{"id":103,"date":"2004-03-01T19:25:14","date_gmt":"2004-03-01T17:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/home.tjerngren.net\/wp\/?p=103"},"modified":"2004-03-01T19:25:14","modified_gmt":"2004-03-01T17:25:14","slug":"family-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/?p=103","title":{"rendered":"Family matters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First, I&#8217;m pleased to report that the second issue of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mosaicminds.net\">Mosaic Minds<\/a> came out today, and if I do say so myself, it&#8217;s even better than the first one.  No sophomore slump here!  <\/p>\n<p>Now, on to the news of the day, such as it is.  <\/p>\n<p>We had Olof&#8217;s parents over for dinner last night, and it was a nice evening despite what felt like one culinary mishap after another.  In retrospect it wasn&#8217;t that bad, but I&#8217;m a perfectionist in the kitchen as well as everywhere else, and I always feel at least a little anxiety when cooking for anyone other than my kids.  Anyway, I had planned to make potato gnocchi in tomato sauce, but it just didn&#8217;t turn out <i>at all<\/i>.  I&#8217;m not even sure what the problem was, but the dough was way too sticky and there was no way it could be formed into gnocchi.  I think it might have had something to do with my trying to triple a recipe that was intended to serve two people.  Finally, about an hour before they were due to arrive, I admitted to myself that it was a lost cause and sent Olof to the store to buy fresh pasta.  I have to confess that I was a bit ashamed to have invited over dinner guests only to greet them with a pot full of store-bought pasta and a rather ordinary tomato sauce, but there really wasn&#8217;t much else to do.  I did end up confessing my gnocchi failure to my mother-in-law, because in the end, I could better stand to have her think I&#8217;m a less-than-stellar cook than that I had actually <i>planned<\/i> to serve such a boring meal.  At least the blueberry buns I made for dessert turned out well.  They were so delicious that they all disappeared within twenty-four hours.<\/p>\n<p>I feel like I&#8217;m finally getting closer to Olof&#8217;s parents, especially to his mom, which makes me happy.  I know I say this all the time, but she really is an amazingly wonderful, good-hearted person.  When I was at the midwife a couple of weeks ago, the conversation got around to how I had ended up in northern Sweden.  I told her that my husband is Swedish and that he grew up here.  Suddenly she said, &#8220;wait, who&#8217;s your mother-in-law?&#8221;  When I told her, she smiled warmly and nodded, then said, &#8220;well, you did end up in the right place then.&#8221;  I think that&#8217;s one of the nicest compliments I&#8217;ve ever heard about someone else.  Lucky for me, it&#8217;s true.  Having Olof&#8217;s mom is the next best thing to having my own mom here.  If I have my way, one day I&#8217;ll have both.<\/p>\n<p>This evening Lydia has the two little girls from across the street spending the night.  Funny how things change with time.  When we first moved into our house, I wasn&#8217;t overly fond of either of them, but the longer we live here the better I like them.  When Lydia asked me this morning if both of them could spend the night, I didn&#8217;t even hesitate before saying yes.  Not only that, but I even went to the store to buy them snacks for their &#8220;pajamas party,&#8221; <i>and<\/i> made meatballs and mashed potatoes (instant, but still) for the littler one when she came to the kitchen and whispered to me that she hates tacos (Lydia&#8217;s request for dinner).  I think I&#8217;m on the verge of becoming the neighborhood&#8217;s favorite mom.  I&#8217;m the softest touch, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First, I&#8217;m pleased to report that the second issue of Mosaic Minds came out today, and if I do say so myself, it&#8217;s even better than the first one. No sophomore slump here! Now, on to the news of the day, such as it is. We had Olof&#8217;s parents over for dinner last night, and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/?p=103\">Read More <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Family matters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beverlyrevelry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}