• Helping Haley read Hamlet. It's not her favorite. (She read Macbeth last year and loved it. Coincidentally Nathan's class also presented Macbeth, so they sort-of read it together.) I got her a copy from the Simply Shakespeare editions, which has a contemporary translation on one page, Shakespeare's words on the other. Much more manageable for a high school student. (I'm not sold on the idea of high school students reading Shakespeare anyway. I think you need more life experience and education before you can actually enjoy The Bard.)
• Trying to incorporate MUFAs into all of my meals. I'm tired of my belly!
• Gardening a lot. I've not really done much until last week but suddenly I can't get enough of digging in the dirt. Up this week is a trip to the nursery for some new flowers.
• Loving the two purple irises blooming in my front yard.
• Disbelieving that there's only a month of school left.
• Resolving to finish Kaleb's dino quilt before his birthday.
• Also working on a hip to be square quilt to donate to a library fundraiser.
• Scrapbooking Easter and birthday photos.
• Working on a short story based on an image left over from a dream. Hoping I can just finish it, whether or not it's any good!
• Hoping that Jake's last track meet this week—Alpine Days, which is like the state championships for junior high track—goes well and he clears 5'2" in high jump.
• Reading and thoroughly enjoying the novel Once Upon a River and the essay collection Why I Write.
• Savoring this online collection of thoughts about short lines of poetry: life/lines. It is reacquainting me with poetry in a way I didn't realize I needed.
• Trying to decide what book to take on my upcoming trip to Mexico. 11/23/63 by Steven King? Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet? The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron? Or some other book I haven't thought of yet? (If you have suggestions, toss them my way! I want something long and involved but not too hard.)
• Grappling with Nathan's newly-sprouted teenage attitude. It's not my favorite thing. Jake and Haley both went through a similar phase at his age...which doesn't make it easier or more enjoyable.
• Thinking that I need to take Kaleb in to have the dermatologist check the mole he has on his groin. Not sure how he will handle the exam however.
• Keeping my friend Jamie and her daughter in my thoughts and prayers.
• Needing (still!) new running shoes but thinking tomorrow will be the day. Tomorrow,or maybe Wednesday. I don't love shopping for running shoes because they're expensive and because I always feel a little bit silly. This time, however, I am determined to not leave the store without a shoe I actually love. I have HATED my last pair.
• Wishing that my mom would sell her house and move closer to me and my sisters; glad that my mother-in-law finally managed to do just that and is now settled in to her new condo.
• Trying to plan some fun summer traditions to implement this year. Last summer was pretty lame in the fun department.
• Wondering how to get started with college applications and scholarships for Haley; also desperately hoping she'll find a summer job.
• Laughing at something Kaleb just said: "Mom, I see that I have photo albums, and Haley and Jake and Nathan do, but I want to see dad's picture book." Yes. Dad can have a picture book when he actually lets me take his picture. Almost every photo I have of kendell looks like this:

When he stops doing that I will make him a scrapbook!

What's up currently in your world?

I'm not going to lie: this weird stomach virus/bacteria/whatever-the-hell-this-mild-plague-is continues to make me grumpy. For the past two weeks and one day, I've woken up and felt like hell. Like, right on the verge of coming down with the stomach flu, except it never actually comes down. Or, er, comes up, which is good. Except for I feel like hurling almost all day long. I feel like eating only white-bread toast and drinking only anything bubbly and extra-icy-cold. I feel like sleeping a lot.

I feel like I am pregnant.

I AM NOT PREGNANT!I promise. I have taken three different tests just to make sure. I'm not late. I don't even get nauseous when I'm pregnant, I just get really, really hungry and my hands get these strange red spots. And I'm the opposite of really, really hungry. And no red spots. Besides, hello. I am forty years old. I know what causes babies and I take every measure to prevent them. I'm too old and the there's the fact  that I have recently made peace with the lack of babies in my life.

Plus, really. I'm not pregnant.

I'm trying to be friendly to the nausea, even though I do keep threatening to call the doctor tomorrow if it doesn't go away. Or I'm just ignoring it and doing all my normal life stuff, like going to work and going running and cooking dinner and doing laundry. Sometimes I baby the nausea by giving it exactly what it wants. Four-cheese Italian Cheezits? Sure. Strawberry Fig Newtons? OK. Watermelon? Lucky I have some of that in the fridge! On Thursday morning I made nice to it by making it some hot oatmeal like it was demanding. Oatmeal, delicately spiced with cinammon, ginger, a dash of nutmeg and a swirl of honey, with preferably a glug of cream on top (not possible, as the cream had soured).

While I waited for the water to boil, I looked out my kitchen window. My neighbors, who are an eldery couple, walked out of their garage and got into their mini van. They were dressed up and, I imagine, going to the temple, and obviously they were driving their van because they were going to pick up some of their friends and take them along. Afterwards, they and their friends would go to lunch somewhere fun but not too expensive and then they'd all go to their respective homes and take a nap.

The water wasn't boiling yet so I watched them. They sat in their van until the water boiled and I turned away to pour the oats in, and then I stirred and I watched them. I watched them for ten minutes (because I am decidedly not a quick-cook-oats kinda girl) while I stirred, and I wondered what they were talking about. What they were doing there, just sitting in their van.

I tried. I tried so hard to imagine them having a happy conversation. I wanted them to be saying kind things to each other, because they really are kind and sweet people. I wanted him to be complimenting her on her dress and her to be laughing and saying that he still looks handsome to her after all these years. But I couldn't imagine that. I could only imagine them having one of the arguments Kendell and I have, like why is the van so cluttered and can't I ever vacuum it, or please can you drive without yelling at all the other drivers this time, or yes, I know, I made us late again, or any of the other bajillion things that married people tiff over.

Watching my neighbors and imagining them having my marriage's arguments made me think about my grandparents. They've been gone for half my life but I still miss them. They both made me feel this amazing combination of unconditional love and unfettered admiration but in a manner that gave me confidence, not arrogance. I was simply happy and peaceful in their presence.

But I also was always aware of an underlying tension. I don't know any stories to tell that would give my hunch any weight. I don't want to ask my mom because I don't want to know the details, but I wonder: were they happy? Or did they, too, sit in their car (the big brown Oldsmobile my grandpa loved) and argue?

My other grandparents—my dad's parents—definitely were not  happily married. They were actively involved in not being happily married. My dad didn't talk about this much, but there were enough small stories to piece together a larger narrative. In fact, there are suggestions, in the family stories, that my grandpa Curtis, who died when my dad was just 16, went not just from a heart attack but out of sheer, unfettered unhappiness.

I stirred my oatmeal. I thought backwards to my grandparents and forward to my own children's future. Have I bequeathed them a legacy of unhappy marriages? Have I taught them? Have they seen, despite the arguments, me loving their father? Have I taught them that love, which has to include arguments, also includes laughter and happiness and comfort? Do they know love exists?

I'm not sure anyone taught me. My parents loved each other, but I don't think anyone would say they had a happy marriage. I remember, during a rough patch that happened when I was about 14, lying in bed and listening to them argue and promising myself that my kids would never hear me argue with their father.

A promise I broke about a month into my sojourn as a mother.

And I realized, right there in the kitchen on that random Thursday April morning: I don't know. I don't know if I have taught them what love looks like. I know it was my responsibility to do so. I know whether the arguments were my fault or someone else's, whether I was right or wrong: none of that changes my responsibilities. I know I want them to know it exists so that they have faith enough to find it. I'm just not certain I've taught them that.

All of those thoughts while I stirred my delicately spiced, boiling oatmeal and watched my neighbors sit in their van and wept. Out of shame and disappointment in myself and missing my grandparents and wishing my parents had been happier and trying to grit my teeth against the nausea. I finally realized what they were doing: they were laughing, their heads flung back, their faces split by grins and I wanted that to make me hopeful. To give me an idea that with time, with enough eventual growing up, we can reach a place where the arguments stop and the recriminations cease and we are simply, finally, enough for each other. That it just takes growing up and trying and coming to an understanding of each other that is deeper than anything you might argue over.

But it didn't. It made me weep even harder because I don't know. My parents never got there. Did my grandparents? Will I? Worse: will my children? I want them to. I want them to get there more than I want it for myself. But I don't know if—no, I don't believe I have—been the kind of example that could teach that that is a possibility. The fact that for ten long minutes I couldn't imagine my neighbors were simply laughing with each other seems to me to be proof enough.

What is maddening about this failure is that, despite the arguments, I do love my husband. Their father. I do. I just, I just don't know if I have shown them that. I don't know if they know. And I don't know if it is too late for me to show them that. So I cried, there in my kitchen. And I promised myself I would try harder and be kinder. Let them see me laughing with him and let them know  we were laughing. Not make them guess, or wonder, or fail to imagine.

Not leave them to pick up that unnamed current of tension and work it into their own marriages.

During January and February of this year, I made 41 scrapbook layouts.

Partly I did so many because of different assignments I had. I did my Teen Week at Write. Click. Scrapbook. I also wrote this eZine article for Ella Publishing about two-page layouts. I did my usual Write Saturdays, too.

Another reason for that high page count was that I wanted to get Christmas 2011 scrapped, and I did.

But despite all that scrapbooking I got done, I felt a little bit out of touch with the scrapbooking world in general, and this is because of a thing called Project Life. This is a process developed by Becky Higgins wherein you create a sort-of scrapbook layout for each week of the year. I say "sort-of" because instead of putting everything down on a layout, your photos and memorabilia and journaling pieces slide into divided page protectors. This week, in fact,is dedicated to Project Life at WCS.

It's a great idea, really. It lets you get all of the elements of scrapbooking (photos, journaling, embellishments, ephemera) into their simplest forms so that you can get a lot of memories documented in not a lot of time.

But for some reason—a reason I can't yet clearly articulate, hence this post—I haven't jumped on the bandwagon. Of course, some part of it is my own quirk of not wanting to do something when everyone else is doing it. And it does seem like everyone else is doing Project Life. Go to nearly any scrapbooking blog and you'll find posts on it, and every new scrapbooking line has products for Project Life. It's everywhere, which means I am nowhere.

It's more than wanting to swim upstream, however. A large part of my resistence goes to the idea of the weekly layout. 41 layouts in two months notwithstanding, I don't have a set time for scrapbooking. I sort of squeeze it in when I can. What if I bought all the sheet protectors and the stuffand then I didn't make time to actually make the weekly layouts? And then there's also this fear: would I even have enough stuff to make a two-page spread for every. single. week? Would the fairly-regular blah-ness of my life be made completely visible by a Project-Life style album?

The funny thing about my resistance is that I really do need to figure out a way to make my scrapbooking affection less a part of my life. Which is an odd thing for a person who really, really loves scrapbooking to say. But it stops me from doing other things—namely writing—because it is an easy and pleasant way to be creative. "Scrapbook" has been the answer to the "what will I do with this free time?" question for the past 15 years. It's my way to de-stress and feel creative and feel like I'm doing something that matters. I don't encounter Resistance when I sit down to make a scrapbook page; it's just fun and it makes me happy. Writing also makes me happy, but it is much harder and I fight the Resistance with everything I have and then I toss it because it's not very good and then I start daydreaming about new green alphabet stickers.

I want to find my writing niche.

But scrapbooking feels important too. I like knowing that stuff is recorded. Stories matched up with photos. Experiences put down somewhere they're harder to lose. It makes me happy to look through scrapbooks with my kids, reliving moments. It could consume every single second I could pour into it and I would still never, ever be anywhere close to having told all the stories I want to tell. 

And that is one thing the Project Life approach promises: less time scrapbooking with more stuff actually scrapbooked. So why am I resisting it?

I still don't know. What I do know is this: during March and April of this year, I made a grand total of ten layouts. I did write more. Mostly, though, I just sat around and thought about things. About finding balance and being productive and living joyfully. About not squandering my time, and about what has value and meaning for me. About how I want my life to be and yes, about where scrapbooking fits in that. Maybe all of this pondering also seems like a waste of time, but I don't think so. My gut tells me I am in the middle of a necessary project, even if it doesn't look like much is happening. The change is happening inside me first. And I can't really commit to anything until it works its way to the surface.

Just curious: if you  are a scrapbooker, how do you feel about Project Life?

and if you are not  a scrapbooker, tell me how you manage your photos and stories?

Today, my daughter turned 17.

Of course, just yesterday she was sixteen. But sixteen, while notable for driving and dating, still felt manageable, somehow. Still felt like enough time was left.

But 17? 17 feels so urgent it can't be typed with letters, only numbers.

17 feels like a butterfly unfolding her wings.

17 feels like flight is imminent.

17 feels like a contradiction: a loss and a gain all at once.

It feels like the hush of the breeze before a door closes.

It feels like although another door will open, I wasn't quite ready for the one on childhood to shut.

So today as I helped her get ready for her prom—and how magical is that, to go to prom on your 17th birthday in just the dress you've always wanted—as I sewed straps and added lace and adjusted measurements, gave make up advice and touched up a few last curls, I was swept up in the contradiction.

Here she was, her beautiful and competent self right in front of me, talking and laughing and curling and painting. Yet sometimes when I turned too fast I could almost see her just behind me. Her six-point-five-year-old self (who knew enough math to calculate that she was already halfway to thirteen) was adoring her prom gown, adoring and pointing out all of the perfect details. And then asking to spin in it. Her nine-year-old self was touching, with careful but ink-stained fingers, her thick, long, curly auburn hair, commenting on its beauty. Even her thirteen-year-old self paid a visit, admiring the grace and the confidence of her walk in such high heels.

Those selves fluttered around us even though she didn't see. They are only in my heart now, as only a mother can know how she saw her own child. This girl whom I held when she was 17 seconds old, then 17 minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and now years. Who will she be? I wondered, watching her change, who will she become? and then I went back to her in that moment and gave her what I could.

I never knew just how immense my capacity for failure would be.

I also could not imagine the ways in which I would succeed.

And I didn't know, when they first put her in my arms, what it would all mean. They hand you your baby like they're handing you your baby, the small being you chose to make. Who they are really handing you is a person, a person for whom all your choices are made in order to help her make her own choices.

What else do you do? You teach them everything, from that first thing—this is human touch and voice and breath—to whatever is last—tonight it was a trick for the bra strap and a way to keep her eyeliner from smearing and a reminder to take some Kleenex in her tiny purse—with the goal of helping them find their own happinesses. With the desire that, when they stand on the precipice of their familiar cocoon, spreading and drying the impossibly beautiful wings they have formed, you have taught them enough.

When your daughter is 17, you want her to know that you look backward because for you, the entire metamorphosis matters, not just this one moment of it, and that the looking back helps you see the future as well and that her whole life matters to you. That who she is right now is formed of all those other versions of herself and that for you all the incantatory swooping of time coalesces in the here and now.

You want her to know that you know she can move forward and that she will be strong enough for life's tumults. You know that her heart will be broken and her will and her hope but that she will mend and find and renew. You hope that she will appreciate beauty and love the world and be loved by others in amazing ways. That one day she will be handed her own sweet bundle of life.

But more than anything, watching your daughter at 17 in the door frame, on the edge, pushing out, your heart fills up with this desperate hope: that when she flies it won't only be away.

• Awoke at 6:03 to the melodious sounds of Kaleb, the latest to succumb to the sort-of stomach flu that's been traveling through our family. It's not full-out puking, but just constant nausea. (When it hit me three days ago I seriously started considering taking a pregnancy test!) And, well, different types of visits to the bathroom. Wheeeeeeee!
• Got him taken care of and back in bed and then I slept for 71 more minutes.
• Hugged Haley and Kendell goodbye, after making Kendell his daily PB&H sandwich.
• Got Nathan up and going. Made sure Jake was up and went through the whole "please get ready" thing.
• Made Nathan's lunch.
• Took Jake to school.
• Took Nathan to school.
• Ran to Target for more ginger ale and white bread (anti-nausea remedies at our house)
• Made toast for Kaleb and cleaned up the kitchen while he ate.
• Logged on to Facebook so I could wish my friend Chris a happy birthday!
• Ran a few errands with Kaleb: took Jake his bag of supplies for his track meet (Vitamin Water, fruit leather, and cashews), filled up the van, stopped by the post office, dropped some overdue books off at the library
• Skyped with Kendell, texted with Haley, decided we'd meet for lunch.
• Went to lunch at Chili's. I had a grilled ham and cheese, tortilla soup, and french fries. I regret the fries and should have had the broccoli instead.
• Dropped Kendell and Kaleb off at home and went to Target with Haley (yes. Trip #2 to Target.) No luck.
• Went to Burlington with Haley. I HATE that store and remembered, today, that I still hate it. But, we found a pair of earrings for Prom.
• Came home and, I confess: I took a nap for 38 minutes.
• Started working on laundry—I managed to get 3 loads done today. Am I the only person who can fill a mega-ultra-exceedingly-large washing machine with an entire load of black clothes?
• Cuddled with Kaleb and watched Real Steel with him.
• Went for a 5.5 mile run. Felt grateful that A---I didn't hurl as I didn't give myself enough time after that lunch at Chilis and B---spring flowers are blooming here and smell so sweet! and C---I only had to wait 1 minute and 45 seconds for lights to change and D---I finished in under 50 minutes even with a killer hill at the end.
• Sent Kendell off to school.
• Stretched and realized: I still feel icky. So I took a bath and drank lots of water. Couldn't stand the thought of my usual post-run protein shake.
• Made more toast and ginger ale for Kaleb.
• Took Haley and Nathan to the gym.
• Talked to Jake about his fabulous track meet: he finally cleared 5 feet on the high jump! And he had a good finishing kick on his 400 so he passed someone else right at the finish line. He was beaming. Such a great feeling for a parent!
• Stressed about Haley's prom dress, which I am attempting to modify a little bit. Talked to several people and they confirmed that my plan will work!
• Talked to my mom about the night she labored through to get me here. (She had horrible long deliveries, my poor mother. Like 36 hour marathons. Like, now she would have just had us all by c-section.) She told me that a nurse climbed up on the bed and pushed against her belly with her knee to get me out. I told her I was certain I felt horribly guilty even in utero. We also discussed Haley's birthday dinner and other things.
• Picked the kids up from the gym.
• Ate a pomegranate fruit leather. I didn't know that was what my unhappy belly wanted but I finally feel better.
• Made dinner for the Bigs (pasta for Jake & Haley, frosted mini wheats for Nathan). Kendell didn't want anything. Yes, don't judge me but my kids did eat a hasty dinner at 9:30.
• Blogged.
• Now I'm going to watch Grey's Anatomy. And go to sleep. And wake up to my forties. Which I hope will be fabulous!

We Mormons have been accused of being a peculiar people. As I quite often feel more like a convert to my religion, as opposed to a person born into it, these oddities seem glaringly odd to me sometimes, too. (Like, honestly. Last week I found myself standing in front of the new Starbucks at our in-the-middle-of-a-remodel Target, sniffing deeply and snuffling longingly and thinking...really? Coffee? We can't drink coffee? And trust me: that's not the first time I've had that thought.) One of my LDS oddities that I've been thinking about lately is modesty.

We are encouraged to dress modestly. In general my take on me dressing modestly involves the length of my skirts and shorts, the cut of my shirts (including both the bust and the sleeve width), and the general, over all feel of my outfit. My interpretation of "modest" revolves mostly around the concept of elegance. I don't want to dress too young, or too skimpy or too...what's the opposite of elegant? I do, however, believe that I can dress modestly without wearing a sack. Maybe it is shallow of me—and honestly, I'm not afraid to leave my house in sweats and a t-shirt and a slumpy long sweater—but I do take pleasure from what I wear. My inner rebellious self somethings thinks really? sleeveless? No one can see our shoulders? but in general I stay firmly on The Plan. I like pretty, I like black, I like the style I've developed. Sweats included.

Except, I still wear running clothes when I go running. I don't wear those tiny running shorts that other girls can get away with. (Partly this is because my thighs rub together too fiercly to wear them, but it's mostly because I wouldn't feel comfortable with my butt nearly hanging out.) I don't hit the road without covering up my sports bra. But, I do wear singlets. I wear shorts that are shorter than my knees. I wear tank tops and running skirts.

And this bothers some people.

(I know it bothers some people because they have told me it bothers them. "You shouldn't run in that shirt" or "I think your running shorts are immodest" are actual real live words people have said to me.)

This topic has been on my mind since last week, when I was leaving my house for a run. It was a glorious afternoon—just warm enough for a running tank and one of my favorite running skirts. I left the house, ready to sweat and maybe get a little dusty and certainly come back red-faced as I am not one of those graceful runners who finish their workouts looking like they've just finished getting a facial, feeling pretty. Just as I turned the corner to leave my neighborhood, a neighbor turned his vehicle onto my street—and he gave me that look. The one I am completely familiar with. The one that means you are dressed immodestly.

And let me tell you: I argued with that neighbor (someone I consider to be a friend) in my head for all of my five (very hilly!) miles. I told him about my right to choose. I told him that my running outfit was just that, running clothes purchased from the workout-clothes section. I argued that running in pants and a T when it's scorching outside is absolutely miserable. I pointed out that swimmers exercise in swim suits (even the Mormon ones!) so it stands that runners can wear running clothes. He argued back (in my head) that there are running clothes and then there are running clothes. 

So then I got personal. I pointed out (in my head) that there are some things in my life that make me completely unhappy and stressed out in ways he has no concept of. And that I am prone to letting my little black raincloud sluice away my attempts at being happy or hopeful or optimistic. And that I am starting to have anxiety attacks on a regular basis. But running? Running helps me keep those things at bay. Running helps me keep the unhappinesses in perspective and the little black raincloud from turning into a hurricane and the anxiety from needing medication.

But I can also be honest: physical and mental health aren't the only reasons I like running. I like wearing cute running clothes. They make me happy. They make me excited to get out the door. Without cute running clothes I would be far less motivated to run. Call me selfish if you need to, or vain, or even just downright lame. That's OK. I know myself and my life and my reactions to it well enough: if I ran in Mormon-modest running clothes I wouldn't want to run as much. If I didn't run as much I would eventually find myself rocking on the floor in a dark closet somewhere, contemplating slitting my wrists.

"If you had enough faith to be obedient," my neighbor volleyed back (in my head), "it could overcome all of those things."

A point I cannot refute.

Despite this imaginary discussion with my neighbor (for whom I hold no hard feelings as this whole idea was discussed in my head), and my knowledge that it's my weakness that's the problem here, I'm not going to abandon my favorite running clothes. Because imaginary arguments aside, I need to keep myself sane and strong for my kids. And for myself. Plus there's the fact that I still get to chose, and my choice is that I am OK. My shorts aren't tiny. My belly isn't exposed. My tank tops have thick straps.

Perhaps my idea of modesty is different from the rest of my neighbors'. After all, I also buy and wear tankinis instead of one-piece swimsuits. When Haley was little I let her wear sundresses without a shirt underneath. I am also pretty firm in telling my sons that they are responsible for the contents of their thoughts, not the girl in skinny jeans. (Because saying "girls should dress modest so that boys can control their thoughts" seems like an inch away from saying "it's your fault I raped you because you wore that short skirt.")  I talk to Haley, too, about modesty. We don't always agree, quite frankly. Sometimes my ideas feel too prescriptive too her. I just keep trying but deep down I know: the style of clothes she settles on in her adult world might be sort-of influenced by me, but in the end she gets to choose. Just like I get to choose.

Besides. What does "modest" mean, anyway? It's very first dictionary definition has nothing to do with clothes, but with decorum: "freedom from conceit or vanity." Modesty, in the end, shouldn't be about hem lengths or exposed shoulders. It should be about humility. I don't run in running clothes out of conceit—I don't love my running skirts because of what I think they might make someone else think about me. I run in them because they (ultimately) help me to be happy. Or happier than I would be otherwise. Self-importance and showing off have nothing to do with my running-clothes choices. Comfort, functionality, and cuteness do. (As well as pockets, but that's an entirely other rant.) Flaunting my knees and elbows might be immodest, but so is flaunting your apparent superior righteousness.

Other than that familiar look, I have no idea what my neighbor really thinks of my running attire. Most of me doesn't care. Most of me thinks about stones and glass houses and judging not. If you don't like what I'm wearing, I almost said to my in-my-head neighbor, then don't look at me. Instead I said don't judge me for sinning differently than you sin to his silent smugness (in my head). And that made his smugness slide away. In fact, he was at last, blessedly, gone. Out of my head  He left me to run in peace—even in my tank top and skirt.

(For more ideas about Mormons and modestly, check out these  posts written by people whom I've never met but whose opinions struck me as, well, interesting.)

You know how you're just cruising around the Internet, reading blogs or clicking through Pinterest or whatever, and you come across, here and there, recipes you want to try?

This one came to me like that.

Except for, I can't recreate my clicking to find the original source. So! If this came from your blog, let me know and I'll give you credit for it! I do remember that the blog post said it was the writer's great aunt somebody (or maybe just her grandma) and that it was a family recipe. I adjusted it a little bit, so maybe one day this will be Great Grandma Amy's sweet & sour chicken recipe. I imagine I'll make it again!

Sweet & Sour Chicken

1 cup orange juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
4-6 chicken breasts
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
olive oil
1 can Campbell's beef broth
2 cups brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup ketchup
1 1/3 cup vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 tsp ginger
red pepper flakes

Trim the chicken breasts of fat and skin and then cut into diagonal slices, 5-6 per breast. Mix the orange juice and the first 1/4 cup of soy sauce; marinate chicken for 3-4 hours.

Stir together the flour, ginger, salt, and as much freshly-ground pepper as you'd like. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture. Heat a swirl of olive oil in a frying pan and brown the chicken slices. (Discard the marinade.)

While browning the chicken, make the sauce by combining the remaining ingredients in a sauce pan and heating until bubbly, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Spray a 9x13 or larger baking pan with Pam. Pour some of the sauce in, then start adding the browned chicken pieces. If you have to layer, pour some of the sauce over the first layer before adding the second one. Pour the remaining sauce into the pan.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Serve with coconut rice. (Coconut rice = your favorite type of rice (except not Minute Rice because, ummm, EWWWW! little pieces of white cardboard!) made by replacing about half the water with coconut milk.)

I'm always hesitant to cook meals with vinegar because the potential for high acidity (and, later, heartburn!) is great. But this one had the perfect proportion to me. The only change I will make in the future is to use fresh ginger instead of powdered and, if I had it, stir some ginger ale into the marinade.

Let me know if you try it!

I think I've established already my love for making baby quilts for friends, family, neighbors, and/or coworkers. Making a baby quilt for a new baby is the best of about 1,237 worlds: I get to pick out and coordinate colors and patterns! I get to work with flannel! I get to feel involved with a new baby! (I'm not going to have to get up in the middle of the night with said new baby!) I get to let someone I love know that I love them and am so happy for their new arrival!

But sometimes, no matter how much I love making time-consuming quilts, sometimes I need to make something quick and simple. Not, of course, out of lack of love for the baby who will be wrapped in said quick-and-simple quilt. But just for lack of time.

(Dare I confess that I have twice made a quilt like this on the day of the baby shower? And once even brought it to the shower still warm from the dryer? Sometimes procrastination gets the best of me.)

Today I'm sharing a tutorial for a quick and simple baby quilt that has just enough detail to make it feel not quite so quick. I think of it as my Hip to be Square quilt (and then I curse myself for getting that stupid Huey Lewis and the News song stuck in my head). Here's what it looks like all finished:

And an alternate, less visually appealling shot (quilts are hard to photograph well I've decided!)

And folded (there is something in me that loves a folded baby quilt)

And an attempt at a detail shot of the quilting, this one of the back:


I made this for Kaleb's teacher, who just adopted a baby. Kaleb picked out all the fabric, which I thought was sweet (although I confess: I tried my hardest to dissuade him from the red quilt back, but alas, he would not be dissuaded). From starting the quilt to throwing it in the washer it took me two hours and 15 minutes to complete; that also included hunting down my iron which "someone" had moved, cleaning my machine, and finding my box of new needles to replace the one that was on there, which was so dull from sewing chipboard onto a scrapbook layout that it was useless. In other words: it's really a fast quilt!

To make your own Hip to be Square quilt you need:

• 1 1-1/4 yard square of flannel for the quilt TOP (a chance to indulge yourself in whatever sweet baby print appeals to you)
• 1 1-1/4 yard square of flannel for the quilt BATTING (this should be a color flannel in a color that both adds contrast and also goes with the pattern or print of the quilt top; white or cream are almost always good choices for the batting, but don't be afraid to use a color, either!)
• 1 1-1/4 yard square of flannel for the quilt BACK (this can either be a solid or a print that goes with, somehow, the quilt top)
• thread that matches both the front and the back (meaning: you might need two colors of thread)
• a marking pen or pencil
• a tape measure or quilting ruler
• a sewing machine with a regular (NOT 1/4") foot or a walking foot (walking foot is best)

Once you've brought your happy new purchase home from the fabric store, follow these steps to make your own Hip to be Square quilt:

1. Iron the fabric. I confess: I HATE this step. The iron and I are not friends. But ironing is absolutely necessary. Try to get the main creases out. Don't put your iron away yet!
2. Make the quilt sandwich*. Spread the quilt BACK on a smooth surface with the right side of the fabric facing down; smooth out any wrinkles. Spread the batting piece on top of the quilt back, smoothing the wrinkles out again. Now spread the quilt TOP right on top of the batting piece, again smoothing out the wrinkles. When you smooth wrinkles, work from the middle out. Make sure none of the pieces have any puckers.
3. Square it up. This is the trickiest part for me because I don't own a cutting mat or ruler that is 45" long. And because I am challenged in the cutting-of-straight-lines department. This is one reason I love working with flannel: it's forgiving. And because you're going to be ragging the edge, if your quilt isn't perfectly square it won't be obvious. OK then, to square it up: fold the quilt sandwich in half. Align the folded edge with a straight line on your cutting mat, then trim the short edge; repeat for the other short edge. Unfold, smooth, and fold in half the other direction; trim each short edge.
4. Iron again. This is an important ironing because it's your last chance to get out any potential puckers. Work from the middle of the quilt outward.
5. Frame square A. I start with a 4" template. (Please note: in this case, my "template" is a 4" square cut from a drawing my son made of a catapult. In other words, it's just a square scrap of paper.) Using your tape measure and/or quilting ruler, center this square so it's as close to the middle of your quilt as you can manage. Pin the square right in the middle.
   (this quilt really is square. I just can't get far enough away from the entire thing to show its squareness in a photograph.)
6. Quilt the first square of square A. Line up the left edge of your machine's foot against the paper square. Now, quilt an entire square around the paper square, using that left edge of your foot as a guide.
   When you get to the corner, leave your needle in the down position (so that it's poked into your fabric). Lift the foot and pivot the fabric 1/4 turn. Put the foot back down, then start sewing again. When you meet back up at the spot where you started, take a couple of back stitches to secure the thread, but don't cut the thread! Remove the paper template if its presence is making you crazy.
7. Quilt the second square of square A. (This will eventually make sense I promise!)  Raise your needle and lift up the foot. Scoot the quilt forward and back a little bit so that the (still-attached) threads aren't too tight. Now, position the quilt so that the left edge of the foot is lined up with the row of stitching you just completed. Using the first square as a guide, sew the second square.
   (This is called echo quilting.)
8. Quilt the third square of square A. Repeat exactly what you did in step 7, except this time you'll be sewing a third square using the second square as a guide.
    When you are finished, trim all of the threads—you'll have three on the front and three on the back to cut. Take the quilt out from the machine and spread it out on the floor or table, smoothing any wrinkles from the middle out.
9. Frame square B. For this step, you'll be making a second, larger square that you'll alsoecho quilt. Find something square that is 12"-15". (A 12x12 piece of cardstock will work perfectly!) I'm using the 15" square cutting ruler I happen to own just because I happen to own it. Again, using your ruler and/or measuring tape, center the square in the middle of your quilt. If you're using paper, pin it down. If you're using a cutting ruler or a piece of thick cardboard or something else you can't pin, use a marking pen or pencil to outline the square.
   Here I used a marking pencil and the line is pretty light. That's why I usually use a marking pen, but mine had wandered off. If you marked your square, make sure to also smooth and pin before moving on. (If you used paper you've already, obviously, pinned!)
10. Quilt square B. Do the same thing you did for steps 6-8, except when you quilt the first square of square B, stitch along the line you drew in step nine or right next to the edge of the paper.
11. Frame square C.This is the largest square you'll echo quilt. Use whatever you used to frame square B, except instead of centering it on your quilt, you're going to put one corner of the template in the quilt's center. Mark the top and left lines, then flip the template down to the bottom left quadrant.
     Mark the left and bottom line; repeat until you've drawn a square. I found my marking pen (it was with my scrapbooking markers instead of my sewing supplies! ooops!), which makes a much clearer line that the marking pencil, so I used it here.
12. Quilt square C. Do exactly what you did in step 10, except (obviously!) use the large square as the first guideline.
13. Bind the edge. Smooth your quilt out on the floor or table one more time. You might have to trim the edge a little bit, especially if the quilt back is smaller than the quilt front. Pin. Take the (almost finished!) quilt back to your machine and quilt along the outermost edge using a 5/8" seam allowance.
14. Snip the edge. This is how you create the ragged edge. Use a pair of sharp fabric scissors with a short blade if you have one. (I use these for snipping the edges of all my rag quilts.) Cut a fringe all the way around the edge of the quilt, making sure to not actually cut into the row of stitching. I cut my strips about 1/4" wide, but they don't have to be exact.
15. Rag the quilt. (Make sure to remove any last pins before this step! Just take my word for it, a pin or two in your washing machine is so totally not good for your washing machine's tubes. Long story...) Once the four edges are snipped, toss the quilt into the washing machine. I don't usually run an entire wash cycle, just a rinse and spin; the purpose is to get the quilt wet and to rinse out the markings. Very Important Note #1!!!!! If your quilt has any red fabric, use a Shout color catcher. Trust me...even really expensive red flannels will bleed. The color catcher does a great job at catching the extra red dye so it can't redeposit itself somewhere you don't want it to. Then put it in the dryer. Very Important Note #2!!!!! Since the dryer is sort-of shredding the edges of your quilt, a long of thready bits are going to work their way into your lint screen. Along with a lot of lint because, well, it's flannel. There are urban legends of dryers catching fire from drying rag quilts, and while this has never happened to me or to anyone I know or to anyone anyone I know knows, to prevent your own possible urban-legend dryer fire, clean your lint screen two or three times while the quilt is drying. Very Important Note #3!!!!! Most moms of new babies are going to wash this quilt again before they let their baby use it, but I still don't use any fabric softeners. I do use a dryer sheet, but the kind without any fragrance. Just in case!

That's it! Once it's dry shake off the loose bits of ragged edges, fold it, and toss it in a gift bag, and voila: the fastest baby quilt that's still totally cute is now the gift you're giving to that totally cute new baby.

Make sure to link me up if you make one of these!

*My husband heard me use the term "quilt sandwich" once and has teased me about it ever since. Husbandly teasing aside, however, it is a real quilting term. It just means all of the quilt's layers...sandwiched together!

• When the wind catches the blossoms from the flowering plums and it looks like we are having a pink snow storm.
• My grass is finally getting green again
• The tiny buds on my apple tree
  (could there be a more perfect shade of pink?)
• Having a little cash in my wallet
• That when my back pain flares up, I know how to make it stop flaring
• My revived hair color
  (not loving the crows feet, however)
• Reading in bed at night after Kendell's fallen asleep
• Blue toenails
• The fact that right now, I actually have ten toenails to paint blue
• Feeling just a little bit sore from my previous day's workout
• My Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus, even though it's pretty nerdy to be in love with a thesaurus
• Blog comments
• Running skirts, even with the weird looks I sometimes get
• The way right now our valley is full of color: that perfect spring green, and flowering plums and pears and almonds, and the last of the forsythia bushes before they fade to green, and the spatterings of tulips and daffodils and even dandelions
• SDBBE
• A big pile of new library books
• Fast Sunday
• How good dinner tastes on Fast Sunday (I'm making sweet & sour chicken, sticky rice with coconut milk, and an Asian chicken salad, even though it might be weird to have two different chicken forms in one meal)
• My agreement with myself that this week I'm going to enjoy everything, starting by making myself my own it's-my-birthday-week cake tonight, a buttery pound cake in my mary ann cake pan, with strawberries and whipped cream on top.
  (a really bad photo of a cake that is really gorgeous in real life. Must take good photos of cake to share!)
• Whipped cream
• Green alphabet stickers
• Handwritten notes from friends
• Matthew 4:16: The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

What do you love on this beautiful April morning?

I'm not a highly superstitious person. If a black cat passes my way, I just want to pet it for a minute. I've walked under hundreds of ladders in my life and even broken a few mirrors. In fact, I am so non-superstitious that I actually got married on a 13th. Granted, it was a Tuesday, but it guaranteed me a few Friday-the-13th anniversaries.

I'm totally OK with that.

Because really, we've assigned the bad luck atmosphere to Friday the 13th in a fairly arbitrary way. I'm certain that unlucky things happen on every day of the year. In fact, since I am decidedly not a lucky person, unlucky is one of my constant companions every day of the year.

I forgot yesterday was the dreaded Friday the 13th until someone else's bad luck reversed my own misfortunes. See, my husband and I were having a tiff (shocking!), and we were both grumpy and barely putting up with each other's presence. But we had to run a few errands together anyway. We found ourselves on our crowded and construction-filled freeway, just passing a freeway entrance and right next to a highway patrol car, when suddenly a dude in an old muscle car squealed onto the freeway and raced right past us—and the highway patrolman.

And while I am not one to gloat on someone else's misfortune—as I am something of a lead foot myself, I had nothing but empathy for the speeding dude—I confess: watching the cop hesitate for a second (maybe checking the license plate first?) and then punch it to catch up with the speeding dude, and then turn his lights on and pull him over? Well, it was thrilling. And it lifted us right out of our grumpiness. As we drove past the pulled-over dude, it hit me: that guy is totally blaming this on Friday the 13th bad luck.

But my day was actually a pretty good one. Not lucky, really. I didn't win a single thing. But I did get a lot done and I had a few minutes all to myself which I used for reading. I remembered to get the gum out of Jake's jeans before I washed them. The weird sound my computer started making was just something with the fan, and how lucky am I to have a husband who can fix such things? Plus, I had the most fabulous thing: I went to dinner with my friend Chris, and it was just what I needed. We laughed, we talked about the past and the future, we cried a little, she helped me find some non-lame hair bands. It was sort of unlucky that I forgot to snap a photo of us, but still. That's tiny compared to how I felt driving home.

It was a good night with a person I am so lucky to have in my life!

I was only five minutes on the freeway when I came to a dead stop, unluckily about 20 feet past a freeway exit. But lucky enough I had my cellphone with me, and it was charged, so I called Becky. Someone else's misfortune—there were several cars in the crash that closed down all but one freeway lane—gave me 25 minutes to talk to my sister. We shared some good news and some really bad news on her part. I feel awful for Becky, whose husband lost his job yesterday. (Yes! On Friday the 13th. Seriously, seriously bad luck. The worst, in fact.)

But all in all? My Friday the 13th was fairly lucky. And as it is the last Friday I have before I turn 40, perhaps that bodes well for my next decade?