February 26th - Nuttiness Runs in the Jeans

We celebrated two of my favorite things on Sunday, February 26, nuts and jeans! It was National Pistachio Day and Levi Strauss Day.

Pistachio Day was a raucous event.

We gnashed our teeth and tore into the meaty stachios. We discarded shells with wild abandon. It was KER-A-ZEE!

After snack time we celebrated Levi Strauss Day the only way we knew how - by taking pictures of our tuckus. The cute one first...

My mom warned me about marrying someone with a smaller butt than me. I clearly didn't listen.

Seriously? I could rent out advertising space on that thing. The things I won't do for this project. Oy.

But back to the holiday, we love us some Levi's up in this house except for the skinny mini who can only wear Gap adjustable waist jeans without fear of getting "pants-ed" every day at school. (Fascinating Buehlman fact #243)

So thank you crazy miners of the 1893 California gold rush who couldn't find pants that would stand-up to the riggers of gold hunting and thank you Levi Strauss for bringing "waist overalls" into our lives. (Check out the history here. Interesting stuff.) I can't remember ever not having at least one pair of Levi's in my drawer. I love the rivets and the little red tab, Levi's are right up there with baseball and apple pie in my book.

February 25th - Don't Try This At Home

BLOG WARNING: Some readers may find the following image disturbing. Heaven only knows, I do....

Happy Sword Swallower's Day!

February 24th - Tortilla Chip Day!

Believe it or not, I just don't have much to say about Tortilla Chip Day. I can ramble incessantly about virtually anything but all we had to do today was eat some tortilla chips. (When I say I don't have much to say it usually turns into quite the diatribe. Buckle up.)

Of course I did take the opportunity to kick it up a small notch. I have to make a small admission first. I am addicted to cookbooks. I love to read them.  I live my gourmet wannabe life vicariously through them. I can actually cook a five course dinner in my head. I can feel the food, I can taste it, and I can plate it. I just don't actually cook it. It has become alarmingly apparent over the years that I am all about the idea and not so great on the follow through. So when I make grand statements like, "I made my own guacamole, can you believe it ?!" I know that it is not even a small blip on a lot of folks' excite-o-meter. For me, however, it was freaking awesome! And slightly depressing. I looked at the guacamole and realized it was pretty much the easiest thing in the world to make and how is it I am staring down the big 4-5 without ever having made it before? What else am I missing out on? Time to get off my culinary boo-tocks and get cookin'!

So there you have it. Tortilla chips with some homemade (!!) guac. And it was freak-a-deakin' delicious. Mark was blown away, "YOU made THAT?" I don't think he needed to sound quite that surprised. The recipe is from my culinary guru Mr. Mark Bittman from his if-I-could-only-have-one-cookbook-this-would-be-it cookbook, How To Cook Everything. Check out my recipe page if you too would like some heart healthy homemade guac in your life.

And a little shout out to my favorite new chips, the Snyder's (that would be the Hanover Snyders, to avoid confusion with, say, the Hampton's Snyders) Whole Grain Tortilla Chips with quinoa, flax, sesame and chi-chi-chi-chia seeds. Seriously, you will recognize every ingredient in these bad boys and your digestive tract will thank me (eventually).

Here's to getting your chip on!

February 14th - Love Is In The Air... and Other Valentine's Musings

Ahhhh, yes. Valentine's Day. To this day I find Valentine's Day perplexing. Perhaps it was those bitter years of pining for that special someone to spend the day with. You know those years (and if you don't, I don't want to hear about it). The junior/high school years where you watched the mushy couples drooling over each other while you yearned for that special one, the one you crushed on silently, to magically approach you and declare his/her undying love for you a la Sixteen Candles. {{{Big Sigh}}} Maybe that's what makes me want to love Valentine's Day unrequitedly and I just don't.

Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled when I finally had that special someone to celebrate Valentine's Day with and I am happy to report I still have him 20+ years later. We went through the dating V-Day rituals - dinner, heart shaped boxes of chocolates, dozen red roses. Then we went through the "oh heck it's Valentine's Day again what am I going to do?" years. These years tainted me also. Forced romance? Blech. By this stage of our relationship give me an $8 bouquet of daisies in the middle of April and my heart is yours. Give me a $100 bouquet of hanging-on-for-dear-life roses just because it is February 14? Ridiculous, especially when the garbage disposal just stopped working and I'm pretty sure a mouse chewed through the cable line again.

But now we have settled into a groovy V Day place, one without ceremony or pressure. No cards usually, no dinner date on the 14th (that's a nightmare), a nice dinner cooked at home with a bottle of wine and a heart shaped Nestle crunch bar or two (my certain someone's favorites). I have had some amazing Valentine's Day moments over the years and they had nothing to do with crappy chocolate and overpriced flowers. "Someone" learned to play a song on the piano and wrote his own lyrics, wrote Haikus one year and a sonnet the other. Seriously? Hallmark has got nothing on this man.

And now, of course, we have a collective favorite valentine, the Spence-man. He reignited everything awesome about Valentine's Day. Stuffed monkeys holding hearts, decorated boxes for the quintessential school valentines exchange...

and my Spencer-inspired favorite tradition, heart shaped pancakes for breakfast...

which this year came out looking more like actual, anatomically correct hearts, but they were made with an extra special ingredient so it was ok. You know what that ingredient is, right? You got it...LOVE!

And our nice, family dinner with my two super cute Valentines. Perfect.

Maybe I finally have started to love Valentine's Day quite unrequitedly. What's not to love?

[And, in an effort to avoid more omission accusations, today was also my favorite sister-in-law's wedding anniversary! Happy Anniversary, Linda & Ant!]

February 13th - Celebrating the Real Octo-Mom!

Some may think having eight babies is a remarkable undertaking but I think having eighty birthdays is far more extraordinary. As far as "Octo-Moms" go, Mark's mom is the real deal. February 13th was my favorite mother-in-law's 80th birthday! The first big family milestone of the year!

We actually celebrated this a little early this year. We flew up to New York in late January to celebrate with the whole family. We spent a long weekend together on Long Island celebrating with extended family and friends, and spent a day driving around visiting some old haunts (the house they all lived in, their favorite burger joint, the high school, the soccer shop). It was such a cool weekend. Spence was able to see a lot family he didn't know he had, and he had a really cool glimpse at where his dad grew up and the things he did, as well as seeing his Nana with both of her kids (it is a hoot when they are all together). I think it was the first time that Mark, Linda & Hazel were able to do this together. It was a nice birthday bonus.

But onto the celebrating! We had a fantastic birthday dinner for Hazel at Mamma Lombardi's. There is no denying the culinary joy that is New York Italian food and Mamma Lombardi's delivered.

Honestly, I've never seen so much food. Usually extreme quantity means decreased quality - not on Momma Lombardi's watch. The portions were ridiculous and the food was delicious. When I say the portions were huge, I mean the left overs were enough to feed a family of four. No exaggeration.

But back to the birthday girl. She got the full treatment, singing Italian waiters (Happy-a-birthday to yoooo....)

And lots of love...

Hazel with Mark and my favorite sister-in-law, Linda

Hazel with Spence and my favorite nephew-in-high school, Alexander

Visiting their old house

Visiting the town of Massapequa Park and the much-frequented Soccer Shop

Hazel, Mark and Linda knew this place well before it was seen on Food Network or the Travel Channel. Sweet Mother of Murgatroyde (don't ask me, it's just something I say) their cheeseburgers ROCK!

And you may remember this oldie but goodie from Kazoo Day...

Of course we did not leave Hazel hanging on her actual birthday. She had a soiree with her friends from church and we arranged for her to have lunch with her other friends in Arizona.  Her sister, Shirley, flew out to Arizona to celebrate too. The birthday girl definitely got her party on!

Happy Birthday Hazel! We love you!!

Keeping Perspective

Just need to pop in a quick post here before I continue sharing our celebrations. Illnesses, traveling and life demands in general derailed our efforts for a few days in February and ever since then we fell into "catch up mode". We started to spend more time catching up than actually celebrating the current holiday. One day I realized that this totally defeats the purpose of what we are doing here - Making Every Day a Holiday! That is what this is supposed to be about: celebrating every day, enjoying every day, and doing something special (and fun!) as a family. So, with our perspective refreshed we have been celebrating the current day, and we will pay homage to the days we missed along the way when we get to them.

There are plenty of days we have celebrated, they just haven't made it to blog land yet. I'm skipping what we have missed and sharing what we have. Chronology be damned! I'm pretty sure "Don't Cry Over Spilled Milk Day" won't mind if we are a little late.  I have confessed to fighting the "shoulds" and other perfectionista tendencies. No more. It is about enjoying the process, not making it a grind. 

I have a feeling this perspective should be applied to a lot more things. My message today is this: take a good long look at all those "should be doing"s or "have to do"s on your list and try to apply a little perspective to them. I'm no shrink and have little to no right to preach on this subject but I know I am not alone. 

I have a friend from college who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. She has a blog (http://misifusa.wordpress.com/) and a Facebook page (The Presents of Presence) and every day she shares messages of positivity and enjoying the present that helps remind me about letting go of the "shoulds" and the importance of enjoying the now. That's definitely worth celebrating.

Error(s) of Omission

I have been informed by my favorite sister-in-law, Linda, that I was remiss in giving her a shout out. Even worse, it was really two shout outs that I missed. Since I do not want to make my favorite sister-in-law angry (then I'll just be stuck talking to my other not-so-favorite sister-in-laws) let me attempt to grovel set the record straight.

You may remember that February 8th was Ice Cream For Breakfast Day and we celebrated it with waffles and ice cream. Well, my first error was in praising the glycemic-level devastating Eggo Thick and Fluffy waffles without mentioning that my favorite sister-in-law, Linda, and my favorite nephew-in-high school (not to be confused with the favorite nephew-in-college), Alexander, introduced these waffles to us when we were with them in January. Spence fell instantly in love and they are now a Buehlman freezer staple (local folks, they are on sale at Bloom right now!).

I admit it. I blew it. I am a creature of habit and would not have noticed or made the switch without Linda's and Alexander's efforts. If we are being totally honest, it was all Alexander. He took Spence through the food store and introduced him to teen gastronomy. Spence was in heaven.

Error of Omission number two was not mentioning the fact that Linda used to serve this exact breakfast to my two favorite nephews over the years. I, being a solid seven years behind Linda in my child rearing, thought she was crazy and since I am keeping it really real, I still do. Blech. Honestly, it was fun for the holiday but otherwise I thought it was kind of gross first thing in the morning and would never give this to my kid before school. Did I mention blech?  In the spirit of giving credit where it is due, she was the inspiration behind our breakfast.

So there you have it, Linda. You know you are like the sister I never had, which makes it that much easier to channel my inner snotty little sister. Love ya, favorite sister-in-law.