moving...

moving on to a new blog where i hope to update at least semi-regularly. find me at:
http://theawkwardbroad.blogspot.com/

i forgot my sneakers in my car today

i forgot my sneakers in my car today, so i am not on my way to jazzercise this morning with my sis like i should be...hubby uses my car two days a week to cut down on gas (since he drives a big truck and works an hour away, using my tiny car twice saves us like $30 bucks a week), and since i used it yesterday and forgot my sneakers in the front seat, and he is in hearings all day an hour away without cell phone access, i'm pretty much stuck. i can't even go running instead (note to self: must buy a second pair of sneakers)! so ru and i are stuck at home today watching sesame street and maybe doing some baking and organizing and hopefully planting some potatoes.

clothes...

i think i might do a series of outfit pictures, like for the week (probably the next one). this will serve many purposes. the first is just getting me to get dressed/change out of my gym clothes from my 9:40 class before my husband gets home at 4:30 (i know i'm not the only one who does this, but it doesn't make it any better). the second is making me think about my outfits and whatnot, because as a mom i occasionally just throw on whatever's clean. lastly, it will make me clear out some junk from my digital camera so that i can upload things to the blog. it's been quite a while since i've done that!
on a vain note, i dyed my hair (twice) the other day, in an attempt to go blonde. well, it didn't work, so i will try again before vacation in july. it's kind of reddish gingery-colored now. it's not terrible, but i don't know that it is great either. i wish i had some of the pictures from memorial day weekend at the boogie/hankins to share with everybody, but i don't because nobody took any! well, except of the baby. my little ruby made her singing debut while daddy was on stage! it was so cute, she just screamed into the mic. she's got a set of pipes on her.
anyway, starting either today or tomorrow, i'm going to work on this fashion thing (really just for myself...i desperately need to find my summer style this year)!

i wish it would stop raining!

it has been raining here (POURING off and on) for like 3 weeks straight now. we have had to plant the gardens in between raindrops and still haven't gotten all of our outside work done. i wish it was not so foggy and rainy and gloomy outside because i want to take and post some pictures of our NEW garden project at my parents' house. it is HUGE compared to what we have now, and with a lot of work and prayers, it will make a huge dent in our food bill and keep us fed through the end of the fall! we have planted so much more already than we usually do because we have a bunch more room, and i am so excited to see how it goes. our next step is to slap up a fence around it because i have already seen (and chased) a bunny sniffing around!
shlee and i tried to have a yard sale yesterday but it misted the entire day so nobody really came out, despite the fact that it was town-wide garage sale day! i think we made like $35 total between the both of us. but i suppose that's better than nothing. it was fun to hang around with everybody all day and ted had a reason to spend all day in the garden (otherwise it would have taken forever to get most of the work done because he'd have done it in snippets).
in other news the realtor came on friday so that we could list the house, but i still don't think that we will just yet. we signed off on the listing as of today, but after having the weekend to think it over and pray on it we have decided to give ourselves a little bit of time. the financial reality of it is that with the housing market like it is, and after all of the money that we put into the house and having to pay realtor commission, we would only break even, and that's only if we got a full-price offer. so we are taking some time and doing some painting and de-cluttering and landscaping and whatnot, and then we will re-group. also, our principal on the mortgage will be paid off a little more and hopefully the housing market will have rebounded slightly by then. on a high note, my house is cleaner than it has been since ru was born and i have a ton of ambition to make it even better! we will make our house the castle (or tiny adorable lake cabin) that i always knew it could be!
i wish i had taken pictures of our dinner from last night. i tried my hand at making some whole wheat amish-style noodles, and despite the fact that they were a little thick, my husband LOVED them. i adore him for cherishing my simplistic culinary missteps! i served them up hot with butter, parsley and caraway seeds and i have to say that i enjoyed them very much (i'll just have to spend a little more time to roll them thinner the next time). we also had peas with pearl onions and some broiled cod fillets. i need more dinners like that!
i hope i can make my next post a picture filled one!

birthday/ted's mom

ted's mom is home from the hospital and feeling much better, thank God. unfortunately, she will be on heart medication for the rest of her life though. right now she's a little too concerned with what's going on at work, and she really should be using her strength to recover and relax.
my little one has discovered peekaboo and musical instruments all in the span of a few days. we've also started going to the playground when it is nice enough out (which hasn't been often lately. boo.). her favorite thing to do lately is play the tambourine, which is fabulous! it's so amazing to me to watch her learn new things every single day! people always say that babies are constantly learning but to actually watch it happen is a complete miracle. it makes me glad that i can be at home with her all day (at the same time though my wallet is crying!).
my birthday was fun. ted and i went on a drive through sussex county and stopped at a nice little coffee shop that we always used to go to while we were dating and got decadent drinks and some kind of delicious salt and pepper mexican chocolate that i wish i had a million little discs of to have whenever i want it. then we went to harold's and i had a ton of lox and gouda and a million pickles and didn't even care. it POURED the entire day (we had wanted to break in my six flags season pass, but it really didn't seem like the right day, since it wouldn't have been open and all). at night my folks and my sis and her boyfriend came by for cake. then, my sis's bf got me the best present...the michael jackson experience for wii! we went back to my parents' house and played for a few hours and it was SO! MUCH! FUN!!! all in all my birthday was really nice even though it wasn't what i would have expected.
this sunday the whole family and i are having a garage sale at my mom's house and we are hoping to get rid of a ton of stuff so that moving (when we finally do actually move) won't be quite so hard. we could also use a little pocket money, so i'm hoping that we do make some! plus we could use gas/food/beer money for the festival up in hancock next weekend. i'm also hoping it stops raining so that we don't have to camp out in a giant mud puddle. i mean, i know i married a hippie but i'm soooo not down for all that! on the up side, there's always the callicoon farmer's market!

mother's day and planting season

the little one at yankee stadium for her first jays game! she's wearing a "my first blue jays t-shirt" to match daddy's tattoo (and shirt, and hat)!

it's may in northwestern nj and that means a few things...mama's day, planting season, and my birthday! 26, however, is not really a milestone worthy of a huge celebration.
but mother's day was fun. first my sister and i dragged my mom to jazzercize where we had an awesome time and a really good workout. then my parents, my grandparents, my sis, dh & baby & i all had bagels and strawberries and chocolates and mimosas on my deck. then after that just the three of us went to jay and silent bob's secret stash in red bank and bought me some comic books and stickers for my car, and had wings and beer for dinner. sometimes my teddy really knows me. red bank is a little too fancy for me though. i'm pretty glad i was just passing through.
ted's mama's in the hospital right now. she had congestive heart failure that the doc diagnosed as an infection for like 2 months. if she hadn't seen another doctor this saturday, who knows what would have happened. but at least they know the problem now and she's feeling a little better. she's in our prayers. what a way to spend mother's day.
finally, the planting! we've planted our normal garden and are acquiring a larger portion of my parents yard to plant in as well! it's already about halfway dug, but isn't quite ready for planting yet. we are so excited to use our farming skills to take on this little mini-farm project! ted has been working at a hay farm off and on as weekend help, so this is really a good start for him.
more on that later. off to make matzo ball soup!

ru and her daddy dancing

this weekend my brother-in-law got married. we thought it would be hectic and frustrating but we ended up having a really lovely weekend (it was actually pretty relaxing!). here's ru and her daddy (who made the best best man speech i've ever heard) on the dance floor!

in the spirit of getting a hobby

i tried a new recipe yesterday: Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins. I've been looking for something to do with my canned pumpkin! These actually turned out spectacularly. I took a recipe from all recipes and modified it slightly (used wheat flour, halved the sugar, added more pumpkin and apple and some plain yogurt, and used egg beaters instead of eggs...if i had had it on hand, i would have used applesauce in place of the oil too!). I wanted to post the recipe here because they were just sooo delicious AND gorgeous and my husband loved them. I also made 12 big muffins instead of 18 regular-sized ones and had some leftover batter that i spooned into my tiny, top-tier cake pan. it made a scrumptious little cake that we enjoyed for dinner along with some apples and cheddar and pumpernickel bread and butter. yummy. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins:

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin (or apple) pie spice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten (or 1/2 C egg beaters)
  
• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apple
• 2 tablespoons wheat flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons butter
• (you could add nuts to the topping too. i think i will next time)
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 18 muffin cups or use paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, sift together 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 cups sugar, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin and oil. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; stirring just to moisten. Fold in apples. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
3. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.

i am DEFINITELY going to enter these into the fair muffin competition this year!
now i just have to think of something to make after i clean the house on saturday, before the boys from the band some over to make flyers!

yay it's baseball season!!!

...or as other people call it, spring. that means all of the good things: good hiking weather, garden planning and planting, slightly warmer weather, six flags opening, and, obviously, baseball (among other things)! we are taking ru to her first baseball game with her godfather at the end of the month and it should be awesome! actually, her godfather (dh's brother) is getting married next weekend and everyone's excited for that. ted took him on a "bachelor party" trip to the baseball hall of fame and brewery trail in cooperstown, nj last weekend. he came back with a tiny pink louisville slugger for ruby and a new two-tone brewers hat for me! not to mention some delicious apple wine and hard cider. ru and i spent a good part of the weekend with my folks going to farmer's markets and exploring dirt roads and whatnot. it was super fun.
In other news, my little one is now crawling! as i type this, she is trying to break into the video cabinet. i put off babyproofing when she was first born, figuring that it would be a while before she started getting into things. well, now i can just tack it onto my spring cleaning list! 1. move liquor cabinet out of baby's room. 2. move cleaning products up from under the sink. 3. take heavy things off of unstable surfaces. 4. cover the million electrical outlets up 5. hammer in loose nails in EVERY SINGLE CABINET. 6. generally make house more baby-friendly. hot dang this is going to be harder than i thought! i mean, i'm not neurotic about stuff like this in general because i think kids will get into most things wherever they are, but i know how klutzy i was (and still am) so if ru inherited any of that, i need to do a serious once-over of the entire house. i am so not ready to have a mobile child!
on an unrelated note, i tried on the dresses i bought last month for al's wedding (that didn't fit me at the time) and now they both fit! the numbers on the scale don't seem to be going down at all, but i feel like i definitely look a little better than i did two months ago (toning maybe?). i've been trying to hit the gym at least 3 times a week, and i'm thinking of joining jazzercize with my sis because i totally feel it the next day, and also they have babysitting and i can go with ash! i'd still like to drop about 30 lbs before i go on vacation in the end of july, and maybe 60 overall. but for right now i'm taking it day by day, and i'm excited enough that i fit in the dresses! now i just have to figure out which one to wear! maybe i'll post pictures later!

i found this pretty interesting:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/parents-who-hate-parenting-the-latest-trend-2466533/;_ylt=AuSfyBXv9Mz0TBB_yNhNxG5abqU5
the article is about how some parents just don't like parenting (or at least occasionally dislike it). i understand, believe me. i've only got one and sometimes on a particularly challenging day i'm ready to throw in the towel. these aren't parents who abandon their children or beat them or neglect them or anything like that, but they certainly aren't amy chua with her dragon mother nonsense. the author, Lylah Alphonse, interviewed a woman who co-authored a book called "Mothers Need Time-outs, Too," and gave a list of suggestions to keep moms from going cukoo bananas (taken directly from the article):

1. Give yourself a break—you don't need to be so hard on yourself.
2. Just say no! What are your real priorities?
3. Take time to write it down. Journaling will bring clarity to your life.
4. Slow down and savor living in the moment.
5. Plug into your kids so you can really connect with them.
6. Don't forget about your husband—intimacy is life-affirming!
7. Reach out beyond your family. It will enrich everyone.
8. Make your physical and mental health a priority.
9. Is more always better? Simplify everything.
10. Be a little selfish—you deserve it, and it will make you a better mother.

I mean, it all makes a lot of sense. no one is perfect. none of us has the perfect house, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect shape, the perfect husband, the perfect car, the perfect kids, whatever. we're not all gourmet cooks. we're not always full of energy. but nevertheless we try to do everything (and make our kids do everything too) and we spread ourselves too thin. i think that living a slower-paced lifestyle and limiting our exposure to a ton of extraneous activities is ideal. simplicity is ideal. also, journalling usually helps most situations. i take issue with number 10, however. i don't like using the "i deserve it" excuse, because life's not fair and we can't always get what we deserve. i feel like i deserve a beach house, but that doesn't mean i'm gonna get one. sure, it would make me a better mom (obviously...what kid doesn't want a mom with a beach house?), but not really in the way that it should. to me, taking a few minutes for yourself doesn't constitute being selfish. it's realistic. however, if i start begin really selfish and justifying it by saying that i deserve it, well then eventually not only will it go too far, but i won't really deserve it after a while anyway (that whole argument being a vicious cycle and all).
i think that the issue of perfectionism is super-dangerous for women anyway, especially now in the era of HGTV, food network, party planners and $15,000. birthday parties for kids. there are these ridiculous standards across the board for parenting and homemaking, not to mention the unattainable standards (of intelligence, personal appearance, time management, etc.) to which women are already held. we can't be all things. i don't know why we try, aside from the fact that it is not only expected but practically required. i know that i am an excellent baker. but am i a great housekeeper? not a chance. my mother is a hard-working woman who is terrific at her job. but can she cook? not a thing. for years women have beat themselves up over things like this, but i think it's time to embrace it. i do keep to some basic standards of cleanliness, especially now with a baby in the house. the dishes get done in a timely manner, i do the laundry, and i try to keep the floor clean and surfaces clear. anything beyond that is a bonus. my mom? she splits up meal prep between herself, my dad, and my sister so that everybody is responsible. i think that's how it should be. what we can't do, we should acknowledge and delegate appropriately (if i learned nothing else in the business world, it is the importance of delegating tasks and responsibility. it is also useful in event planning). since we are raised to do a little of everything, we do nothing really well. if we focus on our talents and just do our best at the rest, that should be enough.
does that mean that i think i should hire a maid service because i'm not good at cleaning and "i deserve it"? no (but sometimes i think that it would be nice), but as long as i keep the house livable, know what my husband needs (if he needs a clean house, he married the wrong woman, but i'll try my damnedest), understand what i need and try to live up to my own standards, i should be set.
but i also agree with ms. alphonse in that women raised today are not really prepared for the reality of child-rearing. they might have spent some time in a career while romanticizing the stay-at-home mom bit and, once the baby came, realized that that the fantasy was much more idyllic than what actually happens when they spend all day at home. the modern woman "having it all" just isn't a reality. there is too much pressure and too many obstacles for it to be worth it. a career is nice and a family is nice, but if your whole heart is in one of those things it seems incredibly unfair to the other. unfortunately, there is never an even split.
do i think that the rewards of staying home with a family are worth it? hell yeah. whenever i watch my little one learn something new or play with the kittens or yell "mama" i know that i'm doing right by her. but do i wish that someone had warned me ahead of time that staying at home can kind of suck? or that kids can sometimes be terrible? and that some days are not rewarding so much as monotonous? obviously. it's just nice to know that other parents feel the same way.

more snow!

because i am currently the only one in the house not battling some kind of illness (knock on wood), i tried my hand at some warm yummy soup-ish comfort food last night: chicken and dumplings, german style. i suppose i made it as sort of a cross between chicken pot pie and matzoh ball soup, but it was perfect and i have to admit, i was a little sad sending the leftovers off to work with my husband this morning! one of my favorite things to do is to tweak recipes to use up what we have in the fridge and the pantry and make them exactly the way we like them!
there is a ton of snow this morning! living in the northeast, i can't say that i'm surprised when there's snowfall well into spring, but i was totally not prepared for 6 inches when i woke up this morning! apparently, we could have 12 by 10 am tomorrow. ah well. i suppose that despite the random 70 degree days, it is not quite time to break out the baseball mitts and jogging stroller just yet.
i am in what i like to affectionately refer to as the "planning stages" of spring cleaning right now. pretty much, i have to wade through the piles of junk that have accumulated on my desk, in the baby's room, on my vanity, right inside the front door, etc. I'm hoping to get some done today, some done sunday, and the rest throughout the week. usually it is relatively easy but with the prospect of moving and renting this place out, i really want to step it up a notch so that i can be ready if we only have a month or so of notice. but, seeing as how i've been talking about moving out since before i even bought this house a few years ago, who knows if it'll actually happen. while we were out househunting on saturday morning, we found a few places; i liked one house, but it needed to be gutted, had some flooding issues, and was absolutely haunted and creepy, and ted liked another, but it is a little out of our price range despite the fact that it has everything that we want and is in move-in condition. everyone keeps saying that "it's a buyers market" but i'm not entirely sure that's accurate. we've run into so many snags with short sales (which are anything but what the name implies) and problems with investment companies that own properties we like and even unfriendly realtors! and now because so many people defaulted on their mortgages, even people with great credit are getting shaken down by mortgage companies and forced to buy mortgage insurance, which just tacks money on to the bill. we're lucky to be working now with a realtor who understands what we are looking for (or at least what my husband is looking for...every time i find a house i like, he discourages us from buying it because it is always an old house that needs a ton of work. the last few i've liked have been nowhere near livable. what can i say? i'm a sucker for the underdog).
i had every intention of trying to hit the gym today when the hubby gets home from work, but who knows if i'll even be able to get my car out!!!

Let me try this again.

I realize that i have begun and abandoned this blog several times already, but i think i'll restart it for good, for several reasons. allow me to actually introduce myself, in no uncertain terms:
my name is vicki, and i'm 25 years old. i've been married for 6 1/2 years to a hell of a man (my handsome bearded lumberjack/musician/genius), and i have an adorable but sometimes terrible baby who is almost 7 months old. i am a stay at home mom, which everyone has strong feelings about one way or the other, and i do too (but which way varies from day to day and even minute to minute). i gave up a decent-paying, mostly rewarding career in higher education that i really enjoyed to be at home when i became pregnant, and sometimes it's the smartest thing i ever did, but sometimes, i think i want to bolt in the night (funny how i used to think that all of those ibsen plays were so ridiculous. they make more sense now). sometimes i want to go back to work even though i know that i really shouldn't because it wouldn't make any sense after paying for daycare and commuting, and i'd miss all of my little one's firsts. at any given time i can convince myself to lean either way. i live in a little cabin on a lake that i love and hate at the same time. it is always in a state of squalor and disrepair, despite my best efforts. it used to seem much bigger. i also have a big-ish (for the suburbs) vegetable garden that i love, but it too is never quite as it should be. however, it feeds us for most of the summer and into the fall. i walk around the house and talk to myself all day since neither the baby nor the animals are very good conversationalists, and that is why i think that a blog would be a better outlet. i used to write lots of poetry and short non-fiction essays, but i haven't really written anything on paper since i lost my first daughter a few years ago. now whenever i look at a notebook i see the million things i should have told her instead of the endless sea of lines that i used to love and look forward to (reason number two for a blog). i enjoy yoga and hiking and competitive baking and watching movies and reading comic books and pretty much anything that kevin smith does. i am house-hunting, looking for a place in the country while prices are cheap. my husband wants a farm, and i think it would be good for our girl to chase chickens and ride ponies and jump in the creek whenever she wants to, but i'm not really sure that i belong out there on a permanent basis. as a Christian wife, i try to respect my husband's judgment and give him the rule of the roost, and he's pretty good at it, and getting much better at making decisions (typical Libra, needs practice). i'm a united methodist i guess, i was raised catholic and miss the ceremony, but truth be told i don't really like church at all. i'm more of a home-church kind of gal, since i think a relationship with God should be private. i also tend to be more conservative and old-fashioned than most people my own age, despite my best efforts. i dislike most technology (well, the stupid stuff anyway. who needs a kindle when a book just feels and smells and IS so much better?) and pretty much avoid it. i still listen to vinyl and make mixtapes because i think making a mix on a computer is so much less rewarding, and giving someone a mix cd says that the giver really didn't want to put a lot of effort in. i like shopping more than i should. i own more clothes than anyone i know but always wear the same things. i am perpetually on a diet, as are most women i know. i would like to lose my baby weight and keep thinking about taking up running, but i really don't like or understand runners or the runner mentality. how could that possibly be fun? a runner's high? please. i don't particularly like very late nights or very early mornings, and i need 8 hours of sleep or i'm just not a nice person. sometimes i drink much more than i should and say mean and/or ridiculous things to everyone i can find, but i'm working on not doing that as much. i like throwing parties because i like the challenge that comes with building a menu and serving a feast and making everyone feel comfortable with people they don't know, and i like planning activities like monopoly or checkers or badminton or making gingerbread houses in the middle of summer or whatever. i am not close with a lot of people because i find it strange. most of my friends live very far away, although my family all lives close and in truth, is very close as well. i never really got along with other women, and now that i have a kid, it's kind of hard to relate to men as well (well, especially those my own age, who are generally stuck in a state of perpetual boyhood that i am super jealous of). i desperately need to start my spring cleaning, and keep telling myself i'll do it any day now. i love rollercoasters and i never outgrew amusement parks. i see everything in black and white but know that just about everything exists somewhere in the shades of gray, even though i usually won't acknowledge it. i like to sing very loud in the car, and i love driving aimlessly, something that as a stay-at-home mom, i rarely get to do anymore. occasionally, i enjoy smoking even though i know that it's bad for me. i'm scared of lakes and the creatures that lurk within them, but i love rivers and the way they smell (usually), like the beginning of spring. apple-picking makes me insanely happy.
i guess that's me. i really don't usually talk about myself like that. i'm quite glad that nobody reads this, otherwise they would know more about me than people i've known forever. however, if anybody does read this, these are the things i'll be talking about. i guess i'm just a normal-ish woman dealing with normal-ish woman issues.