30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #24—Host a Teetotalers' Drinking Party

A close-up of C.'s experimental and scientific drink, the "Multi-Mix": a concoction of ginger ale, 7-Up, cream, honey, and sugar, garnished with a maraschino cherry in a blue sword.

As many of you know, David and I are Mormons, and, as some of you may know, this means we don't drink alcohol. This doesn't really bother us, per say, I mean, we still feel like we have plenty of fun (and I, for one, have had my share of drunkenness when I stay up past 1 a.m. and reach that state of "sloppy tired"); however, not drinking alcohol has certainly put us in some complicating situations.

Really, Dave should be writing this post, because he has a lot to say about alcohol and the lack of drinking it thereof. David used to serve drinks, so he knows a lot about types of drinks, how they are served, and what the social value/meaning of different drinks are. He can, for instance, pick up an empty can of Keystone Light from off the street and say to me, "This means that the students in this house can barely pay their own rent." To me, the can just says, "Hi, I don't give a crap if you have a little kid who could find this and pick it up and play with it. Nice living next to you." (Becoming a mom has sure turned me into a prude.)

Although my choice not to drink alcohol is, to me, a private one, it ends up that many people take a public interest in my abstinence. This semester, I had a professor tell me (in class) that I definitely must order an alcoholic beverage when I am on the job market and a interviewing committee takes me out for drinks. It was suggested that I order a vodka and water, wait for the liquids to separate, and then sip the drink slowly (as vodka is heavy, so the water will rise to the top). With my fellow students staring at me, I found it hard to exactly explain why I don't want to even pretend like I drink. Not that drinking is "of the devil" (I hate that phrase), but it is just something that early members of my church collectively decided we weren't going to do. The commandment is rooted in a covenant to live a healthy life, and to abstain from things (food, drink, or otherwise) that could inhibit our ability to see things and make decisions clearly. But more than that, not drinking alcohol has become something that sets us apart from others, makes us known. Ordering a drink, even if I didn't actually drink it, would feel too much like shame to me, like I was embarrassed of my religion. I don't want to hide myself, even for a job, and I certainly don't want to accuse potential employers of not being able to understand reasons for drinking a Coke instead. (After all, no one is going to be upset that Sam Malone from Cheers is drinking water. Do you really have to be a recovering alcoholic for people not to mistake your soberness for self-righteousness?)

What drives David and me more crazy is not being able to order a fancy, high-priced drink at a nice restaurant or an English pub. It's a little embarrassing to walk into a pub in a little English town and order a soda with your meal. We look like cheapskates. We always want to say, "Hello. We'll have the Hungarian stew and the meat pie with two Cokes. And we'd like for you to sell us those two Cokes at five pounds a piece." We've ordered Shirley Temples in the past, to be cute, but how long will we have the charming good looks of our youth to pull this off? (This is 30 Things in 30 Days, and not 20 Things in 20 Days, after all.) Are our choices for beverages really just Sprite vs. Root Beer?

So tonight's Awesome Thing was, in part, a response to this awkward relationship we have with alcohol. We decided to throw a drinking party with our friends, the Franklins (and their kids). The last day of the month is always Soda Day (a long time before Dave met me, he decided that he would only drink soda on the last day of the month—otherwise, he would drink too much soda everyday). "Soda Day is never far away" is a mantra in our house, because it always feels like a holiday to celebrate the end of the month with drinks at Sonic or fancy root beers. And, let's face it, it makes drinking sodas in the middle of the month more fun, because it feels like we're being sneaky cheats. So to celebrate an extra-special Awesome Soda Day, we went to World Market and the local grocery store and loaded up on fancy juices and sodas, and typical ingredients for mixed drinks—grenadine syrup, limes, maraschino cherries, mint, cream (for Italian sodas), and some mixed fruits. Dave bought some cheap plastic stemware and tumblers to make our drinks look classy and legit, and he even found those colorful plastic swords for fruit garnishes, and some little umbrellas for the tropical combinations.

We lay everything out on our tiny dining room table, and then we let everyone loose for creating delicious concoctions to imbibe, as it were. We had paper and pens out for everyone to record the ingredients of their drinks, and every drink had to be named. The results were hysterical, especially the concoctions of the little boys that came. We will definitely return to this activity as our Grover family grows. Sure, we don't drink alcohol at our house (though Dave and I do cook with wine with some frequency, when we can afford it), but that doesn't mean we can't drink exotic-tasting beverages or have fun appreciating the subtle nuances of flavor in our food and drink.

The Ingredients Table. It ended up being a great way to convince fruit-snubbers like Dave and me to actually dip into the fruit bowl in the name of delicious beverages.

C.'s first concoction: "Blood Red" (7-Up, grenadine syrup, pomegranate soda, apple cider, and a maraschino cherry).

Melissa's "3-in-1": white cream in the stem (1), followed by red grenadine syrup and maraschino cherry (2), and topped with one part passionfruit and mango soda and one part peach nectar for an orange sunrise effect (3).

Joey's drink. He was keeping the boys from pouring too much sugar or soda into the concoctions and wasn't able to write down his ingredients or drink name. But let's go ahead and name it, "Snake Venom."

EDIT: Of course! Joey reminds me that his drink was called the "Shirley Temple Wedding" (7-Up, grenadine, and a shot of heavy whipping cream....you know, Shirley Temple dressed in white). That's much better than "Snake Venom."

This little guy just kept holding out his cup and saying, "I want the yummy one!" and whoever was near would put a tiny bit of the closest non-caffeinated, non-carbonated yummy drink into it.

A close-up of Dave's "Minty Juicy Fruit" (mint, ginger ale, 7-Up, peach nectar, and grapes)

This drink was by far my favorite. This is N.'s concoction that consisted more of two umbrella shish-kabobs of grapes and pineapple than it did any actual liquid. Dave suggested calling it the "Three-Day Weekend" because of its over-the-top rich glory, but, after drinking down the juice, N. held up his remaining fruit-umbrellas and, beaming, announced, "I'll name it CHRISTMAS!

Thoroughly enjoying "Christmas" and "Minty Juicy Fruit"

N. wasn't finished until every last piece of fruit had been eaten.

Oh yeah. This one. She enjoyed drinking watermelon juice until her mom made the mistake of letting her try the tiniest of tiny pieces of watermelon flesh (I'm talking rice-krispy-piece small) to gum on—after realizing something non-liquid was on her tongue, this baby gagged and gagged until she threw up a good dinner of carrots, rice cereal, and milk all over both of her parents (but mostly David, who was holding her). I still feel guilty. This is after the clean-up and the bath. Poor little baby-bino.

Me enjoying my "Georgian Cabana" (passionfruit and mango soda, grenadine syrup, apple juice, a tiniest sprinkling of half-n-half (why? who knows! it's in the name of science!), an umbrella shish-kabob of fruit, and a great big dose of peach nectar).

This was my other concoction: "A Lady's Carwash" (apple juice, pomegranate juice, peach nectar, blood orange juice, chocolate sauce, mint, cream, and a snickerdoodle garnish). This one grossed David out, but I want to make another one. The cookie dipped in the drink wasn't bad, and the chase of fruity chocolate at the end was wonderful.

So, with the help from some friends, Thing #24: Host a Teetotalers' Drinking Party = ACCOMPLISHED

30 Things in 30 Days: Day #23—Barbecue, Treats, Video Games

Hey Amanda, if you're reading this, look what I get play again!

David blogs this one here. It was a great day. It was also a day where David and I found ourselves once again staying up past midnight, this time crouched around the computer playing an old LucasArts adventure game from 1990, one we had both played growing up (and we've since forgotten the answers to most of the riddles, which has made the replay pretty fun and exciting).

And here I am at 7 a.m. trying to continue my exercise regime. Must. Go. To. Bed. Earlier. Tonight. (Becca, to answer your question, I am day three into Gillian Michaels's 30 Day Shred, and, believe me, it is shredding me. I've never done an exercise video before, but this one is certainly effective so far. We'll see if my calves can handle today—right now they are stiff as boards.)

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #22—Hollie's First Swim...Sort of.

We were really excited for one of our 30 Things to include blowing up the kiddie pool that G'ma Grover bought for Hollie during her stay earlier this month, dressing Hollie in a cute hand-me-down swimming suit from her cousins (Thanks, Sarah!), and watching this little water baby soak in some tepid hose water with real room to splash around (the kind of room that her little baby bathtub just doesn't accommodate).

However, as soon as David started spraying water into the pool, Hollie tensed up. She's started to become really tender and sensitive to people and things that have never bothered her in the past. If a friend comes over and even looks at Hollie, it is enough to send her over the edge. Her lower lip will jut out and quiver, and her whole face will scrunch up into fear. It has made getting a babysitter very problematic. Although Hollie warmed up to both of her grandmas after they spent the night (something about showing up again at breakfast in pajamas makes you family), it seems a little out-of-control to ask someone to spend 48 hours with us non-stop so that they can then babysit for us for a couple of hours. Poor little girl. She has inherited her mom's worrywart gene.

She also hates the vacuum, the red-winged blackbird toy that makes a real red-winged blackbird chirp when you squeeze it, the dryer when it makes clunking noises, and the garbage disposal. She also hates it when I go outside and wave hello to her through the window while I check the mail. She'll laugh nervously and then break immediately into tears. Poor, poor little girl.

However, Hollie loves bath time. If she is ever in a terrible mood, a bath will almost immediately make her all smiles and goofiness again. She loves to splash, and she is inventive in different ways to get her parents all wet. I've spilled water in her eyes, even soapy water in her eyes, and I'm pretty sure she even got straight shampoo in her eyes once, but she's never complained about it. She loves being in the water.

But this baby did not like her swimming pool. No sirree. Not one bit.

But since Dave and I are scoundrels, we still managed to enjoy watching her tentatively touch the toys that had been in the water and then immediately revert back to panic mode as soon as we tried to place her hands, feet, or bottom into the pool itself. We'll have to try it again another day.

Hesitant, but still curious.

After stepping into the water, she decided that this was definitely not for her. Absolutely not.

Look at the distrust in her eyes. Seven months old and already questioning her parents' judgment.

Feeling a little safer with Dad; still incredibly concerned for Dad's hand, however.

At this point, her fear transformed into something more akin to revulsion and disgust: "You've got to be kidding me. You think that duck is going to trick me back into that wet plastic trap?"

She lasted in this position for about twenty seconds. She absolutely did not feel safe being even within eyesight of this thing.

Safe at last, but very disgruntled. Cute, though.

Thing #22: Hollie's First Swim = ATTEMPTED

Or,

Thing #22: Blow Up Hollie's First Pool and Fill it with Tepid Water and Make it Look Really Awesome and Fun and Soak Our Own Feet in it While Our Child Looks on in Terror = ACCOMPLISHED!

P.S. While I was in the middle of writing this blog about how cowardly our baby girl has become, the little scamp adventurously found herself stuck under the couch, a place even I am not bold enough to explore.

If she's this good at exploring new territory by moving around backwards, we're in real trouble once she figures out how to move forwards!

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #21—Memorial Day

Hanging out with friends after the LDS Church-sponsored Fun Run, a yearly 5k in which everyone brings canned food for the Food Bank by way of registration.

Read Dave's account of our Memorial Day here, and see our baby's first dance with a boy. Yesterday was so much fun in the sun that I moaned in bed over a migraine while Dave did the documenting of our day's adventures. Somehow, though, here I am at 6:30 in the a.m. ready to finally start my summer exercising.

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #20—Sing Songs

This is not from tonight. We didn't take any pictures tonight—it just wasn't the right kind of moment for pulling out the camera. This is from a week or two ago, before Dave shaved.

Forgive me for being brief with this one. My left fingers are all numb and tinny-feeling from playing beginners' chords on the guitar for the first time since Hollie was born. (It's only been just the past couple of months that she hasn't required either Dave or I to be holding her constantly day and night—I love how far the three of us have come! In any case, my guitar-learnin' was put on hold.......until tonight.)

David is incredibly talented (he won't boast of himself, so I will) artistically, intellectually, and definitely musically. He's especially good at the guitar, but school and work and fathering keeps him from it far too often.

He's also getting better at the accordion that I surprised him with when we were still dating long-distance (I was in Idaho teaching school; David was in Ohio getting a Masters degree. I paid his roommate the money for the accordion that he had been eying who then hid it in their haunted closet until his birthday. Those were the days when David was poor and I was rich. Now we're both poor).

We want to be a musical family, but somehow the days seem to slip by and the instrument cases manage to collect a disappointing amount of dust. So for tonight's Awesome Thing, we spent a few hours regrowing the calluses on our fingertips and Googling guitar tabs for all our favorite songs.

David can play anything I ask him to play, so we ran through several of our favorites including these greats (linked to YouTube clips in case you've never heard some of them. Because you really ought to know them):

• Paul McCartney's "Teddy Boy"
• George Harrison's "Wreck of the Hesperus"
• Paul Simon's "Hearts and Bones"

We also found out that I can play America's "Horse with No Name" (because it can be played with just two simple chords), Cat Stevens's "Where Do the Children Play," and Elton John's "Daniel" (but only if I fudge the F bar chord with a poor man's four-finger beginner's chord).

Singing songs with David will always be one of my favorite pastimes. I've harbored a fantasy since I was young and obsessed with the Partridge Family that I would someday sew sequined, tasseled jumpsuits for my singing and dancing traveling family band. With David as my husband, this dream might actually not be so unrealistic. He just wouldn't go for the sequins, I think. But by all means, if we're going David Cassidy and Shirley Jones our way to the top, we've got to practice!

P.S. Going back to Dave's old blog, his pre-marriage blog, reminds me of this old worry of mine that I am somehow squelching part of David's personality and creativity from his bachelor days. David has said the same of me before—that he worries that he might somehow be stifling the personality of my singlehood self. We always think the other ridiculous when we say so to each other. But whenever Dave comes across evidence from the days when I was a poet or when I was a wilderness walker, and whenever I come across evidence from the days when David played in a band and threw BBQ Halloween parties at the Boo House in Ohio, we each get a little sheepish. Does any other of my married readers ever feel this way?

All I can say is, it makes me glad that we are consciously trying to do more awesome things lately. Even if neither one of us misses the "old" individuals that we once were, it's not a bad idea to tap into our old selves now and again, and remind ourselves what memories and past pieces make up who we are. (I've been Emily Grover for long enough now that Emily Gilliland seems like a little sister to me. Or a secret identity. Funny that my name change seems to be such a demarcation between two separate lives of my self, and funny that David has no such explicit renaming of himself. David once told me that he was jealous of my "dual citizenship"—my mom replied that he could call himself Gilliland whenever he felt like it. Or something like that.)

Thing #20: Sing Songs = ACCOMPLISHED.

10 more Things to go. We'd better make them count.

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #19—Go Bowling

Look, Mom, I'm wearing your old shirt! It hasn't fit me in months and months......

Today was very awesome, and it was full of things. But, officially, we went bowling for #19. See Davie's blog post for more details and the rest of our adventuring.

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #18—Make Wall Art!

Today our Awesome Thing was finishing some wall art for Hollie's room, since some of her walls are still empty vast areas of gray that threaten to stunt her creativity (not really). Of the 30 Things so far, this might be my favorite task yet.

One of the best parts of this art project is that it really is half David's brainchild and half mine. We proved the old saw true that "two heads are better than one," which is really saying something for us, because the adage that typically depicts mine and David's working together is "too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup." Literally, David and I cannot cook in the kitchen together. We both love cooking, but we go about following recipes in very different ways (David moves fast, I don't). We are also hesitant to cook meals that the other has already made in the past—I make shepherd's pie, tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlets), any kind of fish dinner, and homemade chicken fingers; David's territory includes chicken verde enchiladas (no cream-of-anything soup involved), chickpea curry, bulgogi (Korean beef), and chicken tikka masala. David is also an ace at grilled cheese sandwiches; the first time I ever made him a grilled cheese sandwich, I almost had a panic attack. When he said, "You like to put a lot of cheese in yours, huh?" I burst into tears (even though he said it as a statement, not a criticism). We both take a lot of pride in what we do well, and we both want to do well for each other. This is certainly a good quality that we have as married people, but it does complicate recipe-sharing.

David and I are also much better competitive players than collaborative ones, usually. We are great at playing board games with each other—David is my ultimate rival, and playing board games with him is fun because it is almost always a close game (except in Yahtzee. I've had maybe one Yahtzee since getting married....David always gets two or three in a single game). The only game we can really work together on is probably Cranium, and most likely because Cranium involves one partner doing and one partner guessing (We are real aces at Cranium: ask our friends. We'll beat anybody). But as soon as we are both on the doing side of things, we start to step on each others' toes. One of the closest times I've ever had to being earnestly frustrated with David was when we spent a Family Home Evening making a tower out of uncooked spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. He was so bossy! (I'm pretty sure he felt the same way about me. Actually, I was probably more passive aggressive than bossy: "Well, if you really think we should put more noodles in the marshmallows here for a pyramid base and basically undo everything I've done on this foundational square, then I guess I'll stop my idea and do it your way.")

Don't get me wrong—I love doing things with Dave. We love birding, watching the same films, reading the same books, taking walks and drives, talking about everything and anything, and we are actually really good at decorating our house together and making fundamental decisions about our lives together. It's just in creative projects that we usually do better in thinking up ideas on our own, doing them, and then surprising each other with what we created. Our creative ideas are almost always gifts intended for the other.

But this wall art was an extraordinarily smooth synthesis of Dave's smarts and my own. We knew we wanted to do something with her name. I knew I wanted to watercolor—Dave came up with the idea of the colored paper letter cutouts. Then the thing just evolved. We somehow agreed on rainbow colors, on stripes and spots, and when we realized that we couldn't feasibly frame something this big on our pitiful budget, I came up with the idea to hang the letters on string with clothespins, and David suggested we raise the letters a little bit for a shadowed, three-dimensional effect.

The best part is that the end result is way better than either of us originally imagined. We think it is because we somehow managed to channel our different creative powers to make a collaborative project that not only made working together a joy, but it also enabled us to still surprise the other and ourselves with ideas that we couldn't have come up with on our own.

We still have plans for expanding on this art, but that will have to wait for a different day.

The watercolor paper warped a little, so we glued each paper to some mat board with rubber cement to strengthen and stiffen them. Dave made me glue them outside because he worried about the fumes and the baby. Apparently, his elementary school's glue-of-choice was not rubber cement (I sniffed so much rubber cement in second grade, I probably went through withdrawals over summer vacation).

If you know us well, you can still maybe guess which papers I painted and which David did. For example, notice how pristine, straight, and smooth the orange lines are for "O"—those are Dave's. Compare with the messier, more crooked and oddly spaced lines for "L" and "E"—I did those. My favorite is probably "H"; we did that one together, and it was originally intended as a practice paper. 

Dave came up with the raised letters sort of late in the game, so rather than return to Hobby Lobby again (for the second time in one day and the fourth time in one week), he took an exacto knife to one of Hollie's diaper boxes.

Et voilá! Our baby's name in vibrant rainbow awesomeness.

Here's the full wall look. It has done well to take up at least a good part of the formerly blank drab expanse of wall. And yeah, that's right: that's a Popple in my baby's toy net. Jealous much?

The extreme angle to show off our shadow effects.

Hollie even worked collaboratively with us by playing with the bird on my purse for almost an hour while Dave and I glued, cut, and hung up her new art. What a good baby.

Thing #18: Make Wall Art = ACCOMPLISHED!

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #17—Watercolor!

David blogs about this one here. You certainly don't want to miss the bonus picture of a chubby baby in a bathtub. Do you?

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #16—Cook with Unfamiliar Ingredients

Yes, that's right: We're back to edible awesomeness. Today, we cooked with ingredients we had never cooked with before. We made Spanakopita, a kind of Greek spinach pie, and it involved cooking with phyllo dough, something we had certainly never attempted to work with before.

Aside from the phyllo, the recipe also called for ingredients we have certainly used in the past, but never in the same dish. The filling called for spinach, a lot of feta cheese, Greek yogurt (the best yogurt, in my opinion—so good with honey drizzled on it!), chives, minced dill, minced mint (I chewed several leaves during the food prep), lemon zest and juice (once again, my microplaner proves to be the best Mothers' Day gift ever), garlic, eggs, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and, of course, salt and pepper. 

Stirring it all together. This is the first place David and I have ever lived where there have been windows in the kitchen. Don't kitchen windows make cooking so much more lovely?

Another ingredient we had never worked with before: Pecorino Romano cheese (and my microplaner strikes again!). This is one of Italy's oldest cheeses, says Wikipedia, and it comes from sheep's milk. It is hard, salty, and very, very good. We have plenty leftover for salads and whatever else we can think to grate it on.

I was so nervous to work with phyllo. It immediately begins to dry out, harden, and crack as soon as it reaches open air, so whenever I didn't immediately need another thin sheet of dough, I had to cover it with plastic wrap and a damp towel. This is definitely something that would be difficult to make without someone watching the kiddos while you cook. Thanks, Davie!

My spanakopita filling on 10 buttered layers of phyllo dough.

Before baking.

After baking! I know it isn't perfect, and I would certainly be embarrassed for a real Greek to see my attempt at their dish, but I'm pretty proud that it actually looks something like what's supposed to look like!

In the meantime, David fed Hollie carrots, gave her a bath, and got her ready for bed. Anyone who has been to our house between 5:00 and 7:00 knows that this is not a one-person job. Getting this roly-poly wiggleworm into pajamas alone is typically a two-person job around here.

Making a huge experimental Greek dish requires some sharing with friends, so we invited some dear friends over to help us eat everything. David made a salad and some roasted potatoes with thyme and caramelized onions (his specialty), and our friend Joleen brought some homemade wheat bread with lemon curd. For dessert, our friend Kellyanne brought strawberry/raspberry shortcake. Could we be any more spoiled?

You'd think an actual dining-room-sized dining room table would be on our to-buy list before all of these extra bookshelves. Especially since we certainly eat as much as we read around here.

Melanie, Joleen, and Kellyanne have dinner with us while Hollie remains the center of attention.

Thing #16: Cook with Unfamiliar Ingredients (Make a Spanakopita) = ACCOMPLISHED.

30 Things in 30 Days: Day #15—Halftime

Curtains are up! Hollie's room is officially the inside of a tree now. Thanks to my mom for the Hobby Lobby gift card!

Read all about this adventure and several more on Dave's blog.

30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #14—Sew some Curtains

My grandma gave David and me a sewing machine as one of her many wedding gifts to us nearly three years ago on August 14, 2009.

We had never used it.....................until TODAY.

We've been trying to sew curtains for Hollie's room since Christmas or something. A long time. I think we bought the material for it in March. So today's Awesome Thing has been a long time coming.

And, actually, we need to wait a little longer.

Note the pile of string and the bobbin I finally abandoned for a new one (an unlucky bobbin, I tell you!). The white cloth to the right is my practice fabric. And boy, did I ever need practice.

You see, we started this project in the a.m., but I what I didn't realize was how long it was going to take me to relearn everything from high school home economics classes. I've sewed with my mom pretty recently, but she's in charge of all the hard parts like prepping the bobbins and stringing the stringies (I obviously am not well-equipped with the necessary terminology. Which is particularly embarrassing considering how much Project Runway I've watched over the past five years).

We ran to Hobby Lobby for some more necessaries, and then we came home and ate dinner around the crafting spot (P.S. to Sherry if she is reading—you were right about Jamie Oliver's cauliflower mac & cheese: super yummy. Also, I wish I would have read your latest comment before we stopped by the library for a third time this week!).

Fortunately, babies' high chairs come with their own table. Of course, this doesn't keep the sweet potatoes from reaching a five-foot distance in any direction. But Little Baboo kept the mess to just her goatee area this evening, like a good little girl.

After Hollie went to bed, David put himself on ironing/measuring duty, and I was on sew-it-all-together duty. We did it! But now the baby is sleeping. So you all will just have to wait until tomorrow to see what it looks like in Babaloo's bedroom (I know the anticipation must be terrible).

The sneak peek:

We wanted fabric that made Hollie's room seem like it is inside a big tree, and when she opens up the curtains, it is like pulling back tree branches. It also reminds me of this flowered wallpaper my grandma used to have on her walls. My sister and I are still a little obsessed with that wallpaper pattern.

Awesome Thing 14—Sew some Curtains = ACCOMPLISHED, almost/sorta