What does your library list say about you?

Recently I was thinking about the books I have rented from the library in the past month. Here they are:

Julia Child's "My life in France"
Cooking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America
How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
American Pie: my search for the perfect pizza
The Pizza Bible
Pizza: 60 recipes to cook at home
Sleep and Dream of Happy things (Yo Gabba Gabba)
Its Pajama time.

Hmmmm. You form your own conclusions. But all I can say is that making pizza has become the thrill of my week (and its not that my life is boring, its that Pizza is so freakin' AWESOME). I want to be excellent at pizza making. I am mediocre in a lot of things, and some areas of domestic life I completely skip (Richard irons his own clothes and I have never owned a sewing machine), but I want to shock the pants off my family with my pizza abilities. Is that too much to ask?

Two questions:

1) so what does your list say about you, and
2) what is the best pizza you have ever made or eaten?

Anna's audience

Anna loves her books. And she loves her bears. And she loves to read to her bears. And like any other teacher or professor she faced the usual suspects of class attendees...

The two bears in the upper left corner are talking during class-- potentially "hooking up." Koala is asleep. Giraffe is texting behind Koala. But brown bear is paying attention.

I was a brown bear!

St. Patricks Day dinner

I love holidays! Each one is awesome, especially the ones that encourage the giving and eating of candy..
but not far behind those are the ones that encourage colors and food. And while none of the food that we made involved beer, or lager, ale or anything to come out of the Guiness repertoire, I still think we made some awesome stuff that would have made even a leprechaun jealous!
I decided that we would celebrate St. Patty's day, not by dyeing all our food green in the style of my childhood (although, I always thought that was cool), but by making home-made Reuben sandwiches. I don't even know if Reubens are authentically Irish, but it sounded good and involved sauerkraut and Rye bread-- close enough for an ignorant American.
And I also decided to try my hand at making home-made Rye bread. It was fun. Not bad for a beginner-- I brought out my "Great Harvest" kneading chops for this one.
it turned out dark and nicely dense and a little sweet.
here is the finished product complete with home-made thousand island dressing, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and turkey (also not authentically Irish or authentically Reubenish...but oh well)
home-made chips complete with malt vinegar!
and the requisite green jello!

all in all, very fun and filling. For the first time in about a year, I actually overate to the point of feeling sick (but happy).

The Vilification of Tom

Everyone needs a scapegoat....
especially when you share a house with other tenants. We have had a pretty decent relationship with our upstairs tenants. They have played the part of the calm, collected Microsoft guys, and we have played the part of the picky family downstairs who has specific temperature needs (we share heating). And we all got along quite nicely. They kept their sweatshirts on inside on so we could have it a little cooler downstairs, and the rowdiest they got was playing "Just Dance" on the weekends (and not even very late at night).

And then Tom came on the scene upstairs. His move coordinated quite nicely with Chinese New Year. And there was a party (our upstairs neighbors are Chinese). Even with all our white noise machines and vents on, we could still hear all their partying. But it was Chinese New Year. No biggie. We could handle one weekend of excitement.

But then came the Superbowl. That Sunday, they played the game so loudly that we could have followed along cleanly without ever turning on our T.V. They even brought in subwoofers (or whatever they are called) for the occasion so we could all really appreciate the game.

I admit, I was quick to blame Tom. We had no issues at all with our neighbors before he moved in. "Its Tom" I told Richard-- "he's turned those nice Microsoft gentlemen into party animals!"

Richard easily blew off my adjudgment of the situation. It was just coincidence....

and then the heating wars started. We live in a basement apartment with really good insulation and not many windows, so it warms up quickly. But in order to warm the upstairs portion of the house to a reasonable temperature, our portion of the house would sometimes get up to 80 degrees during the day....in FEBRUARY! I was having the open the doors just to be comfortable.

Again, I rationalized that it was Tom who was the evil influence. Each day I composed sticky note message after sticky note message to leave on their door, and Richard would talk me down.

well, finally Richard began to see clearly...and the vilification of Tom began. If anything bad happened around the house, we blamed it on Tom. Our cabinets became unhinged-- Tom did it. Our fence blew down after an especially bad wind storm-- it was Tom's fault. It felt good to have someone to blame for all our problems....

...until one day I heard music drifting down from upstairs. It sounded familiar and lovely, and after a few minutes I realized that someone was playing music by one of my favorite jazz vocalists-- Eva Cassidy!

It ruined everything! Suddenly Tom was not only a human being, but I had something in common with him. I could no longer mutter his name like a foul 4-letter word. I wanted to go up and hear the rest of his music collection...I wanted to get to know him...bake him cookies...see if he wanted to come down and have dinner with our family.

*sigh*

and now I have no scapegoat...but I do possibly have an interesting person to become acquainted with!

(name has been changed because I know Richard would want me to change his name)

To all the Kendras out there...

To all the Kendras out there who think it is not worth it to pursue a friendship with someone if it is only going to be short-lived (6 months, I believe, was the cut-off...).

Friendships are always worth it. Even if it is only for three months that you get to spend time with someone. Even if it hurts when they move away.

Each time I move somewhere I think "there is no way I could ever make as good of friends as I had in my last place"
but I still try. I still search. And I always find wonderful people that help me along the way and who make my life more enjoyable, and memorable, and colorful. It is never the same, and it never could be, but it is absolutely worth it.

And yeah, it hurts when they move because it leaves a giant gaping hole in your heart for awhile. But dang it, it is worth it to love people, if only for a short time.

And you have way to much to offer people to keep it only for those with long-term residences.

That is my two cents!

a tea party with the bears.

Richard has become an amazing event planner for teddy bear picnics. I can't tell you how often I have come home from running errands on a Saturday to see a tea party in full swing with a whole community of bears in attendance. It is Anna's therapy. If she is having a hard day...tea party. If she missed her nap...tea party. If she is missing mom...tea party.
Anna is very sensitive toward her friends. She likes to share her meals with the bears. And she likes to eat what their bears are eating. And she knows when one of her friends is missing.
the Koala bear (Anna is getting very good at pronouncing "Koala"-- she couldn't stop showing off her new word today) is Anna' s current bedtime companion after we accidentally forgot Elmo on our recent trip to see family. He's coming home though, Anna. He is coming home!
I love to see Richard with his daughter in this way. He loves to spend time with her, on her level, doing the things that make her happy! He is a great father, and he always seems to know what will make her happy. These tea parties are their special thing!

And this little monster, is growing a wild mane like you wouldn't believe!

A fashion icon.....if I lived in Thailand?

This last week I finally received the nail in the coffin...I got my bottom braces on. I have gotten used to them...again. And actually, overall, they aren't quite as bad as I thought they would be (like most things in life).

The downsides to braces:
1) brushing my teeth. What little joy that used to exist in that mundane activity has been completely eradicated and replaced with loathing and procrastination.
2) kissing. Its like trying to kiss through a chain link fence.
3) when your lips starts to bleed because your toddler accidentally kicked you in the face.
4) having to check your mouth after every meal because there could be a whole pizza crust in there.
5) we could have gone to Europe for a month with what these braces cost!

The upside to braces:
1) I look 10 years younger!
2) I finally have something in common with the high school kids in my ward
3) I can color coordinate my braces with my outfits...provided I wear the same color every day for a month
4) I have come to enjoy eating my apples pre- sliced...its like being in kindergarten again.
5) being totally trendy! (see below)

Apparently, braces are a hot black market item in Thailand. A couple of years ago, some magazines there started showing their models wearing colorful braces, and a fashion craze ensued. So much so that girls would pay a lot of money to have braces hot glued to their teeth, even when their teeth were perfectly straight.

So I like to think of myself as an Asian model....type.

I figure that this is the best time for me to have a mouth full of metal. We are relatively unimportant people now and we don't often get invited to embassy balls to meet the King and Queen (which will probably happen in the future). But someday when I attend the inauguration of the 48th president of the United States (and his name shall be Hal), I will probably want this to all be behind me.

And just as predicted, she did not appeal to logic

Would you rather....

spend 5 hours in an airport terminal with an eighteen month old, 3 Elmo movies, and nothing more than a peanut butter sandwich and fruit snacks because your flight was delayed...

or sleep with two giant sized dogs who think they are people and a cat the approximate shape of a basketball?

Or, is it possible to be blessed with both in the same vacation?

Can one woman be so lucky?

Oh,yes....she can.

But on to more important things, like the rapid transformation of my beautiful 18 month old daughter into a moody, dramatic, diva without reason.

Ahhhhh the good old days when I could tell something was wrong with Anna because she was crying...
I knew that she needed food, or a diaper change, or a nap. But regardless, when she cried it based on some rational need.

A few months ago I watched in awe as Anna threw her first fit. There was rolling around on the ground, there was a little kicking involved, there was screaming, and it had nothing to do with any basic needs. I don't even know if Maslow factored in toddlers when he created his hierarchy of needs. Maybe Anna is yearning for self-actualization. Maybe she is just frustrated that I am not fluent in semi gibberish... or maybe she is just not getting what she wants, when she wants it, and she is letting me know that my desire to teach her the value of delayed gratification is not appreciated!

My greatest fear is being realized. I live with an irrational being that does not appeal to logic...or does not find logic appealing. I try to reason with Anna using all my powers of persuasion (which are many and great!)...I craft finely tuned and nearly flawless arguments that would impress even the most seasoned judge...all to no avail.

I have learned that at some point, I just have to walk away from it. Its either that or turn on Sesame Street, and Elmo already has enough power in this relationship.

And to be fair to her, she is a really good little girl most of the time. Which means that perhaps she is not so different from myself or any other person. We all throw fits sometimes, or get moody, or act like divas...

and then we eat a Snickers, and all our problems are solved!

Oh Anna, its a good thing you are learning to talk so you can tell me what you need, because sometimes, I just don't know!

Any good suggestions on how to deal with fits?