drops

night

i like how in the summer months time gets away from us and on nights like tonight we don’t eat dinner until later because we’ve been outside playing.  

probably because it is still light outside, the boys usually stay up for at least 45 minutes to an hour after we say goodnight, and they play and sing and talk.  omar and i know we could put them in separate rooms and let them get to sleep earlier but then they would be buddy-less.

winter, spring, summer :: every night for the past three seasons we have sung we three kings before we say good night.  actually, we’ve sung that song multiple times a day.  every.  day.

i have big ideas percolating in my head about strings of globe lights over our new patio so we can eat our fall and winter dinners outdoors.

to the mountains

last week we took a little drive to check out the rest of the state, celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday, sleep in a creaky inn with yummy breakfasts, play in creeks, find inchworms, see an old roommate and her very cool garden and just enjoy being on non-flat terrain.  our poor transmission protested such adventures, though, and decided it wanted to live its last days in the mountains. but being so excited about a new job made even that seem like less of a big deal…i think…

the politically incorrect drink of the day

omar came across a bunch of limes that needed to be used up, so i flipped open the computer to find a limeade recipe.  pretty standard stuff.  juice limes, stir in some sugar, add water and ice.  simple enough.  such a basic recipe that speaks for itself that most recipe writers didn’t even feel the need to gussy up the name. but then i came across “latin limeade” and wondered what in the world would make it latin.  so i clicked on the recipe.  and there was, yet again, a fairly standard recipe.  except with this one, the sugar called for was “dark brown.”  and accompanying it was a picture of a dark brown concoction.  

i giggled and told omar that this was indeed the drink for us.  

but i did make a couple of changes.  i opted for a lighter brown (though still on the dark side) cane sugar and tossed in some fresh ginger for a bit of a kick.  you know, because that’s how i like my latins.

north, yet still quite south

who:  omar (and family)
what:  got a job!!  he is now the official senior pastor of a church  
where:  lake worth, fl (about 60 miles north of miami).  yes, yes – it is still florida.                 but i’m ok with that.  (wink)
when:  we’ll be heading down in a couple of weeks
why:  to get out of my parents’ hair
house:  it’s beautiful.  and has a dishwasher (!) and a pool (!) and a 1/1 cottage out                 back (!)   

needless to say we’re excited and thankful and exhausted.  it’s been a bit of a crazy year, especially considering this house will be the fourth place we’ve lived in 12 months.  but we’re more than thrilled to be moving to a new town, forming new relationships, and seeing how God will grow us.

back to boys

back at home.  but not before i got myself flagged for the no-fly list.  i didn’t want omar to be lonely.  fantastic. 

chubby arms hugged my neck a bit more than usual yesterday.  i told elisha that i missed him and he smiled and said, “i missed you, too, mama!”  melt.  i think the boys gained about 100 more words each while we were gone.

so now we wait for news about the job.  this time next week we should know for sure.  and while there isn’t much to do until we know more, there is indeed time to make banana bread and tomato tarts.

the banana bread?  eh.  it ended up being plain ole’ banana bread that i could take or leave.  but i think i feel that way about most banana bread – molly wizenberg’s banana, ginger, chocolate bread being an exception.

the tomato tart (from once upon a tart) is a favorite and we sneakily call it “pizza tart” for the boys. usually it doesn’t work, but tonight i was rather impressed by the amount of tomato, dijon, white cheddar “pizza” they ate.  

hopefully this time next month i’ll be baking subpar banana bread and tasty tomato tarts in my own kitchen.  we scored a beautiful house with all the important and glamorous things like a dishwasher, garbage disposal and a decent refrigerator (all sorely lacking in our previous home) and free of bothersome things like termites (quite present at our other place).

homeward

tuesday morning omar and i walked up to the usairways check-in kiosk and were told to see the agent.  of course we were.  we keep thinking we have thwarted the fact that omar is on the “no fly” list, but evidently leaving out “omar” on his ticket and only putting his first name is not tricky enough for ye olde government.  

what follows while we stand there is humorous and awkward.  there is lots of typing and license scanning and checking.  and we just stand there trying to make a joke of it all.

eventually we land in miami, sans children, and throw ourselves into the world of final church interviews and house hunts.  i think it is pretty safe to say we are about 98.5 percent positive we are going to end up in a town 60 miles north of miami.  at least i’m finally moving north, right? (wink)

culturally and demographically the town seems worlds away from miami, but at least it is still far enough south for mango trees.  and the house we are hoping to rent is only minutes from the beach.  

we’re both overwhelmed, nervous, excited, and exhausted.  and we haven’t even had an official meeting yet…

it’s good to spend some time in miami, though.  omar’s mom has even indulged our cravings for tostones and arroz con gandules - foods a bit lacking in eastern north carolina.  

perhaps some pictures of our new town will pop up here in the next few days.

sat-ur-day

morning::

elisha walks around the house modeling and loving his rooster shirt.  it’s encouragement enough to keep on sewing.  this is the techno roll from the premier issue of stitch magazine.  an easy sew and a great home for all my electronic stuff while traveling.

afternoon::

i baked cookies for the boys and sneaked a few too many fingerfuls of buttercream icing.  the boys munched on cookies and asked me to read, yet again, their book of the moment – marjorie flack’s ask mr. bear.  they giggle at my animal reading voices, but when doing voices for animals, how does one make a sheep voice different from a goat voice?  and my bear voice, oddly enough, sounds strangely similar to my cow voice.

my dad brought home some wine and out of curiosity i looked it up on the internet to see what wine-folk rate it.  most of the reviews were favorable considering it is a bargain brand, but this one made me giggle…and roll my eyes:

Nose hits of Cherry-flavored cough drops. Hints of burned/charred and decomposing plums. Subtle hints of charcoal mixed with propane. Upon drinking i’m flooded with tastes I don’t appreciate. Seems like chicken poo ran thru a food processor with black licorice. Worst Merlot I’ve had.

evening::

hopefully it will consist of continuing to catch up with the latest mars hill audio.   while cookie baking i listened to william t. cavanaugh speak on freedom, property, desire, and community (from vol. 95) – a really interesting discussion that touched on the economic philosophy of  distributism (formulated in part by g.k. chesterton).  now i’m quite interested in reading more about this and companies like mondragon that were founded on such principles.

a boy and his rooster shirt

a few months ago i made out like a bandit with a 40% off coupon at joann’s.  i purchased natalie chanin’s book Alabama Stitch Book: Projects and Stories Celebrating Hand-Sewing, Quilting and Embroidery for Contemporary Sustainable Style.  yesterday i made a little shirt for elisha and we’re both quite happy.  for lack of a more refined or eloquent word – her stuff rocks.

you gather up old t-shirts, stencil or paint away, stitch over the stenciled edges, attaching a piece of contrasting jersey underneath, then snip snip away in the middle of each section and voila, cool t-shirt.  this rooster stencil was in the book. and i was supposed to stitch and cut around every section but i used this as sort of a test run so picked a few sections to stitch around and cut out.  i’m loving this. and you leave the knots on the outside so it adds more interest to it.  

the book really is beautiful and has wonderful ideas for headbands, tablecloths, skirts, etc.  and chanin does such a great job explaining applique techniques, thread, stencils, and so much more.

more ideas are churning away in my head.  i love that this t-shirt uses one of my dad’s old castoffs, so i’m trying to think of ideas to incorporate more of family hand-me-downs.  

i think i decided to jump on this embroidery/stencil wagon when i was strolling through j.crew a few months back and was seeing embroidered t-shirts like these being sold for crazy high prices.  ”i could do that…” i kept saying while walking through the clothes.  now i guess the real test would be to make something i would wear outside of the house.  

waves of wood rings

perhaps all people do this but i notice omar and i work in waves and cycles.  take cooking.  i’ll be in a cycle of cooking and just as i hit the top of the wave and begin to come crashing down, never wanting to see a kitchen or a stove again, omar takes over and finds his own cooking wave.  

and every so often we find ourselves in sync.  

today we hopped on the indian food wave.  he rocked the chicken tikka masala and i made naan.  the naan is from the master recipe in artisan bread in five minutes a day.  my goodness, this book is just about perfection.

and as for a reading wave/cycle.  i fell into a slump for awhile.  omar can’t seem to tear through books fast enough right now and me?  i’m just now getting back into a groove.  believe it or not it was ms. mary higgins clark to my rescue.  can a book really be defined as a mystery when it is more on the contrived side and you’re able to figure it out quite early on?  wanting something with a little more depth, i checked out iain pears’ stone’s fall.  i should have known that when one description of the book i found was “global finance mystery” coupled with espionage and arms’ dealings this wasn’t going to be light reading.  but it’s good. who knew i would want to stay up nights reading about attempted shareholder takeovers, socialist money funneling, and market manipulation?  

i think our unemployment wave is about to crash down and that’s a good thing. but more about that soon…

floats on a string

stacks abound

you would think being on “vacation” would limit the stacks of our stuff lying around.  not so.  book stacks.  mail stacks. toy stacks.  fabric stacks.  lots of stacks.  
book stack ::
jamie at home by jamie oliver

the prodigal god by tim keller

stone’s fall by iain pears

from beirut to jerusalem by thomas friedman

mail stack ::
what was the likelihood that another “ortiz” family would move into our old miami house?  evidently complete likelihood.  the post office must find it much too exhausting to sort mail by first and last name so poor maria and gustavo should just pack it up and move to north carolina with us.  

toy stack ::
the boys love their tinkertoys.  and they love their bilibo, which is unfortunate for me because i like stacking/piling their train tracks in it.  they like dumping it.   

fabric stack ::
trips to wilmington and local shops and gift certificates are growing my fabric stack.  but not much sewing is being done.  the mail stack and book stack often find their way to the sewing table and stacks don’t make for easy sewing.

he loves me

omar got back from a quick trip to miami yesterday and pulled these babies out of his bag.  lychees.  love them.  and they make me miss miami.

there is a bit of missing miami going on around here.  the other night omar was flipping through the channels and landed on cops: miami.  he actually lingered on it for a moment.  just yesterday i actually thought it would be a good thing to get caught up with the shows csi: miami and burn notice (filmed in miami).  but then i realized i might as well just watch travel shows about miami and not get addicted to yet another series.

omar was also impressed with my library music selection – a putumayo puerto rico cd.  the boys have been bopping around to bembe de plena and pa’ mantener tradicion like the little latin boys they indeed are. 

gifted

for me :: from my brother and sister-in-law
a bracelet from wrecords by monkey in brooklyn made of an old vinyl record. love it.

a box of chocolates from fine & raw.  i’ve come to the conclusion i’ll enjoy just about anything made with coconut oil and agave nectar.

for my camera :: from me
a desperately needed camera bag.  fear of having it thrown out of the diaper bag by little hands looking for animal crackers prevented me from taking it far from the house.  no longer.  though because of my animal crackers and diaper stage of life, a bag that could feasibly carry all of the above was kind of a requirement. crumpler bags fit the bill.  and perhaps best of all it doesn’t look like it carries cameras or diapers.

musical cake

while cleaning out my mom’s cupboards i noticed a little paper stuffed margarine tub that i always remembered seeing next to the sprinkles, toothpicks, and muffin papers.  but i’d never looked in it and when i did i found the sweetest little musician candleholders that my dad’s mom used for his birthdays as a kid.  elisha kept wanting to look at them and talk about them so i decided a cake was in order. orangette’s everyday cake made perhaps a bit less everyday looking with these guys on top.  kind of reminds me a bit of a german style mariachi group.

elisha perks up pretty quickly when he notices musical instruments.  for the last couple of months in miami, he pleaded with omar almost daily to pull out the guitars and sing.  today while listening to baroque music in the car, he told me he heard cellos.    

zin! zin! zin! a violin is a current favorite book of his.  there is a picture of an orchestra in the book with ten instruments.  he loves to point at the instruments and name them for me.  at this point he’s wrong about 9 times out of 10 but it’s sweet.

he’s been crawling up on the piano bench the past few days and picks out some notes with his fingers.  almost like he is thinking about it.  asher inevitably crashes the party and just wants to pound keys and turn pages.

porch roast

needed:  
55-ish degree weather (minus wind) 
fire (in a pit)
marshmallow turner (automatic)
fingers (to make sticky)
horses (miniature)