Some other things that made me happy this week include:

This poster from Urban Outfitters. Visual reinforcement is always good!

Charades, which I haven’t played in 27 years and laughed my head of with my colleagues playing it one night this week (yes, we’re a bunch of nerds). Official rules can be found here.

This version of chess. Every time I play with my son, it makes me happy. It’s the single greatest way to learn the game without getting out-of-your-mind frustrated.

This Trish McEvoy lip gloss in Irresistible Petal. The sheen makes me feel like warm weather is right around the corner.

As of 3:30 this afternoon, the Lewin household is offically on vacation. If you are too, or at least have Monday off, enjoy!

- P

Color makes me happy, so you can imagine how I felt when I spotted these awesome igneous rock formations on Pinterest.

Other things that made me happy this week include:

This great Valentine’s Day book

These fabulous and inexpensive online classes (took my first one yesterday)

This amazing story of kindness

This well-deserved honor for Jenny Komenda, one of my favorite decorators and the first blogger I followed regularly

Happy Friday, everyone.

- P

After reading the article, and then visiting the blog, I couldn’t stop thinking about that simply elegant framework — end the year with less stuff than I started with. It struck a chord with me, perhaps because the idea of consuming, spending, and acquiring stuff at the expense of, well, living, was what had gotten me started on this blog two years ago.

Fast forward to New Year’s Eve. In my extended family, stating your resolutions is a big deal. There’s a lot of pomp and circumstance, and some of my family members try to escape to the bathroom, just so they can avoid the moment when the round-the-table resolution train gets to them. Being a former child actress (and by that I mean starring in supporting roles in my high school musicals), I relish the moment when the spotlight is on me. This year I was ready.

So, with a huge thank you to Joslyn for articulating the most perfect resolution for me — the one who would like to “make more and buy less,” I will be following in your footsteps this year. While I won’t be dedicating a blog to the endeavor, I will report each month on what came in to my house. So here goes…my January report.

Perfect red cords from J. Crew

Chemise from Anthropologie

Gorgeous bib necklace from Stella & Dot

Bakelite-like necklace from J. Crew

Antlers. Have wanted them forever.

A new fitness DVD recommended by Boston Mamas

Craft supplies to make these great photo-to-canvas transfers

No mindless shopping at Target. No emotional spending binges. This is HUGE.

- P

I wrote my first Make More, Buy Less post just slightly more than two years ago. Eight posts later, I had written my last. Pretty lame, I know.

But there’s a reason.

Just a few days after I started this blog — an experiment in coming clean and finding my creative self — my husband lost his job and our world turned sideways. I would say upside down, but we were fortunate compared to others who have been laid off. My husband was provided with a decent severance package and my employer allowed me to ramp up to full time. I started a small side business to earn some extra dough in case job interviews didn’t come swiftly enough, but the phone was ringing within the first few weeks (thanks, in part, to my husband’s inability to wallow in his unemployed-ness — something I’m sure I would do). But blogging about trying to curb my spending and fulfilling some pretty lofty goals of personal growth seemed sort of pointless. Putting the brakes on my old habits was no longer optional, and trying to “make more” — crafting and sewing and cooking and exercising and all that — just seemed too overwhelming in the midst of having to sell our house (and then sell it again when our first buyers backed out), move from my dream town, and completely change our lives.

Within four months of the layoff, my husband was in a new job an hour-and-a-half away from our home. We opted to sell and move to another town, opinions of which I had formed twenty years earlier while playing against its high school field hockey team. To say I wasn’t thrilled about the move is an understatement. To say that I felt like I was dragged unwillingly by some uncontrollable force is more accurate. And while I still don’t feel like this town is my town, I do think the universe has plans and we don’t always understand them. Because, if my husband hadn’t lost his job, we would not have moved, and:

We would still be house poor.

We would still be living in my dream town, which despite all of its dreamy qualities (walkable, strong community, great schools, vibrant town center), had a lot of issues.

I would still be only 30 minutes from work, rather than nearly two hours, which forced me to assess whether I was truly happy at my job. (I wasn’t.)

I would not have actively pursued a new role — part-time webmaster, designer, and communications Jill-of-all-trades — at a school on the most gorgeous campus I have ever seen. And after a couple of interviews during which I was convinced I wouldn’t get the job, I did.

I would not be working ten minutes from my husband. We’re so close now we could meet for lunch.

I would not be working for a school that values and encourages its faculty to immerse themselves in interests outside of their job descriptions, as evidenced by my boss who has a booming jewelry design business, a colleague who ran an inn for two decades in her spare time, an athletic director who’s an amateur guitar player, and a headmaster who paints (and P.S., we’re not an art school.)

So here we are, settled in a place we didn’t plan to be two years ago, but seems to be working out pretty nicely. And I’m ready to come back to this germ of an idea I started and see where it goes.

Hope you come for the ride.

- P

I didn’t know anything about Playing for Change until my brother posted this video on Facebook. It turns out that not only is their music awesome (and I mean that – awe inspiring), but they have a pretty important mission too. Read all about it here.

I knew roughly what I was looking for, but when I landed on Alice’s Potato Gratin recipe, I realized I didn’t have the exact ingredients or tools needed (gratin dish? really?), but decided to wing it anyway.  That’s the new kind of confidence this crazy experient has infused in me.  Cook something, using a recipe as inspiration only?  HUGE.  So here’s how it went down.

Spreadable butter (butter/canola oil blend; clearly regular butter would be the better option here, but I had run out — poor planning)

Garlic clove

5 sprouting red potatoes, scrubbed, with eyes removed

Kosher salt and fresh-ground pepper

Fresh thyme (leftover from a pork tenderloin I whipped up over the weekend)

Whole milk

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees.

BUTTER dish and rub a smushed garlic clove all over the insides.  I used a round shallow casserole.

THINLY SLICE the potatoes, skin and all.  I used a handheld mandoline that my mom gave me for Christmas.  If you don’t own a mandoline, check out this one — inexpensive and does the job perfectly.

OVERLAP potatoes in layers, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper and fresh thyme.

POUR enough milk in dish to touch the bottom of the top layer of potatoes.

PLACE dots of butter (or butter blend in my case) all over the top layer.

BAKE dish until bubbly and top is browned, about an hour and ten minutes for me.

The end result was a dish that I would qualify as “gentle” – not a standout, but a simple, flavorful side that was an excellent accompaniment to the London Broil we grilled the next night.  And certainly better than throwing the potatoes in the disposal.

She rocks (and so do her beautiful girls and wonderful husband).

So, just bear with me good readers (all ten of you)…I promise there will be some non-cooking stuff coming before the end of January.  Bon appetit!

This past Monday, I cracked open Family Meals again to look for a good seafood recipe.  We don’t eat nearly enough seafood in our house, and I want to make sure I capitalize on my 5-year-old’s new-found love of shrimp (I’m making a leap here, hoping that if he likes shrimp he’ll like other things from the sea).  After a couple of minutes perusing the seafood chapter, I started to salivate when I landed on the recipe for Panfried Sole with Lemon-Caper Sauce.  My grocery store didn’t have any sole in stock, so I substituted tilapia (as recommended by author Maria Helm Sinskey).

Serves 4-6

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (I had attempted to make bread earlier in the day and had some leftover white flour/wheat flour blend, so as not to waste, that’s what I used)  

6 sole or tilapia fillets (I bought 3 large fillets)

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 tablespoon minced shallot

1 heaping tablespoon drained capers

1/4 cup dry white wine (I realized halfway through cooking that our bottle of dry white wine had been polished off during the weekend, so I substituted chicken stock)

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

{I served this dish with avocado slices drizzled with lemon juice and seasoned with salt and pepper}

PUT the flour in a shallow bowl or pie pan.  Season a piece of fish on both sides with salt and pepper, and then coat on both sides with the flour, tapping off the excess.  Set aside on a plate and repeat with the remaining fish.

HEAT a large sauté pan over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons of the butter.  When the butter begins to brown, add the fish and cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides and opaque throughout, 2-3 minutes on each side.  If the flour begins to burn, reduce the heat slightly.  Transfer to a platter and keep warm.

ADD 1 tablespoon of the butter to the pan over medium-high heat.  When it begins to brown, add the shallot and capers and saute until the shallot is lightly browned, 1-2 minutes.  Add the wine and the lemon zest and juice and bring to a boil, stirring to dislodge any browned bits from the bottom.  Boil until reduced by half, about 2 minutes.  Remove from the heat and whisk in the remaining 5 tablespoons butter.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Spoon the sauce over the fish and serve right away.

This dish was AMAZING.  It was so easy to make and totally delectable.  In fact, the reason there are no pictures (once again), is that we downed the whole thing in five minutes flat.