In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Have you heard about this book (by the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma?)

If you haven't read it yet, go put it on reserve at your local library today. I'm serious--this book will change (meaning prolong/save) your life.

(Mouse over the Goodreads sidebar to see my review there).

growing up

Today I stayed home from church (and slept for the entire three hours, despite having woken up only 3 hours before!), so when Abigail got home she kissed me and said, "Mommy, at church today I was the mommy and helped Daddy with Juliet because you are still feeling sick."

A little emotional, I held her in my arms and said, "Oh honey, you're getting so big so fast. You're not my teeny tiny baby anymore and you're growing up into such a big girl."

She put her arms around me in turn, looked into my eyes, and said, "Mommy, I am growing up and so I can take care of you, but I will always be your baby and love you. I will just always be your baby."

So grateful for that sweet little girl (who two minutes ago told me, "Grandma calls these [fruits] 'clementines,' so I taught her how to say 'oranges.' That was pretty nice"). Some three-year-old days are rough, but some are glorious.

swollen-jawed and feeling loved

Recovery has been surprisingly good.

Initially there was some serious concern (which they didn't tell Neil about until the operation was underway) that I would permanently lose sensation in my lower jaw because of root entanglement with the nerve. Fortunately, the operation went much better than expected and I haven't even experienced the one to two month loss which was then predicted. I was pretty knocked out for the first few hours (although I remember the actual procedure pretty quickly, especially telling the nurse groggily, "I do feel just a bit discombobulated" and being upset with Neil for laughing at me when I tried to explain something in French), but I felt well enough over the last two days that I could really enjoy having my mom here. It was wonderful to be able to spend a lot of time talking with her, even if I was speaking between ice packs that mostly covered my face. I love my mom so much--it was just so wonderful having her here and getting lots of time with her all to myself.

On that note, what I've been thinking about a lot (mostly during the sleepless hours of the night when things seem to just hurt a LOT) is how much love I've felt and how grateful I am for the people around me. From Abigail's question every morning, "How are you today, Mommy? Are you still sick? Can I see your teeth? Can you talk in a loud voice and read stories?" to Juliet's wet smacking kisses to the perfectly cooked custards and delicious scrambled eggs my mom kept making while she entertained the girls and kept them fed and clean so I didn't have to worry about a thing, or the creme brulee that Neil cooked and served up late last night to tempt my appetite, or the yogurt that he spoon-fed me at 2 am when I was so nauseated that I couldn't move while he looked at my puffy face and tear-filled eyes and told me "You're so beautiful, honey," and the hours and hours of rubbing my back through the night so that I could be soothed to sleep when I woke up every hour or so. And I've received so many thoughtful phone calls and emails (including--literally--several dozen from my students!) with good wishes and kind thoughts.

It's a nice thing to think about in the middle of the night when you hurt a lot--how much love there is surrounding you. And how blessed you are by the people in your life. And how you can give back.

under the knife

no posts for a few days--I'm off in an hour to get 4 teeth yanked! But my mother is here, I stocked the 'fridge yesterday, and I got in a good run this morning to relieve some of the tension, so we're all set!

from the archives

One September Sunday three years ago we gave our best buddy Kristin a ride home from church, since her husband had to stay after for a bishopbric meeting.

She had some markers in her scripture case.

This probably explains why Abigail always reprogrammed their CD player to go off at top volume every morning at 1:56 a.m. She was just trying to get a little midnight vengeance.

some truths

• The more stressed I am, the more I exercise (let's see if today tops yesterday's 6 miles). I think it's particularly bad right now because I'm trying to prepare everything possible before my wisdom teeth come out Thursday, except every last second of my free get-things-done time has gone to grading (excepting the five minutes I've just spent blogging with a grumpy keyboard-grabbing baby on my lap). It's a very stressful situation.
• Whenever I am taking dinner to someone, I have the most impossible day ever. Why is that? Is it because if I wasn't taking dinner to someone else, my family would be eating cold cereal for dinner (which has actually never happened, probably because I always have those days on a day when dinner is going somewhere). Or is it the stress of taking dinner that creates the crazy day? (although today is just crazy anyway: two visiting teaching appointments, the last of the grading pile, a very angry Juliet who won't nap, an appointment this evening, and abigail's dance class). so I must ask: which came first, the chicken or the egg?
• My children never nap on Tuesday. This is the only day I really need them to nap (because of aforesaid dance class). We're on the fourth week of napping strike on Tuesday--it's getting a little old.
• And last but not least, I do believe I have the funniest and sweetest three year old ever. Last night she asked for me to read Bread and Jam for France when I was putting her to bed, and said, "Mommy, I picked that one 'cause I know it's your favorite." And secondly, she dressed up "like Mommy" yesterday in this winner of an outfit:

nothing to say, yet somehow a lot to say

I feel like I should blog just out of habit, although I really don't have anything much to say, other than I WISH I HAD MORE TIME. Today has been one of those mad scramble dash days. Teaching in the morning followed up by visiting teaching followed by frantic grading, email-responding, website-fixing, and bill-paying while the girls nap (or while Juliet naps and Abigail looks at books in her room).

Can I just say what a blessing to my sanity it is that Abigail will (usually) stay in her room for two hours entertaining herself? I realize this is an unusual quality in a three-year-old. I am beyond grateful. And speaking of three-year-olds, the star chart that we did to improve her mealtime manners worked so well that we're doing one for general obedience (although it's rather complex and involves moving fuzzy pompoms from "happy face" and "sad face" jars depending on whether she obeys or not, then they're totaled at the end of the day and if the majority are in the happy jar she gets a smiley face on her chart). Guess what her prizes are for seven days of good behavior? Little Mermaid underwear. I'll have to remember these days with fondness when she's sixteen and insisting that she just really needs her own car.

Mondays are always hectic, it seems. Neil is home for an hour or so for dinner and FHE, then he goes back to the lab until midnight or so, so a lot of the day feels like we're just in super-work mode. I'm glad that I'm mostly through my to-do list for the day (although I still need to clean the kitchen, read stories to the girls, put clean sheets on my bed, and run my 3 miles), and I'm glad that I have a very simple dinner planned tonight: fresh whole-wheat bread, roasted sweet potatoes casseroled with homemade applesauce, ginger, and coconut, Muenster cheese, antique apples (from the apple festival Saturday), garden tomatoes, and the last of the summer's fresh beans.

I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

busy weekend

This weekend has gone pretty fast--lots of things to do.

For starters, we had a ward social on Friday. Since our ward is pretty transient with all the grad students, we always have big socials in the fall as sort of an introductory thing for all the new families. It's nice, but this year I felt like I didn't get to talk much with anyone because I was so busy chasing after wayward children dumping sand in their hair or making a wild break for the woods.

We came home with two very sand-encrusted children. I was so thankful for the patience of the older youth playing volleyball--they were really careful not to tromp on the thirty or so little kids digging in the sand at the edge of the court.

Case in point--here I am trying to hold Juliet in my lap while I chatted with a friend. Juliet was ready to get back to sand-throwing.

Abigail with her best friend Elise--it is so wonderful how well these two little girlies get along. At the same time, it makes me so sad to think about how devastated Abigail will be when they move in a year or so.

But for now we'll just enjoy the friendship.

On Saturday we went to a nearby town for their apple and popcorn festival. I admit I was a little disappointed--I was hoping for tons of apples everywhere and all kinds of apple pies, turnovers, crisps, cobblers, and caramels...and there were like 2 people selling apples and a booth giving away microwave popcorn. Mostly there were a LOT of people selling what Neil calls "handicraps."

But we did find a selection of the most beautiful cucurbits and chrysanthemums I have ever seen. I wanted to take every single one home with me. I especially liked the speckled warty ones. In the end, however, I restrained myself to a few mini gourds, a pie pumpkin for each of the girls (Abigail's pumpkin has been lovingly wrapped in a soft scarf and carried around with her all weekend while she whispers soft nothings to it), and a big orange and white striped lovely. But oh, how I wish I had the space to grow all of these at my house, because I LOVE the variety and the colors and the interestingness of them all! Don't these just shout "AUTUMN!" to you?

After various projects and heaps of grading, we wound up our Saturday by babysitting for our date night group. Six little girls--it was quite the night. Let's just say there were a lot of princess-related activities going on.

And then the kids went home, we put our girls to bed, I started making pesto, and Neil slashed through his hand with the immersion blender. There was blood all over the kitchen (it looks like someone shook a paintbrush filled with red paint all over the cabinets and walls and floor). There was blood all over Neil. There were a few very panicked minutes (although I calmed down once I realized that all the blood was only coming from one finger, not the three that I had originally thought. He ended up with a deep cut all the way around his left index finger that wrapped around and extended through the nail. We ended up deciding not to go to the ER, since the bleeding stopped, the cut didn't seem to be gaping, and he could still feel everything but he will probably go in and have it checked today or tomorrow for nerve/circulation damage.

In other words, an exciting wrapup to a low-key day!

Talk like a pirate day!

We celebrated "Talk Like a Pirate Day" by watching Pirates of the Caribbean. If you haven't gotten into the spirit yet, make sure you do all your Googling via this link: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-pirate

glory be!

Remember last year when Awesome Neil built this really huge fence around our (big corner lot) lawn, and I sort of helping by mixing concrete and holding posts?

Yeah, that was a big project. But it fit right in, since we were repainting, oh, like THE ENTIRE HOUSE and tearing out tile and the like. It was just the summer of projects.

Anyway, the nice thing about building the fence (aside from the fact that Neil did most of the work) was that it seemed to go fairly quickly. Abigail was content to bang on boards with nails, and apart from the occasional exciting kill-the-carpenter-bee-with-a-tennis-racket game, things were pretty tame.

Since you're supposed to let things sort of weather for a year before you attack it again, this summer's project was staining the fence. Holy cow. That is a BIG PROJECT. Mostly because the stain is too thick to go in a sprayer, so you're applying it by hand to about 1,856, 354 miles of fence (although it went faster because Awesome Neil decided to start doing the big sections with a paint roller, so we only had to use a brush for about a quarter of it). And since you can only do it when the weather's just right and the rain blah blah temperature things etc., it's been our project for the last two months. Which means that our fence has been sort of interestingly colored for the last two months, like this:

Oh yeah, and we had to stain the swingset too.

Anyway, all this buildup is to announce the following:

WE ARE DONE STAINING! YAAAAYYYY!!!

The last two nights we've just buckled down and gone at it. We've previously been trying to paint only when the kids are asleep, but it gets dark now before they go to bed, and it keeps raining on Saturdays during naptime, so yesterday we finished with only a few casualties: Juliet's clothes were utterly destroyed (she rubbed her little backside over a freshly-painted section, but she was wearing oldish clothes so it wasn't a huge deal), Juliet dipped her hands in a bucket of stain up to the wrist (literally while I was painting the very last board), Juliet devoured several green tomatoes and one rotten cantaloupe (whose existence was previously unknown, since we did not plant cantaloupe this year), Juliet got very angry at green tomatoes and rotten cantaloupe being fished out of her mouth, etc. Abigail spent most of the time running around referring to herself as "Ariel" and begging "Eric," a.k.a. Juliet, to "leave the garden alone and come save me!"

Oh, and some other news: I called the dentist today, asked about alternative methods of pain medication, and found out that I can take a $35 pill previous to my wisdom teeth extraction (plus injectable oral anesthetic) as opposed to the $307 IV (which insurance doesn't cover at all) that they were planning to do. I'm really relieved about this, and irritated that they didn't give me an choice before (thank heavens for our home teacher, who mentioned this option to me this morning while we were riding the bus to school). So I am REALLY relieved about that. It brings the extraction down to just over $500, which is a lot nicer than $800.

And I'm more than halfway through my grading pile...and it's Friday!!

very sad day

This morning I went to the dentist.

Next week I get to go in and have all four wisdom teeth extracted. They're bad enough that I need IV sedation.

Oh, and (after insurance pays their bit!) the grand total for all the work the dentist recommends?

$1,850.

Neil's checkup is in two weeks. I am dreading the verdict there. I mean, we can pay for it and not go hungry or anything like that, but it's just a LOT of money that I would rather spend on something else (like tuition. Or a new transmission).

This is very depressing to me. Most of the time our "student lifestyle" and all the penny-pinching doesn't bother me, but going to the dentist is definitely one thing we've cut some corners on (this is my second checkup since I graduated from high school seven years ago. I wish my dang wisdom teeth had come in when I was still in high school, not when I was finishing college).

Woe is me...we're paying for it now.

rock star

Dear Juliet,

You are my fashion icon. Really.

Love,

Mama

my gal pals

Today the girls and I spent an hour decorating the sidewalk, ourselves, the grass, etc. with sidewalk chalk. It was so fun just relaxing with them and enjoying ourselves with a pile of grapes and Goldfishie crackers. And especially fun because I spent most of the time laughing hysterically at my kids--Juliet discovered that if she spat grapes out of her mouth with a "pop" noise, Abigail will laugh like a maniac, so that kept both of them entertained for a LONG time.

And then, of course, there were the classic Abigailisms, like "Careful, Mommy, because if you bask in the sun for too long you will turn all pink." Bask! I love that child's vocabulary. And then there was "Mommy, you traced me and I traced you, so now let's just draw Daddy so we have our family. Make sure you draw him with no hair and long legs," or when she looked over at Juliet's chalk-besmeared face, scrunched up her nose thoughtfully, then announced, "Mommy, I'm going to draw all over me so I'll look like Juliet."

Oh, those girls. They keep me laughing. A very welcome respite after two hours of grading during naptime--always fun to have them wake up and be my buddies again.

And last but not least, we picked up some new kicks for Juliet today, who is officially to the point where she must be shod when going outside. Words cannot describe how much this child loves these shoes. Tongue cannot tell the glee with which they were greeted--the giggling, the squealing, the hugging-to-herself.

Of course, they are pretty dang cute. I'd like a pair like this myself.

I don't mean to complain, but...

Dear Neil,

You never cease to amaze me. For a guy who insists he can't multi-task, you sure stepped up to the plate today!

Knowing that I was super stressed over all the grading I have to do this week, you managed to feed both kids breakfast, dress them in coordinating outfits, start the laundry, clean both bathrooms, get Jules an appointment with the pediatrician, and double-check that our dental insurance has indeed kicked in in time for my appointment tomorrow. Plus you even remembered to bring snacks and sippy cups to the "kid exchange" so that I could go to the pediatrician with contented and well-fed children.

You're just fabulous. And next time, it would be SO fabulous if you would just make sure that no disposable diapers go through the laundry with the rest of the clothes. Sound good?

I love you. I love that you keep me sane--and laughing (and the kids thought it was about the funniest thing ever that "crazy Daddy washed Julesie's diapie!")

election fun

My friend Bob asked me yesterday who I was planning to vote for. In a very lengthy reply, what I essentially managed to say is that I'm still deciding.

So in that spirit--and in the spirit of I'm too exhausted to blog today and this election is pretty crazy--you should watch this video if you haven't seen it yet.

If the embed isn't working for you, go here: http://www.jibjab.com/originals/time_for_some_campaignin

Time for Some Campaignin' | Funny Jokes at JibJab

delightfulness

I'm really loving the haircut. No regrets!

I don't have much time to write today, but I've been thinking a lot lately about how blessed I am and how many delightful things there are in my life. So I wanted to take five minutes and jot down some of those:

• Going to the library book sale this weekend, a quarterly activity that I look forward to so much. This was probably the best one yet that I've been to, and I found some real treasures--lots of out-of-print books that I remember from my childhood and I've had so much fun reading to the kids over the weekend.
• Starting up our date-night group again! Neil and I celebrated the anniversary of our first date (six years ago) and our first date in several months by doing lots of kid-unfriendly activities. We went out for a lovely candle-lit Thai dinner (extremely spicy, and the best eggplant I've ever had in my life), browsed through our favorite kitchen supply store, then walked around downtown in the rain, venturing into a few antiques shops, listening to the music on the street, and generally just having fun holding hands and being able to walk side by side.

A typical Neil the Engineer solution to a dilemma: no panini press? No problem.

• Watching the PBS documentary on the Mormons. I know it aired forever ago, but since we don't have cable we didn't see it, so I was really excited to see that the library had the DVD last week. We watched the first half last night, and had lots of things to discuss afterwards.
• I've been having so much fun talking about the upcoming election with Neil. It's sparked lots of animated discussions in our house, and we keep emailing each other links to various articles and speeches so that both of us can "read up" before that night's chat. We try to make sure we have conversations on a regular basis about things other than our kids, the house, etc., so the election is providing lots of fodder!
• Teaching--my classes are going really well and it's always so rewarding to see what a difference some instruction is making in my students' writing and level of confidence. We're just finishing up the introductory unit, which is on resumes and cover letters, and it's great to hear from various class members how much they've learned and to see the ENORMOUS differences in content and organization that they've been implementing in such an important set of documents. It makes me feel very satisfied.
  Abigail's side job: the Dinnertime Tortilla Phantom
  
• Watching my girls' personalities develop and seeing their individuality. They're both so creative and imaginative and fun, whether Juliet is saying "chuh, chuh, chuh" as she drags a wooden train around a track, or Abigail is donning a set of fairy wings and leaping off a table (when my back is turned) "just to see if I could fly real high, Mom, but I don't think it worked, so I probably need a higher table, okay?" Today Abigail declared a sheet of bubble wrap "her country" and was making up all sorts of stories about it. And Juliet loves to pull down all the kitchen towels and takes them back to the laundry room, which is her "den." She sits on the rug in front of the garage door, next to the washer, in a heap of toys and kitchen towels and shoes, and sings herself songs and plays and tries on everyone's shoes. It's the first place we always look when she goes missing--she just loves it there for some reason (and we are going through kitchen towels like crazy).

My teeny adorable Pocahantas. She loved wearing this...

Abigail has been waiting for months to pick the crabapples. Last night when I declared them to be ripe, she swathed herself in a length of daisy-speckled fabric, informed me that she was dressed in her beautiful princess berry-picking dress, and went out in the drizzle to pick herself a handful of tart jewel-hued fruit.

Methinks our rainy drizzly weekend may be spent inside making a few pots of jelly from these little beauties.

soapbox 2: food poisoning

One of the choices that I am really glad we've made as a family is to completely eliminate the consumption of partially hydrogenated oils in our home. Why? Because partially hydrogenated oils are one of the main dietary sources of trans fats. Generally, PH oils are used to prolong the shelf life of food products--they keep the chips crispy and the cookies soft. They're also the equivalent for your arteries of pouring bacon grease down a sink.

Let me share with you a few facts about trans fats (gleaned from Wikipedia):

• Between 30,000 and 100,000 cardiac deaths in the US each year may be attributed to trans fat consumption
• trans fats increase your bad cholesterol and lower your good cholesterol
• recent studies are suggesting that trans fat consumption may increase your risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, prostate cancer, breast cancer (75%!), type 2 diabetes, fat deposits on the abdomen, liver disfunction, and infertility (each 2% increase in trans fat vs. carb consumption correlates with a 73% increase in risk of ovulatory infertility)
• The National Academy of Sciences has concluded there is no safe level of trans fat consumption (however, as it occurs naturally in animal products, they have not recommended entire removal from your diet. Keep in mind, however, that trans fats from PH oils may contain 45% trans fat to total fat ratio, whereas butter is only 4%).
• and for you nursing mothers: trans fat consumption by the mother is directly related to the levels of trans fats in the breastmilk. Something to keep in mind, even if your 6-month-old isn't devouring Crisco.
• foods can be labeled as "trans fat free" if they contain less than .5 gram per serving. A better bet is to check the contents label (especially if the serving size is something ridiculously small).
• always check the contents label, period. Often foods that are labeled "low fat" or "fat free" have way more added crud, so you're actually worse off, plus it tastes nasty. Go ahead and eat your butter!

In other words, trans fats are NOT good for you. They will make you sick. And probably fat along with it.

Another thing we don't eat in our house: high fructose corn syrup. This isn't as obviously awful as trans fats and doesn't get as much media attention, but it's not a safe bet either. What's really frustrating about HFCS is it is in just about everything, especially the generic forms of name-brand foods. For instance, it's in the obvious things like soda pop, but it's also in ketchup, tomato soup, bread, Wheat Thins, graham crackers. As the Wikipedia article notes, the US tends to use a lot of HFCS because of import restrictions on sugar. No studies have conclusively linked HFCS to obesity, but many suggest correlating rises in the incidence of obesity and the increased use of HFCS (although this may be due to the fact that it is present in many foods that are already unhealthy).

Here's what we do eat in our house: foods that are as close to their original form as possible. With short ingredients lists. Organic ketchup. Double-churned ice cream. Butter, not margaine or Crisco. Homemade salsa. We bake our own bread or buy the heavy thick stuff. We eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Our kids snack on Goldfish and Triscuits (free from both HFCS and PH oils). We don't eat a lot of meat, and we try to boost our omega-3 intake with flaxseeds in our berry smoothies or wild-caught coldwater fish like salmon (farm-raised generally has contamination from mercury, etc.) The best thing about avoiding HFCS and PH oils is that we don't even bother with a lot of foods that we know are bad for us anyway, like potato chips (although we do occasionally eat trans fat-free Lays!) or soda or store-bought cookies, so we eat more healthily without consciously denying ourselves things like that, because we know that if it has "yuckies" in it, we just don't buy it.

Bottom line: we love food around here. We don't deprive ourselves. We NEVER diet. There's plenty of cookie-baking and ice cream-devouring going on around here. But we do think twice about what we're eating and what's gone into it. The trade-off, of course, is less convenience foods and more time spent in the kitchen. For our family, it's worth it (and it helps that I love cooking). But if you don't have a ton of time and you prefer ready-to-go meals, it's still easy to find healthier options--you may just have to branch out from your usual brands.

We're healthier than we were when we started this in January, and we feel really good about the choices we're making--especially because the choices we make affect not only ourselves, but also shore up the health of our children. One of the things that makes me feel like I'm really doing a good job mothering is knowing that the food I give to my children is good for them, will make them stronger, and is laying a strong healthy foundation for the rest of their lives.

Your thoughts??!

hodge podge

• It's getting colder here! Yesterday when we drove to the grocery store it was 57 degrees; we took our walk later wearing hats and sweaters. Today when I left at 7:30 to walk to the bus stop, I was a bit chilly wearing a light sweater and long pants. I LOVE FALL!
• Why do I love fall? Partially because it reminds me so much of our courtship. Neil and I first met six years ago today sitting next to each other in Honors American Heritage at BYU. I was a sophomore and had just turned 19; he was 22 and about six months off his mission. He struck up a conversation; I invited him to go to Devotional with my roommate and me (since he didn't really know anyone yet); he accepted, asked me out on a date two days later, and the rest is history.
• Both of my kids are obsessed with books that are way beyond them. For instance, Juliet spent an entire day last week running around with The Picture of Dorian Gray. Neil tried to take it away from her before we went somewhere, and she screamed so much that we gave in and ended up going to the hardware store toting a Oscar Wilde-espousing infant. Other recent favorites include The Virginian (which she dumped in the toilet, which really made me mad, since that's one of my very favorite books), The Age of Innocence, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, The Portrait of a Lady (that's my girl! Remember, that was the central work for my master's thesis), and The Jungle Book. Her all-time favorite appears to be The Wind in the Willows. What really amuses me is that she will sit down and carefully thumb through the pages (all text! no pictures!) for a loooong time. Crazy kid.
• And speaking of books...Abigail was curled up on the couch today with a cookbook and reading aloud to Juliet "Then Nephi told them to go find the chief judge. He would be lying in a pool of his OWN BLOOD! Murdered by his own brudder! His brudder!" (um...can you tell she's obsessed with Book of Mormon stories right now? And primarily the bloodthirsty ones? She told me today, rather gleefully, that Moroni was going off to kill the bad soldiers. O-kaay.
• Last weekend Neil and I both ended up getting a "gift" for ourselves (little purchases we've been debating for a while; it just randomly ended up both being at the same time). I thought our choices were funny when I juxtaposed them together afterwards. Ever-practical Neil bought more memory for the computer off some computer nerd website. Why? Because he thinks the computer is slowing down. Which is true.
  
  I bought a milk glass cake stand from eBay. Here was my reasoning: it bothers me to serve decorative exciting things on regular plates. Milk glass is cool because it's vintage and unique, not Walmart-manufactured and generic...but it's still really cheap on eBay. It has history. I tried to explain to Neil that it's the perfect solution to his holiday what-do-I-get-Rachael woes...a collection of $10 sweet-looking cake stands. I don't know if he really bought that idea, but I bet he'll be won over once he experiences the awesomeness of eating dinner off a cake stand (because he told me that if I was going to buy it, I better use it all the time to justify its presence. So dangit, I will!) And plus it was really exciting to buy something that was beautiful, not functional (as opposed to buying groceries, or little kid shoes, or paying the sewer bill. You know, things like that).
• Yesterday I made dilly beans. A lot of dilly beans (pickled green beans), because they are like Neil's favorite thing ever. I snapped the ends off of 15 lbs of green beans and made brine and bottled and processed all through naptime. I was so tired by dinner that when Neil came home to our pickle-smelling house I ended up locking myself in our bedroom alone with my dinner so that I could follow the "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" rule, because I knew I was not capable of being pleasant at that point to two very whiny children. So I stayed in my room until I was nice again and then I came out and did the dishes and read stories to the kids, and I was nice the rest of the day, except for that one time that I said a bad word in connection with the idea of painting the fence that night.
• Another thought: I keep reminding Neil that we need to go to the temple, like ASAP, because we haven't been since July. Is it bad that part of my motivation in really wanting to go SOON is because I also want to go to Ikea, Anthropologie, and Whole Foods while we're up in Chicago? And the zoo?
• And last but not least, Abigail has developed this Little Orphan Annie habit of sighing wistfully and saying in a very small, I-know-I'll-be-denied-but-perhaps-someday-my-dreams-will-come-true voice, "Oh, I wish I could have _____." So far it's been really funny to hear what she asks for. Some of my personal favorites thus far include a trampoline castle, a trip to the grocery store with the horsey ride, "fun," an umbrella, a pink ballerina doll, and--the one that really cracked me up--a brother.

And now I've got all my pent-up writing energy and rambling out and I am going to go READ! At naptime! FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOUR WEEKS!!!! I really should run, but I think I'll take my bike to the farmer's market today instead and count that for my exercise (believe me, it's serious exercise when you're pulling 70 lbs of children and bike trailer. Against the wind).

continued courting

When Neil got home from the lab last night (around 10:30 or so), I had just finished my evening run. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he carefully suggested that perhaps I would enjoy a shower before I enthusiastically hugged him any more.

When I got out of the shower, we spent a few minutes discussing our plans for the rest of the week. Then he asked me to close my eyes, gently took my hand, and led me into the living room. When I opened my eyes, I saw that he had gathered and lit all of the candles in the house around the perimeter of the room. He hit a button on the CD player, and Air Supply's "**Making Love Out of Nothing At All" began to play. He asked me to dance. So we danced.

It was lovely. In the busyness of the day and all our activities, I rarely have a chance to turn off the lights, close my eyes, and simply be held by my husband.

Then we turned the lights back on, shared a midnight panini, and spent an hour discussing politics, next summer's vacation, where we want to live when we graduate, and positive discipline strategies for our children.

It's lovely being married to him.

**Go here for lyrics.

and a couple more Abigailisms:

• (seeing a guy smoking on campus): "That man with the birthday candle in his mouth is going to die" (said VERY loudly).
• (seeing the ghetto college student couches out on the porches): "I wish I had an outside couch. I would just sit and watch the breeze."

math class

Neil: Abigail, if I have one popsicle and Mommy has one popsicle, how many popsicles are there?

Abigail: Two.

Neil: How many do I have if I give mine to Julesie?

Abigail: None.

Neil: What about if I have five popsicles and I give one to Mommy and one to Julesie? How many are left?

Abigail: Three! For me!!

Because I don't want to forget...

...that Indian food tastes delicious in the middle of the night (especially when you're snuggled up with your husband watching a movie)...



...that I used to have long hair (scroll down for more on that!)...

...that nothing is more exciting for a three-year-old than decorating for her favorite holiday a few weeks (or months) early...

...that a delightful family makes even the longest coldest outings worthwhile...

...that end-of-summer flowerbeds (sown from seed, might I add) are absolutely ravishing in the early morning...

...that nothing quite hits the spot after a morning of fence-painting like a panini of ciabatta bread, aged Swiss, garden tomatoes, fresh pesto, Virginia ham, butter-cooked mushrooms, and ripe avocado...

...that two small people can have the most gleeful of times destroying a living room while you do the dishes...

...and that those same small children are so adorable it makes your heart turn over.

Even if they're sulking.

Hope you had a good weekend too!

Did it!

True story: I have an eyelid that does weird things in pictures (it droops oddly when I smile, but it's only noticeable in pictures).

True story: I came home with my eighth-grade pictures and my mom said (truthfully) after scrutinizing them, "You look drunk."

True story: The photographer who took my senior pictures in high school only shot them from one side of my face. They were very good pictures.

True story: The photograph who did our wedding pictures was not so astute. I look drunk, just in a white dress at the temple. They were not very good pictures (some of the profile ones were okay, however).

True story: After last Monday's post (and because all your comments gave me courage!) I got my hair cut this morning. Neil asked for pictures. I looked drunk in most of them. So we're settling for one with BOTH eyes closed. That's about as good as it gets.

True story: I did not expect my hair to be this short. I was terrified when I saw how much she was cutting off (I was thinking four inches, not ten). And then I looked at it afterwards and decided I really like it (except it's really weird to have a two-inch-long ponytail with the sides all pinned up. And I have sort-of bangs!)



What do you think?

transcendence

Two moments today that made me deliriously happy (for entirely different reasons):

Neil saying, "Hey honey, the next time you're at the farmers' market, will you pick up some heirloom tomatoes? You know, the really gorgeous striped ones--I'd like to save some seeds for our garden next year."

Telling Abigail as she finished picking up her room that we could have our banana split party now, and hearing her reply, "But Mommy--sometimes I spill," to which I replied, "That's okay. I still love you, honey," and she responded, "Mom, sometimes I do bad things. And you don't love those bad things, but you always love me." I think that was one of the best parenting moments I've ever had--I must be doing something right.

And now, if you'll excuse me, after our busy day of fence-painting and salsa-canning and bike riding, I'm off to enjoy banana splits with my babies while we watch The Little Mermaid. I love family movie nights where I just curl up and snuggle with my sweeties (especially when we're celebrating Abigail's filled-up star chart for good behavior at dinner!)

a tag...for Juliet

Name: Juliet Elizabeth

Name meaning: "downy," oddly enough. Whatever...

Age: 13 months
Nicknames: Jules, Julesie, Julesiesnack, Julesiecat, Juliesiemouse, Julesiekitten...it's like a zoo over here. Oh, and let's not forget Gibbersnack (Abigail and Neil have their own language...half the conversations at our house are comprised primarily of words known to no linguist).
Favorite activities: Looking at books, climbing up the slide, running back and forth on the couch
Favorite Foods: Black beans (although this is waning), peaches, cheese, eggs, peas

Least favorite foods: Cow's milk, meat
Favorite music: You know those Leapfrog alphabet things? Yeah, Juliet tries to sing along with the ABC song. It's pretty dang cute.

Favorite toys: Fisher Price Little People, Curious George the elephant
Favorite book: Mommy Loves Me and this peekaboo book she tore up in a fit of rage on the last leg of the drive home from Utah
Favorite item of clothing: Abigail's raccoon hat

What makes her happy: Hearing Neil's voice when he comes home, going in to Abigail's room after her nap, or running like crazy into my arms

What makes her sad: Naps

Now I tag: Kayli's Ethne, Nicole's Will, Ashley's "Handsome Face," Kristin's Jeffrey, and Heather's Miles

wednesdays

Yesterday I took my camera with me to take pictures of my classes (it's way easier to learn names if I have the students write their name on the board and stand under it while I take a picture. Sounds kinda weird, but it works really well).

Since I had my camera with me, I thought I'd document a little of the things that I'm usually looking at on Wednesdays...

First off, here's a few shots of campus. I think BYU's grounds are much prettier than the university here (and remember, I'm trying to keep our location a bit nebulous, so if you know the particular university please don't say anything in the comments!), but the buildings are really beautiful. Just about every building is built out of red brick, so there's a real cohesiveness on campus, especially since many of the buildings are well over a century old. The Union building, in particular, has a very cathedral-like feeling to its entrance--think Hogwarts on a small scale.

The girls love to play in this fountain on warm sunny days.



Some more buildings (we're only getting a small selection of what I see on my walk between classes)...

Then I finish teaching and go off to find this handsome dude and kiss him a few times.

On this particular Wednesday, we didn't have any playdates scheduled or pressing tasks to accomplish, so we went to the "little library" for storytime (not to be confused with my personal favorite storytime on Fridays at a different library, but Abigail really likes this library because it's small. It's a branch of the main county library).

And here we are at storytime.



The interesting thing about going to storytime with my kids is that they have no actual interest in the stories. They just want to be there while they occupy themselves doing some else.

For instance, Abigail never listens to the stories the librarian reads. Instead, she looks at books by herself.



And Juliet alternates between chewing on everything in my purse...



...and running around the room. One interesting thing about her is that she's totally fearless in terms of taking off. Abigail has always been pretty careful to stay close to me; Juliet is a complete opposite. If you take your eyes off her for a second...man, she is gone.

But she's so adorable while she's contemplating her next escape.



And there you have it.