It took me a couple of days to realize that my manic knitting was causing severe aggravation of my rib strain. I didn't understand why I was in so much pain the last couple of days, but I've been knitting like a maniac... The Mister was sitting at the table at 11 last night making ravioli, and I decided to pull my knitting back out. My ribs had been so painful all day, but had finally started to let up a little. Within a moment or two of starting back on my project, the pain was surging. *sigh*
So, what else is new. Finishing the Noah sweater...all I need to do is sew on the front pocket and weave in about a thousand ends. Went out and got a pair of circulars with a shorter lead so I could actually finish the Baby Cozy, which is coming along nicely. Unfortunately, I SO miscalculated yarn yardage on that one. For some reason, I figured 2 balls of Chunky Mochi would do it. 4 balls in and no end in sight, I recalculated last night...I need 6. Now, if you've worked with Chunky Mochi, you know it's not cheap. $8-$9 gets you a mere 49 yards of yarn. I don't use it for big projects, or really, for many projects at all. It's hand wash only. It's gorgeous, and I happened to pick up several balls on sale some time ago. Unfortunately, I had to order more last night. Not on sale. So much for making most of my projects with stock yarn. Ordered buttons for several of my projects from Etsy. Next cast on will be the Old Man Cardigan, and I picked up some gorgeous, soft shimmery grey for it, and the bottons for it are wood, hand burned with a rose (nauseatingly cute, considering this cardigan is for Rosalie). Still haven't made progress on dyeing my blanks...
In the kitchen...it has indeed been a ravioli making extravaganza. The Mister is so tired of making them, but we had our first batch of chicken mushroom & ricotta ravioli last night, and man was it delicious. He's made a ton of batches, and a ridiculous amount of pesto. We shared some of his fresh bread with the new neighbors, one of which is also gluten free. No report back on what she thought of it, but I warned her husband that if she's not used to eating high fiber gluten free flour, it will make her fart. Man, I am a classy broad.
The woods have yielded a great deal of treasure this weekend, although Saturday's trip was mostly in vain. He'll be going out Tuesday to get the chantrelles that were too small for picking, as well as anything else that catches his eye. It was nice to have him home Sunday. I got to go to a mom's morning out function, and then laid in bed in the air conditioning (thank god for window units) and watched crap on netflix, knit, and napped. Speaking of crap on Netflix, I watched This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated. Very interesting documentary about the MPAA. My favorite parts were the interviews with John Waters and Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce.
So, going to tea yesterday morning was awesome. It wound up being only me and one other mama from our local community, but it was very pleasant, and gave me some food for thought. I'd hesitate to call this other mom a friend, she's more like a friendly acquaintance. We don't know each other well, but our community is a private closed one where everyone shares a lot. I really like her and have a lot of respect for her. She's kind and quiet and very real, in a completely opposite way than I am. Namely, she's not rude or offensive or in your face, which I know I have a tendency to be. We were talking about the way our lives are run, our priorities, and our long term plans. We don't have similar goals, but her life is no less authentic than mine. We definitely have a lot of shared principles, and probably some shared experiences that haven't been unearthed yet, and our conversation was a great reminder that not everyone has to want to do what we want to do in order to live authentically. For us, living authentically means a lot of DIY, it means being deeply connected to the land we live on and the food we eat. It means a return to traditional (way less technologically ruled) practices. Pretty sure The Mister would spirit us off to an Amish community if it weren't for that whole religion thing. It definitely gave me pause yesterday, and I spent a lot of time thinking about how authentic doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. I have a few really close friends who think our idea of perfect is an abhorrent way to live.
So, what does authentic mean to you?
Monday, July 8, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
sickness and a sense of place.
Oi. I posted on the 7th about having the cold from hell. Little did I know. It's been about 5 weeks since I first started to feel a tickle. This virus turned into the most severe case of bronchitis I've EVER had. I have truly thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it, both in terms of curative and palliative value. Everything from home made cough syrup to OTC crap with DXM to prescription cough suppressant. Every herb, every holistic remedy I know, homeopathics, and finally steroids and an inhaler. I've called on friends and herbalists alike for suggestions, been to my doctor twice and to the local urgent care when I couldn't BREATHE and my doctor was out of town. I asked to see another doctor...4 others in the practice were out of town too. COME ON NOW. In the throes of this death virus, I strained my left round ligament. I, for awhile, considered maybe having ripped it, and maybe my uterus was going to come tumbling out of my body while I coughed.
As soon as that came close to healed (which required me to curl up in a ball every time I coughed to protect it), I strained rib muscles. Wound up in the emergency room. X-rayed, medicated for pain with heavy narcotics, and sent home with the instructions to rest and take tylenol. In the middle of the night, sat up to cough, coughed really freaking hard, and felt something pop in my ribs. In the back this time. Followed by blinding agony. If you've never had a chest wall strain, I don't recommend it. I was sobbing and begging the mister to call an ambulance. Got to go back to the ER for more pain meds. Told to alternate ibuprofen and tylenol and rest. THANKS DOC. At least one intercostal muscle is pretty jacked. I'm recovering slowly, and I have an entire new appreciation for how excruciating broken ribs must be....this is just muscular and I would easily take another 40 hours of back labor over this. The first day, I couldn't sit up or get up without help. I've improved significantly since then, but every time I move too far forward, I overdo it and wind up in a lot of pain. Which sucks, because apparently folding and putting away laundry is all that's required to "overdo" it. While that may sound like some woman's dream somewhere, rest assured, 5 weeks of being too sick and then too injured to unfilth your habitat, especially in the throes of pregnancy nesting, ESPECIALLY having a wicked type A personality, is a recipe for madness. And many many temper tantrums. And a lot of tears. I am so sick of being sick and run down and worn out. I am sick of coughing. I am sick of peeing myself. TRULY. I am sick of coughing until I vomit, I am sick of being in pain from strains. My poor daughter has watched so much Caillou it's not even funny. I am sick of wading ankle deep through toys on the living room floor. Of watching laundry pile up and the ants take over. And my poor partner is working 50 hour weeks, doing all the cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking, and most of the child rearing. By the time he gets home, my poor little sprout is SO bored that she has turned very aggressive and is hurting mommy. I also learned that the dread pertussis is actually severe bronchitis....it's just a bacterial kind there's a vaccine for. Similar herbal treatment protocols (minus addressing the bacteria) should have worked gangbusters for this....too bad I'm pregnant and so very many herbs are contraindicated. I would probably be bathing in lobelia right now, were that not the case. (Ok, look, I would never do anything with lobelia other than very, very small doses. I have no desire to take an emetic. I do enough vomiting on my own.)
In other news, our garden seriously went nuts. In two weeks it doubled in height and things are flowering. Our bunnies are growing, and the buck is going through puberty, which mostly consists of him going absolutely balls out bananas in his cage, running around and being aggressive. It seriously freaks me out. The mister tells me this is totally normal behavior. I have my reservations. Nothing is being picked and eaten yet from the garden, aside from herbs. And pesto. Lots of delicious basil pesto.
In the woods is a veritable feast right now. The mister has been out mushroom picking the last two days. Chantrelles are coming home in large numbers. A small early hericium. Plenty of chicken mushroom. He spotted a lobster mushroom too. Cinnabars are starting to pop up, as well as russulas and boletes, but we don't eat those. I know the boletus genus has some particularly tasty specimens, but it is a notoriously tricky family to play with. It is infuriating to be stuck at home nursing the cough from hell, weak as a baby from a protracted bout of illness, and in pain with various strains while my partner is out having a field day with mushrooms and picking yummy black raspberries. I know I will get to eat it all in the end BUT I WANT OUT. Also out of the woods came half a jar of cattail pollen. Don't ask me what's to be done with that...
Herbally, ghost pipe is starting to come up too. I know The Mister will be taking alcohol with him the next two days for insta tincturing. We've found ghost pipe to be incredibly useful for insomnia that nothing else is touching and horrific migraines. My mullein plants in the front will be flowering soon. I have a field of creeping charlie and plantain that need harvesting and drying and tincturing. Plantain is my answer to, uh, pretty much everything. Quick! What's your spirit plant? Plantain. And that's just in my tiny, tiny yard. I can't even walk to the end of the block and back without feeling like I'm going to die. And my left arm is still mostly useless, which makes me want to kick and swear, because I'm left handed. This kind of rules out doing most things.
Craft wise, you must be kidding. I am nearing completion of the Noah Sweater from What to Knit When You're Expecting. I'm really, really glad she posted all the errata on her blog, because criminy, there are SO MANY ERRORS in that book. I've made no progress with my blanks, other than laundering them. The Mister is supposed to help me get dye baths set up this weekend, so I can feel like I'm making progress. I made a pattern for baby pants that I'll be cutting out of t-shirts...since I use scissors with my right hand, maybe I can make that happen before I'm fully healed. I've also got a righteous pattern for sleep sacks/gowns out of t-shirts. It's on, if I ever become functional again. This spell of sick and injured is really breaking my spirit, but I know in the long run, that everything happens for a reason, and this too will prove out to be useful in some fashion. My main concern is mending up enough to have a home water birth.
In the kitchen...lots of the usual. Been getting a lot of green smoothies for breakfast from The Mister so he can make sure I am indeed imbibing minerals and nutrients. Lots of kale and berries and homemade raw milk yogurt. (Plus, if I cough until I vomit, green smoothies aren't so bad in reverse. I can't say the same for what we call "shut up and eat it", which is eggs, potatoes, local grassfed pork sausage, peppers, and onions.) We grilled a GF pizza with mixed results. Had an asparagus soup. That was tasty. Made some Against The Grain replica rolls...The Mister decided to ignore the recipe's advice to use LOW MOISTURE mozzarella, and used a blend with provolone instead...it was edible. I'd like to see a repeat, with the right cheese. For the solstice, we had cinnamon roll pancakes, which were THE WHIP. There was an attempt made at replicas of KIND bars at my insistence. Those did not turn out at all. Highly disappointing. I like KIND bars so much better than any other granola bar. Not complaining about the delicious food our kitchen churns out, but really, puffed rice with peanut butter and sun butter and chocolate and dried fruit and a hell of a lot of nuts does, indeed, get old. Too sweetly savory for me. Hard to explain, other than not being a sunbutter fan.
This evening's festivities were supposed to include dough making and filling making for a ravioli making extravaganza this weekend, but since it's already 11, and The Mister and The Sprout are still at the store, I'm thinking that's not gonna happen. This is one of my favorite and most dreaded times of the year....with such a large haul, The Mister usually whips up a bundle of gluten free hand made raviolis with our mushrooms, sometimes using recipes but mostly just winging it. I'm looking forward to actually sampling the honey mushroom perogies this year, since he ate them all winter and didn't die. Because I have one lame arm that needs to stay by my side from shoulder to elbow to prevent horrific muscle spasms, there's little to nothing I can do to help with that...that makes me miserable too.
So, we finally come to having a sense of place....I know I don't post much in the way of politics (mostly because it's a can of worms I don't typically open on the intarwebz), but I think it's vitally important to understand what you're celebrating. It's hard for me to sit back and watch people talk about America's independence from Britain without acknowledging the dark side of that, which was the systematic oppression of our Native people. I won't go into that much here, because I'm not ready to turn this into a long political ranting blog, but open your eyes, America. Wake up. Understand that the discrimination and oppression of others is built into our country. Do something to change it. Anything. Between that and some very well written blogs I've read recently about having a connection to where you live, it's helped me to realize that I'm very much connected to the land we inhabit. When we're finally ready to take our money and run off to some land, it will be just as important to me to know the mythology of the place, its flora, its fauna, the soil, the seasons, the winds, the weather, the rocks and the way the sunlight looks. If you can't know where you live on so many different levels, how can you live there? I can tell you why we can't grow food directly in the ground here, but will you listen? I can tell you what weather patterns to watch for so you know when the best flushes of mushrooms will come up, but when it comes time, will you notice? Do you live HERE, where you live, or are you occupying some mental faraway land where work and bills and putting food on the table and having the next best thing in technology and home decoration and culture is more important? This, sadly enough, is what continues to show us what oddballs we are, in what we want and where we're going.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my coughing, hacking, aching ass out to the front porch to watch the fireflies.
As soon as that came close to healed (which required me to curl up in a ball every time I coughed to protect it), I strained rib muscles. Wound up in the emergency room. X-rayed, medicated for pain with heavy narcotics, and sent home with the instructions to rest and take tylenol. In the middle of the night, sat up to cough, coughed really freaking hard, and felt something pop in my ribs. In the back this time. Followed by blinding agony. If you've never had a chest wall strain, I don't recommend it. I was sobbing and begging the mister to call an ambulance. Got to go back to the ER for more pain meds. Told to alternate ibuprofen and tylenol and rest. THANKS DOC. At least one intercostal muscle is pretty jacked. I'm recovering slowly, and I have an entire new appreciation for how excruciating broken ribs must be....this is just muscular and I would easily take another 40 hours of back labor over this. The first day, I couldn't sit up or get up without help. I've improved significantly since then, but every time I move too far forward, I overdo it and wind up in a lot of pain. Which sucks, because apparently folding and putting away laundry is all that's required to "overdo" it. While that may sound like some woman's dream somewhere, rest assured, 5 weeks of being too sick and then too injured to unfilth your habitat, especially in the throes of pregnancy nesting, ESPECIALLY having a wicked type A personality, is a recipe for madness. And many many temper tantrums. And a lot of tears. I am so sick of being sick and run down and worn out. I am sick of coughing. I am sick of peeing myself. TRULY. I am sick of coughing until I vomit, I am sick of being in pain from strains. My poor daughter has watched so much Caillou it's not even funny. I am sick of wading ankle deep through toys on the living room floor. Of watching laundry pile up and the ants take over. And my poor partner is working 50 hour weeks, doing all the cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking, and most of the child rearing. By the time he gets home, my poor little sprout is SO bored that she has turned very aggressive and is hurting mommy. I also learned that the dread pertussis is actually severe bronchitis....it's just a bacterial kind there's a vaccine for. Similar herbal treatment protocols (minus addressing the bacteria) should have worked gangbusters for this....too bad I'm pregnant and so very many herbs are contraindicated. I would probably be bathing in lobelia right now, were that not the case. (Ok, look, I would never do anything with lobelia other than very, very small doses. I have no desire to take an emetic. I do enough vomiting on my own.)
In other news, our garden seriously went nuts. In two weeks it doubled in height and things are flowering. Our bunnies are growing, and the buck is going through puberty, which mostly consists of him going absolutely balls out bananas in his cage, running around and being aggressive. It seriously freaks me out. The mister tells me this is totally normal behavior. I have my reservations. Nothing is being picked and eaten yet from the garden, aside from herbs. And pesto. Lots of delicious basil pesto.
In the woods is a veritable feast right now. The mister has been out mushroom picking the last two days. Chantrelles are coming home in large numbers. A small early hericium. Plenty of chicken mushroom. He spotted a lobster mushroom too. Cinnabars are starting to pop up, as well as russulas and boletes, but we don't eat those. I know the boletus genus has some particularly tasty specimens, but it is a notoriously tricky family to play with. It is infuriating to be stuck at home nursing the cough from hell, weak as a baby from a protracted bout of illness, and in pain with various strains while my partner is out having a field day with mushrooms and picking yummy black raspberries. I know I will get to eat it all in the end BUT I WANT OUT. Also out of the woods came half a jar of cattail pollen. Don't ask me what's to be done with that...
Herbally, ghost pipe is starting to come up too. I know The Mister will be taking alcohol with him the next two days for insta tincturing. We've found ghost pipe to be incredibly useful for insomnia that nothing else is touching and horrific migraines. My mullein plants in the front will be flowering soon. I have a field of creeping charlie and plantain that need harvesting and drying and tincturing. Plantain is my answer to, uh, pretty much everything. Quick! What's your spirit plant? Plantain. And that's just in my tiny, tiny yard. I can't even walk to the end of the block and back without feeling like I'm going to die. And my left arm is still mostly useless, which makes me want to kick and swear, because I'm left handed. This kind of rules out doing most things.
Craft wise, you must be kidding. I am nearing completion of the Noah Sweater from What to Knit When You're Expecting. I'm really, really glad she posted all the errata on her blog, because criminy, there are SO MANY ERRORS in that book. I've made no progress with my blanks, other than laundering them. The Mister is supposed to help me get dye baths set up this weekend, so I can feel like I'm making progress. I made a pattern for baby pants that I'll be cutting out of t-shirts...since I use scissors with my right hand, maybe I can make that happen before I'm fully healed. I've also got a righteous pattern for sleep sacks/gowns out of t-shirts. It's on, if I ever become functional again. This spell of sick and injured is really breaking my spirit, but I know in the long run, that everything happens for a reason, and this too will prove out to be useful in some fashion. My main concern is mending up enough to have a home water birth.
In the kitchen...lots of the usual. Been getting a lot of green smoothies for breakfast from The Mister so he can make sure I am indeed imbibing minerals and nutrients. Lots of kale and berries and homemade raw milk yogurt. (Plus, if I cough until I vomit, green smoothies aren't so bad in reverse. I can't say the same for what we call "shut up and eat it", which is eggs, potatoes, local grassfed pork sausage, peppers, and onions.) We grilled a GF pizza with mixed results. Had an asparagus soup. That was tasty. Made some Against The Grain replica rolls...The Mister decided to ignore the recipe's advice to use LOW MOISTURE mozzarella, and used a blend with provolone instead...it was edible. I'd like to see a repeat, with the right cheese. For the solstice, we had cinnamon roll pancakes, which were THE WHIP. There was an attempt made at replicas of KIND bars at my insistence. Those did not turn out at all. Highly disappointing. I like KIND bars so much better than any other granola bar. Not complaining about the delicious food our kitchen churns out, but really, puffed rice with peanut butter and sun butter and chocolate and dried fruit and a hell of a lot of nuts does, indeed, get old. Too sweetly savory for me. Hard to explain, other than not being a sunbutter fan.
This evening's festivities were supposed to include dough making and filling making for a ravioli making extravaganza this weekend, but since it's already 11, and The Mister and The Sprout are still at the store, I'm thinking that's not gonna happen. This is one of my favorite and most dreaded times of the year....with such a large haul, The Mister usually whips up a bundle of gluten free hand made raviolis with our mushrooms, sometimes using recipes but mostly just winging it. I'm looking forward to actually sampling the honey mushroom perogies this year, since he ate them all winter and didn't die. Because I have one lame arm that needs to stay by my side from shoulder to elbow to prevent horrific muscle spasms, there's little to nothing I can do to help with that...that makes me miserable too.
So, we finally come to having a sense of place....I know I don't post much in the way of politics (mostly because it's a can of worms I don't typically open on the intarwebz), but I think it's vitally important to understand what you're celebrating. It's hard for me to sit back and watch people talk about America's independence from Britain without acknowledging the dark side of that, which was the systematic oppression of our Native people. I won't go into that much here, because I'm not ready to turn this into a long political ranting blog, but open your eyes, America. Wake up. Understand that the discrimination and oppression of others is built into our country. Do something to change it. Anything. Between that and some very well written blogs I've read recently about having a connection to where you live, it's helped me to realize that I'm very much connected to the land we inhabit. When we're finally ready to take our money and run off to some land, it will be just as important to me to know the mythology of the place, its flora, its fauna, the soil, the seasons, the winds, the weather, the rocks and the way the sunlight looks. If you can't know where you live on so many different levels, how can you live there? I can tell you why we can't grow food directly in the ground here, but will you listen? I can tell you what weather patterns to watch for so you know when the best flushes of mushrooms will come up, but when it comes time, will you notice? Do you live HERE, where you live, or are you occupying some mental faraway land where work and bills and putting food on the table and having the next best thing in technology and home decoration and culture is more important? This, sadly enough, is what continues to show us what oddballs we are, in what we want and where we're going.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my coughing, hacking, aching ass out to the front porch to watch the fireflies.
Friday, June 7, 2013
just a year. nothing new.
Oh wow. So it's been a year and a day. I figured June was a great time to take up blogging again. Not that I have anything particularly interesting to say, but...sure.
So! What's new in the last YEAR. Big moyashi went back to school in January. I sometimes wistfully wish to homeschool again, and then I have to think long and hard about my reasons for putting him back in school. Little moyashi turned 2. She walks, she talks (but nobody can understand her, huzzah!), I made and sold some really nice diapers and then stopped making them. We ate from our garden. We tore it down because we were going to move. And then we decided to stay here. Oh, right. And I got pregnant. 23 weeks this week, so over halfway there. I'm sure there are more things that are new. We'll break it out by area.
the garden - rebuilt larger, planned better. We've got all sorts of fun things in there this year. I was the one who picked them out and ordered them, but I'll be damned if I remember what they were. I know there's haogen melons and golden bantam corn, sweet peppers, strawberries, watermelons, purple potatoes, scatter casted carrots, beans, double yield cucumbers, some squash. Assorted herbs. Nothing fun or unusual this year, just culinary. Tons of basil, rosemary, thyme. I'm about to transplant some lemon balm. We are also the proud owners of three New Zealand rabbits. 2 does, 1 buck. They'll be ready to breed in August. The mister planned out and built their hutches. I knew that half finished engineering degree would come in handy some day. Too bad it's computer engineering.We're also growing oyster mushrooms. We started with one kit and soon had developed several other kits.
from the woods - well, we had decent mushroom foraging last fall, and the mister made some amazing honey mushroom perogies and gluten free ravioli with delicious mixes of wild mushrooms and herbs and ricotta. Of course, those are long gone. This spring has been pretty suck for mushrooms...at least for us. His boss brought us a bag full of morels from his yard. Boss's wife swore they were poisonous and that they should be in the garbage. How about....get in my belly. Winter hunting was just okay. No deer. No turkey. A small amount of small game. A goose.
in the kitchen - Well, now that we're in full swing greens season, I'm going to dehydrate a bunch and crumble them into green powder a la nourished kitchen. I should probably put that on tomorrow's farmer's market list. The mister has been baking gluten free bread every weekend. I can only eat it sometimes. I don't know if it's the pregnancy or if I just find the blend he's using (his own blend, which I'm pretty sure includes millet and sorghum) to be overly offensive or what. But it seriously sucks that there's fresh baked bread in this house weekly and every time it bakes, or gets used, I want to barf. We also have a raw milk share again, and the mister has perfected yogurt and yogurt cheese making. There will be a fridge hauled downstairs and temperature controlled before too long, so we have cold storage for our cheeses. We're using the resulting whey in everything from beans to rice to bread to pancakes. I want to make whey lemonade, which sounds disgusting and amazingly tangy. He's brewed a couple of beers lately, having decent success with one, but I guess the other one needs to go through a second process because the IBU's were off the chart blah blah blah over my head i don't drink anyway.
We're not much for prepared foods, even gluten free, but every so often I get a big chip on my shoulder about not being able to run to the corner diner and get, say, a plate of onion rings. We don't eat perfectly, we probably get carryout once a week or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. It typically goes between our local mediterranean joint (which is actually located inside of a gas station...counter intuitive, yes, but local, delicious, and affordable? Yes.), the coney up the street, or cottage inn pizza, because they have serious delicious gluten free pizza. I can't even eat fast food, simple cross contamination makes me severely ill. So, I was reading someone's blog the other day, and saw they had made the Chebe cinnamon rolls from mix. Being pregnant and being subject to serious ludicrous cravings, the next day, even though I was sicker than hell (convinced I wasn't contagious), I dragged my daughter all over town looking for that same mix. Didn't find it, but found their cheese bread mix, which the mister made last night to serve with grilled rabbit. They were mini rolls, almost like donut holes. Delicious and totally devoid of nutritional value. Completely manioc flour and starch, plus some dry milk powder, and then the cheese and eggs we made them with. Sometimes it's comforting to eat something delicious that isn't made of rainbows and unicorn meat. Speaking of, while ISO this mix, I picked up a bag of Ian's GF Onion Rings. Guess what I had for lunch today, along with a heaping side of mayonnaise for dipping. It had been over 4 years since I'd had an onion ring. Like most things, either the GF replacements aren't that good, or the item in question wasn't as good as I had remembered.
in ye ol creative workshop - *snort* Like I've gotten ANYTHING done since becoming pregnant. This pregnancy has been rotten, miserable, horrible, and I am convinced it will be my last (although I keep saying that, and then I have another one). I had to take a leave of absence from my job. It's been that bad. And I mean at like 6 weeks pregnant I begged to be taken off the schedule. I have gained maybe 2-3 pounds. Total. So, anyway.
Here's what's brewing in the workshop - i bought a bunch of white long sleeved bodysuits from salvation army (don't even get me started on their horrible homophobic practices) for a song. I have some Dharma Procion dyes on order along with glauber's salt. When I am able to pick them up from the co-op runner, I will be hand dyeing all of these blanks and then machine embroidering them. I bought several design packs from Urban Threads when they were on sale. I also have a pattern for baby pants from t-shirts. Eventually I will drag myself upstairs And dig through my bin of clothes to be repurposed. I am hoping for white t-shirts, so I can dye them along with the onesies. I also have some diaper patterns for newborns and smalls I intend to construct. Better get crackalackin. I'm also knitting a few patterns out of What to Knit When You're Expecting. I've knit a pair of booties, I'm in the middle of a pullover sweater as well as a sleep sack. Ack, only 17ish weeks to go and SO MUCH to finish.
The last two weeks, or really, just the last 10ish days, have truly been the suck here. Little bit has had a nasty case of allergies and has been up all night coughing for weeks. Her cough has finally started to die off. About the time I finally gave up and took her to the doctor (the spectre of pertussis was lurking), the mister got a rip roaring chest cold. I told him when I got back from the doc with Little Bit that hers was just allergies and he probably was dealing with the same, but he looked at me crankily and said, I don't think so. Lo and behold, I came down with it HARD. I mean peeing my pants every time I cough (take that, internet), can't sleep, whole body aching from coughing so hard horrid nastiness. So, I had just taken Little Bit on Thursday. I hauled my sorry rear end into the doctor on Tuesday. Dx was just a nasty virus. I was honestly concerned because of how hard I was coughing that it had to be some major infection. This virus can kindly go back to the hell from whence it came. I can't remember the last time I had a chest (or head) cold this bad. And then, last night, my little lovely girl decided to lay on the wrong cat, and the cat promptly scratched the crap out of one side of her face. So, back to the doctor we went, because when it comes to deep cat scratches or bites, this momma don't play. 3 times. 3 times in 8 days we were at the doctor. And I can count on one hand the number of times we've been there since Little Bit was born. For pity's sake. The Mister and I are still coughing our idiot heads off, I feel like I should buy stock in Lemonade Stand postpartum mama cloth from all the cough pee, and now my daughter has some nasty scratches that I need to medicate. Awesome.
In other other news, Big Moyashi asked me last week if we were going to celebrate the solstice. Bless his heart. Of course we are. I just need to figure out how, and how I'm going to make it happen with a ridiculously low amount of energy. I am thinking sunrise breakfast of cinnamon swirl pancakes and orange juice and some other "solar food" followed by some rest, and then some fun crafts and a nature hike, and then at dusk, a big ol balefire (i mean tiny bonfire). Of course interspersed with lessons about what this time of year means, nature wise, science wise, spirituality wise, etc. And I have to pull that off on a shadow of energy, in two weeks. WOO LETS GO.
So what's new with you?
So! What's new in the last YEAR. Big moyashi went back to school in January. I sometimes wistfully wish to homeschool again, and then I have to think long and hard about my reasons for putting him back in school. Little moyashi turned 2. She walks, she talks (but nobody can understand her, huzzah!), I made and sold some really nice diapers and then stopped making them. We ate from our garden. We tore it down because we were going to move. And then we decided to stay here. Oh, right. And I got pregnant. 23 weeks this week, so over halfway there. I'm sure there are more things that are new. We'll break it out by area.
the garden - rebuilt larger, planned better. We've got all sorts of fun things in there this year. I was the one who picked them out and ordered them, but I'll be damned if I remember what they were. I know there's haogen melons and golden bantam corn, sweet peppers, strawberries, watermelons, purple potatoes, scatter casted carrots, beans, double yield cucumbers, some squash. Assorted herbs. Nothing fun or unusual this year, just culinary. Tons of basil, rosemary, thyme. I'm about to transplant some lemon balm. We are also the proud owners of three New Zealand rabbits. 2 does, 1 buck. They'll be ready to breed in August. The mister planned out and built their hutches. I knew that half finished engineering degree would come in handy some day. Too bad it's computer engineering.We're also growing oyster mushrooms. We started with one kit and soon had developed several other kits.
from the woods - well, we had decent mushroom foraging last fall, and the mister made some amazing honey mushroom perogies and gluten free ravioli with delicious mixes of wild mushrooms and herbs and ricotta. Of course, those are long gone. This spring has been pretty suck for mushrooms...at least for us. His boss brought us a bag full of morels from his yard. Boss's wife swore they were poisonous and that they should be in the garbage. How about....get in my belly. Winter hunting was just okay. No deer. No turkey. A small amount of small game. A goose.
in the kitchen - Well, now that we're in full swing greens season, I'm going to dehydrate a bunch and crumble them into green powder a la nourished kitchen. I should probably put that on tomorrow's farmer's market list. The mister has been baking gluten free bread every weekend. I can only eat it sometimes. I don't know if it's the pregnancy or if I just find the blend he's using (his own blend, which I'm pretty sure includes millet and sorghum) to be overly offensive or what. But it seriously sucks that there's fresh baked bread in this house weekly and every time it bakes, or gets used, I want to barf. We also have a raw milk share again, and the mister has perfected yogurt and yogurt cheese making. There will be a fridge hauled downstairs and temperature controlled before too long, so we have cold storage for our cheeses. We're using the resulting whey in everything from beans to rice to bread to pancakes. I want to make whey lemonade, which sounds disgusting and amazingly tangy. He's brewed a couple of beers lately, having decent success with one, but I guess the other one needs to go through a second process because the IBU's were off the chart blah blah blah over my head i don't drink anyway.
We're not much for prepared foods, even gluten free, but every so often I get a big chip on my shoulder about not being able to run to the corner diner and get, say, a plate of onion rings. We don't eat perfectly, we probably get carryout once a week or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. It typically goes between our local mediterranean joint (which is actually located inside of a gas station...counter intuitive, yes, but local, delicious, and affordable? Yes.), the coney up the street, or cottage inn pizza, because they have serious delicious gluten free pizza. I can't even eat fast food, simple cross contamination makes me severely ill. So, I was reading someone's blog the other day, and saw they had made the Chebe cinnamon rolls from mix. Being pregnant and being subject to serious ludicrous cravings, the next day, even though I was sicker than hell (convinced I wasn't contagious), I dragged my daughter all over town looking for that same mix. Didn't find it, but found their cheese bread mix, which the mister made last night to serve with grilled rabbit. They were mini rolls, almost like donut holes. Delicious and totally devoid of nutritional value. Completely manioc flour and starch, plus some dry milk powder, and then the cheese and eggs we made them with. Sometimes it's comforting to eat something delicious that isn't made of rainbows and unicorn meat. Speaking of, while ISO this mix, I picked up a bag of Ian's GF Onion Rings. Guess what I had for lunch today, along with a heaping side of mayonnaise for dipping. It had been over 4 years since I'd had an onion ring. Like most things, either the GF replacements aren't that good, or the item in question wasn't as good as I had remembered.
in ye ol creative workshop - *snort* Like I've gotten ANYTHING done since becoming pregnant. This pregnancy has been rotten, miserable, horrible, and I am convinced it will be my last (although I keep saying that, and then I have another one). I had to take a leave of absence from my job. It's been that bad. And I mean at like 6 weeks pregnant I begged to be taken off the schedule. I have gained maybe 2-3 pounds. Total. So, anyway.
Here's what's brewing in the workshop - i bought a bunch of white long sleeved bodysuits from salvation army (don't even get me started on their horrible homophobic practices) for a song. I have some Dharma Procion dyes on order along with glauber's salt. When I am able to pick them up from the co-op runner, I will be hand dyeing all of these blanks and then machine embroidering them. I bought several design packs from Urban Threads when they were on sale. I also have a pattern for baby pants from t-shirts. Eventually I will drag myself upstairs And dig through my bin of clothes to be repurposed. I am hoping for white t-shirts, so I can dye them along with the onesies. I also have some diaper patterns for newborns and smalls I intend to construct. Better get crackalackin. I'm also knitting a few patterns out of What to Knit When You're Expecting. I've knit a pair of booties, I'm in the middle of a pullover sweater as well as a sleep sack. Ack, only 17ish weeks to go and SO MUCH to finish.
The last two weeks, or really, just the last 10ish days, have truly been the suck here. Little bit has had a nasty case of allergies and has been up all night coughing for weeks. Her cough has finally started to die off. About the time I finally gave up and took her to the doctor (the spectre of pertussis was lurking), the mister got a rip roaring chest cold. I told him when I got back from the doc with Little Bit that hers was just allergies and he probably was dealing with the same, but he looked at me crankily and said, I don't think so. Lo and behold, I came down with it HARD. I mean peeing my pants every time I cough (take that, internet), can't sleep, whole body aching from coughing so hard horrid nastiness. So, I had just taken Little Bit on Thursday. I hauled my sorry rear end into the doctor on Tuesday. Dx was just a nasty virus. I was honestly concerned because of how hard I was coughing that it had to be some major infection. This virus can kindly go back to the hell from whence it came. I can't remember the last time I had a chest (or head) cold this bad. And then, last night, my little lovely girl decided to lay on the wrong cat, and the cat promptly scratched the crap out of one side of her face. So, back to the doctor we went, because when it comes to deep cat scratches or bites, this momma don't play. 3 times. 3 times in 8 days we were at the doctor. And I can count on one hand the number of times we've been there since Little Bit was born. For pity's sake. The Mister and I are still coughing our idiot heads off, I feel like I should buy stock in Lemonade Stand postpartum mama cloth from all the cough pee, and now my daughter has some nasty scratches that I need to medicate. Awesome.
In other other news, Big Moyashi asked me last week if we were going to celebrate the solstice. Bless his heart. Of course we are. I just need to figure out how, and how I'm going to make it happen with a ridiculously low amount of energy. I am thinking sunrise breakfast of cinnamon swirl pancakes and orange juice and some other "solar food" followed by some rest, and then some fun crafts and a nature hike, and then at dusk, a big ol balefire (i mean tiny bonfire). Of course interspersed with lessons about what this time of year means, nature wise, science wise, spirituality wise, etc. And I have to pull that off on a shadow of energy, in two weeks. WOO LETS GO.
So what's new with you?
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
hand foot and mouth and other disasters.
So, we caught the dread hand foot and mouth disease. and by we I mean little bean only. Her doc thought it was scarlet fever. Oh hai, can you say terrifying? By the second day of the rash, it became apparent it was HFM. Thankfully she's recovered with no complications or anything. We had a few very rough nights, where eating and sleeping were in short supply. I don't know why this uploaded all jacked up, but here it is...
Let's see, what else has been up over here?
We've got our garden good and planted, ripped out some of the ornamentals in front and replaced them with cabbage, dinosaur kale, summer squash, zucchini, mullein, and sage. The potato box is up, the A frames are up, and the squirrels and bunnies are having a field day nibbling and gnawing. Damned critters. Clothesline hung, too. Finally.
The homesteading bug has bitten me once again, and I've been on the lookout for properties with 20 acres or more within about an hour of our current location. It would be nice to have another family or two to split the payment with. I keep thinking about all the food we could grow and raise and having a labyrinth to walk and having land for the mister to go shoot critters on...
Cooking wise, more of the same lately. Lots of chicken salad, which I eat obsessively and in large quantities. Roast a chicken one night, chicken salad the next. Believe me, there are seldom leftovers. I made some amazing gluten free naan the other day. It was demolished quickly. I am supposed to be making another batch today as well as some banana oat muffins, but the day got away from me, and I have to leave for work in an hour and a half, roughly.
Craft wise, I have again been driven to heights of creative production insanity. Three more diapers finished...
about 4 more rows to go on my tunic, an embroidery project for hire finished...
and a hand embroidery project as a gift also finished.
Also hung up a clothesline in the dining room for a magical idea for summer fun. It's going to get a bunch of activities clipped into it, like field trips and craft projects, all ways to have fun during the summer. My Tuesday work will be going away, so about the only day we can't do anything fun will be Thursdays, when I work from 11-9. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate blind sewing elastic? And how much I suck at serging around curves? I also used a bunch of my "worthless" nonabsorbent fleece to serge a bunch more cloth wipes. I love the grippy nature of the fleece for pulling poo from bums and for pulling purees and yogurt from small faces and hands.
Big moyashi is getting better at soccer, because we had to have a talk about his future with the current team. It pains me to say that he is one of the weakest players (we may be the only family on the team that does not eat, sleep, breathe, and live soccer), and I had to let him know that his current team would be moving up to another level, and we were going to try to place him on another team. It seems to have lit a fire under his rear, because he has been practicing like crazy. I'm hoping maybe the coach sees potential for him to advance with the rest of them...we'll see. That's such a sucky thing to have to talk to your kid about. I told him that we would need to see a lot more from him if he wanted to stay with the team...a lot more practice, a lot more work.
I pulled together a bunch of stuff for the start of Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School. All I need to do now is figure out how to print them from my dinosaur of a laptop. I probably have to take it downstairs and plug it directly into the printer.
*sigh* There's a kitchen floor calling my name. It needs a mopping. With prejudice.
 |
| spots on the feet were a dead giveaway. |
Let's see, what else has been up over here?
We've got our garden good and planted, ripped out some of the ornamentals in front and replaced them with cabbage, dinosaur kale, summer squash, zucchini, mullein, and sage. The potato box is up, the A frames are up, and the squirrels and bunnies are having a field day nibbling and gnawing. Damned critters. Clothesline hung, too. Finally.
 |
| small, but a start. |
 |
| happy little clothesline. |
The homesteading bug has bitten me once again, and I've been on the lookout for properties with 20 acres or more within about an hour of our current location. It would be nice to have another family or two to split the payment with. I keep thinking about all the food we could grow and raise and having a labyrinth to walk and having land for the mister to go shoot critters on...
Cooking wise, more of the same lately. Lots of chicken salad, which I eat obsessively and in large quantities. Roast a chicken one night, chicken salad the next. Believe me, there are seldom leftovers. I made some amazing gluten free naan the other day. It was demolished quickly. I am supposed to be making another batch today as well as some banana oat muffins, but the day got away from me, and I have to leave for work in an hour and a half, roughly.
 |
| mmm. naan. |
 | |
| one day I will make a diaper with no screwed up snaps... |
 |
| Made two of these super absorbent ones.. |
 |
| commissioned |
and a hand embroidery project as a gift also finished.
Also hung up a clothesline in the dining room for a magical idea for summer fun. It's going to get a bunch of activities clipped into it, like field trips and craft projects, all ways to have fun during the summer. My Tuesday work will be going away, so about the only day we can't do anything fun will be Thursdays, when I work from 11-9. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate blind sewing elastic? And how much I suck at serging around curves? I also used a bunch of my "worthless" nonabsorbent fleece to serge a bunch more cloth wipes. I love the grippy nature of the fleece for pulling poo from bums and for pulling purees and yogurt from small faces and hands.
Big moyashi is getting better at soccer, because we had to have a talk about his future with the current team. It pains me to say that he is one of the weakest players (we may be the only family on the team that does not eat, sleep, breathe, and live soccer), and I had to let him know that his current team would be moving up to another level, and we were going to try to place him on another team. It seems to have lit a fire under his rear, because he has been practicing like crazy. I'm hoping maybe the coach sees potential for him to advance with the rest of them...we'll see. That's such a sucky thing to have to talk to your kid about. I told him that we would need to see a lot more from him if he wanted to stay with the team...a lot more practice, a lot more work.
I pulled together a bunch of stuff for the start of Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School. All I need to do now is figure out how to print them from my dinosaur of a laptop. I probably have to take it downstairs and plug it directly into the printer.
*sigh* There's a kitchen floor calling my name. It needs a mopping. With prejudice.
Monday, May 21, 2012
oh the projects we'll sew...
Isis, my matron goddess, is driving me into fits of creativity insanity. In her honor, one of the diapers I'm working on for little bean has a Nubian Queen print.
So! I'm currently working on:
+a fitted cloth diaper. I've got all three pieces for the body cut out, and I'm hoping to get it more put together tonight.
+ soaker is done. Don't think I'll do a double length snap in with 3 layers of fleece ever again.
+still working on my Winged Knits tunic. I'm getting so much closer to completion.
+just had a small embroidery project get dropped in my lap. It needs to be done by the end of the week. It's small, but I have some wizardry to do with the machine that I haven't attempted yet, and it's been a long time since I've busted it out and played with it.
+I am functionally knowledgeable about my serger now. I serged the soaker, and realized one of the threads was not ...in, I guess you could say. So, I figured out how to thread it, tried to serge it again, realized I needed to actually run more material under the knife if I was going to get a good seam, and wound up trimming the soaker a bit thinner. Not terribly complicated, but it's not beautiful or anything like that. I only have one color serger thread...white. I am currently out of money until I sell off more of my pocket diapers, so white it is, right now. I had some excess in my paypal account from selling 17 diapers and buying material to make some fitteds, but after a class this weekend, wound up with two bottles of kava and some kava butter, so buh bye to the excess fundage.
What else...
The DVR in my bedroom is 98% full right now. About 75% of it is DVRed craft, sewing, knitting, and quilting shows. I'm watching them slowly. Like, whenever little bean is feeling cuddly and needing to eat. (Yes, for those not in the know, my nearly 13 month old is BOTTLE fed, and still pretty much only eats from bottles).
The mister and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary on Saturday (9 years we've been together, not 9 years of marriage). And by celebrated, I mean he came down with a case of sun poisoning and I watched Black Death while he slept. Not a happy movie. Seeing Sean Bean get drawn and quartered...pretty gross.Also tried Amici's GF pizza, and a delicious salad, and then farted my way through the rest of the weekend uncomfortably. Come to find out, the mister KNEW it was heavily cross contaminated and didn't say anything about it to me up front. ...Jackass.
Our measly raised bed garden has now been filled with dirt and compost and is settling. It will receive plants this weekend. Our potato box is also ready, but I am an idiot and didn't order seed potatoes. Gotta figure out what we're going to do about that. I'm still looking for a mid-town vendor for vegetable plants that are organic. And by looking I mean I posted, once, on an AP forum I belong to. So, in other words, not very hard. The mister already bought our tomato plants. I have a heat treated wooden pallet down at my neighbor's awaiting some landscaping fabric, dirt, and greens. I plan to hang it along the fence in a relatively shady spot so we can enjoy greens all summer long. I do not have a good track record growing them.
Took a class this weekend on musculoskeletal stuff from an herbal, physical, and energetic standpoint. The herbal part was awesome. The physical part, I had hoped for more from. It wasn't that there wasn't scads of awesome information, but it's information I by and large already had, and stretches and exercises I already recommend to clients. I asked a fairly in depth question, and don't feel like I got any new info from it. The energetic standpoint, there was information in the slides I was interested in about specific cervical subluxations and their emotional/energetic messages, but when the class broke into groups to play around with energy medicine, I hit the bricks.
Martha Stewart's show today featured a really wicked awesome project I'd love to just hang around my house - http://www.marthastewart.com/893079/zodiac-constellation-artwork Yeah, that's right...I was watching the Martha Stewart show. Wanna make something of it? They had an Israeli chef on and the food looked delicious too...there was some polenta dish and he made it with lots of cream, and I was thinking about how it could taste so much better if the cream was actually used to rehydrate dried morels... *drool*
I'm about to embark on some sugar free gluten free baking, using palm sugar and stevia as replacements. We'll give it a go. I really would like to eat more baked goods, but I'll be damned if I'm not already a chubosaurus rex, and need to cut down on the garbage that goes into my body.
Speaking of, here come the boys, with ice cream in hand. Check please!
So! I'm currently working on:
+a fitted cloth diaper. I've got all three pieces for the body cut out, and I'm hoping to get it more put together tonight.
+ soaker is done. Don't think I'll do a double length snap in with 3 layers of fleece ever again.
+still working on my Winged Knits tunic. I'm getting so much closer to completion.
+just had a small embroidery project get dropped in my lap. It needs to be done by the end of the week. It's small, but I have some wizardry to do with the machine that I haven't attempted yet, and it's been a long time since I've busted it out and played with it.
+I am functionally knowledgeable about my serger now. I serged the soaker, and realized one of the threads was not ...in, I guess you could say. So, I figured out how to thread it, tried to serge it again, realized I needed to actually run more material under the knife if I was going to get a good seam, and wound up trimming the soaker a bit thinner. Not terribly complicated, but it's not beautiful or anything like that. I only have one color serger thread...white. I am currently out of money until I sell off more of my pocket diapers, so white it is, right now. I had some excess in my paypal account from selling 17 diapers and buying material to make some fitteds, but after a class this weekend, wound up with two bottles of kava and some kava butter, so buh bye to the excess fundage.
What else...
The DVR in my bedroom is 98% full right now. About 75% of it is DVRed craft, sewing, knitting, and quilting shows. I'm watching them slowly. Like, whenever little bean is feeling cuddly and needing to eat. (Yes, for those not in the know, my nearly 13 month old is BOTTLE fed, and still pretty much only eats from bottles).
The mister and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary on Saturday (9 years we've been together, not 9 years of marriage). And by celebrated, I mean he came down with a case of sun poisoning and I watched Black Death while he slept. Not a happy movie. Seeing Sean Bean get drawn and quartered...pretty gross.Also tried Amici's GF pizza, and a delicious salad, and then farted my way through the rest of the weekend uncomfortably. Come to find out, the mister KNEW it was heavily cross contaminated and didn't say anything about it to me up front. ...Jackass.
Our measly raised bed garden has now been filled with dirt and compost and is settling. It will receive plants this weekend. Our potato box is also ready, but I am an idiot and didn't order seed potatoes. Gotta figure out what we're going to do about that. I'm still looking for a mid-town vendor for vegetable plants that are organic. And by looking I mean I posted, once, on an AP forum I belong to. So, in other words, not very hard. The mister already bought our tomato plants. I have a heat treated wooden pallet down at my neighbor's awaiting some landscaping fabric, dirt, and greens. I plan to hang it along the fence in a relatively shady spot so we can enjoy greens all summer long. I do not have a good track record growing them.
Took a class this weekend on musculoskeletal stuff from an herbal, physical, and energetic standpoint. The herbal part was awesome. The physical part, I had hoped for more from. It wasn't that there wasn't scads of awesome information, but it's information I by and large already had, and stretches and exercises I already recommend to clients. I asked a fairly in depth question, and don't feel like I got any new info from it. The energetic standpoint, there was information in the slides I was interested in about specific cervical subluxations and their emotional/energetic messages, but when the class broke into groups to play around with energy medicine, I hit the bricks.
Martha Stewart's show today featured a really wicked awesome project I'd love to just hang around my house - http://www.marthastewart.com/893079/zodiac-constellation-artwork Yeah, that's right...I was watching the Martha Stewart show. Wanna make something of it? They had an Israeli chef on and the food looked delicious too...there was some polenta dish and he made it with lots of cream, and I was thinking about how it could taste so much better if the cream was actually used to rehydrate dried morels... *drool*
I'm about to embark on some sugar free gluten free baking, using palm sugar and stevia as replacements. We'll give it a go. I really would like to eat more baked goods, but I'll be damned if I'm not already a chubosaurus rex, and need to cut down on the garbage that goes into my body.
Speaking of, here come the boys, with ice cream in hand. Check please!
Friday, May 18, 2012
things i am not good at, part...infinite.
there are many, many things on this wide round earth that I am not good at. Remembering to drink water. Feeding myself. Returning phone calls and responding to emails. Dealing with chaos and loud noise for more than about 15 minutes (ask me about kid's birthday parties. They're my favorite.) Reading directions. Following directions.
Directions. ugh. I am not destined to be a great seamstress. It doesn't help that I broke my machine out for the first time in five years. I missed sewing (and quilting, which is really my first love.) I am that person that reads the directions thrice, and still needs to make several cuts and corrections. It's not that I don't want to follow directions...I do. I'm just...distracted.
Anyway, so I decided that instead of paying a ridiculously painful amount of money to swap all of little bean's pocket diapers out for fitteds and covers, I'd just...you know, sew them myself. In my spare time. Ha. Haha. Hahaahahahaahahaa. I work 3-5 days a week, have two children, and a house that doesn't clean itself. The sucktastic part is my working hours. I don't work a full 40 hour week. Oh no, no thank you. I work Tuesdays for about 4 hours during the day. It's a 30 minute drive, one way. I work Wednesday nights for about 4 hours...another 30 minute drive, one way, to a different job. I work Thursday day AND night, from mid morning, until after dark, and that's the same place as Wednesdays. I work Saturdays (2-3 a month), and Sundays (1 a month). It doesn't sound like much, until one thinks about how much time it takes away from "family time"...you know, the time AFTER most people get home from work. So, I'm gone a couple of evenings and a few weekends. It is SO hard to get our kids to bed that when I *am* home in the evening, I feel terrible about sneaking off to my sewing room to put stuff together. Wait until after the kids are in bed? HAH. By the time I get little bean to sleep, it's all I can do to stay awake myself, and then there's the mister, and I suppose he'd like to spend some time with me too, although I've no idea why.
Anyway, back to this sewing thing....so, I've made two covers now. I'm wondering if the lady who made this pattern was perhaps smoking crack. In one of the steps, it talks about aligning the gussets with the arrows on the pattern before sewing them in. Uh, there's no arrow on the Large pattern pieces. Thanks. So, I make the large one from just a singular layer of PUL. It's an unmitigated disaster, probably due to the pattern and my long dormant sewing skills, plus learning how to work a snap press. I wind up putting 4 snaps on backwards, and damned near destroying the diaper cover trying to remove them to put new ones on.
Next attempt, I make a medium, because the large makes her look like she pooped in it, it sags in weird places and is just ill fitting in general. This is not surprising, I didn't stretch the foldover elastic as I was sewing it down. This was a mistake. So, the medium...it has the arrows for where the gussets go...cha ching. I sew it out of 2 mil black PUL that I got for a song, along with a cute cotton print, more of the dreaded white FOE (foldover elastic), but this time I DON'T use a contrasting thread color. Thank heavens. This time I also forget what a 3 step zig zag is and wind up doing some ridiculous stitches around the gussets, and am just having an absolute devil of a time doing...oh, anything right. It doesn't help that the instructions are SO not detailed, and there's nothing about having to sew gathers into the gussets so they fit the allotted space, or anything about stretching the FOE as I sew it (which I learned from watching a video).
So, I look for my sewing machine manual. Surprise! In the last 8 years, it's been misplaced. So I download one. ...oh, I've been winding the bobbin wrong. Oh, that's what those stitches are for. Oh! Wow! My sewing machine is actually pretty smart! Oh...that's what those dials mean. *sigh* And then the bobbin runs out of thread, so I rethread it....and it's acting all...broken. So I have to go and troubleshoot and read the same suggestion about 50 times before I realize I've been threading the needle with the presser foot down and apparently that makes a big difference....Problem solved. Even put the snaps on the right way the FIRST time this time! WOW!
Without further ado, cover number one:
and now...cover number two:
I mean, I know they don't look that bad in the pictures, but they're not great, let me tell you. My grandma is coming home next week. She is going to put her glasses on the bridge of her nose, purse her lips, and proceed to tear them apart (verbally, of course). The good news is, though, she will help me become a better seamstress. This is the woman who taught me how to quilt, and she always pushes me to new heights. She told me once I couldn't hang doing a snail's trail quilt. I did. (Of course, it's not finished).
I can rise to the challenge.
I hope she'll teach me how to use my serger, though, so I can actually make some DIAPERS, instead of just covers.
Directions. ugh. I am not destined to be a great seamstress. It doesn't help that I broke my machine out for the first time in five years. I missed sewing (and quilting, which is really my first love.) I am that person that reads the directions thrice, and still needs to make several cuts and corrections. It's not that I don't want to follow directions...I do. I'm just...distracted.
Anyway, so I decided that instead of paying a ridiculously painful amount of money to swap all of little bean's pocket diapers out for fitteds and covers, I'd just...you know, sew them myself. In my spare time. Ha. Haha. Hahaahahahaahahaa. I work 3-5 days a week, have two children, and a house that doesn't clean itself. The sucktastic part is my working hours. I don't work a full 40 hour week. Oh no, no thank you. I work Tuesdays for about 4 hours during the day. It's a 30 minute drive, one way. I work Wednesday nights for about 4 hours...another 30 minute drive, one way, to a different job. I work Thursday day AND night, from mid morning, until after dark, and that's the same place as Wednesdays. I work Saturdays (2-3 a month), and Sundays (1 a month). It doesn't sound like much, until one thinks about how much time it takes away from "family time"...you know, the time AFTER most people get home from work. So, I'm gone a couple of evenings and a few weekends. It is SO hard to get our kids to bed that when I *am* home in the evening, I feel terrible about sneaking off to my sewing room to put stuff together. Wait until after the kids are in bed? HAH. By the time I get little bean to sleep, it's all I can do to stay awake myself, and then there's the mister, and I suppose he'd like to spend some time with me too, although I've no idea why.
Anyway, back to this sewing thing....so, I've made two covers now. I'm wondering if the lady who made this pattern was perhaps smoking crack. In one of the steps, it talks about aligning the gussets with the arrows on the pattern before sewing them in. Uh, there's no arrow on the Large pattern pieces. Thanks. So, I make the large one from just a singular layer of PUL. It's an unmitigated disaster, probably due to the pattern and my long dormant sewing skills, plus learning how to work a snap press. I wind up putting 4 snaps on backwards, and damned near destroying the diaper cover trying to remove them to put new ones on.
Next attempt, I make a medium, because the large makes her look like she pooped in it, it sags in weird places and is just ill fitting in general. This is not surprising, I didn't stretch the foldover elastic as I was sewing it down. This was a mistake. So, the medium...it has the arrows for where the gussets go...cha ching. I sew it out of 2 mil black PUL that I got for a song, along with a cute cotton print, more of the dreaded white FOE (foldover elastic), but this time I DON'T use a contrasting thread color. Thank heavens. This time I also forget what a 3 step zig zag is and wind up doing some ridiculous stitches around the gussets, and am just having an absolute devil of a time doing...oh, anything right. It doesn't help that the instructions are SO not detailed, and there's nothing about having to sew gathers into the gussets so they fit the allotted space, or anything about stretching the FOE as I sew it (which I learned from watching a video).
So, I look for my sewing machine manual. Surprise! In the last 8 years, it's been misplaced. So I download one. ...oh, I've been winding the bobbin wrong. Oh, that's what those stitches are for. Oh! Wow! My sewing machine is actually pretty smart! Oh...that's what those dials mean. *sigh* And then the bobbin runs out of thread, so I rethread it....and it's acting all...broken. So I have to go and troubleshoot and read the same suggestion about 50 times before I realize I've been threading the needle with the presser foot down and apparently that makes a big difference....Problem solved. Even put the snaps on the right way the FIRST time this time! WOW!
Without further ado, cover number one:
I can rise to the challenge.
I hope she'll teach me how to use my serger, though, so I can actually make some DIAPERS, instead of just covers.
Monday, May 14, 2012
thoughts on autonomy...
So, before i get off of my high, preachy horse, I've been thinking a lot about personal autonomy, feminism, motherhood, and attachment parenting. Oh ho, dear readers...I can't seem to pronounce autonomy right, either. I'm not an idiot, I just play one on tv.
I definitely understand the validity of choice, and am thankful for those feminists who went before me who have guaranteed such a thing. I am just having a problem with the third wave mommyhood backlash. However...
I don't see how giving up your autonomy for your children is any different than giving up your autonomy for a career. Your boss tells you what to do, how to think, what to wear, what time to show up, when you can eat, when you can leave. My bosses tell me when they're hungry or bored, and don't give a crap what I do, other than that, don't care that I may have worn the same tank top three days in a row, don't care that I eschew a razor for armpit fuzz, don't care that I eschew a trendy haircut for a buzzcut, don't care that I can't stand makeup, don't care when I eat or go to the bathroom or how I think. They don't care that our day might be spent outside, or cleaning up, or doing nothing but lazing on the couch. They are happy to be with me (in the case of little bean) or happy to have their freedom to do as they please (in the case of big moyashi). I am background noise, which leaves me the opportunity to coexist, enjoy my time with them, and then enjoy my time in their proximity doing my own thing.
I don't get up and spend time in rush hour traffic, I get up when little bean decides she's hungry and awake. I don't have high powered corporate three martini lunches. I eat out of tupperware standing up in the kitchen or try to keep chubby baby hands out of my lunch. I may eat lunch at 11. I may eat lunch at 4. I eat when I'm hungry. And the housekeeping? Or the "woman's work"? Man, you're gonna do that anyway. You have to do your laundry, why not do some more? You're gonna have to clean your bathroom too. Or you're going to have money to pay someone else to do it, and frankly, the opportunity cost to make enough money to hire a housekeeper is far higher than what I'd gain. I don't do the cooking here, so I can't speak to that.
I guess it comes around to what you value. I *do* value being able to make a living. Trust me, I've done it. I was the breadwinner for our family for quite some time before the current arrangement. I like this a hell of a lot better.
Just some thoughts. Next up...a return to our regularly scheduled programming. Crafts, food, the usual.
I definitely understand the validity of choice, and am thankful for those feminists who went before me who have guaranteed such a thing. I am just having a problem with the third wave mommyhood backlash. However...
I don't see how giving up your autonomy for your children is any different than giving up your autonomy for a career. Your boss tells you what to do, how to think, what to wear, what time to show up, when you can eat, when you can leave. My bosses tell me when they're hungry or bored, and don't give a crap what I do, other than that, don't care that I may have worn the same tank top three days in a row, don't care that I eschew a razor for armpit fuzz, don't care that I eschew a trendy haircut for a buzzcut, don't care that I can't stand makeup, don't care when I eat or go to the bathroom or how I think. They don't care that our day might be spent outside, or cleaning up, or doing nothing but lazing on the couch. They are happy to be with me (in the case of little bean) or happy to have their freedom to do as they please (in the case of big moyashi). I am background noise, which leaves me the opportunity to coexist, enjoy my time with them, and then enjoy my time in their proximity doing my own thing.
I don't get up and spend time in rush hour traffic, I get up when little bean decides she's hungry and awake. I don't have high powered corporate three martini lunches. I eat out of tupperware standing up in the kitchen or try to keep chubby baby hands out of my lunch. I may eat lunch at 11. I may eat lunch at 4. I eat when I'm hungry. And the housekeeping? Or the "woman's work"? Man, you're gonna do that anyway. You have to do your laundry, why not do some more? You're gonna have to clean your bathroom too. Or you're going to have money to pay someone else to do it, and frankly, the opportunity cost to make enough money to hire a housekeeper is far higher than what I'd gain. I don't do the cooking here, so I can't speak to that.
I guess it comes around to what you value. I *do* value being able to make a living. Trust me, I've done it. I was the breadwinner for our family for quite some time before the current arrangement. I like this a hell of a lot better.
Just some thoughts. Next up...a return to our regularly scheduled programming. Crafts, food, the usual.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
last i checked, i was mom enough.
so, this whole attachment parenting issue with the mom nursing an older child is causing quite the stir. Before I even knew about the cover, I had read a few articles on time.com, mostly critical of the AP movement, and one op ed piece comparing AP to a drug habit. ...Maybe I'd find that more entertaining if I weren't a recovering alcoholic.
Anyway, I was pretty pissed after reading some of those articles. And I've sat and thought on it for a bit, here, because lord knows the internet needs another blog post about this crap, with yet another parent on one side or the other self-righteously chest pounding that their way is the right way, or the only way. Time magazine is doing what it was designed to do - provoke thought and arguments. While I am now just rolling my eyes at some of their AP-critical articles, I am still (self righteously) pissed about Elizabeth Badinter's book The Conflict, and her anti-breastfeeding, anti-motherhood rhetoric, all in the name of feminism. That is a related blog post that could take me DAYS to write, and would probably take a few hours to read. We'll skip that for now, and probably forever. Well, not totally skip it - I would just like to point out that the publicity firm that Badinter has no small stake in is the rep for nearly all of the formula giants. Uh, conflict of interest much? Yeah. Thought so.
One thing I will take from Badinter's The Conflict is what she calls the "naturalist" movement of parenting (or some other similar buzzword). Call it naturalist, call it AP, call it evolutionary behavior, call it a biological imperative. I think it's ridiculous to separate us from the animals, because...uh, we're animals. Opposable thumbs have given us an advantage, but to what end? The population has exploded, we've got an assload of social problems, starvation, and now science tells us what's good for us. Oh wait. But now it's bad. Oh wait, but now only this part is bad. *facepalm*
There's this crazy thing called intuition. I use it in my parenting. I don't care how you parent. If you want to stuff your kids full of french fries and coca cola, shut them in a room while they sob til they vomit, teach them that competition and money are the only important things in life, more power to you. I look forward to when your segment of the population goes the way of the dinosaurs, just like Pottinger's cats. Going back to that first sentence there, how does it make you feel when your baby is crying? Like you should pick it up? Then go ahead and do it. Hey, how do animals throughout the animal kingdom feed their babies? Do they go to the store and grab a can of a breastmilk replacement? No? Then you probably shouldn't either. Again, we are not that far removed from animals.
If your intuition tells you your baby will sleep fine on his or her own, in his or her own crib, in his or her own room, awesome. If your intuition tells you your child will not be sleeping anywhere but in your arms, awesome. But just flipping listen to it! Jesus Haripod CHRIST. Why do we need someone to tell us what to do all the time?! Trust me, I am no huge fan of Dr. Sears. I could hardly slog through his Fussy Baby book. If you are looking for scientific studies to tell you it's ok to let your child cry for a little bit, I am sure they are out there, as well as evidence to the contrary. Eggs are good, eggs are bad, coffee is good, coffee is bad. Great, what does your body say?
Anyway, I guess the point here is I don't think modern society is all it's cracked up to be, and I don't need someone to tell me how to raise my kids. My oldest slept fine on his own. He never had to cry it out. My youngest let me know from day one that she would not be separated from me for even a second and lord help me if I thought about setting her down. I did what worked for each of them. Surprise! They're both still alive! I do wish I had known more about nursing when my son was born. I do wish I had been able to establish a nursing relationship with my daughter (who was born with a cleft palate). Would I have nursed them well into childhood? I don't know. It would be handy to not have to get out of bed 5x a night to make little bean another bottle (yeah, she still wakes up A LOT. Big moyashi did not.) Do I look at my friends who are happily nursing their toddlers and beyond and feel a pang of regret? Yup. Do I look at my friends who are trying to beg their children to wait awhile before nursing again and get pissed about getting stuck on the couch for hours on end with a pang of regret? Nope. The grass is always greener, and each option has it's pros and cons. I don't understand how we've evolved so much mentally to still have to have other people tell us what to do and what is right. I just don't. What's right should be individual and come from within. If you can't do a head, heart, and gut check and figure it out...well, maybe you need some more quiet time.
And the pain of natural childbirth thing...well, there's a big payoff. Ever experienced a birth high? It lasts for WEEKS. You don't get that huge surge of birthing chemicals if you're doped to high heaven. I wound up with an epidural after 28 hours of labor and 10 hours of intense vomiting and dehydration and back labor. That epidural wore off. I was able to move around to give birth. It hurt, a lot. I screamed and begged and pleaded for a c-section, because it felt like my hip was going to split in two (that's not normal, folks, she was coming out on an angle). That 55 minutes of pushing felt like an eternity. Then I spent the next several weeks in a state of sleepless bliss, contentment, and awe. Thank you, oxytocin.
Two other things and I'll end this already abysmally long rant.
One - We've grown up in tribes, and now we're all separate. Find your damned tribe and stop whining about how hard it is to be a parent. Yeah, it's hard when you have to do it all on your own with no physical, mental, emotional, and moral support. Meet other local parents. I promise they won't bite.
Two - jiminy cricket, if I hear one more "feminist" complain about what a time suck children are, I will slap them across the face with The Feminine Mystique. Can I get a huge and resounding DUH?! Yeah, having kids is a time suck. It's a priority change. It means putting something other than yourself first. Hard to do, I know. No, really. I know. Having children is making a commitment to a future generation. It's hard, it's tiring, it's thankless, and we're biologically hardwired to do it. Thankfully, we've got this righteous thing called free will. If you are not willing to give up EVERYTHING for your children, don't have them. When you're willing, you'll find that you don't need to give up everything. Or really, much of anything. We grow, we get old, we change. I'm sorry for those who feel having children is too much work. It's a hell of a lot of work. Especially when you have a high intensity child. I had no idea how much more work those were. But that work is some of the most gratifying I've ever done.
I don't know if I live in some kind of creepy alternate universe, or what. My partner, the mister, does a ton of work raising our children and helping the household run smoothly too. It's not about men's work and women's work. I have an awesome tribe I belong to of people from all walks of life who argue about EVERYTHING but never fail to give support when it's needed. I am constantly trying to find the balance between work, play, children, family, and alone time. Not everything always gets done. I think what we most need to fear is the cult of perfection. It's not about being mom enough. Or man enough. Or womyn enough. It's about being able to live with our decisions, know when something isn't working, and f**king change it already.
/end rant.
Anyway, I was pretty pissed after reading some of those articles. And I've sat and thought on it for a bit, here, because lord knows the internet needs another blog post about this crap, with yet another parent on one side or the other self-righteously chest pounding that their way is the right way, or the only way. Time magazine is doing what it was designed to do - provoke thought and arguments. While I am now just rolling my eyes at some of their AP-critical articles, I am still (self righteously) pissed about Elizabeth Badinter's book The Conflict, and her anti-breastfeeding, anti-motherhood rhetoric, all in the name of feminism. That is a related blog post that could take me DAYS to write, and would probably take a few hours to read. We'll skip that for now, and probably forever. Well, not totally skip it - I would just like to point out that the publicity firm that Badinter has no small stake in is the rep for nearly all of the formula giants. Uh, conflict of interest much? Yeah. Thought so.
One thing I will take from Badinter's The Conflict is what she calls the "naturalist" movement of parenting (or some other similar buzzword). Call it naturalist, call it AP, call it evolutionary behavior, call it a biological imperative. I think it's ridiculous to separate us from the animals, because...uh, we're animals. Opposable thumbs have given us an advantage, but to what end? The population has exploded, we've got an assload of social problems, starvation, and now science tells us what's good for us. Oh wait. But now it's bad. Oh wait, but now only this part is bad. *facepalm*
There's this crazy thing called intuition. I use it in my parenting. I don't care how you parent. If you want to stuff your kids full of french fries and coca cola, shut them in a room while they sob til they vomit, teach them that competition and money are the only important things in life, more power to you. I look forward to when your segment of the population goes the way of the dinosaurs, just like Pottinger's cats. Going back to that first sentence there, how does it make you feel when your baby is crying? Like you should pick it up? Then go ahead and do it. Hey, how do animals throughout the animal kingdom feed their babies? Do they go to the store and grab a can of a breastmilk replacement? No? Then you probably shouldn't either. Again, we are not that far removed from animals.
If your intuition tells you your baby will sleep fine on his or her own, in his or her own crib, in his or her own room, awesome. If your intuition tells you your child will not be sleeping anywhere but in your arms, awesome. But just flipping listen to it! Jesus Haripod CHRIST. Why do we need someone to tell us what to do all the time?! Trust me, I am no huge fan of Dr. Sears. I could hardly slog through his Fussy Baby book. If you are looking for scientific studies to tell you it's ok to let your child cry for a little bit, I am sure they are out there, as well as evidence to the contrary. Eggs are good, eggs are bad, coffee is good, coffee is bad. Great, what does your body say?
Anyway, I guess the point here is I don't think modern society is all it's cracked up to be, and I don't need someone to tell me how to raise my kids. My oldest slept fine on his own. He never had to cry it out. My youngest let me know from day one that she would not be separated from me for even a second and lord help me if I thought about setting her down. I did what worked for each of them. Surprise! They're both still alive! I do wish I had known more about nursing when my son was born. I do wish I had been able to establish a nursing relationship with my daughter (who was born with a cleft palate). Would I have nursed them well into childhood? I don't know. It would be handy to not have to get out of bed 5x a night to make little bean another bottle (yeah, she still wakes up A LOT. Big moyashi did not.) Do I look at my friends who are happily nursing their toddlers and beyond and feel a pang of regret? Yup. Do I look at my friends who are trying to beg their children to wait awhile before nursing again and get pissed about getting stuck on the couch for hours on end with a pang of regret? Nope. The grass is always greener, and each option has it's pros and cons. I don't understand how we've evolved so much mentally to still have to have other people tell us what to do and what is right. I just don't. What's right should be individual and come from within. If you can't do a head, heart, and gut check and figure it out...well, maybe you need some more quiet time.
And the pain of natural childbirth thing...well, there's a big payoff. Ever experienced a birth high? It lasts for WEEKS. You don't get that huge surge of birthing chemicals if you're doped to high heaven. I wound up with an epidural after 28 hours of labor and 10 hours of intense vomiting and dehydration and back labor. That epidural wore off. I was able to move around to give birth. It hurt, a lot. I screamed and begged and pleaded for a c-section, because it felt like my hip was going to split in two (that's not normal, folks, she was coming out on an angle). That 55 minutes of pushing felt like an eternity. Then I spent the next several weeks in a state of sleepless bliss, contentment, and awe. Thank you, oxytocin.
Two other things and I'll end this already abysmally long rant.
One - We've grown up in tribes, and now we're all separate. Find your damned tribe and stop whining about how hard it is to be a parent. Yeah, it's hard when you have to do it all on your own with no physical, mental, emotional, and moral support. Meet other local parents. I promise they won't bite.
Two - jiminy cricket, if I hear one more "feminist" complain about what a time suck children are, I will slap them across the face with The Feminine Mystique. Can I get a huge and resounding DUH?! Yeah, having kids is a time suck. It's a priority change. It means putting something other than yourself first. Hard to do, I know. No, really. I know. Having children is making a commitment to a future generation. It's hard, it's tiring, it's thankless, and we're biologically hardwired to do it. Thankfully, we've got this righteous thing called free will. If you are not willing to give up EVERYTHING for your children, don't have them. When you're willing, you'll find that you don't need to give up everything. Or really, much of anything. We grow, we get old, we change. I'm sorry for those who feel having children is too much work. It's a hell of a lot of work. Especially when you have a high intensity child. I had no idea how much more work those were. But that work is some of the most gratifying I've ever done.
I don't know if I live in some kind of creepy alternate universe, or what. My partner, the mister, does a ton of work raising our children and helping the household run smoothly too. It's not about men's work and women's work. I have an awesome tribe I belong to of people from all walks of life who argue about EVERYTHING but never fail to give support when it's needed. I am constantly trying to find the balance between work, play, children, family, and alone time. Not everything always gets done. I think what we most need to fear is the cult of perfection. It's not about being mom enough. Or man enough. Or womyn enough. It's about being able to live with our decisions, know when something isn't working, and f**king change it already.
/end rant.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
a bit past walpurgisnacht.
Hunh. Been a bit here since I've updated. Late February? Check.
So...getting up to date.
Little bean's surgery was March 6th. I was worried it wouldn't take place, because she had been running a fever intermittently and vomited a couple of times in the 3 days before her scheduled date. Thankfully, they decided to do it anyway. She went into surgery at 7:30, and came out just after noon. To say holding her in recovery was heartbreaking is like saying Van Gogh could paint kinda well. Palatoplasty, veloplasty, myringotomy. She was bleeding from ears, nose, and mouth. It was horrific. We were in the hospital for 4 days. It took most of those four days for her to decide she wanted milk again. Her healing has been great. She's making new sounds, her mouth healed up with no complications. Those first few weeks were pretty awful, though. The painkillers did a number on her tummy. When constipation arises due to narcotics, it is not just a matter of getting the rectum to relax and move the stuff through; it's because gut motility has slown down to almost nothing. Horrific.
Not long after that, we got the approval from the bank for the house sale. Within 10 days, we moved into our new place. The next week, the mister's stepfather passed away, so he was gone for 4 days attending the funeral in the deep south. Two weeks later, he was gone for 3 days unsuccessfully turkey hunting. We've been here just over a month, and are finally starting to settle into some sort of routine. My work schedule changed the week after we moved, too. Oh, and little bean and I got sick.
We put big moyashi back in school for the last 6-8 weeks of it. At the time, my rationale was 3-fold: let him make local friends, check his progress against that of his peers, and give me some time to find my center again so I could be a better parent, and a better homeschooling facilitator. I honestly didn't think we would get such hassle from the local school district. I am blown away by how crappy most of them have been about it. They sent big moyashi to the social worker because the teacher hadn't gotten his records yet from his last school. For real? The social worker? That's not the part I have a problem with. It's the part where I found out from HIM, and nobody from the school contacted me, and when I *did* call his teacher, she was wicked defensive about it. I have a lot more to say on that subject, but that's a lecture for another day. Suffice to say, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have made the same decision. Our street is loaded with kids. I can't keep him inside, he is always out there playing (not that I'm complaining). He is doing just fine academically.
I do think we'll be trying time4learning in the fall for some subjects. I have heard rave reviews and I think it will help him work a bit more independently, which would be nice. I want to keep doing story of the world stuff, as well as some other science stuff.
I've been considering doing Hogwarts Summer School for him, and I did subscribe to Herb Fairies with him in mind (sorry, folks. Registration is closed now.) So I'm thinking about combining the HerbFairies content with traditional herbology stuff. I think this weekend I'm going to do the invitation thing, I still have parchment paper, and set up some traditional Hogwarts curriculum along with some stuff of my own making. I've got tons of magical books. I also have a gigantic folklore encyclopedia covering magic through many, many different cultures over history. I think that would be fun for him, as well as teaching the real world skill of doing research.
Little bean hates it when I use the laptop, because she wants to pound the keys on it, and she is determined. There is a lot of "no thank yous" and hand moving.
Speaking of baby frustrations, she is starting to stand without support, she is cutting 4 teeth, scribbling, not sleeping well, signing "milk" and "more", and throwing horrific tantrums. Love her so much, but I am so tired. All the time. She turned one two weeks ago. They grow far too fast.
On the garden front, the mister and I have been arguing a lot over how to plot and plant the garden this year. We are starting from scratch, and have VERY limited space. We live in the midtown area, where the soil is mostly clay and our back yard is a swamp. We will have to do raised beds again, or containers. My vote is containers, the mister wants raised beds. I threw my hands up in frustration and said, "it's YOUR body. You want to break your back building all that, knock yourself out." I love living over here, but hate that we downsized in terms of yard space. I miss our big garden. I wish I had more time and energy to be more creative with it. That being said, I am on the hunt for some heat treated pallets to do vertical shade gardening for greens along the fence. That way it keeps them out of the muck, we're recycling, and we have a longer greens season (they bolt awfully quickly here).
On the food front, well...nothing spectacular. Asparagus is in season. We actually bought some morels at the market last weekend. They were delicious. The mister missed morel season, which is usually ephemeral but was even more short, because he was way up north, not killing turkeys. We've been eating lots of hoophouse greens from the market. I actually cooked last week...blueberry coconut flour muffins. My body is not used to so much fiber. Oh dear.
On the craft front, I'm working on a tunic/pullover type thing from winged knits called Idlewood. It can be seen here. I am also working on a few diaper covers for little bean. Pulled my sewing machine out for the first time in several years. Hilarity ensued. I am not a fan of PUL, and it's extremely fussy to work with. That said, I am loving fitteds and covers, and once little bean grows out of the FB pockets we have, we are switching over to all fitteds. I know some parents can leave their babies in fitteds with no cover, but my daughter pees like a grown man finally breaking the seal after 8 beers. As such, even a high quality fitted like goodmama or bububebe goes from zero to soaked in a short period of time. Covers are our friends. Speaking of high quality fitteds...I want to make some. I cannot afford $40 a diaper for new, and I haven't even checked retail on used. Forget it, I'll do it myself.
So, happy belated May Day, y'all.
So...getting up to date.
Little bean's surgery was March 6th. I was worried it wouldn't take place, because she had been running a fever intermittently and vomited a couple of times in the 3 days before her scheduled date. Thankfully, they decided to do it anyway. She went into surgery at 7:30, and came out just after noon. To say holding her in recovery was heartbreaking is like saying Van Gogh could paint kinda well. Palatoplasty, veloplasty, myringotomy. She was bleeding from ears, nose, and mouth. It was horrific. We were in the hospital for 4 days. It took most of those four days for her to decide she wanted milk again. Her healing has been great. She's making new sounds, her mouth healed up with no complications. Those first few weeks were pretty awful, though. The painkillers did a number on her tummy. When constipation arises due to narcotics, it is not just a matter of getting the rectum to relax and move the stuff through; it's because gut motility has slown down to almost nothing. Horrific.
Not long after that, we got the approval from the bank for the house sale. Within 10 days, we moved into our new place. The next week, the mister's stepfather passed away, so he was gone for 4 days attending the funeral in the deep south. Two weeks later, he was gone for 3 days unsuccessfully turkey hunting. We've been here just over a month, and are finally starting to settle into some sort of routine. My work schedule changed the week after we moved, too. Oh, and little bean and I got sick.
We put big moyashi back in school for the last 6-8 weeks of it. At the time, my rationale was 3-fold: let him make local friends, check his progress against that of his peers, and give me some time to find my center again so I could be a better parent, and a better homeschooling facilitator. I honestly didn't think we would get such hassle from the local school district. I am blown away by how crappy most of them have been about it. They sent big moyashi to the social worker because the teacher hadn't gotten his records yet from his last school. For real? The social worker? That's not the part I have a problem with. It's the part where I found out from HIM, and nobody from the school contacted me, and when I *did* call his teacher, she was wicked defensive about it. I have a lot more to say on that subject, but that's a lecture for another day. Suffice to say, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have made the same decision. Our street is loaded with kids. I can't keep him inside, he is always out there playing (not that I'm complaining). He is doing just fine academically.
I do think we'll be trying time4learning in the fall for some subjects. I have heard rave reviews and I think it will help him work a bit more independently, which would be nice. I want to keep doing story of the world stuff, as well as some other science stuff.
I've been considering doing Hogwarts Summer School for him, and I did subscribe to Herb Fairies with him in mind (sorry, folks. Registration is closed now.) So I'm thinking about combining the HerbFairies content with traditional herbology stuff. I think this weekend I'm going to do the invitation thing, I still have parchment paper, and set up some traditional Hogwarts curriculum along with some stuff of my own making. I've got tons of magical books. I also have a gigantic folklore encyclopedia covering magic through many, many different cultures over history. I think that would be fun for him, as well as teaching the real world skill of doing research.
Little bean hates it when I use the laptop, because she wants to pound the keys on it, and she is determined. There is a lot of "no thank yous" and hand moving.
Speaking of baby frustrations, she is starting to stand without support, she is cutting 4 teeth, scribbling, not sleeping well, signing "milk" and "more", and throwing horrific tantrums. Love her so much, but I am so tired. All the time. She turned one two weeks ago. They grow far too fast.
On the garden front, the mister and I have been arguing a lot over how to plot and plant the garden this year. We are starting from scratch, and have VERY limited space. We live in the midtown area, where the soil is mostly clay and our back yard is a swamp. We will have to do raised beds again, or containers. My vote is containers, the mister wants raised beds. I threw my hands up in frustration and said, "it's YOUR body. You want to break your back building all that, knock yourself out." I love living over here, but hate that we downsized in terms of yard space. I miss our big garden. I wish I had more time and energy to be more creative with it. That being said, I am on the hunt for some heat treated pallets to do vertical shade gardening for greens along the fence. That way it keeps them out of the muck, we're recycling, and we have a longer greens season (they bolt awfully quickly here).
On the food front, well...nothing spectacular. Asparagus is in season. We actually bought some morels at the market last weekend. They were delicious. The mister missed morel season, which is usually ephemeral but was even more short, because he was way up north, not killing turkeys. We've been eating lots of hoophouse greens from the market. I actually cooked last week...blueberry coconut flour muffins. My body is not used to so much fiber. Oh dear.
On the craft front, I'm working on a tunic/pullover type thing from winged knits called Idlewood. It can be seen here. I am also working on a few diaper covers for little bean. Pulled my sewing machine out for the first time in several years. Hilarity ensued. I am not a fan of PUL, and it's extremely fussy to work with. That said, I am loving fitteds and covers, and once little bean grows out of the FB pockets we have, we are switching over to all fitteds. I know some parents can leave their babies in fitteds with no cover, but my daughter pees like a grown man finally breaking the seal after 8 beers. As such, even a high quality fitted like goodmama or bububebe goes from zero to soaked in a short period of time. Covers are our friends. Speaking of high quality fitteds...I want to make some. I cannot afford $40 a diaper for new, and I haven't even checked retail on used. Forget it, I'll do it myself.
So, happy belated May Day, y'all.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Hmm. Things progress.
"Schoolwise" - we're doing a lot of unschooling. Pretty much every waking moment is a teachable moment. We kind of let our thoughts and questions carry us to learning as it arises. We're also doing some more structured learning, but nothing that resembles a school day. It's pretty sporadic. For whatever reason, I thought my little bean would be so much more cooperative. HA. HAHAHAH. She is a bundle of activity, and needs constant supervision, and will not consent to being trapped in "baby jail". She's also loud, as most babies are, and so it is hard to read over her, when she is content to explore on her own. Tack on sporadic naps (as in some days, she takes none), and some days, not much structured learning gets done.
We're moving along nicely in Story of the World, and we're adding on more as we go. So, right now we're studying ancient Egyptians, and I've stuffed a whole lot more into that unit than they have in the book. Of course we're doing the arts and craftsy type activities they have in the book, as well as doing some of our own. When I get home from work today, we're going to pretend we're Khnum, and make people out of clay. (And maybe make them seed bombs...that would be a neat way to keep in with cycles of life....) We're watching documentaries on Egypt, and reading Egyptian mythology, took some books out of the library on Egyptian Temples and other such things.
We're also using a free Scott Foresman grammar workbook geared towards second grade, but we're definitely doing it sporadically. Language arts, aside from reading and spelling, are a major sticking point over here. We've been hung up on writing for awhile. I'm letting it go and we're going into some of the actual mechanics of writing, like sentences and paragraphs and stuff like that. It's funny, because A is well spoken, he has no problem with subject/tense agreement. Because he reads extremely well, he has little problem with spelling. But geez Louise. Try to have that boy write a story. I'd rather not come to blows over it, so we kind of jump around. I've got him doing Rainbow Rock on my laptop to play with multiplication and division. We're also working on fractions as they come up, and the mister and the boy are playing Mythmatical Battles when they have time, which is an awesome card game that focuses on mythology and multiplication tables.
In another news, little bean's surgery got put off. She came down with a cold 4 days before its scheduled date, so there was nothing we could do. It's been rescheduled for March 6th. I am praying that everything looks good enough to proceed.
Housewise, we are supposedly days away from getting the sale approval. We've gotten the FHA approval, and for the offered amount, it was just left up to the bank to approve or deny. We were supposed to have an answer yesterday. I was, of course, on pins and needles and irritable and crazy all day, and the answer did not come. According to my lawyer's assistant, we should have an answer Tuesday. In the meantime, I am nervous that the house we want to rent will slip away. We're about to put in our lease application and kickstart the process.
Foodwise, nothing particularly exciting to report. We're out of squirrel. Our 1/2 pig order just came in. Meat for everyone! Our farmer's market has early hoophouse greens. I cannot tell you how in love with them I am. Oh my goodness I miss the greenery so much.
I am thinking about doing a portable vertical garden this year. Gonna have to do some research on that. MM, work beckons. Of course, on my scheduled day off. *headdesk* Time to coffee up and motor out.
"Schoolwise" - we're doing a lot of unschooling. Pretty much every waking moment is a teachable moment. We kind of let our thoughts and questions carry us to learning as it arises. We're also doing some more structured learning, but nothing that resembles a school day. It's pretty sporadic. For whatever reason, I thought my little bean would be so much more cooperative. HA. HAHAHAH. She is a bundle of activity, and needs constant supervision, and will not consent to being trapped in "baby jail". She's also loud, as most babies are, and so it is hard to read over her, when she is content to explore on her own. Tack on sporadic naps (as in some days, she takes none), and some days, not much structured learning gets done.
We're moving along nicely in Story of the World, and we're adding on more as we go. So, right now we're studying ancient Egyptians, and I've stuffed a whole lot more into that unit than they have in the book. Of course we're doing the arts and craftsy type activities they have in the book, as well as doing some of our own. When I get home from work today, we're going to pretend we're Khnum, and make people out of clay. (And maybe make them seed bombs...that would be a neat way to keep in with cycles of life....) We're watching documentaries on Egypt, and reading Egyptian mythology, took some books out of the library on Egyptian Temples and other such things.
We're also using a free Scott Foresman grammar workbook geared towards second grade, but we're definitely doing it sporadically. Language arts, aside from reading and spelling, are a major sticking point over here. We've been hung up on writing for awhile. I'm letting it go and we're going into some of the actual mechanics of writing, like sentences and paragraphs and stuff like that. It's funny, because A is well spoken, he has no problem with subject/tense agreement. Because he reads extremely well, he has little problem with spelling. But geez Louise. Try to have that boy write a story. I'd rather not come to blows over it, so we kind of jump around. I've got him doing Rainbow Rock on my laptop to play with multiplication and division. We're also working on fractions as they come up, and the mister and the boy are playing Mythmatical Battles when they have time, which is an awesome card game that focuses on mythology and multiplication tables.
In another news, little bean's surgery got put off. She came down with a cold 4 days before its scheduled date, so there was nothing we could do. It's been rescheduled for March 6th. I am praying that everything looks good enough to proceed.
Housewise, we are supposedly days away from getting the sale approval. We've gotten the FHA approval, and for the offered amount, it was just left up to the bank to approve or deny. We were supposed to have an answer yesterday. I was, of course, on pins and needles and irritable and crazy all day, and the answer did not come. According to my lawyer's assistant, we should have an answer Tuesday. In the meantime, I am nervous that the house we want to rent will slip away. We're about to put in our lease application and kickstart the process.
Foodwise, nothing particularly exciting to report. We're out of squirrel. Our 1/2 pig order just came in. Meat for everyone! Our farmer's market has early hoophouse greens. I cannot tell you how in love with them I am. Oh my goodness I miss the greenery so much.
I am thinking about doing a portable vertical garden this year. Gonna have to do some research on that. MM, work beckons. Of course, on my scheduled day off. *headdesk* Time to coffee up and motor out.
Friday, February 3, 2012
I need a mojo infusion.
Mama's feelin pretty out of mojo this week. We've been infested with those little bastards known as head lice. Hence, we are now all sporting bald heads. I've been tired and snappish, even snapping at the baby for yelling. (Because THAT makes sense, right?) She's not sleeping well, so the mister and I are not sleeping well. I have to believe there are babies out there who sleep like a dream. Mine does not, and will not. She wakes 4-6 times a night...minimum. She has a hard time napping, too. She is cutting teeth, but they're just not breaking the surface. And since she's learned to pull up, she pulls up on everything, but cries if I am not right next to her. If I am next to her, she is climbing on ME, pulling off my glasses, tugging on my plugs, tearing at my lip, head butting me, and tearing out my hair, when I still had some.
Sometimes you forget, when your child is older, that your body is not your own, and when you have children, especially babies, they demand access to it at all hours of the night and day. That said, I love my sweet baby, and have amazing photos of all of us bald. (Except her, she's got a bit of hair left).
On the homeschooling front, the mister and I had a big ol meeting about it last weekend (and a date night too, so very nice), and decided to split it up - he'll take math and science, I get language arts and history. (man, language arts is the number 1 most difficult subject in this house. Of course I get it.) We determined the unit study was just not working for us. And because I'm more of a drill drill drill the facts in type, I thought it was better to have someone with lots of math experience under his belt (all the way up to and including number theory) take over. He's not focused on repetition til A gets it right, like I was. We also pulled up Michigan's GLCE's to have a base to move from. (GLCE's are grade level content expectations, and what teachers are expected to know and have their students know). It's not necessarily that we'll follow them, but just to see what other kids his age are working on...
So, for history I decided to start The Story of the World, and we're moving through it slowly. Just a little bit at a time. We're putting together a family tree book. For LA, we read a lot, and try to link it in with whatever we're talking about and working on at the time. Yesterday was Imbolc/Oimelc/St. Brighid's Day, so we discussed the agricultural and seasonal significance behind it, as well as some customs (we were going to make pan bannock and butter, but didn't get around to it, so we're doing it today), and then talked about the Celtic goddess Brighid, and what she represented. Then, because Brighid is the goddess of poetry, we read poetry together (this covers language arts too....sneaky!), including ee cummings, Thomas Lynch, and Shel Silverstein. We're doing some stuff out of a free grammar workbook intermittently, not pushing it. I'm just trying to wrap some of these things into our daily lives, so learning becomes a full time activity. I don't want to "do school". At all.
On the crafting front, I'm working on a pair of convertible mittens for Wes, and A and I are still working on felt chinese dragons, and lanterns for the lantern festival. Gotta get rollin on those.
Foodwise, I have to say, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker cookbook is the worst cookbook ever. Two strikes...you're out. Buh. We actually ate takeout Wednesday night, which was the evening all of our heads were shampooed, combed out, and shaved, and the entire house was laundered. Too exhausted to do much else. My bushel of oranges are here....know what I'll be doing this weekend. I also killed the water kefir. It grew mold. Guess I'll be tossing that and starting again. :( I'm wondering if it's this HOUSE, because everything seems to grow mold. Our shiitake mushroom kit, buttermilk, kefir of both the dairy and water varieties, other fermentation projects....
Homewise, our house is a disaster. Of course. I'm over it. As far as the selling goes, who knows? We had our BPO last week, but haven't heard anything about it. I'm anxiously awaiting the Friday email update from our lawyers. I'm still eyeing the house in South Lyon, as well as one in Ferndale that I'm kind of in love with.
Sometimes you forget, when your child is older, that your body is not your own, and when you have children, especially babies, they demand access to it at all hours of the night and day. That said, I love my sweet baby, and have amazing photos of all of us bald. (Except her, she's got a bit of hair left).
On the homeschooling front, the mister and I had a big ol meeting about it last weekend (and a date night too, so very nice), and decided to split it up - he'll take math and science, I get language arts and history. (man, language arts is the number 1 most difficult subject in this house. Of course I get it.) We determined the unit study was just not working for us. And because I'm more of a drill drill drill the facts in type, I thought it was better to have someone with lots of math experience under his belt (all the way up to and including number theory) take over. He's not focused on repetition til A gets it right, like I was. We also pulled up Michigan's GLCE's to have a base to move from. (GLCE's are grade level content expectations, and what teachers are expected to know and have their students know). It's not necessarily that we'll follow them, but just to see what other kids his age are working on...
So, for history I decided to start The Story of the World, and we're moving through it slowly. Just a little bit at a time. We're putting together a family tree book. For LA, we read a lot, and try to link it in with whatever we're talking about and working on at the time. Yesterday was Imbolc/Oimelc/St. Brighid's Day, so we discussed the agricultural and seasonal significance behind it, as well as some customs (we were going to make pan bannock and butter, but didn't get around to it, so we're doing it today), and then talked about the Celtic goddess Brighid, and what she represented. Then, because Brighid is the goddess of poetry, we read poetry together (this covers language arts too....sneaky!), including ee cummings, Thomas Lynch, and Shel Silverstein. We're doing some stuff out of a free grammar workbook intermittently, not pushing it. I'm just trying to wrap some of these things into our daily lives, so learning becomes a full time activity. I don't want to "do school". At all.
On the crafting front, I'm working on a pair of convertible mittens for Wes, and A and I are still working on felt chinese dragons, and lanterns for the lantern festival. Gotta get rollin on those.
Foodwise, I have to say, Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker cookbook is the worst cookbook ever. Two strikes...you're out. Buh. We actually ate takeout Wednesday night, which was the evening all of our heads were shampooed, combed out, and shaved, and the entire house was laundered. Too exhausted to do much else. My bushel of oranges are here....know what I'll be doing this weekend. I also killed the water kefir. It grew mold. Guess I'll be tossing that and starting again. :( I'm wondering if it's this HOUSE, because everything seems to grow mold. Our shiitake mushroom kit, buttermilk, kefir of both the dairy and water varieties, other fermentation projects....
Homewise, our house is a disaster. Of course. I'm over it. As far as the selling goes, who knows? We had our BPO last week, but haven't heard anything about it. I'm anxiously awaiting the Friday email update from our lawyers. I'm still eyeing the house in South Lyon, as well as one in Ferndale that I'm kind of in love with.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
News of no import.
Man, we have had some amazing food lately. Wild game gumbo (which also included chicken and chorizo, but also had bunny and squirrel), pulled pork, and last night...bangers and mash. My husband is a whiz in the kitchen, but I feel bad sometimes because I swear, he spends 99% of his time at home in the kitchen. I really need to get off of my duff and cook that man a meal. He's on a roll these days, though, and I hate to interrupt.
Deschooling is going well. When the boyo came back from his Florida vacation, the very first morning, he got up and turned on...drum roll please....a nature show. Not cartoons. A show about the planet's deadliest animals. Yes, on purpose. There has been much watching of "Clash of the Gods" around here (thank dog for the DVR), as well. Last night they were watching the one about Perseus, and it was talking about how Medusa came to be a Gorgon. I had told boyo that he could watch them all, and there was no problems, but how do I explain to my 7-going-on-8 son what rape is, and why Medusa's tale is so tragic?? Better yet, how do I decide whether to go back on my word and turn that off and tell him he CAN'T watch it, and STILL have to explain why? At one point, there is talk of how Zeus fathered Perseus, and I made the comment, man...Zeus really needs to keep his penis to himself. And of course, I had to explain that. Some days it's difficult to know what concepts are too adult, and what concepts need to be explained. We had a playdate with some unschoolers yesterday that would've went ever so much better had I not overdosed on caffeine and made myself very ill. *facepalm* It was nice to get out, though, and lovely to see friends.
This weekend I managed to pick up an electric skillet on the cheap for batiking. Hi ho temperature control. Maybe this will assist the wax in penetrating the muslin better. I, of course, am absolutely stocked with ideas. I need to start writing some of this stuff down, because maybe some day, I will actually be able to have a few hours free in which to work on crafty projects.
Speaking of crafty projects, it will be the seventh wedding anniversary for me and the mister in a couple of weeks. Wool is one of the seventh anniversary materials, so I am knitting him a pair of convertible mittens. He spends a lot of his limited free time out in the woods, and I'm sure they'll come in handy. Hah. Har har. Handy.
Still waiting on our appraisal from the bank for the short sale. We're really in a holding pattern now. We have a possible rental, but it's currently got tenants, so I'm not sure if it will be made available to us or not. We both have our hearts set on it, it's on 8 acres and the house is just barely big enough for us, and within our budget, and it all seems too perfect...I am just waiting for something to come up and mess it up. *sigh* Gotta keep our highest good in mind, not "me me me what i want gimme gimme gimme". It's owned by my friend's mother, and I've talked to her about it, but it's really her son's, so...we'll see. Lots of convolution goin on there.
Until we find a bigger place, or a place with a basement, I have zero room to craft and sew and create...I think since we already have an offer, it's time to take the bed out of the third bedroom and try to re-organize it and maybe get some projects moving. The other problem is that by the time I get little stinker bean to bed, I am exhausted. Who else has a baby that doesn't go to sleep until 10 and gets up at 8?! CMON. How is THAT fair? And she still wakes up 4-5 times a night, too. Sometimes more. AND thrashes about in her sleep. You cannot keep this child still. Not that I'd want to, but she's far removed from how boyo was at this point. Good thing there's so many years in between them, because his babyhood is just a distant memory now, and I hate comparing (although I often do).
I am trying to convince the mister that we need to order seeds, just in case we do wind up in the house we really want in time for planting. The biggest problem is that we've always started our seeds, and only bought transplants as needed. If we do get the rental we want, and the garden is approved by the landlord (which I'm sure it will be), I'm hoping it'll be planting prime time (think April or May). But because it's not a given, I am terrified to start seeds and then wind up somewhere where they'll go to waste. I guess we could go with transplants this year, if all goes well. I am also so nervous about the timing, because if the bank decides to hurry up and approve the short sale (fat chance THAT'LL happen), there is a contingency in our offer that says we have to be out within 30 days. What if the house isn't available? What if what if what if? Luckily, if we do get to rent the house we've got our hearts set on, there will be plenty of room for transplants, and maybe I can finally order some transplants from Richo Cech @ Horizon Herbs. And maybe we can build a portable hoop house....
In other fun food news, we just ordered half a pig. And I got my 10 pounds of bacon from the bacon co-op. And just placed a sizeable order for dry staples from Country Life Natural Foods. And I'm about to order a bushel of oranges from a grower in Florida for putting up. I wonder if I can make fruit leather with citrus? I'd really like to get my hands on some key limes directly from a grower, I should probably check localharvest. I also need to make some soda with the eldest, our water kefir grains are probably as ready as they'll ever be, if I didn't kill them. It's so cold to start a sourdough culture, but I think I'll start that today too. And strain yogurt for whey. Of course, this is all dependent on getting my disaster of a kitchen cleaned up. Good food makes a good mess, that's for certain.
In fun non-food news, Herbal Roots Zine is having a giveaway for their latest issue, which features Birch medicine. Second place winner gets birch medicine supplies from Mountain Rose Herbs. I am quite partial to Mountain Rose. If I can't get it locally, I order from them (some of the time). You can check it out and enter a chance to win here.
Some day, I will have the time to make all the medicines I want. For now, I'll just do what I can.
Deschooling is going well. When the boyo came back from his Florida vacation, the very first morning, he got up and turned on...drum roll please....a nature show. Not cartoons. A show about the planet's deadliest animals. Yes, on purpose. There has been much watching of "Clash of the Gods" around here (thank dog for the DVR), as well. Last night they were watching the one about Perseus, and it was talking about how Medusa came to be a Gorgon. I had told boyo that he could watch them all, and there was no problems, but how do I explain to my 7-going-on-8 son what rape is, and why Medusa's tale is so tragic?? Better yet, how do I decide whether to go back on my word and turn that off and tell him he CAN'T watch it, and STILL have to explain why? At one point, there is talk of how Zeus fathered Perseus, and I made the comment, man...Zeus really needs to keep his penis to himself. And of course, I had to explain that. Some days it's difficult to know what concepts are too adult, and what concepts need to be explained. We had a playdate with some unschoolers yesterday that would've went ever so much better had I not overdosed on caffeine and made myself very ill. *facepalm* It was nice to get out, though, and lovely to see friends.
This weekend I managed to pick up an electric skillet on the cheap for batiking. Hi ho temperature control. Maybe this will assist the wax in penetrating the muslin better. I, of course, am absolutely stocked with ideas. I need to start writing some of this stuff down, because maybe some day, I will actually be able to have a few hours free in which to work on crafty projects.
Speaking of crafty projects, it will be the seventh wedding anniversary for me and the mister in a couple of weeks. Wool is one of the seventh anniversary materials, so I am knitting him a pair of convertible mittens. He spends a lot of his limited free time out in the woods, and I'm sure they'll come in handy. Hah. Har har. Handy.
Still waiting on our appraisal from the bank for the short sale. We're really in a holding pattern now. We have a possible rental, but it's currently got tenants, so I'm not sure if it will be made available to us or not. We both have our hearts set on it, it's on 8 acres and the house is just barely big enough for us, and within our budget, and it all seems too perfect...I am just waiting for something to come up and mess it up. *sigh* Gotta keep our highest good in mind, not "me me me what i want gimme gimme gimme". It's owned by my friend's mother, and I've talked to her about it, but it's really her son's, so...we'll see. Lots of convolution goin on there.
Until we find a bigger place, or a place with a basement, I have zero room to craft and sew and create...I think since we already have an offer, it's time to take the bed out of the third bedroom and try to re-organize it and maybe get some projects moving. The other problem is that by the time I get little stinker bean to bed, I am exhausted. Who else has a baby that doesn't go to sleep until 10 and gets up at 8?! CMON. How is THAT fair? And she still wakes up 4-5 times a night, too. Sometimes more. AND thrashes about in her sleep. You cannot keep this child still. Not that I'd want to, but she's far removed from how boyo was at this point. Good thing there's so many years in between them, because his babyhood is just a distant memory now, and I hate comparing (although I often do).
I am trying to convince the mister that we need to order seeds, just in case we do wind up in the house we really want in time for planting. The biggest problem is that we've always started our seeds, and only bought transplants as needed. If we do get the rental we want, and the garden is approved by the landlord (which I'm sure it will be), I'm hoping it'll be planting prime time (think April or May). But because it's not a given, I am terrified to start seeds and then wind up somewhere where they'll go to waste. I guess we could go with transplants this year, if all goes well. I am also so nervous about the timing, because if the bank decides to hurry up and approve the short sale (fat chance THAT'LL happen), there is a contingency in our offer that says we have to be out within 30 days. What if the house isn't available? What if what if what if? Luckily, if we do get to rent the house we've got our hearts set on, there will be plenty of room for transplants, and maybe I can finally order some transplants from Richo Cech @ Horizon Herbs. And maybe we can build a portable hoop house....
In other fun food news, we just ordered half a pig. And I got my 10 pounds of bacon from the bacon co-op. And just placed a sizeable order for dry staples from Country Life Natural Foods. And I'm about to order a bushel of oranges from a grower in Florida for putting up. I wonder if I can make fruit leather with citrus? I'd really like to get my hands on some key limes directly from a grower, I should probably check localharvest. I also need to make some soda with the eldest, our water kefir grains are probably as ready as they'll ever be, if I didn't kill them. It's so cold to start a sourdough culture, but I think I'll start that today too. And strain yogurt for whey. Of course, this is all dependent on getting my disaster of a kitchen cleaned up. Good food makes a good mess, that's for certain.
In fun non-food news, Herbal Roots Zine is having a giveaway for their latest issue, which features Birch medicine. Second place winner gets birch medicine supplies from Mountain Rose Herbs. I am quite partial to Mountain Rose. If I can't get it locally, I order from them (some of the time). You can check it out and enter a chance to win here.
Some day, I will have the time to make all the medicines I want. For now, I'll just do what I can.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
a long overdue update, part...whatever.
um, wow. so, it's been a few years. a lot has happened, a lot has changed. I'm re-taking-up-the-hobby of blogging. I do a lot, and I like to share, a lot. Or maybe that's overshare?
In any case, cliffs notes version.
November 2009 - got help for my drinking problem. Happily sober since 11/23/09. Hard work, sometimes it sucks, but overall, I've never lived such an awesome, happy, authentic life, and I get to do cool things now, like...oh, I don't know...act like a grownup. Have real relationships. Be happy. Take responsibility for myself. Live in the now. Live with integrity. Moving on...
February 2010 - start living my dream and working full time as a massage therapist.
August 2010 - Find out I am pregnant with my second child. Know I want to do things much differently. Join an amazing super secret local group of attachment parents.
September 2010 through April 2011 - hardest pregnancy ever. Well, I mean, by comparison. Had to quit doing massage therapy. LOST weight being pregnant. Sick, painful, ouchie. Get ready for the birth and care of new sweet baby girl, whom, I might add, is extremely feisty in the womb.
December 2010 - take up fiber arts in the form of knitting. This is followed by crocheting (a little bit) and spinning my own yarn (hardly, but I have the supplies). Also, hand embroidery (taken up earlier in the year) and machine embroidery (taken up earlier in the year).
April 2011 - Sylvia Fae is born. Her birth kicks my ass. 40 hours of labor, vomiting, dehydration, horror, 51 minutes of pushing with her having her back rotated towards my side, me screaming all the time about how my hip is breaking... I would do it again in a heartbeat. Most amazing, breathtaking, powerful experience I've ever had.
One week later - realize my exclusively nursing babe has a cleft palate. Uh, no, they didn't realize in the hospital. *sigh* Break out the pump and start pumping for her. I am happy to say I made it six and a half months attached to that horrible device, through 4 rounds of severe mastitis, raynauds, plugged ducts, thrush, falling supply, and plenty of naysayers. Many make it longer than I, but I am at peace.
April through August 2011 - my beautiful daughter spends most of her time screaming her lungs out. Does not sleep much. Mostly just screams and cries. The dreaded colic.
August 2011 through present - my daughter rocks. She has turned from a screaming demon into this amazing, beautiful, fun, happy baby, and I credit that entirely to attachment parenting. Cosleeping, babywearing, the works.
October 2011 - go back to work a couple of days a week as a spa manager/massage therapist. Put our house on the market for a short sale.
December 2011 - pull my now 7 year old son out of school for home schooling.
December 2011 through early January 2012 - fail miserably at deschooling, making us all miserable. Back to the drawing board.
Which brings us up to today! My son has been on vacation with his grandparents for 8 days, and I miss him terribly, and am looking forward to actually DESCHOOLING when he gets home.
Working on other fiber arts...tie dyed some stuff for my daughter the other day, turned out awesome. Tried my hand at batiking, turned out sucktastic. There are some supplies I need that can be had cheap that I plan to acquire shortly before I make another go-round.
On the home front, we're waiting for a determination from the bank regarding an offer we got. This may take some time. I'm so sad to see our home go, but have made peace with it, and await our next adventure. I will miss our gardens, and want to dig up our perennials and take them with us (strawberries, asparagus, blueberry bushes, various herbs), but that'll have to wait until we find a place, which will be a rental for quite some time anyway. The amazing part about being inspired is that no matter where I go, it will always be home, because I'll make it so.
Current kitchen magic - just pulled off a batch of homemade yogurt from our milk share. It's chilling for a bit, then I'll strain half of it for the whey and probably lacto-ferment something. It's been awhile, but all of a sudden I'm manically (is that a word??) inspired. Husband made wild game gumbo the other night, holy christmas. There's some kitchen magic if there ever was some. I need to pick up some rice flour to start a sourdough culture (yep, still GF). And I've also got water kefir grains out, anxiously awaiting A's return home, so we can make some "soda". Contemplating ordering a bushel of oranges to put up, also paid for and waiting for a ten pound order of local bacon (meat candy co-op? amazing), considering a half pig and a quarter cow from a local farm. It's really hard to come up with cash up front, but there goes a ton of our grocery budget for the whole year, if we can just scrape it together.
So! Onward! I'll be closing down my tumblr which was sporadically updated and shifting the posts over here if I can backdate posts, and I'll be moving on!
In any case, cliffs notes version.
November 2009 - got help for my drinking problem. Happily sober since 11/23/09. Hard work, sometimes it sucks, but overall, I've never lived such an awesome, happy, authentic life, and I get to do cool things now, like...oh, I don't know...act like a grownup. Have real relationships. Be happy. Take responsibility for myself. Live in the now. Live with integrity. Moving on...
February 2010 - start living my dream and working full time as a massage therapist.
August 2010 - Find out I am pregnant with my second child. Know I want to do things much differently. Join an amazing super secret local group of attachment parents.
September 2010 through April 2011 - hardest pregnancy ever. Well, I mean, by comparison. Had to quit doing massage therapy. LOST weight being pregnant. Sick, painful, ouchie. Get ready for the birth and care of new sweet baby girl, whom, I might add, is extremely feisty in the womb.
December 2010 - take up fiber arts in the form of knitting. This is followed by crocheting (a little bit) and spinning my own yarn (hardly, but I have the supplies). Also, hand embroidery (taken up earlier in the year) and machine embroidery (taken up earlier in the year).
April 2011 - Sylvia Fae is born. Her birth kicks my ass. 40 hours of labor, vomiting, dehydration, horror, 51 minutes of pushing with her having her back rotated towards my side, me screaming all the time about how my hip is breaking... I would do it again in a heartbeat. Most amazing, breathtaking, powerful experience I've ever had.
One week later - realize my exclusively nursing babe has a cleft palate. Uh, no, they didn't realize in the hospital. *sigh* Break out the pump and start pumping for her. I am happy to say I made it six and a half months attached to that horrible device, through 4 rounds of severe mastitis, raynauds, plugged ducts, thrush, falling supply, and plenty of naysayers. Many make it longer than I, but I am at peace.
April through August 2011 - my beautiful daughter spends most of her time screaming her lungs out. Does not sleep much. Mostly just screams and cries. The dreaded colic.
August 2011 through present - my daughter rocks. She has turned from a screaming demon into this amazing, beautiful, fun, happy baby, and I credit that entirely to attachment parenting. Cosleeping, babywearing, the works.
October 2011 - go back to work a couple of days a week as a spa manager/massage therapist. Put our house on the market for a short sale.
December 2011 - pull my now 7 year old son out of school for home schooling.
December 2011 through early January 2012 - fail miserably at deschooling, making us all miserable. Back to the drawing board.
Which brings us up to today! My son has been on vacation with his grandparents for 8 days, and I miss him terribly, and am looking forward to actually DESCHOOLING when he gets home.
Working on other fiber arts...tie dyed some stuff for my daughter the other day, turned out awesome. Tried my hand at batiking, turned out sucktastic. There are some supplies I need that can be had cheap that I plan to acquire shortly before I make another go-round.
On the home front, we're waiting for a determination from the bank regarding an offer we got. This may take some time. I'm so sad to see our home go, but have made peace with it, and await our next adventure. I will miss our gardens, and want to dig up our perennials and take them with us (strawberries, asparagus, blueberry bushes, various herbs), but that'll have to wait until we find a place, which will be a rental for quite some time anyway. The amazing part about being inspired is that no matter where I go, it will always be home, because I'll make it so.
Current kitchen magic - just pulled off a batch of homemade yogurt from our milk share. It's chilling for a bit, then I'll strain half of it for the whey and probably lacto-ferment something. It's been awhile, but all of a sudden I'm manically (is that a word??) inspired. Husband made wild game gumbo the other night, holy christmas. There's some kitchen magic if there ever was some. I need to pick up some rice flour to start a sourdough culture (yep, still GF). And I've also got water kefir grains out, anxiously awaiting A's return home, so we can make some "soda". Contemplating ordering a bushel of oranges to put up, also paid for and waiting for a ten pound order of local bacon (meat candy co-op? amazing), considering a half pig and a quarter cow from a local farm. It's really hard to come up with cash up front, but there goes a ton of our grocery budget for the whole year, if we can just scrape it together.
So! Onward! I'll be closing down my tumblr which was sporadically updated and shifting the posts over here if I can backdate posts, and I'll be moving on!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
and so the season winds down.
oh hai there. looks like i've taken my usual two month break from sanity and the world, and i'm coming back around again.
in the meantime, our garden has pretty much ended, some food has been put up, other stuff has been eaten, and unfortunately, some did go to waste.
this summer i managed to accomplish: pickled beets, pickled peppers, apple butter, strawberry rhubarb jam, mulberry jam, honeyed applesauce. there may be some i'm forgetting. we also managed to put up dehydrated peaches, frozen corn, berries of all kinds, and peaches in a light honey syrup. we've got a quarter cow on the way, as well. local, grassfed, and delicious. i also somehow made yogurt and yogurt cheese. delicious.
currently hanging in the garage is: lemon verbena, mint, chocolate mint, thyme, winter savory, two bundles of sage, and god knows what else.
i've learned a lot in the garden this year, and i hope to know more before the season starts again next year.
i was asked about the coldframes we had planned. unfortunately, during my hiatus, in addition to my broken dishwasher, my fridge finally decided to die. the money (or lack thereof) that we would've used to build the frames incidentally went to replacing our appliances. there's always next year, and we've got a whole winter for planning.
fall activities for us include mushroom hunting and hunting in general. no, not me, that's for sure. as a former vegetarian, i can't even think of killing anything, and as wes sat out back and skinned the lone squirrel he managed to shoot, i was horrified and had to go inside. baby steps, baby steps. what will we do with it? why, wait for three more and throw them in the crockpot.
wes has managed to pick maitakes, hericium, hedgehog mushrooms, and even a late season puffball. so, we're doing a lot better this year, on all fronts.
i also finally got around to starting my herbal blog: look for me at waywardherbalist.blogspot.com.
on the GF front - blood tests were negative. however, i can tell within twenty minutes when i've eaten something with gluten in it. it's not pretty. so, i've foresworn a life of wheat filled goodness, since it makes me feel terrible in a multitude of ways. i also discovered the hard way i even react to "gluten free" oats. this comes with the fun side effects of a violently runny nose and sneezing. pass. no thanks.
on the book front - i took some time out from productive reading to pick up something fun. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, is one of the funniest books i've ever read. i'm currently reading a book about homesteading on a quarter acre. it's definitely informational.
and huzzah, i just found out that my favorite GF blogger is actually a cookbook author of vegetarian books from way back. i have, and love, one of her veg cookbooks, which were written pre-GF for her. let me tell you, her baked risotto with brie and fresh sage is KILLER.
so hi. i'm back. mostly in action. see you around!
in the meantime, our garden has pretty much ended, some food has been put up, other stuff has been eaten, and unfortunately, some did go to waste.
this summer i managed to accomplish: pickled beets, pickled peppers, apple butter, strawberry rhubarb jam, mulberry jam, honeyed applesauce. there may be some i'm forgetting. we also managed to put up dehydrated peaches, frozen corn, berries of all kinds, and peaches in a light honey syrup. we've got a quarter cow on the way, as well. local, grassfed, and delicious. i also somehow made yogurt and yogurt cheese. delicious.
currently hanging in the garage is: lemon verbena, mint, chocolate mint, thyme, winter savory, two bundles of sage, and god knows what else.
i've learned a lot in the garden this year, and i hope to know more before the season starts again next year.
i was asked about the coldframes we had planned. unfortunately, during my hiatus, in addition to my broken dishwasher, my fridge finally decided to die. the money (or lack thereof) that we would've used to build the frames incidentally went to replacing our appliances. there's always next year, and we've got a whole winter for planning.
fall activities for us include mushroom hunting and hunting in general. no, not me, that's for sure. as a former vegetarian, i can't even think of killing anything, and as wes sat out back and skinned the lone squirrel he managed to shoot, i was horrified and had to go inside. baby steps, baby steps. what will we do with it? why, wait for three more and throw them in the crockpot.
wes has managed to pick maitakes, hericium, hedgehog mushrooms, and even a late season puffball. so, we're doing a lot better this year, on all fronts.
i also finally got around to starting my herbal blog: look for me at waywardherbalist.blogspot.com.
on the GF front - blood tests were negative. however, i can tell within twenty minutes when i've eaten something with gluten in it. it's not pretty. so, i've foresworn a life of wheat filled goodness, since it makes me feel terrible in a multitude of ways. i also discovered the hard way i even react to "gluten free" oats. this comes with the fun side effects of a violently runny nose and sneezing. pass. no thanks.
on the book front - i took some time out from productive reading to pick up something fun. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, is one of the funniest books i've ever read. i'm currently reading a book about homesteading on a quarter acre. it's definitely informational.
and huzzah, i just found out that my favorite GF blogger is actually a cookbook author of vegetarian books from way back. i have, and love, one of her veg cookbooks, which were written pre-GF for her. let me tell you, her baked risotto with brie and fresh sage is KILLER.
so hi. i'm back. mostly in action. see you around!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
the invasion begins.
aphids, loopers, and powdery mildew, oh my!
oh my indeed. my once lush and beautiful garden is now depressingly wilted, and in some spots, bare. between the powdery mildew and aphids, we've sacrificed the evening primrose. i should probably pull the lettuce and spinach, both of which bolted some time ago.
word of advice, future self - when the planting instructions tell you how far apart to plant your little sprouts, follow them. i don't doubt that overcrowding has contributed to the problem. and my sugar snap pea vines are wilted and yellow. i think i'm going to test the acidity of the soil. i don't know. i've got my hands in too many projects right now, so it's hard to think straight and figure out what could possibly be contributing to some weird plant diseases.
my cherry tomatoes are finally starting to come in. my eggplant, however, is still doing lamely. we've gotten heads on the broccoli...finally. they're tiny so far. and no more peppers, aside from the yellow wax ones which will be pickled this weekend.
so far, in addition to the jams i have put up, there has also been cherry preserves in an almond syrup (tastes phenomenal mixed into plain yogurt), and yesterday, a bushel of peaches. part went into the dehydrator. most were blanched, quartered, and packed in a light wildflower honey syrup. i know dumping raw honey into boiling water negates the healthy nature of the raw-ness. but that honey is delicious and i will have wes pick up a lot more from the farmer's market. dehydrating...is a pain in the ass. i am having a hard time telling if the peaches are done or not. i mean, there's ones that are obviously done, but others...
i've got a few new projects i plan to take on as well. i've been charged with making a hot pepper jam (ew ew ew) and a habanero vodka (ew to the tenth degree). can you tell there is a spicy food lover in my life? i am tempted not to make these things for him, as he suffers from gerd, and hot food gives him horrible, horrible indigestion. but hey, it's his own body, so...
on the gluten free front - rechallenged. it did not go well. we are talking unholy levels of nausea and cramping. anxiety attack (yeah yeah, i know, par for the course for me). brain fog. exhaustion. runny nose and sneezing. okay, then. i get the message. had the anti-gliadin, IgG and IgM blood tests run, they came back negative. Does this mean i'll push myself to eat more gluten? probably not. i feel better for not eating it, so GF for me, i guess. we've had a good number of gf bread baking failures. bob's red mill makes delicious bread mix...that we never fail to mess up in some way. i still have not gotten motivated enough to make my own mix. soon, soon.
reading - still reading the four season harvest. haven't been reading too terribly much lately. or getting much of anything done. my bad.
oh my indeed. my once lush and beautiful garden is now depressingly wilted, and in some spots, bare. between the powdery mildew and aphids, we've sacrificed the evening primrose. i should probably pull the lettuce and spinach, both of which bolted some time ago.
word of advice, future self - when the planting instructions tell you how far apart to plant your little sprouts, follow them. i don't doubt that overcrowding has contributed to the problem. and my sugar snap pea vines are wilted and yellow. i think i'm going to test the acidity of the soil. i don't know. i've got my hands in too many projects right now, so it's hard to think straight and figure out what could possibly be contributing to some weird plant diseases.
my cherry tomatoes are finally starting to come in. my eggplant, however, is still doing lamely. we've gotten heads on the broccoli...finally. they're tiny so far. and no more peppers, aside from the yellow wax ones which will be pickled this weekend.
so far, in addition to the jams i have put up, there has also been cherry preserves in an almond syrup (tastes phenomenal mixed into plain yogurt), and yesterday, a bushel of peaches. part went into the dehydrator. most were blanched, quartered, and packed in a light wildflower honey syrup. i know dumping raw honey into boiling water negates the healthy nature of the raw-ness. but that honey is delicious and i will have wes pick up a lot more from the farmer's market. dehydrating...is a pain in the ass. i am having a hard time telling if the peaches are done or not. i mean, there's ones that are obviously done, but others...
i've got a few new projects i plan to take on as well. i've been charged with making a hot pepper jam (ew ew ew) and a habanero vodka (ew to the tenth degree). can you tell there is a spicy food lover in my life? i am tempted not to make these things for him, as he suffers from gerd, and hot food gives him horrible, horrible indigestion. but hey, it's his own body, so...
on the gluten free front - rechallenged. it did not go well. we are talking unholy levels of nausea and cramping. anxiety attack (yeah yeah, i know, par for the course for me). brain fog. exhaustion. runny nose and sneezing. okay, then. i get the message. had the anti-gliadin, IgG and IgM blood tests run, they came back negative. Does this mean i'll push myself to eat more gluten? probably not. i feel better for not eating it, so GF for me, i guess. we've had a good number of gf bread baking failures. bob's red mill makes delicious bread mix...that we never fail to mess up in some way. i still have not gotten motivated enough to make my own mix. soon, soon.
reading - still reading the four season harvest. haven't been reading too terribly much lately. or getting much of anything done. my bad.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
so much to do, so little time, so much enjoyment.
holy criminy.
last weekend, in addition to the mulberry jam, i put up strawberry rhubarb jam, blanched and froze beans, snap peas, and kale, and then all was quiet for the rest of the week. (aside from my roommate passing his driving test, but that's not really in the scope of this blog.)
had an appointment with the surgeon re: the abscess. she looked at my leg, looked at me with some derision, and was like, why are you here? I hadn't had the chance to check it out that day, we were running late. I had noticed some shrinking, and the draining was done. The thing shrank from the size of a nickel and all puffed up to the size of a pea at that point. She prescribed me antibiotics for the staph infection (which I didn't fill for a number of reasons - one, there was no sign of infection left, and two, my regular MD didn't think I needed antibiotics, and I heartily agree) and told me to come back in six weeks. Now it is the size of a b b and still shrinking. It's almost gone.
I accredit this to elecampane. Wholly. This thing has been around for months and has never shrunk beneath the size of a pea. No amount of poulticing, draining, whatever, has ever made it shrink smaller. I've been taking small doses of elecampane 3-5 times a day for something unrelated. I had read that some historic uses (think the bible and hippocrates) were for abscesses and skin issues. I was hoping maybe to clear up the main problem (chronic sinus funk) and possibly see something miraculous with the abscess. Well, the sinus funk is still at work, but the abscess is almost gone. It's a freaking christmas miracle. Score one for herbs.
This weekend was insanely crazily busy, with class on Saturday and another amazing workshop today - earth plasters. There is nothing quite as satisfying as mixing your own building materials from home made wheat paste, straw, water, and dirt! Three of my favorite activities rolled into one - learning, spending time with wes, and working with my hands. I wish I had pictures, I'm covered in mud from stem to stern. Deanne Bednar is incredible, and I'm glad I decided to take the workshop, even on top of class, a wedding reception, and a going away party this weekend. Her home is incredible too - check it out at strawbale studios.
Speaking of busyness this weekend - the great basil harvest of 2009. We harvested a ton from 8 plants. Wes made a giant batch of pesto that's currently in the chill chest. His uncle offered us a stand up freezer for free! We just need to find a spot for it. Our garage will be filled to the brim with kitchen appliances. We have one beer fridge, we're about to get another, and a stand up freezer? I'm in heaven.
Book wise, I finished In Defense of Food today, another gem by Michael Pollan. Quick and easy to read. (I'm not sure if I mentioned finishing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but I did. Also fantastic.) Being done with school for now is heartily awesome, I'm catching up on so much reading. Botany of Desire is on tap, but I just dug into Four Season Gardening, as I need to get a jump on the fall crop planting. I'm blown away at what the authors are growing and harvesting all winter long just by using cold frames. They're also Zone 5. Thinking about fresh salad greens from my back yard with the low technology of wood and windows and harnessing the energy of the sun and the earth during our low point of the year has me pretty excited. Also pretty exciting - an upcoming permaculture talk on July 22nd.
So, all in all, lots of things are kicking. Makin medicine, takin medicine, growin food, puttin it up, learning, loving, laughing. Life is good. The only failure this week was something that was neither happy nor foolish, nor anything I have any control over. My big sweet baby Morrison has been diagnosed with feline aids. I'm heart broken, and I know that we've got a long road ahead of us that will be difficult, but it's my goal to keep him as happy and healthy as possible, and make him as comfortable as possible. He's such an amazing creature, and he really helped show me what patience and kindness can achieve. He was a feral kitten that showed up in my yard one day a couple of years ago, and through patience, ended up befriending me. Now he sleeps in my lap, lets me hold him, and in general, is one of the sweetest cats I know. He's a big baby. My mother took it harder than I did, and was sobbing on the phone with me for an hour. :/
On to happier things - Oooooh, managed to somehow finangle Wes into letting me buy 2 books this weekend - Nourishing Traditions and Well Preserved. Drooled over recipes in both...I love my kitchen. My garden. Food. Health. Life. I'm a tactile person, and tactile things are the things that comfort me and make my heart sing. A good meal. A soft blanket. A warm hug. So, while paging through these wonderful books, I laid in bed, nibbled on some Godiva chocolates (hush, I know), and even shared a couple with Wes.
Next up on my stuff to make list - I am thinking about making a plantain and ragweed salve for andrew's mosquito bite problem. Oh, and cherry almond conserve. And some other wonderful foods. And a motherwort tincture. THIS WEEK. Because the motherwort is almost completely done for. And I need to get out and look for Monarda. And possibly St. John's Wort, although that's possibly done for the season as well. Crap. I was hoping to make a st. j's wort oil this year...
last weekend, in addition to the mulberry jam, i put up strawberry rhubarb jam, blanched and froze beans, snap peas, and kale, and then all was quiet for the rest of the week. (aside from my roommate passing his driving test, but that's not really in the scope of this blog.)
had an appointment with the surgeon re: the abscess. she looked at my leg, looked at me with some derision, and was like, why are you here? I hadn't had the chance to check it out that day, we were running late. I had noticed some shrinking, and the draining was done. The thing shrank from the size of a nickel and all puffed up to the size of a pea at that point. She prescribed me antibiotics for the staph infection (which I didn't fill for a number of reasons - one, there was no sign of infection left, and two, my regular MD didn't think I needed antibiotics, and I heartily agree) and told me to come back in six weeks. Now it is the size of a b b and still shrinking. It's almost gone.
I accredit this to elecampane. Wholly. This thing has been around for months and has never shrunk beneath the size of a pea. No amount of poulticing, draining, whatever, has ever made it shrink smaller. I've been taking small doses of elecampane 3-5 times a day for something unrelated. I had read that some historic uses (think the bible and hippocrates) were for abscesses and skin issues. I was hoping maybe to clear up the main problem (chronic sinus funk) and possibly see something miraculous with the abscess. Well, the sinus funk is still at work, but the abscess is almost gone. It's a freaking christmas miracle. Score one for herbs.
This weekend was insanely crazily busy, with class on Saturday and another amazing workshop today - earth plasters. There is nothing quite as satisfying as mixing your own building materials from home made wheat paste, straw, water, and dirt! Three of my favorite activities rolled into one - learning, spending time with wes, and working with my hands. I wish I had pictures, I'm covered in mud from stem to stern. Deanne Bednar is incredible, and I'm glad I decided to take the workshop, even on top of class, a wedding reception, and a going away party this weekend. Her home is incredible too - check it out at strawbale studios.
Speaking of busyness this weekend - the great basil harvest of 2009. We harvested a ton from 8 plants. Wes made a giant batch of pesto that's currently in the chill chest. His uncle offered us a stand up freezer for free! We just need to find a spot for it. Our garage will be filled to the brim with kitchen appliances. We have one beer fridge, we're about to get another, and a stand up freezer? I'm in heaven.
Book wise, I finished In Defense of Food today, another gem by Michael Pollan. Quick and easy to read. (I'm not sure if I mentioned finishing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but I did. Also fantastic.) Being done with school for now is heartily awesome, I'm catching up on so much reading. Botany of Desire is on tap, but I just dug into Four Season Gardening, as I need to get a jump on the fall crop planting. I'm blown away at what the authors are growing and harvesting all winter long just by using cold frames. They're also Zone 5. Thinking about fresh salad greens from my back yard with the low technology of wood and windows and harnessing the energy of the sun and the earth during our low point of the year has me pretty excited. Also pretty exciting - an upcoming permaculture talk on July 22nd.
So, all in all, lots of things are kicking. Makin medicine, takin medicine, growin food, puttin it up, learning, loving, laughing. Life is good. The only failure this week was something that was neither happy nor foolish, nor anything I have any control over. My big sweet baby Morrison has been diagnosed with feline aids. I'm heart broken, and I know that we've got a long road ahead of us that will be difficult, but it's my goal to keep him as happy and healthy as possible, and make him as comfortable as possible. He's such an amazing creature, and he really helped show me what patience and kindness can achieve. He was a feral kitten that showed up in my yard one day a couple of years ago, and through patience, ended up befriending me. Now he sleeps in my lap, lets me hold him, and in general, is one of the sweetest cats I know. He's a big baby. My mother took it harder than I did, and was sobbing on the phone with me for an hour. :/
On to happier things - Oooooh, managed to somehow finangle Wes into letting me buy 2 books this weekend - Nourishing Traditions and Well Preserved. Drooled over recipes in both...I love my kitchen. My garden. Food. Health. Life. I'm a tactile person, and tactile things are the things that comfort me and make my heart sing. A good meal. A soft blanket. A warm hug. So, while paging through these wonderful books, I laid in bed, nibbled on some Godiva chocolates (hush, I know), and even shared a couple with Wes.
Next up on my stuff to make list - I am thinking about making a plantain and ragweed salve for andrew's mosquito bite problem. Oh, and cherry almond conserve. And some other wonderful foods. And a motherwort tincture. THIS WEEK. Because the motherwort is almost completely done for. And I need to get out and look for Monarda. And possibly St. John's Wort, although that's possibly done for the season as well. Crap. I was hoping to make a st. j's wort oil this year...
Saturday, July 4, 2009
and now for something completely different.
squick warning, if you're grossed out easily, you may want to pass over the next paragraph.
completely different and sucky. so, i've had a boil (or abscess, whatever you want to call it) on my right leg for some time now. I get them from time to time, they're usually not a big deal, although very painful. I got one about 3-4 months ago that refused to fully drain and go away (I know, squick, right?) It'd get big, get small, get big, whatever. Well, I had spent a day taking echinacea to head off what I felt could possibly be an oncoming bout of nastiness, as I felt feverish and yucky. The next day, the boil proceeded to become very, very large. and very painful. (echinacea, I feel, definitely contributed to it's growth. My immune system was like, okay, screw this nonsense, we're just gonna push this mess right outta here.) I couldn't wear pants, couldn't sit, couldn't walk, it was ridiculous. So, I went to my friendly MD and had her cut it open. (Squick again.) Because of the location, it's extremely hard to find a good way to tape it. Plus, the skin is incredibly sensitive, and hey, I can never get it taped without pulling out some short n curlies. This was Thursday. By now, the skin where the paper tape has been applied and reapplied is red, raw, angry, and very, very painful. (The abscess looks fine, though, so it's not some kind of spreading infection.) With limited options for taping, I hobbled to the pharmacy, got GIGANTIC surgical pads in hopes of covering the entire raw area in addition to the abscess, and some of that "it sticks to itself not to your skin" style of tape. Kind of like an ace bandage. Proceeded to wrap the entirety of the top of my thigh in it. I feel totally ridiculous, but at least my skin doesn't sting as bad. I would probably call the on-call doc and ask about when i can stop covering it up, but it's the 4th of July and I'm not dying of any complications, so that feels a little frivolous.
Anyway... in the garden. Wes and I finally waged war on the back yard today. I hoed the long bed that was overrun with weeds, yanked weeds out of the boxes, Wes cut back the weed mayhem and grapevine disaster along the side of the house, and I gave some plants a haircut, pulled out the arugula that was way past edible, and in general, cleaned everything up. I now have grape leaves to brine, I need to get the kale & chard at least partially harvested and blanched and put up, same goes for the green & yellow beans.
One disaster has befallen us so far - we had one beautiful delicious looking purple pepper that we were anxiously awaiting. It was just about done. Today I found it over by the fence, all clawed up and gnawed on. Some woodland creature BASTARD stole my pepper. I know that the animals have to eat, too, and our garden is a sitting duck, but cmon. First all the strawberries and then my pepper? :/
Another thing I don't love is the bugs. Holy bejesus if I were a landscaper I'd have already died of DEET poisoning. Being bitten by mosquitoes can send me into endless fits of "omg what if I contracted equine encephalitis..." I know I let my imagination run away with me, but I've had so many health issues over the last year, dying of some weird disease due to a bug or spider bite is a scary thought.
In good news, I put up my first batch of jam. Mulberry jam, to be exact. It's deeeelicious. And I did it all by myself. :D We harvested the mulberries out of the back yard. I was going to do the strawberry rhubarb jam tonight, but it's looking like that's not going to happen. My first priority is dinner (a delicious squash blossom frittata, which I should probably already have started on), and then dessert (gluten free brownies with gluten free frosting), because being around so many delicious home made treats that I couldn't have last night at my dad's party pissed me off. So, when we went to the store to pick some stuff up for dinner and some stuff for jam making (CRAP I FORGOT THE SUGAR), I saw some gluten free treat mixes and was like, BINGO! I get back to the cart and Wes is all, what's this crap? After he had just offered me a donut he and Andrew were sharing. If looks could kill...he looks at me shooting daggers at him with my eyes, and goes "what?" and then it dawns on him that I can't have any and he's all, oh, sorry.
The treats aren't even the worst. The worst is the beer. I miss it. I miss Huma Lupa Licious, which is currently on sale. I miss being able to sample Wes's home brew. I get to smell them, sure, but it's not the same. A glass of wine does not satisfy, and a mixed drink does not sound appealing. It's the harsh, bitter beer that I crave. Oh well.
Time to make that frittata. And brine those grape leaves. And make the brownies. And think about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow (make jam, harvest veggies & put up, do some homework, harvest and tincture some motherwort in the back yard). Oh! Later, I'l post pictures from our recent garden & field & woods adventures. Scout's honor.
completely different and sucky. so, i've had a boil (or abscess, whatever you want to call it) on my right leg for some time now. I get them from time to time, they're usually not a big deal, although very painful. I got one about 3-4 months ago that refused to fully drain and go away (I know, squick, right?) It'd get big, get small, get big, whatever. Well, I had spent a day taking echinacea to head off what I felt could possibly be an oncoming bout of nastiness, as I felt feverish and yucky. The next day, the boil proceeded to become very, very large. and very painful. (echinacea, I feel, definitely contributed to it's growth. My immune system was like, okay, screw this nonsense, we're just gonna push this mess right outta here.) I couldn't wear pants, couldn't sit, couldn't walk, it was ridiculous. So, I went to my friendly MD and had her cut it open. (Squick again.) Because of the location, it's extremely hard to find a good way to tape it. Plus, the skin is incredibly sensitive, and hey, I can never get it taped without pulling out some short n curlies. This was Thursday. By now, the skin where the paper tape has been applied and reapplied is red, raw, angry, and very, very painful. (The abscess looks fine, though, so it's not some kind of spreading infection.) With limited options for taping, I hobbled to the pharmacy, got GIGANTIC surgical pads in hopes of covering the entire raw area in addition to the abscess, and some of that "it sticks to itself not to your skin" style of tape. Kind of like an ace bandage. Proceeded to wrap the entirety of the top of my thigh in it. I feel totally ridiculous, but at least my skin doesn't sting as bad. I would probably call the on-call doc and ask about when i can stop covering it up, but it's the 4th of July and I'm not dying of any complications, so that feels a little frivolous.
Anyway... in the garden. Wes and I finally waged war on the back yard today. I hoed the long bed that was overrun with weeds, yanked weeds out of the boxes, Wes cut back the weed mayhem and grapevine disaster along the side of the house, and I gave some plants a haircut, pulled out the arugula that was way past edible, and in general, cleaned everything up. I now have grape leaves to brine, I need to get the kale & chard at least partially harvested and blanched and put up, same goes for the green & yellow beans.
One disaster has befallen us so far - we had one beautiful delicious looking purple pepper that we were anxiously awaiting. It was just about done. Today I found it over by the fence, all clawed up and gnawed on. Some woodland creature BASTARD stole my pepper. I know that the animals have to eat, too, and our garden is a sitting duck, but cmon. First all the strawberries and then my pepper? :/
Another thing I don't love is the bugs. Holy bejesus if I were a landscaper I'd have already died of DEET poisoning. Being bitten by mosquitoes can send me into endless fits of "omg what if I contracted equine encephalitis..." I know I let my imagination run away with me, but I've had so many health issues over the last year, dying of some weird disease due to a bug or spider bite is a scary thought.
In good news, I put up my first batch of jam. Mulberry jam, to be exact. It's deeeelicious. And I did it all by myself. :D We harvested the mulberries out of the back yard. I was going to do the strawberry rhubarb jam tonight, but it's looking like that's not going to happen. My first priority is dinner (a delicious squash blossom frittata, which I should probably already have started on), and then dessert (gluten free brownies with gluten free frosting), because being around so many delicious home made treats that I couldn't have last night at my dad's party pissed me off. So, when we went to the store to pick some stuff up for dinner and some stuff for jam making (CRAP I FORGOT THE SUGAR), I saw some gluten free treat mixes and was like, BINGO! I get back to the cart and Wes is all, what's this crap? After he had just offered me a donut he and Andrew were sharing. If looks could kill...he looks at me shooting daggers at him with my eyes, and goes "what?" and then it dawns on him that I can't have any and he's all, oh, sorry.
The treats aren't even the worst. The worst is the beer. I miss it. I miss Huma Lupa Licious, which is currently on sale. I miss being able to sample Wes's home brew. I get to smell them, sure, but it's not the same. A glass of wine does not satisfy, and a mixed drink does not sound appealing. It's the harsh, bitter beer that I crave. Oh well.
Time to make that frittata. And brine those grape leaves. And make the brownies. And think about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow (make jam, harvest veggies & put up, do some homework, harvest and tincture some motherwort in the back yard). Oh! Later, I'l post pictures from our recent garden & field & woods adventures. Scout's honor.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
food and medicine.
For someone incredibly lazy and out of shape, I sure did a lot of physical activity this weekend. Friday ended early, and I got to go out to Proud Lake with Wes, who had already been all over Ortonville Rec and was hot, sweaty, smelly, and scratched to hell. It's funny how it ends up with us, he's looking for mushrooms, I'm looking for plants, so one of us is always waiting (slightly impatiently) for the other one. We went in the back way, parked by some rocks, and not ten feet from where we parked was a giant clump of exactly what I'd been looking for - monotropa uniflora. A strong sedative, nervine, antispasmodic, as well as for "sore eyes". (Funny how so many of the tinctures on hand are sedative and nervine...) I've also heard (read) it is a strong pain reliever, and have seen anecdotal accounts of it used for shingles, severe muscular pain, and other extremely painful conditions.
I had Wes take a picture of me lovingly cradling this beautiful and amazing plant as I carefully dug it out of the ground (it bruises badly very easily, much like mushrooms), but the only thing he got a shot of was my cleavage. *grumble* actually, several shots.
Speaking of bruising like mushrooms, indian pipe is epiparasitic to the family russulacae, so...lactarius and russulas, from what i understand. that's so wicked.
We walked around after I quickly tinctured it, found some chantrelle pins, a couple of chantrelles, and what we believe to be a blewit. Also, an old hericium?? How could that have survived the winter?! It's not the right season for hericiums. There was also pink wolf's milk slime, which was fun to play with, and some stinkhorn corpses. I harvested about 2 ounces of fresh hepatica triloba, which is mildly astringent and mucilaginous. Wait a minute... *looks around* where'd my big ol bag of liverwort go? I'll hurt someone if they threw it out.
After that, it was out to cass benton for some ill fated disc golfing, because my buddy (whose AMAZING psychology for dummies blog can be found here) lost his disc, and then we had to pick up my roommate and take him to work. we drove by a fire department training session on the way home, only I didn't know that's what it was, all I saw was this huge conflagration, thought it was someones home, and nearly burst into tears. Haha.
Saturday it was off to class, and jesus lord. When my teacher says up hill and down dale, he's not kidding. It felt like 100 degrees out, brightly sunny, and he's trucking along up and down big ol hills. I felt my out-of-shape-ness then, very much, and was quite embarrassed.
Something interesting happened though. A classmate was talking about something one of her family members is afflicted with called dufresne's disease. And I had a little mental spasm, mimicked a contracture with my hand, and then totally interrupted my teacher (like the ass that I am). Wait, that produces contractures, doesn't it? Du-fray-ns. Yeah. So my teacher goes, OHHH, trigger finger! And then starts explaining to her what happens in the disease and the best course of action. I just thought that was really flippin weird, on my part. I've never had Dufresne's, nor known anyone who did. I have a vague recollection of learning about it in massage school (good god I loved pathology, was my favorite class and still is), and it was neat how my body accessed that memory, like my hand involuntarily was like, hey, contracture. Makes sense though - kinesthetic learner accesses memories kinesthetically. go figure.
Sunday was strawberry picking day with my sister, so we rounded Andrew up, threw him in the car, and headed to Ann Arbor for pickins. It was hot, it was tiring, we were hardly finding any strawberries. End of the season, everything's picked over. And this was just the first twenty minutes. My sister and I moved to greener pastures, ie snap peas, which were easy, and we could sit in the dirt and gossip while harvesting. Wes utilized his best wildman talents, moving down rows with the speed and ease of someone who often forages and finds delicious mushrooms and interesting things. I was shocked when he wound up pulling about 8 pounds of strawberries out of said plants. Took me a couple of hours to wash and hull them last night, with help.
in the vein of reading politically charged books on food, i started on animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver. it's pretty good, i'm perhaps a third in and i started yesterday. i went up to the vitamin shoppe on lunch to grab some elecampane tincture, of which they were out, but one of my favorite parts about going there are these delcious fruit and nut abominations of granola bars. they're gluten free and delicious, my favorite being almond and coconut. as i was driving home, i happened to glance at the label...it was from australia. i munched guiltily the rest of the way home. here i am reading about a woman who makes her family eat only things which can be had from their county for a year, and i'm eating something flown in from australia. *cringe*
I had Wes take a picture of me lovingly cradling this beautiful and amazing plant as I carefully dug it out of the ground (it bruises badly very easily, much like mushrooms), but the only thing he got a shot of was my cleavage. *grumble* actually, several shots.
Speaking of bruising like mushrooms, indian pipe is epiparasitic to the family russulacae, so...lactarius and russulas, from what i understand. that's so wicked.
We walked around after I quickly tinctured it, found some chantrelle pins, a couple of chantrelles, and what we believe to be a blewit. Also, an old hericium?? How could that have survived the winter?! It's not the right season for hericiums. There was also pink wolf's milk slime, which was fun to play with, and some stinkhorn corpses. I harvested about 2 ounces of fresh hepatica triloba, which is mildly astringent and mucilaginous. Wait a minute... *looks around* where'd my big ol bag of liverwort go? I'll hurt someone if they threw it out.
After that, it was out to cass benton for some ill fated disc golfing, because my buddy (whose AMAZING psychology for dummies blog can be found here) lost his disc, and then we had to pick up my roommate and take him to work. we drove by a fire department training session on the way home, only I didn't know that's what it was, all I saw was this huge conflagration, thought it was someones home, and nearly burst into tears. Haha.
Saturday it was off to class, and jesus lord. When my teacher says up hill and down dale, he's not kidding. It felt like 100 degrees out, brightly sunny, and he's trucking along up and down big ol hills. I felt my out-of-shape-ness then, very much, and was quite embarrassed.
Something interesting happened though. A classmate was talking about something one of her family members is afflicted with called dufresne's disease. And I had a little mental spasm, mimicked a contracture with my hand, and then totally interrupted my teacher (like the ass that I am). Wait, that produces contractures, doesn't it? Du-fray-ns. Yeah. So my teacher goes, OHHH, trigger finger! And then starts explaining to her what happens in the disease and the best course of action. I just thought that was really flippin weird, on my part. I've never had Dufresne's, nor known anyone who did. I have a vague recollection of learning about it in massage school (good god I loved pathology, was my favorite class and still is), and it was neat how my body accessed that memory, like my hand involuntarily was like, hey, contracture. Makes sense though - kinesthetic learner accesses memories kinesthetically. go figure.
Sunday was strawberry picking day with my sister, so we rounded Andrew up, threw him in the car, and headed to Ann Arbor for pickins. It was hot, it was tiring, we were hardly finding any strawberries. End of the season, everything's picked over. And this was just the first twenty minutes. My sister and I moved to greener pastures, ie snap peas, which were easy, and we could sit in the dirt and gossip while harvesting. Wes utilized his best wildman talents, moving down rows with the speed and ease of someone who often forages and finds delicious mushrooms and interesting things. I was shocked when he wound up pulling about 8 pounds of strawberries out of said plants. Took me a couple of hours to wash and hull them last night, with help.
in the vein of reading politically charged books on food, i started on animal, vegetable, miracle by barbara kingsolver. it's pretty good, i'm perhaps a third in and i started yesterday. i went up to the vitamin shoppe on lunch to grab some elecampane tincture, of which they were out, but one of my favorite parts about going there are these delcious fruit and nut abominations of granola bars. they're gluten free and delicious, my favorite being almond and coconut. as i was driving home, i happened to glance at the label...it was from australia. i munched guiltily the rest of the way home. here i am reading about a woman who makes her family eat only things which can be had from their county for a year, and i'm eating something flown in from australia. *cringe*
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