39 and 2007 #2

I'm still thinking about this 39/40th year thing. It actually occupies quite a bit of my think time. I am working on a list of the things I don't want to carry with me anymore... internal and external.

For instance, I have a chronic problem with my hip and lower back. I KNOW that if I strengthened my "core," most of the trouble would go away. It feels like I have two choices: live with it for the next forty years, or deal with it.

On the surface, it seems really simple. Who wouldn't strengthen their core if it would fix a chronic pain problem? On the other hand, I don't care for any of the core exercises I've been given or have done in the past. Every day I put it off, though, leads to a new year of dealing with the same problem. I don't want to have a nagging hip for the next forty years, so I think it's time to deal with it.

There are a bunch of other nagging things I'm thinking about... they just haven't all taken shape. I'm working on it, though, and I'm hoping for some clarity and some goals. Joey asked me today if I made resolutions, and I'm usually pretty careful about NOT making resolutions. Then he said, "I don't make resolutions, I set goals."

Sometimes I wish I was more like my kids. Goals seem WAY better to me than resolutions, and more helpful somehow.

So I'm working on some goal setting for my year of exploration; my year of living dangerously. And I've got six weeks (about 40 days!) until I turn 39. That seems just about right.

Boring

I haven't been bored.
I haven't felt boring.
But I sure haven't thought of anything to post about, meaningful or otherwise.

It's just after supper (Chicken Tikka Masala...oh that is good stuff) and I am finishing my very nicely balanced Syrah from Argentina (it's really good--I'll have to write down the name.)

I made curtains for Micah's room today with Yvonne, the wonder-seamstress. They look great and he likes them. That leaves only a very few things left to do on his room. It's going to be our nicest room.

Rob and Joey are watching Hockey Night in Canada. Micah is not so into it... he is waiting for the computer, I think.

So I better go.

just a quick one...

It's been a great week...
two days in the whiteshell
a lovely Christmas brunch
a new love: the steam room.

I seem to be developing a few "new" loves these days...
wasabi, quinoa, chocolate salad...

I'm glad the steam room doesn't include food.

Micah and Presents

Well now that Micah's posted again, you can read the carol he's composed in my honour.

It's a little hard to follow on the computer screen, but rest assured he sings it VERY well. I used to wrap the presents and put them under the tree right away, but I got tired of all the rummaging and shaking and he'd get so intense about it, it almost seemed mean.

So, now he's got a full day to shake 'em to his heart's content.

P.S. You might notice the quote from Animal Farm in the title. Yup. We read it when he was seven. Amazing what one can foist on one's children before they're old enough to know that you're foisting something on them. They sure got mad when that sweet old hard working horse (I forget his name) got carted away to the glue factory.

Joey and Santa

So Joey's never been a believer, but this Christmas he discovered the magic of Santa. He was asked to be Santa for the kindergarten class party. He must be just about the youngest and skinniest Santa ever but that's beside the point.

When Rob got home, I said, "Joey played Santa today for the kindergarten class party."

And Joey replied, "I didn't PLAY Santa, I WAS Santa."

I stand corrected.

He marvelled in the fact that they believed him. They believed in him. They really thought he was Santa.

It made me wish I was 5 again.

39 and 2007

A bunch of related thoughts:

I will be turning 39 in 2007. February 2007. That's coming up pretty soon.

39 comes just before 40.

40 seems really significant to me, somehow. It's right in the middle of 20 and 60--some of an adult's most productive years, and it's half way to 80, which would be a pretty reasonable expectation for a normal Canadian life span.

Biblically, it also comes up as the number of testing or trial: the flood lasted 40 days, the people of Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days before he was tempted, etc.

(Irresistable Aside: It seems like a lot of the people who really get into the biblical numbers thing are pretty crazy. One guy had a chart that somehow assigned numbers to letters, and with that, he discovered that the name, "Elvis" is equal to the number 13, the number for (gasp) rebellion. Poor Elvis never had a chance. There are 91 prophecies regarding him in the bible, as well. That site made for some interesting number/bible reading. Sadly, I didn't save the link.)

Okay, back to my point. I am thinking that I would like to use the year leading up to my fortieth to mean something. I want to take risks. I want to stretch myself. I want to seek wise counsel. I want to set a course for the second half of my life. I want to investigate hurts and hopes and dreams I've avoided in the past. I want to be sure I'm not wasting my time here, and I want my time to count.

I think I want to call it my year of living dangerously, though I don't want to necessarily risk my life.

However, I would like to do one of those toxin cleanse things, and I'd like to go on a silent retreat. I would like to take a trip with my sisters and I would like to spend some part of February 2008 with Glenda. Somewhere nice. (You've been warned my dear. I mean, we almost have the same birthday, so it seems fitting, right?) I want to keep plugging away at renovating our home and I would love to take a garden tour of Charlottetown, PEI with Rob's mom. I want to sew an outfit for myself and I want to keep taking flute lessons. I want to find out what I've not done because I knew I wouldn't do it perfectly and I want to do at least some of those things.

I will kick off my 39th birthday celebrations by spending the week before with Rob on Anna Maria Island on the gulf coast of Florida. I think it will be a great time to reflect and work on my list.

And if you have suggestions, or wise counsel, I would welcome it.

For Joyce

Santa

We're not really big on Santa in our home, but this video over at Alisha's blog made me laugh. I kept cringing and expecting it to get "worse," if you know what I mean, but it didn't and it sure was funny.

And a great plug for our catering from Krista... oh we do have something really yummy planned for their Christmas dinner.

I'm off to watch Micah's chorale group perform at the Forks. He is wearing white today, but just dark jeans--not black. My days of buying one pair of black pants that they only wear about three times a year are over.

There you go... three links to follow. Have fun.

Merry Christmas from the Noble Hound

one more thing, on my vacuum break...

yesterday we had a christmas (oops, i mean winter celebration) concert at the kids' school. joey had to wear a white shirt and dark pants, and micah had to wear a black shirt. he could have worn black jeans, as he has them, but we kind of forgot. i did ask if he was sure about the black/white thing, because i thought it strange that joey might wear white, but micah was still in black (like the previous years.)

well, we got to the chri...winter celebration and i saw a whole whack of kids in white shirts and black pants. like, almost all of them.

and then the chorale group filed onto the stage. there were about 60 kids dressed in white, and my sweet micah, wearing black.

"i looked like a flippin' black sheep out there," said micah when it was all over.

you did, my darling, and i love you all the more because of it.

classic micah.

(wendy that was such a nice photo you sent i had to add it to my post.)

So I'm a little obsessive...

I found this recipe for a salad using dark chocolate at this recipe site. I noticed they used shallots in their balsamic... much milder than garlic, of course. And I don't think I'll go nuts on all the different kinds of bitter greens. That sounds really elegant, but good romaine or leaf will do me just fine. The hazelnuts sounded like a great addition.

I will report back.

Good morning

I was going to go to Superstore this morning to finish all of my Christmas grocery shopping, but alas, I'm putting it off and have decided to clean the house, pick up and deliver our potatoes from the potato sale, pick up Micah's present, spend some "quality time" with Jed, do a bit of laundry and get ready to bring some soup to the Foodgrains Bank.

Superstore will have to wait. So might some of the items on my list... I'm not sure how far I will get but I bet I will get farther if I get off the computer now.

Guilty as Charged

So it seems that the typical question these days is "are you ready for Christmas?" I suppose that according to the powers that be, I am not really and truly ready for Christmas. I have not baked. I have not scrubbed. I have not yet decorated the tree (though we did buy it and put it up yesterday and it does smell delicious.) I have not purchased many (okay I'll be honest, any) gifts for my kids yet. We don't even have candy canes in the house. And I think we're still not sure what day we are going to have the "family Christmas dinner."

Usually I'm not THIS bad.

However, we warned our kids that we would do Christmas "small" this year. We went to Mall of America in the fall and we called that a kind of Christmas thing. Joey bought some new lizards and asked if we would just help him get those, he would find that enough of a Christmas present. Micah has pared his Christmas list to a snow skate (it's a skateboard without wheels and you can use it on the snow).

I'm kind of revelling in the peace, to be honest. And then I read Krista's post and I especially revelled in the peace. The last few years I ran the Christmas hamper program at Winnipeg Harvest and I must say I got somewhat tired and disillusioned about the whole Christmas gifts thing. I know it's fun, and I love stuffing stockings, and I love to give presents and there are some I even like to get, but the last few years there has been so much stuff around, you know? And I really get sick of stuff. You just need to dust it, oil it, clean it up or put it away.

And I would Christmas bake, except I would eat all the shortbread, and the family would say, "Mom where's the shortbread?"

And I would either have to confess or lie.

"There was a poor family at the door and I gave it all away. Sorry. I'll make more for you guys." And so it would go. I'm not much of a binger, but shortbread puts me over the edge. So do Nanaimo bars.

So, I might not be truly ready for Christmas, but I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

It sure feels good.

Sadly

Poor Jed has hip displasia. I don't know a lot about it yet, but he limps and it's because his hip sockets aren't properly formed.

The future? Arthritis. Since he is young and it is already showing up, it's probably quite severe.

Options? Surgery for about $3000.00. Not to mention all the "side treatments" (x-rays, etc.). I just can't see us finding that kind of cash for poor dear Jed.

Here's to hoping.

Update

I tried to make the Salade Noire. It needs some tweaking. I put garlic in the balsamic viniagrette and I'm sure that wasn't right. I think I'll need to go back and try to discern a little more carefully what must be in it.

Yum

Had a wonderful lunch with a wonderful friend. I ordered the "salade noire." Basically it's leaf lettuce with balsamic vineagrette, with very finely grated dark chocolate and parmesean. You would not believe how delicious it was AND it tasted good with coffee. I never drink coffee with my meal.

I shall have to learn to make it myself.

Recipe Night

This is Linda's recipe but it is dead easy and I cooked it for the first time tonight and my family loved it. (She's been telling me to try it for a while now and tonight I happened to have all the ingredients and brown basmati--is there any other rice? A little bit of mango chutney on the table would have been oh so good as well.)

I used chicken and shrimp, and Linda halves the coconut milk and uses chicken broth instead. I also just couldn't resist sauteing the onion and celery first, though she claims you don't have to and I believe her, I really do. But I just couldn't not saute them. It's an obsessive compulsive thing, I suppose.

For the very few ingredients you have to use, the flavour is amazing.

Curried Shrimp

1 can coconut milk
1 large onion (diced)
2 stalks celery (diced)
1 Tbsp. curry paste
½ can diced tomato or 3 fresh roma tomatoes, diced
green onion, cilantro, chives
1 pound shrimp, deveined and peeled

Pour coconut milk into sauce pan and add curry paste, onion and celery, Bring to a boil and add tomato. Let simmer until slightly thickened.

Add sliced green onions (or chives) and cilantro along with thawed shrimp. Heat and serve over rice.

Language Issues

No freezies in California?

This must be a language issue. In the same way we call them Skor Bars and they call them Symphony Bars. (And I don't know if you can get them already crushed for baking like you can up here in the oh so civilized north.)

If California really doesn't have freezies, I'm going to start exporting them.

S*x

I'm not afraid of the word, I just don't want to be popping up in searches I would rather not be a part of....

Joey talks about s*x quite a bit, usually in relation to lizards. He told his friend the other day that he needed to s*x one of his geckos, meaning, determine its gender. He noticed that when he said the word in his grade 7 classroom, everyone turned around.

Apparently, it's really easy to get everyone's attention in grade 7 simply by saying that three letter word.

Since then, he's been experimenting with other, related words.

Same response.

So the next time you need to get the attention of someone in junior high, just say s*x.

Goodnight

I know it's dangerous to post any time after 12 midnight but I think it really is safe tonight. I don't even have strange random thoughts bouncing around my mind: I just have an increasingly sleepy brain and body to contend with.

I just so crave this evening time of quiet. It feels like these are the moments where nothing is demanded of me; no one wants anything. No one wants to show me their latest trick on a skateboard and no one will call, and I can't vacuum as it is simply too noisy with the rest of the house asleep.

Still, I better get to bed or morning will be very bleak, even if the night before was lovely.

Good night.

Just one more

This one shows off her best feature if you are born without eyelids: a tongue that can keep your eyes moist.

Newest Family Member

Isn't she a beauty? Joey is hoping for babies. There are three, a male and two females so babies are certainly possible.

white bagels and cream cheese

Joyce's post about feeding other people's kids made me think of an accidental babysitting gig I fell into a few years ago. It lasted one day.

The parents called early Saturday morning.

Hey Michele! What are you doing today?

Gee, nothing, really.

Great! Could you look after our (four rather challenging) kids while we grocery shop?

Um... sure... (I have since learned to never say, I'm doing nothing. I make sure I want to do whatever the people calling have in mind for me that day. I've also gotten frighteningly good at saying NO.)

And so they arrived. The first question the kids asked was where we kept our TV, but we didn't have one at the time, so that was the first strike against us.

However, I was able to placate them with sesame seed bagels and cream cheese, freezies, and cookies. It worked for us. We all held it together and no one was seriously injured while I took care of them.

Unfortunately, the parents were super health food freaks. These kids had never had anything even close to refined white sugar, and anything not organic was always suspect. However, their teeny tiny daughter was able to consume three ( i swear this is the truth) bagels and I lost count on the freezies as they were the mini kind and I usually just let my kids eat whatever they want. And they usually make pretty good choices.

I realized what I had done about half way through the morning when one of the kids let it slip that they had never had a freezie (or a while bagel) before. I tried to cover up my errors before their parents returned but alas it was too late. The cookie crumbs told the tale. And I figured if you want your kids to eat health food, you darn well better pack it before you send them hungry to someone else's house.

I never babysat them again.

Prairie Bounty

I've been away! Not really away, but away enough. Linda and I, with the help of some wonderful second generation Winnipeg Wikkerinks, catered a two day board meeting for a non profit organization in the city. We had to do the local, ethical food thing, which is always way more fun than the whatever is cheapest thing. We hardly scraped a plate--they ate every scrap.

I always think empty plates are a good sign. And they asked for recipes, also good. So is coming back for more.

In the end, we figured 90 percent of our food was locally grown, even the lettuce, and after I do this type of thing I'm always re-amazed by a few things.

Most of the people who produce food ethically are Christians, at least around here. All the suppliers that I met personally are, and though I didn't meet the organic honey people, their last name sure sounded like they go to a church somewhere in southern Manitoba. Certainly there must be some who aren't Christians, but there does seem to be a high percentage who are. (And if you think that honey is all the same, you are wrong. This was honestly the best honey I've ever tasted. Next time I'll make sure it gets to the table, I only used it in salad dressing this time.)

The people who produce this type of food are incredibly committed. Sure I like to cook with their food, but I can get lazy and pick something up at the grocery store instead. They are making their livelihood and sacrificing a great deal to grow their food and live in a way that is easy on the environment.

Food that doesn't contain preservatives, trans fat, msg, glucose, guar gum and other bizarre additives really does taste cleaner, somehow. And you feel better when you eat it. And somehow it seems a lot more like my mother used to make. It tastes like childhood.

It's not that hard to cook from scratch. A lot of people have forgotten how, but all you need is a sharp knife and about 10 more minutes than you would need to open up a box of something prepackaged. I'll never forget the one time I purchased Lipton's Noodles and Sauce. I found the sauce cloying and thick and way too salty, but it occured to me that all it was, was noodles and a white sauce with spices. That's pretty easy to do: you might need to learn how, but it's not hard.

I think the best way to encourage people to eat locally and ethically is to cook food that tastes good. And please don't think that I'm all there: I'm still not surviving on millet and buckwheat and vegetables, and I still buy stuff I wish I wouldn't at the grocery store, but this kind of cooking sure is fun and makes me feel good.

Queen of Mothers Part Deux

Today was Edge Skatepark day. It's terribly cold outside, so it was an especially good day to watch a whole bunch of boys play hard for three hours. I would call it a resounding success, except financially. We'll come out a little short, but not too bad, and maybe if it grows we'll even get this initial investment back.

Whatever.

My boys must have said thanks 5 times each. We left without any serious injuries, and every person there wanted us to do it again.

I should add that as the only dad in his age range learning how to skateboard, Rob deserves the term "Queen of Fathers."

gross post

Don't say you weren't warned. Kim's really got me thinking these days. Her eggnog challenge brought to mind a former co-worker.

She was my assistant before I really had an assistant. She was a challenge, more than an assistant. She liked to talk--a lot--about weeping cysts and infected ovaries and gangrenous armpits. These sorts of things make me shudder.

Sometimes her culinery ventures shocked and amazed me, as well. As soon as the Christmas season came around, she would sit at her desk with a two litre of eggnog. She would swig it straight from the carton. When one ran out, she'd get another. All day long.

Maybe that's why her breasts were the size of 6 month old babies.