jen's bourbon balls

Remember Jen's Chocolate Chip Cookies?

Well friend Jen is over on Design*Sponge again with another amazing looking recipe, this time for Gold-dusted Orange-scented Boubon Balls. YUM! And, as always, her photographs make me want to climb into the computer and nosh. Luckily, Stella and I are heading to Jen's house this afternoon for a cookie-making party so I won't have to wait too long for one of Jen's sweet treats. Yay for foodie friends!

[photo: Jen Martine]

oh to be there...

So I've been battling a nasty sinus infection for almost two weeks. I'm really ready to not be blowing my nose every 5 minutes because a.) it's annoying and b.) the delicate skin under my nose is chaffed and raw and cracking. After multiple nights of enduring congestion so intense that my teeth were in pain, I cranked up our humidifier last night and snorted some homeopathic nasal spray. Being sick is not fun.

Also, it's cold in Oakland. Bone-chilling cold.

It's no wonder I've started daydreaming about being someplace hot and relaxing. This place is looking pretty dreamy right about now...

Am I right, or am I right?

[image via Tablet]

christoph waltz on fresh air

Did you listen to Terry Gross' Fresh Air interview with Christoph Waltz that aired yesterday? I was totally entertained. In Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, Waltz played SS officer Hans Landa (conversant in German, French and English) with exacting and frightening aplomb. What a performance. I'm looking forward to seeing Tarantino's next, Django Unchained in which Waltz plays a German bounty hunter. No doubt his performance will be just as electrifying.

[image: The Weinstein Company]

"our walking hearts"

From Jessica Valenti's post for The Nation:

When President Obama gave his speech at the vigil in Newtown last night, I was glad that he repeated the saying likening parenthood to having your heart walking around outside of your body. It’s a quote I’ve thought of often since having my daughter - an especially apt sentiment when thinking about the incredible lack of control we have over what will happen to our children.

But if it’s fear that drives us to end this culture of violence and death, so be it. We should all be afraid, every day. Because until all kids are safe, none are. Until all children in all neighborhoods are protected - not just from mass shootings, but from all gun violence - we should not feel at peace.

As President Obama said last night, “we come to realize that we bear a responsibility for every child because we’re counting on everybody else to help look after ours.” We feel comfortable sending out children out into the world because the social contract tells us others will step in when we can’t. That’s what the teachers at Sandy Hook did. Maybe we’re afraid because we’re not holding up our end of the bargain.

If it’s fear that’s our initial motivator, though, let it be love that gives us the strength to put a stop to all of this. Because while fear is fleeting, love is not. And if we keep the love of our children at the front of our minds, maybe then we can remember that other children are just as fiercely-loved - that they’re all our responsibility, our walking hearts, exposed and in need of protection.
A poem from Adrienne Maree Brown, love letter to the babies/they are all ours, has been playing over in my mind recently, this section in particular:

and then you came. from other wombs and other stories, but i knew you were also mine. i held you in my arms for the first time, felt your weight upon my chest, the shape of your whole fluttering life becoming solid in my hands. and i realized my ideas and theories would never come to life soon enough. to love a child is to know the limitations of time, and the horror of being in a particular moment of time, a hollowed out age where babies are collateral damage for borders and egos, among other things.
everyday the world reminds me that i cannot protect you. i don’t know if protecting children has been possible yet on this earth. i just believe that what we do, or allow to possibly be done, to our babies, in this world, at this time – that is the measure of our humanity.

It’s natural that we want to protect our own children. But it’s imperative that we seek to protect all of them. Only then will we have nothing to fear.

surviving sandy

Check out the beautiful and elegiac video HEIST (Jordan's production company) shot for Friends of the Earth a few weeks ago right after Hurricane Sandy for the Climate Stories series. Pretty moving stuff...

the event of a thread, ann hamilton

I love everything Ann Hamilton creates. This installation, the event of a thread, at the Park Ave Armory is no exception. If you're in New York, go swing. You have until Jan. 6th...


[via Melissa de la Fuente]

stella turns 2!

Newborn Stella

1-year-old Stella in Buenos Aires

Stella, a few days before turning 2

Stella's "smile for the camera" face

No doubt I will be saying this until the day I die, but time really does move so very, very fast. The past two years have, indeed, flown by. Every single day I feel so lucky and grateful to be raising our girl, to be sharing her firsts and witnessing the leaps and changes as she becomes more and more a toddler.

At two, Stella loves to question. "What's that Mommy?" and "What's that sound Mommy?" punctuate my day. Most times she isn't satisfied with my answer. "That's a book, Stella." What's that Mommy?" I look closer at the book where she's pointing, "That's a word on the cover of the book." "What's that Mommy?" she'll say, pointing again. "Those are letters and letters make words and those words are on the cover of the book." When she asks again I give up and go back to "that's a book." On a walk through our neighborhood the other day she heard a helicopter and said, of course, "what's that sound Mommy?" "A helicopter,"  I told her. "What's that sound, Mommy?" "A helicopter in the sky, Stella," I said. "What's that sound Mommy?" I turned the stroller around and pointed up at the sky, "You see the helicopter in the sky? It looks like a plane but it's smaller? That's making the sound you're hearing with your ears." But she wasn't satisfied, "what's that sound, Mommy?" "A helicopter," I said, walking on.

I've learned that I have to pick my battles every day. She must let me brush her teeth, crying fits be damned, but I will wait an extra few minutes as I put her in the car so she can buckle the car seat herself. After discovering that she doesn't like having her hair washed, Stella went on a no-bath strike for two weeks around Thanksgiving. I finally convinced her to take a bath by getting in it myself. Though I have yet to wash her hair...and it has been more than two weeks since her hair was last washed. Ah well...

Stella is starting to master imagination play. She acts out scenarios with her trains, with her tiger, with the animals that live in her red wooden play barn, and with random inanimate objects. She's currently obsessed with putting her things to bed. The question: "What are your trains doing all lined up like that?" gets the response: "They're going sleepytime." Sometimes she'll announce "Tiger's going to sleep on my shoulder. I'm going to sing him a song." I laugh when she cradles my cell phone in her arms and says earnestly, "telephone is sleeping."

Her pronunciation of Stella sounds like Stedda. Stedda is very good at giving commands and referring to herself in the third person. "Mommy, tickle Stedda," she'll say as she gleefully prepares herself for a tickle onslaught. "Stedda was crying," she'll tell me after a teary tantrum. "Carry Stedda down the stairs, Mommy." You get the picture.

Stella now goes to sleep in her toddler bed. I am slowly trying to wean her which hasn't been so easy. I still nurse her a few times during the day but I'm actively trying to divert her attention away from "boobie." At this point she doesn't nurse for nutrition, just for comfort and closeness. At night she isn't waking up to nurse anymore which means she is finally sleeping almost through the night, from about 7pm until 6:30 am. She usually wakes up once and we bring her into bed with us and she falls back asleep until around 5am when I will nurse her so that I can get another hour of sleep. The silly thing is I still love nursing Stella, I love the little interactions that can only happen with her so still and so close. And we truly love having her in our bed. We inevitably smile at each other over her snoozing form and lean-in to inhale her heavenly baby scent. But it's time for change. She's getting older and bigger and we need more space. It's a process.

One thing Stella loves to say is "I do it myself." She says this when she wants to put on her own socks, when she wants to climb into the car unassisted, and whenever she feels the urge to assert her independence. The other day at the park I was standing about 5 feet away from the play structure watching Stella prepare herself to go down the slide when another child's grandmother took Stella's hand to guide her down. Stella looked a little confused at first but took the lady's hand and slid. She rounded the play structure, climbed the stairs and got into position at the top of the slide. The nice lady was standing there waiting to help Stella down the slide once more when Stella looked at her and said, "I do it myself." Then, unassisted, she slid.

Some things Stella loves right now:
Train and carousel rides
Max & Ruby (especially when baby bunny Huffington is involved)
Jingle Bells
Any food smothered in cheese
Outings with her Aunt Olivia
Her ladybug rain boots
Running laps around the dining room table
I'm a little tea pot
Getting a stamp on her hand after story-time every week
Dancing, always dancing
Going through tunnels and announcing "I'm going through a tunnel!"
Destroying my block towers
Her Daddy

Happy birthday to our Stellagirl.

RIP dave brubeck

cinema center matadero

Cinema Center Matadero

Madrid, Spain

by ch + qs

[via of paper and things]

cities calendar

Rifle Paper Co. nails it every time. This Cities Calendar is going on my want list.

chopped salad

The pizza place in our neighborhood makes a really good chopped salad. It's so crunchy and clean tasting I often crave it throughout the week.

So this week I decided to create my own chopped salad. And I am hooked.

Chopped Salad

6 butter lettuce leaves, chopped

3 radicchio leaves , chopped

3 radishes, chopped

1/2 a red bell pepper, chopped

1/2 a cucumber, chopped

5 baby tomatoes, chopped

Small handful of crumbled feta

Small handful of parsley, chopped

2 strands of chives, chopped

A dollop of grainy mustard

A drizzle of olive oil

A splash of champagne vinegar

Salt & Pepper to taste

It's seriously so good. I can't wait to experiment with other variations.