On being June Cleaver

A few months ago I sent out a (late) birth announcement sharing the (old) news of Roger joining our family. Since I would be sending it out to a bunch of relatives and old friends that I don't have much communication with, I thought it would be nice to include a little update letter.

After re-reading a large paragraph about what I was up to I looked up at Taylor. "Honey. Listen to this--cooking, baking, sewing, gardening...Yuck. I sound so June Cleaver." His quick reply: "Well, Anne. You are June Cleaver."

And he was right. And that was OK.

It's funny because every time I come to my blog I see the Thoreau quote and think "This is the life I imagined, so why do I fight it so hard?" I think probably because the world today belittles the June Cleavers. So we find ourselves saying things like "I'm just a mom." How do we let ourselves do that?!

Taylor and I have traditional roles. Not as traditional as some, but still. He works hard all day for me, so I want to work hard all day for him. And for the most part that means I take care of the home--the food, the laundry, the bills, the bed-making, etc. It may not always be this way. Some day I may teach again (I hope). Some day I may get my masters' degree (I hope). But right now I am learning a whole new skill set. The skill set that contains organizing and decorating and budgeting and canning and sewing and, above all else, nurturing.

I try not to forget that it is a blessing that we can live comfortably without me needing to work outside the home. (And I say party on to working moms. I hope this isn't coming across as anti-working mom or anti-people who don't sew or make strawberry jam.) I still miss getting up and putting on one of my teacher skirts and feeling important as I walk through the doors of a school. But I chose this life right now. And I am happy to be engaged in this mission and learning this new skill set.

So bring it on. Call me June.

(P.S. Maybe I should change my header to read "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Stop fighting the life you've imagined.")

Pretties and links

This morning I am enjoying the pretty things and getting motivated to do projects.

I am still loving the simplicity of my May mantel, while getting excited for my state fair zinnias and glads to bloom so they can make up June's mantel.


I am making a wants list for my trip to San Antonio, which boasts some seriuosly spectacular shopping that I have been stashing money away for. On the list--peeptoes, a funky belt to wear with my trouser jeans, and a dress. In the meantime, I have been oohing and ahhing over this dress and these ones, too (no I am not pregnant, but I am really into maternity fashion, OK?).

And remember when I won a giveaway from Modern Myrtle? Oh man, she is the coolest. She sent me this fabric and this pattern to make a pillow...

and this fabric and this pattern to make Kimono Baby Shoes. I can't wait to get going on these! Thanks, Joni!!

And my friend, Jen, is going to help me make a skirt out if this:

Plus I'm headed to the fabric store to get fabric for a banner for Blaine's room. The repaint is finished (and thankfully I love it) and I can't wait to show you the completed room!

AND. Oh baby, Taylor's Grandma sold us this gem of a chair which is a perfect size for our living room which is in severe need of seating options. It is cozy, it rocks, it swivels. And it is a beauty.

"Make slipcover" has made its way to the top of my projects list.

More skills and why the blue house is a mess

This is why both of our cars are parked in the driveway.

The smurfishness of this room is what's causing me to lose sleep. (Repaint coming soon.)
Baking with this little sir is maybe my favorite thing to do.

and

Making this salad is what's helping me tame my desire to get on a plane to Utah. (Recipe found here.) (Did I really just link to a food blog written by someone other than my spouse? For shame!)

(Photos of finished projects coming (relatively) soon!)

I love progress.

I spent Tuesday afternoon at my mother-in-law's house. I was sewing a lovely little pink and white hostess apron for my niece, Katie, who turned 7 that day. (Photo coming.)

And you know what? I didn't have to ask my m-i-l one single question. Know what else? It didn't take me all darn day to make it. (OK it did, but that's just because I had to parent in between every little stitch.) I found myself feeling confident as I figured out the sizing sans pattern and sans model. I felt certain as I cut and pressed and gathered and stitched.

As I was finishing up, I thought back to October, when Danielle walked me through every step, helping me make my first hostess apron. I remembered how clueless and helpless I felt. And now I could do it all by myself! Of course, aprons are pretty much the only thing I know how to make, but I'm getting it!

Next I'm going to learn how to make one of Anna Maria Horner's wildflower pincushions.

Handmade Gift Parade Finale

This hostess apron for my mother-in-law was actually the first Christmas gift I made. My friend, Danielle, spent a whole day with me in her charming little sewing room (ocean-ish walls, ric rac in vintage jars, Amy Butler fabrics neatly folded and stacked... totally dreamy) during my longish stay in Utah back in October. I was intimidated by the fact that I would have to gather the waist, but it turns out gathering is the easiest thing ever. Danielle tought me some great techniques for cutting, measuring, pinning, and sewing straight lines. She was a good, patient teacher. And thankfully the 2 babes slept, and Blaine was occupied with the DVD player, Danielle's collection of loose change, and cutting his finger with the rotary cutter (this is the part where you roll your eyes and say, "Nice parenting skills, Anne.")

The exciting thing is that I didn't make those other hostess aprons until 2 1/2 months later, and I didn't have the measurements or pattern with me, so I just did it all from scratch. I was so proud that I could actually figure out how to do it again (with my mother-in-law's help)!

In conclusion--I am a slow seamstress. My work is not great. But I am heaps better than I was a year ago, and much more confident. And it's fun. So...if I can do it, you can do it.

The hostess

For Beth and her girls it was hostess aprons. Here is little Reagan. (Big sister Keaton was feeling camera shy.)

And Beth. (Check her out donning her cute apron in her cute kitchen. A perfect model of domesticity!)

(More later on how I learned how to make these cuties. I'm busy today scheming up some shenanigans for my brother's birthday and planning a run in in this gloriously sunny weather.)

Could I?

I interrupt this hand-made gift parade to bring up a question.

See, last night I was perusing some blogs to avoid cleaning my kitchen. I came across this giveaway (don't miss it!) and was totally impressed with Vintage Fern's mad design and sewing skills. I hopped on over to Anna Maria Horner's blog and was blown away by her creativity, her diverse skill set, how successful she has become, and how she balances family life at the same time. These are just two examples, but there are countless people like this that have inspired me in my quest to domesticate myself.

After I blog-hopped I finally got my second wind. I cleaned up the dishes from my split-pea soup dinner, wiped the counters, and took the clean laundry upstairs so I could fold in front of the TV, which is the only place to fold laundry. I flipped on the TV and got sucked into a few minutes of the Bachelor (which was a horrifying experience and a subject for an entirely different post). Taylor came up just as I was folding the fitted sheets (I hate folding fitted sheets) and I mentioned these fabulous women about whom I'd been reading.

"I'm just amazed at how creative people are," I said. "I mean, it takes me 3 hours to sew a little girl's apron, and they are mass-producing things, selling their wares, designing their own fabric, writing books... It is so amazing how much creativity some people are born with." But Taylor did not agree. He's been reading up on the subject lately, and he is totally convinced that if you put enough time into something, you can become good at it. "You spend an hour a day sewing for ten years, and you will be a great seamstress," he told me." "Yes," I replied, "but I could never just envision a fabric design." Then he introduced me to his card catalog idea. "You just need more to pull from, Anne. Think about this. I have read a LOT of cookbooks, watched a lot of Food Network, and done a LOT of cooking. I have more cooking cards to pull from than you because I have spent more time with it. So I can create a recipe more easily because I know which herbs work with which meats, which vegetables work together, and so on. I can create because of my experience and time. Likewise, if you worked enough with fabrics to know that a certain yellow and a certain red looked amazing together, you could create an all new fabric based on your prior knowledge and practice."

This really got me thinking. Of course it's the old nature vs. nurture conversation. But looking at it from the angle of creativity is so fascinating to me. Of course some people are born prodigies. Of course some people are more natural artists. I've long been skeptical of my own creativity. I could dance but wasn't great at choreography. I could sing and play the piano but could never compose. It wasn't until a college art class that I realized my painting skills weren't half bad and actually felt confident calling myself "creative."

What do you think? Do you lean more toward the nature or nurture side of things?

AND

Along these lines, you must read this. I love.

(above image from annamariahorner.blogspot.com)

And I thought apron pockets were for kitchen tools

Well it's a good thing I have handmade gifts to show off this week or else I would have nothing to blog about today except for the pint of applesauce someone (Blaine) spilled all over (wall to wall!) the kitchen and the fact that someone (me) set the toaster oven on fire. Thank goodness for sewing.

My sister-in-law, Jill and her two girls, Lizzie and Sophie, got traditional, full aprons.

Brown and blue polka-dots with paisley pockets for Jill.

Matching pink and brown for the girls.
And yes, that is Hammy the Hamster in Lizzie's pocket. How serendipitous.

To carry all her free groceries in

If there's one thing my mom's good at, it's finding a bargain. Here's a typical shopping report: "Well you wouldn't believe the deals I got at Macy's today! Their children's clothing was marked down 30%, plus I got an extra $10 off coupon in the mail, and if I used my Macy's card I got another 20% off, so I got two pairs of little boys' pajamas and it rang up to 72 cents!" (That is a true story. No fudging here.) She clips coupons and shops so smart at the grocery store that Albertson's ends up paying her to go home with their food. For real.

If there's another thing my mom's good at, it's being green. She is all about the three R's. (If you don't know what the three R's are, I'm going to tell on you (to Al Gore).)

And so I knew what my handmade gift for Mom should be this year. I found this gorge fabric at my favorite downtown Ashland shop (Fabric of Vision). I knew Mom would love it because she loves birds. (She loved birds before they were cool.)

And, with the help of my mother-in-law, I sewed her this reusable grocery tote.

(If there's yet another thing my mom's good at, it's posing for a picture. She taught me well.)



So there you have it. Let the handmade gift parade begin!

Getting all domestic up in here

So most of the times I've helped Grandma Tillie sort through belongings I've been dumbfounded at the "keep" pile. Like how many doilies does one woman need? And why, exactly, do you need to keep the peppermint stick from 1982 that is broken into several, inedible pieces? But whatevs. I happily oblige when the answer is "Well let's just put that back in the cupboard." (Btw, that particular cupboard totally smells like cherry cough syrup. Total mystery.)

Anyway, sometimes Grandma does toss a few things into a "For Deseret Industries" (Mormon church's version of Goodwill) pile. And a few months ago I helped myself to this little gem in said pile. It needed a little TLC, but it so happens I know how to use a needle and thread.

It's made from a towel with a citrus theme and even has a perfectly-ipod-sized pocket (probably not what Grandma intended the pocket for back when she made it!). Here's what is brilliant--an apron made of terry cloth. I'm obsessed. I'm on the look out for more towels like it so I can make me some more.

Anyway, I wish you could have come for dinner (yes, all of you). I wore my amazing apron, turned on some tunes (I'm currently obsessed with "Color Bars" by Elliott Smith), and made us some broccoli soup and didn't even use a recipe. Can you even believe that?! And then my niece Katie and Blaine helped me make these TDF cupcakes.
But since you couldn't come, I'll share the recipe. They are SO SO SO delish.

Combine 1 stick butter, 3.5 oz. chopped white chocolate (wh. choc. chips work fine), 1/4 cup honey, 2/3 cup brown sugar, and 2/3 cup milk in small pot; stir over low heat, until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; cool 15 minutes.

Whisk 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup self-rising flour into chocolate mixture. Then whisk in 1 egg.

Divide among 12 baking cups and bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

After they're cool you can do some fun stencil tricks with powdered sugar. The cookbook suggested using doilies. (Ironically, I have none. Apparently I should have asked Grandma Til to share the love.) So Taylor cut us out some stencils with an exacto knife. He is ridiculously good at things like that. Truth be told, the sugar on top was not that exciting gastronomically speaking. The cake is so moist and caramely and delish and you wouldn't want to lose that flavor in a rich chocolate frosting, but maybe a simple butter cream frosting or something. Play around with it.

and P.S. you are all totally busted for not adding comments on yesterday's post about what actor would play you in a movie about your life. Well except for you, Joan. You are not busted. (And I think Scarlett J. is a perfect choice.) Now you should all scamper down to the comments and join in the fun. Don't be shy. Don't be too humble. Just have fun!

Busy baking today

I got a new book.
Happy weekend!

Quick crafting and the Nielson Fund

Here is the creative outlet situation I find myself in: I have lots of projects I want to do, but feel totally overwhelmed by how little time I have to devote to them. So I have been finding fun things that fulfill my creativity need that don't eat up too much time. Here are three that I have done this summer.

1. Birthday sign
I wanted to do a clever pinwheel banner I had seen for Taylor's birthday, but didn't have all the needed supplies. Then suddenly one night lightning struck my brain and I made this:

Cut out block letters from torn out magazine pages. Easy and free and super fun!

2. Food clips
I had these on my Target shopping list when I remembered that I have a gazillion clothespins in my craft bin. So I pulled out a few of said gazillion and painted them a variety of colors. Now I ask you which is cuter. This?

Or this?

3. Vintage button magnets
About a year ago I bought two of these from some darling earthy gals at a Saturday morning market in Provo. This summer my mom let me sift through her sah-weet collecsh of vintage buttons (most of them had been my Grandma Hall's) so I could make some more. I could not love my fridge more--beautiful people's pics held up by darling magnets. Simple pleasures, you know?!

And this brings me to the more important part of this post. Have you seen DesignMom's great idea for a silent auction to help raise funds for Stephanie and Christian Nielson? I am joining the party. This THURSDAY, August 28th I will be auctioning off some vintage button magnets as well as a mega-wega fun surprise (look out blogworld, I have been sewing!). Please join me in this effort to help the Nielsons!

It's all part of Operation Domestication

Since someone has to feed this family, I made this. It was delish. Thanks, Stina, for the recipe, and thanks, Tay, for appreciating it. Blaine, not so much thanks for throwing yours across the kitchen floor.

Domestic Week Grande Finale

Aprons

This is my greatest feat so far. Pretty sure the last thing I sewed on my own was a hair scrunchie in 8th grade. (It had to match your outfit, and you had to always have one on your wrist like a bracelet, just in case you needed to throw your hair up at a moment's notice.) Over the past year I'd seen a lot of great sewing accomplishments on various blogs and decided that I should learn to sew again. Having been inspired by cjane's Apron Week last April, I decided that aprons would serve as my reintroduction to sewing. (An apron doesn't have to "fit" like most things, so I thought it a wise choice.) Grandma Tillie retaught me the tricks of the trade--she herself being a fine seamstress. She was an excellent teacher, and we had a lot of good laughs together--especially when I accidentally sewed the top half of an apron to its bottom half. No time to explain. Anyway, my first two aprons turned out great. Well, OK. Let's be honest. It seems I can't sew a straight line. So if you want to get all technical, it looks like I was--as Grandma Tillie would say--"on a cheap drunk" when I was sewing. But I am learning. The first aprons went to my mom and Cookie, my adopted Italian Mama. (I should devote a whole post to our story, Cookie. It really is quite something.) Here is how they look:

(Here is what I love about my mom: "Well, where should I stand? Let's turn on my new little lamp in the background. Shall I get out a prop? How about a whisk? I am always whisking something these days.")

(Doesn't Cookie look beautiful? Cook, like I told you in the note, I keep picturing you whipping up amazing feasts in that apron. Like the feast you made that one night complete with cornish game hens and lasagne with Uncle Sam's amazing marinara sauce. I am salivating a lot right now just thinking about it.)

And that concludes Domestic Week. Thanks, everyone, for your participation, and for making me feel super cool for developing skills like "bed-making" and "turning peanut butter jars into legume jars." It makes this large-with-child-no-clothes-fit-me-my-back-is-killing-me gal feel like a million bucks.

Domestic Week: Day 5

All right, so the grande finale of Domestic Week is still coming, but in the mean time I thought I'd show you some of my most amazing "skills"--teaching my child to say inappropriate things and laugh.

Dinner Conversation...

Anne: Aw man, I just washed this shirt and now I spilled risotto on my boob!

Blaine:

Domestic Week: Day Four

This one is going to make you giggle and say, "Anne, you think that makes you domestic?" But that's OK. It's super simple, but I think it's fun and worth sharing.

Here's how to procure matching, perfectly-sized canisters for some of your dried goods (i.e. beans, rice, lentils, etc.)

Step 1: Switch to Adam's Natural Peanut Butter. Now don't worry your little head. I used to think it was weird, hippy PB too, but since switching I have really gained a testimony of it. It tastes more like real peanuts, it's healthier (no added sugar, no preservatives, etc.), and it's 100% delicious. But most importantly for domestifying--it comes in GREAT jars.

Step 2: Eat lots of peanut butter (to empty out the jars, of course!). I like to eat it like this:

(Kinda boring, I know, but the babe in my womb keeps asking for it, so...) and Blaine likes to eat it like this:

Step 3: Clean out the jar and remove the label (it comes off easily after a nice long soak in hot water).

Step 4: Fill the jars with all your goods.

Now here's the thing. I had decided to paint the lids various colors with acrylic paint. But after painting my first lid turqouoise I decided to wash it off (gotta love acrylics!). It looked fine painted, but Taylor and I decided we preferred the vintagey and recycled look of the Adams lids. I may paint some lids next Christmas because I think these little canisters would be cute with some sparkly ornaments or other such festive baubles inside. We shall see. Also, my friend Danielle is a fellow Adams fan, and I have seen her use the jars as vases--very darling.

So yep, that's it. If you can eat PB and wash a jar, you can have fabulous canisters, too! Simple as that.

Domestic Week: Day Three

Here's a recipe for the tastiest spinach salad. I made it for a work party about a month ago and was thrilled to see our big glass salad bowl empty at the end of the night. Sorry I don't have a picture, but you all know what spinach looks like.

The important part of the recipe is this delish dressing:
3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons Worcester sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Here are the things I like to put in the salad:
spinach
tomato
red onion
mushroom
hard-boiled egg
avocado
mango
cooked, chopped bacon

And, if you want to make it a meal, serve it with some cooked chicken on top and voila!

I recommend lightly tossing the salad with the dressing before serving it because I think it is much yummier to have your whole salad lightly coated with dressing than to have a pile of dressing on top, attempting to seep down to the rest and ending up with some spinach leaves that are totally plain.

Now listen here. I'm feeling like a bit of a poacher posting three whole recipes on my blog this week. Be a dear and click your mousie here to leave a comment for Mr. Feed Your Family and be sure and tell him his calzones sound delightful (they are).

Domestic Week: Day Two

Last weekend we went up to Riverton to be treated to a delish dinner by our friends Alicia and Brad. I used to teach school with Alicia so we share a particular type of bond that is hard to explain but has to do with lots of things like sharing art lesson plans (we like to pat each others' backs because we teach Matisse while other teachers are teaching their kids how to color with crayons), complaining about recess duty, gabbing about what a great book Stargirl is, and rolling our eyes about the wicked-legislation-that-must-not-be-named. After a killer meal of Cafe Rio-esque chicken salads, we ate our weight in these cupcakes: The following recipes are taken from Cupcakes by Pamela Clark.

Cream Cheese Lemon Cake

6 tablespoons butter, softened

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel

2/3 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup self-rising flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12-hole standard muffin pan with paper baking cups. Beat butter, cheese, lemon peel, sugar, and eggs in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add flours to cheese mixture; beat on low speed until combined. Divide mixture amond baking cups; smooth surface. Bake about 30 minutes. Turn cakes onto wire rack to cool.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 tablespoons butter, softened

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Beat butter and cheese in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy; gradually beat in sifted powdered sugar.

Pretty simple. One trick I picked up on from this book is that you can make the presentation a little nicer if you bake the cupcakes in their paper cups and then put them in additional cups before serving them. This isn't the most frugal approach I suppose, but paper cups are pretty cheap to begin with, so I went with it.

We scarfed the dozen in roughly 8 minutes, so I think they were pretty tasty. Enjoy!

Domestic Week: Day One

It must be the endofthe3rdtrimesternestingtime, because I am in a domestic whirlwind. I am cleaning (even making my bed every day--that's big stuff, people!), prepping for baby (bought the cutest itsy bitsy diapers this weekend!), crafting, cooking, and baking. I'm having fun and trying to smoosh a lot in to the next few weeks because I am determined to not be depressed and stressed like I was the last time I had a newborn--worried that I was only nursing a baby all day instead of checking off various items from my to-do list. I am totally mentally prepared to pat myself on the back for feeding a baby and accomplishing a shower and change of clothes each day for the first two weeks. So anyway, like I said, I've been packing it in. Not particularly amazing things, but for a woman who is trying to domestify herself, big stuff. (I even had Taylor teach me how to make chicken stock today--and it looks beautiful!) So this week I'm going to feature some of my most recent projects. You already saw on Taylor's blog that I baked bread last week. Let me just say--that recipe is divine. It is muy delicioso and SO FAST. You should definitely try it. Here is something else you should bake: the chocolate cake I made for that funeral.

The recipe is from Julie Badger Jensen's The Essential Mormon Cookbook (by the way, I could do a whole post on "What exactly is 'Mormon food?' anyway, and how did some of these funny casserole and dessert recipes make it big in all of Mormondom?")

Moist Chocolate Cake
1 cup butter
1 cup water
3 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened baking chocolate
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a small saucepan bring butter and water to a boil. Remove from heat. Place baking chocolate in a small bowl and microwave for one minute. Add to butter and water. In a separate bowl sift flour, baking soda, and salt. Pour chocolate mixture over sifted ingredients and beat well. In another bowl cream sugar and eggs. Stir in milk and vanilla; beat well. Combine mixtures and pour into a greased 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 375 degrees F. for about 20 minutes. Cool and frost with...

Chocolate Butter Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium saucepan bring butter and milk to a boil. Remove from heat. Add melted chocolate, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Of course you can top this with chopped nuts if you like. The only funny thing is that--as I recall--my cake took a bit longer that 20 minutes to bake. So if you have the same issue, just keep it in the oven and keep your eye on it.

Happy chocolate-ing!

Winter Magic

Oh, and p.s. not only did I make that cute boy, but I also bake bread. Read it here.