family – branching out… on a limb

More Branching Out with New To-Do Lists…

Alternative titles for this post included the following: “How to Survive Teenagers in the House,” “Keeping Your Sanity with Teens,” “If you thought my nagging is annoying, kid, wait until you experience yo mama’s supernagging!” and “Help Me, I Have a Teenaged Son.”

Honestly, I can’t really use any of the above alternates because The Boy is a growing into a fabulous young man. If I could harness a fraction of his drive and (hyper-)focus there is no telling WHAT I could accomplish.

So, the boring, non-antagonistic title will have to stay for now.

My strategy for success (my own, not the The Boy’s- he shall have his own) is to keep discovering new… everything: restaurants, recipes, cocktails, hikes, sports, books, friends, music, etc. Hopefully I will keep my sanity by continuing to grow myself as I watch my two teens grow.

fullsizerender — Scratch Lab’s cookbooks- for feeding those athletes you love

nypl-digitalcollections-510d47df-3f23-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99-001 — The Main Man, The Bard, Wm Shakespeare

The Short List for 2017

Piano lessons for me (or online tutorial… anyone have any suggestions?)
Complete OpenCulture.com’s Survey of Shakespeare’s Plays
Complete a 15 mile mountain bike race this June while The Husband makes short work of the longer race
Tear through some fab recipes in my Scratch Labs cookbook. Because I don’t want to be eating icky bars or energy gels on the above mentioned ride.
Finally watch Downton Abbey (because I have to do something about this Sherlock hangover. Moffat and Gatiss- can we have more than three episodes per series? Pretty Please?)
And probably the most important on this list, give The Boy enough rope to learn, grow and thrive- and trust that he wont hang himself. And try to shut my mouth shut. Because he is one heck of an awesome guy.

Did you know that if you wear a green Christmas Sweater, the camera will add at least 15 pounds in a photo? Beware. Or it could just be the stress of raising a teenager. Either way, beware.

Good Old Friends and Complete Silliness

What happens when you put a family of five into an SUV for thirty hours of nearly straight-through driving to visit their old friends and attend the Rose Bowl? They have fun. We helped our old friends get their wiggles out by putting them through our Tourist Treatment, specially constructed for Hoosiers.

You get some terribly centered selfies…

Some Christmas Card worthy photos…

A whole LOT of drinking…

And pics that were as much fun to see and share as the whole day.

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Seven years ago we were all canoeing on Sugar Creek in central Indiana:

And this is the ridiculousness into which we have degraded:

“Look, Mrs. J! I bet she’s not wearing any undies!”

A Few of the Worthwhile Things I’ve Learned

1. Own a cast iron skillet. Or several. And learn how to properly use and care for them.

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2a. Life is too short for mediocre coffee and bad wine. Buy the best you can afford.

2b. Even if it is just for you.

2c. Especially if it is just for you.

3. A hybrid car is sooooo worth it.

4. If you can make spaghetti sauce, baked chicken, and muffins from scratch you can save big bucks.

5. Real friends stay with you until the tow truck arrives.

6. Everyone should own at least one Hawaiian shirt. You never know when a party might break out.

7. Electric kettles are the best!

8. So is iced tea made from plain, black tea.

9. Screen time is overrated. People are underrated.

10. Mom Advice that we don’t appreciate until later: “The days are long but the years are short.”

cute relationship quotes — **Be This Person!**

13. You need a community- humans are social creatures. Join and meet regularly with at least one spiritually/socially edifying group be it a church, synagog, club, society, etc.

14. Stop being so offended by everything, people. It offends me.

15. Spend time with people who lift you up and make you want to be a better person- spiritually, mentally, emotionally. And in turn, be that kind of person for others.

16. Pop your own popcorn. On the stovetop. In a heavy pot. It’s an entirely different species than the microwaved stuff.

17. Everyone thinks they are the most interesting person in the world on social media. They are all wrong. I am the most interesting person. I can prove it: https://www.pinterest.com/DDWJ/

18. A trick I learned from a dear and darn near holy woman: want to be the favorite big person with all your friends’ little ones? Always carry candy to share.

19. Pay attention to details. They might be important! Or not… it really isn’t that important that there are no numbers 11 and 12 in this list.

20. Start Small. If you want to try something new every day but don’t know where to start, pick one small project- a new book, decorate an area you have neglected, try a new cuisine. Nothing big- Re-landscape front yard! Read the complete works of Shakespeare!. You’ll be surprised how great it feels to simply repaint your front door.

New Things to NOT Do Again…

#1 Take The Boy to an R Rated movie.
#2 Gain five pounds from all the new foods tried.
#3 Try to cram too much stuff into each month (a book, a project, a play, a tourist attraction, four new restaurants, four new menus, a date night, a couple of random acts of kindness, including moving one kid out of state and moving a new kid into our home… August was a bit… much).

New Recipe-Hasselback Potatoes Gratin à la Serious Eat’s J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

I intended to look up a scalloped potato recipe for tonight’s dinner with the whole fam-bamily, but got sidetracked by Facebook… Uh oh? No! The first things I came across was a New York Times Food link to one of one of my favorite food site people- J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from SeriousEats.com.

Hasselback Potato Gratin (“These Might Be the Best Potatoes Ever”)

Look at this glorious photo and click on it to link to theSeriousEats.com recipe (or click here: SeriousEats.comHasselbackPotatoGratin)

These were easy to put together with the cheese grating delegated to The Girl and potato peeling to The Husband. All I needed was my super-sharp chef’s knife (recently sharpened by my dad, thanks, dad!) to get super thin slices from my russets. Then I tossed them in the cream, salt, pepper, thyme, and garlic.

Here they are, half cooked at 400 degrees for thirty minutes, before they got shoved in a box and carted up to one of the in-law’s house:

(pretend that this is a picture of the half baked potatoes, use your imagination)

And here’s the nearly gone and mostly empty dish, the only pic I could snap of the potatoes that could net the least amount of ridicule from extended family:

These were DELICIOUS! These were unbelievably easy to prepare, travelled well half-cooked (unlike my extended family, LOLOLOL!!) and were gluten-free for the family members with Celiac to whom we wanted to show some kitchen love.

Put this recipe for Hasselback Potato Gratin on you list of new things to try next year.