Continual State of Becoming

My annual end of the year survey. 1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before? I purged stuff in the kitchen.  It was probably the only room I the house that i had never gone through before, and it is so much nicer after four rounds of decluttering.  Not only are the tops of the cabinets empty, but so is the top of the fridge... AND I even have a whole shelf in one of the cabinets that is completely empty. 2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Last year I said I was going to eat less sweets, and I totally forgot all about that.  But I've actually been giving it some thought this time so this year I have more things to work on: -empty out our storage unit. -finish reading the music dictionary -be able to touch my toes (when stretching) 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, a couple of my friends from mom's group. 4. Did anyone close to you die? No.  I just wish I could say the same for som...

I recently made a short winter playlist that I thought I'd share in case anyone out there is dying to know what music I'm listening to these days (doubt it).  I don't make playlists often because i usually like to listen to one group/musician at a time.  But this list includes some of my current favorite songs... whenever they happen to come on I find myself hitting the repeat button-- a few times.  At least I know where Dylan gets that from; we had to listen to Christmas Eve in Sarajevo nonstop on the way home from my parent's house today. I've had this blog for quite a long time now, so I may be repeating myself, so I apologize in advance if that is the case.  I tend to listen to certain types of music in different seasons.  In winter I prefer mellower, more subdued music, so if this list seems to be lacking in energy, that's why. 1.  Remember the Mountain Bed, lyrics by Woodie Guthry music by Wilco and Billy Bragg 2.  Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead 3.  Sunke...

Consider this fair warning for anyone with little kids who come into contact with Dylan in the future...  We are not planning on leading Dylan to believe that Santa is real.  I realize this is not the norm, but this was something that we agreed on long before we had a kid.  We decided that we want to be completely honest with Dylan when it comes to Santa, I also don't want to get caught up in the trap of "you need to be good or Santa won't come." I've felt pretty strongly for a while that being good and doing good are things that should happen simply because they are good... not in order to get something out of it for yourself (though the episode of Friends where Joey tells Phoebe that no good deed goes without self satisfaction comes to mind every time think that.) So how are we handling Christmas now that Dylan is old enough to kind of know what's going on?  Well, at this point it's not so much about us sitting down with him and explaining the myth of Sa...

Okay, so I don't typically follow recipes to a T when I make savory meals, but I do usually use them as guidelines.  They help give me an idea of flavors that work together, as well as ratios of ingredients so that one ingredient doesn't overwhelm the whole meal.  But this is one of the first recipes I kinda made up all on my own.  Not entirely though, I watched an episode of Jamie Oliver the other day and he made a soup similar to this that used coconut milk, so i got the idea there, but I didn't look anything up when I started this I just threw it all together myself.  And it was delicious!  So here is what I would consider to be my first recipe.  There maybe something else like this out there somewhere... But I want to write down my version here in case I ever decide to make it again.  Measurements aren't exact because I don't measure, I just go by look and taste. Butternut Squash Soup with Coconut milk 1 container of pre-cut butternut squash, further cut down to...

On Wednesday, Matt and I made a relatively quick trip down to Charlottesville for a very special concert... We saw Jeff Tweedy! I have wanted to see him on a solo tour for a few years now (really ever since we started listening to Wilco and I happened to come across an amazing review of one of his solo concerts.) Matt also got a DVD of one of his tours from a few years ago and this quickly became one of my favorites. In one of the backstage clips Tweedy says that this is the type of concert you drink a warm glass of milk and put on slippers to get ready for, and that sums it up fairly well. I remember watching it many many times at 2:00 am when I was pregnant with Dylan and having a hard time sleeping. I'd pour myself a small glass of milk (for the heart burn) and sit on the couch and watch it until I felt better and could sleep again. I think it has the same kind of calming effect on me that Agnes Martin paintings do. So while we have seen Wilco several times, I was still hop...

Thanksgiving Dinner I'm documenting our Thanksgiving dinner that we had at the Restaurant at Patowmack Farm.  They actually sent us home with personalized menus, rolled up and tied with a bow, and a small part of me was super excited to add that to my paper mementos collection...  But then i remembered that I'm no longer keeping a paper mementos collection, so instead I'm going to copy the menu onto my blog, and recycle the paper.  This is more for my sake than anything else, but i have had some people ask about the menu, so here it is. Amuse Bouche:  consisted of a trio of pickled vegetables...  Dill green beans, beets, and turnips with tomatoes and olives.  Dylan ate Matt's olives. Peppercorn pear soup with celery cream, button mushrooms and frisee Acquerello organic rice with turkey gumbo, kusshi oysters, and leek fries.  This turkey in this was super delicious, the oysters were weird.  Good on their own, but they definitely stood out as a random ocean taste in this ...