Today

I'm at the hospital with Nina and as I blog she is sneakily trying to raise the head of her bed - those controls need a child lock I tell you. She's not going to be able to come home today, maybe tomorrow... It all depends on how she's doing and right now she still need the breathing treatments too close together. She is definitely getting sick of the hospital though. Frequently she says, "All done, put on jacket." Poor thing. We took her for a ride around the hospital in a radio flyer wagon that they have here in the peds department and she was convinced we were breaking her out. As soon as we neared some doors to the outside she exclaimed "Go home!!!" Our fun wagon ride turned out to be quite a disappointment... Of course she doesn't understand why she's here, but it all hasn't been a complete frustration. I think she enjoys watching her favorite shows, Peter Pan and Little Mermaid have been playing almost non-stop, and she's had lots of Polly Pockets and magna doodle playtime. Well, right now Adrian and the kids are on their way over so I better be off.

For the Moment I'm Blogging Instead of Crying

It has been a hard day for our family. Last night our sweet little Nina was having a horrible time coughing and wheezing and so at 11pm I took her to our local childrens hospital ER. (I want to tell you right now that she is doing better so I don't worry you with the rest of the story.) She was given 3 back to back breathing treatments and steroids but was still having a hard time breathing and getting enough oxygen so they decided to admit her. She'll be able to come home when she has made it through the "asthma path" which means when she's able to keep up her oxygen level with out the tubes in her nose, and can stretch out the breathing treatments to every 4 hours. We are really hoping that she'll be able to come home tomorrow. If not it will hopefully be the next day. Because of this whole thing she has been officially diagnosed with asthma and will be on some kind of preventative asthma medicine so hopefully a huge flare up like this won't happen again.

Last night I was with her all night and it was so hard to see my beautiful baby needing so much help to breathe. They put her in a big adult bed so that I could cuddle up next to her and I held her hand, hugged her, prayed, and tried to keep it together. I knew that if I let myself get too freaked out I would be a blubbering mess and not be able to talk coherently to all the nurses and doctors that were in and out of the room all night. Prayer helped. I know I was comforted by the Spirit and I did hold it together. Actually tonight was the first time I had a good cry. I know that she's doing better and progressing towards coming home, but it's just hard to have her there at all. Tonight Ben prayed, "Please bless Nina to get better and breathe really good so she can come home." Sweet boy. And while we were all at the hospital together Sophie gave Nina a coloring book and crayons that she had gotten on a field trip (Nina was ecstatic about it). Sophie and Ben are so sweet and tender with Nina. I have definitely been blessed with 3 amazing children. And I have to say right now that I am so grateful for the time that we live in, that they know just what to do for little ones like Nina and that there are medicines to help her breathe. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that has comforted me and helped me to know that He loves my sweet Nina and is watching over her. So right now I am blogging instead of crying, but I'll probably go do a little more of that and definitely some more praying. Thanks for being my favorite form of therapy tonight blogosphere.

Happy Valentines Day (even though it's technically Friday the 13th:))

Happy Valentines day tomorrow to everyone!! I am SO behind on blog writing and reading and commenting, but I am still around and hope everyone has a super-stupendous day tomorrow full of love and beauty. To help out with the beauty part here's one of my ultra-favorite romantic paintings.
The Painter's Honeymoon, Lord Frederic Leighton, c. 1864 (Museum of Fine Arts at Boston)

Last year on Valentines I posted a Pre-Raphaelite, so I thought I'd make it a Our Three Bears Valentines tradition and post a lovey-dovey Pre-Raphaelite painting every year. Isn't this painting gorgeous! It gives me warm fuzzies every time I see it and I actually saw a huge canvassed print of it at an Ethan Allan store over the summer. Oh, I wanted it so badly but it was hundreds of dollars (I can't remember the exact amount, but way too much to seriously consider buying it). I just stood staring at it for a few minutes and thought about how someday I'm going to hang a print of it in my bedroom. You might ask if it's historically important, and well the answer is kinda maybe, but not really. Honestly the Pre-Raphaelites (though Lord Leighton was not technically a Pre-Raphaelite he has always been associated with that artist style) were not terribly innovative or important in the historic scheme of things. However, from an aesthetic and emotional point of view there is a special tenderness in this piece that is hard to forget. So hey all the real art historians out there can shove it (did I just say that??:)) and I'm going to keep loving all the sappy Pre-Raphaelite paintings because they make me happy in a gooey and romantic sort of way.

Recipe Madness

Among other things I have recently been engaged in recipe organization. Those "other things" included dealing with a bunch of sickies for the past 2 weeks, going to the temple with my hubby on Saturday (wonderful), and having a lovely girls night out with Jenny last Friday complete with the most amazing onion rings and a fun girly flick, "New in Town"which I thought was cute - thanks Jenny I really need that girls night!!

Back to recipes. I do have a system for my recipes, but because I'm such a horrible hoarder when it comes to recipes every couple of years I have to overhaul my recipe binders and make new recipe binders for all the loose recipes I have stuffed into them. I keep all my real cookbooks on the bookshelves in our loft, but I have a bunch of self-made cookbook-binders that I keep in the pantry with all our favorite recipes and the myriad of recipes I want to try. These cookbook binders are lovingly referred to by their color, so there's the Blue Cookbook (or Family Favorites Vol.1), the White Cookbook (Family Favorites Vol.2), and the Green Cookbook (all the recipes I want to try). Once a recipe from the green cookbook has been tried and liked it moves to the back of the white cookbook. Very boring it may seem but for me this has been such a happy organizing time! I LOVE office supply stores and had quite a fun time with Sophie at Staples getting new page protectors, and presentation binders for a couple of the new cookbooks. I think I could spend an hour in Staples just going up and down the isles, and don't get me started on my own personal Mecca - The Container Store... Thankfully those who love me have found a way to endure my containerizing/organizing issues...

Anywho, here's the result:

Aren't they purdy?? I love having a separate breakfast recipes cookbook, I got so sick of looking through all my cookbooks to find the right pancake or muffin recipe. And of course as part of organizing my new cookbooks I got to make fun cover sheets for each one. I love the search for the perfect image on google. For my "Monthly Menu Recipes" cookbook (I like having all the recipes I'm going to cook for the month in one place) I thought I'd find a funny fifties housewife ad and oh my did I:

Doesn't she look ecstatic?? Yay that donuts are considered "good eating"!! Awesome! I love this genre of ads/pictures in general for the satire; they are good for a chuckle. I especially love the picture below because I have THAT cookbook she's holding!! Isn't that awesome! I found it whilst antiquing with Jenny a few months ago (can you tell that I'm very happy to say I went antiquing:)). There was even a hand written banana cake recipe folded into the pages of the cookbook. I love finds like that! I'm also tickled with this particular picture because it looks like she is in the middle of some kind of epiphany over what kind of muffins to make. That must be how I looked when I thought to add a bit of nutmeg to my broccoli cheese soup recipe.:)

Eating This and Not That

Have you read the Eat This Not That books? I think they are neat! They are not diet books really, but are full of nutrition information about common restaurant and grocery store foods. I've had the original Eat This Not That for over a year and have liked it and used it so much that I just bought the Eat This Not That for Kids and Eat This Not That Supermarket Survival Guide in the last month. The books are laid out in such a clever way, that the information is very visual and easy to understand - even for my kids.

In reading them I've found it so interesting that there is so much high fructose corn syrup is in everything. I totally know that HFC is chemically the same as sugar, but the problem is that its in all sorts of foods that didn't used to have sugar in them at all or they had a lot less of it. Well, these books, the supermarket one in particular, have helped me at a glance to choose a better nutrigrain bar, yogurt, spaghetti sauce or whatever without all the work of standing in the isle reading labels while I'm shopping. I just look through the book and write on my shopping list the name of the better brand for whatever I'm buying. It's been really nice and I hope it's making a difference. I'm sure that if I would have taken the time before to compare food labels before I wouldn't have needed these books, but honestly I usually went for the cheapest brand rather than the healthier one. I guess trying to make better choices has probably led to more of our budget going to food... That's the down side. Isn't it a bummer that buying healthier food is more expensive. But we've been going out to eat so much less in the last months so at least that helps in the budget department.

I've let Sophie and Ben look at the kids one as much as they want. For days after I bought it, Sophie kept coming up to me saying, "Did you know this is healthier than this??" I think it really shocked her how unhealthy some of her favorite "treat" type foods are. I don't want to make my kids obsessed with food, or count calories or anything like that, but I do want them to try to make healthy food choices. We've had really good conversations about what foods Sophie should pack in her lunches so they are well balanced. She has willingly taken chicken noodle soup packed in a thermos and turkey sandwiches with baby carrots since reading through this book and I am so happy about that. I don't want to say that I am a complete health-nut or that my kids never have processed foods or fast food (believe me, that's not the case - we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast today:) ), but I have loved these books for putting the nutrition information out there for me to make more informed decisions.

Wuthering Heights

Well I guess I'm going to keep on the love theme and talk about Wuthering Heights. I really really enjoyed the Masterpiece Theatre Wuthering Heights that concluded last night! It was one of the best adaptations I've seen. I, of course, LOVE Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff (you must see that one if you haven't already!), but his pairing with Juliette Binoche as Cathy just didn't do it for me. I think it's cause Julia Ormond sounded a lot more French than she should have the whole time. But no, this Cathy from the Masterpiece Theatre version was GREAT!! And the Heathcliff was so rough and tortured, just how I imagine Heathcliff. As a teenager I never could really figure out in my mind what Heathcliff should look like... He would change as I tried to make him better and better and eventually he ended up looking like my head version of Louis from Interview With the Vampire, just because I wanted to pin down an image... But really I think my mind version Heathcliff will look like this guy from Masterpiece Theatre from now on. Visually he is exactly what was described in the book - tall, dark, broad, of unknown ethnic origins (though Hindley refers to him as a Gypsy), wild, tortured, brooding, but still handsome. Good casting Masterpiece Theater!! I also totally bought the horrible, destructive love between Cathy and Heathcliff. I kept yelling at the TV, "Come on Cathy, why did you marry Linton??!!" I let go of the many fold inaccuracies. The most blaring one that I had to let go was Heathcliff's suicide. In the book he does sort of suddenly die, but it is not described as a suicide. Near the end of his life you assume he is sick or having some sort of break down because he starts to hear and see Cathy outside his window and out on the moors. I thought the suicide in the version last night was a bit gross, but again I let it go because I really did enjoy this adaptation. To me Heathcliff committing suicide wasn't very far off from his character - you believe that man is capable of almost any horror near the end of the book.

Adrian watched the movie with me as if to figure out the inner workings of my head and why I love this twisted story. He kept saying, "But it's a horrible story." I know. I know. It is. BUT. Seriously have you ever read a novel with so much raw passion?? So much emotion and psychology?? Where the characters have such great lines?? I don't think Dracula's few awesome lines even come close to Heathcliff's. Yes, all the characters make the worst possible choice at every crossroads, but it's the love, the undying love between Heathcliff and Cathy that makes the story so resonating. I actually got teary when Heathcliff was holding Cathy in his arms shortly before she died and when he was sobbing after she did die. Then of course I was still teary when he said my favorite lines, "I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul." So this is my conclusion: even though their love distorts them both, it is undeniable, powerful, and unforgettable and that's why I love Wuthering Heights... I also love that in the end they are freed to wander the moors together, well as ghosts, but it's still cool. So gothic.

Adrian finally said after the movie, "It's how much Heathcliff loves her, that's what makes you like him." Yep. He got it right. And to that he said, "Well I guess I'm your Heathcliff then." And THAT made me tremendously happy. Honestly my hubby sometimes surprises me, he's a quiet guy who's definitely not prone to being mushy, but sometimes he says just the right thing. I might be a girl that is mildly obsessed with a bunch of fictional romantic characters, but my real life Heathcliff/ Edward/ Mr. Darcy/ Mr. Knightley/ Captain Wentworth/ Lloyd Dobler/ Romeo is the love of my life and all those fictional heroes have nothing on real thing. Wow, this movie review ended all sappy didn't it. Sorry, but love stories always do that to me.

Art History Pic for January (and probably February too if I'm honest)

Illustration of the 1943 edition of Wuthering Heights, wood engraving by Fritz Eichenberg,

Arts of the Book Collection, Yale University Library

I came across this most amazing illustration of Heathcliff whilst perusing Wuthering Heights pictures on the web. I love it (would love to have a print of it!!) and think the importance of illustration is often overlooked in art history. Sure there are very important illustrators (or print makers) like Albrecht Durer, but generally how often do illustrators get the acclaim they deserve? I absolutely love the illustrator for the American editions of the Harry Potter books, but don't know her name off the top of my head. (I just looked it up, her name is Mary GrandPre.:)) I feel like a dork for not being more mindful and appreciative of great illustrators. Well, today I am paying tribute to Fritz Eichenberg for creating this gorgeous wood engraving of one of my favorite fictional characters. This wood engraving displays the powerful emotion and tumult of this scene in the novel, when Heathcliff is informed of Cathy's death. You can see his torment in the shape of his body mirroring that of the landscape. Isn't it awesome?? Wow, great job Fritz Eichenberg. I think this wood engraving is a great work of art.