I lost my iron.

Several years ago I found a vintage GE iron in it's original box at an antiques yard sale in New Hampshire.

It looked just like this:


It worked like a dream.

When we moved here I was afraid to use it with a transformer and set it aside. Recently the box has turned up without the iron in it.

It's kind of bumming me out.

It's just an iron, but seriously? An empty box?

Boo.

Perfectly thrilling ;D

Oh my goodness. This came in the mail yesterday:


Hooooly maple syrup Batman!! My grandparents are great, they really know how to make a girl less homesick!!


And I just finished this for Johnny, can't wait to put it on him when he wakes up in the morning ;D


May the force be with you, hehehe....


Today two wonderful ladies let me tag along on their shopping trip and I found lovely and flattering dress pants and a skirt. I'm feeling better as the snow melts and the sun comes out and the prospect of spring is looming. I also almost feel like I might start getting some things done around the house! Maybe!

Maybe I'm just feeling wonderful because Johnny laughs and smiles a lot now. That makes everything perfect...

Have a great Sunday! xo!

Learning to cook again.

Three years ago while in L.A. visiting with wonderful Lisa, she took me to a cute 50's diner and I had a chicken salad sandwich. It was good, but the part that blew me away was the avocado they placed on top! Avocado on a sandwich?! For almost 25 years I thought avocados were meant for one thing and one thing only: guacamole. Which I love- but it never occurred to me to simply slice it up and eat it some other way.
Brenda, my lovely neighbor, eats it out of the shell with a spoon and some lime. Genius.
Nowadays I will try any recipe that involves avocado, no questions asked.
I've also been cooking more and more vegan foods, not just sweets. The lack of milk and cheese actually seems to help Johnny's little tummy work.
I saw a version of this on FatFree Vegan Kitchen and mixed it up a bit for a cold winter day.

Red beans and roasted corn on quinoa and avocado.


Cook one cup of quinoa according to directions on package.
While it's cooking, on a cookie sheet spread 1 1/2 c. frozen rinsed and drained corn and 1 chopped red bell pepper. Sprinkle with a generous amount of olive oil and roast in oven at 500˚ until edges start turning brown.
De-seed and chop one tomato, mix with one can of rinsed and drained kidney beans. Stir in 1/4 tsp. chili powder, and hot sauce, salt and pepper to taste. I threw all this into the microwave for about 1 minute just to get the chill out of the beans.
Once the corn and peppers are done, mix them with the beans and tomatoes.
Chop two avocados. Place a large scoop or two of quinoa in a bowl, top with 1/4 the avocado and 1/4 the bean/corn mixture. Add more hot sauce if you want it nice and spicy :)

The start recipe called for lime juice as well but I forgot it- try sprinkling it on top!

The super fantastic, wicked amazing, wonderful beyond words baby show!

Johnny is 3 months this week! Yay! Woo! We made it so far! haha..

He always looks surprised or angry because of the camera flash! I'm sure he'll be happy when summer comes along with the sun :)

He is a happy baby and loves to chew on your hands while staring at KatoBear. He smiles big when he sees Auntie and loves to find Dad across the room. Mum can sing him into calmness, no fail, every time (aww!) He loooooooves showers and walks and a teething ring Meagan got him before he was born, before she left. He'll rattle his rattle for ya and drool on your dog if you do so please. He's wearing up to 6 month size clothes and some 12 month t-shirts. Tonight he weighed 16 1/2 lbs!
His hair is actually brownish although I'm kind of hoping the red comes out more. ANd his eyes are dark blue. I also hope those stay, he looks so much like Chris he should at least have my blue eyes! Haha!


He's finally started noticing the dogs, Luckie even made him laugh this morning.


He's rolling over well, even if he doesn't mean to!



... And hoisting himself up ALL the time...


Dad was the first to make him really laugh.


But mum makes him super cool hats!


He sits here while we cook:


And here while we clean:


Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed!

Oh yea, what's a baby without drool, anyway?

Transformation (help?)

Ever since having Johnny, oh, these three months have been frumpy!
So much of me has transformed. I'm a mother now of course, but along with that came an absolute change in my body. I'd like to think it will go back to the way it was but I have a feeling that won't be the case at all. My feet did shrink back a bit and I hit my pre-pregnancy weight pretty easily, but that's the extent of it. My hair is dry, my skin is bad and pale again, my hips are biiiig. Or maybe just oddly shaped? My waist is bigger and higher and my butt is gone, strangely enough.
All of this adds up too ill-fitting clothing. My pants sag and look boyish, my button-up shirts don't button... I saved a lot from pre-pregnancy but most of it is useless, especially with my new nursing needs.
The frustration is endless. I loved my closet, and I KNEW my body. I want to feel like a floaty pretty mummy, instead I feel like I should be wandering into the commissary in my sweats and slippers.

So, for the three month mark I decided on some needs:

• All new underwear... Check.
  
• New (well fitting) boots... Check.
• Wrap dresses, a long sweater and a floaty coat... Check.
• Hair cut and waxed eyebrows... Check.
• Replenish basic makeup elements... Check.
• Eyeliner touch up (it's tattooed on)...
• New, swirly earings...
• New pants (that hopefully I'll make myself)...

Does anyone have any suggestions? What do you do to feel pretty? What are your favorites in your closet? Is any particular brand super mom-body friendly? Help!!


My new floaty dress/coat (by Cocoricooo, all the way from Thailand!) :

Resolution.

Two years ago I made some resolutions to get me started on a more self-sustaining lifestyle. I did pretty well; learned to bake bread, plant a garden, harvest seeds. I learned a lot of sewing tricks and how to cook almost anything from scratch. Picked wild fruit and did some canning and freezing along side two great friends. I stopped using paper towels (for the most part, there is still a random roll bouncing around the house) and bartered for as much as I could get away with. I hung a clothes line and used it all summer.

But then this past year I got pregnant. All summer I dreamed of a garden while I lounged on my couch in the heat. I burned a few loaves of bread because I fell asleep before they were ready. I thought briefly of doing some canning and then remembered it meant standing over a hot stove for many hours. I wasn't even about to hike up into the woods to pick apples. Cooking smells made me nauseous and nobody wanted to eat what I was craving anyway. Carrying heavy wet laundry up and down the stairs was out of the question most of the summer.

Yes, I realize how wussy and lazy I sound.

This year my resolution is to actually USE the skills I've picked up these past few years. Already the cooking is going very well, in part thanks to a great slow cooker book my sister gifted to me. I'm having a hard time finding the time to sew, but I have very recently taught myself to crochet and that's really easy to do while nursing my half pint. I just remembered I still have saved a PDF pattern book I bought years ago for a friend and so will be making my annual hat from now on as winter sets in. I think there will be something very satisfying about getting ready for a new season, using or saving up what's left of the past season and moving on to a new focus.


The will be a garden in the works once the ground thaws out, and I may even start the seeds in the house since that's not something I've done before. I don't have outrageous expectations with the baby hanging around, but I think that I'll definitely be more on top of things with him outside of my belly! At least in the latter part of the year he can simply tag along :)

A few cool things.

The baby cost calculator says we'll spend $2,617 on Johnny this first year. That includes $1,200 in savings and all the one-time costs. Based on their research and a survey of 1,000 moms, the average cost is $10,158... Go us!! Ongoing costs alone are estimated at $8,100. Geesh...

~~~~~~

I found this, via Mothering magazine:

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms

We are doing it. Anywhere we can :)

~~~~~~

I finally got back to my studies this week. Not work though, still building up to that... but starting pilates on Tuesday and in 3-4 weeks we can take baby swimming classes. I also bought some momma/baby yoga books...

I'm ready to get back on this horse!

Evening time.

It's creepy in this old house at night. Especially when it's quiet and I'm alone...


The past week I've somehow managed to get the babe into his bassinet earlier and earlier each night. We started with three a.m. and whittled it down to ten p.m! Not to mention he's in his bassinet almost all night, with some in-bed time happening in the early morning hours. I'm happy with this arrangement... I love cuddling baby but I also love cuddling my husband, and now that he's working day shift again it's nice to have the bed to ourselves, for at least a couple of hours anyway. I was afraid Johnny would never get used to that bassinet, but the goal was to have him in it by three months and he's two and a half now.

Anyway, the point is that each night I lie him down and leave the room. Chris is usually already asleep so I wait outside the room and listen for an unsettled baby so that I can swoop in to rescue him before he wakes up hubby. This creates a *perfect* time to blog.

~Yay!~

~~~~~~

Christmas was beautiful. Peaceful. Wonderful. Fulfilling. With Dad and Sis and new Baby all here it was promising and it delivered.


Notice Luckie, pitifully making my Christmas photo more humorous in search of his new bone.



Wicked Whoopies! Every year my great grandmother (Johnny's great-great) makes a million of these and distributes them to family. This year I finally decided to learn the art and made these ones for the house. That turned out well because I just now received the grands' Christmas package today with the traditional Christmas morning whoopies in them. They are no less delicious!



The remains of breakfast. Cardamom bread, home-made apple sauce and a plum tart that was made and frozen this summer, and is officially a new Christmas tradition!



Fabric wrappings!!



The one hand-made gift I managed to finish. I made lunch bags for Tricia and Chris, including linen sandwich bags and personalized lettering.



The greatest. Shirt. Ever. From Auntie to Johnny.



*Love*

~~~~~~

Dad left this morning, bummer. It was a short visit for him but no less eventful. We took a quick hike on what we thought was going to be a nice day and he took this.


I need to make some booties for him, his little sock feet may or may not have gotten him sick. They were doubled or tripled up, but still.



Dad was really happy to meet grandson #1. It's amazing how much he changed right in front of our eyes in three short weeks. And BOY did he love his grandpa!

~~~~~~

New Year's goodies. We had a small party. German fireworks are awesome! My only resolution is to actually USE the skills I've learned to be more self-sustaining.

~~~~~~

Babe's great-grammy Dawn knitted a sweater for his Christmas present. It's super cute, but that could go without saying!


And I finally broke down and learned to crochet. It's already proving to be incredibly handy and I feel very accomplished in that I'll never have a shortage of clothing for this kid, or gifts for birthdays, or wash cloths for the kitchen! It's really easy to do while nursing (which sometimes seems to take up half my day and sucks ALL the creativity out of me pretty quickly). Hooray for multi-tasking!


I've already stocked up on patterns, this sweater pattern is from WeeBeeUniques, at Etsy of course!

Happy 2010!! Onward ho!