Culinary Inspirations

I find food photography gorgeous. I love looking through picture cookbooks, Food & Wine, and just regular advertising in magazines. I love how the stylists perch candied fruit peels delicately on a mint leave which in turns rests on a perfect scoop of sorbet in a pretty glass dish sitting on a stunningly lit table. It's so impressive and beautiful.

But not simple. I'm trying to find beauty in simple things. Which brings me to the leek. I much prefer the flavour of a leek over an onion... it hint of sweetness... yum! But what really draws me to them is their perfection. If you cut the end off a leek, you will find beautiful, concentric circles... like rings on a tree. And the colouring... the darker green ends fading into the creamy white. So pretty.

So the leek is now on my list of culinary inspirations.... I think I will take some b&w stills of leeks and frame them for my kitchen.

Ginger Ale

Tyler (my oldest) finds me drinking ginger ale. "What's that smell?" he asks. "Ginger Ale," I reply offering the can for him to smell. "Yum, that [he says pointing at the can] smells good. That [he says pointing at my mouth] does not."

Great. My one biggest self confidence issue (don't even know if it's founded) is bad breath. In my defense, I had parmesean pasta and ham for lunch. Craig said if you take the "and" from "candid" you get "kid."

Dirty laundry

I've moved all the kids toys to the room in the basement. The room is not finished but I'm tired of walking into hurricane kidzone as soon as I open the front door. My major motivator for this is the laundry. Sadistically, I enjoy sorting through the mounds of clothes on the laundry room floor (after scouring under bunk beds, in closets, under the change table and beside the bed where I always find sport socks, brief and jeans... those would be Craig's). Since the laundry is in the basement, I figured if I was ever to get around to doing it, it would have to be in a space where I could spend more time. With the children always playing on the main floor or up in their room, I was never in the basement. Problem solved!

So now I happily sort, fold and distribute into laundry baskets while the kids run around trying not to crack their pretty heads on the cement floor.

I think I'm an organizing junkie. I like the way it looks... nice crisp and clean pile of clothes. I like the way it feels... productive, like I've actually accomplished something. But I'm totally deluded. Who am I kidding? My house is always a mess with dished stacked up and papers strewn everywhere!

Does chaos breed happiness? I mean, I think we are a relatively happy family. So would I rather spend time cleaning or playing?

I often have thought about a house cleaner. But I would totally pull a Marge (from the Simpson's episode where she goes crazy making the house clean before the cleaner arrives) to avoid the embarrassment of having someone see this mess.

I think it really comes down to my lazy ass. If I would just schedule my time more effectively I wouldn't be in the vicious cleaning cycle (you know the one where clean everything and promise yourself you won't do it again... which lasts less than a week). I have grand ambitions but then in my many moments of weakness, I see that it's time for America's Next Top Model or Lost or.... Yes, I have many "ors".

I'll let you know when I come up with a promising solution... I'm thinking media cleanse but that may be too drastic for me... maybe during the summer when nothing is on.....

Spark + Spout

My hubby and I spent a couple of hours trying to come up with a name (he thought of "The Taming of the Crew" and some other punny ones). I wanted to use this space to exercise myself creatively. Drawings or ideas that spur me to create something to be proud of. That's the Spark. I want to keep a record things that inspire me and may in turn inspire others. Little stories and thoughts that touch my heart. Or when I need to vent about my dog that got in to her food and ate so much that I had to make her vomit (we found a neat little trick of pouring a teaspoon or so of salt on the back of her tongue...). That's the Spout. Eventually I will have sketches/photos etc to illustrate my ramblings (not that everyone will be keen on seeing a sketch of a dog vomiting but you get the idea).

There's a part of me that wonders if I will lose my creativeness, or at least my design sense, by staying at home until my youngest is in school full-time. But I guess a bigger part of me wants to invest this time into growing with my kids. When I hear my daughter giggle out loud, or hold her up to the window to watch her eyes grow in amazement of the snowstorm outside I remember that I've made the right decision.

Bunny Boobies

I'm still nursing my 10-month older daughter. My oldest son is quite aware that this is happening. He quite often comments on how she "gets a drink." He's five and you can almost see the wheels in his head as he concocts stories. At Easter, he was munching on some cookies shaped like bunnies with his aunt Stef. He kept trying to ply her with cookies until she commented that she was "full up to her eyeballs" to which he replied, "That's funny. When you have a baby, she'll drink bunnies from your boobies." It's these moments that I pretend I'm not listening, to have a private laugh and wonder how exactly my son can come up with these things.