valentines day surprises, things that are making me anxious, and weekly wishes.

happy monday everyone! 

so, friday was valentines day. 

and theres something you need to know about james and i: we are NOT the kind of couple thats any good at anything even remotely related to being romantic. i mean, this is how we met. we've been to the movies together exactly four times and half of them were before we got married. we only started going on fancy dress-up dates like a year ago. so, all i really wanted/expected out of valentines day was a stop at our favorite revolving sushi bar, preferably without alice. and that did happen. 

but what i didn't expect, was for james to go completely above and beyond and way uncharacteristically overboard with romantic gestures for basically the entire week. 

first off, he made this:

on the huge, empty wall of our bedroom. 

then, he completely re-arranged the living room, not in some stupid inefficient arrangement just because he was bored, but to give me an awesome and totally functional workspace:

which was basically the most romantic thing i could even ask for, given that i haven't had any kind of workspace since we lived in arizona. 

plus, when i got up friday morning there were roses on the table:

and, you know, he still took me for revolving sushi (which, in my opinion, is the very best kind of sushi). so, that was our valentines day. thanks james, you sure know how to make a lady feel special (and way to make my card look totally pathetic in comparison). 

enough about valentines day though, lets get in to this weeks weekly wishes. basically this week i only have one (besides continuing to work on my monthly goal of deep cleaning the apartment):

don't spend the entire week as an anxious and emotional wreck. 

see, i have two things making me really, really anxious this week, one is kind of silly and the other is a bit more serious/important. lets start with the silly one:

so, my oh so wonderful mother generously bought me a ticket to go to the oc blogger brunch that melyssa of the nectar collective is hosting on saturday. on the one hand, I'm SUPER excited to meet melyssa and all the other bloggers in real life and i know its going to be really fun. on the other hand, i have REALLY bad social anxiety and the fact that I'm going to this thing ALONE is totally freaking me out.

and when i say "really bad social anxiety" i don't mean like i don't enjoy talking to strangers. i mean like i GO OUT OF MY WAY to not have to talk to people i know on the phone (and don't get me started about calling strangers!). i mean like more than once I've had a full blown panic attack at our church christmas party. i mean like one time my mom offered me FIFTY DOLLARS to go to my neighbors halloween party and introduce myself to three people, and i said HELL NO. i mean like the only person i talk to at church (the church I've gone to since i was TEN) is my mom. 

now I'm driving 40+ minutes away to go have brunch with a whole group of strangers (that are all surely cooler and more interesting and have better blogs than me) ALL BY MYSELF and I'm terrified. but obviously I'm going to do it anyway because i need more real life friends. 

also, I'm totally freaking out about what i should wear, but I'm sure ill figure that out...

now for the bigger, more important thing thats making me anxious:

james has a third interview for a really, really, REALLY great job at a fantastic company in our neighborhood. I've mentioned before that james has hardly had any work in the past few months, right? well, this new job would be a totally normal, 40 hour week, every week (plus a shorter bike commute for james), and it would be a HUGE relief to all of us if he were to get hired.  

the thing is though that their hiring process has been painfully slow. his first phone interview was almost a month ago, and his second interview was last thursday. the suspense is killing me because i can not stand suspense. especially when a really awesome job that basically solves all our current problems is on the line. 

and to make things extra weird, today he's working at his regular job (for the first time in over a month). so, prayers in this department would be greatly appreciated. 

thats whats going on over here right now. what are your plans this week?

curry lentil stew recipe.

hello friends! i hope everyone had a nice valentines day!

i know its kind of expected that id be talking about valentines day today,  because it was yesterday and thats all anyones been talking about all week, but... actually... I'm going to talk about soup. or, i guess, more accurately stew. (don't worry ill talk more about valentines day on monday). 

actually this is a recipe that I've been wanting to write about for a very long time, its basically never left our normal dinner rotation in the 3+ years we've been married, but never got around to it.

since its about negative a million degrees out everywhere in america (ok, its in like, the sixties here but thats about where i put on a will coat and scarf and refuse to go outside) i feel like now would be the appropriate time to share it. 

so whats so great about this lentil stew? well first of all, its delicious. second, its easy, just throw it on some rice and you've got a complete meal with only two pots to wash. and most importantly, its cheap. and i mean really, really cheap. as in, for about $5 you have enough lentil stew to last for centuries (or at least, one batch usually feeds us between 6 and 8 dinners). oh, and also, it freezes and reheats wonderfully, i almost always have a few jars of this in the freezer for nights i won't be home to cook, and i HATE freezer meals/leftovers. 

note: the curry powder can be pretty pricey at the "normal" grocery store (like $4-$5 for a small bottle), and you're going to be using a lot of it, so i recommend either buying the curry powder at trader joes (where its $1.99) or finding an indian market where you can buy it in bulk (a couple years ago we got a HALF POUND bag of it for about $3.50). 

my recipe is actually a slightly modified version of the "lentils and potatoes with curry" recipe in how to cook everything vegetarian, but I've added some extra veggies, and instead of eating it by itself as a soup like the book suggests, we (usually) eat it with rice:

curry lentil stew. 

(serves 8+ as a soup, even more when served with rice)

heres what you need:

1 pound of dried lentils

7-8 cups vegetable stock

2 tablespoons curry powder 

4 medium russet potatoes (or two of those insanely huge baking potatoes)

3-4 carrots

3-4 ribs of celery

salt and black pepper to taste

start by combining the lentils, stock and curry powder in a large pot and bring to a boil. once its boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and cook the lentils (which should be bubbling gently, NOT a rolling boil) for about 15 minutes. 

while you're waiting for that peel and chop your potatoes, carrots, and celery, after the 15 minutes is up add all your veggies, stir, and cook completely covered and undisturbed for about ten more minutes. 

next, check your lentils to make sure theres still enough liquid (and adding more if necessary), and (if needed) add salt and black pepper to taste. 

cover and continue to cook for about 5-10 more minutes until the veggies are cooked through. 

serve over rice. 

feel free to cut this recipe in half if you're not into cooking industrial portions (i come from a big family so "cooking for two" is NOT one of my strong suits), and please, please, PLEASE let me know if you give it a try!

champagne cork stamp tutorial.

so, you know how we've been drinking a lot of sparkling wine? well, we've had a lot of extra corks lying around. 

and alice got a fantastic idea. 

see, at alices ballet class, her teacher gives everyone hand stamps if they're good. alice LOVES getting her stamps from miss regine. well, one day, alice picked up a cork and told me "put your hands on your head for stamps!", and "stamped" my hands with her imaginary cork-stamp. 

which gave me an equally fantastic idea: i could totally make her a whole set of actual stamps with all the champagne corks lying all over the place. and since, you know, i have a degree in printmaking (which, by the way, is a super in-demand employable skill and i never have to explain what i went to school for. sarcasm), it was actually REALLY easy. 

in this project I'm basically using the same principles as a potato stamp, but since were using corks instead of potatoes, we can clean them up when were done and keep them forever, so its way less wasteful. plus, now alice has a whole bunch of fun stamps that were basically free. 

you should totally try it out. 

heres what you'll need:

champagne corks (obviously)

a marker

a small, sharp knife

scrap paper 

stamp pad (or paint)

and heres what youll do:

step 1: use your marker to draw the desired finished shapes of your stamps. you'll want to stick to simple shapes (remember, they are pretty small and the cork is soft and not suitable for intricate details). i mainly wanted these for alice to use at craft time (and maybe help her learn her shapes), so i did a heart, star, triangle, square, flower, and arrow:

step two: use your knife to cut a thin layer of cork away from the area NOT colored with marker (in artsy terms, this is called "negative space", you want to get rid of it). the best way to do this is to make vertical cuts (perpendicular to the surface of the cork) all the way around the outline of your desired shape, and then make horizontal cuts (parallel to the surface of the cork) about a millimeter or two below the surface of the cork to remove the negative space. if you do it right, when you're done, your cork will now look like a stamp:

step 3: using your stamp pad (or paint, my "big and juicy" stamp pad was NOT as juicy as advertised, and i ended up just using paint) to test out your stamp on the scrap paper and make sure the resulting shape is what you wanted (and if not, simply wipe off and fine-tune with your knife).

and ta-da! youre done:

now you have a whole set of (basically) free stamps for all your paper crafting needs!

i was actually really surprised that the curvy shapes (like the heart and flower) and the more complex shapes (like the star and arrow)  ended up coming out MUCH nicer than the simpler ones (like the triangle and square). 

and now if i could just find my stash of blank greeting cards we could make some valentines...