5 Things I Am Grateful For

A few years ago I read a book which instructed the reader to write down 5 things a day that you are grateful for. I am totally blanking on the name of the book. Does anyone know? If so, leave it in the comments.

Anyway, I feel like we are living in a time both scary and hopeful. In order to keep the scary at bay, I think it is important to acknowledge the things you are grateful for in your life. We can get very caught up in the "what if?" game and miss the beauty of our lives now.

I am not saying to be Pollyanna and ignore the real issues in our lives. But sometimes you need to recognize the great stuff, too. So here is today's list:

1. My wonderful family (both my own and my extended).
2. My fantastic job.
3. My strong, active body.
4. Music, musicians, musical instruments, etc.
5. Snow (especially on Mt. Hood on a day when I am snowboarding).

What things are you grateful for? How often do you remember them?

Cleaning Out The Pantry

W always tries to get me to cook from the pantry. I always respond that there is nothing in the pantry to eat. W challenged me to only purchase essentials from the grocery store but I kept saying we had nothing to eat. So this morning, I suggested we clean the pantry out and take an inventory.

HOLY SMOKES! We have a lot of food in there!!!

I filled an entire 8.5"x11" sheet of paper with the inventory. Then, we challenged each other to come up with 8 meals. The more things we used, the better. Here are our lists (which will also give you an idea of what is in our pantry):

W's list:

1. Lentils, onions, tomato sauce and spices over rice.
2. Steak with veggies in green simmer sauce over brown rice. *
3. Scones with scrambled eggs. *
4. Meat/rice loaf (like meatloaf but with rice). *
5. Salmon rolls w/sushi rice and seaweed. (We eat this a lot).
6. Tofu with veggies in green simmer sauce over rice.
7. Pasta with tomato sauce.
8. Lasagna w/tomato sauce and faux cheese. **
9. Tacos w/refried beans and / or burritos with scrambled eggs and beans.

My list:

1. Pasta Puttanesca. **
2. Rice and mung bean casserole. **
3. Cuban style black beans (from dried beans) and rice.
4. Linguine w/ pesto. *
5. Risotto with some frozen veggie.
6. Spring rolls (like the ones we get at our favorite Thai food restaurant) with water chestnuts. *
7. Three course meal: butternut squash soup, smoked oysters w/faux cream cheese on crackers, pasta with mushroom & truffle pate.
8. Miso soup with rice, seaweed and tofu.

Notes: Not everything on our lists is in the pantry but every meal on our lists uses at least one thing from the pantry. One star (*) was for using more than one thing in the pantry. Two stars (**) was for using a few things in the pantry and for creating something that sounded really good at that moment.

It was a really fun exercise and now we are challenged to eat out of the pantry. There is nothing wrong with having a pantry full of food unless you don't eat any of it because you don't know what is in there. That mystery is solved. For now.

Gratitude

While on one hand, Thanksgiving is my favorite "food holiday" (followed closely by Halloween - yeah baby), on the other hand; it is also a day of gratitude. There are so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for every member of my family (nuclear and extended). I am thankful for my friends, my cat, and my lovely house. I am thankful for my job which is challenging and interesting. I am thankful to live in a world where Obama will be the next president and the hope that brings. I am thankful that I didn't get booed out of my living room when I played the first song I ever wrote on my bass guitar for our guests. I am thankful to be alive.

What are you thankful for?

The Twin Defense

After we found out we were having twins 2 plus years ago, we were in shock. After we talked with some twin parents, we went into even deeper shock. Basically they said that we could write off the next 18 months or so of our lives. We would be so sleep deprived and so busy that we would have trouble forming complete sentences. We thought, "lovely" (in the ironic "oh crap" sense).

So we knew, going into twin parenthood, that it would be difficult. And we quickly understood, based on the reactions of the people we told we were having twins, that we had a "get out of jail free" card. It was called, "the twin defense". Parents of a singletons generally see a parent with twins and think about how hard it is to parent just one child. They tend to feel sorry for twin parents automatically because of this. People who don't have children cannot even imagine what having two at the same time would feel like and they really feel sorry for twin parents. Again, this is generalization, there are always folks out there who are either in the "get a grip" category or the "having twins should be easy - you are just more efficient" category. But from the beginning, we knew we could invoke "the twin defense" should we need it. Little did we know how often we would need to invoke it!

Our older daughter (did I mention we have a total of 3 kids?) is a great sleeper. Once she falls asleep, she is OUT for the night. Our boys, however, are not like their sister. When they were newly born, they got each of us up several times every night. Have you ever tried to function after being woken up 4-5 times a night? Did you know that one technique for brainwashing is sleep deprevation? It is also a form of torture. Let's just say we were not at our best...literally for YEARS. We are still getting up an average of 2 times per night. I cannot tell you how much better that is from getting up 4-5 times per night. And I cannot tell you how much I long for a full night of uninterrupted sleep. The problem is, on the few nights when all our children have actually slept through the night, I wake up anyway and wonder if they are ok. Then I have to go check to see if they are breathing. It is crazy.

All of this to say, if you have ever felt slighted because we missed your birthday, your child's birthday, an important celebration or anything that you felt we shouldn't have missed, we are sorry. We didn't mean it. We love you and care about you, really. It is just, well, we are not right in our heads. Some day we hope to be but in the meantime, we contine to invoke "the twin defense". We hope some day we won't have to any more.