dwelling

it's a few short weeks away.

i'm bordering on indifferent to depressed.

i had certain body image goals that i am no where near attaining.

i had financial goals that i am no where near attaining.

i had blogging and photography goals that i am no where near attaining.

i know that i should not be so blue about it.

but, i am.

quick... somebody tell something funny (and young at heart!!)

thanks

i am thankful for:

intrepidness
spunk
joie de vivre

thanks

feeling grateful today for:

skillet chicken parmesan;
an 8 year old boy who requested a pumpkin hat;
permission to enjoy my birthday month (thank you for the reminder, natasha!);
new-to-us furniture to replace old-to-us furniture;
election volunteers who call on election eve (no matter the candidate);
a healthy home.

reality check

i've been eating well this week. i don't often blog about food here (kind of ironic, considering the title of my blog and all.) i read beautiful foodie posts, and get tons of inspiration thanks to their mouth-watering photography. often, when i'm preparing a meal, i think i should take some pictures. but there are just not enough hours in the day for me to stylize my measured dry ingredients and freshly squeezed lemons. and usually by the time i think to photo the finished product, we're halfway through our meals and having a lively discussion about who is going to clean up the kitchen.

also, despite my love of words, and sentences of words, and paragraphs of words, a reviewer i am not. a few notes and my very scientific 5-star rating system scribbled into the margins of some old cookbooks tell me all i need to remember about a particular dish. (given that most of the recipes i use now come from the www, i rely heavily on "bookmarking." that and my uncanny ability to remember which bloggers make great chicken enchiladas, pumpkin cookies, rye limpa bread, or even a favorite sandwich.)

so, despite the fact that there are no photos, and i am not going to wax poetic about the amount of squash i've eaten in the past week, here is a sampling of what was served up at the erickson's house this week:

Turky Chili and Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie (Rachel Ray) *****

Shoo Vampire Soup (Martha Stewart)(no link to be found - i used my trusty 2000 Halloween Issue) ****

Stuffed Squash (Alton Brown) ****

Spaghetti Squash with meat sauce (Matty Erickson) *****

Mummy Sandwich (the lovely Joys of Home blog) ****

Chicken Mug Pie (Rachel Ray) *****

as i read back over this list,i am reminded of some lovely meals this week. and it occurred to me that (sometimes) weeks full of meals like this one are the exception, not the norm. my reality is that there is often a pizza night in the mix. (sometimes two!) my reality is that four out of five nights i am stopping at the grocery on the way home from work. and not for just one key ingredient. often i haven't decided on the evenings meal until five minutes before i walk out of my office. my reality is that my husband studied the culinary arts, and apparantly did not take one single class on washing dishes.

maybe i hesitate to share my cooking adventures, because of the lack of gorgeous photos, or a succint and savory review of the meal. maybe i think that my meals don't stack up to some of those that you have shared. (am i the only one that ever thinks that?)

unfortunately, i have stumbled with hesitations like this most of my life. a bit of the "grass is always greener" syndrome. i've wasted some precious time trying to keep up with the jones family (and the murphy family, and the smith family...)

but this week, we ate well. and added several recipes to our family favorites. we only ate pizza once, and that was after a late, chilly soccer game. but just in case you spend half a second worrying about keeping up with the erickson family, let me just put some perspective on it.



my reality: i can't make a decent looking mummy sandwich. don't get me wrong. i can see vast improvement over last year's attempt. at least this year's attempt "resembles" something "wrapped."



and truthfully? we would not have revisited the mummy sandwich this year had jack not declared it a "family tradition." (tradition? after a sad attempt one year? oh-kaaaaay...) but how could i deny my son his hallowe'en memories?

three!

i've given a lot of thought this year to my blog. if you were to ask my what i blog about, i really couldn't choose any better words than i did on that Hallowe'en three years ago...

in which i attempt to pay attention to the "little things" in life: the smiles, the quirky quotes, the entertainment factor of a now-5 1/2 y.o. son, split pea soup, homemade halloween costumes, cool fonts, my search for the perfect monogram, beautiful food and a dizzying array of my life's "amuse-bouche."

he is 8 1/2 now,
and there have been dozens of soups (three soup swaps!),
homemade halloween costumes are "itchy"
and i haven't yet found the perfect monogram.

and... i'm almost forty.

there are plenty of "little moments" yet to be found. thanks for sharing all of yours with me!

masquerade

frightfully fun

a fun martha craft that i've been meaning to do for several years. super fun to make, they cost next to nothing, and (say it with me) it's so easy, lelly could do it!!

did you see barb's? we both had the same great idea!



i love the bad lighting effect from my cameraphone. but, hey! it captured every single spooky dust bunny on my lampshade!!

happy birthday, barb!

a subtle shift

there are four daughters in my family. it was a little bit like growing up in "Fiddler on the Roof." minus one daughter. and a dairyman father. and a matchmaker. and religious persecution. dad was the local Scoutmaster - tuesday nights were his "break" from the heady estrogen stew that was invariably brewing at home.

in my generation of cousins, the girls ruled as well. out of sixteen cousins, three are boys (and i'm not suggesting AT ALL that they drooled.) but we girls definitely had the monopoly at family gatherings.

my sisters and i are all married now (many of my cousins as well), and raising families of our own. four daughters meant four husbands, which immeditaely leveled out the playing field. then, the arrival of jack opened the doors for a new generation of boys. jack, along with cousins max and felix and nephew-due-in-january have all of a sudden turned the tables in one generation. where the men in the family used to retreat into small tightly-knit packs of wild-eyed brethren resisting the urge to run, they now have found reassurance in their numbers.

grampie, jack, matty, brother-in-law mark

jack takes his responsibilities as oldest male of his generation verrrry seriously. after all, it is he who will introduce his cousins to legions of action figures. he is the one who carries a dog-eared copy of "The Dangerous Book for Boys." his will be the Cub Scout uniform that becomes the hand-me-down.

so far, he is an exemplary leader-of-the-pack. he tries new foods, he hugs his grandparents, he negotiates squabbles between his younger cousins. he can speak at-length about The Clone Wars and Transformers, and is moving easily up through his Cub Scout ranks.

now, if i could just get him to clean the bathroom...