please welcome melanie, from You Are My Fave.
Since the title of Emily’s blog is based on a public radio show I thought I’d share some favorite episodes of one of the best public radio shows, This American Life. Turn one of these on the next time you’re doing mundane work, cleaning the house, or traveling your daily commute.
- Switched At Birth While listening to this episode you will have to keep on reminding yourself it’s true and not a Lifetime movie. You’ll wonder for days what you would do if you were in your 40s and found at you were switched at birth.
- Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time I mostly love this episode for the story of the Riverdance cast and the lottery. That’s all I really need to say because come on, it involves Irish dancing, how can it not be awesome?
- Matchmakers Another episode where I mostly love it for one story, this time it’s about an actress working at the doll nursery of FAO Schwartz. Just listen and you’ll see.
- Middle School This episode will bring you straight back to the most awkward stage of your life. You’ll want to cover your face in embarrassment the whole time but then you’ll laugh and remember you don’t ever have to go through that again.
- Original Recipe While listening to this I found myself rooting for the TAL team, hoping the Coke recipe that was found is the real thing. Mostly because I wanted a stick to the man ending.
image: Christine Berrie
thanks, melanie! these are great favorites. and i think listening to radio stories together as a family is a perfect activity to include in the advent calendar. perhaps along with some popcorn and cider?
easy peasy recipe for chicken tacos cooked in a crock pot. i’ve been eating this a lot (maybe too much) recently.
ingredients
- chicken thighs (3 to 4), frozen or thawed.
- 2 tbs chopped chipotles in adobo with sauce (find them canned in your grocers’ ethnic foods aisle)
- 4 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
- 1 can diced tomatoes (if you don’t want it too tomato-y, halve this)
- 1 tbs chili powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 12 good grinds black pepper
directions
- put all the ingredients in the slow cooker on high (phew! that was hard)
- remove chicken after four hours and shred (make sure to get the bones and cartilage parts out!)
- Add enough sauce to make delicious (i usually drench it!)
- serve w corn tortillas, rice, black beans, shredded cheese, avocado, diced red onions, whateveryoulikeonyourtaco!
our home is small. there’s not a ton of room for many decorations (if i could put a nativity scene on every single surface i would). so to enhance the feel of christmasness in this house, i treated myself to a selection of some candles for the holidays at the perfect petal in highland square. the smell of the holiday season is now wafting all about. not all of these scents are overtly christmas. but they’re enough musky and woodsy and smokey that it feels like a winter wonderland in here.
- illume balsam & cedar
- tokyo milk marine sel
- rosy rings neptune
- (also pictured are my himalayan salt candle lamp and beeswax candle)
what are your favorite scents or candle companies, holiday or otherwise? what small things to you do around the house to make it feel more like thattimeofyear?
p.s. another easy (and more natural) way to make the home feel more christmas-y is to simmer some pantry staples on the stove. megan has a great tutorial on holiday simmering scents, which i definitely plan on trying.
elsewhere
i’ve been compiling this list of links for at least three weeks now and i think it’s one of my favorites. enjoy!
- for mothers of daughters AND mothers of sons: i’ve started telling my daughters i’m beautiful.
- a new york times article about where we honeymooned. yes, i am totally bragging. and if you are planning an upcoming getaway and can handle some bit of backwoods, go here.
- caught on tape: random acts of love and kindness and surprise. i was bawling not even 30 seconds into this.
- watch andrea gibson perform her spoken word, birthday. it will give you goosebumps.
- i’m totally making these this december: yummy brownies from subtle revelry
- free download for sufjan stevens christmas (and other great music samplers on noisetrade!)
- expected paths of life can be a dreadful hoax. you are supposed to sing and dance while the music is played. (please watch this is if you have a hunch that, perhaps, there is more to life than school, work, retirement).
p.s. congratulations to emily who won the artifact uprising giveaway!
if you’re designated to bring a dessert for a family christmas gathering or one of the many holiday parties you’re probably attending this december, bring this easy homemade apple pie. it is simple but will wow everyone. i made this for thanksgiving and will probably insist it’s made for christmas eve dinner when we’re back in minnesota later this month.
ingredients
- 8 – 11 medium granny smith apples
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 tbs flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- dash of nutmeg
- two ready-made pie crusts (or make your own. but you’ll have to find your own recipe for that).
directions
- heat oven to 400 degrees F
- core and peel the apples
- slice them thinly
- mix together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg
- add to the apples and mix or toss or somehow move around to make sure they are all equally coated
- line a pie pan w one of the pie crusts
- heap in your apple mixture. pile it high!
- cover this with the second pie crust
- pinch the sides together and make slits in the top for air vents
- bake for 50 min
- let cool for at least an hour before serving
serve with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.
sunday, family day, we three took a meandering walk to the park, little bean. we had no intentions of stopping for ice cream. but after chasing you around the playground and seeing you try to steal a little boy’s cup of ice cream, it was the perfect end to a family stroll. i chose the avo-nilla ice cream in a sugar cone for you and me to share. pretty sure, once i handed that bad boy over to you, our licks were not even near equal. you gobbled that ice cream up so fast the way your papa does — he’s finished with his bowl before i can even get comfy enough on the couch to reach for my late-night dessert.
i love you, funny face ice cream monster.
love, mama.
(little man ice cream is our favorite ice cream shop in denver — a city where you can eat your ice cream outside at the end of november and be perfectly warm.)
welcome
