delighted to be

just a homemaker / july 10, 2013

I hate to admit this, but lately I’ve been really struggling with this whole stay-at-home-mom thing. There’s very little glory in being a mother, and a whole lot of gore. And I don’t feel like I’m spending my days wisely, because what have I got to show for it? A (mostly) clutter-free house, a basket of folded laundry yet to be put away, and a toddler who is still living and breathing? Great, I can keep a house relatively clean and tiny human being from the knife drawer.

Our kitchen soap dispenser broke on Sunday. So today, we headed over to Target to buy a new one. Such is my daily life, curling my hair to go to Target.

I’ve thought about going back to work, but I really struggle with that as well. When my kids look back twenty years from now, I don’t want them to think fondly of their babysitter. I don’t want them to think about how absent I was from their childhood and how I put a career first. (Granted, if we financially really needed me to go back to work, that’s a different story.) But I also don’t want my kids looking back twenty years from now and saying, “Look at all that Dad accomplished in his career! Mom, what did you do?” Is there a happy-medium to be found?

The (inaccurate) quote by C. S. Lewis has been floating around the internet these days: “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only – and that is to support the ultimate career.” That’s great, but career? I wouldn’t exactly call making oatmeal, changing diapers and reading picture books a career.

And then I found the expanded, correct quote. It so turns out that in the book Letters of C.S. Lewis, Lewis wrote in a letter to a “Mrs. Ashton”:

“I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? As Dr. Johnson said, “To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour”. (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter: 2nd in the meantime to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist…” (pg 447-Letter of CS Lewis 1988 ed.)

His perspective is refreshing, right? But my heart is still torn. The plan was to raise two babies, close together in age. And when they grew up a little, we’d raise two more babies. Our house would be overflowing with little children that needed time and attention. Giving that time and attention would be my job. But I don’t have a baby. Jack (compared to the time spent caring for an infant) is really self-sufficient now. I make him a peanut butter sandwich and he eats it.

I know this time will pass. I will be wishing for these good old days, longing for the peaceful, quiet solitude of the afternoon nap. But I’m living in the now, and I’m really struggling with it. What is my purpose? What is my tangible goal?

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we’re getting old. / july 9, 2013

Yesterday we celebrated Tyler’s 27th birthday! I totally blew it and didn’t plan ahead far-enough in advance, so his presents won’t get here til Thursday. But! I made him TWO birthday cakes and hung up streamers in our kitchen (my attempt to be festive, ha!). I also single-handedly blew up 27 balloons forty-five minutes before he got home, which was quite the task.

Jack has been making huge progress with his speech lately (he now says most “b” words with the actual “b” sound instead of a “d”, and has recently picked up the word “shower” and “one”) so I taught him all day to say, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” It came out more of a “pab day!” but was cute nonetheless. I think everyone should get to have a two-year old in their house. :)

We made two cakes because we had some friends over. We’ve figured out that between all of our birthdays, we get to eat cake roughly once a month. Not a bad thing at all! ;) It’s really been good for us to have these particular friends over the past year. They really are family to us and we feel so blessed to know them and celebrate with them.

Both cakes were vegan; I made a double-layer chocolate fudge with chocolate ganache and a double-layer vanilla with strawberry preserve filling and chocolate ganache. Yum yum!

(the kiddos especially loved playing with all of the balloons in the house. highly recommended, and maybe i’ll turn it into a tradition?)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY! We love your guts.

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the fourth of july 2013 / july 9, 2013

We’re so fortunate to live so close to the beach. It’s still more of a full-day trip than it was when we lived in San Diego, but hey! count your many blessings: we can dip our feet in the ocean less than an hour away from our house. :)

We made it over to Santa Cruz to (new to us) Twin Lakes beach, which we really liked. Parking is a little weird around there, but the beach itself was quite clean. It was mutually agreed upon that more beach days are in our future. Even though Jack won’t go near the water (really truly – he won’t even think about going near the waves) it is still nice and relaxing. I grew up close to the beach in southern California, so the beach is home to me. It is incredibly soothing to listen to the waves, and all of my problems just seem to sort themselves out by the end of the day. We can all just wish for a beach house, yes?

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Recipe: Spring Vegetable Potstickers / july 3, 2013

image via smittenkitchen.com

Before we left on our trip last week, I mentioned I was making these potstickers from smitten kitchen. They turned out amazing! I had planned on freezing some of the half-batch we made, but good thing they’re healthy because between the three of us there weren’t any leftovers. ;)

I won’t post the recipe here, (see the link above) but I will tell you I took the liberty of making a few minor changes. For our vegetable filling, I used a combination of asparagus, leeks, green onion, garlic, tofu and toasted sesame oil. It was AMAZING and was the perfect combination of flavors. I kept eating it right out of the skillet before it even made it to the wrappers! :) I will experiment in the future with whatever is in season.

Also note:

I crumbled up the tofu into small pieces and cooked that until golden brown, and then added the veggies. I didn’t really add them in a particular order – I just cooked them all for a couple of minutes and finished the mixture off with the toasted sesame oil.
I also chopped everything pretty finely as the recipe says, but ended up pulsing the mixture in the food processor after it was cooked anyway. I didn’t puree it, but rather made it finely minced. It was easier to fill (and eat) the potstickers that way.
It was much quicker than I expected to actually fill the potstickers. If you go to the original post, you can see through her pictures a little bit about how it’s done. Basically make sure the edges are wet, and just crimp/fold the edges closed in one direction. I made about 20 and it took me ten or fifteen minutes, tops.

I hope you guys try them! They seem intimidating, but if you buy wrappers (found in the refrigerated section by the produce or tofu) it’s actually more like a 30-minute meal. I served it with leftover asparagus (broiled), rice, and the scallion dipping sauce.

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