Currently

Drinking: Pineapple Peach Kombucha. I splurge every week and buy myself one bottle of kombucha at the grocery store. I drink half on Monday and half on Tuesday.

Watching: I'm still watching ER. I've more or less abandoned most of my other shows in favor of ER. I realized recently that several of the things I'd been watching are no longer enjoyable and I was just watching them out of habit. And that's just silly.

Reading: Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen. Meet the Austins by Madeleine L'Engle. Pretend by Jennifer Plecas.

Working on: Shuffling stuff around to make the family room a more usable space. Unfortunately this does not involve much discarding of items (even though it should). More like carrying piles of crap to the basement. It's in the 'worse before it gets better' phase. Hopefully it doesn't remain there permanently.

Playing with: We spent a long time playing in the yard yesterday: throwing and kicking a ball, picking up sticks, playing in the sandbox, swinging, etc. It was wonderful to be outside again and not wearing snowpants.

Feeling: Amazed that my baby boy is THREE YEARS OLD today. And slightly bewildered. How is it possible when just yesterday he was a newborn? I reread his birth story this morning thinking I might share it today in honor of his birthday, but oof. No, still too soon. Maybe in another 3 (or 30) years.

Looking forward to: SPRING weather. Milder temps. No more snow. Playing outside. Flowers.

What are you up to these days?

Bread Baking Continued

I have continued baking bread since I last posted about it. I've tried a couple recipes, but it always boils down to having to touch the dough. I HATE IT. As in, can NOT deal. No, no, no. I found a no knead recipe and gave it whirl Monday night. You mix up the four ingredients with a wooden spoon and let it sit on your counter for 12-18 hours, or in my case, closer to 22 hours (work being so inconvenient and all). Then you're supposed to bake it in a dutch oven, which I don't have, so I just threw it on a cookie sheet like I've been doing with all the loaves. And voila! Bread! And I barely had to touch it at all. Perfect.

After 10.5 hours on the counter.

After 22 hours on the counter.

Yum.

Bog in March, Snow

Saturday morning and with it, snow. But we needed to get outside and Little Man was in good spirits, happily agreeing to go for a hike. As always he hoped for his aunt and cousin to join us, but they were otherwise occupied. He didn't even balk at the snowpants, big coat, or big mittens. I was overly optimistic at how smoothly it all was going.

The "I've got boogies" complaint started only a few feet down the trail. Spirits sagged. I wanted to throw myself face first into the snow and cry. Here we were in such a beautiful setting and I couldn't even appreciate it. I suggested we go back to the car (multiple times), but he kept choosing to go forward, even though clearly no one was having any fun.

We made it to the observation tower and carefully climbed the snow covered stairs. The wind whipped off the lake with such ferocity the snow stung my face. I tried crouching down below the height of the railing but it didn't help, so I dragged my very resistant child back down the stairs. Fortunately, it was at this point that we made a discovery that turned things around. There was open water under the tower and snow is fun to throw and kick into open water.

Eventually we got out to the end of the island where I mentioned the possibility of pancakes and sausage back at the building. We very rarely go inside the nature center, so this was a big departure for us. But dude LOVES sausage (eew). I buy the fake sausage to eat at home, but I suspected he'd be more than happy to eat the real stuff too. So that motivated him all the way back to the building. After we ate he ran around the exhibit area looking at the animals and playing with the touch & feel table. When it was time to leave, I steered him into the gift shop. I know this seems like an odd decision, but I wanted some maple candy. I was prepared to buy him a small (not edible) treat in order to satisfy my sweet tooth, but it ended up working out better than I could've have hoped for. He settled on a small rubber snake and after paying I suggested he show Mr. Snake where our car was. And that's exactly what he did, with enthusiasm and no fuss about leaving the super fun building.

Let's try not to worry about what happens next time when there is no sausage and Mommy does NOT want to go inside the boring, overly heated building.

2018 To Do List: February

1. Rearrange/clean the family room to make it a more usable space
2. Read at least 28 books - Three books finished in February (5/28)
3. Hang snow shoes
4. Hang rabbit art (x2) in my son's room
5. Acquire a hammer
6. Get rid of clothes my son has outgrown
7. Get rid of clothes I don't wear/like
8. Go swimming, preferably in a natural body of water
9. Go to the Adirondacks
10. Take my son camping in a tent in the woods for at least one night
11. Frame 2017 school pictures ✅
12. Spend less money on weekly groceries 
13. Try shopping at Aldi ✅
14. Eat more veggies
15. Eat more fruits
16. Journal more
17. Complete 365 Mile Challenge - 23.2 miles for February (45.1/365)
18. Refinance my mortgage
19. Make my own kombucha
20. Get my son to use the potty
21. Get new glasses
22. Decorate the house in some way for smaller holidays (Valentine's Day ✅, Easter)
23. Grow some sort of veggie this summer (zucchini? tomatoes?)
24. Have the driveway sealed
25. Take down the baby gate at the top of the stairs to the family room ✅

School pictures: I framed them (in cheap, boring frames) and have them propped up at the moment. I need a plan of attack for displaying framed photos, but decorating is not my area of expertise or interest.

Aldi (revisited): After additional shopping, I have determined that Aldi will never replace Wegmans for me. I have switched to Aldi diapers and other non-food items like garbage bags, toilet paper, etc. The produce is significantly cheaper, but selection and variety is limited and unpredictable. Things I have tried and rejected: cereal bars, granola bars, chocolate chips (nasty!), and a frozen pasta meal.

365 Mile Challenge: I even logged my first bike miles of the year. Yay!

Holidays: My son and I had lots of fun decorating for Valentine's Day. We've done some minor decorating for St. Patrick's Day (pictures will be shared in the March update), but I have been disappointed to find not much in the way of fun decor. The stores seem to have moved directly to Easter without much thought for St. Paddy's. I was hoping to find a string of shamrock lights to replace the hearts below.

Baking Bread: Attempt Number One

I'm reading Sourdough by Robin Sloan and it makes me want to bake bread. But as I've mentioned many times before, I'm not exactly a natural in the kitchen. I found several recipes proclaiming to be easy! or simple! on Pinterest and decided to try one last night since Little Man is always down for some measuring and mixing.

As it turned out the recipe that printed was bare bones and didn't include some of the more useful info available on the website. I suspect the bread would have come out better had I had the full description. But alas, what I have now is an incredibly dense, chewy, almost doughy lump.

Things I might try if I do it again: warmer water for the yeast (it was warm coming out of the tap, but the glass bowl was cold, aka room temperature), more flour (?), warmer spot for the bread to rise (Grammy used to place her dough in front of the baseboard heat, but my heat wasn't running last night), and shaping it into a loaf before letting it rise (I just left it on the bowl. The printed recipe didn't mention forming the loaf shape first, or at all actually). Live and learn. And try again, I guess.

Two Demands

The first thing my son says upon coming downstairs after nap or in the morning or after getting home is "put dishes away." On one hand this is awesome because I hate putting dishes away, but on the other hand this is not entirely awesome because he doesn't understand that the dishwasher is not always full of clean dishes. He will demand to put dishes away 800 times a day and sometimes melts down when there are still no dishes to put away. Toddlers, wow.

His second demand is to "bake something." He likes to sit on the counter and measure ingredients and mix them. Oddly enough he never shows any interest in eating the finished product, aside from one cupcake he nibbled at and never finished. Yesterday we made peanut butter fudge with a super simple recipe (pb, butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar). I cut the recipe in half because that's a lot of fudge, even for me.

2018 To Do List: January

1. Rearrange/clean the family room to make it a more usable space
2. Read at least 28 books - Two books read in January (2/28)
3. Hang snow shoes
4. Hang rabbit art (x2) in my son's room
5. Acquire a hammer
6. Get rid of clothes my son has outgrown
7. Get rid of clothes I don't wear/like
8. Go swimming, preferably in a natural body of water
9. Go to the Adirondacks
10. Take my son camping in a tent in the woods for at least one night
11. Frame 2017 school pictures
12. Spend less money on weekly groceries 
13. Try shopping at Aldi ✅
14. Eat more veggies
15. Eat more fruits
16. Journal more
17. Complete 365 Mile Challenge - 21.9 miles for January (21.9/365)
18. Refinance my mortgage
19. Make my own kombucha
20. Get my son to use the potty
21. Get new glasses
22. Decorate the house in some way for smaller holidays (Valentine's Day, Easter)
23. Grow some sort of veggie this summer (zucchini? tomatoes?)
24. Have the driveway sealed
25. Take down the baby gate at the top of the stairs to the family room ✅

Aldi: I've now done my weekly shopping at Aldi twice. They do not carry everything I need/want, so I've started alternating weeks with my regular trips to Wegmans. I spend significantly less on the weeks I shop at Aldi, but if I end up spending significantly more on my Wegmans weeks to compensate then it won't be worth it. That remains to be seen. One major point of contention is their yogurt selection. They ONLY carry low fat or non-fat. No, no, no, people. Your body needs fat. Fat in dairy is better for you than the reduced fat kind that is loaded with extra sugar or god-forbid, sugar substitutes. I will not feed my son that garbage.

Baby gate: My dad took the gate down on Sunday and there have been absolutely no issues since then. And man, doing the laundry is SO much easier now. Why didn't I do this sooner?

I have also been eating more veggies and journaling more.