boooooooooooooooooooks. twenty-fourteen style, playa.

it's that time of year again, folks:  the day on which i post last year's list of reading accomplishments.  i had been beating myself up over the fact that i really hadn't gotten many books finished, but then i remembered two things:

1.  i finally read the harry potter books, and if that was the only reading i had accomplished all year, i would still come out ahead, as each one of those seven books is worth about a hundred lesser books.  also, some of them are about the length of a hundred lesser books, give or take. 

2.  in reality, i read more last year than i have most years since i've been keeping a record (2010).  i was trying to remember why i thought i typically read forty-ish books, instead of the actual twenty-five-ish, and i'm thinking it's because i was comparing myself to louis l'amour, whose bibliographic memoir was among this year's books.  according to his records, he typically read 80-120 books per year in the thirties and forties.  all while overseeing a mine, rounding up buffalo, working aboard various ships and in various asian and european countries, and fighting in a world war.  um, hello.  anyone would feel like a failure next to that guy.

anyway, without further ado, 2014's books of the year.  (my five favorites, obviously after the harry potter series, which of course take gold and five stars and two thumbs up and A+.)

1. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1/20)

2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (1/23)

3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling (1/25)

4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (1/28)

5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (2/4)

6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling (2/8)

7. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (2/12)

8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (2/16)

9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (2/27) (yeah, again.  Don’t hate.)

10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling (on audiobook with todd) (3/15)

11. Bossypants by Tina Fey (3/17)

12.  John Adams by David McCullough (5/7)

13. Escape from Warsaw by Ian Seraillier (5/9)

14. The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (6/6)

15. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (6/10)

16. Anthem for Doomed Youth by Carola Dunn (6/23)

17.  Have Your Cake and Lose Weight Too by DaNelle Wolford (7/5)

18.  The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (7/6)

19.  Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (7/8)

20.  The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass (7/13)

21.  The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin (7/20)

22.  Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (7/26)

23.  The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore (7/27)

                                                                                                                    

24.  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd  (7/29)

25.  The Paris Wife by Paula McLain (8/4)

26.  The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom (10/17)

27.  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (10/27)

28.  Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms When My Lab Results Are Normal? by Dr. Datis Kharrazian (11/1)

29.  The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman (11/1)

30.  A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel (11/4)

31.  All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg (11/11)

32.  Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir by Louis L’Amour (11/24)

33.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (12/1)

34.  The White Queen by Philippa Gregory (12/14)

35.  Mudbound by Hillary Jordan (12/17)

36.  The Hormone Cure by Sara Gottfried (12/22)

37.  It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig (12/23)

38.  The House at Riverton by Kate Morton (12/29)

if you're interested in what else i've read over the years, you can find my lists from 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.  in looking through my lists, i've discovered that this was the year of increased interest in current fiction.  i'm hoping to read more classic fiction in 2015.  wish me luck!  what's on your reading list this year?

what's up bi-weekly.

ahhh, christmas.  christmas is a given.  but other stuff happened over the last couple of weeks as well.

finneas went to the emergency room.

todd took atticus on a daddy date to pizza ranch, and then to the farm and fleet store to look at toy construction vehicles.

we stayed up late a couple of nights for movie nights with the big kids, and watched despicable me for the first time.  i know, i know.

the kids got personalized breastplates, made by the loving hands of todd himself.

my sister and her boyfriend, austin, stayed the weekend with us, and austin kindly offered to take some family photos for us.  it was so great- the last official family photo shoot we had was done when finneas was under a year.  i think that, prior to this weekend, we had a total of three photos that contained all six of us.  i'm basically going all rabies-foam just thinking about seeing the finished product.

laurelai got to wear her first official ponytail, and also moved on up in the world, out of the high chair and up to the table.  it is so funny - she's already holding hands to pray and saying 'amen' at the end.  she takes her table-sitting responsibilities very seriously.  and adorably. 

and in whole30 news (hey, i didn't say i wouldn't talk about it at all; i'll keep it brief and contained to friday posts only): todd has gracefully bowed out of the endeavor.  the kids and i are still going strong, and it really hasn't been too bad.  for breakfasts, we've mainly been doing bacon, nuts, fruits and veggies.  for lunches, we've been having this new hamburger soup from ree drummond, with some sweet potatoes thrown in - it's actually really delicious, although you wouldn't know it from talking to my obstinately soup-hating children.  for dinner, we've really enjoyed these go-to lemon chicken breasts from ina garten (white wine replaced with chicken broth) and these new crackling chicken thighs from nom nom paleo.  we even ate the chicken thighs after todd decided to decline all the whole30 restrictions, and he really really liked them, so i know they're not just 'good for whole30.'  

and... here's what i thought my counter would look like this month:

and here's what it actually looks like most of the time:

i'm making kombucha, perpetual chicken broth, homemade mayo, and all kinds of other hands-on, mess-intense concoctions.  not the most pleasant, but not as bad as i expected.  i tried to do most of the prep for the week on monday, so i didn't have to do much else throughout the rest of the week, and i think that has helped me keep my sanity.

except for when i look inside my disaster of a fridge.  then i kind of want to scream.

that opened-before-this-all-began bottle of moscato mocks me from the fridge door.

anyway.  there is our two weeks, and an intimate look into my utter failure to keep my whole30 antics to myself.  forgive me, and also have a great weekend!

video thursday: do you know what the word demeaning is? ...no, ummmm...

happy new year, suckers!

whole30, riding dirty.

if you follow me on pinterest, you may have seen that lately i've been pinning a bunch of mediocre-looking food in the name of whole30 intentions.  well, friends, today is the day we start the actual follow through on those pins.  so if i'm a complete jerkwad for the next couple of weeks, you'll know it's because i'm going through cheese withdrawal.

(for the zero of you out there who haven't already been informed and completely annoyed by all of the whole30 info/testimonies/photos/churches out there on facebook, it's thirty days of no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no alcohol, no sugar, no fun.  it's going to be a blast.  todd is reluctantly coming on board the whole30 boat with me, but it's only because he loves me so and also because i cried when he tried to say no.)

i went grocery shopping last night.  i bought fennel.  i bought beets.  i held it together at aldi and passed up the three-pack of imported cheddars.  i felt so primal and strong.  and then i grabbed mcdonald's on the way home because, hello, one last hurrah and also, grocery shopping is exhausting and takes forever, so i didn't have time or ambition to cook dinner.  then i topped off my night with a margarita.  because what's a hurrah without a margarita?  it's just a hur-, that's what, and that seems a bit anticlimactic.  so i drank a margarita for the sake of the -rah, and i'd do it again without shame.

anyway.  i'm telling you all of this for two reasons:  one, because we're best friends, and friends tell each other stuff.  we share what's going on in our lives.  we emote.  we connect.  that's what i'm doing here.  and two, because i need to reassure you that this is not all you'll be hearing about for the next thirty days.  what is it about people who go on a specialty diet that makes them think you want to hear about, take notes on, and admire every bite of food that goes in their mouths from here on out?  i won't be that girl.  i promise you this.  because again, like i already stated, we're friends.  and friends don't bore friends with whole30 details all the livelong day.

well, there you have it.  i'm about to become a real peach.  sarcastically and figuratively speaking, of course, from the lack of most of the things that sustain me.  and maybe also literally speaking, once i eat enough produce that i start violet beauregarding it.  let's see what comes of this, shall we?

two unequally important items of note.

first, i finally decided to fire up my instagram account.  it now hosts one photo.

second, that photo is of finneas in the emergency room last week because, oh yeah, he punctured his tongue and lip.  also?  i don't know really how or when he did it, other than deducing that he probably bit it, sometime overnight.  maybe he was jumping on the bed and bonked his chin on his crib, causing himself to bite down.  or something.  i can't say for sure.

i got him up one morning last week, and he had dried blood all over his face.  he hadn't really cried or anything before that point, and seemed to be acting fine.  so i looked him over to see if i could figure out what was wrong, and checked in his mouth.  it appeared that somehow his lip had been bitten all the way through, and his tongue had been halfway bitten through.  and then i just kept shrilly whispering 'oh my word, oh my word, oh my word,' because, contrary to popular belief, a punctured tongue is not a pretty sight.  it is, in fact, horrifying.  to downplay it a lot.

but the thing is, we recently got new insurance - insurance that has a bunch of hoops one must jump through in order to receive medical care, which seems oppositional to the point of having insurance, but okay.  so in my panic and insurance-induced confusion, i called the dentist to see if gushing mouth wounds are a dentist's job, but they're obviously not, so i called the pediatrician.  the pediatrician couldn't get finneas in that day, but also couldn't refer us to urgent care without first seeing him, and a referral was required by our insurance, so they told us to go to the emergency room.  

there was really nothing they could do for him once we got to the hospital, and i'm not kidding when i tell you finneas could have cared less about his horrific, swollen, gnashed up tongue.  they could have stitched his lip, but it had stopped bleeding at that point, and since it would probably scar either way, they opted to just leave it alone.  so they gave me some bacitracin, and gave him a stuffed bear and an elmo book, and sent us home.  as uneventful as finneas' last trip to the E.R.  

anyway, in case you're wondering, i'm guessing everything's healing up well.  i've not looked at his tongue in the last couple of days, since every time i ask to see it, he just says, 'it's feeling better now,' and walks away.  his lip is scabbed up, but that's true of most brawling toddlers at any given moment.  so i think he's on the upward swing. 

trimming the doubletree.

the kids and i decorated the christmas tree, which is always one of the year's most stressful tasks.  it involves electricity; small, painful metal hooks; breakables; and unreasonably excited children.  every year i think that this will be the year it's different; every year it's about the same as the last year.

putting on the lights.

getting out the ornaments.  at least this year i remembered to separate each child's ornaments into their own boxes so as to avoid sorting the day-of.  and, as indicated by our costume changes, we spread out tree trimming over the course of a couple of days: one for lights, one for ornaments.  trying to take baby steps to a less stressful christmas season.

how big is this kid getting?!

this will be the last post this week.  i have five days ahead of me in which i plan to wear pajamas and shirk responsibilities like blogging and hygiene.  i'm clearly going to go revel.  have a merry christmas!

cutting the tree to the quick.

ahh, the 'fake tree v. real tree' discussion we have every year.  every year, todd's like, 'let's get an artificial tree this year.  it's only a one-time expense, you don't have to wrestle it home every year, you can leave it decorated, it doesn't shed, it probably never smells like animal urine like that one time.  all of these things are wins.'  and every year i'm like, 'noooooo.  nostalgia!  (yummy) smells!  memories!  i promise i'll vacuum so the pine needles don't get into atticus' eyes like that one year!  puhleeeeeeeease!'  and todd is adequately convinced for at least one more year, although he's covered in sap at the time and not happy about it.  like, at all.

so here we were, with a tree strapped to the roof of the vidivan, and i was as happy as a clam in butter sauce whose clam husband is moderately annoyed with her, but everything will be okay because butter sauce.  and that, friends, is a happy clam.

we got the last tree of its kind at menard's.  sure, there were smaller ones, but we've all seen how that goes over.  and sure, there were the vanderbilt-caliber trees, that were like twice as expensive because their needles are all fancy and they circulate unicorn blood instead of sap.  but this guy was tall and cheap and perfect.

as it turns out, though, we bought a siamese.  it's not just one tree, but two, which grew next to each other and ended up shaped as though they were only one.  remove either tree, and the other is curved and grotesque and obviously missing its mate.  like me when todd is at work or in the bathroom, and not around to round me out in the classic man-and-his-rib kind of way.  you just got 'christmas-tree-as-a-metaphor-for-marriage-which-is-a-metaphor-for-christ-and-the-church'ed.  yeah, i'm that good.

anyway, todd had to saw off the metaphorical feet of the metaphorically married tree.  i'm not really sure what that was supposed to symbolize, but it creeps me out a little.  so i took a bunch of photos of it to assuage my unease.

anyway, as is the inconsistent tradition, i'll be picking a name for this tree.  last year's tree was Little Billy Junior, our first christmas tree was named Christy Brinkley.  somewhere in there we had a Daddy Warbucks.  this year, i'm thinking something along the lines of The Deuces... or something.

so here's where stuff could get fun if you people bring your A-game: leave your idea(s) for a name for this tree in the comments.  i'll pick a winner based on my own fickle feelings and name the tree thusly.  okay...GO!

weekly 'what's up,' teaser edition.

we got a christmas tree.  i'll tell you more about that next week, although i'll tell you now that it was less eventful than it was last year, when i cried and cried and cried over our tree.

again, more on this next week, but we lit and decorated said tree.  it took about a million years longer than it would have had i just done it myself, but that's the joy of christmas: everything is more difficult than it should be, but you're jacked up on sugar so you don't really mind that much.

i was in a christmas play.  my character was "Mable Pierce: Hot Mess."  i don't have to tell you twice that i was tailor-made for this part.  i was born for this.  i did... okay.

atticus lost his second tooth.  i would show you, but it occurred after dark, and lone teeth and bloody gums under poor lighting do not an appetizing photo make.

i got to snuggle with this girlfriend after her bathtime.  it was only the awesomest.

and here ends the last full week before christmas!  do you have your shopping done?  your presents wrapped?  your mailman stank-eyed for losing that one package?  drink some wine, it's christmastime.

y'ain't dutch, y'ain't much.

or so i've learned from marrying into The Dutch.

i really am quite clueless about my own heritage.  my maiden name is some kind of german, or dutch german, or pennsylvania dutch, which is essentially amish.  or something.  and that's as far as my geneological knowledge extends.

but todd, on the other hand, knows where he comes from.  he's dutch.  and before you go calling shenanigans, citing his lack of blonde hair and blue eyes and weird strappy short pants, he has ample evidence.  his grandparents were immigrants, making his dad, tony, a first generation american, and tony spoke dutch exclusively until he started public school.  and todd grew up in a town where most people are mostly dutch, and basically the whole phone book is comprised of Vans and Vanders.  (prior to knowing todd, i didn't even know that 'van-anything' last names were even a thing.)

so it's been fun getting to worm my way into a heritage-in-law.  i mean, i'm crazy for pretty much anything blue and white, and the dutch are responsible for delft, which is an excellent starting point.  plus, the only foods they are famous for (that i, in my ignorance, am aware of) are all dessert-related.  um, okay.  sign me up yesterday.  (also, the modern dutch are famous for legalized euthanasia and prostitution.  but we don't talk about that.)

anyway, i've tried to incorporate dutch-related traditions at christmastime.  sort of.  i mean, i have some wooden shoes that i found at a garage sale that i set under the christmas tree.  and when we were in ames, and had a dutch bakery nearby, i'd always special order V-shaped dutch letters for christmas breakfast.  (DUTCH LETTERS, you guys, are why i married todd in the first place.  they're like a croissant filled with heaven, if i'm being forced to attempt to describe them to you.)  i tried getting into the sinterklaas side of things, and delivering presents in wooden shoes on december 6, but three things thwarted the idea of that effort:  1. we don't even do american santa claus at our house, 2. december 6 is the day after atticus' birthday, and i just don't have the energy for back-to-back presents days, and 3. black peter, sinterklaas' freaky sidekick and possible slave.

kay, what?  i found this.  who is this middle guy, krampus? because he is the worst, which is saying something considering sinterklaas himself appears to be a slave-holder.  i'm pretty sure krampus is not even dutch, so this picture is not entirely culturally accurate, which gives me some relief, until i realize that even if he's not dutch, krampus is from somewhere.  who on EARTH would come up with this guy at christmastime?!

gah, so scary. 

so i draw the line at sinterklaas but am still fully on board with dutch letters.  feliz navidad, The Netherlands.

video vednesday: 'werk' with an 'E?'

of course.