The Art in Life

Just the two of us.

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Hannah

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This weekend we got breakfast in bed. Twice. Which now brings the number of times in my life that I have ordered room service to a whopping four.

Last week was rough around here. It was good, as we looked at apartments, found a new apartment, signed a lease, picked out paint, booked movers, got boxes, and started sorting through stuff. It was good, because we started another Whole30, spent time with good friends, and enjoyed being back home after the holidays. It was good, as I did endless loads of laundry, lots of work for the upcoming semester, and actually found places to put away all the Christmas stuff.

But it was rough. All of the aforementioned productive busyness came with stress, late nights, tight schedules, tense conversations, budget crunches, big decisions, and frustration. James and I felt like we kept not connecting, kept getting things done, but having more tight-lipped conversations than is our norm. We kind of pride ourselves on being A Couple Who Communicates, and last week– we just weren’t.

This past weekend I needed to go to West Virginia to photograph a wedding, and James decided to come with me since I am a pregnant-fainter and long car trips with me driving by myself make us a tad nervous these days. I insisted he should stay home and get stuff done, but eventually we hit the road late on Friday night, rolling into West Virginia after 1am. In a final moment before crashing, we opted to hang the room service menu on the door, enjoying breakfast in bed before I rushed off to photograph the wedding.

And like that, the stress of the week started to wash off us. Starting the day in a pile of pillows with food on a tray is a very good thing. I went to meet the bride feeling pampered and relaxed, and James settled into the hotel for some work, followed by his version of a spa weekend: 40 chicken wings consumed over an entire afternoon/evening of football watching.

On Sunday, we decided to do it all again, sleeping in and then reclining on pillows to dine in bed like the rich and classy people that we emphatically are not. We were able to talk, to process the week, to relax and not feel like we should be boxing and folding and sorting. We left the hotel and headed back to DC feeling once again like a team — just the two of us. A team that will soon include a third, but will always only be as strong as the bond between its two original members. Sometimes a quick weekend away is all we need to remind us of that.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

DC Café Crawl

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Hannah

Cafecrawl-3 Last Monday I did a café crawl. I know that the youths are into the sorts of crawls that include progressive drinking, progressive partying, progressive unrestrained merriment that starts late and ends later, and almost always involve disorder, uncomfortable shoes, and no snacks.

I am not into that, any of it.

Thus, a sedate café crawl is more my style, drifting from coffee shop to café and back again, enjoying treats and warm drinks as I productively and aesthetically tackle my to-do list.

PARTY ANIMAL OVER HERE. Said no one ever.

But luckily, I have friends similar to myself, and my friend Rachel was happily game for a café crawl through some places outside of my normal DC haunts. We set out Monday morning, loaded with work and ready to drift about, munching and sipping.

First stop- Slipstream on 14th St. Cafecrawl-6 Cafecrawl-2 I loved Slipstream. It would probably be my top pick for “good coffee shop to settle in for a long time and enjoy good drinks.” The food was tasty, my latte was exceptional, and the space was cozy, but still bright and airy. Plus, we were blessed to sit next to someone who had the exact personality of Jean-Ralphio’s sister from Parks and Rec. By that I man that she was everything that is wrong with millennials. Throughout the course of our eavesdropping, we learned that she is currently unemployed, but has dabbled in acting, painting, bartending and philanthropy management. She now looks for new jobs in between a VERY demanding schedule of high-end fitness classes including spinning, hot yoga, pilates, etc. She is a vegetarian, and did not like the scone she ordered, which she rudely detailed to the server, only to follow her rant about how it “was just bad, you know? Like, I’m sure you know if you’ve had it,” proceeded to ask for a job application. She also demanded a new scone, insisting she liked savory things, before settling on a chocolate-dipped croissant. She referred to every male in her life as either an ex or a bro and she thinks she should just start a blog. She was fascinating and reviling all at once.

Which of course begs the question: how are all these coffee shops so full all day? It was a workday — why was everyone there? Is everyone a grad student or tourist? When do people work?

Around lunchtime, it was on to stop two – A Baked Joint on K Street. Cafecrawl3 Cafecrawl-8 Cafecrawl-10 cafecrawl2 Oh man. Maybe it was because I knew that a new round of the Whole30 was looming, or maybe it was just that I am weak, but the food at A Baked Joint was perfection and I ate all of it. Perfect sandwiches, toast slathered in Nutella and sea-salt, salted-caramel ice cream sandwiches — all of it. The space was big, much bigger than Slipstream, and Rachel affirms that this is her pick for “where to work and snack all day long.”

Following our sugar binge, we headed over to La Columbe. Cafecrawl-13 Cafecrawl-15 Cafecrawl-16 Cafecrawl4 It was cute, but the bar had been set pretty high by our first two stops. Still, points for them being nice and giving me a big mug of hot water since I brought my own tea.

Lastly, we finished up back near home at Bourbon Coffee. By this point, I was so full of tasty food and good drink that the scales were skewed against it being overly impressive. But I can still attest to it being cozy and comfy, full of good chairs and nice spaces. Cafecrawl-19 Cafecrawl-20 Cafecrawl-21 And thus ends the first DC café crawl. Till next time, when I continue making my way through the never-ending list of places I want to explore around this city.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged DC, restaurants, why i love dc | 12 Comments

Life hacks: You always have 5 minutes.

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Hannah

This is not one of those types of blogs, the ones that have it together and do things like series, where they post about the same sort of thing every Wednesday or whatever. Sometimes, I think it would be fun to be one of those types of blogs, the polished and shiny kind, but then I remember that this is the first thing that gets back-burnered when I get stressed (long before my line-up of CW shows), and I think – nope, not possible. But, I do have a couple posts on a similar idea that I wanted to drag along through January, so there you have it: Life hacks.

We all have them, those little things that we do to make our lives easier. They span across all different domains, from organization to cleaning to cooking to clothes and fashion. They are our own little tricks for working out this life thing in a better way. And it’s January, the month where we are all supposed to be striving for lofty goals and being better versions of ourselves, and I’m just over here thinking…. Does anyone have any tricks to share? Because I seriously doubt that 2016 is going to be my year of ACCOMPLISHING EVERYTHING, of losing weight (HA), funding retirement, writing a book, and remembering to floss every day. But what if each day could be just a little bit better? Enter life hacks. Over the next couple weeks, I’m going to be sharing mine, the little tricks, the shifts in perspective, that help my life flow better, and I sure would love to hear yours. Feel free to blog them on your own and email me the link (click the Contact tab up top), or just email them if you don’t blog. At the end of the month I would love to pass them on. Or, if none of you do that, I will go back and delete these last two sentences so that I don’t look like a friendless loser for future blog posterity. Thus, without any further ado –

Life Hack #1: You always have 5 minutes.

Let us not even try opening the discussion of who is the busiest of us all. This is one of the stupidest and yet must ubiquitous arguments there is. The busy corporate working woman thinks that the stay-at-home mom must certainly have all the time in the world since she is at home and not balancing meetings. The mother of three spending those days at home cannot possibly imagine anything busier than her lot, and looks down her nose at how the childless cannot fathom real busyness. The doctor imagines how nice it must be to have one of those swank teaching jobs with all the time on your hands, and the teacher dreams of one of those cush desk jobs where your work never follows you home. You all reading this blog might think that that Hannah person sure has lots of time to brunch and blog and cannot possibly imagine what your busy life is like and HOW DARE SHE imply that you have 5 minutes of free time in your day because you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT.

But you do, because you are reading this, and it will probably take you about 5 minutes.

Before you get huffy, before you think that I can’t possibly understand your life, I’ll go ahead and admit it: I don’t. And you don’t understand mine. And we are all living in our own little towers of personal experience that have their own pitfalls, but can we just get over that? This is not a judgment, but rather a statement that might just be true if you try it out, if you look at the little wasted 5 minutes throughout your day when you mindlessly surfed Facebook or zoned out on your phone. I know highly productive, organized, and successful people whose lives all look very different from each other except for one thing: they get things done because they find a way to make time to do them. And that starts with 5 minutes. (And the people who truly do NOT have 5 free minutes, they aren’t wasting time reading blogs, so I don’t have to worry about offending them. Like my mom, who worked, raised kids, and managed a huge chunk of property growing up. She is always wondering when my generation has time to “Facebook each other” and read random articles, and I always explain that we are doing those things while she is busy conquering the world. )

You do not always have 20 minutes, you might not even have 10, but I operate on the system that I can find 5 minutes to do something. If I am stressed and need to get things done, I will set a timer and then race myself to see how much I can do in 5 minutes. No time to clean the whole house? Set that clock and be amazed at what you can get done in 5 minutes. Overwhelmed by emails? I bet you can answer one or delete ten pointless ones in five minutes. No time for those devotions you swore you would do every day? Start with 5 minutes—time to read one short daily devotional or chunk of scripture. This is not a revolutionary concept at all, and on one hand, I debated starting with it as my first life hack. But I think it is fundamental, because it transforms your mind from one that says “I have no time to do ________” into one that just seizes time where it can.

This mindset is especially helpful for random house tasks, as those eat away at us, seem daunting together, and yet can be squeezed in throughout the day. 5 minutes allows you to switch laundry from washer to dryer, wash 3 dishes that sat in the sink all night, put away those 3 dishes later when you get 5 more minutes, make the bed, hang up a coat and toss aside a shoes, or wipe down counters. It does not allow you to do all those things. But by adopting the 5 minute mindset, you take on the world one chunk at a time, refusing to look at the big picture until you have taken enough little bites out of it to make it manageable.

Now then. You just wasted this 5 minute window by reading this, but may your next one be a breath of fresh air, a burst of productivity, and a chance to encourage yourself by tackling one tiny mountain in your day.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged life hacks | 22 Comments

Christmas break by the books.

Posted on January 8, 2016 by Hannah

Today I am heading back to DC after an extra stolen week in Kentucky with my family when James flew back to the East Coast last weekend. Even though my graduate school schedule doesn’t have the rigid hours of a lot of jobs, I still feel like vacation is ending and it is back to reality when I drive back to DC. For me, reality means reading lots of books and writing many pages. At least, hopefully many pages…. because I hear that writing a dissertation might be just a tad harder when there is a snuggly newborn in the house.

I don’t really get to read books during the semester. I mean, I read Books, Literature, Tomes of Ideas, but not books. I will spend a lot of the next couple months getting real friendly with Le Rouge et le Noir and Madame Bovary (Julien and Emma- you all were born for each other, and in my dissertation, I shall unite you at last!), but that will probably be the extent of my reading. I plow through audiobooks as I slave along to my Fitbit, but that’s not the same. There is a special magic of curling up with a book — one from which you expect nothing more than the pleasure of losing yourself for hours. My mom knows this, so every year she gives me one of my favorite Christmas gifts: a stack of wrapped library books that I request in advance, gleefully unwrap, devour in a binge of antisocial pajama-wearing on the couch, and then leave for her to return upon my departure.

And so, should you need some fluffy reading recommendations, here is Christmas by the books:

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel. This book was EVERY SINGLE THING I WANTED IN A BOOK. A flu that wipes out the earth’s population in one fell swoop! A Shakespeare troupe trying to keep art alive 20 years after civilization falls! A non-linear plot! Beautiful prose! Random dogs of significance! Definitely my top recommendation from this break’s book fest.

Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walter. In general, I trust NPR on all things. But my trust is now shattered, because this book was reviewed on “Fresh Air” and the review was glowing- gushing even – only for the book to be pretty bad. I made myself finish it, and it was kind of a waste. Should have used that time to enjoy my parents’ cable and watch reruns of America’s Next Top Model. But then again, I read it right after Station Eleven, so the bar was impossibly high.

We Were Liars, E. Lockhart. My takeaway from this book: there is nothing scarier than rich kids who don’t have enough chores in the summer. Give them a lawn to mow, some neighbor kids to babysit, and the world would be a better place. But, I also devoured this book in one sitting, which says that it was nothing if not fascinating. Not sure I liked it, but I was fully engaged.

We Are Called to Rise, Laura McBride. So many emotions about this book. I tend to like the every-chapter-is-a-different-narrator-and-they-will-all-converge-at-the-end thing, so I appreciated it. The ending was beautiful and emotional, and I am a sucker for anything with small children who have to act more mature than they are because the adults in their lives have screwed up royally.

A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson. Mostly I was eager to read this because I LOVED Life After Life (from last year’s book binge), and I just wanted more Ursula Todd in my life. It was good, with a destabalizing twist at the end that left me thinking, and well written. Not the magic of Life After Life, but a noble companion novel and beautiful in its own rite. I’m also a sucker for author’s notes that reveal some truth about how the author views fiction, literature, and reality, and Atkinson delivered, which made me love the whole thing more. (For instance, and for the record, I think The Fault in Our Stars would have been just a bland book with little to distinguish it from Lurlene McDaniel’s numerous novels about dying kids finding love if it wasn’t for the Q&A with the author that came in my addition.)

The Opposite of Loneliness, Marina Keegan. I mostly wanted to read this because I was fascinated with Keegan’s story, her tragic death days after graduating from Yale, and the posthumous publication of the essays and stories she had written during undergrad. They are beautifully written, but also especially poignant and thought provoking from a young girl, who writes with the honesty of a young girl, but with an extra dose of wisdom and talent. The short stories were all depressing, proving that it is far harder to write a positive and still worthwhile one than it is to crank out a disturbing one (I’m looking at you Flannery O’Connor), but the essays were wonderful.

“I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. The idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents! I want what I think and who I am captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortably tuck into a shelf in some labyrinthine library.” -Marina Keegan

Have you all read any of these? What are you reading now? I’m keeping a list for next year’s Christmas binge… and it’s never to early to start adding the good ones!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books | 17 Comments

The family photo dump.

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Hannah

If you have been reading around here for long, you were probably getting very worried that you would be spared the annual family photoshoot that I always drag you through in excruciating detail following Christmas (like these fine bits of memory lane from 2010, 2011, 2012, apparently 2013 disappeared somewhere, and 2014). But fear not– we dragged that tripod out into the woods as always and rocked our delay-timer photographed Christmas shoot. Family2015-2 When preparing for photos, it is important to select a color palette that is easy to follow and instantly understood by everyone. This is why I declared “muted woodland” and inflicted it on everyone. Some members of our crowd seemed confused by what that meant, and I had to repeat the obvious answers -beige, cream (obviously different than beige), hunter, sage, gray, chambray, tan, maroon, leather, denim — multiple times. But eventually, we were appropriately frocked and ready to whip out our best poses… Family2015-8 Like the one where we cluster in couples and pretend to be goofy, minus some members of the family who participate by not participating. Family2015-9 …Or the one where we prance around like the cast of Friends, strolling through a path not quite wide enough for us to all saunter arm in arm. Family2015-13 And Zach’s introduction of Liz into the family makes the sibling set complete! Family2015-68 Oh what, these old things? We just happen to have matching blankets wrapped around our necks as we toss our coiffed hair in a woodland clearing- NBD. Untitled-2 Ok fiiiiiinnnne- we can all admit that maybe Zach and Liz win for best interpretation of “muted woodland.” They are like a flipping Eddie Bauer add for love over here. But Lyman and Ruth win “best coordinating outfits,” and James and I get to have a baby, so I guess we are all winners of some sort. Family2015-57 The boys… The girls… … and the in-laws who have learned to tolerate our crazy pack. Team #winlaw forever. No one I love better than this bunch in their muted woodland finery. Till next year, O Faithful Tripod!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged family | 7 Comments

2015 looked like the Italian coast and cereal.

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Hannah

Last year James and I ended 2014 with very little fanfare. We ate vegetable soup, watched World War Z (maybe one of my favorite movies– don’t judge) with my parents, and then stayed up till midnight, not to watch that stupid ball drop, but to sit on the couch in our pjs and gaze at the slowly dying fireplace.

And we talked. Talked about how thankful we were that 2014 was over, since it was kind of the worst. Talked about all the uncertainty that was still ahead. Most of all, we talked about how we wanted 2015 to look. As I look back now, on the eve of another fresh start, I keep on thinking about how Instagram thinks my year looked at it’s best. Portraits in front of garage doors and beautiful travel destinations. I guess that’s true, but it’s not all the truth, not the richest truth, not the truest truth.

January and February looked like lots of trips to the grocery store and hours in the kitchen as we plowed through the Whole30 and focused on our health. They looked like desolate snowy runs down the Mall as I willed my legs to remember how to move and run and conquer. They looked like endless cups of tea and piles of books as I entered the final stretch of studying for my PhD comprehensive exams. They looked quiet and busy and unglamorous and beautiful all at once. They looked like health and restraint and balance and the gentle joy of making good decisions so that the bad ones don’t cut as deep.

March and April looked like more piles of books, and neglected house chores that James graciously covered as I disappeared into the final weeks of cramming. They looked like the glimpse of plans falling into place as we booked tickets for our summer adventures, but they also looked like long days an stressful schedules, work stress and school stress. Finally, they looked like 13 pages of completed written exams and spring blooming across DC.

May took me back to France, where every visit feels like surely this one will be the last where I am there just free to wander the city that I love. May and early June looked like the faces of the 12 students who met me in France, like the things and places we explored together. It looked like my job, as I have never before loved it or gotten to do it. But it also looked like the blurry Skype image of James’ face as we were once again doing weeks of limited communications, dropped calls, missed connections. Until finally, mid June looked like his tired face in the Milan airport, like the Italian coast that whipped by the train as we headed south. June looked like the houses of Cinque Terre clustered along the hillsides and water a color of blue that I had never seen. It looked like German mountains veiled in mist and Bavarian forests, dark and green. June looked like adventure, the adventure that we had long wanted to take. It looked like his hand in mine as we explored a little corner of the world together and reminded ourselves how much we love life this way.

July, August, and September looked like the smooth tables in coffee shops where I plugged along in my dissertation research, abandoning all that I had invested thus far to switch topics and centuries. They looked like family dinners in our tiny home, picnics across the city, and the constant hazy heat that cloaks swampy DC in the summers. They looked like guests and visitors and emotions — can something look like emotions? Tears can, and so the tail end of these months looked like tears, as I was convinced against logic that we probably wouldn’t get pregnant for a really long time…

…. and then October looked like 2 pink lines and 6 more tests just to be safe. It looked like the busyness of the semester as I prepared for my proposal defense, but also a blanket ever on the couch because I couldn’t go a day without a nap. October looked like Easy Mac and cereal and meaningful looks between James and me because we had a secret, the best secret. November looked like it always does — colorful and bright and too short. It looked like my reflection in the mirror as I watched my body slowly starting to change, both thrilling and terrifying. It looked like walks through DC’s autumn beauty, appreciating it all afresh because we knew this would be the last fall as easy and effortless. And of course, it looked like the pressure of work and school that manifests itself in tired eyes and weary smiles. The final scene I think of with November is the crumpled car wrecked beside the highway as I held my stomach and sobbed that my baby might not be ok.

But December looked brighter, because it had reassurance and hope. It looked like my tears and tight handhold on James’ arm as the doctor found that strong heartbeat once more. It looked like car shopping, and schedule juggling, and trying to get all our Christmas traditions in but failing. It looked like our little tree shedding pine needles all over the house the night that James dragged it into the bedroom so we could sleep next to it. It looked like my pride at my proposal’s acceptance and James’ satisfaction with his job.

And when Instagram generated that little collage of my year’s best moments, some of that is shown. Portraits that announced grad school milestones. Beautiful far off places that we have traveled. A bump that defined so much of our fall. But it only shows these moments because they were captured beautifully. What it misses are the actual best moments from this year, the moments where my heart was so full that it could explode, but they didn’t look right because they happened in dim lighting, bad hair, poor dress, or a cluttered backdrop. The dark bedroom where I shook James awake at 6am to announce that we were having a baby. The messy kitchen where we laughed when I made the worst meal I have ever cooked, sliding it into the trash and searching for snacks. The evenings where we cuddled on the couch to binge watch TV and giggle and talk. The fight we got into in the gardens in Munich that ultimately resulted in some important decisions long avoided. The way our tree shone in the corner while we sang our own nightly rendition of “Oh Christmas Tree” to it. The first time our toilet successfully refilled in under 20 minutes after years of bad plumbing, and our hospitality game went to the next level. The tears I cried with my students our last night in France where we talked about what that time had meant to us. It looked like hard work and discipline, fear and hope, fun and adventure.

These moments, these beautiful moments, would never get enough likes to make the grid. They would be grainy, and poorly composed, and my hair and clothing would most certainly be wrong. They are precious only to me, and even more precious because they weren’t documented and tossed out for others to validate and share. But they are the truth of how 2015 looked, and I can honestly say —

No year has ever looked better.

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Christmas happened, and the only pictures I have…

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Hannah

… are of this scrumptious butterball of a nephew opening gifts.Because he just couldn’t get enough of his stuffed doggy, to whom he kept feeding his beloved ball. chrisrmas2015-3 And every time I raised the camera, he would charge my way and try to lunge into the lens with the most adorable serious face. chrisrmas2015-6 Plus, he was at that perfect age where he was a pro at opening gifts- all gifts. Old enough to really love tearing that paper, but not so old that he felt territorial about whatever was inside. He helped all of us open our gifts, gleefully loosening paper and grinning at the object, and then wandering off to take another dive at the Christmas tree or smother something in hugs. chrisrmas2015-10 BABY IN ADULT SHOES AND FOOTIE PAJAMAS. I can’t even deal. And this hat, that he gleefully would pull over his eyes and then dance around like he had discovered the most magical thing ever, which in turn created the most magical thing ever. But really, the best part was watching my family with baby William, the first baby of the family, the one who might just have “baby” attached to his name until he gets married. That kid knew that every person in that house was ready to play, to throw him in the air, to share their toys and laugh at his antics. Watching everyone made me so thrilled to be bringing a baby into this family, full of uncles, aunts, grandparents, and one round-bellied cousin who already love him or her. I can’t wait to have a baby to toss into the middle of this crazy pack of people I love, knowing they will be caught by many sets of loving arms.

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This & That from Christmas.

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Hannah

Merry Christmas Eve!

Oh wait… Merry 4th Day of Christmas! I typed the first line of this post on Christmas Eve and then never made it back to finish because PRIORITIES. Like finishing shopping and wrapping and watching Elf (again) and singing carols and eating as many donuts as I could handle. I am kind of a wrapping glutton, so I might have convinced most of my in-laws to let me wrap their gifts, which meant we turned the couch and I hid behind it wrapping while the others watched Christmas movies because my middle child FOMO absolutely does not want to be left out, but needs Christmas secrecy. It also meant that everyone got to be surprised Christmas morning, as they might remember what they bought…. but had no clue what it looked like wrapped.

Our Christmas break is always a little zany, because we just can’t handle making the trek from the East Coast to the middle of the country without hitting both sets of families. Thus, we did an early Christmas in Kentucky with my family, then made the drive up to Indiana for Christmas day with James’ family, then it will be back to Kentucky for me to mooch on my parents’ food and TV while James flies back to DC. Tis the season and tis the life.

But should you find yourself munching on leftovers in your fat pants (oh, is that just me?), here are some this and that to keep you company.

This year I bought a gift card before coming to Indiana and declared that the whole visit we would keep track of who won every sort of competition and the final winner got the card. Because nothing says family fun like cutthroat competition that has a target prize. James’ sister and her husband brought two awesome new games and we are now thoroughly obsessed with this real estate game and this “perfected” version of Apples to Apples that turns it into what we all really wanted it to be anyways. Even the supposed game hater among us (cough… James… cough) loved both.

The 12 days of Christmas have JUST begun, so it is officially time to start singing those carols, but only the ones that are any good.

Because as the Williams-Sonoma catalog teaches us, “You must SING! Yes, you must join hands with your gorgeous WASP children and sing carols in perfect harmony aloud for all to hear, so that the rest of world knows the truth: that their lives are poop* and you, good friend, live among the holiday gods, in an evergreen paradise scented with luscious peppermint oils and laden with soup tureens and festooned with garlands sewn from the skinned corpse of a dead swan.” * Language edited since my granny occasionally remembers the url to this blog and stops in, but be forewarned if you go read for yourself.

Every time I come home, I basically turn into a back home baller, and I bet you do too.

As we think about having a kid (I can feel it now…. your fear that this will become a mommy blog…), I loved this article about the rise of “mama” and what it says about motherhood culture.

But maybe you should be scared, since this exists, and I may overload you with blog posts that show my child as a penguin. An organic penguin at that.

Christmas break is when I do all my best reading. I DEVOURED this book over the weekend and have spent almost all my energy the past 24 hours reflecting on how to survive a pandemic. The answer: Shakespeare and comics. James is reading this book, and I read a couple of essays out loud while he did dishes last night, laughing and crying. For any fathers-to-be, I couldn’t recommend it enough. And thank you all for your suggestions on my last post! Both of things to read, and things to ignore.

Photo at the top from this article about the peace of winter walks in the forest… hoping that some snow will come to the East Coast when we make it back in January!

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16 weeks.

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Hannah

Well, well, well, what have we here?

A BABY. A BABY IS WHAT WE HAVE HERE. Ok, well not exactly here, but on the way, because in the beginning of June we will be welcoming a little baby into this world! For those of you good at math – which is not me, since I routinely get confused about how long this gestating thing has been happening/will continue – this means that we are 16 weeks a long with approximately a million to go, which is simultaneously forever and not nearly enough time.

When we found out I was pregnant this fall, it took a long while for it to set in. So many people that we know, that we love, with whom we have wept and prayed, have walked the painful road of miscarriage and infertility, pain and loss. I spent the first weeks just waiting for it to happen, absolutely certain that something would go wrong, that this little soul wouldn’t make it. I lived every day with the phrase running through my head that I had no right to have this baby. That sounds awful to say, but it’s how I felt. I Googled everything that could go wrong until I was finally a tearful stressed-out pile in my doctor’s office and she officially banned me from any research until much later in the pregnancy.

And so in truly uncharacteristic form for me, I backed away from being prepared at being pregnant with everything in me. I stopped researching, stopped planning, stopped stressing and slowly let excitement swell up, timid at first but then rushing and strong. This is happening. This is real. That little heartbeat that sounds like a butterfly brushing against a microphone is alive and strong. I have no right to it, but it’s not about my rights- it’s about a strong life that exists.

This baby was the unspoken force behind so much of this fall. I was smugly convinced that I would be the pregnant woman with zero symptoms who breezed through pregnancy on a steady diet of vegetables and pretense. This lasted approximately 2 weeks, until I got dizzy in the middle of teaching, sprinted to the disgusting public restroom, and passed out on the floor. The next day I woke up and realize that the mere though of consuming a vegetable repulsed me. Broccoli? I hate you. The four cups of spinach I had been sautéing for breakfast? Disgusting. Cooking balanced meals? I would rather die. I started stumbling from bed straight to the cereal and keeping massive amounts of Easy Mac in my desk at work. Yes, I wanted to eat healthy, but SURVIVAL.

But beyond taking vitamins to offset my terrible diet of processed carbs and dutifully showing up to my doctor appointments… I am the worst pregnant woman ever. Have we done any research? No. Have we read any books? No. Do I even have that app that tells me what size of fruit or vegetable corresponds to my baby’s growth? No. Do we have names or plans or any clue how we are going to negotiate childcare? No, no, no. Did I Google “Old Wives tales to predict gender?” Ok, so actually yes to that last one. But I’m pretty sure that the very nature of research is that it is supposed to be the exact opposite.

Instead, we have been car shopping. And dissertation researching. And apartment hunting. And holding hands on the couch and staring at our tiny tree and imagining everything that will change. And doing all those million tiny things of life that become more pressing when you realize that a new little soul will be coming into your world. Because all those things like cars and apartments and dissertations both pale in importance, and take on a new importance.

Because this baby is already pretty important in our lives, as unreal as he or she still seems.

PS: But for real- I should probably read a book sometime, so like, is there some book or something that tells us what we are supposed to be doing? Because the blind are leading the blind over here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged baby | 88 Comments

Whole30 Sweet Potato Casserole [with bacon and candied pecans]

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Hannah

Let’s talk about Christmas cookies. And cakes. And pies. And potluck dinners with mac n’ cheese. And Christmas parties with multitudes of tiny finger foods that pile up on your plate until you have eaten your weight in pigs-in-a-blanket. Hello December, you taste delicious. Earlier this week someone left a bunch of Christmas cookies at our house and here was my logic:

These cookies are bad for me.
I should eat vegetables.
But first the cookies must disappear.
So I should eat them all now, for breakfast, so that they aren’t a temptation later.
Lunch is here. WHERE ARE MY COOKIES AND WHY DID I EAT THEM ALL AT ONCE?
Do we have any peanut brittle left?

What’s that, you are of the same rationalizing sort as me? Welcome to being human.

Yet somewhere in that delicious haze of frosted snowmen and buckeyes, I decided that there needed to be a couple healthy meals in the middle of our weeks. After so long of doing mostly clean eating following our Whole30, we have fallen soundly off the wagon this fall. I just got tired, tired of planning, chopping endless veggies, reading labels – the works. I know that’s not an excuse, but it is reality. Of course, I simply do not feel as awesome when I live off of cookies- this is also reality. So this month, we have worked a couple Whole30 meals back into our rotation. Nothing fancy, just some simple comfort food. We had a Friendsgiving right before actual Thanksgiving, and a friend of mine made the tastiest sweet potato casserole. I love all sweet potato casseroles, but this one was extra good because it wasn’t too sweet. It was topped with crispy pecans and bacon instead of marshmallows, making it a much better savory side than the standard fare. When she passed on the recipe, I realized that I could make it compliant pretty easily, and voilà — something clean that still tastes just a little bit like all the decadence that is December. Whole30 Sweet Potato Casserole with “Candied” Pecans and Bacon

4-5 large sweet potatoes
about 6 TBS ghee (or butter if you are eating clean, but not Whole30)
1/2 cup coconut milk (the thicker and creamier the better!)
2/3 cup pecans, chopped
4 pieces compliant sugar-free bacon (plus a 5th to eat before it makes it to the casserole… because we all know it’s inevitable)
nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger to taste
2 TBS coconut sugar (omit if doing strict Whole30)

Cook bacon, crumble and set aside.
Mix 1 TBS coconut sugar and spices to taste. In another bowl, melt 2 TBS ghee. Stir pecans into butter and then rub sugar and spice mixture on them. Set aside.
Peel and cube sweet potatoes. Boil and mash.
Stir cream, 4 TBS ghee, spices (to taste- I just used a tad), and sugar if using into mashed sweet potatoes.
Spread into greased dish and top with nuts.
Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Add bacon and bake for 4 more.

You know you were just dying for me to drag my dinner under the tree for a pic, right? Tis the season.

PS: At the risk of totally undoing any healthy image I created with this post… you should make these. And then eat them all.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cooking, Whole30 | 2 Comments