Big birthdays and small pleasures

I’ve been over the moon with my garden this summer. It may not seem like much to some, but looking back at how far I’ve come, I’m pretty proud of where I’m at. Only a handful of years ago, I embarked on this gardening experiment just to try it. I started with a couple of plants and got a small, but precious, harvest. Since then, there have been ups and downs. Some years, some things do better; other years, other things do better. I’m slowly learning the rhythms of the weather and how they affect my harvest. And then last year, the squirrels – whom I adore otherwise! – buried so many peanuts in my garden that the plants were unfortunately affected by the constant uprooting.

This year, though, I feel like I’m starting to hit my stride. I had one of my sons build wire cages to enclose my raised beds, which addressed the squirrel problem in a way that didn’t mean I had to completely chase them away as everyone swore I’d have to, and …I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting the hang of it? This summer, I’ve got five tomato plants (one “patio tomato” and four cherry tomato), four soybean plants (note to self: soybean plants make RIDICULOUSLY few soybean pods per plant! need to see if I can find ones with higher yields because this is bananas), more parsley than anyone will ever eat (grown specifically for the swallowtail butterflies), some random herbs, some hot peppers, and that’s about it. I concentrated on what I know grows well for me in raised beds, and I’ve had so much success this summer from that. My tomatoes started early and haven’t stopped since. I get a small bowlful of cherry tomatoes once or twice a week. Not enough to sustain us, but enough to feel the satisfaction of growing food for my family. My serrano peppers have exploded in the past week, and I’m about to put together a couple of jars of pickled serrano peppers to use those up. My cayenne peppers have so many peppers on them, but they’re so slow-growing, I feel like I’m going to be a billion years old before they ever actually ripen.

It’s all good, though. I see the progress and how I am coming along as a gardener, and I’m pretty pleased. I’m looking forward to next summer and considering a larger enclosed garden out in the backyard. My ambitions are exceeding my porch space. I guess we’ll see.

So much for the small pleasures. As for the big birthday, today is my fiftieth birthday. It’s a bittersweet one for me; I lost my mother last September, and it feels strange to have my first birthday without her be such a momentous one. But at the same time, she prepared me for this day in so many ways that it feels like she’s with me even though she’s gone. My mom was a complicated, principled woman who felt her own worth deeply and who instilled that same sense of self and worth in me. She never dreaded age, and she taught me not to dread it. So I’ve been looking forward to 50. I just wish she were here to celebrate it with me.

Another item checked off my baking bucket list

I found myself with a free day recently where I had nothing planned and very few routine household chores I had to do, so I thought, let’s bake something just for the fun of it. I fished around for ideas, but in the end, went back to my “baking bucket list” – the list of recipes I want to master someday – for inspiration. And right at the top of that was a pastry I’ve been coveting and avoiding in equal measure: kouign-amann.

I don’t know why I had (have?) a mental block on laminated doughs. Something in the back of my head says “oh, no, those are too difficult, and definitely too fiddly,” and yet every time I attempt one, in the end, I’m surprised at how enjoyable, straightforward, and simple the process was. This was no different. I found myself procrastinating at each refrigerate/roll/fold cycle, even though the recipe I followed was nothing but easy to follow and the dough rolled beautifully.

Brains are funny things.

As always with laminated doughs (and especially for me, with my talent for productive procrastination,) the recipe took far longer than it should have, but I can’t argue with these results, and I will definitely be making kouign-amann again.

Victory!

A few weeks ago, I mentioned on Facebook that it was a peculiar kind of humility that one experiences when one attempts to bake something that one had been proficient at before and fails miserably. In this case, it was macarons.

Left: Ruby chocolate ganache and raspberry jam. Right: Semi-sweet chocolate ganache.
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Growing things

The last couple of summers, I’ve taken the opportunity that remote work has provided me to get into gardening. It took some fits and starts before I eventually realized that for me, container gardening on my porch is the most realistic solution. Do we have enough land for an actual in-ground garden? We sure do. But it’s not easily accessible from my front door, and I am what I euphemistically refer to as “indoorsy”. So after a few years of trying to force myself to fit my garden, I’ve brought the garden onto the porch to make it fit me.

You’ll be surprised to hear that it is going so much better now, I’m sure.

This year, I’ve got cherry tomatoes (which historically have done well), an unidentified heirloom tomato variety my son gave me, a couple of varieties of hot peppers, lunchbox (mini bell) peppers, okra, soybeans, green beans, cucumbers, various herbs, grapes, eggplants, horseradish, ginger, and turmeric. And yes! it does all fit on my porch, creatively.

I’m finding that I get an unexpected amount of joy from tending my precious little plants, even though the “harvest”, such as it is, isn’t really even enough to supplement the diet of a single person, much less a family of five. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a summer person, but this daily practice helps me hate it a little bit less each year.

Thank goodness for climate control

For the past five years at least, we had been without our central air conditioning. I know that central air isn’t standard in many places around the world, but here in Pennsylvania, our summers are hot (and getting hotter) and humid (and only getting more humid,) so central air really is a requirement. Ours died a handful of years ago, though, and since then, we had been making do with portable air conditioners in essential rooms with the rest of the house remaining unlivable in about half the year. That “rest of the house” included the kitchen; as a result, I have avoided cooking and baking in all but the coldest seasons and weather.

This year – this March – we finally had the ability to replace our central air conditioning unit. Finally, after years, inside our house is all a consistent, (reasonably) cool, dehumidified temperature. I keep forgetting I can bake in summer now, though.

Today, I remembered. Usually, on Sundays, I make bread, but this past week, I had already made some; and when I looked this morning, it hadn’t even been cut yet. So I was left with a day with nothing I needed to bake.

Enter King Arthur Baking’s sourdough pretzels. This has long been my favorite soft pretzel recipe, and it’s also a great way to use sourdough starter discard when I feed my starter (which I do every Sunday to maintain it.)

Soft pretzel with fleur de sel salt sprinkle

So now I have pretzels AND air conditioning. Life truly is good.

And this is why I can’t ever stop procrastinating

Tomorrow (in an hour and eleven minutes, as of when I started writing this) is my eldest son’s twenty-first birthday. Leaving aside the absurdity of me having a child who is twenty-one entire years old for a moment… He had one request from me: he wanted me to make a long-sleeved t-shirt for him for his birthday. He chose a lovely, lightweight but cozy waffle-knit fabric in a slate blue. I chose a pattern and he approved it. “Sure,” I said. “I have plenty of time.”

I started off strong. Early last week, I printed out the pattern and assembled it. Late last week, I measured him to make sure I got exactly the right size. Two days ago, I cut out all of the pattern pieces and had everything lined up and ready. “I am so on top of this,” I thought.

Narrator: She was not so on top of this.

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Merry Christmas! The pajamas are done.

Christmas pajamas 2022
Christmas pajamas 2022: E (15), R (18), and N (20), left to right

It happened just in the nick (the St. Nick?) of time, but I finished this year’s Christmas pajamas at midday on Christmas eve.

I linked the patterns used in a previous post, but I’ll jot down some lessons learned here, partially for myself when I start setting up to do the 2023 pajamas and partially if anyone else is interested in embarking on this tradition for their family and they want to see what it’s like:

  • Clothing pattern sizes, even ones sized with a modern approach, run small. None of my sons wear an XL in ready-to-wear clothing, but all of these garments are pattern size XL or larger. Best to go by measurements. I foolishly thought that since I had used these patterns before, it would be fine, but clearly, I had sized up or adjusted the pattern before and not noted that for myself.
  • Keep notes and when you write them, write like you’re writing for a stranger. This would have saved me a lot of time and angst this year.
  • Buy more fabric than you think you’ll need. The fabric I bought was a 42-inch wide directionally-printed flannel (by which I mean the pattern does not match when you rotate the fabric, unlike some plaids, for instance.) I bought ten yards thinking I would have plenty since that worked for me the last few years (see above about keeping good notes!) and I’ll just say that the pants from the last few years were not made with directional prints, which turned out to make a massive difference. Ten yards ended out being JUST enough (and trying to match the pattern just was not happening – I just wanted all the dinos to be right-side-up!) and I was holding my breath toward the end of cutting out the pants pattern. Next year, even if nobody needs a larger size, I’ll definitely be buying a few yards more just for the sake of my own sanity.

I think that about covers it. I’ll come back and add more should I think of more. But for now, they’re done, the boys are happy with them and so am I, and now I can relax and enjoy the holiday.

Back on track, baby!

I did it! Everything is fully cut out as of 11pm tonight, which I’m still counting as today. There were a few hairy moments – I was absolutely certain I was going to be making a trip to the fabric store tomorrow to try to get more of the pajama pants fabric – but in the end, I managed.

Note to future self: if the pants fabric is a directional print, especially if the fabric is on the narrow side, 10 yards is not, as it happens, truly enough for three grown men (which somehow my children have become when I wasn’t looking.) I made it work, but the pockets are not going to be pretty, and I think I had at least two minor heart attacks during the process.

But! Now all of the cutting is done and in the morning, I can set up my serger and my sewing machine and get to work.

Pajamafest 2022, part 1

Pajamafest 2022 has begun in earnest (and with no time to spare, since it’s literally four days till I have to give all three of my kids their pajamas!) For some reason, I decided that 2022 would be the year that I should re-download and re-print (and re-assemble, and re-trace,) my patterns. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Narrator: It was not a good idea.

The patterns I’d been using for the last umpteen years were so old and ratty and I’d made so many poorly-documented notes and adjustments that I couldn’t tell what was what (or for whom) anymore, so I figured I’d just start fresh. So that’s where we are. Last night I finished tracing and cutting the pajama pants pattern (trousers for ex-US English speakers) from pattern fabric and now those are ready. I’ve just finished assembling the 40 (!) printed 8.5″ x 11″ sheets for the hoodie pattern and I’m taking a short break before I go in to do the tracing and cutting the pattern out of pattern fabric.

Today’s goal is to get all of the patterns assembled, traced, and cut, and to hopefully cut out the pieces for at least either all of the hoodies or all of the pants. The last few years have not been good for my chronic pain for Reasons, so I’m trying to keep modest goals and take breaks.