general life

Making Choices, Choosing the Future

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I recently (well, a month ago) finished the book Good Enough is the New Perfect. To be honest, I never would’ve read the book except that one of my old professors was a featured mother in the book. I actually heard about the book through the university email newsletter, and it was unusual for me to even read that.

I was intrigued, and it seemed really relevant to me at the time as I had just started a new job. Plus, it is geared to university educated women who are not lacking in the ability to make choices (ie, the old hierarchy of needs, if you can’t put food on the table, you aren’t concerned about other items higher on the hierarchy).

Even though I am technically not in the age range of mothers they interviewed or are speaking to in the book, it really spoke to me.

It has completely changed the way I think.

When I was pregnant, and for some months after I became a mother, I was in a constant battle of wills, against myself. Should I go back to work, should I stay home, should I attempt to find some hourly part time job. These were, I felt, my choices. And I felt that in choosing, I was choosing my whole future life.

In retrospect, it reminds me of the way I felt about choosing a university. I felt like I was choosing my entire future without knowing what I was headed into.

Ridiculous thoughts, I can tell myself now. Especially because of the laughable idea that you can even “choose the future”.

But even after baby was born, I was having trouble reconciling my decision to go back to work.

I felt like I had no choices at all even though I know I did. It was because none of the choices were what I wanted.

Theoretically, I wanted to stay home, but the practical side of me kept saying “no”, “not financially sound”, and the ominous “you would be so lonely, so bored”.

Theoretically, I wanted to work full time, but I want to have summers with my kid, I wanted to be able to comfort him and yes, control the world he experiences.

And the part time option? Not really an option at that point in my life. Current work didn’t allow it, and anything else would’ve been too dramatic of a pay cut to pay for daycare, and there was no free childcare options.

And then came my first realization while reading the book: that I have to choose what is important to me. Second realization? What is important to me can and will change, and that is OKAY.

Working full time is okay for me now. I don’t think I can have it all, but I do have what’s important to me right now (a happy Jameson, a loving husband, a lovely house, and yes, I even have the time to enjoy them and my other hobby, photography), and that makes me happy when I accept those things as the only important things and let the rest go.

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general life

Low-Carb Cauliflower Pizza (the crust, not the topping)

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Brian’s been on the Atkin’s diet now for just about a month. It’s made dinner times simpler, in that we typically are having a meat and grilled vegetable; but also more difficult, because there hasn’t been anything exciting to make in a while!

(For the record, you would think this would make me healthier, but somehow I always find a way– add in a pasta side, or go out to lunch… anything for those carbs for me!)

Last week however he discovered a recipe for Cauliflower Pizza. The cauliflower is in the crust! It was really easy and tasty, and very carb light.

First you need some cauliflower. Brian thought this was funny, to stab Mr. Cauliflower in the head.

Cut cauliflower is steamed and then grated to a crumble (watch your fingers)

Meanwhile, we were cooking up hot yellow peppers (for Brian) and onion, and heating up our stewed tomatoes and tomato paste (plus whatever else magic Brian put in it) for the sauce. You know jarred/canned sauce works just fine.

Grated cauliflower goes into a bowl with cheese and one egg (see the recipe for details– you know I’m not the cook ’round here)

Mix it all up and put on the Pam-ed pizza pan (in a circle if you want it to look like a pizza). Ours didn’t fill the pan, but that was okay.

Season and pop in the oven for a while. You want it baked before you pile toppings on it. Cauliflower is not the sturdiest of bases.

You’ll know when it’s done, the crust is lovely light brown around the edges.

Ah topping heaven. We had sauce, cheese, mushrooms and our grilled stuff, roasted red pepper, not forgetting peperoni and more cheese!

Pop it in the oven again, on broil this time, until cheese is melty.

All done! Time to eat. Are you hungry yet?

The pizza still came out a little floppy, so we ate it with a fork. It made not a bit of difference to me, it definitely still tasted like a pizza.

However, Brian suggested that next time we should split the batch into two smaller individual pizzas and flip it over midway through baking the crust. We loved the crunchy edges and making the pizza crust uniformly more crunchy plus making it a little sturdier would be perfect.

P.S. Did you enjoy the photos for this? I loved taking photos of it with the oven. I’ve never tried that before, I really felt like I couldn’t go wrong.

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general life, life with baby

I Smell Fall

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On Friday last week, the humidity dropped and whenever that happens I can smell fall on the breeze, no joke. (I can also smell the worms after the rain and sometimes pre-rain, like a sixth sense) It was confirmed for me this morning when I woke up and after my shower, it was still dark outside.

However, humidity is back up, so I guess that means 6 more weeks of summer? Wishful thinking.

In any case, I feel like I need to capture these small moments while I can, especially enjoying the outdoors (so I tell myself as I skip church for the 3rd week in a row)

But really, this Sunday we had some friends over after the rain killed our zoo plans (guess we really didn’t spend any time outdoors anyway), and in the evening we had dinner with Brian’s family for his mother’s birthday, which was a lot of fun.

Brian killed his diet for an evening of Italian debauchery, and I enjoyed a heavenly mushroom ravioli.

We discussed the benefits of having extra large paintings, like the above classy man behind Becky, made of us individually to fill the awful space over our bed which currently has an awful off-centered painting. I think somebody nixed the idea though, maybe Brian’s dad.

Jameson was almost-but-not-quite-a-nightmare. We came prepared with highchair cover and plenty of not-too-noisy toys, he had eaten and had been changed. But it was close to bed time and there were too many people to look at and holler at, and maybe make some pterodactyl noises at. It was still a blast.

 

Oh, I also went shopping again on Saturday and on Sunday. At least this time, I realized I needed to do a thorough cleaning of the closet.

After 5 years, I realized that maybe I will never fit into some of those clothes again. The pain was made palatable though by the booty I came back with from Kohls and the outlets. What is it about walk in closets that make you feel like you can indeed store everything forever?

There is a gap there now, and I emancipated a good number of hangers which meant I could throw away a bunch of those clear plastic store hangers. Or are you supposed to recycle those? Does anyone recycle those?

Anyway, it was a nice relaxing weekend, before the next weekends into September which will be filled with trips and events, and even our first overnight together without Jameson. Whatever will we do with ourselves?

On our list now for the rest of summer are just a few must-do’s:

  • go canoeing/fake kayaking in those kayaks with huge openings so I don’t drown if I tip over
  • go on a little hike to where we got engaged
  • go ride some rollercoasters

Very do-able, right? As long as we get 6 more weeks of summer, anyway.

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general life

5 Views of The Farm

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I have three ways to get to work each day, but most days I take the highway. Off the highway, I pass a little rundown farm, old house, and a pond. I don’t think that anyone lives there, but I could be wrong. In the morning, the light hits it just so which makes me crave to have a camera in hand and time to stop.

It’s not often that I have the urge to take landscape photos, but yesterday morning I was inspired, and tried to take a photo in my moving car (which is never a good idea, but don’t worry nothing bad happened). Anyway, I ended up with one out of focus photo and another photo of the pond’s weeds on my phone. I thought, maybe I should try to use these anyway, and this inspiring post turned into something else entirely.

I don’t have an iPhone, and so I don’t have access to Instagram. However, I love the effects, particularly for photos taken on the phone — I love and process RAW images with Lightroom, but my phone photos are often ugly and unexciting.

I found this article  for web-based alternatives and tried a few out. I only wanted ones that I could add a border too, because that’s my preference. Here are my original photos:

Pixlr-O-Matic was nice in that you didn’t have to sign up, which I liked. I also enjoyed the many options but found it was actually a pain to sift through all of them. It had additional features beyond retro filters and borders, you could also pick an in between layer (to add sun spots like I did here or other options). However, there was no option to crop my photo that I found.

I tried Instant Retro, but this site ran really slow for me. Sorry, but I don’t have patience for that. It also was a little different in how you added borders or filters, giving you a little more flexibility but only if you know what you’re doing. The borders integrated textures though on the photo which I liked.

I did try the Photoshop action files, which of course were my favorite for processing but if you don’t have access to Photoshop you’re out of luck. Plus, the borders are not very exciting. You could add different ones, but again you’d have to know what you’re doing.

I think that PicYou was my favorite, even though there was only one border option. It was fast and easy to choose the filter! However, you do have to sign up. I ended up running both my photos through this one and was pretty happy with the results.

There’s nothing that beats a high quality photo from a high quality camera though. I guess one of these days I’ll have to get up early (I already get up at 5:45, I am not sure it will be possible!) and stop along the road.

On my way home I tried again and got these shots of the pond and the old house on the farm. The light isn’t the same in the evening, but still fun processing:

There are a few other places on my list that I’d love to photograph properly. There is a small cemetery near our old house with a wooden swing hanging from a branch that overlooks a hill. I have been wanting to go back there for a couple years with my camera. Also, on certain mornings, there is another cemetery that holds the early fog really well that would be lovely to photograph.

Good thing we’ve been talking about farms so far or you’d have thought I have a thing for cemeteries. Which I do.

P.S. See you Monday everyone! This weekend we are hoping to head to the zoo again, and celebrate Brian’s mom’s birthday.

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general life

In Bloom

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For the past couple weeks, my gladiola bulbs finally started blooming! Two weeks ago I shared the budded bulbs (and the discovery of the pumpkin plant in my flower bed) but since then they have exploded in an array of colors I had to share. Please forgive me, I couldn’t narrow the photos down, so here are all my favorites!

Along the side up to the porch and the back center flower garden I planted plumtart gladiolas, which are all a smaller bright purple flower. I’ve been clipping them for display inside; they are gorgeous and the perfect size for a tall skinny bud vase.

The rest of the gladiolas on the corners of the house are very large and in mixed colors, and they finally bloomed this past week in reds, deep purples, pink and multi.

This one  above is my favorite, I’m showing it off at and then, she {snapped}!

The pictures are so gorgeous, I almost felt like they could be a painting. I tried a couple textures out to see. I may have to get this printed on canvas, from the Groupon I purchased a couple months ago which I haven’t decided what to use on yet.

And the bokeh! Those lovely out of focus circle elements in the background. I can see why some photographers might dedicate their work to this style photography.

I have clipped one of these large stems for the house, and spent some time figuring out where to place it. I’ve settled on the entryway, because it needs to lean against a wall.

These blooms are completely worth the trouble of digging them up for winter storage. Sadly, I don’t think I will get to see the lilies, dahlias, or freesia bloom this year. The plants are big but without buds this season. We’ll have to wait for next year on those.

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general life, life with baby

Reunion Fiesta

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It’s only been two months since I left my old job but I already feel worlds apart. This weekend we had an opportunity to get together like we never really did while I was working there, and we got together and had a family cookout. Plus, Jameson and his new friends Carson and Cole finally got to meet. Carson and Jameson were both born on December 16, but are developing in completely different ways; I was fascinated with observing them and their differences.

For one, Carson is several pounds heavier than Jameson. Though not as big as I thought! Jameson, as I’ve said before, has been pretty ambivalent about food and eating, though he’s finally got the hang of solid foods. Carson loves to eat, and is already adept at chewing off little pieces of fruit. (We tried a sliver of cantaloupe while we were there on Jameson and after being in his mouth for a good 5 minutes he hacked it out)

Carson seemed to have a lot more hand-eye coordination than Jameson did, twisting a spoon in his hand and doing a lot more grasping instead of batting. Instead, Jameson was a lot more active with sitting and jumping on us (parents are apparently free Jumparoos) than Carson seemed to be.

I wonder if this is how parents of twins are, seeing dramatic differences between babies born the same day? And how much of that is personality and how much developmental?

Carson was fascinated with looking at himself in the table reflection, even bending over while standing to get a closer look. He and Jameson did not really interact too much, actually. Though they did have a staring contest or two.

Instead, Jameson was loving and playing with Cole, our lovely hostess friend’s son. Cole is about 1-1/2 years old, so serious whenever he saw my camera (which was pretty much constantly, of course)

Jameson and Cole rode around in Cole’s wagon for a bit and Jameson did really well. Last time he was in a wagon it wasn’t moving and he fussed — clearly a moving wagon is more fun than a non-moving wagon. And it probably helped that Cole was entertaining too.

We had dinner fajita style with 3 different meats and a wide variety of toppings. Megan outdid herself on the food, and even made homemade guacamole. (We’ll have to come by more often) Cole approved of the dessert, chocolate raspberry cupcakes made by Carson’s mom.

Evidence of a good party, baby style.

Hopefully we’ll all be able to get together again to watch them grow. And Jameson is just a year away from being a fun, active little boy like Cole. I can’t wait!

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How USPS failed me in my time of great need

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Last week I showed you some fun Etsy finds. I even purchased some baby bandana bibs for myself Jameson. Except that, approximately 28.5 hours after purchasing them, I realized that I had sent them to the wrong address.

My old address. From well over a year ago.

How does that happen, you might ask. Well, it had something to do with PayPal and me not actually deleting said address from their system.

How often do you purchase with PayPal, you might ask. Pretty often, actually, I just kind of… remember… to switch the address every time. Except the last time.

So what do you do when it’s too late and a package is being shipped to the wrong address? I called USPS and they assured me, repeatedly, that filing out another address change was the only way to solve the issue, and that would work just fine, because it’s immediately in the system.

But anyone who’s ever moved could tell you that is a load of craptastic bull.

So I would do what anyone in my shoes would do and called the expert – my realtor.

Except he was leaving on a family trip to see his sister off to Afghanistan. Can you imagine how that conversation went? Something like this:

We’ll be thinking of your sister, please don’t worry about this, but if you have time, a little piece of time, could you perhaps call the new owner of the house about this completely non-life-threatening insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things package that is arriving at his house?

Mr. Realtor, awesome that he is, is completely gracious and says of course he’ll call, just let him know once the package arrives if it goes to the old house or if it gets re-routed correctly.

So sadly, my low expectations of the USPS came to pass and package arrived at the wrong house.

I call Mr. Realtor. Except that he’s realized he doesn’t have the new owner’s phone number handy. Mr. Realtor kindly gives me his name, and if I can find his number myself, or just stop by when I have time if he’s home, Mr. Realtor assures me this is a very nice Old Man.

Now is when I have to make a decision. I have thus far revealed my sad state of affairs to Brian (who must be so used to this sort of thing from me that he didn’t even offer to help me) and Mr. Realtor. At this point I need to decide if tracking down Old Man is worth the $30, the rest of my pride, and extra trouble to get 5 baby bandana bibs. And I said to myself, yes, it’s worth it.

Lucky day! Old Man is indeed old enough that he has a home phone and it’s listed. I call Old Man and leave a message. Actually, I leave two messages, because of course, of course, the phone drops mid-call. So Old Man has two messages from me that go a little like this:

“Sorry this is awkward, I hope you don’t mind me calling, but you might have received a package from me yadayadayada..” twice

Meanwhile, My Boss walks in while I am calling so I have to tell her the story and God forbid, after I tell her the story, I say “What if he’s dead!?”

He wasn’t dead.

He called me back about 5 minutes later and left the package out for me.

I didn’t have to meet him.
I picked it up during my lunch hour.
A tiny little envelope package.
And yep, all that, and I had only moved about 15 minutes away.

It was so worth it.

P.S. Brian doesn’t agree. He thinks they look stupid. But I love them, and I worked for them, so they’re stayin’.

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Flower Garden Update: Surprise!

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I have a (I think) funny story. Thank goodness something funny happened this week, because I totally ran out of material. These people with children who are walking and talking seem to have a constant comedy show. My comedy show is in my own head. Trust me, no one else would find it funny.

[Example: Brian and I went on a walk yesterday and we always pass a stunted, no, totally f-ed up bush looking maple tree; Brian calls it the “Hilary tree” because he likes to make fun of me in completely immature middle school style. Cue me, laughing every.single.time. like its a brand new joke and stumbling over my own feet like a drunkard. End story.]

What I’m trying to say is that Jameson doesn’t do too much yet. His little farty noises are only funny to me. But today I have a relatively funny story, so here it goes (if you made it this far).

Remember my fiasco planting bulbs a little over a month ago? Well, things are going pretty good. I’ve had a few bulbs not come up, and a few don’t like the locations I put them in very well. Oh, and a couple plants that we didn’t help after I planted them in mulch, well, they didn’t stay planted very well. But all and all, not too shabby. A few things are sprouted, like the dahlias:

And some are even about to bloom! A few of the gladiolas.

And the hibiscus, solidly expanded in its second year, has plenty getting ready to bloom in a red glory.

To tell you the truth, I am a little surprised that I have anything blooming at all (aside from the hibiscus which was already there); I thought I had planted the bulbs far too late to really get anything blooming.

Then… there’s this thing. Sprouted between my three lily plants.

It’s steadily getting bigger. At first I thought it was a weed, because it grew so fast! One day it was there, already some 8 inches tall! But, I do tend to like some weeds, so I left it alone. Plus I wondered if maybe it had hitched a ride from the Netherlands in the bulb bags and maybe it was some sort of exotic weed…

It’s been a few weeks, and it didn’t seem to do much except get a bit bigger. And it started looking remarkably like a squash plant. Zucchini squash, Brian and I concluded.

A few days later, picture Brian and I walking back to the house with Jameson. I noticed a tiny little yellow flower. And suddenly I wonder aloud, where in the world a zucchini seed would possibly have come from?

We are three houses along our road, and none of us have gardens. All together, we have a few tomato plants, pepper plants, herbs and Brian and I have a random brussell sprout plant which I don’t expect to yield.

Then it came to me.

Embarrassingly, Brian and I left our pumpkins out to freeze and then literally melt in that very spot. From October to February, they sat. If you’re counting, that’s almost 5 months of pumpkins rotting in the very front of our house.

P.S. I hear that pumpkin plants take a ton of water, and they take over gardens. We’ll leave it for now for fun to see what it does, but I’m not opposed to taking it down if it starts strangling those lovely gladiolas. Oh, and please don’t hassle me over the phone photos. I was in a hurry!

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Christmas in July

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Yesterday I spent my time working on something else. It’s hard to find the time to do all the things I love, so no post yesterday. Read through to the end to see what I was doing!

I’ve been seeing everyone celebrating Christmas in July. So here are some of my favorite gift ideas, before July is over. Shocker, they’re not from Amazon, but from Etsy. I love Amazon, but there are (gasp) a few things you just can’t find there.

Without further ado…

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Empty Lots

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I’ve been having some meaningful thoughts recently, which I would like to write about soon. About my revelation about choices, and about the importance of being present. However, today, I am lacking good words. Instead, I will leave you with this.

Last Sunday the message was about the weeds among the wheat at church. I don’t often touch on religion, but bear with me.

The weeds and wheat parable refers to the end of days, and what I got out of it is that we should not be passing judgement on other people, that is for God to do, because how are we to tell which are the weeds and which are the wheat? And I know there are probably lots of other messages in there but I don’t pretend to have a good handle on theology.

I had been eying the empty lots across the street from our house for a while. And I had a thought. Because from this relative unattractiveness:

Are these lovelies.

But then, these are one of my favorite flowers. I have always considered them flowers and not weeds. When I was growing up I called them Queenyun’s Lace (all slurred together, and yes, I really thought that was what it was called forever)

And now I’m sure I’ve taken the parable way out of context or relevance. But hopefully provoked some thought, or some enjoyment of pretty pictures (take a moment to zoom in on a couple… I processed them specifically to bring out their lovely petals. Enjoy). Happy Friday everyone!

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