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Asian Noodles

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I modified a recipe I found last week and the result was fan-freaking-tastic! I love this dish, the flavors are so dynamic and it makes delicious leftovers. Serve it hot or eat it cold, either way it’s a winner.

I’m giving amounts here more as a guide line. Add more of what you like and less of what you don’t!

12 oz whole grain linguini noodles

2 medium carrots sliced into 2inch long sticks (like really skinny little sticks)

1 cup of sugar snap peas

4 scallions, chopped

3 table spoons lite soy sauce

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds

1 tablespoon olive or sesame oil

After the carrots are sliced, steam them gently with the snow peas. Combine liquid ingredients and scallions. Cook noodles and while still hot, add them to the liquid. Set aside.

For the shrimp:

1/4 cup lite soy sauce

2 table spoons rice vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

2 teaspoons peeled and minced fresh ginger (Safeway carries and orgainc minced ginger that is great and lasts for weeks!)

1 garlic clove, minced

1 small squirt (like 1/2 a teaspoon) of Siracha hot sauce. Go easy, this stuff is deadly. Also red pepper flakes will work.

30 ish shrimp. I buy cooked and thawed shrimp an then warm them in the dressing. This could be done with raw shrimp too, I just don’t have the patience to de-vein. I also think it’s gross.

Combine liquid ingredients and bring to a simmer. Toss in shrimp and let cook until warmed through. Combine with noodle mixture and include the liquid from the shrimp bowl. Make a lot because you’re going to want this for lunch the next day. Enjoy!

*On a side note – I was not a huge fan of the carrots and snap peas. The crunchy texture was not for me so I think steaming them will be good. But I had a FLASH of inspiration – cucumbers! Not sure if it’s going to work, but I think a couple of long skinny cucumbers on top of the completed dish are going to be fantastic!

A Little Thank You

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I just wanted to say thank you to all the comments on Friday’s blog (which, oddly wasn’t named). It makes me feel validated in knowing I, like many of the readers, were and are in the same boat when it comes to being a parent. I will be sure to do more posts like this and in the mean time, check out the Tales from the Crib archive. There are some posts about the early days with Ms.B and I have to say, they are quite amusing. Some of my favorites include The Sleep Terrorist and A Watched Phone Never Boils. Enjoy and hang in there!

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I have been talking and texting with a friend and former coworker over the past few weeks. She just had her first baby, a sweet little girl.

Our conversations brought me back to when Bay was born. I was a basket case. Between 24 hours of on and off labor, 8 hours of actual labor and an emergency c-section left me wanting for nothing but a glass of wine and a nap. A really really long nap. And yet there was little lady who needed me so completely. My hormones were bonkers. I was sleep deprived (which has never been a good look for me) and overwhelmed by the change and lack of predictability. fortunately I am married to the greatest husband and father ever and he not only talked me off the ledge, he helped me through the wide variety of emotions I was feeling and took a night shift.

All this made me think of why I want to write a book. I think there are so many books, blogs, etc out there full of moms who are glowing from the moment the cord is cut. Moms who are instantly in love with their babies, whose kids sleep “through the night” at a week old and those that breast feed with the greatest of ease. But what about the real side of being a new mom? Why is no one talking about being totally freaked out about the whole thing? About loving this little person, but loving the idea of sleeping for 14 hours juuusstt a little bit more? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my daughter, but I will be honest  saying that I had a break down when we came home from the hospital because I didn’t love her enough. I felt like I should have been feeling something that I wasn’t feeling.  And how I was afraid to tell people that I was only breast-feeding a little because I was afraid of the judgement and or “tips” from the listener.

Six months after Baylor was born, on Christmas Eve, she slept for 12 hours straight. It is to this day, the best gift I’ve ever had. When I came out of the sleepless haze, I started talking to friends with kids and realized I wasn’t alone in my feelings. Again, I asked; “why isn’t anyone talking about this??”.

Maybe the answer is that even if warned, lectured, schooled, we can’t really know what it’s going to be like until we’re in it. But I still want to know why there aren’t at least warnings – at least beyond “yeah, you’re not going to sleep for awhile”. But maybe it’s the lie that we tell ourselves that makes us go through with it. Like why you even entertain the idea of having a second child – you lie to yourself. “The second will sleep amazing because they have to” or “We know what we’re doing now!!”.

Either way, I think society puts too much pressure on new moms (and on moms in general) to do it all and with clean and blown out hair too. I think it’s time we start standing up and saying “this part really sucks, literally and figuratively and it’s hard!” and cutting each other and ourselves some slack when we can’t do it all every day. I think if we can embrace the days where we don’t get a shower or brush our teeth before 3pm, it will make the days where we say “I did it!” feel so much better.

A few very funny and oh-so-true mom quotes:

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands? ~ Milton Berle

Raising a kid is part joy and part guerilla warfare.~ Ed Asner

Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease. – Lisa Alther

Snuggled Under Memories

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I can’t remember if I ever wrote about my t-shirt quilt before. I feel like I have? But I can’t find one in my archives? And there’s a strong possibility that I just wrote it in my head but never on the computer? So if you’re reading this and it’s old news – then happy Friday! If you’re reading it for the first time, enjoy!

 

About four years ago, my sister Ali informed me that the boxes of t-shirts that I had been storing in one of her many closets (“No no, Ali, it’s fine! You have TONS of closet space so I see where 2 boxes are totally cramping your storage style!”) were no longer welcome. Forced to bring my boxes to my house and find a home, I decided it was time to find a solution that did not involve making more room in the closet.

I searched around on-line and came across Conforta Quilts. The front page had a picture of a blanket made entirely of St. Mary’s shirts – Peter and my alma mater – so I figured this had to be the right place. If another Knight trusted them, then we should too.

It turns out my gut was right. I met with Mike a few weeks later and brought my boxes o’ tees. As instructed, I pulled out my favorites and those with special meaning. I also had organized the ones that I cared the least about. We discussed layouts, style of stitch, etc over coffee and then I loaded my shirts into her trunk. On the drive home, I called Peter in a panic – what if she just keeps all my shirts and never actually makes a quilt!? His response “what the hell would some lady want with a bunch of Alpha Phi shirts??”. Ouch. And point taken.

About six weeks later, Mike called and we met at the same coffee bar. She pulled the most beautiful quilt out of a bag and handed it over for my inspection. Now, I was planning on it being beautiful, but I wasn’t planning on it being totally functional and amazingly comfortable too! Mike’s creation is machine washable and also backed with flannel so it’s warm and snuggly. In a word? AMAZING.

So many great memories, all said in t-shirt.

Not one shirt went to waste – even the logos were used and used on the reverse side too!

The square in the center of the picture is actually 3 shirts sewn together

This one has a special meaning – Peter gave it to me after I had decided I was going to UofA. He said it was one of his favorites from when he was a kid and that it didn’t fit him any more. I wore it to the UofA v ASU game where I met his parents for the first time. His mom, not knowing that her son had lied about the origin of the shirt, explained that Peter had bought it at SAVERS (for those not in the know, it’s like Good Will’s poor, bastard cousin – i.e. used clothes and not in a fun consignment store kind of way). I thought I had bed bugs crawling on me the rest of the game. What I really want to know is why they don’t make shirts with Wilbur the Wildcat trying to eat Sparky the Sun Devil any more?

So if you’ve got a similar issue with your college, high school or athletic shirts, I could not more highly recommend Mike at Conforta. I thought about doing this for Baylor and her baby clothes to some day. There are a million ideas!

Bird Watching

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Technically, I think these two are fish watching. They are sitting on my mom and step dad’s porch in Montana, staring out at the lake. Sometimes they would shout “bird!!” and sometimes “fish!!”. I’m not sure if Baylor was confused as to what she was supposed to be looking at or if she really did see fish jumping. Either way, it’s adorable.

Looking back to get instructions from Noni

Fish? Birds? Or just fun to hold the binoculars?

Feathered Accessories

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Feather hair extensions, clips, headbands and pins are all the rage these days. Just typing “feathers” int a search on Etsy.com brings up dozens of sites selling feathered accessories.

And because these little beauties are popular, they aren’t cheap. I goofed around online until I found some close up shots of the clips and decided I could copy them. Thankfully for me, my hubby Peter ties flies for fishing. This means there are  plethora of feathers in his desk of every length, origin and color.

I tried a prototype that didn’t hold up very well. So I added some ribbon and my new clip survived several outings while on vacation. Here’s a good picture:

Just a hint of feather under my left ear. It’s just enough to be hip, but appropriate for a mom who’s approaching 30! I did make a little clip for Baylor, but she wasn’t a fan. And my mom kept thinking there was something stuck in my hair. I guess some trends aren’t for everyone.  But I’m thinking with a few gin and tonics, she’ll be into it. My mom that is, Baylor’s more of a M&M kind of gal.

I Heart Rodeo

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One of my favorite parts about our Montana trip every year is the Livingston Roundup. It’s a small town with a big rodeo. Most of the participants do this for a living and win big doing it. But the actual ridding, roping and racing are only part of the fun. It’s the other sides of the rodeo that make it such a hoot.

First, there’s the cocktails. You don’t purchase one beer, two or even three. You purchase by the six-pack. Mostly because they have a system where you have to first buy tokens, then go stand in another line and buy beer. Rodeo goers don’t want to  miss any action so you buy all your beer at once. But how do you carry and or keep cold all this beer? Why with ice and a trash bag box:

Yes, much like Costco its self, there are a variety of empty boxes and bags to carry your cocktails back to your seats.

Karin is very excited about all this.

When buying the beer, I asked the nice lady with the beer how many six packs I could purchase at one time. When she looked at me strange, I replied that we were there with a lot of people and was there a limit on how many six packs I could get? Her response? “Just where the hell are you from?? You can buy as many as you can carry darlin’!!”. Aaaand that’s why I love Montana.

Now, if you’re not armatures at rodeo drinking like we were, you do like the locals do:

Pretty purse, yes? And then you open it:

Aaaaand you see how the locals do it.

The best discovery at the rodeo this year was our friend Karin’s love of Rodeo Humor. RH is the banter between the miked up rodeo clown and the announcer between riders. They jaw back and forth and make dumb jokes, all of which Karin practically rolled on the floor she was laughing so hard. Which made it infinitely more funny to the rest of us. We’re not sure if it was really that funny, or if the combination of “beer in a box” and “kids are sleeping soundly with the sitter” giddiness were the real reason it was all so funny.  Here’s an example of the fun:

I know it’s a little hard to see, but this is one guy. Yes, the guy in the middle, or the Indian in this version of the Village People, is controlling the other four dummies. Yes, he does have two dummies rigged up to pipes and pullies in front of him and two behind. The result? His YMCA dance is preformed in perfect time by all 5 of them. It was bizarre. It was strange. It was slightly disturbing and it was oh so funny.

The night ends with a gorgeous display of fireworks set to patriotic music that gives you goose bumps. It’s then a scramble and a fight to get back to the car together and in one piece to then wrestle through traffic to the one entrance to the highway. Start to finish, it’s a front runner for one of the best events of our year!