Hazards of Moving

I sat down to write about our newly decorated dining room but quickly realized I needed to take a step back and truly dedicate some time to what all this renovation/decoration means to me.


I have moved a lot.  Seriously.  I haven't lived at one address for more than 18 months since I left for college - 20 years ago.  You do the math.  It's exhausting to think about.  


I've had incredible experiences along the way and am fortunate to have precious friends scattered all over the U.S.  But there are some hazards to moving too.


First of all, have you ever had a potential identity theft issue and your bank or credit card needs to confirm you are who you say you are?  Do you know how many years of previous addresses they have on file for you?  More than I can remember, that's for sure.  It's embarrassing when I can't recall my address from 3 or 4 years ago.  I have to take crib notes with me when filling out financial documents requiring my residence for the last 5 years.  And I always have to use the extra space provided on the back (it's even worse when they ask for employment history).


Next, you just get tired and ready to plant roots somewhere.  Especially with kids.  We've moved twice now with them.  Even with an enormous amount of help in our last move, it's not easy.  I want our kids to have friends and feel a sense of community.  Don't get me wrong - I don't have any notions that lots of moving would be harmful - quite the contrary, I think it's probably a wonderful thing to experience new places and cultures and learn to rebuild.  But would it hurt to stay put for just a while?  No.


Third (a biggie) - it's expensive.  Boxes, movers/rental vans, deposits, repairs, closing costs, etc.  I always feel like I'm in financial recovery from a move.


Another hazard is that no one ever has your current mailing address.  One of my favorite things in the whole world is receiving Christmas cards.  When you move as much as I do, the pile of cards begins to dwindle year after year.  The post office will only forward to one address and friends get tired of tracking you down.  Every year I'm on a crazy mission to get my Christmas card out before everyone else simply so you'll know where I now reside.

Side note - thank GOD for Facebook, Twitter, this blog, etc.  Say what you will about social media - but I feel so connected with my family and friends who are far away.  It allows me to share so much with them that I would otherwise miss.  We get to reconnect with old friends, celebrate joys together, hurt with them as they go through tough times, pray for them as needed, share advice, recipes, funny stories - and certainly not least - share the best and worst moments of raising kids.

But one final yet subtle hazard of moving - one that only dawned on me recently - is that you never really get to settle down and build up a collection of furniture or accessories.  It's best to travel light when you move as often as I do.  For years a lot of my stuff sat in storage.  I've even moved it from one storage unit to another.  Believe it or not, my storage unit moves were the most complicated of them all.  Most of all, you never get to decorate.  Other than slapping a fresh coat of paint on a wall or two, I haven't ever decorated a home I have lived in.  


When we moved to Houston, I said this was it.  I am not going anywhere again any time soon.  I'm done.  I love this house and I'm finally ready to make this our home.


So, with the great help of my friend and neighbor who is a mommy-retired interior designer, I have been slowly but surely putting this house together.  Pat too - he gets very involved.  And while incredibly frustrating at times (I am not very good at this and second guess myself all. the. time) I'm having a BALL!  I love to step back, watch the progress and envision what is to come.


We hung curtains last week.  It was a big moment.  I felt like an adult.  Curtains.  Oh, and what a difference they made!


If When we stay in this home through the summer, it will be the longest I have lived in one place since 1992.  THAT will be worthy of celebration.

Update

It's January - er, uh, make that February - still in the getting-it-together-for-the-new-year mode.


I have some fun posts coming but wanted to just say hello and give a quick update on life in the Fraher house.  Pat is gone for the next week - in Angola for work - so I should have lots of extra time for blogging!


The pantry is still organized!  Woohoo!  Except for the occasion when Fletcher turns a food item into a toy.

Or his personal snack.

These two are still the best of friends.  And worst of enemies.  I can assure you moments after this adorable picture was taken of Sydney pushing her brother in the swing, she was trying to yank him out of the seat because it was HER TURN!

Case in point (as they seriously test the engineering of a baby bouncy seat).  By the way, do you hear all that whining?  Like fingernails on a chalkboard.



And I've been trying to avoid this for some time but - Fletcher is finally learning to use a spoon.  Thank goodness we had the foresight to wait until the kids got a little older before replacing our raggedy kitchen chairs.  They will be beyond even Salvation Army by the time we're done with them.

I still have not perfected the lemon ricotta pancake.  I tried using less egg whites in the original recipe.  Nope.  The texture was all wrong.  Too ricotta-y.  Then I tried a whole new recipe - Bobby Flay's.  Nope.  Too lemon-y and not cakey enough.  I'm not really a baker so experimenting beyond finding other recipes isn't really in the cards for me.  But I found another one online that I think with one minor alteration might do the trick.  I'll keep you posted.  Thankfully I have willing taste testers.


No, Ashley and I have not finished Dad's Christmas present... the picture project with all the grandkids.  Maybe by Easter.


Oh, and by the way, Sydney is potty trained.  What I thought was going to be a long, drawn out, hair-pulling, tearful process was SO STINKING EASY!  She just sort of decided to do it one day.  And it's like she's been using the potty all her life.  She still wears a diaper overnight.  But not during naps.  She's done.  It's truly the most remarkable thing ever.  And I cannot take one bit of credit for it at all.  Dang.  I'm really grateful she waited until after the holidays to make this leap.  I can't imagine handling the travel with a potty training toddler.  I assure you it would have been much harder on me than her.


So there you have it!  Thanks for going on this journey with us.  I've been blogging now for almost exactly a year.  It's been a great joy and even better motivator.  Speaking of - I'm going to motivate myself out of this chair to take few pics of my latest project.  Some before and after coming your way soon!

Picture Project Nightmare

You may have noticed the super cute picture frame we made for my mother-in-law, Mamie, for Christmas.  In case you can't see the picture well enough - each photo is of her grandkids holding a letter that spells out her name, We Love M-A-M-I-E.  What you didn't see was the hellacious 4 months it took to pull this off.

Way back in September, my sister emailed me an example suggesting it would be a sweet Christmas present for our dad, Grampy.  Agreed!  She and I split up the letters in his name and committed to capture our kids holding them.  It was so cute - I would only be responsible for 3 pictures - and it was September, PLENTY OF TIME - so I decided to do this also for my mother-in-law.


The irony is that although the idea originated with my family, my dad still has yet to get HIS version of this present.


Anyway, what seemed like a great idea in theory soon became a living reality - taking pictures of small kids is HARD and only gets harder when you try to introduce props!!!  What were we thinking???  There are generally less than 10 seconds to snap any photo of your kid - less when you have bribed them into doing something completely unnatural (like hold a wooden 9" letter upright, not blocking their face, and smiling).  Much less trying to get angle and lighting all a gazillion other elements just right.  


I would snap hundreds of photos only to realize the lighting was a bit off.  Or the letter ended up partially covered.  Or the letter was too small in the background.  Or the only picture of the kid smiling turned out blurry.  Or that I accidentally shot them all horizontally when they should have been vertical!  TORTURE!!!


I think this was my first attempt (never mind that I later realized I actually had purchased the letter W instead of an M).

Sydney refused to hold the letter and when I tried propping it in the foreground, she'd just grab and toss it to the side.  I got this face a lot.

I had to get more creative with her.  Distraction!


Here Sydney!  Swing and smile!

Look at the pretty lemons!

Mmmm.  Cumquats!  

How about this mom!

Always pay close attention to your surroundings!  One minor angle adjustment and you get this... Roto-Rooter.

A couple of times, in my delirium, I tried to capture pics of BOTH kids in the photo with the letter.  

I think he's being threatened here.  Whether she's making it clear he should not cooperate with me - or never pull her pony tail again - I'm not sure.

Posing them for pictures on the stairs was not my best moment.  For the record, no child was injured in the making of this project.

Fletcher had been the easier one.  But once he got mobile, his photos became immensely harder.  


Good idea.  Fast kid.  Slow mommy.  Failed execution.

What made it more painful were the completely adorable photos my sis-in-law took of her four older and much more cooperative kids.  

It gives me hope.


Although painful, when we got this reaction Christmas morning...

...I realized it was all worthwhile.  I'm so glad she liked it.  Treasure it forever, Mamie.  Cause I won't be doing this again anytime soon!

Exposing Myself

I am about to completely expose myself to you.  Don't worry - there's no nudity here.  It's worse.  Much worse.  I'm showing you my pantry!

EEK!  How embarrassing.  

I particularly like this shelf... crackers, protein powder, some table decor leftover from the fall, bowl, tongs, a jar of pimentos and I think I see a candle in there.  Makes perfect sense, right?  Actually, it probably does when you have young kids.

Crockpot, more crackers, bags and Syd's LSU purse.

While the kids are a major hinderance to keeping the pantry clean and organized, I can't blame it all on them.  Honestly, when we moved in I just sort of put things in there with the intent to go back and organize later.  Ha!  Almost a year later, it seemed time to finally do something about it!

It's probably a project that should be taken on at least once a year.  I can't tell you how many vitamins and drugs I threw away due to expiration.  Or partial bags of chips or crackers!  They were everywhere.

And the duplicates - oh my!  Just last week I bought a can of green chiles for chili.  Turns out I already had FOUR cans in the pantry.  Just couldn't' find them.  We also have three jars of fish oil supplements.  Seriously?

Sadly, this peanut butter collection is not due to lack of organization.  But rather an obsession.  Peter Pan Whipped is Pat's absolute favorite.  It's not always easy to find, so when he does spot it, we get a stock pile of at least 4 jars.  

One of my New Year Resolutions has been to get a bit more organized.  Now, I'm not getting too crazy.  I am not following any books or lists - although there are many great ones out there and if that's your thing, check out my friend's blog who is getting seriously organized this year!  I applaud her, am cheering her on and can't wait to see what tricks she comes up with to make her home run more smoothly.  I just wasn't ready for all that yet.  I don't need any other reasons to feel inadequate.  


I'm just tackling areas of the house that bother me.  I am not a super organized person by nature (clearly).  Everything does not have a place in my house.  I'm ok with that and I think it would make me crazy to try and be that uber-organized person.  But I can do better.  So I'm getting organized.  But in my own way.


This particular project took me almost two weeks.  But only because it wasn't my sole focus for one day or afternoon like it probably should have been.  A little purging here.  A little purging there.  Trip to the store for bins.  Not the right size.  Back to the store.  Not enough.  Back to the store.  Still need more.  Need another size.  


And viola!  Look, NOTHING on the floor!

 Beauty and peace!

This "organized" pantry isn't winning any style or creativity awards.  And I still have a few tweaks... to add labels and change out those black bins at the back (I was afraid the non-matching bins would bother me - and they do).  But by and large, it's done!  Whew.  And it feels so good.  Sometimes I open the door and just stare in wonder.  Maybe I'm taking it all in before the kids destroy it again.  Sigh.  Now to just keep it up.  

Dinnertime

Dinnertime perplexes me.


Everyday.  Every.  Single.  Day.  Around 5:15pm.  The meltdown begins.  It's like the sun goes down and out come the vampires.  I'm usually in the final minutes of dinner preparation but no manner of snacks will hold off the starving children hanging on my ankles.  They want dinner and they want it NOW.


Finally we get dinner on the table and all sit down.  Only to have them refuse to eat and want down to play less than 2 minutes into the meal (after Fletcher has sufficiently mashed every bit of food into his tray, clothes, chair and floor).  The good news is that most of the time they will go play like angels while Pat and I finish our meal.


So let me get this straight.  They cry.  We put them in chairs.  They stop crying.  We put them down.  They go play.  We eat in peace.


Ok.


Maybe next time I'll try offering plastic food.  At least that way there'll be less of a mess to clean up later.

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

To continue my cooking spree, last weekend I began serious research to find the perfect lemon ricotta pancake.


I became slightly obsessed with finding this recipe after traveling to New York City last month and having THE best lemon ricotta pancakes here - at Sarabeth's!

These are practically the only photos I took while in NY.  They serve you 5 generous pancakes.  I ate all 5.  Twice.  Obsessed.

But NYC is a little far away for a Saturday morning breakfast, so I turned to Google for help and found this recipe to try.

Yes, you have to whip egg whites.  Yes, it's a little more time consuming than your average Bisquick pancake.  Hmmm - maybe a little too time consuming.... after tuning out 4,239 "mama's" I looked up to find Sydney changing her own diaper.  Oops.  I was in a zone.

This is probably not going to be a weekday staple.   But once in a while for a special weekend breakfast, it's excellent.

I found the pancakes to be a little too light and will adjust to only whip 4 egg whites next time to see if I can get the consistency right.  But the flavor was pretty dang close to the real thing.


I'm also slightly obsessed right now with the ability to cook multiple pancakes at once thanks to this awesome double burner griddle I got for Christmas!!!

Mmmm.  Got Sydney's stamp of approval too!

 

What's Cookin!

I'm not sure what got into me.  


Since we returned from Christmas vaca I've been on a cooking spree.  And I like it.


Not just cooking because I have to.  Cooking because I WANT to.


I brined a turkey breast and re-created the whole holiday meal (so not ready for it all to be over).  
Made Susan Spicer's shrimp and tomato bisque with homemade shrimp stock (HEAV-EN-LY).
Cooked a New Years meal complete with some if-i-had-a-southern-granny-she'd-be-proud-collards, black-eyed peas and ham.
Braised short ribs, roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts.


Even when I almost missed the mark last night because my protein hadn't thawed, I whipped up a delicious new recipe - banana bread pancakes - I found on Pinterest!  Because everyone loves breakfast for dinner.  And who doesn't love banana bread.  Mmm. Mmmm.  The kids scarfed them down and ate the leftovers this morning for breakfast.


And there are a pile of recipes just waiting for us to try.  One of my new years resolutions was to try at least 12 new recipes/meals.  At this rate I'm going to accomplish it before this month is even over!


Maybe it was my crazy month of travel.  Maybe it was being away from my kitchen and all of my kitchen things.  Maybe it was missing out on all the usual holiday baking.  Whatever it was, I'm having a great time and hope this season of joyful cooking lasts a while.


Sorry there are no photos to further torture you - too busy cooking and eating.