Daffodils

My favorite flowers are daffodils and peonies. The peony is a favorite because it is big and beautiful and can add drama or romance or simple grace to a room but the daffodil is a simple flower. It is the flower of my homeland and to see a sea of yellow flowers blowing gently in the wind, always makes me happy. The yellow cannot help but cheer you up. Today I was at my local favorite store and there was a bucket of daffodils just waiting for me to purchase them. Perhaps Spring is not that far away after all.

Mini Boden wish list

Some items I spied for Alexandra! I love Boden because their clothes last and last. I am also ready to put some lighter clothes on my little girl.






All Items available here

My Nigella Chicken

This has become a staple in our house - Nigella Lawsons Buttermilk roast Chicken. My son loves it and often requests it. I love that I throw all the ingredients in a bag the night before and time and buttermilk does the rest. Dinner then involves me throwing the chicken in the oven for 40 minutes and making a salad or potatoes or both!

Recipe available here

A classic Martha Valentine

I made these last year and will be melting crayons again here pretty soon. A very simple craft but one that has much impact. My daughter loves to see them hanging in the window and I love to see my daughter happy. So voila

Image and details here

Martha gets us organized!

Today's Martha Stewart Organizing tip was one that I really needed. It was a list of '100 reasons to get rid of it'. Originally published in Blueprint magazine (sigh, I still miss you) it is basically a rebuttal to 100 reasons to keep it. Reading it makes me feel steadfast in my resolve to get rid of the crushing amount of stuff that lives in my home. I crave simplicity but it is not just going to happen. Great examples are number 2. People burn 55 minutes a day looking for things and number 3. 80 percent of what we own we never use.

The full list can be found here

I need to print it out and keep it somewhere prominent so it will spur me on when my willpower flags!

Enough with magazine killings!

and now Domino goes to that magazine stand in the sky. Enough already. In the past few months I have had to say goodbye to Cottage Living, Country Home and today Domino. Yikes. Since they all blame our current economic plight, perhaps it would be a good time to bring back Budget Living. I love my magazines and it really hurts to see so much beauty go by the wayside. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Bake it Pretty

Another place that can suck up my time. Hours can be spent just looking at all the cupcake liners, toppers and beautiful packaging. Happy times!

All images from Bake it Pretty

Matthew Mead

What shall I do without my Country Home? I really love this magazine and its demise still makes me sad. I will particularly miss my monthly fix of Matthew Mead. He is crazy mad genius styling man. Love him. I visit his website a lot but have always been too cheap to become a member. I fear the time has come to make the leap into subscribing to his wonderful world of fabulousness. Spend time browsing through his past editions and you will see what I mean. He has wonderful craft ideas and downloads and recipes and he makes it all seem easy.

Find him here

Carmel by the Sea

Oh I can only dream! I lived in the Bay Area 2 children ago and my mind often wanders back to that special part of the world. I love San Francisco and how it just wraps you up in its utter fabulousness. Carmel, however, just upped and stole my heart. Just a breathtaking place. I was reminded of this while perusing Cottage Living online. The article about the wondrous Comstock cottages just made me want to pack up the car and drive south. I mean, really, look at these.....





Can you imagine anything cuter. I know they are not practical, especially for a woman who is on the taller end of things, but tell me they are not just storybook fabulous!

Carmel, I think we may need to meet again - SOON!

If you wish to read the article - http://www.cottageliving.com/cottage/travel/article/0,21135,1688075-1,00.html

Chinese New Year Resolutions

As I have yet to enact the ones I made on January 1st, I think the year of the Ox is a great time to start them. So here they are in all their glory! I decided to make a lot so maybe some will stick!!

1. Blog on a more consistent basis - That would be nice!
2. Do not purchase anything for 6 months. Obviously this does not include essentials like food but simply the extraneous things that i allow to clutter my life
3. Organise my house and throw the excess away.
4. Learn to let go of things that are just taking up space
5. Take Owen for soccer lessons
6. Take Alex roller skating once a week
7. Take Alex and Owen for swimming lessons
8. Make sure they get to the park at least twice a week
9. Eat dinner at the table every night - we fell out of this habit and it needs to be reintroduced
10. Go to see grandparents in Wisconsin

I also want to make sure I try a new recipe for dinner at least once a week.

Blueberry Cupcakes

Today I made blueberry cupcakes. Not just any cupcakes mind you, but the recipe from Jennifer Shea of the now famous Trophy cupcakes. It seems like it has been winter for way too long and I wanted something to give me a little spring like feel. Enter blueberry cupcakes. The recipe can be found here

The recipe is a very simple recipe and I found the hardest part was making the blueberry puree. By hard, I mean it took 30 minutes of waiting for blueberries to thicken - so not exactly exertion!! There was zero hard work involved! The color of the batter was amazing and something I could not capture on my camera. The frosting was wonderful and light and the cake had the perfect crumb. Scrumptious! I will make it again without a doubt.

Smarty Pants

Owen and me had a little conversation today.

"what did you do at school this morning?"
"I learned all about planets, and earth"
"really, that sounds interesting. Earth is a planet"
"yes it was interesting. Earth is a planet but pluto is not"
"it isn't? It used to be"
"No it is not a planet anymore, Miss Lettie told me it is now too small"

Schooled by a 4 year old!


Here he is deep in thought!!

milk bottles

I love milk bottles. Glass milk bottles should be mandatory. Screw those plastic jugs and give me glass. I do not care if it is practical, it is surely green! But environment and practical apart, just look how beautiful they are. I grew up in Britain and milkmen were a part of life. Every morning at around 5am, you would hear the clinking of his electric cart rattling along delivering fresh dairy goodness to all who desired! Milk, eggs, cream and even orange juice would be delivered to your doorstep. You would wash out the bottles and pit them on the doorstep and he would replace them with fresh new bottles filled with fresh dairy milk - nothing more, nothing less. I remember my mother writing notes to the milkman if she needed extra milk or eggs or whatever. She would roll up the note and put it into one of the bottles - it was the greatest system. I rattled on way longer than I meant to so forgive me.

I saw these bottles at Farmhouse Wares and i need them

Sadness seeps

I have had a tough emotional week that should not have been tough or emotional. C'est la vie! My daughter turned 6 last Saturday and what should have a been a fun happy day found me entrenched in a deep sadness. Alexandra is autistic and for most of the year, I can deal with it and go about my business of making sure she has all that she needs. I appear to be fine with her autism and have even convinced those around me that I handle her autism well but holidays and birthdays make the deep sadness of her autism come to my surface. Let there be no doubt, Alexandra is a child so complete in her contentedness and so happy in her world and for that I am eternally grateful. It is my pain I am speaking of. Once I knew I was having a girl, I started to dream of all the things we would do together and all the parties we would create for our daughter. She came into the world with shoulder length dark curls and a face of pure perfection. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and it was a love like none I could imagine. She developed normally following or exceeding all benchmarks as they came along. Then at 17 months, the world around us changed and all development stopped. Speech went away, personal contact diminished and she became happiest when left to her own devices. We became simply the purveyors of food and shelter. She had no need for our touch or our interaction. it was the most devastating period for both myself and my husband. At first I believed it was simply down to me having given birth to her brother - a hopeful wish at coincidence. But it was not to be. I lingered in denial for a long time, just waiting for her to snap out of her what I hoped was sibling jealousy, but it was not to be. Eventually after all kinds of false hope we were given the diagnosis that we did not want to hear. Our daughter was autistic. Remove the rug from under me.
It is only in retrospect that I realise how I never gave myself any time to come to terms with this. I never grieved for the loss of the daughter I thought I was having. I simply did what I thought was right and got on with the business of helping my daughter in every way i could think of. There is not a treatment I have read about that I have not either tried or researched. We eliminated gluten and casein but it had no effect on her. We tried vitamin regimes but to no avail. The classics have prevailed - lots of speech therapy, occupational therapy and a bunch of teachers that have been nothing short of wonderful. So our days settle into what qualifies as a routine and the angers simmer way beneath my surface. We came to a place that works for Alexandra and the routine is in place. Until Christmas or birthdays raise their heads.

She is a beautiful girl with a sense of humor. She is tall and strong and completely independent. She is stubborn and strong willed. She loves art and music. She can read and write. She is everything I would have wanted if I could have picked a child. But for that damn autism. The autism that can make life so difficult. It is strange things that I think of and strange things that I am grateful for. I am so grateful to all our therapists and teachers who have helped us in the almost 4 years we have been dealing with us. They are all highly dedicated, patient and warm people who give much of themselves. I am grateful to Mr Clean for inventing Magic Erasers - thank you for getting crayon and marker pens off most surfaces. I am grateful for the bus drivers who ferry my child to school and have given me the sense of security to allow her to be in another vehicle other than mine. I am grateful to other mothers I meet in therapy waiting rooms who make me feel okay when the day I am having is anything but. I am incredibly grateful for my husband who helps in ways he will never know. From the 'go to Barnes and Noble and relax for a while' to helping with things around the house, he never makes me feel anything but a great mother - even when I feel like the crappiest mother in the world. I am grateful to Owen who takes his sisters autism as normal and never makes a fuss when he is getting less than he may be deserving of. I guess I am most grateful to Alexandra herself, who can manage to take my hurt and pain and frustration and complete exhaustion and just take it away with a hug or a smile or a beautiful kiss and "I love you mummy". She has taught me so very much about myself and how far I can go. I love you little lady. My sadness will pass but the happiness you bring me every day of your life lasts forever.

Leek and Potato Soup

I love this recipe and no matter how many times I have made it, I am always amazed at how it turns out. How can so few ingredients (and such simple ones at that) become such a wonderful soothing bowl of fabulous fabulousness?! This one of the first soup recipes I made for my husband and it was a keeper. It is a Julia Childs recipe and that is pretty much all I know about it! It is so easy and so simple and yet so elegant. Make it!!

Recipe available here