Life is in the Details

Recipe: Croissants

I started this croissant-making project many months ago in March (longer than I recommend keeping croissant dough in the freezer but, hey, I forgot about it! I know - lame excuse.... but true! I only rediscovered its presence when going through the recent freezer inventory). I have made it before from a cooking class I attended many years ago but hadn't had the urge to make it recently until I saw the recipe and article by Jeffrey Hammelman in the pages of Fine Cooking (issue #97). Fine Cooking always has the best photos and recipes... I wish they would come out with a vegetarian version because i've never made anything from there that wasn't a big win. It's like guaranteed tried-and-trues every single time. My mouth waters as just the utterance of the words fine and cooking said together. And if I see it in the mail? Forget about it. I must drop everything and browse through it. I've thrown many issues of magazines in the recycling bin (including most of my coveted Bon Appetits, which was my favorite food mag for a long time at one point in my life - before kids!!) but NEVER a Fine Cooking!! 

 

 

It is at this stage that it can be frozen (though not for 8 months, please) or refrigerated until you are ready to roll it out and cut it. 

So this is what my table looked like yesterday afternoon at around 3:15ish.

 

 

I didn't roll it out as long as the recipe said to because I don't have a surface that long to do it and felt too lazy to cut it in half and roll two sheets out separately so I had fewer croissants than the recipe would normally yield and that's okay with me.

 

 

The kids helped with rolling the croissants up. They particularly liked making the chocolate ones (we put a about a tablespoon of chocolate chips at the widest part of the triangle before rolling those up. I made about half and half. I prefer savory but everyone else in my family prefers sweet (Jessi and Mike each had one warmed up for breakfast and they both loved it). When they came out of the oven they were swimming in butter. I'm not sure if this is how it normally goes so I guess I'm going to have to do this project all over again to see how it turns out when you follow the timing on the instructions (and I'd like to try one that uses partial whole wheat, of course. I'm sure my kids and husband would roll their eyes at this). But before I tackle that again my thoughts turn to sufganiyot (donuts for Chanukah), Chanukah roll-out cookies, and gerbet macarons (unrelated but on my mind nonetheless!). All the presents are wrapped and we are counting down until Friday night (the first night of Chanukah).

  

 

the 5k + good ways to use 5 lb. of flour in 2 days

Yesterday was the Girls on the Run season-culminating run... the Reindeer Romp 5K!! We were up and ready 10 minutes earlier than we had planned. Awesome for us and it was a good thing because there was lots of traffic! And it was raining (even though showers and snow weren't planned until the afternoon. Weather forecasters - my faith in you is again destroyed). I used Jack (my GPS) to navigate a route that was a bit less traveled recommended to me by my co-coach, Margaret and she was absolutely right. So we got there early and hung out in the car to gather a few extra minutes of warmth and dryness. 

It was chaotic. I felt like cattle herded into a way-to-small area of land. I've heard from a few people that the spring GOTR 5k is much more organized and less-chaotic feeling. That's a good thing because this was a bit crazy and I've participated in lots of road races before with many more participants than this (though not this many kids!! And during none of these did I have my 5 year old with me. His patience is not his best quality, though we're working on it, but he did a great job. He complained, of course... I would have been complaining too - or might not have even GONE - if I wasn't one of the coaches). What started as rain turned to snow mid-race. The biggest, fluffiest, most beautiful flakes. 

Our first snow of the season.  Aaaaah! I always love the first snow. I wish Mike could have been with us to see it (but he was in Atlanta for the ever-disappointing-but-not-impossible-to-predict-the-way-we've-been-playing-this-entire-season SEC Championship game).

  

 And here's Jessi with my great friend, Anne, and her daughter. She was Jessi's buddy runner for this race!! I am so grateful that she agreed to run with her because my foot had been giving me problems at the beginning of the season and I didn't think I should/could be running to train for this). She told me that they took so many breaks to walk for aches/pains/etc. that it was more like a Reindeer Stroll. So many I should run with Jessi in the spring. It's this kind of crazy talk that gets me in trouble but I REALLY want to do a 5k WITH her (and Ryan wants to do it too!).

 

This photo of the before-race jumble of people and umbrellas doesn't do the scene justice since it went on for farther than I could see. This was after our girls were making their way to the starting line and I took Ryan away from the crowds (for both of our sakes) to stake out a good position near the finish line.

 

Jessi proudly holds up her medal, more soggy than we when we started out this morning... but a FINISHER in her FIRST 5k! So COOL! 

  

 
  

Hot cocoa and tea was essential after getting back home. I was chilled to the bone. My gloves stink. I couldn't move my fingers or feel them for a few minutes during the race. I'm ordering new ones today!!
 
So onto the baking... I wasn't intending to go through so much flour in two days... it just kinda happened. Maybe it had to do with being so chilled that I needed some way to warm the house and warm my body and soul.

I went on a baking binge. Yesterday was chocolate chip cookies (a whole-wheat variety.... well I mixed up the dough but it needed an overnight rest in the refrigerator) and pretzels.

 

  
 
Then it was pancakes this morning.

 

  
 Then it was on to baking up a batch of garlic-studded baguettes based on the whole wheat olive oil dough from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day which I have out from the library (I always like to give cookbooks a test-drive if I can) and I like it a lot so far, so I  just added it to my Amazon shopping cart.

 

 

 The house smells amazing. The garlic on this, even though I planted them pretty far in (I thought) are sitting a little higher up than I'd like. And I'm not sure if they are darker than they should be. I plan on serving these tonight with pasta and meatballs (me - sans the meatballs) with a salad (I made some vinaigrette last night in my post-SEC-loss sadness - I needed something to do). There were a few bottles of oil that needed to be discarded too (old ones of hot oil, basil oil, and an herb oil). This is proof that you NEED TO use the GOOD stuff (whatever you might be saving for a special occasion deserves to be used NOW. TODAY is a SPECIAL OCCASION!! Make it one! Or else your coveted basil oil could expire before you've had a chance to enjoy it's ethereal goodness! This can apply to anything that you've been saving for some special time.)

Digital Layout: One Day in My Life (Y&T Week 9)

 

This morning I did some life documentation... finishing up a layout for week 9 of Ali E's Yesterday & Today class. It was a Day in the Life layout. I've done one of these for the past 3 or so years and I love doing it every time. I remembered to do it a little before lunch time that day but I was able to easily recall many of the details that made the day unique from the previous one.... though the photos from the morning are lacking. But it doesn't make one bit of different since I had more than enough to use from later in the day. I ended up having so much writing that I changed the template around a bit to make it all fit... which meant there was less room for photos which fit my purposes perfectly. Love it when that happens.

 

I really enjoy looking back on the "day in the life" pages that are accumulating in my albums and seeing how daily life and routines change and evolve over the years. 

New holiday tradition: making Chanukah candles

 

Since Chanukah is in less than two weeks, over the Thanksgiving weekend, once Turkey Day was over, we transformed the dining room back into the art room and got to work on our new Chanukah tradition... making our own Chanukah candles. Jessi did this at my girlfriend's house last year when she was over there playing and we placed an order together this year for the beeswax supplies (I purchased these textured 100% beeswax honeycomb sheets). The ones from last year burned really well (nice and clean). The kids were really excited and made all the candles in one sitting. We now have a beautiful array of colorful candle... 44 in all. The photo above was only step 1 (unbeknownst to me at the time). After I took this photo, the kids then decorated one of each color with bits and pieces from other colors so that they are even more colorful and now polka dotty. This was a fun activity, it was easy enough for Ryan (age 5) to do (although I think they both wanted to do more - maybe we will make some gift sets or have a Chanukah party with this as one of the activities for next year). I have lots of wax leftover for next year (or even the year after that if they stay pliable in the bag that I am storing them in. I'll report back next year with the results.)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today: I can see again! I was wearing contacts yesterday, so technically I COULD see. I mean I wasn't driving around like a crazy person swerving all over the place or squinting at all the blurriness like I do every morning before I find my glasses. But now I can see comfortably! Contacts always make my eyes dry and red. I was able to pick up my repaired glasses yesterday so today it's all good! I'm putting finishing touches on our holiday card, continuing to whittle down our holiday card list (though I'm adding one too... an old high school friend that I've reconnected with that I'm so happy about!), and I need to finish up this post so I can get on the mat for some yoga. I have a ton of other things on my to do list but I'm going to be realistic because there's no way I can do them all.

On the menu for lunch is the GREEN SOUP that I've been talking about (made from spinach and kale and green onions, and garlic - it's yummy and healthy too)! And I'm hoping it will give me a restorative boost that I need from the germs that have flying around here lately. Going to bed at a normal time would be a big help too.

I'm in the middle of two books right now and I'm not feeling into either one of them. I'm going to keep pushing through, but I sure would love something that really grabs me and takes hold. Hopefully they'll get better.

photos from Thanksgiving

Who says you can't carve a turkey with a bread knife? Always thinking outside the box... I like a man that plays by his own rules. (And the turkey was carved beautifully!!)

 

 

Cheese and crackers were delicious... especially with a dollop of hot pepper on top!

 

We worked hard to clean up the kid's art room to convert it back into a version of its former self: a dining room. But this photo is a reminder that we need to put up some decor up on the walls in this room. And quick!

 
Thank you Stephen and Erik for joining us for a very happy Thanksgiving. We loved having you over and are grateful we had the chance to catch up with you this year!

Today: I did a relaxing session of yoga this morning. I'm saving backbends (upward bow especially) for tomorrow. I think I needed two days of sun salutations, balancing moves, and more passive backbends to get my body used to being a pretzel again. Speaking of which... we ate all of the soft pretzels that we made over the weekend and I think we need some more!

And my thoughts have turned to thinking about Chanukah dinners (it's 11 days away!), inviting people over to holiday dinners, wrapping the presents, and our non-existent-at-the-moment holiday cards. We are paring our mailing list down and I still need to design the card. The smaller list is a compromise that Mike and I came to as opposed to going completely digital (which was my proposal... but it doesn't work for some of relatives that haven't made the technological leap into this century, and we have to admit that we like getting cards from friends that we don't get to see due to living so far away) and going all-out paper (which doesn't do much to help save the planet from impending environmental doom). So we're doing a little of both and this makes us happy.

And I got an email from King Arthur Flour with this link in it and read an article by Rachel Meyer (on baking as meditation; she bakes a cake each Saturday and gives it to someone who could use a boost and a reminder that they are loved) that that got me thinking about giving and now I'm thinking about where I 'm going to fit this in. I see some bake and freeze and just plain lo' baking sessions in my future.

I'm taking Ryan to the doctor's later today because he got a cold last week and now it's turned into bronchitis. I still need to get my glasses (hopefully they are fixed). There are books that have been waiting at the library for us for days. Hope they are still there. 

And today's the practice 5k! So I'll be at the school early to set up and get ready. The weather here has taken a turn for the COLD and I'm just hoping that we get an unseasonably warm day on Saturday.

pumpkin bread and yoga

I had an amazingly restorative weekend and am ready to take on this new week. The Girls on the Run season is winding down. I spent last night drawing up a poster to hang in the school office inviting the staff and teachers to cheer the girls on tomorrow during the practice 5k... a chance for the girls to go the full 3.1 miles and practice their race etiquette. We have the real race this Saturday! I won't be running in it - I gave my spot to our assistant coach since I didn't know how the feet would hold up - but I will be the one meeting all the girls at the finish line to give them their finisher medals! I can't wait!!

 

 

Today: The kids are back at school and my morning has been filled with making whole-wheat pumpkin bread with chocolate chips and doing some yoga.  The house is smelling wonderful from the spices in the bread that just came out of the of the oven. Looking forward to snacking on this with some tea later.

It's feels abrupt to walk onto the mat after having been away for so long. It's always a jolt to the system when I get back on after an extended absence. This morning was no different. But once I got into it everything flowed as it should. I, unknowingly, chose a shorter and less intense practice. It was one that I had never done before and although it's probably a VERY GOOD thing that it happened this way, I can't help feeling like I should have gone harder or longer. There's always that tendency to want to feel spent... when sometimes rejuvenation is what is needed. Well, there's always time later in the evening once the kids are in bed (maybe I'll try the Lunar Flow from the DVD I used today). And there's always another day.

Cyber Monday is in effect and I'm going to get the bread book that I helped test recipes for and some yoga DVDs (I used to own these Bryan Kest tapes in tape form but gave them away in my last Wellness Journey class during one of my many de-cluttering efforts) and I'm looking for others that I would like in this same genre. I have a few that I have my eye on but am open to suggestions too.

I also need to swing by the eye doctor's because one of my eyeglass lens popped out of my frame yesterday! It didn't just come out of no where. I was trying to bend my eyeglasses around because I was beginning to look like a crazy madwoman - my glasses have become crooked over time. I originally thought perhaps it was my ears that were uneven but after some examination of both my ears and the eye glasses in a neutral territory.... that proved to be unfounded. Phew!

STS: Mesocycle Two, Week 4

YES!!! I'm finished with the 2nd mesocycle in the STS program. Next week is my well-deserved active recovery week in which I intend to paint and do lots of yoga! I only have one more mesocycle to go and I will have completed the STS program.

Monday, November 23, 2009 - STS Disc #22 (Chest, Shoulders, & Triceps)

 

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 - indoor cycling 32 minutes + moving stuff for carpeting 

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 - STS Disc #23 (Legs)  + moving kids books and toys back upstairs

 

Thursday, November 26, 2009 - 31 minutes cycling + P90X abs

Friday, November 27, 2009 - STS Disc #24 (Back & Biceps)

 

Saturday, November 28, 2009 - indoor cycling 31 minutes+ STS Stability Ball abs (skipped the last exercise: single leg pikes)

Sunday, November 29, 2009 - recovery

like father, like son

Last night's Thanksgiving dinner was great. I still need to upload the photos from my camera. I didn't take many photos but it's all good because I was busy cooking and enjoying our company. We had our cousins over and had a nice time catching up, watching football, snacking on cheese and crackers (with a yummy hot pepper jelly) and wine, then the Thanksgiving meal. I made a(n herbed) turkey breast instead of a whole bird since our family only likes white meat, and of course there was gravy, mashed potatoes, herb, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and I made broccoli since it's the preferred veggie in our family. Very filling stuff!! And for dessert: apple crisp a la mode and pumpkin pie (thank you, Paula, for baking the pies for the boys to bring over even though you were going to be in SF for Turkey Day and for saving Thanksgiving by letting me borrow your meat thermometer since the TWO that I own were broken - #1 - and with dead battery - #2). And the boys brought Mallomars but those were mostly gone with the cheese course earlier in the day. That was the ONLY box we've had this season... pretty crazy when you consider years passed where I started the season off with buying a case.

I successfully avoided all stores today... even the grocery store (though I should have made a stop here because we need milk in a serious way here). Ah, well, tomorrow is another day. We had a relaxing day at home... In a miraculous turn of events that must have involved planets aligning and the phase of the moon, we slept in until around 8sih, we had a breakfast that felt very superfluous given all the food from the night before, Mike and I took turns working out, we read our books - I got to read a chapter in the one I'm reading and then felt sleepy so I took a short nap. This felt rather indulgent and, dare I say, heavenly. Jessica took a nap too. We attempted to see Planet 51 and even bought tickets ahead of time. When we got to the movie theater to meet up with our friends we were informed that the movie had been cancelled! Huh? So onto plan B... we went to our friend's house until it was time for dinner, and then we caravanned over to a great restaurant to enjoy some good conversation (the kids at one table; us at another). I plan on reading some more of my book and downloading some book samples to my Kindle (including Bird by Bird, One Year to a Writing Life, and Old Friend From Far Away... I have writing on the brain I guess).

I was going through some recent photos and came across these....

These boys like their video games! I walked in our bedroom, for what? I do not even remember. But I saw these two sitting side-by-side with that same intent look on their face. 

It was a cute moment... they were both playing car racing games right next to each other.

(Nasty grey carpet shown here is no longer with us! Big arm pump to that!)

absence makes the heart grow fonder

After the day that Jessica and I spent at The Kennedy Center the other Sunday, when I walked in the door and walked upstairs to find the boys Ryan told me as he was crying, "While you were away, I forgot what you looked like." I need to remember next time to tell Ryan that I love him and I will miss him and to give him an extra long hug and also maybe remind him that, hello, there is an 11x13 (which seems almost life-size to me) photo of his mommy with his daddy RIGHT ON THE WALL IN OUR LIVING ROOM! But all kidding aside it was nice to be told that I was missed. So often in the day-to-day I am on the front lines of lots of crying and frustration and whining - in the face of which I'm supposed to respond with calm, equanimity, poise, and love. Sometimes this works out better than others. But after being away it was just so very nice to be missed. And it was nice to get some time just Jessica and I. Ryan always gets my undivided attention, but my girl who is growing up so quickly before my eyes doesn't get it as often as she would like and I need to be better about this and making regular days where we can do this.

After we had dinner these two just couldn't wait to play each other. Ryan missed Jessica so much!! And I think the feeling was mutual. They immediately had to hug each other, be silly, and make each other laugh with their funny faces. 

I love moments like this.

So grateful.

Today: Kids are out of school... we're busy putting books where they belong and helping the kids get their stuff back in their rooms too. I'm going to be SORE tomorrow since I had my STS LEG workout today as well and there are many trips up and down the stairs in my future. 

Yesterday I started thinking about my web presence and writing notes furiously. Do I redesign the blog to function as my website or create a separate website for myself? Need to figure out a few things like how I want to sell my paintings (and need to order shipping supplies and write descritpions) and how I can sell the digital designs that have been offline for a loooong time. 

I'm blocking out some time when the kids are asleep later to think towards the future and what new things I will be doing which is requiring some answers to the question, "What is it that I really want to do?" This is a hard one since there are so many good answers to this question!! I think I enjoy life too much! LOL! 

I know I need to be intentional and focused about my projects since I have a very limited amount of time that is actual "work" time (and next year when Ryan is in kindergarten I will have even less time - we have half-day kindergarten, which amounts to 3 hours). My most important priority, one that still LOVE and am fully committed to, is being a stay-at-home mom. I also need to start sowing the seeds for the future when I will have more time. I plan to go at my own pace and not compare myself to others (that's the hope, anyway)... I don't want to get caught up in competition. I need to remind myself often to stop comparing myself to people that are full-time professionals... be it artists, designers, writers, etc. because when I try to compare, I fall short miserably. There's no way I can be as productive or effective with a fraction of the time commitment - A SMALL fraction at that. I need to whisper to myself... go at your own pace. So lots of looking at my big picture, saying no to what I'm not going to do and then spending some time deciding I what I want to say YES to. Things are moving. Wheels are in motion. Good stuff. 

loves it when he does this

Ryan plays with Legos or cars every morning from the time he gets up until the time we are ready to get up. I love to see his creativity... when he gets away from the instruction inserts that come with in the set boxes and venture out on his own. He gets very creative with Legos, especially when I withhold screen time (the cruel, cruel mom that I am) and encourage him play quietly in his room. 

Here is a football re-enactment that he made not too long ago after we all spent some time the previous day watching the Florida Gator football game.

Unfortunately we do not have any Lego footballs... only basketballs and soccer balls. But hey, sometimes you have to improvise. I love that he included a goal post (and some spectators). I'm not sure what the car is there for but I tend to think of it as the golf cart they use if someone is injured and needs to be taken off the field for further examination.

Yesterday morning he was working on a quick version of P90X/Cathe STS where the Lego people are doing shoulder presses with barbells. This boy is very entertaining!

Today: We are supposed to get new carpet. We haven't had much luck thus far with the store we purchased our imaginary carpet from. I'm hoping today our luck with them will change for the better. More bringing things from upstairs to downstairs... the kids have much more in their closets than I thought was humanly possible.