sara without an h

in 5 years time.

today travis and i are celebrating 5 years together.  to mark this occasion, i cooked a (rather ambitious) 3 course meal at home for half of what it would have cost us at a restaurant.  

first course:  beef tartare with parmesan frico and frisée salad

main course:  scallops with sage brown butter over a cauliflower puree

dessert:  vanilla bean panna cotta with pistachio brittle and salted carmel sauce

(if i used a recipe for something, it is linked.)

i'm pretty proud of myself and the meal i created for us.  the theme of tonight's special dinner was to adapt dishes from various restaurants we have frequented (and loved) in our 5 years together.  most of these restaurants are back in baltimore (where we met), so we are unable to visit them.  these are places that hold a certain significance for us and always will.  i am so happy i could bring a little bit of the east coast out to the midwest tonight.

my husband is a wonderful father and partner.  i couldn't have hoped for someone better to spend my life with.  happy anniversary, travis!  i can't wait to see what the next 5 years have in store for us!

 

 

the date is set (also i am a fool sometimes).

now that i finally have health insurance again, i met with a general surgeon today regarding my gallbladder.  he informed me it was imperative that i have it removed and was appalled that i went this long without taking care of it.  me too, buddy.  i go under the knife march 23rd.  thank goodness i am blessed with a wonderful network of support to help me care for sylvie post-op.  she weighs over 16 pounds now, and i can't lift anything over 15 for two weeks.  should be interesting.

i'm not so worried about the surgery itself.  i am the queen of menial health problems and have had my share of outpatient surgeries.  sinuses (twice), tonsils, wisdom teeth, bone spur, c-section (the only one that still makes me shutter at the thought), etc.  i'm confident i will come through it fine.  the issue that concerns me is the anesthesia.  now, i'm not worried about it not working or not waking up.  nothing like that.  i am worried about saying something completely idiotic or becoming hostile while on the stuff.  both of these things have happened to me.  

in 8th grade i had a ganglion removed from the top of my foot, which only required an ankle block and some versed.  i remember this so clearly.  as they wheeled me back to the OR i broke out into song with several rounds of "i wanna be sedated" by the ramones.  flash forward 4ish years.  i had to have surgery on my sinuses.  i remember waking up in the recovery room to my doctor asking how i felt. (i'm about to use a touch of crass language here.)  i, in my stupor, told him i couldn't feel my balls.  then promptly asked if it could be our little secret.

that same year i had to get my wisdom teeth removed (2003 was a banner year for me).  upon waking up in recovery, i asked to see my mommy.  i'm pretty sure this is the only time i've ever called my mom "mommy".  i was 17 at the time.  when the nurse told me she couldn't come back yet, i grabbed her by her looney tunes scrubs and demanded to see my mommy NOW.  i must have been pretty intimidating because that nurse made like the road runner and sprinted to the waiting room.  meep meep.

i would like to take this opportunity to apologize to my surgeon, anesthesiologist, and the nurses in advance for my post-op antics.  have any of you ever acted the fool after going under the knife.  if so, do tell!

my daughter makes funny faces.

stylish sunday.

i've been meaning to do a little outfit post lately.  i thought sylvie looked extra cute today, so i dressed up a little too!  travis snapped these pictures for me during an afternoon outing.

sylvie is wearing: cardigan-old navy, onesie-miniwear from babies r us, skinny jeans-children's place, socks-circo from target, shoes-robeez

i am wearing: sunglasses-urban outfitters, jacket-bought it years ago in new hampshire, t-shirt-anthropologie clearance rack, necklace-from a flea market in london, watch-my dad's old seiko kinetic, bag-embarrassingly enough, it's from the morocco pavilion at epcot in disney world, bell bottom jeans-gap, shoes-ecote from the UO clearance section, lipstick-makeup forever rouge artist intense #45

and i snapped one of him with the bean!

travis is wearing: glasses-d&g from lens crafters, leather jacket and t-shirt-h&m, jeans-levi's, shoes-cowboy boots purchased in fort worth, texas

there you have it!  our stylish sunday.  currently, sylvie is wearing nothing but a diaper, i am in pajama pants, and travis took off the boots and leather jacket.  i love dressing up when i leave the house, but i love me some comfortable pj's too!  happy sunday!  enjoy what is left of the weekend.

my week in food.

curried cauliflower soup with greek yogurt sauce:

turkey burger with goat cheese and arugula:

roasted sockeye salmon with seaweed rice and a thai-style vegetable salad:

i hope everyone is having a good weekend!  mine is extremely busy.  travis has the last painting critique of his graduate school career on tuesday.  needless to say, he is spending a large chunk of the weekend working in his studio.  this leaves me and sylvie plenty of time for things like this:

it also leaves me plenty of time to tend to my lovely mushrooms, which i'm sure will be great companions if they decide to grow.

mushrooms in 10 days my foot!  it's been a week without so much as a spore.  ohhhhhhh well.

what are you doing this weekend?  (i hope you're doing something more interesting than watching mushrooms not grow.)

the (insert expletive here) bear suit.

for a few months now sylvie has been sleeping every nap and every night in this bear suit.  it started innocently enough.  sylvie, at around 3 months old, would only fall asleep in her stroller after we walked her around in the frigid winter air.  we are responsible parents, so we bundled her up for these walks.  this bear suit is basically her winter coat.  fast forward over 3 months later and sylvie has long outgrown the stroller sleeping phase, but still sleeps in her bear suit.  why?  because it is MAGIC.  we put her in it, zip it up, and she immediately turns her head to the side and closes her eyes.  so we let her sleep in it everyday.  if it ain't broke, right?  well, we are beginning to see the early signs of spring.  it was more than 60 degrees here today.  her toes are pushing at the feet.  we talked about cutting the feet off of it.  but more important than any of that:  it SMELLS.  i guess when you spend all night sweating and puking in the hood of something it ends up a little stinky.  it makes her stink, too.  so after months of constantly washing this thing, i made the decision last night to cut it cold turkey.

on tuesdays and thursdays travis has a late class, so i put sylvie to bed.  i figured i would try putting her down without it.  if it turned to be too much of a struggle, i could always put her in it again.  well guess what?  it was no struggle at all!  turns out we thought she needed it more than she actually does.  she slept all night last night and every nap today without it.  GOOD RIDDANCE says i.  travis, being the sentimental fool he is, wants to save it.  i, however, would love to torch the sucker.

goodbye, bear suit.  it's been real.  it's been fun.  it's been real fun.

under the weather.

if you follow me on twitter, then you know that i'm not feeling well today.  i spent the better part of the morning curled up on the bathroom floor while sylvie watched the sesame street classic songs playlist on youtube.  vomiting to the tune of c is for cookie was not my proudest moment.  u is for upchuck.  f is for fever.  l is for lazy blog post.  here are some pictures and a video in lieu of a well thought-out, wordy post.

first, a mushroom update.  days 3 and 4 look a lot like day 2.

even 10 days is a lot when your M.O. in life is instant gratification.  moving on.

next is a seriously cute faux-tostrip (see what i did there?) of sylvie and travis.  thank you, pocketbooth!

sylvie is getting really good at tummy time.  she used to hate it.  now she will tolerate it if she's rolled from back to front by herself.  if I put her on her tummy without her say-so, she will only let me get away with it for a minute or two.

last of all, we have a video.  in between trips to the bathroom, i managed to get in some quality playtime with sylvie this morning.  i was (umm...am still) wearing a pair of travis' fleece pajama pants.  sylvie was fascinated by them and spent a good 20 minutes petting my leg like a dog.  

 

now i'm in bed for the rest of the afternoon, trying to recover from this morning.  i hope everyone had a happy valentine's day and is currently having a good tuesday.  if you will excuse me, there are some dry crackers and ginger tea calling my name.

i found love.

as you all know, today is valentine's day.  i've seen a lot of talk around the blogosphere to the tune of this is just a stupid greeting card holiday blahblah enjoy your russell stover's.  my 15-year-old self would laugh her mohawked head off at what i'm about to say, but i refuse to be cynical about love.  i do agree that our culture probably places too much weight on cards, chocolates, roses, diamonds and dinner reservations.  however, i disagree with those who do not celebrate love today.  and everyday, for that matter.  what is so bad about a day devoted to sharing your love with others.  you don't have to have a significant other.  tell your mother, your cousin, your friends that you love them.  there is nothing wrong with a special day devoted to that.

travis and i did not exchange cards.  i haven't had any chocolate today.  i haven't stuck my face into a $9.99 bouquet of long stemmed roses.  we ate dinner at home.  we carved out a small part of our busy day to spend together.  i snuggled my daughter just a little bit longer before putting her down for her nap.  as i write this, travis is rocking our daughter to sleep.  we will toast each other with a small cocktail, watch some netflix, and fall asleep together.  i can't think of anything better than this.

 

 

valentines.

these two are my valentines.  she is my joy and he is my rock.  i could not be more in love.

homegrown.

ravis and i are growing our own oyster mushrooms using this kit.  it will supposedly take a minimum of 10 days for our first crop to sprout.  each crop can yield up to a pound, and each bag can yield up to 4 crops!  the bonus:  replacement bags are only $7.99 or free if you send a picture of your family enjoying the kit.  this is my first time growing anything other than herbs in my own home.  i plan to document the progress everyday.  yesterday was day one.

day one:  soak the bag for 24 hours in cold tap water.

day two:  dry the bag off, place it in its new cardboard home and spray with with water twice per day.

the maintenance on these mushrooms seems very simple.  all you have to do is spray them with water twice a day (they even include a spray bottle!) and watch them grow.

i want to always have things growing in and around our home.  travis and i would love to have a vegetable and herb garden in the backyard--once we have a backyard.  i think feist said it best in her song mushaboom: "in the meantime we've got it hard, second floor living without a yard."  that will all change once we settle into our new home in texas.  i can't wait!  for now, growing a small crop of mushrooms on our kitchen counter will have to do.