Thursday, February 6, 2014

January 2014

Wow... January was up there with the busiest seasons of my life. Looking back at notes I took about what happened at the beginning of the month, it already seems so long ago. Hopefully things will smooth out by the beginning of March, but it's crazy-town busy for now.

Follow me on Instagram (@karissamt), Pinterest (karissamichelle), and Facebook for pictures! I'm too drained to pick good ones and add them to this post, as lame as that is.

Heard: Two favorites, very different styles. The Woodkid and Nina Simone (and some other "vintage ladies") songs I added to my general playlist are worth a listen to.



Read: Little White Duck: A Childhood in China, a graphic novel by Na Liu and Andres Vera Martinez. I think this is the first book I've read from the perspective of someone who was sad when Mao died. I found it an especially good pace (and good images) for relating the era of the cultural revolution to children.

Watched: Up On Poppy Hill, one of the newer Miyazaki movies, was charming. I think that can be said about all of his movies, but sometimes the story doesn't totally draw me in. In this case though, I did enjoy the story - the setting of a high school on the coast in the 60s seemed very fresh and not too cutesy.

Tasted: I've made it before, but I'm continuing to perfect this recipe for Tom Kha Gai, probably my favorite Thai soup. It's a pretty-good-for-you winter comfort food. I add brown rice to it to bulk it up a bit. On our anniversary trip to Cambria, Jonas and I ate at the FABULOUS Black Cat Bistro (duck and ahi tuna, respectively), see my review here. It's food to dream about.... // I'm too far away to take advantage of this myself, but farmgram allows you to order from SLO farmer's market vendors online and have the goods delivered to your door! I can't wait for this to blow up on the internet, though I will never tire of going to a psychical farmer's market, the crowd is like a little heavenly piece of Asia.

Browsed:
  • I managed to come across the expert advice for creatives from Ira Glass, completely separately, twice this month, and totally adored it both times. Once. Twice
  • The very saddest thing: LA used to have victorian mansions too! 
  • Cat stuff. You guys are witnessing my slow descent into cat-lady-dom. An engineer's guide to cats (thanks Aunt Cathy!). 
  • An epic poem made completely from 2013 obituaries. 
  • Glad someone else is saving Indie theaters. That's one less thing for me to do. ;) 
  • A Harry Potter joke. Just click it. 
  • Today's funniest ladies (you know, Poehler and Fey) take on parenting
  • And not completely unrelated, "How to be a powerful likable female." 
  • Oh yeah, and that time Harvard and Yale kept pictures of all their students in the nude. (Whaaaat?)
  • If your interests happen to include both the Simpsons and Miyazaki, this is for you. 
Experienced:
  • I became a Pampered Chef consultant! More on that later... 
  • Early in the month, we had our dear friends Jon and Michelle over for a dinner of crepes and several rounds of Sorry. Playing kid games with adults is the best. 
  • Jonas and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary with a weekend away in Cambria. Many thanks to my aunt Jen and her husband Bill for gifting us a B&B stay, I'm hoping to finish up a blog post about that weekend sometime later as well. It was the first time we left Ishmael without a parent overnight, and it was harder than I expected, especially by the second day. 
  • I started my second class at APUS, a course in International Relations. I'm enjoying it a lot, but "real" college is hard! Haha. 
  • Gotta give a big shout out to our great pals Jon and Michelle again, Jon gave his first sermon at Element this month, and Michelle led worship for the first time. They both did an amazing job, and we're so proud of them. 
  • Chinese New Year coincided with my father-in-law's birthday this year, so Jonas and I made hot pot for everyone to usher in the year of the horse! Both Jonas and our second baby are year of the horse babies. 
Ishmael:
It's getting hard to keep track of this guy. I make mental notes of what to write about that he's up to, but the next day brings something new. He's sprouting a bunch more teeth, which works wonders on his attitude (kidding), he's almost got running down (first scraped knee), and he likes broccoli, but not green beans. He's imitating tons of sounds, and adding to his vocabulary, though it's still "beh-beh" for "baby", etc. We occasionally get a crystal clear "hi!" or "bye" from him. He pops his lips to call cats, which melts my little heart, he's becoming much more snuggly, including climbing into our laps with his Bible, which is his favorite book for no apparent reason (but how cool?). We've been trying to institute 1/2 hour "play by yourself in your room" times, which he absolutely abhors (I kind of do too), but I'm telling myself it will pay off someday. UGH! // I can feel the other babe kicking my kidneys, huzzah!, and will hopefully find out gender next week, since he/she wouldn't reveal that information at my last appointment. I'm currently at 16 weeks (2/5/14), and yoga is getting a bit more difficult. I've been craving a lot of Asian food, some creamy foods, and occasionally gummy candy or as of tonight, [coated] animal crackers. And maybe beef jerky, but that always sounds good.

Loved: I don't have enough energy to love anything but sleep tonight. Sorry.

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