Settling Back In with Blogland News

Cooking really helped me settle back in domestically. I made a hearty potato-leek soup and a Flemish soup/stew called “Gentse Waterzooi”, which means “watery mess from Ghent”. Both are essentially winter and comfort foods (served hot, with heavy cream and lots of potatoes), so that also took care of our climatic shock (Singapore 85 F, 90% humidity / Boston 18F, 60%)! The dishes turned out so good, I posted their recipes on Suite101, here and here.

Another effective way of getting back in the groove is finding out what has happened in blogland while I was away.

  1. Turns out Zane from Lichenology has taken his first concrete steps in local ecological activism (he lives on Vancouver Island). I always thought he was already a local activist, simply by his lifestyle.
  2. Congratulations to James Kochalka of American Elf on his becoming father a second time, to Oliver. I can’t believe I missed the event! I’m a daily reader of his comic, of which each current strip can be viewed for free. I will gladly pay the the small subscription so I can catch up!
  3. Rebecca at Irish Sally Gardens has broken out their homemade air dried ham and it was a success, though not on first sight. What a commitment to sustainable homesteading!
  4. At A Foothill Home Companion, little Aidan is struggling with school – something I relate to with Amie, who still can’t be her own little self when at daycare. I’m holding my breath about what preschool will bring (we are interviewing for one this Friday). I’m sure we’ll be taking mental health days too.
  5. Winter has set in at SouleMama’s, where the christmas tree is getting decorated by many hands. Here we won’t have a tree (no room), but we will have some decorations and lights. But first we are going to a Sinterklaas party. 
  6. Madeline at Barn-Raising and Angie at Children in the Corn are each dealing with Christmas in their own ways.
  7. I love the winter shots at Little Red Caboose: kids in winter are so photogenic.
  8. Ryder at BlueYonder turned 3. I love reading about kids a little bit older than Amie: it helps me see what’s around the corner!
  9. And Chase at Swallowfield turned 7, wow (can’t imagine that, yet)! i love Jennifer’s artwork (look at this spread). In fact, all these Mamas are so incredibly creative!
  10. I’ll have to take the mitten tutorial at Write, Mama. Write very soon, as none of Amie’s gloves seem to stay on for very long.
  11. I made a new friend: Anja at Middlemonth. Het little Thumki is full of surprises! Amie also went to see dolphins, you know, in Singapore. She had the same look Thumki that had when watching them.
  12. On the home front, MamaStories got a Page Rank! Yeay! I guess over three weeks of absence improves once ranking.
  13. On the downside, not one good sentence was written on my novel – those darn monkeys!

Now if only our sleeping pattern normalized! We’ve been waking up around 4:30 am and getting up around 5. I don’t really mind, because those early morning hours are kind of cosy, and thankfully the heating in our condo is already on, so down here in the basement it’s warm and cosy. If only I weren’t a wreck by 8 pm.

Next post: what Amie learned, and what Mama learned, of airplanes and airports, malls in Singapore and money in India, and so much more.

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2 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing all these links. Now to find time to read them all. i’ll have to bookmark some of these for future reading as life is so full and busy to be immersed in blogland at the moment. i have a feeling i’ll be catching up as you did but not until January.

  2. Thanks for including me in your post as a new friend=) I was supposed to get dinner ready while Thumki napped but ended up checking all the links you had in your post, what a fun ride=)

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