Because Jen brought it up..

I think it was the summer I turned 16, but it could have been the year after that or even the one before it. Jen is better at remembering the specifics. What I do know is that my twin sister, Brandy, and I had a slumber party at the big house during which the group of us including Jen, Wendy, Becky, and maybe Jesse, stayed up all night. I'm fairly certain that extreme amounts of Serge, Mt. Dew, and Swedish Fish were involved. At some point the next morning we left the Big House and went to my dad's house where we decided to make pancakes. Somehow Jen and I ended up being the only two awake to make them. I was worried about waking my dad and step mom up so I didn't bother looking for a recipe. I figured I could just make them. I threw flour, milk, and eggs into a bowl and started mixing. The bright idea to make strawberry pecan pancakes hit me so I threw in strawberries and pecans, mixed it all up, and heated up the pan. Then, something went terribly wrong. The pancakes turned green! The dog wouldn't even eat them. Jen and I tried to flush the mix down the drain hiding all evidence of my inability to cook, but the pecans got stuck in the drain! We laughed so hard I almost peed my pants, and that's not an exaggeration. My dad laughed at me for weeks! He's an amazing cook and couldn't imagine how he had a daughter who couldn't make a pancake. And Jen, who remembers everything, still reminds me of our pancake adventure on a regular basis. :) Perhaps this is the reason for my ultimate pancake recipe quest.
After the pancake fiasco Jen joined the rest of the girls in sweet slumber. I decided it was time for a jog and then washed the car. The next thing I remember I woke up in my step sisters bed and it was the next evening! I had made it half way up the stairs and fallen asleep. My dad found me and put me in bed.

Let them eat panCAKES!

I have to admit, this recipe wouldn't be possible with out the help of my girl, Betty. I've had a passionate love for pancakes for a while now, but was never able to replicate that melt-in-your-mouth goodness I experienced at breakfast making establishments. This recipe is a mesh of Betty, All Recipes, & an episode of Good Eats. I want to make it everyday, but don't.

1 egg
1 cup all purpose flour (The white stuff that is full of carbs and love. Do not settle for any substitutes!)
1 to 1 1/4 cups of milk
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons shortening, the artery clogging kind.
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vinegar
half a stick of butter softened


Beat the egg until it's light and fluffy. Beat in the rest of the ingredients except the butter until the batter is smooth. (There will be tiny lumps from the shortening.) Adjust the amount of milk you use to make the consistency of pancake you like. I like my batter to be a little on the thin side, but not too thin. It should form a pancake without any trouble but shouldn't run all over the pan.

Heat your griddle or pan over medium heat to 375 or until you jump when you touch it. :) Once the pan is hot place a small amount of butter on the pan and then slide it all around so the pan gets a layer of buttery love. Then take a paper towel and wipe any excess butter off so there is just a thin layer of butter.

Using a ladle, pour batter onto pan and cook the pancake until it bubbles flip it and cook until golden brown. As soon as you take the pancake off the pan, butter each side generously.

I like to eat the first pancake plain just so I can make sure they are tasty enough, but I smother the rest in ooey gooey syrupy goodness.

**I am aware that mixing vinegar and milk is a substitute for buttermilk. I have tried buttermilk in this recipe and didn't like it as much. Maybe it has something to do with the ratio of vinegar and milk. I'm not sure, but I like my recipe the way I like it and besides I'm more likely to have vinegar and milk on hand than I am to have buttermilk.

Dates and Dances

Erin attended the Snowflake Dace this past Saturday. It was the first dance she's ever been to and the first time she's been on a date. When her "boyfriend", Joe, came in to get her it was all I could do to get them to stand close enough to each other to get a photo. They were both so nervous, and it was really cute! As soon as Erin came home I asked for all the details. She said she had more fun dancing than she thought she would and that she liked this dance so much she wants to go to the Valentine's Day dance next month. She then proceeded to eat an entire box of macaroni and cheese because she said she was so hungry from all that dancing! She's growing up so fast I can hardly stand it! She'll be 13 next month! I asked her how exactly that happened and she said "Well mom, one day turned into the next and the next and that just kept happening until we got here."

Here she is in the dress we bought for the dance. It's a Converse dress with a hood. She saw it and loved it! It's really her style. She did say that she would like a little bit more girly of a dress for the Valentines Day dance.


She even wore her converse with it.


I did her hair and makeup. Kristen was nice enough to give us some advice which was to keep the hair and makeup simple to go with the sporty style of the dress. I followed her advice as much as possible. That's no easy task with Erin. She wanted crazy eye makeup, but I talked her out of it.
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Erin and Joe together. She adores him and talks about him all the time. He's a really sweet kid.

For those of you who would like it, here is the recipe for the Lumpia and the wrappers although I really recommend buying the wrappers if you can find them. David is looking for them where he works since it's a bigger city with more of a variety than the local grocery stores.
I used the leftover ground pork to make my own version of moo shoo pork. I pan fried the pork and then added in green cabbage chopped very thin, green onions, shallots, and chopped mushrooms. I let that cook over a low heat and added in some soy sauce. While it was cooking I made some Mandarin pancakes. I used a little plum sauce to top them off but decided I like the hoisin sauce better. I have enough of the dough for the pancakes and the ingredients for the moo shoo pork to make it tomorrow for lunch. I hope David likes it. We both love moo shoo pork, but haven't found a restaurant here that serves it. Most of the Asian restaurants here serve very Americanized Asian food, meaning chunks of chicken or beef in super sweet sauces. And they are all buffet style. Have I mentioned that I hate buffets?

Enjoyment

The ground is winter white, the sky an amazing crystal blue, and the sun is shining. The temperature has increased substantially raising my spirits with it.

Yesterday was fun. After hauling load after load of wood with the use of my dad's four wheeler, David and Erin grilled hamburgers while I experimented with making lumpia, Filipino egg rolls. The filling was delicious and the wrapper was okay. It needed to be thinner, but I spent an hour rolling the dough out and was tired of rolling. Our bellies full, we settled in to watch the Steelers game and what a game it was! Best of all we made it to the Super Bowl. Admittedly I'm not much of a sports fan, but football is one of the games I can get into.

Six Months In

Days are different here. They are so much more full than they ever have been. There is Hayden and Erin and an endless list of tasks, mostly self imposed. It's -6 degrees outside today which means our life, for the moment, is whatever is contained in these four walls. We are lucky enough to have big windows that give us an ample view of the snow, piled two feet high, and the trees cloaked in white.
Adventures here seem more labor intensive, but more worth our while too. We are slowly acclimating to life in a small town on the East coast. I'm enjoying (at least most of the time) learning to live on less and my plans for a huge garden in the spring have me very excited! My grandma is excited too. She didn't do much gardening last year because she had no one to help her. I plan on being all the help she needs this year and in truth she'll probably help me more than I could ever help her since I know very little about gardening.
Life post job is difficult for me. Part of me wants a job for the financial security it could bring us and another part of me feels guilty for not contributing financially to the family. That being said, this is really no time for me to consider finding a job. I'm trying very hard to focus on using this time to be with Hayden and Erin and to learn to truly live more simply. I'm also working on developing my photography skills and am looking forward to several shoots as soon as the weather allows. I'm trying to be brave like Cara and jump into the professional photography world, but I am full of self doubt. It's scary to put yourself out there and expect people to pay you for taking photos of them. The idea of being rejected is even more frightening. As if that fear wasn't enough the relentless voice of self doubt keeps telling me to stop pretending and get a "real" job. I'm hopeful that with practice and more study of photography I'll be able to quiet that voice and those fears.

In more exciting news, Hayden learned how to roll over. He's been so close for so long and now he's finally mastered the fine art. He's a boy on the move! I hope I'm ready!

It's about time!

I was finally able to schedule appointments with my cardiac specialist and surgeon. Our insurance had a 12 month wait period for pre-existing conditions. Luckily I had 11 months of prior insurance which went towards the wait period, leaving me only one month of wait time. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the appointments on the same day so I'll have to make two trips to Pittsburgh in one week. My hope is that I'll only have these two appointments before the surgery. That could be wishful thinking. I have no idea what the process is.

I found this video of the surgery I'll be having on youtube. David says I'm crazy for watching it, but I don't think so. I like to know what's going to happen.

Months ago, in this post I made the following comment "The future is always so unimaginable to me. I can make plans and dream, but the reality of what tomorrow brings is almost always a surprise. I've learned along the way to take those surprises as they come and to be thankful when they are the good kind." The past year is the perfect example of why imagining tomorrow is so impossible for me. How could I ever have imagined the events of the last year? When the year began, I knew it would be the year we finally moved to Pennsylvania and I knew we would have a baby, but I didn't have the slightest idea of all the details that would surround those two things. It's been a year of very high highs and extremely low lows. In many ways it feels like this year chewed me up and spit me out leaving me a little more worn for the wear but a lot softer too. I understand more deeply than ever how fragile this life is. This year brought me an up close and personal view of my own mortality and, to the opposite, the amazing experience of bringing new life into the world.
I can not classify or categorize this year. For me 2008 will always be the year I learned that I (and I suspect all of humanity) am equal parts unbelievably strong and amazingly fragile.