7QT: Back At It Edition

1. Blogging is hard. Or more precisely, writing blog posts takes a considerable amount of dedicated time and brain space and both those things are in short supply around here. I started out with what seemed to be a fairly modest goal – weekly quick takes and occasional additional posts – and yet even that has needed to be pared down. It's actually been good for me to be able to fail fall behind for a couple weeks and realize that it's okay.

2. I have been craigslisting like crazy the past couple weeks. For better ($20 wheelbarrow! $20 Little Free Library! $9 seriously adorable birdhouses!) and for worse (if time is money then the savings margin has been greatly reduced).

Seriously. Adorable.

I am currently looking for a couch that isn't roughly the size of our living room so I will finally have space to use my (also craigslisted! free! antique!) secretary desk and stop having to use the dining room table as my work space.

3. Eric and I are a classic case of opposites attract. He's choleric, I'm phlegmatic; he's an ENTJ, I'm an INFJ; he's a filer, I'm a piler; his love languages boil down to doing, mine to being. Routine and flexibility, head and heart, justice and mercy. Some days it seems that the differences between what defines us individually are endless. Many days this leads to misunderstanding and friction, and the occasional sullen stand-off. It also leads to many moments of intentional togetherness, conscious decisions to love one another, and humorous anecdotes.

Some stories require a bit of time to pass before they can be laughed at together (like the time he found me hiding under a blanket in the closet after an argument) and others are just plain funny right off the bat. Take this week for example. Eric is the type of person who, when moving into a new place, sets all the furniture down and leaves it in that arrangement until it's time to move again. I, on the other hand, like to rearrange. And then rearrange again. And then again. I keep tweaking until the arrangement is “right.” And then I leave it be. Until something changes (new piece of furniture, new baby, Spring Fever) and, well, it's not “right” anymore.

We learned fairly quickly that it is much less stressful for both of us if I don't try to explain my “vision” ahead of time. Instead, I simply rearrange and Eric finds out when he walks in the door. The long, aggravating discussions of whether, and why, the shelves need to swap places have been replaced with a quick shock – like ripping off a band-aid, but without warning. Given how frequently I rearrange at least a little the shocks aren't usually too bad. But this week I went all out on our living room. Eric knew I was looking for a new couch, but what he didn't know was that buying a new couch was going to entail a whole new arrangement, and that I'd need to try out said arrangement ahead of time so as to know precisely what size couch I am looking for.

When Eric – aka Mr. Consistency – comes home from work he puts the mail on the radio (big, old-fashioned, craigslisted!) and his lunchbox on the little green table by the door. When he came home on Wednesday the radio had moved across the room and the little table was tucked behind the coat-tree and the giant couch. After the shock subsided and the glazed look left his eyes, he marched across the room, put the mail on the radio, and then marched back, leaned over the giant couch, and squeezed his lunchbox around the bulging coat-tree and onto the little table.

Our individual definitions of adaptability are yet another chance to grow - and laugh! - together.

4. Spring has been slowly (oh so slowly) creeping upon us. There have been several warm, sunny days over the past few weeks, teasing us with the promise of good things to come, and then disappearing under grey skies and more snow. We are supposed to get another inch or more tomorrow, which is just plain depressing, despite the simultaneous 40 degree forecast.

This is what a Minnesotan childhood looks like

And yet! I saw a robin today! There are green spikes poking out of the garden! (I tried to take pictures but I'm not much of a photographer and everything just looked brown.) And despite the persisting snowbanks there are puddles galore! Sprout has new-blue-puddle-stomping-boots and a spiffy "fire-stomping" rain jacket. I haven't reminded him of his umbrella because that is a battle I am not yet ready to fight.

5. Do you say boulevard or hellstrip? Or something else entirely? I hadn't even heard of the term "hellstrip" until I started looking up ideas for a boulevard garden, and I'm still not clear on where or why they're called that.

However you choose to say it, my biggest plan this year is a boulevard garden, complete with Little Free Library (craigslist! $20! Did I mention that already?) and complimentary edibles. I scored a large variety of free pots and planters from a downsizing neighbor and plan to put them to use in a front yard experiment. I want to surround the LFL with a flower garden, interspersed with potted peas, beans, cherry tomatoes, etc. and topped off with a little sign welcoming passers-by to nibble as they browse for books. I'm calling it an experiment because (1) although we get some foot traffic we're in a sort of urban peninsula and I'm not sure often our LFL will be frequented and (2) despite the general quietness of our neighborhood, this is the city and hooliganism happens. Stay tuned for updates over the summer!

6. I have always been a better baker than cook. Partly because I grew up baking and have been familiar with the basics for a long time, partly because I was cooking for one for most of my twenties and kept the grocery list small and the recipes simple, and partly because I've always loved to bake but until fairly recently cooking made me nervous. For most of my adult life I was apprehensive about trying any seasonings outside my comfort zone - salt, pepper, onion, garlic - and despite making a mean chili I shied away from soup, convinced that it was a complicated, all day affair.

I now have a variety of recipes in my repertoire, use exotic seasonings such as cumin and tarragon, and make most of our dinners (including weekly soups) from scratch. The top three things that have helped to widen my culinary horizons are

1. A CSA the first two summers of our marriage, forcing me to find a variety of new recipes to use up the piles of vegetables that took over our kitchen;
2. Seven months of elimination diets (cutting out dairy, wheat, soy, tree nuts, cruciferous vegetables, nightshades, coffee, chocolate, and joy in various combinations) when we thought Sprout had food allergies taught me all about using substitutions;
3. And of course, Pinterest.

I made one of our favorite Pinterest finds for the feast of St. Joseph on Monday. This oven fajita recipe is easy and delicious, and never fails to bring back memories... After making it and loving it the first time, I wrote the recipe in my family recipe book and (to illustrate just how little I knew) I wrote 8 tsps. of cayenne pepper instead of 1/8 tsp. Eight teaspoons of cayenne pepper in one recipe. I made many mouths burn and one small child cry before I realized my terrible mistake. It explained why we always made sure to have a lot of sour cream on hand for fajita night!

7. I taught third grade catechism at our parish for several years a while back, and recently came across a notebook with some of my favorite class quotes jotted down. Among the best:

(After explaining the Trinity using the analogy of an apple) "So who is the First Person of the Trinity?" "God the Skin!"

"What does it mean that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit?" "Our bodies are dove cages?!"

"The church is made of marbles?!? It must have taken a million!"

And the moment that hopefully took some time off Purgatory... Have you ever tried explaining Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery to a bunch of 9 year olds? With my first class I decided to talk about respecting our and other people's bodies and the response was: "so, what you're saying is, modesty is adultery for kids?" Followed by, "I saw a girl commit adultery at church, she didn't have any sleeves!" Followed by panicked visions of angry phone calls... I think I clarified enough to avoid any awkward comments stage-whispered during mass, but I'll probably never know!

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