Safron

(Please feel free to ignore this post if food doesn't make you swoon. I deeply love food, and am highly motivated and entertained by it.)

Tomorrow is game night with my siblings. My sister in law and I offered to make dinner. (Okay so I volunteered her to help me.) I am making a Moraccan Lentil Stew I had at a friends house that is to die for and she is making naan bread. YUMO! Today I was shopping for ingredients. First Walmart. If you have read this blog at all you know my feelings toward the store.  Safron - $15.49. It in an envelope, in a standard size seasoning container. The weight states.03 oz. Now I had been told that safron is expensive, but I am starting to realize that this is probably traded illegally. I mean who puts a spice in an envelope in a spice jar?  I kept looking.


The next store is Smiths (They have cereal on sale as well.) No luck, same senerio higher price.


Now one of the few perks of where I live is that there are three, yes three middle eastern food stores within a few blocks of my house. I try the closest first. I open the door and am barraged with the smells of every good spice known to man. All the spices are in bulk right next to the entrence. I don't know if it was deliberate but it definitely made me want to give them lots of money to have those smells in my home. It was also encouraging that most of their spices are much more reasonably priced than I find at standard grocery stores. Unfortunately they are out of safron (which is kept behind the counter). Fortunately they have tahini which is a seasame paste for making hummas (Yum number 2).

On to Middle Eastern Market number 2. The wonderful lady at the cash register only had a 4"x4"x.5" container of safron...for $39.99. But she told my about store number three.

Finally at a Pakistani store (I only know this because the lady at the previous store said the owner was Pakistani) a nice middle aged gentleman gives me a sellection of safron, all from behind the counter. I bought two teaspoons for $6.00.  I have never cooked with saffron before so I dont know which spice is responsible for which flavor when I have eaten middle eastern food. But I must say this had better be worth all of the effort.

On, the up side, I think I will be shopping at these stores more often. I love the smell!

December and Christmas

We have had family in town since December 16th when Russ's mom flew in and immediately started watching our children while I took Russ to the best concert we have every been to for his birthday. Bela Fleck and the Flectones Christmas. Listen it is AWESOME. There is a reason he has won more Grammys than any other artist.

We enjoyed the next few days with Laura as she reenthroned herself as the premeire playmate for my children, and then she was off to Russ's sisters home.  But while Laura was at our house my brother and his wife arrived in town. So Abbie and Savannah have been well entertained by many non-parental people who love them for a few weeks now.

On Christmas Eve we continued the Ebert family tradition of going skiing. However this year my parents went crazy got brave and wanted all the grandchildren daughters to go with us. All I can say is that the Solitude ski school instructors do not make enough money. I don't know how much they make, but it is not enough. They took my shy, cautious, three year old with zero pain and discomfort tollerance and made her love the hour she spent skiing down the mountian. She now says she "LOVES' skiing. Thank you Solitude!

Christmas Eve night we spent having a nice dinner with my family. I can honestly say I have been more excited for Christmas this year than I have since being a child. Abbie raced down as soon as she awoke Christmas morning and tore through her presents, overwhelmed and in awe at what she considered a big pile of loot. (This was all captured on our new video camera - our loot - from my parents.) Savannah slept in for an hour and then joined in the fun! There really is nothing like seeing your kids so excited.

This week has been spent continuing the holiday parties and spending time with cousins. All in all a wonderful time of the year. We have been very blessed this year and have enjoyed taking the time to revel in our greatest blessings- our family.

Really?

Last Friday when the air around Salt Lake Valley turned the consistency of split pea soup, Abbie develped a cough. No other symptoms. She has asthma so this is not at all surprising because the air warnings were something like, "If you have a chronic condition, move far far away."

Her breathing was fine. There was no weasing, no retracting and no laboring. So we upped her meds and watched. The cough got worse, and worse.... and worse. By Tuesday she had the deep, wet, exhausting cough every few minutes (I timed it.) We decided to go into the doctor's. She still wasn't in distress but the cough was terrible and the with Christmas coming I didn't want to run into a real problem when the office was closed.

The morning of our visit we ran a few errands, the bank, the store, running back home. I timed her cough in the car. Every one to three minutes she would have an episode. It sounded awful, painful and tiring. Then we went to the doctors.


She did not cough once, not once, the entire time we met with the doctor. Not a sound.

Really?     Really.

She played. She joked. She told the doctor what she wanted for Christmas. But not a single cough.


I could have screamed.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful doctor who believed me and she proscribed decadron to help. Bless her for it.


Abbie proceeded to cough the entire way home from the doctor's office.

Opposite World

In our family, no means yes.

At least for Savannah. We will ask her if she wants dinner. "No" she says as she shakes her head emphatically and runs over to her high chair straining to pull herself in. We will ask her if she wants a story. She will again say no as she grabs the book in one had, my hand with her other, and place the book in my hand.

I have tried to get her to say yes. "Say Yes, " I coach.


"Pleeeeeaaase." Although it comes out more like, "Peeeaaassss."

I don't quite understand where this misunderstanding came from. Thankfully though we know what she means, and she knows we know what she means, so the world is still a happy place.

Closet or Castle

This is how my closets look these days.

 

 

The first closet is supposed to contain boxes that we packed up when we re-carpeted. The second holds food storage, and the third is the floor of my linen closet.Those are the items that are supposed to be there.

The toys are not.

Abbie has commandeered these sites as her castle and her house. In reality they are the new repository for all of her toys. Believe it or not, these toys have all been meticulously placed, and any moving around or putting away is met with extreme frustration and anger on the part of the mistress of the castle.

I vacillate. Something in me loves this nook and cranny aspect of creating your own space. Something else in me screams for order and a clutter free world. For the moment you can see who is winning.