You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2007.
Our bathroom is atrocious. Or, at least, it was. Anybody who’s been here knows it’s the weak spot. Last year, we removed the awful wallpaper (note to homeowners: NEVER wallpaper a bathroom! especially if there’s no exhaust fan!), and found pepto-bismol colored plaster underneath. Ugh. I wish I had taken a picture of it, it was truly awful! We also had a leaky toilet that needed to be replaced, so we did that this summer. This month, we figured we had to spackle, and eventually just covered the walls in joint compound, then sanded, primed and painted. Here are a few pictures from bare, unsanded walls to the gorgeous blue-grey we painted them:
(above) the walls, the top half covered in joint compound, newly sanded
(above) after primer
(above) from the other side of the room, after primer
(above) the finished product!
(above) closeup of the color
Cross that off the to-do list!
I am such a fan of fresh food….so this time of year, I am craving fresh fruits and vegetables, but am usually met with overripe or overpriced produce at the supermarket. I consider myself an aspiring foodie, held back only by my budget, a picky(ish) husband and a toddler who isn’t a fan of spicy or exotic foods (yet – I am holding out hope).
Enter Real Simple’s “Fake It, Don’t Make It” feature. I heart it. The FIDMI recipes are dishes that taste homemade and fresh, but are made using premade ingredients, so you can whip them up in no time. I made the Black Bean Soup last night, it took me all of 10 minutes, and with some rolls and fruit, dinner was a delicious snap. Michael loved it. Rhys too. A success, in my book. So here’s the RS recipe. Make it on a night when you’re rushed to get dinner on the table, or just plain don’t feel like cooking. Your tastebuds (and family/dinner guests) will thank you!
(a warning: pass the Beano before partaking, if you are prone to bean-y flatulence)
Black Bean Soup
serves 4
1 T. olive oil
1 pt. fresh salsa
1 16oz. can refried black beans (in the Mexican food section at the grocer’s)
1 15oz. can black beans, drained
1 14.5oz can low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 c. sour cream (optional)
1/4 c. cilantro, roughly chopped (optional)
Heat oil in saucepan or large pot over medium heat. Add salsa and cook 4 minutes. Add refried beans, black beans and broth and bring to a simmer; cook til warmed through, about 5 minutes. Top with sour cream, a little extra salsa, and cilantro.
Delish. Only 150 calories per serving, and none from fat. Pass the ladle!
Learned something today. I am watching “Surgery Saved My Life” on the Discovery Channel, and I discovered a new way to diet. I was mowing down on some pimiento dip and celery sticks (halfway healthy, right? i think the celery helps to balance the ridiculously fatty pimiento-and-cheese concoction), but while watching brain surgery on the show, I just couldn’t do it. Ugh. So…try to eat something you REALLY love while watching a surgery program, or anything on Discovery Health channel, for that matter. Guaranteed to help you lose weight – and if you have a good memory, even more!
This show, while physically revolting, is amazing: the one I’m watching is about an Indian doctor who was schooled and works in the U.S. and goes back for a few weeks each year to perform FREE facial surgery of all kinds, repairing children born with cleft palates, deformed noses, and other facial abnormalities. Children here are fortunate enough to have these kinds of surgeries right away….children in India who are born like this are usually from the ‘untouchable’ caste, and are considered even lower–they are trash, nothing, in the eyes of their countrymen–when they have a malformed face. These children are constantly abandoned and left to die. That’s why this show is so moving. You can see the despair in the children’s eyes, and yet after surgery they are happy, smiling…and the parents are relieved, hopeful, and ecstatic, because they would NEVER be able to afford this.
I was talking with Michael about this, and there’s something about the suffering of children that really gets to me. They don’t deserve it, they can’t protect themselves, save themselves. I want to DO something, I want to help, and Michael’s strong sense of justice wells up whenever we talk about it. I have such a heart for kids suffering with AIDS, and kids who are malformed. I saw it up close in India when we were there in 2002. We played with these kids. We loved them. Many won’t make it to their tenth birthday. Some will, and will live in orphanages their entire lives, passing from this life to the next in a hospice for the destitute. It’s sadder than you can imagine, unless you’ve seen it. And yet, God is there. He is there. These children are not alone, and that is the only thing I can comfort myself with sometimes. If I could, I’d live in Africa, working with HIV-positive kids and their mothers. Or I’d have gone to medical school and do what this doctor does on the show I’m watching. I’d give hope by being there, loving and helping, being the hands of a loving God to the hopeless. Right now, though, I’m called to be here. I reconcile that by praying for the children, for mothers and fathers who have no hope, that the God of hope will be to them what I cannot, will love them in ways I cannot. I remember them.
Uh-oh. The Bears and the Colts are going to the Superbowl. And normally, I could care less. I just watch it for the commercials. But this year, THIS year, it’s personal. You see…the Bears are Michael’s favorite pro team, and the Colts are Rob’s (Michael’s brother) team. Sibling rivalry has gone pro this year!
Secretly, though, I favor Payton Manning over Rex Grossman. Don’t tell anyone. At least don’t tell Rob. It’ll tip the balance over to the Colts. But then, I’ve always favored the underdog. Daaa Bears da Bears da Bears da Bears da Bears.
Whoa. I love it when i find stores or websites that have simple, well-designed, handmade and affordable things for sale. Etsy.com is still my favorite site for fun handmade stuff, but here are a couple new places I ran across lately:
The Carrotbox (www.thecarrotbox.com): gorgeous glass, lucite, stone and wood rings, most under $20 apiece. The ring above is handmade Murano glass. Reminds me of sea glass.
Oompa Toys (www.oompa.com): wooden, classic, and thoughtfully designed toys and kids’ decor. Check out the Haba line of toys.
Blabla (www.blablakids.com): knitted dolls, toys, baby/toddler clothing and packs handmade by folk knitters in Peru – fair trade and all-natural!
Two Monkeys & Me (www.twomonkeysandme.com): I would be remiss if I didn’t have a shout-out for my friend’s boutique. Unique baby and children’s items, and, as she puts it, “other exceptional finds”. Great keepsake stuff, too, for you parents out there. My friend, Randel, is such a fantastic person, and full of that great Southern charm. Tell her Lindsay sent ya!
Happy hunting!
by Robert Vivian, from his collection of essays, Cold Snap as Yearning (University of Nebraska Press, 2002). photos by me.
…I went out the garage and, where the door lifted, met a foot of snow shelved perfectly crystalline and pure, as cut off from its natural bent as I was. I stared at it long enough to notice its perfect glazed angle, the weightlessness of its glide, like a different kind of wave caught midsurge before it crested, arched where the pearl white of drift was severed by the metal dungeon of the garage door. Humbled, I stepped clean over it before the door closed behing me without a sound except the pulling groan and settle of its chain.
I trudge across an open field that is endless for its blankness, each rabbit hole or declivity settled over in one smooth curve. My breath blossoms raggedly in the air, a ring of ice forming where my mouth is covered by wool.
The earth lifts before me like a great veil of white holding up its immaculate vision, a table set with fine white linen as far as I can see, except the trees that rattle and shake their brittle arms. I am a speck on the board, a tiny insect making its way over a blown anthill. At eight I am looking for God, or what passes for divinity in blown snow and nothingness. I walk on and on, the crunch of my boots magnified in the cold.
Where I am going is difficult to say. Each boot comes down in a place not touched before. I move off into another distance. I notice my breathing, the buffeted feel of my body against the cold. The wind holds me, then pushes against me form all directions, as I sway like a staggerer lost to visions of wagons going by. The world has shut down and thrown away the keys. The earth has stopped pretending, the owls have stepped over the last bones of the field mice. I am marching toward eternity in a suburban neighborhood that is no longer well kept and friendly: it is an outpost winnowed out of the cold wind, plopped randomly here in the snow in the middle of the plains…
…I am eight years old and know nothing, and it takes my breath away; and then something is revealed to me in the cusp of cold wind through branches, though I cannot say what it is. Silence and cold and wind blowing, the via negativa of coming briefly to the end of my chain, not straining at all in felt emotion: the zero where I become nothing in watching the blanked-out sky, the whisper of the wind through branches that are the difference between seeing and being.
Then it is over…Whatever I was looking for was lost long ago. Whatever I find is gone the moment I find it. Whatever I love is with me always.
If you know Michael & I, you know that this time of year, we live and breathe ‘24′. On Monday nights around 7:00 PM, from January to May, don’t call us – we won’t answer. We’re watching ‘24′. Really. I can count on both my hands the number of people/couples that Michael’s converted to watch/love/obsess over ‘24′. It’s visual adrenaline. Seriously. My palms are sweating even now as I write this.
The problem is this: late last year, our cable company and the company that owns the local Fox station here got into a dispute over money, and last week they pulled Fox (Fox! kind of a main channel, right?) from our lineup. Weird. Well people were lining up to get the free antennas the cable company was handing out, because ‘24′ started last night and the NFL playoffs were this weekend, too. We tried the antenna last night, in the middle of a snowstorm. No love. We were instantly depressed. Bummed out, because the rest of the world was experiencing what we had been teased about for months: JACK….IS….BACK. Not for us. Not last night. We hung our heads and were openly jealous of all of you Fox-viewers.
Enter Amazon.com. Steve Jobs failed us: ‘24′ was not on iTunes yesterday, today, or even tonight. We were starting to panic. Would we have to download a bootlegged version, or foam at the mouth for another night? Nay. Amazon.com has the premiere available to download TONIGHT. We are giddy. I mean, skipping-around-the-living-room giddy. We are like kids, gathering snacks around us, getting in our pajamas, ready to view the Season 6 premiere on the computer. Let’s go, Jack. We are locked and loaded. Take us away for another season of terrorist-hunting, world-saving, rule-breaking soldiering like only you can. Bring it.
I might be a dork, but we were rolling when we saw this last night. Thanks, Josh and Dara!
Ah, friends. We are really fortunate to have close friends, the kind to whom distance means nothing. And happy that they don’t mind coming to see us once in awhile! Here are a few recent photos of some of our houseguests: the first three are of six brave friends who drove through snow and ice to ring in the New Year with us. Fun-loving crowd of old and newer friends. Where the party is, they are. The last one is of my dear friend, Jane (see her “C’est La Vie” blog in my links), who works in overseas (which means I won’t see her for another year–boo), and came for a visit this week. We got her nose pierced and watched a movie over molten chocolate cake. Yum for molten chocolate cake, and yay for good friends!
A couple of days ago, Rhys was playing by herself, drawing on her Aquadoodle. When Michael and I came into the living room, we found this drawn on the mat. Call me crazy–or just biased–but it looks like an ‘R’ to us! I snapped the photo before it disappeared – what you don’t see is me one-handed wrestling Rhys and her pen to stay off the mat long enough to record her genius. Now, she’s not completely capable of spontaneous writing yet, and I have been writing her name a lot when we color together. But I hadn’t done it in at least 24 hours before this beautiful little letter was crafted!
Now to figure out a cure for growing up….
