Sunday Serenity

There's some kind of special Advent service at the MiL's church this morning, and she arranged to have Cubby speak one of the parts. This means he gets to use the microphone. He's very excited. He's going to say, "The candle of hope."

From such humble beginnings a star is born, I'm sure.

Charlie has also been very excited, and has also been practicing saying, "The candle of hope." In his case this comes out more like, "Canda hope," but whatever. I'm sure God would get it.

However.

The MiL couldn't handle both kids at church at once. The idea of keeping Charlie at home was too horrible to contemplate, so A. took one for the team and said he would go to church with them to wrangle Charlie.

Well. From the level of excitement this announcement generated from the children, you would think we had announced an open candy buffet.

I would've gone, but no one even invited me. Probably because they knew I didn't really want to go, anyway. So now I have some time to get some other stuff done. Stuff like laundry and going online to buy nursing tank tops.

Glamor, yes. I am all about it.

A. helped me move furniture around to set up the baby's room this morning, so once I get the diapers washed, I'll have pretty much completed my to-do-before-baby list. Good thing, because we're at T minus three weeks until baby time. Or, you know, any time before or after that, because babies come when they damn well please, but at least I have the bassinet out now. Bring on the newborn.

Thankful?

Always.

Happy Thanksgiving, my lovelies. Go forth to eat, drink, and be thankful.

The Monster I've Created

The other morning both Cubby and Charlie unfortunately stumbled downstairs at 5:45 a.m. I myself had just come downstairs and none of us were at our most chipper. Cubby, as is his habit, immediately requested breakfast. I couldn't face turning on the stove and cooking eggs yet, so I spread some peanut butter on rice cakes for them, poured them some milk, and braced myself on the counter to blearily drink my coffee.

Cubby ran to the table, took a look at my breakfast offering, and said, "That's not breakfast. It's not breakfast unless you cook something."

You heard it from the little emperor first: Unless it's a hot breakfast, it's no breakfast at all.*

* I must admit that I agree and a breakfast of a banana and peanut butter or cold cereal or something is not the way I prefer to start my day. But at least I cook my OWN breakfast instead of demanding labor from others first thing in the morning, CUBBY.

I Hope the Baby Likes Chili

I am now less than one month from my December 20 due date. I haven't washed the diapers, cleaned and set up the baby's room, or purchased any nursing apparel yet, but I do have two and a half gallons of venison chili in the freezer.

And the world's worst photo to prove it.

Yesterday at 10 a.m., A. retrieved the doe from the barn and got to work. He skinned, cut up, boned, chopped, and browned the entire deer (minus the backstraps and tenderloin, which we panfried for dinner). Then he chopped three pounds of onions and two entire heads of garlic. He dumped in several large cans of tomatoes, I added a large amount of chili powder, cumin, and epazote, and by 7 p.m., we had an enormous pot of chili.

So if you've ever wondered, one doe equals 2.5 gallons of chili. I'm sure that calculation will come in handy for you one day.

A. also made a couple of gallons of stock from the bones. I still have to find room in the freezer for that. And enough jar lids.

Then I need to wash diapers, clean the baby's room, and buy nursing apparel. But at least I have the chili. Priorities.

Must Be Hunting Season

Because the dogs are wandering around in their deer-offal-stuffed drunken states from the prizes they drag home from the woods and A. is announcing things like this first thing in the morning when he steps outside to get firewood:

 "I feel I should warn you there is a lung on the doorstep."

Thanks for the warning. I'll just stay inside.

A Radical at Heart

A couple of weeks ago, I finally read Radical Homemakers, by Shannon Hayes. It came out about five years ago, and I have no idea why I never heard of it, because if ever there were a book that I should read, that one was it. The subtitle is "Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture."

Apparently, I'm a radical homemaker. Who knew?

Not radical in the 80's awesome sense (although that too, OBVIOUSLY), but radical in the sense of changing the world. Except it never occurred to me that disgust with consumerism and making my own sauerkraut had any larger purpose. And if I must be honest, that's not why I do things like make my own sauerkraut. Really, I'm just greedy and homemade tastes better.

But I agreed with a lot of the things in that book. And that one led me to another one entitled Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, by Kelly Coyne and Eric Knutzen.

Again with the radical and the consumer thing.

This book is awesome because it's a book full of instructions for lots of different projects, like making your own soap. Or mustard. Or beer. Or whatever*. This is the reason I currently have a large bunch of sage suspended over the woodstove, drying so I can powder it and mix it with baking soda to brush my teeth. It will no doubt taste disgusting, but sage is apparently good for, in their words, "troubled gums," which I sometimes have, so I figured it can't hurt to try.

Sound weird to you? Then you probably shouldn't read these books. But I think you should. They might make you more radical. In a good way.

* Some of it's way too out there even for me--I don't think I'm going to be composting our, ahem, "humanure" anytime soon--but I appreciate their willingness to share it all.

We Can All Relax Now

Saturday was the first day of rifle season for deer. In other words, the pressure was on for A. to get his deer. I don't know why he feels this pressure, but he does. The family must have meat, after all. *

He got up at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning to drive 45 minutes to public lands up in the hills. Up, where it is colder. A lot colder. It was about 15 degrees, with a snow cover. He stayed out for about three hours and didn't see a single deer, returning shame-faced (and freezing) to answer in the negative when the children asked if he got anything.

After several hours of jittering around, he decided to go back out around 3 p.m. This time he just walked up back onto our neighbor's property and camped out in the gully. He returned around 5 p.m. dragging a very fat doe.

This is pretty much what he did last year, so I think he's getting the idea that if shooting a deer is the objective, there is very little reason to get up in the dark and cold and drive anywhere. Obviously the hunting is better half a mile from our house.

Anyway.

Charlie in particular was excited about this deer, shouting "Hooray, Daddy!" and subjecting the deer to a minute examination. I like to think I encourage scientific curiosity, but it was still pretty gross to see him poking at eyeballs and pulling on the tongue.

Also gross is how surprisingly long a deer's tongue is. Ew.

Anyway again.

So the first deer of the season is now hanging in the barn aging, to be butchered this weekend. Due to my not-very-functional hands at the moment, I will not be participating in the butchering this year. I suggested to A. that he just cut the whole thing up into stew meat and turn it all into a gigantic batch of chili to be frozen.

Is this not how most people go about preparing freezer meals for after the baby is born?

A. has two more tags, meaning he can still take one more doe and a buck. So we could end up with the world's largest supply of chili in our freezer. Works for me.

* Joke. We still have quite a bit of our half cow in the freezer, so I think anemia will be held at bay for awhile yet.