Blackout Night: Finally

I called for a Blackout Night last night. We haven't done one in a while. It's not like we had time on our hands or something crazy like that, it's just that we really needed to shut out the world and focus inward for a bit.
My sister-in-law, Sarah, had given me these pretty black lanterns when she and Jon moved to a new house. I had secretly coveted them ever since she bought them. So, you know, that was awfully nice of her. See my silly poodle behind them? She's sniffing around, trying to decide what we're all doing.

My thought was that I'd clean them up and light them to use inside while all the lights were out. But once they were wiped down and lit, the oil smelled really strong and we decided not to bring them inside.

But that's okay, because most of this Blackout Night was spent outside. I won't say that the kids were filled with glee. My children, like most modern children, would much prefer to be inside, curled up with a video game, a movie or a book. Outside, it is already summery and sweaty around here. Nobody likes to sweat. Well, at least none of us do.
We took a walk to the park and did some work in our garden.

We ate a lovely salad, full of pretty tomatoes (not our tomatoes just yet...but soon!) and garden-fresh squash (thanks again, Jeffries family!). Chris and Andrew tossed around a football and Emma generally pretended things around the yard while I fussed over the southern blight that seems to be infecting some of our plants. And by the time we noticed the misty moon high above the trees,

it was too late to even bother going inside to read.
We sent the kids to the showers and lingered outside just a little longer in the twilight, drinking in the evening breeze that's still hanging around since it's still spring.


DAILY BLISS: My baby nephew, Maximus, will be born today! Wahoo! This is the second little fella for Chris' brother and his wife, and we couldn't be happier for them!

Blackout Night: Reformat

We've decided to give weekly Blackout Nights the heave-ho. I don't have anything against 'em - in fact, I like 'em a lot. It's just...well...should I start at the beginning of my day?
Alright then.
We shall do this in abbreviated form, as a writing exercise for me (can I be concise and use sentence fragments?) and to keep it a bit shorter for you.
Venting sesh on the phone with my mom. Not the kind you come away from feeling better, though. Fleeting shadow of a thought, "Maybe this bodes poorly for the rest of my day." Nah. Silly girl.
New copier at work. Happy the old ones are gone, but this is my big printing day for Sunday bulletins. 195 of them. Super happy that it does duplexing and collating. Super-unhappy that after two hours, I only had 65 copies, 1 paper jam, 1 toner replacement and 1 headache.
Set it back right and went for "long lunch." During said lunch, bought sewing book I've been drooling over. A quick little project when I get home should soothe.
Returned to office to find paper jam. Had only gotten to 83 copies. Not going to finish the bulletins today.
Decided to do the Wednesday ones instead. They're smaller. Just want to finish something. Feeling pretty good when they're done with 45 minutes to spare. Realize that clock on wall has not been re-set to daylight savings. Actually am 20 minutes late leaving for school pick-up.
Buy vintage sheet at thrift store to make a New Book Project. All will be better if I can just make that blouse. But the dress I started yesterday as a quick project is not done. Should finish that first.
Uh, nope. Nevermind on the finishing. Shirring gone awry.
Bath?
Bath.
Nice, cool bath and a shave. That should help. Fill up tub, open window.
Crash.
Lose pretty, glass, footed soap dish in window-opening accident. Breaks along side and back of tub. Oh, and also inside the tub.
Gingerly step out of tub and into shower.
Maybe I should get out the ruffler foot and just do the hem of the dress. Can make new book project tomorrow. Break two needles, bend the third.
Give up and make waffles for dinner. I know this is Blackout Night and I don't care. Dinner will be waffles and I'll use electricity to make them.
Waffle batter too thin. Each and every waffle sticks to heart-shaped waffle iron. Heart-shaped waffles fail to make me happy.
Realize it is now 7:00, husband is finally home, lights have not been turned off and we are shoveling sticky waffles into our faces.
Oh, and? Thermostat is broken. It's 85 and humid in my house. Bleah.
Read 15 minutes of The Hobbit. Barely manage gruffly English voices. Husband tells me I probably shouldn't approach sewing machine again tonight. Adds that maybe I need a massage.
Good, good husband.
I will not even count it against him that he threw the word "naked" in there.
Husband washes dishes and puts sewing machine out of sight.
I decide that Blackout Night will go to a once-a-month schedule. I do not need more things that I can't finish right, thus making me feel guilty.

DAILY BLISS: Darla (who teaches the GED class that meets at the church where I work) brought me a bag of chocolate. She knows my boss is away and she said since I'm always talking about "bliss," she wanted to make sure my week was extra "blissful." She actually brought me a bag of Hershey's Bliss. I actually ate way too much of it today.

Blackout Night: Mostly

I've had an interesting couple of days. Yesterday, I ran into two of the most random people I know. Both of them were at the park (where I had not intended to go, but had let Emma talk me into) and neither of them knew each other. But they were talking to each other just the same. One of them is a guy that works for the city doing random stuff, so he was actually working at the park. He's a musician and a swim coach too. And informed me that he's now going by his middle name. I can't imagine why a person would change their name like that once you pass 30-or-so years old, but it honestly doesn't surprise me that he would.
And he kinda looks like Jesus.
I'm just sayin'.
The other guy was an old boyfriend of mine - my first real boyfriend. He's also a musician. And an artist. And nothing at all like Jesus. But we keep in touch and run into each other here and there. He was at the park searching out some inspiration and I suppose that's what I was doing too. Otherwise, I'd never have let my daughter talk me into it.
We three had the most interesting conversations and Boyfriend Guy took a picture of Jesus Guy, having found his face inexplicably inspirational and I walked away, shaking my head at my funny life.

We pressed on with Blackout Night tonight, even though I didn't really feel like it. I had too many things on my to-do list. But I laid the fate of the evening in my steadfast husband's hands and was, as I always usually sometimes am, grateful for his "ability" to stick to a course of action once he's decided on it. I say "ability" because I do not always view this trait in such a positive light.

But enough about me.
We went on our walk and swung on the swings at the park and the guys tossed the football around a bit. We came home, turned off the lights (mostly) and had a fantastic sandwich, inspired by a recipe from this month's Better Homes & Gardens. Roast beef, olive tapenade, fresh tomatoes and spinach. Oh, and a little Dijon mustard with mayonnaise. Only, it was vegan mayonnaise, dangit. I'm allergic to eggs.
We read almost an entire chapter in The Hobbit. That takes forever when you're reading it aloud. Try it once. You'll see. Oh, and you have to try it with British accents and gruffy dwarf voices. Then you'll really see.
Then we flipped the lights back on and went about the businesses that we all had on our agendas, and I find that I'm really glad we went ahead and carved out those couple of hours.

PS - guess what came in the mail today?

My dress! The one I've been saving up for! And it's every bit as gorgeous as I expected. It's been kind of a fiasco, though. I've not told you all about it because I wanted to save it for the big reveal, which will have to wait, because I have no pictures of me in it yet. That will be remedied soon enough by my sister-in-law and her new camera. But I wanted to go ahead and tell you that I got it. Suffice it to say that I went to the website to drool over it one day, before I'd finished saving up for it, and it was sold out! In the end, my lovely Anthropologie store in Tampa tracked one down for me and had it sent...all the way from Seattle! And I love it ever so much. I. Have. Never. bought myself something like that. So, there's a nice pinch of guilt stirred in with my pleasure.

DAILY BLISS: gorgeous weather and orange blossoms

Blackout Night: Scattered

Yet another Wednesday passed and as I looked forward to the evening - to Blackout Night - I smiled smugly and decided I'd title my blog post "Routine" just as I'd planned to do last week when plans went awry. And yet another Blackout Night failed to be routine.
Oh well.
I should probably look into giving up my need to control my life.
It was a pleasant evening nonetheless.
Chris got home a little later than usual, but I had everyone dressed and ready for our walk. And as I was thinking about the salad I was going to make later, I thought about the fact that Publix has their rotisserie chickens on sale this week. And I thought how nice a bit of protein in the form of meat would be with that there salad. Meat protein has been a little sparse around here as we tighten up our financial belts a bit. And I asked Chris if he wanted to walk around the lake or the neighborhood, because if we drove to the lake for our walk, we'd be close to a Publix and after all...I know how much he, my big, strapping hero-of-a-man liked to have a little bit of roasted meat. And it wasn't like I was going to cook it or anything. That would break Blackout Night rules, I know. But Publix already cooked them. The energy was expended well before 6:00 PM.
Chris thought that it sounded good. He was impressed with my altruism.
Just kidding.
He said it would be convenient because we had to get my brother's truck back to his driveway tonight anyway. So we'd do that while we were out.
Then I looked at the clock and it was already 6:00. How would we drive to the lake, walk for 30 minutes, drop off the truck, get to the grocery store, drive home and make dinner before the kids' bedtime?
Eh. We skipped the walk.
It's okay, because we walked yesterday and I think we'll shoot for Friday too.
But the salad? It was great. You will all want to try it, I'm sure. So, it's not really original, but I'm going to post the recipe anyway. Besides, the strawberry vinaigrette was a big hit.

Strawberry Spinach Salad
1 bag baby spinach
1 quart strawberries
1 cup sugared pecans (remember these from Christmas? I made 'em yesterday in anticipation of this salad)
Gorgonzola cheese (only if you like. my body and dairy don't get along, so if Mama ain't gettin' cheese, ain't nobody gettin' cheese, so we didn't put any cheese in ours. i just thought you might like it.)

Of course, you know how to put together a salad. We cut up about four or five strawberries per person and this served the four of us amply, with a nice salad left over for my lunch tomorrow.

Top it off with:
Strawberry Vinaigrette
(I adapted my own based on this recipe for raspberry vinaigrette)
1/3 cup strawberry all-fruit jelly
1/4 cup light salad/vegetable oil (don't use EVOO - the taste will be too strong)
4 t. rice vinegar
4 t. cider vinegar
1-2 t. dijon mustard

Whisk together carefully - that oil will splash up at ya.

The kids were absolutely quiet as they ate. By candle light, of course. I asked them why and honestly, they both said they were too into the salad to talk right at the moment!
We continued on with reading The Hobbit. I am surprised by how much they are enjoying the book. Emma is following the story remarkably well, considering the unfamiliar (but beautiful) language usage and such. We read the chapter with Gollum in it the other day. My kids have been hissing out phrases like, "What's it got in its pocketses?" and "nasty hobbitses," day in and day out.
I love it.
We've left the candles lit and the kids are in their quiet time now. I'm hoping that the settling-in that finally occurred will stay with me for the rest of the night.

DAILY BLISS: smelling the orange blossoms on my very own tree!

Blackout Night: Interrupted

I spent most of my afternoon yesterday composing a post in my head titled, "Blackout Night: Routine." And that's what it was going to be. Remember last week? I thought we'd hit on something of a magic formula of walk, salad, read. And I was really looking forward to that routine.
We hit all of our afternoon errands on time and stopped to grab some salad ingredients. We got home and practiced all instruments and did homework. I was getting the kids into some walkin' clothes when Chris called me. He'd received some gift cards for Chili's and wondered if we'd mind eating out. Heh. Mind? We could just walk after we eat out and still read and still call it Blackout Night, right? So, yeah. We ate out. We'll eat our salad tonight to make up for it.
But while we were at the restaurant, Andrew said he wasn't feeling well. I guess some kind of virus has been ravaging his school. Tons of kids are missing school. He actually did have a fever, so we decided to skip the walk. We could still read by candle light, right?
Well, we ended up sending Drew to bed when we got home and Emma and I worked on her class valentine goodies by candle light instead. Which was peaceful and sweet and calming, if not exactly what I'd had in mind.
But we hadn't worked for 20 minutes or so when we were interrupted.
My sister-in-law Mindy came over with her new baby.

Wait.
No.

Somebody get my mom a paper bag.
Mom? Just breathe slowly, OK?

Her new camera baby. She's been waiting and waiting for a real, grown-up DSLR for a long time and they got a great deal at Circuit City, since the company's closing up shop and everything's on sale. She got the 40D (I'm not sure which lens, but she got a lens too). I am so jealous! So, obviously, we couldn't play around with it in the dark. We turned on the lights and we both squealed a lot and talked about things like aperture priority, ISO and shutter speed and we took lots of funny pictures of Joe, my brother. Cause, you know, he's funny like that.
But the time came for them to leave and they had to take Canon with them, so we turned the lights back out and just sat in the quiet. We sent the kids on to their rooms and continued to sit in the quiet.
And the strangest thing happened.

I fell asleep on the sofa.

At, like, 8:30.


DAILY BLISS: my mom took me out for lunch! yay!

Blackout Night: Triumphant Return

We finally pulled off a real Blackout Night again! It has been a long time - at least before Christmas - since we did it right. I was quite determined to turn out all the lights tonight, and also to not cheat. So, no-energy dinner? Check. Lights out? Check.
One more thing. We are trying to add a little family exercise into our routine. This is really hard to do when you have legs of all different lengths and skills of all different levels. But we have, nonetheless, settled on walking together. And a walk fits nicely into the rules of Blackout Night, so we've decided to make that a regular feature. I mean, we'll walk on other days too, but at least we can mostly be sure we'll walk on Blackout Night.
The only problem is that today, it's super cold. The coldest air of the season is moving in tonight. It'll be 26 degrees in my shocked back yard. What orange blossoms I had left after the last freeze will certainly be gone after tonight. Seriously - two hard freezes in the same year? That never happens here.
I digress.
I was quite ready to chuck the idea of getting our walks going tonight because I'm cold. But it's been almost three weeks since we decided to start walking again and we still haven't walked. It's always something, isn't it?
Chris called me after work, though. He said to bundle up the kids and we were going to go for it anyway. But bundling up is tricky. We hardly own any of the right stuff.
While Chris looks kinda tough in his warm jacket and the hat I made him for Christmas (I have no idea what he's telling Andrew to do in this photo),

Emma and I looked sort of, uh, creative.
She had on a stripey tunic with a dressy ruffle at the bottom, her school hoodie that made the ruffle look a little silly, an old scarf I bought at a thrift store several years ago and ankle-length yoga sweats.

With legwarmers underneath.

Fashionable.
And I...looked like a hobo. A long sleeved shirt under a pullover hoodie under a zip-up hoodie and the only scarf I had left. With sweat pants, white socks and one of Chris' hats. Oh my.

We actually trotted around a lake downtown looking like this. Which is okay because most other people looked were dressed just like us. And it was all good until I remembered that I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home for some croutons to put in our salad for dinner. Lettuce and tomatoes alone didn't seem substantive enough after such a vigorous and chilling walk.
So I went to the grocery store looking like a pink-cheeked hobo.
And some guy dressed like a hobo checked me out.
So there.
We came home and the boys covered up all our plants and brought in the potted ones (we've started a few pots of veggies and herbs to try our hand at the whole food-growing thing) while Emma and I put together salads.
We ate by candle light.
We cheated a little bit by brewing some decaf. Flavored creamer turned it in to a nice dessert.
And we read by candle light until it was time to put the kids to bed. We're reading The Hobbit together. I've actually never read it, so I'm really enjoying the experience. I have to stop every now and again and translate what's happening for Emma. It's a little over her head, but I think she's still interested.

And I think that this will sort of be a Blackout Night routine for us. Walk, salad, candles, reading. I can't come up with something new and fresh every week. But I'm pretty sure I don't have to do all that for it to be special.
It was still soothing and quieting, it still focused us on each others' faces. We had good conversation. Candle light engenders conversation of a deeper nature. We all say things we might not say when we can be fully seen.
And even though the kids are in bed and my face is illuminated by the glow of my computer screen, we have left the lights off and the candles burning. The ticking of my living room clock and the quietness of the house are conspiring to make me sleepy earlier than usual. I think I will take advantage of that.

DAILY BLISS: laughing at the funny things my children said as we walked around the lake, watching the geese and ducks huddling together against the chill

Blackout Night: Christmas Style

So, we left on the tree lights. Big deal. I don't see why we should waste an entire evening with a lovely Christmas tree in the dark. Who made up these completely arbitrary rules about Blackout Night anyway?
Oh?
It was me?
Well, then. I'll try to stop feeling guilty.
We ordered pizza for supper (not that I can eat it - I had a salad) and walked to pick it up. It's either incredibly fortuitous or a really horrible thing to have a pizza joint within three blocks of your house. I will not decide which one. I'm afraid of the consequences.
We turned out all the lights and cuddled up by the tree, eating our pizza (and salad) quietly. Or maybe not so quietly. Upon reflection, I must admit that my children have been pretty wound up. Maybe it's all the holiday excitement. But still, we were in the same room, focused on each other, everyone talking at the same time about the day that they'd had. And it was great.
We played several rounds of Alphabet Rummy with these scrumptious cards:

I think you can get them at Target too, but the link is to a cute online store. They're intended for younger kids, but I'm so smitten with the illustrations - there are tiny little fairies and bugs peeking out from all sorts of places. So, we used them anyway, even though we don't have younger kids anymore. Sigh. Somebody'd better get around to making me a niece or a nephew soon (one that lives close by I mean. No offense Daniel & Melanie, but couldn't you guys move a little closer?).
Anyway, once we had put the kids in their rooms for quiet time, we found out that Rudolph was going to be on TV, so we let them come back out with their pillows and we laid around and watched TV. On Blackout Night. Whatever.
But it's Rudolph, right? We left the house lights off anyway....
And I spent the next hour singing along with Burl Ives and seaming up this cute little Christmas gift for somebody small on my Christmas list. I didn't have a small person with me today to model it, so I used a balloon.

And oh, this yarn. Oh, I loved it. It's Knitpicks Imagination yarn, for those of you who care. I have never been one to use those multi-colored, self-striping yarns yet. Mostly because I'm not a sock knitter. Yet.
Isn't it gorgeous, though?

I hope I can show you more finished gifties by the end of this week. There won't be too many more that don't have to be secrets, though....
But I'm having fun in Christmas Gifty Land, making and making and making.

DAILY BLISS: unexpected coffee and soy eggnog

Blackout Night: Balance

I was definitely unable to carry through with my plans of a no-cook supper. I had stuff to make bruschetta - tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic - and I was going to just use a loaf of untoasted bread. But I had a chicken in the fridge that had to be cooked or tossed, so roasted chicken and potatoes it was.
I enlisted the help of my favorite tiny chef. We put on our aprons, both of which were purchased this weekend at an antique shop. I just adore this one. It's my favorite vintage one yet and I suspect it'll be the next one to be worn in public.

Emma washed the potatoes for me while she hosted an imaginary cooking show, instructing her viewers about just how the potatoes should be scrubbed and cut. All the while, we were accompanied by the sweet sounds of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" on the euphonium (that's a fancy baritone), courtesy of my son.
The sun went down and we enjoyed our chicken in the dark. And then we flipped on the lights for just a few minutes-
to make ice cream sundaes!
We try to celebrate in some way when the kids bring home good report cards. Which is pretty much every time. Well, it is every time. So, we set up a delicious sundae bar (with the non-dairy stuff for me):

We ate our sundaes quietly, with all due reverence.

Then we sprawled out on the floor with my collection of Christmas books. They're mostly the Gooseberry Patch ones. My children searched and searched for the special something this year that they would make as a Christmas gift for all the grown-ups they love. Last year it was hot cocoa mix, this year....who knows? My new apron and I sat in my Mama Chair and took notes as they called out to me their wishes and hopes for Christmas presents this year.

Some of us wore big, giant lion slippers, too. Just to get comfy.

I would like to add that this is the first time in many months that my son was willing, nay, excited to have his picture taken. He even posed and sat very still.

Oh - and I learned a new trick with my camera. I'm trying to trudge through the manual and learn something new at least once a week.
Today's trick is called white balance. You know how candle-lit pictures are always orange? Well, mine are anyway. Because I don't know what I'm doing. That is evidenced by the awful blur here that I decided was acceptable enough. I was not going to fiddle with my tripod in the dark last night. No, I was not.

Well, I told my camera to adjust the white balance, and see how different it looks? It's still got kind of a greenish cast, but I think it looks a lot more natural anyway.


All in all, a satisfying balance. In my camera and in my home.

DAILY BLISS: magic shell ice cream topping and sprinkles, of course!

Blackout Night (Lite)

First of all, thanks to Liz over at Mable's House for playing that little 7 weird things game. She posted her list today and my poor little blog has more hits than it knows what to do with. So, welcome visitors! Feel free to poke around my little corner of the blog world. I don't mind. Really. I kinda like it...

Most of you know that Wednesdays are my family's weekly Blackout Night. The idea being that we shut down electronic devices and turn off the lights, light some candles and have some quiet, together-y time. Sometimes we play board games, sometimes we go for a walk around the neighborhood and sometimes we barely have time to finish our energy-efficient supper before it's bed time for the kids.
Tonight was a pared-down version of Blackout Night (I'm sure you noticed, since I'm blogging about it and that's, technically, against the rules). The kids haven't been feeling great and have been picking and poking at each other and we've had a pretty crazy schedule, so we really needed a "normal" afternoon/evening where we got home from school and work at regular times and just did the dishes and stuff like that.
There were a lot of dishes to be done.
My hubby had to work a little late too. So, at the usual time, I still made everybody turn off their electronic time-wasters and we came into the living room and did some reading. Emma's really into a chapter book series called Capital Mysteries. We read a bit of one of those books, but Andrew wasn't too interested, so he turned to his favorite Calvin and Hobbes collection. That lasted for about an hour.
We decided, instead of a no-electricity supper, to celebrate National Men Make Dinner Day. That means take-out in plain English, even though the website says it's a no-no. So Chris clomped through the door at about 7:30 with supper and we turned off the lights and had a candle-lit feast around the coffee table. The regular table? Oh. It's piled up with Emma's most current art projects.
Even the shortened time we spent in the dark was refreshing. Everyone shared the details of their day and there was a comforting sense of calm and order to the routine of the evening. That's something we desperately need in this house right now.
Really, Blackout Night, stripped of games and fluff, is about connecting with each other and really focusing on the ones we love for a little while. And we did that.

DAILY BLISS: knitting progress - I still think people are going to get half-knitted items for Christmas, but maybe they'll be a little more done than I thought they'd be

Blackout and Baseball

Blackout Night once again coincided with something that required an exception. Our Rays have gone to the World Series, so we watched the game by candlelight. Well, um, my husband did anyway. He likes that kind of stuff. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once I wrested my children's Nintendos away from them and we turned out the lights, we supped on delightful spinach, artichoke, ham and provolone cheese (except for me) wraps and kettle-cooked potato chips. Those are my favorites.
We played a round of Clue Jr. - a game that Emma got for her birthday. Take note if you have 8-to-12-year-old kids, it was loads of fun! The mystery is a missing piece of cake (instead of a murder, of course) and you have to find out who ate it, at what time, and what they had to drink with it.
It turns out that I ate it with chocolate milk at one o'clock.
News to me.
But there were snickering accusations thrown around the coffee table in the darkness. "Do you need a napkin to wipe up those crumbs, Colonel Mustard?" "You ate the icing first, didn't you Mrs. White?" And Emma felt like such a real detective, peeking under the "pieces of furniture" to find clues.
We took a brisk walk (that's two times in one week!) in the cool-ish night and returned to candlelight showers and book lights for reading and bed times for kiddos.
Then it was time for the ballgame. As I was saying, I'm really not into sports. Not at all. I mean, once in a while, when I was younger, I hollered during a football game to impress a boy. I even rooted for the Atlanta Braves for a season because I was going steady with a boy who was a fan. I bought a t-shirt and everything. I'm such a poser.
What's a girl to do? I was trying to stay as true as possible to Blackout Night, so I didn't want to turn on enough light to knit (oh my - people are certainly going to receive half-knitted items for Christmas) and I didn't want to pull out my laptop and zone out. But I did notice that those baseball boys spit an awful lot during their closeups. By the end of the second inning, I was amazed enough at how much spitting was going on that I decided to count. I suspected, though, that as the game went on, mouths would dry up a bit and that was pretty much true. So, here's the rundown. In the third inning, I don't know who scored or anything, but I know there were 11 televised spits, and mostly it was BJ Upton. I don't even know what team he's on.
But I was right - things started to dry up. In the fourth inning, I only counted 8 spits. By then, I had started to nod off in the dark and boring land of candlelight baseball. So I made Chris keep count. I stirred at some point and he informed me that there'd been a comeback - 10 televised spits in the fifth inning. I was encouraged. Bolstered, even.
But the rest of the game was to disappoint. I got the final count as I shuffled off to bed. Five spits in the sixth, eight spits in the seventh and only six in the eighth inning and we ended things off with eight spits in the ninth inning. I had hoped for a little more action, but we take what we can get.
Falling asleep with a baseball game on, though, can do funny things to your head. I often wake up with strange songs in my head, and assume they are related to whatever I was dreaming. But this morning, I had (and still have) Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" stuck in my head. This made no sense, though it's an absolutely brilliant piece of music.
Then I had a hazy recollection of the back of a pitcher's jersey. I asked Chris and, sure enough, there's a Rays pitcher named Scott Kazmir.
Ah. That must be it.
I am certainly an odd duck. But it makes things fun.

Before Blackout Night:

BIG FAT EDITING NOTE: I just got out the ugly 8-ounce jars and found out that they're just 4-ounce jars. So nevermind on the whole 8-ounce special purchase thingie. Sorry.

ANOTHER EDIT: Four ounces gone...eight ounces left

GOING, GOING: Four ounces left now....

Before I have to unplug for the night, I wanted to let you know that I have a little lotion available if anybody wants it. I didn't realize I'd run out of Vanilla Pumpkin fragrance oil, so it's Pear & Aloe fragrance instead. But don't worry - I ordered Vanilla Pumpkin and it'll be here soon.
Anyway, I have 12 oz. available and if you want some (first come, first serve - just leave a comment here with your email address if I don't already have it) I'll put a special listing in my Etsy shop for you. I had to up my prices a little since my costs were nicely upped - 4 ounces = $9 and if you've gotta-gottta have an 8-ounce jar, let me know. I don't have pretty jars right now either. But I do have some that'll hold 8 ounces and I'll charge you a little less than normal price, which would be $12, since the jar won't be cute. Get with me (in the comments) and I'll give you a price.

Oh - plus shipping, of course.

This is my Dreamy Whipped Lotion - jojoba oil, sweet almond oil and coconut oil in a whipped-up, thick lotion.
And, Mom? I already reserved your 8 ounces. So, you're exempt.

Blackout Night: Ideally (Really)

We got back on track with Blackout Night tonight (Sort of. And reluctantly). For those of you who are new here (I know you're there....my stat counter tells me so), we try to turn out the lights once a week and focus on each other as a family, without the distractions of our electronics and such. It's not strict, but in whatever form it takes, it's always worth the effort (and it does take a lot of effort).
Once I came to a stopping point in the Christmas project I'd started Monday (I threw it down on the table when I realized I'd have to undo and then re-do half of it), we turned out all the lights and shut down Nintendos and computers promptly (20 minutes late).
We ate a well-planned, energy-neutral, health-conscious meal (That's a bald-faced lie. it was Chinese take-out that we had to drive out to get. At least Chris used his work car so I didn't have to pay for the gas....).
We really sank down into the peaceful feel of the evening now that the sun is going down earlier and candles have to be lit earlier (hardly talked to each other - we're so tired).
We pulled out the game that Andrew lovingly (and not entirely selflessly) picked for his sister as a birthday present (we didn't even get past the set-up. the pieces all had to be put together and it was too dang dark to read the instructions).
I decided to take several candles into the bathroom and wash Emma's beautiful, curly locks (because when she came out of the shower tonight, the top of her head hadn't even gotten wet. let alone clean). We talked some girl talk in hushed tones and I showed her how to use her new, sinfully delicious-smelling lotion bar on her knees and elbows.
We tried (with iffy success) to engage the kids in a bit of Bible study before bed. (Note to self: The whole "no man can serve two masters" thing might be a little heavy for right before bed).
Once we'd tucked the kids into their rooms for some quiet time (reading with a flashlight), Chris and I reveled in the chance to talk about our goals and dreams as a family (I jabbered like a raving lunatic, unloading all my stress on that poor, sainted man).
After it was time to send the kids off to sleepy-land (Chris had endured an hour of my endless yammering), I decided to retire to my cast iron claw foot tub and soak my troubles away (after an unsuccessful, 30-minute toilet surgery. if you have kids, you know what i mean. if you don't, make sure you lock up your toilets when you get some kids. i think they will turn out just fine if you make them use the bushes in the back yard instead).
What was in my bath tonight, you ask (okay, so only four or five of you are asking. and for those four or five, let me say that i hope to have some vanilla pumpkin lotion and maybe some pear and aloe lotion up in my Etsy shop by this weekend....)? It was a top-secret new fragrance I'm working on (needs more work) that ended up mostly smelling like lemons (which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the odd hint of black licorice that accompanied it).
And so, off to bed I go (having broken the cardinal rule of Blackout Night and turned on my computer to blog about it).

DAILY BLISS: baby lizards darting away from my feet on the sidewalk - they're so cute when they're so tiny! - and steamed rice with sesame oil

PS: To my grammar-sensitive peeps, I send apologies for the lack of proper punctuation and capitalization inside the parentheses. I just didn't think the gimmick worked with that many punctuation marks :)

Blackout Night Returns

With all of the mess going on around here (hurricanes, Dear Husband gone, school starting up, etc.), Blackout Night has kind of slipped into oblivion for the last few weeks. Oh, we've had a couple hours here and there with the lights off, but not a real Blackout Night.
I do not intend to let that happen often.
We are going to try out Wednesdays as our new night, since our schedule has definitely changed with the start of the school year and new activities all 'round. So, last night, just as we were getting ready to turn off all the lights, I heard the shattering noise of glass falling onto my bedroom's cement floor. Ohdearme. It could have been worse, I must say. It was only a bottle of fragrance oil that I use for making lotions and stuff.
But it was a big one.
It was the Emma's Garden oil and it had probably 12 ounces of concentrated fragrance oil in it, which was now all over my painted floor, floating tiny shards of brown glass in it. So, it was going to be a strong-smelling Blackout Night, which required the lights to be on a bit longer while we tried to get it all cleaned up before the oil took the paint up off my floor.
Some things are just going to be difficult in life, aren't they? I'd had a whole day of getting almost-somewhere and then not quite making it.
Anyway, I stuck my husband on Cleanup Detail while I put together our dinner - salad with raspberries, sunflower seeds and goat cheese with raspberry vinaigrette. I know. My kids eat and actually like weird stuff. I absolutely love that they proclaimed things in the gray-ish, fading light like, "Wow, Mom! This is a really good, creamy goat cheese! You picked a good one this time!" as they shoveled fork-fulls of salad to their mouths.
It makes up for the other weird stuff kids do.
Once fragrance oils and dinner were cleaned up, we gathered back in the living room for a game of Scattergories, which is becoming a family favorite as the kids are more and more able to think of words to fill out their lists.
And here's my observation about last night - Blackout night is usually this quiet, peaceful time of being unplugged, but I think a couple of weeks without doing it has really thrown us out of practice. It was really hard this time not to turn on the TV and not to check my email. Maybe it's because I was pretty tired and just wanted to zone out. I don't know. But this time around, we had lots of loud laughing and shouting and forcing each other to look up words that were on our lists because some of us make up words (not me this time!) and are quite sure they're real.
This time, it was anything but quiet and peaceful.
But it was still just as refreshing and deeply connecting and it still narrowed our focus down to just each other. Which is the whole point.
And once the kids were in bed, I went to my sanctuary, my bathroom, which was already lit with candles and drew myself a quiet, peaceful bath.
A bath without any Emma's Garden fragrance oil in it at all. Because, thanks to the oil spill, the whole house already smelled like peonies, raspberries and lilacs.

DAILY BLISS: Chatting in the car with Andrew - I love the time between carlines, when it's just Drew and me in the car. I know he won't "talk" to me forever, so I'm eating it up while I can.

Blackout Monday and Stuff

I promised my kids that we'd head over to Sea World on Monday. We're trying to make the most of our annual passes that we got for Christmas. Can I just say that it's hot? It's August for sure. And it's hot. Maybe not as hot as some places in the nation (geez, Liz! 110?), but it's nasty. "Naisty" is how you have to say it in the south if you mean it. And y'all know I don't like to sweat. You may also recall that I don't like crowds of people. It's not a phobia or anything, I just find that I'm much happier if I have a wide swath of personal space and nobody wants to shove in front of me to see a penguin. I'm just sayin'.
But there was a death in the church where I work, and a service bulletin to be printed, so I had to go in to work on Monday. I debated skipping the whole Sea World thing, but decided to go early in the morning instead. I mean, still-dark early, which is pretty amazing for me. I don't roll out of bed as a nice woman and especially not before 7:00 or so. But I did it. I went to work at oh-dark-thirty and came home, slurped up a cup of coffee, packed some lunches (I'm not paying for theme park food!) and headed to Orlando for a sweaty crowd fest. Ugh.
I took a soothing detox bath after that. And geared up for Blackout Night.
Due to scheduling errors, Blackout Night was moved to Monday this week. I didn't plan well for it either. I neglected to plan a no-energy meal, so I made spaghetti. It's low-energy, anyway. And sauce is super-easy to make. Just a couple cans of diced tomatoes (most of them don't have any additives, by the way - but I like to read the labels just in case - and they're easier to deal with than fresh tomatoes), 1/2 c. or so of olive oil, a couple cloves of garlic and basil. Oh - and kosher salt. That's the best kind.
So, I cooked up the spaghetti and then shouted "lights out!" And I really love how the silence just descends on the whole house. After supper, I hurried to the living room to spend a little time with Honeybee Stole (we've made up since our last disagreement) while there was still daylight available.

And I sipped a glass of iced tea in a leisurely way.
And we started in on a series of family discussions that my family used when I was a kid. The books are called Character Sketches and they use illustrations from nature and from the Bible to teach about different aspects of good character. We started with "loyalty" and the Great Horned Owl. The kids were surprisingly into it and we really enjoyed their participation in our discussion.
Have I mentioned that I love my kids? And that they're awesome? I have? Oh. Well, they still are.
Games were next on the agenda. Crazy Eights, anyone?

By the time we finished two rounds of Crazy Eights, it was time to shuffle the kids off to their rooms for their nightly quiet time and I tiptoed out onto the porch with my knitting, hoping to get through just a few more rows. The sun was going down and we hadn't had any afternoon rain, so all the birds and cicadas and frogs were just singing away as we breathed in the joy of a well-spent evening. I knitted until I had my hands nearly up to my eyeballs in an effort to see what I was doing. That's the point at which you must stop - when you are flinging pointy sticks around near your eyes.
Once I had to put my knitting down, I cupped my hands up to my mouth so I could talk to the dove that was cooing somewhere nearby. Somebody taught me to do this when I was a kid - I don't remember who. But it's fun and it usually fools the doves. If you imitate what they say, they'll repeat it back to you again.
Once I had exhausted the conversational possibilities with Ms. Dove, we came back inside to our candle-lit living room and I finished up a book and presently realized that I was very sleepy. And we hadn't even tucked the kids in for the night. Chris was also amazed by this.
Once those kids were prayed with and the younger of the two received the lullaby of her choice, I realized I was not going to make it any longer.
I climbed up into my bed (yes, I actually have a very tall bed) and went to sleep. At 9:00, people! That's unheard-of for this part-time insomniac. But it felt so good.
When Denise arrived this morning to care for the kids, she noticed that it was very quiet in the house. I think that's the first time I'd noticed, but she was right. It's almost as if the peace and contentment of Blackout Night had carried over into the next morning, which is exactly the point. I wanted this experiment to change our interactions with each other - to make us more mindful of our home and the people that live in it and the choices that we make about how to fill our time.

DAILY BLISS: banana oat pancakes for supper

Blackout Night #2

This is sort of a cheating post. It is blackout night, so I should not be here using a computer and all. But we had to cheat this week as Andrew and I leave for Boston (engineering camp!!) on Saturday. With all of the partying that this weekend required, I have not even planned or packed or thought about this trip and that isn't really like me at all. Especially not when I am fully in charge of navigating in a strange city and I am exceptionally prone to getting lost. I call Chris a lot and give him the names of streets and ask him where I am and how to get home. This will be an interesting trip.
Anyway. It's Blackout Night, but checkbooks need to be done if I am to start readying for this trip, so computers had to be on, so I thought that as long as I was here, I'd fill you in.
I nearly forgot that it was Blackout Night. I happened to pick up a no-cook dinner because I haven't been to the grocery store, which was fortuitous. When Chris got home he reminded me What Night This Is, so I felt very flustered and unprepared, but the lights went out anyway. And I was instantly glad that they did. We ate our deli chicken and salads in the semi-darkness as the remnants of thunder tumbled over our roof, from west to east it seemed. And we just laid around the living room, I on my side, taking up most of the sofa. Emma shoved the clutter out of the cove made by my sideways lap and climbed in. She just spilled out everywhere - legs curling over mine and head towering above mine on the pillow. She had root beer breath and whispered lovely somethings to me about being so glad that God made her and picked us out for her to live with and how happy she was about those circumstances. We cooed and cuddled and giggled. My coil-gong, key-wound clock ticked and tocked soothingly. And snores began to emanate from the Man Chair. Andrew accused Dad of snoring and Dad started awake and insisted he was not, in fact, doing that. I sided with my son.
A game of Wormy Apples was suggested and, though it's far beneath the gaming-skill level of our bunch, it provided just the sort of silly, half-dark fun that we needed.
But we were restless. The porch was full of mosquitoes and the dark kitchen was full of dishes. So we rolled around on my big bed and wallowed in our boredom for a bit longer. Children brushed their teeth and we read two Beatrix Potter books. With an English accent, of course, as that's the only way to properly do it. That Benjamin Bunny! I do love his casually arrogant rebellion when it comes to eating lettuces and bragging that he does it all the time.
I discovered our long-forgotten tripod, though. It provided quite a bit of fun for me this evening. I set my shutter speed as slow as it would go and my aperture as wide as it would go and clicked and clicked around the room and finally managed one self-portrait before I ran out of battery:

Very dark and moody, but so is my house. The lights are all still off, even though the monitor is glowing at my face. But it's still quiet. I can hear the gentle dripping of leftover rain outside. And now, I'll leave you to your own devices and return to my dark, peaceful, restorative evening.

DAILY BLISS: leftover birthday cake for breakfast!

Blackout Night #1

Okay. I'm calling last night the first Blackout Night because last week's wasn't exactly a solid beginning. And we all like to be offered a do-over once in a while, don't we?
Around 6:00, I went through the house shouting, "Blackout!" as I turned off all lights and electronic devices. That was kind of fun for me. The kids, for whatever reason, decided that the house now felt "cozy" and grabbed blankets and books and headed to their favorite chairs in the living room. I have to agree with them. There is a silence that seems to settle in when we unplug. And even though it wasn't even dark yet, since it's summer, there are spots in the house that are darker and cozier than others.
I've often heard people say phrases like, "it's an old house and the light through the old windows is fabulous!" I'd always hoped for that to be true when I found an old house to call my own. The thing is, my old house has precious little natural light. The old windows that I do have are shaded by the front porch and the carport and the new-ish (relatively) windows are all silly, slim, aluminum ones that work very hard to keep all that dastardly sunlight out. But one thing I love is the "changing of the light" (a phrase I think might be borrowed from Jan Karon's Mitford books) that happens in my kitchen window every afternoon at different hours, depending on the season. I'm often very busy during those late afternoon hours, but when I'm there, I always turn off all the lights and stand reverently, watching the shadows from the trees outside swing and sway across my tabletop. It's a table that was in my grandparents' house from the time they got married (or nearly so) and was in my parents' house when I was small and now lives in my house. My grandpa helped me refinish it when I was engaged to Chris. He never talked much, but made a point of demonstrating the right way to go about this task - making sure your brush strokes all go the same way and that there are no obvious stops and starts.
I walked into the kitchen to get some supper started and caught the sunlight glinting off the warm, gold surface of my table, and I didn't even have to stop to turn off the lights.

We munched down our electricity-free supper of whole-grain flatbread, slathered with Nutella and topped with strawberries in the living room, because it's got more windows than the kitchen. A few rounds of Go Fish later, it was time to scoot the kids off to their rooms for the evening's Quiet Time (that's what we call the hour or so they have in their rooms before Lights Out). It's an odd thing to wander around the house, unsure of what to do next. There always seems to be a way to fill up two or three minutes - check my email, read somebody's blog, turn on the news, sew up a seam on my latest project, and even though knitting fits the rules of what I'm allowed to do on Blackout Night, it seemed to require more light than I had in my living room after the kids went to bed.
But The Porch called to me and I answered. It's cooler out there after the rains have moved on and the sun starts to go down. I grabbed a stitch-ripper and dug into the seams of something that needed to be undone - something I knew I'd never get around to with all those other things to occupy my free minutes when they pop up. Chris grabbed his latest issue of Relevant Magazine, which he never has time to read, and joined me on the porch. We just sat there in the fading light and were quiet. Still. Calm. Peaceful.
"Peaceful" is something I need so desperately right now. I've been feeling a little off-center. A little frantic. It's all under the surface of my day-to-day tasks, but sometimes it bubbles up out of you and interrupts the peaceful visage you try to maintain.
I could get used to this Blackout Night thing...

DAILY BLISS: It's a little early, but I'm going to go with this little guy:

Isn't he so cute you could squeal??

A Start...

Hopefully, I'll have time to post a bit more later. Mindy always tells me that when I haven't posted in a couple of days, she knows I've been busy. Well, I think she's right. It's been a little nuts in my neck of the woods. But only in the best way.
I wanted to clue you all in to something fun we kicked off this week. In a family-wide effort to reduce our energy expenditure, be generally aware of how dependent we are on technology and electricity and, chiefly, to gain quality face time with our ever-growing, slowly-disappearing children, we have instituted a weekly Blackout Night.
I realize that this will not make a big dent in our energy bill, but it's the principle of the thing that's the point anyway.
This week didn't go very smoothly, as we had chosen Tuesday night to be the big night and that coincided with the weekly meeting of the Lakeland Chess Club, of which the kids' coach is currently president. I sent Chris and the kids off to play what I thought would be 30 minutes of chess and they came back nearly two hours later. So, disappointment abounded, but we will have another shot next week. And maybe we'll try for Wednesday night instead.
Here's the idea:
After a certain cut-off time, say 6:00 or so, we turn off all the lights and prepare a dinner that doesn't require the use of electricity. As it gets darker, of course, we will light candles. We plan to play board games and card games, read (this summer's wish list includes The Hobbit and the Little House on the Prairie books), and make things. Emma and I are both planning to knit by candlelight and the boys can do...well....they can find something to do. Then the kids can carry a candle (in a tall glass container, for safety's sake) in to their rooms when it's bed time.
Sound fun?
It was - what bits of it we were able to squeeze in by the time the chess champs came home on Tuesday. But, being Blackout Night, it is also going to be a no-blog night, which is why you didn't hear from me on Tuesday.
Wednesday gets a little more complicated, but no less fun....