these three

there is some quirkiness to our new house. i like quirk, but perhaps the one bit of quirk that gives me pause is that all three kids will be in the same room (the 3rd bedroom is more of an open loft for the time being). i know they’ll love it, and i love that they’ll love it. but i also know that their room will often be very. very. loud. they’ve recently hit a playing groove that involves all three of them, often with minimal squabbling, but the sound level? i should record a little video of the action so that you, too, can experience it: whizzing nerf darts, hummed renditions of star wars, lenna’s screeches and giggles, instructions from one boy to the other as to what they are pretending next, and a christmas carol thrown in to round it all out. sweet times right now that i’m learning to smile at more and more. very loud. but very sweet.

**pictures are my best recent attempts at a group shot. sigh.**

spring reading

lately i’ve been alternating between books and realtor.com’s property search map. for a few weeks realtor.com was getting more of my time than books, but now i’m thrilled we can take the realtor app off the ipad.

reading these days:

Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller. the big (and depressing) takeaway from this book is that most of the extra virgin olive oil marketed in the world is not, in fact, pure olive oil. mueller goes into depth on the scandals in the world of olive oil. it was an interesting read but the appendix is worth the price of the book. he lists sources for reputable olive oil producers/sellers and what to look for in an olive oil. a reputable olive oil shop is supposed to be opening around here in the near future (as i learned from mueller’s site), but i’m still a bit jealous of kathy as i can’t just drive a few miles to the nearest local olive oil producer. sigh. the last issue of Garden & Gun did inform me that there is a new-ish olive oil producer in georgia, but that’s more than a quick drive.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson. i was a fan of larson’s book Devil in the White City and was impressed with his ability to weave the true story of the chicago world’s fair with the unfortunate biography of a serial killer who used the fair to target victims (sounds creepy, i know, but the book is really quite good). i recognized a similar formula when i heard about In the Garden of Beasts: widely known historic event (this time hitler’s pre-war rise in berlin) paired with lesser known historic figure (american ambassador william dodd). it didn’t work this time. the most interesting parts were the sections where dodd was absent. i appreciated how larson clearly shed light on the great deal of anti-semitism in america at the time and the tone of pre-war berlin. but i finished the book feeling as though dodd was basically an inconsequential man in history who unfortunately thought more of himself and his position than he should have. he also had a promiscuous daughter who showed no discernment in picking friends or lovers. if someone were to ask me what kind of picture i got of ambassador dodd from this book, i’d have to say that my lasting impression of him is a man who was out of place in the world of berlin politics, who ignored his daughter’s foolishness, and who preferred to leave meetings and parties early in order to go home and drink milk and eat stewed peaches before bed. oh my.

lastly and lightly, i’m reading The House At Pooh Corner to the kids, and we’re all loving it. i was a little nervous about it because omar and i couldn’t handle the original Winnie the Pooh. have you read it? rabbit’s crazy. we couldn’t get past the whole bizarre scene of rabbit basically stealing roo from his mama. but we’re loving this one. rabbit is still wacky, but i can handle it this time. the boys have been in stitches several times. i’m also loving that when omar gets him they like to tell him, amidst giggles, what happened today in the book, and then at night they like to run to me and tell me about the chapter omar just read them in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. so great.

a funny thing happened on mother’s day…

…the flowers omar sent me died, and we never actually got around to drinking the celebratory cava he bought. but it has all turned out for the best because today the fedex man delivered my replacement flowers, the cava is now extra cold from its time in the fridge, and our realtor just called to say we got the house we wanted. fresh tulips, celebratory cava, and a house. pretty good for a thursday.

spring pumpkins

i know that pumpkins and spring and heat don’t really go together, but since heat is always part of life down here, i’ve come to think of pumpkin as season-neutral. there is also ginger in these cookies, and ginger is tropical so there you go. but i still try not to overdo it because i like to pretend there is fall down here. perhaps i’ll impose a no pumpkin for july-august rule and then when the pumpkin products and recipes start popping up it will feel like its been ages since i’ve had any.

i want chickens

i used to just want friends who have chickens, but now i’d like them for myself. omar is a bit more apprehensive. when i bring it up he gets all serious and shakes his head and starts telling stories about when he had chickens when he was little. they’re not pleasant stories and they end in a rather dramatic manner when he describes how his parents’ yard used to be sloped and when the rains were heavy it turned into a mini ocean. and the chickens weren’t good swimmers. if you follow me.

sometimes the chicken stories are followed by the peacock stories, but there is no need for him to bring those stories up. peacocks are mean creatures and noisy (really noisy) and their beauty doesn’t cancel out the meanness and noisiness. i don’t want peacocks.

fortunately for omar, we live in a rather quirky town (when it comes to government issues) and when the chicken issue came up a year or so ago, i had to agree with the anti-chickeners out there. our town has such a hard time (putting it nicely) with code enforcement that chickens would bring about a whole other level of craziness around here. we also have a pool and a concrete slab for a yard so unless there are floating chicken coops, there’s no room in the inn.

but did you know we’re in the market for a house? and on the days when we almost fly through a dozen eggs i think, “we need to move a few streets up into chicken-friendly territory.”  a month or so ago we looked at possibly the most underwhelming house in the county, but the yard? huge (by city standards). with mango trees and shade and room for raised beds and chickens. the neighbors had bees and flowers and fruit trees and raised beds. it was tempting.

for now i’m striving to be content with where we are. we love our street and our neighborhood and our pool and there is the slightest possibility that maybe, just maybe, we could buy this place. and demo the guest cottage to make room for chickens.

party for two

lenna is officially two. she scored some balloons, cooking tools, an apron (i found another good use for anthropologie dishtowels), and most importantly, a Rio card with stickers. and we got to eat lots of lemon curd to celebrate.

almost 2

she’ll be two tomorrow. hard to believe. i can’t imagine my days without her, and just two years ago she wasn’t here quite yet. she’s tough to capture on camera these days, but i was persistent today. very persistent.

she’s a lover of all things breakfast related so there is a breakfast birthday celebration in store for her tomorrow.