Bryn's New Word

Bryn has a new word that is getting quite a lot of use lately. She likes to tell people that they are "rude"...particularly me. If you get after her or ask her to do something she doesn't want to do or to stop doing something she doesn't want to stop doing she likes to tell you that you are "rude." Tyler didn't believe that she could actually say it and in the right context until he was getting after her about something and she told him that he was rude!! Toddlers are hilarious.

Things I am Loving In Cold Dreary January

Is this month over yet? Why is January the most cheerless month of the year and feels like two interminable months all rolled into one? Bring on February. In trying to survive the gray and the gloom I have found a few things that are making it slightly more bearable.

#1 A Heated Throw Blanket

I got this little gem for Christmas and it is my new best friend. How did I ever live without you? It is perfect in that it allows me to be perfectly toasty while watching movies on the couch and Tyler can stay cool and non-toasty...since it is a throw blanket...and technically not meant for two. Perfect.

While I am staying toasty and cozy I am watching this:

#2 PBS Masterpiece rocks!! I love it and I just can't get enough of this series. I am absolutely smitten. Check out the trailer. It is so good.



#3

This is my favorite magazine (thanks sisters for the subscription). I get very excited when it arrives in the mailbox...of course it usually disappears and I have to wrestle it away from Reilly. One of my New Years Resolutions was to try some new recipes. That isn't really too hard for me to accomplish since I like to cook but I REALLY need to add some great new recipes to the old dinner repertoire. Most of the ones I have tried this month have been okay...nothing too thrilling in a knock-your-socks-off way UNTIL...last night when I made this:

Thai Chicken Soup

OH.MY.GOSH. I could've licked the pot clean...Tyler pretty much did. No joke. I believe he had thirds. My kids all liked it too except for Ailey who hates everything. You just can't win with that girl. But seriously...DELICIOUS. It's very easy and quick to make and not to mention cheap!!

Here's the recipe. TRY IT!! It has gotten rave reviews online and I add mine as well. This soup knocks it out of the park. It is really good vegetarian too.

Thai Chicken Soup (from Jan. 2011 Food Network Magazine)

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons green curry paste
• 6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 15-ounce can coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce, plus more to taste
• 2 red bell peppers, thinly sliced
• 4 ounces thin rice noodles, broken into pieces
• 2 small skinless, boneless chicken breasts (about 1 pound), very thinly sliced crosswise
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, plus more to taste
• 1 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

Heat the vegetable oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and curry paste and cook, stirring, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the chicken broth, coconut milk and fish sauce; cover and bring to a boil.

Add the bell peppers and noodles and simmer, uncovered, until the noodles are al dente, about 3 minutes. Add the chicken and simmer until just cooked through, about 3 more minutes. Stir in the lime juice and cilantro. Add more fish sauce and lime juice, if desired.

(I doubled the recipe, slightly upped the curry since we like things spicy around here, upped the fish sauce and lime juice as well.)

Have a great weekend!!

The Love Fest Continues

Is it possible to curl up in bed...enthralled...and unable to put down...a cookbook? Oh yes. If it is The Pat Conroy Cookbook which isn't really a cookbook. It is more of a memoir about food, travel and interesting people from his life with some good recipes thrown in at the end of each chapter.

I serendipitously read this book the week after reading his book My Reading Life. How fortuitous. Even though this book was published several years before My Reading Life there are many of the same influential people mentioned in this book that were mentioned in his other book and it felt like I was reading a sequel. Fantastic!! Plus, there was the added bonus of quite a bit of background information on my favorite book The Prince of Tides which was icing on the cake.

This book was pure joy to read. I loved it. I was pulled in again to the life, friendships, loves and passions of Pat Conroy. I couldn't put this cookbook down!! If was full of everything that I enjoy and value in my own life. The people that I like to surround myself with in my life are people who have a great sense of humor, a love and appreciate for great food, have a rich appreciation for travel and literature and tell great stories. This book has all of that with some Southern flare thrown in for good measure. It was a delight. And...there are some superb recipes as well.

You all know my love for Mr. Conroy and all I can say is that the love fest continues.

My Rating: Excellent

Book Club Hangover



This morning I have what I like to call a "book club hangover". Last night was book club at my friend Valynn's house and I stayed too late, ate too much, laughed very hard, and over shared...as usual. :) I then came home in the wee hours of the morning and proceeded to talk to Tyler for quite a while longer and then couldn't drag my butt out of bed to go to the gym this morning. As a result, I feel fat, lazy, and tired. But...I had a lot of fun last night so it was worth it!!

Our book for this month was Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. I was underwhelmed. I found it to be a snooze. This book has some things going for it: an interesting premise, set in Seattle, a sweet tale, nothing raunchy...very clean, you could recommend it to anyone and not worry about them being offended in any way. Maybe that was the problem for me. It was too sweet or more to the point it was too saccharine. I just didn't really get into it and didn't think the characters were well developed and fully fleshed out. That said I thought some of the secondary characters were much more fascinating than the main characters. I loved Sheldon and that crusty old chain smoking lunch lady. I wanted this book to do more, be more, delve deeper and it didn't. I also didn't care for the ending which was predictably dull. On a positive note, the story dealt with interesting subject matter from an uncommon perspective.

From School Library Journal

"Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. "

Unfortunately for me, the novel didn't live up to it's pretty cover and catchy title.

My rating: OK

Weekend In the Palouse


We had a fun weekend. How could it be bad when Tyler came home on Friday night with roses and a little present for me? Woohoo. That started our weekend off great. I love you Ty!! Friday night we attended an art exhibit downtown by a fantastic local artist who just happens to be in our ward...the talented Danielle Hatch. It was so fun to see her art on display. Then we headed out on the Palouse highway to hit a rural roadside café that we had heard great things about. The rumors were true. It was delicious.

Saturday we headed down to Stacey's cute little town to celebrate my nephew Dane's 6th birthday. He had a wild and crazy Transformer birthday party at a Gymnastics center.

Look how fun!!

Some of the party-goers. Kameron and Ailey had a great time...Bryn too.

The Birthday Boy and his Dad

The whole crew

After the party we went back to Stacey and John's house to hang out for awhile and to let the kids play...and burn off some energy.

Sister time

Bryn was intrigued by John's goshawk. It's pretty to cool to have a falconer for an uncle!!

We were heading back home that afternoon when we decided to turn around and spend a bit more time in the area. Bryn had fallen asleep and the open road was calling. Plus with several Sisters Creed sales approaching I am always on the hunt for fun finds. I was not disappointed. I will post a sneak peek on the Sisters Creed blog in the next day or so. I am getting so excited for our upcoming sales!!

After playing in Moscow, ID for awhile the kids were starving and we were in Pullman, WA so we decided to try a restaurant that my friend,Valynn, had recommended.

The kids loved it...and Tyler was thrilled to get to eat some lasagna. I'm not a big Italian food fan so we rarely eat Italian so this was a TREAT for my family. Poor suckers missing out on all that marinara laden pasta.

Look at those Italian loving faces

I found something good to eat as well...minus the marinara. They have really good salads and desserts too. Reilly missed out as she was babysitting Elle that night but that girl has been keeping us supplied with these little beauties:

Homemade soft pretzels!! Reilly learned how to make them in her Life Skills class formerly known as Home Ec. and they are sinful...and addictive.

Happy Birthday this week to Dane and John!!
We love you guys.

Meet Victoria...My Awesome Mom

After much begging, pleading, and yeah...some threatening...she has FINALLY written her profile/bio for our Sisters Creed blog. Check it out. She is amazing. You can read it here.

I Am In Love


Oh Pat Conroy. I love you deeply. I am seduced by your way with words, wit, and wounded inner child. You beguile me with your southern charm. You bewitch me with your intellect. You distract me from anything else that I have going on in my life. I am consumed. Your magnetism is undeniable. I could leave my husband for you except I don't think he has much to worry about because he just might love you as much as I do.

I have read nearly every word you have written. Everything that I can get my hands on. Each time I am enchanted. Even when you show that the mighty Pat Conroy is fallible (South of Broad). Even when disappointed and left wanting I am captivated by your beautiful writing and charisma.

What a treat it was to open the cover of My Reading Life and have it be pure unadulterated Conroy. My heart skipped a beat. This is a book I must buy, write in the margins, and keep as a reference. I must own this work of beauty.

Who could not be beckoned to a comfy chair by this?

"I grew up a word-haunted boy. I felt words inside me and stored them wondrous as pearls. I mouthed them and fingered them and rolled them around my tongue." (pg.84)
Not to mention the ultimate phrase that thrills me every.single.time I read it?
"My wound is my geography. It is also my anchorage. My port of call." (Prologue from the Prince of Tides) Chills I tell you. Chills.

This book is pure joy for a Conroy fan. It is the author talking about his life, his influences, his experience, and the books and people that have shaped who he has become. I wanted it to never end. I wanted to sit by his fireside and listen to my favorite author forever.

I loved how he describes that joy of reading. It is how I feel but have difficulty articulating.

"When an author sets the table right, there will be no need to pass either the foie gras or the barbecue because the characters will grab me by the collar. They will spring to life so fully developed, so richly contained in the oneness of their own universe, that they will populate the cafes and verandas and alleyways of a city I will never want to leave. Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever, from that day forward, is part of literature's profligate generosity." (pg. 311)

"Can I incorporate this splendid work, ingest it whole into my bloodstream, where it can become part of my thinking and dreaming life?" (pg. 312)

I have walked many times through Mr. Conroy's "glittering city of words"and have journeyed to the darkest parts of hell with him by my side. I have loved every minute.

I close this book uplifted, inspired and fully satisfied.

My rating: EXCELLENT. A must-read for any Conroy fan or lover of literature

Happy New Year 2011

(Bryn was sound asleep by this point)

The New Year is here and with it a fresh start and the opportunity to make some new goals. I love it. I am a huge goal-setter and get nearly giddy with excitement as I sit down to make my list of resolutions. I am weird that way. Last year I tried not setting any goals to see what that was like and I did not care for it one bit. I ended up feeling indolent and slacker-ish and made a few mini-goals anyway. This year I am back to my old goal-setting ways with a big list to work on. I am not under any illusions that I will accomplish all of them and that is okay. But I know that I will accomplish many of them and I love the feeling that gives me at the end of the year to see some progress in my life. I love striving and progressing in different areas.

This year our New Years Eve was wonderful. Usually we always have somewhere we have to go
and end up rushing home and trying to cram food, games and fun into the night before the New Year dawns. This year we got to stay home, in our jammies, and relax. Fabulous.

Since New Year's Eve to me is all about the food we had a Seafood Fest. It was DELIGHTFUL. I think I ate the world's largest Alaskan King Crab leg. Tyler requested the biggest one they had and the lady went into the back and came out with a monster of a leg. Yes, I ate pretty much all of it myself...with a few bites begrudgingly given to Kameron and Tyler. Tyler requested scallops this year and they were also delicious. Kameron ate seafood as well. Only the girls were ninnies and "claimed" not to like seafood. Is this possible? I don't understand you people who don't crave seafood like I do. Reilly did make her famous Hot Artichoke dip and we also had crudités with dip, Stephanie Breckon's black-eyed pea salsa party dip, stained glass jello, and assorted Christmas treats. It was a good night!

We had fun playing games. For Christmas Reilly bought the family the Glee game which was a riot to play and if you haven't seen Tyler dance like Ken Tanaka you are missing out!! Even the little guys could play along because it involves singing and dancing and if there is one thing that we Johnsons like to do with great gusto and flare it is rock out and dance at our house!!

Then one by one people began dropping like flies...and in keeping with the tradition started by Kameron and Reilly at their parents' expense and humiliation...if you fall asleep before ringing in the New Year you get your picture taken.

First little snorer:

The second:

The third:

I love that all, except Bryn, completely passed out on the floor...just literally dropped. Too much partying I guess!! ;)

And then there were three...looking a bit worse for the wear though.

We were treated to quite the illegal fireworks display at midnight too. Fun!!

New Year's Day is truly a horrible day in my opinion. Christmas and all it's festivities are over with and now it's back to the grind with the long dark and dreary winter stretched out before you...with the added bonus of having to take down all the Christmas decorations. Blah.

But we made the best of it by having a delicious brunch made by Tyler. He made some amazing Belgian Waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. (Thanks Jordi for the awesome waffle maker!! We love it!!) and I made a big crockpot of hot punch that we sipped on all day while we rocked out to good music (La Roux's Bulletproof was our family's song of choice. We listened to it MANY times.) as we took down and put away all of the Christmas decorations and cleaned up the house. Tyler also did us the kind service of putting all kinds of new music on all of our Ipods...Love it!!

So the New Year is here. I crawled out of bed to be at the gym this morning by 6am, the kids are back in school, and everything is in full swing once again.

Happy New Year!!