The piano top nature table was in need of freshening, a new look for this increasingly frosty season. This one features handmade gnomes of several types, an old, lacy white baby blanket, a handwoven cloth that I made many years ago that’s now a cozy cave, hand-dipped and assorted candles, bare branches, and a string of lights inside wicker balls. I love these, and must look for more.

In my house full of boys, this is about as close as I get to playing with dolls.

I read about making ice lanterns on one of my favorite blogs, Ordinary Life Magic, and just had to try it. Stephanie is brilliant and you should read her tutorial if you want to do this. Thanks for the inspiration, Stephanie!

Trouble is, where we live in California, we don’t have snow or freezing temps. But we do have …. (drumroll) …. freezer technology!

Lucas helped me clip and gather lots of little bits from our garden, which these days is looking a lot soggier, muddier, and more cluttered with decaying leaves than usual. Still, there are plenty of colorful bits and bobs to find: autumn leaves, berries, sprigs from our redwood trees, and even a few stubborn flowers still.

Fortunately, Ian hadn’t yet succeeded in his bid to get rid of the old and mismatched food storage containers, so I was able to use them. We had to find rocks to weigh down the inner container. This is when my kids lost interest, so I carried on bravely without them.

First, I froze an inch of water in my large, cylindrical container to make a base of the lantern. Then I set the smaller, weighted cylindrical container inside the bigger one. I put the nature bits and bobs into the space between the inner and outer containers, then poured water into the space and set the whole thing carefully on a level shelf in the freezer. I tested the ice after a few hours and decided it wouldn’t really be done until the morning.

The next day, we carefully transported the whole thing, containers and all—frozen solid—to brunch the next morning at our friends’ house. It was the hostess’s birthday and she is, and always has been, a candle nut, so we presented our ice lantern to her as a gift, with a gaily burning tea light inside it. It turned out beautiful!

Some things I learned in doing this:

* Ice expands when it freezes (of course) and may make your outer container bulge if it’s plastic, so don’t use something you wouldn’t want to be ruined. (A coffee can might work best.)

* Don’t use glass; I used a glass jar as my inner container of one of my lanterns and it broke before it released from the ice.

* You can easily remove your inner container by pouring in some warm water. Just make sure you haven’t accidentally spilled water into the inner container before freezing, for of course, that will freeze too and make it difficult to pull out the inner container.

* If your ice lantern breaks into two pieces like mine did, you can put it back into the freezer (still protected within the outer container) and the broken parts will freeze together again.

* If you put your ice lantern on a plate or flat surface to display it indoors, it will probably slide around as it melts. I improvised a solution by putting down a paper towel first, setting the lantern atop it, and then disguising the towel with autumn leaves. If you have snow, you can put your lantern on a pile of snow, or I suppose sand would work to keep it centered, too, and would be naturally pretty.

Did you catch that sky last night? After the rain, my little corner of the world was ablaze with the sunset spilling over every wet surface it could find.

And someone I know just had to splash about in the lava.

Beauty sometimes washes over even my suburban, sidewalk-lacking street. All you have to do is notice.

Cooking with love and intention can be very satisfying. I admit I don’t always achieve this, but when I do it’s blissful. Yesterday I made chicken stock from scratch so that I can make chicken noodle soup later this week, probably tomorrow night. I also cooked a big crockpot of chicken and chicken-apple sausage chili from a recipe I found on the Internet. It turned out to be really yummy (Lucas said “It’s delish”; Asher gobbled all of the meat, but that’s his way). The surprising ingredient, which I don’t believe I’ve ever used before in a recipe, was tomatillo salsa from a jar. It was just the right flavor kick. I added carrots because I like sneaking in extra veggies. I omitted the jalapeno pepper so as not to make it too spicy for my kiddos. I also made cornbread muffins that were too sweet and dry for my taste, but the kids liked them. Still searching for the right recipe for these.

My pink hyacinths are blooming and I adore them. I only wish I’d gotten around to planting bulbs last fall because I look at these flowers and want more, more, more! Want to do more, more, more! (My mother tells me that I don’t have to be more or do more. I am sure she is right but I seem to have a blind spot in this area.)

I’ve been sewing by hand in the evenings. I have a couple of goofy felt projects in the works that I’ll share later on.

Today I’m diving into womanist theology for a while. I’m building a pretty long list of questions for the publisher since it’s been a few years since I freelanced for this company. I’m making love to my Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.

(Thanks to my father in law for the cartoon! It’s disturbingly realistic.)

Something I did more or less right yesterday.

Lemon and herb roasted chicken, roasted mixed vegetables (beats, leeks, bell peppers, chard), and quinoa.

This is one of those posts in which I tell the ugly truth.

My children have been sick this week. Lucas came down with a cold when he was sleeping over at Grandma and Papa’s house last Saturday night. He came home on Sunday feeling pretty bad and stayed home from school Monday through Wednesday. Yesterday he was clearly feeling better and really bored with being home; I know this because he kept getting into trouble. He actually swung from the curtain and ripped the rod and fitting right out of the wall. Another time I caught him climbing the wire dresser drawers in his closet and throwing toys stacked on the high closet shelf down to the floor. This makes for a frustrating time for both of us.

Understandably, this morning Lucas begged to be allowed to go back to school, so we packed him off for the day — and good riddance! Alas, by 10 a.m. he was done, feeling sick and tired again, and asking to come home. Later today, though, he told me that he blames me — I am so selfish I won’t let him go back to school. He decided that Ms. Duncan (his teacher) would be his mommy from now on. He doesn’t want me anymore. Honestly, why did I ever teach him to talk?

Asher came down with the same cold on Tuesday, so I figure that’s a whole week of work time shot. He won’t nap today with his brother home and being crazy. Consequently, Asher isn’t exactly in the best of moods for lack of a proper rest and being sick.

I’m just not able to be very productive with my editing when they’re home sick. Be patient, please, my books! I hope to get back to you soon. I may have to escape this weekend and work elsewhere to catch up if Asher is still ill, or if Ian comes down with the cold, too. (We share everything around here, especially germs!)

A few good things have happened this week, though:

*  I was able to finish my donations to the school fundraiser auction yesterday (see yesterday’s post). I’m happy with how they turned out.

* I bought a client gift that I’ve been meaning to buy for several months now. Deciding on the perfect thing was tough, but I think I’ve got it now. I sent her Andy Goldsworthy’s first book of his land art. We’ll see if she likes it.

* I signed Lucas up for some fun morning-long camp days at Effie Yeaw Nature Center during spring break. I’ve also advertised this fact to some of his best buddies’ parents in the hopes that they will sign their kids up, too. One program is about woodpeckers and the other is about worms and bugs. He loves those day camps. Too bad their budget is so limited this year. Last year they had camp every morning for a week; this year it’s only two days.

* I bought some stuff for the next couple of holidays (St. Patrick’s Day and Easter). I’m planning a few projects to do with the kiddos, which will be fun I think. I’m trying to be better about planning ahead this year.

See how I’m counting my blessings? They say that’s the trick.

Geez. Sometimes I just feel like I’m not so good at this parenting job. I’m really struggling today. I wonder why I don’t have as much patience as I want to have, why I can’t be more “here now,” as they say. I wish I could somehow be 100% fulfilled by wiping noses and catering meals. I wish I could shake this desperate feeling. If I could, I think I might be happier.

Never mind.

Yesterday at about 6:30 Pacific time: I’m finally one of those people on the airplane using a laptop. I’m maybe halfway through my flight now. The flight was delayed two hours and I didn’t leave SF airport until 3:45. My day has been fine, but a little long. It seems like more of this time should be productive, but there is a lot of waiting to move and when I tried to get Internet service in the airport, both Mozilla Firefox and IE said they couldn’t find the network connection. I could see the free public network, connect to it, but couldn’t surf. Frustrating. My boss has been worrying about my traveling today. The taxi company that’s supposed to pick me up at the airport knows my flight has been delayed.

I’m already missing my family. Yes, I’m having a small adventure. Yes, I got to see snow-covered Rockies out my window. That’s wonderful and I wish I was better at enjoying my time alone. It is a strange unease, though. Kind of like maybe I forgot to bring along two arms and a leg on this trip. There won’t be much time for fun or sightseeing, though. I’m working almost all the hours I’m in New Jersey.

I packed a tiny sewing project with me this time. A few pieces of felt, about six pins, needle and embroidery floss. And Mom lent me the niftiest little device—a little thread cutter with no visible (forbidden) blade. It’s a small brass pendant hanging around my neck. Pull a thread through any of the slots around the edge of the pendant and it goes in past the blade and cuts, just like magic! I am wishing I had had more time at home to cut out all the pieces of felt I need because I’ve already sewn the bulk of what I did bring and now I’ve run out of project. The whole thing was well conceived except for its duration. I didn’t bring along my knitting.

Today 8:30 pm Eastern time: I’m exhausted! After I’m done with writing this I’m calling home and then going to sleep. I didn’t get to my hotel until 1:45 am today. Got 4.5 hours of sleep and then hit the ground running for 8 hours of meeting today, plus a dinner. It all went well and I think this could be an awesome project. I’m kind of wishing that in this room full of PhDs and EDDs that I had more than a BA under my belt. This is textbook publishing, so that stuff matters—kind of. Anyway, everyone is warm and friendly and very knowledgeable.

Tomorrow we meet from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm, then head to the airport. I’ll arrive in Sacramento sometime near midnight—if everything goes perfectly and my two flights aren’t delayed. Rain tomorrow here, but snow in Chicago. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I’ve only seen a teeny-tiny slice of New Jersey, but what I’ve seen is very pretty. Bare, deciduous woods with snow on the ground, punctuated by gorgeous, big homes. No fences, not much yard, just woods.  I’m truly grateful to be here and to be doing this. I just miss my family and my husband’s strong arms around me. Tomorrow I will rock it, and then I will make a long trek home.

Oh what a time we had!

We decided to crack open the wonderful cheesemaking kit that our dear friends Tox and Shannon brought us. This past Saturday we made a special trek to Whole Foods for pasturized (not ultra pasturized) whole milk. We probably can get it elsewhere, but weren’t certain where, and we were quite sure we could find what we needed there. Whole Foods also has raw milk, which is supposed to be best for cheese, but as it was really pricey, we decided not to use raw milk on the first try. (You know, in case the magic didn’t work.)

Lucas dissolved the citric acid in chlorine-free water.

The kit came with everything we needed except the milk and the chlorine-free water.

Here’s our milk, frothy and cooking.

We slowly heated the milk to 90° F, added the rennet, and waited for it to coagulate the milk solids.

Then we tested to see if it had done it’s job. Yep, the whey was clearish and the milk solids (curds) were congealed and looked like custard.

I think Asher is praying to the goddess of milk, Hathor, here. Daddy carefully cut the curds.

The curds were returned to the heat and heated to 110° F. We had to make a water bath (185° F) and dip our colander full of mozzarella curds into the hot water. This made them elastic and stretchable!

Then we were able to   s  t  r  e  t  c  h our mozzarella (we ate some at this point). Stretching elongates the proteins (but I don’t know what that means).

We formed it into our heart shape. It cooled in its ice bath for 10 minutes and voilà, MOZZARELLA CHEESE!

Kitchen science is awesome. Now here’s the crazy part: If we had been better prepared and more experienced, we could have taken the whey, the byproduct of the mozzarella, and make … more cheese from it. The whey must be used within three hours though, and we weren’t prepared to start a new cheesemaking project then. It was time to eat!

Thanks, Tox and Shannon!