thanksgiving - part 1

YAY!! the holidays are here ... i've been SO looking forward to this weekend.

it's been such a crazy busy year, i have been so anxious to have a few days with my family, lounging in our pjs, puttering in our kitchen, just hanging out together and enjoying our little life blessings. 

i love cooking a thanksgiving feast ... even if it is only for 3 people ...

well, this year, i'm cooking a feast for 3 3/4 people. and so the preparations have begun!

so many menu ideas ... only tomorrow will tell what the final menu will be

i am a list maker ... that doesn't mean that i'm a list follower, but i do make lists. 

then i keep my fingers crossed, follow my whims and hope that everything turns out for the best

we also have holiday projects to work on ... cards, ornaments, scrapbook pages,

sewing patterns, picture organization, thesis completion ... oh my! the list is quite extensive

it'll be a busy home day ... but we're going to be busy burrowing in to our home and being

thankful for all that we have and who we love.

happy thanksgiving to you and yours!

thank god it's friday!!

it is, right?? if it isn't ... i'm going on strike ...

i can't help to smile when i see this cutey-patootie! 

wishing all of you an awesome weekend!

weekend wishes

have a beautiful, cozy weekend with your ohana!

fall in paradise

it's fall ... the weather is turning, sweaters and boots are appearing left and right, cozy blankets are making regular appearances throughout the home, firewood is being stacked and fires are warming the evenings, colors are changing outside, comfort food is heartier, days are shorter and families are nesting in their homes. well, it's not quite the same in hawaii.

hawaii is truly a small sliver of paradise; rarely do temperatures fall outside of the 73 - 86 degree range. greens and blues are the predominant color, reflecting the water and foliage. when i opened the door at 5:30 this morning to go on my walking meditation, it was a chilly 74 degrees, i could smell the green-ness of the early-morning-watered grass. the sun started coming up over the ocean as i completed the last leg of my walk, and 6:15 crept up with grey-blue skies. truly beautiful, but this tropical beauty does lack a bit when it comes to experiencing the seasons.

fall foliage on my way to work

i have season envy ... panda laughs at me at least once an evening as we watch tv and i get sucked into the commercials romanticizing fall - cozy sweaters, jeans, boots (yes, i'm a clothes whore!), walks through multi-colored woods, fireplace settings and holiday gatherings with leaves falling outside. never does an evening go by that i don't look at panda and say "honey, can we live someplace cold" she laughs at me ... LOUDLY! we're not cold-weather peeps. truly, we're not. we take sweaters and jackets with us when we go out to dinner because the air conditioning makes us cold! i wear scarves in my office because it inevitably is too cold by 10 am .... so, living in cold weather is really not realistic.

fall in our house looks like slippers, shorts, tank tops - soccer games on saturday morning in 78 degree weather - tailgating at UH games sitting in our beach chairs in shorts and a t-shirt. how do we decorate for fall when fall doesn't look like the ideal? i'm still figuring that out .... i want to celebrate the beauty of our home and everything that we are thankful for with a local, hawaii twist ... so fall colors are not going to be the dominant theme in our home during these holidays. not sure what we're going to do, but it will be festive and it will be us and our life in this beautiful slice in paradise will be celebrated and appreciated.

these are the scenes of fall

magazine-cover, blog-styled life? ... NOT!

i live in and with chaos. it's just the nature of our life and our home. with two working parents, a busy-bee 6 year old (YES! he's 6 now!!! NO! i did NOT give him permission to get THAT old!!!) our home is not a peace-full, tidy, organized space ... it is filled with notes, papers, magazines, books, bags, pillows, empty glasses, 1/2-done (or barely-begun, depending on how you look at it) projects, missing remotes, not-yet-put-away groceries ... well, you get the picture.

we had an early AM wake-up today. panda had to be in the office earlier than normal, shortstack decided he wanted to eat breakfast at school and mama was up early because a 6-year-old came in at an unholy hour with a clogged-up nose and a need to cuddle and then mama just couldn't get back to sleep (thanks, creeping migraine!) so, when i finally emerged from our room to start the day, i had to smile when i looked at our kitchen table. it is just a picture-perfect summary of our wonderful chaos!

i'm a bit of a blog and magazine whore ... okay, panda would say more than a bit ... one of the major reasons that i love browsing through blogs and life magazines is simply that i'm nosy! i LOVE eavesdropping into other people's lives ... i love looking at the smart and innovative ideas of smart women who are moving through their lives with their families in creative and beautiful ways  ... i get a kick out of seeing the prettily-styled and set home-scapes that never fail to inspire me to make changes in our home and life but never seems to result in a perfectly-styled home of our own. but the moments of our real life and our family chaos constantly remind me that i wouldn't want life any other way.

shortstack and i are papaya and apple banana monsters! 

just another treat of living in hawaii!

you see, we live a simple life. partly out of circumstance ... but fully aligned with who we are as individuals and as a family. so, the simple snapshots of our life and chaos are such a pleasure for me to share.

quicky breakfast on an early wednesday AM

how can we complain when this cutey-patootie smiles like this for his little ohana (family for you non-hawaii-folk) on a daily basis!?!!

so, nope, we don't have a magazine-picture life but we do have so many beautiful blessings, there's no way that i would ever wish for it to change. 

here's to wishing all of you beautiful chaos today ...

i'm still here ... and the chowder was yummy!

even though i've been MIA for awhile ... funny how that happens, huh? i guess life is life and we all get caught up in it.

our little ohana has been BUSY! panda's been swamped with work - the start of the fall semester is always a killer for her, but it seems that lately the craziness has been stepped up ... if only we got the memo and the ability to deal with the increased insanity before it all happened. shortstack is settling into a school rhythm. repeating kinder was definitely the RIGHT decision, but there has been some adjustment that has needed to happen. after all, the first part of this semester has been a repeat of skills that were mastered last year. but the maturity that is happening right now is amazing ... and a privilege to watch. as for me, well, my family's craziness is mine ... and then we top it with insanity from work, trying to get my thesis done, prepping for graduation in december and our wedding in january ... well, you can likely imagine how all of that keeps us more than a little busy!

so, in the midst of that craziness, we do our best to maximize our family time ... which  is far too short (i really do think that we should start a movement to advocate for 4-day work weeks!) so weekends are filled with shortstack's soccer (THAT is a whole nother post!), volleyball and football games (yay! for fall collegiate sports - but don't quote me on that! i got an image to maintain!!), dinners with friends, late-night reading, sporadic house cleaning, recipe experimentation, vegging nights with the family curled up together ... life is pretty ideal if just a bit chaotic.

panda's been asking for corn chowder for a while now. let's keep in mind that we live in hawaii, so it's never REALLY soup weather in our little slice of paradise, but soup is a favorite for the adults of the house. so, last night i threw together a quicky chowder and, after a slight char on the soup contents, it came together pretty darn well and definitely worth sharing ... if only i actually took pictures (i'll get better at that some day!)

corn/potato chowder ... (use whatever leftovers or aging veggies you have on-hand)

1 medium-ish onion
2 stalks and all the leaves of the celery bunch
1ish tablespoon whole wheat flour
1/4 cup roasted balsamic garlic paste (recipe here)
4-ish  cups stock (whatever you have in the pantry)
1-ish cup white wine (optional)
1 1/2 cups milk (i used a mixture of coconut and 2% - if you want it to be richer, use heavy cream)
1 can corn kernals (or 2 cobs of corn de-eared - yes, i'm making that word up)
1 large baking potato (russet is fine, or you can used already cooked potatoes. i had leftover breakfast oven-roasted potatoes in the fridge that i chopped and used)
1 good sprig of rosemary chopped
salt & pepper to taste
pinch of sage (just because)
a handful of shredded cheese

sautee onions and celery in olive oil and  a pat of butter until soft and translucent (pat size depends on your interpretation). s&p to taste

add in a tablespoon or so of flour and cook for a few minutes til it smells toasty

if you're using wine, add it now and then pour in 2 cups of broth and stir until all lumps disappear

add in garlic past and last 2ish cups of broth

allow this to simmer for a couple of minutes

at this point, dump in the corn and the potatoes. add a bit more s&p, add the chopped rosemary and an pinch of sage (or whatever spices float your boat)

stir in the milk

at this point, leave it alone and let it do its thing. DON'T walk away and leave it boiling though ... that is simply not a good idea! i'm talking from experience here!

let the soup reduce to your desired consistency. i tend to like thick soups (think a cross between a soup and stew ... i've see it referred to as "stoup") so i let that sucker cook for a bit. right when it makes the whole house smell yummy and my tummy is growling, i add in a handful of shredded cheese (again, whatever you have on hand).

serve in a couple of coffee mugs topped with a bit more cheese (i just want to make sure you're getting your daily dose of calcium). you could be healthy and serve this with salad ... or you could be like us and serve with garlic-butter-drenched bread)

no matter what you do, i highly encourage it to be eaten curled up on the couch, surrounded by your favorite peeps, watching nemo make his way home from sydney as the last, lazy moments of your weekend slip away ...

enjoy!!

oh ... and here's a peek from our weekend - football saturday afternoons at aloha stadium!

UH vs. UC Davis ... umm, we left at 1/2 time because the score was 47 - nothin' ... but i can vouch for chillin and grilling time tailgating simply rocks!

exhale ... inhale ... don't hit anyone ...

yep. that's where we are today. taking down the simple foundations of life: breathe. stop. do it again. be nice.

this is "fall rush" time at the school i work at. this is a time when students are scrambling to get registered for classes that they failed to get into earlier. this is the time when we hear whining, excuses, demands and just plain bad behavior. the "thank you's" are few and far between. the appreciation of those students who take their role as student seriously shoots through the roof. and, as an educator, i have to restrain myself from jumping over the slab of wood that separates me from my student, shaking them til their teeth rattle and yell into their ear - "this is YOUR degree! have some ownership! have some accountability!! HAVE SOME INDEPENDENT THOUGHT!!!!!!!"

after dealing with another challenging patient student i realized that i NEEDED to take a step back and refocus this frustrated school-hating energy ... i haven't succeeded completely at doing that yet. thus the reason i'm writing this ... but that is the goal for this afternoon ~ find a way, find a path to take this insane energy and channel it into change that i want to see.