That Peaceful, Easy Feeling

So my head, my brain, all my extra thoughts are centered around our new house. This knotty-pine covered, red-tin roofed home in the woods that I can’t stop thinking about it. This house has been a miracle. Its very presence has injected something into me that I can’t quite explain. Part hope; part direction; part easy, peaceful feeling. It just makes me feel calmer all around. And Nicole, too. I don’t think we realized how badly we both needed this/wanted this until it actually happened. It all still feels like a dream.

We are heading up today for the weekend, coming back Sunday, and then we will be back up on Tuesday night for the rest of Thanksgiving week. This will be our first Thanksgiving alone. Usually Nicole and I are the ones traveling to other’s houses for this holiday, so I am really excited to just stay put and take up this cooking challenge on our own. We had to buy a roasting pan and one of those turkey basters, and we still need various other Thanksgiving accoutrements that you don’t really think of unless you are the one doing the cooking. Nicole is in charge of the turkey and maybe stuffing, and I will make the mashed potatoes with crispy shallots and harvest vegetable dish. Oh, and apple pie. I really want to keep it simple, but that is getting harder, because Nicole keeps adding must-have items to the menu.

On this weekend’s agenda: Christmas card pictures. I am bracing myself for the nightmare of trying to photograph toddlers in dress attire and in happy dispositions. I am looking for nothing short of a Christmas miracle. Anything that shows them look in the vague direction of the camera with even a hint of a smile will qualify. We are doing it ourselves: I have a tripod and a shutter remote and a control-freak streak that won’t allow me to ever have anyone else do it for us. And my dad got me a new camera for [early] Christmas. It is amazing! It is a big step up from my last Canon SLR, with a much better ISO range and a faster processor. It is sort of a bridge camera for someone who is below professional photographer, but above casual photographer. It is definitely a camera I can grow with. But is it a camera I can get a Christmas card picture with, that remains to be seen.

The girls have their two-and-a-half year appointment in about two weeks, so cue the “where has the time gone?” laments. I need to talk to the doctor about Avery’s eating. Or lack thereof. She is beyond picky and beyond grazer. She eats almost nothing. I have a feeling this is because I allow her to have unlimited access to milk, with chocolate in it. The girls will polish off a half gallon a day. But Madeline eats her fruits and veggies and all three meals, along with her milk. Avery, not at all. I am not even kidding when I say that today all she has “eaten” is the ice off of frozen grapes: She sucks on the frozen grapes until they are soft, then spits them out, and pops a fresh frozen one in her mouth. Her old standbys (pizza, yogurt, wagon wheel pasta, etc.) no longer float her boat. She should be emaciated, but she’s still pleasantly plump, and that is a little reassuring. The milk, I suspect, keeps her caloric intake up. But I have no idea how we can get her to eat more. I know what the doctor will say: Cut back on milk and she will start eating more. But I am dreading doing this, because Avery loves, loves, loves her chocolate milk, and since she eats nothing, I want her to at let have that. And thus the cycle continues.

Speaking of picky, I am having getting a liiiiitle nervous about my own eating habits. I eat no meat but chicken and turkey (on a rare occasion). But lately I have been not really feeling the chicken at all. In any form. Nicole thinks I will be a complete vegetarian by next year. That is not the direction I want to go in, for certain. I know I can find protein in other places, but my palate is pretty limited to begin with, so cutting out chicken is cutting out a whole chunk of my diet. I have no idea why my palate is changing as I get older, but at this rate, I will be eating nothing but pretzels and caramel cone ice cream in a decade or so. Right now, I have some new food obsessions to take the place of chicken: I have hummus sandwiches every day for lunch with my roasted fall veggies (parsnips and carrots and turnips and sweet potatoes and squash). And I eat two or three apples a day. I love the fall selections! (gala and pink lady and honeycrisps and macintosh). And one thing I will never tire of is pizza. My love of pizza is singularly the reason why I could never be vegan, even if I wanted to. I eat it all the time.

Pictured above: Avery’s tummy certainly doesn’t look empty, but, alas, it usually is. And Nicole, sitting on the floor, since our furniture hasn’t arrived yet. It will take six weeks for the furniture to get to us! And here I thought it could be overnighted. But we aren’t letting a lack of furniture (or the rain behind Nicole) rain on our parade. And, finally, my beautiful niece and nephew.