While the rest of the country continues to swelter, Massachusetts is having an unseasonably cool summer. Normally in August we have temperatures in the 90s for at least some of the times, these days we are lucky if it hits 80. But even though we’ve had a cool, wet summer, the tomatoes are ripening and so are the raspberries.
It’s time to use up the basil. I always leave it too long, and then regret as it starts to yellow, but it’s perfect right now and we will eat endless amounts of pesto this winter. So this weekend I’ll cut most of it down and whir it up in the blender with garlic, parmesan, lemon and pine nuts.
We’re just back from our annual trip to the mountains, and reminded that after 3 days anywhere, it’s likely we will all want to be at home, no matter the degree of fun we are having. Homebodies, that’s us as a family. As much as we like to travel, home is the best.
But we did enjoy ourselves, celebrating a milestone birthday with friends, getting the kids’ back to school shopping mostly accomplished, hiking to a waterfall, and so on. But when we were done, we were done and so we cashed it in and came home. We have less than a week of summer vacation for the kids, and a few more days of it for me to spend cleaning and organizing, tending the garden beds, and prepping a wildflower bed for my son – this first requires a ring of rocks around the Seckel pear tree, which really needs a pollinator partner. I’m looking around for one to pre-order for 2024 planting.
One thing that going away always proves to us is that we love to eat at home the best. I did a major stock-up shop at Costco after our trip, and between that and some other purchases, I don’t expect to hear complaints about shortages of snacks or clothing for a while.
The squash vines, or at least the ones that I didn’t accidentally pull up when I was weeding are also being pretty prolific, with lots of squash and small pumpkins hiding between the leaves.
Our CSA has another 8 weeks left, and then we’ll shift to the Winter Share, which runs every couple of weeks up until right before Christmas. We are awash in fresh, local food and general abundance.
Abundance.
It’s a word I haven’t felt in a while. When our giant tax bill hit us in the chest, it came after we thought we had finally recovered from a series of financial challenges, the list of which is long enough I think people didn’t totally believe it (in the general public’s defense, the idea that a 70-foot pine tree could fall on one’s house on their absolute last day of work when they lost their job, which they found out on their first vacation alone with the kids after divorce and so on almost belies belief). We were just settling in to the relief of feeling solvent and comfortable again – saving lots, paying down the mortgage early, bought the RV outright – when that next challenge arrived, and it felt like an almost-mortal hit. We wiped everything out to pay it and started over. Yet again.
So now here we are again teetering on the edge of abundance, cleaning up the last dregs of the tax impact, but also facing down a few big things – the last 25 % of Eli’s teeth, my car is starting to need a lot of expensive maintenance, which makes us start to consider if we do that or we replace it, and of course, renovation.
That said, I really believe we’re at the tail end of the stressful time, and stress or no, I recognize and am profoundly grateful for the good fortune that we’ve had. Starting over, and doing it again and again is hard. It has taken it’s toll on me, without question. But I also recognize that getting punched in the face over and over and getting back up each time to face the punch you know is coming is something that requires a force of will that Eli and I have in spades. To do it while ensuring our kids are safe and sound and insulated from the impacts takes extra care and skill. I think we’ve done pretty great.
So this week, we’ll live in abundance as we get ready to shift to our school schedules from the laissez faire mornings of summer. And we’ll eat at home, delicious meals like Lemon Chicken Piccata Meatballs over linguini with salad, Taco Skillet, and the Lemon Bars with Brown Butter Raspberries, a necessary solve for the 6 lbs, instead of 6 individual lemons that Instacart brought me and the infinity raspberries ripening in the yard, and enjoy the waning summer while readying ourselves for the cold weather to come.
I’m reluctant to give life advice online generally. For one, there’s a glut of that stuff out there – ‘just do this and you’ll be happy’ is sometimes useful, and sometimes frank bullshit. But a conversation with my best friend recently stuck out in my head because we were talking about context switching to get a lot of things done in a day and she told me I was just better at it than other people and I make it look easy.
But that’s not really true in the grand scheme of things – and after we talked through it, I thought it was worth mentioning.
I do get a million things done in a day. Let’s take this past Tuesday for an example. Before anyone else was up in the house, morning being my best time of day, I had put in a run on the treadmill, dealt with laundry, emptied our dehumidifier in the basement (Yay greywater for plants!) started working and made a ravioli lasagna for dinner. Then I had meetings until 4:30 and in between checked on the kids. Eli also keeps them fed and responds to requests but I try to do my part when there’s small breaks between meetings. And then I got dinner on the table by 6, helped with clean up, made sure everyone was set for the evening and folded some laundry. And worked some more.
Some of this productivity is just self-preservation. I do not want to, nor is it in my budget to live on take out. So I have to spend some time on mornings and weekends meal planning, batch cooking and preparing food. I actually really love grocery shopping – I adore wandering the aisles on no schedule in particular and looking at all the things – but because my time is at a premium I treat that as well, a treat. The cost to have groceries delivered is more than offset by things like not having time, sticking to a list (not my greatest life skill) and trying to shop to a meal plan rather than have everything around just in case.
But back to that conversation. What startled me most by it is that this is from a person who knows that it isn’t easy to do a million things and knows that I get tired and still thinks it’s easier for me from the outside.
So is it? I had to contemplate that as we talked and here’s the conclusion I came to.
Context switching is hard. Moving between task and task, switching from a meeting to a creative task to a physical task, from topic to topic is not something our brains do well without a transition period. That’s why on days when I just go from meeting to meeting to meeting on different topics I’m so tired at the end of the day. It’s literally wearying for your brain, and figuring out how to parse time out so that you can get all the things done is work.
But I have a theory that it’s also something you can practice and get better at. But first you have to decide a couple things, and what I mean by decide is not as simple as chicken or fish for dinner. Decide that this is a thing not only that you will do, but you can do. You will do it even if it doesn’t always feel good, takes time to learn but you will do it because this skill – the mental muscle that you will build (that is also sometimes a physical thing too) is to do it anyway.
Take writing. Because I’m up often before dawn, it affords me time to write. Sometimes it’s here on my blog, often it’s more private, but when I am up, I am writing to almost the exclusion of all else except that I also drink coffee. It’s a rare time when I don’t owe anyone anything, and how I choose to use it is to write, then often exercise. I decided I was a blogger. I didn’t decide it was going to make me rich or get me tons of followers – clearly, ha! I just decided I was going to write. And that made me a writer. Someday a book maybe, for now this is enough for me. It gives me joy whether I have 5 readers or 5 million. And so I keep practicing it, hoping to be better.
The same truth is for my running. I am not fast, I do not win races. I just get out there and do it because I really really like who I am when I’m running. So I keep running, even when it doesn’t feel great or I would rather be doing something else, because it’s not just duration that matters but the cumulative process of mental and physical strength that comes from doing something over and over.
So too with the context switching. If you have an hour to be creative, do it. Don’t recite lists of barriers or reasons you can’t. Simply do. Maybe you won’t be good at it for a while, and your brain tells you you need more time. But eventually you’ll find yourself doing it, because you kept at it, because your determination to write or run or learn to make macarons overtakes those barriers.
And then like most of us, your time alloted is done, and you have to move on to the next task. Which you’ve also decided you can do. Parenthood helped me with this, also the work that I do in my head to try to be immersive in where I am – as someone who spends a lot of time distracted by the next things I need to get to, being in the moment is something I’m working on. But when that moment moves on to the next moment, I set it down and move on.
Am I saying everyone should be busy all the time? No. Absolutely not – creativity often comes from giving space – mentally and physically.
But we make time for what we value, even if it takes some moving around, restructuring, and so on. Sometimes you have to try a method out for a while and then try another. But not after 3 days, nope – you give it months. You take the frustration and the not-good-at-itness and you sit with that. You embrace it. Eventually the discomfort becomes something else.
Maybe it will all be joy from the start. But if it’s not here’s my life advice – gut it the heck out. Just.Gut.It.Out. This is not life advice that will win me awards or make friends, but it’s the realest thing I can tell you, and it might just help with the muscle that lets you switch gears more frequently.
What I find is that if you allocate in your mind, you allocate in your life. And then you switch from writing to emails, and that becomes normal. And so on. I lost half this post when my host froze this morning, and I probably lost some better writing. But then because I had decided I was publishing today, I sat back down after my shower and got it done.
I’d tell you more but now I have to go feed the bunny breakfast and check email.
Most people probably don’t make chicken broth in their crock pots on a day when the high was 92 degrees F. But I waited until it cooled to 79 degrees and then put the last of the rotisserie chicken in the pot last week. I froze the broth for later on, but I would have lost the opportunity if I had waited, so into the pot it went, overnight. The leftover chicken went separately into the freezer, and the broth will make us a couple of recipes still, even after the multiple meals the chicken has already made for us.
Preserving season has begun. I’ve started to blanch and freeze kale, and I’ll be doing the same with zucchini this week. By next weekend I’ll hopefully have enough beets to start to make pickled beets and can those. And of course, it’s about time to start making basil pesto by the gallon, which we’ll eat all winter. I made my first batch and was very excited about it. And zucchini fritters. And zucchini everything. I really, really love zucchini.
I’m going to start dehydrating herbs next weekend as well, starting with parsley, dill and cilantro from our CSA. And then as soon as the August bounty of tomatoes and fruits comes into play, we’ll go to work on that as well.
Sunday rolled in with rain scheduled for all day, and it was certainly coming down with enthusiasm shortly after I woke up, so today was going to be an indoor chores day. My oldest was still off on their Outward Bound adventure, the younger had an afternoon with a friend, and I was packing for some work travel. We had gone out to an early dinner with my younger one on Saturday, where he tried some new-to-him varieties of sushi, then introduced him to Boba and our local fancy cheese shop. We don’t eat out much – it’s expensive, and we’re very good cooks, but there’s a real joy in showing a newly expanded palate how many options are out there for really good food. It was so joyful for us all.
The phlox and astilbe in the garden are starting to bloom, and everything is green and lush still. Summer at Sithean, especially when there’s no drought like last year, is a delight, if an ever-failing battle of weed management. But it is wet and humid, so much so that I’ve taken to refrigerating the bread so it doesn’t mold quickly.
This week, I’ll be eating out while on the road, but that’s not coming out of our household budget. With our full freezers and pantry cabinets, it’s time to eat down what we have. I ordered a few groceries, mostly fruit and pantry staples, and started a meal plan.
My Delicious Post-run Sunday Breakfast
We have plums, peaches and apricots as well as a few apples, a couple blood oranges and a honeydew melon for fruit this week. We consume a lot of fruit generally.
Sunday: Chicken Souvlaki Bowls with Garlic Fries, tzatziki, salad. This is a meal on regular repeat at our house and it is GOOD. It’s a little work, but i create the marinade and marinate the chicken, plus make tzatziki in the morning, chill everything, and then it’s really just the potatoes and salad to prep at mealtime.
I also hard boiled eggs and made a few loaves of Savory Zucchini Bread. The recipe came of me going for zucchini fritters and forgetting to swap the food processor blade, so I made a zucchini/onion puree instead of shreds. Oops. But I think it turned into a very good mistake in the end! I have to make it again with some more precise measurements and then I’ll publish my recipe.
Eli usually makes me a breakfast wrap for the plane ride on Sunday night, because I go before much of anything opens at the airport. I love my homemade breakfast, which i contentedly eat while I watch everyone else line up for Starbucks to open. He is cooking a lot this week.
Monday-Wednesday: Eli and Connor manage the food according to their preferences.
Thursday: I’ll be just back from my trip and need to head to the farm to get our CSA, so Eli will be on dinner again. Simple on the grill – burgers or something like that.
Friday: I’ll finally have some breathing room to cook but not a huge amount of time. I’m planning to try this Lemon Chicken and Orzo which starts with frozen chicken. It’s simple, easy and we have most of the ingredients. If there isn’t spinach with this week’s CSA, I’ll sub in kale.
Saturday: My parents come to dinner and Eli cooks our main course, but I’ll make the sides, including my favorite Kale Salad. Even if you don’t like kale you will eat this, I promise. I’ll probably make homemade bread too.
Sunday: Homemade clam chowder and popovers
Monday: I usually try to prep Monday’s dinner on Sunday. I’ve been meaning to try this Sheet Pan Pretzel Honey Mustard Chicken and Potatoes. I’ll probably make the chicken on Sunday so that when we’re hungry and I’m still working, dinner is just about ready.
Tuesday: I leave for the 7.5 hour drive to get my oldest, so I’ll pack food and drinks for the road, along with some treats for them after 14 days of eating on the trail. We get home around 8-9 pm Wednesday night, and then it’s meal plan time again!
June was incredibly rainy at Sithean, and as we have rolled into July, it looks like the rain will keep coming with regularity, but the heat is finally upon us.
It’s nice not to have to water the garden, to be sure, but it’s also made it a challenge to get to outdoor chores. Eli started adding teak oil to the outdoor furniture last weekend but had to give it up for a downpour. We still have half of the 3 yards of compost to spread because it rains so much on the weekends, the only time I can really get to it. June was also quite cool in Massachusetts, in stark comparison to other parts of the country. It’s finally warming up though, and while that brings challenges of it’s own, at least we’ll probably be able to get rid of the giant mound of dirt that’s been on the driveway.
We followed the kids and their Dad up to Moosehead Lake in Maine for a few days for the 2nd time in 2 years – their paternal grandparents have a place up there, and they have spent at least 10 days of every summer of their lives plus periodic weekends, in the tiny community surrounding one corner of the lake. It has made for some magical childhood memories for them both, and I’m grateful for it.
A couple of years ago my youngest started asking me to come up, so this year we rented a tiny cabin right behind the one his grandparents own and settled in for a few days of rest and relaxation, lake style. We all get along very well, still considering ourselves as family, and shared our meals together most of the time. One of the greatest gifts I have in my life is my post-divorce friendship with my ex-husband and my delight in retaining his parents as family, and my husband’s friendship with them all is something that makes me happy. It’s rare, or so I’m told, to all get along this well, but I don’t have a very strict definition of what makes for family, and that allows for all sorts of wonderful relationships with people.
Summer is truly upon us now as we roll into July, more meals are going to be on the grill, and our meal plans are generally more lackadaisical and focused on using up the fruits and vegetables we get in our CSA, as well as our meat share. That said, we did spend $460.09 last week on groceries at 4 stores, including our every-other-month trips to the Indian and Asian grocery stores. Because these stores are a 30 minute drive away, we don’t go that often and when we do, we stock up.
This month our grocery costs have been higher than normal as we started to run out of things. Having the pantry stocked up again is always a nice feeling.
I believe a full pantry and freezer is an emergency fund you can eat, and no matter how tight my budget has been, I’ve always, always tried to stock the pantry.
Last week I had very little time to cook, actually just 15 minutes between meetings most of the time, so I dusted off some meals from my own childhood. One night made a chicken and rice bake reminiscent of something my parents used to make. I sauteed some onion and garlic in oil with a bit of butter, then added 1 1/2 cups rice (I used arborio, but regular rice is fine too), sauteed that for a bit, added in salt, pepper, parsley and garlic powder, then put it in a baking pan with 6 chicken leg quarters and baked it for 90 minutes, the first 60 covered and the last uncovered. Chicken and Rice circa 1978 was a huge hit, and it’s been requested to be put in rotation. I cut up an orange pepper and a cucumber with it, and sauteed the spinach from our CSA.
It was another no-recipe recipe, and I had low expectations, but I’m always surprised and thrilled at how the simple foods are just as good as the more complex recipes.
The next few weeks are a little unusual. The kids stay at the lake a few extra days after Eli and I come home, so we’ll have a couple of quiet nights with just the 2 of us to cook for. Then we’ll have a house full for a couple of days, and shortly after that oldest child will be off for a 2 week wilderness adventure, and I go back to a little bit of work travel before they come home. So our meal plan is going to be pretty flexible. We had prepared some meals to take up to the lake, which I advocate is one of the greatest ways to save money on vacation. It’s wonderful after a busy or not-so-busy day to pull the prepared meal out of the fridge, prep a salad and eat.
We also made Toasted S’more Ice Cream Sandwiches while we were away. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but these things were great and a fun project to make when it was raining and everyone needed something to do.
Wednesday Eli and I will be a little tired after the long drive home so I’ll go for the quick-defrosting meal of Greek Tzatziki Fish Tacos with some cod we have in the freezer. These look delicious and we can eat Tzatziki by the gallon.
Thursday is a long work day for me so Eli will cook for us.
Friday is CSA day, so we’ll cook what we get or, if the kids come home early, maybe go use the Escape Room gift card we have and grab some dinner on the way home.
Saturday I’ll cook for the kids again, and I’ll make Buffalo Chicken Sliders on Pretzel Buns with Avocado Fries and I’ll roast broccoli and potatoes in the oven.
Monday is the last night before we have 2 weeks without my oldest, so we’re taking everyone out to a great hole-in-the-wall sushi place we found, or, if we’ve gone out to dinner on Friday, we’ll swap in Ravioli Lasagna again. I’ll also prep some food for the road for oldest and their Dad for their long drive ahead on Tuesday, and those will be lunch for us as well.
Tuesday oldest leaves and so it will be just my younger son, Eli and I, so comfort food is in order. Eli will cook for us, picking a simple protein from our meat delivery.
Wednesday it’s the 3 of us again, and I’ll make a simple pasta with chicken and broccoli and popovers along with sliced veggies or broccoli
Thursday-Saturday nights my younger will go to his Dad’s, so it’s just Eli and I, and we’ll make things like simple salmon bowls over cauliflower rice or couscous, clam chowder and so on.
Sunday my younger son will come back home and I’ll make a batch of Parmesan-Crusted Chicken some of which can be frozen for impromptu chicken tenders lunch, and Monday-Wednesday I’ll be traveling, so our meal plan will be flexible for a bit.
I’m already planning what to make for when the oldest comes home – more Chicken and Rice circa 1978, Garden Foccacia, and all their favorites. Planning will help kill the time while they are gone.
I’m looking forward to a chill summer now that most of the non-work travel is done, with coffee on the porch and sun tea brewing, tending the gardens and the now-grown chickens and our family.
Summer has arrived in all it’s glory. The world is green everywhere, the grass grows faster than we can manage, and we are about to step into a world of slower mornings, no book bags, and summer traditions. Sithean is lovely in June – everything is lush and green and magical. The peonies are just about finished, and the irises and day lilies should start to bloom soon. The back yard is a sea of Queen Ann’s Lace, and it is lovely.
The last week of school is about to kick off – a very short week, with everyone home by noon on Thursday. It’s also finally clearing after weeks of what seems like near-endless rain on weekends and warming up.
I got the rest of the garden planted this morning. This year’s garden is smaller than most, with only about half of the garden spaces planted. The rest we’ll spend the summer cleaning up, replacing the old brick and adding compost to get it ready for next year. The garlic is thriving, and it looks like we’ll have a good-sized harvest this year.
I stockpiled groceries this week for the first time in a while, mostly just to kick off summer. We are working pretty hard at making sure we meal plan and limit our grocery spending, but sometimes the things we start to run out of things that we eat all the time, and it’s just easier – and over the long haul, cheaper – to do a big shop. Add to that our CSA kicked off on Friday, and we’re a little buried in food. Which is fine with me, but requires effort and meal planning.
Eli had a health scare, and while he’s recovering, it’s also meant we’ve stuck close to home, other than finally venturing out for dinner last night in nearby Salem. That’s put us (mostly me) in the kitchen a lot, which is fine but gets a little hectic towards the end of each week, when I’m working and trying to squeak meal preparation in early morning. Our meals have gotten simpler, and that’s ok – also par for the course as we head into summer.
Our meal plan for this week mostly reflects the weather and our very full larder. We have a few waffles I froze last weekend to get us through Monday morning breakfast for the kids. I’ll warm them up and serve with strawberries and maybe scrambled eggs. My younger child only requires lunch for school 3 more days this week, so we’re winging it a little – I certainly am not buying lunch meat this week. Lunches will be leftovers across the board for the adults.
Sunday: Even though it’s quite warm, we’re making our second-ever batch of Ravioli Lasagna. Round raviolis were on sale a while back for buy-one-get-one-free, and the first attempt at this dish, based on some recipes but mostly just my own ‘winged it’ version, was devoured by the kids, always a good sign.
I made my favorite bread recipe as well as a salad to go with it. Homemade bread is so easy and tastes so good.
In preparation for the week I marinated some chicken leg quarters for grilling tomorrow – we’ll grill those along with some of our plethora of potatoes sliced up and seasoned and cut up veggies or make a salad along with leftover bread and probably some tzatziki to go with the marinated chicken – I used the basic marinade from this recipe.
Monday: Grilled chicken leg quarters, bread, salad and sliced veggies, tzatziki
Tuesday: Eli will cook, which usually involves picking a protein, and we have a ton of different options, since our Walden Local meat delivery came last week.
Wednesday: Salmon bowls are Eli and my most frequently-eaten meal when the kids aren’t here – pan-fried seasoned salmon over couscous with lots of veggies mixed in. This week we have fresh basil, spinach, onions, broccoli rabe and some cherry tomatoes to blister and add in. Today I tried an experiment – Basil Pesto with Pecans because I had no pine nuts or walnuts, but I do have plenty of pecans to use up. The recipe needed a little work. I added more olive oil, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a full teaspoon of salt. It’s definitely got a different flavor from walnuts or pine nuts, but it’s good. That said, when I run out of pecans, I don’t think I’m going to rush to make it again. It’s good – just not as good as other options.
I’ll add that to the top of the salmon, and to the sauteed vegetables in couscous for a delicious 15 minute prep dinner. If I get really motivated I’ll top it with burrata.
Memorial Day weekend has come to a close, and with it two 4-day weekends in a row off for me. The garden is partially planted, I got runs and walks in, and the kids rooms are super clean. We’ve also had some massive quakes in our life – the adoption we expected isn’t happening, and we’re shutting the doors for a bit, as heartbreaking as that is. And some health issues in our home have made things more complex, short term though they seem to be.
It’s been an eventful couple of years here at Sithean, and I’m a little tired of the persistent upheaval. A little boring would be nice for a while.
Also so my feet hurt.
Despite that, everything is green and in bloom, the baby chicks have grown into energetic teenagers, the yards of compost are being spread, ever so slowly, on the desperately nutrient-poor soil in the yard. In other words, even on our worst days, it’s pretty damn good here.
Even on our first days here, which were more challenging than I can describe, we found beauty and hope. And 2 very different guides to help us through it all.
Today I took my son to his pediatric rheumatologist for the 2nd time in a month. My son has polyarticulate psoriatic juvenile arthritis, although it is currently probably maybe in remission. Polyarticulate = multiple joints and psoriatic = amongst other things, a gratitude from me that it’s not rheumatoid, which attacks the organs and sometimes sight. It’s an immune disorder that came on on suddenly, shortly after his 4th birthday after a fall that had impact on his right knee. From there it spread from one joint to another, until a few weeks later he could barely walk, just as we were preparing a 1500 mile move to here.
Right after we got there, we found his doctor, and it felt like a small miracle when Dr. L asked what part of South Florida we had moved from, and we learned he had grown up literal blocks from where we had lived. For over 6 years he’s carefully managed my son’s disease, even shepherding it to remission, for however a short time. In our life, Dr. L is nothing short of a rock star. When we showed up in his exam room my son was on steroids, miserable and because he was 4, frustrated and unable to process what he was going through or what he needed. Dr. L gave us a road map and hope that it could be managed.
Today when we showed up to check on the knee, it was supposed to be another doctor. Dr. L was booked. But in he walked. “I am his doctor, I’m the one who sees him, that’s always the plan” was his explanation. In other words, this is my patient, and I’m invested. Finding Dr. L was one of the early signs that we had made the right decision to move here.
While Dr. L gave us a path to a future without crippling pain, there was one other….person..that gave us what we needed when we got here, cold, a little lost, not sure of our next steps, and with a budget so tight you could hear it squeak with both of our kids trying to find their way. My son, especially was having a tough time. Oldest at least was returning to friends and the familiar. He had left everything he knew for this place, having been too small to remember it from before we had left.
But in walked Murphy.
Murphy, who for the short 5 months he lived after we arrived, became his best friend.
Murphy lived next door with our neighbors, who also became friends and anchors. Murphy was their dog. And Murphy and my son became fast friends. Murphy would come looking for him each morning and the two would go off, as boys and dogs do, roaming around our yard and his. Without equivocation, I can say that he and Murphy loved one another. When he announced that Murphy was his best friend, I was hardly surprised.
If ever there was a dog that was almost human, Murphy was it.
Murphy died right before the first Easter after we came here, just as every day we discovered new green things and flowers on our property, just as the white lilacs started to bloom. He had already raised a little boy who was then a teenager and now a man, next door, and my son was his last little boy. He did his job, giving my son something constant to hold on to. Their joy was something to behold, it really was. I always knew he was safe out wandering with Murphy.
I’m not a dog person. But this was quite a dog.
The last couple of years have been kind of stressful. I’m trying to learn to step back, to breathe, to invest in ensuring that we have time to enjoy our place in the world, to work in the garden, to fulfill the promise of sanctuary this place has always had for me, and somehow it got lost in all the work and things that needed to be done and things that weren’t getting done. I’m trying to step back and remember why we came here, to this forever place, this drafty old gorgeous, closet-less spot and why we stayed, enduring a giant pine tree falling on the house, every year refining the garden we built, and appreciating the love that came to live here when Eli did, filling an empty spot we didn’t even know we had.
And part of that memory is paying homage to what makes home the nicest word there is, the place that bring us joy, safety and hope. We can’t go back to the start, and I don’t think I would if I could. But I have to remember what makes this place magic, and it’s not just the flowers and the sunsets. As I step back and breathe and appreciate my life just as it is, I am grateful every day to live here and share life with my family.
I want to start this post with a celebration. No, not of adoption or spring or anything, but for the first time in approximately…5 years there isn’t a giant pile of laundry obscuring the end of my bed. Now, I want to stress here that the pile has shifted over time in size and scope and of course it’s always clean – there’s another location in the basement for the dirty stuff – and we do tend to be dressed fairly often, so I definitely keep folding stuff and putting it away.
But it has always been there, an omnipresent stack of cloth that has to be shifted and stacked ever-so-carefully so as not to fall on the floor when it’s bedtime.
When we put the house on the market briefly last summer, I might have hid the pile in the closet, so it appeared as though there was no laundry pile, but in fact there still was. The laundry pile is always there, like an immobile clutter stalker, greeting me every time I walk into the bedroom. Since the bedroom is also my office (that tiny 4×38″ – approximately, I think it’s really 36.5″ – area has a different kind of omnipresent clutter) I walk by the giant pile of laundry dozens of times every day.
It stares back at me, daring me to think I could clear it. I avert my gaze and keep walking to heat my tea.
But since we’re deep in preparing for children, and while I really don’t think a 4 or 7 year old is going to judge me but their social worker, current foster families who want to stay connected and all other the people who are starting to want to visit and meet our fabulous new family members, and presumably also enjoy seeing the not-so-new ones, might, I decided to make it go away.
I should note that this anticipation of judgement has also got me bleaching grout and contemplating if we have just enough time to paint every single wall in the house so it looks fresh and pretty.
Eli says we don’t have time, but I don’t think he’s being fair – he could do it in his copious free time if he really wanted to. Did I mention he doesn’t have any free time?
Just ignore that point – not pertinent.
But the laundry pile. It meant turning the accidentally bleached black t-shirt that I had to secretly replace for my oldest child into rags, actually putting outgrown kid clothes into labeled bins and transporting them to the attic (or an attic-adjacent location with good intentions of getting them to their final destination soon) and actually folding fitted sheets, which no one on earth except my ex-husband actually knows how to fold flat.
And NO, I emphatically didn’t stay friendly with him so that I could occasionally implore him to fold my fitted sheets, although I freely admit I’ve wondered if that’s over the line to ask a few times. He stresses that I could learn if I just took the time, but clearly that’s not the right solution.
In any case, for a brief, shining moment, the foot of the bed is almost laundry free – almost because of the giant pile of unmatched socks that still linger on the bench that sits in front of the foot of the bed. These too, morph and evolve, but there’s always a really spectacular number of unmatched socks. If it wasn’t so annoying it would be impressive.
“Are you ready? You must be so excited!” says people. “Huh, I say. I had forgotten that the end of the bed matched the headboard. I mean I sort of knew, but it’s been so long, you see...”
I think they are talking about kids, but I’m busy being mesmerized by the clean spot in the house I’ve made. It’s also distracting me from other things that are far, far weightier like how in the world I’m going to parent 4 kids, work full time, garden, run, manage the house, find time to occasionally lob a kiss at my husband and remember that friends and family need me too. Oh, and also we have to feed everyone. 2-3 times a day, every day.
“Totally excited.” I murmer. And while truly, I am, I am also worried.
You see, I’ve done this before, well, not really – but I had babies and neither one slept for a year and I was so tired I forgot to pay bills and the exhaustion was so bad I would go to the store for bread and come home with no bread and 14 kinds of cheese because it was just so exciting to be alone for a little while even though there were almost certainly other people in the grocery store, I would think.
I don’t know, I don’t remember.
And your life gets down to the minute. Will I make it through this hour, to bedtime, to Friday. But the difference this time, accounting for the extra complexity of caring for kids, integrating our family with them here, dealing with their traumas and losses, keeping our eye on the ball with the older, biological kids to make sure that they are okay too, and do this while juggling housework, laundry, meal-making, groceries, yard work and work work.
And that’s where truly living in the moment has to come in. In order to make it all happen, it’s really fine to break life down into 15 minute chunks where maybe some laundry gets folded (but please not at the very clean foot of my bed kthx) or dinner gets prepared, at least in some part, or you get that thing that’s overdue at work finally completed. I used to write down the 6 things I was going to do each day, often only getting to 3-4, but writing them down does indicate that there’s a strong likelihood you will get to them.
Eventually.
And that’s going to be our lives for a little bit. And with that comes the other piece – acceptance. This is a phase. It’s a phase where there’s too much to do and not enough time, but it’s also our last round of littles, and Eli’s first true round of them, so we need to be present and enjoy it. Is it all going to be enjoyable? Ohhellzno. But some of it is going to be really, really fun. The next 2 weeks while we drive 60+ miles each way for transition visits and upend everyone’s schedule and I cram in 2 more work trips, not so much.
But after that there’s a little downtime. Just enough to go to the playground and come home and eat string cheese with a very small little person who just needs somewhere to belong. The laundry can wait.
How is it even late April? Garden season is upon us, and I don’t feel ready. Wasn’t it February last week?
I’ve been transplanting some of the bigger seedlings, and getting the garden cleaned out, something I ran out of time for in the fall. This year I have fewer seedlings, as I’m trying to be strategic about what I’ll have time to tend as we add children, and also what we tend to need to supplement from the CSA. I rarely need lettuce for the 20 weeks the CSA runs, or kale. So this year, I simply haven’t planted any. I will later on in the season, but not yet.
But spaghetti squashes, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes – there are never enough of those. Apparently I planted garlic last fall because it’s up, and I had completely forgotten. I mean, I vaguely remember, but that was a lot of busy ago. Nonetheless it’s there, in neat rows in the back of the Potager garden, so hooray, there will be garlic this year. I mean, so will there be from the CSA and by fall we’ll probably be drowning in garlic but I planted it so it must be a good idea.
Somewhere along the line in the last year I lost my sense of humor, and I’ve been working on transplanting that, too. We’ve had a decidedly un-funny couple of years, to be sure, and I have tried to not see folks going about their lives all cheerfully are total aliens, but it’s been a little like that. In my defense, a steady stream of pandemic, family deaths, money stress and not enough time will do that to a person.
But I’ve realized that taking everything seriously is actually kind of…boring. It shrinks your world and your interests.
And I really, really hate the idea of being boring.
So my new plan is to be amused by (almost) everything, because life is in fact really funny and weird, and embrace the chaos. I have always joked that I want “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” on my headstone when I die along with a recipe for something that someone 100 years from now will try to make and now I think I mean it. I also want a Viking burial, but those are not really a thing, so maybe I’ll just be composted instead.
As I approach my 50th birthday, speaking of the impossible, I have concluded that it’s really important to know what you want to happen when you die. I don’t really care if there’s a party, but if there is, there should be a wide variety of appetizers, because those are everyone’s favorite’s anyway. No stuffed chicken thank you.
And everyone should take something and use it. I still regret not taking my grandmother’s deviled egg plate, and although I have one now that is probably much nicer, it’s still a regret.
That said, my plan is to go on living for quite some time, enough to be annoying to everyone, so don’t come for my egg plate quite yet. I have a lot to do, and my intention is to be a very fun old lady.
Just not yet.
Yesterday was my probable last day of no-real-plans aloneness for what is probably a long time to come, and I tried to get everything done. Eli is still recovering, so I spent time in the garden and dealing with the laundry that needs to be folded and put away, did some cooking, including clam chowder and organized and cleaned out kids drawers, including starting to load up drawers for the kids who have not arrived yet.
The yardwork is especially a challenge – we have 1.24 acres, and we are the clean up & maintenance crew. Before the giant tax bill we were occasionally able to pay for a spring clean up, but those are pretty expensive, so we just do it as we can. This year that’s going to mean every time we have a free half hour we’ll need to be out there, but it does eventually get done. And in a couple weeks we’ll lay down a few yards of compost. Much of the soil here was pretty bad, so we’re slowly and iteratively working on it, building it up a bit more every year.
And of course, there’s our weekly meal plan and weekend meal prep, which is essential.
Clam chowder was dinner because Eli is finally be able to consume somewhat real somethings, as long as I cut up the Canadian bacon really small. That said, I was probably blithely optimistic about the switch in diets in my last blog post, this is really going to take some work and preparation to make sure there’s food he can eat, and while he eventually will be able to help, not yet.
The rest of the week is going to quite be busy so meal prep and planning is critical, for all 3 meals of each day. And because we have been tightening our belts more, I’m making snacks and things as much as possible.
So this weekend has been heavy on batch cooking. To help make breakfasts easier, I made egg muffin cups – this time with sauteed leek, zucchini and little bits of bacon – quick to grab, easy to chew, good for the freezer. We have a dozen, and I froze all but 4.
There will be leftover clam chowder for a couple lunches during the week, and I may make myself some chicken or tuna salad.
Today I’m going to make these Malted Milk Ice Cream Sandwiches with my son for desserts. We started making them during Covid lockdown, and they are worth all the time and effort. I’ll make tonight’s dinner, the meatballs for Monday, and then Monday evening I’ll mise en place for Tuesday’s dinner.
My target is things that all of us can eat – that the kids like, that Eli can consume, and things that aren’t too stressful for me. It’s going to be an interesting challenge. I might have been wildly overconfident in my last blog post about this. It’s definitely doable, but it is going to take some real prep and planning.
Monday:Garlic Butter Meatballs with Orzo with some onion and other veggies cooked in. I may make a salad on the side for myself and the oldest, and cut veggies for my son.
Tuesday: We need easy, quick and filling. Creamy Parmesan Sausage Soup should do it. I can do the prep work quickly Monday night or early Tuesday, and then finish the soup with the dairy later so when Eli and my son get home from Fencing class around 6 pm I can feed the hungry folks.
By Wednesday we should have enough leftovers we can have a night of everyone-present-feeds-themselves.
Thursday: More soup! This time Creamy Chicken and Mushroom but with boneless, cooked-until-shreddable chicken. Or maybe Chicken Tortilla Soup. Not sure yet. But definitely soup.
Art by 10 years old
Friday: Eli and I have to travel out to to do a transition visit with the little one, so we likely won’t eat until later. My current plan is to have soup leftovers, but if not I’ll quickly throw some meatballs into broth with sauteed onions, finely chopped and whatever other veggies I can squeak in, unless I manage to make Pav Bhaji in the instant pot that we can come home to.
By Saturday I’ll need another meal plan, and I definitely think that Shepherd’s Pie and Potstickers will be part of it. I also want to get Masarepa next month and make stuffed Arepas, which are a soft corn-based thick pancake that can be topped or stuffed.
I wanted to note a few things here. One, because we’re tightening our belts, we carefully choose the places we spend. Most of our meat comes from Walden Local Meat, a meat delivery service that specializes in local, organic, and sustainable animal welfare. Its important to me if we’re going to eat meat that we do it thoughtfully. We do end up supplementing our chicken and if we need – very occasionally – ground turkey, because there’s never enough and it’s really expensive, but we’re also trying to eat less meat, and less generally.
It’s a pretty expensive investment, so we’re cutting down in other ways. We have a budget and we plan around that based on what we need. Because I don’t always know what Walden local will bring, we often pick our protein and then plan the meal around that. I view this mostly as a fun challenge.
I really focus on things that can make multiple meals. Time is at a premium here, with careers, 2 going on 4 kids, and house and yard work. We have enough going on to keep 4 or 5 adults busy all day every day. In order to sustain that, batch cooking on weekends is essential.
And lastly, I rely on frozen veggies as much as fresh. I have found i sometimes don’t get to Cauliflower when i mean to, and after throwing a lot out, I sometimes buy frozen, which means our Pav Bhaji maybe won’t be quite as authentic as it should be, but I’ll make it when I have time.
And lastly, I love to experiment, especially with foods from other cultures. Often those mean much cheaper ingredients, like lentils, where a 5-lb bag goes a very long way, is a complete protein, and really tastes good. Dal is something I’m working on mastering, as it’s really good, and a great quick and easy lunch. Also there’s just infinite varieties of it, and other uses for lentils – here’s 25 possibilities. Not everything I try is a hit, but by providing variety I find that our options for inexpensive, filling meals grow every month.
The first of the tulips started to bloom yesterday, and they make me so happy to see. I love flowers generally, but tulips for me, even more than daffodils, are the harbinger of spring and green and warmth and gardens. My delight in them is endless, and I plant more every year. Cheap entertainment, are tulips if you add a few at a time and then forget what you planted in the cold of fall, so you get a gorgeous surprise in the spring.
We have been getting a lot done. I ran a 10-mile road race under a canopy of cherry blossoms in Washington DC, much more slowly than in 2019, but as a return to running it was pretty good – I finished, and I definitely wasn’t last. We had a 4-day weekend in DC as a family as well, and it was wonderful.
The giant split-trunk pines are down, and my relief comes every time I look out the window. Yard cleanup is in process. The old, broken attic stairs are out, and the new ones are in, needing just some trim and paint to make them look like they have always been there. Eli’s surgery was this week, just as the kids are on vacation and I’m working straight through, so I’ve prepped self-serve foods for myself and the kids, and this weekend we stocked up at the Asian and Indian grocery stores so the house is filled with fruits, veggies, yogurt drinks and ice cream for Eli as he recovers, and all the snacks.
In addition to a few things from Amazon Subscribe and Save, we’ve spent $621.28 on groceries this month, and that’s the bulk of what we expect to spend, with only fruit and milk for the rest of the month, and probably not much of that, as we have at least a week’s worth still. I tend to prefer to buy more in bulk and then eat it down than go to the grocery store every week, but when we’re deep in savings mode, which we’ll revert to for most of this year, it’s cheaper to do smaller shops on a weekly basis. We went to Costco in March, and will likely do that or BJs in June again, but in between we’ll spend as little as we can and eat up what we have.
Shopping at multiple grocery stores over the course of a month is a big part of our food strategy, and comparing prices is essential. For example, 10 lbs of onions at HMart, the big Korean grocery store near us was $10.99 today, but at Spiceland, the smaller Indian grocery store we frequent, that same bag was $5.99. By waiting, I saved $5 – not much in the grand scheme of things, but I got the same exact thing for almost half the price by paying attention. Because it’s a bit of a trip to go to these stores, we only go every few months, but it’s a fun outing Eli and I really enjoy, and we mostly go by ourselves, since The Adorables, now ages 14 and 10, can be left to their own devices for a few hours here and there.
The next time we go though, we’ll be taking kids with us. 4 arrives mid-May, and her older brother, 7, will arrive in July after he finishes first grade. We’re madly doing projects and going through saved clothes and supplies to get ready, as well as taking on some cleaning projects. This past weekend I emptied and scrubbed out the fridge, did some yard clean up, deep cleaned 14’s room, and several loads of laundry while Eli helped on all fronts and removed the old attic stairs & replaced them to boot.
We have a lot to do in the month before 4 gets here, and not a lot of time to get it done in.
We’re excited, nervous…all the feels. Going from 2 to 4 kids is going to be a thing, and these kids have had some trauma, and for at least a bit our biological kids are going to have it somewhat worse, to be sure. But we’re pretty good at rolling with things, so we’ll go day by day and do all the things we can in order to make it work. But in so many ways, this spring feels like we are in a brand new place – this is a real beginning for us with a larger, finally complete family, renovation on the near horizon, and other big life changes.
During the big things, it’s easy to lose sight of the small ones, but I never try to lose sight of food in the form of meal plans and our budget. We’ll be cooking a lot with the new kids and our existing ones. This month my food splurges – I do have small ones each month – were Tomato Passata and Fennel Pollen to make the now-famous Red Hen Pasta when Eli recovers, a dish apparently so good that your date will order the same dish and never share.
Eli will be on a modified diet for a bit, so my challenge is can i fill our weeks with healthful, varied foods that don’t require a knife to cut? The answer is challenge accepted. Hello to dal, soups and curries. And pasta, of course. Ragu bolognese, in all likelihood. Soft breads, like English Muffin bread. Maybe this Crispy Fried Tofu recipe. And a thing I am so excited to make – Pav Bhaji, served to me by my friends Kalpak and Preeti for dinner this winter. I bought and froze some Pav rolls to go with it already and they gave me the just-right Pav Bhaji Masala. It should be a fun experiment.
As we go into summer, and heavier soups and stews give way to simple things, this is still a good challenge. Dal, of course, is good all year long. Burrata and sliced tomatoes with a little bit of basil and balsamic vinegar over a soft bread is a good dinner when it’s really, really hot. And then there’s Gazpacho. I’ve made a lot of gazpacho in my time, and I can’t say enough good things about this one and then this one, which I was fortunate enough to have several times at Charley’s Crab in Palm Beach before it closed. And then of course fish – lots and lots of fork-tender fish.
And then as the weather cools later this year, I’ll probably splurge on some good Hungarian paprika in the fall and make Hungarian Goulash, which honestly, I’m thinking needs a side of pierogies.
We definitely won’t starve. And soon enough the seedlings will become the garden and our CSA, and we will be living in sunshine. Happy Spring!
This year is flying, just like last year did. Seedlings are starting to come up, we’ve begun to tackle yard cleanup, a multi-week endeavor, my 10-mile spring road race is just one short week away, oldest child won an art award that is a pretty big deal, and our lives are totally different than they were just a week ago. We’re in the process of making our final decision on whether to adopt a very cute brother/sister pair, and we’ve been moving forward as if it will be a yes. It’s both exciting and overwhelming, and with not a small touch of worry about the impact on our biological kids tossed in.
We have a lot to do this spring – the big, split-trunk pines are finally coming down, as are a couple smaller dead pines and a giant pine that split and fell behind the garage but didn’t hurt anything, thankfully. There’s a lot of old, very tall pines here, and taking them down is a very expensive endeavor. But it’s critical to do, and worth the it so that we don’t worry every time we have a windstorm. The split-trunk pines are house and human killers, and we’ve been putting it off, but we just can’t now. These are not a-guy-with-a-chainsaw trees, these are where-do-we-put-the-crane trees.
And our walkway, which is filled with pea gravel is getting a redo. I truly loathe pea gravel – it gets in everything and everywhere, when we shovel snow we inadvertently throw it onto the grass, and the guy who plows sometimes gets too close in and tosses it everywhere. So we’re done, and budgeting for a brick walkway, which is really a weekend’s worth of effort, plus the cost of bricks, edging and sand. We also need to replace the two cracked storm windows on the porch, and the pull-down attic staircase, which broke right around Christmas because why not. I’d really love to replace the light on the stairway landing, but we’ll see. I hate it, it collects bugs (who in their right minds puts a light up that high – really too high to clean very often – that doesn’t have an open base?) but it’s not super critical.
Last year we got hit very hard in the financials – we had a thing, and it took out just about all of our hard-won savings, accrued some debt, and left me feeling pretty deflated, after the intense ups and downs of the last 7 years. We had finally been in a place where savings was up, expenses were down and the future felt bright. Enter a heart-stopping, mind-rending tax bill from closing down my consulting company, and literally the day after we paid it, our furnace guy telling us ‘your old oil tank is leaking, I have to pull it out and replace it, that will be $5500.00, no it can’t waitalso here’s a $1700 bill for your heating oil‘.
There’s not a lot of things that put me in a mood to lie down in a fetal position, but those couple days did. So we did what we had to do, and have been working through bringing ourselves back to level ground since, somewhat more challenging with inflation being what it is. We still have to do much-needed repair work – and the bottom of the driveway will have to be repaved soon, but we can leave it for a while.
The good news is that we had some additional income that came in shortly thereafter, the bad news is that we also have some fairly major and expensive dental work for Eli this year, and renovation probably can’t wait much longer. So we’re in this interesting place where we’re fine, really, but not at all where we want to be, and it’s been a little exhausting. The upside is that I have hotel and airline points for travel, so we’re able to do some things this year despite the unexpected convergence of us needing to pay for everything, everywhere, all at once.
So we did what anyone would to plan for it. We broke our multi-month stretch of only buying what we needed for the week, went to Costco and stocked up on literally everything, then bought all the Easter candy and basket stuffs, and now our grocery shops are small and focused again. We have plenty of food, we have warmth and safety and a roof over our heads, we have friends and family who we love and are loved by us, and we’ll rebuild to where we were, it’s just going to take a while. It’s hard to have to do that yet again, and I won’t lie and say it isn’t demoralizing at times.
But my gratitude for our life is immense. What hit us in the last year could have been a tidal wave that took us out. Instead, because we’re generally good savers it was a hole in the boat, granted a huge one, but our ship was far from sinking, and we chugged in to shore for repairs under our own sail, a bit battered and tired, but still upright.
We’ve not eliminated all the luxuries of our life – the kids activities, occasional fun outings or short trips, but we’ve pared back significantly, eliminating lots of recurring charges, finding frugal or free ways to solve problems, and still tried to be there for family and friends. We budget for the stuff we really enjoy and have jettisoned a lot of extraneous spending.
For a long time, I was mad and upset – we had worked so hard to be where we were, and it was so not fair to have instability tear through our lives again. But after a while I realized that it was my mindset that had to change, not so much our circumstances.
Shit happens, and that’s why you structure your life so you can handle it when it does. We have a home full of love, our kids are safe and well, and money is – well, it’s just money. It’s great and all, but it’s a vehicle, not the end game. It took a while for me to remember that. And so this afternoon as Eli and I started on the monthlong venture that is spring yard cleanup, I turned my thoughts to where we have both been. It is a thousand miles from where we are now and while there has been grief and challenges, our joy is only limited by our perception of how things are.
And when I really take stock, they are pretty damn good. That’s not a Pollyanna-ish happy ending, there’s still stress, too much laundry, and we’re often so busy and tired we can’t see straight.
But it is important perspective – joy is not a thing that is bought.
Little House on the Fairy Hill 