Digging back out

How long does it take to dig oneself out after 10 days of being sick?  Too long.  Even longer if your son was sick too.  I can't even remember a time in my life (and neither can my mother) when I was sick for more than a couple of days.  Generally my immune system lets me get sick once a year, for a couple days, and then we're done, over and moved on.

Not.  So.  This.  Time.

Where was my immune system this time?  Clearly taking a vacay in Maui with my son's immune system as well.  Sigh.  It could have been so much worse.  We only ONLY had bad head colds.  We know people recently who came down with the stomach bug.  If that doesn't make you grateful for your head cold, I don't know what will.


So many things to talk about, but before I leave the topic of being sick, let me just give credit where credit is due to all the moms who have gone before me, and say that being a sick mom, of a sick kid is one of the hardest things I've had to do.  We'll forget the 24 hours of labor and the 7 months of nursing, pumping, bottle feeding, therapy, and exercises that all accompanied Charlie's newborn months.  Although I guess for short term difficulty, 24 hours of unmedicated labor still takes the cake.


I couldn't believe how much harder it was to take care of both of us simultaneously, and there WASN'T EVEN VOMIT ANYWHERE!  I would just forget things....ahem...like feeding my child....   My hat is off to all the moms out there who have taken care of a sick kid while being sick and especially multiple sick kiddos.  I never knew just how hard it was.  And it makes me so much more grateful for how well my own mother took care of us when we were sick, whether she was well or sick.  My hat's off to you, Mom.  You're amazing.

By the grace of God, we made it through and I live to blog another tale.  Oh, tacky I know.

On to other things.

I have a yummy Sunflower-Lentil Pie and Sesame Mustard Tahini dressing that I want to share with you all!  It's not my own recipe, but I'm going to share it with you all anyways because it's amazing and yummy and you all should try it!

I have a hummus soup recipe that I dismantled and rebuilt enough that I'm calling it my own!  It's amazing.

I have tons of pictures of Charlie to share.

And I have a smoked tofu marinade that I'm working on that will hopefully end up amazing.  (Flavored tofu in the store is ex-PEN-sive!)

And various and sundry other things that I hope to post about.  So, maybe I can stick to the plan and share all of that soon, now that we are almost done digging ourselves out of our little sickie hole.

And until then....  3 pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Doing fun pumpkin decorating outside and Grammy's neighborhood  Block  Party.  It did NOT want to be done with the pumpkin when it was time to go.

"Daddy built me this Lego hat, Mom!  Look Look!"

4 Generation picture taken at Thanksgiving.  :-)  This makes me happy.

Happy weekend to you all! :-)

"Do NOT eat the pistachio ice cream! It has turned."

I cannot tell you how many times in the past week I have heard that line.

Or oh, wait wait, "Tow mater, average intelligence."

Or I know, "Two of them sweets for me, too."


We are not Cars 2 addicts at all.  It has gone way beyond that.

It started a week ago with a nasty black eye for poor Charlie.  He was in pain and pretty droopy.  So we started snuggling on the couch and watching some movies.  2 days later and he was well underway with a nasty cold.  He got even droopier and I can only assume in even more pain since he would wail every time I wiped his nose, and, oh yea, wake up every hour at night because he couldn't sleep due to the head cold.  So there was more couch movie watching.  And then Mommy caught Mr. Sniffles' cold.  Bummer.

So we have been house bound for the last 3 days, and watching a movie storm.  Although it's pretty much been confined to the likes of Cars 2, Tangled, Happy Feet, Wall-E, and Cars 1, and repeat.  And repeat.  Not exactly my viewing choices, but it distracts Mr. Sniffles from his running nose and cough, and it lets me sit down and rest a bit.

Cars 2 is by far the viewing favorite for at least one member of our sick party.  I think he gets such a kick out of Mater.  I don't mind too much.  I sit here, subconsciously memorizing parts of Cars, while perusing the internet.  I'm just under the weather enough to need to get off my feet and rest, but not sick enough to be knocked out flat on the couch.  Just sick enough to have food taste weird, but not sick enough to lose these crazy food cravings that are raging.  Just sick enough to not feel up for cooking, but not sick enough to squelch this insane desire to try some really yummy looking, new vegan recipes right now - sickness and all.


How about these...

Vegan Mac n Cheese?  I'm always skeptical, and usually rightly so, but I'm always curious anyways since Mac n Cheese is such a comfort food.  Too much margarine in this though. :(

Pumpkin yumminess!  Looks incredible.  And we do eat tofu.  But not that much.

How about this vegan taco recipe.  Now that looks supremely yummy.

Asian salad, heavier on the veggies (once Farmer's Market time hits), and whole wheat noodles of course.

These look AMAZING.  Not for everyday that's for sure, but special treats, yum-ME!

These are plain chocolate chip cookie dough balls without the addition of coconut like the above recipe.

This chickpea cookie is actually based off of a recipe I've already tried, which I'll try and blog about soon.  Chickpeas are amazing, btw, if you didn't know.  Clever little buggers can be used in so many ways.

Chickpea falafel - Mmmmmm.

Blueberry Coconut Pancakes.  Again, not for everyday, but a treat every now and then sure would be awesome.

Okay, I'm reciped out.  Not to mention I'm tired.  And sniffly.

Missed that one...

My poor son has a black eye.

He's had one all day.  Since yesterday evening in fact. I didn't want to take him out this morning for errands, but we did anyway.  In spite of my reassuring all of my friends when they have had to take their bumped and bruised children out in public, that everyone knows that little kids fall down and get hurt all the time and therefore are not automatically going to assume abuse, I was in fact, hesitant to do it myself.  Maybe it was just the black eye thing.  I think that looks worse than a bruised leg, but maybe that's just me.


But run errands we did.  The cleaners, Walmart and the grocery store.

We made it back alive with no question of abuse and no one running up to me and grabbing my child to turn them over to social services.  Whew!  


Then began our whiny day.  It escalated after nap time when Charlie was repeating over and over again "heiny owie, heiny owie" with an occasional "eye owie" thrown in there, which I admit I was ignoring due to the fact this his heiny was actually in pretty pristine condition, with no sign of rash or owie anywhere.

Then daddy came home, saw the poor little shiner on Sonny, heard about the whiny day and said "do you have any baby tylenol?  Have you given him anything?  His eye probably really hurts."

Oh.

Duh.

I grew up taking very little medication, and really getting hurt very little.  I guess we'll chock that one up to being a girl.  So why would I ever possibly consider the fact that my son's black eye was actually causing him pain?  Smacks forehead.  I was even at the grocery store and walmart where I could have easily picked something up.  Smacks forehead.


It took Daddy.  Now I'm sitting here feeling terribly guilty as a mother (especially after the ear nicking incident during last weekend's hair cuts), and the only reason I even have time to blog is because Daddy took his little boy out to Kroger to get some baby tylenol.  :-(

Oh yea, how did he get the black eye?  Apparently diving under the piano bench is only fun as long as you manage to actually dive under it, instead of diving into it.  Ouch!

It looks lighter in the pictures than it actually is in person.  Poor little Bubby.  There will be snuggles tonight.  Though whether it will be more for the comfort of my child, or to assuage my mommy guilt, who knows....

Do you Bean?

Ah-HAH!  Motivation to blog AND time to blog actually coincide!!  Truthfully I don't know where to even start.  I have about a million posts rattling around in my head, and while a lot of the time the posts at least make it to draft form (even if they never make it to being published), this time they are just rattling in my head.

I've been focusing on getting my house cleaned up and a good system set up for keeping my house clean and decluttered.  I know one should have a clean house and a decluttered house, but I never really learned a good system for doing that.  I have been trying out FlyLady and her methods, and while I don't follow them 100% nor buy into everything she says, it's been a tremendous help in just trying out a system and learning that sometimes 15 minute bites can work wonders.  But has also been one of the reasons there has been no blogging.

But yah yah yah....  let's work backwards.  We'll start with the bean clock since I promised to post pictures of this anyways.

My friends, let me preface this by saying that my husband and I have a running joke in the house about all my "beaning" around.  What is beaning around?  Hah, everything I do according to my husband.

Bean  /bēn/

Verb, beaning.

1. Doing anything around the house associated with beans.

Infinitive, to bean.
1. To cook, soak, sort, rinse, play, eat, count, or do any number of other bean related activities.

My husband seems to think that I'm always doing something surrounding beans.  Soaking dried ones.  Cooking soaked ones.  Making bean soups.  Making bean dips.  Eating bean dips.  Eating plain beans.  Talking about new bean dips.  Playing dried beans with my son.  And really the one that happens the most - heaving a huge sigh in bed late at night, which is a dead giveaway to my husband that I've forgotten to soak the beans for tomorrow's something or other.  And then I shuffle out of bed, downstairs, and put my beans a soaking.

Ahh, I love my beans.  I really do.  Even at 10:47pm when I'm fumbling for my slippers in the cold, trudging downstairs.

So, when I found out that my fabulous brother in-law Sam, creative mind that he is, (aka the Bofa on the Sofa) gave me a one-of-a-kind-handmade bean clock for Christmas, I. FREAKED. OUT.

And because I am not IN THE LEAST BIT IN LOVE WITH THIS CLOCK, you will now see way too many pictures of me and my new time keeping device.

I can model it, right?

Love.

Twenty-three past a Painted Pony Bean?

I am not obsessed.

Nope.

For those that can't tell what's going on here, every hour of the day is a different type of bean, AND the correct number of beans for the hour.  And for those who are really curious it starts at 12 noon and runs, Peas, Lima, Painted Pony, Grean Bean, Chickpea, Kidney, Green Chickpea, Black, Pinto, Cranberry, Yellow Split Pea, and Lentils.

So if in the course of your day you find us chatting away and ask me the time, please don't be alarmed if you hear "quarter past a kidney" or "chickpea thirty".  This will be normal.

The whirlwind trip part 2

Part 2 of Seattle Adventure

The next morning we were back at Jamba Juice so I could start out my day with another healthy smoothie, and this time, I went ahead and got a full shot of wheat grass juice.

This was Christeen, the sweet lady who gave us the wheat grass juice.  They grow it hydroponically, right there in the store, and juice it fresh.  Mmm.

Bottoms up!  (again!)

I couldn't resist. :)

This was lunch for day 2.5.  It was very good, but by far the most unhealthy vegan dishes we had.

It was a cute little corner vegan deli, and while it tasted great, I know that was largely due to the grease I could feel dripping down my hand.  I probably should have stopped eating it, cause my tummy felt a little sloshy afterwards, but I admit to not being perfect.  I generally don't eat greasy foods now - almost never.  But I do admit that this one tasted great, in spite of or because of, the grease.  So I ate it, enjoyed it, and realized I wouldn't eat there again.

That pretty much sums up the food pictures for the trip.  There was one very memorable meal we didn't get pictures of, that took place at a lodge, in the mountains, on an icy night, with a chef who went above and beyond and made a special 5 course vegan meal, just for me.  I totally should have asked the waitress if I could snap a few non-flash pictures anyways, even though cells and cameras were frowned upon.  I've never had such fancy and well crafted food in my life!  It was truly gorgeous to look at and gorgeous to eat (does that even make sense??).

So I realized this trip that my nutritarian sensibilities were somewhat clashing with my vegan sensibilities.  It was all amazing, vegan food.  But I wouldn't say it was all nutritarian food (high nutrient density food) by a long shot.  The last sandwich picture, case in point.  It was vegan, but it was not what I'd call healthy.  It just goes to show you that even vegans can eat unhealthily.  What, you didn't realize that white flour, white pasta and white sugar are all vegan but still really unhealthy whether you consider yourself a carnivore, omnivore or herbivore?

So here are some last pictures of us on the ferry boat ride - the last thing we did before our icy lodge dinner and heading back to the airport.  It was cold by the way.  Freezin' cold.  Thank goodness for my sister's coat and scarf!!

"I have a thing for ferry boats."

I love this man.

 Oh oh, and here is a picture of the gorgeous Snoqualmie Falls, where we had our fancy dinner at Salish Lodge.  We got to the falls right before dusk and I quickly snapped this picture.  You can see the icy bushes in the foreground.  There were signs up everywhere telling us to watch out for the slippery ice.

So the weekend was great and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

I know you are wondering, "what about Seattle and Microsoft?!?!?!" - the really important question.

Seattle and Microsoft were amazing.  Seattle was gorgeous and we could totally see ourselves settling down there (at least for a little while).  Microsoft looked like an incredible company to work for, with lots of amazing people I was already wishing to get to know better at the end of 4 days.    They treated us well and we liked what we saw.


So are we moving?


No.  In the end, what we value most in life is right here in Raleigh.  There were so many reasons we could have moved, and yet equally as many and more for staying right here.  So after what felt like a really long, agonizing decision, with lots of questioning and prayer and "what ifs" and "are you sures", we now know that we are staying here and that it's not just the easy/lazy decision, it's the wise decision.  And peace is knowing that you prayerfully considered and made a wise choice.  Even when part of you wishes for the opposite decision, peace is knowing that God will take care of you and provide for you, wherever you are.  Seattle.  Raleigh.  Or any where in between.

So, look out Raleigh!!!    .......    We're staying here!!!!!  :-D

The whirlwind trip - Part 1

After my last abbreviated and somewhat scatter brained post, I thought I'd update the situation a bit and share some fantastic pictures.  This post was intended to go out about 2 weeks ago, but what can I say?  Life happened.  Christmas happened.  And mostly, being a mother day in and day out happened.  And so the post did not happen.

Long story short, Microsoft in Seattle offered William a job - a good job - one that wasn't easy to immediately turn down.  We were unsure (on many levels), and they decided to fly us out there to try and convince us!  It was amazingly fast turn around.  He interviewed 2 Fridays ago with them, they offered him a job, and then the following Friday plane tickets were booked for us to head out 2 days later (last Sunday) for a 4 day trip to Seattle (4 days including a bunch of plane time in there unfortunately).  All of the timeline here is about 2 weeks late now, since this post has sat in my drafts box for about that long.

For those that don't know, Seattle is much more friendly to those who have certain allergies and food preferences.  Specifically dairy allergies like I have!  There were lots more vegan friendly places to eat and I found myself surrounded by tasties at every corner almost.  So without giving you a blow by blow of the weekend, here are some high lights of the yummy food consumed and other various and sundry shots from our whirlwind, stressful, romantic, weekend in Seattle with my husband.

First stop, 5 Graces!  This was by far my favorite meal of the trip.  We have some friends (long time family friends of the Coxes) who are in Seattle, and they recommended this place to us.  They had several yummy options to choose from, but I settled on the Raw Tacos "Rawcos" and I was blown away by the tastiness.

It's hard to see exactly what is going on in that picture, but it's a huge collard leaf filled with a walnut pate kind of thing, avocado, tomato, mango (I think), cilantro, and a yummy slaw on top.  Truthfully I wasn't sure how my first all raw, gourmet meal was going to be.  IT. WAS. AMAZING.  William admitted it was better than his meat and pasta dish. :-)  There were two of those huge things, and I blew right through both!

We followed up lunch with a delicious Raw Vegan Pomegranate Cheesecake.  It was truly as good as it looks.

Shot of the Seattle sunset from the dock.  It was pretty gorgeous.

Thank goodness for William's long arms in order to snag our few and far between couples shots. :)

Me and my boys. ;-)  I have no idea why Patrick Dempsey and Rainn Wilson's heads were used with the shirts, but I had to snap a picture with them. :)

The amazing gift basket that was waiting for us in our fancy Westin hotel room.  Seriously, the room was so lovely.  I didn't even mind sleeping in a hotel bed, since it was so fancy.

Aww, I feel like we're still young and cute!  Actually thanks to two new sweaters, and a coat and scarves borrowed from my sister, I felt young and cute and hip all weekend long. :) Nice to feel that way when normally I am just "mom".

Day 2 was started out with some delicious, engine revving smoothie!

Can I mention that I love that Jamba Juice (as well as some other places), list out their calorie counts for menu items?  I'm not a huge calorie counter, but losing weight does eventually come down to basic calories in v. calories out, so yes, in the grand scheme of things I watch my calories, knowing that most of the time, if I'm fueling my body with healthy, whole foods, with lots of veggies, fruits, legumes and some grains and nuts, the calories all work themselves out and I end up generally consuming about what I need every day, no more.  That being said, I still love that they include their calories so I know what I'm putting in my body.  

I had some fabulous berry/red veggie concoction with an energy boost and spirulina added!  It was delicious, sweet and yummy!  William had a carrot, apple, mango thing, which was still yummy though not as flavorful as mine.

And yes, I had my first wheat grass shot!  I had never had it before, but I've heard about it (heard how unpalatable it is but how friggin' healthy it is), and I was so curious, that the sweet Jamba Juice lady comped William and I each a 1/2shot of wheat grass juice.  Bottoms up!

It was actually really quite palatable.  I don't know if it's cause I was steeling myself for the worst, or what, but it was actually pretty good.  It had a sweet, grassy, earthy taste.  It's no ice cream, but gosh, I'd seriously drink it every day.

Believe it or not, the next series of shots, meat-ish though they look, were all vegan entrees that were consumed buy us and one of the recruiters Stephanie and her husband Aaron, at a really cool place called the Plum Bistro.

This was the amazing Vegan Mac 'n' Cheese that tasted almost identical to the regular stuff.  It had a little more herbed taste to it, which I really loved, but it is by far the closest vegan mac 'n' cheese I've tasted.  I could have had 3 apps of this.

This was my dinner, and I think by far the best choice of the night.  Some tofu in balsamic and white bean sauce, with a bed of greens and sweet tomatoes.  Yum.  I don't normally eat a lot of tofu, but this was a tasty treat! :)  Missing at this meal was the roasted brussel sprout app and the smoked kale and tofu app.  They were both good - the kale really was amazing though.

More vegan cheesecake.

Vegan almond blondie with ice cream.

Yikes!  Long post.  To be continued in Part 2 post.

Oh the things that prompt us to post

I have about a billion and one other things that I would rather post about and that would be more enjoyable I think.  And yet when the stress and the business of life takes over, what do I post about?

1.  The coffee in my hand.  I don't normally drink morning coffee, except Sunday mornings.  I think this might become a staple in my life for the next 2 weeks.

2.  The utter exhaustion and stress I feel at the moment, prompting this cup of coffee.

3.  How much easier it is to clean out someone else's house and order people about, even if it does mean you stay up till midnight working.  Not to mention it's an incredible distraction from the more pressing issues at hand, like....

4.  The prospect of my husband finally nearing a "see-able" end in his PhD work, and the ramifications of that.

5.  Said ramifications include being offered a fantastic job position, with people he would love to work for, in an incredible work environment - ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY IN SEATTLE.

6. I can become an extra on GA if I live in Seattle right?

7.  How do you weigh the tangibles v. the intangibles?  They're intangible after all.

8.  The 6 hour red eye flight we are probably catching TOMORROW evening to fly out to Seattle and check things out.

9.  The sorrow we feel at even considering leaving family.  How do I tell Charlie he won't go to Grammy and Grandma's house every week anymore if we move?  (Enter the broken mama's heart.)

10.  The relief I find at knowing that God has us and our life in His hands, and we WILL be okay - even if I don't feel it all the time, or remember it all the time, or have a clear idea of what to do yet.  He orders our steps, for which I am eternally grateful, because if this decision were totally up to me, I would REALLY live in fear of botching up my life.

11.  The empty cup of coffee in my hand that I am contemplating refilling already.  Someone told me they unexpectedly became a coffee snob after moving to Seattle?  Would I exchange my dried-chickpea-over-canned snobbery in favor of coffee snobbery?