blank slates

I remember the lavish, freeing sensation I got about two months into college when I realized that nobody knew who I was.  I had spent my last year of high school carrying a ridiculous burden of reputation and gossip.  Every person I encountered there had some distinct preconceived notion of who I was, and it was always tricky to tiptoe through it and attempt to improve or maintain any inclination to think well of me.

And as absolutely nobody followed me from my high school into my college experience, I got to start over.  It was my first encounter with the concept of "personal branding."  I am not generally one to worry about my reputation without worrying more about the substance and integrity behind that reputation, but I can admit that they are both on my radar.  I always prefer that people associate me with happy and safe thoughts.  If I can control it (which I usually can't) then I want people to think of me as trustworthy, compassionate, thoughtful, thorough, creative, and nurturing.  And if I'm being honest then I also prefer that people associate me with good food and well-thought-out gifts.




( Me with two awesome ladies whom I suspect will totally understand what I mean, even if they also think I'm silly.)

 And so each time we move and "start over," this is the personal brand that I set out to establish.  I inevitably fail, but hopefully the overall themes are similar to those intended.

Somehow, this go-round, I am failing more than usual.  My best attempts at creating and sharing good food have been especially ill-fated.  Either entropy sneaks into my kitchen, or I manage to misgauge my audience so as to produce a perfect version of their least favorite food.

Which is all a very round-about way of mentioning that one of my favorite soups fared rather poorly at the ward soup-and-chili cook-off tonight. Not only was it not awarded any honorable mentions, but worse I brought back home more soup than I would have liked.  I am silly for caring, and I know that.  And so I am writing this to confront myself and shake it off.  But I would really like, someday, to have established an effective enough personal brand that people want to eat something just because I made it.  I want to be perfectly worthy of such a reputation, but watching people look forward to my food and my gifts is my favorite sort of compliment.   It's a compliment that I still need to work to be eligible to fully earn, but reaching that point is awfully high on my list of things to do-and-be.

So, apart from thinking I'm crazy or vain, or both, what sort of a personal brand are you working to create? What do you want to be known for?  Remembered for?  Missed for?  Do tell.

Pumpkin invites

Have I told you lately how awesome my friend HSF is?

Despite being death-bed-gestating-vomitous, she whipped up the invites to the shower for me.  I based them on these I spotted on pinterest:

And after the invites were made, she made these to match, isn't she amazing?

By the way, I'm pretty sure "cute" was the best word every chosen for this game.  Total success!

Mini pumpkin doughnuts with maple glaze

If it's possible, these tasted even better than they sound.  My glazing abilities were thwarted by trying to transport the doughnuts and glaze separately and then assemble on site.  So it turned into more of an icing.  But a yummy one!

I used this recipe from Taste and Tell, and since Mr Renn couldn't find maple extract in stock when he ran errands, we substituted 2 TBSP maple syrup and reduced the milk a little.  (But based on how thick it turned out, I wish I had added more milk, so there.)

I also only have a mini-doughnut pan and I doubled the recipe, so we ended up with over 100 doughnuts.

Once they were glazed (iced) I only got to taste one, they disappeared so fast!

Candy Apples

I ended up putting my gold spray paint to use on these candy apples.

 

I really wanted to use the smallest apples I could find, but couldn't seem to get to a farmer's market to search for any small varieties, so I settled for the bagged apples from the grocery store.  Bagged apples always seem smaller than loose ones.  I used golden delicious for these, and I was worried they'd be too sweet, but they ended up being a perfect match for the candy flavoring I used.  My only problem was keeping the Captain from taking a bite out of each of them before the party every started.  He got to 4 or 5 of them, the turkey.

Carmel toffee candy apples

recipe....

Ingredients

10-16 small apples
"     "    wooden dowels or sticks
4 cups granulated sugar
2 cups light corn syrup
1 Cup hot water
1 Cup caramel flavor hard candies (I used these) (crushed if possible)
2-5 drops of English Toffee flavoring oil

Supplies

Baking Sheets
Aluminum Foil
Vegetable Oil Spray
Stock Pot
Candy Thermometer

Begin by lining 1 or 2 baking sheets with aluminum foil or parchment paper.  Don't use wax paper, it will melt.  Spray with cooking oil spray.

Clean your apples well and insert your sticks so they can support the weight of the apple.

In your LARGEST pot (trust me - it needs to seem way too big, this stuff expands like crazy), combine the water, corn syrup and sugar over medium high heat.  Stir until the sugar dissolves, then STOP STIRRING.  Keep candy thermometer inserted and watch for the candy temperature to reach 250 degrees.

At 250 degrees, add the hard candy and flavoring oil and stir briefly to incorporate.  STOP STIRRING.
Clean sides of pan with wet pastry brush to prevent crystalization.    Continue to cook until temperature reaches 285 degrees (F).

Remove pot from heat and stir just until mixture is smooth.  Tip pot to an angle and hold first apple by the skewer and dip in the candy mixture.  Rotate apple until it is covered in a smooth, even layer.  Lift above candy and twirl to remove excess, then set on prepared baking sheet to cool.  Repeat with remaining apples.

Allow apples to cool before spraying with foodgrade spraypaint.  Apples should be consumed within 2 days.

23k gold cake

As I was collecting pinterest ideas for this shower, I couldn't get over this cake from Desserts for Breakfast.  It was a stunner.

 

Even though I had wanted to do an all-gold cake, like this one, and had already ordered the food-grade gold spray paint for it.  Now I had to order gold leaf sprinkles instead.  Sheesh. (But since they are so pricey I was a lot stingier with them, wasn't I?)

I didn't use Stephanie's cake recipe (I used a tried and true recipe from Rose instead)  But I did attempt the frosting recipe, substituting strawberry puree for Ollalieberry puree.  It almost worked.  I didn't use the oreos in the frosting, but used them whole to stabilize the layer of frosting in between the layers of cake instead, which worked awesomely. I also followed her recipe for the ganache, but ended up with a tiny amount, I think I should have maybe doubled it to get her decadent drippyness.  And I didn't get the sprinkles on in time to look as fluid as hers either.  Things like that happen when you are working in someone else's kitchen and have kids hanging from your body.

BUT

It was still a pretty awesome cake.

 

yes we're festive

After lots of requests from Sir O, our family made our first (ever) pumpkin patch visit.  I think we found a pretty sincere one; conveniently located about a mile from our house, making it an easy choice.  We spent half of our time there trying to locate at least one of our children, but I'm still calling it a success.  We were impressed with the place - everything (except the pumpkins) was free.  New family tradition?  Check.









And now we have 5 pumpkins to carve...... and 5 pumpkins worth of seeds to roast.  Looks like a busy week!

pink and gold baby shower

The past week has been full of preparations for a baby-shower for my sister-in-law.  My parents are finally getting a granddaughter, and are over the moon.  My mom asked me to help her throw this shower, and I did my best to make it thorough and lovely without over-committing myself.  I only failed a little, all things considered.



I went with pumpkins, it being so close to Halloween.  But being a baby shower, I went with gold, sparkly pumpkins.  And lots of pink.  Still, there is only so much you can do to make a church classroom with fluorescent lighting feel lovely.  (And it was on the North side of the building, I was so hoping to rescue things with natural light.)



But because I worked as hard as I did on this party, I'm inclined to share my favorite parts of it.   Which are inevitably dessert items.  A couple of recipe posts to follow.  You'll thank me.

see for yourself

Last weekend Mr Renn commandeered our to-do list, and we had a field trip to visit the Grotto in Payson Canyon and get our fall color fix.



The Grotto trail is the perfect hike for small kids.  It's less than a mile to hike both in and out, and there aren't any steep inclines.  There may be significantly more water other times of year. But as of our trip, had one of our kids fallen in the stream, they would have been wet but perfectly safe.





 And if you happen to visit in October, bring your camera.  And a few extra memory cards.  The canyon was crawling with hobby photographers, and for good reason.  It was a stunning drive, and it smelled just like October should.  Sometimes taking a break and running away (as a family) turns out to be the best idea.



 








(if Harry Potter were a tree.....)

 

permission to land

In my recent bout of identity crisis, I decided to give myself permission to do more than pine after scholarly pursuits.  I've done little but pine since I curtailed my academic career and graduated with a BA but without completing my emphasis or my minor a few months after marrying Mr Renn.  (In order to work full time and secure income and health benefits, a decision based on fear that I think we both regret a bit - most decisions based on fear end that way).

But, with no obvious way to fund this self-granted permission, I was running in circles for a bit.

Luckily I was given the inside scoop on the Weekly Reading Seminars hosted by BYU's English Department.  Free and open to the public.  It still scared me to death to begin attending.  Motherhood has done little for my confidence around adults, and has certainly shrunk my comfort zone.  But with a godsend of a babysitting swap in place, I ordered an embarassing amount of used books on Amazon (because nothing I needed was available at my city library), and determined to attend these seminars prepared to have intelligent conversations with world-class writers.  The likelihood of me opening my mouth is not great here at the beginning of this endeavor.  But I'm being exposed to some phenomenal paradigm altering writing, and then having the chance to hear and meet the humans behind it.  It makes me all tingly to think of it.



I have hopes that if I take this pursuit seriously that I can, over time, meet some people and make some friends and get some guidance on returning to school, on some very slow and steady, family-centric terms.   Because while learning blazing white truths is and should be the most important angle of this or any other interest, having more concrete goals always seems to keep me motivated in a more impressive manner.  And, truth be told, a doctorate is on my bucket list.  I don't need it right away, but feeling like I am ever so slowly working toward it and acknowledging it as a real goal feels just about right.  And for now, you can't beat free momentum.

The highlight so far has been the indescribable joy of being in a room with Brian Doyle.  There's an energy and love emanating from the man with more brilliance than the Sun.  I can't help suspecting, based on what I've read and heard, that his particular energy could be pegged as the Spirit of Elijah.  He's got it, I'm telling you.  And he gets it.  Everything he creates is informed by the idea that family relationships create the vast majority of meaning in life.  He gets love and the value of the prosaic and what really matters and why.  And he cries in public.  Such a human full of life and truth and love and words.

I shall certainly be improved by this venture, as a mom, a wife and a human being.

take off

Sir O appears to be the type who needs to do things on his own terms.  Try to push him against his grain and you confront a litany of undesirably behaviors. But when he's good and ready to tackle something, he does it with bravado and utter thoroughness.



And so it was that after 2 miniature attempts at teaching him to ride a bicycle in July, we had consigned ourselves to leaving the training wheels untouched and assumed that we'd be waiting to tackle that one until next spring.

But wait.
 Sir O was busy changing his mind behind our backs.  After watching (apparently with tremendous power of observation) the neighbor kids zip up and down the street on their bikes (and his best friend in particular), Sir O talked himself into riding his bike right now, in a matter of hours on an October Monday afternoon.

He insistently asked his dad to take off his training wheels, because he knew how to ride it now.  He'd been watching, and with him that means something.  Mr Renn and I were in the thick of a sticky grape juicing endeavor, and by the time Renn made it into the garage, Sir O had already found a wrench and removed one training wheel.

By the time the second training wheel was off, Sir O was so ready and bound and determined that Mr Renn was beginning to worry about fallout if this didn't go well.  But, as we should have expected, Sir O is ready when he's ready.  And as soon as he was propped up and pedaling, he took off on his own.  No training or coaxing or "don't let go" dramatics.  Just one inimitable son living life on his own terms.  Renn hollered me out of  the kitchen and as soon as I had documented the miracle of Sir O and the bicycle, I scolded them all for the lack of helmet and returned to tend the grape juice.



In the meantime, Sir O has spent every possible moment floating like a speedy spirited bird up and down the street.  (With helmet)  I'm always torn between being proud of his spirited accomplishment, and worried that his headstrong ways will be the source of unimaginable future angst.  He is what he is; he came the way he came.  I can only do what I can, which is inevitably inadequate and broken.  I have to place my will and my wish for control in regards to his little body and large spirit on an altar and watch them burn and blow away.  I have to trust that God knows better than me what will reign in all this zeal and steam and refine it into something divine.  And I have to ask God to keep his bike aright as he begins to flit and dart and turn in hair-raising ways.  I'll be diligent about the helmets, and pray.

The manic matinee

I find myself alone with the boys a lot lately, for good reasons.  But we all get a little stir-crazy after too much of mom and three boys in the house.  So I have to be constantly coming up with alternatives for the boys to their default activity of embodying entropy and scattering objects around the house in nonsensical frenzies.  Yesterday we found these paper bag puppet kits in the bottom of the halloween box and I let Sir O construct them all by himself.  (There wasn't a great deal of assembly involved.)  Then, around bedtime I let them record a puppet show for their dad.  As a puppet show, it's an abysmal failure.  But as an entertaining slice of life, it delivers in unexpected ways.  These boys, with their insanity and energy, make up my days.  They wear me out.  In the best  possible way a person can be worn out.

recovering the satellites

(photo by Sir O)

I've spent an unfortunate bulk of my week fighting a sinus and ear infection.  By fighting I guess I mean "being slowed down by" because there weren't many moments when I managed to do anything proactive to fight it.  No resting, no consistent remembering to drink more fluids, just pushing through trying to take care of people who need me even though I feel like I'm 6 feet underwater.
It's an odd part of this young mothering phase of life.  It can get so intense and tunnel-visioned in these deep, deep trenches.  Many small children (a blessing) with the energy (a blessing) to take on the world, but no clue how to harness their power into anything constructive.  So I teach, I discipline, I suggest, I direct.  I clean up and clean up and clean up.  I feed and clothe and change and dress.  I put the same object back where it goes a hundred thousand times.  I fight entropy in a massive hopeless fight every minute of every day, because I know that there are 3(4) little boys who desperately need all the calm and order and routine and safety and home-ness that I can muster for them.  It is an act of love, any way you look at it.  Even if I don't always feel as charitable as I ought as I do it.  But such an act of love is bound to be consecrated somehow, even if in spurts.  And so at least some of my daily fight is made holy, and I find every morning that I can do it for at least one more day.  Even if I am doing it underwater.
I guess the good news is that antibiotics are on board and doing their job.
And project "taking better care of myself" shall commence in 3....2.....1.....

i blinked

Time is a'flying.  Because it seems impossible that it's been a year since we did this:

 



 But then again, look how our gentleman has grown...




So I guess it wasn't just yesterday, was it?  We let our gentleman celebrate with a Sir O-made crown and a fistful of spice cake, shared with neighbors (not the fistful of cake, but the cake proper).  And he charmed us all.  If he proves this charming 20 years from now there will be many young women with broken hearts on his behalf.  It cannot be helped.  But until then he can just practice melting my mom-heart over and over.  Such a boy.







I felt guilty not planning a proper birthday party, as I've done for the other boys when they turned 1. (See here and here) but October has been such a busy month for family gatherings already, and we haven't been living here long enough to have an impressive network of friends who are invested in our kids.  So there was nobody to invited to a proper party.  I shall have to make it up to him in the future.  (Is a pony in order?  My dad just gave himself two new horses for his birthday....)

Let's Play Music

Sir O has begun taking music classes, and I think they're brilliant.



Our neighbor across the street is a teacher for the program called Let's Play Music, and it was clearly constructed by really smart people who know so much about music theory and child psychology that their brains must have exploded from genius overload by now.  The premise is teaching children principles of music through play, and it seems to be a magnificent match for Sir O and his overwhelming personality.  With my imperfect grasp of music theory myself, I get overwhelmed when I think of all the concepts they've already introduced, but Sir O doesn't get overwhelmed one bit, because to him it is all games and play.  Singing major scales and bouncing around with solfeggio signs, it's impressive. I must find a way to make this genius concept work for me in other arenas.  Think I can fool him into a rousing game of "make your bed and brush your teeth"?

 

moon juice

They are seedless table grapes of an unknown variety.  Our next door neighbors planted them shortly after moving in, purely for ornamental reasons.  The vines have found that our side of the fence is sunnier, and October dawned on bushels and bushels of grapes on our side of the fence.
What to do?



We were both under the impression that table grapes cannot be juiced, but I felt guilty about wasting them, so we asked around and read around and all that we could find for certain was that green table grapes have a considerably lower sugar content than the juicing grapes we both grew up with.
In the end, I had compulsively acquired a steam-juicer, and we decided we had nothing to lose.

And so I found myself, on an overfull Monday, sitting in my garage plucking grapes from their bunches, one at a time, one of those prosaic moments that allow my brain to wander and race.  The light in the garage was just so that each grape seemed like a little chinese lantern, with a quality of translucency that captured every iota of incidental light.  With their often freckled faces, the grapes began to remind me of moons, glowing with borrowed light and reminding me of the vast expanses of creation.

Then I began to wonder if the process of creating and placing the moon just so was anything near as sticky or labor intensive as plucking 10,000 grapes and collecting them in a bucket.  I don't buy the idea that the creation of worlds without end was effortless or instant.  A world like mine doesn't come together without exceeding care.  And most things that are worth doing have unpleasant parts, like my sticky fingers.



In the end, our grape juice was blush, and perfectly palateable.  If we ever get all the grapes picked and processed we shall be swimming in the stuff.  But I will always look at it and think of the moon and its Maker and His sticky fingers.

why yes, I did just go awol for a bit, didn't I?

September, all told, is doing me in.  Between the structure of having Sir O and the Captain in their various preschools and classes, and the onslaught of allergies and migraines that arrived with the changing of seasons, I have been beaten into the ground.

But during my never ending game of catch-up, there have been tender mercies aplenty.
I really do love my life.  Even the hard parts, but for now the hard parts are only hard because they wear me out, not because they give my soul road rash.  It's a nice phase, and I hold my breath. Conditioned response.

Last night I had the boys to myself, and my attempt at a fun dinner of crepes got lousy reviews.  So instead of cleaning up dinner properly, I loaded the boys in the car and drove up the canyon in the rain.  I'm not familiar with any of my local places yet, so I pulled over several times just to look around, and we found a park where the smell of wet October on russian olives was unmistakably divine.



I did my best to warn the boys in advance that it was a short trip, dusk was heading in, and the stuttering rain could start again anytime.  Usually establishing such expectations in advance is helpful, but I think this evening was just a lost cause.  I essentially strongarmed each child into their carseat, stripped articles of clothing that were too wet or muddy for a charitable mother to expect her child to keep on their person, and drove home with a siren of whining in chorus behind me.  I threatened a few times to pull over and let whiners out.  Then began pondering if there was a way to follow through on that threat without subjecting myself to arrest and a debut on the 10 o'clock news.  Especially considering all the articles of clothing they were missing.



Thankfully it occured to me to find something for the little whining men to look forward to.  They are, after all, my progeny.  And I become the whiniest most unmotivated version of myself without a joy or two to anticipate.  So I offered to pull out the Halloween decorations, and my lucky stars aligned and the right buttons were pushed.  Suddenly the whining melted into excitement.  We were all pleasant again, other than the migraine and the mud.  I emerged from the mouth of the canyon triumphant.  It's a small triumph, but I'm owning it.