Shauna Niequist's Blog, page 4

Five Friday Favorites

It’s a rainy, cool Friday, the end of a wild week. Aaron and my mom have both been traveling, home and then away and then home again, which means all our routines are off, and all week long I haven’t been able to remember what day it is. 

I finished a big, big, big edit of Bread & Wine, (hurrah!) and now I kind of don’t know what to do with myself until I get the manuscript back for the next round. We’re starting to work on endorsements and marketing in the next few weeks. Earlier this week, I got some super-exciting endorsement news that I’ll tell you all about when I can. Eek! 

A few rainy Friday favorites, things I love, mostly things that people have given to me, well-chosen gifts that have made me so happy:

1. Studio Patro Tea Towels

I am in love with these tea towels. Dear friends who came to stay with us at the lake this summer brought the Devour tea towel as a gift, and I hung it, all rumply and lovely, over our fireplace, which is in our kitchen-y/family-room-y area. It makes me happy every time I see it, and I kind of want every single one they make. 

 

2. Rifle Paper Company’s market notepad

 I ‘m a huge Rifle Paper Company fan—it’s so sweet and stylish and perfect for a gift. 

 

3. My friend Margaret's Homemade Granola Bars. Well, first they were Smitten Kitchen's Granola Bars. Then they were Orangette's Granola Bars, but as far as I'm concerned, they're Margaret's and they're so yummy. Margaret, by the way, has started a lovely blog--that's another one of my Friday favorites. :) 

 

4. Gap 1969 Chambray Tunic 

If you see me this fall, there's about a one hundred percent chance I will be wearing this shirt. It’s super soft and slouchy in just the right way, worn in and perfect. Good with a wide belt and boots for dressing up, great with leggings and flats for errand-running.

 

5. Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly

I’m driving my friends and family crazy about this book. You know I’m a huge Brene Brown fan, and this book is just fantastic. She puts to words so much of how I want to live—with courage and vulnerability, honesty and passion. The sections on parenting and leadership are must-reads for any parent and leader.

 

Love to you on this cool, rainy Friday. My prayer is that you are 'daring greatly,' as Brene Brown says, that you are doing whatever you've been called and created to do with great fearlessness and love and warmth. Hug the people you love, gather them around your table. Read great books, take walks, write letters. Go big this weekend, full of life and guts and wild joy. XO

Writing a Book is Like Building a House

People often say that writing a book is like giving birth. I disagree.  

I think it’s a lot more like building a house with your own hands—you hammer in every nail. You lay every floorboard. You choose every fixture, every color, every dimension and corner and window and treatment.

And every day you show up at the job site and begin work again. It’s good work, but it’s not passive. Your brain has to be engaged in it every second. You have to decide every single day that you write to sit down, think, feel, begin again, try harder, make it right.

And like building a house, writing a book has so many phases, so many sections, so many waves of work. I keep telling people, “I’m almost done! I’m just this close to being done!”….and what I mean is, I’m this close to having the essays themselves done. Or I’m this close to having the first wave of edits done. Or I’m this close to being finished with the first round of recipe tests.

It’s sort of like saying that construction is done, in that there are floors, not in that there are doorknobs. This part is done, and we’re moving to the next part.

Now we’re in the editing phase, but, just like a house, sometimes a discovery—good or bad—in one phase sends you back to the phase before. Along the editing process, for example, sometimes we find a story that needs more backstory, or a hole that needs to be filled. So then it’s back to writing mode.

Adding in recipes is a whole new adventure for me, and a whole new level of complexity. We thought the recipe list was set, but then my editor felt that one of the essays really does beg for a recipe. So I had to find one. Then I had to test it.

So that’s why Friday night we had a last minute dinner party, because I remembered this recipe for butterflied pork loin with balsamic-soaked prunes and olives, and I remembered it being really really good…but I needed to try it again, and I needed some feedback, stat. Good reason as any for a dinner party.

Paul and Blaine and Margaret and Ruby were willing recipe testers, and after dinner we walked to the park, then back to the house for dark chocolate mousse, another recipe for the book—one of my favorites, really.

The writing I do is about daily life, and if I spend too much time writing, there’s not enough time for living—for dinner parties and walks to the park, for being a friend and wife and mother and daughter. My living time to writing time ratio is very, very heavily weighted toward the living, and that’s just exactly how I like it. Another person would build a lot more houses in the time it takes me to hammer away at one, but that’s the way it works for me.

So now today: back at the job site, and by that I mean kitchen table. My editor Angela is going through the whole manuscript one more time, and then she’ll send it to me. I’ll go through it again, then send it to Carolyn, my other editor. When she’s finished with it, it goes to the copy-editor, while we work on more recipe testing. 

I know there are people who crank out a manuscript in six months and let then editors have at it. I’m not one of those. It takes me ages to write essays, and then I want to be involved in every step of the process—every word change, every comma.

So here I am again today, with my hammer and nails, working steadily, building a house. 

This Saturday: Cooking Club Garage Sale & Bake Sale

It's finally here!  All the details:

What: Our little Cooking Club is having a BIG garage sale & bake sale, and all the money we make—every single penny!—is going to our church’s care center.

When: this coming Saturday, September 15th, from 9am-3pm

Where:  314 Ridge Street, Algonquin

What’s for sale: Here’s the Craigslist post with all the details, but the short version is that there will be lots of brand-name clothes, both men’s and women’s, plus maternity clothes, tons of house stuff—kitchen stuff, candles, frames, furniture, electronics. Loads of books, lots of baby and kid stuff.

There will also be, of course, some serious baked goods: I’ve heard rumors of all sorts of yumminess: dark chocolate shortbread, pumpkin cream cheese muffins, chocolate chip granola bites, dulce de leche brownies. Mmm!  

One of the girls lives in the perfect garage sale neighborhood, and she has graciously allowed us to commandeer her family’s garage/driveway/yard/every last corner. It started with just the Cooking Club, as a six-family garage sale, and that in itself isn’t too shabby. But some of our moms and sisters and friends have jumped on board, so at this point, it’s more like a ten- or twelve-family sale. For weeks, we’ve been bringing car loads over to the house, and I’m bringing two more loads this week. There’s a whole lot of stuff, and we want to make a whole lot of money for the Care Center.

Come shopping or just stop by for a cookie or two and make a donation!

See you there? :)

The Experts Speak: NYC Restaurants, Hotels & Things to Do

In my last post, I told you about our super-fun surprise weekend in NYC. And now, the experts speak—here’s a seriously amazing list of restaurants, hotels, and must-do activities from 5 really fantastic women. Enjoy!

Jessica is dear friend who lives kind of everywhere. She’s worked on several amazing concert tours— the last U2 tour and the recent Roger Waters among them, and before she lived on airplanes & tour buses, she lived in NYC for a few years. The items with the *** are her super-favorites. Jessica's list: 

Restaurants

Bakeries

Magnolia Bakery Of course cupcakes, but their banana pudding is to die. http://www.magnoliabakery.com/home.php

Babycakes Vegan amazingness (Lower East), http://www.babycakesnyc.com/ ***

Max Brenner Love their different hot chocolates and desserts, http://www.maxbrenner.com/home.aspx (East Village)

Brunch

Sunburnt Cow http://moolifegroup.com/under-construction/ (ABC village) ***

Cafe Orlin Amazing terrace, dark, intimate, lovely. http://www.cafeorlin.com/ (East Village) ***

Rabbithole Bakery and cafe, worth the trek if you want a Brooklyn day. http://rabbitholerestaurant.com/index2.html (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)

Essex Street Market, http://www.essexstreetmarket.com/about.html (Lower East)

Peels http://peelsnyc.com/ (Lower East)

Lunch

S'Mac A million different mac'n'cheese combos. Family owned. http://www.smacnyc.com/ (East Village)

Artichoke worth standing in line for pizza. http://www.yelp.com/biz/artichoke-basilles-pizza-new-york-2 (Union Square)

Republic Amazing thai. http://www.thinknoodles.com/ (Union Square)

The Grey Dog busy lunch spot. http://www.thegreydog.com/ (Union Square) ***

Dinner (these are just all amazingness. visit them all.

Stanton Social, http://thestantonsocial.com/ ***

Gotham Bar and Grill, http://www.gothambarandgrill.com/

Park Ave Summer, http://parkavenyc.com/summer/ (upper east) ***** A MUST!

Spice Market,http://parkavenyc.com/summer/ (meat packing)

Schillers, http://www.schillersny.com/

Freemans, http://www.freemansrestaurant.com/ lower east. Magical. I love the halibut. *** 

Nobu, every Nobu everywhere in the world is worth visiting. http://www.noburestaurants.com/new-york/experience/introduction/

Things to Do:

Walk the Highline Park- http://www.thehighline.org/

Walk the Brooklyn Bridge and eat underneath at Grimadli's then go to ice-cream at the old boathouse. http://www.grimaldis.com/ ***

MOMA- best museum on earth. http://www.moma.org/ Midtown East

Central Park Boathouse and paddle boats.- http://www.nycgovparks.org/facilities/rowboats  *** 

BROOKLYN FLEA MARKET http://www.brooklynflea.com/markets/ *** OH MY ***

 

Tara is a friend from South Haven who lives mostly on airplanes between NYC and Chicago these days, her darling pup Wilson ever at her side.  We see each when we’re both in South Haven, where we have a standing tradition of champagne on her porch. Tara's list: 

Restaurants

Italian/Celebrity Spotting

Bar Pitti

268 6th Ave

212-982-3300

 

Steak House

Porter House

10 Columbus Circle

212-823-9500

 

French

Bouley

163 Duane Street

212-964-2525

 

French w/ nightly chanteuse

Duane Park Cafe

157 Duane Street

212-732-5555

 

Middle Eastern/Mediterranean

Taboon

773 10th Avenue

212-713-0271

 

Neapolitan Style Pizza

Motorino

349 East 12th St

212-777-2644

 

Coal Oven Pizza

Arturo's

106 West Houston Street

212-677-2830

 

Burger & Fries

Burger Joint

Parker Meridien Hotel

119 West 56th Street

212-708-7414

 

Hotels

Smyth Tribeca

85 West Broadway

212-587-7000

 

Hudson Hotel

256 West 58th Street

212-554-6000

 

Soho Grand

310 West Broadway

212-965-3000

 

Carlton Hotel

88 Madison Ave

212-532-4100

 

Things to Do

Central Park Rowboats

Boats available for rent by the hour at The Central Park Boathouse

Central Park Remote Control Model Boats

Available for rent at Conservatory Water's Kerbs Memorial Boathouse 

Iceskating - either Wollman Rink in Central Park or Rockefeller Center

Cocktails on the roof of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  One of the

most unique views of Central Park and the City.  Culture and booze!

What a combo.

Pedicab ride down 5th Ave.  Might be risking one's life a tad, but

what a thrill ride!

The Rockette's Christmas Spectacular!  I've done this 3 years running.

Will miss it this year unfortunately.

Intrepid Air & Space Museum.  They have a fighter jet simulator.  'nuff said.

Chelsea Piers 4-story driving range.  I'm not a golfer, but there is

something really cool about hitting a golf ball from the 3rd or 4th

floor and watching it soar West toward the river and sunset.

Karaoke at Sing Sing - 9 Saint Marks Place.  You and friends can get a

private room by the hour, and belt out your favs.

 

Li-Pei is a recent New Yorker. I met her when she and her husband John were living in Chicago, through our mutual dear friend Emily. Li-Pei is a designer with great taste who loves to eat at good restaurants. Li-Pei's list: 

Restaurants:

Marea

Scarpetta

Locanda Verde

Aldea

Public

The Dutch

The Breslin

Tori Shin

Totto Ramen

Ippudo

Baohaus

Marc Forgione

Prune

Recette

Blue Ribbon Sushi & Izakaya

Momofuku Ssam Bar

Lombardi's

Maison Kayser

Pastis

Hotels:

Ace Hotel (near the Flatiron Building/Eataly, hipster cool)

The Standard (Meatpacking District, right above the High Line, good people watching)

Andaz Fifth Avenue (Midtown, near Grand Central Station and across the street from the New York Public Library/Bryant Park, designed by Tony Chi, great bar downstairs called The Bar Downstairs)

The Surrey (Upper East Side, designed by Lauren Rottet, close to The Met, Guggenheim, and the Whitney)

Things To Do:

The Met (make sure to spend some time on the rooftop for a great panorama of Manhattan

Central Park, of course! (Shakespeare in the Park, free themed guided walking tours)

Grom for gelato after visiting Central Park

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Bergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel on 5th Ave

The Plaza Food Hall at the Plaza Hotel

MOMA

Stumptown Coffee at the Ace Hotel

Opening Ceremony also at the Ace Hote

Eataly

Big Gay Ice Cream

Shopping in Soho

9/11 Memorial

Union Square Farmers Market

Beecher's Handmade Cheese (you can watch them make cheese!)

The High Line

Evening sail/cruise around the Statue of Liberty, the Hudson River, and East River

An opera at Lincoln Center

 

Jennifer works in fashion, so she’s spent a lot of time in NYC. She a native Californian who lives in Venice Beach these days, but she works in New York often, and always has great recommendations. Jennifer's list: 

Restaurants

My favorite spot in NY: Café Gitane in Nolita

Barbuta. East Village. Great spot. Cool neighborhood.

Peels. Lower East Side for healthy delicious breakfast

La Esquina. Lower East Side, Mexican. Dinner. Eat downstairs only.

Freemans.  Nolita, cool decor.

Spice Market. Meat Packing District, Indian-ish. Cool decor.

Kingswood.  Soho, Australian.  Tasty.

Spotted Pig.  Amazing ,amazing. Get there early. No reservations.

Hotels

My two favorite hotels are the Greenwich Hotel &  Crosby Street Hotel.

For a less expensive option, I like The James in Soho, which is a perfect location, right near one of my favorite coffee shops, Saturdays--they make a killer cap.

Things to Do:

I generally check out the current collection at the International Center for Photography. They always have really amazing exhibitions - such a broad range, anywhere from Avedon to Rise and Fall of Apartheid.  Always very interesting

Fat Cat is always super fun if you're looking for a very low key night.  It's in the West Village on Christopher. It's ping pong, pool, shuffle board, scrabble & Backgammon. They always have a live band, cheap beer and you can order pizza in for delivery.  Amazing.

 

Rebekah and her husband Gabe and their three kids moved to NYC two years ago from Atlanta. Rebekah is a writer, and she & her husband Gabe created the Q Conference. Rebekah's list:

Restaurants:

Levain Bakery

Upper West Side

Cookies the size of pancakes and thick as scones. Rich enough to slap your mama! I have never been able to eat an entire one!

Locande Verde

TriBeCa

Owner, Robert DeNiro can be found hanging out on the corner in sweats. Top rated NYC restaurant on Eater.com. Get reservations in advance. Fabulous food and ambiance.

Waverly Inn  

West Village. Discreet for the celebs that frequent there. Famous for truffle Mac and cheese ranging over $100. Back garden room has intimate roaring fire in winter. Super private and cozy.

Peels

East Village

Sister restaurant to infamous Freeman's. Southern meets farm to table breakfast style. Huge, mouth watering biscuits. Lovely earthy decor.

Shake Shack

Several locations, most picturesque is in Madison Square Park with views of Empire State Building by day and strings of fairy lights at night. Cheapest and tastiest burger in manhattan. $3.50! Don't forget the shake flavor of the day!

Landmarc

Columbus Circle

Views of central park, kid friendly with kids meals containing green eggs and ham and pb and nutella sandwiches. Ask for the private circle booths for a party up to 5. It's like your own cozy room in a larger room. My kids' favorite!

 

Phew! That's a list right there! I know, I know, the formatting isn't the same from person to person (why is one blue? I don't know either.), and some have links but others don't.

This is the deal: it's a holiday weekend. I'm beat. And as you may know, I've been having some trouble with my blog. So my options are never post, or post with some serious quirks. Can we be okay with a few, shall we say, eccentricities on this one? (And if you're a web designer who wants to help solve all my ridiculous blog woes, call me. For real. Email me. This is bonkers.)

Many thanks to my pals for taking the time to give us such a great list--it makes me want to go back immediately!

If you've got favorites that weren't mentioned, or if you love any of these spots, let us know in the comments. 

Have a great holiday weekend! XO

NYC Favorites

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As promised, the details from our super-fun weekend in NYC—where we stayed, where we ate, what we loved.

Since our trip, so many of you have asked for NYC recommendations. Really, lots and lots of you. Because we’re such novices, I enlisted 5 good friends who know the city well to give you their expert recommendations.

Today, our list, and then tomorrow, the real experts speak…

We stayed at the London in Midtown, right next to MoMA and a few blocks south of Central Park. It was a great location, we loved our room, and the concierge was fantastic.

As soon as we landed, we dropped our bags at the hotel and took a long, long walk through Central Park, with a special stop at Strawberry Fields and then the Dakota, because as you may know I’m married to a devoted Beatles fan.

We had dinner on Saturday night at Schiller’s Liquor Bar, and it was absolutely fantastic. Aaron’s steak frites and my moules frites were both unbelievable, and the atmosphere is so fun. Really loud, but in a good way, like a party you’re happy to be at.

The next morning we went to mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful, and then had a great brunch at The Smith. We spent the afternoon wandering through SoHo, Nolita, the Lower East Side and the East Village, and then had dinner at Prune and drinks and dessert at Freemans.

Prune was the one place I really, really wanted to try, so I was thrilled when our concierge finagled a last-minute reservation. Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef and owner, and her book Blood, Bones and Butter is a total favorite of mine. Prune is teeny tiny, and the menu is odd and personal and fantastic—it’s all dishes and flavors and ingredients that Gabrielle Hamilton wants to eat, the way she wants to eat them. And it’s absolutely delicious.

Two of the NYC experts that you’ll hear from tomorrow, Jessica and Jennifer, both raved about Freemans, and it was a highlight. It’s tucked away at the end of an alley in the East Village, and it feels like if you had an ever-so-slightly weird but very cool relative, and that relative had a country house. Lots of taxidermy, lots of long, rustic tables, low ceilings. Warm and twinkly and like you could stay forever. Really, kind of magical.

We spent Monday afternoon at MoMA, home to so many influential and famous pieces: Andy Warhol’s Marilyn, VanGogh’s Starry Night, Jasper Johns’ American flag.  Breathtaking.

Tomorrow, you’ll hear from the locals, and let me tell you it's a serious list--wow! Please do leave your recommendations and favorites, too, as comments here or in tomorrow’s post—it’s so fun to read about all the different kinds of places that we’ve fallen in love with in such a diverse city. 

Pre-Ordering Bread & Wine

Last night, on my way home from dinner with friends, all of a sudden, I started getting a whole bunch of texts & Twitter messages—Bread & Wine had just become available for pre-order on Amazon!

The magic of the third time around is that I was surprised, but not surprised to be surprised, if that makes sense. I learned through the last 2 publishing processes that there is a very detailed publishing schedule, and for years you’re working backward from that one magical release date…but when Amazon actually decides to start selling your book, you may be in your pajamas at the lake, sleepy after a thunderstorm, like when Bittersweet released on Amazon, several weeks earlier than I expected.  Or you may be on your way home from Maggiano’s, at a dinner party. Like last night.

Perfect timing, really: I’d spent the evening at a long table, surrounded by friends, eating spaghetti and meatballs and drinking chianti, laughing and telling stories. Bread & wine, indeed.

So many of you have texted, sent Twitter messages, and posted on FB that you’ve pre-ordered the book—THANK YOU! Another thing I’ve learned along the way: pre-orders on Amazon are really, really important. Essentially they show my publisher and all the book-sellers that people are excited about the book, and that it’s worth the effort to support and market it.

That’s one kind of funny thing about publishing and marketing: you’d like to think that the little books are getting lots of support and the big books are fine on their own, but it’s sort of the opposite. When they see lots of pre-orders, they put more effort into marketing and publicity, and then there’s a snowball effect—more pre-orders, more publicity, even more pre-orders, even more publicity.

All that to say, many, many thanks to those of you who have already pre-ordered. And if you’re thinking about ordering it sometime, a pre-order really does help. Same with reviews, actually, while we’re on the topic.  If you haven’t left a review on Amazon for Cold Tangerines or Bittersweet, they’re really helpful. Thank you again to those of you who have.

Lots of messages about the cover—thank you! I love it, and I’m so glad you do, too. I’m sure many of you recognize the amazing work of Lindsay Letters. Lindsay was a reader who has become a good friend, and her lettering is literally all over our life—baby showers invitations and menu cards for all sorts of events, party invites and gift tags and rubber stamps. Up next: personal stationery, Christmas cards, and a piece for over my sink in the kitchen. You could say I’m a fan. :)

I really wanted her work on the cover—isn’t it beautiful? I know this cover is pretty different from the other two, and that was a hard decision. We looked at all sorts of options, really similar to the others and completely different, and we landed in what I think is a beautiful place: the same and different, and most importantly, really lovely.

Another wild thing about publishing is that you can pre-order a book I haven’t yet finished writing. That makes me a little nervous, but more than that, it makes me excited to really give everything I have these last few weeks with the manuscript, getting every word, every story, every recipe, every phrase just exactly right.

I love this part of the process, and I find that lines and phrases from the book are in the back of my head all the time—as I rock the baby or slice apples for a snack, I find my mind working on one sentence or story: am I saying that just right? What do I really mean? How exactly did the sky look, right in that moment?

Thanks for being excited with me. In coming months we’ll have all sorts of ways for you to get involved with the release—from reading and reviewing on your blog, to hosting or attending an event, to having me Skype into your book club or cooking club or dinner party.

And if you have other ideas for how you’d like to be involved with the Bread & Wine release in the spring, or if you have suggestions for that process, we’re all ears! Let us know in a comment or send us an email.  We would love a whole bunch of fun, creative, slightly-bonkers ideas and suggestions—as I say to Henry when we’re cleaning his room, “Wow me.”  :)

With love & bread & wine—

Shauna

Divide & Conquer

Our parenting strategy—or even, possibly, our life strategy recently--has been ‘Divide and Conquer.’

When I was pregnant and sick, I stayed home basically all the time, and Aaron took Henry to school and to the park. When Mac was a newborn, I was usually on baby duty, and Aaron was usually on big-kid duty. Every night these days, I put on Mac’s jammies and feed him, while in the next room Aaron’s reading to Henry and tucking him in. Then Aaron rocks Mac while I clean up the kitchen. Back and forth, divide and conquer.

Because we both travel for work, we make sure that for the most part, I’m home when Aaron’s working and traveling, and he’s home when I’m working and traveling.  It’s a complex shuffle of schedules and flights and ‘who’s got the carseat/ who’s got Henry/who’s watching the baby/who’s made the plans, ‘ and it works for us, generally.  Back and forth, divide and conquer.

But this is the thing: what we realized this summer is that our plan of dividing and conquering left us a little too divided.

In our effort to give the kids what they needed, to do good work, to be responsible to our commitments and friends and extended families, we got a little too careless about time together—things like date nights and quality time alone without the kids. And apparently half-watching the Olympics and half-reading blogs on the couch at night doesn’t cut it. Instead of giving each other the best of our time, we slipped into giving each other the worst of our time, the leftover time at the end of the day when we were too tired for anything but eating hummus and watching Jon Stewart.

We require a fair amount of childcare for both our jobs and for normal life stuff, like weddings and parties, so we don’t do a good job of arranging childcare to just be alone and out of the house together, even though everyone everywhere, it seems, stresses the importance of non-kid time for couples.

Here's another way to say it: we’re like that naturally skinny girl who has a baby and then has absolutely no idea how to lose the baby weight, because she’s never had to think about it before. We’ve always had a great time together. We fight, certainly, but day to day, we really enjoy each other’s company. We laugh together, we get along well. 

So we got cocky, I think, like the girl who’s never had to diet. We thought we could skate through without all the rigamarole of scheduled date nights. We thought we’d just be fine, because we’re always fine.

This summer, though, we realized that some new cracks were developing, fault lines, stress fractures. We were a little too close to the edge. It was too easy to snap at one another, too easy to fault the other person, too easy to for me take care of Mac and for him to be with Henry and for us to become, as they say, ships in the night.

Enter NYC. Aaron surprised me with a weekend in New York City last weekend. I thought we were going to Chicago for one night, and as we drove toward the city, Aaron exited for the airport and handed me a hotel reservation confirmation. He said we’d be gone two nights instead of one, and he’d arranged for our moms to watch the boys the whole time. Can you even believe it? I couldn’t. I was completely, totally surprised.

We had a fantastic time. A glorious, wonderful, laughing-and-kissing, wandering little neighborhoods, cheesy-romantic-comedy-montage great time. And it reminded us how badly we’ve needed it.

I’m not saying that every couple should drop what they’re doing and pop over to NYC for a weekend. Although I have restaurant recommendations if you do.

I’m saying that this was a wake-up call for us, and we both walked away from the weekend more committed to making our marriage a priority--specifically, making time alone, without kids and without work, a higher priority. We have totally irregular work schedules, and we let those deadlines and commitments drive us too often. And because we’re away from our kids for work, we don’t always want to leave them in our non-work time.

But this weekend, we were reminded that before we were business partners and co-parents, we were a couple in love, and we still are that couple.

We came back resolved to spend our time and our money and our childcare more carefully, and to give time alone together a higher priority than we did in the last season. Our friends with older kids remind us that we’re in the thick of it right now, and that there will be seasons when it’s easier to find alone time, when you’re sleeping a little more and the baby isn’t just about to injure himself at every possible second. That sounds heavenly, and at the same time, I want to do what we can even now. I want to make time and take the energy to make our marriage great even in the little kid season, instead of muddling through to the next one.

We came home full and happy and aching to see our boys and so thankful for our moms and most of all, so connected and committed to making time together a priority.

We may still, on occasion, divide and conquer with the kids. But now we know better than to let it divide us.

Happy 11th anniversary, Aaron! 

Next week, I'll post NYC highlights and restaurant recommendations. XO

GO TIME

Good morning. It’s a rainy Monday, cool-ish. I was up early with the kids, making toast for Henry, feeding Mac yogurt, and now I’m all set up in the empty little office at the church where I work sometimes. It’s a ghost town around here, with good reason. After the rush and energy of the Leadership Summit, everyone’s moving slowly for a few days, and I’m glad. 

I sneaked out of the Summit early for a quick trip to Dallas to speak at the MOPS Convention. Because the world is just that small, one of the key MOPS staff members is my friend Kendall from Westmont. We haven’t seen each other since her wedding 12 years ago (!), so it was so fun to catch up with her and also with my friend Rebekah Lyons, and to meet another Chicago writer, Tracey Bianchi. 

It had been about six weeks since I’d traveled to speak at an event, and that’s a longer break between trips than I usually have, so it was fun to stay in a nice hotel, to order room service and put on makeup without anyone hanging on my legs or asking me about my favorite dinosaur. 

My friend Steve told me years ago that the best thing is when you love going to work and you love coming home, and I felt a deep sense of that this weekend. I loved being with the MOPS community, and it was an honor to speak to them about the importance of friendship, vulnerability, and truth-telling. And at the same time, I couldn’t wait to get home, so excited to snuggle my boys, all three of them. Thankful all around. 

One thing you know about me is that I like to have a few goals or themes for a given season, to keep myself on track and use my time well, to give me a framework by which I make decisions. A new season officially begins this morning, and it ends on September 27th, the day I turn in my manuscript. 

After I turn in my manuscript, I’ll speak at a retreat in Santa Barbara, one of my favorite places on earth, and then Houston and Dallas and Atlanta later in the fall. But between now and Sept 27, I am home and writing—it’s GO TIME for this book. I know what chapters need to be re-worked, what new stories need to be told, what themes need to be brought closer to the surface, what needs to be trimmed and re-focused. I’m in the final stretch, and my first theme for this season is to finish this book: GO TIME.

Local pals: I’m only speaking twice locally this season: at Willow DuPage on Sunday morning, September 2nd, and then at an event in Orland Park that next Saturday, the 8th.  I’d love to see you at either one.

And my second theme or focus is OPERATION KINDERGARTEN. Henry starts kindergarten at a great public school in two weeks, and my other major project is to help him start that season well. On one hand, it’s not such a big deal. Instead of going to preschool, he’ll go to kindergarten, and he’s ready and excited about it. But at the same time, it’s a passage I want to be present for. Superman backpack? Check. New shoes? Check. Tears at the thought of him climbing the stairs of the big-kid bus? Check. Check. Check. 

What is this season for you? What are the themes or things you’re focusing on? What passages or projects are at the forefront of your mind and heart in this stretch of time?

Also: any advice from veteran parents on how to celebrate & be present for this passage in Henry's life?

Bread & Wine & Blueberry Crisp

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I’ve promised you an update on Bread & Wine. Here’s the deal: I’m really, really excited about it. There’s a lot of work still to be done, but I’m really excited about it. 

It’s a similar format as Cold Tangerines & Bittersweet, in that it’s a collection of around 40 essays, but it’s pretty different in that it also has 20-something recipes in it—my favorite ones, the ones that I’ve made a million times, the ones that mean something to me, that give you the taste and smell and texture of life around our table. 

The book will be out in February 2013, and in addition to the essays and the recipes, there will be thoughts on simple entertaining and a weeknight cooking pantry list. One of the “extras” that I’m most excited about is a 4-week book club/cooking club guide—menus and questions to guide you through the book and the recipes in 4 gatherings. Fun, huh?

Consider this post kind of a sneak peek: this blueberry crisp is the first recipe in the book. South Haven, the Michigan lakeshore town we love, is the blueberry capital of the country, and this weekend, in fact, is the Blueberry Festival. There’s a Blueberry Queen, a blueberry pie-eating contest, all manner of blueberry-related activities. 

We’ve been home from South Haven for a week, but I’m still hanging on. I’m making blueberry crisp almost every day. A month at lake meant a month of Golden Brown Bakery doughnuts, Sherman's ice cream, and my favorite thing: sweet potato fries from the yacht club. Understandably, then, we need a little virtuous eating around our house these days. 

So this is a healthy crisp, suitable for breakfast, especially with a scoop of Greek yogurt. It’s vegan, sugar-free, and gluten-free. Most importantly, it’s delicious. Seriously: I can’t stop eating it. If I can’t be at the lake, this is the next best thing…

Ingredients

4 cups blueberries (or any fruit, really)

Crisp topping:

1 cup old fashioned oats

½ cup pecans

½ cup almond meal (available at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, health food stores, or made by putting almonds in food processor until fine, but before they turn to almond butter)

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup olive oil

½ tsp salt

Instructions

Pour four cups fruit into 8x8 pan. Spread crisp topping over the fruit. Bake at 350 degrees 35-40 minutes, or longer if topping and fruit are frozen, until fruit is bubbling and topping is crisp and golden. 

Serves 4 

Evan Jager, Track Star

We are LOVING watching the Olympics—we watch the Today Show in the morning to see all the recaps and stories, and after dinner, while Henry colors and Mac bangs pots and pans on the floor, we watch swimming and gymnastics. 

It’s especially fun to watch all the coverage of the city, having just been in London last month. Henry yells, “Big Ben! The Eye!” We were there for two days, and now we’re local, pretty much. 

We pick favorites and yell at the screen when the commentators ask ridiculous questions. (Example: “Were you disappointed that you didn’t win gold?”  “No, ma’am. I’m an Olympic athlete who has worked all my life for this, and it was my plan all along to not win. I’m thrilled right now.” Also:  “What were you thinking about when you crossed the finish line to win the gold medal?” “Oh, you know, my cat. Politics. How I like BLTs. I WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW I JUST WON A GOLD MEDAL. What else would I possibly be thinking about?”)

But I digress, certainly. 

My point: one of the most exciting parts of the Olympics for us and for our friends and family is that Evan Jager is competing in the Steeplechase as part of the US team. I wrote about Evan in a chapter called "The Track Star" in Cold Tangerines, in 2007, when he was a high school senior on his way to UW Madison.  And now Evan is an Olympian, and he just destroyed the American record for the Steeplechase in Monaco. Heavens. 

Here’s that story:

My dad went to kindergarten with Joel Jager, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. They grew up in the same small town, the same church, the same school. When my dad moved to Chicago, he moved with Joel, and they were roommates for years. In the photographs of my first birthday, Joel and my dad’s other friends were playing with all my toys, mugging for the camera, scruffy, bearded men in their young twenties, all of them single but my parents, and certainly childless. I was their first little person, first niece or approximation thereof.

In the earliest days of the church they started, when it was a fledgling youth group renting a theater on Sunday mornings, Joel was the first tech director—the only tech director for years and years. He loaded and unloaded the truck thousands of times, getting up while it was still dark on Sunday mornings, waiting till the last person left on Sunday afternoons to tear down the equipment. He’s been an audio engineer now at the church for over thirty years, and when I worked there, sometimes we sat together in the booth when he was mixing and I was producing, and it felt like sitting with an uncle, someone who knows your history better than you do, someone who was there for the stories you just hear after the fact, like folklore.

This year, Joel’s son, Evan, is a senior in high school. He’s a runner, which is putting it mildly. He’s a star. He has won every conference meet, every regional meet, and every sectional meet he’s run. He won state four times, set several course records, and is fourth in the nation in both the one-mile and two-mile this year. The Chicago Sun-Times called Evan quite possibly the best athlete Jacobs High School has ever produced. My husband is a little hurt by this, as a Jacobs alum, and, in his memory, an unsung hero of his sophomore basketball team, but when he heard that Evan ran a 4:05 mile, he grudgingly conceded the title. Evan is a phenomenon, that rare combination of natural talent and determination and discipline and sportsmanship, and because of those things, has become one of the most chronicled and celebrated high school athletes in the country.

This is the thing: his father, Joel, has never run a day in his life. Joel had polio as a small child and walks with a pronounced limp. I remember when I was little, feeling very sad and angry about Uncle Joel’s legs, because I wanted him to be healthy and strong, because I wanted him to be happy, because he was so good to me and made me happy.

And now, Evan. What must it be like for Joel to watch his son run? What must it be like for him to look at his son’s strong fast legs? How proud and moving it must be for a father to watch a son live a life that was so wholly unavailable to him. I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to be Joel. I don’t know what things are the most difficult to do without, whether it’s running or downhill skiing or ballroom dancing. Okay, I know Joel well enough to know that it’s not ballroom dancing. I bet a few of the most painful moments might have been when he wanted to play with his kids, to run around with them in the backyard playing tag and hide-and-seek. I know that when he overexerts himself, he pays for it with a lot of pain for several days afterward, and I bet he did that over and over again to play with his kids, and I bet that sometimes the pain was worth it. I don’t know. But I do know that Joel is proud of that kid. And that he loves to watch Evan run.

Life feels so tedious sometimes, so lacking in poetry and beauty and connection. We’re just ticking away time, waiting for spring, waiting for a sale, waiting for vacation. I was driving, absentmindedly, feeling bland and ground down, near my hometown one day when we were back for a visit. And on the side of Randall Road, almost swallowed up by the glare of parking lot lights for an eternal stretch of Meijer and Petco and Costco and OfficeMax, was a sign. The sign read, Algonquin, Home of Evan Jager, State Track Champion, 2006, 2007.

And life clicked back into color, and tears sprang into my eyes. Evan Jager is a track star. How’s that for beauty and intervention and sacred hands working behind the scenes, weaving poetry into our lives? It makes me believe in God anew today. That my friend Joel, my dear uncle-friend Joel, has a son who can run. Thank God.

Thank you, God, for the things you heal, the things you redeem, the things you refuse to leave just as they have been for what seems like forever. Thank you for Evan, and for giving to Joel a son who runs. The poetry of that stuns me, and reminds me once again that just when I think we’re ticking off days like a to-do list, we’re not. We’re living the bright, beautiful stuff of movies and love songs, in our backyards and at high school track meets and right on Randall Road.

                                                                                                                    (Cold Tangerines, Zondervan, 2007)

 

I very rarely ask you all to share, repost, link, tweet, etc., but I love this story, I love the Jagers, and I would love for Evan to feel as much support as possible going into his race at the end of the week. Please pass Evan’s story on to your community, because this is what the Olympics are about: about hope and hard work and families who love and support their kids as they do truly amazing things. Follow Evan on Twitter and send him lots of love, and be sure to watch the semifinals Friday and the final on Sunday. Check here for the times in your area.

Evan, your hometown and your church family loves you, and we’re cheering for you all the way!