Enforcement

3 hours.

My 3 year old sat at the table an hour for every year the other night. Just because she wouldn't drink her milk. And because we told her she couldn't leave the table until she did just that.

She cried, she took a bathroom break, she fussed, she tried to play, she desperately worked us for conversation and entertainment. We continued on with our evening - working, cleaning up, putting The Monster to bed (even though she couldn't sleep because she is quite used to her sister in the room), and I even made caramel corn. For 3 hours she sat there. At that point I subbed out the milk with a cold glass. She spilled that one. I cleaned it up and gave her another one. With a nonchalance that belied the battle of wills she simply picked it up and drank it.

Right now you either think we are cruel parents or are filled with admiration for our stick-to-it-ness. Or you think we're dumb. I'm going with all three myself.

A rule is a rule. We don't care if they don't eat all their dinner. As long as they've tried everything on their plate, they can eat as much or as little as they like. But they have to drink their milk. (Very lovely goat milk, I might add.)

As for us parents, our rule is that if we start down a path we don't cave. If the other says something we don't contradict. So even though we had a pile of things to do and actually needed the dining room table, we worked around her. It was exhausting, I'll admit. I'm proud of all of us for sticking to it. And the caramel corn went really nicely with a scotch once it was all over.

(I used this recipe, but subbed the syrup for maple syrup, added pecans instead of peanuts, and crumbled in some cooked bacon with the popcorn.)

And don't tell the kid, but I'm impressed with her. That stubborness will do her well as an adult, if she makes it there.

What are some of your dinnertime rules? What's the longest you've had to go to enforce a rule?

Crazy Busy

This is a post of random notes.

Thank-you so much for the support for Quilts Recover. I'm seeing posts go up around the blogosphere by friends. Emails are coming in already. If there wasn't this rotating postal strike some quilts might even be on their way already!

There've been a number of suggestions for Quilts Recover. Different chapters, financial donations, and offers of quilting tops sent from far away. I promise you that I'm sorting through all the ideas and figuring out ways to maximize quilts and quilters' generosity. You folks are just awesome.

There wasn't a lot of quilting done in the last week. I was up to my eyeballs in writing deadlines. In one day I interviewed Jennifer Paganelli (Oh, she is so awesome!) and a handful of goat farmers (also awesome). In between butt wiping and baking muffins for preschool. Now that's the life!

Lastly, I'm getting the binding on the Shades of Grey quilt. That's today's task, along with prepping for The Monster's 5th birthday party tomorrow.

Then, on Thursday, I'm having knee surgery. Finally. Just one of my knees, but they will check out the other while I'm down for the count. Needless to say, there won't be a lot of quilty action, aside from handstitching that binding, for the next week or so.

On that note, time to get prepping!

Thread Choices

It's down to the quilting on that Shades of Grey Herringbone piece. The first decision is always which thread to use.

I actually starting threading my machine with the normal grey thread I use for piecing. It seemed kind of obvious to use it. It would blend in and carry on the grey theme.

Then I thought about my binding. I'm thinking of going with a turquoise, so I wanted to see if turquoise thread would work. It surely pops! The colour would be great and it would work great with the binding and the back. But I've also got turquoise on the back (shot cottons) and I didn't want to have just one section on the back where the quilting blended in.

Going back and forth between the grey and the turquoise I was torn. The turquoise looks really good on the front, but the grey seemed more in line with the Shades of Grey fabric. Then I remembered that I have a cone of nearly white organic thread. When I put it next to the others I realized that it was the perfect choice. It pops on the back, it reads practically the same as the grey on the front, and it is an organic choice.

This quilt isn't all organic - the muslin foundation isn't organic, the back is a mix of conventional shot cottons, and I tried out a bamboo batting. But I am definitely influenced by Jan's commitment to organics and wanted to push it as much as I could. The organic thread will be a great finish.

Intentions

Hubby took me to a very fancy schmancy restaurant in the mountains for my birthday and this is the only picture my camera took.

We had a 7 course meal: the most amazing fois gras I've ever had, two things I'd never heard of before (compressed melon and dehydrated milk), wines that I'd never think to drink, a goose broth that needs to be bottled and sold as liquid gold, and a glorious sunset over the mountains. And I didn't take a single picture of it.

Don't get me wrong, it was gorgeous food. From artful but real presentations to sublime tastes to inventive techniques. It was a very memorable meal.

The memory will only live in my head, and maybe in my husband's. I did not photograph such a stellar experience because sometimes I just want my dinner to be my dinner. I have no intention of becoming a restaurant reviewer, so that documentation isn't necessary. And I have no intention of documenting everything I eat, Twitter is bad enough for that.

What I do intend to do, and this dinner practiced that intention, is to simply enjoy my food, enjoy my experience. Food writers need breaks too from thinking about writing about food. We want vacations and the only way we'll get them, since we always have to eat, is by putting down the camera and not composing sentences in our head as we chew.

Instead, I'm going to think how awesome my husband looks with the sun setting behind him and the look of joy on his face as he devours his favourite food. I'm going to pinch myself that I experienced such a luxurious treat in the midst of some stressful times. I'm going to look at my sous vide rhubarb and think it's cool, instead of wondering how they did it. I'm just going to eat.