(Reuters) – Vitamin D is vital in activating human defences and low levels suffered by around half the world’s population may mean their immune systems’ killer T cells are poor at fighting infection, scientists said on Sunday.

The findings by Danish researchers could help the fight against infectious diseases and global epidemics, they said, and could be particularly useful in the search for new vaccines.

The researchers found that immune systems’ killer cells, known as T cells, rely on vitamin D to become active and remain dormant and unaware of the possibility of threat from an infection or pathogen if vitamin D is lacking in the blood.

“When a T cell is exposed to a foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or ‘antenna’ known as a vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D,” said Carsten Geisler of Copenhagen University’s department of international health, immunology and microbiology, who led the study.

“This means the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they won’t even begin to mobilize.”

Scientists have known for a long time that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, and that there is a link between levels of the vitamin and diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis.

“What we didn’t realize is how crucial vitamin D is for actually activating the immune system — which we know now,” Geisler wrote in the study in the journal Nature Immunology.

Most Vitamin D is made by the body as a natural by-product of the skin’s exposure to sunlight. It can also be found in fish liver oil, eggs and fatty fish such as salmon, herring and mackerel, or taken as a supplement.

Almost half of the world’s population has lower than optimal levels of vitamin D and scientists say the problem is getting worse as people spend more time indoors.

Geisler and his research team said the findings offered much needed information about the immune system and would be of particular use when developing new vaccines.

“This is important not only in fighting disease but also in dealing with anti-immune reactions of the body and the rejection of transplanted organs,” they wrote.

Active T cells multiply at an explosive rate and as well as fighting infection, can also mistakenly attack the body itself.

After and an organ transplant, for example, T cells can attack the new organ as a “foreign invader,” and in autoimmune disease, hypersensitive T cells mistake parts of the body’s own cells as threats, prompting the body to attack itself.

Geisler said there were no definitive studies on the optimal daily vitamin D dose but experts recommend 25 to 50 micrograms.

Not that we were overtly sick or anything, but you definitely feel the difference.  Synthesized vitamins will only do so much, you need actual sun.  And from October to May, you don’t actually get any Vitamin D from the amount (or lack thereof) of sunlight up there.  Nothing like the real thing, which we’ll get plenty of down here.

If Microsoft had something larger a little more southernly, we’d be having a different conversation right now.  :)  Of course we’ve had rainstorms down here the past few days, and it’s interesting to see how much more difficult it has been to get out of bed and feel energized.

-I came late to the google reader party (well, a while ago, now), and I felt like it revolutionized my internet use. Yeah, I know, I need a more exciting life. Anyway, do you remember those old Rubbermaid commercials where the family would clean up the disaster of a room with the help of stacks of plastic containers and then announce, “We need more stuff!”? I felt like that. So now I’ve amassed more blogs to read, but it’s all so easy! Hehe.

-We know this blog is a little slow, though we’re not sure why. Adrian cleaned up a few widgets and it seems a little smoother. Or you could just use the aforementioned google reader and that would solve that issue.

-We’re eventually going to discontinue the old domain and the forwarding, so please please PLEASE update your little blog rolls with the proper blog address. And then if it’s the kind that updates when we post it should actually work now, too, so that’s an added bonus.

Merci!

Last week I had a bit of renewed desire to appreciate smaller things. It helps me to enjoy life more, which is always a good thing! There are some rose bushes in our front yard, and one of them happens to be my very favorite color–the yellow/orange kind. I was so excited when they started blooming. Of course the bushes look like they haven’t been pruned in years and there’s a ton of dead growth on them, so I really need to get out there with some clippers and go to town. I wouldn’t care, really, except that if I do the work I’ll have the reward of more of my favorite roses. Convenient how that works out!

[The overgrown bushes are sort of a good example of the house where we're living--nice but maybe a little neglected in some areas. We're still not feeling emotionally settled in it, even if we're "moved in". I would need to do some serious work to get it feeling right, and honestly I don't know if I want to bother since we're renting it and who knows how long we'll be here. I just don't see it as my job to clean up years' worth of dirt in the sliding glass door track, and I can't even get the kitchen window open. Okay, back to appreciating things. Hehehe.]

This week it’s daffodils from Trader Joe’s. $1.29 for eight or so blooms… yeah, that’s worth it! They’re so cheerful!

I was super excited to put together these laundry sorter carts. I’ve been wanting something like this for quite a while. So I opened them up and Morgan and I listened to a little Louis Armstrong while putting them together. She likes the music, which makes me so happy. She danced a little, very carefully touched the light…

…then suddenly lunged forward. I guess the temptation was too much. That’s okay, she’s learning, and I’m just glad she likes listening to good music!

What things, small or large, are you appreciating?

Lately Morgan has been really into eating entire foods, as in the big versions instead of cut up or mashed up versions. Yes, I realize it may not be the wisest thing, but we are always right there with her while she’s doing it so I don’t really fear her choking or anything. If I see her get a too-large chunk I take the piece away. Anyway, if she sees something she’s interested in she’ll reach for it and shout for it, then hold it dearly when she gets it. And then scream when for whatever reason it needs to be taken away (like how yesterday as we drove home from the store she wailed the entire way because I wouldn’t let her keep eating a banana–the peels are really not for eating, and when she’s rear facing in the car I don’t feel comfortable with her gnawing on something like that). It’s neat to see her so interested in things, and as much as possible I say yes and give her the opportunity to explore. She’s learning texture, taste, and color, all things that make food so interesting to all of us.

(The above picture was a few days after we moved in, hence all the boxes and paper. She practically leaped out of my arms onto the counter and dove for the apple.)

She picked the cabbage at the store. I paused in front of the display and she most definitely wanted one. So we bought it and I reminded her how she picked it when we then made a slaw salad deal out of it. She wasn’t so sure about eating it, though. Greens are hard to chew without any molars.

She absolutely insisted that I share my celery and peanut butter with her. I think she liked the peanut butter more than the celery. Then again, let’s be honest here: so do I!

We made soup while I had her in the sling. She held the vegetables for me while I chopped, then later helped me stir. She very much liked this leek. Kind of an odd choice I felt, but again I do try and encourage her to try and explore. So I let her go to town…

…and of course had to take a picture of all her handiwork. I cut everything else up and only had the leek left, so I really needed to take it. She was not happy. I cut off the dark green tops and gave a few back to her and she was as happy as can be.

The kid will eat just about anything (though of course not dairy! and it seems maybe not eggs either–we’re still trying to figure that one out so being cautious in the meantime). We had Persian food for our anniversary and she at the hummus, koubideh, and of course the cherry rice. Oh, and nan. She enjoyed it just about as much as we did, I think. I love that she’ll join us in our eating adventures. Hopefully she’ll grow up used to different flavors. Spice doesn’t seem to bother her at all.

Similar to her fascination with food is her interest in everyday objects. She loves tubes of toothpaste, for example. The funny thing is that when she’ll settle in to nurse, she’ll often stop and sit up, find whatever interesting object she can, and then come back to nurse while clutching it. Some kids have blankies or stuffed animals, and Morgan has tubes of toothpaste and pens.

UPDATE: I actually wrote this post yesterday, and then today, just to prove everything I said above, she fell asleep for her nap nursing and clutching a lemon. I personally think she’s quite hilarious.

I can eat whatever I want (see, I told you it would be upsetting). I have always been able to. I can’t gain weight (more upsetting). I’m glad I can’t. I used to want to weigh more when I was little, but now I’m fine with it. I am happy with the skinny lot I was granted.

However, I should probably eat better. It’s not that we don’t eat well, we do. We eat organic mostly, red meat sparingly, some meals entirely veggie. But when I eat, I EAT. And if I’m done eating and I will be hungry again in 3 hours, I will eat again. I do this all the time. By all the time I mean practically on a daily basis. I find myself going out at 9pm to grab more food.

And therein is where the problem lies. Going out to eat. There aren’t a ton of healthy options when you want to grab something quick, even less later in the evening. It’s not that I get junk (to me, junk is McDonalds or an equivalent), but still, it’s not as good as it could be. I could still go out to get my 2nd dinner but get something a little healthier. Or maybe not as much. I don’t seem to have a very timely “I’m full” mechanism. Then I’ll eat and eat and eat and at the end feel like I want to puke. It happened once. By happened I mean puke. It was for a birthday dinner (mine) and I ate 2 appetizers, a main course and 2 pieces of cheesecake (courtesy of my friends and The Cheesecake Factory). The cheesecake made a return engagement before we left the restaurant.

But then I was fine and we proceeded to watch a forgettable movie.

So I guess what I’m saying is I should be wiser. I could do many things. I’ll choose to do a few for now. I could only eat my 1 dinner and not a 2nd. I’ll choose to continue eating when I’m hungry. I could eat only at home for my 2nd dinner. I’ll choose to try and find quicker things to make at home, frozen perhaps, from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, but I’ll also choose to continue to get my 2nd dinner food out as well. I’ll also choose to try and cut out the unhealthier options I may choose (choose pun) for my 2nd dinner.

You can choose to hate me because I am choosing to do this rather than having to, but maybe if I don’t choose to do this now, I’ll have to when I get a heart attack.

Lately I’ve just been showering Morgan with me because it’s been easier, but I really wanted to give her a bath. So I finally cleaned the sink enough (and we bought a new stopper) and gave her a little bath in there. If you know how I feel about sinks, it should tell you something about how I feel about the bathtub that I’m actually bathing my baby in the kitchen sink. You do what you have to do.

She had lots of fun splashing around and playing with the water, as always. Then she tried to stick things down the garbage disposal on the other side of the sink and I had to (a) stop that one pretty quickly and (b) suppress my gag reflex.

This rubber ducky is her favorite. We got it randomly–it was the Westin Kid’s Club gift when we went to Washington D.C. for Diana’s wedding. But we kept it and she’s always liked it. I also always sing the rubber ducky song when she gets in the bath, and she usually grabs the rubber ducky first.

I try to sing certain songs to help give a rhythm to life–so I always sing the same songs at bath time and certain songs when it’s raining, as well as of course the same bedtime songs. I need to increase my repertoire of songs for normal daily stuff though. Is there such a thing as a song for cooking dinner or cleaning? Maybe I’ll have to start making up my own.

Our neighbors brought us a big bag of grapefruits and oranges from their trees. Can you beat having fresh very local fruit in the middle of winter? I think it’s great. And Morgan is really into them. She chows oranges, peel and all, if we let her. I figure the peel isn’t bad for you, it’s just bitter, so if the kid is crazy and likes it then who am I to deny her? I still only let her have a little, though.

So we’re settling in somewhat in Arizona. We like it so far. Job is good, can’t beat the weather this time of year, and the area seems pretty nice. We’ve spent all our time hunting for a house, which I enjoy for the most part but also kind of makes me crazy sometimes. I realize it’s a huge decision, obviously, but MAN it takes a lot of time and mental energy. So we’ll see where that goes…hopefully forward, eventually! I want so much to “be settled”, whatever that means.

I am a bum about blogging, I realize. It’s been feeling futile to me. But at least it’s good for my own memory, right? So IF I get on things a bit I’d like to go back and record a lot of things, even if it’s from months ago. Let’s go with “better late than never”on this one. Hehehe.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to play baseball when I was younger.  I would get to play with my friends in the cul-de-sac though, and I’d do pretty well with our tennis balls.  Most of them would end up in Enrique’s backyard, which was straightaway Center Field.  I never really watched much baseball, TBS and WGN were new “Super Stations” and the only televised games were the Saturday game of the week.  ESPN was barely a blip on the radar.

I was at a mall, I think it Maryland visiting Dave and Jay (my cousins), there was a kiosk that sold baseball cards.  For some reason, I thought hey, I’ll buy each of us a pack.  They were 1989 Fleer and came with 25 cards a pack!  I remember opening mine up and looking at all of the cards, then being the type of person I am and loving numbers, I wanted to find out what the most valuable card I had was.  There was one card worth over a buck, and to think I only paid 25 cents for the pack!  That card…was a 2nd year Mark Grace, first baseman for the Chicago Cubs.  It was worth $1.25.

Exactly!

Immediately, I took hold.  Baseball.  Baseball Cards.  Mark Grace.  First Base.  Chicago Cubs.  In the immortal words of Gandalf the White “It Has Begun!”  I became a mini Mark Grace.  I began to play First Base.  I wore #17.  I watched the Cubs win the National League East in 1989, led of course by Mark Grace.  He had one of the greatest postseason series a hitter had ever had to that point, no joke.  5 games, .647 batting average, 5 extra base hits, 8 RBI’s.  It looks like that pack of baseball cards was paying off.  After the season, he was going to appear at that same Belz Factory Outlet Mall at a baseball card show, signing autographs!  By this time I had PLENTY of his cards, including the coveted 1988 Score Traded Mark Grace rookie.

Danny recently got me a Graded (means it’s awesomeness has been verified by an outside company) one just like this, but it’s a 9.5 instead of a 9, the highest known rating for this card in existence since there are no 10’s (note: this is not my actual card).

I paid to have it signed.  It was awesome, I got to say hello to him.  I also had him sign a baseball.  That was sometime in late 1989/early 1990.  December or January.  I think I still have the little ticket that you had to get punched to receive your autograph.

I followed his career.  I watched his games.  I went to his games.  He hit home runs in the games I went to (at least twice that I can remember).  Mark Grace wasn’t a home run hitter.  I was almost given one of those home run balls.  Anthony Young is NOT cool!  Mark Grace was so cool.  He dated celebrities.

Janine Turner of Northern Exposure fame. Harry Caray used to crack jokes about them dating when the camera would pan to her during a game.

He parties with fans after games.

Mark Grace doing what Mark Grace does…

He was Harry Caray’s favorite, you could tell by hearing how he spoke of him.  He was my favorite too.  Eventually I even got him to sign a baseball bat for me, that was sometime in 1994/1995, maybe 1993.  I’m sure I have that autograph ticket too.  I thought he would be a lifelong Cub, just like Ernie Banks.  He was elected to the All-Century Cubs team as the starting First Baseman.  Of course he was…he was MARK GRACE.  He is widely credited as coining the term “slumpbuster.”  Don’t ask me what it means.  If you don’t know, you don’t need to know.  You search for it on Wikipedia and it’ll simply redirect to his page.

But the Cubs now had Sammy Sosa.  It was all about him.  He hit the home runs.  Grace was deemed expendable now.  Mark Grace had the most hits of ANY baseball player during the 90’s.  He also had the most losses.  The Cubs were not good.  They were “The Cubs” afteral.  The GM didn’t even give him a call once his contract expired.  Andy McFAIL (mis-spelling intentional).  I was really REALLY angry.  How could this happen?  Well, lo and behold, the Arizona Diamondbacks came calling.  Offered him a contract.  Boom.  Done.  Starting First Baseman for them.  They had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.  You may have heard of them.  It was 2001.  They made it to the World Series, against the Yankees.  The effectively killed off the “Evil Empire” in the best 7 game series you will ever hope to see.  Grace did well (he even his a mammoth upper-deck home run in Yankee Stadium in game 5).  He led off the bottom of the 9th inning of game 7 against the Yankees stud of a closer Mariano Rivera with a single.  He began the rally.  Luis Gonzalez just finished it off.  I jumped and cried like crazy.  Mark Grace was a winner.  He was quoted after the game as saying “What really feels good is I wasn’t good enough to play first base for the Chicago Cubs, but I was good enough to play first base for the World Champions and that feels really good.”  EXACTLY.

That team had a new name for me.  They would forever be known as the Mark Grace Diamondbacks of Arizona.  He didn’t lead them with the best stats, they had a LOT of players who played better, they were LOADED.  He batted 7th, he used to bat 3rd for the Cubs.

But to me, it didn’t matter.  I didn’t watch any more Cubs games on WGN.  I didn’t root for them to win.  I was glad the Marlins broke their hearts in 2003, they deserved it.  They punked out Mark Grace.  I do still have their jerseys and hats, I even get some new (vintage…note the pictures below) ones every now and then.  I’ll go to a Cubs game this Spring Training.  I still don’t have a Mark Grace jersey, but I will one day.  The Cubs are now the Evil Empire to me.  I really don’t care how they do anymore.  Forget the curse of the Billy Goat.  This goes way beyond that.  They traded style and substance for flash and steroids.  What have you done for me lately?

Mark Grace retired after the 2003 season.  Baseball lost its luster for me after that.  How could it now?  This was a cosmic connection that we had.  Look at this quote from him…

“I like donuts. I like Krispy Kreme donuts a lot. Too much”

Seriously?  Anybody who knows me knows that those words have probably come out of my mouth at one point or another.  I had nobody to root for.  I was more of a player fan, not a team fan.  I am still like that now.  Luckily Fantasy Baseball came calling, but I have since retired due to my obtaining the Triple Crown this past season (Baseball, Basketball and Football championships).  Mark Grace had wanted to become a manager, but nothing panned out.  The Diamondbacks offered him a job as the Color Commentator on their TV broadcasts.  Josh told me he was hilarious, but you could only see him on those local Arizona games.  Booo.

We now live in Arizona.  Last week the Mark Grace Diamondbacks of Arizona had a Fan Fest.  It’s basically a free event where you get to go out on the field and mingle with players, play games, see the stadium, fun stuff like that.  I HAD TO GO.  We penned this in (no pencil, this was not being missed for anything) and made our way.

They estimated that between 10,000-15,000 fans attended throughout the day, most where there to see Mark Grace.

By the time we got there, all of the autograph “donation tickets” were sold.  Mark Grace was sitting there, next to Kirk Gibson, practically calling out my name, asking to sign an autograph for me.

So close…yet so far away! At least the gentleman working the empty line entrance let me go up and take a quick photo.

They acknowledged that this was a problem that would be rectified next year.  I’d gladly have paid more than $5 to get his autograph again.  They’ll work on it, Mark Grace will make sure.

Anybody that lives within driving distance of a ballpark, you REALLY have to look into whether your team has a Fan Fest.  I went to an Angels one a long time ago but it was pathetic to say the least.  I mean, it was in the parking lot…NEXT to the Stadium.  Was it too out of repair to let the fans inside?  Hopefully they fixed that.  I even got to sit in the teams dugouts.

This was actually the visitor’s dugout, but you could go into either one and play around.

We decided to go underground, into the clubhouse.  They had an underground set of batting cages.

Mark Grace used to take swings in these cages.

The clubhouse was really cool looking.  It was a wheel and spoke design, with the spoke being a large open space for gathering and probably wrestling.

Nothing like your High School locker room, huh?

It was a very cool experience to be there.  They even have a Fatburger inside the stadium and the prices aren’t as ridiculous as you may expect.  The quality was pretty near close too, but alas, only fat fries are offered, no skinny fries.  We walked around a lot, bought 12 t-shirts for $2.25, and I even bought a game worn fitted hat for $7.00.  Good condition too.  Can’t beat that.

If you’ve made it this far, I know you’re probably thinking WOW, that was long, well maybe next year you’ll get to have Mark Grace sign something Adrian.  YOU THINK I’M DONE TELLING MY STORY?  THIS IS THE LONGEST POST EVER!  OF COURSE THERE IS MORE.

Like I said, they had players mingling around, doing interviews (Mark Grace hosted a couple of the Q&A’s, most questions were directed at him for the one I saw), throwing wiffle balls to kids, taking pictures with fans.

Taking pictures with fans.

TAKING PICTURES WITH FANS!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, behold, our Family Photograph.

Former Diamondbacks Reliever Mike Fetters, Emily, sleeping Morgan, me and Mr. Mark Grace!!!

You know this one is a) going up on Facebook as b) my PROFILE PHOTO!  I already told Emily, sorry, but the zoomed in icon view is going to be Me and Mark Grace, you’re getting cropped out unless people want to view the full picture.  He patted me on the back and afterwards noted how Morgan was sleeping and cute and stroked her back too.

Most.  Awesome.  Day.  I.  Could.  Ever.  Imagine.

I tear up writing about it again.  I’m really a big fan.

We’re going to some games this year, maybe get some package or something.  We don’t have Cable TV, so I’m not sure how I’ll get to hear or see his broadcasts, but I’ll find a way.

And next year, we’ll get that autograph.  I have a year to figure out on what…

Day -2: pack most of van with incredibly helpful friends (Shayne, Stephanie, Brandon, Karen, Brett…thank you!!). Realize will need trailer. Make reservation for trailer and installation for trailer hitch on car. Dads arrive. Toby goes insane with excitement.

Day -1: pack more with dads’ help. Start to attempt to get rid of many belongings before deciding to get second trailer. Dinner, thankfully, with helpful friends (Shayne and Stephanie…thanks once again!). Also decide that getting to Orange County in two days is nuts. Add a day to trip.

Day 1: of course start late because of aforementioned trailer hitch installation. Emily starts to lose mind. Luckily Stephanie is there to pull loose ends and even clean the floor (!!). Dads and we are exhausted in every conceivable way.

Stay in middle of nowhere Oregon. Basically a truck stop but not too bad.

Day 2: Emily says famous last words ‘driving will be the easy part. I just hate packing.’

Stop for lunch in Yreka, CA.

Leave two days later.

(Get to know local Walmart and hotel laundry facilities since clothes are in the one car that was ahead and made it through the pass. The fact that we DO have plenty of clothes but they’re buried behind other household goods in the truck is a wee bit annoying. Spend lots of time on road condition websites, listening to radio, and talking to people.)

Day 4: Snow stops long enough to break out of town. Thrilled to be anywhere south of Redding.

Have realized that we cannot get to OC at all because of insane weather and a southern section of the 5 is closed. Plan eastern route.

Stay in small town central CA, approximately 15 feet from the freeway AND train tracks. Room shakes when large trucks go by. Promise self to never stay at that particular brand hotel again.

Day 5: Plan is to stay at AZ border, knowing that we’d arrive in Phoenix too late to get keys etc. Hit more snow on the 15. Starting to lose all humor.

Check engine light goes on as we leave Barstow. Transmission sounds normal and there are no odd smells. Cross fingers and ignore it.

Start calling Blythe hotels. Am confused when many tell me they are sold out. Start getting really frustrated. Even try hotel recently promised self to avoid. Find out a nearby ‘city’ has a large rock and mineral convention and all hotels are full. I am not joking.

Give up and book hotel in Phoenix after helpful hotel employee tells me that’s where the next hotels are.

Get to much nicer hotel where we are given two poolside cabana suites. Ahh. Now THIS is better!

And now day 6…
Hopefully we’ll be able to actually take care of everything today and get at least a little settled. Thankfully our families have been helping us and though we’ve had plenty of changes and odd experiences we’ve had a good time with our dads. All is well. It’s all just a big adventure, right?

So, a quick update (with no pictures because we updated wordpress and haven’t got everything synced).

-Christmas and New Year’s were good, as was my birthday. We all got sick the week before. I finished not a single gift I was making, didn’t make the cookies I wanted, and failed in working on some traditions we want to create. It was sort of an odd year. Lots of things up in the air it felt like. Oh well…try again next year!!

-Morgan is fantastic. She has eight teeth (did I blog that already?), is starting to get into things more, loves light switches, and is generally hilarious. She started clapping and knows it will always get a response out of us, so she does it at random times. Like when we’re pretending we’re asleep in an effort to get her to go to sleep. And then you can’t just ignore her when she’s clearly trying to get your attention. Hehe. She’s pretty great. Last night she pulled her sock off and then appeared to be attempting to put it back on. I watch in amazement at all she learns.

-I survived my first Sharing Time teaching the little kids at church last week. I think I did okay. But it’s hard to keep the attention of a big group of kids! I sure enjoy them, though. I get to try again this week, so I guess that’s good? Even if I’m already a little nervous.

-If you’ve read this far, good job! Your reward is to learn that we’re moving to Phoenix. In, um, a week and a half. To a house that we have not yet found and will not have seen by the time we arrive. Adventures are fun! And we’re excited for sunshine (oh so much sunshine…). So the house is already somewhat dismantled. The few pictures we had up are now down, our closet is half empty, the books are all gone and added to the twenty other boxes of books in the garage, and I’m thinking I should just pack up the kitchen (which is my biggest stress point packing-wise–the fact that we have nowhere to live would be the actual biggest stress) and forget any more cooking. Adrian started taking apart our chairs (we’re a little nervous about room on the truck) but I convinced him that we needed a table to eat at for at least another week.

We’ll get there. All too soon. I’ve started feeling very nostalgic. This house has been good to us, and we’ve had so many opportunities up here. This is where our first baby was born, and where we learned so much. We’ve met some really great people. And I’m excited, because anything that I feel propels us forward and out of limbo is a good thing, but I can’t help but feel a little sad too. Any change in life is that way, and it’s why it teaches us. Onward and upward!

Look at that squished up nose! It’s been so dark (and cold!!) that I’ve taken to using the flash on my camera. I know–it’s so unlike me. But I’m so tired of having blurry pictures inside that I don’t even want to take them sometimes, which is even sadder than funky flash shadows and washed out everything. So there you have it.

Also, this picture was taken at the end of our week with intermittent hot water. The laundry situation was pretty bad. I feel like I have to put that disclaimer in because of the shorts and my pasty legs. Not that my legs are ever not pasty, nor do I care, but I’m just saying. Happily we have a new water heater and all is well. And I still get excited when I feel warm water coming out of the tap.

I was chain piecing a giant string and of course Morgan was happy to play with it. She likes to sit and sew with me, which usually I like. Last week., though, I actually sewed THROUGH my finger. It was not my most brilliant moment. I was trying to nurse her at the same time (likely the problem) and just somehow got my finger in the wrong spot. Luckily it went through right next to my nail and not through it. I was half annoyed at my dumbness, half sad that I broke a needle. The damage wasn’t nearly as bad as I first thought. Had I not been so worried about getting it out–and listening to an unhappy baby who suddenly was plopped on the floor when she thought it was nursing time–it would have been a good picture. Hehe. It hasn’t stopped me from pushing forward on present-making, though, even though it’s going pretty slowly.

Playing with Daddy’s new golf club as he unpacked it. Of course as soon as she sensed his excitement she had to get right in there! I think she knows which things interest us, and she figures it has to be good. There’s no fooling kids.

She’s reached the “pull everything apart” stage, which includes books on the shelf or clothes I’ve just folded. It’s hard to mind, though, when she smiles like that. Plus I enjoy her exploring, which is all she’s doing. There’s very little that can’t be refolded or reshelved, so it doesn’t really bother me.

The big news of the week? Teeth! She’s had four for a while now, but it sort of stopped for a bit. There was one that has been visible but not through the gums for about two months. A couple days ago we noticed that it had finally broke through, and then last night I felt the one next to it also. Then today I poked at her bottom teeth and noticed another one that’s actually pretty far in already. We just hadn’t been watching for those yet. So that’s seven teeth! Crazy. That also explains, probably, why she’s been super clingy for the past week and hasn’t been sleeping well at night again. The teeth, the teeth… and three at once!

Going along with the teeth, she’s eating lots on her own, which is tons of fun. She makes a mess sometimes, but she actually does a very good job of it and clearly enjoys it. The biggest bonus is that I actually get to eat my dinner more or less like a normal person now, so I’m loving this new development.

Taken out the window. Hello rain and grey skies! It has become suddenly cold and wet around here. (Really this started awhile ago and I took these pictures weeks ago but I’m just bothering to post now.)

This is a bad picture. That’s intentional. Also please ignore the mess that is the counter (actually, at least most of the dishes are in the rack, which means they’re clean). This is to show how dark it is inside during the day. This was taken at noon. Note how the blinds are nearly as open as they can be. It’s kind of funny to need to have lights on all day, but that’s just life around these parts, I think. Let’s just say it’s… odd. I’ve noticed, though, how little I feel like taking pictures because there isn’t even enough light during midday to get decent ones. Hrumph! Oh well. That’s life.

On most points I feel pretty good on the mothering front (okay, depending on the day). We have so far been successful vis a vis the house ban on battery operated toys, and she enjoys playing with my fabric scraps as much as anything else. So of course that makes me happy. Ideally I’d like her to have a little less ’screen time,’ but even that isn’t much. We watch a few shows as a family, but mostly after she goes to sleep. She likes Michelle Duggar (I swear she smiles biggest whenever she’s on the screen), and if that’s her TV I don’t feel too bad. Who wouldn’t love them, seriously? I want to be Michelle (though perhaps with less children–I just mean the way she speaks and acts), so it doesn’t surprise me Morgan is drawn to her, too.

Anyway. I didn’t mean to get on a Duggar tangent. The other big thing is the computer, which I am personally trying to use way less of. I keep it off during the day and make myself turn it off when I’m finished. It’s a time waster, and I don’t like feeling like I’m squandering my time. So far I’m feeling good about that. I spent a crazy amount of time in front of the computer watching shows on Hulu when she was small and we spent half of every day nursing. So it’s good to break away.

The computer lessening is more possible because I use my phone, which means I’m also trying to limit how much I’m staring at that. Adrian saw something from…Jimmy Fallon?…about how the kids just want their parents to pay attention to them instead of their iPhones. Yeah. Guilty as charged, at least a little. So we’re working on that a bit, too

Of course, all my efforts to give her a commercial free childhood (or some degree of that) with less noise and electronics is prettymuch negated by the fact that her favorite toys are our phones. Haha. What can you do?

And now for a few pictures for those people who only scan for pictures and don’t actually read what’s written…

She’s getting hair, and even some possible curls, which is what I was attempting to capture here.

P. S. Yes, I’ve been crafting a lot with the new sewing machine. See, even Morgan has been in on the fun:

Danger alert! Yes, I know she probably shouldn’t play with bobbins because she might choke. But I was right there watching and if she tried to put one in her mouth I’d pull her hand away. So don’t worry.

Here is a preview of what it’s looking like. I COULD show the completed project because it is for Morgan, but I think similar ones with be made for others so I’d best keep it hidden for now.

Of course Morgan helped me to make her own present by playing with it while I worked. Hooray for the memory capacity of babies. And I can’t yet show anything else I’ve made, so we’ll just have to wait a bit.

The crafting universe must have been pleased with my efforts in the past week to create handmade gifts because…. we found a sewing machine and bought it! Months ago we went to lots of stores and tried different machines and I got my heart set on something that was much too expensive. There are some amazing things out there. Put it this way–I just saw a machine listed on Craig’s List that advertised a free laptop for running the embroidery software. That should tell you something when the LAPTOP is the freebie. Anyway, I had no idea before starting what current sewing machines are like, having only sewn on mechanical machines. There are some very handy and amazing features. But that also means they get expensive very quickly. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something that didn’t feel perfect or that I would grow out of too soon. So it just wasn’t possible. Or reasonable. I’ve been watching ebay ever since that time, knowing that a used machine was the only way it would ever be possible. And yesterday I found The Deal. (Well, a somewhat more reasonable deal than is usually out there. It’s not exactly free.) And today we bought it. I am so SO excited!

Also, I think when Adrian gets home from work I need to kiss him a thousand times. Except that we both have cold sores. So, scratch that on the kissing. I’ll have to come up with something else for a husband who is spoiling me so ridiculously. Maybe I should make some bread… that’s always a treat.

Happily for me, I’ll get to use MY Christmas present before Christmas. Because even if Adrian tried to hide it, my adult capacity memory wouldn’t forget it. We’ll stick a big bow on top. And for my birthday, too. Hehe. My gift is that I get to make gifts. See how that works out? Maybe I’ll even finish my quilt now…

On Friday we went to Adrian’s work for a little bit. They had a reptile guy with lots of neat stuff. We got to see and hear some crazy snakes. I think after that they did some sort of trick or treating around the offices, and apparently there was a huge shindig at “the commons” but we had to leave. (Remember, there are something like 200(?) buildings and 40,000 employees at the Redmond campus. There are a lot of people.)

Us on the front stoop on Halloween. Morgan was a horse. I didn’t make her costume, which I had to get over because I didn’t want to buy the costume when we saw it even though we liked it. Adrian gently reminded me that I probably didn’t need to stress myself out over getting something done. He was right. We saw this and thought it was a cow, so we said she could be Mooooorgan. Get it? We call her that sometimes. But then turns out it had a mane and a tail. Hmm. Definitely a horse. So she was a horse. Or a cow.

Slightly better shot of Toby as a shark. Yeah, we actually dressed up our dog. We saw this costume at Target and it made us laugh, so we bought it. He actually did better with it than we thought he would.

The extent of our Halloween decorations. We didn’t even carve a pumpkin. How lame are we, right? Oh well. This was a Martha idea I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. It’s glow sticks in white balloons with faces drawn on. For obvious reasons it was hard to get a picture, so just squint and see if you can tell what’s going on there.

I like recording projects that I’ve finished so that I remember that I have actually completed things (it’s that whole “getting ahead in life” thing). So here are a few recent ones:

I found this fabric and at first wasn’t too sure about it, then decided I loved it and wanted to see it all the time. So I made pillow covers for the couch with it. I knew I’d have to carefully ration the scraps, since I bought the last of it at the store. I decided to make a fabric basket that could replace the wicker-y one that sits on the couch and holds Morgan’s toys. Sometimes little bits fall off, which isn’t really optimal for a basket that she plays with. So I used this tutorial from Sew Mama Sew and went from there. It was a challenge because it used different types of interfacing and fusible fleece than I’d used before. Plus, because I can never do anything simply, I altered the dimensions. Because I made it bigger the sides weren’t as strong, so I added in a layer of thin cardboard I pulled out of our recycle pile. It didn’t come out perfectly because the lining didn’t quite fit as I was hoping, but it’s good enough. I cut the fabric carefully and calculated I could make four of these (though I’d have to buy more of the Essex linen for the lining and base), so we’ll see if I ever get to that.

I might also add more layers between the lining and outer box because as you can see it’s not too stiff. But hey, it works. It holds toys. And it makes an excellent hat.

The back of the pillows are button closed because I think it’s cute and it makes the cover removable without having to deal with sewing zippers. Morgan here is demonstrating both her fascination with everything around her and her finger skills. I had a vision for what I wanted in the button itself and couldn’t seem to find quite what I was looking for at the store. Then while ordering things from this site of wood products I realized that a wooden button was exactly what I was going for. Voila!

So, um, remember how when I was pregnant I started knitting this blanket? It wound up sitting for a very very long time because I wasn’t really happy with how it was turning out (like oh so many projects…). But I finally finished it and then took another month or two to weave all the little tails in. At least it’s done. I still don’t envision her snuggling up with it because it sheds like mad and isn’t as soft as I wanted (hence the frustration with the results of my work), but at least I finished. And it can now sit in a box forever.

Okay, now this one is funnier. I started this when I was somewhere around the age of 14 or 15, I believe, which means it has been sitting around, incomplete, for over ten years. It’s another one that I wasn’t entirely happy with how it came out, and frankly I didn’t really have a use for it anyway. Well, I’ve been wanting a rug and one day that bag it sat in finally made me insane enough that I finished crocheting it and threw it on the kitchen floor, bumps and all. Adrian’s not wild about the dirty factor with a rug that is near so much food, which I understand, so this is great because it’s washable but if it falls apart and we throw it away I don’t care at all. At least it’s not sitting in my craft stuff anymore, slowly eating at my sanity. Hehehe.

She wants to explore everything! I sometimes sew with her on my lap (since she’ll only let me put her down for about 30 seconds) and now she likes touching and exploring the machine. So one day I put the needle all the way down and let her touch and grab whatever she wanted. I think she had fun.

She has started using her fingers, not just her hands, which is so neat to watch. She has been on a big eating kick lately–she seems to go back and forth, interested or not interested in solid foods, but she’s definitely interested now. We’ve started giving her small things she can feed herself, and she loves it. Except now, of course, she doesn’t like being fed. She only wants to feed herself. It’s hard to feed yourself purees of food when you can’t quite do the spoon yourself, though. She winds up spreading it all over, which is okay too. A little bit probably does get into her mouth. Hehe. Now that she’ll sit and feed herself, I can actually set her down for a minute and eat my own food. Whoa. It feels revolutionary.

This face cracks me up. I know it’s blurry (moving target–she spied my camera and dove for it), but it’s too funny. Notice how Toby just watches us as though we’re crazy? Yeah.

So the other thing about using her hands and fingers: We’ve read Pat the Bunny for a long time, and usually I help her pat the bunny, play peek a boo with Paul, touch Daddy’s scratchy face, etc. If you haven’t read the book, that sentence probably didn’t make a lot of sense. Well, suddenly she does it herself. As I read the bunny page, she reached with her little pointer finger and pat the bunny all by herself, and she likes lifting the cloth to play peek a boo with Paul. Kills me. Too cute. I’ll try to get a picture of this sometime.

Toby is by far still her favorite. She shrieks with excitement when she sees him or gets close enough to touch him. Of course Toby has learned that she grabs and runs away still, generally just watching her wearily from a distance. Hopefully someday he’ll like her as much as she adores him.

Morgan is still very attached to me, but she’s started acting that way with Adrian more, too, which I think is so cute. When he leaves the room we’re in, she calls after him, watching the door, and then gets really excited when he comes back. It’s so sweet to see.

–I read this article the other day written by an American living in London and I felt so London sick. I started wishing I could live there, plotting in my head how to make that happen. And I don’t know if I’d really want that in the end, but it sure does sound lovely to live in Europe. It’s been my dream for a really long time.

–Isn’t it interesting how there are certain things that stick with you, both positively and negatively, that people say? I can still remember so very clearly certain things from childhood through high school through now that people have said to me. There are compliments that still make me feel warm and fuzzy or other things that still make me feel a little flush with embarrassment or whatever. It’s not that I have a great memory, but it seems like there are certain things that just become so firmly imprinted on us. It’s just amazing how relatively small experiences shape the way we feel and think later in life. Anyone have any they’d like to share? I’ll share a positive one (since the negative ones are best not dwelt on and I’d be too embarrassed to share them): someone in high school told me I was the kind of girl soldiers would have dreamed about while they were overseas. And it still makes me blush.

–Sometimes I feel like I’m in this river and all I’m doing in staying in the same place no matter what it is that I do. I think a lot of work that is traditionally women’s work goes unnoticed, because it’s all the kind that inevitably has to be repeated. You know, you do stuff all day and at the end of it can’t figure out what you did, because the house looks the same essentially, so you have to remember that you DID in fact clean the kitchen, it’s just now messy again because you also made dinner. Etc. It’s defeating when you do a bunch of laundry only to see that the basket is half full by the time you finish the round. But I suppose it’s accepting and realizing that all those little things do add up.

Of course it’s also learning to let go of expectations, which is probably a rather large conversation all on its own. Women in general I think expect a whole lot out of themselves, and then are really hard on themselves when it doesn’t all work out as we’d like. At least I sure do that.

Sometimes it’s frustrating to feel that whatever it is I’m doing doesn’t get me ahead, just allows us to not be behind or swept down with the current of all the little stuff that can easily pile up, e.g. pans in the sink (which thankfully Adrian did all of last night so I could get up and feel not quite so behind today). So how do you do the stuff just to remain where you are AND get ahead? And also somehow remember to brush your teeth (don’t laugh–it’s happened…)?

And then I realize that I only have one child and wonder what it’s like with more kids and want to roll over and really give up. I mean, holy moly! How do people do it? I aspire to be so many things, but perhaps you only learn how by just doing it and getting through it and eventually figuring it all out.

–So! One of those areas in which I’ve been feeling reasonably good, like we’re getting ahead even, is in eating. I feel mostly pretty good about how we eat, and I think that’s important. This week we got fancy and bought some fancy pants cheeses at Whole Foods (we always end up buying extra fun things when we shop together. never good monetarily), and I broke my no-dairy rules to have some. Bad of me, yes, but so so good. At least if I’m going to have some dairy it’ll be something really yummy. Hehe.

–I have this application on my phone for sudoku, and sometimes when I lay down with Morgan while she naps or at night when I’m trying to fall asleep I play. It has a counter of how much total time has been played on it and it concerns me to see the total. I don’t want to acknowledge that I’ve spent THAT much time playing a game. Yipes. Therefore…

–Part of my efforts trying to be more on top of things is a goal to use the computer less. I’m trying to turn it off most of the time, only having it on to check blogs and stuff once a day instead of all day every time I walk past it, which then sucks you in and suddenly you’ve wasted all this time… I feel like I’m just spending too much time on the computer, and not really participating in life the way I’d like to [she said as she wrote her BLOG...ahem].

–This morning I was reminded to be grateful for little things, which today was waking up very warm and cozy between my husband and baby. What’s better than that? I think it’s adorable the way Morgan likes to snuggle while she sleeps, “nursing” most of the night. And she’s so happy when she wakes up in the morning that it’s much easier for us to wake up. What a cool kid.

–The teeth–

Her two bottom ones have been in now for two and a half months. One top came in about a month ago. The opposite one on top has been looking like it’s right there for about three weeks. I keep poking at her, thinking it’ll be through, but it’s not. This constant pressure might be what’s causing her to have a harder time sleeping lately? Who knows. It’s rough being a kid sometimes, I suspect.

–Um… mobile?–

Morgan has never really truly crawled. She’ll propel herself forward when she wants to, but mostly she just doesn’t bother. She will, however, grunt until we give her our hands and she can pull herself up, which she has been doing for about three months. She’s getting much better at walking while holding onto our hands, and she’ll transfer from one thing to another (the chair to something next to it, our hands to the couch, etc.). However, now that she has gotten better-at-but-not-perfected the concept of walking, she seems to have decided to move on… to climbing. It’s hilarious. She’s been doing it somewhat for a while, like scaling up my hip and side while I hold her (hence the nickname shoulder or back monkey, depending what we’re letting her climb on). But then this week she used the tin of blocks next to the couch to climb up onto the couch–while we were giving her some balance support, of course. She just constantly wants to do more, get more, see more. She still doesn’t like sitting much; she prefers to be up high where she can see more. Curious kid, I tell you. Her awareness since birth has shocked me.

Holding on to daddy’s hands by the couch. This was on Conference weekend, which was absolutely gorgeous weather wise and just so nice.

–Yogurt, or how we discovered her milk allergy–

Morgan was sitting on my lap as we finished up dinner and kept grabbing for my plate, which had tsaziki and hummus on it. I could understand how that would be fun to grab and play in, so we got her a plate with plain yogurt on it so she could eat it if she wanted to. She had a lot of fun. It was all over her, me, and the tablecloth. Luckily all those things are washable.

Well. Her face got a little red, and as soon as we took her clothes off so we could both shower off we saw that her whole chest, belly, and back were turning bright red. Then she started getting little white welt-y spots on her chest. And she was clawing at her chest and scratching it. Poor kid!

So the good news is that now we know what may have been causing the crazy excema and skin issues she’s been having. I have completely eliminated milk products from my diet–which made me cranky for a day because while we don’t drink milk anyway I do cook with milk and cream and really really like cheese. Plus it’s just a pain because milk is in so much. Even the bread we had has milk in it. But of course feeling sorry for myself made me feel worse because I realized how selfish I was being, feeling sorry for ME when she was so uncomfortable and there was a possible way I could help her.

So far she seems to be improving a little but still is not great. It’s been a week totally milk free (okay, except for the very small amount of parmesan in the pesto I had previously made and frozen).  I’ve also switched laundry detergent and use a whole lot of Aquaphor all over her. A couple nights ago she was waking up a lot, grabbing at her chest and trying to scratch through her clothes. So I suspect something still isn’t right. There’s this old animated version of “Madeline” where Miss Clavel runs through the house and sings “Something is not right, something is quite wrong…” and I sometimes sing that to myself. The next step, however, would be to go on an elimination diet for wheat, soy, and eggs in addition to the milk, and then I would have a hard time knowing what to eat at all. We’ll see where all this gets us.

–Playing and exploring–

This is Morgan playing with Adrian’s old wooden blocks while sitting on a blanket my grandma made for me. Hehe. When I realized how funny and neat that is I had to take a picture. She ate them, knocked over my stacks, and banged them together. Normal kid.

The other day I bought some balloons for a Halloween thing I want to do and to entertain Morgan I blew one up and let out the air, let it fly around, etc. She was laughing so hard, possibly the most I’ve ever seen. She seemed to like watching it get bigger. I love how kids are entertained by such simple things. It’s so fun to watch and experience with them. It’s a reminder to focus on the little wondrous things all around us.

–Mama!!!!–

She’s back in a major “I need mommy!” mode. She has been in it before, certainly, but it seemed like she was starting to be more willing to let me out of her sight for a little bit or even be held by or play with someone else. Not so much anymore. Today I set her down to go wash my hands–in the bathroom that’s about ten feet away–and she was crying by the time I got to the sink. She does it even when she can see me, too. It’s cute, however also sometimes exhausting. Someday she won’t need me to hold her constantly. Happily that day won’t come too soon, and by then my back will be too weak to carry her around anyway. So it all works out.

And, just because: THIS is why I don’t use flash, even when it results in slightly blurry, yellow tinged pictures:

Haha! I know there’s a way to adjust the amount of flash on my camera, but I dislike it so much I’ve never figured it out. I will hopefully never use it again.

With Abigail, who was there at Morgan’s birth. She’s a student midwife, and she had started her apprenticeship of sorts about a month before Morgan was born. I remember her learning how to feel for the baby by feeling my belly. Hehe. Also, she saved me the day Morgan was born because I thought we were going to get there before the midwives (it was a Saturday, so the birth center wasn’t open), but blessedly Abigail did get there before us so we were able to go right in. She already had the tub going for me and everything, if I remember correctly… which honestly I probably don’t because details are rather hazy but I’ll just choose to remember it that way. I remember walking right in to the room I had wanted and going right back to my hands-and-knees position on the floor next to the tub, then asking for my birth ball back. Haha. Good memories, seriously. Anywho, since Abigail was still somewhat beginning she mostly observed and helped with little stuff, but I do remember her encouraging me and repeatedly saying how great I was doing/did, which of course helped me feel good.

Us with Ali, who was the midwife on call when Morgan was born. She had let Tanya, the other student midwife who was farther along in the apprenticeship (she started I think soon before we started going there) do the majority of it, but of course she was there helping and making sure everything was good. I really wanted a picture with Tanya since she was the one who actually caught Morgan (with Adrian right there too…she just guided her to protect me from damage), but she wasn’t there. They had all been up past 5 am the night before with a birth, and Ali had returned home to her little kids waking up so she hadn’t slept at all. I guess that’s the life of a midwife. Yipes. Ali was great and so calm that anytime before or after Morgan’s birth I always felt reassured that everything was good and normal. She has a great presence.

Okay, for anyone who has made it this far I have another random thing to share about labor that for some reason I keep thinking about. I was afraid of having a back labor because I knew I wouldn’t be likely to handle it if that were the case. Because of that, as soon as I thought I might be in labor I spent all my time on my hands and knees. Gravity takes some pressure off the back, and can help the baby move into an optimal position rather than pushing on the spine, which is what often causes a back labor. So I went on my hands and knees and rocked in circular motions up and down during each contraction, and I am absolutely convinced that the movement and position is what helped me progress so well. I read up before and knew that position helps open the pelvis. The only time they had me go to my back (semi-sitting) was when I was pushing, and that was because they wanted to slow her down and guide her out more–which was probably really good since she had that hand against her head. Anyway, it worked for me, so it may help someone else out there. You never know!

Let’s call the it the Jon and Kate syndrome, though that’s not really what I’m thinking about. They were cool to watch because they were this struggling family with lots of kids and you wondered how they could handle it all. Well, they got famous, money is clearly not an issue, and the answer now is that they handle it with money. They no longer have the qualities that made them endearing originally.

Or say Whole Foods. Nice store, lots of nice natural products, carries “eco-friendly” stuff (that phrase is a whole discussion on its own)… but it’s huge. It grew to become like other national chains, so it kind of lost it’s soul. You know what I mean? When the organic produce is flown halfway around the world, is it really that much better? See The Omnivore’s Dilemma (by Michael Pollan) for a better discussion of that particular issue. I’m parroting the idea here.

Sponsorship, I feel, is a huge issue. Everything is sponsored. I’ve stopped trusting a lot of things, because I assume it’s sponsored and that’s why the product is conveniently mentioned. It makes me sad.

I hope it doesn’t happen to the stuff I like. But if a company in Maine is big enough for me to have heard about it, has it already lost its Mom and Pop soul? It’s the end result of a commercialized world. Isn’t the goal sort of to get a good enough idea that one of the big companies will buy you out for millions? So then the whole world is controlled by the same four huge corporations… Will everyone sell out when given the chance? Would I, if it meant I could live a more relaxed life? Probably so I suppose.

Sometimes I want to go live in a cave. Anyone care to join me?

Action shot… she’ll only go forward, inchworm style, when there’s something worthwhile. Apparently the lens cap was good enough. I love the symbolism of crawling away from her toy basket to reach something that Mama likes, which surely means it’s more interesting.

A successful grab… or is this a Nikon ad? I love how she’s holding it just perfectly. I wonder if there’s a way to submit this photo to them. Haha.

She grabbed a page of a magazine I had intended to save. Luckily it wasn’t one that I really really wanted. My selflessness has limits, okay? I was working on my mostly-useless-but-makes-me-happy collection of Martha articles cataloged in binders. It’s a silly thing that lets me feel like I’m doing a project for me.

I love the “oooh!” face. Can’t help it.

Somehow I caught the bee going to the sunflower. Neat. What a lovely day, eh?

Morgan grabbing the tomato plants. Chubby fingers are cute. Hehe.

Morgan eating the tomato plant. Mmmm…

And just one of our treasures. Notice my dirty fingers. That’s working for your food… even though of course the farmers did basically all the work… not the point.

Someday I’ll grow things in my own yard and not kill them. Really. And then we’ll have super fresh produce all summer long. Someday.

Speaking of the whole 8 month thing, I’m constantly torn between not wanting her to grow at all and also being really excited for her to learn and experience the next phase. And I sometimes am really looking forward to having a little more time to myself, but I realize that when that time comes I’ll probably be following HER around wanting to play. And as much as I sometimes think I do want some time alone, in those few rare minutes where I haven’t been right by her I feel a little panicked. And it doesn’t help that after about three minutes where she can’t see me she howls. This, I am sure, I will also miss when she grows out of it. It’s a constant dichotomy, you see.

Please ignore the fact that a good majority of the pictures I take are in this same spot. We have limited sources for natural light that also make decent photo backdrops around these parts.

A little blurry, but this face is the total Morgan face to me. She’s diving forward a little, which she does a lot. She is curious about everything. And often just looks happy.

I really like this picture. However, she was constantly moving and I was using the manual settings and it’s overexposed on the face.  And I think her dear pale skin reflected even more light. (Gee, I can’t imagine where she would have inherited such skin…) I tried to fix it a little but it was hard to do without darkening the background way too much. So I decided to  not do any more to it because at my skill level I was likely to just ruin it. Any tips?

The teeth! The teeth! I have tried to no avail to get a good picture of them before more grow in. So I was excited to have a picture where you can actually see them, no matter how shadowed. Hehe.

And this, I think, may be my favorite of all. Hard to choose. Of course I’m quite biased, but I think she’s darling.

I have struggled with the concept of stock for cooking. Bouillon, while convenient and cheap, gives me headaches (I suspect due to the high salt content and the MSG… even without the headaches I’m sketchy on the salt). I’ve used Better Than Bouillon and have really liked it. It’s not that much more expensive, really, and it lasts a while. However, corn syrup solids are high on the ingredient list so I’m not thrilled with that, either. If I were really good I’d make my own stock, but I’m not. I make a lot of things. I just haven’t gotten to stock, though I want to. I keep carrot bits and peelings and the ends of onions and the stems of parsley in the freezer in a bag for the day that I’ll suddenly make stock. Last week I needed to boil the chicken to shred it, and the sauce for the same dish needed some chicken stock. So I put some of the frozen veggies and a cube of salt free veggie bouillon (not bad, but not much flavor either) in while the chicken cooked and then used the leftover “stock” for the sauce. Excellent. It worked.

Cooking, for me, is a creative endeavor. It’s a way I can plan and experiment and create something out of little parts. I’ve been focusing a lot lately on what we’re eating and trying out different grains and such. It’s been good, though we have encountered a few misses. That’s the nature of it, I suppose. Anyway, the bummer with cooking is that you eat it and your creation is gone. Which is why I sometimes take pictures, and sometimes share it. For something that is such a huge part of our lives, it’s nice to document it. I remember lots of places and days by things we ate and tried, so why not?

Moving on.

I think I wrote, what, four blog posts in August? Oh well. It was a busy month and we spent a good chunk of it sick. Nothing makes me sadder than a sick baby, let me tell you. Especially when I didn’t feel top notch either. She just wasn’t herself (not very “Morgan-y” as Adrian says). The day she finally laughed again–at Toby, what else?–was a huge relief. Also she went back to sleeping better, which made all of us a little happier. So the story is that maybe I’ll blog more, maybe I won’t. I just haven’t been feeling it. I haven’t even pulled out my camera much at all. Sadness. I should be doing more, I just totally haven’t felt like it.

Speaking of how I feel, I feel like I’m so behind sometimes. I guess that’s just normal. I always felt that way in college, like I was so busy, and now I am kicking myself for not doing more and enjoying it more. Same with pre-baby married life. And I imagine in ten years when I have 15 kids (it’s gonna be a busy ten years, let me tell you) I’ll be laughing at my current self thinking how naive I am. Hehehe! I feel like I’m getting done what needs to, but I don’t think I’m getting ahead and that bugs me. Also, I’m not enjoying it enough, and that’s sad and silly. I’ve tried to just stop and chill and roll around with  Morgan a little more. The laundry (which is my word that means everything from dirty clothes to dirty dishes and dirty floors) really doesn’t actually matter that much. Except that I won’t often put Morgan down on said dirty floors and she is so ready to crawl and even stand that I probably should do something about that.

But of course my head is filled with so many things that sometimes I think I’m going to burst. Right now it’s graphic design. I feel like I’ve always been fairly decent at design, so I’d like to try it digitally. Because that’s what I need: another thing to do and work on. Sometimes I feel like I’m this crazy amorphous sponge, soaking up whatever I can and expanding in every possible direction. Like one of those sponges in a capsule that emerge when you put them in warm water. Yeah, like that.

And if that’s not a fantastic self image, I can’t imagine what would be. Who needs a manicure when you can be a dinosaur shaped sponge?

Morgan playing with the rattle-type toy (note, if you can see it, how well she’s sitting up. She’ll actually sit for a few minutes and play, and it’s so nice to be able to sit with her while I fold laundry or whatever)

All wrapped up together was this silk and wooden bowl and spoon. Yes, I decided to go for it. Because I’m crazy.

And, because I take pictures of somewhat pointless things… I just like that an actual person wrote thank you on the packing slip.

Well, when we were in Hawaii we went into this gelato shop, and randomly they also sold Tom’s Shoes. We were pretty excited. So after dinner we went back and instead of getting dessert like we’d planned, we bought ourselves some shoes (probably the better decision health-wise, even if it did cost more upfront).

I feel good supporting a company set up like that. You can even enter a contest to go on one of their “shoe drop tours”. How cool would that be?

They’re more comfortable than I expected, and they’ve become my go-to shoe along with my flip flops. The first outing I wore them on was to Chipotle and Whole Foods, and let me tell you… I. felt. so. cool. And hippie-fied.  Hehehe.

I know it’s a small thing, but it’s nice to feel like the choices we make can have a positive effect on people who need it and who are probably more deserving of it than the executives of big companies where we spend most of our money. You know?

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]]> http://theuntitledtitlepage.com/2009/08/21/toms-shoes/feed/ 2 http://theuntitledtitlepage.com/2009/08/20/mama-made/ http://theuntitledtitlepage.com/2009/08/20/mama-made/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:14:49 +0000 Emily http://theuntitledtitlepage.com/?p=644 Here are some recent things I’ve made for Morgan:

The little fabric ball things originally came out by me trying to copy Lesley (have I ever said outloud how I want to be like you?) who made these Easter eggs based on a pattern from RetroMama. So that’s the pink one on the left. I made a few of those with some old fabric I had. Then I got it into my head that I should make stuffed balls in different colors for Morgan to play with, since I like the concept of fabric or wooden toys. Note that the shapes didn’t really come out like balls because I kept playing with the egg pattern and also the direction of the fabric (it has more stretch in one direction than the other). So really they’re fabric blobs. But that’s okay. She likes to grab them and we throw them around.

The books are from Bare Books, a company I heard about from Soule Mama’s blog. They have a minimum order requirement, but they are so cheap that I got a bunch and it’s nice to have a little stash for future projects.

One board book is filled with pictures of our family members, and the other is just a bunch of baby and kid faces I cut out of magazines I had already read. I used modge podge to glue it all in. Pretty simple project, and it was pretty cheap and I don’t stress if she wants to drool all over it. I’m collecting pictures of animals for another one, and I’m already excited about the prospect of someday seeing what stories Morgan will come up with and write in her own little books.

My current project are some basic pants for her. Turns out most clothes don’t seem to fit as well with cloth diapers, so I’m ambitiously trying to alter a basic pattern to have some extra space in the tushie region. This is ambitious because I don’t know a thing about clothes sewing.  And yet I am also thinking I’ll add some ruffles at the bottom because why not make it more complicated for myself? Actually, the ruffles will hopefully distract from any mistakes I make on the rest of it. We’ll see how that comes out and if they’ll be “home only” pants.

I’ve been thinking a lot about handmade things. The explanation I happened to read from Sugar City Journal sums it up really well for me:

“The women’s organization at church – the Relief Society – was hand-knitting bandages for lepers. Wanting to learn how to knit, I signed up for the project. And what a project it was! The bandages were knitted on teensy needles with the finest crochet thread. It took hours to knit only a few tedious inches. Perplexed, I questioned the ring-leader of the bandage-knitting crew on why we were knitting these instead of buying some gauze at the pharmacy. “Because,” she told me, “the lepers believe that a handmade bandage has the karma of the maker in it. That energy can help heal their wounds.”  “

That idea has clicked for me as well, and it helped me to put into words why I enjoy things that are handmade. Things I’ve made for us don’t always look perfect, but, for example, I enjoy having napkins and placemats on the table that I made. Imperfections are the mark of something being created by a person, not a machine, and I like it that way (and remind myself of that when I stress out about my own errors).

A recent perfect example of this are these hair flowers we bought in Hawaii. Tawnya had bought some and I thought they were really pretty, much nicer and more realistic looking than a lot of the plastic ones you see in every tourist shop. So later we went back so I could buy some, and both the husband and wife were manning the little stand. The petals are made out of clay, and she showed us how the back of the petals have imprints of the lines of her hands and the tops have her thumbprints. If you look closely in the above picture, you can see them there. Now THAT is handmade. I loved it when she showed us that. We talked a bit and after buying the flowers, they gave me a fresh lei, too. These are memories and touches that you simply can’t have had we bought something that was factory made.

In a broader sense, this is really about all the things we choose to have around us. Because it’s much easier to upload a few select pictures than sort through everything from Hawaii, the next few blog posts I’m working on will all be about things that have recently given me that good karma feeling. Be excited!

She still spends a lot of time in the wrap, and is definitely happy when she does. We got a new baby wearing setup, too, so that now I can carry her on my back as well. There are times it is exhausting to carry her so much, but she’s so happy that it reminds me that it’s worth it. She also loves mirrors, so this was a double happy picture.

Morgan loves grabbing my hair. For a while, her favorite way to be was me holding her on my left hip, and then her grabbing my hair with her right hand and sucking on the fingers of her left. Apparently it was all very soothing. She’s at an age where she reaches out for everything. She likes playing with our faces, too. She makes us smile and laugh.

…and this little one is six months old. She is so much fun, and it’s amazing to watch her grow and change and learn. Sometimes it’s so gradual that I barely notice it until I look back at old pictures. I love it when she’s snuggly (though of course she always likes being held, it’s just that she usually likes to be standing). She grabs everything and is sitting up more on her own. Her favorite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar–good choice, I say. When we read that one she sits with rapt attention and smiles each time we turn the page, especially to the “he was a big fat caterpillar” page. We’re so grateful to have her here!

We went to the Redmond Farmer’s Market and got some pretty great stuff: fresh pastured eggs, sheep’s cheese and fresh mozzarella, and of course lots of fruits and veggies. The peaches we bought were ripe and smelled heavenly, so I cut two up and just blended them for Morgan (who is 6 months old today… what?!?!). They were so juicy it turned into a juice more than a puree, so we gave it to her in a cup. She watches us whenever we drink from cups and get really excited when we let her gnaw on the edge of one, so she was even more excited to discover that this cup tasted good, too. She didn’t like it when Adrian would take it away to give her a break, and as you can see she even helped hold on to it. The food that is easily mashable has been my favorite to give her so far: avocados, which she also usually likes, and these peaches. She also really likes apples, though I did cook those first of course.

Because, judging off the comments my Trader Joe’s post received, we have some folks out there who love TJ’s as much as I do, I thought I’d share one of my favorites. There are many, of course, but because no one mentioned these it seemed really more like a public service to show you these:

They claim to be mini croissants, but they’re a pretty good size once they rise. See, they start out all small like this

You let them rise overnight and in the morning they look like this:

Then you cook them for about 30 minutes (and don’t overcook them like I did a little) and they’ll look like this:

They are really good, seriously. They’re flaky without leaving that gross layer of gunk feeling on the top of your mouth like cheap croissants can do. Please tell me you know what I’m talking about and I don’t sound totally crazy.

Anyway, I think it’s $3.99 for the pack of 8–or the same price for a pack of four pains au chocolat, which we haven’t tried yet. It’s not a bad price, because you just have to trust me that they taste really good. We don’t have them all the time, but I love them for a super easy treat breakfast.

Bialys. Adrian always talks about bialys (sort of like bagels, but different). Apparently you can only find them near New York or that part of the east. I even went to some place called Mikey’s Brooklyn Bagel Shop or some such thing and they didn’t know what I was talking about. So a couple months ago I found this recipe and decided I’d make them for his birthday. I am very afraid of making breads because it never seems to come out like I imagine. Here, the dough wasn’t rising right, but it came out okay in the end. Maybe not having anything in my head to compare it to was a good thing.

On Saturday, since his birthday was on Sunday this year, we went to the Il Fornaio Risotteria in downtown Seattle. It was good, as always. It’s hard to find real Italian food (Olive Garden doesn’t count, though I still argue it’s not bad for what it is, you just can’t compare it to actual Italian food).

We split a pizza for an appetizer. It was a little oilier than we felt it should be, but the pesto and veggies were good. Note the nice thin crust. Ahhhh. Looking at the picture makes me want to go to Italy. Or at least back to the restaurant, which is substantially cheaper than flying to Europe.

Adrian and Morgan with the desserts. We had creme brulee AND a chocolate fudge-like cake. Both very good. (Oh, and we had main courses of a grilled pear ravioli and the porcini risotto. Yummy.)

The rest of the birthday food got a little drawn out because my big plans for Sunday didn’t work out until Monday, but I’ll spare you the details. We’ll just say Saturday was the celebration day.

For Adrian’s birthday last weekend we went to see Food, Inc. at this little theater in Seattle. It’s a small documentary, so that’s the only place it was playing anywhere near us. It was our first movie since Morgan was born, but we figured it would be reasonably baby safe since we weren’t expecting violence and loud explosions in a documentary about the food industry. And it worked out that she slept almost the whole time anyway.

The documentary was pretty good, and definitely was a little eye opening about what’s going on with the food we eat. I feel like I’m pretty aware of these things, so it wasn’t completely earth shattering to me–this is one of those preaching to the converted situations, I think, because you’d have to already have an interest before bothering to go see it. There were definitely some interesting parts to it, and it made us a little more determined to be careful and aware about what we eat. My favorite scene was a family driving through Burger King, and they were explaining how they could get tons of food off the dollar menu for the same price as just a few vegetables or fruit at the store. I don’t think I had realized so clearly how crazy that is before. I was thinking about these mustard greens that were sitting in our fridge that I had spent $2.50 on (I’m trying to learn how to cook these things!) and how much food that would equate at McDonald’s. And it’s really sad that it’s actually cheaper to buy unhealthy food. Why is that? Because of corn subsidies. But that’s a longer story than I feel like writing about.

The other most interesting bit to me were all the connections between government (the FDA, USDA, even the Supreme Court) and the agricultural companies. It’s no wonder the system is the way it is.

Happily, we were still able to go out for Adrian’s birthday dinner, though the next night (Sunday, his actual birthday) when I was being lazy and just reheated this Shepherd’s Pie I had made and frozen previously, we both felt a little yucky while eating it and ended up throwing the rest away. So it’s true that this movie might make you lose your appetite, though I say it’s still worth seeing.

Anyway, so a few weeks ago I decided to see if Morgan could sit up. I hadn’t tried to let her do it on her own, but she has sat well in my lap for a while so I figured it was worth trying. She did okay as long as she leaned forward to balance herself.

However, it didn’t last long, because I think she suddenly realized that it scared her or something:

So how am I a terrible mother? I sat there taking a picture of her in this distressed state BEFORE I rescued her from it. And perhaps even more sad, I’m kind of glad I did because this face is priceless.  If you only have pictures of your kids smiling you might forget the various other faces they make. Hehe.

(Adrian had this picture as the background on his phone for a bit but had to take it off because it was too sad.)

I am not, in general, such a terrible mother. Morgan’s a pretty darn happy kid, and I take great comfort in that. We must be doing at least a few things right around here.

And I’ll try to post more pictures of things later. But I make no real promises, so don’t hold me to it.

Anyway, so I can’t believe that Morgan is five months old now. She’s a kick. She’s so smiley and laughs lots, too. She laughs at odd things sometimes, like when we sneeze. Yesterday I got her going with “peek-a-boo”. She cracks me up. She infinitely prefers standing to laying down or even sitting. She will grunt in a frustrated way sometimes even when we sit down. I think she knows the view is better when you’re up high. She only ocassionally will roll over, and gets frustrated after about 30 seconds of laying on her back or tummy. However, if you lay her on her back and hold her hands she’ll pull herself up to sitting and then standing. I suspect she’ll skip crawling and be walking first.

She grabs everything in sight and tries to eat it. Today she even leaned over while I was holding her standing to grab her ball and then stood back up to play with it. I told you, she likes standing.

I’ll try to get more stuff up. Maybe. I’ve got a lot of projects to work on, and a nice holiday weekend ahead of us…

Our freezer.

The weather here is pretty kooky. I feel like it goes from super hot to rainy, but that perfect spot in between is hard to find. We’re enjoying the summer routines, though, of evening walks. It stays light here until about 9:30, so we enjoy getting out after dinner.
Nothing too exciting has happened in the past few weeks. I feel like I’m getting back into a better routine, I think. I’m cooking more (or at least enjoying it more). I’ve been sewing a bit and doing some of that. I even had a friend over and we made some coasters. And today I met up with some friends from church for lunch. This is big stuff for me. Hehehe.

I don’t feel like saying a lot, I just know it’s been a long time since I posted anything so I thought I should. Time is flying and I feel a little panicky that Morgan will be five months old tomorrow. Holy moly. She’s a joy, though, and makes me smile and laugh a lot. She’s very chatty and loves to grab and everything and get it into her mouth. Love it.

[I finally started using google reader--yes, eons behind everyone else--and love it. That also means I now see it when this one random blog post of ours keeps "posting"... I have no idea why. Please ignore.]

On to the point.

I’m planning on trekking it out to Bellevue in the next few days (okay, okay, it’s not really SO far, but it’s kind of something I have to plan in advance for with Morgan, who is still not a fan of the car… it’s really hard to drive with my arm going numb because I’m reaching around her seat to hold the pacifier in her mouth while my throat is getting a little hoarse from singing every song I can think of) for a little TJ trip and I’m wondering what products other people love. Somewhat intentionally I don’t keep snacky stuff on hand because (a) it’s more expensive and (b) it’s usually not as healthy as food you make yourself. The fact that we don’t have that kind of thing on hand, though, means that for lunch for me or for late-night “I’m still hungry” moments when we don’t feel like cooking anything we have nothing to grab and eat besides chocolate chips.

Not that I’m guilty of eating lots of bags of chocolate chips. For lunch. Ahem.

Now we’re out of chocolate chips, but luckily “pints” of Haagen-Dazs have been on sale at the grocery store lately so we have those for munchiness. Yes, yes, very healthy. Actually, have you tried the Haagen-Dazs “five” line? It’s made with only five ingredients, which of course makes me feel better because they’re all normal ingredients. So far, I’ve tried ginger and mint, and they are very very good. This could be a problem for me, because even if it does only contain pronounceable ingredients it can’t be good to eat so much of it.

Back to the point: One of the great things about Trader Joe’s is that it’s generally cheaper than grocery stores, and also generally healthier–though of course like anywhere you still have to be savvy. But I love that you can get organic food for the same price as regular food at the grocery store, butter is cheaper, etc. Our addictions often ebb and flow, but right now I’m still on the wheat and flaxseed crackers (was also a pregnancy staple). We’ve also been drinking this green food drink that’s pretty good, and of course I stock up on the frozen veggies but that’s not really a TJ-specific product (just a cheaper/better-than-grocery-store one). I love their hummus, but I started making it at home–with TJ’s canned garbanzo beans and TJ’s lemons, of course. I also buy the noodle boxes for Adrian to have on hand at work.

So, O Masses, please PLEASE tell me your favorite TJ’s products. Specifically, I’m looking for things we can have for “quick food”, but I would love to hear about whatever it is that you love and buy often from TJ’s. Not that I really need more inspiration to love it, but I would love to get some ideas for things I maybe haven’t tried. And we can all bask in the Trader Joe’s love together. Ahhhh.

“Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?” said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?”

“I can answer your question,” said Fitzwilliam, “without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.”

“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

“My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault — because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution.”

Darcy smiled, and said, “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you, can think any thing wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.”

Anyone else ever feel this way? I was thinking yesterday that perhaps I am just out of practice. Hmm.

-I used to think I could never ever ever use the bathroom in front of my husband. I mean, how gross! But… nope, got over that one the day we were married.

We always were quite comfortable with each other. The fact that I could always be myself and not hold anything back was one of the reasons I wanted to marry him.

-A few months after we got married, I had been doing laundry when Adrian came home from work and saw my bra hang-drying in the doorway. He stopped, looked at it, and muttered, “I really am married.”

Oh, yes, dear, you are.

-Recently we got new Sonicare toothbrushes, and it’s a little confusing because they look alike. After brushing his teeth, Adrian realized that he had accidentally used mine. And I proceeded to use it anyway. After that I used the UV sanitizer on it, but still.

Honestly, I’m pretty sure whatever bacteria passed there makes no difference anyway. If I have some sickness, or vice versa, there’s no chance we haven’t already shared it.

-Whenever I start feeling a little down about my post baby belly (which frankly is just about the same as my pre-baby belly, but now I have an excuse for the squishiness), or about any other thing I could feel sheepish about, Adrian will remind me that he was right there watching as I pushed a baby out.

Yeah, after that, I’m not sure there really can be anything hidden.

-The other day I noticed that we were low on toilet paper in our bathroom, and I though to myself that I’d better remember to bring more up because Adrian wasn’t home, and I thought, “Good thing I’m married… what would you do if you didn’t have someone to yell for when you ran out of toilet paper?”

Now if THAT isn’t romantic, ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what is.

-Last night we were watching this new show on TLC, “The Little Couple.” For the first few months they were married, they were living in different states, and the wife said how when she flies to see him or he comes to see her she always makes sure she’s looking good because she’s excited to see him. And I couldn’t help but remember all the time that we have spent apart, before and after marriage, and how I used to always make sure I’d done my nails or my hair looked good or I’d wear a favorite outfit when I’d get to see Adrian. “I used to do that,” I told him.

And then I thought about now, when I think I’ve bothered to blow dry my hair once in the past four months, I rarely even bother at all with makeup (mascara and a little concealer when I’m feeling fancy), and I wear the same clothes day after day. I started to tear up. What have I become? Yikes!

And he got off the couch (I was rocking Morgan around the room), hugged me, and said he’d much prefer to see me every day regardless of how I look than have me look fancy on the few days he got to see me before.

I may not be dolled up much anymore, but we do have a fairly well-run home (emphasis on the fairly… maybe it should say somewhat ), food to eat, and a happy baby. And we get to see each other every day.

And that really is the joy of marriage.

Did that ever really happen or is that just something I think I saw on TV once? Not sure.

This is sort of like that. Kind of. Maybe.

On our relatively new wordpress platform for blog publication, it keeps track of the total number of comments. We’ve been approaching 600 (for a while… why have we had so few comments the past little bit while I’ve been paying attention? It’s a watched pot situation I feel), so I thought we’d do something fun to mark it. Now, this is assuming that all the old comments came over correctly when we ported the blog. I don’t have time to find out and add them all up, so we’re going to trust wordpress and just assume it really is 600.

So I waited and waited and the 600th comment came from…

Lesley!

Hooray! Lesley is a frequent commenter; however, it also seemed fair to figure out who leaves the most comments. So I went back to comment 500 (we can do this all from the admin area, I didn’t actually sort through the last months worth of posts) and tallied up every commenter’s comments. Some people only had one, some were more impressive. On this we have a clear winner…

Kara!

Hooray for Kara, too! So Lesley and Kara will be receiving in the mail these nifty coasters I made. It was a project bug floating in my head, and I made enough to share (does anyone else get project bugs? This one came the day after I had put my sewing machine away, thinking I’d make a little room on my desk. It’s apparently pointless to do that).

You’ll each get four of these. I need to figure out the sets still, but this was the best picture I had. The backs are pieced, too, but with all regular fabric, not the linen, and in between is a layer of thin interfacing so they’re not too floppy. My favorite is the contrast zig zag topstitching. That thread was the only element that I didn’t already have in my stash.

[Lesley, I need your London address... I'll email you or something.]

I think Adrian thought I was a little crazy for doing a comment contest, even one that no one knew about. I may or may not do one in the future. It really probably depends if I have a project bug that fits a blog-related winner. So we’ll see. In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy a little handmade-ness from me.

I have a bit a of an issue with editing pictures. Or a quandry, I guess. Here’s the thing: I really like photography, and I feel like the fact that a lot of people edit their pictures gives an unrealistic expectation of what pictures can look like. Sometimes I’ll see some photos a photographer or whoever has put on their blog and I think “Wow, that’s amazing… I wish I could take pictures with such fantastic color.” And then I realize that they were probably photoshopped. HMM.

Really, it’s that I have neither the time nor ability to edit my pictures, and I’m jealous that because of this my photos might look not as good as other people’s. If my pictures aren’t as good because of my lack of photography talent, that’s fine (and true), but it seems a little silly that half of the talent needed for good photography nowadays is ability to photoshop well. Doesn’t that seem a little unfair?

This is a prime example of what I’m talking about. You see the edited picture and think “Wow, what amazing color! I would love to get a shot like that.” And then you look at the original and realize that you have, in fact, taken that same picture about 15 times, you just haven’t edited it. It feels almost like a lie when you edit pictures to that extreme, you know? (I’m not trying to be nasty about PW in particular, by the way… this is just an example. But didn’t she win some award for website photography? Seems to me like that’s different than pure photography.) I totally understand editing to fix up details, correct exposure, or smooth out someone’s acne or little things like that. But to change major elements of a photo seems weird to me.

This is, of course, the same issue in fashion photography how the editing of pictures gives people unrealistic expectations of beauty and what real people look like. But that’s another, and larger, issue.

Do you know what I’m talking about? I do actually sometimes edit pictures, but that’s only because I tend to take them a little underexposed and so I need to lighten them so that you can see them well. (Also because it’s often grey here, which now is changing as the season progresses.) So I’m not opposed to editing pictures, but I just see it as a different skill than photography. Where do those lines cross? And really, like I said, I’m probably just jealous that my pictures don’t look so amazing. Hehe.

Okay, got that off my chest. I feel better now.

To counteract all the above complaining, here’s some happiness:

Ah! Sleeping baby! I take a lot of pictures of her sleeping. I mean, look at those pink lips, rosy cheeks, soft hands, and little eyelashes. Oh my oh my.

You’d think that these were the same day as any previous shot I’ve taken and posted of her sleeping, but no. I just always nurse her on this pillow and so she tends to fall asleep on it. And it’s been so warm that I dress her in just a onesie most of the time. I can’t stop taking these sleeping pictures, though. Too sweet.

Since I got so many comments from helpful people on the sewing machine deal, here’s a quick update on that, too: I’m going to wait a little while. I’ve realized that in order to make a big enough step up from what I already have, it would be a lot of money. Sewing machines are expensive! It seems silly to buy something that’s just a little nicer or a little heartier than my machine, because if I’m going to spend a good amount of money it might as well be really worth it. So then the question is should get a machine that is about where I’m at now, or one that I would grow into? My ideas are always a little bigger than the realm of possibility (Adrian and I definitely have that in common, though his are about vacations we could take and things like that and mine are about things I’m capable of doing… and in this particular case what my machine can help me do). So do I reach up high enough that it would be capable of everything I envision myself wanting to do? You know, I don’t do a lot of quilting now (I did try… but it was puckered on the back after I tried to quilt it and not so good and I got frustrated… perhaps my own fault for thinking it was a good idea to jump into the world of quilting with one that could fit a full bed?), but I would like to. So do I need a machine big enough for that? Etc. I don’t want to spend tons of money on something that I think I’d then want something else after a little while, even if that little while is five years.

Also, in all my reading and research about machines I’ve realized that mine is actually pretty good, relatively speaking. The things that people complain about in reviews it either doesn’t do at all or only slightly. So for a lower-end machine, it really does do what it needs to do. Also, I figured out that tension issue–not why it’s happening but at least I can feel it while I’m threading the machine now so I can fix it immediately, rather than doing test stitches every time I sew. So that has removed a lot of my headache. Of course, then last weekend we went to this quilt shop and I tried out some of the machines there and they were SO smooth and quiet. It was pretty crazy. I’ll leave it at that before I sound nutso and completely bore anyone who doesn’t sew.

So. That means I’m trying to figure out how to earn some extra money specifically for a sewing machine so that I don’t feel SO wasteful or insane in wanting a really crazy nice one. Well, I still do, but I feel like if I can also prove that I’ll really use it, then it’s more justified. We’ll see how that turns out. Maybe in a few years I’ll get there… by which time, of course, I’ll perhaps have another kiddo and have even less time for my own creative endeavors.

When we first moved up here we were living in Kirkland and right on Lake Washington.  The apartment complex they put us up in was really quite nice.  But even still, not a single unit was offered with air conditioning.  You would think that living on a pretty big lake would offer you some gentle breezes though, and it would.  But not when you live with no windows lake-side.  And when you have smokers living downstairs (the entire community was sold as “smoke-free” HA!) and you are on the top floor, you risk opening your windows and being overpowered by the nastiness.  Last summer got pretty hot in Kirkland, even for Rancho Santa Margarita standards.  For most of July and August it would reach 90-something each day.

So, when it was time for us to move out of temporary housing and into something else, we made it a goal to try and find something with air conditioning.  Now, like I said, most places don’t have air conditioning.  Most new homes don’t offer it, and when they do, most people won’t spring the cash to have it installed.  What we kept hearing over and over was “oh, you’d only need it maybe 2 weeks MAX a year, so just turn on a fan and you’ll be fine.”  Nevertheless, we really wanted to have a place with air conditioning.  Emily did a great job of searching for places to rent, and found this really nice home we’re in now.  It’s close to work in Redmond and we really liked the family that owns it.  PLUS, it had air conditioning!  Can you imagine that?  Done deal!  Well, we moved in here the middle of September, and from that point until about 2 weeks ago, we essentially had the heat running and never needed the AC since it was too cold for it.

The past 2 weeks up here have been really beautiful.  The sun has been out I’d say 85% of the time and it’s been nice and warm and clear skies.  It’s been nice to drive with the windows down and not have to use my seat warmers in the morning.   Yesterday however was HOT.  Sticky stuffy HOT.  Emily thought we should finally turn on the AC, so I went downstairs and played with the settings on the electronic unit thingamajig.  Hmmm…not really too powerful.  I felt the floor vents downstairs while I was washing the dishes.  Pretty weak, and not icy cold.  But a nice cool ambient temperature at least.  We never had to worry about the strength of the unit with the heater before, as long as it got hot.  But just to be safe, I thought I’d turn it off so we didn’t wake up freezing cold and have to go all the way downstairs to shut it off.  We did pull out some fans and left those on though.

When I got home from work this evening, Emily mentioned how the AC had hardly done anything to cool things down with it running all day long.  Then I think a lightbulb went off in her head.

Where is the AC unit outside the house?

Yeah…we never really looked for that.  Guess the home owners didn’t either.  Whoops!  Live and learn…and keep your fans running 24/7.

When I saw the one in Brussels, I remember noticing how the mother was trying to feed her child, but it looked as though her breast were completely deflated. She was clearly malnourished herself, and they were probably in some sort of refugee camp or in any case probably hadn’t eaten properly in a long while. So this poor mother was attempting to care for her children, but had so little to give herself that I couldn’t see how she was doing it. Her breast really looked as though there were nothing in it, just skin where there once had been food for her babies. I kept imagining the desperate feeling of wishing she had something in her body to give to her baby.

I don’t know if I’m communicating very well the feelings I had as I looked at this photo, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and every time I walked past the exhibit I would stop and look and think. I resolved then to not be so hard on myself or self conscious about my weight. In our Western society of abundant food, there is an obsession with being thin, but I could only look at that picture and think how glad I was for my healthy, well-fed body that would be able to grow and support and feed my [then future] children. It seemed at the time completely absurd to wish for a more “perfect” body when clearly what I had then and have now IS fantastic.

I can’t say that I have completely done away with the body issues that sadly are somehow ingrained in most of us, but I have had a much better attitude since then. And now that I do have my own baby, I’m even more grateful for all that wonderful fat I have stored up– and that my body stored up even more of while she was growing in me– that now allows me to feed her and give her the nourishment she needs.