"How's the campaign going?"
It's the question I get most often. It's also the question I'm never quite sure how to answer.
Good? ... Great! ... Your guess is as good as mine. ... We'll see May 17th!
The truth - I suppose - all depends on what you're measuring.
This weekend we hosted a Winter ONE-derland party in honor of Felix's first birthday. Considering this child was born during a snow, it seemed like an appropriate theme. Well, the weather had other plans and it was 70 and sunny! I could have hosted the dang party outside!
For my 30th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do. One was to write a historical fiction short story. This is the story and as Ruby keeps calling to me here lately. I thought I'd share it here.
One of Nicholas's New Year's resolutions was to try freezer meals. He'd prepped meals for the week on and off through 2015 and wanted to see how it would work to prepare an entire month's worth. Then, we could just pull a meal from the deep freeze, throw it in the crockpot, and on a busy day dinner would be waiting for us.
For the first five years of our marriage, Nicholas and I didn't have a yard - at least not one we had to maintain. So, when we left our 3rd floor walk up in D.C. for the landscaped wonderland of Paducah, we had some learning to do.
We also had a big but UGLY backyard (front yard is another story for another day). Seriously. This is what it looked like.
Three years ago, I wrote a post on Salt & Nectar sharing the tasks I don’t do as a mom. I was relieving myself of the guilt by announcing to the world “I don’t do these things and I don’t feel bad about it!” At the time, my list included cleaning my kitchen floors (because really that is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one), gardening, cooking, playing with my kids, and scrapbooking.
The list has largely remained the same. I still don’t clean my floors. I still don’t scrapbook or cook. I still don’t play with my kids. I have taken up yard work AND composting thanks to the generous help of family friends and a partnership with Ryobi (posts on that to come!). However, overall, I continue to NOT do those things and have added to the list since adding another kid and a growing business to my life.
So, here’s my UPDATED things I don’t do list.
Our vow renewal was recently featured in Paducah Life's The Wedding Book and, as we approach wedding season, I thought I'd share the reflections I shared in the magazine.
Ten years ago I was a blushing bride. A young girl who knew a lot about weddings and receptions and bridal gowns - but very little about marriage. I spent months on Save the Date cards and out-of-town guest baskets and floral arrangements. I obsessed over song selection and reading selection and appetizer selection.
Ten years later, as my husband and I discussed how to celebrate a decade of marriage, I knew my bridal days were over. Now, instead of a wedding to plan, I had a family to run. Two boys. Two careers. A home. I wanted to skip the obsessing and stress and expectations that had overtaken my life ten years ago.
Big celebrations are fun. Christmas. Anniversaries. They all deserve their day. However, the everyday is where we live our lives and deserves to be celebrated as well.
Every year to celebrate and document my family's everyday lives I participate in Ali Edwards' A Week in the Life. For one week, I take photos every where we go and of every thing we do. I keep receipts, make notes of our schedule, and generally document every little detail.
This is my FIFTH week in the life. I can't believe how much our lives have changed since July 2010 when Griffin was just a baby, but I am so so glad I have A Week in the Life to help me reflect on all those changes every year. We're technically doing another one before an entire year has passed but I wanted to capture the spring and our lives with two little ones in preschool so 9 months was close enough!
Here are photos from a week in our lives.
This week is National Backyard Games Week. It's been GORGEOUS here in Kentucky and is supposed to remain gorgeous the rest of this week. That means there's no excuse not to get outside and have a little fun. Not to mention, things have been a smidge serious around these parts and we (as in the kids AND adults) could use a little silly.
I went and rounded up some awesome backyard games that involve MINIMAL effort (I'm looking disapprovingly at you giant Jenga/Chess/Checkers sets).
So, go outside, engage your competitive side, and have some fun!
I'm on the Huffington Post Parents blog sharing the valuable lessons my mom taught me about parenting.
My mother has told me the story a million times. I was only a couple of days old and asleep in my room. Laying in her own bed, my mother was worried about how quiet I was. What if I had stopped breathing?
Then she decided that if I had died, she would need her rest to deal with it. She rolled over and went back to sleep.
My mother was clear from the beginning. I might have been an important planet, but I was not the entirety of her universe. As an only child and the eldest grandchild, there were many adults in my life that doted on me and catered to my every whim.
My mother was not one of them.
Yes, that's me. Yes, my love of chocolate chip cookies started early.
Y'all, TODAY is Chocolate Chip Cookie Day.
If you know me AT ALL, you know this might as well be my birthday. Sure, I have a thing for s'mores, but there is only one dessert that lives in my heart and that dessert is the chocolate chip cookie. It is my favorite food. Period.
When I was pregnant with Griffin, my blood pressure spiked in the last couple days of my pregnancy. My midwife made it very simple for me. No sugar. No salt. Vegetables and lean meat. Luckily, my blood pressure went down but life without chocolate chip cookies (ESPECIALLY when you are nine months pregnant!) is not really life. Obviously, Griffin agreed because he arrived only a few days after I started the diet.
I gave birth to my firstborn child. I kissed his sweet face and then I said one thing.
"I want a chocolate chip cookie."
When we completed the Whole30, I felt great. I felt free of sugar and processed food. And yet...the last night of the 30 days I walked into my kitchen and made myself the most perfect, most delicious chocolate chip cookie of all time and felt even better.
My preferred chocolate chip cookie recipe after YEARS of research is Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe adapted by the New York Times.
Adapted from Jacques Torres
Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling
2 cups minus 2 tablespoons
(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
Sea salt.
1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.
Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.
Is this recipe ridiculous? YES. But is it the best? YES!
In a pinch, you can make a skillet cookie. If you’re feeling healthy, you can make these paleo chocolate chip cookies, which I also love.
Just celebrate Chocolate Chip Cookie Day! Because if chocolate chip cookies aren’t worth celebrating, NOTHING IS.
