No snow this year

I'm over it.
I started wishing for snow right after Thanksgiving. We haven't made it to the mountains and I am not sure if we will this winter. Now that the daffodils and crocus are pushing up I am so ready for spring and rainbows.
But this guy came home with me yesterday.
Before teaching, I dropped Lydia off early so I could sit in a cozy room with 6 other ladies and needlefelt.


I wish wish wish I had taken my camera because every snowman turned out so unique (one was French with a beret and curly moustache, and another was a yeti from Star Wars with blood dripping from his mouth).

Sopas

I like to try new recipes.

I find them in cookbooks I've checked out from the library, on a blog, from a friend's repertoire, or from a clean page in a favorite book from our shelves. Even when I find one I love, I often forget about it and later find myself wondering where I found those flavors combined. Or sometimes I'll turn to a page, get the sense that I've tried the recipe before and wonder if it was worth the effort.

Last night I made this soup from one of my favorite food blogs. The kale I got from the store was so good that Sahara ate some raw after finishing off the soup. Pablo thought it was a bit bland but liked it.

I will definitely make it again.

We grated a bunch of Parmesan on top which is always a good idea. For the tomatoes I thawed a pint of our summer roasted heirlooms and for the bread I used some leftovers from my new favorite bread recipe which is from Peter Reinhart's new book - Whole Grain Breads.

Tonight I will try this soup with naan and Deborah's tzatziki recipe which I discovered is the same as Irma's except for the yogurt's draining time.

- post dinner - soup not worth replicating unless I can figure out what to add to liven it up. The tzatziki, as always, was great. We ended up eating lots of naan, tzatziki and nicoise olives. The girls ate a bunch of steamed fingerling potatoes too. And Sahara finished it off with her favorite snack - bread with butter and nutritional yeast. What an odd dinner!

In the mirror

One of Sahara's favorite gifts last month was a make-up bag from the dearly beloved Anya. (Sahara asked if she could be the flower girl at Anya's wedding to Jamie. She is sure they will marry each other because she saw them kiss each other on the lips.)
Yesterday when we returned home from dance class with Hazel in tow for a play date, the two immediately stripped down to their undies and raced into Sahara's room to "dress up fancy." This is nothing new, but the addition of make-up is. Hazel watched the expert in the mirror.
I love this photo!

Escape

It has been difficult to start up again in the sense that up requires significantly more exertion than the "be here now" so we went the other way, to the coast, which did require quite a bit of energy output but once you are there









Yes.

The girls were enthralled, as were we, for looooong stretches of time watching the waves crash and the seagulls riding the wind, searching for treasures of seaweed and stones, shells and agates and the frothy foam so stiff and delicate.
We made it to the aquarium! Sahara ran to the shark tank and begged for the sharks to clamp their jaws around a smaller fish. Lydia and I sat on the ground and were mesmerized by the flourescent jellyfish pulsing their way around and around and around. Sahara fed the abalone some seaweed and the anenomes stuck to our fingertips. We must return in a few years when Lydia is a bit older. Perhaps we'll do one of their sleepovers.

a bit awkward but worth the 2 + minutes