Remember back in December during the height of Holiday!Cookie!Madness! when I was so swamped with work and holiday orders that I had to break down my day into units? It’s time again. At some point in our no-work weekend it became apparent that we were in for a busy week, but as Sunday ran into Monday, it was clear that things were getting more hectic than we had anticipated. A couple of emails and phone calls from clients and retailers and suddenly we’re feeling like we’re back in the Holiday!Cookie!Madness! days. How do things get so out of control this fast? This reminds me of when I was in college when I wrote a piece called Flotation Device for prepared piano and electric bass (which, incidently, had Mark on bass during performances). The piece was about exactly this: feeling overwhelmed to the point of drowning. I’m just going to consider the unit breakdown method my flotation device. It worked well for me then and it’ll have to work for me now.

I’ll be juggling 4 different client projects in the next 3 weeks and beyond because you know, sometimes the freelance universe mocks my attempts to try and finesse a manageable and civilized work schedule. It will be challenging as 2 of these projects will require a whole look and feel development and client approval process. I’ve juggled multiple projects before, even once while 8 months pregnant, so I know it’s possible. On the biz side, I can sense that Mark is getting stressed as he is up to his ears in wholesale and online orders. There are a lot of audible sighs coming from the other room. Such is life. We’ll get through this. We always do.

It’s a rainy, drizzly Sunday here in the burbs, but it’s sort of refreshing too, you know?

And it’s nice to see buds finally on trees, but these hairy Magnolia ones are very alien looking if you stare at them too long.

We’re off to the burbs for one of our monthly visits to my mom’s. We’ll eat, rest, and catch up with our big box store shopping. We may even start buying herbs and flowers for our balcony garden. Mark looks forward to it because it means a kitchen and post office free weekend. The girls look forward to it because they get to spend time with the grandparents.

Today was glorious in NY and we spent the morning outside. It sucks that it isn’t going to last though…
Happy weekend to all.

Claudine’s been going to class at Mia’s school since September and despite the fact that she’s been going once a week for 7 months, she’s still shy in the classroom setting. I’ve seen some small progress, but sometimes it’s a bit frustrating because I know how brilliant she is (haha, doesn’t every parent say that?), but in class she is like a little lump. She really loves the painting portion of class, however, and she becomes really focused and serious about her painting. It may take more time and I’ve seen her exhibit rare instances when she comes out of her shell, but it would be great if one day people could actually see the awesomeness that is Claudine.

Our friends Shii Ann and her daughter Bea just dropped by with leftover cupcakes from her 2 year old birthday party. They stored surprisingly well over the weekend. And you know what? Sometimes, store bought cupcake mixes and frosting really hit the spot.

I have no idea where I learned this technique for cooking fish, but it’s a quick and easy way to cook fish without resorting to frying. Simply put, fish is baked on top of vegetables and herbs in the oven. It’s versatile as different types of fish can be used, as well as most vegetables and herbs. Last week I baked salmon on top of fresh fennel, onions, and sliced lemons, with a generous sprinkle of chopped tarragon. It was served with soft polenta, fresh corn and some garlic-sauteed shiitake mushrooms. The fish stays moist, almost as if it was steamed. I usually just bake the fish in one large piece and break it up into individual portions after it is cooked.

Tarragon Roasted Salmon (serves 4)

1 medium onion, peeled
1 small fennel bulb
1 lemon
1 large salmon filet, about 1-1/2 pounds, skin removed
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup chopped tarragon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the onion, fennel and lemon into 1/4-inch thick slices. Spread them in the bottom of a baking dish. Put the piece of salmon on top. Brush the olive oil on the salmon, then sprinkle with the salt, pepper and tarragon. Cover the pan with foil and bake for about 30 minutes until the fish is just cooked. The cooking time may vary depending on the thickness of your fish. Cut into individual portions and serve immediately.

It started before Claudine was born when Mia and I found 2 medium size My Little Ponies in a freebox in the neighborhood. I never played with My Little Ponies when I was a kid and never had a horse obsession like some girls that age, so it never occurred to me that she may like them. A few months later at a visit to the toy store, I admit to being enticed by the saturated colors and miniature models of sweet cakes and desserts in this over-the-top ice cream shoppe (I am a complete sucker for play food). It was the first “girly” toy purchase I ever made. Mia wasn’t into dolls or dressing up at that point, so I thought it was interesting that she chose this as her special toy. By the time Claudine came along and was old enough to play with the ponies, we had amassed a little village of saccharin sweet houses and accessories with more ponies and play food. They’ve named them all, going by the little tattoo images on their butts and they both narrate the ponies’ adventures in high-pitched “falsetto” voices. When a friend of mine came over and revealed that he knew everything there was to know about the ponies, including proper names and personalities because he worked on the Hasbro account at R/GA, Mia flipped and developed a funny little girl-crush on him.

The girls play with the ponies every single day, sometimes for hours, so despite all the annoying little pieces that get spread around everywhere, it is money well spent. This, however, also means that there is a lot of fighting, hoarding, screaming, stealing and miserableness for everyone. This kind of sibling fighting is new to me, folks. My brother and I are 6 years apart so he could care less about my limited edition collectible Cher doll (yes! I didn’t have a Barbie, but I had Cher). The only thing we remotely fought over was the Atari or Commodore 64, but you know, we’d just compete against each other so it was all good. But 2 little girls fighting over plastic, technicolor ponies? Kill me now.

…or our lack thereof. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and starting to wonder, for the first time, whether I’m being too fiscally conservative (meaning, a cheap ass) by denying us vacations. I know where it comes from: when you don’t pull in a steady paycheck that you can count on and plan with, it’s really really scary to spend money. I’m not talking about a nice meal or a pricey clothing purchase, but the kind of money it takes to finance a vacation, even a short one. So my automatic answer has always been, no, we can’t afford it.

Mark traveled as a kid, but I didn’t. Vacations were not something that we did at all, save for the occasional long weekend motel stays in Montauk or the Poconos, so once I got to college, I took off entire summers as soon as I could. Since then, I’ve been to every state but 6 (ok ok, I AM counting drive throughs, but I should get bonus points for being in Alaska) and drove across country 3 or 4 times. Mark and I traveled as much as we could afford before the kids came along, mostly to Hawaii and a few European cities, but travel slowed almost to none once we had kids. The few times we’ve been on a plane have been to either LA or Seattle to visit family.

I’ve really been wanting a vacation lately. A real one too and not just one where we’re staying at someone’s house. Mia’s been dying to go to Hawaii. Maybe it’s been passed on in her genes, but she talks about “going to the Hukilou” all the time and protests with jealousy saying it’s not fair that we’ve been there multiple times when she hasn’t even gone once. Hawaii is not in the cards for us (way too expensive and an 11 hr non stop flight - or worse, multiple stops with 2 kids? Oh hell, no), but I’ve been dreaming about a beach vacation for years. I still don’t know if I’m ready to decide if we can afford it. It was almost easier back when we really didn’t have any money, but we’ve scraped by the last few years to build up savings, so in *theory* we can. I am taking small steps, though. Now that the girls are older, I’ve shuffled our priorities to make at least one yearly vacation happen, however small. I see that it’s important for them, but also important for us. We want to travel. I’m tired of being jealous of other people’s vacations and I’m tired of being such a cheap ass. Our frugalness has paid off, for sure, but I think I’m starting to get a bit more comfortable relaxing our budget a bit by doing things like go out to eat more than once a month (craaazy, yeah?). We’re thinking of renting a house on the beach in the North Fork, LI for a week in August, but I kind of want to go on a long weekend trip somewhere in May or June. So….where does a family of frugal-adverse to spending money on vacation-cheap asses go? Any ideas?