More Snapshots

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."--Annie Dillard

Maple sugar on the first snow of the season... TEETH! Our advent wreath with a little twirly mobile from Germany (a childhood tradition.) Our first gingerbread house attempt this year. Bean cut out the templates and the dough. And mixed everything. Bean was hilarious to watch decorating these. He was so careful with the icing... then DUMPED the sprinkles on. Lots of snowflakes have been cut this year...Bean made this one entirely himself. Bundled up. Getting ready to do our annual holiday photo...

PS: I'm sort of sick and am hating the general anxiety of Sunday night. There is always a to-do list bigger than my brain waiting for Monday. What's on your to-do list this week?

Tangent-worthy snapshots:

We made cinnamon rolls this morning: Bean measuring the flour out, his eyebrows getting dusted as the mixer kicked into high gear; going to gather eggs first. (We have an interesting flock this year: Aracunas, New Hampshir Reds, Cuckoo Marans, Barred Rocks and a Buff Orpington rooster.) While the dough rose in my favorite vintage Pyrex bowl, we started hanging lights: big fat colored ones, like I remember from being a kid.

Back inside it was all about tinker toys and cinnamon & brown sugar filling (with walnuts too) and leftovers for lunch. Hard cider. Turkey + cranberry sauce + coleslaw on raisin bread. (Of note: DH butchered our turkey this year himself. A Heritage breed, raised by a friend of ours.)

Later: A fire in the wood stove. Inclement weather, but the best kind. Going to get the mail wearing rain boot. Sprout trying to stand all on his own (and cutting two top teeth.) Then making pasta from scratch: the dough gorgeously golden with fresh eggs. Linguine never tasted better: served with Parmesan, sausages and swiss chard sauteed with garlic.

Finally, in the quiet of a post bedtime house: the crackle of logs burning in the stove, getting words down on the page uninterrupted. A glass of red wine. The cat curled at my ankles. Looking forward the inevitable sweetness of bed: the curve of his back, warm, and muscled against me in the dark.

Thanksgiving

Hi. Today I am writing. All week I've been writing. Hence the absence here.... which makes me sad/happy, as usual. I am stopping in though to say: thank you, thank you. What you give to me with your comments, your friendships here, your encouragement is something I cherish.

Today I am wondering (as I prepare for a kind of anticlimactic day tomorrow, now that both sets of friends who were coming to dinner have canceled due to the flu...) how do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it a holiday that you love? What makes it special? What ritual or tradition do you have that doesn't, maybe, entirely, focus on an enormous meal? I'm so looking forward to reading your replies as I feel like I really want to change this holiday up around here. I'm hoping for inspiration.

Here & now

A week of friends, and bonfires and playing in the leaves. A week of making choices and getting on top of the laundry situation and soaking up back to back days of slanting shadows and mellow sunlight.

Now: Penguin Café on my headphones. Writing a novel makes everything twirl in my head.

Life is full, and there is a feeling of tenderness just below the surface. It’s hunting season. We put the light on in the coop to trick the sleepy hens to lay some eggs. In the dark we fold into each other and whisper, reconciling the smallness of today with the possibility that tomorrow will be great.

We’re all hugging ourselves in the dark; hugging each other; hungry for something. Or at least I am, he is. Lots happening in the present tense right now, but I miss being here.

What matters to you today?

Weekly Crushes

It seems like it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was clipping Bean into his ski boot bindings for the first time and sending him down the driveway. Now the first leaves are already golden and orange. Where has the summer gone?

The crickets know that snow is on its way. In the garden, fat pumpkins with girths rounder than Bean's hugs. My Bean, who has started a mixed-aged (Waldorf) kindergarten program, and comes home singing. My Bean who tells us about the enormous imaginary kangaroo that lives upstairs. My Bean, suddenly a big-little kid. Four and a half. Mischief around every turn. He is my favorite forever.

And then my baby boy, my little Sprout, coming up on 7 months old, impossibly. He is a chunk. Pure love. Grins always. He's been surfing the floor the past week or so, trying to crawl. In between attempts he's pleased as peas to sit in the center of a circle of pots and spoons, banging things and grinning. He's always cracking himself up. There are so many times throughout the day where I'll look over at him and feel my heart catch and then expand. He'll be smiling at me, watching me from across the room as I do things in the kitchen or fold laundry or type. He is my little Buddha. My reminder to be right here, now, in this precious, precious moment. He is my favorite always.

Also, some weekly blog crushes to share:

2 or 3 Things, Bliss, Le Love (can't help going here and smiling), listing quirks over at Cupcakes & Cashmere...(a quirk DH pointed out tonight while we rocked it in the basement gym---3 miles in 24:15 minutes---is that I love to watch bull riding. Really.)

Also, these houses (still brooding over treehouse plans, as you can tell.) This gorgeous little party. This amazing installation. It's how my heart feels, sometimes, lately. Overflowing, made of feathers, of air, of fragile things.

What are some of your crushes right now? Share please. Also~ what are you looking forward to this week?

Live Blogging Thursday

Hi Thursday. I've been off in my own world lately, doing things. One of the things I have been doing is trying to sort out some issues with my blog and the funky charset issues that occurred with an upgrade to a newer version of Wordpress. As a result I've been going through my archives, and holy moly I've been blogging a while. This is the 901 post on this blog. Crazy, right? Anyway, what I realized is that I love reading my older posts that just capture whatever we were doing that day, right in the moment. Maybe they are banal moments, but they are ours and I like the record. I like seeing where we were, and where we are now, and lately I haven't been doing nearly enough of that here.

So. Today. LIVE BLOGGING. I'm going to update this post a bunch throughout the day as Bean and Sprout and I gallivant and get ourselves into situations. I would LOVE for you to join in and live blog your day too. Leave a comment with a link to your post if you do.

9:32 A.M.: This is what our morning looks like often. The boys hanging out together doing things. Sprout has just started rolling over back to tummy (he's been doing tummy to back for a while) and with this whole new range of mobility he is tearing things up! Bean likes the company.

Breakfast. This is a classic for me: toss two pieces of bread with ample butter into a pan. Crack two eggs on top, any old place. Cook the whole mess. Eat. The toast is dreamy. Buttery and crisp. The eggs are hard, which I like. Also a latte.

Now we are off to carve sticks and build fairy houses in the back yard while Sprout naps.

1:20 P.M. Harder than I thought to keep up with our active family & actually post pictures!

From the morning fairy house making: Bean was very serious about using the pocket knife. He sharpened the ends of sticks to poke into the moss to build the structure. We gathered small stones and shells and field flowers. When you stop to look, even the most humble clover astounds.

When we came indoors we had slice after slice of cantaloupe and then went for an impromptu raspberry picking adventure with DH. Bean raced up and down the rows, eating more berries certainly than he picked. Sprout sampled some too, and didn't seem to have any complaints. I am picturing some type of raspberry cobbler for dessert tonight.

Now Bean is napping and Sprout and I are hanging out in the back yard. The end of summer crickets have begun their ruckus, even though it has only felt like summer for the past week. We've had so much rain, these days of warm and gold have been balm to our damp spirits.

Next up: exercise, a swim at the pond, and making dessert.

How has your Thursday been treating you?

3:25 P.M. We just had the best swim. I am slowly but surely teaching Bean to swim in the neighbor's pond. I didn't bring the camera--one too many things to haul! But he was great and giggly and super cute. He put his head under and kicked gorgeously and tried many times to push off from the side and paddle to me. He'll be swimming by the end of the summer, I think.

Where is everyone today?

10:39 P.M. It was a perfect day. Not every day turns out like this, but I am happy that this was the day I picked to keep my camera close at hand and record moments.

After our swim at the pond DH and I worked out, Sprout watched and Bean painted.

Then Bean and Sprout did some chilling out with books.

Then dinner. Pasta with fresh basil, oregano, chives, tomatoes, olives, and sausage.

And the best raspberry cobbler ever. EVER. (so easy to make: 1 c. flour + 1c. whipped cream folded together with 4 tsp. sugar for the crust--apply in lumps over 2 pints raspberries w/ 1/4-1/2c. sugar and 4tbs butter cut into small pieces. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.) DIVINE.

I loved reading the comments today. There is something so fascinating to me about the minutia of life. I am really looking forward to some of you doing some live blogging too. A peak into your world as it unfolds.

Media Habits

Wednesday. When I type that word I think of fifth grade, of the yellow lined paper I used to practice spelling it on in loopy cursive, Wed-nes-day. I still say it that way in my head when I write it out.

Funny how certain things stick and others evaporate in a second. Just as I was writing this I thought of the premise for a perfect short story. By the time I’d pulled up a new sticky note on my desktop, it had slipped my mind and all I could remember was the fact that I need to email several friends and am very remiss in doing so. Maddening.

Memory. It’s such a loopy, lumpy thing, like an old floral couch with little spots burned in the fabric from where the sun struck it, shining through a vase on the windowsill just so.

I remember my childhood vividly and sporadically. From fifth grade I remember learning the entire Greek alphabet, all of the prepositions in alphabetical order, how to spell Wednesday, and how I kicked Zachary O’Day in the crotch with those slouchy pointy toed boots that were all the rage along with acid washed jeans in 1986.

I do not however, remember yesterday, unless I put some serious mental effort towards the task.

No. That isn’t true. I do remember the way last night we decided to go with a red metal bucket to pick raspberries down by the pond and a quarter of the way there ran into two stray dogs. One was a yellow lab with one of those pronged collars that look vaguely threatening, and the other was a black wisp of a dog with floppy ears and lanky legs and pale ghost blue eyes, part husky for sure. They weren’t from around here. Not any of the neighbor's dogs, and when we went towards them they ran, away from us, up our hill, towards our house and our free range chickens.

Incidentally, just yesterday DH decided that our two month old chicks were old enough to go free range, without the enclosure we normally put them into. And by decided, I mean he took the path of least resistance, as they had escaped him when he was trying to transfer them from the large wooden box where they spend the night in the coop, to the enclosure on the lawn. They escaped and he decided to hell with them. So they were out under the pine all day and just fine except that now of course two feral and rather hungry looking dogs were heading right towards them.

We ran back up our hill, pushing the stroller with Sprout who indignantly began to wail and Bean, who dropped his bike and skittered up after us, his yellow helmet bobbing, his eyes on the sky where thunder had begun to rumble. "I saw lightening," he said, his voice all quavery. "It might get us."

Seriously, when it rains it pours around here.

And so there we were, trying to deter the dogs by yelling and throwing rocks in their general direction, and then trying to catch and re-coop the not so big and definitely not so smart chicks who would make a mad dash for the coop door and then at the very last minute would scatter frantically in all directions.

I remember this. Yes I do. But what I don’t remember—unless I stop now and really think of it—is what I read yesterday, what I learned, what media I consumed. And I’ve been thinking about that since my last post: how I am maybe suffering from information/networking overload and what to do about it.

And I came up with this: For the rest of the week I am going to try to keep notes here about my media habits and see where this gets me. Likely, I'll be back with my first record this afternoon. You in?

Already here

A little bit of photo booth goofiness for your Wednesday. It's how we started our morning, at the counter and on the couch smooching and giggling, me and my two boys. (Don't you just love Bean's little broccoli top?)

It is already mid June. I can't believe it really. How the time blurs once the days warm up. Buttercups are everywhere, daisies, the first wild strawberries in little glades at the edge of the woods.

The goose is broody. Bean stuck two hens eggs into the warm circle of her nest and there she sits, some patient instinct advising her to hunker down and wait for new life to happen.

The New Hampshire reds we got in the mail a few weeks ago are feeling plucky with a new set of rust colored feathers. They’re in an outside run now, scuttling about, catching bugs. They’re fun to watch. I love the way instinct summons chickenness for them. It’s evident in all the ways that they are: heads bobbing, peeping to one another sociably, grooming their new plumage, and to think they’ve never had a mother.

We’re so different, with our long babyhood, then childhood stretching out for years and years. I watch Bean learn new words. He repeats them, uses them in context. I am utterly enamored with the way he is right now: full of drawings and ideas. His pictures are jam-packed with action: wheels turning, light switches, fire hoses, robots, homes for little mice.

On his bike he’s become a daredevil, skidding to a stop, making dizzy loops around the road, cutting tight corners, riding over the bumpiest of potholes at high speeds. I love watching him ride. I love his yellow thunderbolt helmet and his lightening grin as he passes by, legs going at top speed. He is perpetually dirty this summer. Jam on his shorts, on his chin. Mud on his feet and grass stains. He goes through two sets of clothes a day, easy. Sometimes more.

In the garden we’re mostly done planting. Bean comes down with me in the morning while Sprout naps, and we get an hour or so in before we hear him on the monitor.

This year's crop: moon & stars melons, sugar babies, lemon cucumbers, zucchini, yellow crook-necked squash, potatoes, rainbow chard, yellow peppers, five kinds of tomatoes, purple cabbage, carrots, broccoli, radishes, four kinds of lettuce, spinach, ashworth corn, onions, parsley, dill, thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, chives and sage.

As the short growing season heats up, I’ll be planting more flowers, more carrots, more cucumbers for pickling (DH has a ridiculous pickle habit). We never got our act together with the berries, but Bean and I have scoped out a copious patch down by the neighbor’s pond that we aim to visit in a couple of weeks.

We have fun in the garden. I made Bean a tepee out of slender logs. Then gave him a packet of beans to plant, and sunflowers, and pumpkins all around. Today while I was spreading straw he came down to the garden dragging a quilt to hang over the tipi frame. Inside is a quiet secret little boy space full of packed dirt and small rocks, a pine bow for a broom, a magic door. In his bouncy seat, Sprout watches, pleased as peas.

I realize lately that I haven’t written about Sprout much. I expected to have more to say, honestly. I expected it to be harder, to be more of a fight to adjust to life with two boys, but in truth it’s been a breeze. He sleeps. That’s the main thing. And I say this with utter awe and gratitude and reverence because Bean did not sleep so I know. But Sprout sleeps and he smiles and he’s trying to sit up already. He lies on his belly and watches Bean play with matchbox cars and he’s as happy as a little fat clam. He grins and he giggles when you zerber his tummy, and he mostly just feels like he’s been here with us forever. Four of us.

I know this post is all over the map. I've been working on my book every night after the boys go to bed, more words there, less words here I guess. But I have questions for you today. A little bit of informal research.

What does settling down mean to you?

How does marriage change you?

How do children change you?

If you could chose all over again (or if you have not yet chosen), would you stay footloose and single? Why or why not?

Hmmmm

Skunks. Dear lord, the skunks. What to do about a skunk living potentially under one's house? There seems to be no clever, scentless way to remove them from one's life. Two days ago we found one IN the chicken coop eating corn off the floor at dusk. DH threw rocks at it, missed of course, sent a rock through the window in the coop. SMOOTH. Yesterday evening he hadn't had quite enough of the rock throwing business and lay in wait a twilight and heaved a veritable boulder in the skunk's general direction. The result. SPRAY. SO. MUCH. SPRAY. I could have told him as much. But boys have a thing with rocks.

As a result, we've been stumbling about in a stinky fog with the windows open, knowing that there is a potentially rather grumpy skunk asleep under our dining room waiting for dusk. Thoughts?

Hello June.

June is one of my favorite months: cloud-torn skies, hail, thunderstorms, and sudden rainbows above the wet curled ferns and the newly shorn woolly backs of sheep, their noses black and soft like crumpled velvet, let out to graze in pastures of suddenly tall grass.

Its easy to be grateful in June, to watch the poplars bend and bend and bend in the wind without breaking, and to feel glad. It’s easy to want to be something in June, to want to be alive, and to be living also: to want to push past whatever was holding things back. Tiredness matters less when the clear air is full of swallowtails and the scent of hyacinth.

June, and there are deadlines. Lots of them, for writing, for making ever minute I have with the quiet clicking of the keyboard count. Dare I whisper the word chapter? Dare I say book?

June, and the baby chicks arrived. We pulled on our rainboots Friday morning and went out to the truck across the muddy gravel drive to fetch them from the hardware store. Bean carried them home in a small cardboard box on his lap, peering in, grinning at their soft fuzzy little bodies bumping up against each other and peeping. Now they’re in the garage in a big wooden box under the red warm circle of the heat lamp. Bean pulls up a step ladder and sits on his feet peering over the edge, naming them, and then naming them again, Betsy, Jemima, Ornament, Daffodil, Sugar.

June, and the mercury is still playing shy, the temperature flirting with warm, barely. At the pond, we’re finding frogs now. They plop into the water when we wade through the tall reeds. Above us, flying in wide swooping arcs that make my heart ache with pleasure, bluebirds, streaks of summer sky.

When we eat cold watermelon on a quilt in the back yard, Bean says, “When you eat watermelon it feels like a refrigerator in your mouth.”

Later, looking at the mountains he tells me, “Mommy, don’t you think a monster's teeth look just like the mountains? They’re all jaggedy like that.”

***

June: reading more short stories, getting more words on the page. On the treadmill and the road, running faster, harder, farther. My body is feeling stronger (it’s the first time in my life I’ve done any kind of weights or jump training. Thank you 30 Day Shred.)

Sprout is trying to sit up. Trying to roll from his back to his stomach. This month will be all about documenting those changes (and about getting my camera fixed!) He is such a smiley little dude. Full of patience and grins and squeals. He is the perfect sidekick, grinning at me from the grocery cart or the Ergo. LOVE. What does June look like for you? What are you planning? Doing? Reading? Watching? Eating?

A new productive

Hi. It's a rainy Friday, and sadly I haven't posted nearly as much as I'd hoped this week. Excuses: my camera is broken (alas, DH accidentally dropped it) and every available minute at the keyboard was spent finishing a piece I want to send out today. Also: 7 baby New Hampshire red chicks in a box arrived this morning at the hardware store for us; and in spite of the rain and the rather unseasonably chilly weather, I spent yesterday morning putting seedlings (chard, more lettuce, cabbages, broccoli and herbs) into the ground with Bean. The chicks are now in a big wooden box in the garage huddled under a heat lamp. The garden is a mess of mud. And I'm feeling all kinds of quivery about sending writing out. I love to write. Love to be published. But god, submitting work feels a lot like perpetually hearing the sound of nails on a chalkboard. It's so anti-climatic and off putting to work so hard on something and then to send expecting to maybe hear something back in ninety days or never. Still. If there was just one thing I could do in the world, it would be this.

I've been thinking about my time and how I use it this week. How I find myself many days in a state of harried heartache wishing I were writing while I'm doing everything but. How some days, especially rainy indoor days, the repetition of folding laundry and putting glasses away, making snacks and attaching treads to little Lego vehicles feels just about as futile as a hamster on a wheel.

I think there will always be this. It's what motherhood has come to mean for me. This push pull. This tug, this feeling of being pulled asunder, this way and that by the deep drum beat of my creative self and my love for my boys. And I do love them. Adore. Nothing makes me feel quite the way they do, with their smiles and long lashes. It is just that still when I'm asked about what it is that I do, the word "mother" rarely comes to mind, though this is what I do for a great part of every day.

And because daytime is typically boy time, I've decided to stop wimping out on the couch at the end of the day after they are asleep. Instead I've been writing furiously, and then running three miles on the treadmill. As a result I've felt insanely more productive this week. Maybe more sleep deprived too. But who cares? A piece is finished, and I ran 2 miles in 17 minutes last night, so it's all good. Right?

When do you find time? How? What are the non-negotiable things you feel like you need to do in your life in order to be really living it? How do you fit these things in?

Trying to get focused (and it's not really working)

It’s been like pulling hens teeth to get words on the page here lately. Life is happening full tilt and I’m all over the map. Things are busting out everywhere: dandelions, rhubarb, fiddleheads, grass. We have allergies, Bean and I. We are a display of loud, honking nose blowing, in the morning We eat fresh bread with tahini and honey; drink lattes over ice; and make our way to the mail box, the four of us, Bean on his bike, Sprout on me, and our goose bumbling behind, orange feet fwapping the gravel. We foray out, Bean ahead of us, wearing his yellow thunderbolt helmet, knees going around as fast as they possibly can, sneaker to the pedal. He is a whir, a blur, a sudden mess of limbs splat on the gravel. He gets up, brushes the gravel off hands, grins, rides off chattering.

Along the edges of the road the grass is growing tall. Pollen everywhere. The other day Bean was covered head to toe in hives after playing outside all day long in the windy, pollen heavy air. The kid is still throwing us curveballs with his health. With everything actually. This is a new phase. FOUR. Years. Old. He’s a big deal. “Look how strong my muscles are!” He tells us, flexing his bean-pole biceps. “I’m a superhero!” he yells, as he runs to fetch a diaper for Sprout.

Everything is a big deal. Everything is confusing and complex and full of danger and delight and curiosity. Everything is worthy of negotiation. He has an opinion about everything. It’s exhausting, sometimes. It’s a totally different ballpark parenting a kid than it is parenting a baby. In some ways, it makes the whole baby thing a piece of cake. Things are simpler when they revolve around four things: eat, sleep, poop, smile.

Sprout is three months old and brimming with gummy grins. It happened so fast, these past three months. With Bean I remember practically crossing off the days on the calendar, waiting for the three months, waiting for a time when he would be less fussy and I would get more sleep, but with Sprout, the days have just slipped by. He is a sleeper, a grinner, a delight. He lights up when he sees his big brother. He coos. He rolls over (tummy to back) and grabs things tight in his hands. In his sleep he practices laughing now. His little rib cage rising and falling with giggles about things without words, smiles fluttering about his face like humming birds.

Bean is ALL BOY now, no shred or scrap of toddler left in him, except for in the secret soft scent of his hair when he wakes up from a nap. He draws detailed robots , and pictures of people with many toes and big smiles. He draws alligators and diggers and suns with bright rays and monsters with many teeth. He writes his name on everything. He knows all his letters. He is obsessed with things that are “dangerous.” “Beavers can be dangerous,” he tells me matter of factly. “Because look at their big sharp teeth.” Other things that are dangerous according to Bean: moose (they can step on you!), monsters, earthquakes, alligators, tornados, bears, and pirates.

When he comes downstairs from a reluctant nap (he still needs them, but fights every. single. one.) his cheeks are rosy, his nose snuffly with allergies, his feet bare. He curls up in the crook of my arm as I type, and notices that I don’t use my left thumb as I write. “Why?” he asks. He asks why about every little thing in the whole world lately, and it’s a challenge because somewhere in the human brain there is a bit of hardwired code that makes a person compelled to answer that word.

On our way back from our walk, we trundle up the driveway hauling Bean’s bike and two day’s worth of Wall Street Journals. We stop at the coop to collect a half dozen smooth eggs in pale blue and brown. The chickens are finally starting to grow in new feathers after molting and looking generally ridiculous. We have more chicks coming in the mail next weekend. New Hampshire Reds and ‘chocolate layers’ that supposedly lay gorgeous dark brown eggs.

Spring is in full tilt. The garden beds are tilled. I’ve jumped the gun and planted some seedlings, and got my comeuppance immediately: the thermometer dipped, and the poor melons, I’m afraid they’re not going to make it. I must have been afflicted by a case of severe optimism to think I could get away with putting crookneck and honeydews in the ground before memorial day. I live in zone 5b after all. Last frost date: May 25. Sigh.

This week I’m determined to get back into posting. I can't honestly put a finger on why the cat’s got my tongue recently. Maybe I hit the delete key too much? I’m editing two short stories, and my time to write comes at me like a bone tossed at a dog: whenever, wherever. I’m not always prepared to gnaw the marrow of new words. I need some inspiration!

What does spring look like where you are? Tell me things. What are you doing this week? What are you planting? Eating? Listening to? Reading?

Adventures in food:: a perfect spring dinner

Hi. Happy Friday! How was your week? Mine was full of serendipity and unexpected gifts from strangers. Finding things in common. A date at a french bistro, shiraz and lively music. A dreamy Sprout. A bike-riding, giggling goofball Bean. Lots to tell about, when I get more than a half hour to write. In the meantime, here is an absolutely perfect dinner I simply had to share. I used to be so afraid of cooking/baking. Gradually I am discovering how much I love it. Especially when food is simple, like these recipes are: just a few ingredients, fresh, local, in season.

Best Springtime Salad Ever 1 bunch fresh asparagus 1 large handful sugar snap peas 1/2 head red lettuce 1/2 head romane lettuce (or improvise with whatever are the freshest best salad greens you can find!) grilled flank steak

Just barely saute asparagus & peas in a little lemon and olive oil. Turn the heat off when the asparagus is just tender, but still a bit crispy. Throw veggies onto a bed of fresh lettuce. Add one whole avocado sliced. Grill the steak until just medium rare. Slice thinly and add to the salad just before serving.

I used Brian's delicious vinaigrette. I used a seedy dijon mustard, thyme, tarragon, and parsley. Apply lavishly. Toss. DELICIOUS.

Inspired by Nigella's Hearthbread from How To Be A Domestic Goddess. So easy. And it turned out perfectly. Light, soft, flavorful, crusty.

3 1/2 c. white bread flour (I have found that actually using bread flour as opposed to substituting with just anything, really does make a difference!) 1 T. instant yeast (I used SAF Instant) 1 T. salt 1 1/3 c. warm water 5-ish T. olive oil 1-2 heads garlic 1 T. fennel seeds 1 T. herbs de Provence 1 handful parsley more olive oil

Preheat to 400. Mix flour, yeast & salt. Add water and olive oil. Stir until dough forms, add more liquid as needed. Make dough into a ball & knead until it feels really soft and supple. Put into a oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel & put in a warm place (a sunny windowsill is my new favorite spot for rising dough. In the winter, by the wood stove.)

While the dough is rising: peel heads of garlic, put onto tinfoil & drizzle with olive oil. Wrap loosely to make a little package & roast in the oven at 400. In a food processor pour a good splash or two of olive oil & add parsley. Give it a whirl. Then add the garlic once it has baked until it is golden and soft.

Reduce oven heat to 375.When the dough is double in size, deflate it, divide dough in half, put parchment paper on two baking sheets, and roll out dough to form a bulky rectangle or oval. I used my hands to stretch the dough. I found it very supple and easy to work with--no rolling necessary. Transfer the breads on their papers to baking sheets, cover with tea towels and let rise for 25 minutes until they are puffy. Then poke your fingers all over the tops of them to dimple them. Spread the garlic/parsley/olive oil mixture on one. On the other spread the fennel seeds, herbs de Provence, and more olive oil. Put them into the oven and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes until breads are cooked and golden.

The only way to eat this bread is greedily. With bare hands.

For dessert, fresh rhubarb grunt (also a Nigella recipe.) I use this recipe a lot, with any kind of spring or summer fruit (I described the peach version here,) but rhubarb in springtime is quintessential and utterly grand.

Grunt: Cut 4-5 stalks rhubarb into slices and place them in the bottom of a pie pan with a few dabs of butter and a sprinkle of sugar. Mix 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1-1 ½ cups whipped cream together until it becomes a sticky dough. Place dough in mounded spoonfuls on top of peaches and bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes until the top is golden brown and the rhubarb bubbly.

*** Do you have any favorite spring recipes to share?

Weekend Topographs::7

Too many favorites from the weekend to just post one pair of topograph photos. Since I've been doing these I've become so much more aware of my environment. Of textures, light, sound, color. How one experience influences another, how one image brings something to the next. Delight is effortless when I take notice.

White wine & stake frites, just him & holding hands, window shopping & pretty dresses, ice creams, 85 degrees, sunset on the lake.

Spring finally, catching tadpoles, rubber boots, woodpeckers, small boy wipe-outs on the bike, Neosporin, compost, more seed starts, the first sunburn of the season.

An impromptu Sunday road trip, the best BLT ever, old train stations, collard greens & trout, cupcakes, piano jazz, picking daffodils, and remembering that sometimes making memories and being present is enough. More than enough.

*** What was your weekend like?

pancakes & dumplings

He is on the mend. All your love after my last post meant the world to me. I laugh now at how worked up we managed to get ourselves. But then I stop laughing and am deeply, profoundly grateful. Google + parenting = not such a great idea sometimes. No? I love the Anna Quindlin quote that Julie shared so much.

Right now: At the kitchen counter after breakfast. He's eaten four pancakes after helping DH make them. Martha's recipe, which is the best. Fresh blueberries. On the windowsill the first spring peaches, from Mexico, but still. Out in the back yard robins are gathering dried grass for nests. The sky is overcast, rain threatening.

Bean climbs up into my lap and we snap pictures. A silly face, now a pouty one. We giggle in between. Both of us look rediculous. I am addicted to the sound of his laughter. I can't help it. I tickle him just to get a fix. I am so happy this kid is feeling better. The past two mornings he's woken up declaring "I'm HUNGRY." Love it.

Apparently he's playing catch-up. Today pancakes, last night two orders of dumplings at our local pacific islands restaurant. He loves brightly colored wooden masks they have hanging on the walls. I love the paper parasols hanging from the ceiling, twirling in the breeze of the ceiling fan. Outside people walked by in droves. He wants new flip flops. I'm already wearing mine. We're both bare feet people.

Right now: the dryer is on and Bean has obviously left quarters in his pockets. They clank about but we don't do anything about it. DH and Bean are making plans to go to the dump, then to rent a rototiller. Time to turn over the soil in the garden; though it's cold today and spitting. Likely we'll go out with gloves and rain boots anyway. Get really dirty. Bean will collect earthworms. Then we'll make hot chocolate and eat fresh bread.

Later, I'll share the recipe, and some photos of my beautiful two month old Sprout.

What are your Saturday plans?

Still pregnant & bumbling

In case you were wondering. Feeling the soporific effects of sunshine. Also feeling rather hippo-ish and bumbling. I napped for about 3 straight hours this morning after a ridiculous night of waking up a zillion times. Woke up feeling entirely out of it and have been sort of stumbling around the house ever since.

I am trying to get some code sorted out. I moved servers over the weekend, and now photos won't post...yet. When everything's in order again, I have so many yummy photos of Bean at his birthday to share.

Unscheduled time

In the back yard animal tracks zig-zag the snow like hieroglyphs spelling secret messages of those that came before. The air is bitter cold. The windchill much below zero. But the light is perfect and golden against the snow; the shadows purple and long, making zebra stripes of light and dark at the edge of the woods. The light makes all the difference. Even from indoors, the light makes things golden and dappled and suffuse with goodness. On the picture windowsill indoors I'm keeping orchids. On the counter in the kitchen cyclamen. They glow. Hot pinks, decadent and delicate. They make me smile.

All week things have been making me smile. Making a mobile for above the baby's bed; walnuts and honey on toast; a new notebook for February; bringing a carrot cupcake to Bean when I pick him up from school; actually finishing a book.

Like unpacking summer clothes, I've been unpacking myself from the strange cramped quarters of stress that had taken over my days. I have a sense of humor, patience, and the ability to remember things. All this is remarkable, really, since before this week I felt like a deranged robot, going through the motions of every day, always on the verge of tears, exhausted beyond the point of... anything.

For the first time in years, I'm kind of in the mood for Valentines day. Maybe I'm just looking for a reason to celebrate.

Yippee

Done with work. Done. Soo happy.

Last night, beautiful dark snow squalls. Leaving work, it looked like a rainbow rinsed of color in the sky above the door. An arch of gray and white, the first fat flakes hitting my tear stained cheeks.

This morning, blue skies, blue jays plump against the cold in the lilac tree by the feeder, golden light on the bar branches.

Eating Irish oatmeal, cream and strawberries & making lists in this notebook.

Numbers

Yesterday was my birthday. I am 31. This terrifies me somewhat. Friday is the end of my work week--and the beginning of my leave. This excites me. Next Tuesday I'll be 37 weeks. Full term. Not sure what to think about this. I am on auto-pilot until then. Wishing I could just hit fast forward. Photo by M. Brott.

35 Weeks

I am enormous. Every time I bend over the baby resists with a sharp kick. I can feel the outline of his little feet, his rump, his determined knees. Because real estate in my belly is at a premium, he's taken up residence under my ribs. My groin ligaments feel like spaghetti. It seems beyond improbable that I have five more weeks. In theory. I have this gut feeling (no pun intended) that he'll be a couple of weeks early, like his big brother.

In the meantime everything feels like it's been taking place in slow motion. Everything takes effort: putting on winter boots, painting my toes (yes, I still can), vacuuming. Mostly I am counting the days--9 to be exact--until I am done with work. I am eager to be on leave. Eager to be home, nesting, puttering, blogging regularly. I know I've been a terrible blogger. I miss it, but I feel like I'm on energy saver mode, trying to get through these last couple of weeks at work where twenty-two kiddos are trying to devour me daily.

I need distraction. What are some new blogs you've been reading? Or some favorites (not already listed on my sidebar.)