My Bit of Earth

Five Senses, Right Now

A few sensorial experiences of note this week....

Taste, Smell, Touch, Sight.  

I bought a handful of these zingy little kumquats as a treat last weekend, and have been pulling them from their tiny bowl on my windowsill and nibbling at them all week.  Their plump, smooth skins, and tart, puckery interior would bring me out of even the deepest Winter funk.  (If we were having Winter this year, that is.  Because apparently we've just skipped ahead to Spring.)

Sight, Hearing, Touch.  

Sweet Husband bought an India Stone yesterday to sharpen our knives with.  They were getting terribly dull--particularly a problem when you're trying to cut every meal into toddler sized pieces.  

Last night he stood in the kitchen and carefully scraped each blade along the stone until they were all nice and sharp again.  The rhythm of it--schhwoop...schhwoop...schhwoop--was soothing, and I love watching his hands as he works with them.  (Loved having sharp knives to cook dinner with tonight too!)

Sight, Touch, Hearing.

I found a whole cabinet full of bargain knitting needles at the flea market this weekend.  While bamboo needles are undoubtedly easier to manage, I like the colors of the anodized kind.  And although I know it disturbs some, I find the more pronounced "click, click, click" they make very satisfying.

(Just to let you all know, I am tickled to be guest blogging on the Rhythm of the Home blog this month.  The plan is to leave a note here whenever I post there, and my first post is up today.  If you're so inclined, please pop on over and say hello!)

Waiting For a Guy to Jump Out of the Bushes and Say, "Punked!"

We have somehow become a Nielsen family.  

Like, Nielsen...you know, the TV ratings people.  We don't have the magic box yet, but so far we've gotten two or three surveys.  The latest one is a "TV diary" that we are to fill out in the next week.  It has cute little charts and graphs so that we can tell them exactly who is watching what and when.

The hilarious part is that our TV hasn't even been turned on this month, except for maybe some Pandora here and there.  (We stream music through our DVD player.)  The last time anyone even watched anything on Netflix was just after Christmas when my mom and sister were up.

So I will return the cute little booklet empty.

But with every survey they send five bucks, which--in these days of being frugal at our house--is the price of exactly one honey latte with tip.  So, essentially, they're buying me coffee to not watch TV.  It's insane, but I'm not complaining.

The Kiddo's Due Date Party

About this time last week, Sweet Husband and I started looking at the calendar to plan a trip to the grandparents' house for the Kid's first birthday.  We're going to be on vacation the week of his actual birthday, and a few phone calls to check other VIPs' schedules (i.e. the grandmas) quickly revealed that it was last weekend or never.  So I sent out invites to his "due date party" (his due date was February 1st, but close enough), and off we went.

In hindsight, that was probably the best thing that could have happened because it gave me absolutely no time to fret about details.  Pizza for dinner?  Hey, the Kid loves pizza!  Cake?  A monkey face made by his Awesome Auntie sounds perfect!  (Ohhh, I think I just gave her a blog name--henceforth, Sweet Husband's sister is "Awesome Auntie".)

And, truth be told, I think much more would have been really overwhelming for the Kid, too.  He had a lot of fun playing with his small cousins.  He enjoyed demanding that every grown-up read Pete the Cat to him at least twice.  But by the time we got to cake, he was pretty over the whole party thing.  He took one little swipe at the chocolate icing and then started to cry.  

He missed out on some fabulous cake, but, not to worry, I didn't let his piece go to waste!

Human Food Processor

Our way of cooking has been evolving over the last few months, as the Kid is joining us more and more in eating.

First things first, I love dinner.  I often have a coffee for breakfast and little-to-no lunch (not the healthiest way to be, I know), but come dinner time I really want to cook a meal.

The food is part of it, of course.  Who doesn't like yummy food?  But I love the process too.  I think it's possibly because my day job is so much thinking.  When I get home, I want to chop and stir and knead and drizzle.  

When it was just the two of us, that worked better.  I could tell Sweet Husband, "Grab a beer and a snack--it's going to be a bit."  But when a 1 year old is hungry, you can't explain that the food will be ready soon.  Dinnertime is when the Kid says it is.

So I've started getting better about doing a little prep right when we get home from the grocery store, which is where I found myself this evening.

I washed and chopped two bunches of greens (chard and kale) to be made into chipotle beans and a pasta dish later this week.  I also cooked the beans themselves, because--even using the cheater's method--there's no way that would ever get done on a weeknight at our house.  (And I love the dried beans so much better than canned....love them, love them, LOVE THEM...so I always make a double batch to have some for the next week.)  Since the oven was on anyway, I tossed in a couple of beets to roast for this orzo salad, too.

As I was chopping greens, I considered what to do with a quartet of pears and some sliced up strawberries that we were gifted.  We're not big pear eaters, but I remembered that we also had a suspicious bottle of brandy in the back of our cupboard (you know, the kind smells strong enough to knock you over and no one remembers bringing it into the house), so I googled a recipe for pear brandy.  The strawberries went into a batch of "Happy Muffins" for the Kid to take to school.

And speaking of the Kid's lunch, that's another area we're working on, to put it charitably.  I won't lie, last Friday his lunch was a pretty random assortment of what we could lay our hands on at five 'till eight that morning.  As I said, lunch is not my strong suit!

To help keep that from happening again, in addition to the muffins, I made a frittata (eggs, a little cilantro pesto, milk) and some polenta fries.  We'll eat part of the polenta fries one night this week, and the rest are going into the freezer (with the frittata and some of the muffins) to be pulled out in case of morning emergency.

It all sounds very corny and (insert TV salesperson voice) "You, too, can have dinner on the table in five minutes!" but pre-cooking just a little on Sunday nights has been our salvation as far as continuing to eat real food post-the-Kiddo.

And now I shall spend the rest of the night sitting in a chair with my feet propped up.

Bartering Rocks

A few months ago, Nice Friend and I did a barter, wherein she got a knitted cowl and I got a lovely new ceramic water mug for work.  This is not terribly uncommon for me.  I often pay for things in eggs and knitting, and often am paid in yarn and art.  It's fun for me, and less awkward than trying to put a price on what are essentially favors between friends.

A bit after our initial exchange, my friend's Nice Husband texted me:

Nice Friend's Husband:  The neck warmer you made...She is simply in love with and adores

Me: yay

Nice Friend's Husband: So much so that it has far exceeded an outdoor cold weather accessory and now has become a fixture in her daily wardrobe

Me: does she need more colors?

Nice Friend's Husband: . . . .You read my mind

Again, this is one of those situations where I would have knit for nothin'--encouraging men who want to surprise their wives with presents is a fine thing in my book--but when it was suggested that payment would be in the form of bottles of wine...my friends, bartering rocks!

From top (the pink one) clockwise...an easy stockinette cowl...a speedy cabled cowl...and a cap'n crunch.

What My Boys Did

Earlier this week, the Kid had a little bout of the stomach flu--the kind where he was basically feeling good, but couldn't go to school.  Sweet Husband and I split the time at home with him, like you do when you both are depended on at work too.

While I get to spend many Saturdays alone with the Kid, Sweet Husband doesn't get as much one-on-one time.  Of course, all three of us would rather the Kiddo be well, but I think both my boys enjoyed the excuse to hang out.  Apparently they spent part of the afternoon practicing walking outside, because I found these pictures on my camera when I got home that evening.

(All pictures by Sweet Husband.)

I was also informed that they watched an episode of Wallace and Gromit and had a poopsplosion and ensuing bath.  (Yes, "poopsplosion" was the official term.)  But I don't think I needed photos of those parts--the best was obviously right here.

Oatmeal and Eggs

The Kid eats an egg for breakfast every morning.  Or, he did, until our hens decided to take an extended Christmas vacation and just not lay eggs for the month of January.

We could buy him eggs, of course--and to some extent we have been--but part of trying to eat seasonally is living with the off-season.  And, although you wouldn't know it from the grocery store, in January, eggs are off-season.

So Sweet Husband--the morning chef around these parts--has been trying to get the Kid used to eating oatmeal for breakfast instead.  Oatmeal with a little frozen strawberries or other fruit.

Only, the other morning, Sweet Husband made too much.  So I dutifully took the extras out to the hens for a treat.

They were very excited about it, yet confounded at the same time.  I could almost hear their little chicken brains, "It tastes so good!  But it's stuck to my beak--help!  But it's tastes so good...."

In any event, I believe it was well-received, because each day for a few days after that, I found one of these in the coop:

The Kiddo's Crib-to-Floor-Bed Transformation

Prior to a few weeks ago, the Kid's crib was in our room.  He always began the night in the crib, but would often end up in our bed as the night went on.  It worked well in fits and spurts, but the bigger he was getting the less often it was working well.  So we decided to set him up in his own room with a new floor bed.

Initially, we just put his crib mattress on the floor.  However, that wasn't completely safe because (with our hardwood floors) the Kid could scoot the mattress around.  Also, with no ledge at all, there were a few nights that he rolled out of bed onto the rug--not a big deal, but not comfortable either.

We decided that just a teeny bit of a frame was necessary.  And, lo and behold, we had a base that was the perfect size--the bottom of the Kid's crib.

To make the frame, Sweet Husband cut the side pieces (which are 8 inch tall boards) to the correct length, then attached them with screws.

He used fairly nice poplar boards so that there would be less sanding.  However, even then, he spent a lot of time getting the edges rounded off and everything perfectly smooth.

We finished it off with a few coats of "spoon oil", which smelled yummy.

The Kid is enjoying his new bed so far.  He likes to get in and out and in and out of it--like, look at me, I can do this!  

That's exactly the point, my dear one, exactly the point.

We Love School So Much, We're Bringing It Home!

The Kiddo and I went to a fun day at his school on Saturday.  

I didn't talk about it here at the time--because I half thought I was just being a crazy, nervous new mama--but we switched to a Montessori daycare as early as we could last Summer.  We were all of two weeks in at the first place when I knew it wasn't going to work.  They were very nice people, but he spent a lot of time sitting in baby holders, being entertained by lights and gizmos.  I could hardly concentrate enough to work for worrying about it, which defeated the purpose entirely.

And Saturday I was reminded, not for the first time, that my gut feeling was so right.  Kiddo loves his school, and I love it too.  

I'm not generally one to jump whole hog into an educational philosophy--just the words "educational philosophy" sound overly precious, don't they?--but this Montessori stuff just makes so much sense to me.  Without even getting into the parts that apply for older children, at his age it's all about making a safe, interesting place for him to explore and then letting him do it.

We spent about a half an hour in his soon-to-be room. (He moves up next month after his birthday...*sigh*.)  He crawled all over the mats and hopped in and out of the ball pit as his teachers and I talked.  He was completely happy to be playing in a space made to his size and where no one had to constantly be hovering behind him to say, "No, no."

It's all actually made me rethink our house a little bit.  We can't make everywhere like his school, but over the past few weeks I've been tweaking things here and there to make at least a few spaces just for the Kid.  And my goal is to make his room pretty much exactly like school--completely safe, his size, and a lot of fun.

In that vein, I was going to show you his new bed tonight.  However, since I've already gone on a bit, I think I'll save it for tomorrow.  It ended up gorgeous--Sweet Husband's doing, not mine--so you'll definitely want to come back!

Isola's Letter Writing Club: Get To Know Each Other

Hello again letter writers!  Welcome to the first month of Isola's Letter Writing Club!

I just finished my first letter to my penpal, Liz.  Just for fun, I went old school and used this glass "dip pen" Sweet Husband bought for me years and years ago.   I think I'm going to start writing all my letters that way.  It was hard to decide what color of ink to use--I settled on "Tobacco"--but once I got going I think the result was fairly legible.

But I promised you all a writing prompt.  

This one's easy actually--introduce yourselves.  Who are you?  What do you do?  What's your family like?  What unusual hobbies do you have?

Have fun writing!