A Day in the Life: Pizza and Geckos (but not together)

I made pizza with my children this morning. Both kids stood in the learning tower and my oldest helps me dump the ingredients into the bowl. We count the number of cups and spoons that go in, but she has no idea what she’s counting. I’m the one doing mental math to convert 1 1/2 cups into 3 half cups. To save on dishes later, you know.

She used to do this by herself with me while he napped, but today, it worked out to where he was awake. He did not help much, but every now and then he’d grab the sheet pan or pat the dough or peer down the side of the bowl to see what was inside. Every time he saw his sister drop a spoonful of powdery material into the bowl he’d giggle. I make it sound a lot more relaxing and enjoyable from the parent perspective, but trust me, there was a lot of panic and anxiety, too. 

When we were putting on the sauce and toppings, all he wanted to do was grab the cheese and eat it. So that’s what he did. 

Once the pizzas were in the oven baking, I started to clean up a bit and that’s when it hit me. 

I forgot the yeast. 

When I was rolling the dough I noticed it felt stiffer, less workable. I remember thinking to myself, wow, I thought this recipe normally needed more flour, now I feel like I put the right amount and I need more water. Well, unfortunately for me, it was already all rolled out, topped, and in the oven baking when I realized. So we ate some unleavened pizza.

In the evening during our bedtime routine, I saw two geckos by our front door. I told my husband in Chinese to get them and he later walked in holding both geckos. I'm impressed by his ever increasing Chinese comprehension! 

Strangely cute.

And that's how a typical day in our household goes. Not mentioned: the insanely messy kitchen, books strewn across the floor, scattered toys, and the number of times I had to bribe my kids to eat a bite of food.

Happy Tuesday!

Adult Toys

For Father's Day this year, we bought a new vacuum. For the last five years, we've been using a Shark Navigator Lift-Away. We bought it on sale and have enjoyed using it. Recently, the brush roll stopped working which has hindered the entire vacuum's efficiency. Something we learned early on in our marriage was good tools make undesirable chores more enjoyable. If you don't enjoy your vacuum, you're not going to want to vacuum. Losing the brush rolling feature on our vacuum greatly hindered our desire to vacuum and clean the house. Therefore, it was time to get a new one. Rather than purchase the part and continue putting money into fixing it (we already paid to have a new motor shipped a few years ago), we decided to purchase a new vacuum. We did some research, watched online review videos, and eventually settled on an LG Cordless stick vacuum. 

Old vacuum.

The two vacuums are not in the same tiers so to compare them side-by-side probably isn't fair. At first, I was really excited. Who doesn't love new toys, even when adulting? And then after the initial hype faded, I started to see some flaws I didn't like. 

Now that it's been a solid month of using it, I've compiled a few thoughts overall.

New vacuum!

1. I love cordless and being able to move from one room to the next. I never thought unplugging and replugging in the vacuum to clean different rooms in the house was that big of a deal. And honestly, it's not. But once you've experienced the freedom of a cordless vacuum and being able to just push it from room to room, it's really hard to go back.

2. Brush rolls which don't trap hair are a must. Some are called self-cleaning. Some are just brush rolls that don't wrap hair. Our old vacuum didn't have this, and cleaning hair off of the brush roll was a nightmare. I think I've pulled one hair off the brush roll in the last month. It's a game changer. All vacuums should have this feature. I don't think they should be allowed to make one that doesn't.

3. This vacuum has three power modes. Most of the time I use the second power mode. The first one isn't very powerful. Will it clean? Yes. But for most of my cleaning needs, I'm in the second power mode. Our old vacuum didn't have modes and was always very powerful. Being that this is a cordless vacuum, your battery run time matters so it can't run on high all the time if you want it to last more than a few minutes.

4. The dust cup is rather small. Keep in mind, this is a cordless stick vacuum. They can only make the dust cup so large. The vacuum itself is already top-heavy. With that, I almost have to empty it after every use. This sometimes means emptying it after I vacuum one room (because I pulled out the vacuum to clean one room.)

5. It's so much more convenient to use. At less than 6 pounds, I grab the vacuum to clean the kitchen after a messy meal with my kids. Or if I feel I'm stepping on a lot of crummies. I would never do this with a broom or even our old vacuum. Mentally, just knowing I'm grabbing a light little vacuum to quickly pick up some things makes a huge difference. And because it's only 6 pounds, you bet I'm going to teach my children to vacuum when they can safely hold it up....age 5? The pole length is also adjustable so I bet at the shortest setting, it will fit them perfectly. 😉 After all, it's never too late to start teaching children how to be competent members of a family. 

In conclusion, I'm happy with our switch to a cordless stick vacuum. If suction power is your top priority, it's probably not the best vacuum for you. When factoring in a lot of other considerations, I definitely think we made the right choice. 

A Day's Musings

I took my children to the playground this morning. In the mornings the temperature is still bearable, and we had some shade and wind to help. I pushed them over to the park by our house in our double stroller. Another one of our "best used buys" for the second child. 

My youngest is starting to walk. He still looks like a limping grandpa sometimes, but it's really cute to see him waddle around the house walking in circles from room to room. He gets into a lot of trouble. He climbs things he's not supposed to. He'll find nooks and crannies to plop himself down in and sit. 

My oldest is fiercely acting like a teenager. Threenagers are legit, let me tell you. She wants everything a certain way and it has to be done just like that. At the same time, she's great with using words to explain things to me. She has the memory of a dolphin - if I can't find something, I ask her where it is, and she can tell me where to find it. We were almost at a 100% streak but then she started not knowing where a few things were. Eh, gotta still give the kid some credit. Pretty nifty that I can use my three year old to find things for me. Most of the time. She also flips through books by herself while waiting for me or when playing by herself and loves playing my piano. I can already see it, my mini-me following in my footsteps.

At the playground, my son took off climbing up the steps. I followed him, and he went straight for one of the slides. At a previous park adventure this week, he figured out how to turn over onto his belly and slide down slowly. Today, that's all he did for 20-30 minutes straight. Climb up. Turn over, slide down. 

My kids are getting to that age where I don't have to stand next to them every single second. I can let them climb up by themselves and watch from below. Of course I don't go too far, I wasn't browsing my phone, and I was still watching them constantly, but I'm no longer an inch away.

I missed this phase with my daughter. When she just started to walk confidently, I was at home sick. Morning sick. I didn't take her to the playground, we didn't go outside to play. She just ran after her daddy when he wasn't working. That was a sad time for both her and me. 

Somehow the timelines of the last four years have alternated during this time of year. In 2017, I was sick. In 2018, we had a four month old. In 2019, I was sick. In 2020, we had a four month old. It's now 2021. Had I followed the trend, I'd be sick again. But I'm not, and I love it. And next year, we won't have a four month old again, and I'm totally fine with that, too. 

Instead, I get to soak in my baby boy's last waddles before he confidently takes off around the house, outside, and everywhere. 

It's hard being a mom, but I love it. 

For the Love of Vegetables

It makes me so sad that so many of my childhood memories revolve around conflict and troubles. I don't think that was the intention or goal, but unfortunately, it is what it is. One of these memories involved spaghetti.

My mother made spaghetti, but being the wonderful mother she was, she wanted us to eat our vegetables. How did she add vegetables to spaghetti? She cut it up into cubes and added it into the sauce. If my memory hasn't failed me, the vegetable she attempted to add was cucumber. Now you might be thinking, cucumber doesn't really belong in spaghetti. And I'm right there with you. It doesn't. And I didn't want to eat it. And I wasn't an anti-vegetable child. I just didn't want cucumber in my spaghetti. So I picked it out, didn't eat it, and a really big conflict ensued in our house. 

That's another story. And this was over 20 years ago. 

***

I made spaghetti this week. We hadn't had spaghetti in a while and it was an easy dinner, so I made some. We also had an abundance of squash and zucchini at our house which needed to be used before it went bad. I'd already been roasting it in the oven and even experimented with baking zucchini chips. So what did I do?

Yup, I added that zucchini and squash into my spaghetti. But unlike my mother, I did it with tact and caution. 

1. Blend it in.

My mother failed to blend it in. I know she wasn't trying to hide it, but if you're more than simply cooking food to eat, you would understand that food texture and shape has to be similar enough to blend or different enough to provide contrast. Adding cucumber to spaghetti? Definitely needs to be similar enough to blend in. You DON'T want your cucumber providing contrast in spaghetti. And my mother failed to do that. 

I, on the other hand, understood. So I julienned my zucchini and squash. And it blended into my spaghetti beautifully. My three-year-old and one-year-old both ate it with no complaints. 

2. Quantity Matters.

When adding a "foreigner" to a normal recipe, you can't overpower the usuals. I made sure not to add too much to keep it in the background of the dish. To go with my one pound of sausage and one pound of pasta, I added half a zucchini and half a squash. It turned out to be the perfect amount. I was actually thinking to myself as I was cooking that I may have been able to get away with a little more if I wanted to. But it was a really nice amount.

As much as I love my mother and as much as she took care of us, cooking was not her forte. I learned very little about cooking and food preparation from her. I watched cooking shows instead and put my tv time to good use. Jacques Pepin has always been my favorite. She always said, if I was going to watch so many cooking shows, I might as well learn something from it and cook. 

Yes, Mother. 

Oregano

I don't grow stuff outside. If you read one of my previous posts, you would have found links to all my failed growing projects. I'm lucky if I can grow grass. 

I was poking around outside one day, probably watering some grass, and I smelled something. It was familiar and fragrant. I found the plant producing this scent and then it clicked in my head because I'd just cooked with it recently. It was oregano.

Now I don't have a garden and I didn't plant any edibles intentionally. But this was unmistakably oregano. It's been there since we bought the house and has continued to grow year after year. I've never picked it or used it. Until now.

This year, I looked up when the best time to harvest oregano was and the best drying processes. I waited, and would occasionally sniff around the plant to see how strong the aroma was. I kept waiting. May passed. And then June arrived. Most websites I read told me to wait until the flowers start forming for the strongest flavor. Another website told me early June. So I watched and waited. 

Just before the middle of June, I saw some flower buds starting to form. A friend had just happened to visit me as well so the two of us cut a bunch of stems off and then tied them up to dry.

I cut a lot of oregano. This may turn into a yearly task.
Next year, I can ask my four-year-old to help me.

We hung them around my kitchen in bundles with twine. I had just elevated my kitchen from a normal updated kitchen to a rustic, Magnolia-style kitchen.

How can herbs tied with twine hung upside-down look so elegant? I have no idea.
We ended up moving these later.

Finding places to hang them to dry for 4-6 weeks was tricky. With young children, I couldn't hang them too low or else my one-year-old would grab at them. We opted to hang them from some upper cabinet handles on a built-in that doesn't get used often. 

After about two weeks, I realized some of the oregano leaves were starting to fall by themselves or if the bunches were disturbed  because of this, I made the decision to pull them all off the stems and continue to let them dry in a bowl  this probably isn’t the traditional fashion for drying oregano, but considering I wanted to save my oregano from the floor and ultimately the trash, this was the concession.

My big bowl of oregano leaves waiting to be ground down or crushed.

After about five weeks of drying, I ground them down and packed them into two old spice jars and a mason jar. So much oregano! I used them in cooking for the first time today. I'll be blogging about today's meal in a later post so stay tuned for that one. 

A Piano and a Teddy Bear

Three years ago today, we were in the car. I was sitting in the backseat with my daughter, who at the time, was three months old. My husband was driving. We were going to Austin for a wedding. During one of my daughter's naps, I was just staring at her calm, sleeping face, thinking. And I thought of my mother's birthday, and I thought of how I she'd never get to meet my daughter or any of my future babies. And then I started crying.

My husband heard me crying from the driver's seat and he reached his hand back. I reached up and held it for a while. He didn't know why I was crying, and he didn't really need to. 

When I raise my children now and deal with their various problems and quirks, I think back to my own mother and the problems and quirks she put up with when I was a child. She used to bring me special toys in the car with her to pick me up from school because I would request something to play with during the car ride home. She would hear me whimpering at night and come to me because I was afraid of the dark and too scared to get out of bed to go get her myself. She took care of me when I was sick.

I never was able to truly understand these things until I became a mother myself because I was so young when I lost her. But I think these actions and services brought her joy as a mother. Because I know they bring me joy. When my daughter asks me to make a specific meal for her and then eats it. When she tells me her stories of the day at night before bed and recount what we did together. When she asks me to play with her and read her specific books. And some of the requests she asks for can get ridiculous and nonsensical. But I do it because they bring me joy. 

When my mother died, we were deciding what to put on her gravestone. We wanted to pick four images, one for each corner. The four images we chose were a piano, a Bible, praying hands, and a teddy bear.

The funeral director looked at us, the children, when we chose these images: Are these images to represent your mother or you? Normally the teddy bear goes on child gravestones.

I remember hearing her words and not really processing them. I don't remember anyone trying to justify the choices. To be honest, why should she have cared? 

Later when we shared with the rest of the family what we had chosen, my grandmother said something very poignant.

You guys did such a great job choosing images to represent your mother. the Bible and praying hands represented her faith. She loved listening and watching you play piano. And she loved watching you play with your stuffed animals. They brought her joy.

The piano and teddy bear did not represent her as a person, but they symbolized her role as a mother and the effect we had on her with our lives as well as our importance to her. I have no regrets about what is on her gravestone. Not once have I ever visited and thought to myself, it's strange to see a piano and a teddy bear.

Happy Birthday, Mommy.

Top Secret Writing

Today is Lou Gehrig's birthday. It's a random fact I came across when I was doing some fact-checking for this blog. I'm not a baseball fan and I've never been, but I know the generalities of his fame and I know he had a disease. Most people know it as "Lou Gehrig's disease", but it's actually called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. So why is he actually so poignant in my memories? 

***

We were taking a test in 8th grade. My teacher specifically said, "After the test you can do whatever you want," because all they really want you to do is stay quiet and not disturb anyone else. Well, they also don't want you to cheat.

I took my test, didn't talk, didn't cheat off anyone, and turned it in. Then, following my teacher's directions, I pulled out my planner and started writing. It's what I did in 8th grade. I'd write little journal entries or random stream of consciousness in the empty dates we didn't use in our planners - fall break, Thanksgiving holiday, Christmas vacation, etc. These were my secret diary entries. Back then, my planner had some teenage top secret writing. Why did I do this? Because it was something I had with me at all times. It ended up being the most convenient place to jot down random thoughts.

My teacher saw me writing in my planner, got up from his desk, and came over to the side of my desk. Without framing anything, he said to me, "Show me what you're writing." 

Now I'm sitting there, and knowing what I was writing, I said, "No." I had my hand gently covering my planner and looked at him. He may have asked me again, but I don't remember. What I do remember is him grabbing my planner from beneath my hand and reading it. 

My hand smeared the pencil I'd just freshly written.

He read it, gave it back to me, and said, "Oh. It's just a journal entry of some sort." He walked back to his desk, sat down, and the testing resumed. (I doubt any cheating had actually happened during that ordeal, but if it did, it was the most opportune time for it to happen because he clearly wasn't watching the rest of the class.)

I remember what that journal entry was about, not in crystal clear details with vivid descriptions, but I remember why I wanted to write it down. I'd had a dream the night before. In that dream, I had Lou Gehrig's disease, and I was in a wheelchair. 

And that's it.

This event forever changed my view of this teacher. What once was an enjoyable class where I made decent grades turned into dread at having picked a seat right in front of the teacher's desk. (We NEVER changed seats that year BTW.)

Here's what should have happened.

The teacher should have come over and asked to read what I was writing. I would have responded, "No." He should have told me to take my planner and go with him to the corner of the classroom where he could still keep an eye on the rest of the class. Then, he should have asked me privately, "Are you writing down answers from the test?" I would have responded, "No." And he may have followed up with requesting to see my planner to make sure I was being honest. Then, I would have begrudgingly shown him my planner in order to prove my honesty despite not wanting anyone reading my private thoughts. He would have seen what it was about, realized I was not cheating, and we both would have returned to our desks with no less dignity than we started. 

But, alas, that is not how it played out.

***

I no longer have my school planners anymore. I got rid of them a while back during a cleaning purge. I didn't catalogue or save any of these journal entries hidden throughout the pages, but that's okay. What's important will be remembered in its own way.

How do you want to be remembered?