A Sunnier Version of Sweden

Ah, this Wisconsin life! How ironic and interesting I've found it that the colder winter weather actually results in more people being outdoors and enjoying themselves than in warmer climes in which we've lived. Perhaps there's something about embracing the extremes to prove that you can, to prove your personal toughness and ability to seize every opportunity nature throws at you. That sounds lovely and philosophical, doesn't it? In my case, though, I'm simply obsessed with getting back on my skis. I love to learn new things, and once learned, I want to improve and get better until I have some level of expertise. It doesn't hurt that this particular new obsession is also a great workout, a terrific occasional substitute for the endurance training in preparation for April's Illinois Marathon . With the mild temperatures and lack of snow, though, I have been forced to expand my search for trail options. Having accepted getting a long workout in means both ...

This was the week of desserts - next week I'll be back to dinner food, but I felt like it was time to have an option other than grocery store bakery items when my sweet tooth struck. Once again, I plucked recipes from the NY Times Cooking website, both that looked quite simple relative to what I always imagine anything from scratch might be. Not as simple as from a box - my typical baking m.o. - but quite manageable, and I even had all of the ingredients on hand. On Sunday afternoon, for the first new recipe of the week, I pulled everything out - ingredients, bowls and measuring tools - and off I went! I was going to give Katharine Hepburn's Brownies a try. I've often considered the fact that I do truly enjoy cooking and baking, but I truly do NOT enjoy cleaning afterward. Cooking from scratch also equates to about a zillion and one dishes in my mind, and while the number varies, it's almost always more than cooking from a box. I'm learning, though, that the...

With so many routines disrupted by our move, it's taken some time to get back to what feels like normal. A new normal, yes, but something predictable that brings a rhythm to our days and weeks here in Wisconsin. A big step in that direction, in my mind, was getting the kids back to taking tennis lessons. Our neighbor had mentioned Valley Athletics as the place to go for tennis in the area, but I had held off on joining because I had an inkling that come January, there would be a membership deal to join as most gyms do to take advantage of good intentions and New Year's resolutions! My intuition was right and a couple of weeks ago, I toured the facility and took advantage of the no-joining-fee window. Next step, get the kids on the calendar for lessons! After a couple of emails back and forth, we had it set up with Adam, one of the pros, and last Friday I managed to get home from work in time to tag along to see how it went for their first lesson in months. Overall, the kid...

I've always said I would run in pretty much any weather, but that was when I lived in the South and extreme weather was more in the triple digit range vs. the negative number range. That statement has been challenged a few times as I've gotten back to regular workouts by wind chills that dipped below -20* sometimes here in Wisconsin. I'm still committed, though, to running outdoors any time I can, because try as I might, I lack the grit and stick-to-it-ness needed to get much farther than three miles on a treadmill. Big problem there, because three miles is totally insufficient for the training I'm doing right now! Shauna and I are going to run the Illinois Marathon together in April , which means long weekend runs and increasingly long midweek runs to get enough miles under my belt to make it the 26.2 miles. I have my training plan printed and on my dresser to keep me on track, and last weekend was supposed to be a rest weekend with no long run on the calendar. I had...

We hit a major milestone this week: Caroline's first school band concert! Band has been one of the interesting challenges with this move. In Arkansas, school band doesn't begin until 7th grade, so Caroline has only been playing the cornet since August of last year. In Wisconsin, though, the kids begin band as early as 5th grade, so she found herself a couple of years behind the first day she showed up to band class. In a quirk of scheduling, the only band class that fit her schedule was the 8th grade band, so her gap to the other kids was now expanded by an additional year compared to her classmates. She spent her first couple of months practicing solo in a room in the band hall during class, which I know was frustrating but necessary for her to try and catch up with the other kids. Thankfully, her band teacher, Mrs. Bauer, has been wonderful about working with her, and by virtue of not having much choice, she has progressed very quickly. By December, Caroline was integrate...

No overachieving this week with only one new recipe - unless you count baking with real, live yeast! For some reason, I've always been intimidated by the idea of baking with actual yeast. Somewhere down the line, I decided any recipe that required yeast required the absolute, perfect temperature liquid to get it to work, and that was way more precision than I was willing to deal with in a recipe. Once I learned that was patently wrong, though, I've been inching my way toward homemade bread, and last week, I took the plunge. And it was TOTALLY EXCELLENT! Which is great, since the recipe promised as much: Excellent White Bread from the NY Times cooking website lived up to the hype of its name. I'm a late comer to the baking and cooking scene, as Justin has done most of that for me over the last almost 20 years. One of the things I'm learning to embrace is to read the entire recipe all the way through and then gather everything together first, before you really start,...

It comes around every year - Girl Scout Cookie time! Even as a brand new member of the troop, Caroline has the same enthusiasm she's shown in years past for selling cookies, and I'm also helping by volunteering to supervise booth sales and anything else the troop leader needs. Been there, done that - it's always easier when others volunteer to help! Caroline has set an incredibly ambitious goal this year - she wants to sell 800 boxes to get to the reward level where she'd earn over $200 in cookie dough to use toward Girl Scout camp next summer. That's a LOT of boxes, so she set out this weekend to start knocking on doors and making some sales! Saturday, she and John went down the street, but I was disappointed when she came back after just a short time and only having sold six boxes. She said she was tired from skiing that morning. I did understand, but I also told her that when we have big goals, sometimes we have to work harder to achieve them. Despite my encour...