My husband

I suppose this one is long overdue. Of course my husband makes me happy -- that's why I married him. But after almost six years of marriage, it's the little things he does that make me happiest.

• He knows I hate taking out the garbage, so he almost always does it.
• He's a highly motivated and busy guy, but he knows I love my "coffee time" on weekend mornings, so he obliges and sits to chat with me for like an hour. :)
• Bath time with Sophie is his job, and both he and she love it. Sometimes I just sit on the bathroom counter to watch them play. He's such a good dad. I knew he would be, but seeing it is sometimes just breathtaking.
• We have an "I cook, you clean" rule in our house. Since I'm home during the day, I almost always cook, which means he's stuck cleaning the kitchen a lot. It would be a bummer, but he is the WORLD'S FASTEST CLEANER, so it's always done in the blink of an eye. (He also happens to be the world's messiest cleaner, if that makes sense; when he's done, his mid-section is soaked from the sink. It's incredibly endearing.)
• He's got this great math-and-science-type brain that complements my more creative word-oriented brain.
• He's sometimes completely silly, like when, just for a laugh, he shocked himself on his parents' electric fence for their horses (he swore his heart stopped for a moment). Or when he wears Sophie's little backpack just to make me laugh:

• He always treats me with respect, even when I'm just being a total B. :)

Marriage can be hard, but we're a great team. I sometimes feel really undeserving of such a wonderful partner. I only hope I make him as happy as he makes me.

Anyway, this note is really why I was compelled to blog about him. I found this on my pillow one night when he was away for the weekend. I almost always tuck a little note in his bag when he has to travel for work. It made me tear up that he thought to write me this before he left:

Seriously. I don't mean to go into cute overload, but how could I not tell the world how happy he makes me??? :)

Calling in to the radio

Whenever I'm listening to the radio and I hear the "touchtones" to be caller 14 (or whatever), I get SO excited and scramble for my phone. (Even if I'm driving... unless it's a snowstorm.) I love calling in to try and win stuff, pretty much regardless of what it is.

So far in my life, I've won a gift card to Texas Roadhouse and a pair of tickets to Great America. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome to win things. It makes you feel lucky and puts a smile on your face. Everybody likes free stuff. But my favorite part of calling in to the radio is the short pause after hitting Call. You wonder, "Am I going to hear a busy signal or an actual ring??" It's the same feeling I get when I hold a wrapped present that's just for me -- my expectations soar. Sometimes I just hold the present for a little while and savor the moment.

Anyway, that's why I didn't call this post "Winning things from the radio," because that's obviously awesome. Calling in is one of my favorite things... winning something is just a sweet bonus that happens one out of 100 times. I don't know what that makes me. An optimist, I suppose. But we already knew that. :)

Trying New Things

In transitioning from a busy careerperson to a busy stay-at-home mom, I've found that I need to purposefully expand my horizons. At work, I found new projects and was given new projects -- that's just how work works. Things change all the time. At home, if I wanted to, I could do literally almost exactly the same thing every day. Get up, change diapers, feed Soph, put her down for naps, clean up, watch Baby Einstein, go to Target, etc. So I need to find New Things to do, and I like to try to do something new every day.

For example, one day I decided to rent a movie from a Redbox for the first time. (We were exclusively Family Video patrons.) I know, that doesn't sound too exciting. Often my New Thing of the day isn't exciting. It couldn't be... it's Wisconsin in winter and I have a baby. It's not like I'm going to go skydiving or cliffjumping. But that's OK. I had to make new neural connections (or whatever happens in your brain) to figure the big Redbox thing out and try not to make a scene in the grocery store. And when I was successful, I felt a little triumphant inside. Even though it was just a Redbox movie. (Bonus: the next day's new thing -- returning a Redbox movie!)

Today's New Thing was perhaps my best yet -- I made bread. Not from a box, not with a machine, not even just quick bread. I made dough, with actual yeast and actual bread flour, let it rise, and baked it. The whole time, things really didn't seem to be going as they should. I actually almost tossed the dough at one point because it didn't seem like it was rising properly. But I stuck with it, and when I opened the oven at the end of the process, VOILA! It was beautiful, and my house smelled heavenly.

I guess my point is that trying new things is fun, and it makes you feel good about yourself. Even if my bread-making endeavor had completely failed, I probably would have had at least an inkling of I did wrong, and I could have tried again another day with more success. Also, bread is delicious. :) Here's the recipe if you feel like trying something new.

Ingredients

2 cups warm water (110 F)

2/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

6 cups bread flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water, and then stir in yeast. Allow to proof 10 minutes or so until yeast resembles a creamy foam.
2. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well-oiled bowl, and turn dough to coat. Cover with a damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
3. Punch dough down. Knead for a few minutes, and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise for 30 minutes.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

The finished product!

Drive-Through Windows

It is approximately one million times more convenient for a person with a baby to use an establishment's drive-through window rather than going in to do her business, whatever it might be. More places should understand that.

That's really all I've got on this one. Thank you, Walgreens. Thank you, McDonalds. Thank you, most banks. Thank you, Starbucks on McKee Road. I shall patronize you more in the future because you offer me the convenience of not getting my child out of her carseat for a <5 minute stop. :)

These Pictures

Our baby was a puker. A "happy puker," as our doctor put it, so no acid reflux scariness or anything, but a big-time puker nonetheless. These pictures, as you might suspect, were taken only a few seconds apart. I love that her face is nearly identical in both pictures... except for the Vesuvius-like spew of spit-up that is just starting to flow from her mouth. 

This was my every day for, oh, the first 5 or 6 months of Sophie's life. I wouldn't change one thing about our little angel... except maybe the all the spit-up. That I could have done without.

Hyperbole and a Half

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

This is a fantastic blog written by a girl named Allie. From what I can tell, she is nuts and fragile and sharply funny. She's a great writer and a ...great? ...artist in MS Paint. (Can you be a great artist in MS Paint? If you can, she is.) Her drawings are strangely perfect paired with her stories and mirror her style.

Careful, you can get lost in this blog. (And careful, she's got a dirty mouth.) To get to the heart of things, read "The God of Cake," "How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood," "This is Why I'll Never Be an Adult," and "The Alot is Better Than You at Everything." It might not appeal to everyone, but when I read her posts, I am usually also laughing. Enjoy.
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Aah! Just kidding! One more you have to read: "The Four Levels of Social Entrapment!" Because we've all been there.

The Ricky Gervais Show

I just love this show. It's on HBO, which we actually no longer get, but I have a bunch of them DVRed and will never, ever delete them because they are hilarious. They originated from a series of podcasts by Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant -- his co-writer of the Office -- and their friend Karl Pilkington. They animated the podcast talks and made it into a TV show.

There's no plot or anything, it's just random conversations with funny cartoon graphics of really funny but sometimes profane chatter. Ricky and Steven basically just make fun of Karl and his crazy ideas about the world, like that all of the inventions that are worth inventing have already been invented. And that Dyson, the vacuum guy, is right up there with Einstein and Newton on the list of history's great minds. And that ants don't really do anything, they just carry things around. There also use great British-type words like "telly" and "advert" and "glacier" but pronounced like "glass-i-er." Like a funny, cartoon Bear Grylls. :) Anyway, consider the podcasts and TV show endorsed. They make me laugh like nothing else.

Sushi

Oh, goodness, how I love sushi. I just had some for lunch, and mmmmmm! (Note: My last blog post felt a little deep, so this one is delightfully shallow. :) It makes you feel fancy, it's relatively inexpensive, and you get to eat it with chopsticks. It's equally good eaten in the restaurant or as take-out. Also, it's pretty healthy and full of protein to get you through your afternoon. The biggest question is -- two rolls or three??

Family Photo

This photo was taken, I think, two Christmases ago. (Note: We DID NOT match our clothes' color palette intentionally. It just worked out that way.) It makes me happy, of course, to see us all so happy together on Christmas morning. But this picture also makes me a little sad. I know! This blog is about happy things. So we'll not say sad... but melancholy. Because this year, my sister Meg can't come home for Christmas.

Meg is a professional distance runner for Adidas. She lives in Arizona. Due to her racing schedule, she couldn't have been home for more than a few days, and that coupled with the flight's length and extreme expense meant it just wasn't in the cards this year.

I saw Meg for Thanksgiving for a day or so, and that was nice. And I think she might try to squeeze in a visit between races sometime after Christmas, so I'll see her then, too. But this is the first Christmas where all three of us sisters won't be together on Christmas morning. We have so many quirky traditions -- waiting at the top of the stairs until our parents have everything in place, Kate wearing ridiculous and sometime inappropriate old pajamas, always opening our stockings first, always saving our sister presents to each other for last, the obligatory post-present-opening fashion show, Grandma's egg dish, having Jim Henson and the Muppets Christmas tape (yes, cassette tape!) on in the background... I could go on and on. Most of that will probably still happen, but it just won't be the same without Meg home.

Granted, things were bound to change this year with Sophie in the picture. That might make up for Meg's absence a little bit. But we'll miss Meg a lot, and we'll all be a little sad (wait, not sad - melancholy!) on Christmas morning when we make one fewer pile of presents.

However, thinking back, we've had SO MANY great Christmas mornings together. Times change, things change, traditions come and go. We're not kids anymore (even though we sometime act like it). We'll see each other as often as we can. And when we do, we'll reminisce and laugh about the good times gone by. Because some things won't change: the memories we have of holidays past, and the promise of new traditions to come.

ADELE

I LOVE all of her songs, especially Someone Like You. We've all heard it on the radio. I found this live version I had to share. It's slow, close, and indulgent. You can tell she's more comfortable higher in her range, when she's really belting, but the whole thing is just great.

This cover of Someone Like You is just so amazing. I already posted it to Facebook, but I'm still kind of obsessed with it (can you be "kind of" obsessed with something?) so I thought I'd post it here for safe-keeping. They also do a pretty inventive cover of Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. You can download both on iTunes.

Since we're on the subject of Adele covers, here's John Legend doing Rolling in the Deep -- he has such a good voice and makes this song feel almost like a spiritual. (I still like Adele's better, though. :)

Anyway, she's amazing, and she's inspiring others to create amazing stuff as well.