there are so many nice little happy things that have happened recently that have not yet made their way to my blog. partially because i wish that i had a photo to go with each one and sometimes i just don’t. so here’s one photo and lots of other little stories for you to enjoy.
{ the photo above is a small bit of my back door this morning. when i poured myself a bowl of cereal and headed over to the table, i gasped and grabbed the camera. it was the most artistic frost i’d seen in a long time and it covered the whole door in beautiful lines and squiggles.
{ on our recent driving trip out east, mr. happy stuff and i listened to the audiobook version of animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver that tells about her family’s resolve to eat only local food for a year. it was a great read! full of humor, insight and inspiration, we finished the book not sure that we could give up bananas, lemons or black beans (among other things) but willing to reconsider some of our usual shopping habits. one thing we tried this week was dried black beans instead of canned. the book points out that buying dry beans means that you’re not paying someone to haul water (in canned beans) across the country, using more fuel in the process. i’m game to try almost anything once and this seemed pretty harmless, although i’d been disappointed with past attempts (always too crunchy). this time, i cooked them overnight in the crockpot on low. in the morning, i added salt, cumin, and chili powder and tested the beans. the ones on top were softish, but the bottom ones were still crunchy. i left it on low for the rest of the day and came home to a crock pot of perfectly cooked black beans. only problem is that i guess i didn’t realize how quickly we’d eat our way through a one-pound bag of beans. i thought we’d be eating on it for days! but… with one pot of our easy black bean soup (usually 2 cans of black beans plus one can of rotel–tomatoes with green chilies, mash it all up and eat with monterey jack cheese, sour cream and corn chips. super fast, surprisingly yummy and satisfying.) we polished off nearly half the pot and i realized that i probably could have added quite a few more beans. there’s usually leftovers. don’t get me wrong–there are leftover plain black beans, but the soup is gone. now…. if only i had the patience to can homemade rotel….
{ we spent new year’s eve at our house with a few of our friends and a bunch of bottles of wine (which all tasted pretty terrible to me) for a wine tasting, a bunch of bars of dark chocolate (which all tasted pretty great to me) for a chocolate tasting, and a variety of savory dips (which may be why my first step on the scale for the new year was so, um, elevated. oh well, hopefully that means there’s nowhere to go but down?). it was very low key. in fact, everyone was gone by 11:30. the house was cleaned up by midnight. are we fuddy-duddies or what?
{ on new year’s day, i made a delicious batch of whole wheat flaxseed bread that smelled up the house something lovely and made one of the softest loaves i’ve produced in awhile (maybe not overbaked?). that day, a friend called to ask if she and her son could come over to my house for a nap. they had been doing some projects at their house that produced stinky toxic-y fumes and needed to get out, but they were soooooo tired… so i provided them with a nice dark room (shutters that close) and cozy heavy blankets and an aroma of home-baked bread. when they woke up, they each ate some of the bread and we all agreed that it was delicious. what could be better?
{ this morning on my way to work i discovered that my husband had texted me a surprise love note on my phone!
{ i had time at work to finally get to those “i’ll get to those someday” piles and eradicate them (at least until they begin to pile up again). woo hoo!
{ i hosted a puppet-making workshop at work today. 15 participants (including a few adult helpers) made some really fantastically creative little puppets and everyone seemed to have fun. i love a room buzzing with artistic ideas.
{ i’m slowly trying to wind down from the frantic pace of last season. i can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s no time to do anything, but i’m working on it. everyone breathe with me–
in
out
in
out
in
ahhhhhhhhh……..
