éireann

three good reasons to have a fluffy bum

2011-10-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

yesterday i talked about how we're potty-training and why my friends object to cloth diapering. if you're still not convinced to make the big switch, here's a couple more reasons:

1. cloth diapers are better for the environment. the cost example i used yesterday assumes 7,280 disposable diapers used over 2.5 years, the diapering life of MY child. that's a lot of diapers. according to the epa, it takes 450 years for a conventional disposable diaper to decompose... but that's just a guess, because disposable diapers have only been around for about 80 years. those 80-year-old diapers are still around, unfortunately. cloth diapers don't fill up landfills.

cloth diapers also don't leach contaminants into the ground. in addition to unflushed (and untreated) feces, disposable diapers are full of synthetic chemicals and materials. if/when those disposable diapers ever do decompose, those chemicals will be in our ground. the same ground that your water comes from, the same ground used to grow your food. ewwww.

2. cloth diapering supports responsible consumer practices. when you purchase cloth diapers, you are choosing to support a company committed to environmentally friendly practices. additionally, the choices for cloth diapers are pactically endless... whereas the choices for disposable diapers are largely limited to big corporations. you can support work-at-home mothers like myself, small businesses, or purchase your diapers from a local creator.

3. cloth diapering is cute. how can you resist this little bottom?

(see more cuteness at gdiapers.com!)

*please note, this is not an advertisement for gdiapers, nor am i affiliated with them in any way other than as an exceptionally satisfied customer. i haven't been compensated in any way by gdiapers... i just love them. there are tons of adorable cloth diapers on the market - choose your own cuteness!

four misconceptions about cloth diapering

2011-10-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

we're potty-training at my house, which strangely has me thinking about diapers and how i'm (oddly) going to miss them. probably because hannah's are so ridiculously cute, because we cloth diaper (CD). we're only one of a very few of our local friends who have CD'd "hardcore" for almost all of hannah's life - since she was 3 months old. our friends have many objections to cloth diapering, but they pretty much all boil down to these four.

1. i don't want to have to deal with poop. i don't either, but it's pretty much part of parenting. if you have a baby you are practically guaranteed to get pooped on and/or peed on at least once. it's pretty much a given that your baby will poop in the bathwater, and you'll have to fish it out. dealing with poop is part of parenting.

yes, i know that what parents are really saying is, i don't want to have to deal with poopy diapers. what they don't realize is, they still have to deal with poopy diapers. feces should not be disposed of into a landfill - it contaminates groundwater that way. a baby's poop should be disposed of in the toilet just like an adult's. and it's not like i'm grabbing poop off of my daughter's diapers with my bare hands. i have a diaper sprayer with which to spray off poop, so i don't ever have to "deal" with it. those poor disposable diaper parents, they don't have that tool.

2. cloth diapering is too much work. i've never understood this. when a disposable mama changes her baby, she takes off the old diaper, wipes the baby, puts on a fresh diaper, and drops the soiled diaper in the pail. my changing routine is exactly the same. the only difference is that my diapers get washed and re-used.

3. i don't want to do extra laundry. i don't want poop in my washing machine. cloth diapering is dirty. yes, cloth diapering does create additional laundry. at my house it's one additional load per week. and as i mentioned above, poop gets sprayed off the diapers and into the toilet... so i don't have any poop in my washing machine.

and by the way, because of all the rinse cycles and enzyme detergents and hothothot water, hannah's diapers are probably the cleanest things in our house. underwear doesn't get thrown away every time it's worn, but i guarantee your panties are not as clean as my daughter's diapers.

4. cloth diapering is too expensive. yes, cloth diapering is expensive... but disposables are more so. consider a sample diapering outlay over the past two and a half years, assuming 8 diaper changes per day:

- 6 small gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $102
- 10 medium gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $170
- 10 large gdiapers at $17 each (new) - $170
- 40 homemade soakers at $1.79 each - $72
- 30 cloth wipes at $12 per set of 10 - $36
- 2 diaper pail liners at $12 each - $24
- 2 wet bags at $12 per set of 2 - $12
- detergent, electricity, gas, and water usage for one additional load per week for 2.5 years - $75
total diapering cost - $661

this can be greatly reduced even by buying diapers used, if you're so inclined. for example, if you purchased all your gdiapers used at $10 each (instead of $17), your total diapering cost would drop to $479.

compare that to disposable diapers for 2.5 years, averaging 32 diapers per package (smaller size diapers have up to 40 per package, larger sizes around 27) and 70 wipes per package:

- 91 packages of diapers per year (8 changes per day = one package used every 4 days) at $9 per package (times 2.5 years) - $2,050
- 45 packages of wipes per year (one package used every 8 days) at $4.49 per package (times 2.5 years) - $505
- 10 boxes of diaper pail refill liners at $14.99 per box - $150
- waste disposal service increase at $5 per month for 2.5 years - $150
total diapering cost - $2,855

when we have a second child, our total diapering cost for that second child will be... $75. all we will have to pay to diaper our second child will be to run our washer and dryer, because we don't have to buy diapers, wipes, or diaper pail liners. if we had a second child in disposables, we would have to pay $2,855 again over the diapering life of the child.

additionally, i can resell my cloth diapers when we are finished with them. if i resold them all for only $8 each (half of the cost new), i'd make back $260. my total diapering cost for two children would have been my $661 initial outlay + $75 for my second child - $208 resale value recouped = $528.

you can't resell a used disposable diaper.

is all this enough to convince you to use cloth diapers? if cleanliness, ease of use, sanitary-ness, and cost savings aren't enough to convince you, i'll give you a few more reasons tomorrow.

garden lessons

2011-09-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

what i have learned in this summer of gardening:

- gardening is supremely frustrating. i have harvested exactly two tiny zucchinis and had to replant my indeterminate tomatoes twice before giving up and buying transplants that (finally) actually grew.
- one square of basil from seed (last year) is too little. four squares from transplants is an overabundance. next year: two squares, from transplants.
- also, four squares of lettuce is an overabundance. this fall: two.
- but there's nothing like fresh arugula.
- peas don't like heat. or something. mine all died.
- strawberries send out a lot of runners and take over. i think i'm going to build this.
- on that note, cucumbers also grow a.ton. next year, this.
- don't forget to label your garden, lest you forget what you planted. what i assumed was broccoli i discovered (too late) was actually cabbage.
- two squares of swiss chard is WAY too much. pulling up the second square was totally worth it.
- no need for two kinds of parsley. definite need for marjoram and tarragon.
- beans need to be trellised like crazy. WOW those suckers can grow. also, "pole" beans is a misnomer.
- corn was pretty much a waste of time.
- onions were totally worth it. so much so that they may get a (new) dedicated bed.
- tomato hornworms are pretty much the.most.vile.bug.ever. like, ever. (fortunately, they can be organically controlled with Btk. ON MY SHOPPING LIST.)
- sage pesto? amazing.
- also amazing: fresh tomatoes macerated in fresh chopped basil, chopped garlic, a spinkle of salt, and a dizzle of olive oil.
- best memories ever: working in the garden with my daughter, teaching her about plants, hunting for strawberries with her, and watching her savor a tomato fresh off the vine while juice and seeds run down her chin.

how to recover a g waistband

2011-09-27T12:54:00.001-07:00

we love gdiapers here at our house. hannah has been in them for well over two years, since she was 3 months old. they're a wonderfully versatile, an amazing company, and ridiculously cute. one of the things i love the most is how well they lend themselves to customization. one fun way to customize a gdiaper is to recover the waistband. this is also a great way to revitalize an otherwise sad, faded little gpant.

disclaimer: there are probably seven different methods to arrive at the same result (a covered waistband), so i apologize if mine is a bit roundabout and tricky. if you know of a faster, easier way to do this please let me know!

you will need one little gpant in whatever size your little one is wearing at the moment. you will also need ¼ to ½ yard of quilter's cotton in your choice of prints to match your little gpant. the amount of fabric you will need depends on the direction of you print (if any) and whether you need to center it or not. prewash your fabric, then cut two strips 3½" wide. one strip will be as long as the front elastic waistband plus ½"; the other will be as long as the back elastic waistband plus ½". using a seam ripper, remove the velcro and snap tabs from the waistband and set them aside. (i didn't keep the hook part of my velcro because it was in bad shape and i was replacing it with new, but normally you would keep the hook side as well.) you will be using ¼" seam allowances.

fold your diaper in half, and fold your fabric strips in half the short way. line up the folds and mark with a pin the point at which the diaper body ends.

fold the fabric strip in half the long way and pin; you will sew the fabric strip together, leaving open between the pins (where the body of the diaper will be).

sew the strip, then clip corners and turn it right-side out and press.

turn it back inside-out and pin in place along the inside of the diaper, with the ¼" seam allowance along the waistband. on the back of the diaper, slip two of the snap tabs between the fabric and the diaper. sew the fabric in place along the bottom of the waistband, stitching over the end of the snap tabs (make sure the snap tabs stay free so you can snap in your gpouch). turn it back right-side out, tucking the waistband elastic into the fabric tube, and press the seam flat.

smooth the fabric flat against the waistband so there is no excess on either side of the elastic, then pin in place along the outside of the diaper.

carefully topstitch the fabric opening closed along the body of the diaper, making sure the edge of the waistband is covered.

you're done! oh wait, you're not. sew the velcro back on, and your other two (front) snap tabs. if you're like me and forgot to sew the back snap tabs on when you did the fabric waistband, sew them on now. the hook side of the velcro goes toward the edge of the waistband, and the loop side goes toward the middle.

NOW you're done!

on this one, i actually wasn't done... i appliqued a monster face (copied from hobbymamma) onto the bum of the diaper also. (please excuse the teeth... i need to make love to my seam ripper and redo them, but i don't have the energy right now.)

happy halloween!

project roundup, or where in the world have i been?

2011-06-01T16:59:00.001-07:00

...which is kind of like playing where in the world is carmen sandiego?, only not nearly as fun.

i have a toddler now [holy moly, she is a toddler!] which means i'm basically working 24/7 and just not getting paid for it - except in kisses and cuddles, which makes up for it emotionally but does not buy groceries. my etsy shop is also not really buying groceries, because i'm not getting nearly that many sales - but i'm getting enough to keep me busy in the meantime. i've also become addicted to pinterest, which is becoming my new source of inspiration. one of my favorite pins is a blurb that says MORE IDEAS THAN TIME which has always been my life but is even more so now that i have pinterest. i built a second garden bed and planted it all up and now my kiddo steals strawberries whenever she has a chance. i'm also an occasional guest blogger over at public service beauty.

i made a quilt last fall for a friend's wedding, another log cabin quilt. this time i set it in a chevron pattern that i thought *i* would not really like (but hey, it's not about me) but surprisingly, i loved it.

then we came into a king-size box spring for free, so i found a bedframe on freecycle and rebuilt our bed. we had always had a slat-frame bed from ikea (no box spring needed), but i realized a year or so ago that ikea only sells eastern king-size beds... and we have a cal king mattress. no wonder the mattress was always tight and didn't quite fit perfectly. we didn't want to ditch the footboard and the mattress was 14 inches higher than it had been thanks to the extra-deep box spring... so i took it apart and "salvaged" what i could. i needed to mount the footboard onto the mounting brackets on the bedframe, which meant the headboard had to stand alone somehow - so i mounted it to the wall, with a couple 2x4s behind it so it wouldn't be set right up against the wall and look hotel-y. then, because we no longer had siderails on the bed, the comforter didn't come down far enough to conceal the sheets, so i made a new quilt.

hannah's gotten some new clothes, although i haven't done much sewing for myself lately. it's just so fun to sew kiddo things. i did make my dress for my sister's wedding last fall - i was the maid of honor and we wore dresses in the same color but all got to choose our own style. i couldn't find a dress i liked, so i designed one myself, drafted the pattern, and sewed it up... only to be told that it was slightly the wrong color (natural/ecru instead of champagne/blush). i was set to make another dress in fabric the correct color (i could have sworn i had the right color the first time, but i guess not) but thought i'd make a last-ditch effort and dye it. i'd never dyed anything before - but thank the good Lord, it worked beautifully and perfectly.

i used a polyester shantung, which i was concerned about being too sticky and hot so i lined it with unbleached muslin. i love muslin for just about everything, especially lining - it just washes up so soft and light and comfortable and is so inexpensive. [if i had known in the first place that i was getting the wrong color fabric, i would have gone with a silk duipioni, but oh well.] the muslin gave the shantung some needed body - without it, it would have just hung unflatteringly and shown every little lump and bump, and even two years post-baby there are still quite a few, unfortunately. the muslin provided a little bit of structure, and the empire waist and a-line skirt camoflaged other imperfections. i ended up making my own piping for under the bodice as well - ridiculously simple and such a nice touch. the neckline came out a bit low for my taste, but ohh well - i didn't feel like redoing it and it wasn't scandalous, SO.

i promise to be better about blogging from here on out! i have a fun tutorial up my sleeve too, courtesy of clothkeeper fabrics - you should definitely check out her shop! (rachel happens to be married to a high school friend, but still - gorgeous designer fabrics!) i'm pretty excited because i don't know that i've actually ever sewn with designer fabric, and what i'll be making will be SUPER cute, easy, and perfect for summer. AND, it's a big-girl thing - not for kiddos (unless your kiddos are big, of course) - so i can be a little selfish! yay!

sewing for kiddos!

2010-05-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

hannah has no shortage of clothes, and certainly no shortage of cute clothes. she probably has more clothes than i do. so of course, i needed to make her some more. because what if she ripped all those up and then had to go naked?? (maybe not such a bad thing... naked babies are awfully cute!)

kiddo clothes are FABULOUS. this might be my favorite sewing ever! they are fast and easy and there is virtually no fitting involved because kiddos don't have curves, and the curves they do have are generally fit with elastic. NICE. if you make something too big - OOPS - well, she'll grow into it. and you get to use all sorts of fun prints and do fun things that you'd never do for an adult.

i was not going to sew for her until she was bigger and everyone stopped by massive quantities of clothes for her... and then i found this beautiful paisley cotton. it's actually the same paisey as this dress, only in a different color scheme. besides the fabric, this was largely a free project as i had all the notions and the patterns came from my stash. my idea was light clothing that she could wear during the hot summer that would be easy mix-and-match.

most of the ensemble came from mccall's 5304 - that pattern gave me the hat, pink collared top, paisley top, paisley "capri" pants, denim cuffed shorts, and the bloomers for the dress. (the shorts are the capris just cut shorter with a contrasting cuff added.) the romper is an old discontinued mccall's pattern 8294, which i'm not 100% thrilled with - there's a lot of fullness at the sides and it looks kind of blousy and funny on her. it should be an easy fix except that i flat-felled all the seams with pink topstitching, so i have to pick out all that topstitching just to take in the seam and then re-topstitch it all.

the sundress and tunic came from another old discontinued pattern, butterick 4020. (the tunic was supposed to be a second sundress, but i cut it too short by accident.) the smallest size in that pattern is a 1 which is WAY too huge for her. i took in an inch on the front and back at the center fold - four inches total - and redrew the neckline to compensate. i also had to insert a keyhole placket in the back so it would fit over her head. i closed it with a small button and a loop of elastic.

remember how i had never done any applique-ing before? turns out kids' clothes look super cute with appliques. OF COURSE THEY DO. one of those patches on the romper is an actual pocket, but the rest are appliques, as is the heart on the tunic. and while my vintage elna doesn't do embroidery per se, it does have some fun stitches that look really cute on kiddo clothes.

speaking of embroidery and appliques, check this out!

that's the leg of a set of overall shorts that i made for a girlfriend's son's first birthday. they'll be too big for him now but he can grow into them. here's the overalls in their entirety (along with the little tee shirt i made to go with them).

i found a local embroidery shop that was willing to do my small little order, so i had the back of them embroidered as well. i wanted to do the words curling out of the back of the car like exhaust, but that would have taken more time and money and effort than i was willing to put in. this was really reasonable ($6!) especially given that everything else in this project except for the green buttons came from my stash, so it was free. the pattern was butterick 3961 (old, discontinued) though the car applique i harvested from the mccall's romper pattern.

i love these so much that i almost wish hannah were a boy, so she could wear them. who says boy clothes aren't fun?!

busy like a bee

2010-05-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

wow. blogging seems to be just one of those things that has fallen off the table. this whole parenting thing sure takes a lot of time and energy. sheesh.

hannah turned one! ohmygosh, i am the mother of a toddler now. the original plan was to make a little cake for her to smash on her birthday, and then get a cake for her party a few days later. sam's club does small (6-inch?) cakes with "matching" cupcakes, which i thought was awesome because i wouldn't have to cut and serve cake. then - on the day of her birthday, good planning, mom! - i decided to see if i could manage cake decorating. as in, fancy cake decorating. as in, buttercream and piping (well, not much) and fondant and gum paste.

please note: i have never. ever. EVER. decorated a cake before.

but... there are bigger idiots than me who decorate cakes, right? (exhibit a: cake wrecks. i couldn't do much worse than that, right?) i mean, i'm a reasonably intelligent person and relatively crafty.

in the end it was actually surprisingly easy. (see, bigger idiots than me can do it too!) i did cheat and used store-bought fondant and gum paste mix (and i actually even cheated and used a buttercream icing mix so that i didn't have to make a separate trip to the grocery store). i picked everything up at joann's (though i hear this stuff is cheaper at wal-mart) as well as gel color and a small set of cookie cutters.

i was kind of scared to use fondant, but it was easy. maybe it gets a bad reputation because it is difficult to make? you just roll it out like pie dough, roll it over the cake (which gets pre-frosted with buttercream so the fondant will stick), and smooth it down and trim off the excess. the only problem i had was smoothing it down at the base of the cake, which is why there are small gathers... which i kind of think looks cute anyways.

the flowers, butterflies, and leaves are made of gum paste. after i made the mix, i just kneaded in a little bit of gel color and then rolled it out flat like cookie dough. i used the flower and butterfly cookie cutters to stamp out those shapes and cut the leaves with a knife. i used the end of a toothpick to make the veins in the leaves and the little slashes on the petals. i molded the flowers around a large rounded frosting tip and set them to dry on the tips of a bottle drying rack, and twisted and molded the leaves and set them on the counter to dry. the butterflies i just bent in half and set them over an accordion-pleated piece of cardstock to dry.

i piped a little bit of green buttercream frosting around the bottom edge in a squiggle to cover up my messy trimming job and to give the flowers and such a place to stick. when the gum paste decorations were dry, i used a little buttercream to "glue" them in place, piping in the "centers" of the flowers, and piped the writing on the top. i think i need to practice my writing a bit.

now that i know better, i should have used royal icing to glue on the decorations. apparently the fat in buttercream makes the gum paste soften. it wasn't so bad with the flowers, but by the next day the butterfly on the top had fallen flat. oh, well.

i was so impressed with myself that i decided hannah was not allowed to touch the cake until her party. that way i didn't have to buy a cake, and we just baked cupcakes to go with them.

for the cupcakes, i just made a bunch of extra gum paste decorations. i filled a frosting bag up with buttercream and cut the tip off so there was a relatively generous hole and piped it on in a spiral. it was really easy to do. then i stuck the decorations on. the night before, i had also piped a bunch of little buttercream flowers for the butterfly cupcakes. i piped them onto a wax-paper-lined cookie sheet and let them dry, then "glued" them on with buttercream.

brian's birthday is next month, so i am planning to try my hand at cake decorating again. this was pretty easy and fun and i was very happy with the results, so hopefully brian's cake will be fabulous too!

what have you been up to lately?

2010 to-do list: the duvet issue

2010-03-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

ohmygosh, my sister is getting married!!!

okay, whew. now that i have that out of the way and i can breathe again (i am SO excited!!), here's my latest project: snaps on the guest room duvet. i can check something else off my 2010 to-do list. it didn't end up exactly how i had envision it, but i like this better, i think.

the goal was to sew ties into the corners of the guest room duvet and then buttonholes into the comforter itself, so the ties could be threaded through the buttonholes and the comforter wouldn't shift around in the duvet. this is one of my biggest pet peeves and i picked up that little trick from martha stewart years ago and filed it away in my mind, and ever since i upcycled my old twin comforter this has been on my list of things to do. but then, my mom went and bought herself a snap press and didn't love it as much as she thought she would. it's on extended loan at my house right now and very handy. i mean, who doesn't love a snap?

first, i set the male end of the snap onto a piece of sturdy grosgrain ribbon and then snipped it so i had a little snapped tab. then i sewed it into the duvet.

(blogger is not letting me upload pictures, or else you could see what i did. i know, snaps are SO EXCITING, you're all dying for photos. take it up with google.)

then i set the female end of the snap directly onto the comforter itself. the comforter gets snapped to the little tabs, and stays in place. the tabs give the comforter a little bit of movement while still keeping it in place. there are four tabs in the guest room duvet (two at the top and two at the sides near the top). i love this so much, i ended up putting tabs into two of the master bedroom duvets as well.

in other news, i've been on a spring cleaning/organization tear. i built a workbench in the garage (more on that later) and hung shelves in my laundry room and in the guest room closet. i took an entire trunkful of ~~crap~~ stuff to goodwill and made $100 selling some other stuff on craigslist. my current project is fabric organization: i discovered when cleaning out that (GASP) i have WAYYYY too much fabric. i never thought those words would ever cross my lips, but there it is. so sometime this week we shall see how much fabric i can part with, and it'll go up on the etsy shop, and maybe i'll make a little more money. fingers crossed.

now, go congratulate my sister!

magazine rack

2010-03-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

every year around this time, all the fantasy baseball magazines come out, and brian has to buy them all. every single one. most of them live in the magazine basket in the downstairs bathroom, but one or two or four inevitably migrate upstairs into the water closet in our master bath. generally they live on the floor until the following year (because you can't discard them once the season is over, because... um... well, i'm not really sure why) although sometimes they manage to hop up onto the back of the toilet and compete for space with the reed diffuser, which generally loses and finds its way up onto the windowsill.

i hate this migration. with a passion. it is so messy and cluttery and annoying and everything is always in my way. besides, i'm not really sure what we need with FOURTEEN baseball magazines, but he would probably same the same thing about my closetful of fabric. which everyone knows is a necessity because what if the power went out during a snowstorm, HOW WOULD WE STAY WARM.

but i digress. here is the point of all this ranting and rambling:

yes folks, i built that! this weekend! i had been looking for months for a small, wall-mounted, wooden magazine rack, but everything i found was either too office-y or in the ballpark of $39 and up. for a magazine rack. to hold magazines. glossy, bound, pieces of paper with pictures and writing that only cost $4.95.

this cost me $4. four dollars.

let me repeat that: FOUR DOLLARS. AMERICAN.

i built it out of primed mdf trim that i picked up at home depot, and a dowel that i cut to size. the trim is sold by the linear foot for something like 69c/lf. i don't know, that might be expensive when it comes to baseboards for an entire house, but since i only needed 3-4 feet, it was great for me. i slipped a piece of quarter-round into the bottom so the magazines wouldn't slide out the front, and the dowel pieces are slipped into little holes i drilled into the sides. a little glue and some tiny nails from my staple/nail gun, and some spackle to fill in the cracks, and i was ready to paint it. i would have preferred wood stained to match our cabinetry, but i don't have the tools or skills to make anything pretty enough to be stained. the paint is touch-up paint for our trim, so it goes with the house perfectly.

i am so ridiculously proud of this. i want to sit in my bathroom forever just to look at it.

this is my parents' legacy to me, and hopefully to hannah also: if you can't find what you want, then just build it, sew it, scrap it, knit it, craft it, cook it, bake it, make it.

fake mousse yummy thing

2010-02-22T20:36:00.001-08:00

i have no idea what this is called and unfortunately i don't have a photo of it, but trust me when i say it is a bowl of delicious goodness. it is a dessert, kind of like a mousse, but fruity and so easy as to be cheating. has anyone made this and know what it is called? i got the recipe from a girlfriend, who referred to it as "that jello-pudding-fruit yummy thing."

1 package vanilla cook-and-serve pudding mix
1 package sugar-free fruit jell-o (flavor is your choice)
1 tub light cool-whip
chopped or sliced fruit

the pudding mix and jell-o packages need to be the same size. if you use a small package of each, you would use the small (8 oz.) tub of cool-whip. if you use a large package of pudding and jall-o, you would use the larger (16 oz.) tub of cool whip. i used one 12 oz. package of frozen berries when i made this with the large packages of pudding and jell-o, but i think in the future i'd use two. there was not enough fruit in it. you can also use canned fruit, but be sure to drain it first.

substitute water for milk (amount is according to pudding mix) and bring to a boil. stir in the pudding mix and the jell-o mix, remove from heat, and allow to cool but not set. fold in cool-whip, and then fold in fruit. chill.

i made mine with mixed berries and raspberry jell-o; i had it originally with strawberry jell-o and sliced strawberries. my girlfriend makes hers usually with lime jell-o and canned pineapple. it really is fabulous. i can't stop eating it.

my very own farm box!

2010-02-18T17:34:00.000-08:00

one of the things on my 2010 to-do list was fill the planter box with dirt and plant a garden. well, it's finally happened! okay, the garden itself is not planted, but everything is ready to go for it and it WILL be planted in a couple weeks.

i decided to do square foot gardening because i had read that the garden stays virtually weed-free and that you can get a LOT of produce out of a small space. i did my garden on the cheap, though. you can spend a lot of money through that website, but i am not a devoted follower so i didn't. i filled the planter box with a mixture of compost, a few bags of garden soil picked up on the cheap from our local nursery, and some free sandy dirt that i found on craigslist.

then it was time to make my squares. according to mel, the grid is what makes square foot gardening work. i think it helps to keep you visually and mentally organized. i used household string and a staple gun to make my grid. i plan to plant two squares of swiss chard, two squares of bell peppers, two squares of zucchini, and two squares of indeterminate tomatoes across the back. in the front squares, i have planned a square of regular parsley, a square of italian parsley, two squares of basil, a square of thyme, a square of chives, and two squares of carrots.

i started my plants from seed. i bought a humidity dome (cheap) and some peat pellets. carrots, zucchini, and peppers will be sown directly into the soil, but everything else was started in here. i also started some roma tomatoes, to go in a large pot on our patio. romas make a bush instead of a vine, so they will be nicer in the pot than in the bed crowding out other plants, and they will look pretty when they are caged.

i also needed a trellis for the peppers, tomatoes, and zucchini. i was going to buy some, but my father suggested building one would be cheaper. for about $6 in lumber, this is what i built.

i used 2x2 furring strips for the main vertical pieces, and 1x2 furring strips for the cross-brace and side braces. then i cut small notches on the outside every 12 inches, and wrapped garden wire around the vertical pieces, in the notches. the trellis does not go all the way across the box because i only need it for six squares (two each of tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini) and also because it would block the guest bedroom window.

see those little rectangles in the front of my box? those are my labels! originally i wanted to use large popsicle sticks or wooden tongue depressors, but the craft store was out of them. these are 2x3-inch wooden rectangles that i found in the wooden craft aisle of the craft store. they were 29c each and i only needed eight (seven for here and one for my pot of romas). i wrote the names of the plants on them with a permanent marker and then tacked them on with the staple gun. i think they will be easy to pry off next year. the one for the romas i will glue to a skewer or something so it can be stuck in the dirt of the pot.

in a couple of weeks my seedlings will be ready to be hardened off and planted in the box, and then i will have to start the long impatient wait until i can harvest. i have been learning a lot about gardening, more than i ever thought was possible!

2010 to-do list: in progress

2010-02-17T11:40:00.001-08:00

i have been a bad blogger lately. i'm sorry. often i feel that there is not much interesting going on around here. we have been getting our farm boxes, and i love them still. and i am trying to make some very positive changes in my life.

one of the biggest changes i am trying to make is to be more disciplined. since that is kind of a vague goal, i defined it somewhat in my 2010 to-do list (aka new year's resolutions). specifically, i said i wanted to create and maintain a household management schedule and plan meals weekly and keep our grocery bill down. (i know "down" sounds kind of nebulous too, but trust me, there is a dollar amount attached to it as well.) so far i have been succeeding at both though i am hesitant to cross them off the list as "done" just yet. it's still early in the year.

my household management schedule was pretty simple. i am basically an overgrown five-year-old, and i like getting gold stars when i do things. so i made myself a chore chart and broke it down by day. this is what my week looks like:

monday: indoor chores
- wash sheets
- sweep tile
- mop tile
- vacuum
- clean toilets
- clean bathroom sinks
- clean upstairs shower (the others get used very rarely)
- dust
- bring in garbage cans
- water plants

tuesday: outdoor chores
- mow lawns
- trim roses
- pull weeds
- edge lawns
- sweep front porch
- sweep garage
- spa chemicals

wednesday:
- laundry
- iron brian's work shirts
- menu-planning/grocery list
- pick up csa box

thursday:
- grocery shopping

it became a lot more manageable when i realized that "running" the house is really just a lot of little tiny chores. cleaning the house is this huge big thing and where do you even start, but how long does scrubbing a toilet really take. i pull a bucketful of weeds each week, and they stay under control and i don't break my back. this way i also have three days "off" at the end of the week, when my chores are all done, though lately i've been doing my grocery shopping on wednesdays while we're out getting the csa box, so i've been getting four off days, which came in handy when the lawn was too wet to mow last tuesday.

getting the csa box is also forcing me to be more disciplined. we are eating healthier and i am forced to plan meals and shop with a grocery list, which is keeping our grocery bill down. it's still not under my target budget, but i'm working on that. i feel guilty letting all that good food go to waste (although we have gotten butternut squash four weeks in a row and while i like it, i'm getting kind of tired of it), so i have to plan for it. otherwise what would i have done with the turnips that were in last week's box, because we don't eat turnips on a regular basis. i have to plan for something to do with them.

so that is how i am doing on my new year's resolutions, so far. one of my other resolutions, to plant a garden, is coming along quite nicely and i will have pictures to share soon. i'm pretty excited about it. how are your new year's resolutions panning out?

yumyumgeekyum

2010-01-29T20:57:00.000-08:00

i think i'm kind of geeking out on the whole farm box thing. i love it more than words can say. it's kind of ridiculous. wednesdays are now one of my favorite days of the week, because we go get the farm box that day. tuesdays are also exciting because i get to find out what will be in the farm box that day. kind of lame, i know, but that's me.

this week we got collard greens, dumpling squash, broccoli, leeks, potatoes, a celery root, and navel oranges. we were also supposed to get some cayenne peppers, but there were none in our box. i looked in one of the other boxes and they were in a small bag, so i guess i could have taken a different box and gotten some, but i ~~am a total wuss~~ don't eat spicy stuff so it wasn't really a loss to me. i wouldn't really know what to do with them anyway, because apparently according to the scoville scale they're pretty hot, only a step or two down from habaneros, and what do you do with a pepper that hot?

the collards got braised with bacon and were so. good. i just love collards, and pretty much any green. (i have not yet developed a taste for kale though i have tried hard because i know it is so good for you, sigh.) there is also potato-leek soup in our future, of course. i'm such a foodie, i know. it's ridiculous.

in other news, i got all my chores done this week, every single last one of them! crazy, but this is an accomplishment for me. generally there are one or two things i let go until the next week, or the week after that, or... . this week, i did everything. this is part of my goals for this year. it's kind of silly how i made myself do it, i'll yap about that later, but the important thing is I DID IT. i'm going to go give myself a treat now.

today's farm box

2010-01-20T15:13:00.000-08:00

i am so deliciously excited for what we got today:

carrots, red leaf lettuce, two heads of cabbage, three oranges, green garlic, a butternut squash, red chard, and a large bunch of arugula. we were in san diego last week visiting family and my mother sent me home with another butternut squash, so now there is one for hannah and one for us, which means we are all lucky.

i'm pretty sure i'm getting my $17 worth each week. (plus, i just paid in advance for three months instead of paying monthly, which brings my weekly cost down to $16.50. hooray!) and this week, we did not even get lost. we had a bit of an adventure picking up our first box two weeks ago, but this week i was an old pro and got us there just fine. it even stopped raining long enough for us to get the box no problem.

as jenny mentioned a while back, one of my hopes in joining a csa is that we would be putting a bit more variety onto our dinner table. one thing we got in our last box that i never buy is a celery root (celeriac). i used it once before in a root vegetable soup. i brought it down to san diego with me and my mother, uncle, and i all sampled it raw. we jokingly called it a "celery carrot" because it tastes like celery, but has the texture of a carrot. we ended up dicing it, steaming it, and then sauteing it with other vegetables and tossing it with pasta, olive oil, and cheese. yum!

fresh from the farm

2010-01-06T18:53:00.000-08:00

we joined a csa, and got our first box today! if you don't know already, csa stands for community-supported agriculture. we pay a fee each [week, in our case] to the farm and in return get a box of seasonal produce. the one we joined is called full belly farm, which i just love. this is what we got for our first box:

carrots, broccoli, beets, onions, celery root, and mandarins. the mandarins were THE BEST i have ever tasted. ohmyheaven they were good. yes, they are gone now. there was also a good-sized butternut squash that i forgot to put in the picture.

we have a recipe (two actually) from the farm for a couple yummy soups that use the celery root. i am looking forward to that. the beets though... i'm a bit perplexed there. good thing there are only three. i am not particularly fond of beets. i did find a recipe for roasted pesto beets, so we'll see.

yum.

2010-01-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

hopefully hannah will be like me and love fruit desserts and such, because i made this blueberry pudding cake for breakfast on new year's day and would like it to become a tradition. brian is not big on fruit stuff. on the other hand, even if she doesn't, it just means more for me, and it is not difficult for me to eat the entire thing all by myself. over the course of a couple days, obviously, what kind of glutton do you take me for?

this is so insanely delicious and easy too. and the best part is, it is all stuff i always have in my house. well, not the whole milk, but i just use 1%. i usually have frozen blueberries on hand for smoothies, and that is pretty much the only "strange" ingredient. i found this recipe a couple years ago in an issue of gourmet magazine, i think, and oh my heavens is it ever good. yum yum yum.

blueberry pudding cake
serves 6-8 (breakfast or dessert)

1/3 c. plus ½ c. sugar
¼ c. water
1 T. lemon juice
1 tsp. cornstarch
10 oz. blueberries (2 c.)
1 c. flour
1¾ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
½ c. whole milk
1 stick (½ c.) butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla

preheat oven to 375º and butter a 9-inch square baking pan. in a saucepan, stir together 1/3 c. sugar with water, lemon juice, and cornstarch, then stir in blueberries. bring to a simmer, then simmer 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. remove from heat. whisk together egg, milk, butter, and vanilla in a large bowl. whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining ½ c. sugar, then stir into the wet ingredients, whisking until just combined. spoon batter into the baking pan, spreading evenly. pour blueberry mixture evenly over batter; berries will sink. bake until a knife inserted into the center of the cake portion comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes. cool 5 minutes.

* my note: i might cut the sugar in the cake portion down to 1/3 c. in the future. it seems a bit sweet to me, almost overwhelmingly so, but not really in a bad way.

2010 to-do list

2009-12-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

i did not get a fish for christmas. (YET.) but we did have a lovely wonderful week with visiting family, yummy food, sparkly lights, and lots of love. and i did get two new books that i have been dying to read. books always make me happy. one can never go wrong with books.

i sewed a bunch of reusable produce bags for christmas gifts this year. stupidly, i did not take photos of them before i boxed them up and gave them as gifts. i hope everyone loves them as much as i do. i did regular muslin bags for dry produce and a mesh bag for small things like green beans, snap peas, or cherries. they were made out of a polyester athletic mesh so one can rinse the produce through the bag. i also made wet bags out of a silicone-impregnated ripstop nylon. that stuff was a bear to sew on. it was practically lighter than air (each bag ended up weighing just over half an ounce after the tie at the top was threaded in) and slippery as all get-out. ripstop is slippery anyways, but the silicone made it even more so. and i did not want to stick pins in it for fear of making holes. oy.

as 2009 comes to a close i have been reflecting a bit on the past twelve months. it has been a good year, and in some ways a not good one. i did not accomplish everything on my to-do list nor did i make a sizeable enough dent in it to be able to feel proud of what i did. namely, i have struggled with enjoying being a mother and that disappoints me. on the other hand, if i did not tick off even half of everything on my list, it is partly because i have been using my time to raise a happy, healthy, beautiful daughter whom i do adore.

in 2010 i will be making changes in my life. big ones, i hope. i need to be learning to not take on too much, to be content with what i have been given, to be kinder to those i love when i am not feeling kind. currently the etsy shop is closed, and it will remain closed for the time being until i can figure out how to manage the shop without allowing it to take over my spare time. until then, i am creating a new to-do list for 2010, one that will be printed out and posted where i can see it daily to remind myself of my goals for this year:

- create and maintain a household management schedule
- fill the planter box with dirt and plant a garden
- manage the etsy shop without allowing it to take over my life
- create and maintain a system for dealing with the paper/mail/crap that comes into the house and collects in the kitchen (yeah, this one didn't get done last year)
- sew buttonholes into the guest room comforter and ties for the duvet
- hang "artwork" in the guest room
- finish the quilt for the master bedroom
- start (and finish!) kerry's quilt
- take swim classes with hannah this summer
- replace the toilet seat in the upstairs bathroom
- find a good church and start going regularly again
- give myself regular pedicures
- finish out the door frame in the upstairs bathroom
- move the "decor store" to the unused cabinet above the fridge
- create and maintain a healthy, reasonable exercise routine (yeah, this one didn't get done last year either)
- get hannah baptized/christened/dedicated
- plan meals weekly and keep our grocery bill down
- take the pacific northwest road trip with my husband and daughter
- support, encourage, and love my husband
- enjoy being a mother

the one thing notably missing from my 2010 to-do list is one that i have not yet decided on. kerry wants me to run a half-marathon with her in march. i am not a runner and have not run since about high school when i was required to for pe class. i detest running, so training for this half-marathon would be a tremedous undertaking on my part. i want to do it, partly as a point of pride. i would like to be able to say i did it, and maybe i would come to enjoy it. stranger things have happened. on the other hand, i don't know if it is reasonable to commit to training for a half-marathon with an almost-8-month-old baby. i know others do, but on the other hand others are not necessarily starting from scratch in the running department along with everything else. thoughts?

i think santa might bring me a fish this year

2009-12-08T23:26:00.001-08:00

because i have been really wanting one for a long time. a betta. a girl betta. (because for some reason they are cheaper?) in a bowl with some sort of mesh lid on top so that the cat won't eat it. brian keeps nixing the idea, has for years, but a fish is so innocuous, and i almost bought one today when i saw how cheap they were at petco when i was getting kitty litter. all things considered it would only be like $20-25 to kit it out.

i'd name her finley. i love that.

she might mysteriously show up under the tree. or maybe in my stocking. would that be strange to find a fish in my stocking?

gobble gobble

2009-11-26T10:57:00.001-08:00

i am thankful for so much more than just three things this year, but right off the top of my head i can think that i am thankful for:

1. my family, especially my fabulous husband who works so hard to provide for us (especially now that i am a sahm), and especially my beautiful daughter, even after she was up twice last night and took two hours to go back to sleep the second time. i am also thankful for my extended family whom i do not get to see as often as i would like, especially my grandfather who has lymphoma but is still here to celebrate another holiday with us.

2. our home, our beautiful home. i am acutely aware of money now that i am unemployed, and cringe a little inwardly every time i see the mortgage statement come in the mail, even though i know that brian manages our money responsibly and well and that we are not in danger of losing our home. i love this house and everything about it and i love making it a home for my family.

3. not having to cook thanksgiving dinner this year! i am so very uninspired this year and i think the kiddo is partly to blame for that and was not looking forward to the idea of cooking a big meal. brian has to work today (unfortunately) so that he can be off for christmas, so our thanksgiving dinner guests will consist of: me, him, and hannah. hannah has a little jar of baby turkey to try for the first time and brian is bringing home a plate of turkey dinner from his chef for each of us, so we can at least have a little celebration together. so no cooking and we don't even have to spend the grocery money either. win win.

have a happy and safe thanksgiving! what are you thankful for this year?

babyproofing

2009-11-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

for some reason i am inordinately proud of these:

that's my soaping cabinet. it's next to my refrigerator in the kitchen, a lower cabinet. it contains all the soaping supplies i use on a regular basis - herbs, colorants, oils, soap scraps. tools that could hurt The Kiddo. glass bottles that could break. essential oils and fragrance oils that could be fatal if ingested. sodium hydroxide - LYE - that will destroy her skin if she touches it. we have latches for all our cabinet drawers and lower doors, but i wanted something sturdier for the soaping cabinet. something with a key.

those are just cabinet locks that i picked up in the latches section of home depot, the same area where you would find those little locks that go on window frames. they have a flat or offset piece in the back that swings across the cabinet frame, blocking the door, and they are pretty darn strong. the same kind of thing you'd find on a filing cabinet in your office. for some reason i was a bit put off by this project but decided to just dive in and do it, and it ended up being very simple. i traced the frame on the back of the door (so i knew where the frame hit the door) and then marked where i wanted the lock. i drilled a hole the size of the lock completely through the door, then diassembled the lock, fit it into the hole, and reassembled it in the hole. the concept is the same as installing a new door handle.

also, i should have checked but ended up completely lucking out - the locks are sold individually but the two i grabbed off the rack ended up taking the same key. the package does note on the back which key they use (ours was something like # 21233). i don't know why i didn't think to make sure when i bought them because it would have been a massive pain in the butt if i had to use one key to get into the left side and a different key to get into the right side.

cross-posted at baby stenz

diaper sprayer tutorial

2009-11-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

it seems the new thing for me to learn these days is plumbing repairs. first the toilet in the upstairs bathroom was leaking. i discovered a huge puddle of water and it turned out that the connector that attaches the toilet supply line (the tube that runs from the water pipe in the wall to the toilet tank) was broken. for some reason this repair seemed awfully daunting at first, but it was simply a matter of picking up a new supply line ($6) from home depot, unscrewing the old one, and screwing the new one on.

my latest project was actually not a repair. i built myself a diaper sprayer! it was insanely easy, and i am so ridiculously proud of myself. we started tk on solids two weeks ago and her diapers have become a bit more solid as well. since she is in cloth diapers, we don't get to just throw away her mess and swooshing her soakers in the toilet bowl was just not working for me. a friend had suggested i could make my own very inexpensively. it cost me about $25 to make; apparently you can buy them for about twice the price and i'm thinking the only difference is that those might look a little more streamlined.

this one is from pottypail.com. it retails for $34 plus $6 s&h and you still have to do some assembly/installation. mine was cheaper and required minimal additional effort.

i actually did not use jaimey's instructions, i just could not understand them. sorry jaimey! the general idea is about the same though (i think) and there is a great video tutorial here. first, shut off the water at the main valve behind the toilet, and flush the toilet once or twice to drain the tank. then disconnect the supply line from the tank and the water pipe. you will need a flexible supply line to install your diaper sprayer; you might have to look for a toilet in your home that has a flexible line. i put ours in the upstairs bathroom closest to hannah's room.

you will need two 3/8" barb adapters; one 3/8" x 3/8" x 3/8" tee barb connector; five 1/4" - 5/8" hose clamps; one kitchen sprayer assembly; and one ball valve. the ball valve should be either 1/4" or 3/8", depending on the size of the threaded end (MIP) of the barb adapters. i got 1/4" because the 3/8" valve looked bulkier. also, you may want to measure your toilet supply line to be sure that you don't need a 1/2" tee barb connector, but apparently only about 5% of homes in america have 1/2" connectors.

you will also need a hacksaw or a small hand saw, a couple monkey wrenches or a set of crescent wrenches, a screwdriver for the hose clamps (usually flathead), and some teflon tape. you might also want a hook to hang the sprayer on the wall; i just used a large cup hook that i bent a bit more open with a pair of pliers. i thought about taking pictures while i was making this, but i was so excited to get it done that i just did it.

using a hacksaw, cut the supply line in half. cut the fitting end off the kitchen sprayer assembly as close as possible to the fitting (you want as much tubing as possible), and then cut the tubing again about six inches down from the spray nozzle. you will end up with a spray nozzle with a short bit of tubing attached, and a long piece of tubing with nothing on either end.

slide a loosened hose clamp onto one of the supply line pieces, then work one end of the tee barb into the hose. do the same for the other side of the supply line and tighten the clamps with the screwdriver.

wrap the threaded ends of the barb adapters with teflon tape, then slide a loosened hose clamp onto the tubing attached to the spray nozzle. work the barb end of one adapter into the tubing, then tighten the clamp. do the same for one end of the rest of the tubing, then slide a hose clamp onto the other end, work it onto the third end of the tee barb, and tighten the clamp.

screw one end of the ball valve onto one of the threaded ends of the barb adapters in the sprayer tubing and tighten with the wrenches. you will need two wrenches, one to hold the tubing and one to tighten the valve. do the same to connect the other end of the ball valve to the sprayer tubing.

now your assembly is complete and you just need to reinstall your jury-rigged supply line back onto the water line and the toilet tank.

turn the water back on a little and open the valve, then spray the sprayer. you will probably need to play with the valve to see how much water pressure you need to spray your diapers.

the purpose of the ball valve is to prevent constant water pressue on the kitchen sprayer. the sprayer is just plastic and i did not want anything in the sprayer to fail and cause a flood. when the red lever is sticking out, the valve is closed; i just line up the lever with the tubing to open the valve and "turn on" the sprayer.

you can see i just screwed that mug hook into the wall to hold the sprayer. apparently this is also good for rinsing kiddos while they are taking a bath, though the water is not heated so i don't see why you'd want to spray your kids with freezing cold water. personally i think this will also be awesome for spraying down the tub/shower when i'm cleaning it.

all total this project took me about twenty minutes from start to finish.

i know it isn't a huge thing, building and installing this sprayer, but if you would like to come to my house and marvel at my handiwork you're more than welcome to!!

update: i used it for the first time today and it works GREAT!! yay! also, i was thinking - this is a very easy thing to take with you if you move. just shut off the water to the toilet, take off the jury-rigged supply line/sprayer assembly, and reinstall a new (uncut) supply line. you could also easily install one in an apartment, just like you would your favorite showerhead.

still here.

2009-11-03T11:33:00.000-08:00

it's been a busy month, and i keep meaning to post, and it's not that i don't have anything to post about, i just keep forgetting. i guess this is what happens when your plate is maybe a bit too full?

i made our halloween costumes this year which i generally do though i have not made any in a couple years, just recycled the old ones. i have a stash of stuff that can make a pirate wench, a princess, or a gypsy. this year we wanted to do family costumes so there was much discussion regarding what we were going to be. someone in our family is not very creative and kept shooting down all the creative ideas from someone else, who granted is not as clever as this girl. in the end the kiddo ended up being a pumpkin.

of course, after i had purchased the pumpkin costume for hannah, kerry suggested a bunch of cute things. like, brian could be a polar bear, and i could be a penguin, and hannah could be a fish. the food chain! she also suggested that brian and i could be some sort of insects and hannah could be a grub. MY BABY IS NOT A GRUB thank you very much. i thought it would be clever if hannah was a pumpkin, brian was a frog, and i was a witch, but no one else seemed to think that was as amusing as i did. in the end we were just a jack-o-family.

i was not in love with our costumes though i guess they turned out cute. brian said he looked gay in his costume even though he got to be the scary pumpkin. i used felt for everything and after much ribbing from my sister, gave up looking for a pattern and made up one myself. basically they are just pullovers that i copied from old tee shirts, lined with tulle and stuffed with fiberfill with an elastic casing at the bottom. this was also my first attempt at applique-ing anything and i'm happy with the way the faces turned out. i used wonder-under first, i don't know if that is how appliques are usually done but that is how i did it. after i fused the felt face pieces on i zigzagged the edges. i used my walking foot for these costumes and really, i don't know how i've lived my life without it. i use it for so many things now.

i realized too late that we should have dressed hannah up like this (costume borrowed from a friend for a photo):

and brian could have been a gorilla and i could have been a monkey. HANNAH BANANA!! my good ideas always come a day late.

we also had a huge storm a couple weeks ago, the first of the season. it was hugely rainy and impossibly windy and almost all of the trees around here still had their leaves, including the beautiful japanese maple that was in our front yard. (it actually looks rather pathetic in that picture, which must be insanely old too, because the tree was quite a bit bigger than that.) i came home from work that afternoon to find this:

of course, it didn't even touch the pathetic, ugly tree that is also in our front yard, in a strange spot way too close to the rosebushes. i would have been happy to lose that tree. my husband was a champ and cut up the tree into pieces and even dug out the stump, which left us with a giant hole in the yard, two weeks before halloween when tons of children ignore the walkway and tramp up our lawn.

lawsuit, begone!

i don't know what we will do now that halloween is over. probably fill in the hole with some turf builder on top, though there has been talk of putting a pumpkin in it for thanksgiving and a snowman for christmas and making it a theme hole. we are also those people who take their baby to a rock concert. don't you wish we could be YOUR neighbors?

i am now a sahm officially - i quit my job because half of my income was going right back out the door to daycare, which sucks. technically i was let go as my boss changed my quit into a discharge the week before my last day, which is technically legal but in my humble opinion kind of jerk-ish of him, so i'm glad to be out of there.

i have also been working like a crazy girl on the etsy shop. there is a ton of cool stuff up if i do say so myself, go check it out! i am still ridiculously excited about it, and i even made a couple custom halloween costumes. also, i am going to be a vendor! how exciting is that! it's a super-tiny event - mil is a legal secretary, and they always have a couple vendors at their local annual dinner, and she got me a table. there will only be around 30 people in attendance, but the table was free (no vendor fee), and i don't have to share a percentage of my sales, so anything i make from this is gravy. it's in two weeks, and i am ridiculously excited, and we will even have tee shirts, if i can get some iron-on transfer paper that actually works!

more soap photos

2009-10-07T10:57:00.001-07:00

more batches of soap:

holiday spice - apple-y with nutmeg essential oil and bits of cinnamon bark, yum!

lime & clary sage, kind of a unisex scent and one of my favorites. the citrus from the lime is tempered by the earthiness of the clary sage.

this coffee soap was a special order for candice, though there is another batch to make as i have more orders for it. at first i was not very thrilled with it (similar to the oatmeal, milk & honey soap) but as it cures it is getting better and better and is really growing on me. i really hope candice likes it!

thankful thursday

2009-10-01T16:11:00.000-07:00

it's not that i'm no longer thankful, it's just that i have a baby and sometimes forget to blog about what i am thankful for. i have a lot that i am grateful for, much more than can fit here. this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband, who is AWESOME and won his competition at work, which is AWESOME, and i am so proud of him. he works very hard not only to be a good provider for our family, but also to do his job well and help his company thrive. he's amazing and i love him.

2. my sister, who came to visit me this afternoon and spend time with The Kiddo, who was a bit fussy. i always wish we lived closer. thanks for letting her borrow you car, andy, i do appreciate it!!

3. soap and soap orders! i am so ridiculously excited about this. and good heavens they all look so much prettier than i ever expected. i made lime & clary sage soap yesterday and holiday spice today (pictures soon) and i just love them, and my house smells heavenly from the holiday spice scent as well - apples and a bit of nutmeg. YUM.

soap bubbles

2009-09-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

i've been soaping up a storm lately, kind of in preparation for christmas, also because i have orders coming in!! i'm so excited, i cannot even tell you. (thank you, jess!) it all started because my mom "ordered" 20 bars earlier in the year, to give as christmas gifts for her teachers, and it's snowballed into this huge wonderful selling thing, and now i'm thinking i might as well put it up on the etsy shop. soap would fit in nicely with my random assortment of craftiness there, don't you think?

anyone else who might be interested in buying some, email me (estensler[at]comcast[dot]net) and i'll send you the email about the soap. in the meantime, here is the fun i've been having (with even more to do!):

oatmeal, milk & honey (same as this one)

hawaiian sand - a blend of bramble berry's matcha green tea, plumeria, and cybilla's vanilla vanilla, with almond meal swirled into it

gentle me - the baby soap

cool mint - a blend of peppermint, spearmint, rosemary, and fir needle essential oils. i was initially unhappy that the swirl did not come out as i had intended (i had hoped for a more vibrant, contrasting green and blue) but i like the subtlety.

clean & green - a blend of bramble berry's zucchini flower and lettuce fragrances, with calendula petals. the scent is a lot prettier than i had thought it would be.

buttermilk lavender castile - the very same

sunshine - because everyone always loves this one

if i put them up on the etsy shop, i haven't decided if i'll also put up the cedar & saffron soap that i made before the kiddo was born. i have a lot of it left over and the smell is pretty heavenly (in a masculine sort of way). the color turned out fantabulous imho, but i used a bit too much colorant i think, because the lather is sort of reddish-brown from the pigment. it doesn't turn your skin colors or anything so it isn't a problem, but it could make people think twice about continuing to use it. we'll see.

in other news, i love fall not only because the weather will change soon and i'll get to pull out my cozy sweaters in lovely rich colors, but also because the roses in front of my house go nuts this time of year. i have no idea what to do with them but i must be doing something (nothing) right, because they keep on blooming. occasionally i go out and hack them back and chop off the dead ones, and the pretty ones come into the house and into a vase with a bit of everything else in the yard.

two kinds of roses, day lilies, a branch from the mulberry tree (i think?), some pittosporum, some eugenia, even some rosemary. mmmm!

giveaway!

2009-09-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

sorry, it's not mine. but! i thought i'd send kelly some blog love. she's finally back after a busy summer, so go check her out. while you're there, don't forget to enter her giveaway. she's giving away two beautiful, handmade reuseable shopping bags, so go visit!

meal planning

2009-09-13T11:25:00.001-07:00

i'm sitting on my sofa with my five favorite cookbooks spread out around me, planning our meals for the week so i can plan my grocery list for this afternoon's shopping. i had not previously been a huge meal-planner, and i'm not quite sure why. i'm making the effort now in order to save us money on our grocery bill, and i really like knowing that when i come home from work, i don't have to rack my brain trying to figure out what to make for dinner (baked chicken again? with rice or pasta?) or whether or not we have the ingredients for it.

the other thing i'm really enjoying about meal-planning is that it is encouraging me (and brian, by extension) to try new recipes that we may have otherwise overlooked. i have a bit of a cookbook obsession - there's forty-five of them on my kitchen shelves. FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS. no, i am not kidding. would you believe that i want more? there's a couple that i am currently coveting, but when you already have FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS you try to hold off on indulging that particular obsession because your husband might throw you and your cookbooks out if you bring another one home.

FORTY-FIVE COOKBOOKS. that does not include my five binders full of recipes handed down from family and friends and torn out of magazines. so, there are a lot of yummy recipes to try each week. of course, there are a few trusted standbys. joy of cooking, of course - i refer to it as the kitchen bible. rachael ray's 2, 4, 6, 8, because everything in there is pretty much guaranteed to get dinner on the table quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and the larger recipes are easy to adapt to two people. any of my cooking light cookbooks - i especially like this one - for guilt-free cooking that still tastes good. i love julia child's french chef cookbook though most of her recipes are "weekend" food, not weeknight cooking. williams-sonoma puts out beautiful cookbooks with gorgeous photos and delicious recipes. the chicken cookbook and the pasta cookbook are definite go-tos in my house. and my all-time favorite dessert cookbook, butter sugar flour eggs - just the book itself is so beautiful as to be lust-inducing.

what are your favorite cookbooks? what should i be looking to purchase next? do tell!

cannot live without my sewing machine.

2009-09-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

it's been a busy week or so over here at our house. fortunately it's also been rather warm, so i don't feel guilty sitting inside and sewing instead of being out and enjoying all that sunshine. imho it's hard to enjoy a nice day when you're standing in a puddle of sweat.

the keema alu i made last week was WONDERFUL. so delicious and quite simple and cheap. i think brian was less than impressed however, and definitely less than impressed with my dal. nor did he want to go out for indian food when it was suggested as a possible activity at some point in the future. well, oh well. we might anyways, because sometimes we do things i want to do too. i took a picture of the whole delicious dinner but i can't find it now, sorry.

my package arrived and oh, how i love getting packages in the mail and new toys to play with. i was very surprised, the zorb is like felt. i am not sure what i was expecting, but. the diapermaker lining jersey reminded me of sports jerseys, only not mesh. i also got a half yard of organic french terry, which was a super splurge and i must say i'm not sure i'm thrilled with french terry. i used all of this to make washable soakers for the kiddo's diapers and i L.O.V.E. them. i used two layers of zorb (i think even three might be better) sandwiched between a layer of lining jersey and a layer of french terry; the jersey goes against her bottom, of course, to wick away the moisture. even though it is like felt, the zorb is not stiff, which was the problem with using only terrycloth - i had to use three or four layers to make it absorbent enough, and then the soakers were so stiff it was like putting a mattress between my baby's legs. no thanks. a walking foot (which i have since purchased) would have made making the soakers so much easier, but oh well, she's only going to pee on them. i got 13 out of $23 worth of fabric which comes out to $1.79 each. w00t!

i've also been sewing up a storm, sort of for the new etsy shop. alice's sexy kitchen set was a huge hit at the bridal shower and with the bride herself, and one of her friends asked me if i would be willing to make her some aprons and potholders to give as gifts. i said yes on the condition that i could use the pictures to start the etsy shop, and lo, she ordered four sets! the aprons are all finished as are half of the potholders; the other half are waiting on insul-brite which the fabric store has been out of lately. i am ridiculously excited about the etsy shop and really hoping this takes off, if only to support my sewing/fabric habit. also, my sewing machine? is my mother's old elna, which she received as a high-school graduation gift. 42 years ago. it has been in pretty much continuous, daily use since the day she got it. it's a wonderful machine... but it's old. she had to have the foot pedal replaced a couple years ago, and her repairman told her that it was getting harder and harder to find parts for it and there would come a point where he would not be able to repair it. currently the clutch is slipping a little, but it's only mildly annoying and not preventing me from working. but... brian has been informed that when the elna dies, we will need to buy a new sewing machine, and with the way i sew, a $100 singer from target is not going to cut it. (no offense to anyone who owns a $100 singer from target.) this will be a MAJOR purchase, on the order of $1500-3000, and not something that can be delayed for long after the elna dies. so if the etsy shop takes off, it will help ease the financial pain of buying a new machine, which means i will [hopefully] be able to get a more fun machine that does lots of fancy stitches and embroidery.

also, if the etsy shop takes off? i am SO getting one of these. and then one of these, because making bias tape? is the bane of my existence.

check me out!

2009-09-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

finally, at long last, i've set myself up an etsy shop! it's something i've been meaning to do, and i'm so excited now that i have. there's only a couple things up right now, more to come, but head on over to hannah's toybox and check me out!

keema alu

2009-08-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

my job situation is a little funky at the moment, so i did some recon in our freezer before going to the grocery store today. we have a very full freezer and really, i ought to be using that stuff before buying more food anyway. i guess i have this kind of depression mentality passed down from my grandmother via my mother... grandma and mom always had VERY full pantries, so it feels strange to me when ours gets "low," which really isn't low by any normal person's standards. like, there is nothing to eat because we only have 8 cans of tomatoes and 4 cans of corn and a bunch of pasta but no sauce and NO OLIVES, ohmygod what are we going to do without olives.

anyway, i found some ground beef and wondered what in the world i could do with it besides the usual: burritos, meatloaf, tamale pie, jury-rigged stroganoff. i looked through joy of cooking and found this recipe, and MAN if it doesn't ever sound good, and i generally have all these ingredients on hand anyway. apparently, it is traditionally served with dal, raita, and pita bread. YUM. we're definitely having this tomorrow night for dinner (tonight is ham with black-eyed peas and collard greens, yum!) so i'll let you know how it turned out.

keema alu (ground beef with potatoes and spices)
serves 4

3 T. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. grated peeled fresh ginger
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. turmeric
¼ tsp. ground red pepper, or to taste
1 lb. ground beed or turkey
½ c. chopped canned tomatoes, drained, plus 1 T. juice
¾ tsp. salt
12 oz. boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
1 c. water
2 T. chopped fresh cilantro
1 fresh serrano or jalapeño pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips (optional)

heat oil over medium-high heat in a large heavy skillet; cook onion until golden brown, 5-7 minutes. add garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, turmeric, and ground red pepper, and cook quickly, stirring just until well mixed. stir in beef, tomatoes, and salt; cook until meat is no logner pink and liquid is all evaporated, leaving the meat to sizzle in the oil, 8-10 minutes. stir in potatoes and cook for 2 minutes. add water. cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the potatoes are tender, 15-20 minutes. uncover, increase heat, and cook until all the water is evaporated. taste and adjust seasonings. sprinkle with cilantro and pepper strips, if desired. serve with pita bread, dal, and raita.

i'm getting a box soon!

2009-08-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

very excited to be getting some of this and this to make soakers for hannah's gdiapers. the only problem is, my serger had to go in to the repair shop. and though it is now out of the repair shop, it is sitting at my mother's house. 500 miles away. zigzag, here we come!

anyone tried using that zorb fabric or know anything about it?

freesewing

2009-08-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

i'm making up a new word. freesewing. it's similar to upcycling, but the difference is that you're making something new from new materials, not reusing old ones. in freesewing, you cannot have purchased anything to make the item (fabric, pattern, and trims) except for notions. fabric you use, if you purchased it, must have been purchased at least 12 months ago. long enough ago that you probably won't ever get around to that project you had originally planned for it. (although, i did once use fabric for its intended purpose, ten years later - this dress that i wore to a friend's wedding in 2007.)

freesewing is more like this blouse or this blouse or even this blouse. this weekend's projects were more upcycling than freesewing, but i just wanted to get that out there.

first i cut down and recreated a tee shirt. i generally don't wear those oversize, unisex tee shirts; i just don't like how i look in them. so i cut them down if i care enough. this one is a promo shirt from last fall's life campaign at work. i'm welcome to wear it on casual fridays but i never had. (partly because i got knocked up, but still.) so for a year it just hung in my closet taking up space. it wasn't even a painting shirt.

now it is something i'll actually wear on casual fridays. i've also done this with old tees of brian's that i like and are still in good condition. for example, this giants tee:

total cost to me: $0.

i also made this little blanket for hannah. we've been hauling her nice quilt to mommy group each week, but it's kind of big. and because i take it back up to her room each week, sometimes i forget to bring it altogether. i know, i'm a bad mommy. what kind of mother forgets to bring her daughter's blanket to mommy group? one who hates her child, OBVIOUSLY. so this one is a small convenient size and i can just keep it in the car.

we had received these cute receiving blankets as a gift, but we just had so many blankets. i tried to return them but babies r us would not take them back. said they didn't carry them. LIARS. so i took them home, washed them, and hoped we'd use them. we didn't. and now here is where brian says my snob is showing: do you see how much those COST?? all they are is a piece of flannel with the edges serged. man, i should sell those. i could make me a killing. each of those i bet cost the company no more than $1 to make, and they sell them for $15 for four. ROBBERY, I TELL YOU. i could make better blankets for cheaper. so i did. her blanket is two of those pieces of flannel with a leftover piece of batting from alice's wedding quilt, quilted randomly, and bound with strips from a third blanket. total cost to me: $0.

now, what do i do with the fourth blanket? more burpies?

childhood memories

2009-08-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

the owl and the pussycat went to sea
in a beautiful pea-green boat.
they took some honey and plenty of money,
tied up in a five-pound note.
puss said to the owl, "you elegant fowl,
how charmingly sweet you sing.
so let us be married, too long we have tarried!
but what shall we do for a ring?"
they sailed away for a year and a day
to the land where the bong-trees grow.
and there in the wood a piggy-wig stood
with a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose -
with a ring at the end of his nose.

"dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling, your ring?"
said the piggy, "i will."
so they took it away and were married next day
by the turkey who lives on the hill.
they dined on mince and slices of quince
which they ate with a runcible spoon,
and hand in hand on the edge of the sand
they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon -
they danced by the light of the moon.

edward lear, "the owl and the pussycat" (1871)

did not fall off the face of the earth

2009-08-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

instead, had a baby. said baby takes a lot of energy that could otherwise be devoted to blogging.

this month has been a bit of a busy one so far. the kiddo had her first overnight stay with nana while brian and i celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary, and she and i took her first big trip away when we went to san diego for a week to marry off my best friend. we're refinancing our house and i start back to work on september 1, so we have all the day care paperwork to deal with and i'm trying to enjoy my last days of freedom (and clean the house while i actually have the time). i will blog again, i promise.

update: it was the pattern after all.

2009-08-03T13:16:00.001-07:00

thanks to elizabeth's comment the other day, i checked out pattern review to see what other people were saying about that dress i made. lo, i had already signed up for pattern review. how do i forget these things? i guess i am signed up for so darn many websites that it's easy to forget. it seems like everyone wants you to sign up (it's free!) just to access their content. only, you'd think i'd remember something like pattern review. and it's not like i signed up 86 billion years ago and hadn't used it since. it was only a couple months ago. oh wait. I HAD A BABY IN THE MEANTIME, that's where my brain went.

anyway, the reviews all pretty much had the same beefs i did. the bodice is insanely low, strange construction, and entirely too large. good to know i'm not nuts. the other thing i noticed that others commented on (but i did not post about) is how huge the skirt is. it is also gathered, which makes it a bit poofy. i had my reservations about doing the skirt that way instead of some sort of a-line, but this is what happens when you don't listen to yourself. you get a somewhat poofy, somewhat maternity-ish skirt. did i mention that they also removed my brain when they took hannah out of me?

all this to say, i still like the dress well enough to wear it to the bridal shower next sunday, and when do i get my brain back? oh, and sign up.

wherein the seam ripper gets quite a workout

2009-07-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

either the pattern is off or it's me, and i'm choosing to believe it's the pattern. i made this cute sundress, butterick # 5181, the first garment i have tried to fit to my new post-baby body. i measured (i have a 39" bust?? how and when did that happen?) and GOOD LORD I AM A SIZE 14 according to the pattern. i've never been a 14 in my life. no offense to anyone who is a 14. it was just a shock to me... up until a few years ago i had always been a 10, and most recently a 12. well, i thought, it must be that little bit of baby weight that's left over and the breastfeeding boobs. did i mention how strangely mondo they are?

i fell in love with that beautiful paisley cotton a couple weeks ago at the fabric store and have been coveting it ever since, and finally treated myself to some to make this dress. the pattern said "easy" and it was, incredibly simplistic, i think i got this done in one morning though it might have been two if the kiddo didn't nap well. the bodice is a bit scandalously low, i will definitely be wearing a cami with this, and i love the raised waistband as i have a very long torso and appreciate anything that gives the impression of a more balanced body and longer legs. HOWEVER i would definitely make some changes if/when i make it again (which i kind of hope to do in that vintage-looking black-and-tan floral):

first off, the skirt is a bit short for my taste. it hits right above my knee. i've been known to wear skirts that short and shorter (see: anything i wore in high school or college) but lately i prefer skirts to hit just below the knee. i think 3-4 inches additional on the skirt panel would do it.

also, the construction was just plain strange, and i still cannot figure out why the directions called for it to be constructed the way it was. the bodice is fully lined, which is always nicer than a facing of course. so you line the bodice, all right, no problem, turn it, press, and then the directions say to understitch as far as possible. say what? true, in the past i have not been a fan of understitching, but it helps keep the lining (or facings) from rolling so i generally always do it. i just could not figure out how to understitch the lining after i had turned it, with those [relatively] narrow shoulders. i tried but it was so much swearing. in the future i would attach the lining at the neck, understitch, and THEN attach the lining at the armscye and turn. it just isn't possible (that i can see) to understitch both, and i'd rather the neckline be done than the armscye.

then there was the attachment of that midriff band. the bodice is lined with batiste, but the midriff band calls for two pieces to be cut - one for the outside and one for the inside/lining. huh? why not just cut one from the batiste lining? that would save money, feel nicer against the skin, and (not always a concern, but i like it) look nicer on the inside. the band was attached by sandwiching the bodice pieces between the two (inner and outer) midriff pieces, instead of the traditional lining method (basically, making a second garment and sewing it into the outer garment). granted, i'm not sure how i would attach it differently, because the right and left bodice pieces were separate, not lapped over each other or stitched together, but it sure made it difficult to insert an invisible zipper, because i like to encase my zipper between the fabric and the lining so the stiff edges of the zipper tape don't rub. and it looks nicer.

the way the midriff band was attached also made the dress difficult to alter. i thought it had properly fit the pattern to my body before i cut it out, but it turns out i'm NOT a 14 after all (!), i'm still a 12. the dress was too big and i had to go back and rip out most of the bodice so i could take in the side seams. usually this isn't too difficult but the way the bodice was encased in the midriff band made it so that i had to rip everything out. but - now it fits, albeit a bit short. i'm thinking i may remedy that with a band of the paisley fabric attached to the brown, what do you think?

(with my alterations, i think the fabric amounts should be: 2 yards fabric (45"), ¾ yard contrast (45"), and ¾ yard batiste or voile [lining].)

aruba part 1

2009-07-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

we did not leave for our honeymoon immediately after our wedding; instead, we left at the end of the week. (we got married on a sunday but did not leave until the following saturday.) brian had to go in to work for two days during that week which kind of sucked, but i was off work and used the time to write thank you notes and just enjoy being a brand-new-newlywed. and then saturday came and we were off to aruba!

we had a week booked at the caribbean palm village resort starting on saturday august 7, so we took the red-eye out of san francisco on friday night. you can't fly directly to aruba from the west coast, so we flew into jfk in new york and from there headed down to aruba. we arrived early saturday afternoon and stepped out of the airport into the balmy, breezy caribbean air. fabulous! we spent that afternoon unpacking and relaxing by the pool before we went to dinner at the resort's italian restaurant, valentino's.

the next day we slathered on the sunscreen (aruba is in the tropics, so the sun is stronger and we didn't want to burn) and headed into downtown oranjestad, the capital city. aruba is a small island of only about 110,000 people, and oranjestad is pretty much the only town of interest. the other "towns" (like noord, where we stayed) are really tiny hamlets, and are scattered around the island's southwest half. the southwest half of the island is pretty, developed, and the beaches are white sand and sheltered from the pounding waves of the sea. the water is warm, turquoise, and calm, like a giant bathtub.

on the pier at king's beach

the next afternoon we took a submarine tour of aruba's coast. we saw a couple shipwrecks, common because the populated southwest shore is so shallow. (the calm, clear water, shipwrecks, and abundant sea life all make for great snorkeling and diving as well.) neither of us had ever been on a real submarine before - the ride at disneyland doesn't count! the captain even settled the submarine down on the ocean floor. it was very neat being under the sea, knowing that it wasn't a theatrical ride tethered to a track along the bottom.

we visited two shipwrecks in the submarine. because the water off aruba's populated coast is so shallow, numerous ships have wrecked there.

the next day we headed back into oranjestad - we were taking a heli-tour of the island! again, neither of us had ever been in a helicopter either, and we didn't know what to expect. i'm not a huge fan of flying and was terrified for the first ten minutes, but i finally relaxed enough to enjoy the ride. our pilot, christian, took us over the barren northeast coast, whetting our appetite to see more of aruba.

with our pilot christian, before i gave myself a heart attack

oranjestad from the air

the natural bridge, on the northest coast

after our heli-tour we explored downtown oranjestad. pretty much every day in aruba is around 85° with a cool ocean breeze - in other words, perfect and perfect for strolling. we had lunch on the marina (and maybe enjoyed some yummy aruban beer) and then went out to see what we could see. downtown aruba is pretty small and quite walkable, and there were a few historic sights for us history lovers.

lg smith boulevard, downtown o'stad

caribbean colors in downtown o'stad

iguanas are a protected species in aruba, so they're everywhere. there are four in this photo. though they are protected, they are also a delicacy, and we were told if we wanted to sample some iguana soup, there was this guy down on the beach...

jan henrik, one of aruba's prime ministers

brian thought queen wilhelmina was pretty hot

not a professional

2009-07-14T09:16:00.000-07:00

i try to find time most days to get some sewing done or put in some time on a project. i don't think it is a secret that i'm happiest when i have a project and i fervently believe that taking care of me means i can be a better wife and mommy. brian also seems to understand this and often lately handles TK (the kiddo) so i can sew and thereby reset myself back into my happy place.

my latest project has been alice's bridal shower gift. i finished her wedding gift a while back and then had to figure out what to do for her bridal shower. lingerie was (kind of) out as she had requested a recipe/words of wisdom shower and was kind of nervous about being embarrassed in front of some older family members. i still wanted to do lingerie though (she gave me a SCANDALOUS red nothing for my bridal shower, in front of my lutheran grandmother) and i had to find a yummy recipe. this is what i came up with:

it's a play on my dinners-in-a-bag, only this one is a "sexy breakfast." my recipe of choice was these delicious waffles, only i called them "baby give me more" waffles. i also put in a recipe for "mmm i love that" berry syrup to drizzle on top. i found a cute sort of vintage-looking bra and panties set (i love the boyshort-cut of those panties) and some inexpensive but lovely bamboo spoons. and then i made that cute vintage-y apron, hot pads (they are supposed to be heart-shaped, but my sewing turned out a bit wonky there), and matching dishtowels. high heels not included. can you see where i am going with this?

the only problem is, i love it so much. i love that black and tan floral, and i love the giant rickrack. i love half-aprons, and i love the black and tan polka dot fabric that is the tie on the apron. [secret note to kerry: i actually got it for your quilt, but then it matched perfectly with the floral so i used a little for alice. but it was yours first.] it's also the bias binding on the towels and hot pads, which i love. i found insulated cloth for the hot pads and i love that i used it. i love the color of the towels. i do not want to give this up.

incidentally (if you were wondering) this is the reason i generally do not sew for other people. friends often ask why i don't sell the things i sew, and this is why: i'm way too selfish.

another heart calls

2009-07-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. disability insurance.

2. my sewing machine, not that i have the free time anymore to use it as much as i'd like.

3. hannah, who giggles and coos in her sleep sometimes when i am holding her, waiting for her to be asleep enough to put her in her crib so i can sneak away and, i don't know, pee, or eat. (this kid firmly exercises her constitutional right to protest when i put her down. yes, protest. she does not do it peacefully.) those giggles and coos are the cutest. thing. EVER.

not fit to be called woman

2009-07-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

my bridesmaid shoes just arrived and i love them. LOVE. THEM. it has been so long since i treated myself to a new pair of shoes that getting these was like a hit of cocaine. or something, i don't know, i've never done a drug in my life. except that one time, in college.

i tried them on and discovered something else: that it has been so long since i've worn any kind of heel (let alone a 3-inch one) that i was wobbly and teetering. i have to re-learn how to walk in heels.

i'm sorry, ladies. i'm an embarrassment to you all.

rockpaperscissors giveaway

2009-07-03T15:59:00.000-07:00

rockpaperscissors GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!! over at grosgrain. how cute would the wedding dresses invite be for alice's bridal shower? (invites are my responsibility.) love them.

sadly, bottle rockets are not permitted.

2009-07-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. a husband who came home early tonight!

2. fireworks this weekend! i love fireworks.

3. freedom. america was founded on an idea: that all men (and women) were created equal and are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. i love that. happy birthday, america.

recent addiction: quilting

2009-07-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

i know, i know. i said before that i hate quilting. but then, remember? i said it wasn't so bad. and then i said it was actually kind of fun. so fun, in fact, that i've made a couple more. and i've started to buy quilting supplies and gadgets and tools. it's bad.

here is a picture of my first quilt. hah! just kidding. that's just a blanket made with a cheater cloth. i don't have the patience for those curved seams and tiny squares.

this was my first real foray into quilting. i made this about eight or nine years ago. (brian: why are you taking pictures of that? it's not like it's new or anything.) a bit ambitious, don't you think? yes folks, that's my king-size bed. a cal king. nothing like going for the gold on the very first try. i mean, how hard can it be?

i love the log cabin pattern. it is so easy to cut and piece and it doesn't really matter if the seams come out a bit wonky, like they did on this one. you can't tell once the blocks are set. traditionally the center square is red or yellow, representing either the hearth of the home (red) or a candle left burning to guide one home (yellow), and the values radiate light to dark on either side to represent happiness and sorrow, symbolizing life in a home. at the time i had no idea of the history behind log cabin quilts - just about the light and dark values - so i chose blues for my quilt. the setting is very similar to the popular sunshine and shadow setting though i did not know that at the time either.

i don't know that i would truly call that one a quilt, because i didn't actually quilt it. i toyed with the idea of tying it (now i know that is the traditional manner of anchoring a log cabin quilt) but i didn't want to spend the money on batting. hey, i was a poor college student. and i was insanely frustrated by how slow it was going. i'm kind of an impatient seamstress. so i simply backed the top with two sheets (one to protect the raw edges) to make it into a duvet.

my second "quilt" i did the same thing with. i'm sure this pattern has a name, but i don't know what it is. i like how it looks like geese flying, kind of like that mc escher drawing.

you can tell how frustrated i was by the blue log cabin quilt because the squares are much bigger in this pattern and it went quite a bit faster. i made this one about three years ago. again, it's not a true quilt, because i just backed it twice (once to protect the raw edges) to make another duvet instead of actually quilting it. that one is our "winter" quilt and will go on the bed later in the fall. it's nice to change things up once in a while and the colors make me feel so cozy.

and of course we all know how the baby quilt turned out. that one was a sampler which i like in a small quilt (45" x 54") but i think would be too busy and distracting in a larger "bed" size. it was fun trying out all those different patterns though. there is a log cabin block in there also, the far left in the second row from the top.

i was so inspired by the baby quilt that i decided to make a quilt for a friend as a wedding gift. i think that log cabin pattern is my favorite and it's pretty easy, so i decided to make hers in a log cabin also, only in the colors of her wedding (somewhat). sorry i didn't get the red in there, jess. the colors also made me think of oregon, where she lives, so i thought that was appropriate. it turned out a lot prettier than i thought it would be. at first i was not thrilled with the colors - they were not what i would have chosen, but that didn't matter because it was not for me. i really love how it all came together in the end and i think it is beautiful. i almost didn't want to give it up. it's a nice two-person "snuggle" size, 60" x 60".

after i made that quilt i started doing a little research on the history of log cabin quilts. that's when i found out about the red or yellow center square - jessika's yellow center square was not planned, but a happy accident. i'd like to think it's so she and b can always find their way home to each other. the arrangement is a very simple setting called straight setting, and i love how elegant and rhythmic it is. i actually quilted this one, before i learned that log cabin quilts were traditionally tied and never quilted. i had no idea what pattern to quilt it in, so i tried a technique called stippling. even though it is a bit unorthodox, i love how it turned out, but the stippling was harder than i expected and i don't think i would try it again. i used a cotton/bamboo batting for this quilt and really like how it makes the finished quilt feel. i've used poly batting before in other projects (like quillows) but i don't think i'd use it again now that i have discovered cotton batting.

the most recent quilt i finished is also a wedding gift, for my girlfriend alice who is getting married in august. i arranged the blocks in a broken dishes setting which i find quite intriguing and beautiful but caused much swearing. i could not for the life of me set those blocks together properly. i have never ripped out and resewn so many seams in my life.

this quilt was tied, partly because i don't have a machine with an arm long enough to quilt it easily nor the skill to do so, partly because it is more traditional that way. quite a bit of love and energy went into this project (and money, which brian is complaining about), but she is my best girl and deserves it. i really love the colors and if she weren't getting married i'd keep it for myself. it looks gorgeous in our guest room. maybe i'll get more fabric and make us one.

my latest project is a patchwork scrap quilt for our bed. this is an ambitious project, not only because i have a new baby but also because we have that cal king bed. i have most of the little squares cut out; it's just a matter of piecing together the top, mostly. oy! i'll post pictures when i have something substantial to post pictures of.

may be jinxing it

2009-06-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. sleep, glorious sleep! we (finally) borrowed a bassinet from a friend, picked it up on sunday. and the kiddo has been going through a growth spurt and eating like nobody's business. i don't know if it is the bassinet, or that she is so tired from growing, or that she is tanking up so much at night and doesn't need to feed as often in the wee hours, but since sunday she has slept through the night. six to eight hours straight each night. maybe it's a combination of the three. maybe i'm jinxing it by mentioning it, but i have felt amazing this week and hope this continues.

2. mommy + me group. such a neat group of women and the cutest kiddos ever.

3. being a good citizen and paying my taxes, because now the government is sending me disability checks, which are really helping me stay home with the kiddo. i paid in to the system and now it is paying back to me. nice.

summer in the city

2009-06-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. a lovely afternoon spent with my sister in the city, even though the kiddo decided to be a bit fussy. i wish we lived closer to that girl.

2. blue cheese, which i had not had in... 10 months? it was divine.

3. gorgeous weather, which makes the city even prettier. as soon as i saw the city skyline from the freeway in albany, i remembered how much i love san francisco and how much i miss living in the bay area. sf is even more fabulous on a beautiful day and today did not disappoint.

did they ever get us good

2009-06-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

because we knew brian's leave was ending soon, we decided to take a trip over to the jelly belly factory in fairfield. it's no secret that jelly bellies are my favorite candy ever and i've been wanting to take a tour of the factory in the worst way for the longest time.

we got there just in time to browse the lobby a bit and get in for the last tour of the day. we're not moving very quickly these days with the kiddo and all. there was a ton of ronald reagan memorabilia (he famously loved jelly bellies also!) as well as jelly belly art, "mosaics" made with jelly bellies.

then we took the tour. unfortunately photography is not allowed on the tour but let me tell you how neat it was! i love seeing how things are made and this did not disappoint. there was a room full of huge kettles for melting sugar, right across from stacked pallets of sugar and 2,000-pound bags of cornstarch.

we saw the huge machines sorting out the beans that were too small and too large, and other irregular beans. these are called belly flops. i love that. the factory goes through 85,000 pounds of sugar in an 8-hour period, by the way. c&h comes by every morning to refill two huge silos outside. they also use real oils and flavors in the beans. for example, the chocolate beans are made with real dark chocolate, and the jalapeño ones have real pepper oil. also, the flavor is in the bean itself, not just the hard shell, unlike most other jelly beans.

after the tour of course we browsed in the shop. they sell each individual flavor in bulk which i like because then i can make myself a mixed bag without the yucky flavors like licorice. (that's how we were able to do jelly bellies in only our wedding colors as our wedding favors.) this is where they get you: the tour itself is free, and they even give you a free bag of jelly bellies at the end. we spent way too much money in that shop. man do i love those jelly bellies.

the factory also makes much more than just jelly bellies. chocolate and gummies are two we saw loads of. if you're ever in the bay area, the factory tour is a fun way to spend an afternoon.

for your consideration

2009-06-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. making it through the first month with my sanity [mostly] intact.

2. my considerate husband, who always holds the door for me, which is more than i can say for some men when i am walking into the bank with a baby in my arms.

3. a well-stocked freezer. brian isn't doing much in the way of cooking and fast food gets old very quickly.

success!

2009-06-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

brian got a promotion!

so proud of you, honey!

these four walls are driving me insane. fresh air needed. now.

2009-06-04T12:48:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. mil, who is so wonderfully supportive and encouraging and fun, and even babysat monday night so brian and i could get out and see a movie. there is life after children after all.

2. brian, for giving me time-outs when i need them.

3. mommy + me network. it's nice to be somewhere where the baby's screams aren't a bother, and where other women are going through the same things i am. plus, it gets me out of the house.

happy birthday

2009-06-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

to the wonderful man i am lucky enough to call my husband, whom my daughter is lucky enough to call her father. i love you, sweetie.

wedding part ii

2009-05-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

after taking all those pictures we headed up the hill to our reception. boy were we excited - we were finally married! i was on cloud 9 and brian just could not believe it. married! i was mrs. stensler! pretty amazing if you ask me. when we got to the clubhouse, one the catering staff met us outside to see if we wanted any particular drink to be waiting at our table for us. i certainly wasn't going to pass up a drink on my wedding day so i ordered myself a beer. brian declined anything. i took one look at his awestruck, semi-shell-shocked face... and ordered him a beer as well.

the dj started playing "center field" and we followed our bridal party in to our reception. i had gotten the garden wedding that i had always hoped for, but i wanted to incorporate brian's love of baseball as well. "center field" seemed like such a fun thing to walk in to. "put me in, coach!" then we got down to business: FOOD. it was lunchtime and we had just gotten married, so we were HUNGRY. and man was there a lot of food! we had a big buffet with three different entrees and eight different salads.

jimmy, alice, paul, kerry, brian, me, ed, jackie, dave, and kirsten

we had asked the photographer to pull us away during lunch for some additional photos, so we wouldn't miss out on socializing with our guests. unfortunately he didn't and i'm not sure why not. the upshot was that we got to eat at least. i was famished and scarfed down a bunch of food but brian was too nervous to eat much of anything and didn't even touch his beer.

my beautiful bridesmaids jackie, alice, kerry, and kirsten

those boys! dave, ed, brian, paul, and jimmy

brian wanted to shoot our photographer by this point.

after we took some more pictures we went back inside. it was time for the fun stuff! we got to cut our beautiful cake - with a baseball on top, just for brian. (our tables were also "named" for different ballparks instead of just numbers, and our favors were small bags of jelly bellies and baseball gumballs.)

and man was it ever yummy. chocolate with chocolate raspberry filling and vanila buttercream frosting. delicious. and there was no smashing in the faces either. my makeup and i thanked brian for his restraint.

we danced our first dance to eric heatherly's "swimming in champagne." it was so nice to have a moment together with no one else vying for our attention. we both agreed that our first dance was our favorite part of the reception.

then, sadly, it was time to go. we were both so tired from all the excitement and activity of the day, but we were having so much fun with our guests that we didn't want to go. but we still had to. our guests saw us off in a shower of rose petals and then we hopped into brian's truck, which had been detailed and then decorated by the boys for the occasion.

we were married! it was off to spend our wedding night at the pacifica beach resort hotel, and then in a couple days we were off to our honeymoon in aruba!

tired.

2009-05-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

nothing very blogworthy this week. i'm sleep-deprived and on a weirder schedule than i've ever been on in my life. i want to get a little sewing done but i'm thinking that isn't happening in this life, at least not anytime soon. i'm trying to get the baby announcements out in the mail. hannah eats, sleeps, poops, and repeats. i am not sure how many diapers we are going through each day but it is a ridiculous amount and i am not loving the impact on our bank account nor the landfill. she has had two baths in her lifetime so far, countless car trips, and a fair number of visitors. so because of her, this week i am thankful for a lot more than three things. i'm thankful for a lot more than three people. but i'll stick to my self-imposed rules - here are my three things i am thankful for this week:

1. that we are able to afford a new car. the pt just had not been working for brian for a long time and with his back issues we were pretty much at a breaking point with that car. and then we had the baby, and the car seat pretty much did not fit in the backseat: brian had to scoot his seat forward, put the seat in or take it out, and then scoot his seat back into position. but i swear, the next new car we get is going to be mine.

2. my best girl alice, who has been here this week helping us with the baby. she loves her niece and loves taking care of her, which has given me a chance to catch up on some sleep (which will likely be lost again as soon as she goes home). we've been taking care of wedding stuff and chatting and being girls together, which has been so nice. i only wish she lived closer.

3. a perfectly normal, healthy baby. her weight was good at her checkup this morning and our other concerns were basically unfounded. the worst thing she has going on right now is a bout of diaper rash.

baby thankfulness

2009-05-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. my beautiful, healthy kiddo. i can't say how happy she is because those rare baby smiles, i guess they're just gas for the next couple weeks. other than that... we're so in love with her. her skin is so soft, i just want to touch her and kiss her everywhere. i could rub her little belly forever. and that skin is so loose, kind of like old man skin, that she has like 12 chins and i love them all. she makes the funniest faces and the silliest sounds, little sighs in her sleep and baby farts and burps and grunts and these chirpy little squeaks. it's like we birthed a menagerie instead of a human child. she doesn't know what to do with herself when she gets the hiccups. she had them last night when she spit up for the first time. i put her on my shoulder and rubbed her back, and she turned her head and stared at me wide-eyed with her mouth hanging open, and i just about died of happiness.

2. my husband, who continues to prove that he is the world's greatest man alive. we all know that i could not have made it through labor without him. i also could not have made it through this past week without him either. he is the one who has been folding me into his arms at 3a when i break down crying because i can't get the baby to sleep. he is the one who cuddles the baby for 2 hours after i feed her so i can rest. he is the one who pushed me in the wheelchair to hannah's 2-day doctor appointment, because my belly hurt so bad that i could not walk from here to kingdom come to find where in the world pediatrics might be hiding. he is my rock, my shelter, my safe place, and i love him so much.

3. mil, who came and took care of both of us this week. my mother very suddenly and abruptly left to go home the night before i got out of the hospital. we had been counting on her help, and then suddenly she is telling me this. i sat in my hospital bed and sobbed and felt so helpless. brian said, my mother will help us. and she did. even though she doesn't cook and isn't very domestic, she did laundry for us, made lunches and dinners for us, left us a huge bowl of fruit salad when she went home (which has since been devoured). she was a third pair of hands at all of hannah's myriad (okay, only three, but it felt like a billion) appointments because she was losing too much weight, and we needed those extra hands. it's not that i doubted her desire or ability to help. i'm not sure what it was with me. but she sure stepped up and for that i am grateful.

hannah's birth story

2009-05-15T21:41:00.000-07:00

hannah is probably the absolute most beautiful thing i have ever seen. aside from a bit of conehead that is going away, i think i am not biased when i say that. she is just a pretty girl in her mama's eyes.

monday was obviously a very rough day. (as the doctor pointed out, i now know what a "10" is on the 0-10 pain scale!) i had my first contraction at 4a and by 6a they were about 10 minutes apart. i got in the shower around 745a and my water broke at 830a, conveniently just as i had turned off the water but was still in the shower. so we went to the hospital; brian was very anxious that we were not going soon enough. it's a 20-minute drive and i remember brian was more stressed than i was at that point; i had to remind him where to get off the freeway and where to turn. by about 930a when we got there the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, 45-60 seconds long, and i was dilated to 4 centimeters. btw that 2-3 minutes apart is NOT from the end of one to the start of the next, oh no. that would be too much rest. the way you time a contraction is from the start of one to the start of the next. (i did not know this until our childbirth class.) so really only like 1-2 minutes rest. and you would not believe the words and noises that come out of your body during a contraction. they had told us the (private, thank heaven) birthing rooms were soundproof but according to mil, she could hear me screaming and swearing and moaning through each contraction.

in the incubator at the nursery with daddy (and mil behind him), waiting for mommy to come out of recovery

i transitioned around noon. i had previously wondered how women in labor magically knew when they were at 7+ centimeters and in transition. now i know. in my case it was because i got the shakes. this was either never mentioned in any of the pregnancy/labor/childbirth classes or books that i took/read or else it somehow slipped by me every single time. (i remember the part about shivering/shaking afterwards, because your body goes into shock somewhat - but not during.) my entire body started trembling violently and i had no idea what was happening. i asked the nurse if i was okay and she said oh yes, you have the adrenaline shakes. that means you're in transition. you're perfectly normal. huh.

by about 230p i was 10 centimeters dilated and ready to start pushing. they gave me fentanyl also at about 9 centimeters, an iv drug to take the edge off. i wanted to try to do the whole thing 100% natural but it just did not happen. the contractions still hurt like a mother after the fentanyl but were no longer pass-out pain is all. brian was such an awesome coach, i could not have done it without him. i pushed for about 2+ hrs and she was just not coming. "failure to progress" is what they called it. so they put a vacuum cup on her head to try to help. hence the conehead, and she also has some scabby scratches on the top of her head from the vacuum cup. they also had to catheterize me just before because i had not peed all day and a full bladder can hinder the vacuum apparently. that was about the worst thing ever, it hurt so bad. brian kept me focused on him but he said the look on my face broke his heart. he also said he could tell how much it hurt and that he did not realize until then how tough i was. (i generally have a relatively low pain tolerance.) apparently he has much more appreciation and respect for me now! i was begging the doctor not to catheterize me but they had to. then they also gave me two shots, one on either side, for the pudendal block. the doctor said to ease the pain as she came out on the vacuum, i guess it hurts more. i do remember at one point the vacuum popped off her head. i remember the doctor pulling hard as i was pushing too but nothing happened. she and i just failed to progress.

apparently life on the outside isn't all it's cracked up to be

i think i pushed about 30-45 minutes with the vacuum but she was just not coming so the doctor said they needed to get me in for an emergency cesarean. i was tired and the baby was tired and nothing was happening. her heart rate was dropping during contractions, not dangerously so thank the Lord, but her oxygen levels were dropping also and the doctor was concerned. i asked brian afterwards if he could even see anything when i was pushing (like the top of her head) and he said no. i was actually kind of relieved about the cesarean because i just wanted the whole thing done with at that point. so they wheeled me away to do a spinal block (faster than an epidural) while brian got suited up.

they poked my back for about 15 minutes but it was not taking, i was not getting any pain relief. i counted at least seven poke bruises on my spine yesterday. in the meantime i was having contractions and curled on my side, as much as i could be with a baby between my legs and the doctor is saying hold still so i can do this. what?! a man of course. (i also had to sign a consent form in the same position on the or table, while being poked and having a contraction. why can't you consent to things ahead of time?) they also tried to put in an epidural but it did not take either. after about 20 minutes i said, PLEASE can you just do general (which they don't like as much because it is more risk to the baby). but they did. they had to catheterize me again for the cesarean, but it was a different kind of catheter so did not hurt as bad as before THANK THE LORD. i said, can you PLEASE catheterize me after you put me under, and they said, i'm sorry but no, as soon as you are under we have to get the baby out.

they had to strap my legs down, i guess so i wouldn't go flopping everywhere in the middle of a contraction while i was under anesthesia. that was VERY scary, especially when i had a contraction before the anesthesia kicked in. no one told me they strap your legs down. none of the books mention this. they don't talk about it in the childbirth classes. the worst part was, brian could not be there with me under general anesthesia, so i was alone with all those nurses and doctors the whole time i was in the operating room, and all i wanted was him.

she has this crinkly lower lip just like her daddy's, and sometimes likes to squinch it sideways when she sleeps

they also had to intubate me with the general anesthesia so my voice is scratchy and my throat hurts even four days later. brian calls it sexy voice, even though the last thing i feel these days is sexy. i think they put me under about 545p (i know they wheeled me into the or about 5p) and hannah was born at 6p on the dot. 8 pounds 0 ounces, and 20 inches long. brian saw her pretty much as soon as she got out, they cut her cord and then took her away to get a bath and such while they stitched me up. she is all red and wailing in those first pictures he took. he said she just wanted her mom and to feed. i started coming around about 7p and i think they brought her to me around 730p and she just went to town breastfeeding. i remember the first thing i asked was if she was okay, and the nurses told me she was fine, healthy and beautiful. i remember the next thing i asked was if she was still a girl; the ultrasound tech had been almost 100% positive on her sex but that almost had bothered us ever since. we had all these girl things, and a pink and purple nursery, a girl name (we could not agree on a boy name), and we couldn't agree on whether to circumsize or not. what if she was a boy?

so that is where we are right now, we got home yesterday afternoon after three days (including labor) in the hospital. i have not slept much of course and my abdomen hurts of course, to be expected when they cut it open to remove an 8 pound baby, but still. she has her days and nights reversed right now so sleeps too much during the day and feeds too much at night. i guess most babies are like that at first. she also has so far lost too much weight, 14 ounces in 4 days which is definitely more than the maximum 7% body weight loss that they prefer to see, so we have to supplement with formula for the next few days until my milk comes in and she is getting enough nutrition from me. otherwise she would have to be admitted and apart from us. fortunately that is the only thing "wrong" with her. her bilirubin levels are great, no jaundice, and all her scores and vitals have otherwise been fabulous.

all strapped in and ready to go home, swimming in her sleeper

we are so in love with her. i never thought i could be so happy about being "replaced" in my husband's heart, but i am just over the moon that brian is so starry-eyed over her. i never thought i could so love this little person who is making such demands on my time, energy, and body. and i never realized how much i could trust and appreciate the man who got me through this whole thing - pregnancy, labor, delivery, who is taking such good care of me right now as i'm recovering not only from a (mostly) regular birth but also from major abdominal surgery. i never thought i could love brian more than i did before this experience. he saw me go through things, say and do things that a husband should not have to see and hear and experience from his wife, and i should be ashamed and embarrassed, and i'm not. he's my husband and he loves me. i can't imagine having done this whole thing with anyone else, and i wouldn't want to.

cross-posted at baby stenz

hannah jeanne

2009-05-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

was born on monday may 11 (her due date!) at 6pm. she was 8 lbs. 0 oz. and 20 ins long. she is the most beautiful thing brian and i have ever seen. we all came home from the hospital thursday afternoon.

photos and her birth story to come, it was quite the ordeal. we tried a little bit of pretty much everything just to meet this kiddo.

cross-posted at baby stenz

no baby yet

2009-05-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband being home on leave also. it's really nice to have him around, even if he does play mah jongg compulsively and check baseball stats and his fantasy teams obssessively. at the moment we aren't driving each other nuts so it's nice to get to spend this time together, even if it isn't really a vacation because we're sitting around waiting for kiddo to make her appearance.

2. not having a baby just yet, because it is giving me time to get projects done that i have not previously had time to do. if they don't get done, they don't get done, but it's still nice. for example, brian's birthday gift is all squared away, because i'm afraid that if i didn't get it done now, he'd get the short end of the stick this year. his birthday is not until june, but i wanted to do something special for him since everything has kind of been revolving around me for the last nine months. i also finished a friend's wedding gift, which i am SO excited about and love SO much and want to post photos of SO badly, but i can't/won't until the end of june so as not to ruin the surprise.

3. beautiful, perfect weather lately. maybe not perfect, it's been a bit breezy for my taste, but otherwise it's been SO lovely. the breeze does keep it from being too hot which i and my crazy hormonal metabolism do appreciate. i would go nuts if it were dreary and overcast or (heaven forbid!) rainy and i were cooped up in the house all day, so this is really nice.

nesting like nobody's business

2009-05-03T17:14:00.001-07:00

and the nursery is FINALLY done! well, except for one piece of artwork, but that can certainly wait. i love her room:

this is what i did for my birthday: hung the shelf over her dresser, painted and assembled the shelves in her closet, set up the pack & play downstairs, and cooked like a madwoman. i also did laundry and some light cleaning, the usual weekend chores. my coworkers also took me out to lunch on friday and brian took me to lunch on saturday. we are both pretty beat lately, him from work and me from being pregnant, that neither one of us had the energy to make a big to-do for my birthday. i didn't really mind because of all those things that were nagging at me to get done before the kiddo arrives, and i'm generally happiest working on a project or six. thank heavens for this manic nesting energy or nothing would be done.

my freezer is also (i hope) fully stocked for the next few weeks. brian does not cook at all and while he can happily eat fast food and take-out for every meal, i would prefer something healthier and home-cooked. now in my freezer there are currently three turkey dinners (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and vegetables), six turkey pot pies, three bacon & leek quiches, two lasagnas (including a vegetarian one in case kiddo is here when my sister comes over), and one dish of stuffed shells. this is in addition to our usual assortment of chicken, ham, steak, fish, and frozen vegetables that i can pull out and thaw at a moment's notice. my mother told me that when i was born, she and my father ate from their freezer for six weeks. dad only had to go to the store for milk and lettuce. six weeks is a lot to live up to, i don't know if we will make it that far, but i'm trying. so now all brian has to do is take something out of the freezer in the morning, leave it to defrost, and stick it in the oven. i even wrote instructions on the labels.

i'm sure i could find more to do, but i think i'm going to go put my feet up with a good book or watch a movie. besides, brian is bringing me home a baskin robbins milkshake and i don't want to miss that.

cross-posted at baby stenz

green birthday/earth day giveaway winner!

2009-05-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

happy birthday to me! thanks to those of you who participated in my green birthday giveaway. and the winner is... sherry at this young house! sherry, send me your address so i can pop your prize in the mail to you (i'm assuming the "mommy" prize, as you have no babies yet?).

again, thank you to everyone who participated. i actually really enjoy doing these giveaways, so hopefully i will come up with an idea for another one (and the time to do it after the kiddo comes) soon.

maternity leave

2009-04-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful:

1. that i am FINALLY out on maternity leave!! don't get me wrong, i love my job. i'm thankful that i have one and that it is a job that i really enjoy. and they were so sweet today, bringing me balloons and a plant and cake for my birthday. but - being pregnant is HARD WORK. it is exhausting. and then to go to work full-time on top of that? i don't know how those women do it, the ones who work right up until their due date. i have been counting the minutes until i went out on leave and finally i am OUT!

2. for time to get kiddo stuff done, at last. even though i am not working for a paycheck, unfortunately i am still working. there is just so much crap to do to get ready for the kid. her room is still not done but will hopefully be finished this weekend. i have a ton of cooking i want to get done to fill up our freezer also, since brian is completely clueless in the kitchen and has not desire to learn. if i have the time and energy, there is cleaning that i would like to get done too. do you know how long it has been since i cleaned my refrigerator? you don't want to know. it's embarassing, and my mother is coming. oy.

3. that so many people were so generous in giving us gift cards. last night we purchased the necessary baby things that we did not have yet (changing pad, diaper pail, valves for the breast pump, nail clippers, et cetera) and DAMN that stuff is expensive. i know the amount of money it takes to raise a baby to adulthood is obscene, somewhere on the order of $1 million or something? still. she is not even here yet.

random things i am learning lately

2009-04-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

don't forget to enter my green birthday giveaway! you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. it's awesome, and who doesn't like free?

- cats have no eyebrows, which is why they seem so inscrutable sometimes.

- the "bcbg" (as in bcbgmaxazria) stands for bon chic, bon genre, how yuppies were referred to in france back in the 1980s. bon chic, bon genre means "good style, good class."

- king abdullah of jordan likes riding motorcycles!

- there is no universally agreed-upon plural for the word platypus. scientists use platypuses or just platypus. platypi is often used colloquially though it is considered "psuedo-latin" and the word is actually from the greek; the greek plural would be platypodes.

- compote is very similar to jam, but it is cooked with less sugar and the fruit generally retains it's texture and consistency.

- about mortise and tenon joints in particular and joinery in general. in a completely academic manner, of course.

it's 3:30 am, do you know where your cat is?

2009-04-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

don't forget to enter my green birthday giveaway! you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. it's awesome, and who doesn't like free?

i know where mine was:

this, of course, was about 20 minutes after he had decided to vomit in the middle of the carpet.

on the one hand, i guess it's good practice for having kids. and that spathophyllum was slowly dying so needed to be replaced soon anyway. on the other hand, the [human] toddler that would generally get into this kind of trouble would also usually sleep through the night, right?

vanilla crème with fresh berry jam

2009-04-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

don't forget to enter my green birthday giveaway! you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. it's awesome, and who doesn't like free?

this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband, who is not only completely awesome but also totally random. he makes my life happy.

2. a break from the heat we've been having.

3. this awesome deliciousness:

what are those beautiful things, you ask? only A LITTLE PIECE OF HEAVEN especially on a hot day. it's vanilla crème with fresh berry jam, so insanely easy to make and so fabulous. i know, i'm such a foodie. did i mention how good it is?

i had leftover rhubarb and strawberries (how do i always end up overbuying produce?) so i made a compote, fully intending to freeze it for spooning on ice cream later in the summer. instead it got spooned over the crème. to make the compote i just mixed about 4 cups of chopped rhubarb and strawberries (total) with about ½ cup of sugar and let it stand about 15 minutes, until the juices started to run out of the rhubarb. i brought it to a boil and simmered it on the stove for about 10-15 minutes, then let it cool and chilled it in the fridge. yum.

this dessert (or lunch, or dinner, or midnight snack, or, or, or) is delicious with any kind of berries. last summer i made it with mixed berries. SO GOOD. why do i not make this more often? brian is not hugely into fruit desserts so i get to eat all of these. HECK YEAH BABY.

green birthday/earth day giveaway!

2009-04-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

i really liked doing my blogiversary giveaway last month, so this month i'm doing a birthday giveaway! (and it's earth day today!) (and it rhymes!) (my birthday is on friday, may 1, the day the giveaway winner will be announced. just in case you want to send me one of these nifty new paddles for my mixer. i have a 4.5 quart kitchenaid stand mixer. i'm just saying.) this is a fabulous prize, if i do say so myself. i would love to win it, so i hope you love it too:

the green baby giveaway includes two bars of handmade soap (lavender & tea tree and lavender buttermilk castile), two push sticks of bum (diaper) cream, a pot of nipple cream, five cloth baby wipes with wipe solution, dusting powder, lavender ooh lotion, and a lavender oatmeal milk bath for mom to soak those long days away. (see how naive i am still, to think mom will have time for a bath?) if you don't have a baby or don't want the baby giveaway, that's okay, you can still enter for a green mommy giveaway. i'll substitute a stick of massage cream for the bum cream, lip balm for the nipple cream, a gentle face scrub for the wipes, and a gentle face toner for the wipe solution. see below for a full list of ingredients in case you're concerned.

to enter, please leave me a comment letting me know which giveaway prize you would like (mommy or baby) as well as a random interesting factoid about yourself. for example: my random interesting factoid is that i make soap! if you don't leave a factoid, you won't be entered, so please don't forget that part. please also leave me your email address (feel free to munge it) so i can get in touch with you about sending you your prize. you have until 8pm pdt on wednesday, april 29, 2009. i'll plug the results into random.org and post the winner on my birthday, may 1. i'll mail anywhere in the good ole us of a or canada so if you're out of the country (besides canada), i'm sorry, but you can still have the satisfaction of having won and i'll choose another winner. there will be only one giveaway prize.

here are the ingredient lists for the giveaway items. please note that you do use these at your own risk; i have tested everything on myself, my husband, friends and family (but not my cat) and found it to be safe to us; the ingredients in the nipple balm are all food-grade and were approved by a lactation consultant. however, i can't be liable for your health or safety. i make every effort to create a safe, gentle, reliable product, but i can't be responsible for any allergic or otherwise adverse reactions you may have. by entering the giveaway and accepting the prize you agree that i am not responsible for the use or misuse of these products or any illness or injury caused by them, however unintentional.

lavender & tea tree soap: olive oil infused with lavender buds, slippery elm bark, and yarrow; coconut oil, corn oil, water, sodium hydroxide, shea butter, lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
lavender buttermilk castile soap: olive oil infused with lavender buds; buttermilk, water, sodium hydroxide, stearic acid, lavender essential oil, and pink oxide.
bum cream: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, zinc oxide, beeswax, lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
massage cream: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, sandalwood essential oil, and lavender essential oil.
nipple cream: grapeseed oil, coconut oil, and beeswax.
lip balm: soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax, lavender essential oil, tea tree essential oil, and peppermint essential oil.
cloth wipe solution: water, aloe vera gel, calendula oil, distilled white vinegar, germaben ii (propylene glycol, diazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
face scrub: baking soda, kaolin clay, water, phenonip (phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
face toner: water, aloe vera gel, witch hazel, distilled white vinegar, phenonip (phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, ethylparaben, butylparaben, and propylparaben), lavender essential oil, bergamot essential oil, and tea tree essential oil.
dusting powder: cornstarch, arrowroot, kaolin clay, lavender buds, and calendula petals.
lavender ooh lotion: water, olive oil, honey, emulsifying wax, stearic acid, soybean oil with vitamin e, calendula oil, shea butter, germaben ii (propylene glycol, diazolidinyl urea, methylparaben, and propylparaben), citric acid, and lavender essential oil.
lavender oatmeal milk bath: nonfat milk powder, rolled oats, lavender buds, chamomile, baking soda, sandalwood essential oil, and lavender essential oil.
cloth baby wipes are 100% cotton.

please note that both germaben ii and phenonip are both paraben preservatives. parabens have a very long history of safe use in all kinds of cosmetic products and are approved by the fda in usage rates up to 25% of total weight. preservatives are needed in any water-based "concoction" to prevent microbial growth and other nasties. my usage rate is approximately 1% of total weight. i cannot make lotions, scrubs, or toners without preservatives, so if you oppose the use of parabens or preservatives in your care products, please do not enter the giveaway. if you would like more information about germaben ii and phenonip, please click here. for more information about the safety of parabens, please click here.

black panther style

2009-04-21T16:10:00.001-07:00

6 years ago this month, brian asked me to marry him. 6 years! wow. obviously i said yes. it was a really beautiful proposal and looking back on it now, it would not be complete without a bit of signature brian weirdness.

we were both living in san francisco at the time and i was just finishing school - 8 weeks left until graduation. we had decided we wanted to wait to get married until i got my degree, and since i was so close i guess he decided the time was right. "we" had picked out a ring - "we" because i was somewhat concerned about what brian would choose for me. seeing as how i would be wearing that particular piece of jewelry for the rest of my life, i felt somewhat justified in my concern. besides, brian really likes yellow gold and i pretty much do not, and if he had his way i would be wearing yellow gold instead of the beautiful white gold ring i have. in my defense, i absolutely adore my engagement and wedding rings just as much now as when he gave them to me. i also did not want to ever see a ring that i might have chosen for myself and think "if only..." and i can honestly say i have never seen another ring set that is more beautiful than mine, if i do say so myself.

we went out to dinner kind of on the spur of the moment. it was a thursday night. apparently he had gotten the rings (the engagement ring he chose came as a set with the band) the previous weekend and was going to propose later in the month but just couldn't wait. we had dinner on pier 39 and then walked down fisherman's wharf to the acquatic park. it was a crisp night, a bit cool (but when in san francisco is it not cool?) and we did get sprinkled on once or twice, but i was out with my boyfriend and i had a couple martinis at dinner, what did i care? then we were on top of a "lookout" at the acquatic park and the lights were beautiful and i was saying something lame, and i turned around and he was opening a box with a sparkly ring in it. he didn't even have time to get down on one knee, just stumbled out will you marry me? before i threw my arms around his neck and kissed him and said YES!!

and here is the brian craziness: there were two rings in the box, both the engagement ring and the wedding band. he proposed to me with both rings because he didn't know what to do with the band if he left it out of the box. i took the engagement ring out of the box and slid it onto my finger; it was a tiny bit big and would need to be sized down a little more than half a size, but it was gorgeous. i couldn't believe it.

brian apparently also could not believe it, because he told me in no uncertain terms before we walked back to the truck to take the ring off and put it back in the box, and he would put the box in his jacket for safekeeping until we could get the ring sized. EXCUSE ME? you just asked me to be your wife and gave me a ring and now YOU ARE TAKING IT AWAY?? I DON'T THINK SO. i am the happiest girl on earth right now and i am going to WEAR MY RING. he finally conceded on the condition that i keep my hand clenched in a fist so it would not fall off my finger. and i also had to keep my fist raised so the diamond would not fall out of the setting. it was cold so i could humor him with the fist (and after all, how could he tell under my jacket sleeves) but i drew the line at walking around with my fist raised high in the air.

i thought of this all today because we have been having unseasonable heat this past weekend and it isn't supposed to break until the weekend, and though my hands really are not swollen (not like my feet) i can't get my wedding rings on anymore. i put them on a chain around my neck, much to brian's horror. the chain is not thick enough for his comfort nor made of unbreakable titanium and i was going to lose my wedding rings if i wore them like that and if i lost them by God he is going to divorce me, I SWEAR TO YOU WOMAN I AM NOT KIDDING I WILL LEAVE YOU IF YOU LOSE MY RINGS. this morning at the doctor's office, i kid you not, he checked the ring around my neck to be sure the diamond had not fallen out.

because if he could somehow make it so, i would be walking around with a raised clenched fist, just in case.

wherein we work our butts off but have a lot to show for it

2009-04-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

i must be seriously nesting because i've been quite productive lately. for starters, we got knobs for the dresser, YAY FINALLY OMG IT'S ABOUT TIME. brian drove me up a wall with these stupid knobs as he hated every single option i presented him with. in the end we decided to get plain wooden ones and paint them ourselves:

i love them so much. i love them even more on the dresser, which we hauled upstairs into her room. thank heavens it was very light with the drawers removed because we are quite a pair right now, me pregnant and brian with his bad back (he re-injured it last week).

it's the hemnes dresser from ikea, only custom-made shorter for us. the ikea one would be fine for brian but is too tall for me to use as a changing table. these are the things you have to think about when your husband is twelve inches taller than you are.

i also made a delicious easy dinner and dessert sunday evening. i try to make something a little special at least once on the weekend because i have the extra time. i am always trying to come up with something interesting to do with chicken breasts as they are usually pretty inexpensive, easy to freeze for later, and easy to bake on a weeknight. this weekend i found an easy baked chicken recipe, and it was quite delicious with roasted potato wedges:

there really is a chicken breast under all those onions, i promise.

baked chicken with onions, garlic, and rosemary

chicken breasts or parts
salt and pepper to taste
1½ onions per breast half (or equivalent weight in parts), sliced into rings
6 cloves garlic per breast half, thinly sliced
olive oil
2 tsp. fresh minced rosemary or 2 T. crumbled dried rosemary per breast half

preheat oven to 400°. rinse chicken and pat dry; season liberally with salt and pepper. toss together onions, garlic, and rosemary with a few drizzles of olive oil. spread half the onions across the bottom of a shallow baking pan large enough to fit all the chicken pieces in one layer. arrange chicken pieces on top of the onions and then cover chicken with the remaining onions. bake 45-55 minutes or until chicken tests done.

roasted potato wedges

red potatoes
olive oil
kosher salt
pepper
chopped fresh garlic
ground cumin

preheat oven to 400°. scrub potatoes and slice into wedges. toss together with olive oil and spices to taste. arrange on a baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown.

and then we had strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert. !!! i love springtime and i love rhubarb and i love pie, so when i saw rhubarb at the store on friday i HAD to get some.

according to joy of cooking, the juices are supposed to bubble through the lattice like that. i had never made a lattice top before and now i know why: because i am just as lazy of a cook as i am a seamstress. it looks pretty but that was more work than i care to do. i like pie so much because it is easy and delicious, and lattice on top just is not so easy. or maybe i am missing something? i made extra crust dough to freeze, because it is always nice to have homemade pie dough on hand for quiche or when i get the hankering for pie, and pie crust is so easy. and brian actually liked this pie! he is not very big on fruit desserts (if it doesn't have chocolate, what's the point?) so this was huge to me.

basic pie crust (makes 2 crusts)

2½ c. flour
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
½ c. (½ stick) frozen shortening
½ c. (1 stick) cold butter
ice water

mix together dry ingredients. cut in shortening and butter with a pastry cutter, two knives, or short pulses in a food processor. continue cutting/pulsing while drizzling in a small amount of ice water, until dough just begins to stick together. gather into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill at least ½ hour before rolling out.

strawberry-rhubarb filling

2½ c. chopped rhubarb (pink or red stalks only)
2½ c. sliced strawberries
1 c. sugar
¼ c. cornstarch
¼ tsp. salt
2 T. butter

preheat oven to 450°. combine rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl until fruit is well coated; let stand 15 minutes. pour into prepared pie crust and dot with butter; cover and vent. bake 30 minutes, then turn oven down to 350°, place a cookie tray under pie dish, and bake another 25-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and thick juices bubble up through vents.

oh, and i did this all on what was quite possibly the hottest day of the year thus far. what was i thinking? that pie was worth it, but.

a week in the life

2009-04-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. a really fun, satisfying, addictive ~~hobby~~ obsession that might even be able to eventually bring a couple extra dollars into our household (thereby justifying my insatiable need to purchase ~~toys~~ supplies).

2. good job-related news from a friend!

3. the dresser, which finally (!) arrived at my house this past week and is PERFECT and BEAUTIFUL and i love it. except that it still smells like acrylic paint and so is curing in my garage, which prevents me from filling it with sweet little kiddo things, which is driving me nuts. oh, and that other minor detail, drawer pulls... still have not found any we're in love with yet, so i can't open the drawers.

swirling and briefly about milk soaps (long, sorry)

2009-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

as i mentioned before, swirling is pretty easy. doing it well takes a lot of practice, but i personally think the concept in and of itself is pretty simplistic. in that previous post, i swirled lavender into my white base soap with pretty nice results. however i am not an excellent swirler which is why the color did not get all the way through the soap. i am not sure how to remedy this except more practice. i also swirled yellow, red-orange, and brown into tan soap with beautiful results.

you want to have your colorant(s) mixed up ahead of time. i use powdered oxides and ultramarines; they are very inexpensive and very stable in soap. they don't bleed, and you can mix them together to make interesting colors. oxides and ultramarines are oil-soluble only so they do need to be mixed ahead of time with a little bit of superfatting oil. they do have the drawback of sometimes clumping in soap so you have to be sure to mix them very well with the oil before stirring into your soap. almost all oxides and ultramarines are manufactured synthetically.

fd&c colorants are also available and come in liquid form. they are safe for soaping but do have a tendency to bleed. they're also pretty cheap. they are water-based, so you can't use them in a lotion bar or lip balm. micas are a kind of hybrid; they are powdered and usually work best in clear soaps or cosmetics. if you make your own cosmetics you need to be sure you use cosmetic-grade micas or those safe for lips (depending on what you are coloring). labcolors are another liquid colorant you can use; i've heard good things about them but i think they're kind of pricey.

you can also color with natural colorants. turmeric makes a great yellow color and is what i used for the yellow in the cedar & saffron soap. chlorophyll, kelp, and spirulina make great greens. alkanet root is wonderful for a dusty purply color.

the basic concept is: stir your soap to trace, usually a somewhat lighter trace than you might normally get to. this is partly so you can cut the color through, partly because it takes a bit of time to swirl and you need the soap to still be liquidy enough to be workable. you can add any fragrances or additives now or later, depending on whether you want them in the swirly part or not.

remove part of the soap from the original batch to a new (non-reactive) container. how much you remove depends on how you want your swirl to look. i generally prefer thin ribbons of color so i don't take out very much. because i don't like to deal with a lot of cleanup when coloring soaps, i pour my "to be colored" soap into a plastic cup and color it in the cup.

mix your additives and fragrances into the base soap, if you haven't already, and pour the base soap into the mold. in the lavender buttermilk castile soap, i added the lavender before removing the "to be colored" soap but added the buttermilk afterwards. in the cedar & saffron swirl, i removed three different cups of soap to be colored and then added in the fragrance and almond meal. the almond meal was not a huge issue, but i added the fragrance (and buttermilk in the other batch) separately because i was not sure how they would affect the coloration of the soap, and i did not want that to affect the soap i had added the colorant to. the cedar & saffron fragrance discolors to light tan; milks in general can cause browning and discoloration. you can also color the base soap if you want to; for example, if you were making a mint chocolate soap with cocoa butter, you could remove soap to be colored dark brown, color the base soap minty green, and swirl the brown into the minty green.

pour your colorant into your reserved soap and stir until well blended. then drizzle slowly into and all through your base soap in the mold. i think if you drizzle slowly and kind of thickly, more colored soap will get to the bottom, but i can't prove this. then get a knife or fork - or use the fork you stirred your colored soap with - and cut the colored soap through the base soap. you don't want to mix it uniformly but you do want it spread throughout. that's it! cover and insulate.

another very easy way to swirl is "in the pot." this doesn't produce a uniform swirl and you do have less control over the swirl but i still like it. to swirl in the pot, remove your "to be colored" soap but don't pour your base soap into the mold yet. color the reserved soap and then pour it back into the pot. i find this worked best when you dump the whole colored bit right into the center of the pot. do not mix the soap anymore. pour your soap into the mold, kind of moving the soap "pour" around the mold as you pour. the movement of the liquid soap from the pot to the mold will swirl the colors together. then cover and insulate.

a note on milk soaps: milk raises the temperature of soap, which is why milk soaps generally do not need to be insulated. this is also why milk soaps tend to discolor brown. personally i don't really mind this as i usually put milk in soaps with other stuff in it, like oatmeal and honey, almond meal, flax seeds, or other natural things. however sometimes a beautiful white soap is just what you want for a milk-based soap, like i wanted for my lavender buttermilk castile soap. the key is to use enough water (no discount) and to make sure your temperatures stay low. remember, it's nice but not crucial for your soap to gel.

with the lavender buttermilk castile soap, the mms lye calculator recommended 8-14 ounces of water (liquid). in my recipe, i used the full 14 ounces of liquid; normally i take a full discount (i'd use 8 ounces of water). i replaced 8 of those ounces with buttermilk, so i only used 6 ounces of water. i mixed my NaOH with the 6 ounces of water and then let it cool completely, i think i left it for 3-4 hours. i let my oils cool completely as well. i also let the buttermilk come to room temperature. i mixed the lye solution with the oils and added the buttermilk at trace, so there was less free NaOH floating around in the raw soap to react with the buttermilk. also, i usually put my soap into a warm (170º) oven for about an hour to conserve heat; this time i just left it on the counter. if you are careful in the way you manage your temperatures, you can make a beautiful white milk soap.

even more soap pictures

2009-04-13T14:18:00.000-07:00

here is the omh soap all cut into bars:

it smells delicious, i told you the cat pee smell would go away. it's sweet and homey and heavenly. this was an overlarge batch (3 full lb. of oils) compared to what i usually make (2 lb. 8 oz.) which is why the bars are extra fat.

this is a lavender buttermilk castile soap i made last week. i love swirling color into soap. imho it is so much prettier and more interesting than just a plain solid color. here it is in the mold:

and cut into bars:

i guess i'm not great at swirling, because the swirl did not go all the way through to the backside. castile soap is simply olive oil soap. traditionally it is made with 100% olive oil, but that also makes a relatively soft soap without a very good lather. this is because olive oil is largely composed of oleic acid which is very moisturizing but doesn't contribute hardness or lather to the bar. lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic acid do contribute hardness and fluffy lather so often soapers will add some coconut oil (up to 25%) to their castile bars to make a nicer bar. i'm a bit of a purist on this issue so i prefer not to though i did add in a little stearic acid to make the bars a little harder. literally a little - the stearic is only 2% of the oils. stearic is a fatty acid, not the kind of acid that burns your skin.

this one, i have no idea what to call it. the scent is bramble berry's cedar & saffron fo, a warm, slightly spicy, woodsy, somewhat masculine fragrance. i stirred in almond meal to make it scrubby (i love a scrubby soap) and did those swirls. swirling is pretty easy, i'll discuss in another post. in the mold:

and cut into bars:

i don't know why it looks a bit "bubbly" on top. maybe because i poured at such a thin trace. the beveling is a bit wonky because i was so insanely impatient and turned it out after only 24 hours in the mold and it was quite soft. i love love LOVE the way the swirl came out and it smells amazing. this could be my new favorite scent. name suggestions, please?

this sunshine soap is one of my favorites. the scent is bramble berry's energy fo and is to die for, and the yellow "rays" are calendula petals. i love calendula because it is so pretty in soap and really holds up. lots of botanicals don't; lavender buds look like dead bugs in soap. in the mold:

and cut into bars:

this is also a favorite of my sister's so i have a feeling it will not last long. i usually hold back a couple bars for myself anyways!

by the way, if you bevel the edges of your soap with a potato peeler, like i do? don't throw away those little curlies! i bevel into a generously-sized tupperware and save the curlies until i have a good amount of them and then make confetti soap. confetti soap is just a basic plain white (or lightly colored, if you have a lot of white shavings) soap, lightly scented if you like, with curlies and shavings stirred into it at trace. it's a great way to keep all those leftovers from going to waste and pretty to boot.

speaking of keeping things from going to waste, if your soap batch doesn't turn out, it can almost always be saved. see here or here or any of the sites i mentioned for troubleshooting help before you give up and throw it out.

if you're interested, you can purchase any of the soaps i've made. Lord knows we don't need this much soap at my house, but i'm somewhat obsessed in case you haven't noticed. send me an email to estensler (at) comcast (dot) net and we can discuss.

i thought, this will either be really good, or really awful.

2009-04-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

and it turned out pretty darn good. we (okay, i) often have two breakfasts at my house on at least one weekend day. cold cereal and coffee when i get up, because i get up earlier than brian, and then usually something yummy a bit later after he summons the will to live and comes downstairs to steal the paper from me. this weekend we had some extra bananas lying around that were starting to turn brown so of course i thought, banana bread! i was quite surprised that none of my recipes for banana bread had any kind of spices in them. and then i discovered that i didn't have any walnuts. what?! banana bread with no walnuts? sacrilege. so i improvised and souped up my recipe.

while looking for walnuts i discovered some crystallized ginger. i love crystallized ginger. i also added slivered almonds instead of the walnuts because that's what was in the pantry. it came out very good albeit a bit gingery. i think in the future i would go a little lighter on the ginger (i put in about 1/3 cup) and put in another banana (i used 1 cup mashed). and of course, a little bit of spice never hurt anyone.

i also squeezed some fresh orange juice from some oranges we had sitting around that needed to be dealt with. i don't really like eating oranges but i love orange juice. how come fresh-squeezed tastes so much better than from a carton? these were not even from a tree, just from the store. if anyone has a surplus of oranges that they would like to share, a good home for them can be found in my kitchen.

happy easter, everyone!

spiced banana bread (the way i would make it, not the actual way i did it)

¼ c. softened butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1¼ c. mashed bananas (about 4)
½ c. milk
2 T. orange or lemon zest
2¼ c. flour
¼ c. whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
¼ c. chopped crystallized ginger
½ c. slivered almonds
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cinnamon

preheat oven to 350º. cream together butter, sugar, and egg. add mashed bananas, milk, and zest and mix well. add flours, baking powder, salt, ginger, almonds, and spices and mix well. pour into a greased 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake for one hour or until done. cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool.

just so totally rocked my own world

2009-04-10T18:28:00.000-07:00

because i made lotion. like for real. like you could buy at the store. like feels really nice on dry skin. i remember i felt like this when i made soap for the first time - like: WHOA, awesome, i can do this cool thing!

lotion was insanely easy. oh my heaven was it easy. unlike soap, lotion does not use any "scary" ingredients like NaOH. but also unlike soap, lotion does use some specialty ingredients that i doubt would be available at your local health food store.

my recipe was based on bandicoot's ooh lotion with a couple little tweaks. i subbed in citric acid for the vinegar (to cut the smell) and subbed in shea butter, calendula oil, and soybean oil with vitamin e for some of the olive oil. otherwise everything else was the same. my batch was approximately 8 ounces (230 grams) and was as follows:

oil phase:
10g soybean oil with vitamin e
10g calendula oil
10g shea butter
16g olive oil
11g emulsifying wax
11g stearic acid

water phase:
14g honey
2g citric acid
143g water

3g germaben ii

8 drops lavender eo

lotion is just an emulsion of water and oils, like mayonnaise or salad dressing. apparently the key is the right proportion of oils to water to make the emulsion hold. germaben ii is a paraben-based preservative, necessary because the water is a nice breeding ground for germs and other nasties that might feed off the oils. i've heard you can make lotion without a preservative, but you have to keep it in the fridge and use it within a week, which says to me: what's the point?

to make the lotion, you heat the oil phase and the water phase separately to about 170º, then allow to cool to approximately 140º. add germaben ii. pour the oil phase into the water phase and blend with a stick blender until cool. i think i blended for about 10 minutes straight. almost immediately, the mixture turned thick and white and creamy and smelled lotion-y. i think it is the e-wax that gives it that lotion-y smell, because the oils and germaben ii smelled like nothing at all. i dropped in 8 drops of lavender eo (since this is for the kiddo, i didn't want to put too much - 8 drops in 8 ounces is hardly anything) and continued to blend.

i then scraped the lotion into a plastic baggie, sealed the top, and cut off the corner so i could squeeze it into lotion bottles. in the future i think i would use a slightly stiffer bag because lotion does not have much body. (to make more of a cream, you would sub in more stearic acid and less water, maybe 3% more stearic.) i used a fold-over-type sandwich bag because i didn't want to waste a ziploc but in the future i think it would be worth it. another way to get lotion into tubes is to pipe it in with a syringe, but in my previous experience that takes forever. so i did the baggie method. the idea was to be like piping frosting. i also cut the corner of the bag too big so it was a bit problematic but i think those issues are easily remedied.

lotion ingredients should be available online at pretty much any soaping website; i got mine from bramble berry and camden grey. i think i got all the bottles at bramble berry also though it was a really long time ago so i'm not 100% sure, but both sites carry nice packaging options.

i. am. AWESOME.

easter thankfulness

2009-04-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful:

1. for a supportive, encouraging husband, even and especially when he is having a rough time himself.

2. that i am forgiven.

3. that as a society we have access to and encourage all kinds of education and knowledge. we have had pregnancy classes out the kazoo the past two months and more support scheduled for after the kiddo. my health insurance plan encourages it. a lot is "review" from stuff we have learned in from reading all the pregnancy books, but since we've never done this parenting thing before, we figure on getting all the help we can get.

maybe not such a bad plant mommy after all

2009-04-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

i've been noticing my roses lately, the ones i don't know how to manage and as of yet have not really learned. i know you're supposed to ~~hack them back~~ prune them down in the winter, but my understanding is there is a particular way to do it so they will grow back healthy and beautiful. heck if i know what that particular way is, i just hacked away with the loppers. not that i ever remember to water them either. and yet the bushes in the backyard are suddenly thriving - one in particular is suddenly covered with lovely white flowers. the ones in the front yard have shot out tons of new growth and it seems like overnight they have become covered with buds. pictures to follow in a day or so when they explode, photographic proof that apparently even i can grow a rose without knowing what i'm doing.

the dianthus on the front porch, now that's another story.

one is silver and the other gold

2009-04-02T10:16:00.001-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. my best girl alice. we've been friends for almost 17 years now which just blows my mind. i mean, 17 years! that's more than half my life. she is so wonderful and generous and fabulous and threw me (and the kiddo) the nicest baby shower this past weekend. AND, she's getting married this summer! so i cannot wait to return the favor.

2. the fabulous ladies who came to my baby shower. not only were they more than generous (oh my heaven) but they are all SO MUCH FUN and i love each and every one to pieces. most of them i don't get to see that often, so it was AWESOME to get to see everyone and just have a nice afternoon together. (that was the best part, really.)

update: photos posted here if you're interested.

3. this "community" of blogging/internet ladies that i have gotten to know over the past year that i've been blogging. i never in my wildest dreams expected to get to know such interesting people. i know i have a very minute readership. it's a good day when i get 3-4 comments on a post. i have no desire to be as huge as dooce or anything, but i'm thankful for the little bit that i have. some of you i know or have connections to in real life, others i hope i get to meet sometime for a cup of coffee or lunch. so thank you to jessika, kelly, jaimey, nancy, tabitha, jenna, sarah, jenny, elizabeth, and jaye. my sister has been rather absent lately but is a riot. anyone else i might be forgetting, i'm sorry if i did but i still appreciate you. you ladies encourage me and make me laugh and make me think and i appreciate it.

more soap + diaper cream/lip balm

2009-03-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

on a bit of a soaping kick i guess, now that i actually have the ingredients to make it. tonight i made oatmeal, milk & honey (omh) soap which i just love because of the scrubby oatmeal in it. and bramble berry's omh fragrance is so wonderful.

same basic soap recipe as the baby soap though i ran out of corn oil and used soybean instead. don't forget to recalculate your NaOH for the proper oils if you sub in something different.

for omh soap, i use goat's milk instead of water. this was a full can (12 oz.). i forgot that it's usually a good idea to NOT discount when using that much milk. in other words, the recommended amount of water is 25-33% of oils, so in this case (a 48 oz. batch) the recommended amount was 12-18 oz. use the higher amount if you are a beginner or don't know how a fragrance will act; because the lye solution is somewhat weaker, the batch is more forgiving. i usually go with the lower amount so my soap will cure faster and because i (generally) know how things will behave. milk however heats up a lot, very quickly, and so it is better to not take much of a discount (if any) when subbing it in for water.

that's what happened when i added NaOH to the goat's milk. the color and chunky separation were to be expected; the NaOH reacts to the proteins and fats in the milk. what was not to be expected was how this kind of turned in to a bit of a volcano, and i barely got it to the sink in time before it bubbled over. that's why there are chunks on the side.

this can all be stirred back together, and should be before adding to the oils. it will reek of ammonia.

at trace i added 3 tablespoons of bramble berry's omh fragrance oil, about 1 cup of rolled oats, and about ¼ cup of honey. the oats kind of float in a lump on top so i set my stick blender down on top of them and pulsed to break them up some.

in the mold. the lighter chunky bits are the oats (not the reflections from the kitchen lights). it won't look quite so liquid poo-like after it comes out of the mold. it reeks to high heaven right now (the ammonia from the lye-milk solution) but that will go away in a couple days. no need to insulate as both milk and honey generate heat in soap.

also made the diaper cream tonight, a semi trial run. semi in that i tweaked the recipe a little bit to include a bit more liquid oils so it would be creamier and not quite as solid. also in that i will definitely need to make more of this, i'm sure we will go through it. i also subbed in soybean oil with vitamin e (picked up at trader joe's for relatively cheap) for the sweet almond oil, and i added a bit more zinc oxide than i thought i would initially.

the three squat tubes in the back are the push sticks, the two skinnier ones in the front are oversized lip balm tubes (½ ounce instead of the usual 0.15 ounce). i have no idea why they cave in at the center, they have always done that as they cool. this is not a problem unique to me. i smeared a bit of the scrapings from the cup (by the way, this is best made in a small measuring cup so you can pour easily) on my hand and it is just as i had hoped, smooth and moisturizing and creamy. should be perfect for little bottoms.

soap tutorial with photos, part 2

2009-03-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

getting to this point (part 1) is here.

9. soap stays in the mold for approximately 48 hours. i had a busy weekend so this was a bit more than that. it's not an exact science, so if you get impatient after 24 hours or forget for a day or so it's not the end of the world. just don't leave it in the mold for 6 weeks or you might not be able to get it out. see how the color has changed to that pretty cream? the tiny dark flecks are what slipped through the strainer when i infused my oils and are not a concern to me. the blobbiness in the middle is because i tend to pour my soap at a slightly heavier trace, so it is a bit thicker. i could easily remedy this by being a bit less enthusiastic about blending, you find your own style. mine is with a somewhat imperfect "other" side to the bars.

don't worry if the scent is a bit strong, it will dissipate some during the cure. also, if you used some "funky" ingredients in your soap (like subbing milk for water in the lye solution) it could smell really odd, but that should go away. goat's milk in particular can give off an ammonia smell, like cat pee, for a couple days, but don't worry, you won't have to wash with cat pee soap.

10. soap out of the mold; this is the "backside" which is the pretty side because it has been against the smooth inside of the mold. dunno what that paw-print-looking dark spot is but i'm sure it will clear up as the soap cures. if it doesn't, well, to me that's the beauty of handmade soap, minor imperfections like that. because my mold is specifically for soapmaking, there are cutlines on the bottom to ensure that i always cut even bars. you can get them without cutlines, i just knew i would always have wonky bars if i did that because i'm like that. imperfections are one thing, wonkiness is another.

another thing, i always turn my soap out onto a piece of waxed paper on a cutting board, so i have a smooth surface (cutting board) to work on but no mess (waxed paper). that's just my personal anal retentiveness.

11. 12 cut bars of soap. i use an inexpensive dough scraper, but for a long time i just used a knife. the advantage of a dough scraper is that the edge is even, whereas a knife edge gets wider as you go farther back up the tang. that's just more for aesthetics though.

you can see the unevenness on the interior, kind of like under-done brownies. this is fine. sometimes there are little air bubbles; these are fine as well. what would be concerning would be if the air bubbles were filled with oil or watery liquid; that could be unsaponified lye solution and burn your skin. don't use the soap if that happens. (it shouldn't.) if there are pockets of flaky white NaOH, don't use that soap either; it's dangerous. more than likely this will not happen; i've never had it happen. just be aware of what "bad" looks like.

12. finished bars ready to be stored for curing. i bevel the edges of my bars with a potato peeler (you can see better here or here) because i like the way it looks and feels when you first use it, and it helps smooth out any mistakes i made when cutting. i do it before the bars go in the box because it is easier but you can do it after the cure if you want. you will notice as you cut that your soap is firm but soft to the touch, kind of like zucchini. it is certainly solid but you could nick the surface with your nail, and possibly a bit "sticky" feeling. two of my bars were stamped with a soap stamp as an experiment. i have this stamp and i never use it, i think because i can never get the hang of it to make the stamp look as nice as i would like.

you can cure your soap however you want to. lots of people use cooling racks but i don't have any. if you are making more than one batch or don't have a lot of space you probably need something stackable that doesn't take up a lot of space. at first i just spread out a paper towel and stood the bars on end. now i use a very high-tech system of two soda flats (these are beer ones i picked up at the grocery store) nested together. the boxes are free, breathable (not airtight), will stack on top of each other, and i can stick post-its on them so i don't forget what kind of soap is inside. i line them with a paper towel to absorb any moisture and i will flip them over in a couple weeks. basically you just want to be able to have air move around the bars on all (or as many as possible) sides. you are drying out the water weight in the soap to make a firm, long-lasting bar of soap. it is useable right now, but it would dissolve a lot sooner in the shower than if you were patient and cured it. curing takes 4-6 weeks.

after soap has cured, you can use and enjoy it!

soap tutorial with photos

2009-03-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

detailed instructions here. this is the baby soap recipe, just a very gentle all-natural soap. i love this as face soap.

1. i infused my olive oil with lavender, yarrow, and slippery elm bark by heating the oil gently with the herbs in it and then letting it "steep" on super low heat for a couple hours. then strained through a fine mesh sieve to keep the pokies out. obviously not required but i wanted to get as much "nutrition" in the oils as i could since this is for kiddo and faces.

2. combine oils and melt together if needed. the large white "chunks" are coconut oil and shea butter.

3. measure NaOH carefully. also be careful if the air is relatively dry; NaOH granules can get staticky and fly around and land on your skin. wear gloves.

4. pour NaOH into water and stir stir stir. the lye solution will be cloudy at first. allow to cool to lukewarm.

5. pour lye solution into oils. see how the lye solution has cleared up? stir stir stir, preferably mixing with a stick blender.

6. continue blending until trace is reached. see how opaque the soap is now? you will be able to feel a difference in the raw soap as well; it feels thicker when you stir. this is the point where you would stir in any additives, fragrances, or colorants. this is also the point at which you would add any additional oils for superfatting (the calendula oil in the recipe).

7. pour into your prepared mold; cover and place in a warm spot. i generally warm my oven (about 170º) and keep the soap in there; it's out of the way and stays warm. however i have a wooden mold; i would not recommend this for plastic molds or cardboard shoeboxes. silicone baking pans would be fine in the oven of course. we're approximately 1½ hours in at this point, including a little over an hour to allow the lye solution to cool. (from mixing oils and lye to this point is generally only about 15-20 minutes.)

8. gel stage, approximately 2½ hours after start, 1 hour in the mold. the gelling soap is the mustard color in the center. the end result will be whiter, like the soap at the edges of the mold. soap stays in the mold and in its warm place for approximately 48 hours.

i'll post a couple more photos in a couple days, when i unmold, cut, and store for cure.

should be a great weekend!

2009-03-26T07:46:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful:

1. that brian comes home tonight! he's been on yet another business trip this week and while it's nice to have the bed all to myself since i am huge and uncomfortable right now, it's rather lonely. i didn't get married because i wanted us to be apart all the time. fortunately this is the last business trip for a while. he purposely got them out of the way now instead of having to go in may when kiddo comes.

2. that alice is coming tonight! i am so so excited to see her. we've been best girls since junior high, more than half my life. i've known her longer than pretty much anyone else in my life (family excluded). she's staying for the whole weekend and i'm so thrilled.

3. that i'm off of work tomorrow! because alice is here. but it's also just nice to have an extra day off, an extra day to sleep in, and extra day to be lazy (though we're not going to be that lazy, we have plans). and since i'm taking off a friday and not a monday (or any other day) there ought to be less of a pile on my desk to catch up on come monday.

now i can even make my own dirt

2009-03-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

i went to a composting workshop sponsored by our city this weekend to learn how to compost. i was inordinately excited about this because i had halfheartedly tried composting before without any success. it's not terribly difficult but apparently there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way (or rather, a more efficient way) and i wasn't doing it "properly" which is why i was not having a lot of luck at it.

the workshop instructor called composting "nature's recycling program," because there are no landfills or recycling centers in nature to haul away the dead crap and waste. composting is just the process by which nature breaks down all the stuff it doesn't need anymore and transforms it into this nutrient-rich stuff called humus which is not soil but a very nice soil amendment. so it wouldn't be a great idea to fill my proposed raised beds (for my garden, i'm so coveting raised beds AHEM brian) 100% with compost, but mixed with other dirt it will be great.

compost needs four things: carbon materials, nitrogen materials, air, and water. carbon materials are "brown" things like dried leaves, newspaper, sawdust, coffee filters or tea bags, and dryer lint (!). nitrogen materials are "green" things like kitchen scraps, grass cuttings, coffee grinds, and fresh prunings. you need about a 3:1 ratio (50-50 at most) of brown things to green things. aha! my previous compost pile was mostly green things, which can make the pile kind of stinky and doesn't break down as quickly as if there were brown things in it. the instructor said to think of the green things as fire and the brown things as fuel: you can't have a really good fire without the right proportions of each, even though you might have a fire.

part of the composting workshop - and what really drew me in, i'll admit - was that every participant got a free composting bin and free compost. so there are two delicious bags of compost sitting in my garage (awaiting my raised beds, AHEM brian) and i set up my new free bin yesterday. i filled it first with some old trimmed branches (to create a nice airspace on the bottom), then with grass clippings, then shredded newspaper, and then watered it on top. the water helps sustain the decomposition process and has the nice side benefit of keeping the newspaper shreds from blowing away. then another layer of grass clippings, another layer of newspaper shreds, and a bit more water but not so much that the pile is soggy. i'll turn it (basically stir it up) every week or so and (supposedly) in a couple months i will have beautiful black compost for my raised beds! (AHEM brian)

again this was all sponsored by our city and i would bet it's not unique to us. another cool thing was that they subsidize the purchase of two fancier composting bins, this one for only $20 and this one for only $40. both have lids which would be wonderful for us as i do hoard kitchen scraps for our clean greens bin, but they can go in the compost pile. without a lid, i need to be careful to bury our kitchen scraps so we don't get rodents or yucky flies. i am coveting that bio-stack one.

you do not need a bin to compost; you can just do it in a pile in the yard. or you could make your own. be sure not to put "icky" things in it like pet droppings, diapers, or meat or bones; remember, you are (theoretically) using the compost to provide nutrients for your vegetable garden (AHEM brian), so you don't want that stuff in your food supply. more information about composting is here.

by the way, did you know that newspaper has a grain? this now makes sense to me - it's made from trees, and wood has a grain, so. if you tear your papers lengthwise, along the grain, they will tear into nice strips, but if you tear cross-wise they will just rip into chunks.

happy spring! (almost)

2009-03-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. prenatal yoga. it is so nice to get out and stretch my body. granted, it doesn't feel like "real" yoga, but i'm not as agile as i used to be anyways.

2. springtime and nice weather! it is supposed to be 70° and beautiful here today and it was gorgeous yesterday. i just love this time of year when it is beautiful and not unbearably hot. it does good things for my spirit to wear cute dresses and show my arms. the only problem is, i have to work so i can't be out enjoying the sunshine until the weekend.

3. my bramble berry order that just arrived! yay! with my yummy fragrance oils, and they still give free samples! (have i mentioned how much i love bramble berry?) mine is matcha tea, for which the website gives this description: "To add to our Tea Collection (Green Tea, Black Tea, Red Lychee Tea and Tea Ceremony), we've found this specialty tea fragrance. Matcha Tea is a fine powdered green tea, used in Japanese tea ceremonies. In food, it's also used to flavor soba noodles, green tea ice cream and a variety of Japanese confectionary. Our version of this fragrance smells strongly of Matcha Tea Leaves with just a touch of Bergamot, Fresh Lemon, Grapefruit and finished out with Rose Petals and Sandalwood. It's amazing in cold process soap and also makes a delightful scrub." i'm so excited, i can't wait. EXCEPT, where is my camden grey order??? because even with the bb order, i'm stuck until i get the cg one with my oils. it's so hard to be patient when i have so many delicious things waiting for me in that bb box.

update: the ups tracking email i got today says my cg order won't arrive until march 26. boo hoo! patience, patience, patience...

soaping site "guide" and thoughts

2009-03-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

when i started soaping nine years ago, it was because i figured soap had been around for hundreds of years and people were making it themselves long before big companies started manufacturing it. so why couldn't i make soap too? if pioneers could do it two hundred years ago then surely i had the technology at my fingertips to make a bar of soap for myself. i love that you can find out anything on the internet so that is where i turned to for instruction. here are some sites that i have used and loved:

- kathy miller's soaping site. tons of information and recipes for the new and experienced soaper. i especially like her page on the properties of oils which has been invaluable when creating my own soap recipes.
- the dish forum, a gathering of "soaping minds" from all around the world. you do have to register to get access, but it's free. there is a wealth of information there and they never mind answering the same old questions from newbies.
- majestic mountain sage's lye calculator. i've heard there are other lye calculators out there, but this is the one i always heard recommended and what i always use. you just punch in the amounts of each oil you are using and it will automatically calculate the amount of NaOH you need to use, depending on your amount of superfat. or you can calculate NaOH the old-fashioned way, using a pencil and paper and sap values. (imho it's good to know how to do this anyways, but the mms calculator is awfully convenient.) i calculate my NaOH for every single batch of soap i make, after measuring my oils. maybe a bit tedious but i figure it is better to be safe than sorry. the mms website also has great information on fragrances and recipes, and the lye calculator includes basic instructions, water ranges (depending on the discount you prefer to take - new soapers should take less of a water discount/use more water), and a convenient resizing tool.
- teachsoap.com, anne-marie faiola's teaching website. anne-marie is magic behind bramble berry, one of my favorite supply sources. this is a great website.
- ann bramson's book, soap. it was published before i was born but basic soaping techniques have not changed since then. she also has interesting information about rendering your own tallow and suet. i did that once, just to see, and it was more work than i care to do. besides, though i am not a vegetarian so have nothing against eating meat... i like the idea of all-vegetable soaps better.
- susan miller cavitch's book, the soapmaker's companion. somewhat controversial and can be problematic so i'd recommend reading all the reviews, especially the bad ones, as well as getting as much information from other sources before digging into her book. that said, it was helpful for me as a beginner soaper... but i don't refer to it that much anymore. also, her recipes make somewhat large batches (and use a lot of exotic oils) so if you do make one of them, use the resizing tool on the mms website.
- anne l watson's book, smart soapmaking. i have not read it personally but it gets great reviews. when people have nothing bad to say about something, there's got to be something to it, right?

supply sources i love:
- bramble berry. have i raved enough about them yet? i especially love their fragrance oils and that anne-marie now carries cybilla's line. also way back when, they used to include a sample-size of a fragrance oil in each order. (i have not ordered in forever - just put in my first order in a long time actually [been using up my "stash"] - so we'll see if they still do!) i always thought that was neat and really appreciated it. it worked, too - got me to try fragrances i might not have otherwise tried. there is a lot more than just fragrance there so poke around some.
- camden grey. great source for essential oils and other supplies at great prices. beware though, they are usually best as a "bulk" supplier. for example, the smallest amount of 76º coconut oil you can buy from them is 7 lbs. that's nothing for the small business soaper, but it lasts me a long time.
- the essential oil company. i could go completely overboard ordering from them. i have in the past. i think camden grey might be cheaper though.
- sweet cakes. delicious fragrances. yummmmm.
- upland soap factory for molds. obviously this would be a bit of an investment so i wouldn't spring for one until you're completely addicted to soaping and have enough experience to know you're never going back to mass-produced soap. i do adore my 12-bar slab mold from them. next to my stick blender, it is probably the best (and only?) investment i have made for this addiction.

obviously there are a ton more great websites for information and supplies, these are just the few i use most. hopefully they will work as well for you as they have for me.

lip balm tutorial

2009-03-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

lip balm is so uber-easy to make that i am not sure why anyone buys it. except that i get lazy and brian really likes the "virtuoso" ones from trader joe's, have you tried them? wow are they wonderful. and if you look at the ingredients list, it isn't much. because you don't need much to make lip balm.

here is the recipe for diaper cream which is just a fabulous lip balm recipe with zinc oxide added. if you add zinc oxide to your lip balm you will have white lips. (remember zinka?) it's fine with me if you want to do that but your significant other may not appreciate it. even more simplified, all you really need is beeswax (or some other kind of wax; jasmine wax would be lovely here also) and oils. for simplicity's sake, let's do this:

1 part beeswax
1 part coconut oil
1 part sweet almond oil

coconut oil is solid at room temperature, which is why it's nice in lip balm. too much beeswax and your balm will be too solid and kind of grainy and it just doesn't feel nice. using partly solid oils (like coconut oil, shea butter, or cocoa butter) helps the balm stay solid without being hard. for the liquid oil, i like to choose something that is light and does not have a lot of "flavor." i personally am not a huge fan of olive oil in balm but you do what you want. jojoba oil is nice also but a bit thick for my taste.

to make the balm, just mix everything together in a small measuring cup and nuke it in the microwave until everything is melted together. stir it well because the beeswax can take a while to melt. the only thing about it is to heat it enough so the beeswax melts but not too long, because then it pops all over the microwave and you have a mess to clean up.

when it is all melted and blended, just pour into small lip butter pots or propel/repel tubes and let it cool. the balm recipe is also fabulous as an extra-strength cream for elbows or feet (or chapped hands) or as a massage bar; i like push sticks for that. or you could use this recipe for solid perfume. when i first started making my own stuff (before i bought packaging) i used those little containers that you get at the salad bar, just be careful you don't melt through them (swipe a couple of the really sturdy ones).

if you want to get fancy, you can add some vitamin e (tocopherol) to the oils; just pop open a capsule or two and squeeze it in. i like lavender and tea tree eos in mine, just two or three drops of each is fine. be careful with eos, most are not great to go directly on skin. you could shave a bit of an old lipstick in for a light pigment if you wanted, but don't use food coloring or you'll stain not just your lips but your fingers and your teeth too. honey is humectant (draws moisture to the skin) so you could put a couple drops in, not too much or else it will be sticky and be aware that it will separate out if you leave the balm in the car and it melts. if you wanted to be super fancy and spoil yourself, you could infuse your oils (including the solid oils - melt them and then mix with the liquids first) with soothing herbs like lavender, yarrow, slippery elm bark, comfrey, or chamomile. be sure to strain well so you don't have pokies in your balm.

blogiversary giveaway winner!

2009-03-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

happy blogiversary to me! (it's today.) thanks to those of you who participated in my blogiversary giveaway. surprise, this is what the giveaway cozies turned out like:

in the yellow daisy one i made for myself, i just interfaced the two pieces with a super-sturdy interfacing to "insulate" the cozy. it worked fine but let through a bit more heat than i think would be practical. these two i lined with a piece of felt so they ought to keep your hands from getting burned a bit better than interfacing would.

my random winner for these (as well as a $5 gift card to starbucks, so you can actually use them) is kelly! kelly, email me your address so i can pop your prize in the mail to you. everyone else, pop on over to her fabulous blog and check her out. and check back with me in a couple weeks, i liked hosting this giveaway so much that i want to do another one. that one will be around my birthday (may 1) so check back before the end of april to enter that one.

basic cp soap tutorial (long, sorry)

2009-03-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

cp = cold process. cp is the method by which i make my soap and refers to the fact that (generally) no additional heat is added to the soap mixture to assist the chemical reaction. the heat generated by the soap itself is enough to complete the reaction.

basic chemistry lesson is here. i recommend reading it because imho, if you know what is going on in your soap pot you can better control the outcome. i.e. soap you enjoy versus icky soap.

do not use drano or any other "mixed" drain cleaner. red devil lye is what i use and what i have always heard recommended for soaping. it is straight NaOH and usually found in the drain cleaner aisle. it will be in granule or flake form, usually in white 18 ounce bottles with a red lid. if you shake it you can hear the granules inside. unless you can get your NaOH direct from a chemical company and you know 100% for sure that it is pure NaOH, i'd stick with red devil.

a note of caution: you do need to work with a strong base in order to complete the chemical reaction, so be careful. NaOH can cause severe burns if you are not careful. remember that scene in fight club where brad pitt kisses edward norton's hand and then pours NaOH on it, and he screams and writhes in pain from the burn? i don't know how realistic that is, but just keep it in mind. wear goggles and gloves. NaOH in solution can be even more dangerous because it is dissolved in water and therefore reacts easier with oils than NaOH in crystal or flake form. and it is HOT. raw soap can also be dangerous because the saponification process is not complete so there is still free NaOH floating around in there. at my house, i always let my husband know when i am making soap so he can stay out of my way. that way he doesn't bump me or cause an accident when i am handling it and possibly spill something on myself or himself.

that being said, don't freak out - just be careful. you use sharp objects and play with fire every night when you cook, and you know that as long as you take the proper precautions (you don't leave potholders too close to the burner, you're not careless with the knife when chopping carrots), no one gets hurt. same with soaping. treat NaOH and raw soap with the same respect you treat your knife and burner, stay aware, and you'll be fine.

the baby soap recipe is a good one to get started with; if you can't find pure shea butter, just leave it out and reduce the amount of NaOH to 5.625 ounces. please note that all oil and NaOH measures are in weight, not volume. so you will need your kitchen scale to make soap. also in that recipe, if you can't find calendula oil, don't worry - it's not critical to the recipe. coconut oil can be found at your local natural foods store, same with essential oils. if you don't like lavender or tea tree, use something else. my general rule of thumb is approximately 1 T. eo to 1 lb. soap (by oil + NaOH weight).

coconut oil is solid at room temperature, so you may need to nuke it in the microwave for a minute or two to soften it up enough to get it out of the jar. as far as olive oil goes, better soap is made from lesser grade oil, so don't bother using your expensive extra-virgin. just get the cheapest stuff you can. same with corn oil. it's just soap, people, not gourmet cooking.

you do not need special equipment to make soap. you do need a non-reactive pot, so don't use aluminum or copper if you have them. your regular stainless soup pot is fine, the soap will not soak into it and make all future soup taste funny. it is very helpful to have a stick blender (sometimes called a soup blender or an immersion blender) on hand as it makes stirring a lot easier, but you can stir with an old wooden spoon. kitchen thermometers are very helpful for novice soapers.

you can use anything for a mold as long as you can get the soap out of it in the end. i currently use a silicone-lined mold made especially for soaping, but when i started doing this the best thing i found was to use a shoebox lined with freezer paper. not waxed paper - freezer paper has a plastic coating on one side; use the smooth plastic side facing the soap and crease well. if you have a silicone baking pan, that would be wonderful also because it would be easy to remove. plastic tupperwares work well also but i'd spray them with pam first and you might have to pop them in the freezer if the soap doesn't remove easily.

basic instructions:

1. have your ingredients measured and ready before you start. sometimes things can happen quickly when soaping and you don't often have time to pause and measure specific amounts of eo's. so just have everything ready to go before you begin.

2. measure water into a glass pyrex measure; it's best to use cold cold cold water. measure NaOH and carefully pour into the water, stirring constantly. do not pour the water into the NaOH as this could cause a "volcano" reaction. the initial reaction will fizzle a bit and give off nasty acrid fumes, so i find it easiest to do this under the hood vent on the stove (while the stove is off but the fan is on) while holding my head back as far as possible. keep stirring until everything is dissolved (i use a stainless dinner spoon) and then allow it to cool to about 100º-120º, about lukewarm. do not stick your finger in the solution to test it.

3. measure oils into a large non-reactive pot and melt them together. allow to cool to about 100º-110º. oil takes a lot longer to cool than NaOH solution so be judicious about using heat. i usually heat just until the coconut oil has barely begun to melt and then stir so the warmed liquid oils can melt whatever is left solid. oils should also be about lukewarm. the idea is that the oils and the NaOH solution will be approximately similar temperatures when you mix them. if they are drastically different you could have an adverse chemical reaction. you can play with that on your own time, for this tutorial we're going to play it safe.

4. stir the NaOH solution again in case anything has settled; sometimes a "skin" forms on the top or you get little "floaties" in the solution while it is cooling. don't worry about these, they are not a problem. and see how the solution has gone from cloudy white to relatively clear-ish while it cools? that's why i tell my husband when i'm soaping, so he doesn't mistake NaOH solution for something innocuous and hurt himself. and so he makes sure the cat is not underfoot and not trying to drink the solution, thinking it's water. carefully pour the NaOH solution into the oils, stirring with a large non-reactive spoon.

5. keep stirring. and stirring. and stirring. (this is where that stick blender comes in.) see how the oil turns cloudy and you are starting to get more opaque streaks? that's soap starting to form. stirring by hand can take upwards of 45 minutes so i cannot recommend a stick blender enough. i got mine at the drugstore for $17 and i use it for everything, not just soap. stir until your soap mixture is about the consistency of cream soup. this point is called "trace," because you can drizzle raw soap onto the surface from your spoon and your squiggle will "remain" on the surface. other than the cream soup analogy, i don't know how to describe trace but you will know when it happens. if you use a stick blender it will usually be after about 5-10 minutes. if the mixture gets thick and gloppy you've gone past trace and you need to get it into the mold.

6. trace is the point at which you add anything that you might want to add to your soap - essential oils and other fragrances, colorants, and additives like oatmeal, milk, or honey. (you can also use milk as part of your water but be aware that the reaction with the NaOH will make your soap smell like cat pee at first, the smell does go away.) milk and honey will raise the temperature of your soap and discolor tan to brown so don't use them if you want white soap and you probably don't need to insulate. the baby soap recipe will make a nice, creamy-white bar. stir stir stir to be sure everything is blended.

7. pour the raw soap into your prepared mold. don't scrape the pot with a spatula. the idea is that you could inadvertently be scraping raw NaOH solution into your nice batter there. i do scrape the sides lightly with my wooden spoon because i don't like the waste, but i never use a spatula.

8. cover and insulate your mold and put it in a warm spot (or at least, not a cold drafty one). i just pack towels around mine and leave it in a warm spot in the family room. soap is not going to leak out of your shoebox (if you've lined it properly) and if you push it into the corner no one will mess with it, unless you have little kids. be sure to insulate well; this conserves the heat needed for the reaction. if you insulated well and you peek at your soap in 2-3 hours, you will see the center especially looks kind of jelly-like. this is called the gel stage, and if you hold your hand down close to the soap you can feel the heat from the reaction coming up off of it. don't worry if your soap does not gel, it isn't unsafe or anything if it doesn't.

9. allow to sit for at least 24 hours, preferably 48, before unmolding and cutting into bars. this is so it will be firm enough to cut, but you'll notice that your soap is still a bit soft - you can leave fingerprints and indentations on the surface.

10. allow the bars to "cure" for 4-6 weeks to allow the water weight to dry out from them and allow the bars to firm up. you don't have to allow them to cure, but your soap will last a LOT longer in the shower if you do because it won't just dissolve under the spray. don't worry if a white "powder" seems to form on the sides of your bars. it's called soda ash and there doesn't seem to be a reason why it forms. sometimes it does a lot and sometimes it doesn't, and most often it does on the side that was exposed to air while in the mold. it's not harmful, and if you don't like the way it looks you can scrape or wash it off.

11. enjoy your handmade soap! i have found that the first time i use a bar it will be a bit "sticky" on my skin (kind of slidey, slidey, stick); i think that might be mild soda ash formed during the cure. in my experience it goes away after one use. also, i bevel the edges of my bars with a potato peeler. it's personal preference, but i like that there isn't a "sharp" edge when i first use it, and it also helps to hide any little mistakes i make when cutting.

a note on cleanup: i just stick everything in the dishwasher afterwards, because then i KNOW it has been thoroughly cleaned. i'd make sure to rinse out the soap pot well especially, i usually scrape it with the wooden spoon while running water into it while it's in the sink, to get the big raw soap chunks out. (don't worry, they work as a gentle drain cleaner.) i think when the dishwasher leaked it was because i forgot to rinse my soap pot and probably made too many bubbles in the dishwasher, so just get the big'uns off. i usually try to wait until the dishwasher is mostly full so i'm not running an empty washer nor allowing the NaOH-solution-glass to drip on the dishes underneath and then hubby moves a dish and burns his hand. if it is mostly full then i can just put the soap dishes in the washer and run it immediately once the soap is in the mold and insulated.

so not playing in the deep end today.

2009-03-12T20:02:00.000-07:00

don't forget to enter my blogiversary giveaway! you have until 8pm pdt on friday, march 13, 2009. who doesn't like free?

this week i am thankful for:

1. my husband coming home tonight! he has been on a business trip back east all week. it's nice to have the bed to myself and use all the pillows to prop up this enormous watermelon that thinks it is my belly, but the bed is chilly without him to cuddle up next to. and between him being in meetings all day, me at work all day, and the three-hour time difference, we hardly get a chance to chat during the day. it sucks. how do women do this when their hubbies have to take lots of business trips, like all the time?

2. girl scout cookies. heck yeah. and not only are they heavenly and delicious (my favorites are thin mints and samoas, the coconut/caramel ones, how about you?) but they support a fabulous organization. my sister and i were both girl scouts when we were young and my mom was a troop leader and very involved. i want my daughter to be a girl scout too. what a great organization.

3. jon & kate plus 8. shallow, i know. this is a shallow t3 this week, i guess. i am seriously addicted to that show, i know how uncool it is to admit it. like saying you loved nkotb way back in 1991, i remember kids getting beat up for that. whatever, i bet you like some ~~crappy~~ random stuff too that you're embarassed to admit. seriously though, how cute are those kids, especially the little ones? those kids never fail to make me laugh. and whenever i wonder how i am going to manage with this kiddo - talk about putting things in perspective.

blogiversary giveway!

2009-03-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

don't know if i should have celebrated my 100th post but i didn't. so, i'm celebrating my one-year blogiversary. and because you are all so sweet to me with your comments, i'm going to be sweet to you with a giveaway. i have found i really love blogging, even if it is just random things that are of no interest to anyone but myself. even if i have a "loyal" following of about three people. i really appreciate that you are reading this and the comments i get are very encouraging to me. not just encouraging like hey, your sewing is nice or have a great day, but also encouraging to know that occasionally, there are other people in the world who notice my blog and take the time to let me know that something i wrote interested them in some small way. so, thank you.

a little background: i try to be a socially and environmentally responsible as i can be, but let's face it, i'm probably just like a billion other people out there. i'm not changing my life or turning my world upside-down to do so. i admire people who do because i just don't have that kind of energy or passion for that cause. i don't have the money to be able to consistently make socially responsible choices, which means even though i detest wal-mart with a passion because of their business practices and the way they treat their employees, i occasionally buy a cd there. (don't get me wrong - i don't make a habit of shopping there. our wal-mart is pretty grungy, for starters.) i recycle all our cans and bottles and newspapers and tin foil and yogurt containers, pretty much anything that has a recycle sign on it, but i'm not great at re-using. we are slowly switching to cfls. i bring my own bags to the grocery store. i try to line-dry as much as possible to save energy but brian complains bitterly about "crinkly" shirts so i certainly don't line-dry as much as i could or should. i like supporting the little guy but i'm not going to drive 8-10 miles to the other side of town to go to the independent coffee shop when there is a starbucks less than a mile from my house.

so when we went in to said starbucks two weeks ago for an afternoon treat, i discovered that they were no longer just giving away those cardboard mug warmer thingies with your coffee. you have to ask for them. they're still free - you just have to ask. the barista told me it was because they were trying to do their part to save the environment by not just handing out that much paper with every drink if not everyone desperately needed one. i don't know if that is just that one shop or the company as a whole, but i appreciated it. it's a tiny little thing, but it's tiny little things that can add up to a big thing. and on a completely capitalist note, if it helps keep their costs down then maybe they won't raise the price of my latte by a nickel if the price of their stock goes down.

for a big company that puts a lot of little companies out of business, i kind of like starbucks. they pay their employees well and have a good corporate culture. they always seem to be up there on the forbes list of the best companies to work for. and they're kind of like mcdonald's in their ubiquitous-ness - when you order a big mac, you always know what you're going to get. same at starbucks. which brings me to my giveaway: i went home and thought, that is GREAT about not giving out mug warmers. i've been meaning to make myself one anyways for a while, so this gave me the push i needed to do it:

(yes, that is a coffee roaster and yes i roast my own coffee and yes i'm kind of strange like that. but if you've been reading for any length of time you know that i do a lot of random things.) i can keep it in my car or my handbag and never have to get a cardboard warmie thing again. and i want you to do your own little tiny part too, so i'm giving you two, one for you and one for your sweetie or your best friend or your kid or just to keep around for when you treat someone to a coffee. i'm also including a $5 gift card so you can go try out your warmie thing.

so leave me a comment if you would like to be entered and let me know one small, simple way you are trying to change the world around you. please also leave me your email address (feel free to munge it) so i can get in touch with you about sending you your prize. you have until 8pm pdt on friday, march 13, 2009. i'll plug the results into random.org and post the winner along with a picture of the actual prize (i haven't made the prize ones yet, the yellow daisy is MINE you can't have it) on blogiversary day, march 15. i'll mail it anywhere in the good ole us of a so if you're out of the country, i'm sorry, but you can still have the satisfaction of having won and i'll choose another winner.

and yes, i know how long and verbose this is, but if you've read any of my blog posts at all you know that's just part of my charm, that i take forever to say things. have fun with this and thanks for reading!

update: i have been informed that they are not in fact called coffee warmie thingies. they are either coffee cozies or reuseable coffee sleeves. am i the only person in the world who didn't know this?

baby recipes

2009-03-07T09:40:00.000-08:00

planning on making my own "toiletries" for the kiddo, brian thinks i am a bit nuts but is willing to let me. maybe because i've "proved" myself in the past by making my own stuff for my own use. he and i and lots of other people have used them and not died yet or had their faces melt off so i guess he figures our gal will be no different.

baby soap:
20 oz. olive oil
10 oz. coconut oil
10 oz. corn oil
2 oz. shea butter
10 oz. water
5.875 oz. NaOH
1 T. lavender eo
1 T. tee tree eo
1 oz. calendula oil

diaper cream:
1 oz. sweet almond oil
1 oz. shea butter
1 oz. calendula oil
½ oz. coconut oil
½ oz. beeswax
½ oz. zinc oxide
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo

bandicoot's ooh lotion:
20% olive oil (or maybe some sweet almond and/or shea and/or calendula subbed in?)
5% e-wax
5% stearic acid (possibly less for a thinner lotion?)
6% honey
1% citric acid
63% water
germaben ii
a few drops lavender eo

cloth wipe solution:
1 tsp. white vinegar or liquid soap (we'll see which works better)
1 T. calendula oil
a few drops lavender eo
a few drops tea tree eo
¼ c. aloe vera gel
½ c. water
germaben ii

baby powder:
4 oz. cornstarch
4 oz. arrowroot
1 oz. white kaolin clay
1 oz. powdered lavender buds
1 oz. powdered calendula petals
6-10 drops lavender eo

because it is so gentle and basic, the baby soap is also nice as a face soap. i might infuse the olive oil with lavender, yarrow, and slippery elm bark. likewise, remove the zinc oxide and the diaper cream becomes a very nice lip balm. baby powder is also nice for big girls as it is talc-free. and interestingly, the wipe solution (with vinegar, not soap) is very similar to a facial toner recipe i make and love; i am thinking i could maybe sub in citric acid for the vinegar, if i wanted to cut out the vinegar smell?

yummy leek "tart"

2009-03-06T13:49:00.001-08:00

here is the recipe for that leek "tart" that i mentioned yesterday. it was easy and delicious and got a hearty b-man stamp of approval. i keep putting "tart" in quotes because it was supposed to be made in an 11" tart pan, but i don't have one of those so i cut the recipe down and made it in a 9" pie pan, more like a quiche. so, i don't know if it would really be considered a tart or a quiche or something else (maybe like a timbale?), but it is in that same family of yummy french egg-based dinner pies. not quite as custardy as a quiche but not crustless like a timbale. whatever you call it, it was really good. so good that it was gone after only a day and a half, quiche doesn't even go that quick at my house and quiche lorraine is a dinner standby. way better than the recipe in joy of cooking. this one i got from an old copy of mil's more magazine that she left at my house last time she visited.

loire valley leek tart

1 pie crust
1½ lbs. leeks, white part only
6 oz. sliced bacon
2¼ T. butter
2¼ T. flour
1½ c. milk, room temperature
½ tsp. kosher salt
¼ tsp. pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¾ c. shredded gruyere (or swiss) cheese

preheat oven to 350°. line a 9" pie pan with crust; refrigerate while preparing filling.

slice leeks in half lengthwise and wash thoroughly; slice each piece again lengthwise and then crosswise into ½-inch pieces. microwave in a large bowl on high for 6-8 minutes until soft, stirring twice so they won't scorch. remove with a slotted spoon and discard any liquid. cook bacon until crisp; drain, let cool, and crumble.

in a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter; add flour and cook 1 minute while stirring. slowly whisk in milk and continue whisking 3-5 minutes until thick and smooth. add salt and pepper and cool slightly. add leeks, bacon, eggs, and cheese to flour mixture. pour into pastry-lined pan. bake 25-30 minutes until puffed and golden brown. serve warm with dry white wine.

* for an 11" tart pan, the original amounts were:
1 pie crust
2 lb. leeks
½ lb. sliced bacon
3 T. butter
3 T. flour
2 c. milk
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
2 large eggs
1 c. shredded gruyere cheese

hey! check me out!

2009-03-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

seriously, check me out! (i am inordinately excited by this, can you tell?) and while you're at it, check out the rest of sweet pea's blog. my favorite part is her super-shopper-ness and recipes. i think that girl could stretch a dollar from here to the moon. if you found me from newlyweds, welcome and thanks for visiting!

like last week, this week has been really busy and i have not found time really to post. besides, what is blogworthy anyway? i am pregnant and this kid is consuming my life and who wants to hear about that? we took some maternity photos this weekend, once we decide which ones we want i will post, because i really like them. i'm nesting like you would not believe. my prenatal yoga class is again tonight. i made a cute little thing that i will post about next week for my first blogiversary, because i want to do a giveaway, so check back with me sometime next week. i'm inordinately excited about that too, i think a giveaway will be fun, and i really like this little thing. i made a really yummy (and easy) leek tart last night that brian loved so maybe tomorrow i'll post the recipe.

in the meantime, this week i am thankful for:

1. t3. "way back" when i started doing t3 i had no idea how much i would enjoy it. and some weeks it is really hard to think of three things from the past week that i am thankful for. seeing others consistently be thankful has encouraged me to not just drop it altogether. i suppose this is my version of a gratitude journal (though at my house i also keep a blessings jar - a large, old vase into which i drop little slips of paper on which i've written down something that i'm thankful for). t3 helps me relax and refocus some when i lay in bed wednesday nights, recounting my week and deciding what i want to be thankful for.

2. my silly, wonderful husband, who made our maternity pictures a lot of fun and helped me relax when we did shots of me wearing only jeans and my bella band over my chest. i explained to him later, i wanted pictures of the belly and i knew i was going to have to "bare it all" (or at least, more than i am used to!) for that to happen. it was just a little unnerving an uncomfortable to come out of the dressing room with my shoulders bare and stomach hanging out for someone to photograph. i felt very naked and exposed, even though i wasn't really, and brian really helped me relax and have fun with it.

3. my fabulous provider husband, who manages our finances and keeps us on track. i understand the concept of a budget, but i just don't get it in practice, which is why i don't manage the money. we sat down last night and had The Chat about how much money we have and how long i am going to be able to stay home after the kiddo is born, and while the conclusions we reached are not what would be ideal (me becoming a sahm), we will be able to manage more than i would have expected. if it were me doing the budgeting, we'd have been up a creek a long time ago, so i am glad that he takes care of our family in this respect.

what are you thankful for today?

serious nesting issues

2009-03-02T12:24:00.000-08:00

brian asked me the other day if i feel crazy or different or anything (anything that could help him, please!) when i go all hormonal off on him, and i don't. i feel perfectly rational and justified and MY HUSBAND IS JUST BEING A JERK it's so not me and has nothing to do with the 18 additional pounds i'm carrying or the demonically high levels of radioactive hormones coursing through my veins. honestly, i do feel perfectly normal, except for this raging nesting instinct that has been rearing its head for the last month or so, and oh Lord we have another TWO MONTHS of this?

that nesting instinct has manifested itself in the nursery, where i have been sewing insanely for the kiddo and doing what i can to prepare for her arrival. i know i have lots of time still, but who am i to fight the hormones and body chemistry that God has blessed me with? ergo, we bought a crib and i promptly had to make bedding for it:

not only the quilt but the other linens as well. it all kind of snowballs, doesn't it? then the rocker (that mil rocked brian in as a baby) needed a pillow, for back support. and the underside of the crib was just plain ugly to me and needed a skirt, though i hate skirts. then i was not thrilled with the pink sheet over the mattress. and then, and then, and then.

the name on the wall, that was all brian, by the way.

we also got an inexpensive bookcase which i felt the room really needed to balance the crib and rocker (and the soon-to-be dresser). i really wanted this one but apparently it is discontinued IT DOES NOT SAY THAT ANYWHERE and unavailable. the other one does not actually look as awful as it does online:

most of those books are from my childhood though some are from brian's and some are from when i was tutoring in college. and the pregnancy books. the beatrix potter breakables go up on shelves once the dresser gets here and we are able to hang shelves. mostly this stuff was all on the floor and it helped my hormones to get it up off the floor, organized, some semblance of put away. i will be so much better once the dresser arrives and i can get to work organizing the crap that is currently in boxes and bags in the closet, and then i can kit out the closet with shelves, hooray!

cross-posted at baby stenz

i had a good title for this post, but i forgot it.

2009-02-26T18:11:00.000-08:00

i would say it has been a quiet week but it has actually been rather busy. nothing blog-worthy though unless you count doctor's appointments and chores and running endless errands. kiddo is still happy and healthy as far as anyone can tell which is good news. we replaced the overhead light fixtures in the museum and the kiddo's room, but they are pretty basic and not blog-worthy except that they give off more/better light than the old ones which completely sucked. nothing else to do in the nursery until the dresser is built which is wreaking havoc with my nesting instinct but i am trying to be patient. in the meantime, this week i am thankful for:

1. my boys, brian and woody, who were snoring in counterpoint when i woke up the other night and it made me almost laugh out loud. at 3 am. and brian would have woken up and killed me so it is a good thing i didn't.

2. actually getting things accomplished. even though it has been an exhausting week chock-full of all kinds of fun things like interviewing daycare providers (which rips a hole in my heart to begin with, i don't know what i am going to do when i actually have to leave her with one), it is nice to get that stuff checked off my list.

3. these delicious waffles which we (i) have been eating every weekend for the past few weeks. the recipe is basically the one from joy of cooking with just a couple tiny tweaks. it is chock full of butter so not terribly healthy but damn they are so good that i just don't care. joc says lots of butter is necessary to tenderize the waffles and keep them from sticking to the iron, and more butter makes a crunchy golden pancake. the recipe calls for anywhere from ½ to 2 sticks of butter and i make it with the full 2 sticks. i also tossed in some whole wheat flour for good measure and somewhere, i don't know where, i saw vanilla which is not even in the recipe but makes them taste like candy. i could eat an entire batch all by myself and that is not just because i am pregnant.

basic buttermilk waffles

1½ c. flour
¼ c. whole wheat flour
1 T. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 T. sugar
½ tsp. salt
3 eggs, lightly beaten
½ - 2 sticks butter, melted
1½ c. buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla

combine dry ingredients. combine wet ingredients. make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into the well and mix well to combine. batter will be slightly lumpy. or combine the wet and dry ingredients in a food processor which is what i do. one waffle uses approximately ½ cup of batter.

simple things

2009-02-19T13:04:00.000-08:00

this week i am thankful for:

1. pedicures, especially since it is rather difficult to reach my toes for any extended period of time these days and not likely to get better anytime soon.

2. getting to see my girlfriends for dinner tuesday night, whom i have not seen since we moved. i did not realize how much i missed those gals until i saw them. thank you so much, ladies, for taking the time for us to get together.

3. getting the quilt finished, though now i am a bit at a loss for projects. nothing percolating at the moment so i'm not exactly sure what to do with myself. clean my house? nah, not fun enough.

quilt love (part 4 of 4)

2009-02-18T12:33:00.000-08:00

i was determined the quilt was not going to end up in the Guilt Box of Projects That I Need to Finish Because They Have Been There Forever. and it is finally done! and i so love it:

i did not do anything fancy to quilt it, just straight (mostly) lines down and across the sashing (the light stripe in between the blocks). i used cotton batting because i had read that it is a bit easier for beginners to use and the threads do not wiggle through the needle holes as poly batting sometimes is wont to do. all things considered, i really liked working on the cotton batting and it gave the quilt a very nice hand and weight once i was finished. i also did not baste my layers together, not sure if that was a good idea or not. i pinned prodigiously so maybe that helped but everything i read recommended basting, if i were doing a larger quilt and/or more advanced quilting i probably would.

i also did not use a walking foot, i don't have one. i looked at them when i was at the fabric store getting the batting but the generic one was $29.50. looks like a fun toy but i just don't know if/when i would ever use it again. if i were quilting on a more regular basis i would invest in one since it wasn't that expensive, but $29.50 is a lot for one little project.

nothing fancy to finish the edges either, just a simple binding. i did not blind stitch the binding to the quilt because i liked the stitching line running around the edge, similar to my other quilting lines. i was kind of thinking i might want to do prairie points on the edge but i decided that would be too busy and too much work.

this turned out to be kind of a fun project, not as awful as i thought it would be once i got into the swing of things. i can see why quilting is so rewarding for the people who do it. it did feel a bit backwards to me from regular sewing though. all those ¼" seams and pressing in one direction and perfectly straight lines and matching seams exactly, it all seems to run counter to everything i do as a seamstress. it kind of felt like i needed to forget everything i ever learned about sewing and start over. so, i don't think quilting is going to become my newest ~~obsession~~ hobby, but i wouldn't mind learning more and improving my skills.

actually rather liking the quilt (part 3 of... ?)

2009-02-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

finished piecing together the top of the quilt and i really like how it turned out. except for the fact that i cannot sew in a straight line apparently, it ended up being not so awful. i have a renewed appreciation for quilters, not only because of the beautiful art they create but also because i just do not have that kind of patience. if the kiddo doesn't love this then i am taking it for myself:

from left to right, top to bottom: stretching to the stars, chinese lantern, scrappy heart, celebration star; log cabin, friendship star, four-square pinwheel, ship at sea; invented pinwheel, bug jar, diappearing nine-patch, nine-patch; framed four-square, shoo fly, scrappy house, spool; four-square yankee puzzle, simplified maryland beauty, old maid's puzzle, and monkey wrench.

i especially love the little house:

all the fabrics i used in the quilt are in this one block. that light stripe for the "door" and "window" is what i also used in between all the blocks. the pink is actually leftover from this blouse which is partly why there is only a tiny bit of it sprinkled throughout the quilt. there was only a tiny bit leftover and i also wanted it to be more purple and yellow than pink.

i tossed it up in the nursery to see and it really ties everything in together very pretty. we painted letters spelling out her name in the same purple as the butterflies, and the crib sheet we picked up cheap at ikea picks up the pink. that washed-out pink is actually the same tone as the wall color so the whole thing looks cohesive. i will post photos of the nursery as it comes along a little more, right now it is just a crib and a rocker in an empty room.

in the meantime i have to figure out how to actually quilt it and border the edge. i'm kind of scared of this part (the quilting) because i don't think i have the right presser foot and i have never done it before. so we shall see. after that i think i am going to get started on a skirt for the crib. i was going to forgo a skirt because i really detest them in general but the crib looks kind of undone without it because all the underparts are showing. that sounds a lot more scandalous than it really is.

wedding part 1

2009-02-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

brian and i got married on august 1, 2004 - a day i thought (hoped) would be beautiful and sunny. instead i woke up to overcast clouds, cold breezes, and a light drizzle. it was a sunday, two days after the bachelorette party. i and my girls spent saturday working on flowers - my lovely sister did all my flowers for me. we had 400 roses delivered from 2g roses, along with stock, misty, and greens. kerry really made me some beautiful flowers.

sunday morning alice, jackie, mil, and i went to get our hair done and then headed over to the crystal springs golf course in burlingame, where we were getting married. it was a little chaotic in the dressing room because we were running a couple minutes behind, but in the end we managed to get out there okay. i did not want to be late to my own wedding!

the only "problem" with the site was that because it was outdoors, there wasn't really a place for me "hide" before the ceremony so brian wouldn't see me. my dad solved that problem by waiting in the back of the car with me (with tinted windows) while everyone got into place and walked down the aisle ahead of me. i was happy and excited to be getting married, and the moment i saw brian from the window of the car i started crying. there was the man i had waited so long to marry (we were engaged for a year and a half prior) and he looked so handsome in his tuxedo. my dad worried that i was getting cold feet but i assured him they were happy tears.

i got teased later because i was "bouncing" on my tiptoes during the entire ceremony, as if i was so excited i couldn't sit still. i didn't realize it at the time but sure enough, there i am on our wedding video, rocking backing and forth up onto my toes. brian was a nervous wreck. i think it had only hit him the night before that he was really getting married.

our photographer (whose personality just did not mesh with ours, the only other bummer of the day besides the weather) let us know that we were actually lucky with the weather. if it had been a bright sunshine-y day it would have been hard to get good photos that were not all glare-y and washed out. it didn't exactly make up for the goosebumps but it was nice to know we would at least have great photos.

we had a lot of friends and relatives who helped us out with our wedding and we were so thankful to all of them for making our day come together so beautifully. my godmother spent the day before sewing pearls onto my veil and other friends decorated the tables that morning. as i mentioned my sister made gorgeous work of the flowers. we had another group of friends who decorated the gazebo and even left us a little note that only we could see during the ceremony.

when we kissed, brian's groomsmen whipped out signs they had made "rating" us. from left to right, we scored a 9.9, gross, 9.8, and 10.0! we really had a great wedding party and i am so glad we chose the people we did. of course, they are the people who were (and still are) closest to us. kirsten, kerry, me, brian, ed, paul; alice, jackie, isabel, joaquin, jimmy, and dave.

i am so thankful for my sister. over the years she has grown into a beautiful, clever, interesting woman who loves God with her whole heart. she is so fun and talented and i am so lucky that she was my maid of honor.

we barely had time to take all the pictures that the photographer wanted (wait, whose wedding was this?) but i am really glad he got these shots of us.

then we had to head up to the golf course clubhouse, where our guests were waiting for us. our reception was ready to begin!

grateful

2009-02-12T10:50:00.000-08:00

this week i am thankful:

1. for not having gestational diabetes.

2. that brian's back is getting better. he's not at 100% yet, not by a long shot, but he's a lot better than he was last week, and more himself which i really like.

3. for my dad, who is eager to build us a dresser for the nursery. my dad is a very talented and skilled carpenter, just not always very reliable on the time issue, so we were a bit hesistant to rely on him for this big thing. we basically want this ikea dresser only a bit shorter and a lot more durable than the ikea one. (we actually have it already in our bedroom and love it, and it's pretty sturdy, solid wood - but it is ikea furniture, after all.) he has promised it will be delivered in 3-4 weeks, in time for the baby shower, so we'll see. and he's doing it as his gift to the baby, so it is a huge relief to not have to worry about coming up with the money for a dresser.

quilt part 2 (of... ?)

2009-02-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

i've settled on a sampler quilt. i'm actually kind of liking making it, surprise surprise. who knew! the piecing part is still slow and frustrating, but i think that it is a sampler is keeping my attention more than it would otherwise. each block is different so i'm not doing the same repetitive thing over and over and hating it [as much]. although figuring out how big to cut the pieces is a bit more challenging because... each block is different.

here is what i have so far:

from left to right, the block patterns are: spools, ship at sea, and old maid's puzzle; disappearing nine patch, stretching to the stars, and celebration star; nine patch, framed four patch, and my pinwheel; bug jar, shoo fly, and friendship star; and monkey wrench.

all total i am figuring i will need to make 20 blocks, because the quilt will need to be 4 blocks by 5 blocks to get to be about 45" x 60". i have a pretty stripe i think i am going to throw in (it is actually in the old maid's puzzle block) for in between the blocks, and i still have not figured out how i want to finish the borders. i am figuring i am making pretty good progress in that i have 13 blocks done so only have seven more to do, and a bunch more patterns to use. some are more complicated than others so we'll see if i get up to those.

how to annoy your husband

2009-02-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

1. lose one of the cordless telephone handsets.
2. deny using the phone, thereby negating that it is your fault that it is lost. when it becomes obvious that it is your fault, admit that you can't remember when you last even used the phone, so how could it be your fault?
3. blame it on pregnant brain.
4. call the handset using the intercom feature on the other handset (or your cell phone).
5. allow husband to discover handset on the shelf in the closet next to your shoes.
6. laugh uncontrollably, thereby increasing his frustration. blame it again on pregnant brain and remind him that you cannot remember the last time you used the phone.
7. kiss husband and remind him that he loves you despite your "quirks."

nursery and the quilt (part 1 of... ?)

2009-02-09T09:07:00.001-08:00

latest project: a baby quilt for the nursery. we painted the nursery last weekend in behr's rose glow, a kind of pinkish lavender. it changes color depending on the light and sometimes looks pink and sometimes looks lavender. we are not in love with it, mostly i think because it was a compromise color. brian wanted a brighter lavender and i wanted a softer, lighter peachy pink. it is also a color that i think neither of us would ever in a million years choose for our house under normal circumstances. it is starting to grow on me though.

we got a crib this weekend, this pretty white one. i love it. the white makes the paint a lot more bearable. we are also going to get this dresser from ikea. we actually already have it in our bedroom in the antique stain and love it, and it is a nice height to use also as a changing surface. i also really want a small white bookcase. the rocker that brian was rocked in as a baby is already in there.

i tidied up in the nursery, tried to make it look a little less "un-done," tossed my old yellow baby quilt over the crib for an accent. suddenly i liked the nursery a lot more with the lavender and yellow together. we have been struggling to find a "theme" for the nursery and i think those colors together with the white will be very pretty. i was inspired to make a quilt to start us off and so we ran out to the fabric store to pick something out.

this is what we ended up with:

the white and the yellow actually have very subtle prints, the yellow is has a soft basketweave on it and the white is actually a white-on-white scroll-y print. very pretty. brian chose the purple butterflies and though it is bright against all that white and yellow, i really like it.

i know that one square looks a bit wonky, i remembered last night why i don't often quilt. in fact i have done very little piecing in my entire life because i hate it. piecing gives me a stomachache. (piecing refers to putting together the top of the quilt; quilting is the actual putting-together of the quilt and stitching through all the layers of fabric and batting.) i hate cutting out all those tiny squares and triangles and whatnot. i hate stitching them all together. i hate that i do all this sewing and pressing all those seams and have virtually nothing to show for it. it feels like i do all this work and never make any progress. it drives me crazy.

on the plus side, this one is much smaller than the two "quilts" i have done previously (actually duvets, so i just pieced the tops and did not actually quilt them). they were both king-size which is a bit daunting let me tell you. the first one i did in a log cabin pattern which imho turned out really pretty but was a lot of work for a quilt that size. my pieces were very small and it just took forever to make each square, and i think i had to make 64 squares. the second was a very simple pattern of 3 lines of contrasting fabrics alternating with large solid blocks, i'm sure there is a name for the pattern but i have no idea what it might be. that was a lot easier because the squares were so much larger. this baby quilt is crib-size (45" x 60") and those pinwheel blocks will be alternated with solid yellow blocks, kind of like a double nine-patch, which means i only have to make 12 of them. like my second quilt top, i'm sure that pinwheel pattern has a name, i just don't know it. i drew it up on my own but there is nothing new under the sun and i can't believe that it's completely original. i haven't decided yet how i want to border this one.

we'll see how it comes along. i really like the double nine-patch pattern and i have more than enough fabric, 2 yards of each, so i could possibly stop here and start over with the nine-patch squares. i might do some blocks in the pinwheel and some in this neat disappearing nine-patch. i might do all three. i might do a "sampler" with 12 or 24 different patterns, one in each block. i might tear all my hair out and just do a large basic block quilt. i might end up in a mental institution from all that piecing, wheeee!!!