This is my adorable neice (and gorgeous sister!!). Little Tabs is getting SO grown up!
A friend of mine is having a baby shower on Saturday. She’s having twins!! I decided to make her a nursing cover. I used a combination of all the free online patterns, but made mine much bigger. Most call for just over a half yard of fabric, but I used the majority of a yard. Modesty is good, plus I just love the fabric, so More = Better!
I thought it came out beautifully but really wanted to see how it would look “in use”. Here are a few pics of me pretending to nurse an invisible baby. Of course, that’s just my other arm with my hand in a fist to simulate the roundness of a baby’s head against the nursing cover. Yes, weird. I know.
I’m sure John thinks I’m a little nuts. I also ordered a Sleepy Wrap for my friend, which arrived at the office today. You should have heard what John said when he opened that! It was addressed to him after all. He wasn’t thrilled, to say the lease. Come on… I’m trying to be subtle. (sort of).
I did buy myself a new book last week. And some raw milk. And some cod liver oil. Can anyone figure out the name of this book, even though it’s so cleverly obscured by my milk glass?
hehehe!
I saw a clever bumper sticker on the drive to work. John wanted to take a video of it, using his new iphone camera. We couldn’t zoom in enough, so I ended up reading it for the video. Enjoy!
While learning more about whole and nourishing foods, I’ve started buying whole free-range pastured chickens. Roasting a chicken has turned out to be an easy weekend dinner that always tastes good and makes the house smell great!
I’ve previously mentioned that (thanks to a helpful website!) I just learned how to check a roast chicken for doneness. On the same site, this great video explains how to carve a bird. I was proud of my first attempt to carve my first roast chicken, and as mentioned in the video, you do get better – as well as more confident – over time. My next lesson will be learning to sharpen a carving knife! The bird I’ve carved here was small, under 3 pounds, so I didn’t separate the drumsticks from the thighs. I’m getting hungry looking at these pictures and wishing I had one of these in the oven right now!
My current favorite recipe for roast chicken is by Kimi at The Nourishing Gourmet. It’s so simple! Melt butter and brush it all over a clean and dry bird, salt and pepper inside and out, stuff with a lemon, garlic, and some rosemary. Sometimes I don’t have lemon (such as right now, when only Sunkist non-organic lemons are available at my local Whole Foods, so I’m not buying), and the last time I made chickent I didn’t have any garlic. No matter what, It’s always delicious! My last chicken had the best drippings left in the pan. I collected it all and put it in my fridge in a jar. Butter, chicken fat, and lemon – so good! I’ve used it on occassion for frying various things. The skin on the back of the bird was in the pan during the final roasting stages and didn’t get crisp. So the next day while I was making a salad with the leftover chicken, I decided to fry up the back skin using the chicken drippings to make a sort of chicken cracklin crispy topping. Delish!
Writing this made me wonder how long I had kept the drippings in the fridge, and decided to do a search. I found a breakfast from Forkable that looks so good! I may have to pick up a few potatoes tomorrow to fry them up with the lemony chicken goodness in my fridge. I also love using saved bacon grease for frying potatoes. I made cottage potatoes in my oven a few weeks back, with just bacon grease and plenty of pepper. My husband was skeptical, but loved them. I didn’t tell him about the bacon grease. hehe…
Back to the whole chicken! I am trying to roast a whole chicken once or twice a month to make sure I always have:
- A nice big meal for John and me to share
- Leftover chicken available for salads, sandwich, or other meal
- Stock! golden, glorious stock
- Improved carving skills so I am never nervous if someone needs help at Thanksgiving
Happy Chicken Roasting!
A few weeks ago, I became a “finisher” of the Sweet & Twisted Triathlon here in Austin. It was great fun, though I admit it was REALLY hard due to my lack of preparation. I slept the entire afternoon afterwards, and couldn’t have been happier with my performance and time, considering the stress, time not spent in training, and consideration of actually skipping the event. I’m proud that I did it, and look forward to training more and competing in several Tris next year. I’m also hoping to find one if not several committed training partner. I’ve had several close friends and family comment the exact same comment, “Wow, I’d love to do a tri with you!” And I encourage each of them individually that I would LOVE to train with them and have a partner who would help me get my self out of bed on the occassional day that I don’t feel like getting up. Quite the rare occurence, as evidenced by my extensive training prep for this event.
Here’s an awesome not-flattering shot of me getting ready for the swim start. I’m lacking the ripped up body I had envisioned. You should have seen the girl who modeled the bright red tri-suit created by Red Licorice, the host company for the event. I wasn’t tempted, for even a second, to buy that small, tight, outfit. Maybe next year?
A great action shot on the bike. It was nice of them to provide a downhill right before the photo area!
And crossing the finish line, at a slow trot.
The finish line is funny. You get attacked by a bunch of volunteers at once. One person hands you a logo towel, soaked in ice water. It was sooooo nice to get that cold towel! Another volunteer puts a Finisher medal over your head, and a third pulls your time chip velcro strap off your ankle before you really know what’s happening. I was thankful someone else did that, because I couldn’t have reached my ankle without falling over.
In summary, here are the before and after shots. My co-participant here is Esther, a coworker and occassional training partner. The day before the race we did a trial run for our race outfits, completing a mini swim-bike-run to make sure we had all the gear we needed and felt comfortable in our new attire. I learned that I needed to wear the strap from my heart rate monitor becuase my new sports bra is not tight enough to hold it in place. Good thing to find out!
Before, in the Charlies’ Angels pose.
After!
My good friend Courtney had a birthday recently. I decided to make her a paper mobile. There is a company called Frazier & Wing at makes these and sells them, so the idea is not original. I found out about them through Daily Candy, which is a fun email I subscribe to for random inspiration, sales, new products/clothes/accessories, trends, and all sorts of other fun things.
Courtney and I share an appreciation for things that are home crafted, home-baked, and sustainable. We also are not as impressed by an expensive gift as we are by the gift of another person’s time, as in the time spent making a gift, or time spent together as the gift itself. I was inspired to try to create a gift for her using things I already had around the house. I nearly succeeded, but couldn’t find my fishing line. I gave in and went to the store, spending just under $2.00.
For such a simple concept, I was actually surprised at the trouble I ran into. I had no idea how many paper pieces I would need nor how far apart to place them on the string. I also had not decided what I would attach them to at the top of the mobile. Even the size of the pieces is difficult to decide on – 1.5 inches? 2 inches? All the same or varied? I used a thumbtack to poke the holes in the paper pieces, and often found that a double figure 8 knot would still slip through the hole. This required final touch ups with tiny dabs of glue on the knots that weren’t quite big enough.
I used the clear disk that comes on the top of a spindle of writable DVDs to join the strands into a unified mobile. I saved time by using my Cricut Expression, a birthday gift from my parents on my big Three-Oh! I was able to cut out a lot of different shapes that I don’t own individual paper punches of. While the Cricut did its work, I punched a ton of circles with my 2 inch punch, and John looked for his DVD spindle to see if it still had a clear disk on top.
The finished product came out great! I love the textured white paper and the shiny metallic charcoal. Courtney decided to hang it in her gorgeous entryway for everyone to see it (flattered!) and mentioned she may be painting the wall behind it a nice brown color to help it stand out even more! I had the nerve to recommend blue instead, but she is planning to do blue in another area. 🙂 What can I say, I love blue!
What was the most difficult part of the project? Fitting the entire bundle into the small box. I could have given up and made a custom envelope for it, but I was out of time, and had my heart set on the box I had already decorated. If you’re trying to do this project, I recommend setting the entire thing on a surface such as a table; I used the floor. Start with one strand and gather it up starting at the top, one piece on top of the other, loosely into a messy stack that is not any bigger than the size of the disk. You should be able to hold the gathered strand right up against the underside of the disk. Continue with each subsequent strand, layering one piece on top of the other, until the strand is gathered and can be held up against the previous strand. My previous and more ‘neat’ attempts did not turn out well, but with this method I was finally able to fit the mobile into the pretty box without bending any paper pieces.
I admit, I’m also a sucker for store-bought gifts. I also got Court a shirt from a delightfully inappropriate and sarcastically charming website, Locher’s. The package was delivered via Air Mail from Paris, and had a cute blank postcard included. All I needed to add was a chocolate grosgrain ribbon and a bit of tissue paper inside. Voila!
Happy Saturday! I’ve been running around a bit crazy over the past several weeks. Lots of fun things have happened, including crafts, birthdays, a trip to Vegas, and some new food discoveries. I’m planning to update soon with lots of new posts as I finally found the special little USB connector with a media card slot and was able to put my photos on my laptop!
Here in Austin, we finally got a break from 100 degree weather and (HOORAY!) have been getting rain for about a week! We were in a water crisis, conservation stage 2, and I can’t fathom the impact on farmers of crops, chickens, and grass-fed dairy/beef. No one’s grass has been growing! The rain is great for a million reasons, not the least of which is how relaxed it makes me feel. Last nights rain kept me sleeping until 11:00 today – ahem, no, we don’t have any children yet! – and now the rain continues to make me want to stay inside, baking things that are warm and smell delicious.
Things I am doing so far to celebrate fall:
- Wearing my new trench and using my red and yellow flower umbrella. To be honest, the trench is from a Spring 09 collection, which I bought mid-summer on sale. But the trench styling is timeless so I would never consider it to be ‘last season’! I’m so glad to finally be able to wear it, even though it’s not chilly yet and I’m just using it as a raincoat.
- Changed from summer french pedicure to a bright purple color! Ate berries in the Canaries by OPI
- Made a yummy fruit crisp with just a few simple ingredients – very ripe fruit sitting on my counter, a stick of butter, a few handfuls of oats, some muscovado, and crispy almonds (Nourishing Traditions recipe)
- Bought local Texas sunflowers for the house!
- Picked up organic seasonal produce from Whole Foods, including butternut squash, an eggplant, a bunch of beautiful apples, and peaches bigger than softballs!
- Reading Martha Stewart’s Halloween magazine
I’m about to take off and bake up a storm in my kitchen. Before I go, here are a few random notes. For breakfast, I cooked up a pretty good (and quick) natural feast for my hubby and me. We had scrambled eggs from a local pasture farmer, sprouted grain toast with lots of pastture butter – topped with almond butter that I mixed with a bit of raw honey, and a sliced kiwi. I’m home from my Whole Foods trip, unpacking groceries, and rinsing out eggshells for my vegan friend who is starting a compost pile, and sketching out a meal plan for the coming week.
Happy Fall!
Today I am thankful for:
- Being able to run, swim, bike, walk, and practice yoga
- Great local 24 hour coffee shops for late night and early morning non-office space
- My really cool mouse that makes working more comfortable
- Rain sounds iPhone app – sleepmaker
- New yoga location close to the office
- Pandora One radio for work and workouts
- Awesome coffee maker at work
Wow. I was making a little antipasto tonight, one of my favorite snacks to have before an Italian dinner. Sliced vine-ripened tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, chopped basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a bit of sea salt. So simple and fresh. I didn’t realize it, but a big suprise was waiting for me inside my tomato.
A sprout! Actually, a whole lot of sprouts. So many that I thought the tomato was full of worms. Upon closer inspection, I realized this tomato was sprouting throughout. My first instinct was to check online – did anyone else experience this? The information I found led me to make a few conclusions, the most important of which is my committment to buy organic produce.
In nature, this occurs in approximately one tomato in 10,000. Usually tomatoes ripen on the vine, and eventually drop to the ground. The gelatinous inside of the tomato (typically) prevents the seeds from sprouting.
Where do new tomato plants come from? Once the tomato is fully ripe and falls to the ground, it will begin to decompose. During decomp, the gelatinous substance is broken down, freeing the seed to germinate. The 1 in 10,000th tomato that germinates on the vine is assumed to be a genetic anomaly.
My concern arose when I found such a significant number of posts where other people were asking the same question. Shoudn’t the frequency of this occurring must be higher than 1 in 10,000 for so many others to ask the same question? The comments from other readers indicated a likelihood of overuse of fertilizers. These tomatoes were likely harvested while green, treated with fertilizer, and kept in cold storage. I buy a lot of produce and sometimes can’t find organic, so I had to check the little oval label. Not organic. This firm, red, on-the-vine tomato is not something I want to eat. I feel thankful that it sprouted to prevent me from injesting the fertilizer while trying to have a healthy and in-season appetizer.
Fortunately, I had a beatuiful basket of tiny heirloom tomato medly, with yellow, orange, and red tomatoes. They are organic, local, and fresh. My antipasto was perfect. My sister-in-law even enjoyed it (sans balsamic).
As for this tomato… it went down the disposal. I wouldn’t want to plan these seeds.
A few weeks ago my mom sent me a cute notebook she had picked up at a local shop in small town Nebraska. The back says “Cards & More” by Pat @ The Stamping Room. (Thanks, Pat!). The notebook is a mini legal pad with wallpaper used to make a cute cover on it with a pocket. It also had 3 flowers diagonally down the front with a crystal in the center of each. Very cute, though my style is usually a little more (over) embellished. I decided to add a bit more ‘me’ to it and wanted to share a quick pic.
I moved the center flower to the bottom right corner to change the balance of the cover. I love my un-du Scrappers Solution. It’s similar to Goo Be Gone but is also photosafe. I also added rubons from Heidi Grace, American Crafts, and Making Memories. A little Badge from Heidi Grace and some platinum Zig pen, and I was all finished! I do love the look of distressed edges on pieces like this, but somehow I end up getting it everywhere when I start using the notebook, so on this one I decided to leave the edges plain.
a life she loves! 