2011 Greatest Hits

Oh, Boy!
My life changed this year. I had a beautiful son in July.  I had a complicated pregnancy and he was delivered early. The rough start was scary but he is healthy and doing very well.  My Heart's Desire and I are over the moon and love being parents to Babyface. 

The first part of the year was consumed by getting ready for Babyface.  We took lots of classes to get ready for his arrival.  Once Babyface came home from the hospital, I felt like we were in a bunker.  For months we were on his 24 hour a day schedule.  Once he started sleeping through the night, I began emerging from the bunker little by little.  I have continued to take classes and joined several groups.

I was so loved on my wedding day and thought that was the most loved I would ever feel, but I was overwhelmed with love and support when I was pregnant and when Babyface was born.  People came out of the woodwork to love Babyface.  I'm so grateful for all the love pouring into our new family.

It's All Relative
After Babyface was born, everyone in our immediate family traveled from far and wide to come and love him, including some relatives who hadn't been here in ages.  It was wonderful to have family here and for them to meet him.  Everyone brought or made food and took care of Babyface so My Heart's Desire and I could rest. 

Books
My sister handed down her Kindle to me. I had been reluctant to use an E-reader because I love books and spend enough time staring at screens. To my surprise, it is very easy to read on and doesn't feel like reading on a computer screen, which I really don't like.  Also, when I was on bed rest and couldn't make it to the library or bookstore, I still had reading material at my fingertips.  I could download books and just carry the Kindle, which is lighter than a paper book. When we went to Florida, I just took the Kindle and it was the first time I had traveled with no books. 

Family Traditions

My Heart's Desire likes to make Christmas ornaments with mementos from our year.  This year we have a special frame to celebrate our baby's first Christmas.  In addition, we have had professional photographs taken of the baby and our family.  These photographs are family treasures!

Guilty Pleasure
Subscribing to HBO.  We'd lived happily without any premium cable channels for years but I couldn't resist the siren call of True Blood.  Lafayette steals the show.

Used Bookstore
The Friends of the Montgomery County bookstores. They have great books at bargain prices.  Also I have found some books in great shape for Babyface.

Local Getaway

I won a night at the Morrison House in their Valentine's Day promotion of Facebook and it was wonderful. I was pregnant and tired so the night in a fancy hotel room across town was lovely.  We could have done more around Alexandria but once we came across Girl Scouts selling Samoas, I was content.

Merry and bright

This year we traveled for the holidays and the wreath was the only holiday decoration we put up.  No stockings, no holiday linens, no lights. 

At first I felt a little Grinchy, as I do love to make the house festive, but I really didn't need more things to do.  I also didn't make Christmas cookies (gasp!), watch Christmas Vacation, or make a holiday music CD.  It still felt like Christmas.

I managed to watch Love Actually, write Christmas cards, and bake loads of oatmeal cookies. I also played a lot of holiday music.  Our travels were to see My Heart's Desire's 100-year old great-Aunt in Florida and I was glad we went.  The weather was great and I also got to go for a traditional Christmas swim.

Today I got up early and did chores, including cleaning two bathrooms, made a weekend breakfast of baked eggs on an English muffin with cheese, hung out with my family, did five loads of laundry and actually folded it all and put it away, combined two oatmeal chocolate chip cookie bars with disastrous (read: inedible) results, went out and got a much needed mani-pedi (my first one in months!) in Mademoiselle, made a half batch of oatmeal chocolate chip bars from the recipe I know is good, shared leftover pizza for dinner with My Heart's Desire, watched an episode of Arrested Development on Netflix (we are hooked on this show), and am going to bed early. 

Grateful

Today I am grateful for: my mentor, the clerk at Macy's who scanned a coupon and saved me $9 on a $44 purchase, having a tank full of gas, finally paying off my overdue library fines (My Heart's Desire is good at many, many things but returning things to the library isn't one of them) so I can check out books, brisk weather, community, and family and friends near and far.

2012

2012 is just around the corner and I am mulling over what I want to focus on in the new year.  In 2009 I set commandments, which were helpful but hard to measure the outcome.  I set ambitious goals in 2010 and reported that I met some of them more successfully than others.  What is it that I want to put into 2012?  What do I want to get out of it?  

The Night Circus

The first chapter of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was so intriguing that after reading it, I immediately bought the book on my Kindle and dove in.  However, was was so intriguing in the beginning of the story became tedious by the middle.  I couldn't wait for it to end.  If it had been a library book, I would have put it down but since I paid for it, I finished it.  The story is interesting and fantastic (A Night Circus!  Magic!  Love!  A Game!  Dreamers!) but it reads like a well-thought out script, rather than a novel.  I also didn't really connect with the main love story.  I have a feeling this will probably become a movie and it has the potential to be a really good one.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins

My sister gave me this recipe and it is really good! I liked it so much I doubled it and made pumpkin oatmeal bread too.  The muffins also freeze beautifully. 

Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins

I also made orange cream cheese to go with them since we were having company. That's right, sometimes I'm fancy. Mix 2T of orange juice concentrate with a half package of cream cheese and a little powdered sugar, then mix with hand blender until fluffy.  It's best to make the cream cheese the day before.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 cup quick oats (I used old-fashioned)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup raisins (I left out, I don't like raisins in food)
1/2 cup walnuts
1 large egg, beaten
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk
1 cup solid-pack canned pumpkin

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl; then stir in oats, brown sugar, nuts and raisins.

In a medium bowl, combine egg, oil, milk and pumpkin, blending well.

Stir pumpkin mixture into dry ingredients until just moist. Fill muffin tins with batter and bake for 22 to 25 minutes, until tops spring back when lightly touched.

Today I am grateful for holiday music, my new phone, having heat, the spirit of the season, books, and homemade granola.

Blueprints for Building Better Girls

I heard good things about Elissa Schappell's related stories in Blueprints for Building Better Girls and had pretty high expectations.  I'm the kind of reader that ordinarily will wait for paperback or get it from the library.  For this book, I hoped for the best.  And I was not disappointed.  At once honest, sharp, and tender, I could not put this book down. 

Today I am grateful for my candy cane flannel pajama pants (which I have been living in lately), chamomile tea, hugs, old-fashioned correspondence, and my family.

Delicious & Easy Roast Chicken and Potatoes

I made this for the first time last month and it was a big hit around here!  I was very impressed with myself.

This recipe is just prep, assemble, then walk away as it roasts.  It's done when the chicken is fully cooked and the potatoes are soft in the middle.  Because it cooks so slowly, the chicken is really juicy.  You could also do a million things with the leftovers.

One chicken, already cut up
Potatoes
Onion
2 T olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Garlic powder

Preheat oven to 400* while you wash and chop potatoes and onions.  Next time I'll make the potatoes a little bit smaller than pictured.  Pour the olive oil, some salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika in a large roasting pan.  Add the veggies and stir.  Then season the chicken with salt, pepper, and paprika.  Add the chicken to the roasting pan, skin side up.  Set the timer for an hour and walk away.  The house will smell really good as it cooks!  Check it after an hour (use a thermometer).  Last night's chicken was 4.5lbs and took 1 hr 20 mins to cook.  And it was great!

View From A Room

I love fall!  And I have quite a view of it from my very own window.  I love this time of year when the leaves are crunchy and it's just a little chilly.  My CSA offers Honeycrisp apples, which became my favorite kind of apple last year.  My Heart's Desire spent some of the weekend splitting firewood and our first fire of the season will be coming soon!

April Fools in Love

On this day four years ago, I walked down the aisle to Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" and married My Heart's Desire.

How to Bake a Perfect Life

I picked up How to Bake a Perfect Life: A Novel from Target (yes, I had a gift card). I love books that are about family relationships between women and this book had complex relationships in spades, mother/daughter, grandmother/granddaughter, sisters, aunt/niece, and more. The book features three different points of view and was an enjoyable read. Since the mother owns a bakery, it also had recipes! (6)

Spring is in the air!

Today I got up early and read, admired my blooming hyacinth, forsythia, and daffodils, met a friend for lunch (falafel salad, yum!), took a leisurely stroll, decided the out the door and down three stores line was just too long to stand in for cupcakes, hung out at home, and went out to dinner with My Heart's Desire.

Townie

I heard Andre Dubus III read at a university event last year and it was my favorite reading ever. I went because of how much I liked House of Sand and Fog.

 I got my hands on Townie: A Memoir when it was hot off the presses.  Yes, it is in hardback so I used a gift card and a coupon. This memoir pulls no punches, is dark, violent and heartbreaking, and most of all is the story of a writer.

I really enjoyed (perhaps consumed would be a better word) this book and immediately shared it with my honorary Jewish grandmother so that she could read it too.  (5)

Books I wanted to like but didn't

I had high hopes for Karen Russell's Swamplandia!.  Everywhere I looked, I saw good reviews.  I had a coupon and a Groupon (!) so I bought this book in hardback.  Hardback's not something I usually do.  In fact, if you were to open most of my hardbacks and peek at the front page, you would probably find inscriptions on them since most hardbacks I have were gifts.  Alas, this book did not live up to the considerable hype.  (3)

I'll admit it, I liked Ann Brashares Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, Book 1).  I even saw both movies in the theater.  So I thought her novel for adults, My Name Is Memory, would be good.  Instead, it wasn't.  (4)

Today I am grateful for comfy clothes, online newspapers, Green Monsters for breakfast, Barry White songs, books on CD from the library, Roku (My Heart's Desire and I are totally hooked), spring is 17 days away, already joined CSA so have fresh, local produce to look forward to, being happy for other people, costume jewelry, Girl Scout cookie season, and one of my favorite children's books, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Perfect Getaway

Before Valentine's Day, I entered the Morrison House's Facebook contest: Share your most memorable Valentine's Day and be automatically entered to win a Free 1-night stay.  I happen to have a story for such an occasion. 

For our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, My Heart's Desire arranged to have a lovely orchid sent to my office. Unfortunately, there was a DC area blizzard and no delivery trucks could brave the roads. On February 15th, a dead orchid arrived on my desk. We still laugh about it.

And that story won the free night at the fancy hotel!

I received in the mail a package of hotel information and a gift certificate good for one year.  I was not about to wait, I've been slightly stir crazy and need of a getaway.

After a leisurely Saturday morning at home, My Heart's Desire and I packed one very small bag and headed across town.  We stopped first at the charming Del Ray neighborhood and bought some cheese and a fresh baguette from a cheese boutique, browsed at local shops and art galleries, tried key lime custard for the first time, and strolled in the sunshine.

 We have been to the Morrison House before, for a wedding in September, and thought it was lovely.  We checked in and found waiting in our room a selection of truffles, healthy juices, and an orchid as a gift!  It really was above and beyond our expectations. The room itself was fabulous!

On Saturday evening, we walked around Old Town and had a light dinner.  Many of the shops were closed, so after room service pancakes on Sunday morning, we resumed our walk.  We visited the Torpedo Factory (former torpedo factory, now art studios and galleries), many small boutiques, walked around, had lunch, purchased Girl Scout cookies, and headed back home, relaxed and happy. 

Today I am grateful for: reading glasses = 98% fewer headaches!!! (and I can whip them off dramatically when I want to make a point), hot chocolate with mini marshmallows, good books, only 33 days until Spring, sound machines, Roku, and looking on the bright side.

You Know When the Men Are Gone

One of the members of my writing group lent me Siobahn Fallon's You Know When the Men Are Gone, a collection of related short stories about the Army wives of deployed soldiers and what their lives are like.  Well written and engaging, I sat down with this book and didn't get up until 90 minutes later when I was done, and wished there was more. (2)

Today I woke early to the sounds of a wood chipper on my street, enjoyed pre-Valentine's Day pancakes My Heart's Desire cooked (all the tastier because I had nothing to do with making them), tided up the house a little bit, got a huge kick out of Cash Peter's Gullible's Travels: The Adventures of a Bad Taste Tourist (3) that my colleague lent me and now have a desire to go to the Museum of Bad Art, did laundry, talked to one of my favorite aunts, had friends over for Middle Eastern food dinner, played Bop It with their 10-year-old daughter (I got to 50!), nibbled on mini cupcakes and brownies, warmed myself by the fire My Heart's Desire made, chatted up the proverbial storm with my BFF, and now am going back to the fire.

Who are you calling cheap?

I finally read Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell, which explores where bargains come from and what the real costs are.  The history of retail discounting and the far-reaching consequences are discussed, as well as the human and environmental costs of inexpensive goods and food.  And it shows what, exactly, you are supporting when you buy a (practically disposable) coffee table from IKEA, cheap toothpaste from Wal-Mart, or eat all the shrimp you can at Red Lobster for one low price.  Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture shows how quality and craftsmanship have been traded for fun design at low prices and how that affects workers, the environment, and American businesses.  (1)

2010 Goals Report

Read/Write/Blog

1. Read 100 books this year. Fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, books on CD, I did it. My favorite book of the year was definitely Emma Donoghue's Room. The runners up were The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie and Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

2. My goal was to meet with my awesome writing group four times this year. We met at least that many times for workshops, coffees, dinner, and attending author readings. I'm really glad that we met more regularly.

3. Submit, submit, submit. That's right — to do three submissions mailings. I managed to do two submissions and complain a lot. I did the essay submission to Real Simple and also submitted poems to some literary journals.

4. Blog regularly. I aimed for 200 blog posts this year. I tried, but I ended up with 166 posts, which was close, but a lot more posts than 2009 (112).

 

Healthy  

5. Participate in two races. For one of them, raise money for a worthy cause.  For the other one, go outside my comfort zone. Participate in two races? In 2010, I participated in five 5Ks: Earth Day, Eating Disorder Awareness, Girls on the Run, Race for the Cure, and a Turkey Trot. I raised $615 for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  And I went way outside my comfort zone and trained all summer for the Philadelphia Half Marathon! I never would have even considered it but a healthy friend pushed me to sign up for the challenge.

 

6. Eat vegetarian food 90% of the time. I have not been keeping track of how often I eat meat, but I do eat a lot of vegetarian meals. Also, joining the CSA put a lot of fresh, local produce on the table for 24 weeks, and I felt good about that. Two other farmer's market near me sell eggs, chicken, and meat that are from humane family farms.

Fun & Friends

 7. Try 10 new things. Some of the new things I tried included:

•  Visiting the "What Makes Us Laugh?" exhibit at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore
• Going canoeing with My Heart's Desire at a local lake
• Attending a conference for fun
• New foods, including barbequed shrimp and beignets (in New Orleans), honey crisp apples and spaghetti squash (from the CSA), new recipes (including Pasta Yum, Hurry Up Alfredo with less mustard over pasta, the sauce is also great on steamed spinach), and several new restaurants
• Taking a 2.5 hour walk/jogging tour of NYC
• Giving out free hugs in Times Square
• Visiting a charming town on the seashore for my cousin's wedding with my mom and My Heart's Desire 
• Cruising around Maui in a Jeep Wrangler (so fun!), where we hiked around different parks, took lots of photos, and admired the views from the volcano

 8. Show that friendship is important. My goal was to make plans to see friends at least once a week. I almost always exceeded this goal, and found that making it a priority meant I was more likely to do it.

 9. Have fun with My Heart’s Desire at least once a month. We enjoyed cooking, going out for live comedy, our 4th annual Independence Day barbeque, visiting museums, going on walks, trying new restaurants, traveling (Maui was just amazing), watching movies, and lounging by the fire.

10. Get a decent photo taken with My Heart’s Desire. It's true that we haven’t had a good one taken since our wedding. And I pretty much gave up on this idea for 2010.

While I did not meet all of my goals perfectly, I do feel great about the goals I did achieve. Having concrete goals was really helpful and gave me specific things to focus on (run two races, train for ambitious race) rather than vague generalities like be healthy or exercise more. And almost every month I posted a report about how it was going with the goals. I'm still mulling over my goals for 2011.

Happy New Year!

Today I am grateful for: being home, having our traditional New Year's Eve carpet picnic with My Heart's Desire, sparkling apple cider, catching up on sleep, appreciating what I have, the long weekend, and lots of firewood for fires!