with the crickets

Surprise!

2012-01-29T20:13:00.001-03:30

Heh. Well, it looked promising there for a minute, didn't it? Me all bloggin' away for, like, weeks? Well, lemme tell ya what happened. First of all, Caketember nearly did me in. Caketember is a solid month of celebration that runs September 11 (my mother's birthday) to October 10 (our anniversary). Smack in the middle of Caketember is the 9-day period when Hubby C, Miss B, and C-Bear all get to blow out their respective candles. Which is enough so make me want to sleep for a week, usually, but this year Caketember started with unexpected bathroom renovations, my mother-in-law needing a pacemaker (she's fine now), a massive computer meltdown, and then finished up with Hubby C's book launch, which I catered (and I catered the hell right out of it, if I do say so myself). By 10 pm on the night of the launch, I was done. Went home, went to bed, and woke up sick. Stayed sick for a couple weeks with a cold that receded and was replaced by headaches and full-body fatigue.

It took us a while, but we figured out what that was:

That's 21 weeks worth of baby gut right there (gut in photo may appear smaller than it really is... hard to get the proper angle). Baby number four, due June 10. "But didn't you just have a baby?" you may well be asking. And the answer is, "Yes, yes I did." Hubby C and I had been planning to try for a fourth, but we had wanted to wait another year or so, on the off chance that we might get a load of laundry done or something. But apparently biology had different plans, despite my having been on the pill, and despite the fact that Hubby C and I are barely ever in the same room long enough for such a blessed event to occur.

Ah, well. We're lucky. We're freakishly fertile. We're young. Onward and upward!

But it's been a slog. Joodles is the worst sleeper in the history of sleep (worse even than his siblings, which I would never have thought possible). Hubby deals with the worst of the nighttime waking, but I still wake up every time Joodles does, even if I don't have to get up (and believe me, I would have Joodles in the bed in a second if it would help him sleep through the night, or even for more than a 60-minute stretch at a time, but in fact it just makes everything worse). So very much looking forward to him growing out of this, or at least to him being old enough to lie in bed and read when he can't sleep. What's that, five more years? Hubby C and I are both so very, very tired. If I ever complained about how tired I was when I was pregnant with Joodles, I take it back. That was a flippin' cakewalk.

So that's the scoop on all that. Sleepy, but happy. Completely unproductive, but, well, awesomely reproductive. Lots and lots of things to write about but very little time (and even less brain) with which to do it. But ain't that always the way?

How have you guys been?

KCWC! Fun for you! Fun for me!

2011-09-17T14:11:00.001-02:30

Since I obviously have loads of time on my hands, I've signed up for the Elsie Marley Kids Clothes Week Challenge, which runs October 10-17. Stalwarts among you may remember that I attempted said challenge way back in May, 2010, and all I managed to finish was a skirt for Miss B. But I was very pregnant then, and it is a well-loved and oft-worn skirt, so I consider that a success. This time, I'm hoping to be a bit better organized, possibly even cutting some pieces ahead of time. The terms of the challenge are that you spend one hour - a mere hour - a day working on kids' clothes. You can sew, knit, crochet, stencil, applique, whatever, and of course you don't have to limit yourself to an hour if you're totally on fire.

This is really an incentive to get my sewing room cleaned up (it is currently housing, in a post-performance-art-piece style scattering, the contents of my bathroom cabinets, as the bathroom is mid-reno and nobody has felt like picking all the bottles and tubes and rolls and packages up off the floor). Kind of like inviting people for dinner so you can make yourself clean your house. I know I'm not the only person who does that.

There are a few projects I need a boot in the arse to tackle, chief among them being:

finishing a skirt I started ages ago for Miss B,
a dance bag, also for Miss B (not strictly clothes, but I think it still counts), and
fall hats for the boys.

There are a hundred thousand other things I could do, too, but there's no sense setting my (or your) expectations too high, now, is there?

The aforementioned bathroom renovations have been all manner of ridiculousness, but it's going to be a huge improvement. We have one bathroom for the five of us, and it is tiny. Like, storage-room tiny. Not small in the suburban sense, small in the house-that-predates-plumbing sense. Some previous owners had furnished it with an enormous cabinet around the sink, and the toilet was functional but gargantuan. Now we have a sleek pedestal sink and a water-saving, apartment-sized toilet. Lovely. There was also a set of cabinets above the sink and toilet that gave the illusion of storage, but which was in fact both inaccessible (I had to stand on the toilet to reach them, and even then could not reach the farthest section) and impractical (who puts 7 1/2-inch-high shelves in a bathroom?). They're gone now, to be replaced with a shelf and baskets, or some such system. The floor was covered in this mildewing, cracked, awful tile which Hubby C ripped out and which we planned to replace with some very tasteful but still easily cleaned vinyl (I have it on good authority that boys take some time to learn proper aim... suddenly, vinyl seems like a godsend). However, while the workmen were here tearing and replacing, it became evident that putting down flooring before installing the sink and toilet would make much more sense than the alternative, and Hubby C had about an hour to grab something. Everything on offer was truly hideous, so Hubby C went for the closest he could find to "inoffensive," with the intention of painting it later. I admire that man's confidence that we can pretty-up any old crap vinyl flooring. And so I will be taping and dabbing my heart out as I wrangle a floor of fake-looking stone-print vinyl into a tasteful checkerboard arrangement of grey and white squares. I am actually rawther excited about this. It's a very small floor, so I don't mind in the least the prospect of taping off three-inch squares.

Oh, and we dodged a hurricane. The weather guy got us all freaked out, but then in the end it was no big deal. Miss B got the afternoon off school yesterday, though, and I had to separate my cabin-feverish kids from one another lest they do each other injury, but everybody had popcorn and I baked a peach upside-down cake. It's still blowing a gale out there, and I imagine there are some pretty impressive waves for those closer to the water, but I'm content to stay home and hope the diapers don't fly off the line.

Oh, oh, oh, and I have just discovered The Gaytheist Gospel Hour, which I am reading as though it were a novel. It's. So. Good. I wish it were a paperback so I could put it in my pocket and take it everywhere with me. I laugh, I cry, I want to call people and read sections aloud to them. You will be enriched for having read even one entry, I assure you.

It must be fall

2011-09-14T10:38:00.004-02:30

The weather is beautiful, even summery, but the sky has that big look to it, like it's farther away or something. The mornings are cool, and in the evenings I have to go through the house, closing all the windows. The leaves are still green, but trees and bushes are heavy with berries.

All summer, the house has been a mess, as every chore was abandoned in favour of a picnic or a barbecue or a romp at Grandma's house. Our food staples have been cereal and sandwiches, supplemented by handfuls of lettuce or snow peas or raspberries from the garden. Now, that morning chill has turned my mind from flame-charred beef patties to long-simmered stews and cheese-topped casseroles and soup with oven-hot biscuits. Yup, it's that time.

It's funny how quickly fall changes me. During the summer, life is unscheduled, bedtimes are approximate, and supper arrives on the table some time before dark. Now that fall is here, the meals are like clockwork (even the late-season barbecue dinners), the kids are all in bed at a reasonable hour, and the dishes are all done in time for me to bake a batch of muffins for the next day's lunches and snacks, or for me to make a batch of jam, or to pack ahead some portion of Miss B's lunch.

And lunch. Remember how I was going to rock it? Yeah? Well, I totally am. So far, it's been all success. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but since last week it's been one lunch triumph after another. Since a few of you have asked (and for my own future reference), here's a week's worth of rockin' lunch menus:

Day 1: yellow rice pilaf*, apple, peach spice mini-muffins, blueberry yogurt, strawberries, chocolate-dipped mini rice cakes. (yogurt and strawberries not eaten)

Day 2: ham and lettuce sandwich on toasted English muffin, cheese slices, apple, banana “doughnut” (banana muffin batter baked in a doughnut-shaped muffin tin), blueberry smoothie made with leftover blueberry yogurt and strawberries from day before. (cheese not eaten)

Day 3: chicken, black bean, and cheese quesadilla (with leftover cheese from the day before), apple, banana “doughnut,” yogurt for dipping quesadilla, carrot salad, strawberries. (carrot salad not eaten, so I ate it)

Day 4: baked French toast** with maple syrup, apple, cheese slices and soda crackers, yogurt with blueberries. (Everything eaten)

Day 5: faux “lunchables” (crackers, sliced mozzarella and cheddar, and pepperoni packed separately, for lunchtime assembly), sliced black olives, celery sticks, carrot sticks, apple, blueberry mini-muffins. (everything eaten)

Day 6: ham and lettuce sandwich on English muffin, granola bar, apple, strawberries, cheese, snow peas. (waiting to see how this one goes...)

*Yellow rice pilaf isn't, strictly speaking, a pilaf, I just cook 1/3 cup basmati rice with 2/3 cup water, a few tablespoons of cooked chickpeas, some frozen peas, and a tablespoon or so of currants, with pinches of cinnamon and turmeric. Cover, bring to a boil (happens fast, since it's such a small amount of liquid), reduce heat to very low and cook about 15 minutes, until water has been absorbed. Makes one perfect insulated-bowl-sized serving.

** Baked French toast is a new thing for us, but Miss B loved it, and it's super easy. The night before, I cut some light rye (light as in "pale," not "low-cal" or anything) bread into one-inch chunks, so it made roughly a heaping cup's worth. I beat one egg and a bit of milk (2 tablespoons?) in a container, added the bread cubes, stirred it up to coat well, then covered it and left it in the fridge overnight. There was a relatively high proportion of liquid to bread, but it was all absorbed by morning. I heated the oven to 400F, put the bread mixture into a well-buttered dish (I have these little individual casserole dishes that are the same diameter as Miss B's insulated-bowl-thingy), sprinkled it with cinnamon, then baked it until crusty and starting to turn golden, maybe 20 minutes? Then I removed it from the dish, placed it in the warmed insulated-bowl-thing, and packed some maple syrup in a small container for pouring come lunchtime.

In case you're wondering, yes, I am keeping a detailed lunch log. And yes, that is about as completely unlike me as it gets. But so is having the dishes done before bed, and I'm managing to tackle that one, too.

I've been testing a new granola bar recipe for lunchtime packing awesomeness, and it seems to be a success. This one is my standby, but Miss B has moved beyond crunchy and is into the chewy granola bar these days, so I tried out something new. I started out with this recipe here, but I made a lot of substitutions:

I swapped out the peanut butter for tahini, since I'm not sure yet whether peanut butter is allowed this year (sigh... amazing teachers at Miss B's school, but much-less-than-amazing home-school communication),
I was out of honey so I used brown sugar,
I added 1/4 teaspoon of salt,
I didn't have large-flake oats so I used 5-minute ones.
I didn't have sunflower seeds, so I used a combination of pumpkin seeds and millet puffs, and upped the crisp rice cereal content to 1 1/2 cups,
I used chopped juice-sweetened dried cranberries instead of raisins,
I nixed the peanuts, and
as soon as the pan came out of the oven, I sprinkled the top with mini chocolate chips, then, when they had melted, I used an offset spatula to spread the chocolate smoothly.

(Note: these bars are gluten-free if the oats and cereal are certified as such: check labels if you're not sure.)

So I guess it's pretty much my recipe now. I still want to tweak a little, and when I'm happy with it I'll post it in a more useful form. I will say that these ones sliced very nicely, which my other recipe didn't always do. Cha-Bear has already eaten more of them than he should have, and the whole things, too, not just the chocolate off the top. I think in the future I'll reduce the oats and add in more puffy cereals, as these are very dense, probably too dense for children whose diet is already rather rich in fibrous materials. Sometimes more roughage is not actually the answer. Go figure.

And on that note, buh-bye!

Grade three

2011-09-07T09:18:00.000-02:30

Our windy, rainy morning isn't giving me much light to work with, so we've got some blurry indoor back-to-school photos for this year. Miss B was up before any of us, vibrating with excitement. She was actually pretty pleased with the chillier weather, because she was desperate to wear these pink knee socks, and wasn't at all impressed with the possibility of another hot day. I still predict she'll have shed them by lunch time.

On the lunch menu today, since I made such a fuss about it last week (and have been egged on by lunch-packing friends here and on Facebook to share): yellow rice (basmati rice with currants, chickpeas, green peas, turmeric, and cinnamon), yogurt with blueberries, peach spice mini-muffins, strawberries, four chocolate-dipped mini rice cakes, and an apple. Oh, and her stylin' Barbie water bottle. I will report back on what comes home.

We camped.

2011-09-06T21:30:00.000-02:30

And it was awesome. We roasted so many marshmallows. We stuck our feet in the frigid ocean. We saw evidence of fairies. Nobody slept very well at all, but nobody minded, either.

Kids in the woods. So, so good.

One more thing before I hit the road

2011-09-02T08:18:00.001-02:30

We're packing for our camping trip today, but before I head out I want to show you my new kitchen shelf, complete with hangy thing:

Check it out. Hubby C put up the shelf, which spans a double window. The window faces southwest, which means it's one of the best spots in the house for overwintering my potted herbs. Yay! The hangy thing is a rack jobby from my pizza stone (I had thought it was from a casserole dish, but my Very Dear Friend Emily pointed out that she has the same one, from her very same pizza stone). I found it when I was clearing out a ton of stashed glass jars under my sink. St. John's - ahem - doesn't recycle glass. I know, I know. Anyway, when I fished this metal thing out from the back of the cupboard, it quickly became clear that its very purpose was to provide a hangout for my measuring cups and tea strainers and what-nots. Was I right, or what?

September

2011-09-01T11:30:00.002-02:30

My most favouritest month ever. Back to school, man. I loved it. I still love it. I've never been good at creating my own routines, even as a kid. Back-to-school time created them for me. I was one of those kids who thrived in the school environment (not so for lots of my friends, many of whom are way smarter than I am). Sure, I would start getting all anxious, oh, around the second week of August, but it was in that anxious-about-something-good way, like some kids are about Christmas.

Miss B has also been terribly anxious. What if she doesn't like her new classroom? What if there are new kids who are totally mean? What if the older girls kick her off the monkey bars? What if nobody likes her any more? I have assured her that these problems are all either unlikely to occur or easily solved if they do, but still, I'm just a mom, so what do I know?

She's already packed (and unpacked, and packed again) her bookbag, lined up her gym sneakers and indoor shoes, and picked her outfits and hairstyles for the first week and a half. She has made me go over the likely course of events of the first day about fifteen times. She's ready. She's prepped.

And now, we just have to wait. School doesn't customarily start here until the Wednesday after Labour Day, which gives us one last long weekend hurrah every year before we get down to business. Usually we go to Eastport, but it's just too far to travel with three kids in the back seat of a compact car. Both boys are big enough now to reach over and pull Miss B's hair or swipe her glasses, and I am just not spending the better part of two days in a car threatening them this year. So we found a place to camp that's much closer, and still on a beach. I'll report back when we return.

For now, we've got a pile of weekend menu-planning and sacrifices to make to the weather gods, because apparently it's supposed to be on the rainy side. Three wet kids and two wet parents in tents. Awesome or awful? Yeah, I expected as much.

And Miss B, she's up in her room, settling in to her new desk (made by one Hubby C, who is so super I can hardly stand it), and writing stories about the end of summer and the tedium of waiting for school to start. I know I've said it before, but: she is so my kid.

Lunches. It's always the lunches.

2011-08-29T23:33:00.001-02:30

After multiple trips to big-box-store-land, Miss B has everything she needs for school. All in all, the trips weren't that bad. We managed to get almost all the actual supplies at The Zellers Where Nobody Goes, which has always been our preferred alternative to The Staples Where Angry Frantic Moms Will Eat You. We did have to stop in at Staples for a scrapbook and a pencil box, but it was a quick trip and we exited unscathed. I have also, through unrelenting brainwashery, managed to get Miss B to go in for another year of back-to-school wardrobe shopping at Value Village. My line is: we have x amount of money budgeted for your back-to-school clothes. We can go to one of the stores in the mall and get one outfit, or go to Value Village and get pretty much whatever you want. Her acquisitive nature wins out, and I don't have to endure the smell of chemicals that hits me like a ton of bricks at the mall stores. Not that ValVil doesn't have its own smell, but it doesn't give me a headache like new-clothes stores, which fill my head like formaldehyde. Shudder.

Yesterday I returned to big-box-land to buy a crapload of lunch containers. Because this year I am going to ROCK lunch. Now, I know there are people whose lives are dedicated to making insanely cute bento-box lunches for their offspring, and I say that those people can keep it up. I have no such ambitions. I just want to make lunches my child will eat. And I don't want to come off as some type-A competitive weirdo supermom who engages in lunch wars with the other moms. First of all, I don't care in the least what the other parents feed their children, unless they have amazing ideas I can incorporate into my own lunch-building routine. Second, I don't think any of the other parents care what I feed my kid, unless I have awesome ideas they can incorporate into their lunch-building routines. I think we're all sisters (and some brothers, I expect) in the struggle here. Let's help each other out.

I am in the terribly luxurious position, of course, of being a stay-at-home-mom, with nowhere to be in the morning other than in my kitchen sipping tea (whilst desperately trying to get one kid out the door and keep the other two in, mind you). I can afford the time to make Miss B a decent lunch without having to rely on too many pre-packaged lunchy-thingies. But I don't have all the time in the world, so I do have to, as they say, streamline things a little. Over the last two years, I've clocked a lot of time making lunches in the mornings, and it's not always been a very efficient system. So this year I have some plans. But first, my parameters:

I won't know until the first week of school which foods are banned due to allergies, but it's a safe bet I won't be allowed to send peanuts (last year I couldn't send peanuts, shellfish/seafood, or almonds),
Miss B doesn't have access to a microwave at school, so if something is to be eaten hot, it has to be sent hot,
we don't have a microwave here either, so if I want to heat something up in the morning it has to be something I can do on the stove, because heating things through in the oven takes too long, and
since Miss B isn't really a morning person and doesn't eat a lot of breakfast, there has to be a substantial "recess" component.

Also, if the pictures all over the internet of kids' lunches in tiny boxes are any indication, my daughter eats an enormous amount of food - way more than I do in the run of a day. So whatever I pack, there has to be a lot of it.

My plans for streamlining include:

making lunches for Miss B that can double as lunches for Hubby C or for the boys (or all of the above),
tactical use of the panini press (for delightful wraps filled with leftovers), and the slow cooker (for all my soupy and stewy needs),
keeping muffins, breakfast cookies, home-made granola bars and the like in the freezer for quick additions to the lunch bag,
OMG actually prepping things like yogurt'n'berries, smoothies, fruit cups, and juice containers AT NIGHT like you are supposed to (I have been trying this for years, but with no luck at all... how hard can it be?),
possibly, if I can at all arrange it, designating an area of the fridge (a basket, or one of the crisper drawers) as a lunch-makings zone, and kicking out all non-lunch-making residents,
AND HERE'S ANOTHER OMG actually doing the washing-up at night so I am not trying to make lunch first thing in the morning amid last night's supper mess.

I know it's a tall order. But I have confidence. In part this confidence comes from the conviction that, once school starts, we'll be eating at 5:30 like we were last year, which will give me plenty of time in the evening to tackle things like dishes and yogurt-spooning.

For the last couple years, we've had a handful of staple lunches: rice and chickpea pilaf with currants (the ultimate standby), chicken noodle soup, pizzas made from whatever bread-type things I have had in the house (naan, English muffins, Greek pita), ham sandwiches, cinnamon-raisin bagels with cream cheese. Not bad, but I think we've both grown tired of the same-old. Mind you, Miss B has requested the rice and chickpea pilaf for her first day back, so the tedium can't be too dreadful.

I would like to do some kind of series where I log what I packed for lunch vs what of it was eaten. This is the part the fancy lunch box blogs never feature: how much of it came home, half-eaten, bruised, bashed, smashed, poked, licked, squashed, and/or spilled. I suppose that kind of knowledge would just be too tragic. Maybe I'm the person who has to get it out there. Maybe.

Anyway, it's late and I've been obsessing over lunches for way too long. The light in my house isn't good enough for a photo of my temple of plastic locking-lid lunch containers, so you'll just have to use your imaginations. Actually, if you're using your imaginations, picture some stylish, stainless-steel tiffin containers instead. Thanks.

This is not the last you'll hear on the topic of lunches. Oh, no.

Goodbye, Jack

2011-08-25T16:01:00.000-02:30

So, last night I joined the NDP. If you don't know much about Canadian politics, the NDP (New Democratic Party) is our lefty, social-democrat type party, home to the activists, the unionists, the pinkos, the tree-huggers... people like me. They're how we got our socialized healthcare. They've never made the official government, but hot damn, they came closer than ever in this last election, going from almost a joke to making up the official opposition, making huge gains in Qubec and among younger voters.

And then on Monday, Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, died of cancer.

I have to admit, when I first watched Jack Layton as NDP leader, I wasn't that keen on him. He seemed kind of smarmy. He was too cheerful, too affable, too lacking in gravitas. Sure, his bike-riding ways might make him a decent environment minister, and his artsiness might make him a good culture minister, and his work in multicultural Toronto might make him a good minister in charge of immigration or Aboriginal affairs: all critical posts, to be sure. But prime minister? Could a man with a grin like that sit down and argue water rights and arctic sovereignty with the US? Get our troops out of Afghanistan? Deal with potential disasters, foreign conflicts, resource battles? I, a life-long NDP voter (minus one ill-advised stab at "strategic voting") had my doubts.

But then, in this last campaign, things changed. Jack, bouncing back from prostate cancer treatment, suffering a broken hip, and walking with the help of a cane, came out and kicked some serious ass. It's as though, after his experience with cancer, he looked at the race for PM and said, "piece of cake." Suddenly, he was able to be simultaneously funny and ferocious. And Canadians fell in love with him. Not enough of them to make him prime minister, but enough to give the NDP the position of official opposition, which surprised and cheered all of us on the left-out left who have been wondering, for a long, long time now, who in parliament would speak for us.

Since Jack died, I have seen more interviews and clips and statements from and about him and his work, his amazing partnership with his wife (and fellow NDP MP) Olivia Chow, and his eco-house, and his books, and all the incredible things he did in his 61 years on the planet. And I very selfishly feel a sense of regret that I did not do my homework years ago. I'm sad that I didn't allow Jack Layton's charm to inspire me while he was still here to dole it out. Yes, I voted for his party, but aside from changing my Facebook profile picture to an orange one (the NDP's colour) during the May election, that's all I did. I didn't volunteer, I didn't canvas, I didn't even put a sign up in my window. For a man and a party who have given so much to me, I didn't give much back. Sure, I could have done less, but I could have done a lot more.

And so, I joined the party, and I sent a letter off to my MP (also a NDP member) saying that, next time volunteers are needed, I'll make the time. Give me the button and the t-shirt: I'll wear 'em. Give me the pamphlets: I'll distribute 'em. Give me the phone numbers: I'll call 'em (and annoy the hell out of people, perhaps, but it's for a greater good).

Days before he died, Jack wrote this letter. "Let us be loving, hopeful, and optimistic. And we'll change the world." What wonderful last words to Canadians. I'm on it, Jack.

Handful of cupcakes

2011-08-20T14:10:00.000-02:30

Between Rocket and the Farmers' Market, my kids are developing an expensive cupcake habit. All-natural ingredients and pure butter icing don't come cheap. Nothing does these days; I just blew a ton of cash at the market. Then we headed to the grocery store, which just about finished us off. The monstrous wedges of havarti that were a staple for us all last winter have gone from $11.99 to $16.99. Ugh. It's a good thing I'm a good forager - Miss B and I should be able to fill our freezer with raspberries and blackberries and chuckley pears after a couple good trips to our favourite picking patches, and of course there's enough greenery in my garden to keep us in salads. We might even get a potato or two (we've had a dinner of them already, and they were delicious).

The one thing that is cheap is clothes, at least kids' clothes. Too cheap. At the same grocery store, in the clothing section, Miss B picked out a dress that was marked down from whatever it was to $6.84. A hand-dip-dyed (or so it claimed) cotton dress. And as much as I would have loved to say, "Hey, let's just make one of these at home," I know perfectly well that with two toddlers in the house, it's just not going to happen. Or if it does happen, it won't be until such things are so totally out of style that my dear stylish daughter will simply laugh at me. So I bought the $6.84 dress. Really, I don't know which troubles me more: paying to much for things, or too little.

Those kids sure like cupcakes, though. Perhaps I should teach myself how to pipe buttercream into great towering swirls. It seems that's half the appeal.

Dandelion

2011-08-19T17:08:00.000-02:30

I guess dandelion season isn't over after all. Charlie-Bear was delighted to find this one. He still has pollen all over his face. Love.

I've been wanting to put up a few photos of the kids' rooms, which are almost fully redone. Miss B's room is short one desk (we have to make one to fit a very tight space), and the boys' room needs curtains, shelves, and the crib painted. It's going to look sharp, though. Everyone is happy with our handiwork, and Miss B has been home for over a week and her room is still clean, so that's something. A record, I think.

Big moon

2011-08-14T22:37:00.000-02:30

Clear sky. Two beautiful days (and nights) in a row. Now that's news.

So much to tell, so little time.

2011-08-13T09:51:00.000-02:30

August. I'd forgotten what it's like. Miss B is home from Chicago, home to a new awesome bedroom created on a deadline and on a budget by Hubby C and me. I'll take pictures soon, but boy oh boy, has my husband clocked some serious hours painting things around here. Walls. Ceilings. Floors. Furniture. It looks amazing.

Today I'm off to facilitate a workshop on cooking local foods with your kids. If you're around, you can meet me at the Farmers' Market at 11:00. I'll tell the rest of you all about it as soon as I can.

In the mean time, I made jam.

And you can read all about that right here.

Dinosaur guards strawberries

2011-08-02T17:24:00.000-02:30

I have a whack of strawberries from my favourite u-pick. Most of them are going to to be made into jam tomorrow, and some will become mini-galettes for a lovely out-of-town luncheon I'll be attending on Thursday. Then I'm going to go back and pick some more. I'll bring all the kids next time: Miss B returns from Chicago in a week, and Cha-Bear would go bonkers for Lou the Farmer's tractor. Joodles just ate his weight in berries, an allowance that I'm sure I will come to regret tonight.

A day with two picnics

2011-07-25T21:55:00.005-02:30

Another beautiful day, another impromptu lunchtime picnic on the grass outside The Rooms. Charlie-Bear is all about the polar bear in the museum, and it is essential that we visit it at least once a week. Our Rooms family membership has already paid for itself. Every time we go there, C-Bear expresses astonishment that the polar bear hasn't eaten the arctic hare in the Labrador tableau. We have a whole routine now.

This trip always involves a visit to the grocery store first for provisions, so that we can have a quick lunch sur l'herbe before we have to head home. The baguette at the grocery store is pretty bleh, as you can see from Joodles' expression here.

Or maybe we're just spoiled because we haven't bought grocery store bed in such a very long time. Yay for St. John's having actual bakeries, here in the 21st century.

The landscaping at The Rooms is pretty lame, but there's a marvelous human-made rolling hill (it has some kind of meaning, but I'm not sure what). C-Bear had an excellent time rolling down it, just like Miss B used to do when she was his age. It made me a little misty, actually. All that stuff about them growing up too fast is so very true.

After all this, I decided that we should have another picnic for supper, since it's a sin to waste a beautiful St. John's evening. So I fried up some more chicken (I really don't make fried chicken very often, it's just that my mother-in-law keeps bringing club packs of chicken legs to our house, and what the heck else am I supposed to do with them?). And I made some caprese-type salad, with havarti, because I didn't have any bocconcini. Actually, I made individual salads in jars, because everyone on the internet keeps packing salads in jars and it looks so nice. I also made little peach and cherry cobblers in jars. Because that also looks nice. See?

Awaiting for their little biscuit hats.

All baked and blushing at the family picnic. Note jar of whipped cream in t background. Oh, yes.

Gone so soon? Oh, but you must come visit again, peach-cherry cobbler!

So yes. Salads in jars. Salad dressing in a jar. Mini-cobblers, and whipped cream in jars. Bread in a bag, but butter in a jar. Chicken in a glass casserole. A big jar of water for the grown-ups, and a little jar of water for Charlie-Bear (Joodles got to bring a sippy cup). What aesthetic pleasure! The napkins and the real cutlery and plates and all. Too bad the thing weighed a flipping ton. And, you see, this is the problem with packing a nice-looking picnic. You practically need a mule to bring it into the park for you. I think we forget that all the people lounging on the grass in those French paintings had attendants to drag their baskets around for them, and that the picnics in magazines are professionally styled. It's a good thing we found a spot close to the road, is all I'm saying.

It was a lovely picnic, though. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I expect I will. Except I think I'm done with fried chicken for a while.

The heat

2011-07-22T18:01:00.002-02:30

Dear friends in Canada and the US, I know that you are roasting in your own juices right now (except the Pacific northwest, apparently - ah, coastal living). I do not envy you. But I made you an iced coffee. I hope it helps.

Drink plenty of fluids, you guys, and, if it gets too bad, book a ticket to St. John's, because we've got icebergs coming.

Who's a pretty baby?

2011-07-19T09:41:00.002-02:30

Little imp, little big-eyes, my Oodles of Joodles, my not-so-Newby. You're a treat.

A thousand words

2011-07-13T10:29:00.004-02:30

Yesterday, I was talking with another mom downtown, and we got on to the topic of the skewed representation blogs give of people's lives.

Especially when it comes to how much of a mess their houses are.

You guys know that I just crop out the mess, right? It's a very therapeutic kind of escapism, this bloggery, where all the things I like about my home are enlarged, and all the dried-on Rice Krispies and unfolded heaps of just-washed diapers and mismatched shoes deposited at intervals down the hallway just get cropped away. It's very soothing.

And, because I know I do it, I just assume everyone else does it, and that just beyond the frame of the beautifully-lit, perfectly-composed photo there's a puddle of spilled tea half wiped up with soggy tissues, or scraps of crusty dried-up grated orange cheddar cheese, or a pile of dented and peeled and broken and mysteriously hairy crayon stubs. I have to believe that everyone else lives this way, or I'll go completely mental.

But, in honour of truth, I'll show you what my living room floor looks like right now.

And, amid all this, Charlie-Bear is playing with his trains on top of an upturned laundry basket, the contents of which are strewn on the couch and floor.

And this is the cleanest room in the house.

Now you know.

St. John's harbour on a Tuesday morning

2011-07-12T10:19:00.003-02:30

I got to play photographer for my stepfather, Andrew, this morning. He needed some photos for an article he's working on, and he asked me to take a few shots of some rather interesting marine technology industry people. Between people shots, I snapped a few pictures of the harbour.

I grew up downtown, and everything about the harbour - the sun on the water, the cold wind, the salty ocean smell (and sometimes some less savory fragrances), the sound of ropes creaking, the bellowing horns of the ships - is dear to me. I don't spend as much time puttering around there as I used to. It was nice to have an excuse to visit.

(This last shot is of the building where Hubby C and I met and fell arse over kettle in love. I was a receptionist for a federal government office, he was a communications intern. Ah, the romance of it all!)

Another Cricket Child Bespectacled: Optical Industry Profits

2011-07-10T16:34:00.002-02:30

Oh, dear little owl boy. You make my heart explode.

First homegrown meal of the season

2011-07-07T20:05:00.004-02:30

The rapid transition from "freezing" to "sweltering" (well, "sweltering" in St. John's terms, at least), has shocked my brassicas into bolting. If that last bit made no sense to you, I explain it all in my Root Cellars Rock post this week. Go, read it, then come back.

Anyway, my rapini was looking like it was ready to jump out of its bed and make a run for it. Something had to be done. It was an early, but satisfying harvest.

This being another gloriously beautiful summer day, it seemed only right to cook outdoors. And so the best grilled pizza of all time was born. I used Jamie Oliver's basic pizza dough recipe from Jamie's Italy. For some reason, that recipe isn't on his website, but this one is no doubt lovely, too. The one I used has no oil, if that makes a difference. Anyway, any recipe you usually use for pizza in the oven will also make lovely pizza on the barbecue, I'm sure. I've done it with packaged grocery-shop naan bread, and that's worked out delightfully. Whole wheat or spelt or sorghum flour... follow your pizza dough dharma, people.

Here's how you make a pizza on the barbecue. Heat your coals to "inferno." Shape your dough by stretching it, and by pressing it with your fingers. I find this makes a much nicer texture than rolling does. It's better to make several smaller pizzas than to try and make one huge one, because you're going to have to flip your dough when it's halfway cooked. I made three 10-inch-ish ones (I cooked one first for the boys, then the other two), shaping the dough in the kitchen and stacking it between layers of waxed paper.

Now, carefully lay your dough rounds on the grill, and close the lid for two or three minutes, until the bottom of the dough starts to turn nicely brown. Keep peeking, because once it starts, it goes fast. Flip your pizza base over, and add whichever sauce and toppings you like, quickly so that you don't singe your knuckles. You need to have this all prepped and ready to go in advance, so it's fast, fast.

You see that? That's garlic, olive oil, sautéed rapini, red plums, feta, leftover grilled ginger pork tenderloin from last night's satay, front-step basil, and fresh-cracked pepper. Oh, yes, it is.

(The boys had storebought tomato sauce and mozzarella on theirs. Lame. But they devoured it, so woo!)

[Edit: I failed to mention that, once your toppings are on there, you close the lid and let them heat through/soften up/melt for another four or five minutes. You would have figured that out, though, I'm sure.]

We also had a salad of local farmers' market greenery, augmented with chives, chive flowers, and sorrel from the garden.

And that is what summer is all about.

The end.

Picnics and fishies

2011-07-05T11:25:00.010-02:30

It's raining right now, but it's beautifully warmish. As in, "not freezing." The past four days - count 'em, four - have been spectacular. The kind of days that cause everyone in town to walk around, grinning madly, and saying, "See, this is why I love St. John's!" And it's true. The weather's a total bitch for half the year, but the other half is phenomenal.

Yesterday, after a beautiful morning in the back yard with a friend and her lovely daughter, I decided the men and I should enjoy a picnic supper in the park. A proper one, like in books and movies, with fried chicken and potato salad. So I chucked some chicken thighs in well-salted buttermilk to soak, made some potato salad, baked a little strawberry-studded cake, sliced some tomatoes into wedges, and packed a basket with all our food, plus napkins, proper cutlery and plates, and jam jars of ice water. Oh, and the salt shaker and pepper grinder. I cooked the chicken as Hubby C got the boys ready, and quickly packed it in a glass casserole lined with a tea towel and brown paper (to absorb the grease), wrapped that with more tea towels, and placed it in the top of the basket, covered with a folded tablecloth. When we got to our picnic spot, the chicken was still hot and crispy and juicy, and I was chuffed indeed.

It was the first time we've done anything like this, and I'm determined to make it the first time of many. Charlie-Bear was so excited. We play picnic at home all the time, but a real picnic (pronounced "pic-mic" now and forevermore) was just too cool. As we laid out our food on the tablecloth, he declared, "This is the best pic-mic I ever saw!"

Joodles discovered that he likes tomatoes. Which is good, because I have 21 tomato plants this year, between my place and my mom's, and if they do well I might need someone to help me out.

I took a few photos of the food, but really, it's nothing that fancy. The fried chicken was really fried - I soaked it in buttermilk, with salt and pepper, all afternoon, then took it out and let it sit for about twenty minutes in beaten eggs (with more salt and pepper), then tossed the pieces in flour with salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, and a couple pinches of sugar. I fried the pieces on both sides until they were golden, then popped them in the oven at 350F, on a rack (which was on a baking sheet, natch) to finish up cooking. I've never been able to cook chicken pieces all the way through in the pan without the skin becoming too dark, so finishing up in the oven is my strategy. When chicken thighs have been soaking in buttermilk all afternoon, then dipped in eggs and fried in oil, you really don't have to worry about drying them out.

The cake was from this Smitten Kitchen recipe. It's the third time I've made it (twice with strawberries, and once with rhubarb), and I think it's going to be my all-purpose summer-fruit-user-upper cake from now on. So simple. I used buttermilk in place of milk-milk, and, for the picnic, I baked it as two rectangular cakes in two loaf pans instead of as one big round, because there was no sense bringing a full cake to the park for just the four of us. The other rectangle is in the freezer now. I didn't get any cake shots at the picnic, so here's a staged one.

I can't wait to try the same recipe with peaches and plums. I would like to try it with yellow corn flour, too, for a gluten-free option. The original recipe gives an option to replace half the flour with barley flour, which is much lower in gluten than wheat flour, and I'm looking forward to giving that a try, too, when I make a fancy flour run. While Miss B is now able to eat all the gluten she likes without any issues, I'm definitely eating too much. I don't think I have a sensitivity as such, but too much white flour isn't good for anyone.

The other fantastic summer event of the last week was the Great Caplin Caper we had on Sunday. Caplin (or capelin, depending which dictionary you use) are small fish, like smelt, that come to shore on the east coast of Newfoundland to spawn every year. They're food for the humpback whales, so when the caplin come in, the whales generally follow, and we get some pretty incredible shows.

The end of the caplin's life cycle comes when it spawns, then throws itself on the shore, flaps around a lot, and expires, becoming food for seagulls. If you catch the caplin before they die, though, you can take them home and have a great big meal and participate in one of this area's most famed traditions. When I was a kid, my father and his friends would gather around to a feed of caplin, pulled from the ocean less than an hour earlier. They're only little small things, so people fry them up and eat them whole. Some people gut them, others don't bother, especially when they're particularly small, as they are this year.

So anyway, last Sunday we decided to go to nearby Middle Cove beach to look for whales, as Charlie-Bear is crazy about whales, and we have promised him that we'll take him to see some before the summer is out. We ran into a friend and his boys there, and we were having a lovely time, when Hubby C noticed that the caplin were, as we say here, rolling. I was about to go back to the car to find a bag so that we could bring some to my mother, when Hubby C said, "That's okay, I'll use my hat." Said hat is a slightly beaten-up straw one, and can be seen here. The next thing I knew, there was a frenzy of delighted hat-based inshore fishery, with Hubby C and our friend's older son scooping up fish in their hats, while I hung on to Joodles, and Charlie-Bear hung on to my leg, terrified, saying, "I don't like those fish!" Fair enough: there is definitely something unsettling about being ankle deep in fish flapping about in their death throes. If he becomes a vegetarian, I'll be pretty sure I know what triggered it.

I had been carrying a tote bag with me, which was hastily emptied of its contents (a bottle of water, a notebook, and a pen) and filled with fish. We brought some to my in-laws, who were delighted, and gave some to my mother. We had some for supper Sunday night, but neither of us is overly fond of caplin, really. So now we have a load of caplin in our fridge that needs to find a home fast. If you're in St. John's and you're reading this now, come get some caplin! Please! Take it away!

For all that we're now stuck with a lot of fish we don't want, the experience of seeing the caplin roll is truly incredible. Someone I know posted this video on Facebook, and it captures the event beautifully. I'm not sure who the person is who made the video, but thank you. (Warning: this is about dying fish, so if you're squeamish about that kind of thing, you might not want to watch it.)

Well, thanks!

2011-06-28T20:39:00.004-02:30

Thanks for welcoming me back, you lovely people. It makes me feel all warm and happy.

Right now it's eerily still in the house, because my Miss B, age 7 3/4, has left for her annual trip to the US with her dad. She left yesterday morning, hugged me goodbye at the gate, then flew all on her own to meet up with her dear papa. This is her sixth summer away from me, and I'm pretty used to it, but it's still hard to let go. I mean, look at this face.

The paper tiara is pretty rad, hey? This photo was taken a few weeks ago, when the sun accidentally peeked out a little. The afternoon light in our front yard is lovely, when we actually have it. I know if you're reading this in Newfoundland you're already sick to death of people complaining about Juneuary, but if you're elsewhere, you might send us some warm-weather vibes. Or offer to trade places for a day or two. It's just so very disheartening.

If I have to make do with bad weather, at least I have a project: Operation Bedroom Switch-up. Right now, Miss B has the biggest of the three bedrooms. Bear (that's Charlie-Bear to the world, these days), has a wee tiny room, and he usually ends up in our bed from about three in the morning on. Newby (who is not so new any more, and whom we call Joodles around these parts) has a crib in our room, and sleeps there for a bit, then moves into our bed by midnight, where he nurses pretty much all night long. We're pretty much at the same place with Joodles as we were with C-Bear back when I was whining and moaning about my sleep deprivation a year and a half ago. Only now, we've gone so long without sleep that we barely notice.

So the plan is to put Miss B into the wee small C-Bear room, which may involve annexing the art closet to the bedroom (if such a thing is possible - I don't think it's a load-bearing wall, but, then again, I'm not a structural engineer), then to put C-Bear and Joodles into Miss B's room, and then Hubby C and I can have a grown-up sized dresser again (we had to switch dressers with the boys in order to fit the crib into our very small bedroom). I have no illusions that this will lead to anyone sleeping through the night, but you never know, right? Once Joodles is big enough to move out of the crib and onto a mattress on the floor, maybe he and C-Bear can just curl up together like puppies when they wake in the night, and leave their snoring parents alone for a while. Please? Can't a brother help a brother out, and leave Mom and Dad out of it?

It's going to be a pretty big job, but nothing we can't handle, I'm sure. The most difficult part is going to be gutting Miss B's bedroom, which is packed to the rafters with Very Important Stuff. How one child accumulates so much stuff is a mystery to me, since I'm a very mean mom and I hardly ever give her anything. Just ask her: I'm horrible. Sorting the boys' stuff should be pretty simple, but Miss B's room is going to be a trial. She has requested that her room be painted this riotous Barbie-lipstick pink. I'm afraid she's going to have to settle for something a little more subtle. I can't imagine what painting over hot pink would entail when she eventually decides that she can't live on Barbie Lane one minute longer. It will happen one day, I'm sure.

Hi, guys!

2011-06-23T16:45:00.003-02:30

If any of you are still out there.

I know you are, because I still read your blogs.

My blogging mojo has been on the missing list for, oh, a while.

Almost a year.

I have been talking about my garden a bit over here. But my crafty energy has been diverted to distracting children from whacking one another over the head with toys, and my cooking has been stuck in kid-friendly-quick-and-boring mode for ages, and I have nothing to say on the topic of parenting that wouldn't make you smack your head on your own desk with the dullness of it all.

It's freezing cold here, and it's been freezing cold since January, and everyone in town is losing their marbles.

Miss B had her last day of grade two today, and heads to Chicago with her dad on Monday. Bear needs glasses, as we learned yesterday. Newby has been walking for about six weeks, and has all the telltale head-bumps and facial bruises of a staggering toddler with an overenthusiastic older brother.

Hubby C has a new book coming out in the fall, and has been working hard on the final stages of polishing it. It's going to be gooooood.

And me? I'm a little sleepy, wishing the weather was decent enough to get out more, up to my wrists in dirt every chance I get, in love with my family, planning home renovations on small and larger scales, feeling pretty good. I go to yoga class on Wednesdays and breathe in goodness, then to flamenco dance class on Sundays and stomp out badness. It's a nice balance.

How about you?

Best gluten-free muffins I'll probably never make again

2010-09-03T11:14:00.005-02:30

So, most of you know that Miss B is on a gluten-free diet, and has been for almost two years. She doesn't have Celiac disease or an allergy, but she seemed to be sensitive to the stuff. When she was in kindergarten, we started to suspect that she might have some variety of Sensory Integration Disorder, specifically hypersensitivity to sound and hyposensitivity to smell and touch, with difficulties making transitions from one activity to the next, and balance issues, and just a whole lot of "bad listening days." Her teacher and guidance counselor and I filled out forms to get her an appointment with a developmental psychologist at the children's hospital. That took a year (Canada's pretty good with health-care coverage, but the shortage of specialists in our area makes for some looooong waits). The doctor agreed that there were probably sensory issues and anxiety issues (anxiety runs in our family - not just runs, fair gallops - we're a tightly-wound bunch), then put us on waiting lists for an occupational therapist and a psychiatrist, for which we're still waiting. I guess if she looked like she was going to burn the school down or anything, she would be pushed through the wait list, but as it is she's a clever, social, pleasant child (for the most part), so we just have to wait.

Anyway, when Miss B was having troubles in kindergarten, I started her on a gluten-free diet to see if it would help her manage some of her nuttiness - many experts suggest that children with behavioural issues ought to go gluten-free, and my mom, who is a holistic nutritionist, told me it might be a good idea. Miss B's teacher, my mom, and I all noticed an immediate change in her behaviour - she was more calm, less likely to get overwrought, more attentive, less inclined to freak out over small, silly things. She just seemed happier.

As time went on, though, it became harder to tell if the diet was working. She had had some digestive issues before, and while they seemed to improve for a while, they came back full force last year. Her anxieties vanished for a while, but they've come back, too (though nowhere near as bad as they were). Hubby C wasn't at all convinced that the diet was doing anything for her, and I had to admit that it looked sketchy, and that perhaps gluten had nothing to do with anything. It seemed that perhaps her initial improvements might have been a placebo-type thing, where she believed the diet would make her feel better, so it did, but only for a while.

So we decided to do a challenge diet this month. We had to wait until a time when she wasn't in school (in case everything went off the rails), and when she wasn't on holiday with her dad (because kids are weird on holiday anyway, so it's hard to gauge anything).

I started by sneaking spelt flour into her pancakes and muffins. I hated doing it - I am adamantly against lying to children about what they're eating - but if I were to tell her, it would have skewed the results. Which were... nothing. No reaction at all. After a while I bumped it up and started baking with actual wheat. Zip. No reaction at all. Then I actually suggested that she eat something gluten-y to see how she felt (we had spoken before about doing a challenge diet some day, but we never decided when "some day" would be). I watched her tentatively eat a chicken finger at the mall. Nothing bad happened.

We've been letting her eat pretty much what she wants since, and I've been taking notes. On days when she's had a lot of white flour, she complains of an upset stomach in the evenings, but on days when she's eaten spelt or small amounts of wheat flour in combination with the usual GF flours, she's just fine.

What does this mean? Well, I've grown accustomed to my GF baking, but I'm not married to it. I love quinoa flour and buckwheat flour and coconut flour, and I'm not going to ditch them, but I have to tell you, this is a huge load off. It means that Miss B can eat cake along with everyone else at birthday parties, and that other parents don't have to stress out about what to feed her at playdates.

At the same time, I feel kind of like I'm selling out. This is a bit of a theme for me. Like when I was all about body image and fat acceptance, and then finished university and lost a load of weight and realized that, although there are many, many women who are radiant and healthy at size 16 (or more), I never really was one of them, and in my case, being overweight really was a sign of my ill health. And it's like when I was a powerful, righteous single parent, rockin' the career track and the Friday happy hour and dating frivolously and juggling it all, and then I went and found a mate and can honestly say that I'm happy I never have to be a single parent ever again.

Obviously, this part is about me and not about Miss B. It would be evil of me to subject her to a life without cake at parties just so I could feel popular with the GF crowd.

But, at the same time, I know there are readers who come to this site just for GF recipes and tips, and I don't want to abandon you. Having had to deal with GF life, even temporarily, I know how much of a hassle it can be, and if sharing my experiences can make it easier for you, I want to help.

So what do I do? Should I keep posting GF foods only, so people know they can rely on the recipes on this site? Or should I post whatever I make and then tag it as GF? What do you think?

In the mean time, this is the best muffin recipe ever, and it's gluten free. I say I'll probably never make them again, but that's a lie. I probably will. They're awesome.

Gluten-free berry muffins
(makes 9)

1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup quinoa flour
1/4 cup stoneground corn meal
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil of choice
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
generous handful of berries (about 1/2 cup)(if frozen, keep frozen)

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Grease muffin tin.
2. Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
3. In a medium bowl, lightly beat eggs. Mix in milk, oil, and vinegar.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry and combine with a few quick strokes of the spoon.
5. Lightly stir in berries.
6. Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full. If some cups are left empty, fill them halfway with water to keep the tin from scorching.
7. Bake about 20 minutes, until muffins are golden and springy.
8. Remove from tin, cool (if desired) and eat.

I used cranberries for these. To make cranberries a little more kid-palatable, here's what I do:

cut each cranberry in half
put them in a small bowl
cover them with about 1/4 cup maple syrup (or runny honey)
let them sit and suck up the syrup while I prepare the batter (about 10 minutes)

When I do this, I reduce the sugar by about a tablespoon.

As for Miss B, we'll still have to figure out what the root of her troubles is, and it may indeed be a dietary issue, but then again it may not. Anxiety might be causing the digestive troubles, or the digestive troubles might cause the anxiety. At any rate, it's all very low-level and manageable, and she's still a most wonderful, intelligent, creative, talented, funny, loving, loyal, headstrong, chatty, beautiful child, and I'm lucky she's mine.

Where we were

2010-09-02T09:59:00.005-02:30

A friend let us use her house in Eastport for a few days. Ah, bliss. The Eastport Peninsula is one of my favourite parts of Newfoundland. Miss B has been there with us twice, but we had never traveled with the boys before.

This is Sandy Cove beach. Sandy Cove is right next to Eastport, and it's lovely. We don't have a lot of sandy beaches in Newfoundland, so this place is pretty special.

There were a few jellyfish on Saturday, bobbing about, looking like brains.

The water was perfect for splashing about in. Newby wasn't too impressed with it, but everyone else had a grand time.
This one was the queen of sand-castle building and running, shrieking, from waves.

This one liked wading into the water, but wasn't keen on falling down in it.

This one liked snoozing on a towel in the warm sand.

And these two were just happy to get the heck out of town. Three screaming youngsters in the back of the car? No problem! No sleep for four nights? Who cares? Bear keeps insisting that the wood stove is a cow that has to be fed bits of grass? Well, okay. Sure. Why not?

Of course, what we (somewhat stupidly) hadn't anticipated was the fact that vacationing with three kids under seven isn't any more relaxing than regular daily life. In fact, it's less relaxing, because you're in a new place, without your usual arsenal of distractions. Still, with a full box of crayons and lots of scrap paper, three well-chosen videos that both Bear and Miss B could enjoy (just ask me how many times we listened to Chicken Soup with Rice...), a soccer ball and an unflyable kite we managed to keep everyone occupied. Hubby C and I didn't get to spend much time snuggling in front of the fire, or sipping wine on the back deck as the smell of hundreds of old-fashioned white roses floated toward us on an ocean-scented breeze, but we did get to drive around, dreaming of someday owning a bit of land we could farm somewhere out Eastport way, with mature apple trees and access to great amounts of seaweed for mulching. I got to say things like "Stop hitting your sister!" and "We'll be there when we're there!" and "If I have to hear ______ one more time, you're walking back to St. John's!" just like a real grown-up. It's the simple things in life, isn't it?

Summertime

2010-08-17T11:58:00.004-02:30

Miss B is back from Chicago. She's taller, blonder, lankier, missing a couple teeth, beautifully tanned, mouthy (we don't watch much tv at home; when she comes back from her summer holiday she's all tv-influenced and we have to have long talks about the proper, polite way to speak to people). She can't wait for school to start, although it's still three long (in kid time) weeks until that happens.

We had a lovely barbecue at Grandma's over the weekend. The swing, the fairy circle (in need of pruning), the baby brothers, the grass to run in, all just what a travellin' girl needed.

How did my baby get so big? She'll be seven years old next month. Seven. I can't even believe it.

And this guy? Attempting to colour the swing rope? Yeah, him. He'll be two soon. Seems like last week he was the size of...

... this guy (the dopey-lookin' one on the bottom, not the gent in the fetching hat). Look at that baby, all cheeks, drooling all over the place. His awesome elbow chub. Oh, I love him. His dad's pretty great, too,

Miss B is still all about fairies. She may have grown out of all her clothes, but her tastes are the same. Which is good. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to say goodbye to the fairies.

Up the pond

2010-08-04T21:02:00.004-02:30

Today was the 192nd Royal St. John's Regatta, and possibly the loveliest Regatta Day in a long while. The whole city goes cracked on Regatta Day. It's a municipal holiday, but it's weather dependent, so everyone sets their alarms for stupid o'clock in the morning so they can know whether or not they have to go to work. The rowing races are the reason behind the whole event, but when I was a kid I didn't even know they were going on. It was all about cotton candy, ice cream, and trying not to get lost in the throng.

We finished the day with dinner at my in-laws'. Bear played a million rounds of "pow" (his word for "ball") with Hubby C, Nan, and Uncle Luke, in turns. Newby was babyish and lovely.

One week until Miss B comes home. Five weeks until school starts. Where is the summer going?

Powerless

2010-08-02T20:49:00.004-02:30

As in, "I have no power." Or, more specifically, I have no adapter for my laptop, and so am typing away on Hubby C's computer while he tries to get Bear to sleep. I ordered a new adapter and it should be here early next week. This will have a considerable impact on my obsessive garden blog reading.

Speaking of which, I've started a gardening-specific blog, which I will show you all (well, those who are interested) soon. It's kind of for my own sake - I'm someone who needs a swift kick in the arse to get anything done, so if I have a blog and I can convince myself that people read it, I'll actually take the time to post photos and report on garden issues and yields and what-have-you. And it will all automatically be date-stamped, so next year I'll know about what time I can expect my peas to flower. Plus I've been reading so many great garden blogs and stealing people's ideas, it only seems fair to give back somehow. Be part of the dialogue, you know.

So that'll be all about growing the plants, but I'll still write about eating them here.

Like, for example, this delicious salad:

Okay, so I didn't grow the chickpeas and quinoa myself, or the lemon juice, olive oil, pepper, or salt, but everything else is from the yard.

And remember how I said I was going to make slow-cooker rhubarb butter? Well, I did, but now what do I do with it? Hmmm... how about rhubarb butter crumble bars? Okay! It was cold enough today to warrant hot tea and something buttery and oaty. I'm assuming you all know how to make some version of these, right? It's just 2 cups oats, 2 cups flour (you can use pretty much any don'teven bother with xanthan gum), 1 cup brown sugar, and 1 cup butter, plus a teaspoon of cinnamon if you like. Work all that together with your fingers, pour about half into a pan (mine is 9"x 13" I think), press it down, slather on a cup of jam of your choice, then crumble the rest of the flour mixture on top. Bake at 350F until golden, about 25 minutes. Cool and cut into bars or squares.

So, that was good. Other than that I ran some dishes through the dishwasher, wrote a very short and ridiculous article for a travel magazine (trust me, you're probably not interested), looked online to find out why my broad beans are losing their flowers (temperature fluctuations, boooo), watched Blue's Big Musical Movie for the gajillionth time, found that two of my tomato plants are very close to flowering (yay!), and admired Hubby C's mad carpentry skills as he replaced rotten boards on the front of the house in preparation for painting. And now it's raing. Raining a lot. Again.

Oh, yeah, and this guy is cute:

What did you lot get up to today?

Rain dance

2010-07-31T15:59:00.001-02:30

Wet feet plus chalk-covered front steps make this:

Cutest mess ever.

Imagine...

2010-07-30T11:53:00.001-02:30

... if you walked into a restaurant, ordered the green salad, and got this:

(Minus the dirt.)

More garden

2010-07-29T13:18:00.004-02:30

Coming along, slowly but surely.

Carrots were a bit of an afterthought. One of the neighbourhood cats dug them up, then I put in more seeds, then it rained like mad and the seeds went everywhere, now I have carrots popping up all over the place.

Alien lily pad nasturtiums. They won't blossom until fall.

Early Wonder Tall-Top beet.

Bolting spinach. I'm letting it do its thing.

Monster gooseberry harvest is not far off.

Pole beans, looking like they'll flower soonish.

Happy potatoes, soon to have another big load of soil dumped on their heads (I'm growing them in a 3-foot bin).

Broad beans starting to flower. The ants like to hang out here.

Slugs like bok choy. Really a lot.

Small but sturdy and ambitious tomato.

Risott-oh

2010-07-29T12:27:00.003-02:30

Remember when I said the turnip green pesto would be good in risotto?

I was right. Very right.

It was even better the next day, fried up in little crispy risotto croquettes.

I could eat these all day, every day. There are three left in the fridge. Would it be wrong to go fry them up right now without telling Hubby C? Maybe a little, but not wrong wrong, surely.

Operation: freezer purge

2010-07-27T13:14:00.004-02:30

It has occurred to me that, on the off chance that my little veggie garden should actually grow any amount of veggies, I really ought to clear out some room in my freezers. I am very lucky to have a normal fridge freezer, and also a small chest freezer in the basement. The problem with having all this freezer space is that I just chuck all kinds of things in there "for later," and then "later" never really comes.

Last fall, I put away tons of fruit and vegetables. We used all the vegetables, but the fruit - berries and stone fruit, mostly - just languished, in part because my very generous, Costco-shopping mother in law is perpetually dropping large amounts of fruit at our house. I suspect that she thinks that the grandchildren might die of scurvy if deprived of "fresh" (as in "fresh off the container ship from Mexico") fruit through the winter. It's a cultural thing, in part, and maybe a bit of a generational thing, too. Hand-picked berries from the freezer can't compete with the allure of foreign ones in plastic packs. Her heart is in the right place.

Anyway, since I can barely keep on top of the humanitarian drop-offs, I've been hard pressed to make a dent in the fruit store. When I was looking for recipes for strawberry jam I came across a very tempting recipe for blueberry butter made in the slow cooker. Brilliant: minimal effort, maximum deliciousness. I pulled out a two-litre milk carton filled with what I thought was blueberries and set it on the counter overnight to thaw. In the morning, though, I found that it was actually a carton of raspberries, and that, in thawing, they had shrunk down to about three cups.

Soooo I went back to the freezer, fished out some red gooseberries and some chuckley pears (also known as Saskatoon berries or serviceberries - they grow everywhere here), threw them in with some sugar (I use about 3/4 cups sugar to each cup of fruit) and 1/3 cup lemon juice, boiled it up, and kazaam! Four jars (and half of a little one) of absolutely delicious raspberry-gooseberry-chuckley pear jam.

I was still sold on the idea of slow-cooker fruit butter, though, so I dug out some peach puree I had put away last year (I had blanched some peaches and peeled them with the intention of slicing and freezing them, but I left them out too long and they got really ugly and greyish), and a big frozen lump of half-squished golden raspberries. The raspberries smelled kind of freezery at first, but that dissipated. I smushed the raspberries through a fine-mesh sieve to get rid of the seeds, then I took the pulp, added it to the peach puree, added a cup of brown sugar (there were about 5 cups of fruit mush total), threw it in the slow cooker, and let it go. After about 1 1/2 hours, I propped the lid open with a wooden spoon to let the steam out. By bedtime (which was late), it was still kind of thin, so I left my cooker on the "keep warm" setting and went to bed. In the morning: perfection. It is so freakin' good. Just barely sweet, silky, super fruity, but with that musky brown-sugar-ness. I might make more once the golden raspberries are in, without even bothering to freeze the hell out of them first.

I still think I'll have a go at the blueberry butter when blueberry-picking time comes around.

I still have last year's (or possibly 2008's) rhubarb, and lots of pulped green tomatoes to work with. The green tomatoes make a great cake, and I think, now that I'm into the fruit butters, I might try a rhubarb-vanilla butter with honey. Rhubarb, vanilla, and honey are heavenly together.

Pesto, change-o*

2010-07-26T23:15:00.006-02:30

A couple years back, I shared my recipe for pesto made from turnip greens with walnuts and pumpkin seeds. I hadn't made any in a while, so I decided to spend my few minutes this evening without a whining child attached to me chopping the hell out of stuff. It was quite therapeutic. And therapy was necessary today. Very necessary.

These are turnip greens (or turnip tops, or just "greens," whichever you prefer). If you get them in the spring, they're tender and grassy like spinach. Later in the summer they are a little tougher, but still not as tough as collards or anything. Kind of like a tender kale.

I don't have a food processor, and my mortar and pestle are only small, and my blender makes this kind of thing too pasty, so I just chopped the greens to bits with a kitchen knife, while listening to The Broadcast, which is seriously some of the best radio out there.

See, I just chopped/grated/bashed everything up and chucked it in a bowl. Easy.

And it looks pretty in jars. I socked three 1/2 cup jars in the freezer, and we had some with pasta for supper tonight. I have enough in the fridge to make pesto melts for lunch tomorrow.

This stuff makes an awesome pizza topping, by the way, and I'll bet it would be really good stirred into risotto. I don't know what your local equivalent of (to?) turnip tops might be, but this would be just as good with spinach if you still have some kicking around the yard (or when the fall stuff comes in).

*"Pesto, change-o" came from Hubby C, not me. He's as much a dork as I am.

Failed photo shoot with bad lighting, inappropriate camera setting, and ferocious Bear (vol. 1)

2010-07-26T22:41:00.004-02:30

"Who, me? A photo shoot? What a delightful idea!"

"Uh-oh."

"Sho! Sho! Ju-ju! Sho!" (trans: "Would you show me the photos of Jude, Mother, please?")

"Cha! Cha! Teee!" (trans: I, Charlie, would like my photo taken, and am saying "cheese!")

"Ju-ju! Teeee! Cha! Sho! Sho! Cha! JU-JUUUUUU!" (trans: "I'm almost two and I don't know what I want and I'm going to try to take the camera and whack my baby brother in the head with it, and when you try to stop me I will lose my shit completely! Aaaaagh!")

"You ruined my photo shoot. Jackass."

Aren't boys lovely? And isn't it awesome how I kept taking pictures rather than coming to the aid of my infant? Yeah, it's every man for himself around here.

Lanterns

2010-07-26T15:59:00.005-02:30

Saturday was the Victoria Park Lantern Festival in St. John's. Of all the summer's fests and concerts and celebrations, this one is my favourite.

(My camera turns to crap after dark, so I didn't get any shots of the lanterns in their lit-up state. I'll bet there are loads on Flickr, though.)

(Yup, there are. Is it rude to link to someone's photostream if you don't know the person? Or is it cool to give strangers the linky nod? I just can't keep up with electronic etiquette.)

Volunteers spend the spring and summer months making lanterns - most of them from recycled materials - and on the day of the festival there are musical acts, dancers, lots of general community merriment. Then, when the sun starts to go down, the lanterns are lit and enthusiastic percussionists lead a procession from the lower part of the park to the upper part, where a trail of blue lanterns (made from jam and pickle jars) mark the place where a small river once flowed. Lanterns in the shape of stars, boats, houses, unicycles, drum kits, animals, huge pieces of fruit, whatever glow magically along the banks of the stream. It's flippin' gorgeous. This year we had to take Bear home before he completely melted down, and so we missed the fire show (fire jugglers, flaming hula hoops, all that good stuff).

The Lantern Festival is also kind of bittersweet, because its founder, percussionist Don Wherry, passed away just after of the first festival in 2001. Don had a heart attack while leading the procession, which is tragic, but kind of beautifully poetic. On Saturday, instead of a moment of silence for Don (who also founded the rather famous Sound Symposium), they had a "moment of listening," so everyone could take in the noises around them, the city traffic, the bellydancers' jingling scarves, the children running about. It was all so lovely.

And Bear got to go on the swing. Happiness.

Strawberry jam

2010-07-24T16:23:00.005-02:30

From dewy field...

to bucket...

to colander

to jar...

in just 24 hours. Ah, freshness.

My mother, Newby, and I trekked out to a rambly, unkempt, side-of-the-road U-pick just outside of town and filled a couple buckets yesterday afternoon. Most of the haul is in the freezer, but I did make a small batch of jam for Miss B. I've promised to mark one of the jars with "Do Not Open Until Bonnie Returns." She needn't worry, as I'm not all that fussy about straight-up strawberry jam. Strawberry-rhubarb, now that's my thing. And, as luck would have it, I managed to score some rhubarb at the farmers' market this morning. The stars are aligning, friends. I also scored a whack of garlic scapes - I wasn't sure I'd get any after my mother's Colossal Garlic Crop Failure of 2010 (damnable wet spring!), so I'm awfully excited.

Hey, I have a question. Do any of you know anything about growing (or eating) arctic kiwis? I've found a variety that might grow in my zone, and I'm intrigued. But I've never actually seen or eaten the things. I'm just totally seduced by the idea of super-productive backyard fruit crops that grow vertically. Can ya blame me? Would it be the awesomest thing ever, or would I just have heaps of tiny kiwifruit and nothing to do with them? Is kiwi jam any good? I've seen recipes, but it seems kind of weird to me. 'Cause it's green, I guess. Am I missing out?

Meet the crops

2010-07-23T12:15:00.006-02:30

Well, a few of them. More to come. Full list is here, if you want to know just how crazy I am.

the most promising of my Brussels sprouts

nasturtiums, and a clump of chives that I found under the gooseberries in the back of the yard

snow peas

Bull's Blood beets, which are supposed to be very dark burgundy and not at all green... hmmm... anyone know why they're so green?

Black Valentine bush beans

my fig twig, much happier outdoors

almost-edible strawberries

rainy strawberry leaf

pole bean, with big ol' mess in the background

Garden salad

2010-07-23T09:51:00.004-02:30

It's been slow going, what with the worst spring ever (snow on May 1, frost on June 1, chilly drizzle on July 1), but my little kitchen garden is finally starting to do wonderful growy things. Look at this salad:

That's baby arugula, spinach, and Bull's Blood beet tops, lettuce thinnings, dill, basil, chives, radish sprouts, and tuberous begonia petals. I call it "Spicy Love Salad," because there's so much pink and so much zippiness. The beet tops are my favourite part. Luh-huh-huve.

I should fill you in on my garden, now that it's actually full of things. I'll do a little photo meet-and-greet later, but here's what I've got growing:

Beds 1 and 2 (front yard):

:: snow peas

:: shelling peas

:: Bull's Blood beets

:: green beans

:: spinach

:: arugula

:: more beets

:: Brussels sprouts

:: carrots

:: chives

:: sage

:: nasturtiums

:: leaf lettuce

Bed 3 (back yard)

:: Egyptian onions

:: Cosmonaut Vulkov tomatoes

:: chives

:: garlic chives

:: nasturtiums

Bed 4 (back yard:

:: winter squash (red Cinderella pumpkin, red kuri squash, and buttercup squash, I think)

:: pole beans

:: borage

:: radishes

:: mesclun (mostly eaten by slugs)

Cold frame (back yard)

:: yellow pear, red pear, and Black Prince tomatoes

:: Genovese basil

:: purple opal basil

:: calendula

:: head lettuce

Pots and containers (back yard)

:: broad beans

:: zucchini

:: mustard

:: dill

:: cilantro

:: more nasturtiums

:: tuberous begonia

:: fig (relocated from indoors)

:: bok choy (slug chow)

:: more lettuce

:: more peas (also mostly eaten by slugs)

And the potato bin has, naturally, potatoes.

And I stuck some lavender and thyme in Miss B's perennial bed. Oh, and there are two pots of strawberries (Miss B's), into which I've stuck some chocolate mint.

Oh, and I found a rhubarb plant growing under the variegated weigela. And the gooseberries are going to be amazing this year (the blackcurrants, not so much). Oh, and I bought some ostrich ferns for the dark, dank far corner of the yard, so we can have fiddleheads some day.

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed for summer weather until the end of October. Stranger things have happened, right?

"Andreae?" "Absent!"

2010-07-20T15:44:00.005-02:30

Wow... so much I haven't blogged about these last couple months. To make a long story short, I turned 33, Hubby C had a lovely Father's Day, Miss B finished school and jetted off to Chicago with her dad (she's there for another three weeks, sigh), it went from depressingly cold to hell-hot (well, hell-hot for St. John's, which is about 27C and humid) and my garden went nuts, hubby C built a cold frame and has almost finished our stone patio, we've barely cooked anything indoors in two weeks, and, um, that's about it.

I've also been taking photos with an actual 35 mm camera (a what now?) so I don't have much to share electronically. Soon, I hope. Until then, here's the latest reply ever to eight questions, courtesy of the very wonderful Sigrid (maker of most splendid recycled-t-shirt-underthings).

1) Does your mom or a mother-figure read your blog? (Discuss.)

Yes, she does. She's also my friend on Facebook and calls me up if my status updates seem dodgy. I've come to accept it as normal, and it's not as though I ever write anything of a particularly intimate nature here. Mom and I see eye-to-eye on most things, and my general anti-consumerist, re-purposing, authority-questioning ways are courtesy of her influence. She even posts links on her Facebook page to things I've written. She may be my biggest fan. She's probably reading this right now.

2) If you could choose outstanding talent in any area (and you didn't have to sacrifice your soul) what would it be?

I know this probably sounds lame, but I would like to be a really good driver. I'm planning on learning to drive some time over the next year or so, and I'm scared shitless. I suppose most people would think of driving as a skill rather than a talent, but to someone who doesn't know how to do it, it's as mysterious as any arcane science. So I would like to be an outstandingly talented driver.

3) Desert Island book/movie: what is it?

A guide to edible plants? Or a disc with both seasons of Flight of the Conchords, which I have watched at least five times now, and which I still find hilarious.

4) What is your favorite made-by-you item?

My friend Emily was the first person in my social group to have a baby, way back when we were in university. I knit this sweater for her little guy, who is now about to turn 10 (holy crapoly). Emily's three kids all wore this sweater, then when Bear was born, she gave it to me. Now Newby has just grown out of it. I remember cutting the buttons (one of which has just fallen off) from an old shirt of mine.

5) Do you have any tips for laundry efficiency? I am desperate.

Nope. The one rule I stick to is keeping everybody's laundry separate. Well, Hubby C's and mine go together, since we share a dresser, but everyone else's is divided up. At least that saves the chore of bringing it to the right room. And we don't wear anything that requires ironing. Other than that, though, I'm pretty hopeless.

6) What junk food do you adore?

I could sit down and eat an entire box of Whippets (the cookies, not the dogs). Every now and then I consider making some kind of classy version of them, but why bother? They're perfect the way they are, right? If you're outside of eastern Canada you might not be familiar with them; they're like Viva Puffs, only without the jammy filling. Is there an equivalent in the US? Anybody? In Quebec you can also buy a similar cookie called Ti-coq, but I can't find any information on them online. I have, however, found a Facebook group called "Addicted to Whippet Cookies" with a discussion of the question, "Es-tu plus du type Ti-coq ou Whippet?" ("Are you a Ti-coq person or a Whippet person?"). The group has a whopping 62 members...

7) The style/fashion of what decade (or century or eon) do you think would or did or does most flatter you?

I think mostly curvy, fairly structured 50s-60s-ish stuff, full skirts and goddess necklines and the like. I used to wear a lot of old cocktail dresses and twin sets and pencil skirts and such. It's damned difficult to nurse a child in a cocktail dress, so I'm more into the jersey knits nowadays. But I do like a sharp line and a full, just-below-the-knee skirt. Were I a lady of leisure with children of not-breastfeeding age, I would wear dresses just like my wedding dress every day, even to the grocery store and the garden centre and to meet-the-teacher nights.

8) What is your current favorite piece of clothing or footwear?

I picked up these Clarks at Value Village a couple months ago. They'd never been worn. Now they're well broken in, and I can take them off and put them on with a baby in my arms, which is the most important part.

Do you like my mosquito-bitten feet? I was attacked yesterday evening, on my twice-daily slug-murder spree. Perhaps the mosquitoes are in league with the slugs, and are out to avenge their most brutal murders.

Okay, I'll tag Skippy, Erin, Melanie, and Melissa, even though I know you're all in the middle of wrangling toddlers or setting up a house or melting or working or gestating (or some combination of these) right now...

New questions, though, to keep life fresh and interesting:

1. Is there anything you've ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?

3. You know how, before you actually have kids, you have all these parenting principles ("I'm going to home-school/make all the clothes/never buy junk food/bury the tv in the back yard"), and then when you actually have to raise a kid/kids, you end up kind of abandoning said principles? Do you have any of those? Do you feel guilty? Liberated? Indifferent?

4. What's the loveliest place you've ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.

5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?

Chill

2010-07-06T11:48:00.002-02:30

As in, "I think I've caught a." As in wool blankets and scarves and hats. Not to sound like a big ol' complainer, especially when much of Canada is cookin', but my tomato plants have stopped growing at three inches, and my Brussels sprouts are shivering. My pole beans and Egyptian onions have rotted in the cold, wet ground. This is just gross.

Here are some cold, grey beach rocks for a cold, grey day. Cold. Grey. Cold.

Let's dance

2010-06-14T14:45:00.003-02:30

Miss B had her first dance recital last Saturday night, and it was amazing. I don't think it's usually the case that dance school recitals are so good you would actually pay to see them if your kid weren't in them - I think most of the time they're the sort of things you sit through just so you can see your kid embody the spirit of Second Octopus from the Left or whatever, in their $140 sequined Second Octopus costume and make-up that looks like it was applied with a putty knife. Which is why I hesitated for about two years before I put Miss B in dance classes. She wanted to dance so badly, but I couldn't bear the thought of her being paraded about like that.

I wanted Miss B to be in a dance school that was about expression and creativity, about helping dancers feel comfortable in their bodies, whether they be lanky or roundish or whatever. Oh, how lucky we were to find Miss Lynn! Her choreography is so exuberant, her dancers (from the little three-year-olds right up to the grown-ups) are encouraged to be themselves and not little dance clones, she picks lovely music (like this and this and this and this and this). Even the costumes in the show were gorgeous. A fantastic teacher, and a fantastic night all around. If you're in St. John's and you hear about a Lynn Panting Dance show, even if it's a student recital, you should go. What a lovely time.

And also

2010-06-08T20:33:00.002-02:30

Did I tell you that my charming and talented Hubby C's poetry chapbook, Sea Legend, has been shortlisted for this year's bpNichol Chapbook Award? Yeah, I don't know why they haven't updated their website, either. But no matter. My husband rules.

(In case you're wondering, bpNichol was a Canadian experimental poet, and is in no way affiliated with those dirty, sleazy oil-spillers who also go by the name "bp.")

Newfoundland weather

2010-06-08T11:33:00.005-02:30

After mentioning in my last post that it was cold and rainy on Sunday, it went and got really warm. And humid. With an eerily warm wind. I planted some clover and poppies where there had been grass outside our front fence, and moved an unhappy peony. Moving peonies tends to make them unhappier than they were before, but this one was so very unhappy that I figured I would give it a shot. It's in Miss B's garden now, and I hope it wants to stay there.

And then yesterday it was too wet for gardening, so I stayed inside to deal with a Ridiculous Problem. A Ridiculous Problem of which only the very privileged can complain. There is too much food in my house. I have the great fortune to have a very generous mother-in-law with a Costco membership, and, as a result, my house is always filled with grocery items I did not buy (and that I likely would never buy). I managed to make a small dent in the bananas by baking some banana-date bread, and a smaller dent in the apples by baking a free-form kind of apple-pecan kuchen-type desserty thing. And I braved the bowl of neglected clementines. I have a lot of clementine juice now.

I think I'll try to make some kind of jelly with it, like this satsuma orange jelly here. Do you think that would work? Or would it turn out disgustingly sweet?

Speaking of sweet:

Poor neglected middle child. He's been doing some very impressive limit-testing lately. Like chucking his sister's lunch containers out the kitchen window. And refusing to go to sleep. And whacking people with various objects and laughing impishly when we put on our Very Serious Voices to explain that hitting people is not okay. Arrrrrgh. Exasperation level is high. But just look at him! I'm sure you can imagine how difficult it is to stay angry at someone with a face like that. I'm doomed, people, doomed.

Sunny Saturday

2010-06-06T12:41:00.005-02:30

Well, I didn't get any photos of the trip to the annual plant sale at the MUN Botanical Garden, where Miss B picked out some perennials for her very own flower bed (all of which are pink and purple, dontcha know).

And I didn't get any photos of the first Farmers' Market of the season, where I sat in a dandelion-filled field, eating delicious spanikopita from my aunt's market stall, surrounded by friends and relatives and acquaintances, most of them with babies or toddlers or children in tow, and where Miss B climbed a tree and waded in the banks of wildflowers with her pal Si the Spy.

I didn't get any photos of the grumpy walk to dance class or of the happy walk home (with ice cream).

I did get a shot of Miss B chatting with Hubby C in the afternoon sunlight, though.

(I believe they're discussing the finer points of where tattoos come from.)

I also got a shot of one of the raised beds Hubby C made out of old scrap wood while the rest of us were out adventuring. And you know what's funny? My dad, way down in Costa Rica, spent the day making a raised bed, too. (Did I tell you my dad lives in Costa Rica? And that he has a blog?)

And of a sleepy Newby in the garden.

And of a mysterious purple tulip growing in the gooseberries.

And now the sun is gone again, it's chilly and damp, and we're looking forward to a no-special-occasion turkey dinner at my mom's this evening. Bear is overtired and fragile and unraveling a bobbin of burgundy heavy-duty thread all over the living room, Miss B is at a friend's place, and Newby is making little animal noises in the crook of my non-typing arm. We're inching toward summer, bit by bit.

Is this you?

2010-06-03T23:13:00.002-02:30

So, over the last week or so I've gotten two seemingly-normal comments from someone whose username comes up as "Viagra Online." Um... is this you? The username doesn't link to anything, and I've been assuming it's spam and deleting the comments, but if Viagra Online is a real person, leave me a comment saying so!

(Today I got another comment from "Buy Generic Viagra," so I'm thinking spam. At least now I know where to get generic Viagra, though. Thank goodness! I wasn't sure how much longer I could go on without that particular information...)

Getting warmer...

2010-06-03T22:32:00.006-02:30

Two whole days of not freezing! Yesterday I did this:

That's the grass between my fence and the sidewalk, all torn up to make way for clover and California poppies. Bring the bees! You like the moss on my pickets there? Yeah, damp climate. Very mossy town.

I also planted potatoes (no photos yet, because you know what dirt looks like already, and that's all there is to look at), and got started clearing out the raspberry patch. We've got raspberry canes taking up the best real estate in the yard, and I'm getting rid of them in favour of putting in a tomato bed. I have loads of other places to pick raspberries (they grow pretty plentifully around here), but nowhere else with enough sunshine to grow tomatoes. Luckily, I have friends who are happy to adopt a few raspberry canes, so they'll have good homes. In preparing to dig them up, I had to clear out a lot of forget-me-nots, too.

I brought them inside because they're so pretty.

Aren't they?

So. Cold.

2010-06-01T12:29:00.002-02:30

For weeks, people elsewhere in Canada have been on the verge of spontaneous combustion. My American blogger friends are eating fresh strawberries and peas from their gardens, and watching the tomatoes grow on their sturdy, leafy vines.

It's effing freezing here. Like, winter coat, mittens, and hat freezing. No snow (although other parts of the province had flurries yesterday), but there's a frost warning for tonight.

Not that this should be a surprise. The average last reported frost date for St. John's is June 12. The latest in Canada. Ack. At the moment I'm listening to our lunchtime call-in radio show, because Tuesday is their gardening day and I'm obsessing about getting out there and getting my hands in the dirt, but today is definitely not the day. For now, I'm working on the theoretical side of gardening.

Any Newfoundlanders and Labradorians reading will recognize the book on top. Good ol' Ross Traverse. Our climate and soil conditions here are pretty harsh, and our growing season is very short, so most gardening advice really doesn't apply. There are some really lovely gardens here, including some very productive vegetable gardens, and if you consult the local experts you can do fairly well.

Most of my seeds this year have come from Hope Seeds in New Brunswick, with some locally collected seeds as well, and a few conventional varieties from a locally-run shop. I chose Hope Seeds because their seeds are heritage and open-pollinated, which is important to me, and because they're relatively close by, so they almost count as "local." I chose the most short-season and frost-hardy varieties of everything, so I really hope I do alright.

So far, Hubby C has assembled our potato bed (I'm using our old wooden composter to grow some potatoes barrel-style) and built one raised bed for onions and leeks. Still too cold to plant those guys, but maybe by the end of the week.

My other concern is the cherry tree out back. It's our neighbour's tree, but a third of the branches hang over our property, and the arrangement has always been that the people in this house have been free to help themselves to however many cherries they can reach.

The tree has been blossoming like mad for a week, but it's been so cold out that no bees have been around to pollinate them. This photo is from last week, when the sun was actually out. The petals are starting to drop now. Oh, I hope some stealthy, sweater-wearing bees managed to get to the flowers while I wasn't looking!

All this talk about the weather (I think everyone I know has mentioned it in their Facebook status today) got me over on youtube, looking for a video for R.E.M.'s Pop Song 89 ("Should we talk about the weather? Should we talk about the government?"). I ended up finding a ton of old videos that brought me right back to high school, including this one, which is nothing less than sublime. Is anyone making music this good any more?

Love, sweet love (and laundry, and tea)

2010-05-25T11:00:00.005-02:30

Oh, my heart! Poor Newby is still so new that I don't even have a blogworthy nickname for him. So he'll have to be Newby for another while. He is very serious, save his little unconscious sleep-smiles, which suggest a future of chubby-cheeked dimpled-ness. He sleeps a lot, even - get this - at night. It might be just a phase. No baby of mine has ever willingly slept after dark. I've actually watched his eyelashes grow over the last two days. Babies are amazing.

Needless to say, I've been doing a whole lot of sitting on the couch staring at Newby for the last week, and not much else. Well, yesterday I did dig up some of the papers I need to find in order to do my two years' worth of overdue taxes (eep!), and I mended some of Bear's pyjamas. I took some naps. Ate a lot. And that's about it.

I've been trying to get some photos with all of the kids in them, but the frenetic combined energy of a six-year-old, a toddler, and an infant is not at all conducive to portraiture. Despite the madness, we've managed, through Hubby C's tireless campaigns, to keep the house quite tidy. Our washing machine has been running day and night, and while I feel a little guilty about using all that water and electricity, at least we're using homemade laundry powder, which means less packaging and fewer dodgy chemicals. I've been using Su's recipe, but most of the ones I've seen online are more or less the same, combining borax, washing soda, and laundry soap. For my first couple batches I used Sunlight laundry soap, which is available in the laundry section of most grocery stores (as are borax and washing soda). I find Sunlight a bit smelly, though. The smell goes away once the laundry has dried, but I still know it's there. I picked up some unscented laundry soap at, of all places, Dollarama, and I'll test that out when this batch is done, which shouldn't be long at the rate we're going.

(Interestingly, SouleMama's post today is about laundry and homemade laundry powder. She's got pictures.)

The hardest thing this last week, I have to say, has been forcing myself to take it easy when I feel pretty much like I've fully recovered from delivering wee Newby. Call me a crazy hippie if you will, but I attribute this in large part to the daily doses of red raspberry leaf, nettle, and alfalfa teas I've been chugging for the last few months. I can't say much for the taste - sort of generally grassy and not particularly appealing - but for minimal blood loss and maximal vigour, it's well worth it. I don't like offering unsolicited advice to pregnant women (or to anyone), but if you're in your last few months of pregnancy and you're hoping for an easy delivery and a speedy recovery (who isn't), might I recommend multiple daily doses of this, this, and this? Now, I'm not your health care provider, or a health professional of any sort, so, you know, you might want to let your midwife or doctor or whomever know if you're getting into the hippie teas. And don't start brewing the red raspberry leaf until you're into your third trimester, I've been told. I think I probably drank 400 cups of red raspberry/nettle combo while I was in labour, and I'm still drinking it a couple times a day. Does wonders, I swear.

The new guy

2010-05-20T10:39:00.003-02:30

Welcome, wonderful little man! Born May 17, about 10:45 at night, after a not at all unpleasant labour that involved many, many cups of herbal tea, dancing up and down the stairs to Dusty Springfield's Greatest Hits, much laughter, the loveliest birth team alternately offering me massages and quietly knitting baby hats, lots of popsicles, the best husband on the planet, and a steamy birthing pool in my living room.

I've been exceptionally lucky to have had three intervention-free, midwife-assisted childbirths. With Miss B I was in Yellowknife, where there was a major shortage of doctors. I didn't even get in to see a doctor until I was five months pregnant. As luck would have it, though, I managed to get involved with the working group that was developing midwifery legislation for the area, and I scored myself Geoff the midwife, who was so laid-back that I couldn't have been stressed out if I'd tried. The rest of my life was all kinds of stressful, but the pregnancy and childbirth part was just fine. I had Miss B in the hospital there (just as well, as my apartment had a very limited water supply), and aside from one grumpy doctor who walked through, identified her as a baby, and signed the chart, we were pretty much left to do as we wished. It was great.

When I was pregnant with Bear, I had the wonderfully good fortune to find my current midwife, who doesn't at all go in for publicity, so I'll leave her name out of all this, but let me just say that if everyone in the world loved their work the way she loves hers, we'd all be the better for it. She's of the alternative medicine school of thought, so while she's trained in all the typical stuff like infant resuscitation and all that, she's also an ace with herbs and homeopathy. And she has some sort of magical powers when it comes to creating a sense of calm. It's remarkable. Also, her hair smells very nice, as I observed in the last moments of pushing, and while I suspect this may be an odd thought to have at such a time, it's also a nice, chill one, much preferable to "oh God, I'm going to die!" or "what the hell is going on?", I should think.

When Bear was born, it was after a longish but entirely manageable labour. He was born in our very bed, in our very bedroom, after my going up and down the stairs a hundred times, getting in the tub, getting out of the tub, walking some more, drinking more tea. It was all so relaxed that we were having a grand laugh pretty much up until the last couple hours.

And now with the new baby, we've gone and raised the bar by adding the birthing pool into the mix. Whoever invented the portable birthing pool deserves some kind of major award. Like a peace prize of some kind. Honestly, aside from the contractions, it was like I was at some kind of resort, chatting with my husband while doting young women brought me drinks and asked me which music I would like to hear next and offered to rub my back. The really funny part was that after the baby was born, and he and Hubby C and I were all tucked into bed, our midwife and her assistants dismantled everything and cleaned up so that when we came downstairs in the morning there was no evidence that anything had ever happened... like some kind of crazy dream... only where you end up with a baby at the end. Weeeird.

I'm not someone who thinks of childbirth as magically beautiful; I tend to reserve words like "beautiful" for things like blossoming cherry trees and gossamer summer dresses and fancy cakes and the like. Things that don't involve all manner of bodily fluid. Gah. But it can definitely be joyful and funny and peaceful and uncomplicated, and for this I am very thankful.

And now I have three kids. Holy crap!

Still hangin' in there

2010-05-16T10:13:00.003-02:30

So, I sure am still pregnant. About to embark on an epic walk up and down the many hills of my neighbourhood. I think I'll eat a half a pineapple first. Wish me luck!

Baby on a budget

2010-05-13T12:50:00.006-02:30

Still pregnant over here. 40 weeks today! No signs of anything happening just yet, but that's fine, we're in no rush.

Nothing new to show for the Kids' Clothes Week challenge; I've managed to make what should have been a two-hour man's-shirt-to-girl's sleepwear refashion into a three-day marathon due to some really stupid waistband miscalculations and some major fighting with elastic. Ack. I think I've figured out how to fix it, but it's not going to happen before tonight, that's for sure.

In the mean time, here's some baby gear I've been working away at. Since this is our third kiddo, we already have most of what we need, and we're also wise enough to know that we really don't need very much. There were just a few things I wanted to throw together.

My mom got this Moses basket at a thrift store ages ago. Bear slept in it, then we lent it to some friends for their little guy, now it's come back to us. When Bear was wee, we just lined it with some folded blankets, but this time around I wanted to make a proper mattress pad for it. I cut four ovals out of an old thrift-store wool-blanket and bound them together with bias tape from my rapidly-diminishing vintage bindings stash. The top part of the cover is made from a bit of flannel my mother-in-law dropped off in one of her epic de-stashes, and the bottom part is from a navy duvet cover a friend had given me for refashioning purposes. I even managed to integrate the buttons and buttonholes from the duvet cover to make the cover easily removable.

Of all the gadgety baby things, the nursing pillow is one of the few I have actually found useful. I have one already, but Bear sleeps with it, and I figure it's bad enough for us to bring this interloper of a sibling into the family; stealing a kid's pillow would just add insult to injury. I used stash fabric (this is actually the reverse side, which I like much better than the very intense "right" side) and some polyester fill I had on hand, and drafted the pattern based on our existing pillow. I was surprised that there aren't many tutorials for this online. Is this a copyright issue, I wonder?

Teeny tiny newborn diapers! When Bear was born, the "infant" cotton diapers we had bought for him came up to his armpits. It was ridiculous. Our midwife dropped off some that she had made when her daughter was born, and they were perfect. I used them as a template for these, also from stash fabric (that I've been hanging on to since before Miss B was born), with absorbent layers from old receiving blankets. For bigger-baby-diapers I always use elastic around the legs, but newborns don't move around much, and you change them a million times a day anyway, so you can get away without making the diapers as contour-fitting.

I then used the diapers as a template for some wool soakers, which I cut from a neglected sweater of Hubby C's. Mmmmmerino... I wish my underthings were so luxurious. I finished the edges with a row of single crochet, using some wool sock yarn I've had following me around for probably seven years now.

A big stack of washcloths. I used old stained t-shirts and onesies and scraps of jersey for one side, and leftover flannel from Bear's last batch of diapers for the other. I've never used disposable wipes so I don't know whether washcloths are better, but they sure are cheaper.

Alright, kiddo! Ready when you are!

Thrifty finds 2: Best parish sale ever

2010-05-12T15:40:00.008-02:30

The Anglican Cathedral here in St. John's hosts two rockin' sales each year, one in the spring and one in the fall. Tea and baked goods on pink-cloth-decked tables, great mounds of fudge, tables with all manner of strange things for sale, and members of the older generation of Anglicans making sure it all runs exactly as it has every year since the dawn of time. This is some serious old-school parish sale action. Aside from the treats and snacks and bread with which I walked away, here are the highlights of my loot.

I snagged two bowls and this mug - all kid-sized - for Bear. While I'm no supporter of lion-taming and other such circus activities in real life, I loved the design. I looked up the designer, Elayne Fallon, and apparently her work from the 1970s, like this, is rather sought-after. I found a mug and egg cup set in the same design listed on ebay, starting at $19.99 US. Who knew?

These are so awesome. They live at my house, but the one on the left is the informal property of a friend of mine who had also been eying it, but who was ambivalent about buying another mug. She hesitated, I swooped, there was some discussion, and a custodial agreement was reached.

The one on the right is slightly larger and chunkier than the other, and there's no other information on them but "USA" on the bottom. Anyone have any clues as to where they might have originated? Something more specific than "USA," obviously...

Shiny, shiny Lagostina teakettle. Oh, it is so pretty! Well, it was covered in grody kitchen grime when I took it home, but that was nothing a little baking soda and elbow grease couldn't handle. The kettle we had before was this kind of flimsy, junky thing, so I was super happy to find this one. It's heavy, its proportions are beautiful, it pours nicely. Its one flaw is that it is so well-designed that the boiling water inside makes virtually no sound, so if you're not watching it, you could easily forget about it. I remember my grandmother having the same problem with a kettle years ago, so she kept a glass marble in it, and could tell by the sound the marble was making whether the water had boiled. Now I just have to find a marble.

Whole whack of fabric dye. Always handy.

Bag o'buttons, which I couldn't very well refuse. Some of them are really very old. Mostly plain, but a few nice fancy ones in there.

Now, guess what I paid for all this stuff. Guess! No? Well, the buttons were $0.50 on my way out the door, and everything else came from the white elephant table for a total of FIVE Canadian dollars. Five bucks! Amazing.

Thrifty finds 1: Singer Box of Mystery

2010-05-12T15:27:00.005-02:30

I was at Value Village, oh, ages ago, and found this box among all the miscellaneous bagged things. I couldn't tell what was inside, but for $2.99, I felt it was my duty to find out.

Oooh, look, a zipper foot! Well, that alone is worth the $2.99. But what else do we have?

A ruffler! Score! It does look a bit like an instrument of torture, but I assure you it's a pleasure to use, especially since I really can't stand ruffle-making most of the time. I'm hoping to use it on my next bit of Kids' Clothes Week gear, but that will all depend on whether I'm able to stay awake at all this evening. Watch, now, I'll become one of the mad ruffle people. I'll ruffle the chesterfield. I'll ruffle the cat. Is I start showing signs of lunacy, send me a sharply-worded message, will you?

Kids' Clothes Week: day 1

2010-05-11T18:36:00.007-02:30

Now, because I'm a supergenius, I've signed on as a participant in Meg's Kids Clothes Week challenge over at elsie marley. Uh, yeah, my due date does fall smack in the middle of the challenge. Hey, maybe it will be the labour-inducing equivalent of lighting a smoke at the bus stop. At the very least, it's giving me something fiddly to do instead of twiddling my thumbs, waiting for contractions to set in.

Given my current state, I'm limiting my creations to refashioned items from the giant scary pile of ill-fitting clothing that looms in my sewing room and threatens to fall over and smother the cat at any time. I'll also be keeping the patterns super simple, since inside-out and upside-down are very confusing concepts to my very hormone-addled brain right now.

The challenge started yesterday, but since I can't get anything done until the kids are in bed, I'll be posting photos the day after. Here's the first of the bunch.

The lovely Miss B is sporting a heather grey skirt with teeny silver sparkles all through it, made from a pair of sweats I picked up at the Sally Ann, knowing, even while paying for them, that they were made for a much weedier child than my own. The fit was all wrong, but the sparkly sweatsuit material was oh, so right for a certain fairy princess sparkle girl. Stretchy, yet, glamorous. The lace trim was Miss B's idea, and likely not a design element I would have included, um, ever, but she loooves it. I was trying to do something funky with the seams - they're sort of a felled seam, but with one edge left raw - but it just looks kind of weird. Miss B doesn't mind, though, and they might curl up and do the thing I wanted them to do after the skirt gets a few washings.

I have a feeling Miss B will be the main beneficiary of this week's sewing activities. Not that I don't want to sew for Bear, but we have about three crates of clothing for him in the basement already. And besides, he doesn't get at all excited like Miss B does over mom-made clothing. Go figure, hey?

Update: still pregnant

2010-05-11T18:26:00.004-02:30

So, playing catch-up has been more arduous than I would have anticipated... mostly because I'm wickedly pregnant. Almost as pregnant as the average human can get. Like, oh, about 39 weeks and 5 days or something like that. Which, most of you will recognize, means that I could go into labour ANY TIME NOW. Um... yeah.

Which means that, instead of writing, I've been feverishly gathering and washing and making baby things, and spending all the rest of my time taking naps. There's also a huge difference, I have learned, between simply being pregnant and being pregnant when you already have a toddler to wrangle. Oh my sweet goodness. I've been taking inspiration from my friends and fellow bloggers who've gone the rapid-fire route for their family-building. I may lose my mind, but at least I'll be in good company.

Look: my gut is so big, I can't even fit it and my head in the same photo! Ack!

Anyway, I have a whole bunch of things to update on, so I'm going to try to get a pile of stuff off today and tomorrow, and then if you don't hear from me in a while, you'll know why...

Boy plus food equals love

2010-04-23T15:00:00.003-02:30

I love watching little kids eat. Complete abandon. I've just discovered that Bear has a mad lust for rice pudding. Which is funny, because he can't stand rice under normal circumstances. He's his mother's son, though: add some sugar and cream, and just about anything tastes awesome.

See what I mean?

2010-04-22T13:18:00.002-02:30

There is still a sun up there somewhere, right?

Oh, well. At least those temperatures are in Celsius. It could be worse.

It's alive!

2010-04-22T11:29:00.004-02:30

I'm alive. Really. I am. The headcold from hell has gone (for now, bwah hah hah), and ever since I started being able to breathe again I've been alternately scrambling to catch up on work and falling asleep on the couch. I'm 35 or 36 weeks pregnant or something like that, so I pretty much need a nap if I go up more than one flight of stairs at a time. I haven't hit waddling stage yet, but my massive gut makes me look like a caricature of a long-haul trucker (I am sure real long-haul truckers come in all shapes and sizes, but I know you can picture what I'm talking about).

There's been very little baking, very little sewing, some late-night editing, some homebirth-supply shopping, and now, finally, I'm getting on to social correspondence. Finally! I'm commenting on blogs again! I'm replying to people's e-mails! I feel terrible about leaving people hanging for so long, but I've barely been able to form sentences, let alone write a coherent reply to anything at all.

It's stopped raining today, but things are grey, grey, grey. The photo of me staring spacily off into the distance like an art-house film starlet was taken about an hour ago. The sky is grey. The trees are grey. Spring in St. John's is, for the most part, a very dreary season. We get little bursts of nice weather, then it's back to rain, drizzle, and fog (a weather combo so common that we refer to it simply as "RDF"). Things bloom later here than in the rest of Canada. The only thing with leaves in my back yard is the gooseberry bush:

There are leaf buds on the lilac and cherry trees, and on the monster maple next door. There are lots of rogue tulips and irises and crocuses that have sprung up but which will be either torn up or relocated. By all reports, this backyard once had an amazing garden, but in the last few years it's all gone to seed, and the flowers have pretty much choked themselves out. I'll resuscitate what I can, and I'm giving a lot away as I tear up neglected flower beds to put in vegetables and herbs.

I've been starting a few seeds indoors. Those grassy things are leeks, and I've just put in tomatoes, winter squash, and Brussels sprouts. I've been putting it off for ages because I don't want to start them too early and have them stuck indoors, being miserable. Our last expected frost date is the first week of June, so, you know. Oh, and Miss B made the markers for me, and is quite proud of them.

I have all kinds of things I want to write about, but I should probably tackle them in their own posts. For now, I'll give you a little update on things that have happened around here in the last month:

I was very humbled to receive the Lawrence Jackson Writers Award, which was a real honour to me because Lawrence Jackson was a friend of my mom's, and his children are friends of mine. Also, it's an award that Hubby C won a few years ago, shortly before we started dating, and I totally used it as an excuse to flirt with him. Now we're even.
Miss B went to Toronto at Easter to see her dad and visit his side of the family. All by herself. With her little backpack and her passport and her ballerina doll, hand-in-hand with the friendly Porter Airlines flight attendant. Oh, my heart! I ate my weight in timbits waiting for her plane to take off after she had boarded. She was even gone an extra day because they couldn't fly out of the Toronto Island airport. She had a blast, didn't mind flying solo at all, and got a schmancy UM t-shirt which she wants me to refashion into something "cute and summery" for her. That's my girl.
I was a celebrity (ha ha ha) judge at an edible books contest, and I ate a lot of cake.
Hubby C and I started redoing the bathroom. He's painted it a lovely light blue with a warm white trim, but unfortunately the wooden cabinets sucked up a lot more paint than we had anticipated, so now we need more paint. Hoping to take care of that this weekend. I'm going to try dying the shower curtain and bathmat rather than buy new ones, and I've even found a curtain, curtain rod, and curtain rod hardware to use. Now I just have to actually put the curtain up. Without falling asleep.
I attended a live taping (are they still tapings when there's no tape?) of Q, which is a national public radio show here in Canada. They were here for the Junos, Canada's music awards spectacle (which I avoided like the plague). If you have ever wondered, "What is St. John's, Newfoundland, really all about?" you would get a pretty accurate idea listening to the episode podcast. I was invited as a person of local interest to talk to in the crowd if they had space to fill. Knowing who was scheduled to be on the show and their, uh, collective verbosity, I had no expectation that I would actually make it on the air, and indeed I didn't but I enjoyed the show nonetheless. The only downside was that they gave me a bottle of water when they were seating me, and I gratefully drank it. Then, because they were live to air, they closed the doors as soon as the show started, and we were stuck in our seats until the show was over, plus two extra songs. I had to pee. So. Bad.

Oh, and I am very excited to report that Hubby C has begun writing book reviews for The Scope. First up: Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil. I think writing for the same newspaper as one's husband is super hot.

Much more to say, and I promise I'll say it soon.

Sicky sicky sick

2010-03-25T09:05:00.003-02:30

Uuuurrrrgh. It seems like one member of this household or another has been sick for a month. Grossness. I've had a super nasty headcold all week, and it seems like I've had them on and off the entire time I've been pregnant. Oh it's so yucky. I want so badly to be able to breathe! Being preggers and all, I can't just pop a handful of decongestants like I would have once upon a time. I know, everyone's going to say, "Have you tried the neti-pot?" Lemme tell ya - the neti-pot is no match for my awesome congestion. Neither is any other pregnant-lady-friendly home remedy I've been able to try.

Truth be told, the climate here just doesn't agree with me, despite the fact that this is where I'm from. The year and a half that I lived in Yellowknife, which is extremely dry, I never got a single cold. Everywhere I've lived in eastern Canada, it's been congestion-fest. Too bad I love St. John's too much to leave.

Anyway, I'm sure this is all very interesting, but I would rather talk about cake.

I know that a gal who has had a headcold for a week shouldn't be eating sugar to feed all the little germs, but at this point I really can't play by the rules any more. I did make the cake dairy-free, since dairy turns directly into sinus agony when I'm under the weather (although, interestingly, my years of veganism did nothing to halt my headcold-prone-ness).

The recipe is this one from Elana's Pantry, which may be my new favourite gluten-free cooking site. She uses lots of coconut flour, which is, I think, the best kept secret in gluten-free baking. I have no idea why people don't use it more often. You don't need to add xanthan gum, it isn't weird and gritty, and you don't need to combine it with other flours in order to make it work. Honestly, making this cake is only barely more difficult than opening a box of mix. And it's almost box-cake-like in its fluffy vanilla-ness, too. I made it with sugar instead of agave because sugar is just fine by me, and I used safflower oil instead of grapeseed because that's what I had. I didn't have the right ingredients to make Elana's frosting, so I whipped up a buttercream-like icing with coconut oil, cocoa, icing sugar, and a squeeze of orange juice. Oh it's so good.

Since I've been baking gluten-free, I've found and tweaked and invented loads of delicious dark, fudgy, chocolatey cakes, and I love them, but sometimes you just want a light, fluffy, eggy, vanilla cake, you know? Miss B has declared that this is what she wants her birthday cake to be made of, only in the shape if a pink fairy princess castle. At least the baking part will be easy.

Okay, I'm going back to bed now. Fingers crossed that I wake up feeling better. And that I don't transmit my cold germs to you through the computer. That would be awful.

Miracle butter!

2010-03-18T13:01:00.003-02:30

Is it just me, or does the butter on this toast look almost exactly like the island of Newfoundland (minus the Avalon Peninsula)?

a) buttered toast

b) island of Newfoundland

Is that friggin' cool, or what? I swear, I did not stage this photo. I don't have that kind of time on my hands. Really.

And a green dress...

2010-03-17T13:37:00.004-02:30

Here's the thing about having kids: you have to choose which of your moral stances to try and impose on them, and which ones to let them figure out on their own. I'm with the snakes on the St. Patrick's Day thing, and while I love so many things about Ireland and Irish culture, I just can't rock out in the name of someone whose status comes from converting perfectly good pagans to Christianity. Not my bag. I'm more of this school on the whole thing:

But still, Miss B's class is all into St. Patrick's Day, and this part of Newfoundland is fairly well steeped in Irish heritage, and I really think this is one of those pick-your-battles kind of situations. We have tried to explain what it means to be colonized by another nation, and about what spurred the waves of Irish immigration (although that's not really part of our history, since Newfoundland's Irish population was established well before the 1840s), but really, what she's thinking is "green dress green dress green dress I don't have a green dress I need a green dress green dress green dress please make me a green dress please."

So I made the kid a green dress. Out of a skirt from the Sally Ann. The skirt was already shirred. It was a no-brainer. I cut out about 14 inches, sewed it back together, made straps from the leftover fabric, and there you have it. Paddy's Day princess.

Look how freakin' happy she is.

I even made a little shamrock hair clip with some felted wool. She'll have plenty of time to become disenchanted with society later. Right now she's six, there's a party at school, and she has a green dress.

So I says to the guy, I says...

2010-03-17T12:38:00.007-02:30

Yes, I really am still here, but seriously, the last week has been so crap that you don't want to hear about it. What's that? You do? Okay, but I warn you, it sounds like a bad country song:

I missed reading at a literary festival that had booked me because - wait for it - I wrote the wrong date on my calendar. Seriously. In my defense, none of the festival organizers contacted me to say, "So, we can't help but notice you're not here..." It would have taken me ten minutes to get to the venue from my house. I never got a reminder, I never got a contract, nothing. I know, I'm a grown-up, I should be able to write a date on a calendar, but any time I've organized a reading or a performance and someone hasn't shown up, I've taken the time to at least try and track them down. (As it was, I was at home watching Republic of Doyle, which I enjoy a great deal in all its kitschy silliness, but, you know, I could have watched it online later and still read at the festival.)
Last Friday I took Bear to playgroup, which was lovely. I don't normally go in for the playgroup thing, but I have to admit that even someone as brilliantly fascinating as myself is not interesting enough to capture the attention of an 18-month-old all day. I'm very lucky to have my in-laws take Bear two days a week, and my mom take him two afternoons, but this means that virtually everyone in his life is 30 to 70 years older than he is. Perhaps not so healthy. Anyway, there's a new playgroup at Miss B's school, and it is attended almost exclusively by people I already know and like - and with whom I would probably have a cup of coffee and a chat even if there weren't children around - and I'm very pleased about it. But that's not the point. The point is that last Friday I hauled the stroller out (no snow!), headed to playgroup, stopped at the grocery store, had to drag the stroller up and down all manner of stairs, went to playgroup, had a grand time, ran some errands, grabbed a snack, made my way up the long, low-grade hill that is my street, and when I was almost at the top I realised, "sweet mother of pearl, I've forgotten my keys." Only I think my language was a little more colourful. And there may have been some tears. So I had to go back downtown, find Hubby C at a meeting, interrupt him (which was okay, since the meeting was with a friend of mine, and they were at the pub), and get his keys. Unable to even consider pushing the stroller back up the hill, I left Bear at the pub (which is legal, yes, when the kitchen is open) and took a cab back home.
My ever-inflating baby gut is making me extra clumsy, so I keep knocking things over, bumping into stuff... I know that there are people out there who find pregnant bellies just adorable, but the whole gut thing drives me nuts. It just gets so big so fast that I never get used to my own dimensions, and I feel like my brain has been zapped into someone else's body, and that I don't know how to make this other person's body work. Like I'm trying to direct someone who is moving a large sofa into a small room. "Okay, okay, a little to the left, watch the doorway - d'oh!" It's kind of like being a teenager all over again, when your limbs grow all at once and you don't know what to do with them. Ungainly - I'm an ungainly pregnant lady. 2 more months... 2 more months...
Oh, this morning a friend picked me up to go to the bulk store, and when I opened the storm door the whole thing came off its hinges. It's on the front lawn now. Looks fabulous.

Of course, it hasn't been all bad:

I planted some lettuce seed to grow indoors, and the seeds are sprouting adorably on the dining room table (photos to come).
I've made a new e-mail friend on the other side of the continent and I'm learning all about where she lives and the wonderful foods that grow there.
My kids are super, even though neither of them would go to sleep last night, due either to the clocks having changed, or to some kind of cosmic interference. Miss B was telling me yesterday about a game that she and one of her friends have developed at school, which involves a number of schedules (bunny schedule, witch schedule, fairy schedule, "regular little kid" schedule) and one of these schedules involves preparing for and performing in something called - you can't make this stuff up, folks - the Dewdrop Catastrophe Rainbow Circus. I think this might be the coolest thing I've ever heard. If I ever have a band, that's what I want to call it.
The sun has been shining for days. This is very, very unusual for this time of year in St. John's, and it's probably a side effect of major climate change, but it is so nice to have blue skies right now. Does a person's brain a great deal of good.

One other thing that kind of made my day this week was this comment on my latest food column:

In my three years (and one hundred columns, I can't even believe it), I've had plenty of people disagree with me, but nobody has ever accused me of not being funny!

Unable to let anyone have the last word, I kind of had to reply to him:

Oh, I can be such a shithead sometimes. I've been laughing about this for two days straight now. I'm sure my writing isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I think I'm hilarious.

I know you are, but what am I?

2010-03-08T17:07:00.004-03:30

A few days ago, I received a Facebook message from a local businessperson who makes keepsake gifts for parents and kids. I thought the product was kind of interesting, but the message began with her referring to me as a... a...

As a mommy blogger.

And I've been confused ever since.

I mean, yes, I have a blog, and I am a parent. I can't stand the word "mommy" when used by adults, in any context. "Mom" I can handle, "mama" works fine around here, but "mommy" drives me nuts. I write about my day, and my day usually includes my kids, but I don't write exclusively about my experiences of being their maternal parent.

I think that what bothers me most about it is the way "mommy blogger" distills a person down to just one facet of their personality. I love my kids with an unwavering ferocity I never thought possible, and I love being their mother, but I don't think that's the one thing that defines me. I'm also a writer, a home cook, a freelancer, a conscious consumer, an environmentalist, a feminist, a practitioner of home economics, a music lover, a skeptic, a researcher, a fix-it gal, a wannabe homesteader. I have many hats.

For many of us, the anxiety around having a child, especially a first child, is not "will this hurt?" or "what if I'm not good at being a parent?" or "how will I pay the bills?" It's "will I still be me?" I don't know - maybe this is especially true for those of who got pregnant in a, shall we say, un-premeditated fashion. Or maybe it's just a certain sort of woman who is not innately maternal and whose identity has always been tied to something else.

I know that for some women, motherhood is where they find an identity for the first time. I've heard and read it before, the story of a woman having a child and finally knowing who she really is and what her life is about. Lots of us, though, are pretty much the same people we always were, only with jam in our hair and someone else's snot on our shoulders.

Not to suggest that my life is at all the same as it was before I had kids. I seldom go out at night, and yet I get less sleep. I don't read many books, but I read a lot more magazines. I hardly ever have corn flakes for supper. I don't have time to go to demonstrations or to organize protests, so I write angry letters instead. I wear a lot more stretch fabrics and fewer vintage cocktail dresses. But my ideals and my values haven't changed in the least. I just express them differently.

Me as a new parent, in Yellowknife, with a very small Miss B.

I'm sure the woman who sent me the message didn't mean it as a slight, and perhaps my reaction is based on a misunderstanding of what or who a mommy blogger might be. Maybe I am one and I just don't know it. It still doesn't fit all that comfortably, though.

What do you think? If you have a blog and have children (and are a woman) do you consider yourself a mommy blogger? What does the phrase bring to mind? If you don't have kids, do you find the phrase "mommy blog" alienating? Would you read something by someone who considered herself a mommy blogger? And if you're a proud, card-carrying mommy blogger, why? What does it mean to you?

It is not lost on me, of course, that I am having this conflict on International Women's Day. The very fact that we can choose how we define ourselves is due to the hard work of so many women of the last generations. Struggling with titles and identity may be a pain in the arse, but it sure beats having someone else decide your identity for you. Here's to a future where every woman has the option to choose how she wants the world to see her.

Things that work, and things that don't

2010-03-06T17:28:00.004-03:30

Work:

1. Homemade dishwasher detergent from Su's recipe. And it's cheap! And you get to feel like a scientist, which is cool. Yay Su, yay to fewer creepy chemicals, and yay to clean dishes.

2. Dying my refashioned jeggings to get rid of the fake-faded (and real-faded) effect. I used two packs of Dylon because that's all my fabric store had, and I think they turned out pretty snappy.

3. This maternity wrap top from Megan Nielsen, which I made today and with which I'm pretty impressed. I had never used a downloaded sewing pattern before, and the cutting-and-taping process was a little tedious (and this pattern only has three pieces!), but everything else was super easy. I actually went out and bought fabric for this one, since I figured the chances of my coming upon 3 1/2 yards of four-way stretch jersey in a thrift store might be a little slim. Megan gives options for laying the pieces out to use less fabric, but I'm glad I went for the full 3 1/2 yards (metres, actually, so it's even more). I had to change the layout a little because the fabric actually has a slight heather pattern to it, so I couldn't get away with cutting the back off-grain (this will make sense if you read the instructions to make the top). I still have enough left to make a pair of gym pants for my rapidly-growing Miss B, and I only paid $10 for the lot of it. I think it looks like strawberry ice cream, but this was the only four-way stretch fabric they had at my terribly inadequate fabric store. Good thing I like pink. Also, Megan's instructions are to leave the edges raw, but mine were curling up so I gave the whole thing a narrow zig-zag hem.

4. Taking a day off (after trying for seven straight weeks) to ditch the kids and hit three thrift stores and the fabric store, and grab a poutine at the mall. I came away with a pile of clothes that actually fit and that I like, as well as a couple items for refashion purposes. Those shoes in the photo are a pair of Rockports I found at Value Village, never worn, and they fit perfectly. Total shopping victory.

Don't work:

1. Using WD-40 to remove greasy stains from clothing. I know. But my mother-in-law bought us a book on how to clean everything in the world using stuff you already have in the house, and it seemed so promising. I had three items of clothing with small, mysterious greasy stains: a gorgeous and favourite brown skirt, a burgundy red maternity dress that actually belongs to a friend of mine (uh... sorry, Sarah), and a pair of grey leggings. I followed the instructions in the book and now instead of three things with small stains, I have three things with large WD-40 stains that go through both sides of the fabric. I can embellish the skirt to deal with the stains, and the leggings can be cut up to make the waistband for a maternity skirt, but the borrowed dress might be an issue. Eeeps! I've tried everything I know of to try and get the WD-40 stains out, but I think at this point it's time to admit defeat.

2. Trying to get a photo of myself in my newly-dyed jeans and my newly-made wrap top while surrounded by children. Miss B has been sick for a week and is all floppy and depressed from being stuck in the house all day, on top of which she has a fat lip from taking a tumble down the stairs. Bear has caught Miss B's chest cold, and has been alternately sooky and huggy and crooked as all hell. It's been raining for days now, and we're all in a bit of a funk around here. I've been trying to combat the moping by planning our garden and ordering seeds, but any spring planting is a long way off in this part of the world. Most of North America will be eating strawberries before we're even done with our frost warnings.

I know I owe some of you e-mails, and I promise you'll hear from me soon. The children are recovering, and work is slightly less crazy this coming week than it was last week. Right now, Hubby C is roasting a chicken, Miss B is describing ballet positions to her dad on the phone, and Bear is not endangering himself or others (for the moment). It's supposed to rain all week, so I can't guarantee I'll be pleasant to talk to, but that's just how these things go. Nothing a cheesecake can't solve.

Isn't this beautiful?

2010-03-02T09:03:00.002-03:30

Forward: March!

2010-03-01T11:54:00.005-03:30

I've been doing a little guest bloggin', closing out boy month over at Mushy Peas with a few thoughts on my life with this little imp-creature:

Oh, that boy. How I love him. Big thanks to Tara for the invitation to write, and for the very sweet words. Tara's a peach, you know.

The bread Bear's munching, by the way, is Karina's Irish Soda Bread, which is super easy and which has never failed me. Everyone in this house has an ongoing case of a not-terribly-nasty-but-rather-annoying-nonetheless head cold, so I made chicken noodle soup and soda bread for supper last night. Apparently I was the only person in Canada not watching the Olympic hockey game, but every 30 seconds or so a new status update would appear on Facebook with some kind of hockey-related exclamation. It was quite funny, actually. Hubby C and Miss B watched the last two minutes or so, and that's the sum of our Olympic exposure. Apparently Canada owns the podium now, which strikes me as a bit juvenile. "It's my podium! I own it!" "Now, now, everyone, you can all share the podium." But what do I know about elite sports?

I'll tell you something I do know: broccoli has no place in gingerbread! I tried another one of those DD recipes, against my better judgement, and let me say this: if the Seinfeld family can't taste the broccoli in that gingerbread, they are all suffering from some kind of sensory hyposensitivity, or from some hardcore sinus congestion, because let me tell you, it's all I can taste. And all I can smell. It smells horrible, despite good amounts of spices and molasses. Seriously stinking up my house. Gingerbread is usually one of the best smells in the world. Heartbreak, but then again, I should have known better. Gah. The texture is really nice, though, which is what happens when you add veggie or fruit purées to gluten-free baking. I'll try it again with some other vegetable: sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, pumpkin, something more amenable to 45 minutes in the oven than broccoli is. Something a little less... sulphurous.

That said, the kids love it, which I guess is the point, but why make gingerbread if I can't eat it? What's the sense in that?

Here's another pair of things that does not (do not?) go together: weird rubberized "diaper" fabric and stretch terry. I had offered to make some little overnight training pants for a friend's daughter, but our fabric store here is miserable, and the best we could come up with for the outer layer was something they were calling "diaper liner," which kind of felt like tear-proof nylon, but rubbery on one side. The most absorbent soft material they had for the inside was stretch terry, and so we bought it. It was only when I was trying to sew around little leg-holes and do a bit of overstitching that I realised that these may have been the two least compatible materials ever. I managed to coerce them into working eventually, but only after several trashed needles and much thread-breakage. And possibly some expletives. In the end they turned out okay, I think. Next time, though, it's the internet for diaper fabric. I try to shop locally, but the fabric store here is part of a big chain, and, really, I would rather support a small, indie fabric shop somewhere else than a big chain (which never has what I need, anyway) just because it happens to be in my town.

But if any of you intrepid and entrepreneurial types out there are looking for a small city in which you can open a really exciting fabric and notions store, please consider St. John's, Newfoundland. Please. Very little crime, relatively low cost of living, lots of urban green space, friendly people, all the free berries you can pick, vibrant arts scene, great place to raise kids... you get all the social benefits of living in Canada, but you're actually encouraged to hate the prime minister! What more could you want?

Food and bodies and lists and links

2010-02-25T11:52:00.005-03:30

Well, wow. I knew I wasn't the only one who felt this way about how we eat in this crazy culture, but jeez, thanks for all the comments. You folks are awesome. A round of smoothies for you all!

"A balanced diet" is what I was always taught to aim for, but it seems that nobody knows what that means any more. My mother, who is a registered holistic nutritionist, insists on an 80/20 rule for healthy eating: if you eat well (not necessarily perfectly, but well) 80% of the time, then for the other 20% you can go a little nuts, and your body isn't going to suffer for it, because it's already nutritionally happy. Mom enjoys the odd trip to A&W as much as any of us (and perhaps a little more than some). There's also much to be said for the emotionally therapeutic effects of some foods that might not be technically "good" for you. Eating a big wodge of cheesecake while having a laugh with some dear friends is good for you, no matter what the nutritional profile of the cheesecake is. And sometimes a bowl of ice cream really does make everything better. Not a bucket of ice cream, and not ice cream to the exclusion of all other things, but a nice bowl of ice cream. And if you're going to have a bowl of ice cream, shouldn't be actual ice cream rather than some fat-free stuff that's all filler and weird chemical additives?

Can you tell I've been thinking about this since yesterday?

Since I was talking about fat-phobia and body image, I thought I'd share this little thought with you: when I'm explaining to Miss B why certain foods aren't fit for frequent consumption (fast-food offerings and what have you), I'm very careful to emphasize how those foods make you feel, rather than how eating too much of them might make you look. So, rather than saying that such and such will "make you fat," the line around here is that eating poorly makes people "floppy and ill-tempered." This is important to me, because,

first of all, the idea that there's a clear equation between body weight or size and overall good health is constantly being disputed, and to reduce the complex issue of health to the size of one's jeans is ludicrous,
secondly, telling kids that something will "make them fat" as a deterrent to them eating it means that you're placing a value judgement on people of larger sizes, and it could easily lead a child to the ridiculous and incorrect conclusions that a) being fat is inherently bad, and b) people who are fat are that way because they do not know about nutrition,
thirdly, it's just not true: I know many people who eat all kinds of crappy processed food as dietary staples and are still stick-thin (although they may not be remotely healthy),
fourthly, it places an undue emphasis on outward appearance generally,
fifthly, a child with many years of growing ahead of her (or him) is undoubtedly going to have weight fluctuations, and I want those to be understood as normal, not as the result of some kind of "bad" behaviour, and
sixthly (am I still talking?), the threat of becoming "floppy and ill-tempered" works for me because it reiterates that the way a person feels and the way she (or he) interacts with others is of far greater consequence than the way she (or he) looks. And it sounds kind of archaic and funny at the same time.

It is absolutely true that too much fast food makes people (okay, me) floppy (as in un-energetic, lacking oomph, wanting for get-up-and-go, unable to participate fully in life's good times), and ill-tempered (the highs, the lows, the crashes... hardly suitable for children). Size and shape have nothing to do with it.

Oh, I could ramble on. But you all know where I'm going with this, right? Arright, I'll stop.

A few people who left comments on yesterday's post also left links to articles:

2WeeMonsters recommended this read on what happens when people swing too far in the health-food-at-all-costs direction, which is of course the flip side of the fast-and-packaged-food effect. It's a really well-written reflection by a natural-health practitioner who once suffered from what is now being called orthorexia nervosa, and
my old schoolmate Dara mentioned some columns she had written on children and nutrition. I haven't made my way through all of them yet, but these two recent ones both have some good advice about not stressing too much over picky eating.

Also, I wanted to link to some of my older columns at The Scope, which is celebrating its 100th issue today (yay!). If you're looking for ways to subtly and joyfully boost the nutritional value of your food, these recipes may be of some use to you. Some of them are from before we went gluten-free in the house, so they might require some fiddling if gluten is a problem for you (you can just sub in your preferred flour mix, but you know how that sometimes goes). Some of them are purely dessert-and-snack-y, but any veggies count, right?

Gluten-free brownies (with black beans)
Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (with white beans and, obviously, pumpkin)
Cornmeal berry muffins (with quinoa)
Chili (with quinoa or brown rice, and sweet potatoes)
Veggie burgers (with chickpeas, lentils, walnuts and veggies - I have no idea if most kids would like these, but they might)
Chocolate beet cake (which might be my most popular recipe ever, full of beety goodness)

And finally, I wanted to link to two other blogs which have very little in common with one another, but which both get me thinking. The first is The Ethical Butcher, which documents the awesome quest of Portland-based butcher Berlin Reed to make ethically-raised meat available to the people. If you live in the Portland area you may have heard about Berlin's Bacon Gospel and heritage breed feasts, and even if you don't eat meat yourself, you have to respect his passion for real, honest, delicious food.

The second has nothing to do with cooking, crafts, home economics, or parenting small children (I do have other interests, you know), but has some extremely moving posts on body image. It's called Bloginatrix, and it's written by NYC-based burlesque performer and teacher Jezebel Express. The writing is sharp, personal, funny, occasionally angry, and always thought-provoking. Jezebel's last entry on feeling disempowered while picking up a load of make-up made me well up and sniffle, and I'm a pretty tough cookie.

Alright, off I go. We have a handyman in, putting in a range hood so our whole house can stop smelling like spaghetti every time we make it. Why is it that food smells can be so transcendent in the moment, and so utterly gross when they appear in the wrong time and place (like in my bedroom, in the middle of the night)?

Jeggings, fauxnuts, and a bad thing I did

2010-02-24T11:35:00.008-03:30

If I were a cooler person, I would know that there is a word for hybrid jeans-leggings, and that the word is "jeggings." I'm not that cool, though, so I just thought they were skinny, skinny jeans like the people who were mean to me in junior high would have worn. Part of me rejects outright any style throwback to the 1980s, a decade of such fashion hideousness that it still gives me nightmares. The return of the Cosby sweater disturbs me in ways you can't possibly imagine.

And yet, the jeggings. They're kind of cool, and they don't bunch up when you put boots on over them. Boot-bunching makes me all panicky. So when I saw a jeans-to-jeggings post on Wardrobe Refashion I figured, hey, why not? I had these stretchy maternity jeans that had gone through several lives, passed from a friend over to me, over to another friend, and back to me again. I think they had already been worn by several pregnant ladies before making their way to the first friend, too. They're super soft, but they were definitely looking a little sloppy and stretched out after all that wear.

No before picture, sorry, but I'm sure you can picture "sloppy boot-cut jeans" without visual assistance. Now they're like this:

I just put them on inside-out, pinned where I wanted to take them in along the inseam, did a zig-zag stitch and then ran a straight stitch just inside it, and trimmed the excess. It's a relatively untidy job, but they're so comfortable I don't even care. I wore them to Hubby C's book launch on Monday with a really cute dress that is too short to wear as a dress and too flowy to wear over regular jeans. Total hit.

You need the boots to get the full impact of the legging-ness. Ah, Sorels. How iconic you are. The only thing I don't like about my new jeggings is the way they have that fake faded effect at the tops of the legs, and they're kind of weirdly fake-faded on the back, too. I think I might dye them... has anyone ever removed the colour from multi-toned jeans and then overdyed them with any success? I'm hesitant to use bleach on them, because they're already so worn it might kill them. Now that I actually like them, I want to keep them in decent shape.

***

And now, let me tell you about fauxnuts.

They're fake doughnuts, baked in one of those doughnut-shaped pans instead of dropped into seething oil. They're basically O-shaped muffins. They're full of wholesome goodness, but they look like they're full of sugary fun. They have pumpkin, carrot, parsnip, and apple purées in them, and they're made with brown rice and buckwheat flours. My kids are going mad for them.

I bought the doughnut-mold tin to add a little bit of novelty to Miss B's school lunches. But the real beneficiary has been Bear, who has decided he's never going to eat another vegetable again, but somehow appreciates the veggie-liciousness of the doughnuts. I don't like lying to him, so I keep telling him that the fauxnuts have vegetables in them, but I'm pretty sure I sound like the teacher in the Peanuts specials.

I am fundamentally opposed to lying to children - or to anyone - about what's in their food. I think it's a horrible thing to do to kids, and that it sets a dangerous precedent for the table becoming a battleground. I don't know if boys end up with the same food issues that girls so often do - if they do, nobody ever talks about it. I want my table to be a place of trust, joy, pleasure, celebration. Not to say we never fight at the table, but we keep it minimal. And I try to be perfectly clear with Miss B about what she's eating, even if it means pointing out things she doesn't like. I'd rather do that than be accused of trying to sneak something by her. It's impossible to sneak anything by that kid, anyway, so why not just be upfront about it?

I'm not losing sleep about Bear not getting tons of vegetables. He eats lots of fruit, and grainy baked goods, and he's the picture of apple-cheeked toddler health. Still, though, I would like him to develop a taste for vegetables sooner rather than later, if I can do it. But in my quest to find ways to make vegetables palatable to young Bear, I did a horrible thing. A horrible thing I swore I'd never do. I bought a copy of Deceptively Delicious. It was remaindered, mind you, and I got it at the grocery store, but I bought it nonetheless. I feel so dirty.

I loathe so much about that book. The very premise - that vegetables are something you have to trick your children into eating - offends my soul. Jessica Seinfeld's little quips about how her kids "would never eat this if they knew what was in it" make me want to hurl the book through a window. The little line drawings of the author winking and making shushy-faces make me want to get out my best black pen and give her a mustache and devil horns. Oh, how smug you are, Ms Seinfeld! Oh, how clever of you to lie to your children at every meal! What a favour you're doing them!

I have to admit, though, that the recipes aren't all bad. None of it's rocket science, and I doubt there's a mom out there who hasn't figured out a few tricks for making certain foods more appealing to her kids. Unfortunately, I have had to swap 2/3 of the ingredients in the book for real food, since Seinfeld uses fat-free everything. Once you go through and sub in oil for cooking spray, butter for margarine, whole eggs for egg whites, whole milk for skim milk, full-fat cheese and yogurt for reduced-fat cheese and yogurt, real bacon for make-believe bacon, ground beef for ground turkey (a substance so vile as to ruin everything with which it comes in contact), and make your own pancake batter instead of opening a box, it's alright.

Which brings me to another point: how dare anyone visit their own fat-phobias on their growing children? Raising children on this kind of a hyper-low-fat diet is just the height (or depth) of ignorance. If children are morbidly obese, it's not from eating full-fat Wensleydale or having real milk in their cereal. It's from being fed processed food artifact which is so far from anything you would find on a farm or in a field that the kiddos' poor little bodies don't know what to do with it, and they hang on to it for later, like a person who has their body frozen in the hope that someday they can be thawed and cured. I know you're not supposed to judge other mothers' parenting, like, ever, but I'm sorry, unless your child has some kind of illness which prevents them from metabolizing normal amounts of fat, it does more harm than good to feed them all this low-fat, fat-free foolishness. Never mind that their bodies actually need fat; their brains are practically made of the stuff. How are they supposed to learn to read when their brains are starving?

I'm not a whole-foods purist, by any means. I eat sugar, I eat chocolate, but I try to steer clear of foods with ingredients that sound like they came from a secret underground laboratory. And as for the marketing of "healthy" laboratory food, it's a scam. If the amount of fat in cheese worries you, why not just eat less cheese? The effects of the cheese-fat-removal process are going to be far worse for you than the fat in the cheese would have been.

Real food. Butter and eggs. Or avocados and walnuts and olive oil, and lots of them, if that's more your thing. And fresh air and tree climbing and cookies and telling jokes and having quiet time and not giving your children food with all the integrity sucked out of it. If you're worried about your kids' weight, go for more walks with them, play in the park, and eat more salads and more Mediterranean and Japanese food. If you do that and nothing changes, how about not freaking out about it? Maybe they're just going to grow up to be big, strong, gorgeous, sturdy adults who ought to feel as beautiful and as valued as everyone else. Develop an interest in Renaissance art. Rent some opera videos. Go see some belly-dancers. Our culture's beauty aesthetic is purely a symptom of its politics, and its politics are lame. This "plague of childhood obesity" was created by a crappy corporate agri-business system, not by people giving their children real cream on their porridge, and leaving the yolks in their eggs. Now the same corporate agri-business people are selling equally poisonous rubbish and telling people it's a "healthy choice". Same garbage, different bucket. Gah.

You always have to keep a few pounds on in case you get sick. Not that long ago, a nice, chubby, radiant child was a comfort to parents, because it was less likely that he or she would succumb to scarlet fever or cholera or whatever was going around. My dear Hubby C, who is as slender as a birch sapling despite my many attempts to fatten him up (the man considers gravy a beverage, but clearly has the metabolism of a hummingbird), was in the hospital for two weeks a couple years ago, and when he came home he was practically translucent after losing ten pounds. You never know when a bit of chub of going to come in handy.

That is all. Well, no, but I'm going to shut up now and have a cappuccino.

Bread

2010-02-16T08:58:00.005-03:30

Everyone in blog world seems to be all over the Artisan Bread/Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day books, and I get baking lust every time I see someone else's gorgeous photo of flour-dusted bread cooling on a rack, or in thick slices slathered with butter and honey. It used to be that Hubby C was prime bread baker in the household, but when we put Miss B on a gluten-free diet, it hardly seemed fair to be baking all this lovely bread she couldn't share. She loves bread. Total carb fiend. I've tried a bunch of gluten-free bread recipes, and I got into a good rhythm for a while, but Bear kind of disrupted that. So we've been buying these outrageously expensive frozen breads and English muffins for Miss B, and she likes them fine but given our financial status I just can't justify it.

From what I can garner, the gist of the books is that you prepare a whole whack of low-maintenance (i.e. no-knead) bread dough at the beginning of the week, and then you leave the dough in the fridge and bake loaf-sized portions as you need them. Process is minimal, fresh-baked deliciousness is maximal. I think this is brilliant. I plan to get my hands on Healthy Bread in Five, because it has a whole chapter on gluten-free baking.

I found this recipe via Gluten-Free Girl, and made it last night. Turned out fantastic. I halved the recipe to make two loaves - the loaves are small, just right for one person to have toast or a couple sandwiches over two days. Easy mixing, only a few ingredients, no frustration. There are about a bazillion comments on the cookbook's site if you want to make the bread and need a little guidance, but the whole thing seemed perfectly straightforward to me.

Now let's just hope Miss B likes it.

How sweet

2010-02-15T11:19:00.003-03:30

Well, all the hearts and pink and lovey stuff must have gotten to me. Saturday night before bed I made batter for a batch of buckwheat crepes, which I hardly ever make (despite how awesome they are, and despite the fact that I own a gorgeous cast-iron crepe pan). I used this recipe, but I ended up having to add a lot more liquid than the recipe called for, which resulted in a lot more batter, which means I now have a half dozen extra crepes in my freezer. Not complaining about that.

It being a day of ridiculous sweetness, we ate the crepes with chocolate spread and summer-picked wild raspberries, taken out of the freezer Saturday night and left to thaw with a sprinkling of sugar, so they made their own sweet-tart syrupy sauce without any cooking or stirring or anything. Hubby C went for a manly bacon-cheese-sour cream crepe filling, but Miss B and myself went for the sugar high.

Despite not really caring much about making Valentine's Day into a holiday, Hubby C and I ended up taking a rather romantic trip to the Paderno outlet in town, where they were having a sale. We had gift cards to spend, and we actually had a great time picking out some goodies that we would never normally buy for ourselves. I'll feature them in an upcoming post. For now, all I have to say is "crème brulée."

One thing we realized while out shopping for cooking gear, though, is that we really have pretty much everything we ever wanted for our kitchen. Now, our kitchen has hideous wallpaper, inadequate counter space, ugly knotty pine cabinetry (oh how I cannot wait to paint you, ugly cabinets!!), a laminate floor that shows every smudge and drip and spot and which I can't wait to some day replace, and a sink faucet that doesn't actually fit the sink, but in terms of pots, pans, and appliances, we're in great shape. I am blessed with excellent second-hand kitchen gear mojo. Flea markets, church sales, thrift stores, online classified ads: I take a glance through them, and suddenly enamel Dutch ovens and copper pots and cast iron pans and discontinued decorative cookie molds are just throwing themselves at me. I have the worst luck when it comes to thrifting clothes and shoes, but for kitchen gear, I'm tops. I must have been exceptionally kind to tinkers in a former life. Anyway, having a look at all these kitchen goodies, and realizing that we already had as good or better at home was very liberating. When you spend a lot of time on design blogs, it's easy to get swept up in kitchen envy. It's nice to know that the only thing keeping our kitchen from looking like one of those is that ours is stuck in the 1980s. Once we bust into the future (or at least the present), at least one room in my house will be very snazzy indeed.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-12T09:13:00.005-03:30

We've never done much to celebrate Valentine's Day here. It seems like it's a pretty big deal for the rest of the bloggy world, though. Maybe it's because many of the blogs I read are from the US, and maybe that's more of a Valentiney culture, or maybe it's because many of the blogs I read are by craftsy-types, and the thematic opportunities of Valentine's Day are pretty hard to pass up. I don't know. When I was a kid we exchanged valentine cards at school, and we probably had cookies or something, but I don't remember it being much of an event.

When Miss B was in day care, I had total Valentine's Day trauma. I was picking her up, the day before Valentine's Day, when I saw that they had all made their little Valentine's mailboxes and were eagerly waiting for the time to come when they could fill them. I can only imagine that a stricken expression came over my face when I realized that my kid was expected to bring in valentine cards for her whole day care group - kids whose names I didn't know, or who were only there on Wednesday mornings and whom I had never even seen, or whatever. It was already almost supper time. I had no car, there was nowhere remotely close to my house where I could buy cards, it was the middle of winter, and I was freaking out.

Freaking. Out.

See, it had never occurred to me that three-year-olds had a clue about Valentine's Day. As far as I was concerned, Valentine's Day was a celebration of the romantic, grown-up kind of love, where the partnered people might make one another a nice dinner or go out on a relatively schmancy date, and where single people like myself would curl up on the couch with a box of chocolates and a bottle of wine and watch Say Anything, shedding a tear over the Lloyd Doblers who got away. Um, for example.

What do children know of the complex matters of the heart? I had seen the "I Love Lisa" episode of The Simpsons about 30 times, but still, that's pretend.

In the end, I had to call a friend and have her drive me and Miss B to a drug store where the commercial valentine cards included the obnoxious (Dora the Explorer) and the insulting (Bratz) and the incomprehensible (Pokemon), but nothing generic or even half sensible. After throwing myself about in a fit for a while, I bought some construction paper and kept Miss B up way after her bedtime making her write her name (or, eventually, just "B") on pink and red slips of paper onto which we had potato-stamped some hearts. What could have been a nice mother-daughter craft project turned into a bit of a sweatshop. I'm still ashamed of my behaviour. Sometimes, when you feel like the worst mom at day care, you actually turn into the worst mom at day care.

The next day, when Miss B brought home her mailbox of valentine cards, the cards were all the same ones that I had rejected at the drug store the night before. Only one other child (the child of a friend of mine, of equally anti-commercial leanings) had home-made cards. Most of the cards were signed by the parents. Lots of them had candy attached. Miss B had some chocolates and was happy as anything.

Since then, I've recovered somewhat. We've always made our Valentine's Day cards, with some variation of pink-red-white potato stampage. I had been preparing to do the same this year, until Monday, when Miss B came downstairs from her room after school and announced, "Mom, I have my valentines done."

She had made them herself. Without any suggestions, assistance, or control-freakery from me. She used paper from her paper bin in the crafts closet, did each one the same but with a different coloured pencil, and spelled everyone's name from a list she had made at school that day.

They are absolutely perfect. My kid is awesome.

For my part, I did make some little cupcakes to send in for the party - gluten-free for Miss B, but I also made them egg-free because there is one boy in the class with an egg allergy. Do you know how much a shaker of red sprinkles costs at my grocery store? $4, people. Insane. I made my own by putting some chunky turbinado sugar in a jar, adding a drop of food colouring, putting the lid on and shaking it. I challenge anyone to tell the difference!

Miss B picked out her outfit days ago. She made a necklace from construction paper at my mom's house after school yesterday, based on a picture in a magazine. She insisted on looking very, very serious while I took her photo this morning. Then off she went, with her cards, her tray of cupcakes, and a big day of highly educational valentiney festivities ahead.

Celebrate the sensitive boy

2010-02-11T14:08:00.004-03:30

Every Monday, Miss B brings home an assortment of beginner books to read over the week. On Friday she has to bring in a "report" with the title of each book, a picture she's drawn, and an appropriately happy or unhappy face to indicate whether or not she liked the book.

Most of the time, the books are pretty awful - ugly illustrations or stock photos from the 1980s, uninspired narratives. I know, there's not a lot of nuance you can pack into a 12-page book meant to be read by a six-year-old. But still.

This week, though, she brought home a book called "Un ami" (A Friend) and it was just so sweet. I've decided to post it in its entirety, even though that's probably all kinds of copyright infringement. Somehow I don't think I'm going to get too much hassle over an educational French booklet from 1977 (but if I do, I'll take it down). I'll translate, for the sake of those of you whose grade-one French might be a little rusty.

Nicholas is coming home from school.

He is sad. He has lost his lunch box.

Nicholas goes to the park. He sits down on a bench.

He is crying. "Nicholas, Nicholas," calls Hugo.

"Look, I've found your lunch box." Nicholas runs to Hugo.

Nicholas hugs Hugo.

At first, I was just charmed by the weird layout and the flying lunch box and the desolate landscape of the park, and Nicholas's snappy overall-and-pageboy-cap outfit (and his little square book bag, it's so cute!). But what's really wonderful about it is that Nicholas is sad, he's having a crappy day, he sits down for a little cry (like you would), then his friend comes along - having found the lost lunch box - and Nicholas gives his friend a big hug. And there's nothing weird about it! Most of the time when you have a book with a boy crying, there's always this tone of, "Nicholas is crying because he's sad, now let's talk about how that's okay." Or if two boys hug, it's always, "Nicholas and Hugo are hugging, and that's nice, because everybody likes hugs, right?" Here, it's just taken for granted that crying and helping and hugging is what boys do, because they're people, that's what people do. Ah, how refreshing! And from 1977, no less.

Dress and doll and... boys

2010-02-09T13:35:00.003-03:30

I'll bet you've been just dying to find out what happened to the little dress I made for Craft Hope Haiti, right? Well, it was bought for a very sweet little girl... and the people who bought it are people I know! And, I was excited to learn, they actually live in my neighbourhood. In case you hadn't figured it out by now, St. John's is a fairly small city, and the community of artsy craftsy people is smaller yet, and we tend to gravitate toward certain areas of town.

So this morning I bundled up my little package and dropped it in the mailbox up the street and down the road.

If you think that package looks a bit puffy for just a dress, well, that's because I added a little extra present. See, the recipient is going to have some growing to do before it fits, so I made a little something to keep her occupied until then.

I made a snoozy Black Apple doll (from the Martha Stewart tutorial) with scrap fabric from the dress (and some soft flannel, and some felted sweater for hair). The pattern is super easy, although I should mention, if you are making one of these gals for the first time: add seam allowances! Those gangly little arms and legs don't leave much room for machine stitching. I was, of course, thinking this as I laid out the pattern, and I, of course, forgot in the 5 seconds between pinning and cutting. Honestly. Other than that, though, it's easy as pie.

I stitched on her sleepy eyes and her little smirk, because I don't trust myself with paint. I'm no great embroiderer, but I think she turned out pretty sweet.

Hey, did you notice the big smudgy bits in all the photos? I thought there was some gunk on my monitor while I was loading these, but it turns out that, no, some little small person got a hold of my camera and stuck some grubby little fingers all over my lens. Hrrrmmm.

On another, slightly less girly note, you may have heard by now that February has been declared Month of the Boy by super-crafty-blogger-types Dana (of MADE) and Rae (of Made by Rae), and they have been featuring some really cool tutorials for crafts for the wee guys in our lives. Not to go all gender-binary on you: I am sure there are loads of little boys who would love a huggable doll (as they should - how else are they going to learn how to be awesome dads?), and plenty of girls who go nuts for dinosaurs and excavation equipment (I know a bunch). But, by and large, the crafts-for-kids world tends to lean toward the pink and frilly, and, by and large, the boys in our culture tend to lean away from the pink and the frilly. The princesses get all the fun stuff. I imagine that this is probably because most of us who are craftsy moms are a little on the frilly side ourselves, and so we jump at the chance to frouf it up. But that's hardly fair to the denim-and-canvas set, now, is it?

In celebration of things boyish (and of her own little boy, Baby M, who is too cool for words), Tara at Mushy Peas is hosting a giveaway of one of her super awesome Munkehs! Yay! And you should all enter, even though that reduces the likelihood of my winning. I'll take that hit. Just look at this guy:

Oh, he just cracks me up! Tara will be doing a few more giveaways over the course of the month, so add her to your reader or follow her blog or do whatever it is you do to keep on top of these things.

And now I'm off to pick up one very girly girl from school. How she went from primary colours and gender-neutral everything to this is a mystery to me. Further proof that kids are born knowing who and what they are, and there's no sense trying to convince them otherwise. Luckily, pink is kind of growing on me.

Blizzard, cupcakes, presents

2010-02-08T16:43:00.006-03:30

It started snowing Thursday night, and it kept snowing all day Friday, and it was still snowing by noon on Saturday. A proper blizzard: even the shopping mall was closed on Friday, which is really saying something.

On Saturday, a friend of Miss B's came over to play and I made cupcakes for them to decorate. They opted for blue and neon green icing, naturally (or unnaturally, I suppose), and went nuts with the sprinkles. I actually like the green quite a lot. The two girls played in the snow, painted pictures, and played happily (more or less) all afternoon, and I could have forgotten they were here if they weren't so thumpy and laughy up there in the bedroom.

Sunday was another classmate's birthday. The classmate in question is a now-seven-year-old boy who continually surprises us with his mastery of the art of disguise. Hence the choice of gift:

The messenger bag is made from stash fabric. The black was picked up at a yard sale two summers ago, and the chartreuse is a heavy upholstery-weight cotton from an Ikea sofa cover. The mustaches and eye patch are from felted sweater scraps, with shirring thread for elastic. The present was a hit and, I am happy to say, involved no plastic at all. Hooray!

I don't always make gifts for Miss B's friends, but when they are kids I know, I can't really help myself. So far they've always appreciated it. There's a practical element to the whole thing: I don't drive, so getting out to any of the stores is a huge hassle and takes hours. Meanwhile, I have a sewing room bursting with fabric upstairs. Since my mother-in-law dropped a ton of stuff at my place after de-stashing her own sewing room, I even have super weird fabric that I can see no other use for than as strange gifts for various children. So I can either take three or four hours to go to the mall or wherever, during which time I have to find someone to watch my own kids, end up spending way more money than I should (a pregnant lady at the mall's gotta eat, you know), and usually end up frustrated beyond belief because I have no idea what kids other than Miss B are into these days. Who needs it?

So now, after a magical snowy weekend, it's back to work. I suspect I have a dreadful workweek ahead, if today's e-mail exchanges are any indication. Ack. Can't help but love the world of arts administration. Full-time work for half-time pay. Add into that the double-time work and no pay at all of parenting, and, well, I sure could use a vacation. From either one, really. Or both. That would be nice.

The Skirt of Ridiculous Ruffles

2010-02-04T09:52:00.006-03:30

So I had these maternity pants that were so ill-fitting they truly boggled the mind (or at least my mind, which is, I'll admit, somewhat boggled most of the time). For one thing, the elastic at the waist was this 3" band, let loose within a 3 1/2" casing, so it was all bunchy and useless. Why did I buy these pants? Well, they were grey, and soft, and I bought them when I was pregnant with Bear because they were on sale. We have all of one maternity shop in the entire province. The entire province, people, which includes two distinct, large land masses, and many wee islands. There are lots of pregnant ladies here, and we have virtually nowhere to shop. It's maddening.

One of the frustrating things about shopping for maternity clothes is that you have no idea what you are going to look like in six months, or in three months, or even in a week. The shops have these strap-on belly pillows, but they really do nothing to give you a sense of whether your mammoth gut will be high or low or wide or what, or whether your arse is going to double in size or disappear altogether. Never mind the bust-inflation issue. Gah.

Anyway, these pants never fit right during any part of my last pregnancy or the long postnatal still-can't-wear-normal-clothes period. So I made them into a skirt.

First, I anchored the elastic inside the casing with two rows of zigzag stitching around the waist. I unpicked the legs and the crotch seam like last time, then cut out the crotch curve and stitched everything down flat. Instead of doing a horizontal band to lengthen it, I used wedges from the legs and made a diagonal sort of effect (the back of the skirt is pretty much the same as the front). Then I realized that it was way too short, and I thought, "Well cool, I'll just add a ruffle." Because ruffles are all the rage these days, right? Yeah, well, I over-ruffled, the fabric was too stiff, the ruffle was too short to hang properly, I made the seam unnecessarily French, and all these factors combined to result in a ridiculous ruffle that sticks straight out.

I was going to take it off and come up with a new solution, but I was in a hurry to get out the door (I made this a few weeks ago), so I left it on, thinking that the ruffle might relax after a nice walk downtown. No such luck. Neither has it relaxed with washing. But I've grown kind of attached to it. I've worn this skirt a few times now, and it kind of makes me laugh. And people always comment on it. In a nice way. So I think I'll keep it the way it is, ridiculous as it may be.

I also made a top out of another jersey bedsheet. I always buy jersey sheets when I find them at the thrift store, because they're so soft and cottony. But then when I cut into them, I realize that they are completely wonky and parallelogram-shaped. Which is, I guess, why they end up at the thrift store in the first place. I end up having to cut things funny, and then the seams go kind of twisty. Then again, that's what everything from American Apparel and its ilk comes out like, so perhaps I'm just on top of the crappy-laying-out-of-pattern-pieces trend.

I used an old sweater for a template and chopped and stitched, no magic. Zigzag, mostly. Super comfy. I dig it. And it is neither black, brown, or grey, which makes for wild times in the closet.

Sweet Mother of Pearl, look at me. I look like a flippin' harp seal. And not one of those big-eyed fuzzy pups that the PETA crowd are always exploiting for fun and profit, either, but a big grey sluggy frigger, with a pointy little face, lolling about on the ice, barking up a racket and waiting for some sensible animal to come along and eat it. Honestly, I can't figure why people find seals so enchanting. But I digress. I look like a marine mammal. Three and a half more months of this. Send help.

Skills

2010-02-01T20:54:00.004-03:30

Bear: eating yogurt and being quite delighted about it.

Miss B: writing a story. It's called "Greta and the Full Moon."

As for me, I made this recipe in the slow cooker and it was awesome. It would be more awesome if it had been happy grass-fed beef (or happy woods-tromping moose) instead of sad grocery store beef, but there was a roast in the freezer that wanted cooking, and so there you go. I didn't have pomegranate juice, so I used some pomegranate molasses and topped it up with white wine. Approval all around. Miss B even had seconds.

Little boxes, little boxes

2010-02-01T09:01:00.005-03:30

So, remember my scary closet of craft supply hell? Well, folks, I have actually begun to get it under control. Miss B's artistic cravings can now be satisfied without having to dig for supplies through the world's scariest pastel-purple bedroom.

I had absolutely no cash to spend on doing this, but was luckily in possession of:

a large-ish, underutilized storage closet with shelves, hooks, and a light,
seven wooden clementine orange crates (and miscellaneous other containers),
white craft paint,
a tub of wallpaper adhesive,
an old curtain,
a roll of hockey tape,
a sharpie, and
a hanging shoe organizer (dropped off by my mother-in-law, bless her heart).

First of all, Hubby C sawed down the clementine crates to make the sides even - I had figured he could just zip through them with one of his power saws (yes, there are several), but apparently the crappiness of the wood/particle board meant that the saws just chewed the things to bits. So he used a hacksaw.

That's the wallpaper adhesive there in the tub. I used white paint to dull the print on the ends of the boxes, because the fabric I was using was a pretty loose weave and it would have shown through. The paint was leftover from decorating Miss B's room, and cost about a dollar.

I actually took some time to select the fabric I was using. You know how all those "keep your life organized" books and websites are always saying that you should create a sense of unity among your storage gear? Well, the other stuff from my mother in law was a neutral/unbleached cotton with red trim. The closest I could come was this neutral cotton with a line-drawn flower print, which was once a living room curtain, but it totally works. I painted on a pretty thick coat of the wallpaper glue and then slapped the fabric around it.

Here they are, drying. You can still see the staples and stuff, but, you know, I'm on a budget here.

I used hockey tape to cover the edges and label the crates. If you, like me, grew up more into books than body-checking, you may have spent much of your life oblivious to the awesomeness of hockey tape. I was first introduced to it by a friend when I was about fifteen. She was using it to patch a hole in her Chuck Taylors. How cool is that? It's a fabric tape, so it's very flexible, it's very sticky, and relatively inexpensive. Obviously it's available in colours other than pink (the pink is just because Canada is hell-bent on raising its girls to be as thuggish as its boys, and because the purported plague of childhood obesity is the new terrorism and people are freaking right out and making kids take gym twice as often as they take music... grrrr...). I labeled the boxes with a Sharpie, which was probably not the best choice, as it bled a little. Some day I might get a proper fabric pen and rewrite these (sure I will... sure...).

Now, will you look at that? How orderly can you get? It's remarkably difficult to get a photo of the inside of a closet, but bear with me. The shelves above these are being filled up with board games and puzzles, and below there's a bin of paper and a crate with notebooks and activity books.

The shoe organizer is hosting some squishy friends. I plan to make drawstring bags to hang on the hooks there, for blocks, Tinkertoy, that kind of stuff (the hooks are at kid height).

Miss B's easel hangs perfectly on the inside of the door. I don't think I properly showed this to you before: Miss B asked Santa for an easel this year, and he totally delivered. He even sub-contracted Hubby C to make it, but don't tell Miss B. Hubby C used a tutorial from the web, and if you're interested, I can find it for you. It's kid-sized, without looking like it's from a pre-school (important for the mature, more established six-year-old artist).

There are still a few things that need doing, but I'm making some major progress. I did throw out a garbage bag and a half of rubbish, and I set aside another full garbage bag of things to donate to next year's school bazaar. Although, depending how much stuff I accumulate over the next few months, I may give it to the first charity that comes knocking. It's a long time until next December.

What a week, what a week.

2010-01-29T10:26:00.002-03:30

Current pregnancy craving: apples. Must be very crisp and on the tart side. Also: curry. And sweets of all description, but that's nothing new. It was the same when I was pregnant with Bear. With Miss B, I had mad cravings for a certain popular variety of fried chicken, the purveyor of which goes by its initials so as to distract from the "fried" part. I would go in, order chicken - just chicken, no fries, no coleslaw - and an orange soda. Gack! I couldn't get enough. That, and toaster waffles. And ice cream. I was living in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories at the time, and I didn't have a freezer, so I would keep my waffles and ice cream in a bucket outside my shack, with a piece of wood over the top and a big rock on that, to keep the foxes out. True story.

It's been a crazy week. A dear friend of mine lost one of her parents to cancer on Monday, and it's been so terribly heartbreaking. This person was a very well-loved and well-respected member of the community, and was adored by all of us. I had no idea of the extent of the illness - the battle was kept quite private - and so it's been a real shock. I'm entering that age, now, when my peers are losing grandparents and parents with a greater and greater frequency. We're also having babies with greater frequency, and I know it's all this big circle of life thing, but that doesn't make it any less sad. January has been a month of loss for so many people I know. People are either losing family members or people they didn't know but whom they held dear - Kate McGarrigle, Paul Quarrington (with whom I was supposed to do a reading this spring - weird feeling, that), now J.D. Salinger. Lhasa, P.K. Page, Howard Zinn. All in one month. Just strange. I wonder what it means?

I went to the funeral yesterday, where on top of all the feelings of loss and sadness, I had to make my way through the mysterious rituals of Roman Catholicism as a completely ignorant heathen. I always feel like a knob at religious ceremonies, because I'm usually one of maybe three people who have no idea when to do the standing and the sitting and the kneeling, and there are all these bits where the priest says something and you say something back, and all that. But it was beautiful, once I stopped being so self-conscious. Incense and stained glass and a very sweet priest who said some really nice things, and flowers everywhere. Lovely music (even if I didn't know the words).

Incidentally, despite being an ignorant ass as to church protocol, I do have a degree in religious studies, with a Catholic studies minor, no less, it's just that I spent my time studying the minutiae of 17th century theology and various sorts of imagery in late-Renaissance poetry of conversion, rather than the ins and outs of the contemporary Catholic funeral mass. Ah, when theory meets practice.

At the same time, Hubby C and I have been preparing for a big board meeting at work, and there's been a seemingly infinite amount of paperwork to prepare. I love our little mom-and-pop literary journal shop, especially the parts where we get to sit around and talk about poetry, and plan exciting events, and dream big about upcoming issues of the journal. The financial statements and the workflow charts and the operations plans are considerably less fun, but they've got to be done, and we've been at them all week.

And so there's been no sewing, no crafts-closet-organizing, no baking, no adventuring, very little picture-taking. Lots of sniffling over sadness and hair-pulling over paperwork frustration, and the worst pork chops I've ever eaten (oh, the recipe promised big things, but they were empty, empty promises).