The Year of the House

I haven't been talking about it here lately, but The Year of the House is still in full swing. With the gorgeous weather, I've mostly focused on the outside, but there has been more clearing away of things to charity and overall organization happening inside, too.

We spiffed up the "clubhouse" for the kids. It's a place to store E's gardening tools and a favorite afternoon reading spot.

 The stove was just a temporary additional - no worries, we don't actually use it in there!

I call this the "Secret Garden bench". Did you ever read that book? It was one of my favorites growing up.

I've also planted a ton of plants, shrubs, and flowers as well as some seeds for the garden.

Rhubarb, chives, and radishes braving the cool, wet spring!

Ready for Spring!

I came home from work one day a couple of weeks ago  to find E had dressed himself to play outside.  The ubiquitous ties have since been replaced with a Superman cape.

Although all this snow is now gone, it's been below 40 degrees F most of the month. This weekend is promising to be gorgeous, and everyone at this point just really needs that to happen.

We're finishing out the semester, so I've not had a lot of free time or energy, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Though J is gearing up for a trip to Spain soon, and I'll be teaching a May-term course, so the excitement will continue for a little while longer, I suppose, albeit in a different way.

My house plans have not been neglected, however. I have been doing the best I can to keep up the daily maintenance and have been relentlessly decluttering. Last week I gave E's room a thorough cleaning, and it just feels so good to have nothing extraneous in there. In addition, there are three garbage bags of clothes by the front door to donate tomorrow and several boxes more ready to go to the consignment shop on Friday.

This was my hat when I was a baby. I love that Belalu wants to wear it.

I've been feeling stressed and overwhelmed with work stuff, and clutter just adds to my stress, but so does the idea of having to organize it and get rid of it. My personality doesn't really know what it wants: on the one hand, I hate clutter and stuff just laying around, but on the other, I am very sentimental and don't want to get rid of anything anyone ever gave me. All my work this week has made me I feel freer, and I really want to keep it up. When I have time to start on some bigger house projects this summer, I'll be more inspired and motivated to do them with a house purged of unnecessary stuff.

When I step outside and see all the work my yard needs, though, panic starts to creep back in. And that's when I am grateful for the winter-like spring we're having. I'm just not ready to go there yet, though I will be after next week. We were going to start seeds inside this year, but never got around to it for various reasons, and I'm not letting myself worry about it. All my house projects and plans are to improve my quality of life, not bring more stress and worry to it, so I tell myself this when I start to feel bad about not getting something like that done. There's always next year. Thankfully, we have a several great sources for garden plants in the area, and we'll just go that route this year. I am very excited for our Farmer's Market Saturdays to resume.
Dwarf arrived in the mail last week, though I've been finishing up next month's book club book first. I couldn't resist starting it, however. And I couldn't stop crying while I read it. I think I've read two or three chapters so far, and I couldn't.stop.crying. So, guess I won't be reading this book anywhere but home.

I have some updates on Belalu's latest Dr. appts, but I'll save that for another post very soon. (Hard to believe my baby's 20 months old!)

Hope your spring where you are is bringing you lots of sunshine and warmth.

In My Kitchen this Winter

 

I swear the only way I've gotten through winter is chai tea (recipe from the Indian cookbook I got for Christmas) and cardamom bread with Trader Joe's fig spread. It's been my weekend treat.

Lots and lots of veggie soups. An old favorite: potato leek

 

A new obsession: roasted garlic and cauliflower with cheddar accompanied by sweet potato fries. 

My other obsession this winter: popcorn. I cannot get enough. I've been enjoying these two recipes a few times a week:

 Soulemama's cheesy herb popcorn and Rosemary Parmesan popcorn.

 

As part of my Year of the House project, I've been working on keeping the kitchen more in order. Since the kids were born, I've been good at keeping the house picked up and vacuumed, but there are things that often get overlooked or I just have a hard time finding space in the day to do. I'm working on incorporating these things back into my regular cleaning maintenance. It's been working so far; we'll see if I can keep it up! I've been feeling good since my spring cleaning. When my house is in order, life just seems to flow better. It can't hurt that B is finally sleeping the whole night through, which means I am, too. Oh, and the snow is finally melting outside. 

April so far is promising to be much better than March.

The Toys

Recently I felt a bit overwhelmed by all our stuff. I have mentioned how I'm working on systematically eliminating/ organizing things, but I was really intimidated by the toy situation. I don't think we have a ridiculous amount of toys or anything, but I just wasn't sure how to organize them.

A few weekends back I just had enough and one evening told E we were going to organize his toys. He got really, really, excited, which I took to mean he did not understand what that meant, but he got into it. Until things started re-appearing that he hadn't seen in a while, because they had been buried in the toy basket for a couple of months. Then he just played with his toys while I finished up. The next morning, when Belalu woke up, it was like she had a whole new set of toys- things she couldn't have played with or wouldn't have been interested in a few months ago.

I ended up grouping things together in baskets, so all the animals are together, all the cars, all the puzzles, all the dress-up clothes are in the big basket. It makes it easy for them to help put stuff away and they have been playing so much together now.

I put away all the "baby" stuff, too, because suddenly, there are no babies in our house. As of today, we have a 1.5 year old toddler. How did that happen?

Belalu's dream room

It's the Year of the House in the FIG residence, and I've got big plans for getting this place in shape. One room that needs a total overhaul is Belalu's room. We've had an improvement since last weekend when J took out the big double bed that was taking up most of the room (it used to be the guest room) and brought in our glider so I can nurse in comfort in the middle of the night. There's still a lot of elbow grease that needs to be done, however.

Now, during the semester and in the dead of winter, though, is a time for dreams. The arrival of the latest Land of Nod catalog yesterday reminded me of what I'd like her room to look like eventually. My inspiration for her room started with these prints by Blanca Gomez, that I saw on Etsy while still pregnant with Belalu. I love the illustrations and the colors, and knew immediately that's what I wanted for her room. (She got the prints for Christmas last year.)

 

So, the bed I want to get for her is this one:

I'd like to get her this lamp by her bed:

And in their newest catalog, I saw this chair, which I think she'd be able to get in and out of easily. I'm loving chevrons right now, but it is very trendy and the color selection is minimal- I'd love a teal option- but since we won't be buying it anytime soon, maybe there will be more options later.

 And in a dream world, she'd have this rug to go with it all:

This summer I'm going to paint the walls in her room white (they are green right now) and reupholster her window seat- two manageable, economical steps. I'd also like to find a nice rug- the one above is waaay beyond our budget, especially for a kids' room. But it's gorgeous, isn't it? I love, love, love Angela Adams rugs.

Thanks for dreaming with me today!

Where we're at this week

Our little reading corner in the study

Everyone seems to be well on the road to recovery after last week's cold. It was a mean one, but I'd rather that than the flu.

The weather continues to be mid-winter-in-the-north: frigid (we're looking at a high of 3F in the coming days- gulp) or icy. Serious, take-no-prisoners icy. Our entire road is just a sheet of thick ice. I think the local schools actually cancelled today because of the ice conditions. To counteract the chill, I've taken to pouring over seed catalogs, pinning flowers and shrubs on Pinterest, and sketching out ambitious garden plans that may see full fruition when the kids go to college :)

At home, I'm thankful for my full pantry that allowed me to scavenge around and pull together a promising soup made from the rest of the beans I soaked this weekend for our Sunday supper of baked beans and brown bread. My bean pot didn't have room for them all, so they got thrown in with some tri-colored orzo, carrots, celery, diced tomatoes, garlic, some seasonings and chicken stock. I also made a huge batch of popcorn for snacking and more oatmeal- I'm ready to hibernate this weekend! (Well, I will be after a trip to the grocery tomorrow- our fridge is almost bare.)

The kids are doing well. Less sniffles and sneezes. Belalu is so happy and sweet these days. I love seeing her sense of humor develop and she is into dancing to music and showing everyone her belly button. She is just so precious. I want her to be this happy and confident forever.

So that's us these days. I'm knitting, reading, audio-booking and Downton Abbeying my way through winter. Tomorrow the exercising will begin again after a week of daily headaches and turning in early. What we all really need is a walk in the fresh air, so here's hoping for a thaw soon.

A Full Pantry

With all the traveling we did this past month, my pantry was starting to get a bit too bare for my liking. I prefer to have lots of things on hand to be able to whip up a batch of cookies or a yummy soup when the mood strikes and I'm blessed by the baby nap gods. So, this week I got to work re-stocking my pantry. Nigella Lawson, whose classic, How to Eat, has been my breakfast companion this past week or so, talks about her "domestic goddess" moments. You know, when you've spent the evening or weekend puttering around the kitchen filling the fridge with delicious, nutritious meals for your family.

Yesterday was my "domestic goddess" moment. Belalu took an hour and a half nap, and I took advantage of the freedom to cook up a few days' worth of oatmeal (I like the steel cut oats, but they have a long cooking time for a busy week day morning); roasted beets and made a shallot maple dressing for dinner's salad (from Tyler Florence's Family Meal); and made a cuban black bean soup (from Nigella's book). The house was full of warm, delicious smells, and even though I didn't get home for dinner until 6:30, I had a yummy home-cooked meal ready for me. Juan cooked up the pork for him and the kids earlier in the evening.

I have lots more domestic goddess moments planned for my kitchen over the weekend. Breads, an Indian meal from a new Christmas cookbook, a supply of chai tea, and breakfast/snack cake. We'll see if time and the kiddos cooperate. That last one is likely to involve their help, like we did last week.

And as a "Year of the House" update, I've posted my cookbook cabinet. I got a few new books for Christmas and my cabinet was already bursting at the seams. I moved a bunch of books I didn't use at all in the past year or so down to the basement and if I don't miss them this winter, I'll donate them during spring cleaning. I've already found myself "rediscovering" some books, like Nigella's, which I'm reading like a book- she has lots of great text in there beyond the recipes.

Back to School

Tomorrow we start teaching again. It's going to be more of a shock for J since he's been on sabbatical all this semester and hasn't had to teach since last spring. I had a busy break, but I still feel fairly refreshed. I've just got language classes this semester, so I'm having fun thinking of new ways to make them interesting and more effective.

Has your family managed to dodge the flu epidemic? We've had two bouts of a stomach virus with the kids over break, and I've been getting to bed really early to make sure I don't get run down and make myself more susceptible to illness, but I kind of see it as inevitable since we deal with so many people on a daily basis who don't take care of themselves as they should (ie college kids ;) and daycare is basically just a germ factory this time of year. Oh well, we'll do what we can to minimize the chances: wash hands like crazy, get lots of sleep, eat well, stay warm, consume plenty of chocolate... oh wait, that last one might be more to just get through winter :)

Belalu's hearing test went really well. One ear was within normal range and the other was still showing signs of fluid but significantly less than six weeks ago, so he's not concerned. Her vocab continues to grow, so we feel good about that analysis.

"The Year of the House," as I've dubbed 2013, has been slow to get going since we've barely been in it lately, but the biggest thing I've done, and really I started doing it when we got back from Spain at the end of the summer, but I've continued to keep up, is working on getting rid of so much stuff. I'm sentimental, so it can be hard for me to get rid of things, but I've realized that if I don't have so many things around, it's less to clean, organize, pick up, maintain, etc. So, when I'm home with the kids and they are playing in a room, I'll tackle a space there and see what I can get rid of. It's amazing how good it feels to throw out/donate/recycle things that we don't need and aren't using.

Ok, off to bed. I've got some book reviews coming up for you and also more thoughts on "difference" and dwarfism, so stay tuned :)