Mulled thoughts

Somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic, Christmas morning is dawning on thousands of husbands, wives, moms, dads, sons and daughters. Mine will be dragging into his office soon where he will be greeted by a tiny silver LED tree, a stocking full of Christmas Peeps, DVDs and a Rush CD and his office mate who never sleeps. He will pour himself the first of several cups of Christmas Blend, go to work and count the hours till the sun comes up on the USA so he can Skype with our daughter and me. The surrounding offices will also come to life, coffee flowing, computers humming, small talk amongst the soldiers. Here a Lieutenant with a pregnant wife at home, there another Captain wishing he could be watching his little boy spend his first Christmas morning turning wrapping paper into a slobbery mess. Across town, another soldier's heart is breaking, knowing he can't be home with his wife who has just lost their baby. Yet another sends messages throughout the morning to the fiancee he proposed to just before leaving.

Christmas this year has been a mix of emotions for me. I'm fairly good at compartmentalizing my feelings, as it is the only way to get through a long separation like this, however the holidays tend to destroy even the toughest walls amongst the silent ranks.

I feel frustration and anger: I'll admit, I kind of slacked off in the gift giving department this year. Part of it is because I mentally checked out of the holidays when my husband left but most of it is because I just can't handle the shopping aspect of it. Have you seen how angry and mean people have been this season? One look around Target and you'll see a dozen frazzled moms, carts brimming with toys and electronics and not one shred of Christmas cheer on their face. What has happened to this season?? Why is happiness directly proportional the number of presents under the tree? Frankly, I'd be happy to spend Christmas in a cardboard box if it meant the three of us could be together.

I feel sadness: Let's face it, having your husband gone at Christmas sucks. Here's the thing though--people are always commenting on how hard this must be for me and the baby and the other wives and yes, it is hard. But I think it's a lot harder on those guys and gals who are heading into work this morning. I'm sad that my husband won't get to hear our baby babbling to herself in the morning while she tries to eat wrapping paper. I'm sad that his Lt. won't get to feel his baby kick while he and his wife spend their last Christmas alone for a while. I'm sad that there are guys who don't have access to skype or phones.

Yet...

I feel immense joy: watching my little girl turn an ornament over in her hands and bat it around the floor, dressing her in a pretty red dress for her very first Christmas, hearing skype ringing on my computer and knowing it's my husband. There is much to be joyful about. I'm alive, for one thing. Seven months ago, I wasn't sure if I would leave my hospital room, yet here I am. I can communicate across the world and I know there are many families that won't have that luxury this year. I'm with family. I have a wonderful support system of other wives.

So to answer the question I've gotten most today and this past week: "How are you doing?"

I am at peace. Tomorrow will most likely hold a lot of smiles and a few tears, but I am a very blessed woman. I have a gorgeous daughter and an incredible husband and faith in a God who has orchestrated this time in our lives. What more could I ask for?

Resolutions: the lifestyle edition

So where did we leave off....?

I was pretty much banking on this blog gathering as much dust as my shelves in lieu of our new addition. I had hoped it wouldn't take six months for me to get back to it (don't worry, my shelves didn't have to wait that long) but it did and I haven't missed it. Having an infant around is the best diversion. The time has come, however, for me to radically renovate my entire life and a blog seems the best way to go about documenting, holding myself accountable and keeping my husband and family up on the goings on in our lives.

I realize resolutions go hand in hand with January 1, but I've been working on mine for the last couple of weeks. Being away from home for the holidays has allowed me to kind of step back and evaluate everything I need to do when I get back. It's hard to take stock when you're in the midst of the clutter and elbow deep in diapers that need to be washed. I've been jotting down lists, schedules, writing emails and taking mental stock of what the new year will hold for us and it's time to lay it out here. We'll see how things actually shape up (literally).

• Home: Here's a quick recap of how things went down this past year: April: we moved. May: I unpacked as quickly as I could and gave birth. June-Novemberish: Infancy. Novemberish: Infancy, husband deploys. December: holidays. In other words, my house hasn't been properly organized and it's driving me nuts. Thankfully, the baby is getting to an age where I can do things other than hold her all the time and the house will be one of the first things I tackle when we get back. File cabinets, closets, kitchen cabinets....the creepy basement can wait till the husband returns though.
• Body: Pregnancy tends to wreak havoc on one's person. Fortunately the only visible clue that it happened (other than the chunky little ball of energy known as my child) are some seriously rad stretch marks. Unfortunately, I've seen contestants on the Biggest Loser run faster miles than I'm capable of right now. I miss running more than anything so I've set a few goals for myself to get back in shape. First, it's Couch to 5K for me. (Those of you who run know how hard it is to start back at square one. The runner in me just wants to get on the treadmill/street and go. The formerly injured runner in me knows that I have to take it easy for the first few weeks.) Once I get back up to speed, I'm going to start training for the Big Sur International Marathon 2012. I've talked about this for years but have been foiled either by injury or pregnancy every time. This time, it's happening (and hopefully we'll actually be living there when it rolls around). I'll probably do a few 5Ks in there too just to keep me motivated. Were also getting a Concept 2 Rower in the next few months and I'm totally stoked about it!
• Eating: Oy, this is the hard one. I'm gluten free already but being gluten free doesn't mean I don't eat my fair share of junk. I used to eat so well but since moving, it's been a struggle. I blame part of this on the utter lack of good produce and organic food in the midwest (sorry, one gets spoiled on the CA coast) but most of it is just my own fault and lack of motivation. So, once we get home, we're going totally Paleo. If you want to read more about it, go here. Basically, it's gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, grain free--just meat, veggies, fruit and nuts. I did this before and felt amazing so it's time to give it another shot. On that note, I've started a second blog that I'll be keeping up through the deployment: check out Sixty-Eight Hundred Miles here.
• Soul: You might have noticed I listed these kind of working from the outside in and also towards the most important. The busier my life has become, the more I've pushed God and spending time in his word to the side. Honestly, if I don't accomplish any of the other things I've listed, I must fix this for myself and my child. Nothing matters more to me than raising a little girl who loves God and subsequently shows that same level of care to those around her. There's no way she's going to do that if she doesn't see it modeled in me, so I have some major changes to make. I'm looking forward to getting involved in PWOC  and finding creative ways to broaden the wee one's view of the world. Thankfully I have friends around the globe serving in various capacities and I look forward to sharing their blogs and stories with her as she gets older. 

So, lots to look forward to. 2011 is going to be a great year!

Newsflash

If anyone out there is still actually reading this blog, look for a new offshoot in the next few weeks.

I'll write more about it soon....

Spring reds

I love baking, but have somehow missed out on the spring glory that is Rhubarb. All of my favorite food bloggers have been cooking up decadent pastries, pies and panna cottas (I might be guilty of spending far too much time lusting over this over at Tartelette's blog..) so I thought I'd give it a try. The husband was in the field all week for training eating crappy Army food (mmm MREs) and, as this is one of his favorite pies, I thought he deserved it. I've actually never even tasted rhubarb (gasp) so once we slice into my first strawberry rhubarb pie attempt after dinner, I'll let you know what I think.

I didn't know where to begin as far as finding a recipe, so I initially turned to the recipe collection on Williams Sonoma's website. While they rarely disappoint, I couldn't help but think their particular pie recipe looked a bit boring, so I headed over to the Food Network site to see what they had. This was the winner (I mean, who can resist strawberries and rhubarb mixed with cinnamon, lemon zest and all that lovely butter...).
I have a fantastic gluten free pie crust recipe (found in Gluten Free Gourmet Comfort Foods cookbook) that I'm too lazy to type out here. Generally it works like a dream but the humidity must be low or something today because we had an all out fight. Instead of the usual silky dough, I ended up with a pile of crumbles that, in the end, I did manage to force into two crusts. It didn't make for the most gorgeous pie (thankfully you can't see my awesome patch jobs on the bottom crust) but man, that crust is so flaky it's unreal! I also threw some cinnamon and nutmeg into the crust to spice it up a bit.
It smells incredible and the little bit of filling that bubbled over was immediately swiped up with my finger...and it tastes fantastic.

I should mention that we are also having Pioneer Woman's meatloaf for dinner b/c J loves meatloaf and hers is positively decadent. I mean, who else has the balls to wrap her meatloaf entirely in bacon...that woman is my hero.

So before I eat my arm off (the smell coming from my kitchen is having that effect..), I'll leave you with a little project I did last week: I have one of the best neighbors ever living upstairs whose mothering skills I hope to emulate someday. I was making my mom a flower arrangement for Mother's day so I thought I'd make her one too..

Again, I'm too lazy to write out a tutorial on how to make the butterfly but it's pretty simple...I just covered some pages out of an antique french book (the literary gods are going to get me someday for cutting it up, but until then, it makes for great crafting material) with some tissue paper, cut out the butterfly wings, glued them on a little wire body that i made and stuck the little guy into the bouquet.

And with that, I'm off to gorge myself on some seriously amazing food.
And hang out with my awesome husband who I haven't seen in a week...YAY!

Granola bars on a breezy Friday afternoon

Today was another quiet day--carless and still no baby. The car problem will be remedied Sunday evening when my [completely awesome] parents arrive from SC with my beloved VUE. The baby problem...well, we'll see when that goes down.

Springtime in Kansas has proven to be absolutely gorgeous. Today was slightly on the cool side, probably mostly due to the fairly stiff breezes all day. I decided to make homemade granola bars and the scent of baking oats, cranberries, apricots and honey paired with the gusts of wind coming through my window kind of evoked a bit of Fall. I imagine Fall here is beautiful...

Here is my first attempt at granola bars:

I don't think I'll ever buy the packaged kind again!
The thing I love about these is that you can put whatever you feel like in them AND be totally sure they're gluten free. I used gf oats, cashews, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries and puffed flax (puffed rice would be good too, but flax is full of all sorts of wonderful nutrients)...the binder was honey, a little butter and a little vanilla.
Next time I think I'll probably make them a bit thinner so they're crunchier and stay together better (these just sort of fall apart, which is also fine since I've just been grazing off the pan all afternoon!).

That was the extent of my excitement today. Hopefully I can convince J to take me to Hobby Lobby so I can get some stuff to work on a couple of projects I have in my head. Oh, and tomorrow is the first Saturday Farmer's Market in Manhattan and I can't WAIT to go!

Finally, I just had to post this beautiful travel baby bed by Lalapanzi. Yes, I'm lusting...

Happy Weekend to you all! Hopefully I'll have a baby by the end of mine.....ha!

Evolution of an empty fireplace

Yesterday I discussed my disdain for the unusable fireplace in my living room...which got me thinking about it even more....and made it impossible for me to go to bed last night without at least attempting to make it look awesome.

This is a rough draft of what the final product will be.

The greenery is temporary, simply a filler until I can get some actual plants to fill in some of the empty space. I'm loving the mirror, as it kind of opens up the cavern a bit. All of the candles are yellow (the color is a bit washed out in this picture). I'm also going to get one or two small paintings to add to the mix from my dear friend Annie (and I'm hoping this one is still available...):

I still welcome your suggestions. I had considered using it as a bookshelf (good call Rachel!) but this would require way more cleaning than I'm willing to do (lots of historic soot!).

nesting much?

Let's face it, weeks 37-40 are the most brutal weeks of the pregnancy. Everything is a major operation, from turning over in bed to walking down the hall, not to mention the waiting. Just waiting.

Today, however, I apparently began "nesting". The dishes have been piling up in my sink for the past few days because my belly has become a barrier between me and any waist-high counter space, and I've generally lacked any desire whatsoever to do them anyway. The bathrooms were bordering on almost being disgusting, and the laundry was to the top of the hamper. None of this has phased me much until this morning, when I woke up horrified that I'd let the place go and determined to rectify the situation before lunch. So as I write this, my house is sparkling and I also hung all the artwork in the dining room that had previously been chilling on the floor.

I also managed to completely exhaust myself, so here I am sitting on my couch, contemplating my next decorating move. Which brings me to my latest source of consternation--the cavernous eyesore, otherwise known as the fireplace that doesn't work but can't be removed because my house is a historical landmark.

Perhaps in an effort to ease the blow of a fireplace that must forever remain useless, the housing people left us that incredibly high quality piece of crap screen and a couple of tools to at least make it look legit (both will be finding new homes in the basement shortly). I am now left with the challenge of figuring out how to decorate it without it looking cliche (read: candles) and without it being a hazard for crawling babies eventually (read: candles, most live plants, just about anything else you can think of). I may give myself a pass on the latter since she won't be crawling for some time and since, knowing myself, I'll need a change of scenery about the time she does become mobile.
So if you're reading this, feel free to give your ideas. I'm not entirely against plants and candles, I just don't want them done in the way that every other new housewife does them.

Speaking of plants, I stole a few clippings from the landscaping in my yard and popped them in a couple of spice jars (my new favorite bud vases).

There really is nothing better than fresh flowers sprinkled throughout the house.

And last but not least, my walls would be extremely happy if either of these lovely Etsy finds were hanging on them...I mean, how cool is that lightbulb vase??

Light Vase by JohnCorcoranDesign
Hanging Test Tube Vase by PigeonToeCeramics