At One Point, We Made Chickpea Salad Sandwiches

Life gets crazy when my husband is home.

I have a much longer post that I've been working on all week, but it's just not happening until he's back at work. He likes attention or something.

It was my birthday this week which pretty much means nothing.

(My husband says apparently 29 means I cheerfully sit in a corner by myself, but you know what for all he makes fun of me, that IS happiness some days. To not have someone clinging off of you is bliss.)

My birthday certainly doesn't mean celebrations and parties like when we were kids or even young adults, because who am I kidding, I'm a mom with a small child and a husband who works away and, if I don't plan and execute my own party, no one will.

And I've been awfully lazy since that daylight savings bullshit switch of an hour.

It's KILLING me this year.I have been wanting to eat dinner at 3 and go to bed for 5. Right at this moment, my husband is bravely putting our daughter to bed at 6 (she's absolutely wiped out). We'd rather face her at 6 in the morning than right now as she comes off her extra-large-piece-of-chocolate-cake sugar high from her second birthday party of the weekend. I'm doing my part by heating water for a quick chamomile tea before bed for us at 8.

We know how to party on long weekends.

And what a loooooong weekend it has been. Early dismissal on Friday and no school Monday or Tuesday. All I can say is thank goodness my husband happened to be home this week or I don't think both tiny and I would have lived to see the other side of it. One or the other. Not both.

When my husband is home, days fly by. Three weeks of love, activities, and chores need to be smushed into ten days. It's no wonder we're perpetually exhausted when he's home and need at least eight to nine hours of sleep a night. It's a busy time.

We've been staying up late all week cleaning the basement which has been a disaster since we had the whole house painted in the summer. John left me to go back to work mid-job, leaving me with a house completely torn apart and half of all our belongings in boxes. That was also when my anxiety was at an all-time high. Super fun times. I switched into survival mode and just chucked everything that wasn't needed at the moment or that no longer had a spot in the house into the basement and that's where it has lived. A whole travelling caravan of gypsies could have moved in down there and I'd have no idea because it was such a mess.

By the way, the painting crew we had, I would never, ever recommend them. I won't slander them by naming them on here, but they were awful. They were all young college kids (I say that like I'm 70) and two of them were dating and fought constantly for the whole two weeks they were here. The worst fight happened when John was taking our tiny bean out for the afternoon and I was to stay at home to get some reading done. I helped them out to the truck with all of the things they were taking with them and when I came back in, the painters had been in the basement mixing more paint. I headed upstairs and all was fine.

Then their hour-long fighting match started.

The first few yells startled me but I really didn't think too much of it because they had been spatting all morning. Then it continued and it got louder. Then I realized they must not know I was in the house, having not seen or heard me come back in. At this point, I didn't know what was worse: to sit and be quiet or to say something... but what could I even say? I hate confrontation. I hate it more than anything in the world. I hate unease of feelings, I hate tension, I hate everything that could be negative between people. It eats at my soul. So in this instance, I was locked in place, truly fighting myself over my dilemma. I ended up staying silent in my room and just getting up quietly in order to close my bedroom door and put in head phones so I couldn't make out what they said. I figured their embarrassment over knowing I could hear them outweighed my discomfort.

By the way, they had been arguing over the fact that she wore a bikini to the beach the day before and other men had noticed her and he didn't like it. I frankly wanted to smash that guy in the face. Her body, her rules. Jealous swine.

But our house is now almost put back together. Three months, that's not bad.

And next, I'm working on putting my office together and I AM SO EXCITED! More posts to come about that in the future, I am sure.

I've already praised John for being the hardest working provider for this family, but he's also the best "house-husband" (his name for himself when he's being domestic and I'm being a sloth). He cleans the kitchen when he's home without question and folds all the laundry. He hates to cook, I hate dishes, I love to wash laundry, and he likes to fold it, we truly complete each other.

Although, as an aside, I do love doing dishes (or any menial task) when I have good podcasts-- I just finished listening to 99% Invisible's six-part series about clothing origins and manufacturing and I loved them. Yes, I'm the nerd who would watch "How It's Made" at 2 in the morning after a night out. I would not be opposed to any recommended podcasts about origin stories. The hidden world of the every day objects around us fascinates me.

Anyways, John has also done a fair amount of cooking this week, giving me more time to do my own things, like attend a sourdough bread making class! It was so much fun! If anyone is thinking about attending any type of cooking class, I am totally down to join. I learnt so much information in three hours and now I can make my own traditional sourdough breads at home without fear of messing it up. I am pumped.

Our wee one also loves to help out, bless her little heart. One of the things she loves the most is to help her daddy clean his Pavement Princess, aka, his truck. I looked out at one point while I was making dinner and saw this:

I wasn't entirely certain why she was doing it but she was so focused and deliberate that I thought maybe her daddy had asked her to and she was finishing the mission she was charged with. Nope. In the next moment, John appeared around the corner with an expression looking like he was about to get into his truck and drive away. Children are so fun, aren't they? At least our front walk is sparkling clean now. I just wouldn't suggest borrowing our scrub brush for the washing the paint on your car.

I don't know about your family, but it seems like everyone has a "bad" day in the week that's super busy and seems to consume all of the week's energy just to make it through that day alive. Our day is Wednesday. Our mini has ballet that day and it's at the worst possible time after school: there's not enough time to go home and then leave again to make it on time, but heading straight there means we sit in a parking lot for forty minutes. And the worst part is that we head home during rush hour traffic to walk through the door at dinner time with one tired ballerina who's ready for bed. Snacks and dinner need to be prepped and prepared by the time we even pick her up from school. Last Wednesday, John and I also had a bunch of appointments all morning, leaving us scrambling to get everything ready in the hour before we picked up the tiny person. He made us a late lunch, while I put dinner together. Dream team!

John followed my recipe for chickpea salad sandwiches. I had luckily had the brain power that morning to cook off a bunch of chickpeas so they were all ready to go.

I loooove when he cooks.

Recipe for Chickpea Salad Sandwiches Makes 4

2 cups cooked chickpeas
1/4 each of finely diced carrots, cucumber, red bell pepper, and chives
2 tbsps. each of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds
3-4 tbsps. of tahini*
Juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp celery seed
Salt and pepper

Throw everything together and use a hand blender or a food processor to make 3/4 of it very mushy. You'll want some chunks still. Or, if your biceps are as big as my husband's, feel free to hand-smash it all with a potato-masher (this is really thrown in here to see if he actually reads these things like he says he does 😉). Spoon liberally onto toasted bread and enjoy.

*If you are using dark tahini, I would add 2-3 tbsps. first and see how it tastes. Extra lemon juice may be needed to make it brighter. For light tahini, 3-4 tbsps. is perfect, to taste.

I originally created this sandwich mixture during my Anti-Candida regiment in the summer as making whole meals to take with us everywhere wasn't great for long busy day trips away from home. I also couldn't eat meat protein with carbohydrates or have anything that contained vinegar such as mayo which I might have included in a sandwich with a bean burger. This was a wonderful substitution for our regular sandwiches and it is one of our daughter's favourites. She actually asks for it at least once a week. Give it a try and let me know how you find it!

It's well past my bedtime now. The chamomile is now fighting me fiercely and it's time for sleep. Only 4 more months until spring, right?

Talk to you all again soon <3