying down our student loans until they're PAID OFF, I feel better.

Also, I've been feeling creatively rejuvenated. Brian and I seem to fill our spare time--especially our walks--with discussions about creativity and stories, and it makes me so happy and inspired. I was talking with Brian last week and determined that every spare minute I have should be spent writing my story. He encouraged me to stop writing here if I find it too distracting (which I sometimes do). I think maybe I just need to tone down my obsession with food and budgets and reach an easy pace with it all.

I feel the approaching day of our son's birth in June as an increasing thrill--and deadline.

I want to finish a draft before then. Can I do it? I don't know. I've set these goals for myself before and perhaps I am always too aggressive. It's taken me seven months to get to 140 pages, so can I reach the end by June? I'd like to think so but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment and feelings of failure.

So. 140 pages and climbing. Another writing session tomorrow morning, more nap time throughout the week, a chance to get closer to my goal.

Regardless of that, I'm taking a break and planning out this week's meals based on our Full Circle Farm produce delivery:

1 each Cauliflower
3 each Hass Avocados
1 bunch Green Kale
1 each Cucumbers
1 each Bunched Carrots
6 each Braeburn Apples *
1.5 pounds Baby Red Beets FCF
6 each Navel Oranges
1 each Green Leaf Lettuce
6 each D'anjou Pears *
0.66 pound Shiitake Mushrooms *
1 each Mangos
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
FCF = Grown at Full Circle Farm
* = Grown in the Pacific Northwest

Tuesday:
Lentil-rice pilaf and roasted vegetables. (I love roasted cauliflower.)

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean chili and cornbread.

Friday:
Stir-fried shiitake mushrooms, chicken breast, and kale, with steamed rice.

Saturday:
Handmade rolled quesadillas with chicken, onions, cumin pintos, fresh tomatoes, baby spinach,and guacamole.

Sunday:
Roasted beet and baby spinach salad and salmon OR spinach potato gnocchi. (I'm excited to make the gnocchi--the recipe arrived in our CSA box and it sounds delicious.)

Hiking

2010-02-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite recent pictures of Cora, taken near Twin Falls, an easy hike in the North Bend area. She spent most of the trip in a backpack, but took full advantage of snack time to roam around and use her fancy hiking stick.

El Nino Tuesday...with pictures, a budget, and menu

2010-02-02T14:44:00.001-08:00

Unlike this picture taken last week after we received our Full Circle Farm CSA delivery, our fruit bowl is looking rather sad today. That's the thing about waiting until Tuesday for a produce delivery--you can find yourself rustling through eight limes and an apple in search of a little snack. Our vegetable drawers are looking equally dismal: five lonely carrots thumping about in the bottom drawer, and a few heads of romaine trying to look brave.

I guess it's one way to make Tuesdays take a walk on the wild side. I feel like it's Christmas today. I'm rubbing my hands together in glee, waiting for our produce to arrive.

Cora's sleeping and I should be, too. I'm recovering from a cold. It could be me, but I think it sucks to be pregnant, sick, running around with a toddler, AND not be able to take any kind of medicine. But anyway. Here I am. Instead of napping soundly, I'm going to write about food again. Which is becoming a trend, I admit. It's not that I think I am going to permanently veer into the world of food blogging, I'm just interested in this right now. I think it's contagious. In fact, as I was tucking Cora in for her nap, she drowsily looked up at me and said, "Mommy, someday soon we're going to have a garden."

One reason she's so excited about having a garden is because of a story called First Tomato, by Rosemary Wells (found in her book, Voyage to the Bunny Planet). In it, Ruby has a difficult day at school and daydreams about the Bunny Planet on her bus ride home. She flies to the Bunny Planet, where her mother asks her to pick the first tomato from their garden. Ruby puts on boots and a coat and runs outside by herself with a basket, where she harvests vegetables and the very first, red tomato from the vine. Her mother makes her First Tomato Soup "because she loves her so." I sing Cora a song based on the book and we've talked about going out to the garden and picking our very own food. I like that it is something she considers before drifting off to sleep.

We're all excited about the prospect of filling our fruit bowl with apples and pears from our trees, and bringing in baskets of green beans and peas, carrots and tomatoes and lettuce and broccoli and all the good things we hope to harvest from our garden. We're building the raised beds this month and hope to plant our first starts in early March.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ahem. I meant to quickly log on to show you a few pictures because, well, my blog is dreadfully bare of them. I'm trying to be better about that. So here goes.

Today we were supposed to meet Brian for a picnic to celebrate a sunny, El Nino Tuesday. Just as we were about to jet out of the house with our tasty wares, he called and told us he was still in a meeting. So we unwrapped our sandwiches and plunked down our various containers of fruit and puffs and raisins and had a picnic in our kitchen. Here's Cora sampling the grapes:

And this is where I might make you laugh. That is, if you're one of those normal people who has no experience with gluten-free bread. The thing is, if you're accustomed to buying gluten-free bread at the store, you know the drill: you have to toast it to make it taste edible. That's how my life has been since I was 12. However, fast-forward to these last three months of baking my own bread, and you might stumble into my kitchen and wonder why one earth I'm taking pictures of my sandwich:

I didn't plan to take these pictures. I admit they're not the most artful, or in focus, or perfectly arranged, but they're real. They were quickly unwrapped and photographed just so I could post them here. But you do see, right? It's all there: mustard, jack cheese, tomato, romaine, stacked turkey, mayo, a sprinkle of black pepper. It's not just because I'm pregnant, I don't think, that I took such joy in eating this delectable little bit of goodness. I seriously thought I'd gone to heaven. I made the bread yesterday and it's soft and filled with seeds and gluten-free oatmeal, and it tastes hearty and soft and absolutely perfect, and it's not toasted, and it just makes me happy. I've been tinkering around with a couple of recipes and I'll post one for it someday soon, I just want to make sure it works every time. (In the meantime, if you're dying for delicious GF bread, look to this delicious recipe by Gluten Free Green Mommy.) It makes me happy to cut up a sandwich into pieces for Cora's little hands, too:

After our lunch, we tramped up to our park and I watched Cora race around in the sun. She was happy to swing for a full 10 minutes, which is unusual. I think it was because she was busy soaking up the sun.

JANUARY BUDGET UPDATE
Alrighty. We spent about $650 on groceries (including food and household supplies like dish soap, sponges, shampoo, toothpaste, and pull-ups) in January. We went out to two lunches and one dinner together, and Brian went out to about four in all with colleagues and friends. We both bought coffee and tea, too, on more than several occasions. I haven't added up the cost of those outings line by line, but I think they all add up to about $120. This is most definitely a significant savings over what we were spending last year.

FEBRUARY BUDGET GOAL
This month I hope to spend at or under $600 on groceries. I've already spent $280 on a couple of big trips to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and we're fairly well stocked on the basics. We've bumped up our CSA delivery to the Family size (total monthly cost: $156), which I hope will give us a bit more to work with each week, and I plan to keep my weekly trips to the store very minimal--to purchase dairy, poultry or fish, and some kind of "treat" to round out the week. This could be sliced turkey for sandwiches, a chocolate bar or fancy cheese or wine, additional produce, or something uber-prepared to make a few meals more easy. We have about $150 to portion out over the next four weeks, or about $40 each week. Does that sound crazy? I don't know. I'm curious.

As you know, I plan all our meals around the weekly CSA delivery. This week I had a slightly more difficult time planning the menu, and I realized it was because our delivery was missing a winter green (like kale, chard, collard, etc.). I love hearty greens. And we're out of onions. So I purchased these items through Full Circle Farm's Green Grocer, as indicated below. (I bought $3.50 worth of garlic through the Green Grocer a couple of weeks ago and received eight lovely heads of garlic. I was impressed.)

Here's this week's CSA delivery:
0.75 pound Snow Peas
2 each Golden Bell Peppers
1.75 pounds La Ratte Potatoes FCF
3 each Avocados
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Romaine Lettuce
1 each Celery
1.5 pounds Roma Tomatoes
0.66 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
6 each Braeburn Apples *
6 each Navel Oranges
6 each Fuji Apples *
5 each D'anjou Pears *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Items from the Green Grocer:
1 bag Green Kale $3.49
1 bag Yellow Onions * $1.49

Here is this week's menu:

Monday:
Pasta salad with romaine, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and chicken sausage. (And leftover turkey chili for those who want it.)

Tuesday:
Stir-fried snow peas, chicken, Cremini mushrooms, and baby spinach, with a ginger-garlic-tamari sauce; and steamed Jasmine white rice.

Wednesday:
Party/dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Dinner with a friend at our house. Soft homemade GF flour tacos with Mexican brown rice, refried pinto beans, roasted mushrooms, peppers and onions, guacamole, romaine lettuce, black olives, Jack cheese, and salsa. (Make this in stages so it’s not so work-intensive.)

Friday:
Chicken Caesar salad and roasted potatoes.

Saturday:
Salmon noodle casserole with green peas, and apple-blueberry cobbler.

Sunday:
Toasted buckwheat (kasha) pilaf with sunflower seeds, and sautéed kale and chicken in garlic and olive oil.

An Insight Into Local Hunger

2010-01-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

Please take a moment to check out Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef's delicious, inspiring blog, especially this week's post that discusses the maximum food assistance for individuals living in King County.

That's $7/day.

For a family like us, or for Shauna, Dan, and their little bean, the maximum allowed is $18/day. That's $540/month.

The comments on Shauna's post are equally inspiring and informative. Give them a look, too. You'll be glad you did.

Oddly, $540 is just around the amount I'd like to spend per month. Why? Because I think that's all we need. I think we can eat well--organically, locally, deliciously--on that amount. But I am deeply grateful that it is a choice for us, an exciting challenge, a health investment, a way to accelerate our student loan repayments. Not a necessity. Not a do-or-die situation. Not scrounging for change or eating food that is nutritionally compromised. There are so many people who are hungry tonight--not just in third world countries, not just in the devastation of Haiti, but somewhere in your own neighborhood. And they're trying to eat on less than that.

I remember counting change with my mom during one of our more haunting episodes into her newly single motherhood, just post-separation from my dad, trying to figure out how to buy some food. We had to live on assistance for a brief time, and I remember it being so difficult for my mom to deal with that reality. I didn't care. I was too young to mind. But I never went hungry. I never got home and looked in an empty refrigerator or tried to make tomato soup from ketchup. There was a rule in our home that we ate for good health. It was my mom's best health insurance plan, she said. We were vegan at the time, which certainly helped financially. In our house, food was our first priority.

It has to be.

Just think of it. Hunger. Kids, adults, elderly. There's nothing like looking at the world through empty, hungry eyes. Perspectives shift. Faith fails.

I feel grateful tonight. And I am inspired to give to our local food banks on an ongoing basis.

Weekly Menu and Salmon & Potato Salad Recipe

2010-01-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

We just switched to a Family sized CSA produce box for delivery next week. This week we received another Standard size. I am pleased with the service. In fact, there has consistently been such a vast improvement over our first order that I think we'll stick with Full Circle Farm.

Here's what we received from Full Circle Farm this week:
1 bunch Broccolette
2 each Red Bell Peppers
1 pound Red Thumb Fingerling Potatoes FCF
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 each Bunched Orange Carrots
0.33 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Red Leaf Lettuce
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
3 each Comice Pears *
4 each Fuji Apples *
4 each Braeburn Apples *
4 each Navel Oranges
*Grown in the Northwest

Here's this week's menu:
Monday:
Indian food at Bengal Tiger on Roosevelt. Yum!

Tuesday:
Quinoa and brown rice pilaf and sauteed broccolette with soy sauce, green beans and tofu.

Wednesday:
Baked salmon, steamed green beans, and red potato salad with red peppers and fresh baby spinach dressed in an olive oil-garlic-herb vinaigrette. (See below for recipe.)

Thursday:
Soft tacos with whole garlic-cumin pinto beans, chili brown rice, baby spinach, roma tomatoes, black olives, jack cheese, and roasted chili and tomatillo salsa.

Friday:
Cannellini bean and pasta soup.

Saturday:
Dinner with friends. Homemade pizzas with GF and wheat crusts, Italian chicken sausage, red peppers, roma tomatoes, black olives, crimini mushrooms, yellow onions, and mozzarella. (We'll customize them for vegetarian or kids' preferences.)

Sunday:
Cream of carrot soup, fresh GF sunflower rolls, and a spinach and red lettuce salad with shaved apple.

BAKED SALMON with RED POTATO SALAD
Serves 4

1.5 pounds Wild Alaskan Salmon fillets
Soy sauce
Olive oil
Paprika
Ginger powder or fresh grated ginger
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1-3 T butter

8-10 medium red potatoes
2-3 cups washed baby spinach
1 red pepper, chopped into 1/4" pieces
Paprika

Dressing:
Equal parts olive oil, grapeseed oil, and apple cider vinegar (or to taste), to equal about 1.5 cups
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Ume plum vinegar, to taste
1 T Italian seasoning
1 t dill
2 T minced onion
3 small garlic cloves, pressed
Salt and pepper to taste

Salmon:
Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over salmon fillets--enough that you produce adequate sauce to cover the bottom of the baking pan and guarantee a little leftover to spoon over each fillet when serving. Use about 2 parts olive oil to 1 part soy sauce. S

Sprinkle a small amount of ginger powder over each fillet (or, even better, use a small amount of fresh grated ginger), sprinkle each fillet liberally with paprika, and finish with a small dash of sea salt and ground pepper.

Marinate in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

Bake at 400 until salmon is tender and flakes with a fork.

Optional: For a more tender fillet, dot the fish with small cubes of butter.

Potato salad:
I served this cold, but I think it would also be excellent served warm.

Cut potatoes into quarters and boil in salted water until tender but not mushy. Drain (and cool if you're serving a cold salad). Add spinach and red pepper and toss thoroughly.

For the dressing, follow your intuition and taste buds and use my portions as a guide only. Ume Plum vinegar is a wonderful flavor to add to this dressing, offering a tangy, salty boost that I love to add to nearly every salad dressing I make, but it is not necessary. You might prefer to skip the onions or garlic or add chopped fresh herbs or substitute chives or green onions--all would be great ideas. I combined the ingredients and shook them in a jar to thoroughly incorporate.

Dress to taste. I dressed the potatoes lightly with about 2 tablespoons of dressing. Because of the garlic, this made for a flavorful dish without very much dressing at all--you might prefer more; also consider serving additional dressing at the table for those who prefer it.

Sprinkle potatoes with paprika before serving.

Tea and 37,054 words

2010-01-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

It's a foggy morning. Clouds hang outside our windows and hover beneath the trees. I have a cup of dark, decaf Irish Breakfast tea, and three whole hours to write. The only sound in the house is the hum of our oil furnace. Cora is at her nanny share this morning. I left her at Jane's house, inspecting their very cool kid's kitchen and chatting about what she planned to eat at snack time.

Our little boy is kicking. That's the first time I've written those words. Our little boy? We found out about a week ago and it's still surreal. I can't get over it, and I'm thrilled.

I've been pretty exhausted this week. I'm finding that I'm just physically more prone to exhaustion in general, and my body will tell me when it's time to stop--usually that means I'm lying in bed with cramps and contractions thinking, "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant. I guess I can't do everything in one day." I'll hit 20 weeks tomorrow--halfway there!

So I've been trying to take it easy...and that brings me to a discussion I had with Brian the other night: Since when did making burritos turn into a two-hour dinnertime adventure?

Answer: Since I started roasting and pressure cooking the rice with spices and chopped tomatoes, and soaking the beans overnight and pressure cooking them with garlic and cumin seeds, and making refried beans with fried onions, and making tortillas from scratch, and mashing the avocado, and cooking the corn, and cutting the tomatoes and making the salsa, and chopping lettuce. This was after a day running around town and parks with Cora. The meal was delicious but let me tell you, that is a weekend meal. No more Thursday burritos of that caliber for awhile. I was lying on my bed with contractions before dinner even began. I AM PREGNANT. Remind me of that sometime, will ya? Burritos used to be a lot easier when we had canned beans and premade tortillas and a quick pot of rice on the stove.

So. The food has been delicious, this budgeting experience has been very valuable toward helping us realign our thinking--how much do we spend? How do we eat? What are our goals when it comes to food? I'm enjoying the whole thing. However, I have to make sure the meals are less labor intensive to avoid going into premature labor, you know what I mean? Simple will be the goal and theme next month--both in preparation and ingredients. I'm excited about it--sort of like a new monthly challenge. I want to try making more meals with fewer flavors, highlighting herbs and sauces and fresh ingredients. I'm working on our weekly menu right now, but I'm not sure when I'll post it. Hopefully soon. I'll do a monthly budget recap next week, too.

Yesterday as I was writing, I looked down at the page counter and was surprised to find that I'm nearly to 120 pages. Slowly, slowly goes the tortoise. So, I'm returning to my tea and my 37,054 words, and hope this morning will let me get lost in that adventure until Noon.

Budget Update and Weekly Menu

2010-01-18T14:53:00.000-08:00

Bread is cooling on the stove. The house is filled with the smell of yeast and grain. All the windows are open to let in the sunny air and sounds of birds. It's a beautiful day.

My favorite meal this week was creamy parmesan polenta cakes with turkey-artichoke heart pasta sauce. The parmesan polenta recipe came from Moosewood Cookbook. The turkey pasta sauce was inspired by Joy of Cooking. See below for a recipe if you're interested. (No picture yet; I'm still not in the habit of photographing my food, but I'm trying to remember to do so.)

We didn't end up making stuffed cabbage. We weren't in the mood for it, so we made a fresh broccoli-cabbage slaw inspired by Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef. We didn't have brussels sprouts or Napa cabbage, so I used endive, radicchio, and green cabbage instead, and added julienne carrots (1 carrot) and toasted sunflower seeds (3 TBSP). I followed their dressing recipe exactly. We served it with rice pilaf and sauteed mushrooms. Delicious.

Alright, so we're over our budgeting goal for January. I'm at $638 for this month. We ran out of some essentials: butter, almond butter, and eggs. I also bought mozzarella cheese (I'm having a pizza craving) potatoes, olives, apples, and raspberry and blueberry jams.

Here's what I'm noticing about our new budget, health goals, and attempt to do a monthly shopping trip:

*It has inspired me to cook everything from scratch. So far I haven't opened a package, jar, or can in two weeks, except for the bags of frozen food in the freezer, our almond butter and jam, and some mayonnaise and mustard for a salad (although, as soon as the mayonnaise is gone, I'm going to start making ours from scratch...and I'm thinking I should do the same with the jam). The creative process of cooking from recipes and from instinct has been a total joy.

*I have discovered the incredible pleasure of making and eating warm, homemade tortillas. I love the way the dough feels in my hands when I roll it out on a lightly dusted counter top, and the way the tortilla peels off the surface of a hot pan.

*I've been baking a great deal: GF breads, cookies, muffins, crumbles. It's part seasonal (I always bake more in the winter than any other time of year), and partly because I've committed to making everything from scratch.

*I love dessert. It makes me happy to sit down at the end of a long day and dig into a warm dish of apple-blueberry crumble. Amy over at Dish inspired me to make an apple pie that I hope will taste as good as hers looks.

*It's easier to create weekly recipes based on what you have, rather than what you plan to buy. My weekly CSA box deliveries shape our weekly menu, in addition to what I know I already have in the cupboards and freezer.

*I think we need to bump up our CSA delivery box contents to the Family size, which is designed for a family of four. The Standard size (what we receive now) is designed for two adults and a small child. I thought it would be perfect for us, but because our family lives for good produce and fruit, I think we need a bit more. That will bump us up to $160/month on produce.

*Next month I'm going to try going to the store either weekly or biweekly, but limiting my total grocery purchases to $400, if possible, resulting (hopefully) in a total monthly bill of $560.

*We've only gone out to eat once this month. Brian has nearly stopped going out to lunch at work. One of the main reasons is that we're keeping our budget at the forefront of our minds. The second biggie is that the meals we're eating are adequately diverse, both in content and level of food prep complexity.

*Lastly, I've been conscious about how cooking food from scratch energizes me creatively. I rarely feel depleted after making a good meal.

This week's CSA delivery will include:
1 bunch Broccoli
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
2 Romaine Lettuce
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
1 pound Zucchini
1 each Collard Greens
4 each D'anjou Pears *
4 each Navel Oranges
4 each Cameo Apples *
2 each Hass Avocados
4 each Braeburn Apples *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Here's our weekly menu:

Monday:
Leftover lentil soup, kale and wild rice salad, and fresh-baked bread.

Tuesday:
Coconut curry with zucchini, red potatoes, onions, and chick peas, served over a bed of quinoa.

Wednesday:
Burritos with homemade GF flour tortillas, cumin black beans, roasted Mexican brown rice, black olives, lettuce, jack cheese, lime tomato salsa, and guacamole.

Thursday:
Baked russet potatoes with melted cheddar cheese, spinach, and caramelized yellow onions, and a salad.

Friday:
Pizza with homemade GF crust, homemade tomato-artichoke-Parmesan sauce, mozzarella, olives, Roma tomatoes, Italian chicken sausage, and onions, and a Caesar salad.

Saturday:
Homemade GF egg fettuccine with roasted broccoli, roma tomatoes, with a browned butter OR an olive oil herb OR an alfredo-style sauce. (I'm excited to try this, I've never made fresh pasta before.)

Sunday:
Baked rice, broiled chicken, and collard greens.

Turkey Pasta Sauce
Olive oil
3-4 small garlic cloves
1 lb ground turkey
1 large yellow onion
3 carrots, diced
3-4 small stalks celery, including the tops, diced
7-8 fresh or frozen roma tomatoes, with skin and seeds, quartered
10 artichoke heart quarters (I used frozen)
1/2 cup tomato sauce OR 1-2 TBSP tomato paste
1/2-3/4 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 TBSP dried Italian seasoning, or more, to taste
1 tsp poultry seasoning, or more, to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Brown the turkey and set aside. Drizzle a generous portion of olive oil in the pan. Add chopped onion and garlic. Saute for several minutes. Add carrots and celery and saute until nearly soft. Add browned turkey, Italian and poultry seasonings, and several generous grounds of fresh pepper. Cook for several minutes before adding tomatoes, broth, tomato sauce or paste, a pinch of salt, and more pepper. Simmer for 2-3 hours, salt to taste, add artichoke hearts, and simmer for about 10-15 more minutes. (Can be ready within an hour, but the flavors mingle best with more time.)

Seriously cheesy and fiscally fit

2010-01-14T14:06:00.000-08:00

We ate some incredibly creamy, cheesy pasta for lunch today. It was the perfect warming meal after a long morning wandering through the wetlands at Magnuson Park and playing in sand and mud puddles. I made a quick white sauce using unsweetened soy milk and flour, and then added chopped Italian chicken sausage, a finely chopped leaf of kale, salt and pepper, and about half a cup of cheddar cheese. Yum! This turned out to be another excellent way to get Cora to eat kale (I have a bit of an obsession with wanting Cora to love green food).

Also, I noticed this article on Yahoo this morning: Fiscal Fitness: Find Your Biggest Cash Flow Leaks, which reminded me of my ongoing quest to find hidden money for savings and those thousands in student loan repayments.

Quiet day

2010-01-13T14:02:00.000-08:00

This pregnancy has been one marked more frequently by fatigue, cramping, and spotting. Yesterday night I felt exhausted and crampy and sure enough by the end of the day I was spotting again. Not a lot, but it stresses me out for obvious reasons. Every time it happens I worry--even just a tiny bit--that this is the moment when the beautiful pregnancy is signaling that it's almost over. That said, it helps that this is my fourth or fifth time spotting with this pregnancy, and I can still feel the baby kicking.

I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.

She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.

My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.

These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.

I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.

Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.

Tortilla Heaven

2010-01-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Plato was right; necessity is the mother of invention. Not that I invented these tortillas, but I've never really considered making them until this week when we ran out of our gluten-free rice tortillas. True, I've never been a huge fan of the store-bought rice ones, anyway. They're relatively flat as paper, difficult to fold even when warm, and they get hard as soon as they cool--a frustrating scenario for a slow-eating toddler. Still, I was feeling rather sad about our lack of already-prepared food inventory--one more thing we didn't have to make lunch prep less of a scenario. I couldn't help feeling a bit ho de ho de hum about this whole budgeting and food thing.

However.

These tortillas are sooooooooo good. So good that I am having difficulty writing this rather than running upstairs to eat another one.

Okay. So just imagine you haven't been able to eat flour tortillas in a long time. Like, pretty much since you were 12 except for a gluten phase in college when all the same symptoms showed up but you tried to ignore them and eat pizza and drink beer instead. And then imagine it had been 12 years since you ate a flour tortilla, and instead you were relegated to the joy of discovering flat-as-paper brown rice tortillas in the refrigerated section of the health food store, and you diligently chewed through them with the usual ability to balance the benefits and flaws.

And then imagine you spend 5 minutes mixing up some flour and water and flipping a few tortillas on the stove while your kid zooms around the kitchen with her frog, asking you to please help her undress it even though the frog is meant to be dressed, the vest doesn't come off, that's the way it's made.

And then zip. You are suddenly transported to this heavenly place where a soft, puffy, warm tortilla is on your plate, rolled with melted cheddar cheese and chicken and covered with salsa. You would be speechless, too.

Cora loved them. It was seriously a joy to see her eating a quesadilla without having to tug and tear at the tortilla.

Even if you're not gluten-free, I think you'll like these. And if you can eat regular ol' flour tortillas, I say get theeself to another page on the interwebs and find thee a good recipe and start cooking. It's heaven. Tortilla heaven. Save yourself from the monotony of dry, packaged goods and make them yourself, even just once.

Mary Frances Pickett's Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Recipe
This recipe was inspired by Bette Hagman and adapted by Mary Frances Pickett. I followed it almost exactly except:
*I used her suggestion to substitute garbanzo bean flour for the soy flour.
*I sprinkled the counter with a mix of rice flour and garbanzo bean flour when flattening/rolling the dough.
*I didn't roll them as flat as possible. I left them a little bit thicker than the average tortilla, going for the more "handmade" tortilla thickness, if you've ever stumbled upon one of those delectable disks at a restaurant or grocery store.
*Lastly, I used a copper skillet and didn't use any shortening. An ungreased pan on medium-high heat worked great.

$595...three weeks to go... & tortillas and a menu

2010-01-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy week, filled with a lot of cooking. But we've been well-fed. I've enjoyed working off of a set menu, even though we've deviated from it a bit when dinner prep actually occurs--making a quinoa-kale salad and paprika baked chicken with roasted mushrooms and artichoke hearts instead of plain quinoa and a green salad and basic baked chicken, for example. Brian cooked this meal and Cora and I ate it in awe. It was that good.

I made some red potato and corn chowder yesterday that is truly tasty--I'll write down the general ingredients and proportions and post it here at some point. Also simple (and heavenly) baked salmon with an olive oil, soy sauce, pepper, and lemon juice marinade. And chicken-bean-quinoa enchiladas (made with homemade corn tortillas), homemade refried beans, and tomato-lime salsa. And GF pumpkin bread, GF bread, and GF blueberry-pear crumble.

I'm considering taking pictures of the meals and tracking the ingredients and proportions, but I hesitate to go there because then it feels like this will be entering the realm of a food blog. Still, it might happen. (See below for this week's menu and a corn tortilla recipe, if you're interested.)

As far as the food budget, we're doing OK but I'm nervous because we still have three weeks to go and I've already had to go to the store three times. The additional purchases include:

*Soy sauce (totally out of it, should have looked more closely)
*Sea salt (ditto)
*Eggs (we'll probably need more)
*Yogurt (I think we'll be OK till Feb)
*Sorghum flour (for GF bread)
*Garbanzo bean flour (for GF tortillas)
*Masa Harina (for corn tortillas)
*Bananas
*Trail mix

Supplies (remember I'm counting these in our general grocery budget):
*Dish soap
*Toilet paper
*Bio bags
*Compost bin
*Aluminum foil
*Plastic wrap (for making tortillas)

Total spent: $595.

I'm a little nervous, but I think we can make it. It's definitely a switch to try to shop once a month. I'm going to do it a little differently next month; I think I'll still do one big shopping trip, but will leave about $80 for additional purchases each week. Also, I'm hoping that next month I'll have a better sense of my own food inventory; this month I clearly forgot some staples--salt, dish soap, TP, baking supplies.

The CSA delivery last week was disappointing. Four items were from Mexico, which generally I don't take issue with except when it arrives in my "support local" CSA food box. Even though they were out-of-season items (avocado, broccoli, roma tomatoes, grapefruit), I was under the impression such items would be culled from warmer states within a U.S.-based CSA network. The kale was wilted. The avocados were hard as rocks. Three of the apples were bruised. It was nothing like my previous experience with them, making me wonder if their recent expansion has caused a decline in quality. I wrote to Full Circle and complained, and they sent back a nice email explaining their stance on food sourcing--they source locally, nationally, and internationally, believing that supporting organic agriculture anywhere is a good practice. Maybe so, but they need to make this more clear in their marketing material. They'll also replace the apples and kale, or offer an equivalent, in this week's box.

We had plenty of produce to last the week, but we did find ourselves "rationing" the apples. We're used to eating several apples a day, which can't happen with this system. I think next month we'll need to either try a Family size box or else set aside money for additional fruit each week.

Full Circle Farm's online system does identify which items are local; I tried to pick as many of those this week as possible. Tomorrow's CSA delivery will include:

1 bunch Green Chard
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
1.5 pounds Russet Potatoes FCF
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
4 Braeburn Apples *
1 Green Cabbage FCF
4 Navel Oranges
1 Broccoli
4 Fuji Apples *
1 Red Leaf Lettuce
3 Bosc Pears *
*Items with an asterisk are from the Northwest. Items marked FCF are from Full Circle Farm.

Here's this week's dinner menu:

Monday:
Leftover corn-potato chowder or chicken-pinto enchiladas.

Tuesday:
Roasted sausage and potatoes and a green salad.

Wednesday:
Spinach lentil soup with sugarplum tomatoes.

Thursday:
Baked chicken, quinoa pilaf, and steamed green chard with raw carrots and an olive oil, dill, ume plum dressing.

Friday:
Tofu-broccoli stir fry and pressure-cooked brown rice. (We had this last week and it was delicious and very easy--perfect for a tired Friday night.)

Saturday:
Baked stuffed cabbage with turkey, rice, mushrooms, and chopped chard.

Sunday:
Homemade pasta sauce with parmesan polenta cakes.

Tortillas
I started making my own corn tortillas. I never knew it was so simple. The big deal is that you need to use Masa Harina rather than corn flour. I found a bag from Bob's Red Mill and it's worked beautifully. They never use GMO ingredients, although they can't guarantee GMO-free products due to wind drift.

The recipe is easy. You just need:
2 cups of masa harina
1-1/4 to 1-1/3 cups hot water
(I also add a dash of salt to the hot water, although I haven't found any recipes suggesting it.)

Mix the ingredients, being careful to achieve a smooth, malleable consistency. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes under plastic wrap or a damp towel. Then break off small chunks of dough (about 14 in all) and roll them into individual balls. Place them between two sheets of plastic wrap, and press down with a heavy pan. (If you have a tortilla press, even better.) Use a rolling pin to flatten out the tortilla to the thickness of a standard, store-bought tortilla. Peel off the plastic wrap. If the dough sticks, it's too wet. Return it to the bowl and add more masa harina, a bit at a time. If the dough crumbles, add more water, a tablespoon at a time. You can't over-knead the dough, so don't worry about working it to get the right consistency. Place in a preheated, heavy, ungreased pan on medium-high heat. Cook 30 seconds. Flip. Cook 1 minute. Flip again. Cook another 30 seconds. Set aside and cover with foil. You can make all of them at once and keep them warm in foil for up to 2 hours before dinner. Any leftovers can be reheated on the stove.

100 pages

2010-01-06T14:09:00.000-08:00

I just hit the 100-page mark of my story. Wooo! :)

A little bit of dreamy

2010-01-04T14:41:00.001-08:00

Whoa, two posts in one day, you say? It's just that I wanted to write down one more thing, a new year's memory. We went to Bainbridge Island yesterday and walked along the water on one of our favorite, quiet stretches. I swear, maybe five or six cars passed us in the span of three hours.

Slate gray water was speckled with seabirds. We threw rocks off the end of a big pier, then sat on the beach and combed through green rocks slick with saltwater, flinty and barnacled, interrupted sometimes by a red jasper or abandoned shell.

Cora napped in her stroller and Brian and I had one of those rare walks that only parents can truly appreciate: it was quiet. Then we heard the wind in the trees and the waves lapping the rocks, and the songs of seabirds and the cries of gulls, and our noses and hands were cold from the damp January air but our bodies were bundled beneath coats and hats. Eventually, like always, we started to dream, and plan, and imagine. It was the best start to the first week of 2010 I could have wished for.

Organic meals on a budget

2010-01-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Since my last post, I have been obsessed with finding ways to save money and eat well. Once we made the resolution to change our habits, I've combed through budgeting and organic living sites, reading about how other people save money and eat food that's good for you and the planet.

I should mention here that I understand organic produce and poultry have reached unaffordable levels for many people. It angers me beyond measure that we've screwed up something so basic, so simple as food. It didn't used to be this complicated. It used to be that we bought or grew nutritious food grown in hardy soil, hand-picked our eggs, and let chickens roam around in fresh air. Greed has messed up something vital to our health and well-being by mixing up food with what people can manage to pull out of banks and pockets.

Check out last week's article on MSNBC about how antibiotic resistance in animals is leading to antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.

Or this one about toxic stuff in the regular ol' food we eat (things like canned tomatoes, butter, non-organic potatoes).

The food industry has spent a lot of time and money convincing us that eating a chicken that's spent its entire life in a cage--beakless and footless, being pumped full of antibiotics and food it's not meant to eat--is natural, healthy food for us and our children. It's simply not true.

And studies now show that produce grown with pesticides is less nutritious, not to mention less tasty. In the meantime, to make it easier to produce mass amounts of corn, soy, wheat, and canola, they're genetically engineering the cells of these products to cause pests' stomachs to explode. Coincidentally, there has been a significant rise in allergies to these common foods--especially in young children.

I'm not saying good food guarantees good health; it just helps a great deal. So we've made a priority out of eating well. The thing is, as I mentioned before, we've spent a fair bit of money doing it. I want that money for our student loans and savings.

To get started with our new budgeting goals, I spent some time tagging all our purchases on Wesabe, a third-party money management tool/financial community and looking at our spending trends. I also read financial, budgeting, food, and family blogs, and found families of six who live on $62.50/week. Of course, I am always also reminded the voice of Barbara Kingsolver from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, who ate locally and off their (giant) farm for a year. And finally there are few of my friends' gourmet foodie blogs that inspire me to try to make ingredients count toward something tasty enough to be worthy of all the effort.

Trying to make sense of these resources in a personal way that actually works is turning out to be a fun challenge for me.

So, I suppose some figures would help here. Eventually I would like to spend $400-$600/month on food and general supplies. This is more than some people spend and less than some people spend, but for us this would be a very significant savings over what we've spent on a monthly basis in the past. On average, we spent $750-$1100 on groceries and supplies per month (in December, we spent more). This includes diapers and toilet paper and general household supplies, of which we generally buy very little. It doesn't include going out to eat. Yes, it's true. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but somehow our food resolution doesn't feel as compelling without sharing the numbers.

I should add the caveat that we spent the most during months when we entertained a lot, made big dinners for friends, and hosted holiday dinners. Wine and beer is included in the grocery purchases. (For large groups this adds quite a cushion of moolah.)

Looking at some of the food budgeting resources out there, I can at least acknowledge that we aren't the only average consumers who dip into the four-figures when it comes to food. At the top of the line, I found a family in London spending the equivalent of $2,000 a month on food. People who live in highly urban settings with higher costs of living tend to spend more. Those with ready access to farmland and big backyards and lower costs of living tend to spend less. This makes sense, of course.

Combined with a renewed sense of being conscious about how much we spend, Brian is also interested in eating less meat for health reasons. Because I'm content eating mainly vegetarian food, his interest makes it easier to cook more healthy, easy, whole foods-based meals. We'll see how long this lasts.

So, the big experiment this month is that I'm only going shopping once, except for a biweekly trip to purchase more eggs and yogurt (and maybe something else, we'll see). To help us accomplish this, I signed up for our local CSA produce delivery system through Full Circle Farm. Coincidentally, Brian's company just signed up to be a community delivery location, so every Tuesday at 1 p.m., Brian will be able to go into his lunchroom and pick up our box of vegetables and fruit.

We used Full Circle Farm for over a year and quit the service when I stopped working, largely because I wanted to go out and pick out all our own fruits and vegetables, and because we were tiring of the winter fare--beets, squash, potatoes, and more beets, squash, and potatoes. Now, Full Circle Farm allows you to substitute every item in your box with something else, making it more flexible and accommodating to our needs. It's a great way to support small--and local--farms. We signed up to receive a standard size box on a weekly basis for $30/week, a total of $120/month of our food budget.

This week's box contents include:
1 Broccoli
2 Hass Avocados
3 Fuji Apples
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 bunch Green Kale
4 Pinova Apples
0.75 pounds Green Bell Peppers
4 Fairchild Tangerines
0.4 pounds Mushrooms
2 Ruby Grapefruits
1 Green Leaf Lettuce
3 D'anjou Pears

Here's our dinner menu for this week:

Monday:
Apple-butternut squash soup and fresh-baked bread. (I cut up 2 butternut squashes and an apple last week and stuck 'em in the freezer. I'll cook the soup this afternoon.)

Tuesday:
Baked salmon, avocado-tomato-cucumber salad, and pressure-cooked brown rice.

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean and rice Mexican bowl with lettuce, red onion, avocado, and corn. (Optional: ground turkey.)

Friday:
Sauteed broccoli and tofu with rice.

Saturday:
Quinoa with toasted seeds, green salad, and baked chicken.

Sunday:
Red potato (and maybe corn) chowder and salad.

Other options if the mood hits: enchiladas, chili and cornbread. Regardless, I'm cooking the enchiladas and chili this weekend and freezing it for easy lunches and dinners.

With this monthly shopping system, I've already spent about $405, not including four weeks of CSA deliveries. Total including 2 wks of CSA: $525. Over the goal, but it's my first time out of the gate. I'm guessing by the end of the month we'll hit $550. This total includes $85 I spent on a bunch of gluten-free flours and 3 giant bags of Pamela's (very expensive) gluten-free baking mix. I'm splitting the cost over the next 3 months. I like our home-baked gluten-free bread a lot more than what we can find in the store. And Pamela's makes the best cookies, crumbles, sweet breads, and Sunday morning pancakes. Probably not a lot of cost-savings in the end, unless I compare it to buying all the sweets pre-baked and going out for pancakes every Sunday, but worth it to be able to make treats whenever we want.

I think I managed to buy a lot of stuff. A month's worth? I don't know, I guess we'll find out. I think we have enough other staples (nut butters, jams, soy sauce, salt, rice, etc.) to last this month. Want to know what we bought? I'm just going to list everything out, which is going to take awhile but for right now, hey. Once a month. Big deal. Why? Because it'll keep me honest. Also because I like to read this stuff on other people's blogs. I don't know exact measurements for a lot of it, but here goes:

Vegetables:
CSA plus--
*3 bags org frozen corn
*3 bags org frozen green beans
*3 bags org frozen spinach
*3 bags org carrots
*2 bags of frozen artichoke hearts
*2 large cartons org Roma tomatoes
*2 cartons org sugar plum tomatoes
*5 big hass avocados
(I bought the corn, beans, carrots, spinach, and tomatoes from Trader Joe's, but next time I'm going to go to Costco and buy their organic options). I got the artichokes from Trader Joes--Costco doesn't have 'em. Okay, admittedly, they're not organic, but they do happen to be the the most delicious addition to pasta sauce ever. Yum. I'm going to stew the roma tomatoes and freeze them for soups.)

Poultry (bought fresh then individually bagged and frozen):
*5 org free-range chicken breasts
*5 org free-range chicken thighs
*10 org chicken sausages
*2 boxes kosher ground turkey (oops, on reflection, I don't think this was organic)

Fish:
*4 large fillets of wild frozen salmon

Grain/pasta/bread:
*2 lbs org quinoa
*3 lbs org gluten-free oats
*28 ounces Rice sticks (Pad Thai noodles)
*2 lbs org rice pasta
*Multi-grain bread for Brian

Beans:
*2 pounds org black beans
*2 pounds org pinto beans
*2 pounds org kidney beans
*1-1/2 pounds org lentils
*3 packages of org tofu
*4 big containers of org soy milk and 2 small unsweetened containers

Dairy:
*Organic 2% milk
*Cheddar cheese
*Organic jack cheese
*Parmesan
*Organic yogurt (large tub)
*Organic butter
*2 cartons of organic free-range eggs

Baking supplies(this was split b/w Whole Foods and Amazon purchases--Amazon offers wholesale-style quantities and prices on specialty flours):
*Sorghum
*Teff
*Potato starch
*Tapioca starch
*Yeast
*Brown rice flour
*Pamela's baking mix

Fruit:
CSA delivery plus:
*2 pounds org raisins
*Big bottle of org apple juice
*1/2 lb shredded org coconut
*3 bags org frozen blueberries
*4 lemons
*6 limes

Nuts/seeds:
*1/2 lb org sunflower seeds
*1/4 lb org sesame seeds
*1 lb mixed nuts
*1/2 lb slivered almonds

Sweeteners:
*Large bottle org maple syrup
*Large bottle honey

Oil:
*Lg bottle olive oil
*Lg bottle grapeseed oil

Vinegar:
*Organic apple cider vinegar

Misc:
*Pad Thai sauce (I need to start making this from scratch, it'll probably taste better)
*Jar of pineapple salsa
*Jar of regular salsa
*2 bags of 7th Generation pull-ups
*Conditioner
*Liquid multi-vitamins for Cora
*Homeopathic medicine (1) for Brian

Nearly New!

2009-12-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

It is hard to believe this year is coming to an end and 2010 is so close on the horizon, barely peeking over the edge with its inherent possibilities and resolutions.

A recap seems fitting here, if only because I won't remember everything unless I write it down.

So, here's 2009 in a nutshell:

*First time since college without an employer and caring for a child (my child!) full-time. (Yep, it's not the same as being a nanny.) :)

*Winter/Spring was really tough. Too many doctor's visits and not enough hand washing.

*Summer was glorious. Gl-or-i-ous. Camping, hiking, beach combing, sunset watching, picnics, sunning, swimming, romping through parks. Deception Pass, Camano Island, San Juan Island (saw a beautiful pod of Orca Whales here), San Diego, Whidbey, Vashon, Bainbridge, Port Orchard, the Peninsula, ferry rides and car rides and a couple of plane rides. Lots of moments to stare out a rolled down window after a day in the sun. The best summer in a long time. Long days rule.

*Started running again! Woot! I'm excited to start again sometime next year.

*Started a novel. Still just 92 pages and counting.

*Lots and lots of restlessness. Put our house on the market (whew, that was a lot of work). Thought we'd move to an island, but didn't.

*Cora turned TWO. We partied with her animals for two months prior while listening to thousands of replays of "Happy Birthday."

*Got pregnant with #2. Yippee!

*Cooked up a storm. I love to cook.

*Rarely managed to stay within my food budget.

Which is a good intro to resolutions for 2010:

*Stick to a brand new food budget and still eat nutritious, organic food. (I am way too embarrassed to state how much we've managed to spend per month on multiple occasions; let's just say I am trying to cut it by 1/3 and eventually in half.) Consequently, I've been combing through online resources searching for the answers. I swear, I think I'm going to create an Excel file with all our foods listed out with prices next to them. No more impulse buying. No more dark chocolate and sea salt covered almonds just because they sound lovely. It has to be on The List. The Grocery List. The One I Will Hold True and Dear. I want the money we save to be a bonus, an unexpected extra amount we can reroute to other places--savings, debts, vacations, whatever. I like that we eat well; I don't like that it feels like our money gets eaten and thrown away.

*This means I need to be one of those extremely organized go-getters who makes menus and lists and shops for deals and buys in bulk and cooks nearly everything from scratch. Repeatedly. While I do cook a lot of things from scratch, the uber-organized menu-making diva thing doesn't come naturally, as I am sure I have stated before. This is not typically my personality. While I do consider price and budget, I like to browse and buy when it comes to food. However, I am going to do better. Much better. And so is Brian.

*Start a garden in our backyard.

*Invite people over more often.

*Start year 1 of our 4-1/2 year goal to become debt-free. For all you non-student-loan-bearing people, pat yourselves on the backs and be grateful. We are going to comb through our student loan debt and throw a big party in 4-5 years. I can't wait for that party. We'll serve over-the-top delicious food and beverages and give grand and glorious toasts. We'll wear top hats and sequins (ok, maybe not, but who knows?). We'll serve tiny little sandwiches and buttery crackers covered in salmon and watercress and creme fraiche and buy bottles and bottles of sparkly drinks. Our children will be 7 and 5, respectively, and we'll both be almost 38 years old, but for goodness sake, we won't owe anyone anything, except for this small thing called our mortgage.

*Maybe if I write about our budgeting/debt-paying experience, we'll have a better chance of sticking to our goals. Watch out, I might write about it here.

*Have a baby.

*Finish my novel.

*Start running again.

I feel very motivated. Spreadsheets and recipes and bulk foods, here I come. In these days of in-between holidays and New Year reflection, I am remembering how difficult it was last winter to reconcile myself to the fact that I was chopping off my salary and instead of portioning out thousands to their respective destination (nanny, mortgage, yardwork, savings), I needed to consider the dollars, the tens, the hundreds. It felt uncomfortable, pedantic and constraining. After a year of watching countless families suffer financial setbacks due to a recession and job losses, and experiencing everything I traded my salary for, I have a different frame of mind. I am so regretful that we didn't save every penny of my salary when we could, because lo and behold, we didn't need it. We just didn't know it back then. While I can't turn back time, I want to shake ourselves free of our student debt (oh what a mighty freedom that will be!), save as much as we can, continue to cook because we love to, and reap the rewards of being more conscientious about what we eat--and how much we spend on it. I want to simplify and prioritize. It feels like a new kind of freedom is ahead, one that is more directed and full of choice, less fractured by wanderlust and indecision.

Of course, not surprisingly, more than anything else this year, I am excited to meet our new family member in June. Will it be a girl? A boy? What kind of baby will it be? I've been imagining a bassinet by our bed, and the little form in there. Holy mole.

Lemon

2009-12-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

I'm 14 weeks pregnant today and just read that the size of the baby is about 3-1/2 inches, close in size to a large lemon. I've felt it move for about two weeks, but only very intermittently.

Stretching, with Cookie--and Pictures

2009-12-16T14:44:00.001-08:00

Cora just dropped off to sleep after many minutes of babbling and playing with her animals in her crib. Then she repeatedly announced "I'm all done sleeping!" until I went into her room and helped her settle down. This has become a trend the past few days. She waits for me to come in and rub her back until she's asleep. Soon her breathing becomes heavy and I creep out of her room.

Then I open this laptop and sit on the couch, enjoying the sight of our Christmas tree and the trees being buffeted by the wind outside our windows, and I try to get my brain moving. I eat a cookie. Or two. And sign into this blog.

Writing here is much more casual than writing a novel, for obvious reasons of course. I don't have to think about plot, or dialogue, or how to get from place to place. I'm not concerned about geography or personality quirks, or psychological issues. I don't get that hung up on grammar. Instead, I suppose I do a bit of what Cora does: I babble. This is my stretching session, I'm limbering up.

It's also my journal, or has become one. I used to write longhand in a journal every evening. I hope to begin that habit again because this isn't the same. No matter what, I know someone is reading this, and it's inhibiting. I don't feel like I can really go deep, explain my fears or vulnerabilities, the way I worry about the smallest things or can quickly be transported or made happy or upset by memories of moments that happened years ago.

So I decide to start small. Just write. And for the past several days I have started a writing session with the same sense of urgency and hope. Each day I manage to distract myself somehow--checking email, reading the news, checking favorite blogs. Today I made the grave mistake of looking at the Decade in Pictures slideshow featured on msnbc.com. Now I am so emotionally humbled by the images that I can hardly think. Once again I am reminded of the sheltered life we lead here in this house, the security and safety and calm, the daily focus on fostering happiness and love, of the teeny tiny little orb we fill on this rapidly changing planet. I am saddened and confused about how it's possible to be happy when so many are suffering. It goes against a connectedness I used to believe in as a child.

Tuesday

2009-12-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

Until yesterday, it hadn't rained in 10 days. It was sunny and clear every day, and cold enough that everything was frozen. The air was crisp. There was clarity in the sky and air.

It wasn't until this morning that I looked out the window and realized how green it hasn't been without the rain.

The kitchen window is open and the sound of water pooling and falling is rhythmic. We don't have eaves; our windows get covered with water. I like to watch it hit the glass and merge into rivers. Rain is romantic.

I think I'm reaching a mid-Winter acceptance (appreciation?) of the rain. Does that make me a Seattleite?

I think it just means that going 10 days without something can help raise it back up to a romantic standard. I'll talk to you in another 10 days.

Cora's nanny share went well yesterday. She had a few breakdowns, mainly toward the middle and end of her three-hour stay, as she explained to me (in the third person) over lunch:

"Cora was yelling 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' but Mama no come knocking at the door." (Shaking head adamantly.)

That made me sad, but I was glad that she could communicate about it with me. I was also happy that when I arrived back at the congregation of cuteness (the three other girls in the nanny share are quite darling) she was more interested in staying and playing than leaving. She said she had a good time:

"We kicked the ball. Throw! Catch! Run run run! Ate snacks. Read stories. I went potty."

She's developed a small stammer the past week and seems to have the most difficulty with M, N, and D. It's very sweet ("M-m-m-m-ama sit d-d-own!"). I assume this is just one of the many phases of her speech, not a theme that will continue for too long.

Does parental worry ever end?

I started feeling the baby move about a week and a half ago. Last night I couldn't feel it at all and I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about it. I am sure everything is fine but it reminded me of the anxiety I felt during my pregnancy with Cora. It's amazing how stressful, joyful, incredible, and terrifying it is to have a person inside your abdomen.

I just felt it move. There you go. It's in there. It didn't just dissipate into thin air over night. It has legs.

Two

2009-12-14T09:54:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Cora's second birthday on Saturday. It was a cozy morning party with friends. I spent last week remembering childhood birthday parties while thinking about the small details of Cora's party--things like cupcakes or cake, what sorts of brunchy things we'd serve, ways to get toddlers to dance, things like that. More, though, I was imagining picking Cora up in the morning with a full heart and a pronounced sense of my daughter's babyhood ending. I didn't feel that way; I was just so excited to celebrate her birthday--more excited, maybe, than she was.

The thing is, her birthday party wasn't on her actual birthday; she was born two years ago today. So I was a little surprised to feel all those feelings this morning. She sat across from us in the kitchen, spooning oatmeal and yogurt and wearing beads around her neck, and I stared at her while remembering pacing around the Seattle University's track near Swedish hospital, trying to get my contractions to speed up. And now she is a little person with opinions and stubborn behavior who is able to gracefully maneuver a spoon of milky oatmeal into her mouth.

She's growing up.

To make matters more oddly emotional, I dropped her off this morning at the new nanny share we're trying out Monday mornings for a few hours. I'm tucked away at a bookstore trying to get started on the next chapter of my novel, and a baby is crying nearby. A woman just walked by with her bundled seven-month-old who is placidly sitting on her hip and staring at everything she stares at--no squirming, no begging for down, no sudden launching into space and beyond with strong legs.

It's not that I am sad to see her grow. It's that the growth is sometimes astonishing, and I wonder if I'll ever get over the growing pains from the joy of watching her turn into herself.

Thumpityswish thump thump

2009-12-02T14:32:00.000-08:00

We heard the little plum's heartbeat on Monday. There's nothing more thrilling; it gets me choked up every time. I am becoming so excited about this new little person.

We officially told Cora about the baby on Monday, too. While I feel quite sure she'd already figured it out from the peripheral conversations going on around her, we had a "real" conversation about it in the doctor's office and showed her pictures of babies in bellies. She heard her sibling's heartbeat, too. She's been wandering around the house the past two weeks periodically slipping a doll under her shirt and explaining it's in her tummy. When asked if she wants a brother or a sister, she gives changing answers--sometimes a brother, sometimes a sister, no a brother, no a sister. I'm glad she seems so flexible about the idea.

My ability to concentrate is generally nil. Writing? What writing? Time is slipping away and very little has been done. I find myself periodically searching for classmates' names on google and discovering their recently published piece of writing, or I see a sudden facebook update announcing an upcoming novel. Sometimes I worry that writing is just one of those things I'm fooling myself about. I become either melodramatic or realistic (we won't know which that is until my life is over, I suppose. See? Melodrama.). I imagine turning 50 (or dying at a ripe old age) and having nothing to show for my own endeavors except a bunch of cluttered piles of paper and unfinished manuscripts, and diary entries in spidery, arthritic script. When I'm feeling optimistic, it's arguable that I'm feeling way overly optimistic because I imagine the path opening up before me--the manuscript finished, edited, and rewritten very easily, and the publishing process a success.

It's easy to become discouraged when nothing is getting done. That said, I am feeling better. I don't feel the need to sleep away the afternoon, so perhaps I can take back a few of these afternoons for productive work.

I am, however, slated to spend at least the next 20 minutes trying to read my last chapter draft while imagining a BABY in my belly.

Gratitude and an oversize lime

2009-11-25T15:33:00.000-08:00

Once again, after taking a hiatus from writing here (and, alas, writing in general), I feel a bit tongue-tied. That's what happens when I take a break. It's like living in a new city and knowing only a few people, hiding away and being quiet for days and then showing up at the grocery store and running into an acquaintance. Talking at a time like that can feel canned, like you're listening to your own voice and wondering whose it is.

Where do I start. Ooh, I want to dive right in but instead I think I'll take a more meandering path, by starting with the fact that this fall here in Seattle has been a wrinkled experience. Unlike my sentiments in my last post, I have settled into the reality of not going to the park with Cora and running three miles in the sun on a daily basis. Still, I remember the summer enough to be sad about having to say goodbye. I really miss running. It made me feel happy, and strong, and incredibly motivated. I've also become more accustomed to the rain and even willing to listen to people explain to me why they like it. I especially like listening to it at night, drumming on our rooftop and windows and reminding me how content I am in this house while Cora dreams in the room next door.

I've been cooking a lot more, too, which is characteristic of this time of year. I've made a fair number of soups. Chicken soup, noodle soup, chili, tortilla soup, vegetable soup. And roasted vegetables, tamale pie, lasagna, enchiladas, noodle casserole, baked mac 'n cheese and quiches, salmon and potatoes.

Oh, and amazingly delicious gluten-free bread based off this awesome recipe from Gluten Free Green Mommy. It's really good and worth the long list of flours and baking agents.

We've been using the oven a lot more and it reminds me that it's one of my favorite ways to cook. Right now I'm thinking about diving into the world of sauces--white sauce, brown sauce, reduced sauce, balsamic, mustard, curry. Sauce.

All that cooking would lead one to believe that all I've wanted to do is eat, right? But no. I've been mainly dragging through the days, dealing with a fondly remembered phase of life, one that involves feeling tired and sick in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening. Sound familiar? That leads me to the big news: I'm 11 weeks pregnant and aside from a yucky cold, I'm feeling much, much better. I just read that at 11 weeks the baby is the size of an oversize lime or a plum. How cool is that?! That's the reason I haven't written; I haven't had anything else I wanted to write about but every time I sat down to talk about being pregnant, I remembered there were still a number of people who didn't know, and it seemed unkind that they'd find out on my blog. So I'd delete the post, log off, and take a nap instead. There are still a number of people who don't know, but since this forum is meant to be very much of a diary for me, I've decided not to worry about it so much.

Eleven weeks. We decided to have another baby, and then I was pregnant. I felt pregnant pretty much immediately, and took a pregnancy test six days before my period was due. I will never forget reading the results in the morning and shrieking out to the kitchen to hug Brian, then Cora (she had no idea why, but she was excited nonetheless).

As any seasoned parent knows, being pregnant the second time around is fairly different. I'm certainly not seasoned, though; it's a new world to me. For one thing, I've just been a heck of a lot more tired. Keeping up with Cora, carrying her, hugging her, chasing her, tickling her, cooking and cleaning, and doing it all day long while feeling close to vomiting is more physically tiring, for me at least, than it was working at a full-time office job. However, I do get to take afternoon naps, which has been luxurious.

Also, this pregnancy has been more physically challenging in other ways. I've had spotting and cramping, which can be more common in a second pregnancy, particularly an active one, and there have been days when I have been so tired I haven't known how to approach the onset of another day. I haven't been running and the early-morning writing I loved so much has been nixed for obvious reasons (the notion of rising at 5:15 sounded about as lovely as eating a dirty shoe, and anyway I can't drink all the caffeine necessary to make it work).

Luckily, my all-day sickness started to wane at about 8-1/2 or 9 weeks, which was much earlier than it was with Cora. And, lo and behold, we've seen the heartbeat of our new little bean. There is nothing more miraculous, me thinks, than the image of a tiny person in my abdomen, lodged there cozily, with a beating heart. I've reentered that stage of going for a walk with my small family and suddenly realizing that there are four of us present. Disbelief still reigns sometimes, and June 18th feels like a long time away, but as my faith has grown that this little person will, indeed, be sticking with us, I am getting more and more thrilled to think about the things to come: butterfly movements, an ever-growing belly, elbows in the ribs, kicking and turning, and silly food cravings that must be met. More than anything, I am looking forward to dreaming about who this little person will become, what its little hand will look like against Brian's, and how it will be for Cora to hold her sibling for the first time.

For now, I am trying not to think (too much, at least), about the sleep deprivation and 2-hour feedings, the challenging world of nursing an infant and trying not to fall asleep while entertaining a 2-1/2-year-old, and all the roller coaster rides associated with becoming a bigger family. That's why it takes nine months. Plenty of time to get as adjusted to and prepared for the idea as possible.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. You'll find hundreds of gratitude lists online these days. I have deleted this list several times because it feels embarrassingly narcissistic to yammer on about my life in a list (because, ultimately, I'm not going to list things beyond my own personal microcosm). And also because the list somehow sounds a bit like the dedications I made to people my Senior year in high school. However, I'm stubbornly keeping it here for the sake of posterity. And because it fits with the premise of this blog--to be openly thankful, and to dream. So, I am joining all those other online lists sending my gratitude up to the sky to mingle with yours and season the months and years ahead.

Gratitude for:

*Cora's hands, her wit, her sensitivity, her bright eyes and mind, her nearly-2-year-old response of "No!" to nearly everything I ask, her desire to party with her animals all day long, and her ability to dance and jump at the same time.

*This new babe in my belly, working so hard daily to rapidly divide its cells and become a PERSON.

*Brian's love and patience, his depth of creativity and his ability to work hard on anything he sets his mind to. Especially how he manages to come home smiling every single day and be funny and silly and sweep Cora up in his arms and give her a huge hug. He's making memories for Cora every time he does it, and I love him dearly for that.

*The ability to have choices in how we construct our lives right now.

*Brian's job. I am so grateful that he loves what he does, that he has found a good company to work for, and that he lives out his dreams in small and big ways each day.

*This house. I like the way the living room feels at night when we wrap our feet under blankets and read books or talk. I love tucking ourselves into our bed and listening to the wind and rain.

*My family, immediate and extended, especially for my mom and sis who live nearby and are so invested in being close.

*My friends. I miss many of them and wish we saw each other more often, but I love following their interesting lives and seeing where our paths intersect.

*Our collective health. This has been an odd health year for Brian, Cora, and me, but I think in many ways it has been valuable. It's helped me to focus on the power of the mind and the importance of being positive, the relative strength of the human body, and the ability to repair oneself.

*The ability to fill our refrigerator with nourishing food, and to know there are friends who will join us to eat, celebrate life, and fill our house with laughter and giggling children.

*Last, but not least, the enduring interest in writing. The book won't be done by the end of this year, but I know it's still there, waiting to be written. I'm thankful the idea is percolating and willing to wait.

Thinking, I guess

2009-10-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, Friday. Rainy, drippy, overcast, gray gray gray Friday.

As I drove through Seattle today, I composed letters in my head while Cora kicked at the back of my seat with her rubber boots. "Dear Summer," I'd begin. "You tricked me." Writing letters to summer seemed so...cliche, desperate, sad. I'd stop, fiddle with the music, stare at taillights in front of me. And then I'd let loose. "You lead me to believe I lived somewhere else. You made me believe in the integrity of parks and beaches and meadows, in running and playing and walking outside whenever I wanted to. You made me think it was easy to get strong and sturdy in the sun. You inspired me to wake early. Now it is different. I see six months of this unfurling itself before me in its gray splendor and I am not amused."

Blah.

Also, I'm just really tired these days, sleepy dopey tired. All I want to do is sleep in and roll out of bed for a cup of tea or a giant mug of milky coffee. Getting up at 5 with a pot of tea is more complicated than it was a few weeks ago. I feel angry with Autumn for making all the trees look so gorgeous but then putting on such a torrential drippy show that I am not that interested in going out to walk.

So there you go. How's that for negative negatron thinking.

Of course, I know something. I know it's all linked. I'm not getting up early, so I'm not writing. I'm not writing, so I'm irritable. I'm irritable, which makes me depressed. I want to take a nap instead of doing anything productive, but instead of doing either I look at email and facebook and the news and while away the 120 minutes of me time that could be used to pen my opus. (Obviously, I like to say "pen my opus," because of the tongue-in-cheek nature of it. The work to get there, to finish this draft, feels daunting to say the least.)

Also, I spent the first few days of this week stressing out about our refinance, mainly just because I seem to have a knack for anxiety over such things. To add to that nervousness, our agent called last Friday and convinced me to let some people look at our house a second time. Somehow I thought that being open to the possibility of people looking at it would help her feel less resentful towards us for taking it off the market. I wagered that since we'd had it on the market for 40+ days without a written offer, we wouldn't get one out of these people. So after a really long discussion, I told her they could look, but she should tell them it wasn't a sure thing. Of course she didn't say that. I think she said something like, "You can look at the home before 11 or after 4." She didn't explain to the agent that I was having the house appraised at Noon and that we were moving forward with our refinance.

Anyway, they looked. They were a younger couple and they were talking about where they'd put the TV, and how Cora's room would be the office/den, and they reminded me of Brian and me when we first looked at this place, but I didn't give it too much thought until the next morning when the agent called to set up a final showing because his clients probably wanted to buy our house. And I explained that we had the wrong house for his clients, that we had decided not to sell it and we shouldn't have let them look at it again, that we'd spent the week being homeowners, not sellers, and we couldn't switch back, and that we wouldn't accept anything less than a full-price offer anyway so they should look elsewhere, blah blah blah. He continued to explain that they probably wanted to buy our house and they would likely write us an offer that day. I said I'm sorry, and got off the phone shaking. Something about the offer staring at me in the face undid me a bit. And now our agent is peeved and rather sour with us, which isn't our fault in the end because it's our house--something that was surprisingly easy to forget when it was on the market.

I still like our house. Yep. I do. I even love it. So here we are, in our house. When we opened the door after walking in the rain, I was actually just thankful for a dry, warm place. It's amazing what rain will do to simplify things. I'm writing in our office. Cora is sleeping in her room. I made a quiche for a friend this morning in our kitchen while Cora ran around the house and entertained herself with her toys and her music and her growing imagination. I actually often stand in our kitchen and feel grateful all the way down to my toes.

At lunch, Cora presented me with one of her teddy bears. I asked his name and she said "Warren Tomtin." I shook his paw and she busied herself with feeding him some quesadilla and soy milk. Warren seemed pleased.

So this rain. It's still out there. I just pulled opened the shades and confirmed its presence. Yep. Even though Cora and I splashed through the puddles today in an arguably cute presentation of the super fabulousity of being a Seattle child, I am still not convinced. I mean, a man just walked by with an umbrella and a little dog. The little dog was dressed in a bright blue rain suit. It had two belts and red trim, and the sleeves went all the way down to his paws. I mean, really, right?

Choice and contentment

2009-10-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

You know when everything in life is going at a mad pace--frenetic, confused, a bit disconnected, but nevertheless productive--and then you make a decision? You turn your life from one direction down another, and the first thing you notice is it's more quiet there? You're walking down this new path and you start to notice things, like it's breezy and there's room to sit on a mossy rock and observe the ants. It's a sort of drawing in, a simplification.

That's what this week has been like. After weeks of indecision, this Monday morning we called our agent and took our house off the market, and we're refinancing into another 30-year fixed at a lower rate. Cora and I drove up to our place this morning and the sign was gone. I heaved a sigh of relief. I felt so grateful. It was actually, if you can believe it, like buying our house all over again. Only this time after what feels like years of searching we found a house pre-packaged with memories of our first nights sleeping here, of months of landscaping the yard, refinishing the basement, painting every wall ourselves while eating take-out from restaurants in our new neighborhood, re-grouting the bathroom floor, conceiving a child, working from home, sewing curtains while 8-months pregnant, going into labor, bringing Cora home from the hospital and introducing her to each room....

(I'm getting choked up remembering it...yep, my eyes are swimming with that memory. Tiny 5 pound 8 ounce Cora wrapped up in our arms, little newborn eyes opening briefly to look at our kitchen, at the living room, at the bedroom we had taken such pains to decorate for her, while our hearts brimmed over because we were able to tell our daughter that this was her house, her cupboards of food, her clothes, her little bed. It wasn't the fact of the house, it was the fact that she was here, that we could explain to her that she would be alright, that we were going to do everything in our power for the rest of our lives to take care of her. The kitchen, the house painstakingly cleaned by her aunties, and all the bouquets of flowers from friends and family heralded the start of her life.)

I feel a great deal of relief to be able to say that right now I don't want to live on an island and I don't want to move out of my house--not yet anyway. We want to continue making improvements, finishing other spaces in the basement, and enjoying our cozy Northeast Seattle neighborhood. Even if it means sitting here in a depreciating market, or realizing that someday, indeed, our desire for more space (indoor and outdoor) will become bigger than our little house, still, we're fine right now. The present is more apparent to me right now than the future, and the past feels like it's rolled out behind me with an odd feeling of pattern and plan.

I am reminded, too, of how I made the decision to quit my job last year. It took signing the offer letter and spending the weekend in that new life to realize it wasn't the life I wanted. Maybe I'm just one of those people. I need to live some of it a little bit to know if it's for me. Maybe I needed to give our house away to everyone who walked in the door before I realized I didn't want to.

And also, of course, it is nice to live in a house that is relatively ordered, clean, slightly more updated, exactly how I thought someone else would want a charming old 1942 house to be.

And so I have to pause for a moment and consider, full circle, the story here. Gratitude for what you have. Not because you have to work hard to be grateful, but because it fits, and it works, and it is nice. Quiet. Contented. Sitting still and honing in on other things, like thoughts and friends and family, and weeding the yard and going on local outings. Taking care of the details that get shoved away when everything else is made distracting by the desire to be somewhere else, doing something else. Digging in. It fits with winter and as we enter these colder days, I am happy to settle in to our warm and happy home.

Autumn

2009-09-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

I know how boring it can sometimes be to listen to the exuberant exclamations of people in love with the weather. But bend an ear my way just for a second because it's one of my favorite times of year (stiff competition with spring). Cold, crisp, sunny and clear. Leaves are dropping, frost is forming, temperatures are falling, and we're eating some of the best Gala apples we've had all year. We pulled out an extra blanket for the bed at night and even turned on the heat. Oddly, despite my constant protestations as our beautiful summer visibly waned, I love it. I can't wait for the bursts of color and the baked dinners, and a reason to make pie.

Cora and I made cookies this morning and met friends for a play date at the zoo. Our children zoomed around at full speed while all the other animals seemed to be in pre-hibernation mode. The two 850-pound bear brothers were fast asleep on their rock perch, one with his enormous head resting on an extended paw. The otter den was filled with two, entwined otters with eyes tightly shut. The lions were piled atop each other and snoozing in the sun. An elk was asleep on the ground in such a pose as to look, well, permanently there. The fox was in his den and the wolf was nowhere to be seen. Only the giraffes and shiny-eyed eagles were up and about. The kids' cheeks were rosy from an abundance of giggly shrieks and fresh air.

In other news (maybe our only news these days?), we're still here, still living in an unsold house. And I'm writing. Just tipped over the 80-page mark, so that's something. I've been getting up at 5:15 and brewing a huge pot of tea, then tiptoeing downstairs and writing until Cora wakes up and we all gather together for breakfast. I'm a little tired today, but I'm excited. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

Happy Autumn!

In which the author dreams of sleep...and a finale

2009-09-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

Cora's asleep right now and I am vigorously hoping she manages to get a good, solid nap today that lasts well into the afternoon. She seems to be coming down with a bit of a cold today, which isn't much of a surprise since we just returned from a trip to San Diego and I am recovering from a small cold myself. Either that or she just has a runny nose because she's teething again, as she continues to point out by poking her finger in her mouth and opening wide to show us the little tooth that's coming in. Oh, to be almost two.

Almost two. This is one of Cora's favorite things to say. People ask her what her name is and she pats her chest and says, "Cora." Then she holds up her little fist with one finger up and the rest at half-mast, her hand trembling with the effort of not putting up two fingers--yet!--and says, "Almost two." Sometimes she'll start singing Happy Birthday to complete the picture.

I am lost in a book these days, which is helpful, because I seem to be trying to hide from some more pressing realities...like, for example, that it's already September. Mid-September, actually. We have our house on the market, still, and it's nearing the time of year when we'll be bundled up in sweaters and crunching through leaves, making bubbling pots of soup and baking bread, carving pumpkins and getting rosy cheeks from the impending chill in the air. Where will those pots of soup be bubbling? Here? Somewhere else? Crap.

Where on earth has the time gone? I am nearly at my one-year anniversary of being a stay-at-home mom and writer. If I am going to show anything for this year of writing except a few first drafts of starts of novels, I need to start getting up early every morning. I also need a day or two a week of childcare so I can really focus on this endeavor. Either that, or I need to start drinking a ton of coffee. Maybe I need to try all three. I have managed to write quite a bit, probably several hundred pages of stuff, these posts included, and I am happy that I have an idea for a novel I'd like to finish, but I seem to be missing that creative genius spark, that thing that pushes people beyond their limits in pursuit of their dreams.

In my perfect, ideal picture of heroic extremism, I should be able to push myself to new horizons, get up at 5 every morning and go to bed late until the draft is done. I would be sitting here, neatly arranging the crisp white pages of my opus, primly writing comments to my editor in the margins, calmly sipping a bit of tea before writing the last and perfect sentence.

The only problem is that my spark seems to be perpetually tired.

I am sitting here with a plugged up nose, crumbs on my plate, and a house on the market. Not exactly forcing myself to the finish line in a frenzy, not quite the picture of vigor I'd envisioned. Huh.

Thus, the coffee. Perhaps if I drank more of it I could conjure up a semblance of such perplexing anxiety and angst that I could write this thing. If I had a little teapot or coffeepot sitting down here by my computer and I dragged myself out of bed at the crack of dawn (or before), and plodded through, could I manage to complete a draft before 2010?

TWENTY TEN! Two thousand and ten? Holy crapola. I need to set deadlines for myself and work toward something I commit to as singularly important, otherwise I risk falling into a pattern of distraction and lost opportunities. Oops, I think that was me falling between the cracks over there. Yep, I just checked and there I am, staring up at the sky while life goes marching by.

TWENTY TEN? Am I the only one who stumbles when I write that? Weren't we supposed to be able to drive flying cars by now? Or skip the airplane in lieu of beaming ourselves there?

Life goes by so ridiculously fast. I wish I had a way to extract every bit of goodness from it every minute of the day, so that I wasn't so afraid of finishing up short.

So, here's my pledge to myself and to you, even if you don't care: I will finish a draft of this novel by January 1, 2010. I'm not promising it'll be perfect. I'm just placing my hand down on my book, looking at the possibility in there, and pledging to get there somehow.

Indecision

2009-08-31T15:38:00.001-07:00

Indecision is our new bedfellow. I am tired of him. He sits at the end of our bed, his back tucked neatly against the footboard, and he smokes. He's not sure whether he likes expensive cigars or sweet cigarillos, and he waxes poetic about the benefits and drawbacks of both, while puffing--sometimes slowly, sometimes hurriedly--through cigar after cigarillo after cigar. I prefer cigarillos, he says, and he stares narrowly at me, daring me to disagree. I heave a sigh of relief. At last, I think, he's decided. No more talking about such an inane topic. But, no. A few minutes later he unwraps a fine Cuban cigar and waves it beneath his nose. It's the seduction of a cigar, he says. It's impossible to resist. He tilts his head back as he inhales, and I throw a pillow over my head to escape the smoke and chatter.

Recently we made the mistake of telling him that we were undecided about where to live. Never confess such a thing to Indecision. He'll run away with your question and never give it back. He falls asleep talking about Seattle and wakes up with a point or two about Bainbridge Island. He points to land and water and boats and good schools and peace and quiet and says, Ah yes! Bainbridge Island! It is decided! Then he draws back in concern and reveals the other hand: Zoos and friends and Green Lake and an easy commute and tons of grocery stores with tasty, organic food at a reasonable price. Oh no! he says, I was wrong, all wrong! It's Seattle all the way! Get thee back to the mainland, people, where you can have a social life and buy tasty gluten-free bread!

The thing is, this is how it was for me last week on the island: I spent the first three days in a relative state of bliss. I spent nearly every day listening to waves lap on the shores of hidden beaches. Ran on a dirt road around a 90-acre park and waved at bunny rabbits in the bushes and ducks bobbing in the pond. Let Cora run freely around my mom's property without once worrying about her crashing into concrete or opening the fence and escaping to a too-busy road. One morning we all got up early before Brian caught the ferry to work and we went into town to Blackbird Bakery, an enchanting little spot with tasty treats and good coffee. (They impressed me with their delicious gluten-free berry muffins and chocolate chip cookies. That's it, I thought, they have gluten-free treats. We're moving.) Cora and I spent an entire morning calling to seagulls and sea lions and throwing rocks in the water, pausing sometimes to lay back and stare at the sky. We walked to quaint coffee shops and watched ferry boats make their lazy path through Rich Passage.

There are so many charming places where we could live on the island that it seems silly to worry about it, even though we do. We want our next house to be special. We looked at a house that had a rather uninspiring feel to it, but which was situated on a large lot about four houses up from the beach. After wandering through the house, we walked down a winding country road to the beach to find people sitting around a campfire singing You Are My Sunshine. There's a pier near there, too, and there were a number of fishermen casting and reeling with their backs to the setting sun. On the way back we saw the carolers--spanning three generations, it looked like--singing and holding hands while sparks from their cozy fire flew up in the air. Could this be any more idyllic? we asked each other. Did they hire these people to make this seem like the most romantic place to live in the world?

I mentioned this before, but I'll say it again: On the island, when you drive, you have trees on either side of a two-lane road. It is scenic and clean and uncluttered. There isn't a single neon sign on any road. This might not be a big deal to a lot of people, but you notice it over there. It's nice.

We were all set to move. It was gratifying. We thought, at least we're not crazy. At least we really did go to all that hard work to put our house on the market, and for a reason. But then by Friday I wanted more options. I didn't want to go to the same park or the same strips of beach. I wanted something different, and I didn't want to drive very far to get there. The smallness of the island felt suffocating. I wanted the option to walk or drive 20 blocks to a grocery store. I wanted Brian to get home quickly, and the boat was running late so Cora and I wandered through town for several hours, waiting for him. I wanted to get up in the morning and have a full list of options to choose from: breakfast at Portage Bay, a walk around Green Lake, a hike in North Bend, a barbecue with our friends.

Friends. That's the thing that would make the island more comforting, less small. I don't know anyone there.

Friends are locations in themselves, can offer whole worlds with their perspectives and cozy kitchens.

(Yes, I know how whiny this sounds. The complaints of city-folk can be nauseating to listen to; I'm sure mine are no different.)

But still. That's the way it is.

That's the thing that is (currently, at least) making our decision tip heavily in the direction of Seattle. There are so many things to do here--hundreds of parks with play structures, rather than just a handful. And adventure parks in the city, too--Discovery Park. The Arboretum. Green Lake. Volunteer Park with its greenhouses and sprawling lawns. Wading pools. The zoo, aquarium, and tons of libraries.

And if we were to stay, would we stay here? Would we buy a new place in the city? Would we rent? If we moved, would we rent on the island? See how it goes for awhile?

We're not sure. We're still deciding. We're creating a lot of turmoil for ourselves which is rather exhausting. We're making Indecision fat with our questions.

Possibilities

2009-08-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I have a lot to report. It's been awhile, hasn't it?

Let's see.

We painted and re-roofed our house. I removed all the grout from our bathroom floor. Added a new floor in the kitchen. Bought a new refrigerator. Painted and cleaned and de-cluttered and cleaned and de-cluttered and cleaned some more. Re-arranged furniture and took loads of boxes to storage. Weeded and pruned and mowed and clipped and trimmed.

Our house looks wonderful, certainly better than it has over the past four years that we've lived here. It's also on the market.

All that talk of "what if" finally got to us and we're considering the possibility of This Next Big Stage: living on an island. It's funny how things can seem so huge when you're in the midst of them, personally effected by each small decision. It's a small deal in the grand scheme of the tilting turn of the planet, but still, there it is: possibility, whispering through the shades at night and filling mornings with dreams.

We have the incredible luck of being able to stay in my mom's house while she is on vacation. It's a rustic old cabin/country cottage on an acre of waterfront land, overlooking Mt. Rainier and the Seattle skyline. My grandparents purchased the land in the 1930s and my mom grew up inside its tiny perimeter along with her two older brothers. Five people circled the 850-square-foot home and filled it with a history that I can feel when I stand there. It is a breathtaking place. Many things in the 80-year-old house need repair, but my mom makes it her home. I feel a certain understanding and connection to her as I wash dishes in her sink. It is true what they say: A place can ground us, it can remind us where we came from and where we want to go. It can help clarify things.

Cora loves her grandma's house. We picked blackberries from tilting tendrils and walked barefoot on the beach. Yesterday we spent hours in the sun making a castle from many 20-month-old sized handfuls of rocks and sand. We ran through a 90-acre park that I traced as a child and drove through neighborhoods tucked deep in the trees. While she napped on Sunday, Brian and I dragged our bed out on the deck and slept under the sun while cries of gulls and eagles brushed over us in salt air.

There are only a few traffic lights on the island. Most of the roads are bordered by lush, tall trees. There's a small, charming town at the center of the island, and you can reach Seattle in 30 minutes by ferry. Cora and I met Brian at the ferry landing yesterday evening. He couldn't see us, but we watched as he approached, his broad shoulders distinct against the sky on the top deck of the boat, peering out at his potential new home. Cora kept waving excitedly and then became so overwhelmed by the throngs of passengers rushing by that she ducked into my chest and could hardly say hello when he reached us.

Yesterday I walked along a road high above the water, watching waves crash against a familiar shore, and felt so excited and yet so displaced. Where would I find friends? How would I form a new community? Would I lose connection with all the people I care about because of the distance? I finally called a couple of friends and realized that just the voice of a long-time friend can calm even the most confused spirit.

Obviously, we need to sell our house before we make such a change. We've decided that the best approach is to let life figure this out for us. If we're meant to move, the house will sell. If we're meant to stay, we won't get any offers that convince us to pack our things and go.

In the meantime, we'll wait and explore and share our lives between Seattle and a possible future.

Kitchen table

2009-08-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

We've been reconfiguring and redecorating our house a bit over the past few days. We found a set of beautiful chairs and a couch, and the addition of just those three pieces throughout our house has made things feel more organized and fresh.

My favorite change is in the kitchen. We removed an oversized buffet and replaced it with a small table and two chairs. Cora is big enough now to sit in a regular chair (esp when it has a booster seat). Today she sat there swinging her legs and munching on celery and hummus while I made us a tasty little meal of green beans, salmon burger with cheese, and cucumber slices. Then we sat together and had a little chat, with lots of comments about our food.

Things have been more crazy these days. We've been running around like mad on a ton of errands, going to a bunch of summer barbecues, swimming a lot, and trying to stay cool. Cora has been a very whiny little bean. Everything she does lately is designed to get my attention as quickly as possible, which basically just involves lots of wild faces accompanied by shrieking.

Something about that smaller table and our intimate little placement in the kitchen made our lunchtime today feel special instead of Oh Crap, Now She's Pitching Food with Her Fast Hand. Instead of wanting to hurry to the next project or task, I loved sitting there together, staring at my little daughter poke carefully at her food and look up at me with bright eyes.

Things she said:

Listening to a robin: "Mama! Baby bird singing!"

Touching the picture above the table: "Daddy's special painting." This insight was quickly followed by her trying to topple it.

Shouting at me with her mouth wide open in the appearance of great excitement: "Mama! Celery! Look!" (Showing me the strange stringy bits at the munched end of her celery stick.)

Listening to a tired crow's caw: "Sad bird." (Said with head cocked and eyes showing deep reserves of sympathy.)

Summer

2009-07-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Whew, so this is summer. 103 degrees yesterday and in the 90s all week. I was walking with a friend yesterday and she was commenting that we Northwesterners might just need to get used to the fact that we have hot summers and cold winters. We keep thinking we live in the most temperate climate ever, and then bam! hot days with no air conditioning and freezing winter snowdrifts without proper snowploughs.

I was looking through some of my posts since April and realized that this has already been a great summer on the weekend adventure front. We've taken day trips to Bainbridge, Vashon, Deception Pass, Rattlesnake Ridge, and Whidbey, and camped or stayed on Camano Island, San Juan Island, and Deception Pass. It's fun to have a transportable, active toddler who delights in adventure.

This past weekend on San Juan Island was pretty exceptional. For one thing, we confirmed that our tent is truly waterproof. We were lying in our bed around 9 p.m., staring up at the window in our tent ceiling while lighting flashed and thunder crashed. Cora was fast asleep between us and our whispered conversation alternated between Hey, this is really cool, to Oh wow, I hope we don't get incinerated. We spent most of the night listening to the downpour snap against the sides of our tent. We awoke at about 6 to almost 90-degree weather and spent the day in and out of the lakes that surrounded our campsite. We traveled with friends and Cora enjoyed spending time with their cute daughters, a 3-year-old and a 16-month-old. Their favorite pastime was to tromp up a grass hill and slide or run down a dusty path until they were covered in dirt from head to toe. We played tag (including a pretty hilarious game of freeze tag; imagine two toddlers trying to get the concept of standing still while everyone else runs about). And we saw whales! We took a day trip to a nearby waterfront whale-watching park and after staring forever at the water with no luck, we were stunned on our way out to see a pod of Orcas breaking the surface of the water below. Cora got swept up in the excitement and shouted "Yay Orcas!" when they surfaced, and nodded knowingly at us when they went back, "Shy whale."

Have you ever traveled on a ferry to an island? If not, you must put it on your list of Things You Must Do. Salty wind in your face, sun high in the sky, gulls circling, mind-boggling views of rugged coastlines and the rise of evergreens against mountain ranges, and when the air hits you it's so cold no matter what the temperature of the day that all you can feel is this blissful awareness of what it is to be alive, right then, a tiny being in the middle of a life.

As I mentioned before, my wanderlust is in full swing. We're thinking about more upcoming weekend adventures, planning an early autumn vacation (we haven't been out of town for longer than a few days since winter of '07). In general, I spend a lot of my wakeful moments making lists about what needs to be done to get to The Next Big Stage. In the mornings, I have distracted walks chatting with Cora about our surroundings and thinking about the story arc and next chapter of this maybe-novel I'm writing, while imagining the trees I hope we'll have in the yard of our next home, while jotting down mental notes about the projects we need to tackle in our current house. Present Moment Zen Masters would disapprove of my mental state but I can't say it's not exciting.

Sometimes I still think about going back to work, other times I think about getting pregnant and buying a hypoallergenic puppy so that it can wander through our house, shake like a dog, and not make Brian sneeze. Often I look into Cora's eyes and I can't even believe how beautiful they are, so lovely and sweet that all I want to do is kiss her, other times I dance around the kitchen trying to make her a decent sandwich while she shrieks Snack! Snack! More Chips! Maaaaaammmmmaaaa! And I have to remind myself that her job is to get my attention as much as possible, and that she doesn't have the tiniest iota of an idea that I used to exist before she did. That makes me smile.

Long overdue

2009-07-28T11:39:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to say we're surviving a gorgeous heat wave in Seattle. Just returned from San Juan Island for a three-day camping excursion. Cora is fast asleep in her pack 'n play in our cool downstairs room while I try to get some writing done in our equally cool downstairs office. Feel behind on writing and ready for another adventure...Summer always makes me extra restless, which basically means wanderlust to the extreme. I've got vacation on the brain.

More soon.

Natural remedies (and some more IgA info)

2009-07-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

The reason I'm posting this is because I've noticed a number of people stopping by this site using "IgA deficient" or "immune deficiency" as search terms. So, I wanted to share a couple of naturopathic, homeopathic, and regular ol' home remedies that helped Cora weather this cold (and get through an inner ear infection without antibiotics). It's the kind of information I was searching for when Cora was diagnosed. This is in NO WAY intended to be advice that you should follow over and above the recommendations of your caring pediatrician, but I have enjoyed Cora's new doctor so much because he's been a practicing MD for over 30 years and gets rave reviews from all his patients and he and his colleagues at this office are also knowledgeable about natural modalities.

(Note: If you're reading this post and you or your child has IgA deficiency, you might be interested in reading this entry as well.)

One thing worth noting is that Cora's former doctor explained that we should start treating an infection much more quickly and aggressively due to her IgA deficiency--using higher spectrum antibiotics quickly and for longer periods of time, if necessary. I do understand this point of view. However, Cora's new doctor pointed out that, while he absolutely prescribes antibiotics when necessary, antibiotics can lower IgA. Which makes sense, because IgA lives on mucosa sites. Antibiotics can lower healthy antibody levels (like IgA) along with other healthy flora that can help a body fight infection. This is one reason why people are more susceptible to infection in the week(s) directly following a course of antibiotics.

So, without a lot of further ado, here are a few of the things that Cora's new doctor and his colleagues recommended. Again, I want to make it clear that I'm not saying these products will necessarily help you or your children--but if they do, wonderful!

The first two items are daily doses for Cora. Honestly, I don't think there's any reason why any healthy kid couldn't benefit from these, simply to help augment their general nutrition intake, or to help round out any deficiencies in their diet:

*Liquid kid's multivitamin (I use Schiff because it contains iron, but Cora likes ChildLife better--no iron, no yucky metal taste). I found this at Whole Foods.

*Kid's acidophilous. We use Primadophilus Children by Nature's Way, which we found at Whole Foods. Cora's doctor gave me a list of acidophilous products that have been proven to contain the levels of bifidobacteria and lacobacilli that can populate the system with healthy flora, particularly those lost during infection or during antibiotic treatment. A lot of products lose their potency once they hit the shelves; supposedly this product doesn't.

These items may have helped clear Cora's ear infection:

*Honey Gardens Apitherapy Honey Organic Elderberry Syrup, with Propolis (www.honeygardens.com). I also found this at Whole Foods. Elderberry and Propolis are considered powerful anti-viral supplements. The honey in this mixture is locally sourced and organic. We gave her a teaspoon of this every hour the first day of her infection, and a teaspoon every 1-3 hours the second and third days of her infection.

*Saline drops. We used generic stuff from Safeway, but there's probably better stuff out there. 2-3 drops in each side of the nose as many times a day as necessary to help clear out the sinuses. (We use a kid's safety syringe to suck out the junk.) This is Cora's least favorite therapy, but the saline solution helps clear sinus infections--which, in turn, drain into kids' immature eustachian tubes, causing a build-up of bacteria that leads to an ear infection. I remember going to my doctor when I had a sinus infection and instead of giving me antibiotics, he told me to snort salt water three times a day for three days. It sucked, but it worked.

*Ear Oil from The Herbalist (www.theherbalist.com). CAUTION: Seek the advice of a pediatrician prior to putting anything in your child's ear. Don't put anything in your child's ear if liquid or pus is draining out of her ear. If using ear oil, test the temperature on your wrist before administering it; it can get warm quite quickly, and can become way too hot to put in someone's ear. This tincture contains mullein flower, St. John's Wort flower, and organically grown calendula flower with garlic essential oil in a base of olive oil. Sound stinky? It is. But as completely crazy at it sounds, the combination of garlic (a powerful antiseptic) and warm oil can sometimes help clear (and prevent) an ear infection. I just set the bottle in a cup of warm water before putting a few drops of the oil in her ears, then place a portion of a clean cotton ball in each ear to help absorb excess oil and protect her ears from drafts. For nap and bedtime, I put her in bed with her bad ear facing up, allowing the oil to drain more effectively into her ear.

*Cora also had a mild viral form of pink eye. We treated it with Similasan Pink Eye Relief (www.similasanUSA.com), a homeopathic remedy that helps alleviate the symptoms of pink eye and deliver relief. I also found this at Whole Foods. It totally worked for her. I think I gave it to her about 4 times a day for the first two days, then three times a day the 3rd and 4th days, and now just at night.

These techniques helped ease her pain without Tylenol or Motrin:

*Warm, dry ear compresses. I used one of Brian's clean athletic socks and filled it with rice, then zapped it in the microwave for about 45-60 seconds. I placed this on her ear after adding the ear oil, then read her a book or nursed her. I also put it on her ear while she was sleeping.

*Ear massage. This is one of the most simple things to do, and aside from compresses, is perhaps the one therapy that makes the most sense physically. I massaged gently around her ear, pressing in and down along her outer cheek, and in and down behind her ear. (For a cheesy how-to video, check this out.)

Lastly, we kept Cora off sugar and fed her mainly warm foods and liquids, like chicken soup and chamomile tea.

For more detailed information on ear infections, here's a link to Dr. Sears's perspectives.

Hopefully some of this information is useful. If you have any other ideas you'd like to share, please do so.

Cora's ears

2009-07-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

We managed to clear Cora's ear infection last week and didn't need to put her on antibiotics. Yay! She's still struggling with a lot of congestion and has now been sick for nearly three weeks, but she's stayed in happy spirits nearly the whole time. We're not sure if she got two colds in a row, or just has had a tough time fighting this one.

More soon.

The life of a child

2009-07-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

So, Cora has an ear infection. She's miserable and I feel horrible for her. We're going to wait 48 hrs to see if it clears on its own. Right now she's asleep with ear oil in her ears and a warm compress on her bad ear. I feel discouraged and anxious about the future, but I have decided that she will be one of the strongest, most resilient little people because of her IgA deficiency. She'll develop a strong immune system and a great sense of humor. And she'll weather everything, even this nasty little thing going around called a pandemic.

I was in the doctor's office and this quote, tucked in a corner on a handmade plaque, caught my eye. I guess I'm feeling a bit emotional because it brought a few tears to my eyes:

"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."

If I could tell you how much I think about Cora's life, I would. But I can't. Being her mom is the most humbling experience I've ever encountered.

Tuesday and Emerson

2009-06-30T12:53:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's almost July. I remember as a child feeling like summers stretched on forever. This one seems to be zipping by on a freight train, flashing one month to the next with total abandon. I swear we just finished April.

I'm in the thick of this story I'm writing, taking it page by page. How long will it end up being? Maybe I'll know by the end of the summer? By the end of the year?

Cora is being quite adamant. She also is dealing with a rather long and tiresome cold, making my heart skip a beat when I remember our recent, awful winter months of isolation and sickness. This morning we bought new paint brushes and she spent the morning dabbling in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. I stuck one of her masterpieces to the refrigerator with magnets. She took a bath afterward.

You've probably noticed by now that I have a thing for quotes. My mom gave me this book for my 20th birthday called A Guide for the Advanced Soul, a bunch of quotes compiled by Susan Hayward. The idea is that you close your eyes and ask a question, then open the pages and find insight.

Here's my quote for today:

"Do the thing and you will have the power."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hiding away...

2009-06-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

...and writing. It's raining outside and the yard is filled with robins browsing the lawn for lunch. Walnuts are growing on our tree outside my window, and the squirrels keep checking them for ripeness. The apple and pear trees are showing their first beginnings of growth. I think writing is sometimes a lot like this...waiting for the rain, waiting for the fruit to ripen, waiting for the natural progression of things, and patiently watching the words fill up one page, and then another, as the story unfolds.

Chapters 2 and 3

2009-06-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

I recently read that Barbara Kingsolver wrote her first novel, Bean Trees, mainly at night during her first pregnancy. She was suffering from pregnancy-induced insomnia. How often do you lie in bed at night tossing and turning, trying to find the right position to induce sleep? It happens to all of us at one point or another. Imagine if you got out of bed and started a novel.

One of my professors told me his friend wrote his first novel at the office, after work hours, by pulling all-nighters and showering in the locker room in the morning.

It's an interesting exercise writing a story while your baby naps. It's like 1, 2, 3 - lunch, potty, wash hands, read story, sing lullaby, snuggle into bed, kiss and - GO! Write that thing!

So, I'm off to do just that, except I'll also share this quote I have always loved:

"How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep?

How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself?

Don't lose time in conflict; lose no time in doubt - time can never be recovered and if you miss an opportunity it may take many lives before another comes your way again."

--Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Story time

2009-06-15T13:39:00.000-07:00

Brian took this picture on a vacation a few weekends ago after he put Cora down for the night in the pack 'n play. "Mause and Diddy" are her sleepy time must-haves.

Now it's a Monday afternoon at home. You know when you start the week with a big ho hum and sort of breathe out the sentiment Well, it's another week. I guess we'll get it started.

Hello, O Daunting Monday.

I'm a bit surprised to be able to say it's been a good one so far--and productive. Now Cora's asleep in her bed, mouse curled into her belly and piggy snuggled into her back.

And I have a story idea. It's the first one I've had in several months, so it feels like a big deal. I stumbled onto it this Saturday while walking Cora around Green Lake and drinking a very large cup of dark tea.

Fingers crossed that I can keep up the momentum once I get past the first sentence. I need to figure out a way to take this idea and place it carefully in a protective jar on my desk where I'll be able to find it whenever I need it. I want to write this thing.

Blast those mind-altering malls

2009-06-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

I don't like malls--not in the sun, not in the rain, not in the dark or when in pain.

Rarely do I understand the phrase "shopping therapy." Today, if there was something that I should have gained from the experience, I was somehow left off the list.

I just became really grumpy.

I just went to return a bra that didn't fit, and I ended up getting SUCKED IN. Suddenly, I wanted to be insanely rich. I wanted to run out and spend thousands on a new wardrobe and new furniture for each room of the house and new stoneware for the kitchen. I wanted a FLAT stomach, the kind that requires a lot of crunches and very few crunchy chips. I remembered the income I used to bring in each month and I was swept up in this vision of all the things I would buy--new undergarments, new shoes, new hair. I wanted to wander off with all the clothes in Ann Taylor Loft.

My priorities were askew.

When faced with three levels of Nordstrom, I suddenly thought about my old job. I imagined going back to work and spending all that money on the kinds of things I just really don't NEED.

None of us do. But every time you buy one of those new things, you feel like you deserve it, you feel like it's necessary for your self-esteem, you feel like those shorts will make the whole summer more summery, you feel like it's just because your clothes shrunk in your new dryer, not because you need to lose a tad more weight around your middle. It's all about Pretty Woman sitting there while the salespeople bring her box after box of iconic shoes.

The problem, I have determined, is that I am not doing enough of my own writing. I'm not being creative enough. My brain is stagnating. I'm not writing stories. So all the internal stuff is going to waste, and my mind is beginning to fall prey to the humdrum status quo. All it took was a day at the spa and a new expensive bra for my birthday and it was like someone gave me a bit of crack and said, here you go, here's a taste of THINGS.

You know what I mean? Hey, I'm not saying we don't all enjoy and benefit from beautiful things. I'm not advocating that we bring the economy to a grinding halt by boycotting apparel stores. But it is so much better, me thinks, to wander around in an old T-shirt and catalogue the wildlife in our backyard or discover a new park than to spend time breathing that mind-altering mall air.

Warren Buffet says that if you can't imagine having it for 10 years, you shouldn't spend $10 on it. I have squandered so many $10s in my lifetime on useless things.

Surprise

2009-06-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

After shipping me off the spa in the morning, Brian threw me a surprise birthday party yesterday. It was so wonderful to see friends and kids mingling in our backyard on a warm summer day. I haven't felt that pampered or relaxed in a really long time.

Today, I have a case of the Mondays. It's just not as fun to return to normalcy when the previous day was so much fun.

So, even after a big piece of leftover flourless chocolate cake, I can't seem to muster the gumption to write much here at all.

However, I do have one small thing to say, and that's just simply that I enjoy being in my 30s. It's easier somehow. The 20s felt like more of a challenge to get through. Although, let's be honest, I had better boobs back then.

And also, I took Cora to our neighborhood park this morning and looked at sprinklers dusting the ballfield with water while Cora spun around and around in sparkling grass. Does it get any better than that?

Quote for the Day

2009-06-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

Be realistic:

Plan for a miracle.

--Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Metamorphosis

2009-06-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I loved caterpillars nearly as much as I loved puppies. I think I liked them that much until I got a puppy. Their fuzzy coat was a tiny but furry replacement for the dog I wished I had. I would often put one it in my room next to a snail or a ladybug or a team of ants. I never had one for very long. I would take my pals outside for a bit of fresh air and invariably wander away to look at something else. Always, I'd come rushing back and find that they had wandered off, leaving me to look for new friends.

My mom used to read us Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She would finish the story with a flourish--"A beautiful butterfly!" she'd say, with reverent emphasis. "Look at all those vibrant colors!" And then she'd wax poetic about how Eric Carle was a spiritual being who was able to explain rebirth to children through such a simple story. But mom, I'd say, I like caterpillars.

Today we were playing in the backyard and a white butterfly flitted past us on trace paper wings.

I thought, If I could spin a chrysalis and hide fast to a tree, I'd so do it. If given the choice between two superpowers--being invisible or being able to fly--I'd be hard pressed. But wings win. Mine would be turbo charged.

The first thing I'd do, without a doubt, would be to fly to a foreign country and have lunch. Then I'd find a tree house or a castle somewhere and settle in for a long day with a desperately good book. When I returned home I would possess an entirely different perspective on life.

The caterpillar is just trying to get there, the butterfly gets to go.

I love the idea that things are different when you escape to a different place, that you are different--and I honestly believe it to be so. Place changes us. I like it when citified people exchange their civilized lives for dirt-stained feet, and vice versa. I like struggle with redemption. But struggling is hard. There's a lot of action in there. And it can start to be a lot about strategy, not dreaming. I like to dream.

I like metamorphosis. I like escape. I like imagining you can shed your skin.

I like good endings.

But I also really believe in the transformative force of hard work, and of taking time to hide away and depend on your own resources, to dig deep and then return to life with a new perspective, even a new self.

I dated this guy in college for about six months and when I met his grandparents I explained that I was going to be studying in Italy the next semester, and staying on to travel write through an independent study I'd set up with a few professors. His grandpa asked me why I wanted to travel--and why for so long? I paused, thinking Well now, that is an odd question, but I tried to remember that he was of a generation before our world of global communication; perhaps he thought all this back and forth across continents was a bit flabbergasting. I told him I thought it was important to spend time in other places in order to better understand our world, and ourselves. He chuckled and said he thought we could find everything we needed in our own backyard, that we shouldn't need to go anywhere to know ourselves.

Fundamentally, I think he's right. We should be able to know ourselves well enough to stay put and still be okay with what we find there. It is beautiful to be able to sustain ourselves through conversations with our neighbors and a strong sense of community, by planting gardens and sharing our food, by being satisfied with long walks in the woods instead of getting on a plane or in a car and spending the trip alive with the thrill zinging through our blood that tells us our best is yet to come.

It's easy to romanticize travel, to imagine it will be all about incredible European vistas, Amazon jungles, the highs of constant wonderment. But traveling was hard, actually. It was lovely and amazing--Italy, Ireland, England, France, Spain. But it was often also incredibly lonely. There was a lot of time to dip inside. I learned more about myself in seven months than I did when I was at home worried about what people thought of me. Instead, I just thought, and I thought a lot about where I wanted to be.

I think we all have our own versions of hope and turmoil and desire for metamorphosis which beg us to move forward, even if it's simply to find a new path home.

The world is getting much smaller these days. It doesn't seem quite like the untapped treasure chest I used to imagine. I never thought I would feel so much contentment in watching our daughter play in her sandbox and splash in her little wading pool under the bower of our apple tree. I like that she is making friends with children she might be able to grow up with, not ones that she'll lose when she moves, like I did when I wandered about and left behind my little insect friends.

I am in caterpillar mode.

But still. We saw a little white butterfly flitting through the air today and I thought, Oh yes. I know I would make good use of those wings. And I like to think if I was to land on my own window pane, I'd look inside longingly.

Five Years

2009-06-01T15:58:00.001-07:00

Brian and I celebrated our wedding anniversary over Memorial Day weekend at a sweet Camano Island cottage overlooking the mountains and water and a rugged beach. We sat in the sun, went swimming, played on the sand with Cora, and held hands a lot.

I sometimes pause to wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't met Brian 13 years ago, and married him five years ago. He has been an anchor in my life for that long, in one respect or another, and my sense of self has become permanently entangled with his existence. First and foremost, his is my best friend. But he has a million qualities that guarantee I will be perpetually hooked. He is handsome and funny and loving and emotional and smart and moody and artistic and thoughtful and adventurous and homey and he has sexy hands and he's an amazing father and he makes me feel better when I'm in a bad mood and he doesn't spend Sunday watching football, and he loves the ocean, and...he's mine.

This weekend I looked at him and wanted, as I have wanted since I met him, to paralyze the moment. I'd like to have it in my hands, a tangible thing, so I can look at the grey in his hair and the way he holds our daughter. I want to be able to watch his feet walk in flip-flops on the beach. I want to always see him standing with his eyes closed, gathering sun between his brows. If I could freeze the moment and file it away, and if I could share it, I would have a bestseller book of loveliness. People from all around the world would rush to get their share of Brian.

There are some moments that have shaped me so intrinsically I am not sure who I would be otherwise. I have pulled out these memories so often they have become polished and genetic, are probably housed somewhere in Cora's DNA, however personal they are to me.

I was 18 years old and I wrote in my journal that I was ready to fall in love. I wanted a real boyfriend, but in order to fall in love with him he would need to be a very specific kind of person. I wrote down all the qualities about this imaginary guy. I thought about him to the point that I became surprised I couldn't just conjure him out of thin air. A few weeks later, I read my horoscope and it said the upcoming Saturday was auspicious. It is possible, it said, that I would meet the love of my life. (Horoscopes had a special draw to me back then. I was addicted. I could read a a prediction and swoon with happiness, or else suffer an attack of worry.)

That next weekend, I and my five roommates hosted a party in our Seattle house. We asked some talented friends to play '50s Elvis tunes, got my of-age sister to buy a big keg of beer, and invited a few people. Word must have spread that something fun was happening in the heart of a dark Seattle winter, because soon our house filled to capacity and then some, as 200-300 party animals in saggy pants and Seattle flannel shuffled through the house and started moshing in our living room. Brian entered the house and he looked like he was glowing, like a saint among common folk. I knew him slightly, had been in an art history class with him, and had talked on the phone a bit after I'd seen him at a party. But he seemed so shy, and stiff, and organized, certainly not the kind of free-spirited fellow I was used to dating. But that night he looked like a prophet of some kind, a glowing boy, and if it was only because he had the benefit of recently returning from San Diego and actually having a bit of a tan amongst our pale compatriots, I didn't think about it then. We danced and talked and leaned in because the music was loud and all those people were shuffling around us. When we kissed, I remember feeling a lifetime flash through me, a fraction of a second in which I could picture marrying him, holding his hand, rocking in old chairs on our front porch when we were old and gray.

We dated for nearly two years in college. It was like this: neither of us had cars, so dates were long walks to the lake, kissing by a river, picnicking at the beach, taking the bus, going for long runs, hiding away in the library with our textbooks and writing notes on each other's paper, finding small shores by waterfront parks and digging our heels into the sand. Whenever we went out of town, it was to go hiking or camping or on a ferry across the Sound. When we fought, it was emotional and wrenching and deeply dramatic, and eighteen.

Whenever he went away during winter or summer breaks, he would send me letters on giant sketchpad paper.

I was in Italy. We were no longer together, and I was nearly 22. (He went to Pasadena for school, we separated for two years.) He still sent me letters on giant sketchpad paper. I was wandering the streets of Rome and stopped at a magazine stand in the Campo dei Fiori. His art school was being profiled in the L'uomo (men's) Vogue. They chose a few of the art students there to participate in the photo shoot. He had said, check out the L'uomo Vogue, but he didn't prepare me for pictures of him laughing in a dapper suit. I turned each page to see his face while behind me vegetable vendors shouted about the price of tomatoes and beans.

A month later, he sent me a tape recording of Charles Aznavour, and an email that told me to imagine I was a princess in an enchanted kingdom and the world would roll at my feet. I was depressed and lonely, tired of Rome, and I headed out for a long walk. I turned on the music and listened to Aznavour's beautiful voice of butter and smoke sing "She." I can still remember that feeling of my heart high in my chest, my head down, as I walked to the Tiber and rewound and replayed these lyrics over and over and over..."She may be the first I can't forget, a trace of pleasure or regret...Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears, and make them all my souvenirs, for where she goes I've got to be, the meaning of my life is she..."

Later that year, I was back in Seattle and I returned from a run to find a letter from him. It was the closest thing to a marriage proposal I had ever received. The next day, I ran my first half-marathon and thought about that letter and about him--a boy I had felt fateful about since the moment he walked into my living room on February 10, 1996. A month later, I flew down to Pasadena and we drove up the coast back to Seattle, winding along the 101 and burrowing ourselves permanently into each other's futures.

We've been back together ever since--in the past nine years we've graduated three times (undergrad for me and Brian, graduate for me), married, lived in three cities, visited as many beaches as we could manage, made new friends, set up a house, worked at a number of challenging jobs, talked and talked and talked, and had a baby. As I write this, I remember countless times in the passenger seat with my feet on the dashboard and the window rolled down, laughing. Sometimes that's how I feel about our lives together: I know we'll keep heading in the right direction. Sometimes I have to remember it's okay to relax and enjoy the ride.

There is a list of all the little things that I could itemize, moment by moment, if anyone cared to listen. If given enough time, I could pull up all the frames that explain why I have lately started to really realize that there is a great beauty in simply being able to love and be loved. There is a wakefulness, an awareness of fragility, and a constantly renewing stream of gratitude.

Quotes for the Day

2009-05-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

"When two fond hearts unite, the yoke is easy, the burden light." --Quote from a piece of pottery in our beach cabin last weekend.

"It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be." --Eileen Caddy

Poop

2009-05-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

I had planned to write a romantic recap of our Memorial Day vacation on Camano Island, but instead I need to write about poop.

Cora has been potty training lately, something we didn't anticipate we would start at quite such a young age. However, she's shown such an interest in it that we're just moving forward without a lot of pomp and circumstance.

Until today. I think we've had enough pomp around this circumstance to last me for quite awhile.

Today, we had some friends visit for lunch. I was grilling the cheese sandwiches and we kept checking on the kids. At one point the oldest girl said, "Cora went poop!" And my friend said, "You know, she's not wearing a diaper."

I had dressed her in a sundress, without a onesie or a pair of bloomers. I had worried for a moment that perhaps this wasn't such a smart idea because her diaper was so easy to access and take off.

And then, while making sandwiches, I remember overhearing Cora say something about poo poo, but instead of sweeping out to the living room and carrying her off to her potty like a great mom should, I got distracted and layered cheese on bread.

My friend remembers taking Cora's diaper from the living room floor and putting it in Cora's room because she thought I had hurriedly changed her on the carpet and forgot to put the wrap in the diaper bin.

Hmm. Mental note to pay attention to such concerns next time.

Cora had been running blissfully through the house with an exposed bottom. While stacking blocks with the girls, she produced a nice little well-formed poop on our rug, which I found snuggled neatly between a block, a ram, and a cow.

The very worst part of it was that we started a search through the house for errant pieces, and found one smashed between the palms of a confused 14-month-old friend.

OMG.

Have you ever had a friend over to lunch and inadvertently fed them poop? I didn't think so. We are all crossing our fingers that the substance didn't transfer from hand to mouth.

After a wild search through the house, copious hand and feet washing, and a lot of exclamations, we all sat around the picnic table and ate lunch.

Aren't you hungry now?

Quote for the Day

2009-05-22T08:59:00.000-07:00

One has to just be oneself. That's my basic message.

The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens, simply disappear.

Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights.

--Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Camping photos

2009-05-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

This is beautiful, no? Water, mountains, and lots of blue:

We spent a few hours climbing on logs and stacking rock towers:

Brian carried Cora across the Deception Pass Bridge. The view was spectacular. Brian loved it. I sweated bullets the entire walk across the bridge imagining Cora suddenly becoming a ninja and springing from the confines of her backpack with superb ninja skills but then suddenly remembering she's a mere mortal toddler and thus falling like a boulder into the water below:

At the end of our weekend, Cora napped in the sun:

The rain reigns

2009-05-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

It's raining the kind of rain that begs you to imagine waterways and deep underground wells. It's the kind of rain that runs in rivulets down dirt paths, etching out a presence there. It's the kind of rain that dredges up memories because you can't very well escape a rain like this. You're left with yourself.

I remember this rain. It rained like this when I was a kid. I used to look out my bedroom window, standing on tiptoes, at my backyard. Our yard abutted a 40-acre forest and I imagined places where I could hide from the rain, just listening to it hit the leaves above me. I used to put a leash on my dog and dress in rain pants and a raincoat and rubber boots, and go outside. Sometimes I'd bring a snack. Mostly I was excited to explore. I would often pack a journal and a pen, planning to catalogue what I saw out there. Sometimes I'd set out with a plan (find gnomes); other times I would plan simply to see how far I could go before the trees ended and I found road.

That solitude formed a part of my brain that is happiest when imagination reigns. I would sit quietly and imagine a big space up ahead of me, a life that was my own. Nevermind that I never did see a gnome or a fairy. The act of believing gave me a sense of energy and excitement. It made me feel like I could bend the ways of the world.

Age makes people stop believing in things that don't make sense. I remember a friend of mine telling me that we spend a lot of our time searching for Easy Street when in reality it just doesn't exist. This thought cracked against my heart while I sat across from her, sipping my tea and nodding my head in agreement. I might have been wearing heels. It's possible the 3-inch alteration of self is what tipped me over into a heady, sad spin. No Easy Street? But I want to believe in the idea of personal bliss. I love reading stories about people who find theirs. I love simple endings filled with a sublime sense of love, or of finding oneself, or of overcoming odds, or even of just believing in happiness enough to search for it.

I love all kinds of stories. I particularly like stories about people who refuse to believe all is as it seems. I like to think that everything gets better over time, that each small effort is a step closer to peace and satisfaction, that we become better people just be thinking about our place and by directing ourselves to where we want to be.

I think that's why I have an obsession with quiet, homey places, and the woods. I want a place in the trees that always reminds me of that sense of self that washed over me as a child, when it suddenly occurred to me that there were windows of opportunity up ahead, that destination and destiny could be altered by effort and hope.

I would like to be one of those people who deftly ties together a bunch of wildflowers from my backyard and places them in a blue vase on my driftwood mantle, where I store sand-polished rocks from the beach and spots of blue like blue glass or blue beads or an old blue marble, where everything is awash in calm, and where I know just exactly where to find my favorite pen.

I feel cluttered here. We own things we don't need. We have a junk drawer that is overwhelming. I have drawers filled with clothes I don't wear. We heard helicopters and sirens circling the neighborhood for the better part of an hour before Cora's nap time, and I thought well, now. This is not the peaceful song I want my girl to hear before she goes to sleep.

What I think I am trying to say is that I am obsessed with the ethereal. I like words like blue and sea and sky and clouds, rain and wind and magic and the future, dreams and hope and rushing and wild. I prefer to think of them than to look at the clutter on my desk or the unframed 1910 poster of Melinda's Wedding Day that I received for our wedding in 2005, and which I have been meaning to frame ever since. I continue to wash and fold my ill-fitting clothes and to look outside at the weeds.

The reason, for the moment? I have a girl calling from her bedroom. I will go open the door and lift her up and nuzzle my face into her sweet little neck. And we will go do something fun together. We have an entire, untapped afternoon ahead of us. Possibility poking its nose up from every playground and tree in town.

The first thing we shall do together? Go outside and clip some of the lilacs from our tree, and arrange them in a blue vase on our dining room table. We will put bluebells on the mantle.

Escape

2009-05-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

We camped and hiked Deception Pass this weekend. It was just a two-day excursion but it felt like we reset our lives and everything going forward will have a new tone. I love that feeling.

We took a lot of pictures. I'll post a few here this week.

We wandered on rocky beaches, set our toes out to dry on sandy strips of sun, held hands as a family, and watched our daughter explore landscapes that made our hearts soar. We even, while Cora took an unexpected late-afternoon nap on Brian's back, clinked plastic cups of chilled sparkling wine while watching the sun make its lazy descent in the sky.

There were a lot of trees. Cora always says hello to trees. She pats them gently and gives them a sniff. There were also many bugs. She is fascinated by anything that moves, and wants to befriend whatever that might be. She tried to kiss a bug of questionable origin at our campsite; when asked not to do so, she bent down very, very close to it and said hello. She also waved.

The landscape and the sun was like a shot to our winter-weary souls. But it was the dreaminess we felt together that made me feel transported. (It is wonderful to dream alone. It is deeply comfortable to dream with a friend. Even more so to dream with a partner. The world seems to open up. Possibilities abound.)

There were long moments of gazing out at dark water catching light in the breeze, of wondering how fast we would go if the current caught us. We imagined boats, a variety of sizes and shapes, with sleeping nooks and sunny sterns; wind in our faces and little picnic baskets filled with small and delicious lunches; craggy ports and sunny scapes.

We dreamed about adventures and peaceful dwellings, old age and an old love, Cora growing up with a reverence for all living things and that which preserves them--for salt water and colored rocks and dandelion puffs, tiny bugs and warbling birds, cold night air and a sky filled with stars, views that change the way you see the world.

Fast

2009-05-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

December 2007, two weeks old:

May 2009, seventeen months old:

Outside my window, leaf-covered branches cast mottled shadows on grass that has grown unexpectedly long in a short time. Cora is in her bed sleeping, curled around her piggy, tucked under layers of soft blankets.

I feel awash in gratitude. I could write a hundred lines about things that fill my heart.

I remember friends telling me how fast it goes, how quickly babies grow.

She used to weigh 5 pounds, 13 ounces. Newborn clothes were baggy on her tiny, curled legs. Her eyes were a deep, dark blue.

Today she sat at a table and spooned yogurt into her mouth, stopping periodically to blow kisses and say "yeah." She asked me to sing her a lullaby. (This is how it sounds: bubaby, bubaby, mama bubaby)

Her eyes light up when she leans in to kiss me. I see love in there. I never, ever, ever realized it would feel like this.

Her hair smells like sunshine. She crouches to examine grass and bugs. She loves to shout ICHIWAWAAAAA at the top of her lungs. When climbing stairs at the park this morning, she reached up and curled small, strong fingers around mine.

I didn't know her little hand would feel like that. I just didn't know.

Happy belated mother's day to all you mothers and mothers-to-be.

Cooking Green

2009-05-13T15:24:00.000-07:00

Cora has been healthy for three weeks. Her current spirited vitality has brushed away the cobwebs cast over our lives when we learned about her IgA deficiency. I like to imagine it's because she's been fixed, that the problem doesn't exist and the tests were wrong.

Regardless, I think we're out of the woods for awhile and it feels great.

I feel like myself again. For one thing, we've slept a lot more these past few weeks. Rather than thinking about sniffles and coughs and diarrhea (and tending to such ailments several times a night), I am thinking again about writing, and food, and fun things to do with a toddler during a rainy spring season in Seattle--more difficult to do than one might imagine considering that we've sworn off indoor play areas. No more public petri dishes like the Zoomazium or the Children's Museum or kid-friendly coffee shops filled with cute but dingy toys handed from one hand and mouth to another.

That is one big frustration of late: I never, ever wanted to be one of those moms that cleans things all the time, and now I carry hand sanitizer and wipes wherever I go.

I am also much more focused on food now than I ever thought possible. As a vegan macrobiotic, homeschooled child who grew up on an island alfalfa sprout farm while listening to my mom talk incessantly about yin and yang, and as a gluten-free person since the age of 12, I feel steeped in food lore to the point of ridiculousness. But there is always more to learn, and I am enjoying the independent process of discovery--searching food blogs, thumbing through books, seeking recommendations from friends, and tinkering around in our kitchen whenever Cora will allow.

My sister recently told me that I am a better cook now that I am a mom. She also told me, years ago, that I am a better person when I am with Brian.

I've always teased my sister that she has a way with words. She used to tell me that, no offense, but my hair really looked quite awful. Or a few months ago on our way to a therapeutic spa day together, she confided in serious tones that my streak of gray hair aged me at least 10 years and advised me to go to a professional to get it fixed.

Of course the cooking reference was a compliment, but I went to bed grumbling; why was it that just because I talk more about food these days I'm a better cook than I once was...because I was pretty okay before, wasn't I? Think of the tortellini salads, for goodness sake!

(Your guess is as good as mine as to why on earth I thought of tortellini salads. Was that really one of my most creative ventures? Surely not. I finally conjured up my years of invested shopping and cooking--chopping a million different ingredients into gigantic salads, grilling salmon and potatoes, rolling homemade sushi, baking baguettes and serving them hot with melted brie and sauteed mushrooms, frying kale in sesame oil and soy sauce.)

But as with many of the things my sister says, the meaning lingers and I have to pause and consider. Has my hair ever really resembled a little dog atop my head? (She really did say that once.) Before she convinced me to get layers, is it possible that I did, in fact, look like a lampshade and a pair of legs wandering down the street? (She actually said that, too.) Does the grey really age me beyond an age I am comfortable representing in my early thirties?

I can agree that I have had a few more bad hair days than the average lady. And as far as being a better person because of Brian, I have to agree. One thing I know for sure is that it is useful to feel so much love, and to feel so loved. It feeds a nice cycle of give and take, making me more likely to smile magnanimously at the grocery clerk than if I were stuck in my head thinking about my latest thwarted attempt at something.

I have to admit that my sister has done the sisterly duty of helping me look a little bit more presentable--no more lampshade 'do, no more little dogs, no more college fare of parmesan cheese quesadillas heated up in the microwave.

So maybe she's right; I can certainly credit my daughter for being a more conscious cook. But am I a better cook because of that?

Several meals I made this week would pretty much convince anyone I was clearly on crack if I thought I was versed in the art of culinary adventures.

After having Cora, I suppose I did have a bit of a coming-out party about my love of food, and I certainly read more recipes these days than I ever have. Before Cora, I felt uncomfortable trumpeting my interest in the food-health connection. Now, because there is a small person's health at stake, I seem to feel more invested in discussing what I am sure is an intrinsic link. Still, I'm not really a better cook, I'm just more aware of food in general. I think about it differently, and I am more focused on whether it's useful--good for our bodies, good for our planet, good for Cora's future.

And lately, I have become far more interested in the iron and vitamin B content of foods than ever before. But I also have to be conscious of how to serve foods in such a way as to convince Cora to love them. And, of course, I want the food to taste good, too.

For example, I want her to eat more green things. Green vegetables are high in vitamin C, iron, B vitamins, and the simple component of chlorophyll, which helps speed oxygen through the bloodstream. She loves broccoli and green beans, and she likes peas because they are so fun to pick up and pop into her mouth. We've tried kale and nori seaweed with some success. Other green stuff? Not so much.

So, what I guess I'm trying to say, as I sit here writing after trying to entice Cora to eat a kale and broccoli grilled cheese sandwich with omega 3 mayonnaise (ha, not a success), is that I plan to adventure into the world of green food a great deal in the coming weeks. And I can't guarantee it'll be a delicious journey, but I'm hopeful that at least it will be an educational one.

And I'll have to convince my sister to come over for dinner so I can try out some of my new wares on her exacting taste. I know she'll let me know what she thinks. :)

Gluten-free Teff Almond Butter Cookies

2009-05-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Cora's doctor recommended that we put her on a gluten-free diet. Because celiac disease is diagnosed through unusually high levels of IgA, her absence of IgA makes it impossible to know if her body can process gluten. Added to the fact that I am allergic to wheat, Cora's tests also showed that she's slightly anemic, which can be another potential sign of food sensitivities. Gluten intolerance could interrupt her body's ability to absorb nutrients. She's been on a totally gluten-free diet for over a week. Combined with daily doses of multivitamins and probiotics, we've also added more dairy to her diet. It seems to be agreeing with her very well.

I wanted to share a nutritious, easy recipe with you, adapted from Leslie Cerier's teff peanut butter cookie recipe (the Organic Gourmet). Leslie's original recipe can also be found on the back of Bob's Red Mill whole grain teff flour, which is in stock at Whole Foods and many other natural foods stores. Try not to choke too much when you see the price tag of nearly $9 for a pound of flour. With 13% iron, 4 grams protein, and 4 grams fiber in a 1/4-cup serving, teff flour offers a unique flavor with hints of cocoa.

I modified Leslie's recipe to include olive oil and dark molasses. Molasses is high in iron and B vitamins, something I am working to sneak into Cora's diet whenever possible. The combination of a super nutritious flour with high-iron, high-calcium, high-flavor almond butter means that you don't have to be gluten-free to appreciate these hardy cookies.

Cora enjoyed helping me make these, making it an activity that now ranks pretty high on my list of "fun things to do with a toddler." She measured and stirred and incorporated the wet and dry ingredients. Her favorite part was making the cookie balls. We made these on the kitchen floor, and she crouched over the cookie sheet with greasy hands, forming funny shapes before sneaking a few bites and reluctantly pressing the dough haphazardly onto the cookie sheet.

TEFF ALMOND BUTTER COOKIES
Makes about 24 cookies

1-1/2 cups teff flour
1/2 tsp. ground sea salt
1/2 cup molasses filled nearly to the top, then topped off with a drizzle of maple syrup
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup smooth almond butter

Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients and set aside. In a food processor, blend syrup, oil, vanilla, and almond butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend well. Shape dough into walnut size balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and flatted gently with your fingers, shaping the cookie edges to form an even circle. Bake about 13-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Keeps up to a week in a sealed container. Once cooled, the cookies are delicious dipped in yogurt or topped with a layer of vanilla ice cream or non-dairy frozen topping.

IgA and ABCs

2009-05-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

As much as I've missed writing here, I've been feeling lost about where to begin.

I'll start with the fact that Cora's test results came back over a week ago. She was diagnosed with an immunodeficiency called Selective IgA Deficiency. According to our doctor, about 1 in 700 people have immunoglobulin A (IgA) deficiency, making it the most common immunodeficiency. Her tests weren't able to detect IgA, the antibody produced by B cells to ward off infection at mucousal sites throughout the body. Basically it means that Cora's nose, eyes, ears, throat, GI and urogenital systems are more susceptible to disease than in people with normal levels of IgA. IgA plays an important role in fighting infection because it is the first antibody to "rise to the occasion" and start battling an invader. It reaches peak levels before IgM and IgG (blood components) take over. Cora's IgG and IgM counts appear to be normal.

(Note: If you're reading this entry, you might be interested in reading this post as well.)

Research shows that 25-50% of IgA deficient people develop an autoimmune disorder (I've read 40% as the average in other sources). Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and other immune disorders seem to be more common in IgA deficient people over time. They are also more susceptible to pneumonia and HIV, can't receive live viral immunizations because they could actually contract the disease, might not produce appropriate antibodies to "take" a vaccination properly, and are susceptible to anaphylactic death from blood transfusions due to a violent reaction to IgA in donor blood. (If necessary, they are often able to receive "cleaned" blood from which IgA has been removed.) Although many people spend most of their lives asymptomatic, they generally just get a lot more runny noses, colds, sinus infections, ear infections, etc., than the common person. Currently, there is no treatment for this deficiency. Antibiotics have been shown to reduce IgA levels.

Concurrent with Cora's test results, we were pretty affected by the H1N1 flu headlines during its initial outbreak. Some people have commented that they didn't pay any attention to the news because it just seemed like a bunch of hype about the typical flu, but I think that if they had read any of the articles they might have felt differently. Avian flu, which is one of the viruses in this strain, has a 60% mortality rate, and the WHO currently predicts that if the H1N1 virus continues to mutate, we might see two billion people get sick, and a number of them die.

These scary statistics unravelled me for a few days. I worried intensely about Cora on several levels; not just about her health, but about her development and childhood happiness, too. It doesn't seem fair to be relegated to a life of careful hand washing and hand sanitizer, to a stream of colds and flus or missed school days, sled days, or sunny adventures.

After a tense week of trying to hold myself together, I took a cue from my daughter: I had a good, long cry. I felt so much better afterward. After it's all out there, it's easier to turn to a more reasonable perspective, to see how tiny our diagnosis is in comparison to what it could have been.

The good news is that Cora is only 16 months old, and the immune system isn't fully developed until age 2, which means there's a chance her body will still develop IgA. Every night as we put Cora to bed, we imagine her whole body lit up with B cells busily creating IgA. We are hoping that she will have a dramatic turnaround and will produce IgA in beautiful amounts in time to retest her after her 2nd birthday.

(If you'd like to imagine Cora's immune system totally intact, feel free to send your wonderfully positive thoughts her way.)

This news has left me frankly bewildered about a few things. I was not familiar with the components of an immune system until I began researching it and talking with Cora's doctor. One major question is why don't doctors regularly test immune system components at an earlier age? If Cora can't tolerate a live vaccine, then why is every child instructed to have the MMR vaccine at 12 months? Or the live polio virus at an even younger age? Or even the live flu vaccine? Why is it OK to proceed with one set protocol when all children are not created equal? I am thankful that we took a slower approach to vaccinations and weren't planning to vaccinate with MMR until 5 years or even older, and chose not to immunize against polio yet, but it's not a universally-accepted approach. Even though vaccinations in general have certainly gained a lot more attention in the past few years, it's a lot easier to feel fine about the whole thing if your kid gets through their vaccinations without any issues, but if you take a good hard look at the possible complications, the vaccine injury hotline, and the potential that your child might have an immune disorder (or, according to some sources, might develop one after an immunization), it starts to feel very clearly like something that should generally be approached with more caution that it currently is.

Update: The US Dept of Health and Human Services's Vaccine Injury Table lists polio and measles infection due to administration of certain vaccinations to an immune-compromised person. See 5B and 6A and 6B. I asked Cora's former doctor to look into the effects of MMR on an immune-compromised (in this case, IgA deficient) child. She followed up with a top immunologist at Seattle Children's Hospital who said that while there isn't any data to show that an IgA deficient person shouldn't receive the MMR vaccine, he said to 'proceed with great caution'. I said to Cora's doctor, "So don't get it." She responded, "right."

I don't care if it's costly, or even unnecessary to test 699 kids, it's the 700th one that I worry about. (Some sources say IgA deficiency is as common as 1 in every 400, making it even more alarming to consider the number of kids who shouldn't receive a live vaccine.)

I am a huge proponent of public health initiatives that protect vulnerable populations, reduce deadly diseases, and result in a healthier population over time. I understand the herd mentality of vaccinations, and in general I believe in their stated benefits. What I have a hard time with is learning about the fact that my child can't tolerate live vaccines, or viral vaccines very well in general, after the age when she normally would have received such an injection. We got lucky. I feel that there is a lot more study and thought that should go into the administration of vaccinations. Who should receive them? Who shouldn't?

How on earth do parents deal with a diagnosis of leukemia? Brain cancer? AIDS? It must feel as if the earth comes to a complete halt, that you are fighting through fog, that all you want to do is run to the highest mountain and hide your child away in a meadow feeding her nothing but the purest air and water and whole foods while searching for the absolute best medical care in the world. I send those parents my heart.

Cora is doing really well, she hasn't been sick for over two weeks and she runs (never walks) full-tilt through the hallways, pitter-pattering her way laughingly through her days. She is obsessed with a big ABC book that we read everyday, and she points to labels now and says "ABCs" in recognition of the words there. She's back to her animated, lively little self.

The summer is ahead of us. We can't wait. We're looking forward to beach combing, swimming in outdoor saltwater pools, having picnics, going hiking, running through the sprinkler, and exploring other classic summer joys.

Worried

2009-04-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

This week has been tough already and it's hardly even begun. Cora ended up getting sick again. She woke up Friday morning with a congested nose and gradually developed horrible diarrhea that culminated in her throwing up at the end of the night. Her fever broke Sunday morning around 2 a.m., but she hasn't been very interested in eating anything for about five days. And she's still sick. I feel horrible for her, and incredibly vulnerable myself. I just had a long talk with my friend and basically broke down into a sniffling, crying mess about how difficult it is to not know if something is wrong with your child. I am totally ready to be convinced that this has just been the worst flu season imaginable, and that Cora has just had to get through it with an unusually high level of incidents, but worry is eating away at me that my baby might be too susceptible to stuff.

If there's one thing in the world I love more than life itself, it's my little Cora.

I don't want her to get sick so much. I want her to be healthy and strong and able to experience this beautiful day.

Blue sky and a sleepy baby

2009-04-16T13:19:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, Cora has been very wakeful these past few nights. Teething, growing, sleeping through increased daylight hours, and just generally being a baby is hard sometimes. So, not only is she tired, cranky, and just generally more fragile, this morning she gave herself a paper cut in her eye. If that sentence doesn't give you the shivers, well then, you're much more hardy than I. We were in the middle of a drawing project (one where she asks me to draw things like dogs, cats, or the images on her puzzles), and she was so excited about the whole thing that she wildly waved a few pieces of paper around. While I was reaching out to take the paper away and warn her about hurting her eye, I saw the corner slice through the air and she collapsed into my chest, screaming.

Oh, it is so much easier to get hurt than to see your kids get hurt. And eyes are a big deal. I sat there holding her and being super calm while thinking about the blinding pain I would be going through if that had happened to me.

So we went to the doctor again. I am like a rotating door, just in and out of that place with one thing or another this season. It turns out she scraped the white of her eye and her cornea, but the good news is that it should heal in 24-48 hours. We have some antibiotic salve to help it heal. Her nose is stained yellow from the super galactic dye they used, and her eye oozed a lovely neon green liquid the color of antifreeze for a few hours afterward.

The thing is, you'd think I'd be at my wit's end--no sleep, frayed at the edges, very little writing, nothing all that grand or spectacular about much of anything, really. Except I just keep looking at this little person we created and thinking how interesting she is. She is opinionated and adamant and funny, she likes to make people laugh and she loves to spin and get really dizzy and fall down, she wants so much to do everything we do, like brush her teeth and her hair and cook and draw and run and sweep and climb stairs and play music and read and write. She wants to be in the middle of everything and if someone starts laughing about something she'll throw her head back and crinkle up her nose, open her mouth up really wide and just laugh and laugh, looking over at them to see if everything is still supposed to be funny. She'll say "yeah" with a great deal of understanding during the pauses in my conversation when I'm saying things she can't possibly comprehend. She is deeply, desperately in love with dogs and mentions them about, oh, every 45 seconds (that, I must admit, is a bit wearing...we're in the middle of say, eating or nursing or talking about something important like why wheels go round and round and she interrupts me to say "Woof, woof. Da."). She knows a fair number of words but the pronunciation is still a challenge; I've become one of those moms of a toddler who hears a single syllabic sound like "da" and says, depending on context, "oh yes, you see a dog!" or, "you would like to draw?" or "ok, you can get down now." Her most clear words are yeah, no, elbow, pasta, turtle, fish, apple sauce or apple juice, and opposites (this can either mean she wants to read Opposites by Eric Carle, or it can mean she is being an octopus when she's writhing on the kitchen floor pretending she has 8 appendages).

She turned 16 months on Tuesday (4/14). Tomorrow will be my 5-month anniversary of being with her full-time. I still need to iron out the wrinkles in a difficult schedule that allows for very little writing. I need to either accept that I'm not much of a late-night writer, or else I need to embrace caffeine and sleeping pills. Since both of those substances would only make me crazy, I need to be diligent about writing even on days when I just don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. I still battle wanderlust every single day but it is not for the kind of life that perhaps one might imagine I am craving...I very rarely wish I were getting ready for a day in the office, although that certainly does hit me--especially when I see women driving in their cars alone, drinking coffee and having long moments of solitude like the ones I used to enjoy when I drove across the 520 bridge to Kirkland. More, what I am craving is space and sun, blue sky and blue water. Big trees and gardens and beaches, golden grain, boulders, open kitchens and exposed wood walls, old-fashioned cook stoves and home cooked hearty vegetable sauces, tangy pine air and springy ground, and garden parties with interesting adults and spirited kids.

In a word, I want summer.

More soon...

2009-04-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some other things lately and have fallen behind on these posts. I feel like I've lost touch with a dear friend! I'm hoping to write a few more words tomorrow. But the main thing I wanted to tell you about briefly (in the tiny amount of time I have before Cora wakes up from her late afternoon nap) is this running monologue that's been going through my head of all the things I wish for Cora in her lifetime. There are so many. As we drive from one place to another, I find myself daydreaming about the bullet points, trying to narrow in on the big themes.

It's been an interesting exercise in thinking about the things that are most valuable to me, something that of course it would seem I should know by heart but the points of which are more apparent when I imagine what I most want for my daughter. If that makes any sense. I think there is often a concern about losing ourselves in our children, especially during these early years, but I have been finding many moments when I wouldn't otherwise have considered one point or another unless I was looking through the eyes of a parent. The other stuff gets stripped away and I'm able to be more forgiving, hopeful, dreamy, practical...motherly, I suppose, than I am when I consider the world and my place in it.

Also, I would like it if you could please send Cora any healthy sleeping vibes you might have under your hat. She woke at 12:30, 3:30, and 5:30 this morning and I spent several bleary-eyed but nevertheless cuddly visits with her in the rocking chair. We checked with her doctor to make sure things were a-okay (considering that this past weekend followed a similarly difficult path), and discovered that she is cutting yet one more molar. She has teeth coming in everywhere and runs around the house with her hand in her mouth saying Owwww or else being quite whiny. B and I are therefore very tired, and I'm just thankful my view from my chair shows a bit of blue sky and sun. Perhaps we'll have a short reprieve from this silly wintry spring.

Intermission

2009-04-07T13:26:00.000-07:00

We interrupt our normally scheduled programming to bring you this message: It appears, afterall, that sun does indeed exist in the Northwest. Please enjoy it while you can. Popcorn with extra butter will be provided when it starts raining and you return to reality.

Seriously, people, it is beautiful outside. A blissful, gorgeous reminder of why we live here in the first place.

Things to do in the sun:
*Jump in leftover puddles and watch the spray form mini rainbows.
*Climb on every play structure in the city.
*Throw rocks in clear ocean water.
*Go hiking.
*Build sand castles.
*Wave at the birds.
*Have a picnic (or two).
*Run.
*Take a day trip (try the 4,000-acre waterfront park at Deception Pass).
*Breathe.
*Collect handfuls of miniature daisies and put them in your pockets.
*Wave at everyone.
*Stay outside all day.
*Plan a camping trip.
*Peel away each day looking for summer.

Mushy rain, mushy brain

2009-04-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

The weather here, frankly, is rather dreadful. I can't find many redeeming qualities about it, except that it forced me to enjoy a mom-and-baby lunch with Cora this afternoon at the Sunlight Cafe.

First of all, in my past life (as in last month, that was so last year), I would have high-tailed us to the Zoomazium or the Children's Museum or the Aquarium or a fun bookstore or any number of fun and interesting indoor Seattle havens. But I have to admit to feeling a bit burned. B and I have been talking about germophobia, the definition of which, for me, has always been hey there, would you mind letting me know if your child is sick before we get together for a play date? (I am still a bit mystified by people who don't think they need to mention to me that their child has a cold and is running around with drippy green boogers the size of Godzilla.)

While I'm a big fan of hand washing, I've never owned Purell or those wipey sanitizing cloths some people drag around with them and pull out at germ-filled moments, brandishing them like a flag as they wipe down snot-encrusted grocery carts or freshen up a swing. In fact, I think I've been pretty good about letting Cora explore her world without telling her to stop because she might get sick.

But there have been some moments when I've quivered with distrust and frustration, when I've hated the process of watching her exploratory steps encounter germs in our urban environment, a few of them quite memorable. Here is just a sampling of some of the more salient moments that have compelled me to gag:

*While I hurriedly searched for a pile of entertaining picture books, Cora proudly approached me and handed up a pile of grass-encrusted dog poop from off the carpet of our local library, tracked in by an innocent young shoe.
*She picked up an immunization band-aid from the playground, and studied the stain on the white pad.
*We were walking around Green Lake and I took Cora out of the stroller so she could explore. She proceeded to do her usual daisy-picking/grass-plucking/rock-rolling thing until I turned away for ONE SECOND and she bent down and ran her hand through a loogie. This was by far the most horrifying moment, seeing my child test the consistency of a stranger's mucus. I have nearly erased this sentence 10 times because I am so embarrassed that I didn't catch it in time, and I still feel guilty.

So there. We got through these moments and lived to tell the tale. I'm not a germophobe (although by now you might be thinking I should be). Yet, all of those moments never resulted in Cora getting sick. Those events have all followed classes and play dates in indoor play areas. With our new found freedom after I quit my job, I took it upon myself to explore everything, enjoying my immense luck of having a newly-minted toddler. Until I began to experience one of the worst flu seasons I can remember. Now I am just annoyed that we couldn't have launched our new life during the summer months, lallygagging by the wading pool, skipping rocks at the beach, running through the zoo OUTSIDE instead of happily sucking down flu season at indoor locales.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad Cora is developing a strong immune system. I firmly believe it's more important for her to make friends than to be sequestered in our house while we avoid germs. And I'm grateful beyond measure that she's relatively healthy and hasn't battled anything more complicated than the flu. I'm just ready for warm weather, a break from the snot, and some more freedom.

So, today's mushy rain-snow confusion has not been welcome. Cora is grumpy and trying to bring in five teeth, including molars, all at once, while I grit my teeth and look out the window trying to bring myself to go someplace where I know a flu virus is sucking happily on the surface of a toy, waiting to pounce on my daughter.

Which is why I am constantly battling wanderlust. I keep imagining a sunny climate would make things better. I'm not in love enough with this region, I guess, to make it through winter without some serious grumbling.

All this being said, I had a few moments this week when I felt like I could possibly renew our contract with the Northwest:

*Walking around Green Lake while crocus and daffodils fluttered in the breeze.
*Starting "studio night" with B on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He draws, I write, and the house feels cozy and tight while Cora slumbers.
*Playing in the backyard after B mowed the lawn, and examining our apple tree for buds.
*Feeling a warm Saturday sun on our faces and making a tasty meal with the windows open.

The funny thing is, I sat down to tell you about a lovely mom-and-daughter lunch I just had with Cora at the Sunlight Cafe, the gist of which was--hey, rain can be cool, it makes you bond with the people you love--and I got seriously derailed. So, lunch was great. We go out of the house, we were fortified by healthy food, and we stopped whining. We sat across from each other and she waved at everyone and gave them these over the top smiles she's into these days where she scrunches her face as much as she can, crinkling her eyes and shrugging up her shoulders and smiling smiling smiling. She was on her best behavior, sitting up straight in her highchair and carefully eating her vegetables and buttered bread. She kept her hat on, a spot of pink in an otherwise subdued atmosphere. She threw nothing on the ground. She drank from her glass and didn't spill. She made eyes at our server and blew kisses to the neighboring tables. She chewed thoughtfully on her teething biscuit and ate the whole thing.

She was, in a word, delightful. She was everything I have ever wanted in a small companion, and she's mine.

A Meal for Wanderlust

2009-03-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

Without following up too much on the progress of our wanderlust, I'll just say that he's still here. He's hanging out in our living room with his feet up, sipping tea and reading the newspaper. The headlines are making him feel itchy. The black tea is causing him to consider farmhouses in the Italian countryside, small villas on the coast of Brazil, tiny cabins on the Olympic Peninsula, acreage on Vashon, eclectic dwellings tucked in the woods of Maine. From my desk I can see his arm bent and touching his forehead. I can tell he's considering when he will slouch off the couch and begin surreptitiously cajoling me with his stories of far-off places and sunny landscapes. He might chew a bit of tobacco before beginning with his stories; maybe I have a little more time before he manipulates my mind yet again.

Perhaps I can stave off Wanderlust's advances by offering him a tasty meal. Last night after a long day for both of us, B was putting Cora to bed early (yes, our little bug is sick AGAIN) and I had about 5 minutes to rustle something up for dinner or else we'd probably have found ourselves munching cereal or slapping together an unfortunate sandwich. While surveying our refrigerator and wanting to make something nutritious, but not having enough energy to stir something on the stove, I remembered visiting a friend last year in Boulder who made amazing roasted vegetables (along with gorgeous dinners every night - you know who you are), and all of us basked in the hospitality and deliciousness. Hers were filled with a variety of colorful summer squashes and other seasonal July vegetables, of which I had none, but I did have cauliflower, something that I remember gave the meal a hearty, satisfying quality.

ROASTED VEGETABLES
Preheat oven to 425
Serves 2-4 (B and I polished it off last night, but we served ourselves huge helpings)

1 small or medium cauliflower
1 large carrot
2 stalks celery
1 small handful parsley
1/2 bunch Lacinato kale (about 7 leaves; a whole bunch would be fine, too, this is just all we had)
Broccoli stems (I used about 5)
Olive oil
Generous pinch sea salt
Pepper (we use a mix of black and red peppers)

Chop vegetables into manageable, chunky pieces. Lightly chop parsley. Put everything but the kale in a glass roasting dish and sprinkle liberally with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and ground pepper and stir to combine flavors. Place on a middle rack in the oven and stir occasionally to ensure vegetables are roasted evenly. When vegetables are soft and browned, add kale. Stir to incorporate and bake in the oven for about 5 more minutes, or until the greens are wilted but not overdone. Add more salt and pepper, to taste, if necessary.

We served this with a combination of white and long-grain brown rice cooked in chicken broth (1 cup brown rice, 1 cup white rice, 3 cups chicken broth). I swear, I felt like it was one of the most delicious meals we've had in awhile and I heartily recommend it for its simplicity and nutritional value. I'm not sure if it was the food or the setting or the rare opportunity to share a meal, just the two of us, but we launched into a wonderful conversation about creativity and harnessing its elusive qualities at work or in short periods as a FT mom.

Both Cora and Wanderlust are stirring. I'm signing off to see if I can help the first one slip back to sleep. Wanderlust, however, is looking a bit edgy. I'm not sure what to do with him.

Wanderlust

2009-03-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been more enamored with the dreaming portion of life than the stuff of it. And all that dreaming is beginning to make me feel like we need a big change, that perhaps there is something on the horizon, something exciting and different and profound just waiting to be discovered. Maybe it's a state of mind, maybe I'm supposed to be looking inward instead of wanting to change external circumstances. That's possible. But I feel change singing in my bones, a Spring-soaked sense of discovery around the corner, a kind of transformation waiting for B and I and our sweet child. I don't know what that means, I just know that I feel like my thoughts of change are getting so strong I wouldn't be surprised if an onlooker might see them shooting out from my brow and spiraling into the ether and concocting a new existence for us, one that embraces everything and is constantly grateful and connected.

I just don't feel all that connected to stuff here lately. I look out our back window while I write, and I think--oh yes, I shall plant a garden. I imagine constructing the pieces for raised beds and tending to the vegetables with Cora, and it makes me happy. And then we visit Vashon with our in-laws and we go to the beach. Suddenly I am watching Cora and her cousin playing in the sand, dancing around merrily with arms spinning against a blue sky, and then diving into the sand to gather handfuls of rocks before throwing them into the water. I take a deep breath. I look out at the waves. I feel salt air on my face. I imagine weekends like this. I feel life zip through my veins.

Last week when I was feeling the most conflicted with our lives and in love with the possibility of an island, I read a beautiful March 12th post by Shauna Ahern. It encapsulates many of the things I imagine about Vashon.

I also dream of a farmhouse in the woods in Mendocino. Therein lies an alternate existence, one that makes me feel excited and thrilled, where we breathe brightness into our soul all day long, where we hike all the time and explore sunny days.

B has had asthma lately, I think that's a part of why I am feeling this way. I am convinced it's because he is stressed and feels constrained. I think he needs more sun. I think he needs a soulful life, and I'm worried he doesn't get enough of that in our current one.

I think many of us spend far too many days of our lives feeling satisfied but faintly befuddled, like we're wondering why the shoes we're wearing don't fit because surely they should--they're well made, they were purchased with care and thought, they are what everyone else is wearing, so what's the problem?

Sometimes there's an alternate life--a journey and a thousand discoveries--waiting for us, but we never listen to it calling our name. It's so much easier to keep on doing what we're doing. I question this.

And so today, for the moment, I am going to put on my running shoes and take Cora on a long walk along the Burke-Gilman trail. I am going to jog just a little even though my knee doesn't want me to (a longtime injury). And I am going to do everything in my power to conjure the sun for just a few minutes. I am going to meet B at Green Lake after he gets off work and we're going to pump cool air into our lungs and walk like there's reason to. And I am going to take all these thoughts of change and transformation and consider what it all means. Why do I spend my days considering alternate realities? There's plenty to keep me in the moment, that's for sure. I will allow the possibility that maybe, yes, maybe we are on the precipice of something new. Maybe our wanderlust deserves a hearing. Maybe it's time for a change: either a change in location, or a change in mindset, or a lifestyle switch that is significant enough to be noticed.

And I am going to be infinitely grateful for the influence of our beautiful little lass: backpack on, shoes on, charging forward with zeal, a huge smile announcing herself to the world.

Wa-wa on a spring day

2009-03-18T13:15:00.001-07:00

I have many childhood memories of making boats out of leaves and sticks and floating them down streams and ditches or setting them off to sea in the rocky waters of Puget Sound. Yesterday we celebrated the sun by walking down to the Ravenna trails and playing in the creek. Have you ever spent the afternoon watching water sparkle beneath a spring sun, the kind of northwest rays that are lemony and transparent and filter through leaves in the most gentle of ways? And then looked at the entire scene and wondered what it was like to look at it for the first time ever in your life? I don't think I'll ever stop getting all choked up and amazed when I see the curiosity and excitement on Cora's face when she sees something for the first time.

"Wa-wa!" she shrieked, pointing at the creek.
"Yes, it's water. It's a creek! Let's make boats and float them in the water!"
"Wa-wa!" she shrieked again, just to make sure I heard her. "Wa-wa!"
"Yes, water! Let's make boats!"

While I was desperately excited about reliving childhood memories, I think it's safe to say that Cora could have stood at the little wooden fence and peered over for upwards of an hour, staring at the water dance merrily through the canyon and rustle under trees and leaves. I ended up coaxing her toward the water's edge with a variety of items in my hands: branch bits, rocks, cedar boughs, and dried leaves. We stood on a tiny bridge and crouched low to the ground, sometimes lying on our bellies and looking over, while we dropped items into the water below, waving bye-bye to each one as it was pulled away. She was smitten. I was transported to carefree days alone and free, or with a friend or my dog or my sister, wandering through the day with my heart high in my chest and a thousand new discoveries around the bend. I remember great efforts going into the making of boats, searching for the perfect flat branch and broad leaf, then sending it off with a pine cone sailor and my blessings for safe travels.

The Ravenna trails have been so well renovated in the past few years that they are truly an outdoorsy paradise in the midst of a relatively urban circle of neighborhoods. We ended up climbing a new trail out of the canyon and managed to arrive in one piece. Remind me not to try to carry a small child in my arms while pulling a too-heavy stroller and climbing exceedingly steep, muddy paths. I had hilarious visions of being that sad little headline in the local news: Mom and Child In Critical Condition After Hiking Local Hill. We were rewarded with such a sweet little patch of neighborhood streets, though, that it was well worth the trip. I wandered through the quietest, most lovely little spot in Seattle and ended up at the end of a dead-end street where I found a rope swing jerry-rigged over the canyon. Oh, the memories! You must have them, too--there are few children who can't remember one or more blood-curdling journeys high in the sky, the world dropping away while friends cheer in the background. I had half a mind to park Cora on the curb and take a few flights myself.

At the end of the day, I told B that if we lived in a slightly more welcoming climate, I'm not sure Cora and I would ever be inside. I think we would just fill our backpacks with snacks and head out on long adventures, coming back for naps and necessary toddler rejuvenation. I truly can't think of a better way to live than to be outside all day, breathing fresh air and dipping fingers in cool, clear water. We spent all day yesterday singing our praises of spring, looking at crocuses and daffodils and green moss and willow tree buds. It made me wish for the farm house in the woods that I dream about nearly every day...on acreage, surrounded by creek beds and birds and gardens, with a playhouse and a giant garden, and a ton of kids circling the lawn and shrieking at the top of their lungs. I continue to have an escapist obsession with Vashon Island and northern California, both, and can get all woozy and weepy with my vision of our lives in either place.

As an aside, I wish I had a picture to post of the trails. I've decided my blog looks really naked. I'm going to make an effort to add pictures, which will be a fun addition to the process. Maybe I'll even come out of the closet a bit more and post a picture of myself, or even send my blog to more people. I've been relatively anonymous about the whole thing, but have been thinking it would be fun to share these silly days and anecdotes with more people.

Food and sleep

2009-03-12T13:18:00.001-07:00

We've had three glorious days of sunshine and enjoyed our first walk around the lake in over a week. While the sun certainly makes the world feel like a more welcoming place than the snow and blustery wind did, the things that have dominated our lives these days seem centered on two things: food and sleep. With our family recovering from yet another encounter with the stupid flu season, we've found ourselves in the throes of an incredibly fine balance that is easily disturbed by lack of sleep, and is made more comfortable by good food.

On the sleep front, both B and Cora developed bad coughs that kept all of us up for about a week. B's finally getting better and, along with a few night's on the couch (me), our family finally doesn't quite feel like a bunch of walking zombies. The main thing that happened with Cora is that she became very dependent on nursing, which makes perfect sense for a sick child who can't find much interest in food. But one of the problems I encountered was that she started getting back into the habit of nursing herself to sleep at nap time. That might not sound like a big deal lest you consider the past four months of efforts to get her to sleep with music, a bit of rocking, or in her bed while I pat her back. So, this week I decided to quit nursing her at nap time and encountered the total chaos of a crying, adamant baby all over again, which was so unnaceptably awful that I continued nursing her to sleep (and back to sleep when she wakes after 40 minutes) like she was a drunken sailor unfit for the world without her daily dose. I know it probably sounds ridiculously funny to anyone with more pressing things to worry about, but I have to admit that I had all kinds of anxiety about trying to go back to our old ways, so much so that I chatted about it with B and several friends, practically wringing my hands over the issue. It's just that Cora was so upset about it this week that she was a blubbery, crying, coughing, dramatically sad little mess wringing herself about in my arms like the world was coming to an end. I don't like either of us to feel that way, and yet I also don't like sitting in the rocking chair for upwards of an hour while she nurses and nurses and demands to nurse some more, then doesn't sleep very well because she wants to wake up and nurse.

Enter this afternoon, stage left. I fed her a big lunch and gave her a cookie. When the last crumb had been dusted off of her chin, I held out her sippy cup of rice milk.

"We need to have a little discussion," I said, sitting forward earnestly. She chugged back a few gulps of her rice milk and looked at me with twinkling eyes.

"Cora," I said, "We aren't going to have any more milk today when you go to sleep. No milk. We're going to read books and listen to music before you go to sleep, but we're not going to nurse. It doesn't help you sleep well, and I want you to have a good sleep. No milk. Do you understand?"

"No?" She looked at me. She made the milk sign and held her sippy cup up for my inspection.

"You can have the rice milk, no problem, but no milk. No mom's milk," I said, pointing to my chest for extra clarification.

"No milk," she said, taking another swig from her sippy cup.

"Do you understand?" I asked again. "I just wanted us to talk about this so you won't be upset later. We can't have any milk when it's nap time. We are going to go into your room and read stories, and change your diapers and put on comfy pants, and then listen to music. I will rock you and sing to you before you go to sleep, if you want, but no milk," I started imagining years ahead of family meetings and discussions, outlining rules and issues while we passed around a discussion totem like a Koosh ball or a shaman's stick, all of us very intentioned and focused while we discussed things like what's for dinner and where the kids can walk when they go outside alone, or what our stance is on watching TV. It felt totally comical and yet very important, communicating like this with my daughter.

"No milk," she repeated. And she put her head on her shoulder (the sign for sleep) and smiled, then handed me the sippy cup. We went into her room and went through all the steps I had described to her. I asked her if she wanted me to sing her a song and she said yes, and I held my breath when I picked her up, waiting for her to turn into a writhing serpent in my arms, all mouth, demanding MILK. But she looked at our rocking chair and then stared straight ahead, her little brain working away. When I was singing to her, she looked at me a couple of times and said "No milk?" and when I confirmed this, she put her head on my shoulder.

Lo and behold, the little lass slipped to sleep in her crib while I rubbed her back for a bit. She awoke like clockwork 40 minutes later and went back to sleep after a few minutes of gentle rocking. I love that she understands so much, I love that she listens and is such a careful little person. I love how loving she is when she kisses my cheek or my shoulder and looks at the wolf on her wall and howls, then snuggles into my chest and tries to go to sleep. I love my daughter, I just do. I am feeling very proud of her right now. And she's been asleep now for TWO HOURS. Ok, dude, wow. I suppose it makes perfect sense that having a conversation with your toddler can be quite a successful act, but I'm just not used to it. I feel like we live in such a culture of trickery when it comes to our kids, of parental power that supercedes our children's desires, and it is refreshing to be at a point when Cora's comprehension translates into logical outcomes. I am not anticipating that it will always be this easy (no), but I am learning more about parenting every day.

I had thought I would write more about food on this forum than I have, since it is a focus that dominates quite a bit of my time and thought these days. To summarize our general focus, it's to eat whole foods prepared at home, something which takes me back to my roots as a child raised in a macrobiotic, whole-foods focused family. I feel like apologizing here, in some ways, because I know how pompous it can sound to discuss food in these ways, especially because I do have the time to think about these things and to go grocery shopping to several places, and to put thought into a grocery list and into creating balanced meals. Also, I think these discussions can border on totally annoying because they can sound so particular, so political and health-focused to the point of seeming as if they exist on a higher plane ("here's an easy recipe--what, you don't have time to cook? it's important to support local farmers; just take your Thursday afternoon to visit local farmer's market because it's important--what, you work Thursday afternoon? Oh dear, no, that's not how I want these discussions to be perceived). Yet, there have been enough blockbuster books and media focus on the power of local living and the health benefits of not eating so many processed foods, which somehow have freed someone like me to feel a bit less as if I am preaching about anything you don't already know.

Last year we tried to get nearly all our fruits and vegetables through weekly deliveries from Full Circle Farm, a local farm that participates in community supported agriculture (CSA). The spring and summer turned out truly delicious fruit, including pears, strawberries, and rich purple plums (some of our favorites), and a plethora of vibrant organic vegetables--broccoli, mixed greens, freshly dug potatoes, green beans, radishes, cucumbers, and ripe, red tomatoes. In the winter we feasted on hearty squashes and winter greens. We discontinued the deliveries when I quit my job, mainly because I wanted to go out an forage for my own things once I had more time to do so, but I am considering starting up the deliveries again. But first I plan to visit our local farmers markets to see what we can find.

Thanks to the gift of one of my very dear friends, I am enjoying reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it is inspiring me once again to take these choices more seriously. Ever since we moved in, I have been wanting to build raised beds in our backyard for an organic garden, but am a bit daunted by the process. I need to do some research, but mainly I keep thinking I need B's help to go out and buy the wood and cut it down to size, then fill the boxes with organic soil. Somehow we never have time for that on the weekends, but I know that's just because we haven't made a priority of it. Of course, this is a project Cora and I could embark on together some morning or afternoon, so perhaps that will be one of our big projects together. I would love to have her help planting seeds and watering our garden.

So, while part of our plan is to begin eating almost strictly with the seasons and to do our best to buy locally-grown ingredients, right now I am enjoying feasting on everything I find. :) A few foods I've really enjoyed lately are sunflower seeds (raw and roasted), raisins, organic arugula, sweet juicing carrots (raw and in salad), and a variety of cooked vegetables, including one of Cora's favorite combos: cauliflower, carrots, and broccoli sauteed in olive oil and sea salt and steamed in a dash of chicken broth. I've been enjoying making rice in more creative ways, including pressure cooking short grain brown rice (it takes about 25 mins and turns out golden and chewy), and making a variety of pilafs. I just discovered baked rice, of which I've included a few recipes below in case you're interested.

Also, I made a tasty treat for Cora awhile back that B and I decided would also make a great hiking snack. Aside from the fact that it tastes good, I like it because it contains three ingredients. The simplicity of that appeals to me, especially if you've ever gotten lost reading the ingredient list of even the most natural cookie recipe. Here's how I made it, if you want to give it a try:

RAISIN SUNFLOWER SEED COOKIES
Prep time: 5-10 mins
About 1/2 cup organic sunflower seeds, equal parts raw and roasted and salted (you can just use raw; I like the added nutty quality of the roasted seeds, and the salt does a nice job of balancing out the sweetness of the raisins)
About 1/2 cup organic Thompson seedless raisins
1/4 - 1/2 cup of organic brown rice crisps (I used Barbara's)

Place sunflower seeds in a food processor and alternate between the chop and grind settings until the seeds become the consistency of a nut butter, with small chunks. Add raisins and alternate between chop and grind settings until the two ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Remove from food processor and add rice crisps, a little at a time. Using your hands, mix the ingredients until you have an easily maneuverable "dough," which should be a bit oily from the seeds, and not overly sticky because of the addition of the rice crisps. Form the mixture into a log, wrap in saran wrap (I think waxed paper or foil would also work, but I haven't tried it), and put it in the refrigerator to set. About an hour later you can cut the mixture into small cookie-shaped discs.

Before I sign off, I thought I'd add a few of our recent meals to this post, in case, like me, you're looking for some easy inspiration. I bake a lot of our foods in the winter, and appreciate how hands-off this cooking style is. Most of 'em are straight from or adapted from Joy of Cooking. I made a dinner of the baked white rice and the mushroom chicken, and added a big romaine salad with fresh veggies and Goddess Dressing.

BAKED WHITE RICE
4 servings (according to the book, this foolproof recipe is easily doubled, which I can attest to).
Preheat the oven to 350. Heat in a 2-quart flameproof casserole over medium heat (or use a pan and transfer to a covered baking dish later):

1 tablespoon butter or olive oil

Add, and cook, stirring, until softened, 3-5 mins:
1/2 cup chopped onion
I also like to add 1-2 cloves garlic

Add and stir until well coated:
1 cup long-grain white rice (I used pearled rice and the results were delicious)

Add:
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon salt
(I also added a few healthy turns of the pepper grinder.)

Bring to a boil. Cover, put in the oven, and bake until rice is tender and the stock has been absorbed, 20-25 minutes. Let stand, covered, for 5 mins before serving.

BAKED BROWN RICE WITH MUSHROOMS
4-6 servings
Pearl barley can be substituted for the brown rice; increase the stock to 3 cups.

Preheat the oven to 350. Heat in a 2-quart flameproof casserole or saute pan over medium-high heat:
3 tablespoons butter or olive oil

Add and cook, stirring, until the mushrooms are lightly browned, about 8 mins:
1-1/2 cups coarsely chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped onions
1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Add and stir until coated:
1 cup long-grain brown rice

Add:
2-1/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Bring to a boil. Cover, transfer to the oven, and bake until the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender, about 45 mins. Let stand, covered, for 10 mins before serving.

CHICKEN BREASTS BAKED ON A BED OF MUSHROOMS
4-6 servings

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400. Trim any excess fat from:
6 bone-in or boneless chicken breast halves (with skin). I wanted dark meat so used free-range chicken thighs, enough to cover the mushrooms completely.

Season with:
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Salt and black pepper to taste

Lightly oil a baking pan or shallow baking dish just large enough to hold the chicken in a single layer. Remove the stems from:
6 portobello mushrooms or 12-18 large shiitake or button mushrooms

Or cut into 1/4" slices:
Enough smaller mushrooms to cover the bottom of the pan

Arrange the mushrooms in the pan and distribute over all:
2 cups dry white wine, or as needed
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Salt and black pepper to taste

Lay the chicken skin side up (if appropriate) on top of the mushrooms. Brush lightly with:
Olive oil

Bake, uncovered, until the chicken skin turns golden brown or the thigh meat is cooked, about 20 mins. Add more wine if necessary. Baste the chicken with the pan juices and turn it over. Bake until the chicken registers 165 on a thermometer, 10-20 mins more. (To be honest, I didn't do any of this with the chicken thigh meat; I just stuck it in there and checked it when it looked done.)

APPLE CRISP (this is an adaptation of a lot of recipes and open to experimentation. I also like adding berries to the filling.)
Serves 6-8
Preheat oven to 400.

Filling:
8 small apples or equivalent
Cinnamon to taste
1-2 teaspoons vanilla, depending on preference
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small cubes

Topping:
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup brown sugar, depending on your taste

Wash apples and leave skin on. Cut coarsely, about 1/4" thick. Mix in a bowl with a liberal dose of cinnamon. Add vanilla. Place in a 8" baking dish or casserole pan, layering the apples with a few of the butter cubes. You'll want the apples to reach the top of the casserole dish, so add more if necessary.

Lightly melt butter and mix thoroughly with sugar and oats, making sure oats are thoroughly coated. Cover apples with topping and bake until apple mixture is soft and topping is a golden brown, about 40 minutes.

Germs and thoughts

2009-03-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

We are really in the throes of it over here in our little corner of the world. Cora is totally sick with an extremely congested nose, red (infected) eyes, and a fever. She's so sick that she can't really nurse; after she tried tonight, she coughed so hard she threw up. I think it was because of her congestion, not because she has the flu. And then B came home early today because he is coming down with either a) whatever Cora has, or b) another bout with strep throat. I am currently drinking another glass of water and trying to get ready for another long, interrupted night. May I please, please, please just stay healthy? Please?

I am worried about B. His job is stressful, he's so tired all the time, and he comes home and throws himself into being a dedicated dad and partner. Plus, it's winter, and his San Diego-bred disposition needs more sun. I wish I could make him better. Tomorrow is his birthday and I have the feeling he'll be spending it sick in bed. My poor little family! From what I hear, this season has been particularly tough on everyone. My neighbor was saying that they've been spending week after week cycling through one virus after another.

This has been a relatively tough week and it's only Tuesday. Yesterday was a long struggle through the haze of sleepy me and sick Cora. I honestly have no idea how people deal with this when they have a huge family. My demanding little toddler is enough for me. After spending 45 minutes trying to help Cora get comfortable, and feeling tired and wrangled myself, I was talking to my friend about how sometimes I feel like everything is just being pulled out of me, all my energy drained entirely into loving and cooking and cuddling and nursing...especially nursing. Good grief, that's all Cora wanted to do yesterday afternoon and so I just sat in the rocking chair and gave up any sense of my body being mine. It is, for the time being, Cora's.

I felt so lost yesterday, wanting to do something more productive with myself--work for money, have a long stretch of productive writing time, even just clean and organize our house from top to bottom all the while enjoying uninterrupted thoughts. Holding my sick child felt exhausting and hollow. And then for some reason when Cora woke up in the middle of the night for the third time and we ended up on the couch from 1:30-2:30 while she guzzled water and stretched out next to me with her head on my shoulder, I felt strangely rejuvenated. Exhausted, but aware of this gift of my daughter, aware of a sense of permanence, of time slowing down. It's hard to describe. There's nothing like caring for a sick child to remind you of the present moment. I felt myself letting go, giving in and feeling to my bones the role I have in her life. She doesn't usually lie still for that long, and is slowly transitioning away from always needing to be nursed or walked/swayed in order to fall asleep. Her body is getting longer and stronger, and her little self next to mine last night felt like a whole new phase, like a little girl phase, and I can imagine her growing up far faster than I can really fathom.

B made me sleep in this morning before he headed to work and I think sometimes that's all I need, just sleep, sweet sleep. The day was beautiful with unexpected sun and Cora ate a good amount of breakfast and lunch and then fell asleep in her stroller while we enjoyed some fresh air. I wrote a couple of pages before she woke up, and then we nursed and had a snack and were headed out the door when B came home. Everything sort of went downhill after that with Cora's general health and my awareness of the stretch of household sickness still ahead.

But what I keep realizing as I cycle through these phases of unrest and clarity, wanderlust and domesticity, motherhood and writerly goals, is that these dichotomies will be present in my life forever, and in constantly shifting ways.

Right now I am a new mother with a small child, and I am loving her in all the ways I can. In her sick state, she doesn't generally like to go more than five minutes before asking to be picked up again. This is where we are at, and sometimes the fragility of these moments is palpable. I continue to feel a sense of certainty that what I want to do is to fill her up with as much of me as possible now because I want her to be a self-possessed, free spirit later. I am not assuming that my influence is necessary for that to occur, I just recognize that I deeply want to give it.

And I am slowly, daily working to make my writing grow. I'm not writing a ton, but I am writing regularly, and I am no longer sitting in a coffee shop looking out the window and fidgeting over an imperfect sentence. I am writing as fast as I can, and enjoying the story instead of thinking about what other people will think of it. I am hoping to carve out a few more hours a week for that effort, but there are also still many moments I don't take advantage of and that's where I need to be more disciplined. Once I sit down, I'm thrilled to be here. I am lucky when I remember that this is more than I've written in the past three years. It helps me get perspective. Yesterday I felt weighed down by the statistical probability of ever getting anything published, let alone becoming a prolific author. Those thoughts are not productive, not in the slightest. So I remind myself: It's a journey. I'm walking along the path.

Sometimes I start wanting to rush things--make it go faster! be an author, now! hurry, Cora, grow up and go on independent play dates and to school so I have more time to write!--or I start to question my gut instincts. Like yesterday, when I read nauseating, sad, worrisome headlines all day long about global economic turmoil. Should I have kept my job? Is what I'm doing "worth it"? There are certainly days when I question whether my decision to be the one staring at Cora while wondering what the heck to do next is something I need to be doing, or if it's something I should be paying someone to do so that I can make more money and contribute to the general economic health of our household and the GDP. And wanting to be a writer takes a certain amount of hutzpah, considering statistics and probability and general paycheck issues.

Parenting and career choices are very personal topics, as of course they should be. I sometimes feel the discussion electrifying the atmosphere, particularly between women, depending on their experience and interpretation. Some question how I can fit any writing in when there are so many other things that need to be done. Some remind me of the weight of feminist arguments against pulling so much domestic weight during this phase of our lives. Some are envious of the ability to be at home, while others adamantly explain that it's not something they could ever do. I feel myself swept along the current of it, feeling pulled in various directions. But I keep coming back to this thought: it's what we do in our own lives that matters. It's how we live, day to day, that creates a life. We need to go on our own journey, and comparing ourselves to each other is useful and helpful so far as it helps us hone in on what our own philosophy is.

Also, I find peace when I take a deep breath and remember that I am just trying to write my life a word at a time.

I see it is already 9:45, well past the bedtime of a person in a germ-filled household. Good night.

Barefoot runner

2009-03-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

There's a guy who keeps running down my hill wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue sweatpants. He's bare chested and barefoot. It's sunny outside but realistically about 50 degrees. And our sidewalk isn't particularly debris-free. I imagine he has a number of tiny sharp pebbles stuck in his feet.

Based on his general appearance (longish unkept curly blond hair, hairless chest, youthful, fairly athletic physique), any of the following could be true:

*He's trying to up the ante on an otherwise normal afternoon workout.
*He's trying to impress someone, like a girlfriend or a band of stoned roommates.
*He's trying to run off a killer hangover.
*He's into pain, all sorts.
*It's a personal goal.
*He's doing it on a dare and will receive $20 after he circles the block one more time.
*He's still high.
*He's training for a barefoot running event. I should see if there are any ones in the area.
*He thinks footwear is evil and wishes all the sidewalks would be removed and replaced with more forgiving dirt surfaces, never mind the mud.
*He does this all the time and this is the first time he's visited our street. He's just a super mellow, veg-friendly, tree-hugging, earth-loving Seattle dude who will return home to eat a sprout salad and warm up with a shower and a cup of green tea.

Creativity and other stuff

2009-02-18T13:37:00.000-08:00

Last night B and I had a long talk about self-esteem and self-critique, and the collision of those two when it comes to doing work you love. So many people dance around this issue most of their lives. Yesterday I had two moments when I felt so clear about a few things related to creativity:

1) I want to write a story that I just enjoy writing for the sheer pleasure of entering that world for 1-2 hours a day. I started a new one yesterday and in the middle of the sentence about a lemon grove and fresh herbs, I had this sort of laughing realization that I just want to write the kind of stories I want to read. So why not?

2) When I read a good book (so, not a staggering work of genius or a story that leaves me spellbound and paralyzed, but just a good book, a good story), I feel refreshed and happy. I love encountering a sentence or thought that makes me feel understood and connected to something bigger than myself. This only seems to happen when someone writes honestly, without pretense.

3) Trying too hard--in writing, in relationships, in life--is usually a sign that it's not working out.

4) Letting go is hard but liberating.

I started the day feeling quite tired again, just sort of hovering on the corners of coming down with a cold or just needing a really long night's sleep. Cora has been sleeping amazingly well. I stopped night feedings a couple of months ago and she has been a much better sleeper because of it. But I just have a hard time going to bed before 9:30 or 10 and I think I'm in the mood for about 12-14 hours of sleep, the kind of sleep that just takes over and you wake up feeling like a different person. I would dearly love just one Sunday like that, a day where you wake up and decide to close your eyes again, thinking you'll just drift for a few minutes, but then you don't wake till 11. You realize your whole morning is shot, so you go out to brunch and as you take your first sips of coffee or tea, you suddenly realize you feel gloriously alive. It's been about two years since I've experienced that. Hmm. I wonder if it's still possible?

We went to the zoo this morning and wandered through this habitat circle where Cora got to stare at a waterfall, slide like an otter, wander through a giant stump and a gopher hill, and watch kids climbing a huge spider's web. Then we went to the bug house and looked at gnarly tarantulas and other creepy crawlers. We wandered through a few more exhibits before heading back. The gorillas looked sad today. I think Cora sensed this because she stared at them thoughtfully for a long time and then blew them many kisses, about 20 in rapid succession.

I have my good-natured child back this week, a lot less fussy and screechy, which is a welcome relief. She's been doing this rather delightful thing where I ask her for a kiss and she says no, and then I say please, please, please? And she says no, very seriously, so I say OK and look away, and then she sneaks in a bunch of kisses on my cheek. She gives extremely good kisses, they are loud and smacking, and then she turns away with this little crafty smirk on her face, very pleased with herself. This morning she made me laugh because she was in bed with us (we always nurse in our bed in the mornings) and she started to meow, then when I said "are you a kitty cat?" she said "Yeah!" and started clapping.

I was thrilled when we got home and found out that out of a wait list of folks, we got the last spot in the Seattle Waldorf parent and tot classes, the last two sessions this year. So we'll start class next Friday and go every Friday till mid-June. I felt goofy with happiness. It's held in a house near us and we will sing songs and do crafts and go on walks. I'm happy it might make it easier to enroll her in the preschool there when she turns 3, over at the NE campus about a mile away. The campus seems homey and outdoorsy and cool, and B and I love to think about her running around with the other kids, playing music and feeding the farm animals and singing and painting...It's the kind of place I would have liked to go to school as a kid. Thanks so much to Wendy for suggesting it!

No no no and the significance of 14

2009-02-12T12:36:00.000-08:00

Cora was sick again this week, but was better by yesterday morning. Luckily, the only real symptoms seemed to be a high fever and a cranky toddler. She has been extremely fussy and whiny and likes to run around the house saying "no, no, nooo" in a way that B and I have to secretly admit is pretty cute. It hasn't reached that high pitched feverish NOOOO that I'm guessing she'll achieve during one of her more priceless phases.

But what wasn't so cute about the little miss the past couple of days was a tendency to always latch onto my leg like a koala bear and just cry and carry on without regard for any sense of decorum whatsoever. I mean, really, let's get it together people. Yesterday afternoon was one of those 'say what?' moments about my life these days: Cora was fever-free and our friends were coming over, so I was trying to clean the house and make a pot of chili, pick up some cornbread (making it from scratch was not an option--mixing flour and eggs together felt like high science) and wine and other chili-like amenities so we could have people over from our PEPS group. I don't mind doing it because I know how much I love going over to their homes to enjoy the company and conversation and good eats. But Cora was totally not having any of it, carrying on like I was causing her great personal pain. She clearly thought I was completely abandoning her preciousness by doing the dishes instead of reading her the 10th round of Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider. I can't blame her, considering that well, she's a toddler, and she was sick, and she's cutting a couple more molars, and she was probably feeling as cabin feverish as I was. But still. It made for a rough week.

This is sort of how it went:

Cora: Tap, tap, tap, SCREECH
Me: Hi Cora, how are you doing? Would you like me to sing you a song?
Cora: No, no, no
Me: Are you sure? I'd love to sing you a song. How 'bout the ABCs? A B C D E F G--
Cora: Nooooo!
Me: Would you like a snack?
Cora: No, no
Me: No? Are you sure? Ok, how about some rice milk? Does that sound good?
Cora: No, no, no, no
Me: Water?
Cora: No no
Me: Well, I'm sorry I can't pick you up right now because I am doing the dishes and the garbage disposal stopped working so I have my hand down the sink and I'm picking out soggy cheerios and cookie bits and green peppers and apple peel. So right now isn't a good time, I'm really sorry to have to ignore you.
Cora: SCREEEEEECH
Me: Cora, please use your words. Can you please say, "Mommy, can you please pay some attention to me?"
Cora: Mama, akibashi pees
Me: That was very well said. Do you want me to pick you up?
Cora: Yah.
Me: Ok, I totally will do that in just a second. Let me just wash and dry my hands and stir the garlic for a second.
Cora: SCREECH waaiiiilllll noooooo

As you can see, it was not a easy afternoon. I vacuumed and cleaned the toilet, sink, mirror, and tub with my little monkey on my hip. Chopped vegetables and defrosted turkey and said really inane things over and over again like, "Oh wow, look at you! You found a tupperware! How cool!" And then when she was looking at me like I was completely insane, I'd tell her that she was the love of my life, and she'd prance around the kitchen to the recycling cupboard and pull out all the paper and cereal boxes, then hold up the paper towel roll and beep in it like a horn "dooo dooo dooooo." I would tell her how impressed I was with her for entertaining herself and she'd roll her eyes and screech.

We ended up having an awesome time with our friends, though. We haven't seen them for awhile, having to bow out last time due to hives and a runny nose. Two families couldn't make it which ended up being rather fortunate because we could actually breathe and talk in our tiny house without tripping over a running child. We did the hokey poky in Cora's bedroom, drank wine, caught up, and played downstairs in the super cool cardboard fort I keep mentioning. I just felt thankful for having such a great group of friends that we've now known for over a year. I remember all of us sitting around in a circle, sleep deprived and puffy in the middle of winter with our two- and three-month-olds, sharing birth stories and trying to decide if we were really up for weekly meetings with strangers. Seeing Cora give the three boys kisses last night (the other two girls couldn't make it) when it was time to go, and her eyes light up every time she saw a fellow small traveler roll or bounce or laugh, I just realized again how much kids enjoy and thrive off the company of each other. I'm glad we have these friends.

This morning we just locked in a low rate for our refinance. It's a 30-year fixed and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the paperwork and appraisal and such goes through without a hitch. It's a relief to have it taken care of. We debated whether it really made sense to refinance considering the size of our house and our predilection for wanderlust, but in the end we decided it made sense to do it just in case.

I'm stumped on my story. After submitting the last two a few weeks ago, I've been trying to write about this marine scientist and I'm not that into him. I might scrap the story (or at least set it aside) and write about something else.

We have a three-day weekend ahead of us, and B and I celebrate 14 years since our first date on Feb 14th, the day Cora turns 14 months. I can't believe I went to the aquarium by bus with an 18-year-old boy and stared at the otters and talked about high school, and now I'm writing about parent groups and refinancing details. I think we're going to celebrate our 1st-date anniversary by painting the trim in our basement. Life is bizarre.

YMCA and memories

2009-02-05T12:52:00.000-08:00

This week has turned itself around day by day. We joined the YMCA near here and I'm glad we did. I've actually worked out several days this week, actually got exercise that made my heart beat harder and my blood pump. I'd begun to think my veins were permanently accustomed to the slow drudge of walks around the lake. The facility has a couple of free childcare options. One is a little gym/tumbling room three days a week, which Cora hasn't really tried yet, but which we hope to check out tomorrow. The other is a much more intimate room filled with fun toys and books and very competent caregivers. Cora cried the first time I left her this morning, but after we stayed there for awhile and she ate a snack with all the other kids (um, very cute, I have to say...she was the smallest one at the table, sitting at her chair eating her little cookies and studying everyone, then looking frantically around for me, getting my reassurance, and settling in for more cookies and studying). After spending about 20 mins together, I finally left again and got on the treadmill thinking oh yeah, I'll just do it for 3 minutes before they come out to get me because she's crying again, but not so! The little lass played happily for 25 minutes until I went in to get her. I'm hopeful that if we go on a regular basis she'll start to get used to it and I'll be able to join a yoga or body work class, or get a really long walk/run in. I am happy that she has an opportunity to be exposed to other little kids, caregivers, and activities in a safe setting.

This week has been all about memories. Yesterday my mom came over and I ended up talking with her about some of the things I've had on my mind that have been getting in the way of our relationship. Surprisingly, the talk went really well and was thankful for the time and chance to chat. I've also been thinking a lot about old friends, ones I've lost touch with as far back as high school. A good friend of mine from high school is moving back here in June and I keep feeling regretful that I didn't stay in better touch, didn't try harder to keep that line alive. In general, it's made me think about the distinct phases of life: the growth, the memories, the way certain people know you during periods of great change. I've been feeling profoundly thankful for my friends, especially the ones that are so near and dear to me that I feel as if I know them very well despite time and space.

Being a mom is complicated. There are so many competing priorities in my life right now: being dedicated to Cora, working daily on my writing and meeting story goals/deadlines, cooking and keeping the house clean (yes - very domestic, I know, but it truly feels like a fair split of labor, and something I've taken on lately, especially since B is working so much), being physically active, and being an engaged friend. The priorities are so different from when I worked FT, and certainly from when I worked PT and took care of Cora, but the funny thing is that no matter which direction things are going, no matter where we're headed, there are always things that need to be done. I'd be pretty darn depressed if there weren't things to do, but it's interesting to me the level of self-awareness that a child brings into my life. I am sure I am joined by every other mom when I say that I am constantly aware of the example I am setting, of the things I am doing that affect Cora, of the ways I approach our lives. The pressure can be intense, and while there is such an internal pull to be there in every way for her, I am also adamantly aware of how important it is that I have time for myself, time to pursue my own dreams and give my body the chance to exercise and foster relationships with people I care about. I have been feeling such a draw to be connected to other women, to discuss and share and commiserate and feel that sense of personal connection.

Lethargy

2009-02-03T14:14:00.000-08:00

I've been battling lethargy the past couple of days. Yesterday I felt like I was swimming through a cloud, and despite all attempts to do fun and interesting things with Cora, I felt inadequate. This morning was worse, and for such a bad reason. I succumbed to mediocrity, allowed myself to be lame. I could not find anything to wear. I need to clean out my dresser and get rid of all the stuff I don't wear anymore, donate it or something. I always feel so bad when Cora is running around with her brain brimming with possibility while I grumble and mumble my way through the morning, pawing through layers upon layers of ill-fitting or worn out clothes.

I ended up deciding to go shopping for a couple new items, convincing myself it wouldn't be so bad if I took her to a couple of places. I don't think I have ever even taken her to a mall. She was totally bored and frantically annoyed, screeching in the store and glaring up at me. I couldn't blame her in the slightest, considering how useless I had been all morning. And it was a beautiful day, so I felt doubly guilty.

You know what? When Cora is older, the last thing I want is for her to worry about what to wear in the morning. I want her to worry about what she's thinking, not what she's wearing.

If I show up at your party the next time you throw one and I'm dressed in a paper bag and mismatched socks, I expect you to applaud me, please.

We're going to the park when she wakes up, and she'll get to see another friend of hers. I hope we'll be able to turn the day around.

I really, really wish I could put her in the stroller and go running. I miss that feeling of strength and purity. At the same time, I remember being really in shape and having more of an obsession with my body. I like feeling so accepting of myself most of the time...it's when I feel this passively tired that I am frustrated by the lack of intense activity in my life these days, like I need a jump start.

Cookies and nautical adventures

2009-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a very quick and easy cookie recipe that I made for Cora the other day. The time-consuming part is having to bake some of the ingredients ahead of time. I have been wanting to make a healthy, well-rounded snack that doesn't contain any add'l sugar or unnatural flavors, etc.. All the ingredients are organic. I didn't measure anything, but that's the nice thing about this recipe, it's open to experimentation. It's meant to be fairly free of any allergens, but you could add chopped nuts, dried fruit, nut butters, trail mix, shredded coconut, cinnamon or nutmeg, vanilla or chocolate chips, etc., if you wanted to make it tastier for an older child:

4 small yams (skin on), baked until very soft
1 large apple (skin on), baked until soft
1 banana, ripe (doesn't need to be super ripe, just regular is fine)
1/2 cup raisins, cooked in vanilla rice milk until tender
About 2 cups oats (probably more)
2-3 T maple syrup
2-3 T rice syrup
1 tsp baking soda
2 T tahini (sesame butter)
2 T margarine

Preheat oven to 350. Remove skins from the yams. Mash yams, apple, and banana to a soft puree. Add raisins and mash. Add maple syrup, rice syrup, margarine and tahini. I made the cookies while the yams and apples were still quite warm, so the butter melted and the wet ingredients seemed to incorporate easily. After all wet ingredients are mixed thoroughly, add oats and baking soda slowly, adding more oats if necessary to create a "batter" that is moist (but not overly sticky) and easy to handle. Spoon by rounded teaspoonful onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten into rounds. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until cooked--firm, golden, but not too crusty. Let cool on a plate.

My mom is taking care of Cora this morning. Cora lights up when she arrives. She's obsessed with mom's purse and her keys, and will remove and replace her keys millions of times without tiring, each time announcing "keys." They are planning to visit Mockingbird Books this morning, a very cute little bookstore near Green Lake that's been open for about six months. It has a big train set, a piano, a giant giraffe, and a chalkboard table that kids love to draw on. They have story time at 11 every morning except Sunday.

I'm tucked away in our neighborhood coffee shop, enjoying a big cup of black tea. I want to start a new story this week. I've been planning to write about a nearly-retired marine biologist/sailor man. I sat down at the only available table at the shop and set up my computer, got my tea and snuggled down for the morning. As I was logging on, I noticed that I was sitting across from a man who was reading Coastal Tides and Nautical Measurements. He was an older man with a beard and glasses, grey flecked hair, and a weathered face. I decided it was clearly a sign. :)

Friendly people make me happy

2009-01-26T14:04:00.000-08:00

B and I didn't sleep very well last night, it seems he's coming down with Cora's cold now, so the night was punctuated by fits of sneezing and lots of tossing and turning. We awoke this morning with bags under our eyes and Oh, it's Monday again already? sentiments.

After a very fussy morning in which I discovered that Cora is cutting a new molar, we headed out the door for a wintery, sunny walk around Green Lake. We've managed to get out for a walk around the lake everyday except yesterday, which has been awesome. It's another spectacular day. Snow, frost, iced puddles, and bright blue sky. As I was packing Cora into her stroller, I noticed another baby in a matching stroller two cars down, his mom getting him all set up. We were both going through the cold day moves: here's your hat, here are your mittens, here are my gloves, wait let me put on my hat, let me zip your coat, let's make sure we remember our keys, are you warm enough? As she was walking by I asked how old her baby was--4 months. Suddenly I missed that little size, those sleepy eyes, the infant car seat stroller setup where you can stare down at your baby the whole time. I asked if she was back to work and she said no, she was at home with him but that it was still a strange transition for her, not making a paycheck and figuring out a new rhythm. We struck up a little conversation and then parted ways. I sort of walked along feeling happy I'd had this nice exchange but also thinking that I was too open, too chatty and exuberant, one of those people you meet and are like Oh geez, I actually just came here to keep my head down and my nose warm, do you mind hurrying along? I have been wanting to meet a few more moms who are at home with their babies, it would be nice to enjoy a bit more of that camaraderie and shared schedules.

Cora enjoyed most of the walk but broke down by the end. After swinging and running around the park, it was time to head home which made her very unhappy. It's the first time in a long while I've had to put a sad, crying Cora into her car seat and just start driving, making promises of tasty lunch and story time ahead. She wanted none of it. I was feeling frazzled and tired when I saw this little scrap of paper under my windshield wiper. I pulled over and lifted it out: "Dear Cora and Mommy, if you'd ever like some company on a walk around the lake, give us a call," with their names and phone number below. I felt so grateful, it totally made my day. It's so unusual for people to do stuff like that. Friendly people make me happy.

An EpiPen? Really?

2009-01-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

We had a really tough day this week when Cora inexplicably broke into a rash of hives after lunch. Her face started swelling and she had hives everywhere--all around her eyes, all over her head, behind her ears, covering her stomach. She'd had an odd reaction to dinner the night before, and had broken out in her first-ever rash of hives, just two patches on her stomach, but after a call to the nurse hotline and a healthy dose of Benadryl, she was fine. We checked on her probably twenty times throughout the night and she was still fine by morning. But the next day after we met B for lunch, she fell asleep on the way home. I saw a little hive next to her eye and checked her stomach for them when I changed her diaper and put her into her pajamas. She stayed asleep through the process and snuggled down peacefully for her nap. But she awoke 45 minutes later and after I soothed her back to sleep in my arms, she sat up, hot and sweaty and literally started to break out in white dots in seconds, crying and miserable and pawing at her face. I gave her a dose of Benadryl while I called the nurse hotline again, but as I watched her face begin to swell (she hadn't had any hives on her face the night before), I basically freaked. I dialed 911 and raced over to my neighbor's house, shouting for Michelle while I waited for the ambulance. By the time the fire truck arrived 5 minutes later, the swelling was already beginning to diminish and I was a hiccuping, crying mess. I felt like an idiot with four firemen in my house and Cora looking at them with consternation, no breathing difficulty, just a spotted, slightly swollen lass saying Woof and pointing to next door to Duke, our neighborhood golden retriever. Still, as nincompoopish as I felt at the time, in retrospect I would do the same thing again. I had her in my arms out there, and my perspective was gone--I felt like the planet was misaligned and we were keening off to one side.

Luckily, whatever she was allergic to was very responsive to Benadryl. We went to the doctor that afternoon and got a prescription for an EpiPen and were referred to an asthma/allergy specialist. Now we have to wait for the tests. I have the feeling it's a severe dairy allergy that has been surfacing for awhile, but I really have no idea. Her doctor mentioned it could be a reaction to the rye in the multi-grain (wheat-free) crackers she's been eating. The other possibility is that we had lunch at a Thai place, and while she just ate crackers and cheese and a banana and some steamed broccoli, it's possible that the broccoli they made for her was tainted with a little bit of fish residue, or shellfish residue, or perhaps we kissed her too much after eating spicy food made with fish sauce. Regardless, I have never, ever felt so riled nor so thankful in such a short period of time.

It is scary and strange to carry around an EpiPen wherever we go. I have been talking with my friends who have children with allergies, trying to figure out if her reaction sounds similar to any they've seen. Of course, it's also possible that she was fighting a virus of some kind, but it seems unlikely b/c she didn't have any other symptoms--no fever, no runny nose, nothing else except this severe reaction shortly after her meals. However, it's two days later and she is teething and woke up a cold. I'm not sure there's anything more cute nor sad that her crumpled up little frowning face while she sneezes long rivers of goo out of her nose, then looks up at us and says "Booooo."

Dreaming into being

2009-01-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

Following the expired sentiments of the 12/30 post I published last week, this mid-January post is going to sound as if I made enormous strides in just two days. Of course, it's really three weeks since I wrote that last one, and a lot has happened since then. Funny how time can go so fast and you end up on the other side of something, looking back.

We are experiencing SUN here in the Pacific Northwest, a shiny orb in the sky that everyone is pointing at in wonderment. Cora has recently discovered airplanes in a big way and points to them all the time, flapping her hands and chirping like a bird despite my explanations. That's kind of how we are about the sun, all of us racing outside to fit in as many adventures as possible until the haze returns. Yesterday we spent the whole day outside. We woke up and had breakfast and strong tea and coffee, then put Cora in our hiking backpack and walked the 25-some blocks down to the Ravenna trails. We stopped along the way at the new Vios restaurant (a cute, kid-friendly restaurant addition to Third Place Books on 65th and 20th). Brian got an Illy espresso shot and I got a green tea, and then we walked across the closed bridge that crosses the Ravenna watershed ravine, and wandered through the pretty houses over there down to the playground. Cora was obsessed with her shadow, with the turtle sculptures on the lawn, with sliding down the twisty slide (by herself!), and with spinning. I twirled both of us into a dizzy oblivion several times and she kept wanting more! more! more! We walked back along the trails. I think we had one of those mornings when we were just grateful to live where we do, in a fun corner of one of our favorite cities.

Later, after her nap and a tasty lunch, we visited Cora's aunties and their dogs, and then headed over to Discovery Park. The day was so clear that all the mountains were in etched formation beyond the Sound, boats were making their lazy path below, and the sun was shouting until sunset. We mainly ended up wandering through the field above, letting Cora explore the long grasses and exclaim at all the birds and dogs. Then we went grocery shopping and came home and made a big dinner. We were completely exhausted. We felt so old. I think we were in bed at 9 p.m., reading our books, with lights out by 10.

I'm reading a book by Elizabeth Berg, called The Year of Pleasures. I haven't read much by her, I think only The Pull of the Moon a few years back, which I enjoyed. She has a very introspective, narrative style. I tagged a couple of my favorite lines so far, although many are quotable:

"As for me, I liked things that couldn't be explained. I liked outrageous statements of faith; defiant acts of belief that flew in the face of science and practicality" (66).

and

"But was I not here, after all, in an entirely new place, entirely on a whim? Could you not in fact dream some things into being? As much as I wanted to honor the past, to take the time necessary to fully grieve what I had lost, I wanted to lift the lid off the future" (77).

The book is quite calming, despite the premise: a 55-year-old woman relocates to a small Midwest town shortly after her husband's death. At first I read the book with a feeling of tightness across my chest, of reading about a grief I can only imagine. Now I'm enjoying it as a quiet, simple account of starting over slowly. So far I'd say it's worth a visit to the B section when you're next at the library.

Next on the list is The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields, which has come highly recommended over the years and which, at this point at least, I honestly can't remember if I've read or not.

Have you heard the new song by Ben Folds called The Luckiest? My sister-in-law put it on a CD for us this weekend and I started listening to it this morning while curling my way over 70th to Green Lake. It's another sunburst day and we started it with a walk around the lake. From my perch atop the hill in our car shortly before 9 a.m., the water looked like a giant cup of tea in the middle of a bright day. It was completely shrouded in mist, which I thought was just fog burning off but once we started walking I realized was steam from slowly melting frost on the grass and roads, and warming of the water beside us. It was gorgeous to watch the tails of steam rise through skeletal tree branches. Ducks were framed in fog like pockets of old-fashioned photos scattered around the water. Anyway, as we were driving toward the lake, The Luckiest began to play. The lyrics are thoughtful and sweet and simple and they just made my heart swell and become a little lump in my throat. While I have certainly never characterized myself as a stoic, one who keeps much inside very well (or tolerates it entirely well when others do), I still have noticed that in the past few months of writing and being with my daughter all the time, I feel more wide open, a bit more raw, more interested in emotion and love and hunger and stories. Sweet songs stick. I like that.

While the little lass finishes her nap, I am going to work on an alternate ending for my story, the one that seems to be taking me quite a long time to finish, sigh. I just want to send it in and be over with it, but like I told B this weekend, if I got a rejection slip in the mail I'd just say, Well you know, I knew it didn't have a great ending but I sent it in anyway. It would be my built-in excuse and now that I've announced that, I can't send it in till it's fixed. Bah. Then Cora and I are going to head down to the waterfront to wander through the Olympic Sculpture park and to the aquarium to see the fish.

Lyrics to The Luckiest, by Ben Folds:

I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

What if I'd been born fifty years before you
In a house on a street where you lived?
Maybe I'd be outside as you passed on your bike
Would I know?

And in a white sea of eyes
I see one pair that I recognize
And I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you

Next door there's an old man who lived to his nineties
And one day passed away in his sleep
And his wife; she stayed for a couple of days
And passed away

I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong
That I know

That I am
I am
I am
The luckiest

Bye-bye Demons (and thanks, Oma)

2009-01-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and published it, but didn't feel brave enough to keep it. Sometimes writing feels quite vulnerable. Many thanks to Oma for inspiring me to keep all the honesty in here, tough times and all.

Written Dec. 30 '08:

There's a passage in Eat, Pray, Love when Gilbert wrote about loneliness and depression, how they lurked by her side like demons in Italy:

"'It's not fair for you to come here," I tell Depression. "I paid you off already. I served my time back in New York.'

"But he just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs, then climbs into my bed and pulls the covers over himself, fully dressed, shoes and all. He's going to make me sleep with him again tonight, I just know it" (48).

At one point in the passage, she explains how she just got off antidepressants and wonders if she could have survived without them, but notes that "That's the thing about a human life--there's no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed" (52).

I am not depressed right now. I think tired is the better word. And I am not (nor, actually, have ever been on) antidepressants. But I have definitely battled anxiety and insomnia before. A medication probably would have been useful at some points, especially when I got injured and stopped running. Running was my therapy long before writing became it. I think it was my key to a healthy constitution, the ability to run and run and run every day until I was washed clean through and drained of ghosts. Unfortunately, without running, and with a love of caffeine, one of my first responses to stress is an inability to sleep. It's a problem because not being able to sleep is like sliding down a slick spiral. You're basically just waiting for morning when you can stop trying so damn hard, and then night returns and you have to battle through it all over again. If I didn't have a baby, wasn't responsible for her well being and happiness, I would just give in to insomnia when it visits, pick a good book and stay up all night if I needed to. I did that a few times in grad school and one morning, after not sleeping for a week and reading a book through the night, I was a bleary mess. I put on my running shoes and ran around Lake Merritt. That was a terrifically bad way to deal with a knee injury, and after running 6 miles without any warm up or training, I reinjured myself and was back to walking hills in Piedmont.

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about variables--what makes a life, a life. I just recently encountered again the realization that there's this trigger that I haven't figured out how to stop. As B says, I haven't filled my toolbox with the right tools. It happens for a specific reason, which isn't worth going into here, but all the good feelings and strength just blow out of me and I start to question everything.

When I go through times like this, I question myself. It's my first response. I don't think that's always a bad thing. I think it's important to question ourselves. It's just that some people question the world, hit angrily at the circumstances around them; I seem to turn against myself. Last night B said he thinks I doubt myself too much these days. He's right. It's like Doubt and Worry are my bedfellows during stressful times, taking turns pulling at my hair and insidiously wandering into my head. The feeling of being derailed is visceral. I think I invited those emotions in one time and forgot to tell them they were no longer needed, no longer welcome.

I need to grow up, grow out of it, heave it off my shoulders, go through a transformation and just throw all the crap far, far away.

I'm really ready for that. Maybe Doubt and Worry have become like little dependable appendages. Like built-in crutches that I rediscover every time I am stressed--Oh, here they are! My default responses! Let's go have a party and hang out, just the three of us, and we can spend the next few days spiraling into a state of misery and dejection!

I wondered if I was going to write about this. It appears that I have. :) I'm sorry to drag you through my midafternoon therapy session. But I guess I think it's safe to say that most of us have, at one point or another, battled our own fears and injuries, similar feelings of loss and confusion, all in our own personal ways. I guess that's one of the reasons I feel like writing about this. Being human is hard sometimes. Life wouldn't really be interesting if it wasn't. We all have our conflicts and our questions.

So, I want to know: Can it be done? Can we decide to live differently, from the inside out--really, really from the inside? Start today, start now, do it flamboyantly?

I remember a quote, something about how we are injured not so much by what other people do to us but by our own emotional responses. I think childhood difficulties are more complex because when you're a kid it's really hard to be zen and sort of look around you and put it all in perspective. But it's different when we're adults. I wonder, can we rewrite our past--not by turning a blind eye on the bad stuff, but by highlighting the good instead--and watch it slowly and dramatically affect our present?

If so, then let today be the day that I say goodbye to doubt and worry and self-incrimination, so that I give as much love and energy and focus to living an intentioned life as I give to my daughter.

Is it that simple? I'm going to give it a try and see.

Cora just woke up and I am finishing this while she reads her book. She has rosy red, milk-fed cheeks, sleep-glossed eyes and a cute little smile. She just got up and is trying to tap on my keyboard. She keeps saying bye-bye. I guess she wants me to stop this silly typing. We're going to get out of the house and give this intentioned life a try.

Obama's letter to his girls

2009-01-15T12:10:00.000-08:00

Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have. But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me — about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential — schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college — even if their parents aren't rich. And I want them to get good jobs: jobs that pay well and give them benefits like health care, jobs that let them spend time with their own kids and retire with dignity.

I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you'll live to see new technologies and inventions that improve our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer. And I want us to push our own human boundaries to reach beyond the divides of race and region, gender and religion that keep us from seeing the best in each other.

Sometimes we have to send our young men and women into war and other dangerous situations to protect our country — but when we do, I want to make sure that it is only for a very good reason, that we try our best to settle our differences with others peacefully, and that we do everything possible to keep our servicemen and women safe. And I want every child to understand that the blessings these brave Americans fight for are not free — that with the great privilege of being a citizen of this nation comes great responsibility.

That was the lesson your grandmother tried to teach me when I was your age, reading me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and telling me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something.

She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better — and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us. It's a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.

I hope both of you will take up that work, righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you've had. Not just because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that has given our family so much — although you do have that obligation. But because you have an obligation to yourself. Because it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.

These are the things I want for you — to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world. And I want every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive that you girls have. That's why I've taken our family on this great adventure.

I am so proud of both of you. I love you more than you can ever know. And I am grateful every day for your patience, poise, grace, and humor as we prepare to start our new life together in the White House.

Love, Dad

It has to be said

2009-01-14T21:11:00.001-08:00

I'm all atwitter tonight because we're in the process of possibly refinancing our home and I just walked through the application today and our broker will shop it around tomorrow. The reasons? I'm excited because rates really are quite low. But I got a bit riled up when reality stared me in the face: I am on the application but I don't have any income to report.

Let me be clear. This is not a surprise. It's something I thought through before quitting my job. The feminine mistake, so to speak. The hanging out there in the wind without an income of my own, without contributing financially to our lives. This isn't something new to consider, it just felt tangible for the first time today. I wanted to be able to state an income and I couldn't.

It's hard to feel that vulnerable, especially when you have read all the feminist literature I've read, and when you come from a divorced family. It's less easy to be an idealist about it all, more easy to look at it and see the vulnerabilities. For the first time today, I couldn't just walk away from the judgment I was placing on myself. The thing is, I would gladly work so that B could stay home. Maybe I will do that someday.

Incidentally, I was at the playground this afternoon and I talked with a dad and his 17-month-old daughter. They moved out here for his wife's job and she recently got laid off. He was in a planned transitional time and was looking for a job, but now the are both jobless. These are scary times. It's a lot of pressure.

So this is when it is easier to dive into melodrama without thinking. It's better to take things a day at a time and keep focused. It just feel like it's all the more important for me to work hard at writing, to use every available minute to push myself. To kiss Cora adamantly and make sure she knows she's worth it. Sometimes time just feels so damn fast.

Cora

2009-01-14T14:28:00.001-08:00

Friday and feeling groovy

2009-01-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

This has been a wonderful week. We've stayed busy with a bunch of fun activities, and we are both much more happy. Long live snow-free winters! (At least for us, maybe if we didn't live on a hill and we had 4-wheel drive we'd be fine.) We did something new every day, and that was good for both of us. The most delightful part is that Cora continues to communicate. She's beginning to try to parrot things, not a ton of words yet (and still only ones that I can understand, I think) but this week she's recognizably said shoes and cheese and bath, apples and bananas, wolves (and their requisite howls), birds (and their wings and song), outside, draw, book, pizza, and then yesterday we went through a list of things together until we found her preferred activity: going to the park to SWING. What I love the most is that moment when we realize that I understand her and she understands me and we lock eyes and start giggling. She is an adamant head shaker when she is letting me know what she does not does not does not want to do.

Yesterday we went to Gymboree for a tumble, then we went to the library for story time (she had the attention span to get through the songs, the stretching, and some of the sirens in the fireman story), then to the park for SWINGING and on the merry-go-round and jumping into my arms from this big rock sculpture garden at Dahl Field. We ate a big lunch and she napped about an hour and a half, and then went downstairs and worked on our super important cardboard box fort. I went to PCC the other day and asked if I could have their display box out front, one of those big octagonal boxes for apples and squash and such, and the guy gave it to me. He was exceptionally nice, took out the remaining oranges (there weren't a ton, otherwise I would have felt like a total ass), folded it up and put it in our car. It even has a ceiling with slots in it for mini-skylights. I added a door and windows. She has a little lounge in there, a pillow and blanket and a couple of books and a ukulele. It looks like a mini dorm room, like she could invite some friends over to her pad and light incense, put daisies in her hair and strum her guitar and read deep poetry and stuff.

Today we finally got out for a walk with our friends, and Cora said "Anna" all the way over to their house and back. It's been raining like crazy here. Normally I would have braved it and just gotten out anyway but the winds have been so strong that it has truly been the last thing I wanted to do. Yesterday afternoon we headed over the neighborhood community center and I saw this teenage guy walking away from the bus stop. It was pouring rain, like full-throttle windshield wiper rain. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, no coat, and was still trudging along with a pronounced strut, looked totally unfazed, and I was thinking that's what it's like to grow up in Seattle. Life as a child is covered with rain. It's all muddy fields and indoor pools, full-body rain suits and rubber boots, trudging along on a grey day with rain swimming down your pale face and still trying to look cool.

I finished my story yesterday. Or at least I finished the first draft. It still needs some major editing. It's 35 pages double-spaced and with some serious tightening I think I can trim it down a bit. We'll see. I plan to submit it someplace by the end of next week. I'm looking forward to starting the next one. I think it might start on an airplane and have a crossover with one of the characters in this story, but I'm not totally sure yet. That's one of the things I enjoyed the most about writing this one (even though it was a bit frustrating there for awhile)--I never knew how it was going to end until it did. I thought it was going to be one story and it turned into something else. It's gratifying when that happens, when it seems to take on a life of its own.

Speaking of which, I am going to go take another look at this draft and do a quick round of edits before Cora wakes up. Ah, napping. One of my friends gave me this ABC book when Cora was born called Awake to Nap by Nikki McClure, and it was written and illustrated during her son's naps. It only goes from A-M because it's as far as she got during that stage of motherhood. Pretty cute idea, and one I can relate to.

Rolling along

2009-01-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

This week is better than last. I sort of fell off the apple cart and rolled under a tree. But I feel as if we have re-established a cadence, Cora and I, that works best when I make sure to write. That's one of the chief reasons I have felt so foggy lately, I think. It was the holidays, and then there was snow, and then Cora's nap schedule was thrown off, and then I felt more interested in talking with B while he was home, and then I got in touch with a bunch of old friends through facebook, and then I got sick, and then it was the weekend and finally, yesterday, we started the week with a firm shake: Well shoot, we might as well do something interesting with ourselves. That's where I am reminded of the importance of just doing it, for crikey sake. Publishing silly posts, writing something, anything, even if it's bad, just to keep the momentum going. It's different with the story I'm writing. I hesitate to do that, otherwise I might make a bunch of wrong turns and the story would just sort of rot in the middle and I'd get lost and wouldn't be able to figure out the ending.

I think, maybe, I'm getting close to the end with the story. I just wrote what could, potentially be the last paragraph but I'm not sure it's satisfying enough. It's about 15 pages single spaced, which is a rather long short story, and I have been wondering whether its really a novella or a confused novel, or whether I'm just having a hard time plucking out a few moments in time and leaving all the other stuff up to the imagination.

Cora is changing so much. I am finally getting more used to her words, realizing how easy it would be to fail completely at plucking meaning from the babble. She says something all the time that sounds like pasta, but I have no idea what it is. I can't imagine trying to say things for the first time, wondering if I'm using my tongue correctly, pursing my lips accurately. Today I asked her to say cheese and she said "sheeeez." She said "baple" for apple and she refused to say cheesy bread. She loves to say ball. She says dod instead of dog, and often just refers to them as woof. I don't know why it's never occurred to me until now, but that's pretty good articulation considering she has six teeth.

Speaking of which, she doesn't take 2-hour naps anymore, she's more on a 1-hour schedule and she's in there yapping about pasta or aaasta or blasta, so I should go now. :)

New Year

2009-01-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

You know how sometimes you start the day feeling so totally energized and alive, ready for anything? That's not how I started this year. I think of it as more of a slow roll into a new phase, sort of like hitting the snooze button a hundred times and then grumpily getting out of bed and being dissatisfied with what's for breakfast. It's too bad, I felt like I had a lot of momentum going there for awhile. This week ain't it.

I made a few resolutions this year. One of the main ones is to let go of the past and forgive people who need to be forgiven. I've always wondered about that--can you forgive without forgetting? I've decided it is possible, after going through a similar process with my dad, but for some odd reason it was easier to do that with my dad than it is to do with other people in my life. Anyway, I actually wrote a stupendously long post about this whole topic earlier this week but then deleted it. Writing it was helpful, it reminded me of a few things about myself. The main gist of my goals for this year, though, are to let go of old crap that holds me down, and to try to do a better job of moving through life with kindness and grace and honesty, while keeping my focus on people's best selves.

How's that for a mini post about a micro personal issue?

I'm excited about this year, and am wishing all of you a very happy transition to '09!

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T15:40:00.000-08:00

"A thing is complete when you can let it be." --Gita Bellin

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it. Begin it now." --Goethe

Tired

2008-12-29T13:24:00.000-08:00

A long holiday and sleep interruptions have made for a very tired me. I'll write more soon.

Winterscape and Gladwell

2008-12-21T13:25:00.000-08:00

It is undeniably one of the best December days we've ever had. It's a slow Sunday, we have a week of vacation with B ahead of us, and it snowed six inches last night. I think there's about 8" on the ground, more in the snowdrifts. It snowed all night--we stayed up late last night and just watched the flurry buzz around our house and swiftly cover everything in white. We just got back from a hike around our neighborhood. We walked over to our park two blocks away, where the Seattle skyline looks so sleepy behind the ballfields filled with kids and parents. There's a big hill there where the kids sled and snowboard all day. We saw a few neighbors and sledded for awhile, jumped around with some of the dogs, and stopped by our packed coffee shop for a cup of coffee. Cora just ate an enormous lunch and is sleeping soundly while B works on a video of her first year for our families.

Have you read, or are you thinking of reading Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers? There's a post on his blog about an article by David Brooks in the New York Times that critiques the premise of the book. (Gladwell wrote Blink and The Tipping Point.) Anyway, a book group I'm thinking of joining plans to read it for our next meeting. When I first read about the book on Amazon.com, I sort of grimaced. It seemed, from the Amazon review, to paint a bleak picture of someone's ability to be successful:

"Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, 'some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.'"

It's not that I entirely disagree with the assertion--it just seems rather unexciting, is all. It doesn't inspire a great sense of discovery. Why would I want to read an entire book about predestiny? Maybe because it all seems a bit too obvious. It slaps against so much of the stuff that I want to believe, or maybe it's just the idea that there is a formula for everything. I shudder at the thought--regardless of how true--that somehow we can break down everything--our entire life's work--into a series of equations and arrive at a common conclusion every time. And yet, if that's the case, the book smells a bit like the snow on our ground right now, a bit more wet and fluffy than the stuff of dense research and data mining--though perhaps much more fun to read because of that. That said, when I looked at his various blog posts, and a page on his site containing excerpts from Outliers, I thought maybe I'll check it out. It seems that his book analyzes the path to success from a variety of perspectives, definitely not just from upper crust beginnings. Like Brooks, though, I have this feeling I'll read it and feel that the premise "'slight(s) the centrality of individual character and individual creativity' by focusing so much on the cultural and contextual determinants of success. Successful people, [says Brooks], must begin with two beliefs--"that the future can be better than the present, and I have the power to make it so.'"

So if I believe that desire and dreams have actual mass, can together create their own trajectory, what does that mean? Do I need to decide if my beliefs have weight, or do I just need to believe and do? It means, certainly, that I am more of a follower of quantum physics than hard reasoning; despite how soft I realize it may sound to more data-driven sorts, that's where I'm at.

Where does the belief in dreams place me in Gladwell's world, or in the everyday bustle of the life that's happening right now while I sit and write? What I mean is, what role does belief play in our destiny, versus where we come from? It's a wormhole if you think about it too much, a chicken or egg dilemma.

Basically, a huge part of me just wants to say that it's not my job to be concerned about it; that's the role of people who measure and debate. I am not trying to be a scientist, I didn't choose that path. Gladwell didn't train as one, either. It goes back to my obsession with fragility; the existence of this book is one more thing that feeds my desire for escape, is like a little needle of (someone's definition of) proof that pokes at this bubble I want to believe in. Of course many people think dreamers are naive. But where would we be without them? It would certainly be an interesting exercise to set myself up in a library surrounded by all the research that defines success and how it is achieved. I could do a bunch of tests to determine my emotional and practical intelligence and my Mensa-ability. I could fill a desk with this research and all the things that point to a certain fate, whatever it is, and then I could sit in the midst of it and try to write a story. The thing is, would I ever set Cora down in front of me and show her a diagram of where she is coming from and the various projections of where she will be by adulthood, based on a variety of factors (how much she wants it, hard work, the number of hours of practice, when she started doing the thing she wants to do, etc.)? Uh-uh. That's the thing about analysis. It's one thing to look at historical trends. It's another to stop someone in the middle of their day and say, Based on where you are coming from, you are headed here.

I want to be more protective of ideas than that.

I haven't even read his book--ha! and I'm writing a post about it, how flimsy is that?--but it's the premise of it that makes me bridle--both because of a defensive fascination, and because I don't buy it. I'm not the only one, of course--the world is always full of critics. See, for example, this post: A Tipping Point for Gladwell?

I read an article recently debating political dynasties in America, looking, for example, at the Kennedy, Bush, and Biden families, noting the possibility that Beau Biden will run for his father's senate seat when he returns from Iraq. The article calls into question America's notion of democracy, and whether or not these legacies fit within that schema.

Is there an equation for success, and is it a permanent line? I should read Gladwell's book to find out what he discovered. Even if his thesis might an obvious one, I do think it's cool that Gladwell follows his obsessions and writes about the kinds of topics that get people arguing. I just wonder if I'm going to read his latest book, or whether I'm going to hold on to my candle in the dark.