happy birthday, my sweet momma!

i love you!

how i celebrated twenty-six

pre-haircut

with my Handsome

why i LOVE Patisserie in carmel

birthday cake cannot get any better...forget onions, carrots, and celery, this is my food trinity! (the white stuff isn't ice cream, by the way, it's fresh whipped cream!)

at the Buttery with mom (fyi for those who know these things...my sweater was a birthday gift from anthropologie...a first for me).

and, that night, we ate a very impressive creation from my sweet hubby (and i just have to brag because he just gets better and better in the kitchen! he didn't follow a single recipe here, folks!):

tri tip and asparagus kabobs

white cheddar mash potato in muffin mounds

strawberry salad with mint and poppy seed

tout ensemble

post-haircut. thank you, MIL. i LOVE it. :)

birthday gift from joe: photograph from 1952, out from under the bed and into a frame

and the ol' dustbuster, round two. and not to worry, i saved the charger this time! no strike three for me. thanks, FIL! ;)

thank you, sweet family (and friends) who made turning 26 extra fun. i love you.

on water and guilt

no more cancer in a bottle... :)

we got our reverse osmosis water purification system installed, and WOW does it taste yummy! well, it actually has absolutely no taste at all, which is heavenly. so clean and pure. and, the guy even ran a line to our freezer, so now, after 5 years, we actually have ice! we feel like total nerds, but we're so excited. what a blessing, above and beyond.

now onto the guilt part: for those of you who watch Idol (we confess we do now...but we don't vote, so we're not idolaters yet! :) ), i can't help but think of how Idol Gives Back reminded us of all the people in the world who don't even have clean water. having that in my mind these past weeks, and now staring at my endless source of perfectly healthy, beautiful water, i can't help but feel SO stinking spoiled. not only do we have a such a system available to install, but we have the funds to buy it! honestly, i have a signifcant case of Water Guilt creeping up behind me.

what i think is a nudging from the Lord, i have been wrestling through what my reaction and attitude should be. i understand that we are the wealthiest country in the world, and i also understand that our hearts are idol factories, prone to the highest heights of ingratitude. but i also understand that we are to take what God gives us with an open hand, no looking back. thus, the first step to overcoming Water Guilt is to be thankful for what God has lovingly (not begrudgingly) given. the second step is to stay thankful - cultivating a grateful, humble heart - and continually (meaning, not taking it for granted) praise God for His wonderful hand. and the third step would be to keep an eye open for opportunities to bless others in the same way He has blessed us, whether they are near or far. someday, Lord, give us a chance to buy someone else clean water! meanwhile, we will enjoy our hydration to the fullest! :)

p.s.- for anna, and for others of you who would like to toss your plastic bottle for a steel one, go to kleankanteen.com :)

yippies

okay, this is going to seem so random, but i've had a few carlson family goals of the domestic nature floating around in my soul since the new year. it's what we've been up to in some of the minutes and hours that aren't accounted for on our blog.

1. drink good water -

one of my wierdnesses (there are many!) is that i'm really sensitive to the taste and quality of water. since we moved home three years ago, we've been buying water in those plastic water bottles from the grocery store because our water in mount hermon is terrible. numerous studies have shown, however, that the plastic (even Nalgene bottles do this!) leaches into the water and can cause serious problems to your health, namely cancer, and (to get specific) wreaks havoc on one's fertility. because our entire water source was housed in plastic, i thought it best to make a change. so, to cut the problem off at its root, i bought a stainless steel water bottle, and we are getting a reverse osmosis water filtration system installed on wednesday. :) i know it sounds drastic, but i'm following my conscience.

2. get rid of bad ingredients -

joe and i are becoming yippies. we dress like yuppies but eat like hippies. well, don't worry, not to the most drastic extent. we will not eat, smoke, or wear hemp. we do not wear burlap. we do not have dreads. we wear j. crew, but we eat organic produce from sustainable farms. we shop at gap, but our eggs come from free-range chickens and our meat comes from grass-fed, hormone free beef. we drive a gas-guzzling ford and have DVR, but all our toiletries and household products are free of the 14 most hazardous chemicals that are present in almost every commercial product. and we haven't hit a fast-food joint in over two years. we are half yuppies, half hippies. i guess santa cruz is rubbing off on us, but so far only the good parts. :) we love supporting local farms and shops that live wisely and conduct their business in a goldy fashion (though they may not realize it's God's way!). read Living the Sabbath! you'll get inspired too.

3. make my own broth -

i have yet to do this, but the nutritionist friends in my life say that all the good stuff is in the bones! so, i've been buying bone-in chicken instead of boneless and hope to get that crock pot bubbling soon.

4. make my own bread -

this just makes sense now, with the lifestyle the Lord is allowing us to develop. not to mention, it's something i enjoy and it makes the house smell divine. so, here's my first try on goal #4:


i've made sweet french bread and foccacia bread before, and i've also experimented with bread machine recipes. but i'm not very talented when it comes to yeast, so becoming a serious and consistent bread maker has always scared me. but, i have finally been overcome by the desire to make a bread that's personalized to what we need and want. so, today i finally hand-kneaded my own dough, and it was so fun! i'm not sure how soon it will become a normality in our household, but i want it to be. i used rachel jankovic's recipe in pot providence, but added a few personal touches. i am pleased with the results (in fact, i didn't expect it turn out looking like bread much less tasting like it!), but will want to experiment further with the next batch to get it even more tasty. i think it needs to be a bit sweeter, for one thing, and i want to add more goodies to make it even more nutritious. when i narrow it down, i will post the recipe.

to tiburon and back

what a joy it is to say that joe can finally have saturdays off! his work world is something like a chess game. if all the right people are in place at the right time, he can take a day off. and, by God's good hand, all the right people are in place these days for joe to spend saturdays with me! and, after almost five years, this is a first for our marriage. i'm not counting on its permanence, though...i know this business well enough now to know that there are no "normal" schedules. so i will cherish each saturday i wake up to find that i'm not alone in my bed. :)

in celebration of our first saturday off together, we wanted to get out of this tree-locked town and go see some sights. a trip to the City was in good order, and since it was a rifling hot day, we threw on our flip flops and sunglasses and drove down highway one with the windows down. it was gorgeous. we can never tire of that drive, with the endless miles of coast and unpopulated beaches and jagged rock. and we were delighted to find that our proposal spot hadn't sunk into the water yet...and also that it was once again a fruitful field of young artichokes.

once in the city, we first had to go to blue bottle. a distinctive, industry-leading coffee house, blue bottle is down an alley, right off Mission, which boasts an extremely expensive drip coffee machine more resembling a science experiment than a coffee maker. the locals obviously know the shop is there, and it's continually hopping. but, any old joe wouldn't know it was there (excepting, of course, my joe...he's gotta know these things, you know?), being so conveniently hidden down a very ho-hum street. and, including us, there were several folks with cameras around their necks, oggling at the unique paraphanelia. oh, and the coffee was really really good. no bitterness, very rich, and full of deep, graduating flavors.

this was just a puddle-jump to our main destination, which was tiburon. tiburon is just outside of san fransisco, near sausalito. it's a tiny town of exuberantly wealthy people whose front yard is the bay and whose kitchen-window view is of angel island and the City itself. giada de laurentiis tells one to stop at Sam's Anchor Cafe to have a bowl of cioppino on their famous dock deck. so, after some tromping around, we found Sam's and were told that a deck table would cost us a wait of 1.5 hours! we looked out before us, and every square inch of the deck seemed to be covered with humans. but, wanting the authentic experience (giada told us to, after all!), we put our name in and proceeded to wait.

as we stood there in the baking hot sun, we began to feel a bit out of place. all around us, teeming in and out and all around like an adolescent school of fish, were a couple hundred 18-25 year olds just gettin' down into what looked like was going to be a very long-winded drinking party. it was the smell of cheap beer was in the air, and the volume level was at a roar. but, judging by the fact that there were more coctails coming out than entrees, we were assured that there would be plenty of cioppino left in the kitchen by the time we sat down to eat.

amazingly, they got us a spot in 30 minutes, and we were led through the fray to a plastic table covered in blue gingham oil cloth. next came the menues. we knew what we wanted and ordered. meanwhile, the spectacle before us worsened and, after having sat there only ten minutes, we could have submitted a first-hand article entitled "party scene ettiquete: how to reap sevenfold in tiburon." where are all the adults? i wanted to move inside where the normal people were eating in peace and maturity, but our waiter, who was respectable, would have lost our tips, so we decided to remain where we were. the cioppino came, and it was yummy. it would have been yummier inside. lesson learned? don't mix cioppino with a dock full of fools. and if you want to go to sam's, go on a monday night in january.

we did get a fresh-made waffle cone at the candy shoppe next door and admired the water for a bit longer. but, being followed by that tedious crowd, we were exhuasted at trying to block them out and decided to head home. nevertheless, we had a super fun day together and took many a beautiful photo. how blessed we are that san francisco is a day trip!

my coffee: a simple iced latte with cream. yum. :)

1/3 of the Deck

really short waiters balancing drinks precariously above 200+ heads

more of the Deck

the blond girl in the background (an intriguing microcosm of the whole crowd) was wearing a tiara (and not much else), and during our meal half the deck of strangers broke into a loud "happy birthday" chorus to the princess.

the cioppino

angel island

straight to the hips

pound cake

:)