Various and Sundry Thoughts

Yesterday Violet's 7th tooth made an appearance, perhaps shedding new light on her sleep issues and runny nose and general problems. I had/have such skepticism about all the crazy stuff people attribute to teething, but Violet now has a 100% rate of concurrent teething and runny noses. Perhaps there is something there...

Rob's dad, who is having a serious cancer recurrence, had his meeting with the board of specialists at Stanford and they put together a plan for this treatment. This week he starts 6 weeks of chemo and radiation, then in a few months he'll have a big surgery, and then after healing up from the surgery, he'll have more chemo (and radiation too? I can't remember...). That's quite a plan, isn't it? Our thoughts and prayers are with them this week as Rob's dad starts on this hard road.

In happier news, my sister Emily has started a blog! I am excited about this. She lives in North Carolina with her high school sweetheart whom she married about two years ago. He is in the army and is about to be transferred to a base in Missouri, which it turns out is a very good thing for a) advancing his career and b) not being deployed to Afghanistan. She is mostly going to be blogging about photography because that is one of her main interests (and perhaps also a career, if things work out the way she is hoping). Anyway, I know some of you readers out there in Internet-land are childhood friends or family friends or the like, so hey! Add her to your RSS feed!

So now my sister is moving to south-central Missouri, and my parents live in Chicago, and nearly all of my extended family lives in St. Louis (where my parents grew up). My mother, as you may guess, is now hoping that this alleged job that Robert is going to get will bring us to the Midwest somewhere around there so we can all be within driving distance of each other. Sadly for her (and us too, in some ways), I don't think that's going to happen, as Rob's job search is more focused on the Western bits of the United States.

That job search is moving in the right direction, actually. Since the beginning of the year, he's been doing lots of work flexing his networking muscles and cold-calling practices and looking into lots of opportunities. He's had a couple of phone interviews and even has an on-site interview scheduled in another week or so. The two most definite possibilities right now are in Salt Lake City, UT and Salem, OR, the first looking more serious than the second at this stage (Salt Lake City is where he's flying for the on-site interview). I feel pretty good about both of those cities. I wasn't sure what to think about Salt Lake City when we first tossed around the idea of adding it to our list of possibilities, but the more research I do, the more I think it could be good for us. I still have reservations about it, especially about raising kids there, but apparently the parts of town close to the university have a funky, progressive, college-town vibe which would be a good fit for us.

And to close, for your culinary pleasure, I shall share with you a regular in our breakfast rotation this winter. I have been making steel-cut oatmeal in the slow cooker, much like this, although I make 1/2 to 2/3 of her recipe to feed 2 adults and 2 very small children. It is soooo easy and soooo good. We have been trying to cut down on processed foods and this book particularly made me realize what nearly worthless, ridiculously expensive junk breakfast cereal is. At the same time, I have a hard time cooking from scratch in the morning; I don't get up early enough to cook something before everyone is up and hungry. (And if I do manage to get up before my children, I think it is a better use of my time to exercise than to cook.) Anyway, doing oatmeal in the slow cooker is really perfect because you just wake up and it is there, ready for you, and it is very filling and delicious, as well. Violet really chowed down on it this morning mixed with maple syrup and whole milk, and Grace will usually eat it if there is fruit (dried cranberries are a fave) and honey or maple syrup mixed in. My favorite is cinnamon and frozen berries (thawed in the microwave); that's sweet and flavorful enough that I can manage without any sweetener. And for anybody cooking just for 1, I have it on good authority that the cooked oatmeal keeps very well in the refrigerator and reheats beautifully. Mmmmm, oatmeal...