This was the scene in my dining room today.  While The Girl napped, I painted for the first time since I found out I was pregnant with her, over three years ago.  This is the painting I had to stop working on, and it has hung in my kitchen, unfinished, for three years.

I hardly remembered what to do today, but then I remembered why I love it so much.  It was terrifying, clumsy, and exhilarating.

I’ll share progress soon.

The Boy started first grade on Monday and it’s been a big adjustment for him, as well as for our family.  We are still struggling to find our rhythm, but I am certain it will come.  He did great at drop-off the first day.  I didn’t know what to expect, and there’s been some grumbling, but after a hard first day, he’s taking it better than I expected.

The Girl and I are enjoying time alone, and I am enjoying getting my house really clean for the first time in three months.

It’s been raining practically non-stop for the the last three days, which is pretty unusual, but it’s been nice hunkering down at home, pretending it’s Fall.  Which is still at least five weeks away.  Sigh.

What better way to pretend it’s Fall than to make soup? Nevermind the fact that it’s 77 degrees outside (which is actually pretty low).  So crustless quiche and tomato alphabet soup it was.  The Farm is finally open again, which means glorious, bright-orange-yoked eggs, which don’t even compare to the organic supermarket ones.

In an effort to eat less meat, more locally, and to save money on the ever-growing food budget, I’ve been trying to cook at least one or two vegetarian meals a week.  I’ve also been trying to buy what looks good, what’s affordable, and what’s local, rather than going to the store with a dead-set menu plan.  I went shopping today, but I didn’t know what I was going to make for dinner tonight.

The gray and drizzly day made me want soup.   Bear in mind these are more formula than recipe, but for those of you who need it:

ROSE’S CRUSTLESS QUICHE FOR TWO (WITH LEFTOVERS)

1 small head broccoli

1/2 small onion, chopped

olive oil

1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

1 1/2 teaspoons all purpose flour

2 eggs

3/4 cups half and half (or light cream)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

pinch nutmeg

pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400. Butter an eight-inch skillet or pan. Cut broccoli into florets and blanch.  Drain and chop.  Saute onion in olive oil until soft. Toss the cheese with the flour and set aside.  Meanwhile, whisk eggs with half and half, salt, nutmeg and pepper, until well mixed. Add broccoli, onion, and cheese to the egg mixture. Pour into pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes, until slightly browned, and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 15 minutes in the pan, cut into wedges, and serve.  Also good as leftovers, hot, cold, or room temp.

ROSE’S TOMATO (ALPHABET) SOUP

1 small onion, chopped

olive oil

1 large carrot, peeled and grated

1 small zucchini, scrubbed and grated

1 clove garlic, put through a garlic press

1  26 ounce box Pomi strained tomatoes

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon sugar (or agave)

salt and pepper to taste

handful of alphabet pasta

Heat a large pot over medium heat.  Saute onion in olive oil.  Add carrot when onion is soft.  Add zucchini when carrot softens.  Add garlic when all is soft and beginning to brown.  Add tomatoes, and fill the empty tomato box with water. Add water to soup with bay leaf, salt, pepper, and sugar.  Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, for approximately 40 minutes. Fish out bay leaf and discard.  Using an immersion blender, puree the soup right in the pot.  Meanwhile, bring a smallish pot of water to a boil, then cook pasta and drain.  I like the add the pasta as I serve it because it tends to get mushy as leftovers.  I prefer the soup without pasta, but The Boy loves it.

I’ve been feeling a bit mixed up lately.  Lots of Big Thoughts going through my head.  Thoughts about home, life, children, education, religion.  You know, the little things.

Sometimes when I feel a bit scrambled and need to think or just vent, I reach for my journal.  Only this time I pulled out my journal and as I flipped through its pages, I was overwhelmingly overcome with how awful some of the things written in my journal were.  I’ve always seen my journal as a place where I can “let it all hang out” so to speak.  But this was just bad.  I read through some of it thinking, “this isn’t even me anymore.”  How could I possibly write in such a space?

Now that I am trying really hard to “use it up, wear it out, make do, or go without,” I told myself I would have to go on in that book.  But I simply could not bring myself to write in that journal.  And this is not the first time I have done this.  I have several unfinished journals in my home.  But I came to the realization that it’s okay to let go of an old journal.  I try to think of each book as a different chapter in my life.

So I bought a new Moleskine.  How I love these books. This time I vowed to let my journal be about me.

I took it home and gave the front page a wash of vibrant yellow.  And I placed on it a simple message to myself.

Hope.

I made Andy’s Chicken Soup, which is still my all-time favorite chicken soup.

And while I was at it with the comfort food, I made some fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies.  No, in my sickened state, I was not slaving away making fresh cookies.  Earlier in the week I was making chocolate chip cookies with the kids, and decided on a whim to mix up a double batch.  I baked up about a third of them, then using my cookie scoop, I placed balls of cookie dough on a wax-paper lined baking sheet, and put it in the freezer.  Once they were frozen, I placed them in a plastic bag.  Today, when we were wishing we had more, I just popped them out of the freezer, put them on a parchment lined baking sheet, let them thaw for a few minutes, then baked them as usual. I am so doing this all the time now.  Not too bad for a girl who said she hated making cookies.

Somehow, despite the fact that the days have been difficult lately, today was a good day.  I suppose when I let go of expectations and just allow the day to unfold, it’s just easier on everyone.  And I’ll have to admit that I like days when everyone is at home, and we are all hunkered down in the house, with nothing to do.

The skyline of Manhattan, as we saw it on the way from the airport.  This photo doesn’t even capture a fraction of it.

Same car ride.  I don’t remember which bridge this is.

On the way into Brooklyn.  The sign on the left says, “Welcome To Brooklyn.  Believe The Hype!”

No hanging out.

Don’t even think of parking here.

Nothing makes you look like a tourist more than taking photos of signs.

Lots of “no’s” in New York.

Everywhere you look there’s a beautiful cathedral.  Makes me realize how new everything is in Florida.

The famous piano at F.A.O. Schwarz.

The Plaza, where Eloise lives.  The kids loved this.

More coming soon!

I know this post seems somewhat out of place, considering I never did sign off with the “we’re off to New York!” as I had intended to do. We are indeed back, and making our way through a mountain of laundry, unpacking, and just settling in.  The Girl came back with a cold, and she has been feverish and clingy since the airplane ride home.  I’m sure we will all be afflicted before too long.  (Everyone else but me, of course.)  And the constant motion of cabs, subways, airplanes, and drives through the mountains and valleys of the beautiful Catskills has left me with a wicked case of vertigo, so I am resting and trying to regain my balance (in more ways than one).

I will be back soon, as soon as the room stops spinning.  I have lots to share.  What a busy two weeks it has been!

Which is why I’m so glad The Snail called me this morning and invited us to a quick impromptu beach visit in honor of the First Day of Summer.  We threw on our suits, grabbed our always packed beach bag, and ran out the door.

And I’m so glad we did.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the water was glorious–the perfect way to celebrate the First Day of Summer.  As it does with everyone living on the Gulf of Mexico right now, conversation turned to The Spill.  I’ve mentioned in this space before, all of the joy and good times we’ve had on our little beach.  But I have to say that we’re more than a little scared to lose it.  The Daddy Monkey is cautious of us even swimming at this point.  Even though oil hasn’t washed up on our shore, the toxins are in the water along with the chemical “dispersant” being dumped into The Gulf to “help” clean up.

I’m so deeply heartsick that my children could grow up in a time where the beach is considered a toxic place.

Thinking of all of the life that is affected by this.  Human and otherwise.

We continue to go for now.

Enjoying every beautiful moment, not knowing how long it will last.  Hoping beyond all hope that this mess is cleaned up soon, and this whole business will be over for good someday.

I’m reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes right now, and I couldn’t even wait until it was finished to talk about it here.  It has my brain positively buzzing.  In a good way.

For those of you who haven’t read it (it seems to be all over the blogosphere right now), it’s about how many modern families have chosen not to participate in our consumer-driven culture, and have decided to take a more holistic approach to running a house and/or raising a family.  Who knew how much politics, consumerism, lies and deceit have changed the way housewives work? The first section of the book is the “why” and the second section is the “how”.  I am still in the first section of the book, and the sheer amount of information in this book is staggering.  This woman has done her homework.

Some fantastic quotes from the book:

“The industrial revolution and subsequent rise of America’s consumer culture had demoted homemaking from a craft tradition to the mindless occupation of primping the house, shopping and chauffeuring.”

“…each of us has a calling or right livelihood  that enables us to serve the common good, and in finding this calling, we will be most happy. Few, if any spiritual teachings call us to seek the accumulation of money, stuff, power, or other purely selfish interests.  Further, in a life-serving economy, we individually accept responsibility for creating our own joys and pleasures.  We do not rely upon corporate America to sell us these things.  We take personal and collective responsibility for supplying many of our needs.  In taking these steps, we discover that true economic assets, unlike money, are intangible.”

“…the more homemakers are able to do for themselves–whether it be cooking, preserving or growing food, mending clothing or purchasing it used, fixing cars and appliances to avoid replacing them, cleaning with vinegar and water rather than toxic chemicals, or making rather than buying gifts and toys–the less time they exchange for money, the fewer natural resources they require from the planet, and the less they rely upon (and the less they are complicit in) the global extractive economy.”

And it just makes me so happy to read this book.  It’s so affirming to my life and how I have chosen to live and raise my family.  I think all mothers from time to time wallow in the thought that they are not doing enough, or the Right Thing.  But when I think about my life, and how my husband and I have made major sacrifices to be able to raise our children in the way that we feel is right, I realize that I am doing a lot and I am making the right choices. Compared to some I look like a complete nutjob, but thanks to the internet, and many blogs in particular, I know now that I am not alone.  And now I feel somehow justified that I want to make everything in my house (see my bio to the left).  I’m not crazy!

And let me say here, in the interest of full disclosure, that Ms. Hayes does not imply that Radical Homemakers are only women or housewives.  Men are Radical Homemakers, too.

This book is helping me re-affirm that I am indeed doing the right thing, and even though I don’t make a paycheck, what I do is very valuable.  Everything I do is important, and there are many facets of The Big Picture: the cooking from scratch, thrift shopping, sewing, knitting, canning, bread baking, toymaking, shopping at local organic farmer’s markets, and just plain choosing to say “no thank you” to a lot of things.  Always keeping these words in mind:

Use it up, wear it out, make do or go without.

All of these things (and more) do contribute in a small way to making the world a better place.  And this book has already taught me that being a housewife, or stay-at-home-mom, or homemaker, or whatever you want to call it, is important, and is not just taking the easy way out.  And according to Shannon Hayes, it’s a downright political act.  No longer will I reluctantly have to say “I’m a full-time mom,” when I’m asked the dreaded cocktail party question, “so what do you do?”  (I never liked that question anyway, even when I had a paying job.)  Now I can say with pride, “I’m a radical homemaker.”

]]> http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2010/06/15/on-being-a-radical-homemaker/feed/ 7 http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2010/04/27/another-sick-day/ http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/2010/04/27/another-sick-day/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 00:18:49 +0000 admin http://www.thelaughingmonkey.com/blog/?p=2734 This pretty paint box was about the highlight of my day. Another sick day today.  This time it’s The Girl.  104 fever.  I hate the worry that comes with mothering.  Not knowing when to call the doctor and when to just let nature run its course. So we painted today.  A lot. ]]>

This pretty paint box was about the highlight of my day.

Another sick day today.  This time it’s The Girl.  104 fever.  I hate the worry that comes with mothering.  Not knowing when to call the doctor and when to just let nature run its course.

So we painted today.  A lot.

When it’s your husband’s birthday and he takes the day off from work.

What’s better than a day off from work?

Free day at the art museum.

What’s better than free day at the art museum?

Having a special date…just the three of you…for the first time ever.