a blog about life, family and kicking ass.

Got this in my email today. Those kids are both awesome and complete weirdos.  Miss you guys!

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There’s nothing quite like a Tamale making party.  I have had a hankering to do this for a while, after a friend told me she made some Tamales.  So, I began researching recipes, the process, and found it is quite easy.  Easy it was, although equally time consuming.  I vastly underestimated the prep work needed to make 100+ tamales. What’s new. That is largely due to the fact that I was prepping for three people to take home a decent amount of tamales.  And I made three fillings.  And I work full time.  And we had just returned from Portland.  It reminds me of myself on Christmas day, in my nice clothes, frantically toasting and then smashing homemade breadcrumbs in order to use them as a topping for my Brussels sprouts (it was worth it).  I definitely create my own drama in the kitchen, usually by means of underestimating cooking times and last minute plans.

Making tamales, though, really is fairly simple.  You need masa (ground corn dough), corn husks and fillings.  The dough and the fillings can be made the day before and ready for assembling.  The dough.  It initally gave me some problems, but that was largely due to the recipe asking for fresh masa.   Fresh masa is not the same thing as the masa that you buy packaged at the store, learned that one the hard way.  But what you will need is lard, lots of lard.  See the fluffy white stuff above, yep, its lard.  Not as tasty as it looks.  Or easy to get off your hands.  Here’s the other thing, when you decide to make over 100 tamales, be prepared to make the dough in about 500 stages.  That means you will have to strew flour and lard all over your kitchen while you make 8 batches.  Consider your self warned.

The best part of tamales, though.  No matter what kinda of day you were having, mine was bad, when you sit down to actually roll the tamales with your friends, all that goes away.  It is relaxing and fun to work with your hands while talking and sipping drinks.  Knowing that we made these, painstakingly, one by one.  And then we ate way too much.

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Phew, seriously. The crazy making needs to stop. I worked so much in the last week, I nearly fell over from exhaustion. So when Andy and I realized that we both had 4 days off together, we jumped at the opportunity to skip town. I had a neice to meet, and some big decisions to make.  Unfortunately for us, and for my brother, they live in a 900 sq ft house.  So staying with them gets a little tricky now that there are 8 of us total. So we opted for a hotel.

Here’s the thing. Hotels, they’re overrated. Well at least the ones in my price range. So when we made our typical last minute decision, we frantically searched for hotel rooms. And let me tell you, searching for hotel rooms is My Worst Nightmare. We already take forever to make decisions. So just when we would decide on a hotel, and click the purchase button, lo and behold they have no rooms.  So then I have to make my decision all over again. Gah.  Grr.  Dammit.

My beef with hotels: inevitably I get disappointed. The pillows suck, which they did.  The room was WAY smaller than photographed, which it was. And after two days we still hadn’t gone in the pool, the pool being the whole reason we booked the room to begin with!  Ok, well the real reason was the bar.  I mean come on, it was Valentine’s day, our kids were asleep upstairs in the dumb hotel room, and our babysitter was with them (special thanks to iphone baby monitor app).   My inner mantra was screaming, “why didn’t you just stay in the bad hotel for 40 bucks a night!  At least you would have been sufficiently aware of you upcoming disappointment.”  Then Andy reminded me that I was being even cheaper than him, and I calmed down.  A little.

So.  Valentine’s Day.  We wanted a bar, so we could have a drink and celebrate the fact that we got engaged eight years earlier. We headed down to the hotel bar, which was really lame, got some overpriced beer, and as a side, a random guy tries a little too hard to make conversation with us.  He says, “would you like to have a drink with me?”  Aren’t we already having a drink with you?  We astutely get the heck out of there and walk our lame selves over to 7-11 to get cheaper beer and, drumroll, hotdogs.  Which we ate in bed. On the horrible pillows.  While watching couples ice skating, the short program.  To which I fell asleep, only to be awoken by andy, who was kindly trying to get me to get undressed for bed.  ”I’m just too sleepy,” I say.

The next morning I promptly told Adalyn, We’re going swimming NOW.  To which she cowered and cried.

Ok, just kidding.  She looked at me expectantly, eyes alight, and said, “DID YOU BRING MY BABY SUIT!”  Yes, my dear little one, as long as you promise to ALWAYS call it a baby suit.

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There are  a few book lately that just make Addy laugh like crazy, this is one of them. She walks around during the day saying, “it’s not a box, it’s a race car!” I love it.  It’s a simple concept and hilarious even to an adult.  It resembles Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Duck! Rabbit! in the simplicity of its humor.  If you have kids, read this.  I love it.  Plus it’s short, so bonus points.  Long books suck.  Sorry maisy, we love you, well actually Addy loves you.  But your Maisy’s Amazing Big Book of Words is just far too long.  I’m a hater.

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While it may seem like I make a lot of fun things for dinner, or maybe it doesn’t seem like that, I guess I have no idea how it seems. Whatever.  I have days that I just can’t figure out what to do for dinner and/or I don’t feel like putting in a lot of effort.  Typically, though, we always have broccoli and cauliflower in the fridge.  So, my go to meal is often a roasted vegetable and chicken/fish/shrimp/pasta, and a salad.  I thought I hated cauliflower.  I don’t think I even ate it until last year or so, I was that afraid of it.  It’s all about HOW you cook it, meaning it must be cooked (for me at least).  I’m no raw vegetable fan.  Now the second thing I paired it with may seem like it was difficult, but it was not!  I have been enthralled with my new Vietnamese cookbook.  It is very detailed and makes it seem effortless.  While it isn’t quite as effort-less as I imagined, it is fun to explore different tastes and techniques.  Lemongrass beef skewers, what’s not to like about that name?  Well, first off I had no lemongrass.  So I didn’t really quite make the recipe, no big deal.  Whatever I did made tasted real good.   [click to continue…]

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I don’t frequent Starbucks much anymore, for various reasons, but namely to save money and save myself from mediocre coffee. But, I have gone to the 5 mile Starbucks a few times, and every time it has been the same worker, and we have had the exact same conversation x three. It goes like this:

Him:  ”Hey! How’s it going today!”
Me:     “Fine, thanks.”
Him:   “What’s Cupcake Royale (noticing a sticker on our car)?”
Me:      ”Oh, it’s a cupcake place in Seattle.”
Him:   “Oh cool, are you from Seattle?”
me:       “Yeah, we lived in West Seattle.”
Him:    ”Oh, I’m from Seattle too.  That’s downtown, right?”
Me:       “Uh,not really. Where are you from?”
Him:     “Oh, cool.  I’m from Shoreline.”

Let’s begin at the beginning. It all started out bad (besides being able to sleep in till 815, I know). I steamed my milk like every day, pushed my espresso button, only to hear the sound of grinding air. Ugh! I don’t ask for much in life. I don’t buy expensive clothes or color my hair, but I need a latte, daily.  Soon after, I found myself cursing and cranky.  After sending my husband this nasty text,

“I’m mad at you x2 for not getting coffee beans, now there is a snow storm and I have no coffee!  You need to keep me happy or I will go crazy!”

In MY defense, I am not a lunatic, and he did forget to buy coffee beans while on his totally awesome bachelor trip to Seattle.  So I did what any normal person would do.  I structured my entire day around getting a latte and finding some damn coffee beans.  Naturally my first attempt was thwarted, as Rocket Bakery was out of espresso beans. OUT OF ESPRESSO BEANS!  Who is out of espresso?!  Don’t you know it is Monday, and I’m tired and cranky after working the weekend!  So I was forced, really, against my will, to go to Starbucks.  Forced.

When Andy got home last night and I had sufficiently told him about how cranky, and might I say LAME, I was today, he recounted his day.  He says, “Well first I stopped by the 5 mile Starbucks to get a coffee, and had the most annoying barista…”

Stop right there, I say, I know exactly who you’re talking about.

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Us on our walk today.  Chilly.  It lasted 5 minutes before Addy got bored and wanted to go back.  We tried.  Please excuse O’s ridiculous hat, I’m just cheap.

As some of you know, and I blogged about, Andy was gone for 2 weeks in Seattle having the time of his life. For all the years that Andy gave up being a bachelor, he more than made up for it those last two weeks (excluding the wild sex). I am a very nice woman.  But really, I have a newfound respect for single parents, doing it alone ain’t no party. He came back last Sunday, and it has been really nice (which is probably the lamest way to describe it).

Having a partner/husband/SO is a funny thing. You spend so much time with this one person. I have known Andy over 10 years now, and married for seven going on eight. There are times you get so fed up with the other person, or times where all you can do is fight, but yet, for us it keeps getting better (the marriage not the fighting). You see at some point we reached that crucial stage, the one where Andy exclaims, “What the heck is in your teeth!” Or “You’re really gonna wear that.” And you know what, that’s the stuff that makes me smile.  Knowing that someone is looking out for me, teeth and all.

Yep, that’s true love.

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Oh. My. Goodness. What a very, very long day today was. Did I say how much I like Kate Nash’s (s**t) song? This day was made so much better when I was able to come home and eat this meal. Hearty, delicious and healthy, this meal was incredible. One of the best parts, it was made yesterday, refrigerated, and then somebody just popped it into the slow cooker to reheat. But really, just like Deb said, you can’t eat this soup without the crema. The crema made it worthwhile and delectable.   And the toasted cumin added in — you must toast!  Cumin can be a bit much for me sometimes, but the cumin seeds were light and accented it wonderfully. Now, I must take a black bean vacation. Highlight number 2, Bonnie had some friends over and her friend Dee mixed up some wicked margaritas. Yep, that’s the way to end a day. Like my photos? Courtesy of, my phone. I specifically like how I artfully doused my soup in cream with a strange likening to a crustacean. I never said I was a professional.

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