Thingadailies Feb 4th

This past weekend was the child's 26th birthday. Part of her gift was her own personal tiramisu, her favorite dessert. For some reason, I didn't make any for us, which is just silly. Today I rectified the situation. 

This is a very classic espresso tiramisu with store-bought lady fingers. I'm trying to tell myself that I'm not ashamed. It's not working, but I think eating the tiramisu will help. 

Thingadailies Feb 3rd

Trying to think of what to give coworkers for Valentine's Day besides chocolate. In my mind, chocolate is a wonderful gift at any time, but there are folks who seem to think candy isn't good for you, and they think chocolate is candy. Weird.

Came across birdseed wreaths, and figured I could do that with my heart cookie cutters. Searched around for a good non-suet option and came across a gelatin option. Gave that a try,  and they completely disintegrated. Looked around some more, and cobbled together a few ideas. Success! Sturdy little pucks of birdseed! 

I hung a couple samples out in my trees and the chickadees and junkos are going nuts for them. Huzzah!

Thingadailies Feb. 2nd

I've been trying to allow myself to make art. I'm not good at it, so I rarely do it, despite knowing that I'll never get good at it if I never practice. Plus, who am I really doing it for? This is the pep talk I give myself every time I sit down to draw. Sorry you had to hear that. 

Ok, so I've been watching these videos made by Andrea Nelson (andrea.nelson.art) in which she draws and watercolors these fun little cartoony sometimes abstracty animals or scenes, which really appeal to me. And she always says, "It's going to be ok." 

A few days ago, I tried drawing this little owl, which turned out a little wonky, but still kinda fun. For day two of Thingadailies, I decided to draw him again, but really focus on going slow and seeing if I could get things a little more symmetrical. 

Thingadailies Feb 1

I've committed to doing this thing! Here's hoping it encourages me to get off my hiney and try out some of the projects that have been swirling around my mind. 

I went super easy today, and made a recipe I saw on BellyFull. It's a triple chocolate banana bread. Of course I couldn't make it exactly the way she wrote it, because of course I didn't check the recipe before I made it. She calls for 1/3 cup each of dark, semi, and milk chocolate chips. I didn't have dark or milk, but I did have some chocolate covered toffee chips, so I used those. 

The bread is soft and chocolately. I thought it could use a little more banana, and maybe something like walnuts to cut through the sweetness. 

(Triple Chocolate Banana Bread https://share.google/95izAgyqs5nbEj2Vm)

 

Herding Cats, A Holiday Whine

The child is learning that her mother actually didn't sit around on her rumpous all day while she was at school, as evidently she'd believed before I got this job. I guess my previous jobs have had short enough hours that I've still been able to get most of the errands and chores done while she was in school. Now, I leave for work a half an hour after she leaves for school, and I'm done and hour after she is. Almost every day I have to stop off at this store or that place to take care of something on my way home. "Why can't you just come home and be here with me?", she wants to know. Saturday, she had a choir concert which took most of the day since their call time is absurdly early and I was helping set up and run the cookie mingle after the show. Then, she had her piano recital in the evening. So Sunday, we had to go to the feed store, the hardware store, another hardware store because that one didn't have what we wanted, Costco, and the grocery store. "Why do we have to do this today? I just want to relax.", says the child. Gosh, so would I.
I have no social life, most of the fun holiday things I'd normally do have to wait for the winter break to start, I'm not sure when the last time was I cooked a complete dinner, and the house is no where near as clean as I'd normally keep it, and people, I'm not a great housekeeper.
I'm supposed to be the "Welcome Chat Advisor" for the Girl Scouts leaders in my town. This is the person who holds the hands of new leaders and guides them through all the forms, trainings, and hoops one has to go through to become a troop leader. It's a confusing process, and I should be pretty available, but now I'm not. Do I say I can't do it anymore? Who else will do it? Everyone else is busy too.
I'm also the director of the GS day camp in our area and should be getting training together for the adult volunteers as well as for teen group since the person in charge of that has become too busy. Who isn't too busy?
I'm getting a tad too overwhelmed here.

Christmas Trees

For several years now my family has been getting their Christmas trees from Trees 'n Bees over in Black Diamond. The had a nice selection on trees at a reasonable price, it had a nice family vibe, they kept chickens, friendly barn cats, and there was always free hot cider and candy canes. You know. Each year we've seen this silly Dr. Seuss-ish tree every time we tromp to the back of the farm to get our preferred Noble or Grand fir. Last year we noticed that everything was 50% off and that the farm itself was being sold off. No one was sure if the lot would be a tree farm or condos this year, so imagine our joy in finding that the farm was sold to one of the former employees who plans to always keep it a tree farm with few large changes. They still have the chickens, there are new barn cats (Lucy the Terrible is my favorite), cider and hot chocolate are still there for chilly tree hunters and our silly tree was still there.


My daughter with Lucy the Terrible



My husband carrying the silly tree.

The nice owner (whose name I can't remember, of course) sold us the tree for cheap since we bought a regular size tree too.

Here are a couple of pictures of the decorated trees. I think we should remove the lights from the trunk of the tree.

 

Here's hoping your holiday decorating has been as fun as ours'.

World Choral Day

According to the writing prompt, today is World Choral Day and we should write about choir-y things. I've been trying to think about how I'd possibly sum up my experience as a singer.  I've been singing my whole life (like most of us I think), though most of it has been singing in funny voices while a make dinner. I love singing. I love seeing what sounds my voice can make. I love imitating other folks' singing styles. I love singing "straight"- just the way the composer meant the music to sound. I loved singing in a choir, melding my voice with that of others', creating something beautiful and whole. I think perhaps most of all I love singing with my daughter, hearing her beautiful, sweet voice combine with mine, now deeper and containing more vibrato than it used to.

I started singing in choirs as a young kid in church; my dad was the choir director for a while in one of the many churches we attended in our nomadic life as a military family. As I grew and began questioning the existence of a god and the teachings vs. the realities of the Christian religion (and frankly all the other ones too), it was the music that I could still enjoy. I don't believe in a god or the supernatural, but I believe voices lifted together create something truly magical.

The last choir I sang in was in college. I enjoyed the difficult music we sang, and I remember feeling the high of the choral experience after practice. I've been so disappointed that the only choirs in my area are religious or meet on nights that I can't make work, so it's been put on the back burner 'til someday. When I see my sister sing with her group Vox Music (only via YouTube, unfortunately), I am reminded that I need music for myself. In the meantime, my daughter sings with Rainier Youth Choirs in the Consonare group, and watching her progress as a singer has been gratifying. Maybe someday I really will find a group in which I fit.