She's all cuddled up on the couch in her pink blankie, clearly dreaming big dreams.

"Mama," she calls. "Mama, I'm so 'cited that my birthday is comin' soon."

Her third birthday is about two months away, but around here, thinking and dreaming about birthday parties is kind of a year-round occupation. And she knows that of the three sisters, her birthday is the nearest.

The girl with a plan. She knows exactly what she wants out of life.

"And what do you want for your birthday?" I ask her. I'm expecting to hear about a doll, or a toy pony, or maybe even some new shoes. She really likes shoes.

She doesn't hesitate. She knows exactly what she wants. Fixing me with her wide blue eyes, she says:

"I want my hair to be pink. We can dye it, and it will be pink, and all fixed in a pink hairstyle. Pink."

I blink. I'm really not sure what to say to that one.

If this is what she wants at age 3, what in the world will she be asking for when she's 16?

I am in love with a house. A house that is not my own.

I drive past it all the time. It's an older house, in a historic part of town, with high ceilings and big windows and all sorts of fancy trimmings. But that's not why I love it. Pretty old houses are a dime a dozen in Albany. Here it is. Take a look and see if you can spot what makes this house unique.



 Do you see it? Let's try getting a little bit closer.


Now do you see it?

I love this house for just one reason, and he's sitting right there on the rooftop corner. It's a gargoyle! A real, live, (or, ok, real stone) gargoyle. What ever inspired someone to put a gargoyle on their roof? Where did they find him? How long has he been there? Does he have a name? If he were my gargoyle, I would definitely give him a name.



I am not likely to get a gargoyle of my own any time soon. For one thing, I have no idea where to procure one, and for another, my plain old single-level 1950s ranch house just does not have the appropriate Gothic atmosphere to pull off a gargoyle. And, although this is a residence from the 19th century, not a cathedral from the 12th century, I think this purple-and-gray house is big and stately and just slightly gloomy enough to look lovely with this little guy on its roof. It works. It would not work on my house.

But someday, should I ever own a huge, ornate, Victorian, I'll keep this idea in mind. Stone lions out front, bird baths in the garden, little gnomes among the bushes...those things are cute, sometimes. And other times not. But a gargoyle! That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

ONE
First things first: one of my favorite bloggers posted today about one of my favorite books:

It's Elizabeth Esther reviewing "Just Moms!"

I've been reading Elizabeth Esther for a year or two now. I appreciate her honest, vulnerable, thoughtful musings on life, faith, and fundamentalism. So I was especially excited to learn that she was one of the first reviewers of the soon-to-be-released anthology that one of my essays is featured in, "Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World." And even more excited to read the review and see that she liked it :)

Go see what Elizabeth Esther has to say about it. And, the book has its own page on Amazon now, too, if you want to check that out.


TWO


It's been a busy spring break, full of a lovely mix of visits with friends and rainy days at home. Sure, the weather's been rotten, but that's nothing new. Didn't stop Eric and I from getting out of the house for a fantastic hike to Alsea Falls and Green Peak Falls last weekend. Wet. Muddy. Gorgeous. That's an Oregon spring for you.

THREE
If you like fantasy literature and you have a week or so to spare, I highly recommend that you read The Kingkiller Chroncicles by Patrick Rothfuss. I just read the second volume in the series, "The Wise Man's Fear," and it completely wrapped me up and wouldn't let me go. Monday I spent all day on the couch, reading. I didn't make dinner. I didn't do laundry. I didn't do anything. Beth was coming up to me with a bit of worry in her voice. "Um...Mom? Why are you just sitting there?" I mean, the kids are accustomed to seeing me reading, but not for hours on end, stopping everything else I'm doing. Mom sitting on the couch ignoring all her to-dos is a rare, rare, sight.

So, yes, it's a fantasy, but it's more than that. It's the story of what it means to be a hero and how legends are built and the power of stories to shape perception. It's a classic adventure story with plenty of old-fashioned derring-do. It's a college book, full of evil professors and happy evenings of drinking with friends and a truly fantastic library. It's a really, really, good story.

The first book, "The Name of the Wind" came out in 2008 and I read it back then. I re-read it a few weeks ago to remind myself of the storyline. Then I plunged in to "The Wise Man's Fear," came up for air 932 pages later, and have been frustrated ever since that it's going to be years before I get to read the third book.

FOUR
A few weeks ago my MOPS group made this muffin mix. It was super-yummy. I made it home again a few weeks ago and my family devoured them. It's great because it's customizable--you just make the base out of regular pantry ingredients (flour, oatmeal, sugar, etc.) and then toss in whatever else you have on hand--dried cranberries, some walnuts, wheat germ, and grated orange peel were what I added in last time. And it came out great. It's the best of both worlds--tried and true meets infinite variety. Go try it out: you won't be disappointed.

FIVE
My husband and I are considering changing cell phone providers. We are discovering that no matter who we switch to--or even if we stay with our current provider but upgrade to newer phones--we're going to end up paying more money. Because they are no longer offering small-scale plans. Right now we have something in the range of 500 minutes per month and 200 texts. And it's fine! That's all we need! But the newer plans start out at 700 minutes/unlimited texts. This drives me crazy. I don't want to pay more! I don't want all those minutes! Just let me stay content with my piddly little small-scale plan! It's all I need! But according to the representatives I talked to, anyway, if  want to trade my old beat-up phone for something newer, I'll be forced to upgrade my plan as well. Evil cell phone companies. Evil.

SIX
My husband loves this Pepsi Throwback stuff. Made the old-fashioned way with real sugar. I really can't taste the difference. Can anyone else?

SEVEN
An update on the clam chowder backstory:
My husband claims this is the way it really went down:
Him: Hey, maybe I could have a taste of--
Me: No.
Him: Just a bi--
Me: No.
Him: Can I look at it?
Me: No.
Him: Can I pay for it?
Me: Yeah, sure, no problem.

Find more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

Long, long ago, there lived a girl and a boy. They had recently discovered that they shared certain feelings of mutual affection and admiration for one another. And so the boy asked the girl to accompany him on a day-long excursion to the coast.

If you aren't from Oregon, you may not understand what "going to the coast" means. It does not involve frolicking in the ocean or sunbathing or even wearing bathing suits at all, most of the time. It means walking hand in hand down a sandy beach in the blistering wind and contemplating the glory of the ocean crashing to the land (or perhaps wading in the frigid water, if you are brave). It means collecting shells and rocks. It means browsing through little downtown shops on the bayfront and buying loads of salt-water taffy from the mom-n-pop candy store. And it means warming yourself up with a lunch or dinner of delicious seafood from one of the local restaurants.

And for this particular girl, "going to the coast" meant eating clam chowder in a bread bowl from Mo's.

Mo's is an Oregon institution, and their clam chowder is legendary. Please note that this girl did not even like seafood, at all, in other forms. But hot, potato-y, creamy clam chowder from Mo's with a pat of butter melting on top of it, served up in a thick, hollowed out round of sourdough bread, did not fall into the same category as other types of seafood. Clam chowder in a bread bowl was something special.

And so our two young lovers found themselves seated at Mo's, perusing a menu, with the girl swiftly setting hers aside. "I'm going to have clam chowder in a bread bowl," she said.

"Oh, that sounds good," the boy said. "Maybe we can share."

The girl paused. She contemplated her broad-shouldered 19-year-old boyfriend, a strapping lad who spent his days in hard physical labor as an ironworker. She thought about just how much of her favorite treat she was likely to actually get to eat, should she split her bread bowl with him. And even though she knew the servings at Mo's were hearty, and even though she knew she likely wouldn't eat the entire thing herself, she did not like the idea of getting only a few spoonfuls of creamy goodness and only a few bites of delicious bread.

So she refused.

"No, I'm not sharing," she said.

And that was the end of that.

The boy did not dump her in shock at her unlady-like greed, but instead has stuck with her throughout the 12 years of life that have so far followed that moment. He ordered something else and did not ever again suggest sharing her meal. But he has not ever let her live it down, either. (In fairness, he says I misunderstood him. He wasn't suggesting that we split a single bread bowl, but rather that we should each order something different and share portions of our meal with each other).

This is all just background to help you understand how excited I was when I saw a friend post the following on Facebook last month: "Home-made bread bowls and clam chowder for dinner tonight."

This blew my mind. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own clam chowder and bread bowls! Why, I don't know, since I like to cook and I make all kinds of other soups and bread. But this one seemed so special. So unique. Could I really do it?

The answer, my friends, is that I can. And I have. On two occasions now. And goodness, is it fantastic. Maybe not quite as good as Mo's. I don't melt butter on top of mine, and my bowls are not sourdough, because I've never managed to get a good sourdough starter going at home. But it is a delicious, delicious dinner. And it makes a big enough batch that everyone in our family can have their own and still have leftovers for the next day.

And no one has to share. Especially not me.

The recipe for the bread bowls is at Allrecipes.com under Italian Bread Bowls. I make them exactly as the recipe says, except that I substitute 2-3 cups of wheat flour for some of the white flour called for in the recipe, and I don't bother doing an egg wash on the outside. Other than that, I just follow that recipe, so I won't bother re-creating it here. Go, print it out yourself, and give it a try. You'll like it, and you could use these for any kind of hearty soups. And bonus: fewer dishes to clean up afterward. After you eat the soup, you just eat the bowl too!


The clam chowder one is adapted from a recipe I found in the Taste of Oregon cookbook. It's a little more complicated than the one my friend used, but I like it because it has bacon. Mmmm, bacon. The original recipe calls for both bacon and ham! But I just use bacon in mine. If you want a really meaty chowder, you could use both, though.



Clam Chowder


1/4 pound bacon, diced
2 cups chopped onion
2 Tb flour
5 cups diced potatoes
2 cans of clams, undrained
3 cups of milk
Salt and pepper to taste


1. Saute the bacon, drain off most of the bacon drippings, and save. 

2. Add the onion to the bacon, saute until the onion is limp.

3. Stir in the flour. Pour enough bacon drippings back into the pan to fry the potatoes. Add the potatoes and fry, stirring constantly, about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.

(Note: during this process, I usually get a pretty good layer of browned bits cooked onto the bottom of the pan. And also, my bacon dripping don't seem to be of a large enough quantity to cook the potatoes very well. To fix this, I add a small amount of water--maybe 1/4 cup or so? to deglaze the pan. It gets the drippings up off the bottom of the pan, and mixes with the flour to form a roux/sauce type mixture in which to cook the potatoes. I add more water as needed if the potatoes seem to start sticking to the bottom of the pot again. If I didn't add this extra moisture, I think I'd have a very browned bottom of the pot by the time my 15 minutes of potato-cooking was up).


4. Add the clams with liquid and cook 5 more minutes. Add milk; season with salt and pepper to taste. (I'm pretty generous with my salt and pepper).

The only problem at all with this recipe is that at the end of it, you wind up with this: a bag of bread-bowl innards. What to do with the extra bread?



If I were more ambitious, I could season it and chop it up and toast it and make croutons. But we don't really eat croutons. Or if I had a food processer, I could process it into bread crumbs and save the crumbs for other recipes. But I don't have a food processor. The best thing I've come up with is what I did today when my kids asked for a snack: slap some jam on top and let them eat it like a biscuit. A big, soft, crustless biscuit. Which they actually liked quite a bit, since they pick the crust off their bread anyway. Win-win!

My husband's at work.

My mom took the kids to run errands for an hour.

My friend, who is coming over for lunch, isn't here yet.

I am completely, gloriously alone in the house!

Don't get me wrong. I love my family. But I'm an introvert by nature--time alone rejuvenates me.

And now I have some, and I don't even know what to do or where to start.

What would you do with an unexpected hour alone?

I love personal glimpses into other people's lives. Like when you walk into someone's house and read the titles of the books on their shelves, and they have something by your favorite author, and you know that you're going to be friends. Or when I walk into the house of a fellow parent of small children, and I see that it's messy--just like mine!--and some small part of the angst I carry around about my housekeeping failures rolls away.

Even kids do this, comparing and contrasting themselves with strangers. A 4-year-old came to our house last week, glanced through the open door of our bathroom, and immediately starting yelling for her mother, pointing at the counter. "Mama! They have the same hairspray we do! Look! Look!" the little girl said. And the other mom and I nodded and smiled, marveling at the amazing coincidence of both owning the same national-brand tangle spray that's available at every supermarket. Because we understood. The stuff you have, the stuff you display, the stuff you consume defines you in some small way, and when you see that you have the *same stuff* as other people, there's something within you that can't help but marvel.

Well, if you buy into the thought that your stuff defines you, and if you like the slightly-voyeuristic thrill of peeping at other people's personal stuff, then you must check out this series of photographs by artist Mark Menjivar.

It's called "You Are What You Eat," and each photograph consists of nothing but this:

Freelance writer/Engineer / Albany, OR / 5-person household / Thinks other people's refrigerators are fascinating.

That's it. Photograph of refrigerator contents. Sparse biographical information about the household. The end.

And I can't stop looking at them!

From the completely empty fridge of a person who lives on $432 a month, to the weight-lifter with a SNAKE in her freezer, to the mid-wife with a fridge stuffed full of produce, these photos are revealing and startlingly intimate. They tell you things about people's income levels, their hygiene levels, and their daily habits. Does this person cook, or subsist entirely on take-out? Do they buy generic brands or spend their money on the good stuff? It shows you what people care about. And it creates little mysteries, like: why do the competitive eaters from New York have what appears to be boxer shorts in their vegetable drawer?

You should click through and look at this guy's photos. Some of them are even available for sale, here. (20x200 is a very cool art sale website, and that's where I ran across this series). And then leave me a comment and tell me whether you think your fridge reveals your personal life too.

1. Standing out in the freezing rain to take a training session on how to be an official AYSO soccer coach. Yep. Soccer coach. I hope those first and second grade girls weren't hoping for a coach who actually knows anything at all about soccer.

2. Standing in a pool of luke-warm water to attend not one but two swimming-pool birthday parties within 7 days of each other.

(I hope my children appreciate my willingness to drench myself on their behalf. Also to embarrass myself. Because organized sports=really, really, not my skill set. And getting into a swimming pool in the middle of March and realizing as I throw up my arms to catch my daughter as she wants to jump off the side of the pool repeatedly, that I have not shaved my armpits prior to coming to the party=not my finest hour.)

3. Writing. Freelance articles, that I'm actually getting paid for, and fiction, that I only dream of getting paid for one day. But apparently not much in the way of blog posting, which is just purely for my own satisfaction.

(One of these days I'll get my head above water--figuratively, not literally, I hope!--and I'll finish one of the various blog posts I have that contain actual thoughtful content. Until then, please content yourselves with the following pictures, which also serve as illustrations of what I've been up to lately).

Fighting the good fight of feeding three constantly-hungry children without allowing the madness to overtake the rest of the house. Every day.

Dealing with general kid weirdness. Constantly.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've dreamed of going into the library and pulling a book off the shelf that had my name on the spine. I would stand in front of the R section, staring, trying to figure out which books would be on either side of *my* book.

That day is not here. Not yet. But I'm feeling more like maybe someday it will get here, because as of today my name is at least *in* a book. A real one, published by a real publisher, with an ISBN number and everything. It's not on the spine, because I'm just a contributor to this anthology, not the author of the whole 204 pages of the book. But one little chunk of that 204 pages is by ME, and people, strangers around the world or for generations to come, will be able to read the words that I wrote. It's a little unreal.



The book, since I'm sure you're all dying to know, is called "Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World," and it's an anthology of writing by mothers who are attempting to teach the values of peace, justice, equality and simplicity in a world that doesn't seem to value any of those things. When the most aggressive, the most arrogant, and the flashiest seem to come out on top, how do you teach kids what really matters?

There isn't really an answer to that question, of course. No simple, one-size-fits-all answer, anyway. This book isn't a how-to manual, just real-life stories from real-life moms trying to figure it out day after day. I haven't even read all the content yet, but I've met some of the other writers, and they are such fabulous, thoughtful women; I'm honored to have my work alongside theirs.

Interested? Want to hear more? Want to read what I wrote? Here's a link to the book's page from Barclay Press. It's being released April 5, but you can pre-order it now. (Note: I'm not making any money off this--I just get my name in print, some free copies of the book, and discounts on ordering it).

*Shameless self-promotion over. We will now return to our previously scheduled programming.*

There's been a lot of jabber in the media lately about princess culture and what it does to young girls, to be shown through movies, books, toys and costumes that being an ever-beautiful princess is the norm for womankind.

I share a lot of those concerns, as I look at my three little daughters. I want them to grow up knowing that it's their character, not their looks or their charm, that defines them. At the same time, we obviously are not enforcing any kind of ban on princesses in this household. See Family Trip to PrincessWorld (aka Disneyland) as the prime example here.

That said, I do love it when I happen upon movies or books that capture my kids' attention without all the packaged glitter and glam of the Disney Princess Franchise. Lately, the movie-maker who's been doing that is Hiyao Miyazaki.

I remember hearing of Miyazaki back when his movie "Spirited Away" was winning awards. In fact, I believe Eric and I even watched it, having heard it was good. But that was years ago--pre-kids!--and what little I recall about the movie and/or it's maker has long since faded from my mind.

Then my kids happened upon Ponyo on the Netflix watch-instantly queue, and they were enchanted by this Little Mermaid-esque fairy tale about a goldfish who wants to join the human world. Next, we spotted "Castle in the Sky" at the library and took it home for a family movie night.


There was a lot to love about Castle in the Sky: an interesting plot line, stunning animation, and plenty of fairy-tale/fantasy elements that my kids love. A lost princess, flying pirates, a mysterious robot, a magical necklace--it captivated their imaginations from the get-go. What really struck me about the heroine, Sheeta, was how very non-Disney she was. Sheeta looks like a little girl, from start to finish. She wears her hair in pigtails, she's got no figure to speak of, and she wears simple clothes. While the hero, Dazu, clearly feels chivalrous toward her, it's all very innocent. There are no big love scenes, the main point of the plot is not about the romance, and there is no intended-for-adults humor that supposedly goes over the kids' heads (did anyone else watch Madagascar 2 and feel like blushing at the totally suggestive "I like 'em big and chunky" song??) Castle in the Sky was just an all-around cool fairy tale with an appealing hero and heroine.



"Howl's Moving Castle" was our next family movie pick. I would say that this one skews toward a slightly older audience. It's darker, the themes were more complex, and there were some creepy visuals that I think would have really freaked my kids out if we weren't sitting there watching it with them (although that's true of a lot of Disney movies too--Beth was too scared to watch Beauty and the Beast the first time we tried that one, and I remember being terrified of the ending of Sleeping Beauty as a kid).

Howl's Moving Castle actually has a lot to say about beauty and appearance: the heroine, Sophie, is changed at the beginning of the movie from a young woman to an ugly old crone. A lot of the relationship that is built between the hero, Howl, and Sophie occurs while she's in a crone body and he's morphed into a bird-man. Sophie's appearance actually changes from scene to scene--it's when she's most fearful that she appears the most old and ugly. When she forgets to be self-conscious, she changes almost back to her former appearance; and by the end, when she has saved Howl from his curse, she looks like herself again, with the exception of her silver hair (and she and Howl both agree that they like her "starlight" hair).

In both of these films, the focus is on a good story, with the hero-heroine relationship one plot thread among many. Miyazaki's heroines do not sing songs about waiting for their princes to come, and wedding bells are not the pre-requisite for a happy ending.

I don't want to come across as anti-femininity or anti-romance. I'm quite comfortable being a girl, and quite happy to be married to a wonderful man. I wish the same for my daughters. What I'm tired of--and what the backlash to "princess culture" is about--is the constant barrage of messages directed at ever younger-audiences. It's about the subtle and not-so-subtle messages telling little girls that being beautiful and finding a man are the keys to happiness. Miyazaki's movies are fascinating, solidly-told stories that don't rely on a heroine with Barbie-doll proportions dancing at a ball with a handsome man to create their happy endings.