Kringle

Yes, it is funny that this is the post just following my "lose weight" post, but I promise I haven't made this since Christmas. Kringle, or kringla as it's called in Iceland is a Scandinavian dessert said to have been greatly influenced by Austrian bakers who "filled in" during worker strikes in Sweden. I don't doubt it, Austrians are some of the world's best bakers, pastry-makers, and confection makers, in my opinion. In Sweden you always make kringle in the shape of a pretzel (the symbol for bakery), but my ancestry is Danish and my husband's Icelandic, to say nothing of the fact that we are rogue Americans who do whatever works for us. I think the traditional versions take forever to make, but anyone can make this recipe, and it produces a flaky and impressive filled pastry. The key is to chill the dough because it's almost like a batter, not a dough, at room temperature. Even after it has been chilled, the dough is very sticky and you have to work quickly so you don't warm it up too much. My fool-proof method for this is to flour a piece of foil-paper and roll it out on that -- no stick and easy clean up.

Pastry Ingredients:
2 C flour
2 sticks butter (room temp)
1 (8-oz) tub of sour cream
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup jam or preserve for filling
1 egg white
1 egg yolk beaten w/1 tsp almond extract or water

Almond Buttercream Frosting Ingredients
2 TBS softened butter
2 TBS softened cream cheese
1 cup or so powdered sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
milk as needed

Directions:
1. Mix flour and butter as for pie crust (criss-cross with 2 butter knives or beat on slow with handmixer.
2. Add sour cream; form into ball. It will be very wet. Dust with flour and place in plastic bag.
3. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
4. Roll on floured foil into a large rectangle or if you don't have a large cookie sheet, you can divide this into three rectangles.
5. Brush with egg white and visualize the rectangle as 3 equal parts -- spread preserve down middle avoiding the top and bottom edge by an inch.
6. Fold the two outer sides in one on top of the other. Pinch ends and press in center fold. Transfer to cookie sheet.
7. Brush top with egg yolk mixture.
8. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 for 40 minutes or golden brown.
9. Beat all buttercream frosting ingredients together to make a thick frosting.
10. Cool (you can have it still slightly warm -- just not hot) and frost with butter cream icing; slice for serving.

use it or lose it

It's no secret that I've gained 30 lbs since I got married – you've seen the photographs. My appearance is sort of like my scarlet letter. You can see how healthfully (or not) I'm living. Still, this is the kind of thing you wonder about posting about the day after you make your blog open to the public. In the interest of full disclosure, which I know none of you were looking for, I have lost and gained 20 of it pretty much with each pregnancy. And yet, this time, the weight loss just isn't happening for me. I know what I need to do, and I feel motivated but every day I hit the brick wall. Incidentally, does anybody else feel like they are a dietician and physical fitness consultant after years of gaining and losing? I've read more magazine articles (scholarly, I know) than I could possibly count. Don't worry, I can count to 100. It's just that I have whole magazine subscriptions dedicated to these subjects – "Shape," "Cooking Light," "Fitness," "Eating Well." I like them all by the way, but mostly just for ideas and motivation, I read real books when I want more information. And I've read loads of those too.

I declared a dietetics major for a while at BYU (till I took the science classes), and for a spell it was Health Promotion till I couldn't take the Richards building anymore. I love motivating others to make healthier choices. I know those of you who have been to my house for dinner parties are wondering if you are on the wrong blog. I admit, I do believe in celebrating and sometimes in a most indulgent way, but I don't eat like that on a daily basis. Normally, my family eats a lot of produce and beans and legumes. Typically, I eat 7-9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Yeah, cheer for me.

On a positive note, I am glad that I can relate to the people who have said to me, "how do you find the motivation?" If you had asked me this six months ago, I would have thought (not said) something like, "well, if you do what you always do, you'll get what you've always gotten" or "calories in minus calories out" or "excuses don't pay the bills" or some other such rubbish that my head is full of. Today it all seems like fairytales, like I'm struggling to run a marathon underwater. Unimaginably difficult. Hmmm..does that mean difficult to imagine or a difficulty hard to imagine? Whatever. We have a health crisis in America. I've always felt really strongly that each individual doing their very best to live healthfully strengthens the whole country, and maybe even the whole world. We all have different genes, environments and circumstances, but every one of us can do our very best to make smart choices, set good examples, and respect the bodies we have in our own way. For me, that includes dropping 30 lbs by summer. Keep me honest, people.

The blog...

I'm embarrassed by my "blog." Quotation marks are so that you know that I KNOW this ain't no blog. Sigh. I was reminded that I even had one when I saw a link to it from my sister's blog. I headed over to my blog then exited out of it for a minute. I couldn't remember the URL to get back to it. This, my friends, is the kind of blog I have. I don't know how anyone else keeps up on these things. I think about it all the time. How do other people keep their houses clean, do their civic duties, keep their homes spiritually edifying, bodies healthy and their children developing, all while living within their means? I break this question down into parts, but I'm always asking it. I just don't know how people do it. I'm not discouraged, just confused.

Besides all of my embarrassment and confusion, things are going really well for the Palmer-Christiansons. The kids are all doing great. Leif is growing like a weed and loving kindergarten, Gus is learning to write (and read a bit), and Paia is talking up a storm (at only 19 months)...hmmmm...now who did she get that from?

The big question on our minds these days is: where will we be in a year and a half? I've researched in depth just about every western city with a population of at least 50,000, but of course, they have to need a radiologist. And not just any radiologist, a women's imager or body imager, since Kimball is specializing in mammography and abdominal imaging. We love the East, especially the Southeast, but I'm so tired of getting on planes with these kids. Raleigh Durham Airport doesn't even have a direct flight to Salt Lake, which is where both sets of grandparents are. Kimball will finish his training in a year and a half – he starts his fellowship in July. I'm trying to get the house ready to put on the market and trying to figure out which upgrades will equate to financial returns. Any advice on where to live or what to do to the house is welcome!

Hair things

I've entered new territory with girly hair stuff. As the first girl, Paia's had to suffer some headband abuse. Lucky for her, I ordered some double ruffle bows from Etsy that never came so there have been fewer pretties than she'll ever know. Why didn't somebody tell me that this is a science and you have to start putting these things on them early so that they become accustomed to them? Maybe they'd just tear them off anyway. Either way, I'm loving it.

One Coat of Nightingale

I'm having writer's remorse. My last post was so grumpy, and in order to move past that depressing bit of writ, I thought I'd add a new post about the kitchen paint. That's supposed to be cheery. Don't ask me how I expect to cheer my potential buyers with gray paint (Nightingale). It's just a spot of Livvy logic.

We won't be selling for 2 years, but we need paint up so that we can actually wash the walls. The builder's paint in all it's flat chalkiness doesn't allow for me to wipe chocolate handprints away, without washing the wall away too. The pictures make the paint look lighter and bluer than it is. I'm a Benjamin Moore Aura fan so that's what we went with. I like how it has a matte/flat look with the cleanability of a shinier paint. It's pricey -- $50 a gallon -- but I only have to do one coat because it's self-priming and I would never have enough time to do a primer and then paint.. AND (drumroll)....it's low VOC so you can't smell the paint much while you are painting, you aren't subject to noxious fumes, and a couple of hours later you'd never know someone had been painting. That, and I'm trying not to give my kids cancer.

O.k., I'm back. I just ran to the door thinking that the headbands I ordered for my daughter from Etsy had come, but it was just the JWitnesses, and I only got a watchtower. And for the record, these are my daughter's first purchased hair things. Now that she's already 8 months old, I was able to find some money.

I should have cleaned the kitchen counter before taking this picture, but I didn't. I'm ashamed of myself because I've watched HGTV, and thought, "What kind of a person knows designers and t.v. cameras are coming to their house and can't be bothered to clean under the bed?" Apparently my kind of person.

The painting of my son Leif on the back counter was done by my sister-in-law Diana. It's amazing, huh? Yeah, I move it all over the house. She is a photographer too. A very good photographer. If you go to yanphoto.com you can see her beautiful work AND hear my brother Martin sing a song he and his 3-year-old co-wrote. I'm not kidding. My niece wrote the words. To get sidetracked, I feel it is a great tragedy that my brother's music isn't out there for all the world to hear. Also on the site, under the family shots is a picture of a couple and their son wearing black and gray. That gorgeous girl is Tua's (Nathan's) wife's sister. Whoa! What's up with all the bragging? Overcompensating for not having taken a shower in two days. Bye. I'm off to shower. The end.

we are a happy fa - ma - leeeee

Does anybody else feel sad that you study and pray and work and repent and work again to make your family a little piece of heaven and then your kids grow up and leave you? I'm deflated.

And now I'm starting to feel irritated with people that aren't nice to their in-laws. Of course I'm spoiled and I have great in-laws and you simply can't have my husband without his family. I knew that when I married him. It's one of the reasons I married him. I know there are exceptions – terribly abusive parents whose contact with their children makes their progression nearly impossible. But that's the exception. Most in-laws are just (human) people with imperfections. Like you. And that doesn't mean that hoarding a spouse and manipulating his family were the best solution you could come up with. To be angry about it: what kind of fool was raised to think they could march into a family, seduce themselves a spouse, wrench them from their mama, and then not do their darndest to help their spouse "honor" their father and mother? I'm bewildered.

We don't have any of that among the spouses my siblings married. Spoiled again. And I knoooooow. Don't judge until you have walked two miles in someone else's moccasins. I have had relationship problems with relatives. It's a beast.

It's ironic that I thought I had beaten something when I made it through many a disastrous romance to find and marry the person of my dreams. All those tragic songs about love lost, undying hope, and flames that e'er will flicker don't hold a candle (sorry about all the pyromania) to the thought of my broken heart when someone whisks my kids away, possibly to drive a wedge between us. I wouldn't know, but I'm just sayin'. I guess there are worse things. At least that's what I tell myself. And isn't it so often the case that you torture yourself more worrying about things that never come to pass?

Back to my little piece of heaven...for now. Boohooo.

Pictures and FHE

The whole purpose of this post is to share some pictures of the kids and give you a peek into what the children are like right now. Most of the photos are of Paia. She's starting to move from totally baby into something more transitional. She has a temper, gets her feelings hurt, checks her clothes out in the mirror (something I had never witnessed with the two boys), and jumps when she's caught picking a crumb up off the floor. Notice the picture (where I am conveniently axed) showcasing her thunder thighs.

The boys are really great right now. Leif is into learning shows and endangered animals, and Gus is entirely tazmanian devil -- climbing, biting, throwing and looking for hugs while he's in time out (don't worry, Nana, he gets the hugs). If the two boys have to choose a t.v. show together, it will take a good 5 minutes of bickering. Gus hates to agree on anything, and Leif's tastes are too high brow for Gussy's shows.

Tonight during family home evening, I had a flashback to Palmer family nights. Gus jumped off the couch, barely missing Paia. Paia sat crying and clawing at my clothes while I tried to give a 5-minute lesson, snubbing her daddy's attempts to comfort her. There was some bickering here and there. The questions we asked like, "What can we do to take care of our bodies," elicited responses from Leif like "read the scriptures" and "do the right thing" from Gus. Hmm. Are they getting it? At the end of the lesson there was a maze that the boys had to navigate by choosing the paths that represented righteous choices. Each step of the way, it reinforced why they needed to choose the way they went. When they had reached the successful end, Gus said, "Now can we try doing it again only going the other way?" A little "do as I'm doing" distracted this idea. As I jumped "high or low" and "fast or slow" I thought about our FHEs during my childhood -- some of them wonderful, and some that ended with half of us crying and in big trouble.

I'm grateful that our parents perservered in doing this, especially since I remember being quite a bit more obnoxious during these experiences than my own kids currently are...I know, just wait. Regardless, those memories are a source of comfort to me now and I know they bonded us and helped us gain testimonies of important principles. Even during challenging times with my children, I sometimes feel a little giddy, remembering similiar difficult Palmer children times and realizing that I have a real live family of my own that could turn out as wonderfully as the one I grew up in.