Gorgonzola Tasting

"Gorgonzola cheese! Blue cheese! Who wants a sample?"

Remember back in April when we made our Gorgonzola style cheese? Well, it's now July, and the cheese has been aging in the cave for nearly three months. The Art of Natural Cheesemaking says aging should take between two and three months. We figured Independence Day was as good a day as any to break into our cheese and taste it.

We made a video of our tasting:

After we tasted the cheese, Wyatt spent about about thirty minutes running a pop-up cheese shop in our kitchen. He set up an area for the two of us, as workers, to be behind the counter. He then arranged a sample plate with cubes of cheese he had cut, and he added some toothpicks. Next, he ran around the house shouting "WHO WANTS A SAMPLE?" Fortunately, Marc was happy to be our customer. And even more fortunately, Marc was also up for returning to the shop again and again, pretending to be different people who had heard about the newly opened cheese shop. He was always such a good customer, too, sampling and purchasing a piece every visit, despite Wyatt's firm price of "ninety-nine dollars a pound."

Hitting the Fitness Trail

"Sweaty! Sweaty! Half the fun of exercise is [beat] getting sweaty!"

(Just make up a tune and go with it—that's what we do.)

I am one of those people who is intolerable if I don't exercise. Without exercise, I get antsy, snappish, and grumpy. My knees start to ache dreadfully—like they are rusty and creaky from inactivity. I lose patience with everyone and everything. It's a bad scene, as Marc can tell you. The only cure is a workout.

When Wyatt is in school, I lift weights at the gym a couple of times a week, and the other days, I do a workout at home (on a suspension trainer, with a heavy kettlebell, or on a pull-up bar in the garage), or run stair intervals outside, or hike the steep inclines around San Francisco. But summer is different. There are more full days of "together time," and call me crazy, but I don't always relish getting up two hours earlier to fit in a workout on my own before settling in for a full day of mothering.

More than that, I feel like I shouldn't have to compartmentalize every day that way. Kids are active, and there's every reason to integrate fitness with everyday life. Of course it's not always possible to get a good workout with a young child around, and a lot of times, if I'm honest, I'd rather it be MY time than together time. But ever since Wyatt was a baby, I've exercised a day or two a week with him: walking with him in a front carrier, pushing him up hills in the jogging stroller, hiking hills with him in the frame backpack, doing calisthenics while he played on the floor, and most recently, teaching him a little circuit at home so I could do one myself.* Despite all of these activities, though, I think the whole concept of fitness only clicked for him after the Saturday morning I took him with me to a personal training session (Marc was deathly ill and couldn't look after him). Ever since that morning, Wyatt has been very interested in exercise and being strong enough to lift very heavy things all by himself.

The other weekend, Wyatt asked me, "When can we go back to the exercise course?" He meant the Perrier Parcourse at the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park. We had tried it a couple of times last year, but he wasn't yet old enough to (a) make it around without being carried part of the way or (b) let me do my reps while he waited. Frustration ensued for both of us, so I gave it a rest. But after he asked about it, I figured it was worth another attempt. Good thing we tried again, because this may be the Summer of the Perrier Parcourse. We went twice last week and we both found exercises we want to work on (for me the vault; for him, the hand walk).

Notice the oversized running water bottle Wyatt is wearing. You know how new workout gear can make you want to get to the gym or go for a run? Same is true for the 5 year-old set, only in this case, I just had to loan him my old training gear. He loves it, and I love not having to schlep his water.

It's tough to beat a fitness trail. We get to be outside (and as loud and silly as we want), go at our own pace, work as hard as we want separately, work together, count, race, find flowers, climb log piles, goof around, and get stronger. It's basically playing in the park, but with a little bit of structure and some goals.

It's so much fun. You want to try it, too, don't you? A list of Fitness Trails throughout the world is here. If you find another list, or another trail, please leave it in the comments!

*All of these ideas, the progression of them, and my ability to do any of them, are thanks to my inimitable trainer, Doug Norris.

Father's Day

"Is tomorrow Father's Day? Dad. We are definitely not doing ANYTHING special for you for breakfast tomorrow."

Wyatt has almost moved on from sharing surprises the moment he hears them. Lately, he's into the (very obvious) "misleading" statements that reveal the surprise.

But who cares about the "surprise" part, right? We don't. Wyatt and I got up on Sunday and prepared a lovely breakfast. He snipped a big bunch of lavender flowers from the garden while I made blueberry pancakes. At breakfast, he gave Marc the mug he had painted the week before (saying as we left for the ceramics studio, "Dad. We are are NOT leaving right now to work on a surprise for you for Father's Day.")

After breakfast, we headed down the street to see the aftermath of the terrible fire that Wyatt and Marc had witnessed Saturday afternoon. On Saturday, Marc and Wyatt had gone out to the park, but soon after, they noticed a lot of smoke coming from down the road. They followed the smoke and commotion to a five-alarm fire where flames were pouring out the top story of what turned out to be six burning buildings. According to news reports I have read, no one was hurt. But the whole scene was intense and sad. Wyatt announced when they got home, "Mom. I haven't gotten enough snuggles from you today," and he proceeded to sit on my lap for over an hour while peppering me with questions about fires and firefighters. On Sunday, the devastation was still very much on Wyatt's mind, so Marc suggested we revisit the scene. Nearly 24 hours later, the buildings were still smoldering in places. And, now, more than two days after the fire, Wyatt is still processing what it means to be a firefighter. He thought he knew, but now he understands that he truly had NO IDEA what it entails. The combination of flames coming out of buildings and his beloved Cole Hardware, gutted and unrecognizable, was sobering.

We spent a long time on the sidewalk watching all the activity. Eventually, we headed home.

Later in the day, we picked up giant sandwiches from Ike's and ate them at home in our garden on lawn chairs. Then, we lounged on the lawn chairs. Next, we walked (and some of us also used our kick-scooters) to get ice cream. I should note that all of these activities were aspects of Wyatt's dream day, and he suggested all of them. Fortunately, Wyatt and Marc like many of the same things, so this plan worked well for Father's Day.

On our way back from ice cream, a fire engine drove by. As the firefighters rang the bell, Wyatt stopped and looked. Without even a hint of a smile, he waved earnestly, reflecting his new and deep respect.

I thought to myself as I saw him wave, "The kid's growing up." But the truth is, all of us are offered opportunities all the time to grow-up. As adults, if we're present and ready for it, we can gain new perspectives and work to become our best selves. Children, on the other hand, aren't ready to author their own stories in the same way. It's our responsibility to help them. As I reflected on the big and small things that had punctuated Father's Day, I found myself especially grateful that Marc is Wyatt's father. I can't think of a better person to help him write his story. 

Planet Earth Is Blue

We don't listen to broadcast radio when Wyatt is around because we think he deserves to feel like the world is good and that that he is safe. With the news, either we don't know what will be reported, or we can guess what will be reported, and we don't want him to hear it. Take this weekend for example. How could we explain to our five-year old the terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando? Or references to the shooting in San Bernardino? Or Sandy Hook Elementary? Or any of the other recent mass shootings? I can already imagine Wyatt's questions. So we just won't go there, yet. But it won't be long before Marc and I will have to try to explain what is going on with people, guns, and some people with guns in our country.

I wonder whether there will be a meaningful shift in United States gun policy anytime soon. I haven't given up hope (or voting, or contacting my representatives), but if 20 dead six to seven-year old children didn't spur a change in policy, I don't know what will. Because I'm not sure what more I can do to support legislative changes, I've also been thinking about how to raise a person who can help defuse hatred, stop violence, and end oppression. So far, I have identified three qualities to model for Wyatt, with the hope he'll take them on and make the world a better place. They are: Civic responsibility, empathy, and gratitude.

Civic responsibility is a relatively easy one compared to the other two. For example, we already take Wyatt with us to vote in every election, we participate in volunteer activities in our community, and we do our best otherwise to be "responsible citizens." As he gets older, we may get more involved in organizations and issues, but I feel like we're off to a good start.

Empathy is more challenging for me than civic responsibility, and it is the key to bridging differences and connecting with others. I've been working on my empathy skills through parenting classes. I've also become aware of the lenses through which I see the world, and I continually work to adjust them. I used to read a lot to educate myself and gain new perspectives, but lately, I've moved to reaching out in real life to new friends and...listening to podcasts. My favorites in this realm are:  Show About Race, Embedded, Code Switch, 99% Invisible, 2 Dope Queens, and More Perfect.

Gratitude is just as important as empathy. In addition to improving one's outlook on life, I believe it's an antidote to entitlement. I think gratitude starts with politeness and thank-you notes— taking a moment to appreciate a kindness—and it grows from there. I've been cultivating a gratitude practice over the past year, and while I'm much less consistent than I once was with my 5-Minute Journal, I now regularly notice more things throughout the day that I am grateful for. Marc and I also tried to start a gratitude practice as part of our family dinner time: "Three Things I Liked About Today." But Wyatt quickly decided he didn't want to play, and let me tell you, there's very little joy that springs from a practice that is punctuated by whining and pouting, so we have put that particular activity on hold for now.

There are so many ways to feel and show gratitude, and it benefits us to find them. Sometimes it's as simple as giving someone a smile or a wave, and sometimes it can be a larger effort. Wyatt's and my most recent project was for our friend who's a checker at the grocery store. According to both of them, they are "best friends." They connected upon first meeting, and now I text her when we're coming to the store so we are sure to see her while we are there. She has been so generous—I can't even begin to explain all she has given us, in addition to the new Spanish vocabulary words she teaches us each week. Unfortunately, she has been having trouble with her feet recently, and foot trouble is no good for someone who is on her feet all day. Wyatt and I concluded that while we couldn't do anything to heal her feet, we could make her some slippers to warm them and to show her how much we appreciate her.

Wyatt selected the yarn for the slippers himself. I would have never, ever chosen the colors, but I should have. The contrast worked beautifully. But then I did what a knitter should never, ever do: skip the gauge swatch. In my defense, I had made slippers from this pattern once before in what I thought was a comparable yarn. But the yarn wasn't comparable after all. The first slipper turned out about twice as big as it should have been. It was loose, floppy and unwearable. But rather than ripping it out, I decided we should try to save it through wet felting. Wyatt and I had hand-felted soap before, and after I did a little research, I felt like a (controlled) felting job might give us a winning slipper. Fortunately, the felting worked, and the resulting slipper was far better than the plain-old knitted version. So I moved on to knitting the next slipper, and then Wyatt and I felted that one, too.

We took a bucket of hot water, a bucket of cold water, dish soap, some gloves, and a couple of old bath towels. The slipper went into the hot water, we rubbed it with soap in the direction we wanted the slipper to shrink, rinsed out the soap, and then plunged the slipper into cold water. We repeated this process for about 40 minutes, until we had a slipper that was just the right size.*

Once the slippers were dry, we wrapped them in Christmas paper and a big bow (at Wyatt's insistence), and we hand-delivered them to our friend at her check stand. She later texted me a photo showing that they fit. Not bad, right?

Obviously, handmade slippers won't change gun policy or bridge the wide political rifts in our country. But the slippers represent care, and caring matters today as much as it ever has. While the news flies fast and furious and the hatred so prevalent in this election cycle swirls, I plan to turn up my empathy and gratitude, and to exercise my vote in November. With any luck, some of these practices will rub off on my kid.

*Thanks to Wyatt's birthday twin, Addie, and her parents for this amazing Bowie Tee. It's his favorite.

Got Plums? Make Jam!

"Mom. Play Lulu's message again for me. I love when she says, 'Yummy, yummy, yummy! Plum jam in my tummy!"

If you haven't been paying attention to the plum trees in San Francisco, consider this a warning: the plums are ripe. And ripe plums means we are so close to having sticky, plum-spattered sidewalks in certain neighborhoods. I wish I had photos from past plum seasons when unsuspecting owners thought they were lucky to nab parking spots shaded by plum trees. I have yet to meet anyone who liked the purple goo and pits that ended up baked on their car.

For the last couple of years, there have been plum blossoms in January and February, but no plums in the spring. I suspect the lack of fruit is thanks to the drought, but I don't really know. This year, though, is definitely a plum year, which is lucky for Wyatt because he has been dying to pick plums and make jam.

Plum Tree, 2013

The last time we picked plums for jam was July, 2013. Wyatt had just turned two. We picked over ten pounds of plums, all from the plum tree in front of our house.* I cooked them into jam, and we managed to put up enough jars to give some away and continue enjoying the jam until this fall. Even though Wyatt doesn't remember our picking the plums, he remembers eating the jam. While our picking didn't seem to reduce the number of plums Marc scraped off the sidewalk every weekend that season, the jam tasted great, and it allowed us to feel like we were making the most of the situation.

Wyatt tried one of the plums from our tree last week, and he reported that it wasn't THAT sour. So we picked plums on Friday. Here is a mock-up of our set-up, because I wasn't able to photograph what we actually did.

In reality, I climbed and perched all the way up into the tree while Wyatt nestled himself in the crook closest to the beach bucket (that he had cleverly insisted we lash to a limb with sparkly yellow shoelace). I picked whatever plums I could reach, handed them to him, and he put them in the bucket. Just after we got started, our neighbor, Lulu, visited with us through her second story window. We talked about how there were definitely some plums this year, but not as many as in other years. Once I had picked the eight plums I could reach, and Wyatt had started complaining there was nothing for him to do, I said to Lulu, "I really wish we had one of those fruit pickers, because I can hardly reach any of these plums. You don't have one, do you?" She said, "Do you mean one of those things that can grab and bring things down? I have one of those! I'll bring it to you." And Lulu presented us with her Gopher. She said she uses it for reaching jars or cans that are on high shelves. But I can now attest that it is great for picking San Francisco street tree plums. I plucked each plum with the Gopher and then reached it down to Wyatt, released the plum into his hand, and he placed the plum in the bucket. Teamwork for sure. We also got a few more plums using the ladder and Gopher, but not many.

We picked just shy of 2 1/2 pounds of plums.

And on Saturday, we made jam. I love the recipe my friend, Sarah, suggested three years ago, from Food in Jars: Italian Plum Jam with Star Anise. Even though the recipe is technically for Italian plums, our San Francisco street tree plums are great in it. Once we had pitted and chopped our plums, we had about four cups. To scale the recipe up, I used about 1/4 cup of sugar per cup of plums, and it worked perfectly.

We chopped our plums, let them mascerate with four star anise blossoms and the sugar for about an hour, removed the four star anise blossoms, cooked the jam for about 15 minutes, and checked the temperature and conducted a couple of plate tests as it started to look done. When the jam was finished, we put some in a jar for us and some in a jar for Lulu and her husband. Because the yield of this jam was so small, I didn't bother with a full canning set-up. We're just refrigerating our jar.

I recommended to Lulu that she also refrigerate her jar when I called to ask if Wyatt could deliver them some jam on Saturday evening. When Wyatt returned, he said, "Lulu said thank you so much, and she's going to have the jam on her toast in the morning! Can I also have toast in the morning? Please? With PLUM JAM?"

* The Friends of the Urban Forest claim the fruit of these trees is "insignificant." I couldn't disagree more. While each plum itself is pretty small and in some cases, mostly pit, the volume of plums (and mess) can be quite large for a street tree.

Treetop Owls and "Goldfish" Crackers

I have just published my third pattern! The Owl & Branch Beanie completes what I've named the Treetop Collection.

It was pretty thrilling to hit "publish" on Ravelry, and I love that people are "favoriting" my designs. But there's even more to be excited about. Hard copies of all three of my patterns will be available for purchase in the Sincere Sheep booth at TNNA in Washington, D.C. and at the Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon later this month!

Obviously, I'm excited about the release of these patterns. And Wyatt is also excited, but for a different reason. He's thrilled he won't have to sit (or stand) for any more photos for a little while.

This weekend included a flurry of activities related to getting knitted samples and pattern copies ready for the shows. And it also included some baking during a low-key, at-home day today.

Wyatt has recently been asking for Goldfish Crackers. Or, I should say, he has been asking for gluten-free, goldfish-shaped crackers (which, as far as I know, only exist if you make them yourself). It remains my opinion that Pepperidge Farm Parmesan Goldfish Crackers are the best snack cracker ever invented. It pains me that most gluten-free crackers are terrible. If something's going to be devoid of nutrition (as most snack crackers are), it should at least taste great. Store-bought gluten-free crackers never do.

When we went gluten-free four years ago, Wyatt was one year old. Parenting was very new, the toddler years were just beginning, and with the dietary restriction, the usual toddler snack foods weren't going to work for us. It was time to start figuring out alternatives.

Some of the first snack foods I made regularly were Anytime Cookies and Gluten-Free Cheesy Mini Goldfish Crackers. I stumbled on the cracker recipe pretty early in my search, and I have never strayed. It's fantastic. And even though I have yet to spring for two expensive (and no doubt time-consuming to use) tiny copper goldfish cookie cutters here or here, I think it's fair to conclude that the crackers taste great whatever shape they are. (But see UPDATE below.) Wyatt would desperately like to test this hypothesis, of course, and eat crackers shaped like tiny fish. So maybe we'll spring for those cookie cutters someday. Meanwhile, though, I do like the speed with which I can make random cracker shapes with the pizza cutter.

The recipe at Gluten-Free Canteen is perfect as-is. And here's what it looks like when I make gluten-free not-goldfish-shaped knock-offs with a pizza cutter:

And just like the "real" Goldfish Crackers, it's really hard to close the bag and walk away. Our half-gallon jar of them is already one third gone...

6/5/16 UPDATE: Imagine my surprise last Thursday when we received an unexpected package that contained two tiny copper goldfish cookie cutters. Our friends had sent them. We made more crackers today, this time with the shiny new cutters. And while I would have expected the goldfish shapes to taste the same as the random shapes, they don't. The goldfish shapes consistently bake so there is a delightful bubble in the body of the fish, and this bubble vastly improves the texture of the crackers. I was right about the cookie cutters taking more time, but it's so worth it.

Pop-Up Owl Mittens

Three years ago, I tried making my first original pattern: a pair of crocheted fingerless owl gloves for Wyatt. Last week, I published my latest (and best) version of those owl gloves: Pop-Up Owl Mittens. They are knitted (not crocheted), with or without half-fingers, and they have a convertible mitten top.

In other words, I have learned a lot in three years.

In 2012, when I found myself getting back into projects with yarn, I had zero confidence in my knitting ability. Years ago, in high school, I had knit myself several sweaters, but you would have never guessed it. By 2012, I could do nothing useful with two needles at the same time, and the thought of dropped stitches deterred me from trying. For whatever reason, though, crochet felt doable. First, I crocheted myself some "steamer trunk" grey fingerless gloves. Once my hands were warm (secure your own oxygen mask first!), I realized that Wyatt's hands were probably cold on winter preschool hiking mornings. So I improvised some crocheted gloves for him, and I included a little owl on the front.

Our fingerless gloves were good, but not great. I knew that (from a distance), our gloves looked knitted, but for some reason, the crochet-masquerading-as-knit bothered me. Also, I didn't love the super cushy crocheted fabric. But those reservations didn't stop me from making Wyatt a bigger size of crocheted owl gloves the following year. Not only had the first owls grown tight on him, but they were so well-loved their eyes had unraveled. Wyatt opted for purple wool for his second pair.

By fall of 2015, Wyatt had outgrown his purple owl gloves. It was time for another new pair, and by then, I was ready to take a new approach. I had already successfully knit him his striped hoodie without a pattern, so when he asked me to make him a pair of owl gloves that had half-fingers in them, the project seemed very doable. I proposed we add a flip-up "hat" to keep his fingertips warm, and Wyatt thought that was a splendid idea.

The first version of these imagined gloves, however, was not splendid. The thumbs were a little wonky, and the cuffs and pop-up tops were too loose. Every time Wyatt wore them, he requested that I PLEASE make the next pair so that he didn't have to keep pulling the mittens back on to his hands after walking a block or two. A fair criticism if ever I've heard one.

So I went back and knit the convertible mittens again, based on the notes I had written as I was knitting the wonky-thumbed-ones. This time, though, I knew I was close to a good design, so I used the yarn Wyatt had chosen as his favorite: Sincere Sheep's Shepherdess yarn in Vitamin C. This version turned out so well that for awhile, Wyatt refused to wear them out of the house for fear of messing them up. Eventually, he came to believe me that we could wash them, and in the worst case, I could always make more. They look adorable and Wyatt finds them totally functional.

But not everyone loves the color orange. And as Brooke Sinnes (of Sincere Sheep) explained when I visited her in her booth at the gigantic trade show that is Stitches West, sometimes it's hard for people to imagine what a pattern will look like in other colors. Brooke's inspired recommendation to embrace a "seasons" color palette for my first trio of patterns (which includes the Pop-Up Owl Mittens) was perfect. I set off with some of her Cormo Worsted and made smaller and larger sizes of the Pop-Up Owl Mittens.

Such happy little owls.

I am so pleased that after writing (and, thanks to my patient editor, rewriting) this pattern, anyone who feels like knitting can make their own Pop-Up Owl Mittens...in less than three years.

Going Greener

"Mom. Why don't they know how to weigh and label their jars when they buy stuff?"

"It's something you have to learn. I had to ask Christina how to buy olive oil in bulk. If you've never done it before, it's intimidating."

This time last year, I was on a "transfer everything to glass and quit using plastic" kick.

Spoiler alert: Quitting plastic is really hard to do.

When I started really paying attention to how much plastic is used in packaging, I was astounded. If you haven't done this already, just go to any grocery store and try to find something packaged without it—plastic cups, jugs, sleeves inside of plastic bags or cardboard boxes, resealable zippy bags. It's everywhere. One could make a full-time occupation out of simply avoiding plastic and still come up short.

Even though we may never get to "zero plastic" in our house, there is every reason to try to do better. This time last year, I started asking people lots of questions about how they avoid plastic. I started with Wyatt's pediatrician, because she was the one who presented me with the friendly challenge of getting plastic out of our kitchen. She said she's a big fan of glass jars for freezing, glass storage containers for leftovers, and reusable abeego beeswax wraps. I next canvassed friends on Facebook. I got more votes for glass jars, glass storage containers, and abeego wraps. I also got suggestions to use tea towels in refrigerator crisper drawers (instead of plastic bags), and Fresh Paper, which is amazing for prolonging the life of fruits and vegetables.

I also pretty quickly realized that I should buy in bulk, refilling glass jars instead of buying new (plastic) packages of food. So we ventured into Rainbow Grocery. On one of Wyatt's and my first trips there, I saw a very organized-looking woman with a bag of labeled jars that she had brought to the store to refill. We happened to walk out of the store at the same time, and I complimented her on how she had the whole process down perfectly.  She smiled and explained she had been buying in bulk for awhile, and she generously pointed out that it's a process, so I shouldn't expect to get into the rhythm of it right away. She explained that she keeps jars labeled with tare weights (more on that later), what goes in the jar (like, "Rice"), and the store code (the bulk number on the bin), so her shopping process is more streamlined. I asked her whether she waits to run out of stuff before she buys more (because heaven forbid cutting things that close). She explained that for some products, she has a couple of jars, that way she doesn't have to wait until she runs out before she refills one of the jars. And she said that when a jar is empty, she just puts it in her (reusable) shopping bag so she doesn't have to remember what needs to be refilled. So smart! With this role model's excellent suggestions in mind, I went home and dug out all my Bed Bath & Beyond coupons so that I could buy some storage jars.

Over the next week, I began a pantry overhaul, reorganizing dry goods into storage jars and making labels. During that process, I noticed that we had a mountain of those thin plastic bags you can get from the roll at the market to hold fruits and vegetables. Clearly we needed a new plan for our produce bags. So I bought reusable net bags from Simple Ecology. The bags are GOTS certified and made from "green" cotton. We have used the bags consistently for the past year, and they're great. When they start to look a little grungy, I put them through a cold water wash cycle and hang them to dry.

With food-plastic more under control, I moved onto personal care and home cleaning products. We can't really be trusted with glass in the shower, or with glass spray bottles of cleaners, but there was no reason to be recycling so many plastic bottles if we could just refill them. I began going to Green 11 to refill our lotions, soaps, and cleansers.

Compared to last year, we're using much less plastic, and we're comfortable with our bulk-and-refill-buying approach. More than that, I must have looked like I had it together at the store last week because I found myself in the bulk section of Rainbow answering questions about tare weights.

If you know about bulk buying and tare weights, the following is old news. If you don't, though, check it out. Buying in bulk is cheaper than buying the same item pre-packaged, but the tare weight (the weight of your empty container) is critical to that calculation. Let's say I'm buying raisins, and I've scooped them from the bulk bin into the clean, empty jar I brought with me to the store. When I get to the check-out line, the checker will weigh my jar of raisins to determine how much I owe. The way to avoid paying for the weight of jar is by knowing the "tare weight," or the weight of the empty container. So, before I fill my jar, I weigh the jar and the lid together, and write down that weight, measured in pounds, on a label I stick to the jar. When I get to the check-out counter, the checker can subtract the weight of the packaging (tare weight) from the total weight of the raisins and the jar (gross weight), get the net weight of just the raisins. That way, I only pay for the raisins.

I also pay attention to tare weights of the Simple Ecology bags. The weight, in ounces, is printed on the tag of each of the bags. But as I learned the first time I used the bags, that number is not very helpful for checkers where I live. It seems that check-out systems allow checkers to remove tare weights when the weights are in fractions of a pound, not ounces. When I asked a checker to remove 1.3 ounces from the weight of a bag of apples I was buying, her eyes crossed, and she took a beat. She then she poured the apples onto the scale by the conveyor belt to weigh them without the net bag, and then re-bagged the apples. As the check-out line grew longer and longer behind me, I started to imagine my future shopping visits and the checkers' impending dread as they watched me approach with my bags. My face turned pink with embarrassment just thinking about it.*

There is an easy fix, though. The checkers at stores near me (or maybe all stores in the U.S.?) need to know how much the bags weigh in pounds, so I did the conversion for them. Just multiply the weight of the bag in ounces by the conversion factor (.0625), to get the weight of the bag in pounds. Or, stated another way, where the weight of the bag is 1.3 oz: 1.3 oz x 1 lb / 16 oz = 0.08 lb. And that's the tare weight.

I wrote the tare weight of each bag on its tag with permanent marker, so now I can point the checkers to that number, and they can make the weight adjustment easily. Half the time, the checkers remark that the bags are great and ask me where I got them. With any luck, that means I am only being a little bit annoying with my "do-gooding."

*Marc pointed out to me that the weight of the bags is really very small, so I shouldn't think too much about it. But this was around the time that Whole Foods' weights and measures were being investigated, again, and I was feeling indignant about paying any more than the price of the actual amount of goods I purchased there (or anywhere else).

Balance

As a society, we talk a lot about balance. We're looking for personal balance, striving to maintain work-life balance, trying to eat balanced meals, and on and on. The photos that seem to go with "balance" are either of serene, willowy women, dressed in all white, with straight-but-bouncy hair or stones balanced precariously on one another.

Maybe balance comes easily if you're willowy and can wear white serenely while you find the balance points of oddly-shaped stones. I wouldn't know. For me, balance requires constant adjustments, some of which are really challenging to make. Recently, I wondered if I could just take a longer view and assess balance over a couple of months, rather than daily or even weekly. You know, ease-up a little bit on the routine, spend more time on certain things (writing), less on others (cooking and exercise), maybe it would all average out. Guess what? It doesn't. Just ask my too-tight dress and snapped-at husband.

So three weeks ago, I made some changes, re-established a routine, quit skipping lunch half the days of the week, and lo, life is better and my clothes are looser. On the rare days I actually manage to check-off all seven things that "optimize brain matter and create well-being" (focus time, play time, connecting time, physical time, time in, down time, and sleep time) on The Healthy Mind Platter (along with eating the ten cups of vegetables I should), I feel amazing. Most other days, I know I am doing better than I was three weeks ago, so that's okay, too.

But then there are days like Sunday, which was Mother's Day, when everything goes gloriously out of whack. Like lots of women, I have my own misgivings about the holiday, but they all took a back seat to Wyatt's excitement on Sunday morning. Marc and he made breakfast, and I wasn't allowed out of bed until it was ready. And Wyatt might have exploded if he had to wait even one more second to give me the presents he had made at school: a silk scarf he had painted into a rainbow ("Look! I made that lime green!") and then ironed, and a drawing of flowers in the sun. Also, I drank at least a half a bottle of pink champagne with take-out for dinner. It was a relaxing end to a fun day visiting the newly renovated and expanded SF MOMA.

Most of the balance I experienced on Sunday was in the form of incredible artwork and architecture. And if I'm honest, I would have really enjoyed being able to linger in ANY gallery for longer than about 90 seconds. But at the same time, it was wonderful to see how Wyatt has begun to appreciate and interact with art. The last time we were at the museum was just before it closed in 2013. And no surprise, our little builder is far more interested in sculpture these days than paintings, and he's way more intrigued by modern art than the more classical works we saw at the De Young the other week.

Even though we hustled through the seven floors of the museum, I was able to get a few photos. The stranger who happened to walk into my photo of Richard Serra's "Sequence" helps to show the scale of the work. We walked through "Sequence" many times and I cannot wait to do it again. Wyatt was perplexed by "Nonsite" (aka The Pile of Dirt), and it was a great way to start talking about what makes something art. I'm a huge sucker for typeface and gradients, so "Fools" also made it into this set. I want to go back and camp out in the Ellsworth Kelly galleries, among other spots.

Wyatt and I almost went back to the museum on Monday. But because balance will be mine (whether I want it or not), Wyatt basically collapsed in an exhausted heap after school. There was no getting him out the door in time (or at all) to make our ticket time.

Curiosity, Nature, and Knitting

Last week didn't feel like a series of days for me. It felt like a bunch of fragments that never seemed to add up to anything useful. All fits and starts, with ten minutes here, twenty minutes there, and by Wednesday, I finally accepted that it was probably going to be one of those weeks where I'd get nothing real accomplished.

But I was wrong! First of all, I got some reading done.

Since October 2015, I have read exactly two books. Abysmal, I know. I used to read all the time, and now? Knitting fills my eyes while podcasts fill my ears. I know, I know—audio books!—but I have yet to warm to them.

The book I started in October and finished last week was Proof: The Science of Booze, by Adam Rogers. Don't let my many months of reading it fool you—it was an absolutely terrific read. I highly recommend it to anyone with any interest in alcoholic beverages or science.

The second book I read, I started on Thursday, neglected it over the weekend, and finished it on Monday. I could not stop reading it (and reporting the most interesting parts to Wyatt and Marc). The book is Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness, by Nathanael Johnson. I heard about it on one of my favorite podcasts, 99% Invisible.

This is a book I wish I could have read during the years when I was walking around with baby (and later, toddler) Wyatt. Back then, I had a child who loathed his car seat and his stroller. His screaming was ear-splitting, and heartbreakingly frustrating. No loving words, kind pats or white-noise app on my phone could soothe him. As a result, I drove sparingly and spent hours walking with him in one baby carrier or another all around the neighborhood. As Wyatt became more aware of his surroundings, he'd start to point at things he noticed. "Tree!" I'd say. Or "Flower!" depending on where it looked like his chubby finger was directed. And as he grew older, he would hear a bird chirping and sign, "Bird." So I'd say "Bird!" But as the months rolled by and our urban nature walks continued, I became acutely aware of how few types of trees, plants, or birds I could identify. I went so far as to research whether there were urban nature walks where someone would identify things for you while you strolled, so I could learn. Sadly, all walks I found directly competed with nap time, so I never went, and I didn't pursue my curiosity further.

Nathanael Johnson, on the other hand, took a very similar experience with his daughter and turned it into a way of appreciating the "Urban Wilderness." He followed his curiosity, studying the "boring" or even "disgusting" plants and creatures we find everywhere in our urban landscapes. Then he wrote about them so engagingly and informatively that I finished his entire book in just two sittings.

I think this book grabbed my attention because, in addition to my early urban nature walks with Wyatt and our ongoing fascination with bugs, slugs, and plants, I sometimes feel torn between city life and what I imagine country life must be like (thanks, Instagram!) I struggle with the whole "Be Here. Now." thing in our busy, tech-driven city. As it turns out, there doesn't need to be a struggle, you just have to start actually seeing things. Thanks to a narrative that's as informative and persuasive as it is funny, I followed Johnson on his own journey of learning about turkey vultures, snails, squirrels, ginkgo trees, crows, and more. As I saw how we can connect with the natural world, I felt more compelled than ever to start exploring. Cities (with green spaces) are teeming with nature, and believing that I have to go out to the wilderness to experience nature is just silly.

As Johnson wrote on pages 63-64,

We see what we expect to, what we have a name for, what pops immediately into our heads. But confirmation of the expected is boring, and false. Life only becomes interesting when you watch it closely enough to see something surprising, and with that surprise come a little closer to the real thing. That, I suppose, is the point of this book: to allow people to see past their expectations. When actual seeing pierces the skin of habituation, if only for a moment, it permits a bit of wonder to bleed through.

Marc, Wyatt and I have decided to follow Johnson's helpful and remarkably practical recommendations for becoming "Neighborhood Naturalists."  We have binoculars and can easily find a magnifying glass. It will be fun to keep a journal and identify one species a month. And Wyatt already determined in preschool the rampant weed he loves to eat (sour grass), so he's ahead of us in that regard.

But I didn't only get reading done this week! I also had the most amazing Saturday at Kira K Design's knitting retreat at the Marconi Conference Center. I received the most inspiring introduction to Fair Isle knitting from Janine Bajus (The Feral Knitter, and photos of some of her amazing designs appear below), learned all about pattern adjustment from Kira, and connected with some other truly wonderful entrepreneurs, including Sunni Scrivner, who owns the the shop Yarn, in Eureka, and designs her own patterns, Maria Isabel, who owns A Needle Runs Through It and makes terrific project bags, and Brooke Sinnes, the woman behind Sincere Sheep and the yarns I love so much. The setting was beautiful, and the company was the best.

More than that, nature was everywhere! including in our classroom, when a terrified-looking hummingbird found itself in the track lighting and could not determine a way out. Luckily for the bird, one of my classmates had handled similar situations before and carefully carried it out of the classroom after it collapsed and fell to the floor. Seemingly no worse for the wear, it buzzed off after catching its breath while perched on a flowering bush (the name of which I of course do not know...yet).

Birthday Cake!

"I don't want to have my school birthday tomorrow. I'm not going."

"Oh dear. That's really too bad. BECAUSE I'M BAKING TWO CAKES FOR IT TONIGHT AND DAD AND I ARE GOING."

As you may know, Wyatt turned FIVE this week. And on Sunday evening, he announced his non-attendance at school on Monday just as Marc whisked him, freshly showered, off to bed after a truly epic weekend of fun (and an equally epic melt-down at the end of it all). And, to be honest, two hours later, between baking the first and second cake, I marched down the hall to announce (again) to Marc, "I HATE BAKING." Wyatt and I probably both meant to declare instead, "I'M EXHAUSTED."

Part of turning five in Wyatt's kindergarten is having a little celebration in the classroom: A birthday circle, with cake. There are two children's birthdays this week, so that's why we needed two cakes. Wyatt's class has celebrated most of the children's birthdays already. The tradition (as I understand it) is that the family of the birthday child provides the ingredients that a teacher then bakes into a birthday cake. I've seen the cakes—glorious looking bundt cakes topped with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and surrounded by a crown of fresh fruit or flowers. Because Wyatt is gluten-free, he can't have the school birthday cakes, so I bake gluten-free cupcakes that the teachers keep in the freezer for him and defrost as needed. Wyatt doesn't mind missing-out on the birthday cake. The cupcakes I bake for him are really good, and the fact that most baked goods are "gluten" instead of "gluten-free" is something he's used to.

But let's be honest. There's something special about being able to share a cake with all your friends on your birthday. In Wyatt's class, there are a couple of children who are gluten-free, and one child who is also dairy-free. So far, it hasn't been possible for the whole class to share a cake. Or two cakes, for that matter.

I figured it was time to find a cake recipe that everyone in his class could enjoy. Over the last two weeks, I have baked (and shared) a BUNCH of yellow 6-cup sized bundt cakes. I'm no baker (never mind a cake baker, as evidenced by the fact that I borrowed cake pans for this project), but thanks to a little knowledge from my Science & Cooking class and some careful troubleshooting, I have arrived at a delicious cake recipe that is gluten-free, dairy-free, and comes out of a bundt pan with absolutely no difficulty. The structure of the cake is very good and the crumb seems just right. This cake is a winner.

How much of a winner, you ask? Well, Wyatt told me when I picked him up from school, "Mom! We fooled the other gluten-free kids! They said to the teachers, 'Why did you give me cake? I can't have cake.' But they could! They were SO HAPPY and ate it all up. We even got seconds! Let's fool them again next year." My heart melts a little every time I think about how "we fooled them," and I feel a twinge of regret for all the times I declared, dripping spatula raised high in the air, "I HATE BAKING." An appreciative audience is one of the best reasons I can think of to bake a cake (or two).

Like most delicious birthday cakes, there's nothing health-food-like about this one. Also, because there aren't any children with nut or egg sensitivities in Wyatt's class, I only solved for gluten and dairy in this recipe. If anyone else wants to take on the challenge of further substitutions, please share in the comments the changes you make and how the cake turned out.

I developed my recipe based on the recipe for Yellow Cake in Gluten-Free Girl American Classics Reinvented and the recipe for Yellow Layer Cake in America's Test Kitchen's How Can It Be Gluten Free. I love both of these cookbooks. But having made both of these cake recipes in the past, I felt that that neither recipe would give me the exact cake I wanted (and both recipes include sour cream, anyway). So I did a little research about non-dairy sour cream alternatives, drew on the aspects I liked best about each cake recipe, tinkered with ingredients, and eventually, I got the cake I wanted.

As is the case with most "alternative baking" recipes, there are a few steps you need to take before actually baking the cake, so I'll lay those out first.

Make your Gluten-Free Flour Blend: I like Gluten Free Girl's blend, and that's what I used. You'll need 400 grams of millet flour, 300 grams of sweet rice flour, and 300 grams of potato starch. Combine all three ingredients in a large bowl and then whisk until well-blended. If you prefer, you can buy the blend, already mixed, here.

Make your Baking Goop: I had a terrible problem with my cakes sticking, and many good store-bought baking sprays include flour, which isn't an option when baking gluten-free. But this mixture works like a charm. Take equal volumes (I used 1/4 cup) of your gluten-free flour blend, a neutral-flavored oil, and shortening. Blend them (in a blender or with a whisk) until smooth. Store the mixture in a jar with a lid and refrigerate it when not in use to avoid separation. Before you bake, take the jar out of the refrigerator so that it can warm up a bit. Dip a pastry brush into the mixture and paint the goop evenly and thoroughly over the pan to prepare it before baking.

Make your Cashew Sour Cream: I mostly followed the recipe from Oh She Glows, but I used less water. Here is my slight adaptation of the recipe, which yields just under 2 cups of Cashew Sour Cream:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups (225 g) raw cashews, soaked
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• Scant 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Directions:

1. Put the cashews in a bowl and cover them with boiling water. Soak for 1 hour, and then drain.
2. Place the drained cashews in a high-speed blender (I used a Vitamix).
3. Add the fresh lemon juice, vinegar, water, and salt. Blend the mixture on high speed until it is incredibly smooth. 
4. Store the "cream" in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. It will probably thicken a bit once it has chilled. You can store it in the refrigerator for about a week or freeze it for longer storage. I portion it in silicone ice cube trays before freezing.

... and then it's CAKE BAKING TIME! I used a 6-cup bundt pan (and to avoid over-filling the pan, I made a few cupcakes with the extra batter that didn't fit), but you could use another pan if you like. I prefer to weigh my ingredients when I bake because it is so much more accurate and yields the best results. But I have included rough volume measurements, in case you don't have access to a baking scale.

Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Yellow Birthday Cake

(click here for a printable version)

Ingredients:

• 100g coconut oil, melted (just under 1/2 cup)
• 311g Flour Blend (about 2 1/4 cups)
• 1 tablespoon gluten-free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 large eggs, room temperature, separated
• a pinch of cream of tartar
• 198g granulated sugar (about 1 cup)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 163g cashew sour cream (about 2/3 cup)

Directions:

1. Place your baking rack in the middle position in your oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. With a pastry brush, paint your Baking Goop all over the inside of the pan(s) you will use. Brush a thin layer of goop thoroughly and evenly over the entire baking surface of the pan(s).
2. In a small or medium-sized bowl, whisk flour blend, baking powder, salt, and baking soda until combined.
3. Fit your stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whip the egg whites and cream of tartar on medium-low speed until the mixture is foamy. It will take about a minute. Then, increase the speed to medium-high and whip the whites into billowy clouds for another minute. With the mixer running, gradually add half of the sugar and keep whipping the mixture until the whites make stiff, glossy peaks. It will take another two or three minutes. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.
4. Return your now empty mixer bowl to the stand mixer. Add the egg yolks and vanilla, and whip them for about 30 seconds on medium speed (until they are well-blended). With the mixer running, gradually add the rest of the sugar, and then increase the mixer speed to high. Keep whipping the mixture for another two minutes or so, until it becomes very thick and pale yellow. Reduce the mixer speed to medium, add the coconut oil, and then the cashew sour cream. Whip for another 30 seconds or so. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the flour blend mixture. Mix until thoroughly combined (about a minute), scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
5. Using a rubber spatula, stir one-third of the whipped egg whites into the batter you just made. Then, gently fold in the rest of the whites and keep folding the batter until you can't see any more white streaks in the batter.
6. Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s), leaving at least 1 1/2 inches of space at the top of the pan. Rap the pan(s) sharply on the counter (to dislodge any bubbles that may have gotten trapped), and bake them. Rotate the pan 180 degrees half-way through baking time, and test for doneness by inserting a toothpick. Once the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done.  In my oven, the 6-cup bundt cake takes about 40 minutes. Cupcakes take about 25 minutes.
7. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes in the pan, and then turn it onto a plate or platter. Let it cool completely before slicing and eating.

Gorgonzola Cheese

We are still working our way through David Asher's book, The Art of Natural Cheesemaking. I love this project and the cheeses we have made!

A couple of weeks ago, we made some space in the cheese cave (by eating some delicious cheese, of course) and Wyatt and I started working on our first Gorgonzola style cheese. For this project, rather than taking still photographs, I videoed the process. I shot everything on my iPhone, using my GorillaPod tripod. If you watch the video, you'll notice a bunch of first time filmmaker mistakes, especially if you really know what you're doing with a video camera (or iMovie, for that matter). But the video also shows how Wyatt and I work together in the kitchen, and we do pretty well.

I was curious what it would be like to watch us, and I wondered if I would be able to put together anything decent from the footage I got. Our first day of cheesemaking took about 3.5 hours, and we worked on the cheese off and on for a week after that. But the entire video is only about 15 minutes long—not bad if you want a relatively quick look at what it is like to make cheese at home with an almost 5-year old.

With that, I give you my Gorgonzola video. Enjoy!

Springtime

Spring break staycation was solid, but it has left me feeling scattered and more unfocused than usual. I can't even conjure a metaphor or an alliterative trill to help guide this blog post. Last night, I wondered whether this ambivalence and feeling of "blaaaaahhhhhhhh!" was a sign I should skip writing a blog entry this week. In fact, as I entered the sixth hour of editing my knitting pattern,* I thought, "I don't even know why I'm putting up a post every week. Who cares?"

But I found out today when I dropped Wyatt off at school that word of this blog is spreading, and that bit of news made me happy. A teacher I know but to whom I have never mentioned the blog stopped me to say she was loving reading it and that she thought I was a "powerhouse." I was totally taken aback by her compliment, and I probably made a weirdly unflattering face when I remarked that frankly, I didn't feel that powerful, but thank you so much for reading because it has been great to be writing again.

And it IS great to be writing again. So here I am, showing up this week, with what may be my most scattered blog post to date.

Spring is definitely here, and springtime means birthdays in our house. We're about two weeks away from Wyatt's fifth birthday, and he is already so excited that he brings up "turning five" every day. I asked him yesterday what aspect of turning five he is most excited about, and after, "Presents!" he said, "Just being five. All my friends are five already..." and then he proceeded to name almost all of the children in his class. For all this excitement, though, he remains very clear that he doesn't want to have a birthday party outside of the little celebration they will have in his classroom. Maybe one year he will want one, or maybe not. But as long as he doesn't want one, we look at his "no party" request as a birthday wish that is extraordinarily easy to grant.

I still can't believe this kid will be five. When he was six months old or so, I remember reading the Muni sign that said that children under five ride for free, and thinking, five is SO FAR AWAY. As dumb (or morbid) as it sounds, in that moment, I was pretty sure we'd never have to buy a muni ticket for him. But we're practically there. We have come so far in the last five years. Last week was full of great examples of how Wyatt's brand of "almost five" is pretty fantastic: Strong hiking legs, boundless curiosity, deep appreciation of beauty, new love for spicy food, a willingness to be flexible, and a real need to learn and grow. Here's how our week played out.

On Monday, we went to Rainbow Grocery and then spent the entire afternoon making Gorgonzola cheese (I'm still working on a post about that), kimchi (still very mild but now with a little spice), and testing recipes for Samin Nosrat's new cookbook.

Tuesday, on my friend Rose Hagan's recommendation, we went to the Annie Leibovitz's exhibit. Women: New Portraits is terrific, we enjoyed everything we saw, and I could have easily spent much longer there had I gone by myself. After the exhibit, we took a hike through Crissy Field to visit the Warming Hut and to check out the wildlife that decided to say hello. After a quick stop at home for lunch, Wyatt had his swimming lesson.

On Wednesday, Marc took the day off and we spent the day in the Inner Richmond. We began at the de Young Museum to see the Bouquets to Art and Oscar de la Renta exhibits. Both were stunning, of course. As a "bonus," there was a medical emergency in the Oscar de la Renta exhibit, and we had a terrific view of the paramedics' work. We had planned to eat lunch at the museum, but the line for the cafe was into the lobby by 11:30 am, so we headed down the street to Nopalito. On the way, we discussed at length how much Wyatt wants to ride on the adjustable chair in the ambulance and how lucky we were there was "a medical" while we were at the museum. At Nopalito, Wyatt ate two bowls of spicy chickpeas and drank about two quarts of water, and we all had Totopos con Chile and Tacos de Pescado al Pastor for lunch. After lunch, we stopped by a Buddhist temple because we were feeling curious, visited Green Apple Books on Clement, and got ice cream at Toy Boat Dessert Cafe.

Thursday, I took Wyatt shoe shopping at Nordstrom. He got new shoes and opted for a pink balloon to go with them. We ate a picnic lunch outside the mall, and then on our way to do some errands in the Mission, Wyatt lost his very lovely balloon out of the car window on Valencia Street around 18th. There may have never been a sadder sounding boy in the Mission than Wyatt on Thursday afternoon.

Friday, we stayed home, Wyatt did a lot of building with his Legos and MagnaTiles, and we prepared for shoelace tying lessons. I got out two dark nail polish colors. On Wyatt's left index fingernail, I painted the face of a mole in dark red. On his right thumbnail, I painted a bunny silhouette in bright blue. I did the same on my nails so we could work side by side. We were ready: First, you make the beginning knot; then, there is the tree, right by Mole's hole; Bunny comes out of his hole and runs around the tree, sees mole, and shoves him back into his hole. Then Mole and Bunny run away from each other.** We tried tying shoe laces several times during the day, and Wyatt declared every time, whining and crying in frustration, "This is SO BORING. I never, ever want to be able to tie my shoes!"

I chalked his hyperbole up to shoelace tying being astonishingly difficult and how, after hanging out with me for the whole week, it was probably time for a break from spring break. I figured we would practice again on Saturday. But on Saturday, he didn't want to even try. I started to think about contingency plans for school footwear. Maybe it would rain and he could wear boots. But on Sunday morning, as we were about to head out the door, he grabbed his new sneakers, plopped down on the floor, and eagerly jammed his right foot into his shoe. He took a lace in each hand and said, "First, I make the pretzel head..." and then, as he started to make the first loop, said, "I forget--where does mole go again?" So I told him, and he proceeded to tie the bow all by himself. He almost got his second shoelace tied in a bow as well. Bursting with pride in his accomplishment, we both rode our kick scooters to pick up some items from the grocery store for lunch and some flowers from the florist for Wyatt to take to school on Monday. I carried the flowers in my backpack, and Wyatt carried everything else in his.

For lunch, we made something new to us: Onigirazu. I had stumbled on a link for the recipe I used after reading a piece in Lucky Peach about Onigiri (which I also want to try making, but haven't yet). The recipe for Onigirazu, true to it's word, took only 30 minutes to make, and the results were outstanding. It's basically a sandwich of seaweed, rice, and filling (in this case, egg, ham, cheese, and wasabi mayonnaise). In the time it took the rice to cook, I had set up the area for assembling the "sandwiches," cooked the omelet and prepared the wasabi mayonnaise. I went light on the wasabi, but I needn't have. All three of us could have handled the flavor at full-spice level. We will definitely be revisiting this recipe. I almost made it for lunch again today. Maybe tomorrow when I'm less scattered. Ha!

*There's no better (or humbling) way I can think of to learn something new than by doing the absolute best job you know how, and then handing it off to a professional to correct it and offer constructive criticism. Thanks to my technical editor's guidance, I've revamped the structure of this particular written pattern twice. I am stumbling into more lessons, rules, approaches, and issues than I ever thought possible. It's amazing.

**How great is this Mole-Bunny story for shoelace tying? It's courtesy of my friend Sarah.

Timbuk2 and Tacos

Our factory tour-themed week of spring break concluded on Friday when Wyatt and I went on the Timbuk2 factory tour. The tour is offered the first Friday of every month, so if you weren't there on April 1, there will be plenty of other opportunities. You can reserve your free tickets to the tour on their website.

Our group of about 20 or so visitors (honestly, I didn't count) began the tour in the Timbuk2 shop on Shotwell Street, where our energetic and knowledgeable tour guides gave us a brief history of the company. We then followed our guides next door, into their offices, to see some bag designs that will be available for purchase later in the year. We peeked into the lunch room, saw April Fools prank bags from previous years, and had the opportunity to admire peoples' workstations. Wyatt also found the foosball table. Our third stop was the factory itself, where we saw several expert sewists stitching bags together. We learned, among other things, that Timbuk2 follows the Toyota model of production, every sewist can perform every sewing task necessary to making any of the bags, and it takes just 18 minutes to make a classic Timbuk2 messenger bag. The San Francisco factory is just one of the factories where Timbuk2 manufactures its products. The other factories are located in Indonesia, Vietnam, and China. Our final stop on the tour was the second floor of the offices, where we spoke to a designer who showed us her process for designing bags for manufacture, and we got a sneak peek at designs that won't be released for a year or more.

If our tour guides' goals were to give us an understanding of Timbuk2's corporate culture and a serious case of bag envy, they largely succeeded. It seems like Timbuk2's employees are mostly young, fun loving, work-hard-play-hard types who are devoted cyclists and self-described "bag-geeks." And some of the bags I saw that will be coming out in the next year (or more) are more fashion forward than Timbuk2's traditional backpacks and messenger bags.

Wyatt loved the shop, trying out the buckles on the bags, and he even found a couple of bags he really loved. But as far as the tour went, he said, "It was okaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy, but all they did was show us bags. And talk about bags. I couldn't see much what was going on, and they didn't show us any big machines. I liked the sewing machines, but we spent hardly any time in there. And they didn't give us any of the pieces they sew together."

He proceeded to rank his factory tours, so far, as follows:

1. McRoskey Mattress Company

2. Anchor Steam Brewery

3. Timbuk2

He gave this ranking before he received the "thank you for touring" postcard from McRoskey. McRoskey may have secured their #1 ranking for awhile with that one piece of mail.

But the Timbuk2 tour was definitely fun, and it got us within easy walking distance of what Wyatt declared to be "The Best Tacos In Town" from El Gallo Giro, a taco truck that parks on Treat at 23rd Street. The carnitas tacos were the best I have had in ages, and lunch cost a total of only $8.

And guess what? There's still an ENTIRE WEEK LEFT OF SPRING BREAK. And I'm out of tours. So the current plan for the coming week is to start another cheese (a gorgonzola style, this time), visit a museum, maybe spend some time exploring neighborhoods we rarely visit, and probably eat more tacos from El Gallo Giro.

Spring Break: Factory Tour Edition

We've just begun a two-week spring break staycation, and I've rarely been so grateful to live in such an interesting city.

Wyatt is keenly interested in learning how stuff gets made. And he is even more interested in a manufacturing process if it requires lots of heavy machinery and many delivery trucks with forklifts. We spend so much time talking about (and speculating about) how stuff gets made that I recently started toying with the idea of taking him on some factory tours. 

To be honest though, when the idea of factory tours occurred to me, I was probably thinking about how much I love factory tours and hoping Wyatt was old enough to (1) behave and (2) learn something. I guessed that he was, and I tested my guess during February break when we took our first tour. We started with a beer factory, Anchor Steam Brewery. After years of driving past it and speculating about what it must be like inside, I figured, why not find out? Wyatt was overjoyed when I told him we were going to the brewery, and once there, he was totally perplexed as to why there weren't any other kids on the tour. I'm pretty sure that we were the only people in the group who were more interested in the tour of the facility than the extremely generous beer tasting at the end.

Since that successful factory tour, I've been researching and contacting San Francisco manufacturing companies to see if Wyatt and I can come and see how they do their work. I have yet to find a chocolate factory that will have us, and an electric motorcycle company declined my request because of their production schedule, but disappointments aside, how lucky are we that our first week of break is bookended by a tour of McRoskey Mattress Company on Monday, and Timbuk2 on Friday? Just based on the McRoskey tour, we are incredibly lucky.

The McRoskey tour was fabulous. We were six people (three adults, two kindergarteners and one teenager) on the tour, and we followed McRoskey's entire process of building a mattress, from the bolts of fabric, spools of wire, metal fittings, and what looked like bales of cotton, to the end product: a handcrafted mattress that got tufted as we watched. We also saw how the box springs are made. Our guide, Robin, was incredibly knowledgeable and kept everyone's interest. Possibly even more impressive were the workers and craftspeople we saw creating these beautiful mattresses—every single person was simultaneously focused on their work and incredibly welcoming.

First we saw the sewing room, then we headed to watch spring-making and spring-fastening. We saw the cotton, wool, and other layers that go into the mattress and watched it get sewn together. We watched them build box springs. And then we watched as different people made two huge tufting machines do their magic.

Wyatt and I drafted his "Thank You For The Tour" note this afternoon. He worked on the card at his little project board, next to his haul of many of the mattress manufacturing treasures that Robin had given him. Among other things, he asked me to write, "I think that if I worked at your mattress factory, I would want to be the person who folds and weighs the fluffy cotton . . . I liked how . . . you asked everyone if they were available to show us how all the machines worked."

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who loves factory tours.

Adventures in Natural Egg Dyeing

"Mom. My teacher told me you can make egg dye with all kinds of things. Like beets, parsley and red cabbage."

"Yes! We did that the first year I dyed eggs with you. Do you remember?"

"No."

"You were pretty little. We can do that again this year if you want. It would be fun. We'd make the dyes, arrange the eggs in the dye, and they could sit overnight in the egg dye."

"That's okay. I'm good. Can you just buy the package instead?"

This conversation happened on Sunday morning, even before any of us had really committed to getting out of our pajamas. My answer was, of course, a resounding, "YES." I could absolutely buy the package of dye, if only to celebrate the moment when my child basically requested that for once, we not do something the hard way.

Yellow onion skin produced the orange, beets made magenta, and blueberries the variegated purple. On the end, one faintly green egg was from parsley, and the pale yellowish one was from cumin.

We dyed eggs every year when I was a kid, with double doses of PAAS tablets, probably so the color would get darker faster. I hardly ever dyed Easter eggs as an adult, and for Wyatt's first two Easters, I didn't dye any eggs as a parent, either. Our first attempt at egg dyeing was in 2013. And when I say "our" I mean "my." That year, I decided I would attempt using natural dyes, and I Googled my way to whatever "recipes" I could find. Because the instructions I found were so imprecise and apparently untested (otherwise known as "terrible recipes" or "ideas! for egg dyeing! with stuff you can find in your house!"), the process was time-consuming, a little smelly (don't try to dye with cumin) and somewhat aggravating.

Accordingly, in 2014, I bought a natural dye kit so I could compare our results with my experience the previous year, and so that Wyatt could participate without having to wait hours to get colored eggs. The results were fast—we got color within minutes rather than hours. And the colors were bright, too. It was a fun project to do with a toddler. So I bought the same kit in 2015, and it looks like we'll be revisiting it again this year.

Before this morning's egg dyeing conversation, I had toyed with trying the homemade natural dyes again. Since February, I have been mostly remembering to keep the skins from yellow onions I use for cooking. Of the dyestuffs we tried in 2013, onion skins, beets, and frozen blueberries were our winners. (The losers were cumin, parsley and red wine.) And while it sounds like we're committed to going the kit route again this year, I read a great tutorial just this morning on homemade natural egg dyes. Unlike all the "recipes" I read in 2013, this author notes that the eggs have to sit in the color at least overnight to gain a deep hue on their shells. And she used hibiscus powder! If I run across any of that, I think we may try at least hibiscus-dyed eggs along with our kit.

The explanation in the tutorial of how to make flower silhouette prints on the eggs is also excellent. If you've already got pressed, dried flowers for this project, more power to you. We don't. We did, however, use a a similar approach last year, after gathering fresh leaves from our garden, and we got some pretty prints on our eggs. Flat leaf parlsey worked well. Place the leaves on the egg before dyeing and secure with pantyhose tied around the egg, then add the egg-in-hosiery to the dye. Remove the egg when you reach your desired color, and then carefully remove the pantyhose and leaves. You can also make fun designs by using different thicknesses of rubber bands, wrapped different ways around the eggs before dyeing.

Last year, our first challenge for egg dyeing was finding pasture-raised eggs that were white. We never found any, and I ended up buying pasture-raised duck eggs instead. Looking at the photos from the tutorial, though, I wonder if we might do fine with eggs that aren't white. Eggshell color may be our experiment for this year.

The other important question with egg dyeing is of course, "How long do you boil your eggs?" It's a critical question to answer if you like to eat the eggs you color. For the last few years, we have been making Easter Egg Salad with our colored eggs.

I love to eat eggs all kinds of ways, and I like them cooked perfectly. Overcooked hard boiled eggs don't cut it for me. In fact, I think being able to make great hard boiled eggs is an excellent reason to own a circulator. But if you, like me, don't have a circulator, here is a recipe that will get you very close to perfection.

Do you have egg dyeing tips, tricks or stories? Please share them in the comments.

Instagram Saved Our Cheese

"Mom! I LOVE that red thread! And the little face smiling sideways. Good job."

The Internet was so good to me last week. As you know, we are in the midst of spring cleaning at our house. We've got until Easter to get it done, and to be honest, the verve we initially brought to this project is basically gone. Don't get me wrong—we haven't given up on the plan, but we also don't make progress every day anymore. This scenario is obviously not ideal, but why be dogmatic about the "every day" part of it if we're still moving forward? Rationalizations aside, we actually made huge progress this weekend when we bundled and donated six big bags of items.

The process of clearing out closets brings me face to face with items we love but haven't worn because they need help in some way. I found a favorite jacket of mine (with a stuck zipper), a couple of sweaters (that have been worn thin in spots), a skirt (that's still about six inches too long for me), and a few of Wyatt's pants that have holes in the knees. My stack of mending is pretty tall right now, and my skills are not yet equal to the task. Imagine my delight to find that in 2014, The Guardian published some incredibly helpful "How-To's" in a series called "How to Mend." I've pinned them all so I can consult them as needed.

As you can see from the photo at the top of this post, my "visible mending" techniques can use some improvement, but I'm happy to be figuring it out as I go along. You can see my first attempt at knee patches on the left. The jeans were hand-me-downs to Wyatt, and there was nothing to lose by practicing on them with my sewing machine. He wears the jeans all the time now. On the right, you can see the intentionally crooked smiley face I embroidered by hand this weekend to mend two holes (one of which is now an eye, and the other of which is the nose). My next job is to find a replacement zipper and figure out how to use the zipper foot on my sewing machine. Thank goodness for YouTube tutorials.

And oh-my-stars, thank goodness for Instagram. Last Thursday, I posted a photo of the Valençay cheeses that have been aging in our refrigerator. I had noticed that they were developing weird little spots of mold, and I thought I might have to compost them. When I posted the photo, I used a bunch of hashtags and tagged a couple of experts, including Louella Hill, whose cheesemaking book I own, to see what they thought was going on.

Louella Hill responded! My cheeses are fine, she said. I could remove the mold, or not. The wild blue "invaders" weren't really a problem, and the cheeses should just keep aging for another week or maybe three. Louella even answered my follow-up question about where to look for more information about cheese mold (Ben Wolfe and Rachel Dutton, in case you're curious, and haven't yet followed me on Instagram). I removed the mold spots (they slipped right off the ash, interestingly enough) and things now look to be back to normal in the cave.

I keep remembering how much more difficult it used to be, when we weren't so well-connected, to try something new and troubleshoot when things went wrong. It's kind of unbelievable that we can now get practically real-time, helpful feedback from people we don't know in real life. I realize there are huge downsides to social media. And I know that some people write horrible things to others online thanks to the anonymity the Internet affords. But when Instagram saves our cheese, and the Internet rescues my favorite jacket, it's only right to notice the good that's out there.

Let Your Curiosity Transform You

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I dedicated the month of February to drafting my first ever knitting patterns. Now that I'm on the other side of my first draft, I can say that the pattern writing and accompanying hand-cramping deadline-knitting were challenging. The whole affair actually reminded me a little bit of my first legal writing assignments. Once again, I was struggling to write a piece that made sense, on a deadline, while employing unfamiliar citation formats. I had forgotten how difficult it is to drop into an industry, grab an opinionated reader's attention, show them an irresistible point-of-view, and then take them through a logical process, step-by-step, using concise and perfectly clear directions. It's really hard. I stayed up way too late every night, cut corners on pretty much every other aspect of my life, and I began seriously to doubt myself. (Can you spot the hard-boiled perfectionist who has committed herself to trying something new?)

Halfway through writing my second pattern, it dawned on me that I had probably taken on too much. I recalled the time in high school French class when we were assigned to write a journal entry with the story of our day. I attempted to write the actual story of my real day, with all the things I had done, along with my thoughts and feelings. You know, like an actual journal entry. I used my English-French dictionary for so many words, and I thought I had done a remarkable and insightful job on the assignment. But I hadn't. My teacher returned the assignment to me full of red ink corrections, genuinely quizzical question marks, and a gentle suggestion that next time, I keep things simple and report what time I woke up, what I ate, and when I went to bed.

If I had actually absorbed that lesson from Madame (whose last name I have now forgotten), I would have first attempted to design an interminably boring scarf or a detestably predictable shawl (that I could neither pin, tie, nor drape without looking absolutely ridiculous). But I didn't. Apparently, I remain as over-confident as ever in certain of my abilities. On March 1, I gave my kind, generous, and ridiculously capable technical editor my patterns. I await her proverbial red ink and promised constructive criticism. Part of me wants the patterns to be perfect, and most of me knows that under the veneer of my fine organizational structure and carefully chosen font, they are a hot mess. Whatever. I cannot wait to learn from my next draft.

Let your curiosity transform you, I say! The magical looking photo collage at the top of this post is my first visual representation of the spirit behind String & Twig (you can see additional related photos, as well as the sources of the photos I selected, on my Pinterest board). It dawned on me just this past week that this process of learning and growing is what my blog is all about. My posts are about how we indulge our curiosity by trying new things, seeing what works, and what doesn't. And every time we try something, there's some kind of transformation, like milk into cheese, seeds into plants, or me into whatever comes next (unwanted ecologies and all). We're all changing in big or small ways every day, regardless of whether we want to or not. Why not evolve in ways that satisfy our intellectual curiosity?

And at the same time, how about working to cultivate curiosity in the more ho-hum aspects of life, like cooking for example? On a very basic level, if we're doing our best, we're transforming ingredients into a meal (or more) every day. And there is so much eating that happens every day. Three meals! Every day. It's hard to get or stay curious about cooking, especially, as I noticed this past month, when you have some shiny, new, more interesting thing going on. I found myself becoming keenly interested in staying out of the kitchen. But because fasting wasn't an option, I focused on decent food I could assemble and cook quickly, as well as food I could basically ignore once I had applied a heat source.

My solution to dinner in a pinch became Weirdly Addictive Tortilla Pizza. We have eaten it every Saturday evening since I learned about it. We use the fancier handmade corn tortillas, and they have been fabulous as pizza "crusts." Another ridiculously easy and shockingly popular dinner solution at our house is a Baked Potato Bar, and it now also appears almost weekly. Confession: I didn't know how to make a good, oven-baked potato until recently. But now I use this very easy recipe and the potatoes turn out beautifully every time. Top your crunchy, fluffy, perfect potatoes with sautéed leeks, butter or olive oil, sour cream, bacon, herbs, whatever other odd ends of previous dinners you have in your refrigerator, salt and pepper, and enjoy. Aside from scrambled eggs and kimchi atop rice from my 1990s rice cooker (which I also hauled out this month), the Baked Potato Bar is the most straightforward weeknight dinner I have ever encountered. Even better, everyone is always excited about it.

If you do have some extra time or oomph for the kitchen, though, I have to point out that blood orange season is coming to a close. I've been grabbing them while I can. If you have eaten more than your share and are looking for a new preparation (but aren't up for spending the small fortune required to make a batch of blood orange sorbet), try a blood orange curd sundae or this lovely riff on the Dominican Morir Soñado.

We made the blood orange curd for dessert with homemade vanilla ice cream and whipped cream when my cousin, my favorite author of books about pirates and teacher of fourth and fifth graders in Atlanta, visited a few weeks ago.

As for the Morir Soñados, Marc, Wyatt and I enjoyed our beautiful pink drinks in martini glasses during one recent kid-friendly Saturday evening cocktail hour. See the tortilla pizza? I wasn't kidding. Every Saturday. Make some yourself and be sure to be messy enough with the cheese at the edge so that you get some of those crunchy bits, too.

Homemade Yogurt

I am astounded by the number of types of yogurt for sale at the market. There are all kinds, Icelandic, Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, flavored and unflavored; but I have tried very few of them. Ever since I started making yogurt almost four years ago, I shop for milk instead. I've settled on Saint Benoit, organic Jersey whole milk, which makes a lovely yogurt with great texture and flavor. 

If you're interested in reading about (or listening to a story about) the process behind commercial yogurt making, NPR did a piece on it in 2015. Homemade yogurt is different from commercial yogurt. When you make yogurt at home, you can achieve a tastier and much more active product than what you buy at the store.

My basic process for making yogurt has always been to heat two quarts of milk to about 185 degrees Fahrenheit, cool the milk to about 117 degrees, mix in three tablespoons of yogurt from my previous batch (the first time I made it, I used Saint Benoit plain yogurt that I had purchased--amazingly, the culture was so strong that I haven't ever had to buy another starter) and then pour the mixture into a container with a lid. I wrap the container in dish towels, turn on the light in the oven, and incubate the yogurt in the oven overnight.

I have had a few yogurt mishaps. It seems like they mostly happened when I tried to incubate yogurt during the day. Two or three times, I turned the oven on, and about 15 minutes later, I wondered why the kitchen smelled like someone had been ironing. And then there was the time when I forgot about the yogurt, turned the oven on to 425 degrees, eventually smelled scorching cotton, and I freaked out. I moved way too hastily, slopping almost all of the yogurt out of the covered casserole dish and onto the inside of the oven and oven door, and all over the floor. The yogurt dripped everywhere, including between the panes of the oven door window, where I couldn't clean. I had to call our favorite appliance repair shop, Otto's Appliance Service, because I couldn't dismantle the door myself. As Otto remarked to me good naturedly, once he had the door on the floor and in pieces, "You could have bought a lot of yogurt for this service call." He wasn't wrong.

Since that incident, I bought a big Fido jar that seals nicely, and I have gotten much better about remembering when the yogurt is in the oven. For the last couple of years, I have had my yogurt process dialed-in. 

But recently, when it was time to make more yogurt, I remembered that David Asher's The Art of Natural Cheesemaking includes a section on making yogurt. Earlier, I had breezed by that chapter because I was already making yogurt. This time, I read it. David insists that the person making the yogurt must pay attention to the milk during the entire heating and cooling process. That means 30-60 minutes of constant stirring of the milk at 185 degrees, and constant stirring during the cooling period, as well. I groaned inwardly at the thought of stirring milk for over an hour. My approach had always been to reach the target temperature as quickly as I could without scorching the milk, then leave the milk to cool down on its own, checking the temperature every 15 or 20 minutes. Sure I'd get a skin on the milk, but whatever. Right? I wondered what a difference an hour or more of active time on yogurt would make.

The first night I tried David's technique, I explained to Marc what I was doing. Marc shook his head and said, "Why would you do this to yourself?" Good question. But my bigger concern was that we'd prefer this more time-intensive yogurt.

I was right to worry. David's approach to making yogurt* results in a far superior product. The texture is creamier, the flavor is well-balanced, and less whey seems to separate from the yogurt once it has been in the refrigerator for a few days. In fact, the yogurt tastes so much better than the yogurt I used to make that I have gotten in the habit of saving some favorite podcasts for while I stand and stir for over an hour every two weeks or so.

Yogurt making is not an activity that I can do with Wyatt at this point. After a couple of minutes of stirring, like any reasonable person, he's ready for both of us to move on to something more exciting. He does, however, love to "wake the yogurt up" when it's done culturing by opening the oven door, removing the kitchen towels and pulling the giant jar out so he can eat fresh yogurt for breakfast.

Am I being ridiculous to spend so much time making yogurt? Maybe. Or maybe not. It's really good yogurt. And in my defense (if I need one) I'll note that even I have limits. I have consciously decided not to try cooking the milk for more than 30 minutes. The range David suggests is 30-60 minutes of stirring at 185 degrees, and the longer the milk cooks, the thicker the yogurt will be. Because there is a pretty good chance we will love the longer-stirred yogurt even more, I'm not going there. 

My Yogurt Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 liters (or 2 quarts) of milk
• 3 tablespoons of yogurt starter

Equipment

• A large pot, spoon or spatula, thermometer, glass jar(s) with lid(s), towels, oven or warm place for incubation.

Method:

• Take 3 tablespoons of your yogurt starter out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter so it can come to room temperature.
• Turn on the oven light.
• Heat two liters of milk over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it reaches 185 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Set a timer for 30 minutes, start stirring, and don't stop stirring. Keep checking that the temperature of the milk is 185 degrees. Raise or lower the heat of the burner as needed to maintain 185 degrees.
• After 30 minutes, remove the pot of milk from the heat and keep stirring. Check the temperature occasionally and when it hits 117 degrees or so, stir in the 3 tablespoons of yogurt.
• Pour the milk and yogurt mixture into the jar(s) you will be using to ferment the yogurt. Close the containers and wrap kitchen towels around them to keep them warm. Place the jars in a warm spot (like an oven that is off but has the light on). I usually let the yogurt ferment for 10 hours or so.
• Wake your yogurt up in the morning, just in time for breakfast.

*David makes his yogurt with kefir culture. I'm happy with our yogurt culture, so I haven't switched to making kefir based yogurt.

Spring Cleaning

"Mom. We have cleaned out all of the kitchen. So what will we clean out today?"

"The dining room is next."

"Maybe we should first have a cup of tea."

This conversation happened about a week into our 40 days of cleaning out our house. Was Wyatt starting to feel like it might never end? Or is that just how I feel about it? Either way, this is the third year of our annual clearing out, or as some people call it, purging. We started this practice in 2014 after I read a friend's Facebook post about the "40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge." The idea is that for the 40 days of lent, you get rid of one large lawn and leaf-sized garbage bag of stuff. I interpreted "get rid of" as meaning you throw it out, recycle, donate or sell the stuff, but the stuff doesn't actually have to leave your house every day. It can sit in the bags until you're ready to take it wherever it needs to go, but all of it has to be gone by Easter. That first year, we cleared out over four hundred of pounds of stuff, including lots of old books and magazines (I promise, we aren't hoarders—that stuff is just heavy), furniture we never used, old clothes, as well as standard clutter. I was so impressed/horrified by what we discarded that I kept a photo of a receipt for what we brought to Recology. When Easter came, I felt ridiculously virtuous for all we had accomplished, and I gleeflully shredded our progress chart detailing the areas we had cleared. I thought to myself, "Well! We won't have to do THAT again for a long time."

I was wrong, wrong, wrong. We are not Marie Kondo, and as hard as we try to keep things to a minimum, clutter happens and stuff finds its way into our house. Also, after that first massive clear out in 2014, I noticed the following spring that we hadn't touched some of the things we had decided to keep. So, when Ash Wednesday rolled around again, we started again. I let go of the one-giant-bag-per-day requirement, though, and just addressed one area of the house every day. If there was more time, I handled a bigger area. If there was hardly any time, I dealt with a drawer. And we got rid of probably about half as much stuff as we did the year before. Because two years amounts to a tradition, we're at it again this year, in the same way we approached the process in 2015.

We are not a religious family. But the period of lent really is perfect for taking stock of what we have versus what we need or want, and engaging in the giant, unenviable task of clearing things out. As a child, I was taught that lent was a time for reflection, and a time to give up something (like sweets), take on a charitable responsibility, or maybe be just a bit nicer to my little brother. Because "never" is not a reasonable option, I can't think of a better time than lent for clearing out stuff. With lent, you get a definitive start date, end date, and a good, long 40 days to complete the project.

But it's not an easy project. Marc and I have had more than a few grumbly words with each other about the whole process. We did the easy stuff two years ago. This year, we are moving through the entire house, area by area, looking at every item critically. If the stuff is mine, I ask myself a smattering of questions that help me to decide whether to keep an item: "Do I need it?" "Do I want it?" "Does it spark joy?" If the answer is yes to any of those, I keep the item. If the answer is no to all of those, it's out. If the answer is "no" to only one or two of the questions, sometimes I'll keep the item, and sometimes I'll toss it. And if the stuff is Marc's, he gets to decide what to do with it. The best part, though, is when I cross-examine Marc or he cross-examines me about a decision to keep an item. Like I said, this project isn't easy.

One of the reasons I hate this annual clear out is because it makes me face how my life has changed and how little progress I have made in reconciling myself to those changes. For example, I have innumerable pairs of fun and fancy shoes that I never, ever wear anymore, as well as lots of blank canvases and tubes of paint I haven't touched since 2011. And then there are well-crafted items I can't use but feel a bizarre responsibility to somehow repurpose, like ill-fitting hand knits and outdated cashmere sweaters from my grandmothers. I think it may be finally time to move on from some of this stuff.

A heartening aspect of this clearing out, though, is how Wyatt is taking to the process. For his stuff, he and I walk through his toys and books, one by one, and sometimes, he finds things he doesn't need or want anymore, which is great. He's also there as I clear out my own stuff. He loves discovering items he has never seen, and he's delighted that Marc and I are having to make decisions about what to keep. Lately, Wyatt has been going into my closet (which I have yet to address this year) to pull something out, like a handbag he has never seen me use. He'll ask, "Is this on your list to go out?" Sometimes, he asks because he hopes I'll keep it, and sometimes he asks because he sees no reason for me to have it.  Either way, it's wonderful to see that he has enthusiasm for a task I loathe so much, and that he's thinking critically about what we have, what we need, and what we don't.