About Last Month • October 2015

Halloween 2015

October was absurd/stressful/fun/hilarious and I wouldn't change a single crazy second of it.  For some inexplicable reason, after the busy days of September, I was under the mistaken impression that October would be more subdued, but I was - as usual - wrong.  We are in a busy season of life, and it is probably best that I just accept that.

In the midst of the busyness, The Musician and I escaped to Charleston for a long weekend for our 15th wedding anniversary.  The trip was glorious, of course.  We ate well, wandered and explored to our hearts content, stayed out too late every night, talked our way into not just one, but two, sold-out Jason Isbell shows, and acted like we didn't have a care in the world.  It was a little bit perfect.  And it was just what we needed.

During the month, I also marked a full year of daily yoga practice.  Yoga has been a part of my life for about ten years, but it wasn't until I began tracking my practice with an app on my phone that I turned it into a seven days a week habit.  I celebrated the milestone by (drumroll, please) practicing yoga, of course, and I have done a lot of reflecting on my experience over the past few weeks.

I am stronger after a full year of daily yoga, and I find that I now prefer to begin my day with yoga so that I can get on my mat and get into my body as preparation for the rest of the day, but a lot of things went much differently than I think I expected.  I still cannot stick a handstand, and I tip over in headstands as often as I hold them.  Arm balances are still out of reach, and it turns out that muscle really does weigh more than fat - after what is now 376 consecutive days of yoga, I still wear the same size of clothing, but I weigh seven more pounds than I did at the beginning of this project.

Seven pounds.  THAT'S FRUSTRATING, PEOPLE.

On the other hand, side plank now makes me feel like Superwoman, and my standing balance poses are strong and steady.  Most importantly, I find that I am more willing to try scary things on the mat.  And when I fail - which is often - my ego doesn't get as hung up on the outcome as it once did.  These days, when I fall out of a pose or find that I cannot even get into the pose in the first place, I laugh, make sure nothing got broken or sprained, dust myself off, and keep on going.

Princess Hazelnut has been very supportive, and decided that she too needed to begin practicing yoga to increase her own strength.  Most days now, she rolls out my mat and finds an episode of Cosmic Kids for herself while I am at my desk.  My ego is totally stoked about that.

What I'm Listening to

It's been all Jason Isbell, all the time, around here lately.  I still think Southeastern is his best album - and one of the best albums of the past ten years - but Something More Than Free is pretty phenomenal in its own right.

What I'm Reading

I spent three hours curled up in bed Saturday morning finishing The Thirteenth Tale.  It was the kind of book that you simply can't put down, but also desperately do not want to ever end.  Next up is Bel Canto, a book I have had on my TBR list for some time now.

What I'm Focusing On

Every November, I take the time each day to post something I am thankful for on social media, and serendipitously, right now I am in the middle of a study on One Thousand Gifts with a small group of women at church.  As part of the study, I have begun keeping an actual-factual pen-and-ink gratitude journal, and it is keeping thankfulness front and center as this month begins.  Gratitude is a very centering, grounding practice, and as absurd as it sounds, I am thankful for gratitude.

Meal Plan • 10/26/15

• Monday: Black bean chilaquiles
• Tuesday: Brown Rice Bowl with miso, poached egg, & kale-radish salad
• Wednesday: Slow-cooker spinach & ricotta lasagna
• Thursday: Penne with Roasted Cauliflower
• Friday: Creamy Kale & Garbanzo Soup (family favorite)
• Saturday: The kitchen will be closed for Halloween
• Sunday: The kitchen will still be closed.  I mean it.

This week is shaping up to be a doozy.  Quarterly payroll tax returns are due on Friday, I have a client knee-deep in the midst of a crisis, Book Character Costume Day is this Wednesday at the kids' homeschool academy, and I HAVE LESS THAN A WEEK LEFT TO WORK OUT THE DETAILS OF OUR FAMILY COSTUME FOR THE WILD RUMPUS.

{I will not freak out, I will not freak out, I will not freak out...}

Last year's costume is going to be hard to top, but coming up with family costume themes and participating in the bizarro community parade is waayyyyyy more our speed than trick-or-treating.  Besides, having The Great Pumpkin visit the house and leave a few favorite treats on All Hallow's Eve means that I can control the amount of sugar and the quality of the candy that we have around.

But all that is going to take a backseat for the next couple days while I knuckle down at my desk and Get. Things. Done.

It's going to take a lot of juggling to keep all these balls in the air for the rest of the month, and the meal plan is where I'm turning for warmth and nourishment - at a faster pace than usual.  Quick comfort foods for the win.

Meal Plan • 10/19/15

• Monday: Screw it.  I'm not cooking.
• Tuesday: Kale & White Bean Risotto (family favorite / super easy)
• Wednesday: Little Caesar's ($5 hot & ready to the rescue)
• Thursday: Orecchiette with Onions, Almonds, & Olives (new to us)
• Friday: Vegetable Pot Pies (another new to us recipe)
• Saturday: Braised cabbage, Wild Rice & Mushroom Pilaf
• Sunday: Every Man for Himself

The Musician and I returned late yesterday afternoon from a restorative four-day escape to Charleston, where we ate our way across the city, caught some excellent live music, spent longer than we should have in a fascinating used bookstore, and just generally enjoyed the view.  I love that city so much, and am still shocked that we haven't chosen to live there (yet).

So much of Charleston is walkable, which is always a boon in any destination with great food.  It is forever my goal to return from a vacation at the same weight in which I left, and this trip did not disappoint despite a (totally necessary) afternoon sojourn at Jeni's where I fell in love with a scoop of Bourbon Salted Pecan.  As for restaurant favorites, Magnolia's on Easy Bay was an upscale dinner to write home about, and the hipster Butcher & Bee on Upper King knocked our socks off for lunch, but there were another fifteen or so places on my list to try that we never made it to (see also: reasons to return soon).

I'm keeping the standards pretty low for much of this week.  So low, in fact, that even though I made the menu on the drive home yesterday, I already knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was going to either cook dinner or link the recipes until today (luckily, there were some leftovers in the fridge that fed the hungry members of our family fed last night while I was on strike) .

I know my limits, friends, and I am comfortable with them.

Quick Lit • October 2015

I had to abandon a book recently (not the book shown above in the photo), and it devastated me.  In theory, it makes sense that life is short and that we should not feel obligated to finish a book that is either boring, awful, or frustrating beyond belief, but in practice, it's hard to walk away from a book.

I feel like I am insulting the author, or worse, in the case of this most recent abandoned book, I feel like I am admitting I'm not smart enough to handle it.  

I waited for months for The Country of Ice Cream Star to come in at the library, and I was so excited when I opened it (on Reading Day, no less), but all my hopes were quickly dashed to the curb.  The entire book - every single last word of it - is told in a form of (how can I put this without coming off as a complete jackfruit?) uneducated slang.

The author pulled off an amazing feat by writing an entire book in that form, but her artistry, her ability and her stunning premise just weren't enough for me to overcome my horror at trying to "hear" the book in my head.

Every evening for a week or more, I would steel myself to open it back up and try again, but each time, I would grow agitated within a paragraph and my horror only grew with each page.  Finally, I had no choice but to give myself a pep talk and put the book down for good.  I felt something like relief when I put it in the drop at the library and walked away.

Today I am linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share short & casual snippet-like reviews of the books I have read over the past month.

The Sweet Life in Paris is the hilarious account of an American pastry chef living in Paris, and all of the quirky, absurd idiosyncrasies of, as he says, "the world's most glorious - and perplexing - city." The book is presented as a series of vignettes with recipes. The author is an award-winning blogger and cookbook author, and so each chapter is told in the familiar tone and stand-alone style of a blog post. Highly entertaining and (literally) laugh-out-loud funny.

Pastrix is the spiritual memoir of a fascinating, irreverent, highly intelligent, heavily-tattooed female Lutheran pastor (fair warning: profanities make this an R-rated religious book). Nadia Bolz-Weber manages to show the truth of grace at the same time that she herself requires a dose of it from the reader. I was made uncomfortable while I read, which is precisely what I expected and hoped for, and, I suspect, is what the author also hoped for in the writing. Whatever you think of her, Nadia Bolz-Weber is doing important work and she just might be the shot in the arm that complacent religiosity needs.

I had to to jump ship on The Country of Ice Cream Star. Generally, I love post-apocalyptic novels, but this one has stressed me out for the first 100 pages, and life is too short. The issue at hand is that the book is told in slang, a heavy, nearly-impenetrable slang, and it's too distracting. I'm impressed by the author's ability to perform a linguistic trick of this magnitude, but I read books for the beauty of the language, for sentences that grab me and don't let me go, for turns-of-phrases that blow my mind, and sometimes, just for the way they take me to another (easier) place. This one is difficult to read and hard to understand, and my love of grammar is being stomped upon, and I'm frustrated beyond belief. Walking away.

The Gracekeepers is an ethereal, darkly fanciful story of a haunting, post-apocalyptic future in which the vast majority of the planet is covered with water, and only the elite live on land. One of the characters lives alone in a tiny house in a "graceyard" where she performs restings (sea burials of the boat people), and the rest of the main characters are part of a rag-tag traveling circus that floats from island to island. The ending is a little weak and rushed, but the rest of the story is absolutely lovely.

Meal Plan • 10/12/15

• Monday: Black bean tacos with Southwestern slaw
• Tuesday: Golden bowl, brown rice, steamed kale
• Wednesday: Slow cooker white bean stew, baguette
• Thursday: Stir-fried cabbage & noodles
• Friday - Saturday - Sunday: Anniversary trip to Charleston (totally not cooking - do you have any restaurant recommendations for our trip?)

Last week's little slow-cooker experiment kind of blew my mind.  I had my doubts (so many doubts), and thought the best-case scenario would be that the dinner would be edible, but it turned out to be absolutely delicious.  I made this Spinach & Ricotta Lasagna from Real Simple and set the borrowed Crockpot to cook on high for four hours when I left the house at 8:30 am.

I had a list of concerns: whether crockpot lasagna would be worth eating in the first place, what would happen after the four-hour cooking cycle was over (would another four hours on the 'Keep Warm' setting totally kill the lasagna?), and would it matter that the Crockpot was a little less than half full (most of the online articles I read suggested filling it to about 2/3 full for best results).

When we arrived home at 4:30, I opened the door expecting to either smell the mouth-watering aroma of cooking lasagna or the horrifying smell of burned tomato sauce.  Instead, I smelled nothing.

That was disconcerting.

But then I opened the Crockpot, dipped in a wooden spoon, and hesitantly, suspiciously, fearfully eased a lilliputian bite into my mouth.

It was splendid.  The noodles (I used the no-boil kind) were perfectly cooked, the top cheese layer had cooked into a nice crust, and the edges of the casserole were crispy and the tiniest bit charred.  I was amazed at how well it worked, but what knocked me flat was that the whole family loved it.

Princess Hazelnut, who claims to not like any tomato-based sauce, ate two helpings for dinner, another for a pre-bedtime snack, and then finished it off for breakfast.

CRAZY.

So now I'm on the hunt for more vegetarian slow-cooker recipes.  It was genius to have a hot dinner waiting on me after being gone all day and before needing to leave the house again for another few hours in the evening.  Prep was minimal, cleanup was easy-peasy, and it was far more nutritious and tasty than take-out pizza.  Most of the recipes I have found so far, alas, have resembled bean mush though, so the jury is still out on whether it would be worth it for us to buy one of these contraptions.  I just can't bring myself to devote real estate to a gadget unless it will be used consistently.

Do you have any favorite vegetarian crockpot recipes?  Please, please share if you do...

Meal Plan • 10/5/15

(recipes linked below)

The framework for our menu plan has been working very well, but I felt like we didn't have quite enough options for our super-stinking-busy Wednesday 'emergency dinner' theme night.  After all, switching between pre-packaged egg rolls and carry-out pizza was going to get old pretty quick.  Also see: extra, unnecessary calories and feeling crappy afterwards.

And then, eureka.  Crockpot meals finally occurred to me.  Granted, I've never used a crockpot before, and it seems like the vegetarian options are a little limited, but a little digging and a bit of pinteresting has yielded at least a handful of promising options.  

I am not a big fan of unitaskers, so I own very few kitchen gadgets.  The crockpot has always struck me as one of those giant counter hogs that wouldn't get much use, and I have a perfectly good set of pans already, but...

Did you know crockpots are relatively inexpensive?  Even if this little experiment doesn't work, I wouldn't be out that much money (especially if I make use of one of those ubiquitous 20% off coupons that come in the mail every few days from a certain Big Box store), but...

I don't enjoy spending money on things that take up space.  I can spend money on a vacation like no one's business, and I have no qualms about spending money on an evening out with The Musician or The Girlfriends, but...

My mother has a crockpot.  To quell my qualms, I shall borrow hers for a couple weeks and try a recipe or two, and then, if I think slow-cookers are really all they're cracked up to be, I'll shell out the whopping $20 it'll take to buy one.  

I can't wait to report back on this little experiment.

There are a couple of new-to-us recipes on the menu for this week.  The slow-cooker recipe for Wednesday is obviously one of them, as is Tuesday's chickpea curry.  The mushroom-gruyere toast for Friday is new as well (it looks sooooo yummy, and since the hooligans don't like mushrooms, there'll be more for me).

Thursday's pasta torte is an old family favorite, and it disappears so quickly, I'll probably double the recipe so that we will have leftovers available for lunches.  Friday's French Onion Soup is one that always makes The Musician happy.

As always, Sunday will be Every Man for Himself due to the long-standing labor laws in our household.

• Monday: leftover Squash-Rice Casserole with a green salad
• Tuesday: Chickpea Curry with Coconut Rice
• Wednesday: Slow Cooker Spinach & Ricotta Lasagna
• Thursday: Torta di Pasta with Lemon Bruschetta
• Friday: French Onion Soup with Roasted Mushroom-Gruyere Toast
• Saturday: Crispy Flattened Potatoes with Brussels Sprouts Cockaigne
• Sunday: Every Man for Himself

About Last Month • September 2015

We are in our seventh year of homeschooling now, and, by George, I think we're finally starting to get the hang of it (though I realize that by saying that, I am opening myself up to a thousand little brand new snags).  This month, for the very first time, I was able to institute a Reading Day, something I have been meaning to do for so long that it's kind of embarrassing.  Math, spelling, and grammar were cancelled for the day, and the hooligans' work lists were filled with reading assignments: history, science, literature, and pleasure reading.   We all piled into my bed with a big stack of books and had the most glorious relaxed and cozy day while it rained outside.

September was an unusual month for us, in which most weekends were filled to the brim, and though I typically require a little more downtime in order to keep my sanity, we had so much fun that it was relatively easy to roll with it.  We finally had the chance to meet our newest family member, tiny Ansley Grace, early in the month, and she effortlessly stole our hearts.  Then, we took a long-anticipated camping trip to the Mammoth Caves in Kentucky, and while I do not necessarily recommend tent-camping when the temperatures are dipping below 60 degrees, we had our minds so thoroughly blown by tours inside the longest cave system in the world that it was totally worth the time shivering and bundling up around the campfire.

My daily yoga practice, which has lately been a solitary home activity, ventured back out into the world again with the semiannual yoga festival at UGA's Botanical Gardens and then later with a workshop at the Southeast Yoga Conference in Atlanta.  The festival had me practicing on stage again and the conference workshop reawakened a desire to dig more deeply into Ayurveda, so my morning journaling for the past week has focused squarely on where I want to go next with my yoga practice and nutrition education.

This past weekend, Princess Hazelnut turned eight and my father breezed into town for the shortest visit ever, so we reveled in some family and friend celebrations and we all did our level best to make the princess feel like a queen.  Cupcakes were eaten.  So. Many. Cupcakes.

October is shaping up to be a little bit more subdued (with the exception of a little anniversary getaway) and I, for one, am looking forward to some cozy time at home with my favorite people.

What I'm Watching

I just started streaming Justified after hearing people rave about it for years, and I think I love it.  The banter is intelligent and hilarious, and the characters are pretty tightly drawn.  As per my usual, I wince constantly at the way the South is portrayed, but since I swear I recognize some of the characters as people with whom I attended grade school, well...

What I'm Listening To

The Story of the World, Volume I.  With an over-full calendar, I have been doing everything I can to simplify our daily schedule and to use our time as efficiently as possible.  While we are running client errands and heading to the library is a great time to listen to our history lessons in the car, and we are all enamored with the voice of Jim Weiss.  This is our second time through the Story of the World series of books, but this is the first time we have purchased the audio CDs.  I feel like an idiot for not having purchased it years ago.

What I'm Reading

The Country of Ice Cream Star, a post-apocalyptic novel told with very odd twists of language.  I waited for months for this to come in at the library, and though I am hooked on the story, the dialect makes it fairly difficult to read. The rave reviews on the book jacket were written by a couple of my favorite authors, so I'm holding out hope that it will all come together soon.

Meal Plan • 9/28/15

(recipes linked below)

I think it's safe to admit that I'm in love with the framework I've been using for our weekly meal plans.  Having themes for each day, and a list of possible recipes for each theme, has helped me whittle meal-planning down to a weekly 15-minute task.  Easy peasy.

I sit down each week with my calendar to see which days will be particularly rushed, and then I plug in recipes according to the loose framework (Mondays are Mexican, Tuesdays are rice bowls, etc...).  And since many of my recipes use normal pantry ingredients, I only have to throw the fresh ingredients onto the grocery list and I'm all set.

Like I said, easy peasy.  

As for truth in blogging though, I think it's only fair that I report back on how the previous week's plan worked out.  Last week, I forgot to pick up egg rolls and vegetable gyoza from Trader Joe's, so {ahem} I grabbed a couple of $5 pizzas from Little Caesar's between picking up the kids from one activity and dropping them off at the next one.  Then, on Friday, The Musician decided to take the kids to the discount movie theater while I was in Atlanta, so they ate theater popcorn for dinner.  Saturday evening, my father was in town for a last-minute super-short visit, so we celebrated Princess Hazelnut's birthday at Piccolo's, our favorite local Italian restaurant, where I devoured the super decadent gnocchi with greens and beans.  The other four days went according to plan (that's a mind-blowing 57% success rate for those of you keeping score).

The past month has been overly busy, so I'm working steadily and conscientiously to keep the calendar under control for this week.  We will be home a lot more than usual, and the weather is acting suspiciously like autumn is on the way, so comfort foods are showing up all over the menu.  Wednesday, as usual, involves dinner eaten on the run, so I have planned for leftovers for that evening.

As always, Sunday will be Every Man for Himself because of the long-standing labor laws in our household.

• Monday: Beans & rice and pico de gallo
• Tuesday: Black pepper tempeh with cauliflower, served with brown & wild rice
• Wednesday: leftovers
• Thursday: Pasta with Blue Cheese, Spinach, & Walnuts (adapted from this Gourmet recipe)
• Friday: Broccoli & Cheddar Soup (recipe not available online, an oversight I intend to rectify) and a crusty baguette
• Saturday: Squash-Rice Casserole and a salad
• Sunday: Every Man for Himself

Meal Plan • 9/21/15

(recipes linked below)

The past few weeks have been an introvert's challenge, and this week looks like more of the same.  As always, there are events I am looking forward to (yoga workshop in Atlanta for the win), events that are blowing my mind (my baby's eighth birthday), and events that will require meditation/prayer/herbal tinctures to survive (a court date with a non-paying tenant).

In honor of the calendar and in an attempt to roll with the punches, this week's meal plan is heavy on convenience and lighter than I would prefer on nutrition.

We're all just doing the best we can here.

Taco night on Monday is one of my favorite ways to please everyone.  The Musician will happily brown a little meat for himself and The Boy Wonder, while I will roast some seasoned garbanzos for a vegetarian filling for Princess Hazelnut and myself.  Then we can each pile on toppings according to our individual whims: shredded cheese, chopped romaine, salsa, fresh peppers from my mother's garden, sour cream, tomatoes, various hot sauces, etc.

Tuesday will be a quiet day at home (happy dance), so there will be time for one of my favorite vegan meals.  Wednesday is madness, hence the prepackaged foods that require nothing more than a little re-heating on my part while I bust out a quick yoga practice in a corner of the kitchen during the brief time we will be at home.

Thursday will require a later dinnertime than usual, so an easy pasta meal is on tap.  Because I will be in Atlanta on Friday, The Musician will have a chance to make one of the kids' favorite meals.

I bet you can't guess which evening we are celebrating Princess Hazelnut's birthday.

As always, Sunday will be Every Man for Himself because of the long-standing labor laws in our household.

• Monday: Taco Night (garbanzo filling recipe)
• Tuesday: Roasted Buddha Bowl
• Wednesday: Thai Vegetable Gyoza & Vegetable Egg Rolls (Trader Joe's freezer products)
• Thursday: Linguine with Hot Chile, Caramelized Onions & Gremolata
• Friday: French Toast & Cheese Grits
• Saturday: Pizza & Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes

Quick Lit • September 2015

Sometimes I read a book so overwhelmingly fabulous that it overshadows all others, and I find myself unsure what to read next.  I tiptoe around my to-be-read stack, worrying that whatever subsequent book I choose will pale in comparison to what I have just finished.  I ran into such a glorious problem a few weeks ago when I devoured 800-something pages of 11/22/63 and was left wishing it had never ended.  It was simply a phenomenal book - the kind of story that grabs a hold of you and doesn't let go.  

Stephen King, I think, is too often discounted by serious readers because of his horror novels and the pulp-like tendencies of some of his books, but did you know he has written over 50 books?  And all of them were bestsellers?  Not just bestsellers, but worldwide bestsellers?  The man should be handed a few honorary doctorates and hailed as one of this country's great writers.  Also, he makes me want to visit Maine.  

His nonfiction book, On Writing, was the kind of nonfiction that is so engrossing I read it in one sitting, staying up into the wee hours of the morning so that I wouldn't have to put it down.

Today, I am linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy to share short & casual snippet-like reviews of the books I have read over the past month.

Small Victories: Spotting Improbably Moments of Grace is a collection of essays written in typical Anne Lamott fashion, filled with irreverence and wit and copious George W. Bush bashing. Each of the essays stands alone, though the concept of grace is the binding thread between them, so it might not be something that you sit down with and expect to read cover-to-cover in one sitting. She's a hot mess in all of these stories, and that is what makes her so relatable (and, dare I say, lovable).

Still Life is a lovely debut detective novel, refined and graceful and just suspenseful enough. The characters were quirky and eccentric and mostly loveable, escaping the tiresome hard-boiled cliches of most contemporary detective series. The mystery itself was almost background for what became a character study more than an edge-of-the-seat thriller. My only complaint was the heavy-handed, hurried manner in which the mystery was solved In the final few pages. Regardless, I will be putting the next book on hold at the library right away. I can't wait to see where the author goes with this series.

Landline was a bummer. Maybe I expected too much from this book (I *loved* Eleanor & Park, after all), but I ended up feeling pretty let down by this one. The dialogue is great and the characters are interesting, but the storyline read like just another chick lit book to me. I just don't love angst in books about adults. It isn't a bad book, by any stretch, and if chick lit is your thing, this is one of the better ones. I'm torn between two and three stars, so I'm giving this novel the benefit of the doubt and giving it three because it is very well-written for the genre.

11/22/63 blew me away, and was almost impossible to put down (despite it topping out at close to 900 pages). The narrator travels back in time to attempt to prevent JFK's assassination, and while that part left me breathless for around 100 pages, the breadth of the story is spent exploring the narrator's years biding his time as he waits between 1958 and 1963. The characters he meets, the towns he lives in, the experiences of this modern-day schoolteacher in a time gone by are gripping and even a little haunting. Storytelling as its finest. I only wish it had been twice as long.

Attachments is a little fluffy, but highly entertaining. There is a geeky, D&D-playing male narrator and a slew of likeable and mostly hilarious characters. My only complaint is the cheese factor of the last two chapters, but the cheese was redeemed by the intelligent wit and some truly laugh-out-loud moments. Great vacation read.

Descent is suspenseful and atmospheric, with flawed characters (my favorite kind) and a dark but not overwhelmingly bleak tone.  The novel traces the story of a family in the wake of the disappearance of their daughter while the family is on vacation in the Rocky Mountains. The story is told over a number of years and follows each of the characters in turn.