Obligatory First Blog Post of the Year

Lord knows I love the holidays but it's nice that a little window of normal is opening up before the not normal of the family being temporarily being increased by 1.

The Child will not get up happily this morning, of that I am quite sure. She went out on New Years Eve and had a sleep-over with BFF #2, came home around 5 on New Year's Day and then went to a birthday party on the 2nd which also included a sleep-over. She was veryvery tired last night and veryvery grumpy about my "forcing" her to finish the paper on Macbeth that she had all holiday to work on. (To be fair, it was mostly done but for the tidying up of editing but still). Point is, she will be suffering from the cummulative effects of her weekend.

The Spouse is just now leaving for his first day back at the office in 2 weeks. I think he's ok with it, so long as he can make coding seem like playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare or Fallout.

On Saturday I was feeling a little resentful about my minimal amount of holiday time and about having to spend the weekend running errands, per usual, while The Family played and thinking about how I always have to spend the weekend running errands, per usual, while The Family plays and then it hit me. "Hey! I'm earning leave". So I decided that I'm going to take one Friday off every month. And those days are going to be just for me and whatever I feel like doing. (MAB won't like it. She hates it when I'm out of the office. But that's okay because I hate it when she is out of the office). The very thought of such a plan immediately brightened my mood and I finished all my errands quite happily.

So that's my number 1 resolution for 2010. The other is to keep using my wonderful little Wii Fit to get myself ready for meeting Michelle Obama in May. (Meeting Michelle Obama is resolution #3). I love playing with my Wii. I love that I've already lost a pound and am feeling more limber. I love that it is easy to stay committed because it's fun. Technology is a good, good thing.

So we're "back to normal" for a bit. Until Friday, when we receive our Australian exchange student for 2 weeks. The Child and I connected with her on Facebook and her mum friended me. We've had some delightful chats. I knew it was meant to be, though, when she referred to herself as "the worst mother in the world". "Oh, no you're not," I replied. "I am the worst mother in the world and I have the theme song to prove it!"

Ah Ha

I had a break down.

Saturday morning I was looking at the family calendar and noticed that The Child missed an orthodontist appointment last week. And I lost it. It was an internal "lost it". I didn't go all medieval on the family. But inside I was crying.

"You missed a damned ortho appointment," says you. "Come on now".

Sometimes in life, it's not the momentous things which teach us. That missed appointment clarified for me a simple fact: the only thing I'm doing well right now is work. At work I do not lose paperwork, miss deadlines or forget appointments. At work I get things done. That is much less true at home.

Aside from providing a necessary swift kick to the hind quarters, it also gave me a topic of conversation with The Child, who likewise did everything required of her for her participation in the play but who has slacked off on everything else.

At one point in our conversation she wailed about how hard it was to come home and not have me there. "I have to learn how to make myself do things without you to tell me". Well, yes. I pointed out that this was going to be more and more the case in her life and that she did have to learn to manage herself. "But more to the point," I told her, "I've been using that 'I'm learning how to have a job and manage the rest of my life' excuse, too. But the fact is, I've been back at work for over a year. It's really time for me to get it together".

Over the weekend I didn't entirely succeed in digging out from under the list of neglected tasks. But I did scrub the bathroom within an inch of its life. That's something.

Voila!

It was only the hottest, muggiest weekend of the summer. Clearly, no better way to spend it than by having a DYI fit in The Child's room. My "Free Martha" t-shirt may have to be disposed of as a biohazard and I still have paint clinging to my fingernails, although I think I got it all out of my hair.

The final details were completed on Saturday morning, with The Spouse installing a chair rail. When that was done all that was left was to move all The Child's belongings from the deck and back into her room. A daunting project, to be sure, but one I decided to tackle myself because (between you and me) I was looking at it as an opportunity to do some purging. That's a task that The Child understands in theory but not so much in practice. So I didn't really begin moving her back in until she'd left to spend the afternoon (and evening as it luckily turned out) with her godparents.

It took me a long frakking time but the results were, as they usually are with such projects, worth it.

Behold:

The top of the walls was painted with black magnetized paint, the bottom half with chalkboard paint. Black? you exclaim. A black bedroom? Have you lost your mind? Possibly, says me, but I like to think of a black room with white trim as the decor equivalent of a little black dress with pearls...chic and sophisticated, possibly a little Parisian.

The Child, of course, has a more boho vibe going on so those details are in evidence, too. Which is fine because it is, after all, her room. When I take it over as my studio I can move it back toward the French aesthetic...a black and white toile chaise, for example. But for now it suits The Child very well.

I picked up some frames at Goodwill for mere pence, which we "unified" by painting gold. These hang on the wall to contain her collection of purses and her Broadway show memorabilia:

And this is how we turned her collection of necklaces into serviceable art:

Here is her reading/study area. Her laptop sits on a little movable table that she can pull over in front of the chair when necessary. Storage boxes hold her art supplies, tools for school and reference books.It is all very cozy and grown up. No, the black doesn't make the room too hot. Lord knows we had ample opportunity to test that. Nor is it too dark when it is cloudy and rainy, which it happens to be today. And while I don't know that it will long remain as pristine as it appears in these photos, I can tell you that The Child made her bed yesterday morning without being told so there's that.

That's Better

Before

After

Art Project

Yesterday's post about clutter obviously struck a nerve. I like when that happens. True to my word, I did some flinging yesterday, employing the "do I use it, do I love it" mantra. Emptied one drawer in the dining room, one in my bedroom and one shelf in the kitchen. (And if you knew how limited my kitchen storage space is you would be sooooo impressed by that).

I'll do some more today but The Child wants me to read Harry Potter to her for a while (helps her little dyslexic self advance a little more swiftly, don'tcha know) and I want to go out and get a clothesline so I can reduce my carbon footprint.

But when I was thinking about yesterday and giggling about the invitations, spanning 2 continents, to help people get rid of their clutter, I thought about what makes us hold on to stuff. There might be a post in there somewhere. But for now, suffice to say that I used to hold on to a lot more than I do now. Case in point: the 6 boxes of baby clothes in the attic, along with the box of shoes that included every pair of patent leather Mary Janes that had ever been on The Child's little footsies. It was about 3 years ago when I decided that it was time to sort through all that stuff. I thought it wouldn't take that long, what with having made such judicious judgements about what to save in the first place.

Not so much.

Turns out, for example, there was no reason to hang on to half a dozen nondescript onesies. It wasn't like I was saving this stuff because there was going to be a succession of other babies and having such things on hand would be thrifty and prudent. The Child was 10. And by the time grandbabies make their appearance I'll be more than happy to buy them brand-new onesies. So I culled out everything, until there was only one box full of the most precious items, the pieces that had been hand-made by loved ones, the little dresses that were tied to a special memory. The rest of it went off to bless other babies.

And the shoes? That was harder. Which is nuts. Probably just owes to my having a bit of a thing for shoes, coupled with the indisputable fact that ain't nothin' cuter than a little tiny baby shoe. (Aside from, you know, the nibbly little tiny squishy baby foot that might wear it).

I saved the little tiny black Converse high tops that her papa bought her. I saved the little yellow walking boots that she wore with overalls and dresses alike and just looked soooooo cute in. The patent leather? I always told myself I'd do something artistic with them. Guess I had visions of a large Plexiglas box full of baby shoes. Uh, yeah. Like, a) there was any room in the house for something like that and 2) aw, there is no 2. It was crazy talk, I tell you.

So I lined up the shoes and I took a photo of them. I think I kept the wee-est pair and then I gave all the rest of them away. And then, lo and behold, I did do something artistic with those little shoes.

The Gallery of Little Tiny Baby Shoes

About this exhibit

Working in a variety of medium, using the simplest of objects, the artist seeks to explore the fleeting nature of childhood and the internal conflict of a parent between cherishing a child and yearning for simpler days even as she must set that child on a path of independence. The shoe represents first steps, both literal and figurative, and through the simplicity and universality of the form, the artist takes us on an exploration of nurturing, relinquishment and the addictive capacities of Photosuite.

"Where are You Going, My Little One?"

"Shoes, Ships, Sealing Wax"

"You Could Stand Inside My Shoes"

"Made for Walkin'"

"Embossed on the Heart"

"All God's Children Need Travellin' Shoes"

"Kickin' Down"

Now I'm going to clean out some more drawers. Who knows what inspiration may be lurking in their dark and sticky recesses!

Stuff

Yesterday was very satisfying.

When I got to Stina's she was describing her condition as "twitchy". Only 2 bedrooms were organized. The rest of the (very cute nearly 100 year old) house was packed with boxes and bags and stuff. They'd be in since Friday. She just didn't know where to start.

I got the tour and then we went for coffee, while I pointed out to her some of the must try restaurants in their new 'hood (The Child used to go to school nearby). And I asked her what one project we could tackle that would make her feel better.

The house has a great room sorta deal in the downstairs, with a 2nd fully-functional kitchen. (It is, in fact, the better designed of the 2 kitchens...the upstairs one is cramped, poorly designed and dark). She really wanted that organized but "there's not enough room for all the stuff that needs to be there".

Did someone just throw down a gauntlet before me?

It probably took us 40 minutes to get the kitchen in shape. Mostly because I made her take things out of their original boxes. Really? Maybe there are those among you who function in a similar fashion and I don't wish to offend. But do you have any idea how much perfectly lovely space is available if those things are out of their boxes? "But you can stack the boxes...can't you?" she asked. Uh, not unless you're keeping them on large and commodius shelves. Like in the store.

Once that was done I was all inspired. I went home to retrieve The Child and then went back to show her how to prune roses (one gardening thing I know how to do), clear out the living room and then with the help of Dave, who returned from yet another run to the old house, move some furniture upstairs and get the dining room restored to functionality.

Then we had a very nice steak dinner.

And I returned home determined to revive my quest to have at least one empty drawer or shelf in every room of the house. So not there. But there's nothing like being reminded of all the s.t.u.f.f. that crowds in on you, despite your best efforts to fling, discard the old, make judicious decisions about what to keep and what to jettison.

I abhore clutter. If you looked around my house you wouldn't see a lot of it. But it finds its way in, doesn't it, lurking in file cabinets and drawers and closets. It's time to re-read A Gift from the Sea by Anna Morrow Lindberg and lighten the load a little.

Back in the Kitchen

All this talk of bistros and cooking got me thinking about kitchen tools. We've got a very functional kitchen full of groovy tools. But there are some for which I have particular fondness.





The coffee maker. Duh. Because you have to have coffee. You have to have coffee to start the day, you have to have coffee to cap the perfect meal. (This also assumes having decaf in the house, for the light weights. Sometimes I forget that).

The corkscrew. We have to replace this tool about every 2 years. I live by the motto that you should never cook with any wine you wouldn't drink. That's why I've never purchased "cooking sherry" in my entire life and never will. Wine isn't just essential to accompany a meal, it is the soul of a good sauce and is vital to a good daube. A glug of red wine even goes into the house pizza sauce. And as we were reminded during the Big Blow of '06, the beauty of a cork screw is that it isn't powered by electricity.

I call this wooden spatula "Dame Judi", because it is an all-purpose, useful thing, like my mom. I found it at a yard sale for 25 ¢. "Dame Judi" can stir, scrape up deglazed bits from a pan, flip pancakes, flatten fried plantains...whatever is asked of her. She bears her age with remarkable grace.

The microplane. I saw people using these bad boys on cooking shows for years but never had one because a grater is just a grater, after all. Right? Wrong.


Microplane graters come in all sizes. We have a box grater microplane that The Boys gave us for a hostess gift and which I love but this little number gets used all the time. Food glides right over it. I can reduce a hunk of very hard Parmesan fairydust bits without breaking a sweat.








When we were first married, The Spouse worked for a specialty food company. He drove truck in the morning and did computer stuff in the afternoon. One of the benefits of this job was that he got to bring home goods that couldn't be sold. If, for example, a bottle of olive oil broke in the case, all the bottles that got oily couldn't be sold so they just sat in the warehouse, free for the taking. For years we never spent a dime on oil, balsamic vinegar, capers and the like.


Once there was some food show at which his company had a presence and one of the other vendors was using Kitchen Aid mixers at their booth. When the show was over, The Spouse negotiated an obscenely good price for one of the mixers. One of the first things I ever used it for was marshmallows. (Hmmm...haven't made those in a while....). These things are built to last. I expect my great-grandchildren will still be using this mixer.



I ♥ my measuring cups. They are from Nigella Lawson's line of kitchenware. I ♥ them because they look like proper teacups. I'm a sucker for good design and like having tools that are both functional and beautiful. I like that they look like teacups because long, long ago, that's what women used when a recipe called for a cup of something. It makes me feel very retro to use these.





For years I used cheap whisks from the grocery store. Then we discovered Dick's Restaurant Supply. I have 2 of these big balloon whisks. They have heft. That's important when you're whisking egg whites and don't want your arm to fall off from exhaustion.














This is the single most important investment we've ever made. I big, fat puffy ♥ my stove.2 ovens (one with convection ability), 6 burners and a griddle. It is beautiful. I love that it has little legs so it looks like a piece of furniture. I love that it is so big. I love that it is gas. (I'd never cooked with gas heat before we got this...I burned a lot of sauces before I got the hang of it). We turned out some pretty amazing meals on much smaller, much crappier stoves, all the while dreaming of what it would be like to have the capabilities of a big Viking range. And I'll be honest, we balked at the expense. But then we were certain that it would more than pay for itself. The reaction from our friends when we remodeled (designing everything we did around this purchase) the unanimous reaction from our friends was, "I can't think of two people who will get more use out of it". Which helped us feel much more comfortable about spending The Child's first year of college tuition. She can get a scholarship, right?


My hands. And I don't mean that in the obvious sense because of course I have to use my hands to cook. I mean that I consider my hands to be tools. From separating eggs to kneading bread dough (I start it with the bread hook on the mixer but you can over-knead it that way, which is not good, so I always finish the job by hand) to mixing meatloaf, sometimes just using your hands makes the most sense. It's efficient, they are easy to clean and you can't drop them on your toes.