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This is life in our household today. Hope yours is as relaxing!
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| Geraldine attempts to commune with Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg |
~Anna and Hanna, Labor Day 2011
uneasy detante [photo post]
05 Monday Sep 2011
Posted in our family
Category Archives: our family
"Veg Mix": A Recipe from Kevin
03 Wednesday Aug 2011
Posted in our family
Cross-posted at Lyn’s Friends Feast.
30@30 will return next Wednesday, folks … I was up in Maine all weekend and just didn’t have the brain power to craft anything clever about my thoughts on parenting. In the meantime, enjoy deliciousness from summer in Maine!
Head on over to …fly over me, evil angel… for more photos from the weekend, if photos you so desire.
Hanna and I just got back from Hanna’s parents’ home in Maine, where they preside over an abundant vegetable garden and three chickens who provide lovely, lovely eggs (especially, says Hanna, if you feed them comfrey from the plants in front of the house).
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| Future summer squash. |
We eat well and plentifully when we are in Maine, thanks to Hanna’s father Kevin who does most of the cooking. And we always come home with bags and boxes filled with vegetables picked straight from the garden and canned goods — hot pepper jelly, strawberry jam, pickled beets, and more.
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| A happy hen (a Buff Orpington, Hanna says). |
We have more than one recipe on file from Kevin (the “file” being a blue folder stuffed with bits of paper — something that deserves a post of its own one of these days!), but I thought I’d share this one with you because it’s so good for using up summer veggies. We find that the amounts listed here are roughly good for a two-person meal, with some possibly left over for lunch the next day. Expand as necessary and improvise with the veggies you happen to have around. The scrap of yellow notepaper just describes this as “Veg Mix” though I think technically it did come from a recipe book at one point. We have also been known to call it “that tasty veggie squodge” around here.
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| Lunch at the Clutterbucks |
VEG MIX (BY KEVIN)
2 large carrots, grated
1 large zucchini, grated
1 large onion, diced
2-3 oz feta cheese
1/4 cup white flour
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
1 Tbl parsley
Salt and pepper as desired
1 large egg
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit and use olive oil to grease a 9″ glass pie plate or equivalent baking dish.
2. Mix grated carrots, zucchini, onion, and feta in a medium bowl.
3. Mix flour and spices together, then toss with veggies until coated.
4. Whisk egg and then add to veggie mix using hands to thoroughly combine.
5. Press into baking pan and cook for 20-30 minutes until the top begins to look slightly golden and crusty.
6. Serve hot, cut into wedges, as a main or side dish. Reheats beautifully and is also tasty cold.
by special request from the birthday boy
17 Sunday Jul 2011
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Dad suggested I share these pictures from a bike ride we took together around Loch Katrine in The Trossachs, Scotland on May 2004. It was at the tail end of a trip during which we had gorgeous weather. I’m not complaining about that, since it allowed us to complete the West Highland Way on foot without getting drenched. But the rain caught up with us on this particular day.
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| Loch Katrine is a water source for the city of Glasgow, so the only boat allowed on the lake is the Sir Walter Scott steam launch. |
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| It’s eerily quiet, whether you are riding it or watching from the shore. |
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| You rent cycles and can ride the ferry across the loch, then cycle back to where you started. |
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| This is where the rain caught up with us. |
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| You can see, if you look closely, the raindrops on the surface of the loch. |
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| We made it back in time for afternoon tea, and to watch the launch return! |
And a lovely couple who worked at the site gave us a ride back to Stirling, saving us the cost of a cab fare.
60 @ 60? Make that 100 @ 60!
17 Sunday Jul 2011
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I turned thirty this year which means my dad turns sixty. Today is his birthday.
Happy Birthday Dad!
He celebrated this weekend by cycling in the Holland Hundred, a one hundred mile bicycle tour sponsored by the Macatawa Cycling Club.
My family members know that bicycling generally isn’t my thing (though I’m thinking of getting in on Boston’s new point-to-point bike rental initiative), but — knock on wood — I hope my genes and physical activity will get me to my sixtieth birthday in good enough shape that I could bicycle a hundred miles in a day if I wanted to. With a little training, at least.
Here’s to many more happy and active returns of the day.
happy birthday joseph!
19 Thursday May 2011
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Today is my friend Joseph’s birthday and I just want to wish him many happy returns of the day. We’ve known each other for almost fifteen years now, and even though we’ve rarely even lived in the same state — at times not even the same country or continent — there were stretches of time when we were close to the most important person in the other’s life. It’s priceless having friends like that, and I’m grateful every day to count you among them, J.
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| Rabbits are a threat to gardens everywhere and must be contained. |
Joseph is working toward his PhD in horticulture at Michigan State and currently blogs over at Greensparrow Gardens, where he showcases his kick-ass flower photography, his gardening cartoons and (see above) his always-present sense of humor.
Looking forward to seeing you next week buddy!
from the neighborhood: spring cleaning!
01 Sunday May 2011
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This being the first weekend post-thesis, I had the urge to clean. All that stuff that had been accumulating over the course of the winter months that we said to one another “we’ll take care of that when …” suddenly felt like too much and just had to go.
Even though this is a tiny apartment, we’re going to have to tackle this in stages. Stage one was our closets, which basically double as our only form of storage apart from under the bed. In addition to cleaning, we also wanted to do the great changeover of winter-to-summer clothes and linens, putting away the flannel sheets and wool sweaters until next autumn.
Here’s what we ended up gathering together for Goodwill.
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| At least most of it came from Goodwill in the 1st place? |
And (yay!) here’s what our spectacularly organized closets looked like when we were through:
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| TARDIS cross-stitch courtesy of Diana |
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| You can see floor!! |
The cat was spectacularly unimpressed and thought we should be playing with her instead.
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| Unimpressed cat is unimpressed |
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| We agree with Gerry that playing string is more fun than spring cleaning any day! |
Up next weekend: book organization and the kitchen cupboards!
birthday week photo no. 8: anna & hanna
31 Thursday Mar 2011
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Entering my 30th year, I have a lot of things to be grateful to the universe for — and a lot of things to look forward to. I’ll probably have more to say about my desires for the future throughout the year, but for now I just wanted acknowledge how grateful I am to have Hanna to look forward with. I honestly expected to be reaching this period in my life single. Living on my own is a way of life that I’ve often enjoyed and never look on as a lesser way of moving through the world. Yet I am, at heart, a relational being who thrives best in intimate company. I was content alone, but at the same time aware that on some level I was existentially lonely.
Then Hanna walked into my life. And I found I wasn’t lonely any longer. Where she is feels like home, and with her I am at peace.
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| this arrived for me at work yesterday, from Hanna by xkcd |
So it seems appropriate to round out this week of birthday photos by celebrating that she is in the world and that she stands ready and willing to share her life with me.
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| wee Hanna (this is still her super-happy smile of pure delight) |
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| Mom and wee Anna (I now have more teeth and not all smiling involves closing my eyes) |
A huge big thank you to everyone who made yesterday a delight, and for all of you who make the future potentially so full of love and kindness.
birthday week photo no. 7: 3/30/1984
30 Wednesday Mar 2011
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| My third birthday (1984). It is now obvious to me I need to find another pair of pink sunglasses. |
So today is my actual birthday. Thanks to everyone who is helping me celebrate, near and far. As I’m writing this post, it’s only 9:30 in the morning and I’ve already had “happy birthday” messages from folks in three separate countries on two continents.
Here’s to another thirty years. Then thirty more – and beyond.
birthday week photo no. 6: and then there were three
29 Tuesday Mar 2011
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| Brian (5), Maggie (2), Anna (8), circa 1989 |
My parents decided that my projectile vomiting and incessant crying weren’t enough to deter them from increasing the family size, and in 1984 I found myself in possession of a brother — meeting him for the first time is one of my earliest memories — and in 1987 a sister (“she poops in the bathtub,” I noted in my diary — even at age six a chronicler of historical events). Here we are posing quasi-photogenically in our new flannel pyjamas.
As you can see, we grew up in a house in which there were never enough bookcases. Over twenty years later I’m proud to say that Hanna and I have pretty much the same problem on at least a quarterly if not monthly basis! Hanna just turned to me last night and said, “You realize one more trip to the $1 carts and we won’t have anywhere to store our board games.” I can think of many worse situations to be in.
birthday week photo nos. 4 & 5: anna + hats
28 Monday Mar 2011
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| when the world was still in grayscale |
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| this was my dad’s hat; for some reason I totally adored it |
According to my mother, the nurses at the hospital where I was born kept trying to put knitted infant hats on me, to keep my head warm. I did not react well.
Apparently, I’ve always had a good set of lungs.
Even today I’m not terribly fond of hats (it bothers me to have something covering my ears), so I’m kind of surprised that two of the photos my mother picked out to scan actually feature me wearing hats.
the feminist librarian 