Delicious days

We had such a lovely Valentine's Day weekend here. It was, I think, the most enjoyable Valentine's Day I've ever had. The morning started out early when the kids got up a little after 6. We got dressed and went out to breakfast and they had wonderful behavior.

We ended up back home around noon and Annalivia wrote a song for us on the back of a Valentine card and then she and Daniel played us a bit of a piano recital.

For lunch, we had homemade, heart-shaped pizza. It was soooooo good! I love Dennis' pizza and this was one of the best we've ever had.

We all took brief (far too brief) naps after lunch and then went to visit Grammy. And then Gramps, Mom, Dad and Kalin came over for Valentine's Day dinner. We had marinated broiled steaks, baked potatoes, salad and garlic bread. And there was platter of heart-shaped brownies for dessert.

Which smelled wonderful...

...and were pretty tasty, too.

Then today, Annalivia and I went to church and then the four of us went out for lunch to have walleye sandwiches at Culver's. We did a big shopping trip at WalMart and then came home to take brief (far too brief) naps. And then, I got to top off the weekend by hanging out with my sisters tonight. We went out to dinner and laughed and carried on and had a great time. It is probably my last big sistah-hurrah before Emmeliese arrives and it was just wonderful. And when I got back, the kids were in bed and Dennis had done several loads of laundry. It was an absolutely perfect way to end a really, truly delicious weekend.

Run, sistah, run!

My sistah, Lil, is running in a half-marathon in St. Charles, Mo today. This means that she is also running in a tropical storm!
Run, Lilly, run!!

She's just so cool!

I logged onto facebook tonight and saw this as my sister's new profile pic.

Isn't she hilarious!?! Her expression is the best part of it.

(I don't have permission to repost this here, but luckily, I've got practice begging for forgiveness from her...)

Supah sistahs

I got to hang out with my sisters today!! I love it when I get to hang out with my sisters. They are so freaking hip. And they are hilarious. When I leave them, my stomach and throat always hurt from laughing. But that's a good thing.

We were pretty low-key today. We went to a couple thrift stores in Peoria, much to Kali's chagrin. My sistah, Roo, is a thrift-store pro. She is amazing. We went into one Goodwill and gave ourselves 10 minutes to get to the checkout counter. By about six minutes into it, Roo had found a pair of Born sandals, a pair of BCBG pants for Lil, a very cool lampshade and some other thing I've forgotten. I was amazed. I ended up with a stone baker at that store, and later found some overalls, a fleece snowsuit, and some shoes for Daniel, and a funky tablecloth that could be made into cool shopping bags, were I to be enterprising. And I also found a very cool maple dresser at a Salvation Army on my way home that I might try to buy next week, if it is still there.

Before we went thrifting, we had lunch at One World, a very funky and cool coffeehouse next to Bradley University. We have been going to One World since I was in high school and it is just a good place to go -- good food, good coffee, good drinks, good atmosphere. We each ordered different stuff and shared, so we had spinach and feta pizza, falafel, asian spring wraps, and grilled chicken. They were all delicious.

I got to introduce falafel to Lil, who is just born to eat it, and the experience reminded me that I have a great pita recipe and have made some really good falafel in the past. So here is that middle-eastern recipe, in honor of my middle-western sistahs.

Super easy falafel(-ish)

Hummus (chickpeas, garlic, tahini (see note below), lemon juice, salt) -- about two cups

egg or two

breadcrumbs or coarse flour

onions, finely chopped -- 1 or 2

fresh parsley, chopped -- half or whole bunch

cumin -- 1 T or more

coriander -- 2 t or more

more garlic, minced -- at least 2 cloves

Add garlic, parsley, onions and cumin to hummus (to make falafel green, finely chop parsley or mix in food processor). Taste for salt, etc. Add an egg or two (or don't -- see note below). Add flour, a tablespoon at a time until it is a thick mixture that can be formed into a patty. Form into a ball -- slightly larger than a golf ball and flatten slightly.

Heat coconut or olive oil until hot, but not smoking. Add falafel(-ish) patties and fry until brown and crispy.

Serve in aforementioned pitas with parsley, tahini sauce and yogurt sauce. Lettuce and tomato are nice accompaniments, too.

Yogurt sauce

Yogurt

mint

parsley

pepper

chopped tomato (optional)

Mix. Adjust. Eat.

Tahini sauce

4 cloves garlic
1/2 c. tahini

1/2 t. salt

1 T. water

juice of 3 lemons

Use food processor to chop garlic and mix tahini, salt, and water. Add lemon juice slowly into food processor until very creamy. Add a bit more water if necessary.

This is obviously not completely authentic falafel, but it IS delicious. And really easy. And delicious. Really delicious.

Edited to add: A purist has noted that these recipes may contain verbotten ingredients (i.e. egg and, apparently, tahini which should not be IN the falafel). If there's one thing I truly adore, it's a purist. Especially one who is insisitent upon removing time-saving adaptations to time-honored recipes. So, I've changed the name on this recipe to "falafel-ish". And if you are aghast at the idea of feeding your family a variation on the REAL, authentic falafel (which you can apparently find through the blog link left in my comment section or through a google search, using the words "authentic falafel" and then ignoring any that return egg in the ingredients), please, please, please -- DON'T use the above recipe. You are only setting yourself up for heartbreak and misery and a truly simplistic dining experience with ingredients you may have on hand. And I know you wouldn't want that.

Unless you do. In which case, grab the hummus in the fridge and make some falafel-ish. And enjoy. :)

Jealousy

My sistah, Kali, has photos of the Thanksgiving we missed over at her blog. I'm jealous of the whole thing -- food, presentation, Kalin's ability to compose a photo without total blur. I'm anxiously awaiting part 2.

Also, there's also a really nice totally and completely anonymous and unrelated-to-her commenter over there who thinks I'm cool. That's nice. So unexpected.

Sistahfriends

We ended up having a great sistah night. It was freekin' cold and sleeting, but we met at our customary Irish pub and sat in the cold section to avoid the cigarette smoke. (Aside: I'm so excited for Jan. 1 when this no-smoking ban will go into effect in Illinois public places!) I had brought my camera along so after trying to take a few unstaged photos, Marissa suggested that we try to convey the intensity and hilarity of these gatherings with helpful scenarios to get us Pulitzer-esque photos.

Umm, that didn't happen, but...

Here's Roo and I. The scenario she devised for this one was "April is explaining something deeply philosophic while I listen critically with interest." She nailed it.

In this one, Roo directed Lillia to be a reporter returning from correspondence during World War and Kalin was to be a bar prostitute.
Some scenarios are more helpful than others.

Here, Marissa shares her excitement about menu selections with Kalin.

Kalin considers the food delightedly.

This one was less staged -- note the straw wrapper Roo is applying to Kali's ear.

Only 34 hours til Sister Hang Out night!!!

I have a favorite thing about Thanksgiving and it's not the turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, or even, (and this is about to be almost heretical) the gravy.

Nope. My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is the night before when my sistahs and I get together and hang out. We don't usually have any particular plan to the hanging. The last few years we've ended up at a grocery store to get whatever it is that Roo is supposed to be bringing to Thanksgiving. This year, we're assured that we won't have to do that because Roo is making stuff, so we may just go and get coffee or food or something.

Point is, we'll be together. And we'll laugh a lot and harrass each other and Marissa will probably make us have some awkward conversation about what we truly appreciate about each other. And we'll laugh then, too. I'm so excited.

And then, I'll come home to my children and their copious amounts of snot that will prevent us from going to the family Thanksgiving this year.

But that's ok, because we'll still have Sister Night. And I'll be really thankful.

That bone has canine marks in it

My sistah, Kalin, is the youngest of the four McClure girls (known around Eureka as "The four McClure girls"). She is 11 years younger than I, 9 1/2 ish years younger than Roo, and 4 years younger than Lil. In other words, her life is cake.
(No, not really...but...sorta.)
The thing about Kali is that since she was born, her older sisters have been throwing ourselves upon the pyre trying to get Kali to toss us a figurative bone. We've been trying to impress her since she was a round, wrinkly little one, hoping for some token "Well done, sistah. You may be dismissed." And we've kept at it as she's aged and not just because she's slated to take over Dad's financial planning business and will eventually hold our financial futures in her extremely capable and unattainable hands. We just want some part of Kali-dom, so we end up trying to think up increasingly clever ways of getting her approval.
And we've been denied.
Oh, she loves us, yes, but for the most part we're all haunted by a sneaking suspicion that she could pretty much take or leave us.
I have been thinking about all of this because recently, Kalin has been updating her blog. I usually try to read her blog when a.) I'm not drinking anything lest it end up coming out my nose when I laugh and b.) when my bladder is completely empty lest, well, you know... Sometimes she uses technical terms I don't understand like "futures and options market" and "commodity trading" and "horse", but for the most part, her blog is pure mirth. Or at least, it was.
Anyway, a couple of days ago, she added to her blog a little section that explains a little more about her. It is charming of course, but the real highlight is this brief sentence, (it really deserves its own line...

"I’m the youngest of four girls and my sisters are my best friends."

FINALLY!! THE mythical figurative BONE!! I would not be lying when I tell you that my eyes teared up a little bit when I read that.

Then I was talking to Lil about it and relating how I chose to ignore the fact that closely following the sistah sentence, there is a link to six bulleted descriptions of her animals (incidentally, there are six of us in our immediate family... hmmm...) and Lil pointed out that she is highly suspicious that the sentence in Kalin's dossier that reads, "Along with my family, my pets are very important to me," originally probably read, "Along with my pets, my family is very important to me." I conceded that could be the case, but I continued to give my precious little sister the benefit of the increasingly-more-probable doubt.

Then I saw in her new Google ads section that Kalin has a new family. To refresh your memories, our real family looks like this...

Slightly pale and somewhat in disarray, granted, but that's no reason to turn to these folks.

Is that Skippy, Madison, Breanna and Ali McCloor at their Cancun vacation home? Interlopers.

Bone, indeed. Kali, how could you?

In the meantime...vol. 4

For Lillia, my supah sewing sistah, and any other crafty folks, there is a very, very sweet baby shoe tutorial here.

And a bunch of other hip tutorials here.

Feel free to send me samples of your handiness.

Seriously the best family EVER

Apologies to those of you who also have great families, but right now I am fairly convinced that mine is the best ever. Of all time. Anywhere. In the whole world.

We have spent a great couple of days with the fam in Keokuk, Iowa where my sistah, Marissa, married my new bro-in-law, Geoff, and oh my goodness, are we all tired!! It was non-stop from Friday evening to Sunday brunch and every minute of it was just wonderful. My FreeSpirit Uncle, Dad's brother, and Sassy Aunt and Mason-Dixon cousin who live in Arkansas were there. My dad's sister, Sublime Aunt, and her family -- uncle and three cousins and cousin #1's girlfriend came down from Chicago. Roo's childhood best friend came from Minnesota. My grandparents, sistahs, brother in law, the nieces and nephew, the dogs... all were there. We were missing my great-aunt and her daughter. But we all had a great time. We traipsed around the hotel, mostly on one floor we all shared. We laughed. We danced. We talked. We laughed. We ate. We sang. We laughed. We swam. We ate again. We laughed some more.

One of the coolest things about the weekend, aside from the word-for-word recitation of Ice, Ice Baby by my new brother-in-law at the reception, and aside from the family spending all of our time just together, was that my grandparents' 61st wedding anniversary was the day before Geoff and Roo's wedding. That was a neat juxtaposition in my mind. New love. Enduring love. Because of the way Grammy and Pa have endured, the new is possible and welcomed in the most wonderful ways. Lovely.

Ok, family. Not very good pics follow. Apologies for the red eye. Right click on the picture and choose save if you want a copy. Love you!

These are the terrible reception pics as the camera battery died.

Gramps gets to dance with his youngest granddaughter.

Careful observers will see that it is only McClures dancing.

This could be why.

Our children were worn out and FRIED by the time we got home.

The worst form of punishment

One of the bloggers I regularly read has had a discussion going on the natures of the male and female parent. I have been thinking about it because in this family, Mommy tends to be the more strict parent, by far. My sistahs and I are all like this and this weekend my brother-in-law, Jake, told a story that illustrates this perfectly.

Jake and his daughter play a game where they pretend to be pirates. He is Blackbeard and my niece is Lightbeard. On this particular day, they and their mateys had captured a little zebra toy and were questioning him about the location of buried treasure.

Zebra wouldn't talk.

So Blackbeard asked his daughter, Lightbeard, "What should we do to him, Lightbeard?"

She thought for a moment.

"Let's send him to his mother."

Friday Five: Remind you of anyone?

Sort of.



Perhaps.



Closer.



Definitely.


Uncanny.

Miscellany and minutiae

Right now #2 is sleeping and #1 is playing indoor ball. I have a few minutes, so wanted to update. Since this blog has become THE written record of our lives, I hate missing whole days or series of days of blogging, even if these updates are apoplectically boring to read. Many apologies to all of you out there! I've got all of these posts brewing in my mind that have not come to fruition. Someday perhaps.

• We've had dodgy internet service all week. It's gotten to the point where I just get online to check email and then get offline again before my session is disrupted by lack of network.
• Dennis started school last week. He is taking MBA classes three nights a week and drives to the Quad Cities, a little over an hour away. His classes are all at different times, but the earliest he gets home is about 9:30 at night. It makes for three very long days in a row for him, since he gets up a little after 4 a.m. to get ready for work. We are not yet in the groove with this schedule. In fact, we're all a bit adrift.
• At work, Dennis has been designing this very cool and very huge cutter. This week, this prototype was developed by him. Pretty amazing, eh?
• Daniel has been running a fever for the last few days for some mysterious reason. There's no infection, apparently, just a fever, and a consequently lathargic little bug.
• Annalivia has been singing her ABC's constantly, loudly, along with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus and several other family favorites. So far this is very cute. But less so when she's singing the ABC's at the top of her lungs while Daniel is crying in the car.
• A couple of days ago, Annalivia was standing on a chair in the dining room checking out her eyeballs in the mirror and turned to me, panicked, to say, "Mommy, look! My eyes are pink!" I showed her my pink eyelids. She felt better.
• My sistah, Marissa, is getting married this weekend. I'm in charge of inviting folks to communion and pretending, with the rest of the sistahs, that the fact that we are wearing very similar black dresses and matching earrings is totally and completely coincidental and not at all because we somehow want to work ourselves into being bridesmaids. As we've shared with family, if we happen to pick up bouquets and walk down the aisle evenly spaced right before Marissa, so be it. Totally spontaneous. Really.
• At church, we are going to be doing Sunday School for the first time in three years and I think we have not only found a great, fun, and incredibly hip curriculum, but have also found a way to do it and not burn out teachers all the while providing some consistency to the kids. Of course, all of this remains to be seen, but I'm excited.
• And finally, I have a date of Sept. 11 for the next wrist surgery . Easy to remember, at least.

Hope all is well with all of you and yours!

Best of all, she's related to me

This morning I was catching up on reading El Blog de Kalin, the blog of my sistah, Kalin. I came upon this hilarious entry and spent 15 minutes laughing so hard that I cried. If you have not perused Kali's blog, do it. I think the humor transcends McClures. And her pictures are great. Go look. It will help your day.

Hilarity ensues again

Yesterday, my sistahs, Lil and Kalin, and I accomplished that which we had every reason to believe we would not be able to accomplish and surprised my sistah, Marissa, with a wedding shower of totally frivolous and fanciful things (read "undergarments").

We had a great time. It ended up being just the women of our family, which was, frankly, probably best, not only for us, but also any other potential guest. So, in attendance were the sistahs, our mater fidelia, grandmere, two aunties (great and lovely), and two cousins. It was perfect. We laughed WAY too hard at the presents given to my sister. And it was just great to be together. Have I ever mentioned how much I ADORE my family? I do.

Towards the end of our long sojourn at Biaggi's, we started to make a list of songs to play at the dance reception after the wedding. There are a number of us in the family, mainly the sisters, the aunties and their offspring, who LOVE to dance, especially if we've been loosened up by a glass of wine or two. In fact, I had a momentary lapse of sanity and wondered aloud to my sistah, Lillia, why we married men who don't like to dance and she told me, "So they can watch our children while WE dance and, somehow, that's the best end of the deal for them!" Well, there's that.

Anyway we are excited, excited, excited about this reception since it will just be the two families and a few close friends. And we get to control all the music. So Dennis and I went through our ridiculously large music library last night and realized that we could furnish about 75 of the 100 dance songs we'd thought of. AND we could singlehandedly furnish all the during-dinner music, too. It's nice that the thousands of dollars spent in cd's in our single/stupid lives is finally going to be put to good use. And that, if ministry and engineering don't work out, we could always have a DJ service.

And here I was going to get the corkscrew

On the night before surgery, my supportive sistah, Kali, has delivered these words of encouragement...

Hey Apey,

Just wanted to let you know I'll be thinking of you tomorrow when you get your robo arm attached. Maybe if you got one with a bottle cap opener attachment, Marissa would be more likely to come home and visit us after she gets married. Just something to keep in mind.

Love, Kalin

Hilarity ensues

So tonight I went down to Peoria to hang out with my sistahs. We met at Kelleher's a faux-Irish pub that we always go to and, upon observing the 20-somethings engaging in their prairie chicken dances, decided to go elsewhere. So we went to a cool Cajun restaurant that Lil and Kalin have previously enjoyed and ate good, if perhaps slightly overpriced, food, had water dropped upon us (well, on Roo, anyway) by the waiter with whom Kalin and Lil went to school, planned Roo's wedding reception, or at least got her to give us license to plan it, and laughed so much that my stomach hurt. Good times, good times. I've got some very, very cool sistahs. I'm sure I've said that before, but it bears repeating. They are just plain cool.

They are also not exactly punctual (which is an inherited McClure girl malaise we all share), so while I was waiting for them to get to Kelleher's, I listened to this hilarious interview (edited to add -- if you don't have time to listen to the whole interview, try starting about 13:15 into the interview) with the guys who are in a new HBO series, Flight of the Conchords and laughed til I cried. Since we get exactly 4.8 channels via cable (PBS comes and goes at will), I will have to wait for the dvd's. But if the interview is any indication of the show's cleverness, it will be worth the wait.

More interpreted than interpretive

The kids and I went down to Eureka on Sunday, not for any real reason other than to spend time with the family. It seems as though we just didn't see them much during the fall, winter and spring. And now we need to rectify that.

It was a good visit. We got to spend time with Mom and Dad and Kalin and Lil and her family. And we also got in a good visit to Grammy and Pa. They were excited to get Daniel down on the floor and Annalivia was excited to get Gramps down to his basement where many toys are kept and where her greatgrandfather runs a fascinating play area with such things as a manual typewriter. She loves it.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to see Kalin's Strawberry Scones dance. I had promised to bring her some scones if she offered something in exchange. The dance began with toes pointed inward and was not only pointy and crumbly, but also flaky. It also had narration, so it was less interpretive than interpreted, but I appreciated it just the same.

Once again, Eureka offers good times for the heart, soul, and avant garde artistic sensibilities.