Valentine' Day

I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day.  I don't like feeling forced to do/make/buy something on a specific day and have that something be the symbol of my love/caring/affection.  February 14 is arbitrary and I don't like the pressure.  My hubby doesn't tend to remember the day, so we are even on that score.

Imagine my surprise to find myself mother to a child in love with Valentine's Day.  He loves every aspect of it -- the anticipation, making his cards or in the case this year, bookmarks, decorating, baking special treats, cards that he receives -- the whole deal.   Back in January when we were driving on the highway going towards Portsmouth, I remarked that traffic was heavy for a Saturday afternoon.  His reply, "Maybe everybody is going to the craft store to get their supplies to make their Valentine's cards.  Or they could be going to the sticker store to get new Valentine's stickers."  Excuse me?  This is my child?

On Wednesday as we were walking to the bus stop, he asked me if I had gotten him a present.  I told him that I had not.  He didn't believe me.  "It's OK Mom.  I know you did.  If you don't want me to look for it while you are at work, I won't."  The thing is, I hadn't.  It didn't cross my mind.  Clearly, I needed to get with the program.  I had one day to do it.  His teacher had put a note in his folder saying that all kids could bring a special Valentine's snack to school on Thursday.  Special snack, that I could handle.

I had picked up a magazine with cookie cutter heart shaped sandwich cookies on the cover.  I thought I could whip those up in no time.  After seeing him off on the bus, I came back in and went straight to the kitchen.  First I made a batch of blond brownies (blondies?) to take to my team meeting and washed the dishes from the night before.  Then I made the dough for the pink cookies.  I added up a bit of raspberry flavor to the dough.  The recipe called for dividing the batter in 3 balls and adding in varying amounts of red food color to get different gradations of pink to red cookies.  Forget that.  I made one big pink batch.  Next up was the chocolate batter.  I added a bit of espresso powder and liked the results.

While the batter chilled, I hauled out my cookie cutters.  I have 17 different Christmas tree shapes, 4 different sized stars, various zoo and farm animals, sea creatures, hands and feet, Easter and Halloween theme shapes...could I find a heart in among the lot?  No.  Now what.  I've got the batter ready and the butter for the filling softening and no heart shape cookie cutter.  On to Plan B.  Cook dinner, shower and leave for work a bit early so that I could run into the kitchen shop before getting to the office.  In the kitchen store I bought a set of pirate themed cookie cutters that include a treasure chest.  That seemed right up Selim's ally.  Valentine's present for him, check.

Valentine's Day morning -- Selim wakes up early and asks me if I want my card in bed.  He can hardly contain himself.  Where does he get this?  It is a mystery.  I drag myself out of the warm covers and go into the kitchen where I have his card and present.  He doesn't mind that I didn't have time to wrap it.  He is happy with my choice and I am glad that I did not disappoint him.  He gives me my card (a heart shaped fountain, what could be more beautiful?) and a big hug.  He is just the best.  I am spared the special snack not being ready because Teagan gave him a chocolate dipped strawberry the night before and he saved it to bring to school.  I stick a purple heart on the container so that he can find it easily in his lunch sack.

At the bus stop he gives me one last hug and kiss and races up the bus steps and makes his way to his seat.  He is convinced that this will be the best Valentine's Day ever.  I told him earlier that there will be a special snack for him when he gets home.  With no time to waste, I head back to the kitchen to roll out the cookies.  I simplify the recipe and only cut out two sizes rather than three.  The additional step of freezing the cookies for 15 minutes before baking adds time to this project.  The morning is going by quickly.  The pink cookies bake up and lose much of their color.  Oh well.

Since the baking time is dependent on size, I can't mix and match on the trays.  The whole thing gets way more time consuming than I was prepared for.  At least they are cute all lined up to cool.

By the time I get to the filling, I'm about done.  I have bits of cookie batter all over the counter and powdered sugar everywhere from the filling.  I'm getting tired of the project and ready for my nap. I can feel my anxiety level rising.  Eventually I turn the single cookies into filled little sandwiches.  Done.

It is already 11:00 in the morning.  I don't have time to nap and make dinner.  I call Nedim and prepare him that dinner will be his responsibility.  He doesn't seem too distressed.  I set the oven timer for an hour and stretch out on the day bed.  I find it hard to fall asleep with my mind racing and the sugar from sampling singing in my system.  Eventually I am able to quiet my mind and body.  I'm surprised when I wake up to the beep beep of the timer.  Switch gears from housewife Mom to working woman and leave the cookies on the kitchen table for my boys.  Off I go.

I am unprepared for my surprise when I open the front door at 12:30 this morning trying to be as quiet as I can so that I don't wake everybody up -- and find my husband standing on the other side with a single rose in his hand.  "Happy Valentine's Day" he whispers and draws me in with a big hug and kiss.

Quiet day off

Yesterday I had a much needed break from all the togetherness of the previous snow-bound three days.  I love family time, but also I am now accustomed to some built in quiet time that the regular school day provides.  And yesterday was my first compressed day in a month, so I had from 7:50 until 3:40 all to myself.  Not that I was counting the time during the day, or anything.

I had plans of going to the bank, grocery and health food stores.  But shortly after 8:00 it started to snow again.  I ditched the plans involving the car and decided to enjoy yet another day at home.

It was hard to figure out what to do first.  I went to the library room to sew.  I finished the quilting on the place mats for Amy.  Then I cut and sewed the strips together for the binding.  After ironing the big long binding strip, I pinned all mats.

There are times when I can multi-task and yesterday was one of those days.  While working in the back, I had bread rising in the kitchen.  It had been awhile since I baked bread.  I had to turn on the oven during the final rise because the house wasn't warm enough and there wasn't a sun spot to help the cause.  I got the loaves in the oven in time for them to bake before I had to go out to the bus stop and wait for Selim.

And while the bread baked, I completed the hand sewing on my two place mats.  I now have four place mats on the table.  Yeah!

When Selim got home, we realized that we needed to take a trip to our parish craft store for some Valentine's Day card supplies.  One benefit to procrastination is discovering sale prices on all things red, pink and heart shaped three days before the big day.  They had reduced the display area to two stands and the prime holiday space was getting a St. Patrick's Day make over.  While looking at card and envelope choices, Selim noticed a pack of thin 2" x 6" off white heavy heavy stock paper.  He hit upon the brilliant idea of making Valentine's bookmarks!  Woot!  So much easier than cards where he would want to decorate the outside of the card; write a message inside; and address the envelope.

Before going home, we made a quick stop at the Mexican restaurant in Kittery for take out burritos.  Once fortified, we took our supplies into the library room where he worked at his table and got a great start on his project.  He put a lot of thought into each bookmark.  He decorated the top with either a heart theme or he chose something that his friend likes and put that on.  One friend likes pugs, so he drew that.  Another plays soccer with him at recess, so a soccer ball and whistle grace that bookmark. While he worked, I hand sewed the binding on my table runner.  I was so close to finishing.  I have less than 20" left.

Over night the snow and rain from yesterday froze into a skating rink style ice sheet on the driveway.  But the sun is shining and it looks like it will be a warmer and beautiful day.  No excuse not to go to the grocery store before work.

Digging out

Digging out is a euphemism for hubby snow blowing until the machine no longer works well.  Yesterday he went out after lunch as the storm was winding down.  It was cold, windy and still snowing.  He wasn't very happy.

But he persevered and the snow stopped, the clouds lifted a bit, and all the neighborhood men mere out in force moving their trucks, trailers and snow mobiles.  The atmosphere became quite festive.  Selim got a bit ticked when we moved our cars and he lost his secret hidey spot.  But mostly, everybody was bragging about how much snow they had to remove and acting quite manly about it all.

Since I kept getting in the way of the snow blower arc, I went inside and baked biscotti.  

I channeled my inner sister as I substituted the heck out of the recipe.  Lemon, who needs lemon when you can use orange. Still citrus, right?  Almonds?  No thanks, I'll add pistachios instead.  Vanilla?  How about 1/2 the amount required and add in a bit of rose water.  And Grand Marnier.  Half way through I realized I was thinking of Turkey with the pistachios and rose water.  The outcome: delicious.  Even Nedim, my non-sweet tooth husband enjoyed them.

For dinner, I took inspiration from Robert and made a skillet dish using tofu, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and zucchini. I topped it off with some cheese and Selim did a good job eating it over noodles.

We all went to bed early.  This morning the sun was out in full force.  It felt so good to open up the curtains and the front door to let in the sunshine.  We started out the day with donuts.  Selim wanted chocolate ones, so I added some cocoa powder to the recipe I used over the MLK weekend. A hit!

After some chores, we headed out for picture taking.  I'm enamored of my compost pile topped with snow.

 

Then we were on to the last of the driveway clean up and hole digging.  

That was followed by cave digging in the snowbank on the other side of the driveway.

In theory, it should have been a great time.  But for some reason, all three of us had a hard time talking nicely to each other.  We kept setting each other off, even though we didn't mean to.  It was like the beginning part of The Little Brute Family.  And even though the sun was shining, we couldn't find our rays of good feeling for more than a few minutes at a time.  May be we were hungry, as we went out after lunch time, but before we ate anything more than a little snack.

We came back inside for our lunch of sticks and stone bagels with cream cheese, left over pizza and last night's dinner, washed down with huge glasses of water with ice.  Snow moving is great cardio.  As our stomachs filled, our moods improved.  Now Nedim is at the computer watching a Turkish movie.  Selim is making a Lego creation and I'm about to turn on the golf.  I can't resist looking at Pebble Beach.

And I can't watch Pebble Beach without thinking of Grammy Bev.  When we flew in to Monterrey as kids, the first thing we did was take the 17 Mile Drive and stop at the Lodge to look out at the water.  Then we would drive into Carmel and have lunch or dinner, depending, at Cassanova and eat our hearts out.  I'll get back there some day.