An actual update

First of all, I miss blogland.

Secondly, it's been a little over a year since my last update. 2010 was a very hard year in terms of death and failure, but it also offered rebirth and redemption, so as things go, it was just another slightly dippier roller coaster than most years kind of year.

Lauren and Jeff are wonderful. They're as fun as ever. Jeff is still a grubby little boy (I swear, he manufactures dirt) who has really blossomed into quite a character. He's intentionally funny and loves to joke and be silly. He also loves football, which pleases his father to no end. Lauren is still smart and funny, and her most recent venture is that she's writing books. She has three volumes under her belt already ("Jeff Makes a Mess", "Why is all the Water Coming In to Everyone's Houses", and "Lauren didn't Listen.") She has plans for several more. She is in school four days a week now and loving every minute of it. Since she goes in the afternoon, as soon as we get home from dropping her off, Jeff goes down for a nap and I get about 2 hours ALL TO MYSELF. It's heavenly.

Work has been busy since about November of last year, which, of course, is a very good thing when it comes to owning a business and having it, you know, stay in business. Most people in my life forget that I work full-time. (In-laws, friends, miscellaneous people.) I work full-time AND I take care of my children full-time, and sometimes that balancing act is very hard to maintain. It requires being on-call at work all day during normal working hours to keep up with email and phone calls and fulfilling requests for information, and doing the bulk of the rest of the work at night after the kids go to bed. I've pulled a lot of all-nighters in the past year. It's made for some rough days and nights, and a lot of stress.

That said, I am glad to be able to continue to work AND take care of my children, and at times, the balancing act does tip in my favor, too. There was a week in July where I didn't have much work to do, so I didn't do anything. After running full-throttle since mid-July, this week has been a little quieter, too. The busy-busy will start again soon so I'm enjoying these quieter days now while I can. Every time I want to whine and complain about how busy/tired/stressed I am, I have to stop to remind myself that I have it pretty good and that I'm lucky to be in the situation I'm in, for better and for worse.

My one thing that I do for my own fun has been cooking. In a continuation of the CSA and farmer's market posts where I left off last year, I'm still CSA-ing it and have become a regular at the Farmer's Market. I signed back up with my CSA from last year, and added the egg share this time around. When the CSA ends next week *sob* I think I will miss the eggs, most of all. I bought a share in an apple CSA which is still going - 6 deliveries of 10 pounds of apples each, and then a 10# box of baking apples and 2 gallons of apple cider at Thanksgiving. Also, since May, when the Farmer's Market opened, I have bought 100% of my meat from a local farmer (his farm is about 40 minutes away.) I usually buy meat for the coming week and usually one or two extra things, and I've built quite a little stockpile in the freezer. It may last a month or so after the market closes (the last Saturday in October, *sob again!*) My farmer suggested that I consider buying a half of a hog in the spring, and I think I'm going to do it. I have also purchased a heritage, pastured turkey from him for Christmas, and I'm terrified that I'm going to ruin it since I've never cooked a whole turkey before.

I have to admit, I love being a regular at the market. I like being greeted by name and how buying food has become more than a faceless transaction. I'm really going to be sad when it ends in two weeks. Really.

I also started canning in earnest this summer, using the bounty of goodness from the market. I now have around 100 jars of stuff down in the basement; everything from fruit jams (strawberry, blueberry, peach, apricot, grape, raspberry, and many combinations of the above) to condiments (pickle relish, pickles, honey mustard, ketchup, peach hot sauce, tomato jam), to whole and sliced things (sliced peaches, whole tomatoes) to sauces (applesauce, apple butter, tomato salsa, spaghetti sauce, crushed tomatoes, tomato puree.) I froze a couple of quarts of blueberries to make Mr. Fro's birthday pie in December, and have also frozen peaches, raspberries, cranberries, peppers, zucchini, and a few other things. Several weeks at the farmer's market saw me hauling a wagon-load of produce away from my favorite produce farmers. I bought a bushel of tomatoes, and then two weeks later, bought another bushel. (A bushel of tomatoes is about 50 pounds of tomatoes.) The only produce that I've purchased at the grocery store since May has been bananas. Everything else has been from the market.

Now with fall upon us and winter looming I'm finding ways to use the things I've canned, sometimes trying to be creative. I made a quickbread and used a jar of cranberry-lemon preserves in the batter. (Blueberry would work, too!) For Lauren's preschool treat day, we made whole wheat muffins with applesauce and shredded apples in the batter (BIG HIT!) I slow-cooked a pork shoulder with a jar of the hot spicy peach sauce, and it was fantastic. This is fun!

MY last two weeks at the market will be focused on picking up items to store. Hard squashes, potatoes, onions, apples, carrots, hearty greens, etc. I'm thinking of turning my garage fridge into a root cellar, of sorts. Mr. Fro doesn't know this, yet. He's been surprisingly supportive of my market ventures, although he did laugh pretty hard when I told him that I'd brought home ANOTHER 50 pounds of tomatoes.

I grew a single tomato plant on my back patio and we got about 15 tomatoes from it. Success!

For the winter I want to try some things that are less fresh-produce dependent, like making wine jelly and more mustards, and flavored vinegars and extracts. I want to try making cheese, and making yogurt, too. More bread baking - especially practicing making rolls and buns because I really can't quite seem to get those right. I'm hoping that some cranberry-apple-cinnamon jam that I have planned will come out good enough to use for teacher gifts this Christmas.

So, yes, I've gone completely bonkers.

Sorry this is long and boring. Life has been boring, for the most part, lately, but it's the good kind of boring - the "no news is good news" kind of boring, so I'll take it.

Wiping away the dust and cobwebs

*cough cough*

Yikes.

I miss blogging.

I'm glad to see updates from some of you and I figured I'd try to jump back in, too.

So. . . hi?

Simple happy

I bought a fresh chicken at the farmer's market on Saturday. I've been buying different cuts of meat from a vendor there who raises pigs, cows, and chickens. I had told him a few weeks ago that my family was just starting to realize the value of eating local, and how good pasture-raised meat really is, and each week I try something different of his. He doesn't have fresh chickens often, but this week he did, and he saved one just for me. I felt special.

I decided to give the chicken the full local treatment, so I stuffed it with CSA onions and garlic and farmer's market herbs, and roasted it on a bed of CSA/farmer's market potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Believe me when I tell you that it was the best roast chicken I've ever made. Lauren kept asking for more until there was nothing else that could be picked off of the bones.

Then yesterday I took what was left of the chicken and boiled it with an assortment of farmer's market and CSA veggies for about 6 hours to make chicken stock. Then I made homemade egg noodles and used to stock to make chicken soup. (We all have colds.)

I feel like I not only got my money's worth out of that chicken, but that the chicken gave everything it had for a few good meals.

It sounds ridiculous, but this makes me happy.

Yikes, it's been a while.

Hello. . . ?

*dusts off blog*

Guess I haven't had much to say that's been worth saying lately. It's been a hard summer in terms of bad things happening, so, as I usually do when things are rough, I retreated under a rock for a while. I may be having some sort of mid-life crisis. Well, crisis is probably a strong word but I'm having a pretty big shift in the way I think, toward simplicity and simplifying pretty much everything. It started out of necessity. But lately I find that I'm enjoying simpler things, simpler choices, simpler needs and wants.

I'm a long way from moving to a cave and weaving clothes out of my own hair, but let's just say for starters that I've given up the do-it-all-all-the-time smartphone and am now using a pay-as-you-go $11.99 phone from Target (and barely using it at all. I really just want it for emergencies. I don't even remember the phone number.)

One big source of joy and simplicity for me this summer has been the CSA. Happiness from vegetables? Okay, so I'm not dancing and singing over the gazillion cucumbers that I've gotten (and had to start passing along to my parents lest I get overcome by cucumbers). But really - each week - the CSA box is still holding its charm and mystery and fun (in addition to the gazillion cucumbers.) Plus, I don't have to think about it at all. I pick up a nice box of 8-10 different fresh, interesting things each week and the only thing I have to think about is how to prepare them and where to put them. Love it.

This week the box included a variety of amazing heirloom tomatoes. They are absolutely delicious. They're also very weird looking which makes them extra-charming. Jeff grabbed a particularly odd-looking tomato and ran off with it. I found him sitting in the rocking chair in the living room gently holding the tomato, smelling it and grinning.

Lauren and Jeff enjoy CSA Wednesdays as much as I do. They help me unpack the bag and squeal with delight at each item, even if they don't know what it is. Last week's share included a gigantic cantaloupe, which L & J polished off in one day. When they saw that this week's share included another cantaloupe, the two of them actually cheered and ran around the kitchen in happy circles. It was hilarious. The two of them love to help me in the kitchen. One sight that I have not yet captured but want to be sure to before the summer is over, is the two of them standing by the garbage can, carefully shucking corn. They're very good at it. Jeff, in particular, is very precise about peeling back the husk piece-by-piece and tossing each piece in the garbage.

I've been paying more attention to food, in general. I think the CSA has been inspirational in that regard, and in combination with my new simplification mindset, I've been slowly cutting back on processed foods and have been noticing more and more where food comes from. I bought local organic brown eggs for the first time, ever (and next summer I am going to sign up for the CSA egg share.) I want to make my own cheese and my own bread. I know that it's a long way from being a total localvore, but I'm taking small steps and find that I'm enjoying food more, and my whole family is eating healthier. It's also easy to eat local in the summer, with produce bursting out all over the place. We'll see how I'm doing in January when there's no Farmer's Market and no CSA. It's all baby steps.

Lauren starts pre-school the day after Labor Day. I can't believe it. She's such a little girl now. I love her personality. Not to say that she doesn't have her moments, but she's really a funny, smart, sweet kid. She likes to come to the grocery store with me, and as we stroll through the aisles, she waves and says hi to everyone we pass. Cracks me up. She also makes up songs - yesterday I heard her sing the following, to the tune of "Shoo fly, don't bother me:"
"Spider, don't bother me.
Spider, don't bother me.
Spider, don't bother me,
Otherwise I'll pour sand on your head."

Jeff's personality has blossomed, too. He is a clown. He does things purely for laughs, and he knows when he's being funny. The other day he took something that Lauren wanted, and she screeched at him. He raised his eyebrows at her, then walked up to her, grabbed her face in his hands, and planted a big kiss on her. She was stunned, and he walked away giggling. Goofy. He's mastered the word "No" and uses it in response to, "let's wash your hands" and "put down that dirt clod." He remains a grubby little boy, and it makes me laugh more often than not. When he finishes his milk, he puts down his cup and waves to it, saying "milk gone, bye." He is still my cuddly little bug and loves to sit with me and snuggle.

So that's what's what. How are you?

Hooray for the CSA!

Today was the first pick-up day for my CSA. I have been looking forward to this for weeks.

I got an email from the farm yesterday with pick up location and instructions. It turns out that the pick-up location is even closer than I thought it would be, just slightly over a mile away. The weather today was in the low 80s and super sunny, so it was perfect to just pop the kids in the stroller and walk to pick up my share. (Okay, it's a half-share.)

I also got an email listing what would be in the box this week, and it included recipes for several of the items - particularly the less familiar ones. I love it. The recipes made me even more excited to go pick up the box.

Here's what I got:

A bunch of asparagus

A bunch of radishes

A bag of lettuce, mixed varieties and colors

A bag of spinach

A bunch of cilantro

A bunch of swiss chard

A bunch of rhubarb. I have never cooked with rhubarb in my life. I am thrilled that Kim posted that rhubarb bar recipe and I'm going to try it. I probably have enough rhubarb for that, and maybe a strawberry rhubarb pie.

A bunch of garlic scapes. I had never heard of garlic scapes before. They're kind of weird looking, and are the shoots of garlic plants. Apparently they have a light garlickey flavor, I'm guessing they're kind a garlic version of chives? They sent a recipe for a white bean dip with garlic scapes that sounds very yummy.


While I'm certainly in favor of supporting local agriculture and eating fresh, organic veggies and making sure my family eats lots of veggies and all that feel-good stuff, the most exciting thing about this CSA for me is the "mystery box" every week. I'm so excited to have some new inspiration for meals and to plan our dinners around these fresh veggies. I've gotten into a huge cooking rut (OTCC has been a wonderful way to get out of it, but still, I fall into the rut). I'm looking forward to letting what's fresh from the CSA inspire what I make for dinner.

The Blah has been there for far too long, hasn't it?

Onward. . .

If I say to Lauren, "I want the truth" she says "You can't handle the truth!"

The fun thing about having kids is making them do things that amuse me.

Jeff looks cute in shorts. Every day after dinner he grabs the broom and sweeps the floor saying "clean! clean!" He's also very good at picking up Legos and putting them back in the box. Other than that, though, the boy is supremely talented at making colossal messes. Yesterday he decided that his pancake would make a nice hat.

I filled out the form to sign Lauren up for pre-school in the fall. *sniff*

This is Lauren's first family portrait. She's been drawing balloons and flowers for a while but all of the sudden, she started drawing people. Here is her rendition of our family. Please note that I am enormous and I kind of look like Grimace. Those thing sticking out of the sides of our faces are ears, and Daddy is wearing a dress.

The Blah

Not a fun post ahead.

Things are going along in a rather crappy way, and have been for a long time. I've mentioned it to some of you, sometimes in a roundabout way, but for the most part I have no idea how to talk about this, including with friends in person. So it's almost entirely pent up inside, and I am starting to think that I just need to send up a little white flag.

Mr. Fro is suffering from depression and has been for a long time. Longer than I'd ever realized. For a long time I didn't recognize it as depression and then for a while I didn't want to believe that it was, you know, real Depression. But it is. It always has been. Going all the way back to. . . always.

He started seeing a therapist at the beginning of last year and I probably had the unrealistic expectation that he'd eventually be "all better". I've never dealt with the depths of depression before, and I'm almost ashamed to admit that I don't understand it and to a certain extend, can't understand it. Oh, I read books and articles and whatever info I could find and intellectually understand what's going on, but it's hard to translate that to every day life.

And for people who live with and love people with Depression, the extent of the advice I'd found was, "Be supportive. It's not their fault."

You know what? That little piece of advice doesn't tell me how to deal with the frustration and exhaustion and disappointment of day to day life. There's no therapy for me, no doctor for me to talk to and no medicine for me to take. I'm part of the fallout. I can't fix it. All I can do is watch and wait and hope and "be supportive."

I know it's not his fault but he's the only one who can do anything about it - if that means more or different therapy or medication or whatever. And I know - he's in a place where he doesn't think a solution is possible and therefore it's hard for him to do anything. As I said, intellectually, I know that. I know he's in a deep dark pit. I feel helpless and tired and angry and lost and alone. I know not to blame him, I blame the illness. But that line is so fine that it gets blurry so easily. And then I feel guilty for getting angry.

So. WHAT DO I DO?

I worry about how my kids are affected by this. It's the worst for them because they don't know why he doesn't want to play with them or why he's in such a foul mood. I can't leave them with him for very long. Parenting is not a shared thing here. I hate thinking about this so much that I can't even type any more about it. He's not abusive, we're not in physical danger - it's that he can't care. He can't stay awake. He can't find joy in them and that's unfathomable to me. My kids are so, so amazing.

It's not all bad all the time but things can go from okay to bad so quickly. It goes from a fun day out to getting home and him zoning out on the couch and being gone for the rest of the evening.

I work a full time job and am a full time at-home parent. I am the primary earner. I am the decision maker and morale officer and I keep things from falling apart, and I keep my kids happy. I can't fail, I can't break, I can't have an off day, I can't get sick. I can't even vent. If I vent or say anything negative about anything, he goes down into the dumper. I have to hope that Lauren doesn't tell him that we smooshed an ant in the TV room because that'll ruin the whole day.

I'm very lucky, I know. It's easy for me to be happy. I'm a happy person. If I get down in the dumps I can usually crank some music and dance around and feel better. Or go for a drive and sing really loudly and badly with whatever's on the radio and feel better. I can remind myself that I have it SO good and that always pulls me out. I know how lucky I am, and I guess, I'm so very thankful that at least I have me.

I have no idea if I really should post this. I just needed to let it all out.