ON NEW YORK NATALIE, MOSCOW NATALIE, AND THE TROUBLE WITH TIME + PLACE

this post is a pep talk to myself. it can also be a pep talk for you, if you'd like.

A million years ago I wrote a post about a version of myself I called New York Natalie.

The idea was that I was living in Idaho, feeling sad and frustrated, waylaid and lost, super sorry for myself, and I had remembered realizing one day that I never felt that way very often (if ever?) when I lived in New York.

I was tougher there. Or something. I felt more grown up. Less flailing.

New York Natalie had a whole different schtick going on. She liked being mature and making adult decisions, she liked saving money and planning for vacations, she liked taking on responsibility and, like, she even liked doing the dishes. (Or, at least she did them more reliably.) New York Natalie was pretty rad. I liked her! She was going somewhere.

At least, she thought she was going somewhere.

(Turned out, she was actually going to Moscow, so...)

***

Now that I've done this enough times to know by scientific reasoning, I can stick this feather in my cap: I'm pretty good at adapting to drastic changes in my environment. I think I do it without even realizing it. Someone called it "chameleoning" the other day, and maybe that's it.

Maybe it's just a lack of any overriding sense of willpower over whatever it is I'm encountering at the time? A white flag?

It's also a little bit like being a sponge. I'm sensitive to my surroundings, usually all it takes is a couple seconds til it soaks right in. Welcome to me, anything and everything!

I also love to try new things. I am sometimes overly open-minded. I can throw myself into just about anything and really get a kick out of it. I have a healthy sense of adventure.

Whatever it is, it's a pretty good quality to have if you don't mind my horn-tooting.
Or at least it is until it involves chameleoning/acquiescing/soaking/adventuring backwards, into a former, lesser version of myself, instead of progressing forward, as maybe all human beings should.

You know. 

***

So, Moscow Natalie. 

Ughhhhhhhhh.

Moscow Natalie was never anybody I wanted to be long-term. Even at the time I was being her, I was aware that Moscow Natalie was merely a survival mode. Just Get Through It Natalie.

Moscow Natalie was stuck in Idaho -- maybe against her will, certainly beyond her control -- and it really funked around with her sense of ownership of the thing. And as a result I'm afraid she was a little bit of a pain in the ass. Obviously it is rather unhealthy for one to compartmentalize oneself in this manner! Do not ye do it! Take it from me!

Still, having now been Moscow Natalie twice, for better or worse, I can tell you. It's a thing. It is definitely a thing.

Being Moscow Natalie es no bueno. Fer nobody. I know this for sure-sure, having now in the process of returning to Idaho also reverted right back into that Moscow Natalie person, relinquishing again any responsibility or control over my own life in exchange for moping around like a petulant child stuck somewhere she doesn't want to be, living each day just to get through it, all-in survival mode, washing her hands of the thing, just, BLAH and SHIT and BLAH and PASS ME ALL THE CHICKENS, and surprise of all surprises, it hasn't been working! I am highly dissatisfied!! I want my money back!!

(Except for my chickens. Chickens for all and to all a good night!) 

So, uh, don't be Moscow Natalie anymore, dorko.

This should be simple, I catch myself thinking a lot. Just embody all the things I liked about myself better while I was living somewhere else, without having to actually *be* somewhere else, be some kind of rad Moscow/New York Natalie hybrid, duh I can do that! I adapt! I've done it! And anyway, I mean, we all can! We can all be that version of ourselves we like best to be, whether or not we have the cheat of a rad city (or whatever else is tickling your pickling) to get us there. Am I right??!?

Okay, yes! 

Challenge, accepted! 

Thrifting hasn't gotten me there. Weirdly enough!?! And neither have granny squares or needlepoint or paint-by-numbers either, come to think of it. It's like this world has gone upside down!! ;)

(The chickens do help, but they're mostly a distraction.)
(MAYBE I NEED A CAT INSTEAD?)

And like I said already, I mean, thinking about yourself like this is a really bad idea. One definitely should not do it.

One cannot solve immaturity by engaging farther into self-centered, immature thought patterns! 

But anyway like I was saying . . .  about myself . . .

***

I'm afraid that maybe the entire Palouse in general just makes me miserable.

Is it the lentils?

I used to think it was the job at SEL that made me miserable. (Well, it was.)

Or my infertility and subsequent feelings of lack of any purpose at all. (Well, yeah, it was that too.)

Maybe the fact that we were poor grad students in a very bad economy with exams stressing the husband to death and back every semester and Peter Pan was always sick and required fancy dog food that even the Maharaja couldn't afford plus the fact that the sun doesn't shine out here for fully half of the year!?!?!! 

Cause obviously... yes. All those things are gonna mess with a person, that's just how that works, and that's all right.
That's just character building mumbo jumbo, or whatever.

But now that I am here again, mis-er-able, with none of those ingredients in my kitchen, and yet I am STILL baking that miserable cake!? AND YET!???!!

Sure, I'm still infertile (or rather, re-infertile after a brief period of non-infertile), but this time I have a kid. I'm a mom!
There's some purpose right there, slap you on the face with it.
We can easily afford the groceries.
None of my pets are unhealthy or even slightly high maintenance in the least!
(Chickens. Pass me all of the chickens!)

And yet!?!?

Just kidding it's still fully dark here fully half of the year.
That suuuuuuuucks. 

(Never underestimate the Seasonal Affective Disorder and that funny in-betweenness funk one always finds oneself in whenever the weather tries to change up it's seasons on you. That there a tip from me to you.) 

Maybe it's not the ingredients that's the problem, maybe it's the cake itself?
One layer of perceived lack of control, followed by a layer willingness to roll over and give whatever away in order to merely exist, followed by a layer of bad decisions, topped off with a nice chocolate ganache.

OR MAYBE THIS IS A MIDLIFE CRISIS!

That's an exciting thought. Maybe I need a sports car instead of a cat?

(Are cats the female equivalent of a sports car?)

(Oh gosh, wouldn't that be sad kind of?)

Maybe it's just the sheer lack of control over any of my life circumstances right now.

But here's a jolt of truth that helps to burn off any excess misery calories: I am here for my husband. I am here because I like to be wherever my husband is. I like that guy! I like this family! And I am willing to bet we are all where we are because of something we love that outweighs the rest of the shit that we don't love. Brandon is the primary breadwinner of this here shindig, and Brandon's professional needs do take precedence over a lot of other things. And while that can be hard, and while we're definitely allowed to grant ourselves that truth, we shouldn't get caught up in it.

Because getting caught up in it, that's selfishness. 

Pouting about a choice I made because of a choice I made because of a choice I made (Idaho Brandon / Breadwinner Brandon / Marrying Brandon) is hideous. I made that choice. The truth is, the control has been mine all along, and it continues to be mine even now.

The real truth is that it has never been about control at all.

***

I think the realities of selfishness are much more complex than we like for them to be. In fables, it's easy to differentiate the evil, selfish hag from the pure, thoughtful princess. That's the lesson. Nobody wants to be selfish, even the worst of us human beings on this planet want to believe that we are acting out of something higher than selfishness. But it's humbling when you realize just how often selfishness can disguise itself as other things. It's humbling when you realize the struggle you're in is a struggle you happily took on and would happily take on again and again.

I think to say that control is what will save us is to say that we are better and smarter than we actually are, or that somehow we could do better with this life than what the spark of creation has been doing all this time.  

It turns out, it is selfishness that's making me miserable. And that I can work with. 

So, I had myself a talk with Moscow Natalie.
(It definitely looked alarming from a mental health point of view.)

Moscow Natalie is going to try and bugger off for a while. She's not terribly helpful, and I don't very much enjoy her, and I have better ways to attend to this deal, and 25 wasn't a good time in ANYBODY'S life, thank you and you're welcome I am in no hurry to repeat that part of my life yikes.

I've also decided that since New York Natalie may take me some time, and since she probably wasn't even all that great to begin with (I probably have overly fond memories of her that are making her seem way cooler than she actually was), maybe it's time to come up with a different Natalie. 

A better Natalie.

I think I'm going to call her Kick Ass Natalie. 

This one won't be location-specific.

THE HOLBROOKS HAVE A TREE!

It's tree time it's tree time!

Per tradition, we set out the Friday after Thanksgiving to get ourselves a tree. 

This time, because we do not live in a cement wonderland anymore, we went out to the source to find our tree and chop her down off the side of Moscow Mountain.

Moscow actually has a mountain in it that is called Moscow Mountain. It's hysterical.

Looking for a tree is a spiritual affair, I've said that before, so we'll leave it at that, BUT! Spiritual affair or no, hunting for a tree in 25-degree weather is not for the faint of heart. Huck was a pile of kid holiday misery. It made our experience feel quite authentic.  (You know that mom singing "Deck The Halls" at the top of her lungs while her kid covers his ears in mortification and can't wait to get out of there? It is a terribly satisfying experience once you're on the other side of that situation, it turns out.)

And then, we found her.

(We kind of wanted something sparse and needly to show off our homemade ornaments. She is definitely sparse and needly.)

Husbands playing lumberjack. NOT BAD.

One-handed! 

Oh lights. Every year I'm stuck finishing the Christmas lights.

It's okay. 

AND NOW AS I HAVE SAID CONCERNING CHRISTMAS TREES!

Presenting a brief history of The Lovin-Holbrook lineage of trees:

Brandon grew up with colored Christmas lights, and a tree filled with ornaments collected over the years to represent each of the Holbrook kids' interests and activities. Brandon's collection are mostly made up of soccer and Garfield ornaments. There you have it.

Natalie grew up with white Christmas lights, and a tree YOU DIDN'T TOUCH. Because it was a glorious masterpiece of Juliemom craft and to touch it was to disrespect a whole matriarchal line of perfection in the form of yuletide tree, and so you just didn't do it.

My Juliemom grew up with Miss Shirley Jean, who is famous for never getting her tree to her liking until nearly January, and then leaving it up until February, so all can properly enjoy its majesty.

My dad grew up with a big, fat Christmas tree, with silky needles and those red string Christmas balls, with colored lights meant for the outdoors drooping behind a generous waterfall of tinsel. A gloriously puffy white angel presiding on top.

Huck is growing up with some funny kind of middle ground, where THE RIGHT OF TREE IS MINE, but it never looks the same from year to year, and Huck is always involved in the planning of ornament placement, and here and there I'll throw a marshmallow garland on it that Huck can eat as much of as he likes. Nice of me, huh?

I also believe in naming Christmas trees, because our trees are like our Power Ranger spirit animals, and it's important you honor the spiritual nature of such a choice. Huck can tell you that much. So this one's name is Amy Grant. Because she is thin and spindly. Just like Amy Grant's voice. 

(No no I love Amy Grant stop for a minute baby I'm so glad you're mine!) 

(But her voice IS a little bit needly.)

She's also our first Holbrook Christmas tree with colored lights. 

Here she is! 

She's rather squinky. I kind of like her.

HAPPY THANKSGEEBING BACK

Look guys. This one is cheesy. Don't say I didn't warn you.

We have the definite fortune of having a lot of our friends still in town from our first time living in Moscow. It's been the kind of thing where, after everything that went down in New York, I just really craved that tight-knit thing. Keeping a circle small. Miniscule even, for the time being, so we spend most of our friend time with two sisters I met through a mutual friend a zillion years ago, and another friend those sisters introduced me to when we first moved back. I joked when we hung out the first time after we'd moved back that I really needed sisters more than I needed friends, and then somehow that's sort of stuck. When I went to see Alex perform in Deep Love in Walla Walla, Alexis texted me on my way and said "Give our sister a hug for me!" Sisters! It's been exactly that, and exactly what I needed. 

Really, who needs friends? Give me some sisters. 

So we spent our Thanksgiving with those sisters, and it was the perfect way to spend a family holiday away from family. I brought all my favorite family recipes and they brought all their favorite family recipes, the kids ran around like hooligans, the adults sat huddled around a Spotify account playing hideous 90s music and laughing hysterically at each of our terrible tastes in music. These women and their families have been something really special in my life. Thank the heavens for that.

AND ISN'T IT IRONIC THIS IS A HOLIDAY FOR THANKS WHEN I HAVE BEEN FEELING SO PERMANENTLY FUNKY THESE DAYS. I have been having a hard time finding my gratitude, yo. November squeezed it all out of me. So pardon me for a minute as I put on my gratitude goggles and focus on the damn good things. You know, name them one by one. 

Old habits. You hear me.

In no particular order, here are a few things I am grateful for RIGHT NOW:

1. Sisters. Biological and not.

2. The way Lewiston twinkles from below when you're driving down the grade just after sunset.

3. The Internet! I know, right? My sponsors, my readers, my friends, my enemies ;). I'm grateful for the continuity of a life lived online, and the beautiful opportunities it has given me. The good is so far beyond the pain it could ever dish out. 

4. My boyyyyyyys!!! I'm grateful for the way Huck points at things with his fingers like a gun. I'm grateful for the way Brandon makes me laugh so hard at all the weirdest times. I'm grateful for how hard Brandon works to support us and how beautifully he cares for us. I'm so grateful for our silly Holbrook Trio. If this is all I get, lemme tell you. I got puh-lenty.

5. THOSE DAMN CHICKENS GOSH DARN IT! Good hell, those girls. They bring me so much cheesy happiness and have even started crouching down when I walk past so I can pick them up and do baby talk at them like a moron. I TELL YOU IT IS LOVE!

6. A large Diet Dr Pepper at the McDonald's drive-thru followed by the Antique Mall on a Saturday afternoon.

7.  "Small town atmosphere with big city choices--The Palouuuuuse MALL!" That stupid jingle that is still stuck in my head after all these years. THANK YOUR, OLD NAVY!

8. Please bless Meg Ryan, amen.

9. My janky old 1901 farmhouse rental and that ancient chunk of metal that passes for a gas heater that sounds like a scene from Backdraft every time it cranks on. 

Just nine because even numbers are for LOSERS. ;)

Nat the Grateful Infert, over + out!

(Don't you think "infert" should be the noun version of "infertile?" Duh.)

FRIENDSGIVING!

Over the weekend, after what was I think a tough, stupid week for all of us (understatement), I got to throw a little dinner party for some of our friends with our new sponsor, Mouth. 

It was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Also I got to set the table with all my fancy fixins I never get to use!

All I'm saying here is that a dinner party with friends you love is a cure for whatever ails you. Big heartaches and little alike. 

Alexis brought over Chicken Tarragon Soup and we served it in bread bowls. And then we busted out the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack on Spotify and, look. HYGGE, SON!

One of the best parts of the night was when my friend Nate stood up with the bowl of chocolate covered Cheerios in his hands and said, "OH. MY. GOSH. EVERYBODY. HAS. TO TRY. THIS NOW." It about made me glow with cheesy happiness. I used to buy the not-Jacque Torres version IN BULK at the Trader Joe's in Brooklyn whenever they were in stock, and yeeeeeeees son. I was so excited when I saw Mouth carried them that I had actual exclamation marks hovering over my  head. !!!!!  

A few more photos from our night now, as is blog custom.

I'm a lucky girl to have these friends. They all brought all their kids, too, because a party should be a party for everybody, that's my general theory. So Huck and all his buddies had themselves a pizza and a movie party upstairs, and we hardly heard a peep from them all evening. 

(Cupcakes make excellent babysitters.) 

Friends with fat babies.

And a quick Chicken Tarragon Soup recipe . . . now!

Ingredients

1 roasted chicken taken off the bone

5 tlbs butter

3 cups sliced leeks

3 tlbs flour

4 c chicken stock

4 c heavy cream heated (Alexis says she throws some goat cheese in here too, just for funsies)

1 tlb tarragon, chopped

1 tsp salt

1 lemon, juiced and zested

Sautee leeks in melted butter in a large soup pot. Add salt and cook till translucent. Add flour slowly until mixture has thickened, then add heavy cream, a half cup at a time, while stirring, and then the stock, same method. Add tarragon, lemon juice + zest, pulled chicken, mix it all up, let it simmer 10 minutes. Enjoy!

AROUND HERE

Well hiiiiiiiii.

And now for an assortment of completely off-topic topics for your pleasure. It's probably going to be hideously long because it's been five millennia since I've been up in this joint. 

Ahem!

Item one. Clomid boobs. Are not to be trusted. 

Item two. So I have these chickens?

Look at them colluding on something all cute like. I'm onto you, ladies! 

So we've taken to calling them The Ladies and The Babies. Well, *I've* taken to calling them The Ladies + Babies. Those're my girls. Gosh I love those turkeys. I look forward to letting them out in the morning and surmising their evening activities (today I walked in on five individual circles in the straw, each the perfect size of a chicken butt, like mysterious crop circles--were they trying to send me a message?; the other morning I came in to find all eight of them battling for space on the coop window ledge, poor Cuddles front + center getting smooshed all to heck, her little face pressed against the chicken wire, all of them packed in there tight with one Cuddles eyeball sending me an acute expression of alarm mingled a knowing understanding that that spot in the front means she's boss, and that's worth something, so she'll take it like a champ), and I look forward to ushering them up the hill and tucking them into bed at night. 

Somebody always has an attitude about something. 

I find it delightful!

Huck only likes The Babies because he has decided he is their mom, but me and Cuddles, man. 

Tiny Cuddles. She's kind of like my assistant manager. 

She'd be the one to stage a mutiny, I'd bet.

Speaking of the Huckleberry Hero (his chosen alter ego), well, these days we are into buttered noodles. It's buttered noodles all day errday. I like mine with salt and pepper, sometimes thawed peas from the freezer, but really it's just about the butter and the noodles, if you're a Huck. He's a noodle purist. All day. Every. Day.

I used up the last of the carrots from the farmer's market in a SPECTACULAR failure of a supper. 

No, I can call it that now because I live in the sticks. Don't even argue with it.

But the good news is, my Getting Off the Brooklyn Eat-Out Wagon has been successful! (We eat a lot of cereal.)

I've been crocheting dish rags for Christmas presents. It's soothing as all get out. 

(Sorry for spoiling the surprise, sissies!)

(The water filter is a Soma and I love it.)

Dressing in blankets nearly 100% of the time. (Hat is from Aporta!)

Crunching in leaves that are still hanging on. Though they're starting to get smooshy. 

Points to Idaho for having this policy of nobody raking their leaves, ever. 

By February it's going to be sliiiiiiiiime. 

Nobody asked me for a picture of a cute red house but here I am, just the same!

In my next life I want to be a red house. 

Get it, Huck!

Okay this is old school out the yin yang and happened a million years ago, but. The other . . . month? . . . Huck met a snow owl.

Is that a snow owl? I don't even remember. BUT LOOK AT HIM, will you? He is perfection. 

As is this dude. The other month I met a pony! 

And then we fell in love. 

A photo from a sunny day in September . . .

And this! From last week.

Good grief. So we are attempting the Danish art of hygge.

TRANSITIONAL DECOR FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Something fun today from me + Martha Stewart! 

I love to play the "too early!" game whenever I spot Christmas decorations up in stores too soon after Halloween. Hello, Thanksgiving is to be appreciated. However! I also like to cozy my home up for the holidays as soon as humanly possible, especially once Daylight Savings Time ends and my home becomes a cave that could really use some extra cheer inside. It's a conundrum. And I do mean that sincerely, because look! You either take this kind of stuff seriously or you don't, and those that do, well, you know what I mean here.

So Martha + I (well, the Martha Stewart Living section at The Home Depot and I . . .) are teaming up today to show you a few early holiday decor ideas that are fully Christmas tested and Thanksgiving approved! It's exciting, I know! :)

My trick is wreaths. It is never too early for wreaths. 

I love a wreath sans door, just for the heck of it. 

In the kitchen, I love a more petite wreath, something a little less grand and a little more natural, plus cranberries.

(Bonus Diet Coke in the shot, whoops! :)

I don't have a mantel but I love this garland with it's soft blue-green pine. Don't you think Barry deserves a garland? The oversized lit kissing ball is also sweet. We'll pretend it's mistletoe ;). 

A little sparkle on the way to the commode . . . nothing wrong with that ;)

I'll admit to moving the garland around a bit to find just the right spot. Because that's FUN.

There's no bad place for a garland. 

Mission accomplished! Not too Christmassy, definitely full of cheer.