childbearing hipster

The Laundry Revolution (or, how I fought the wash and the wash actually lost)

I am not a good laundress.

Oh, I can get stains out like crazycakes. If you have a stain, I will get it out. That shelf of vintage Heloise books isn't just for show, dudes. And it's a good thing that I'm a magician with stains, because by the time I actually deal with a spot, it's most certainly passed into permanence.

I cannot blame the fact that the washer and dryer are downstairs, because I was a confirmed laundry avoider when I had a washer and dryer right next to my bedroom. I have always been like this. Not doing laundry is something of a family tradition.

Dug is not an inspiration. He does his own laundry while in theory I wash for the rest of the household. But in practice, he Not Does his own laundry while I Not Do the rest. I suspect there are Miami Vice suits and Magnum PI shorts at the bottom of his hamper; that's about how long it's been since he has had all his laundry done at once.

First the laundry builds to a point where I realize every basket in the house (mine, the kids, a small one in the kitchen for towels and rags) is nearing capacity. Then the baskets begin to overflow. Then the kids run out of socks and I run out of bras and someone wets the bed and we have no clean sheets and then I cry because of my incompetence. Then I obviously cannot do anything about it because I'm incompetent, so I just wash the pee sheets and a load of socks and underwear and nothing else. The cycle doesn't so much continue as it grinds to a slow, soft halt.

Obviously, this is not sustainable.

Therefore I have instituted the One Load Of Laundry policy, or OLOL. OLOL works like this: every day, one load of laundry gets washed, folded, and put away.

But wait, there's more! If you have to skip a day, you just...do one load the next day. Don't try to play catch up. Don't worry if you skip two days. Just one load is all you need demand of yourself, and if yourself is not up to the task today, then sweat it not, for tomorrow is a brand new day.

People, I am here to report that since the adoption of OLOL, I have gotten myself to within about two loads of Total Laundry Excellence. Not counting the small pile of special-needs laundry on the shelf by the washer, which really I might as well just throw away because if I haven't attended to those needs by now, those clothes have no real use in our lives.

Total Laundry Excellence, people. It is within your reach. Behold, the power of OLOL.

A romantic dinner for...four.

Hey, it's life with kids. And Dug's busy schedule this time of year. Who needs the hassle of going out? It's all about the extra-nice dinner at home on Valentine's Day.

On the menu tonight: Chicken in a white-wine cream sauce, sautéed mushrooms with tarragon, roasted fingerling potatoes, and sautéed kale. Heart shaped bread to sop up our sauce, and for dessert, teensy little individual ice creams--Ben & Jerry's mint chocolate cookie for the girls, and Haagen Dazs strawberry and coffee for Dug and I to fight over. Also, a bottle of Chalone chardonnay.

The chicken's as easy as it gets: pour a bottle of dry white wine over some chicken breasts, let it simmer for a few hours until the wine cooks down into a fabulous goo. Remove the chicken, deglaze the pan with a little cream, and there you go.

The bread's a tad more involved. You basically want to start with your favorite French bread recipe and then instead of boules, you shape it into hearts. My specific method uses the bread machine for the dough mixing and initial rise, and here it is, with pictures and everything:

Using the dough cycle on your bread machine (this recipe is for two pounds; it can be halved if your machine has a smaller capacity), mix the following:

1.75 cups bread flour
1.75 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons salt
4.5 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon active gluten (optional, but it makes the crumb of the bread more airy and light)
1.25 cups water (90-100 degrees)

When the dough cycle ends, remove the dough and cut it in half. Shape each half into a nice round ball like so:

And let it rest on a lightly floured surface for 30 minutes, covered with a damp dishtowel.

Next, shape each ball into a heart by gently pinching one side of the ball into a point, and shaping the opposite side of the ball (I used the blunt edge of a chef's knife to press the dough into shape):

Let the hearts rise for another 45 minutes under the damp towel. Then you're ready to glaze them with a little egg wash and slash 'em before baking at 450 for 20-25 minutes. I use a lightly greased baking sheet because my stone sucks, you do what you gotta do. Don't forget to put a pan of hot water in the oven for lots of steam.

And when you're done, you've got pretty little boules...erm, coeurs, shall we say. Let them cool on a wire rack before serving. Instead of slicing them, I just let everyone tear off chunks. Take another little piece of my heart, won't you?

Valentime!

Since Molly's got mostly the same classmates as last year, I felt like I couldn't redo last year's Valentines for the girls. I set out to find a worthy successor, but most of what I found were either printables or things I would never have time to finish. Printables are great, and what I would have fallen back on if I couldn't come up with anything better, but I wanted something more memorable.

A fact-finding mission to Michael's almost left me emptyhanded until I found, in the wedding aisle rather than the Valentine Crap section, boxes of small test-tube-like bottles of bubbles with heart-shaped tops. Hmmm, I thought, and grabbed a couple of boxes. I can do something with these.

Friends on Twitter and Facebook helped with suggestions for a tagline, and then it turned out Daisy's school doesn't exchange valentines (WTF?), and in the end, here's what we came up with:

A dab of hot glue holds the vial of bubbles to a piece of cardstock, upon which is printed a goofy bubble-related saying. I downloaded the font "DJ Candyheart" here and installed it in Word, where I used a label template that was just the right size. Molly signed her name on the back of the cards before I shot a glob of glue, let it cool enough to be tacky without melting the plastic, and smooshed each bubble bottle into place. The vials will hold fast, but easily pop off to be enjoyed later.

I don't think they're as rad as the fortune cookies, but they're probably going to be more fun for the recipient.

(too late to get to Michael's? The source for all my "fall-back" printable possibilities is this post at The Long Thread.)