The Leen

We were standing on the corner of Valencia and 15th in the Mission waiting for the light to change last night and a girl and a guy in their early 20’s walked by. I only heard a snippet of their conversation, but it was definitely enough to catch my attention.

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girl: …I don’t abstain because I don’t like sex.

guy: Uh-huh.

girl: I mean, I like sex a lot. I actually used to be a sex addict…

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Okay, then. Good to know. Now what in the world is the poor guy supposed to do with that information? She clearly has no idea what kind of havok a statement like that can wreak for a guy. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine anonymously records racy things on Jerry’s tape recorder. George finds out that it was her, which leads him to be, um, strongly attracted to Elaine and subsequently very, very frustrated.

I wrote most of this post yesterday while at the Laundromat doing about eight loads of laundry. Although I will admit that watching the clothes go around and around in the machines is oddly mesmerizing, I had to try do something to fill the time.

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I never realized the sheer volume of laundry three people can generate in about two weeks, but it’s a LOT. When I walked into the Laundromat yesterday pulling our big red wagon piled high with dirty clothes, even the Laundromat attendant said, “Wow, you have a lot of laundry.”

Why, yes, I do. That’s what happens when you have a husband who works a job where he’s constantly getting covered in ground coffee and a baby who likes to smush chocolate Cats Cookies for People into her shirt and rub her hummus-covered face into my shoulder. It’s time to get a washer and dryer, I think. We have the hookups, I just haven’t done it yet. Having to go to the Laundromat is a great motivator, though. I think I’ll make it a priority for the week.

Since I’m on the topic of laundry, I figure this would be a good time to share the homemade laundry soap recipe that I use. Several people have asked me about it in the past, so here it is.

It’s easy to make, extremely cheap, and I think it cleans our laundry just as well as commercial soap.

Powdered Laundry Soap
2 bars Ivory soap, grated (about 4.5 cups)
2 ¼ cups Borax
2 ¼ cups Washing Soda

Grate two bars of ivory soap. (I use my food processor’s grating blade, but before I had a food processor, I used the small side of a regular cheese grater.)

Combine grated soap with Borax and Washing Soda.

If you have a food processor, process for about 1-2 minutes or until all granules are uniform in size. (If you don’t have a food processor, you can just stir or shake it up, but be aware that the larger grated pieces of soap may not dissolve well in your wash, especially if you’re using cold water.)

Use 2 Tablespoons per load. For best results, you should start the washer, add the soap, and then add the clothes, especially if you grated your soap by hand. (I don’t always do this and it’s fine now that I process it in my food processor.) Oh, and it doesn’t soap up really big like Tide or whatever. There are definitely soap bubbles, but fewer than with store-bought detergent.

Sometimes I add a little bit of essential oils (tea tree, lavendar) to the rinse cycle if I remember, or I shake a few drops onto a washcloth and throw it in the dryer with the clean clothes.

However, now that I’m used to this very low-scent soap that just makes my clothes smell, well, clean, and not Mountain Fresh or whatever, I find that adding a scent is completely unnecessary. When I’m at my mom’s or my in-laws and I do laundry using their soap, the scent totally overwhelms me, even after my clothes are clean and dry. I go to put them on and am blown away by the scent-y-ness of them. I guess I’m just more sensitive to it than I once was, especially since I tend to make a lot of my cleaners and rarely use heavily-scented products anywhere in the house anymore. My one throwback scenty product I do use is this Arm & Hammer shower cleaner that is supposed to be lemon-scented, and every time I use it I feel icky because of the strong smell. **shrug** But it works, so I keep using it because I hate scrubbing soap scum out of a shower.

I’d be interested to hear any iterations on the laundry soap you come up with if you try it. Let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to answer them!

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There’s lots more going on that I should blog about: I’ve been knitting a bunch, we’ve been enjoying getting to know the city, Elanor’s changing and growing quite a bit, I’m geeking out over how organized my baking cupboard is with the new Tupperware storage containers Brett’s mom gave me for my birthday, I’ve been doing some freelance editing/design work, and I’m only days away from having a bike to ride.

For the most part, life is good. Sure, there are frustrations and annoyances that pop up but for the most part I’m really enjoying our new apartment, our new city, and the friends we’re meeting. I’ll try to expand on everything more in the near future!

It’s been an insane three weeks. I’m…really tired. And also overwhelmed. And wishing that the nearest Target were not so very far away, or that I had a car to get there. (A girl needs to make a Target run after a move…I’m just saying.)

Most of all, I’m really, really happy. Since our plane landed yesterday and Brett picked up his mom and Elanor and me at the airport, I have felt like I’ve had a permanent grin on my face that I just can’t seem to wipe off. I’m so glad to be here, and so glad to be with Brett again. I know 10 days apart really isn’t very long, but it felt like forever. I guess there’s nothing like a little absence to make the heart grow fonder. Or…something. (Sorry. I know; that was really cheesy.)

Yes. So. I’m writing this from our new bedroom in San Francisco. The windows are open, and I’m feeling the fresh, cool breeze off the ocean as I’m typing. Brett’s out at a concert tonight (our friend Kevin’s band is in town from Seattle) so I’ve just been organizing and unpacking and trying to arrange my Fiestaware in the beautiful glass-front cabinets in our dining room area, and, now, catching up with the online world.

I’ve got to admit it feels pretty weird to be sitting here without any at-home work hanging over my head. I felt similarly after I graduated from college; I would have a vague sense of guilt any time I was just hanging out that previously would have been spent doing homework when I was still in school. Throughout the time we were in Portland over the past couple of weeks, and now as well, I’ve felt a little bit like I don’t know what to do with myself when Elanor’s been asleep and have felt vaguely guilty for just sitting. I’ve done some knitting (I’ll have to share about that in another post!), watched a movie and a few TV shows, and hung out with our families. It’s been really nice!

That said, now that I’m here, I’m going to have to find a job sooner or later (which, oddly enough, I’m looking forward to doing…hey, working is a way to meet people and to guarantee getting out of the house by myself every now and then) but for now life feels like a vacation even though I’ve been going non-stop for almost a month, just because I don’t have to work every time Elanor falls asleep.

It’s a little surreal that THIS is now home; that we live here now, in this wonderful apartment, in this city. I’m looking forward to getting through the first little adjustment period of settling into our house and getting things put away. I want to be able to explore the city a little more, and, eventually, to find a routine that works for Brett and Elanor and me.

Anyway, like I mentioned, Brett’s mom came down with Elanor and me from Portland, which has already been a huge help. With another pair of hands, I can work so much more quickly at getting things organized and put away. Basically, there’s someone to get Cheez-its or water or whatever for Elanor so I can, like, figure out where I am going to put all my pots and pans, you know? That kind of help is invaluable, not to mention having someone to hang out with and talk to while Brett’s working. Having her here is already making this transition a lot easier.

Everything is still pretty unorganized in our apartment, although Brett did get a lot done while he was here by himself: he got the living room all cozy and feeling like home and all of our books unpacked, as well as our bed set up, and the futon put together, and a lot of Elanor’s toys unpacked. I’ll try to post a few pics of my favorite parts of the apartment once there’s some semblance of order. I’m hoping to get our bedroom dealt with tomorrow (ugh, I hate unpacking boxes of clothes…hanging everything up feels like a ginormous chore to me) and doing that and moving out all the empty boxes will help with a lot of the clutter in the rest of the apartment.

I’m still working on kitchen organization. Priscilla and I stood in the kitchen for a good while during Elanor’s nap today, trying to think through the best and most logical places for everything. After making dinner in there tonight, there are some quirks about the kitchen and the way I have it organized that I’m not thrilled about but I think it will be fine once everything is put away and I’ve found a groove. It’s always a little weird to adjust the muscle memory that tells you to reach this way for a knife and that for the olive oil. I hope that adjustment goes quickly; I hate feeling inefficient in the kitchen, and walking back and forth across it about seven extra times while I was making dinner definitely made me feel that way.

Bottom line, everything about this move has been so easy thus far. Getting our house packed and loaded into a truck and cleaned was far easier than we expected, and Brett’s trip from Seattle to San Francisco was smooth sailing. Things with Brett’s new job are good, the apartment is fantastic, everything went smoothly with my time in Portland and my trip to Seattle for my doctor’s appointments, our flight down here was perfect because Elanor slept the entire way and I got to read and eat M&Ms instead of wrestle a screaming toddler, and I even got the internet and wireless set up this morning without a hitch. I feel a little like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and for everything to go south, but maybe everything has just fallen into place so perfectly because this is where God wants us to be and what he wants us to be doing.

Our fantastic and stress-free 2009 seems to have finally, finally begun, and all I can say is that it’s about time!

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably seen my status update: we’re moving to San Francisco!

Brett got a new job there, and he starts on June 1st. So it’s all happening very, very quickly, which is both good and bad. Good because money coming in is good, and bad because, well, packing an entire house in a week is really hard. But we’re making progress, thankfully, and I think we can get it done.

He’ll be working at a coffee company there, and we’re really excited about it. We went down last week, over my birthday, to check it out and talk to the people at the company and, ultimately, look for an apartment.

We found an awesome apartment; it’s in the Sunset District and has everything we had put on our apartment wish list, except that it’s not on the ground floor. But that’s okay! It’s the top floor of a two-unit building, and it’s huge. We think it may be almost as big as our house now, which is fantastic, because everything else we saw was tiny. It was built in 1920 and has beautiful built-ins, hardwoods, bay windows in almost every room, a huge kitchen with washer/dryer hookups (yes!!!), and even a private two-car garage so Brett can have a studio and we can have a place to store our bikes and mopeds, and Elanor’s stroller.

This wasn’t something we’d planned a long time in advance; it’s not like we’ve been cooking this up for a while and just not telling anyone. It came up right around the time he was laid off, and we decided to pursue it because, hey, a job is a job, and it’s with a good company in a great city, so we figured it would be worth moving. And so far, it’s definitely proving to be worth it!

The plan is that we’ll get the truck this Saturday, and leave Seattle on Monday. Brett will drop Elanor and me in Portland and pick up his dad, and they’ll drive our stuff down. Elanor and I are going to stay in Portland until June 3rd, and then we’ll come back to Seattle for my annual cardiology checkup, and fly down to San Francisco from here.

That’s the story. It’s all happened within a week or so, but so many things have fallen so perfectly into place we know it’s right. We asked God before we left to make it crystal clear if moving was what we were supposed to do, and He really did. We both have an amazing peace about all of this, and as sad as we are to be leaving our friends in Seattle, we’re really excited about what the future holds for us.

If you’re the praying kind, you could pray that our house in Seattle rents as soon as possible. We’re not breaking a lease, but we’ll get our last month’s rent back if it does, and that’s a big chunk of money. You could also pray that I find some work in San Francisco. I think I’m going to look for something outside the house: Brett will have a set schedule, so he can watch Elanor, and it will let me get out of the house and meet people.

Well, I have a ton of packing to do…I need to get moving!

In a recent post, I mentioned that we’ve been dealing with more frustration and stress lately. Well, without going into too much detail, it all came to a head last week, and Brett was laid off from his job.

I’m not going to delve into the specifics, but it’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process that we’ve seen coming down the pike for a while now. That said, even having known that it was, at some point, probably inevitable doesn’t exactly make it a walk in the park.

We’re dealing with the news surprisingly well, I think. Who knows, maybe it does have something to do with the fact that we knew it was probably coming and we could kind of brace for it. For the most part, we’re pretty peaceful and are trusting that God is going to continue to provide for us now as he has in the past.

That’s not to say I don’t have my moments of panic. I have had a few, and I’m sure that until we have a steady income stream coming in again, they’ll continue off and on. But that’s okay. I think it’s one thing to have peace about it, and to trust God about it, and it’s entirely another to be completely devoid of worry about it from time to time. A little panic seems warranted; at least that’s how it seems to me.

I can’t help but think that it does suck, though, to have this happen right now, right at the one-year anniversary of my heart thing. It seems ironic, really. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way, though, to let it fall within the same calendar year. Perhaps these two events are the bookends to one hellishly difficult year: near-death on one end, job loss on the other, and a whole lot of other crap in the middle. Maybe it’s not a boring and stress-free 2009 we should be hoping for, but rather a boring and stress free mid-May to mid-May. I don’t know.

At any rate, I am bummed that this means we can’t do something really special for my birthday-non-death-day. I had hoped we could go out for a really nice dinner somewhere, but alas, expensive dinners out are a pretty big no-no when there’s no money coming in.

I haven’t been blogging here lately because, up until now, I really have been pretty stressed out about all of the details surrounding this. As I’ve told a couple of people, it’s as though before last Friday, Brett and I were carrying both the weight of making ends meet and the stress of his job situation. Now that one of those stressors is eliminated, and it’s almost a relief.

I really want to write more, to blog more. I know, I know, I say it all the time, but I really do. But for me, it’s quite hard to blog when there’s an elephant in the room that I can’t talk about. I’m such a transparent person, and such a terrible liar (or truth-concealer, anyway) that it is nearly impossible for me to just blog about mundanities amid something that is, in my own heart and mind, a Really Big Deal.

Anyway, we’re managing, and we have a plan in place. It’s not a very concrete plan yet, but it’s a plan nonetheless, so that makes me feel better. Hopefully I can share more details about that soon.

Until then, part of the plan is that I’m taking in as much at-home work as I can while Brett’s home to hang out with Elanor. This week has been a little hard, trying to find our stride with Brett being home all day and me trying to do roughly double the amount of work. I know it’s only been a few days, but hopefully we can find that rhythm sooner rather than later.

That’s the update. Not exactly encouraging, certainly a little dramatic, and kind of depressing, honestly. But like I said, we’re handling it surprisingly well, thanks to God’s grace, and that is definitely something to be very grateful for.

Today’s post is a guest post written by my husband, Brett, who works in the coffee industry and is very knowledgable about all things coffee-related. This post is prompted by my friend Annie’s request after I posted about how to make a Melitta last fall. Enjoy!

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The French Press was one of the first methods of brewing so-called better coffee that I discovered when I moved to Seattle back in 2000. At the time, my coffee tastes were fairly generic. I had spent much time throughout high school frequenting the grungy coffee houses in northwest Portland, where I likely got some sort of sugared milk drink, with little coffee, and outside of that diner coffee with shelf stable creamer from the likes of places like Shari’s. Needless to say, my coffee experience was very sweet and creamy and tasted nothing like coffee as I know it now.

When I first moved to Seattle right out of high school, I lived a few blocks up from Pike Place Market, and through a friend at school, landed a job at the Tully’s in the Market. Like many people in the coffee industry, I started my career as a barista while in college, and while some would view working at a place like the big T fairly low brow, it was a great introductory experience into the world of coffee. I worked at Tully’s for over two years, and gained a good, however maybe unknowingly, bedrock for my future coffee career. I have very fond memories of going to open the café at 5 a.m., the city still asleep, but the market alive with the fish mongers setting up their stands with the fresh catch of fish, the artisanal food makers setting up their booths with bottles of wine and olive oil, cheeses, fruits and vegetables.

In between my classes and my shifts in the café, I would venture down to the Tully’s roastery, where we did coffee education classes, what I would later learn to be more or less a cupping of sorts, but these done by brewing the coffee in a press pot. It was here where I was initially sold on making really good coffee.

The first press I bought was one of the larger Bodum models. Although I have probably bought enough glass replacements over the years to warrant buying stock in the Bodum corporation, I still have that press, and actually my mom has it now, as I traded her my big one for the smaller guy she bought.

The press for me is a really easy, forgiving method of brewing coffee. It also has a very blue-collar aesthetic and personal history in my mind. I have made hundreds, maybe close to thousands of presses over the years. When I worked in the Zoka roastery, I regularly started every morning off drinking a press with my friend Thomas Hodges as we sat on the bags of green coffee and contemplated the day. Thomas and I drank a ton of pressed coffee, sometimes making two or three presses a day.

When I worked at the airport in Maine, I was constantly the source of many breakroom jokes, when I pushed my co-workers’ can of Yuban and their Mr. Coffee maker out of the way and threw my press and my brown bag of beans down on the counter and started making a press.

I am really drawn to manual brewing methods. I really enjoy cafes or coffee shops that make coffee in devices that can be simply replicated at home. It removes the mystique and sort of good coffee snobbery associated with high end coffee, in that brewing coffee in say a press pot or a Melitta or a Chemex demonstrates that it takes nothing more than good beans, a decent grinder, some fresh water and a thermometer to make an excellent cup of coffee. It shows that you don’t need an espresso machine, a $10,000 brewing device or even a piece of crap $150 Mr. Coffee home drip coffee maker to make a palatable cup.

The French Press is very easy to use and clean, takes less than about 6 minutes to make, and is fairly forgiving if you are too “lazy” to really pay attention to what you’re doing.

So anyways, enough of the blabbering, here’s the nitty gritty. I am going to give a really basic, step-by-step instruction. There are many extended techniques and practices that you can develop to make that press even more amazing, I’ll maybe make a short list at the end, but here are the basics to get you started.

Step 1: Prepare your equipment. You’ll need a digital thermometer, a press pot, a burr grinder, and some fresh beans and fresh, cold, water.

You want cold fresh water, and you don’t want to boil it to a raging boil, as boiling water depletes the dissolved oxygen in the water, and I believe it also damages the mineral structure of the water. However, I am not completely certain as I am not a super science kind of guy.

Rinse out your kettle and fill it up and put it on the stove to start warming up. I normally use a thermometer, which fits in a small hole in the spout of our kettle, but I was at the beach when I took these pictures, so I didn’t have all my normal tools. I sort of eyeballed and felt the water, and when it started to get some small steam bubbles rising up out of it, and seemed to be just under boil, I pulled the kettle. I usually shoot for a general temp of about 200 degrees.

Step 2: Measure out the coffee beans and grind them. I do this while my water is boiling. I recommend weighing out the beans so you can get an accurate dose of coffee, but if you don’t have a gram scale you can just use a measuring cup. We use about a ½ cup of beans for one of the 34-ounce presses.

Your grind should be fairly coarse. As a general rule, I usually go a step or two finer from whatever the recommended press grind is on the grinder. Your grind should look a tad finer than, say, turbinado sugar.

You’re also going to have to adjust your extraction time at this point. So generally speaking, we’re looking for something like coarse sugar, steeped for about 4 minutes.

As far as grinding goes, it’s absolutely imperative that you have a burr grinder. Our conversation ends if you don’t have a burr grinder. I ground some coffee the other day on a blade grinder, and it was like giving a blind man a dull knife and some carrots and telling him to chop. It was messy as hell and the coffee particles were not even close to being consistent. We had gotten to the point were a majority of the grounds were super fine, but there were these giant halves of beans that kept missing the thin, dull blades. Terrible.

Get a burr grinder. it doesn’t even have to be super fancy; I think you can get a cheap one from Target for around 30 bones. The one I am using in these pictures is a hand crank grinder from Sweet Maria’s, which cost about 80 bucks. It takes about 2-3 minutes to grind the coffee, it has conical burrs as opposed to a flat burr set, and for the traveling sort of person, works really well. The better the grinder, the more uniform your grinds are going to be, and the more uniform your grinds are, the less sludge and uneven extraction will result in the cup.

Get a burr grinder, you can thank me later.

Step 3: Beginning the extraction. So now I have some fresh, ground coffee, and some fresh water nearing a boil. I usually watch for the temp to rise to about 200 degrees, and then I pull the kettle from the stove and let it sit for just a second or two, and then I pour it on the grounds. I put the grounds in the press pot, and I start pouring the water on top of them. When I pour, I try to give a consistent and gentle swirling pattern to make sure all the grounds are covered. I fill the press up to a little less than an inch below the top of the glass.

Once all of the water is in, I hit go on the timer, and start letting it brew or steep for 4 minutes. After 1 minute has expired, I break the nice crust that has formed on the top of the press. At home, I have a wooden chopstick I use. I am using a wooden spoon in the pictures; it doesn’t matter, just don’t stick a metal spoon in there and start banging around inside the press till you break the glass, because it does happen.

Breaking the crust helps to release all of the C02 that is developed in freshly roasted beans, and it also helps to ensure that all of the grounds are equally wet and you’re getting an even extraction. The crust-breaking ceremony should happen about a minute or two in, and you should get your nose down in there and really inhale some of those nice aromatics that are released from the wet grounds.

Step 4: Ending the extraction. Once I have broken the crust, I put the lid and plunger on and wait out the last couple minutes. Once the time is up, I slowly start pushing down. Sometimes a finer grind will make the press hard to push down, or the seal will get tight. Giving it a little lift up and then resuming the downward thrust helps if it becomes hard to press. Once the press is down all the way, I pour a little out to clear any sediment that may have become trapped above the plunger, then I fill up my mug and sit back and enjoy my coffee.

Step 5: The aftermath. The press is a relatively easy device that requires some basic cleaning at the end of use. Most presses should be able to unscrew the three filter elements, so you can flush out and trapped grinds or oils. I rinse out the press and then wipe it out with a paper towel. I usually try to clean it with soap and water every so often. However, make sure it is rinsed well, and maybe steer clear of using a fragrant soap as you don’t want your next press tasting of lemon or lavender. Anything that comes in contact with coffee should be cleaned after each use, as coffee is a very oily, acrid substance, and it will be hard to remove the odors and tastes of old coffee oils left on utensils for a prolonged period of time.

So that’s basically it, as you can see, most of the effort is in the preparation.

As I mentioned earlier, the press is fairly forgiving, as long as you’re in the ballpark and paying attention to what you’re doing, you should be able to make a good press. I wasn’t at home, so I had none of my usual tools and had to make this press nearly blind, without a scale or measuring cup or my usual grinder, and without a thermometer. But it still turned out pretty darn good.

In terms of extended technique, I make sure everything is pre-heated before I begin. The coffee will cool down fairly dramatically in the glass press, so I find pre-heating the press with some warm water to raise its temperature helps, as does filling your mug up with hot water, and rinsing the plunger with boiling water before you press it down. If the coffee is naturally processed, or even a lower grade of washed process coffee, I hand sort the beans, taking out any defective stinker or quaker beans. If you are using a single variety bean, not a blend, you want all your beans to be as uniform as possible in terms of size and color, and a quaker is going to be much lighter in color than others. If you have ever cupped a pile of quakers, you’ll know exactly why you don’t want them in there.

I frequently mess around with my extraction by adjusting the temperature of the water, the extraction time, or the dose or the grind. This is usually done in experimentation, and often results in finding that certain coffees taste better brewed slightly more precisely and differently than normal. Sometimes I’ll use a significantly finer grind and short steep time. Or if the grind becomes too fine, I’ll pour it through a tea strainer to get any sediment out of the cup. Many people dislike the press because of the sediment and sludge that can result, and straining it this way is a great way to clean the cup up a little bit. If the coffee is washed, and from, say, South America, it can be very light and tea-like, and I’ll use a slightly larger dose than normal.

In fact, the Colombia from Stumptown that I used in the pictures seems fairly light in the cup, and I think I would prefer it with a little bit more coffee in my dose. This is where having a gram scale really helps, as you can start to dial in your press to say x grams versus y grams. I usually pour my water in pretty consistently, filled right up to below the top, but many people do it half full, and then finish filling after the break. I’ve also tried slowly pouring in the water, so slowly that it takes the entire 4 minutes to fill it up.

Before I grind my coffee, I usually toss a small handful of beans through the grinder to purge any old or stale beans or grounds still trapped in the burrs from the last time I used it.

Whatever you do, though, do it as consistently as possible, that way if something is tasting slightly off you can change one variable at a time till you get it right. If you use inconsistent amounts of coffee every time, and different grinds, and have no idea what temp your water is, you’re going to have very differing pots of coffee, and will have a harder time making a good pot that you like, and then being able to replicate it.

Have fun and happy pressing!!

I don’t have much new to report. We’re doing okay in these parts. Not great, but okay. There have been some majorly frustrating elements to life lately, but none of it’s really anything I feel able to or willing to share here. I will say that the past few weeks haven’t exactly lived up to that really boring 2009 that we were hoping for, but oh well. I guess a whole year of boringness is too much to hope for. We are, however, hoping things will calm down again in the somewhat near future so we can at least have another boring interlude soon.

Bottom line: we’re all healthy, Elanor’s doing great, Brett and I are fine — it’s nothing relating to our health or our family relationships. It is something that’s really frustrating, though, and to be honest, kind of consuming. I just don’t have anything much to share that isn’t, well, about this annoying non-boring stuff. Ugh.

Anyway, moving on, because I’m bored and annoyed with myself as I write this, so I can only imagine how bored and annoyed you, like, two remaining readers must be.

I’m almost done editing Brett’s French Press post. I think you’re going to enjoy it. I’m sure it will give you a good insight into who Brett is, as well as give you a great guide for how to make a delicious press at home.

So, I am hoping to get that post up in the next few days. Until then, I’ll leave you with this scene, which happened a week ago as we were lounging on the futon, watching cooking shows on PBS, while Elanor and Brett were trying to recover from a cold. We’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows lately, which completely whets our appetites for amazing food and gives us inspiration for things to make here at home. We’re also lazy, though, so we watch these shows with an element of, I don’t know, masochism, because some of the things that these chefs make are, let’s face it, not going to happen in this kitchen, amazing and tasty though they may seem. (Especially the things that include meat. Poor Brett. I think he wishes I were not a vegetarian anymore. Oh well. That’s not gonna happen, I can tell you that for sure.) This scene sort of typifies that experience.

Jacques Pepin was on at the time. He’s become one of our favorite people to watch (we also enjoy Julia Child’s baking show). The following scene unfolded as we watched. It is definitely an insight into Brett and his personality and tastes, and it made me laugh.

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Jacques is chopping, cooking, about to add a bunch of onions, garlic, scallions, and celery to something sauteing in a skillet. We are gaping at his amazing chopping skills and wishing we could mince garlic and dice onion so deftly. He adds the onion and garlic into the skillet, and in his thick and charming French accent, identifies the mystery item already sauteing away.

Brett: What’s he got in the skillet?

Me: Bacon, I think he said.

Brett, with a massive eye-roll and a groan, as he falls back onto the pillows: God, I love this man.

A quick note to say that Brett’s French press post is written and awaiting my editing, so I hope to have it up within a week or so. Also, thanks to Jenn and Sara for de-lurking to comment on my last post! Jenn, I totally remember you and have seen your blog before, through Bree’s, I think. I have enjoyed reading it when I’ve clicked over! And Sara, I’m glad you commented and will definitely explore your blog! I clicked over briefly today but then Elanor needed me, so I didn’t get much chance to read.

That said, I desperately need to update my links section to the right, but that is going to have to wait a while.

Anyway, I know I skipped last month’s Elanor post. I just didn’t feel like writing it, so I didn’t. (Bad Mama!) I mean, really, I know I write them less for the benefit of my blog and more for my own and Elanor’s eventual benefit. It’s my substitute for a baby book, or, I suppose, my supplement to the baby book.

All of that to say that here’s this month’s. I took the photo yesterday, because we got home from the beach late Saturday night and I was exhausted and it was a very long and fairly chaotic day. So, here it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Elanor,

Today you are fourteen months old!

March 15, fourteen months old, one day late

You walk all the time now, and at times even run a little. You love to be in motion, to be exploring and discovering everything around you. This has made you impatient with all contraptions that are meant to contain you: the stroller, the Ergo, the high chair, the car seat, most grocery carts, etc. And that makes life a lot more challenging, since, if we have to make you stay in one of those things, you get very upset and let everyone around you know how angry you are.

March 10, running to Papa on the beach

It’s clear that you are your own person now, with desires and frustrations and disappointments, all of which you share with me and Papa and everyone else. It’s a daunting job as a parent to try to teach you how to deal with those things in a compassionate, understanding, and caring way.

March 3, really angry while taking a bath with cousin Jacob

We’ve been trying to get you to sleep more in your own bed, a crib that Mema bought for you, which we’ve set up in our room. You are just so big these days, and you’ve inherited your Papa and Auntie Rachel’s violent sleeping habits, making it tough for Papa or myself to get much good sleep when you’re in bed with us. You will sleep in your bed at least until we come to bed, usually, and sometimes almost all night. It’s a slow process to get you to sleep in there, especially as you will no longer suck on your fingers to soothe yourself (only Mama will do for that job), but I’m in no rush to get you out of our bed entirely. I love snuggling with you.

March 8, sleeping in our room at the Ace Hotel in Portland

You absolutely love all of your amazing Christmas and birthday presents. Your playroom is full to the gills with beautiful toys, and the closet is full of more as well. You are quite spoiled by our family! Your favorite toys include your tea set that Auntie Amy and Uncle Seth gave you, your kitchen from Noni and Grumps, and your bowling set from Mema.

February 14, thirteen months old

Food continues to be a great love of yours, and you eat almost everything, although you weren’t a fan of the clam Papa gave you to try the other night. You adore bananas, and pasta, potatoes, cheese, beans – the list goes on and on. We got you some kid-sized utensils recently and you now love to eat with them, and if we forget to give them to you at dinnertime, you get very annoyed. It’s pretty amazing how skilled you are already at using them.

March 1, eating yogurt with a spoon

You have nearly all of your teeth now, or at least all of them that you’ll get until your two-year molars. It feels like the last eight or so have been coming in for a very long time — about two months. But thankfully it seems like they are just finishing up, which I’m very glad about.

March 10, being cute while riding bikes in Seaside

It’s been so fun to see you picking up more signs. While you don’t say many words yet, you do sign quite a bit. You’ve learned the sign for please, and use it quite often, which is fun to see. You still sign milkies, more, and finished, and you wave hello and bye-bye as well. I was able to teach you please in about a week; I need to be more diligent about teaching you more signs. I think you could learn them easily and quickly.

February 28th, singing Itsy Bitsy Spider (and doing the motions!) with Great Aunt Melissa

Although you don’t say many words, you do recognize familiar people, places, and animals. Papa and I call Audrey the cat by clicking our tongues, and you’ve learned how to do the same thing, out of the blue. You now call any cat, dog, bird, or person you want to see up close in that manner, which is pretty hilarious.

March 13, happy to be swinging

You also recognize our house when we come home. I was walking from the bus stop with you a few weeks ago, and we were coming up the sidewalk. I didn’t tell you we were home, but you walked up the sidewalk and turned up the path to our door all by yourself. I was amazed!

March 11, family snuggle at the beach

The best thing, hands down, that you have learned to do lately is to give hugs. You wrap your arms around my neck and pat my back, and it is, without a doubt, the sweetest thing in the entire world.

February 28th, hugging Papa before he leaves for work

Elanor, you continue to be an absolute joy, and Papa and I cannot get enough of you.

I love you,
Mama

Hello there, friends in bloggy land.

How have things been for the past, oh, almost two months? Yikes! Two months! That’s longer than I thought it would be between posts, but, you know, oh well. Gotta remember that whole “no stressing out” thing, right?

Really, things have been fine at our house. Busy, stressful at times, but fine. Let’s see if I can sum up in a quick and not boring way.

Since my last post, we’ve done quite a bit of traveling. Brett’s traveled for work to L.A., Iowa, and Norway. (Yay for frequent flier miles!) Brett’s mom was here while he was in L.A. and Iowa, and my mom came while he was in Norway. Both visits were quite fun!

As a family, we’ve been to Portland for the United States Barista Championship and to the Oregon Coast, where we are now. We head home tomorrow, which will be nice since we’ve been gone for 10 days, but I have to admit that I’m loving the lazy beach lifestyle, and am not too eager to resume the quick pace of normal life.

Really, nothing else too exciting has happened. Brett did great in the barista competition last weekend, placing in the semi-finals, and as it was in Portland, our families watched Elanor so I could participate in the fun. And it was fun! I got to eat amazing food, drink great wine, and hang out with fun people. I even got to stay out too late at a party after drinking a little too much, which I haven’t done in over two years.

Elanor is more funny and amazing every day. We’ve been trying to transition her into a crib for at least part of the night, since she’s so big that sleeping with her is getting to be a challenge. She inherited her papa’s and her Auntie Rachel’s propensity to thrash around violently in her sleep, which means Mama and Papa don’t sleep much as a result. The transition is going okay; some nights she’ll stay in the crib almost all night, and others only a few hours. But that’s okay with me. I’m not looking for an instant change — gradual is fine.

She’s walking EVERYWHERE, babbling up a storm, signing really well, and looking more and more like her papa every day — I guess I should save some of this for her monthly letter, which I should post in the next few days. Maybe I can write it in the car on the way back to Seattle tomorrow.

We are waiting to hear about some things that could mean some really good but somewhat big changes for us. We’ve come to terms with the fact that change is going to happen in the semi-near future, and being the impatient person that I am, now that I’ve made that decision and am anticipating change, I want the change to happen RIGHT NOW! But that’s not how life works, especially not in this instance, so I am trying to trust God and be patient.

We don’t have a car yet; we are kind of waiting to see how these changes pan out before we take on any more expenses. And that’s okay for now. I do want one in the somewhat near-ish future, but I think it’s more prudent financially to wait right now, so that’s what we’re doing.

I’ll leave you with some pictures from the past few months. I don’t have a ton; Brett took the camera with him on his travels. I’ll save the most recent ones for her 14-months-old post, I think, but here are some from the previous month.

February 4th, swinging at the park

February 6th, watching a movie with Papa

February 7th, being an adorable imp at Fiore

January 25th, Brett making coffee with his co-worker Louie while on the fourth machine at the WRBC when he was in L.A.

So, I will be back sooner than almost two months, I am sure. Hopefully within the next few days, actually. I have Elanor’s 14-months-old post to do, and finally, Brett is ready to do his post about making a french press, which was requested by Annie. (Yay!) We’ve also been making some amazing food lately that I want to tell you about, and I want to share some projects that my friend Rosanna and I are excited to work on.

The bottom line is that there’s a lot going on with us: none of it terribly thrilling, most of it good. I promise, another post about everything is coming soon!

So, obviously, I haven’t been around blog-land much lately, whether writing here or reading and commenting on other people’s blogs.

Honestly, I’ve been feeling kind of overwhelmed by life lately. Elanor’s birthday party was amazing and fun and wonderful, but it was like all the fondant-covered cake and homemade ice cream caused a sugar high of epic proportions, and then, of course, once everyone went home and I sat back and took a deep breath, it caused an equally epic sugar crash, when the weight of all the partying and prep work and baking and fondant cutting and new toys settled down on me and I realized I was tired. Really, really tired.

I had something of a minor meltdown last night and this morning, as I realized that Brett was going to be traveling again (he’s attending another barista competition this weekend). I was feeling very overwhelmed about him being gone, and about having to do a great many errands without a car and with a very heavy toddler who doesn’t like to be carried in the Ergo much anymore, and knowing that I have a lot of my at-home work to do this weekend and no Papa to come relieve me at the end of the day, etc, etc, etc. (Brett’s mom is, thankfully, here until Sunday, so I’m very glad to have her help. I think my meltdown would have been less minor and more ginormous if I didn’t have her here.)

Anyway, this afternoon Brett and I had a chance to talk post-meltdown, and I’m so glad we did. Out of the blue, while we were riding the bus, he turned to me and said, “So, what can we do this year to make 2009 the most stress-free, fun, enjoyable, easy year possible, since 2008 sucked so much?”

It was a great question, and helped us to talk about our goals and hopes for the year in a really positive way. So, we came up with a list of things we need to do or things that need to change this year. I’ll share part of it here, because yes, I did actually write it down in the red Moleskein I carry with me for moments just like that.

So, here it goes:

How to Make 2009 the Most Fun, Easy, Enjoyable Year Possible or How to Make 2009 Rock where 2008 Sucked

• Spend time together reading the Bible and praying
• Get a car (Gasp! I know! Bet you didn’t think you’d hear me say that. Or read that I wrote that. Whatever. But yes, we’ve decided it’s time. More about that in a minute.)
• Do yoga
• Have monthly date nights
• Go to the Oregon Coast, just the three of us, at least twice
• Eat really good food
• Become members at church
• Let up on pressuring ourselves about things like Brett’s artwork, my blogging/writing, and our social life

Let me expand on a couple of those, especially the car one and the no pressure one.

It’s just time for us to bite the bullet and get a car. I love not having one, in many ways. I’ve talked about that before. But it’s getting way too hard to manage life with Elanor while taking the bus. She doesn’t want to be contained for very long, for one thing, and for another, now that she doesn’t sleep when we’re out and about, so if we go somewhere on the bus (since it takes so freaking long to get anywhere) I either have to sacrifice her naptime or just not go places because it takes too long to get there and get home in time for a nap. And naptime is the only time I have to do my at-home work during the day, so naptime is precious in our house.

Speaking of my at-home work, either Brett or I has to go pick up materials for it every weekday, and while it’s not far from either where we live or where Brett works, given the way the buses run, you wind up having to walk about a half-mile each way from either the bus stop or Brett’s work. And that is a huge pain, especially while carrying a wiggly, heavy baby or when it’s raining or getting dark or whatever. If I take the bus, it takes about 1.5 hours round trip with the riding and the walking and then the waiting for the bus, whereas if I had a car it would take maybe 30 minutes, max.

And if Brett’s going to be traveling as much as he has the past several months, I have to be able to get out of the house while he’s gone, to do errands or at the least just have a change of scenery and some adult interaction, and, like I said, it’s just getting too hard to do if taking the bus is involved.

I know I’ve talked before about how after my heart thing, everyone told me to take it easy. People still do. And I feel like this is one area of my life that I can change so that I can take it easy. It’s within our control, and it is time to take that control and just do it.

I’m sure most of you are thinking I’m way overjustifying this decision. And, yeah, I probably am. I’ve always been a little defensive about not having a car, so I guess it makes sense that I’d feel like I have to overjustify our choice to change that.

This isn’t going to be something that happens overnight; we’ll be looking over our budget to see what we can afford, and hopefully we’ll be car owners once again before too many more months go by.

So, the second item I want to highlight is that whole not putting pressure on ourselves thing.

Sigh.

Part of why I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately is that I feel like all I do is wake up, take care of Elanor until she naps (while trying to do things around the house), do my at-home work while she naps, take care of her again when she wakes up (while trying to do things around the house), make dinner, eat dinner, put Elanor to bed, maybe clean up some of the kitchen, maybe throw in a load of laundry (and those two are big maybes), and stay up until 9 or 10 or 11 doing the rest of my at-home work.

I feel like there’s no time for me to do what I want to do anymore, and at the top of that list are maintaining friendships and maintaining this blog.

And I think, partly, that’s just the phase of life we’re in. We have a young child, Brett has a busy career, I am busy trying to maintain a semblance of order in our home, take care of our baby, and hopefully make a little extra money in the meantime. That’s enough to fill anyone’s plate; it’s natural that a lot is going to fall by the wayside.

But that’s where the change needs to happen: we need to accept that that is how it is, that things are going to fall by the wayside, and not beat ourselves up about it.

I’ve been feeling so guilty lately for not maintaining this blog or my friendships better. There are SO MANY PEOPLE I want to see and spend time with and get to know better, so many couples and families I want to have over for dinner (the Pearsons, all three of the Barrans families, the Packs, the Jarens, Patrick & Tim, etc), so many ladies I’d love to meet for lunch or coffee or a walk (Merilee, Amber, Isabel, Nicole, Julia, etc), so many fellow moms with whom I want to go to the park (Katie, Leah M., Marianne, Joy, Gala, Heidi), and so many more friends who live far away with whom I want to email more often or call more often (Carolyn, Marci, Daisy, Annie, Carmen, Becca, Kris, Stacey, Karen, etc). And all of those names represent just a selection…there are many more that I’m sure I could think of if I sat here for a few minutes.

But it just doesn’t happen. Partly, having to do my work at home makes it really hard to go out and see people because I do count on naptime to do my work, and if I don’t get at least some done then, I’m up until midnight or 1 a.m. finishing it on time. And I cannot do that. I just can’t.

The same is true for my blog. Writing this post right now is going to mean that the next couple of days are pretty pressure-filled and hellish for me work-wise.

I’ve been trying in the past few months to make this blog be more than it is, and it’s time to stop. I’ve kind of come to realize that I’m not going to be the next Amalah, or the next Pioneer Woman, or even the next Isabel or Frema. It’s not going to happen, as much as I would love it. I can’t force it to happen. And the things I need to do to even put myself in that league are not things that I have the energy to do these days: daily or, jeez, even twice-weekly posts, weekly features (yeah, don’t you love how the meal plan lasted one week? gah. *slaps self*), commenting on and linking to other blogs to drive traffic here, etc, etc, etc.

I just need to let that pressure go. I need to stop thinking, “Oh my gosh, I have to go post on my blog, I haven’t posted in a week, I’m going to lose readers, aaaaaahhhh.”Because seriously? Probably about 90% of my readers, as far as I know are my friends. And you’ll keep reading anyway. So I really just need to take it down a notch, and, well, take it easy.

And that means that I’ll post when I can. It’s not going to be as often as I’d like, of course, because I seriously wish I could post every day. I know there’s enough swimming around in my head that I could come up with something every day. But I’m going to stop pressuring myself to post. I’ll try to use free time to blog instead of just randomly stalk people clicking around on Facebook, yes, but at the same time, if I feel like stalking people wasting time on Facebook instead of writing? Then Facebook it will be, and I won’t feel guilty about it.

So, if you are one of those friends I mentioned above, or if you and I talked about getting together and I’ve just never followed through, or if you wrote me an email, like, a month ago and I haven’t replied: I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s not you, it’s me. I like you. I want to hang out with you. I want to be friends. But right now? I just have to let it go, and if it works out that we can get together, then great, and if it doesn’t then it doesn’t, and maybe it will someday.

All that brings me back to my heart stuff. Having that experience has taught me that life is too short to worry about all of this. I want to enjoy my life, and as part of that, I want to enjoy what I write here and the fact that I even have this site. I don’t want to feel pressure about it, and that was what it was turning into, just one more obligation.

With all of that said, finally, I’m going to blow off working for the evening (which is going to make tomorrow suck, but oh well) and call it a night. I’m tired. It’s been a long, stressful, overwhelming day, but at least it’s ending with a new sense of clarity and direction and purpose for Brett and me.

I’ll be back with another post someday: maybe in a week, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month. But please, do keep checking in, because I will definitely be back.