Things Lula Likes

 

The Diner Series  

February 2015

#thingslulalikes

Things Lula Likes

   

This year Lula has been very interested in painting and drawing and generally creating (best news ever) I can’t pretend that I wasn’t hoping that she would love to make and do so much. I didn’t want to push her in one direction or another and never forced her to go one direction or another. I am so excited that she is so interested in creating, it gives me an opportunity to play like a kid. I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep track of how Lu wants to explore the person that she is becoming this year. We have done comic books and weekly photos. I LOVED the comic book but didn’t push it once she didn’t want to make them anymore.  The weekly photos were really up to us as parents since she couldn’t talk or move for the most part. This year I want Lu to have more say and influence in how we document her life. I want to encourage her to explore who she is in her own way.

The past month or so Lu has become very interested in taking pictures of things, not people or herself but things around her. Today I decided to just let her roam around the kitchen and take pictures of whatever she liked. It was a moment I didn’t think of too much or think would amount to anything. I was cooking and putting things away and she was a little bit in the way. It gave me a few minutes to get things organized so I could actually pay 100% attention to her. A funny thing happened once I showed her how to use the camera, she was so intentional in what she took pictures of. She didn’t just walk up to anything and point the camera at it, she walked around everything and looked for the right angle and the right place to take each photo. I stopped what I was doing just to watch her. Sometimes I am so in awe of the amazing little person she is becoming.

This year Lu is going to document herself. I’m going to give her a camera once or twice a month, maybe more maybe less, and let her do whatever she wants. Maybe we will go on a trip to the beach or a museum or a garden or maybe it will just be hanging out at the house. I’m going to let her take the lead and show me how she sees things and how she wants to remember this year.  Introducing Lula’s first photographs untouched and handpicked by her.

 

Things Lula Likes

                                                                                    

The Kitchen Series

January 2015

100 Happy Days

 

 

I joined the 100 Happy Days challenge in March. So far I am a quarter of the way into the challenge and love it.  It’s simple, inspiring and has been a lot of fun. Most days I have a hard time picking out which picture I want to use. The best part ahs been the reminder that there are so many happy things that happen even on your worst day. A lot of people have asked me about the challenge and don’t seem to understand the idea or why I would want to do it.

 

Honestly I am not doing this challenge for anyone but me. Yes, I am, posting the images for anyone to see but the reason behind them is completely selfish, I don’t care who likes them or how many people look at them. At the end of the day I feel better about how my day went and remember to think about the little happy things the next day.

 

want to join the fun?

#100Happydays

30 days of self portraits

This morning I took my last self portrait in my 30 day self portrait challenge. I have a few favorites and overall I really enjoyed this challenge. It felt really good to spend a few minutes everyday doing something that was out of the ordinary. A few of my favorites

                                                                   All 30 self portraits

    

 

Tomato, tomato, ginger

     

Cored, Blanched, peeled, chopped, cooked and canned. My first summer of tomato canning and it was pretty successful. Thank you so very much to the wonderful produce guy who sold me 35 pounds of Roma tomatoes for $15 when I only asked for 20 pounds. I am now almost completely out of canning jars. I Only have 4 oz and a few half pints left . Most of my canning this year has been done using Marisa McClellan's cookbook Food in Jars. Today I canned 6 quarts and 6 pints of chopped tomatoes, 3 quarts and 2 pints plus a half pint of marinara and 1 half pint and 2 half pint jars of pickled ginger with bay leaf and black mustard seeds. 

        

                                  

 I've always loved the pickled ginger that comes with sushi and thought. Would try my hand at making my own, I used a few different recipes for all over. In the end I used  my own combination of spices and vinegars. 

                   

Pickled Ginger with Black Mustard Seeds

 1 cup rice wine vinegar

 1 cup white vinegar

 3/4 cup sugar

 1 tbs salt

 1 lb ginger (sliced paper thin)

 2 tsp black mustard seed (divided)

 2 bay leaves

Peel ginger and slice as thin as possible.( I used a mandolin) toss in a medium bowl with salt and let sit for an hour. After and hour drain and rinse the ginger slices. Put vinegars salt, sugar and bay leaves in a medium sauce pan and beta over medium heat, stirring until sugar and salt dissolve. Bring to a boil and add ginger slices for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and let cool while preparing your jars. Divided  mustard seeds between jars and using tongs or a slotted spoon pack ginger into your jars. Once the jars are packed pour remaining liquid over the ginger. Use a chopstick to loosen any air bubbles and refill with pickling liquid leavin a 1/2 in head space. Wipe clean rims and seal jars to finger tightness and process at a rapid boil for 15 mins. ( I added a small slice of beet to the pickling liquid as it was heating to add color.)

on being selfish

 

This month I have been taking a self portrait everyday.  Inspired by the challenge put out by the lovely ladies at A Beautiful Mess. I started a little late and am not  quite done yet. I have been feeling somewhat disconnected from everything lately. Work has been very busy and things at home have been even busier. The last couple of years I have been spending a little more time trying to get back to doing more of what I love to do and less of what I don’t love to do. It was kind of hard to find a balance for myself after I had Lu and still worked my crazy schedule. I tended to feel like I had no time for myself because I would come home after working an opening shift and feel like a normal person having dinner at home and playing with Lu then I would have a closing shift the next day and spend the morning cooking dinner for everyone to eat while I was at work and trying to relax. I didn’t get both of those things done most days and more often than not it was the relaxing part that didn’t happen. One thing that I remember from growing up was always eating dinner together, so I have always tried to get up at the same time as Scott and Lu so that we can eat breakfast together everyday. Sometimes I can get up without a problem and other days it a little tougher but it’s still my favorite part of the day. I get to see everyone for at least a little bit before they go to work or school even if I don’t get home until they are asleep. I used to think that my irregular schedule was the worst thing in the world and that it was making things so stressful for us at home and that I was going to miss out on so much of the firsts for our new family. It wasn’t easy at all in the beginning but I came to realize that I was making things harder for myself. I was standing in my own way most of the time. I wasn’t making time for myself which was making things so much worse than it needed to be. Now I think my schedule is almost a benefit. Yes, I work a lot of weekends and nights but I also get time in the morning before a closing shift to do whatever I want to do and still make dinner for everyone. When I work at night on the weekend I still get to spend half the day with everyone. The weeks that I have days off in the middle of the week I can get errands done alone which takes half the time and then we get to spend more time together when I am not working. Things are not perfect and yes I wish that I didn’t have to come home to everyone in the house being asleep some nights and I wish that we could spend every Saturday and Sunday together at the beach or a the park. For right now we seem to have found a balance that is working and getting better everyday.

       At the beginning of this year I sat down to think about what my resolution would be for the year, I had no problem coming up with a huge list of things that I wanted to accomplish for the year, in fact I think my list was more than anyone could really get done in a year and still have any sanity or hair left. That list kind of just sat there for a few days and then I threw it away. I had this huge list of things to do but not something to be resolute about. That list was just a group of things not something that would actually make anything different. I wanted to come up with something that would actually meet the definition of  resolution, so I got out my dictionary and found out what it actually means… Resolution : firmness of purpose; the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute: She showed her resolution by not attending the meeting. So for this year I decided that my resolution would be to be selfish. Make time for things that are important to me, spend time when I have it with the people I want in my life, don’t worry about everyone else all the time, focus on what is best for my family and me, and most importantly make sure that I am doing things that make me happy because they make me happy not because they will make someone else happy or because I should do them.  So far its been going really well, I am more relaxed, we have been spending a lot more time relaxing together and not feeling like we have no time to spend together and I have gotten even more done so far  this year than I did last year or the year before when I set out the year with a huge list of things to do.

   So I am being selfish this year, but in the end It has really resulted in being more of a family and spending even more time together than we ever did before, with the same schedule. Hope you are having the same kind of year.

National Donut Day

Today is….

 

I have officially been making donuts every weekend for 21 weeks now. I have baked so many flavors of donuts it’s kind of hard to remember them all. Luckily I have a picture of ALL of them! There have been a few duds and a few that have been more than delicious, I have combined recipes from all over the place, mostly from my pintrest donut board.  I have been using this mini donut pan and this toaster oven to make them the whole time. Happy Donut Day! I hope you get to enjoy a sweet treat today!