HAPPY EASTER

"...Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time."

- Martin Luther.

Before the bustle and the brunches, the colored eggs and the chocolate bunnies, the new dresses and the dreaded ties we should all take a moment and remember what the Easter season is really about. 

Death. 

It is about death. And only when you remember that fact, when you reflect on the blackness of sin and suffering and death sentences does the glory and beauty and wonder of the resurrection truly stand out. 

So soon enough we will sing and celebrate. But for today...? For today we grieve.

If February finds me reading Jane Austen, March and April typically find me yearning for a little bit more modern British authors. Like P.G. Wodehouse, Rosamunde Pilcher, Agatha Christie. A few days spent reading about weekends in the country, afternoon tea, armfuls of daffodils, the lambing season, wools and tweeds and misty morning walks down green and deserted lanes and I am more than ready for the oftentimes slow in coming, most times downright elusive Wisconsin Spring. And I am also filled with fond reminiscences of the Spring I spent, 8 years ago now, in England and Scotland.

This week...

San Diego

...was citrus trees and birds-of-paradise, not checking email and not setting alarms, early morning mocking birds and late night tacos, tidal pools and sea lions, dolphins and rattlesnakes, ocean kayaking and ferry rides, oh so much sunburn and even more salt water...

This week...

...was phone calls from friends and a new hair cut, returning blackbirds and foggy morning drives, candlelight suppers and rosy sunrises, packed suitcases and early morning flights to warmer places...

Spoon and Level

This is the frosting I used on my daughter's birthday cupcakes this year. It is brown butter cream cheese frosting and I am told it was quite good, as witnessed in the photo below. (There being dairy in it I did not taste it myself. And it always makes me nervous to serve something I haven't sampled...) Working with it, however, was super rewarding and it's off white cream color, complete with brown butter flecks, looked quite lovely with the purple sugar hearts I used on top the cupcakes. Which you can see for yourself if you look back at the previous post.

The recipe for the frosting is below. A word of caution though, the butter browns very fast. Just after I had put it in a small pan on the stove my daughter came into the kitchen liberally smeared with chapstick and by the time I got her wiped up my butter was in serious jeopardy of crossing over from beautifully amber brown to burnt black. So in other words...watch it. Like a hawk. Like a hawk with binoculars.


http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2008/11/browned-butter-cream-cheese-frosting/

Birthday extravaganza round two...

This week...

...was pure white moons in pale blue morning skies and the first glimpses of returning green growth, hot air balloons floating low over our house and dinner out with great friends, birthday parties and birthday brunches, sledding and giant snow forts, daffodils and lemon almond shortbread- tasting of Spring...

Here are some photos of yesterday's birthday extravaganza... 

Loving her ipad

snow princess

my old baby crib that got a make-over

...and some photos of Elli's birthday celebrations in the past

we are 1

we are 2

we are 3

we are 4

“All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting to encounter yourself.”

- Gore Vidal

"It was the last thing I ever expected: to look down into the face of my tiny newborn daughter and see myself. Her dark liquid eyes, amazingly alert and surprisingly aware, focused on me and I felt like I was looking into a mirror. The features were so similar, more similar than I thought possible for a baby this brand new. But yet there was more to it than that. More than physical resemblance. More than seeing all my faded baby photos wrapped up into a swaddled bundle. There was something deeply spiritual about looking at my child and recognizing myself. 

For nine months I had been constantly aware that the child I was carrying would be a perfect blend of 46 unique chromosomes; 23 of them mine, 23 of them my husband's. So I knew she would resemble us, of course. I just never figured I’d see it so clearly and so instantaneously in the moment we first met.

Before giving birth, and despite the intimacy of having her inside me for so long, my child was a vague, shapeless, mystery to me. Much like the fuzzy ultrasound pictures I spent hours analyzing, I imagined her in shades of muted grays, with indistinct features and strangely opaque limbs. I assumed, knowing nothing but the inside of my uterus and communicating with what existed outside of it through a very limited vocabulary of swift kicks to my bladder and restless midnight acrobatics, that she would come out a virtual blank slate. Like bread dough maybe; with all the ingredience incorporated but requiring kneading and molding and baking.

However, I find that she knows exactly who she is. And it is I who am more like raw, unworked bread dough; suddenly full of doubts and questions and insecurities. Can I mother this child? Am I capable? Will I know what she wants, know what she needs? Will I be able to love her enough?

So maybe, it is not myself I see after all. It is her. As clearly as though I have been looking all my life I see her..."

I wrote this in the days following Elliott's birth. I cannot tell you which day, because what with all the changes being a new mother brings and all of the sleep that gets left behind the days blended into one. Indeed, since becoming a mother I am finding more and more that the years all seem to blend into one. My Peaches, as I call her, my once tiny-little-always-moving-rarely-sleeping baby girl is truly no longer a baby. Or toddler. Or in her terrible twos. Or threes. She is no longer even four. As of tomorrow. And on the one hand I find it incredibly wonderful that the small bundle they so naively sent me home from the hospital with has grown and flourished and thrived. And each day is becoming more and more a person I am so grateful I get to know. And yet on the other hand, I feel like I merely glanced away for one second and quite suddenly she is turning five. I have to remember and resolve...no more glancing away!

Spoon and Level

Behold the Cinnamon Raisin cookie. Dense. Slightly sweet and without a single trace of Oatmeal. (Or dairy or processed sugar or grains or eggs...) Perfect for these cloudy late winter days, with a cup of tea and warm, daydreamy thoughts of Spring...

*Recipe from http://realsustenance.com/cinnamon-raisin-cookies-glutengraincornsoyegg-free/

This week...

...was late afternoon sunlight and homemade pizza, fancy dress Oscar parties and lots of chocolates, early morning birdsong and coffee out with friends, lavender snowstorm skies and golden moonlight, handmade paper peonies and meeting friendly cats while out for a walk...