Holy cow!

I had no idea how exhausted my mother must have been during the holidays when I was a kid.

I have my three boys, the husband, my parents and brother in town. Not THAT many people, and I’m bushed.

My mom worked as an ER nurse when I was Santa-believing age. She regularly hosted twice as many people in a smaller house on a much smaller salary and never let us see her crack–not even once.

I am not worthy.

I’m 39 years old and it’s taken me this many years to get all of my presents wrapped before Christmas Eve…to have a dinner prepared the night my parents arrive (what? I take them to restaurants with cloth napkins!).

Mom hasn’t had to cook one thing so far this holiday (sure she just arrived this afternoon), I have all the groceries purchased for meals through Friday (even stuff for lunches) and I’m almost done with my cooking (yeah, so I’ll be up REALLY late).

But I’m kinda proud of myself.

I also can’t see straight let alone carry on a conversation with anyone.

So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s not because I don’t love you. I do. But the torch has been passed and I’m the “mom” of the family now, and pretending to be organized is EXHAUSTING.

Merry Christmas!!!

In the Kitchen

You can cook by candlelight as long as the stove, oven and refrigerator aren’t on the mysterious circuit that blew in the middle of making dinner and refuses to come back on.

Two trays of lasagna are put together. One is in the oven, the other is waiting its turn. I’m patting myself on the back for making a dish ahead of time for the week–and there’s even another one to go in the freezer for next week or the week after.

(I wouldn’t normally show you a photo so blurry, but I was taking it by candlelight and my tripod was in the car. You can see my dilemma.)

So I’ll remember later, one box of noodles is enough for two trays. You need two large containers of ricotta, one and half large bottles of sauce (come on, I didn’t have any lights in my kitchen!) or three regular sized bottles, two pounds of ground meat and one package of mild italian sausage and one HUGE bag of shredded mozarella.

There are so many incredible websites out there with recipes that could keep me cooking for the rest of my life. This site was one I found this week. I’m gonna try the bread pudding from this post first.

Photography

Shooting babies is hard.

Even a giant picture window and turning all the lights on in the room aren’t going to give you the light you need to shoot without a flash (and a bunch of post-processing) on a rainy day.

My friend was so kind to allow me to practice on her gorgeous six month old yesterday. Little Faye has this incredible red, curly hair and the chubbiest cheeks.

You can get enough light to shoot outside on a rainy day as long as you have covered place to shoot.

Can you believe the eyes on this one?

And him? The youngest of four and a personality to make sure he doesn’t go unnoticed.

Another terrific friend threatened me if I didn’t come shoot her kids was willing to let me take some shots of her kids so I could do some portfolio building.

Me

There might be a link between perfectionism and shame. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’ve downloaded I Thought it was Just Me because of the cool read along project the author set up on her blog.

I’ve long known that I’ve missed out on exciting adventures in my life because I was too afraid of failure. When I noticed that same trait emerging in one of my sons recently I wanted to find out how to beat back the beast. I so want for my boys to live lives filled with adventure.

How was your weekend?

Three years ago I had an eight year-old and a two year-old, and a nine month-old who I was nursing. I had been back at work for six months at a job I really hated and my husband’s family decided that we would be celebrating Thanksgiving at his sister’s house–and frying the turkey!

I panicked.

Dinner at his sister’s? Fried turkey? How would I get my fill of my mother’s stuffing? What if they served cornbread dressing?!

And what about leftovers?!

I just knew my Thanksgiving was going to be a bust, but we were tied into the plans. So, I did what any other stressed-out, hormonal, sleep deprived woman would do. I went to the grocery store at 8:00 p.m. on the night before Thanksgiving and bought all of the makings for a Thanksgiving dinner.

Dammit! I was going to have leftovers.

Somehow I managed to find a fresh turkey, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, Pepperidge Farms dressing mix (just like mom’s) and the ingredients for both apple and pumpkin pie.

As soon as I got home, I pulled out the giblets and boiled them up to ready them for the stuffing. I chopped them and mixed them in with the breadcrumbs and seasoning and stuffed that turkey. Warmed up the oven and shoved the whole mess in.

Then it was upstairs to nurse the little guy. As typically happened with the late evening feeding, I fell sound asleep next to the baby.

At 2:30 a.m. I woke up to the most delicious smell. And then I panicked! How long had the turkey been in the oven. Way longer than it was supposed to be. I was sure I was going to have a dried out bird.

I raced downstairs to find my turkey monitor sound asleep on the couch. Harumph! I sent him up to bed and peeked into the oven. Unbelievably, the turkey was perfect! So I set about peeling and boiling white and sweet potatoes. Mashing and stirring and seasoning to perfection. I cut shortening into flour for pie crusts and peeled apples and mixed pumpkin mush into pie filling. Sweet potato casserole and mashed potatoes complete, pies baking and filling the house with even better smells and it was only 4:00 a.m.

So I started cleaning up after myself.

Stored the “leftovers” in the fridge, washed up the dishes and went to wipe down the counters. That’s when I noticed the gunk around the edge of the sink. So I scrubbed and I pulled out an old toothbrush and I scrubbed some more. And then I worked on the faucet and the backsplash and then OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN THE STOVE! The burners were filthy. I dug under the sink for the SOS pad and got to work. Fantastik and 409. SOS and a toothbrush.

Oh how that kitchen shined!

Pies were done, and I noticed I was getting a little tired. It was 6:00 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. We didn’t have to be at my sister-in-laws until the afternoon, so I thought I might put my head down for a few minutes.

When I woke three hours later, I came downstairs to find a husband staring at me in disbelief.

And all I could say was, “I needed to have my mother’s stuffing.”

Turns out, it’s my mother-in-law’s stuffing too.