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Jummabella Pinkwater, Madame Ovary
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| Quick and easy way to donate to Lifelong AIDS Alliance |
[10 Apr 2009|11:41am] |
Good food is good medicine.
Chicken Soup Brigade, Lifelong AIDS Alliance's nutrition-based food program, packs 1,000 grocery bags and distributes 3,000 meals a week to hungry people in the greater Seattle area. But we can’t do it alone.
You can help. Your $5 donation will give 2 meals to a hungry person today.
Use your cell phone to donate $5 to Chicken Soup Brigade:
1. Text LIFELONG to 90999
2. Reply to the automated text message with YES.
3. That’s it! You just provided two meals with two texts!
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| Right or Left brained? |
[29 Mar 2009|08:46pm] |
Have you seen this?
This is the TRIPPIEST, the mothertrippenist!
(1) Look at the spinning woman. Which way is she spinning?
(2) If she's spinning clockwise, you are using your right brain. If you see her spinning counterclockwise, you are using your left brain.
(3) Make her spin the other way!!!! If you are using your right brain, try thinking left brain things, like sums or etymology... And vice versa, try thinking emotions and musical intonation.
(4) Freaking AWESOME!
(5) Check out more info here, from whence I hotlinked the image: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html
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| Tonight's Lentils |
[15 Oct 2008|08:33pm] |
Complete protein stew!
Ingredients
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves
1/2 bag baby carrots (what I had, otherwise, 2 carrots chopped)
celery tops saved from last night's salad
2 green peppers, chopped
1/2 cup vodka or white wine
3 or 4 vegetable bouillon cubes
pinch salt
3 bay leaves
4 sprigs thyme
8 cups water
2 cups lentils
1 cup long grain brown rice
1. Saute onion, garlic, carrot, celery top, green pepper until onion clear over medium heat.
2. Add vodka or white wine, salt.
3. Add bay, thyme. Let marry about 5 minutes.
4. Crumble vegetable bouillon cubes.
5. Add water. Bring to simmer.
6. Add lentils, rice.
7. Cook on high in pressure cooker until steam escapes, then lower heat to medium low. Cook 20 minutes. Alternately cook 45 minutes in regular pot.
Damn tasty.
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| What's your favorite bread recipe? |
[28 Sep 2008|06:51pm] |
Why don't I bake bread more?
I just made a delicious beer bread, with the fastest and easiest and cheapest recipe ever. And it filled the house with chi. (I've heard the literal meaning of chi is "rice vapor", like what fills your home when you're cooking and you know all is right with the world.)
Here's my easiest ever recipe:
3 cups spelt flour (or wheat, whatever)
1 Tbs baking soda powder! Eeeeek! I meant powder!
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
12 oz beer
1/2 C raisins or anything tasty. I also added a dash of ground cloves and a teaspoon of cinnamon.
Mix together until just combined with a spatula, spread batter in greased and floured 8" pan, bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Let sit on a rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan, let sit for 10 minutes.
Delish bread in just over an hour.
What's your favorite bread recipe?
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| More on diapers |
[28 Sep 2008|10:41am] |
Went to our first elimination communication meet-up yesterday morning. Most of the new people there had really tiny babies. I don't know why it took me so long to find other people in the area who do EC. It was so hard for me to figure out HOW to do it when Xavi was really little. Now he's getting close to six months and I may have missed the window. The leader of the group was encouraging, though she directed a lot of her attention to the people with newborns. I tried to ask a lot of questions but I'm beginning to realized I'm just not much of a group person. I'd much rather meet up with an individual for coffee than try to have a conversation with 6 people I don't know. Maybe I'm socially anxious or something. But I digress.
I am newly re-interested in using cloth diapers for Xavi and getting a good EC thing going. Here are my reasons:
(1) The accoutrements are so much cuter. Soakers, woolies, cutie diaper covers, snappis... Purely aesthetic, but style is important, and it gives me a great excuse to be crafty.
(2) We've long worked out the ecological and economical implications of using disposables over cloth. For us, the cloth diapers with the diaper service are poor quality and Xavi got rashes.
Using Fuzzibunz or Bum Genius or any other pocket diaper or all-in-one was close to impossible because we don't have a washing machine. Three loads of double (or even triple) wash diapers a week meant (wash $1.50 x 6) + (dry $2.00 x 3) = $15. The diaper service cost about that, plus the cost of covers. Disposables cost less than that.
The carbon footprint for all that water + gas to get to a laundromat (because ain't no way I can do that much laundry in our one-washer 15-unit building four flights below our apartment with a 22 lb baby who I can't leave alone upstairs and who is really hard to carry up and down over and over) plus the cost of it all was just not making sense. Because we rarely drive, we live in a fairly energy-efficient small one bedroom apartment, and we don't consume excess amounts of water, we figured we could feel okay about using disposables.
The thing is, I know they'll sit in a landfill until kingdom come and there's a lot of crap that goes into making them, and the process of making plastics isn't exactly eco-friendly. That still bothers me. Mostly, the fact that dioxins and gross diaper gel are right on Xavi's tush kind of skeeves me out.
So here's a possible solution: If we use plain old trifold cloth diapers and wash them ourselves twice a week, the cost is $7 plus the diapers, which we'll need to invest in. And with better quality, Xavi probably won't get a rash.
(3) I've basically taught Xavi to poo and pee in his pants. Babies have an awareness of when they soil, and a natural tendency to not "soil the nest". Instead of learning to be aware of their potty cues and working with them, we teach them to ignore their natural instincts with diapers. Some babies don't protest sitting in it. Some don't protest because of the new-fangled disposable diaper they're sitting in, which wicks away moisture so well that they just don't feel it! Some babies hate to sit in moisture, and I'm hoping Xavi will once again be that kind of baby. If he's more aware of it, he's more likely to let me know when he's gotta go. He already has cues, I just have to pay more attention to them. (It's the peeing that's hard for me to get. The pooing I can recognize because he's obvious. But I never know when he's peeing or going to pee. That's where #4 comes in.)
(4) Diaper free time will be easy for us. I plan on spending a lot more time with a bottomless Xavi when we're at home. This way I can pay more attention to his cues. And start with "psssssssss"ing him every time he goes.
So, in short, we need a baby potty (because I just don't have the wrist power to hold my baby over the toilet or a bowl now that he's gynormous) and some good quality cloth diapers.
I'm really excited to know some folks who do this, who I can sit down with and get some pointers. I've got at least two friends on my FList who do it, too, and love it. I just hope Xavi isn't too old.
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| Weird |
[24 Sep 2008|08:17pm] |
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Sometimes I feel like such a grown-up and it weirds me out.
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| One year ago today |
[15 Sep 2008|11:48pm] |
Just got home from celebrating our first anniversary! Fabulous dinner at Ray's Boathouse while BabyX stayed with my sister, who has the boobs so I didn't have to pump!!! A magical night. A year of fabulosity. The fabulosity is ours. The love grows. I couldn't imagine a different or better life.
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| Tired Cowboy |
[17 Aug 2008|03:05pm] |
We're back from Texas! It was a great visit. This picture just about sums it up. We came back to the Seattle heat wave, which was way hotter than Texas. Irony! BabyX was adored by all. More to come.
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| The Tell Tale Breastpump |
[28 Jun 2008|09:42pm] |
I've been trying to build up a milk supply in the freezer for those times when the all-you-can-eat boob buffet is closed and someone is giving Xavi the bottle. My generous friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rebeezee gave me her Medela Pump In Style electric double pump, which makes expressing milk a quick and painless endeavor. The odd thing about this pump is the mechanical noise it makes. It's rhythmic and repetitive, like you'd expect, but the frequency and tone make it sound almost like a human voice.
At first it sounded to me like the pump was saying "Time to go. Time to go. Time to go. Time to go." It always made me feel a little hurried. But lately, as I've been pumping I hear a different phrase: "Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it? Why'd you do it?" I sit there with funnel-like contraptions on my breasts, milk gushing forth, wondering what the machine means. I wrack my brain for something to feel guilty about. What did I do? And how does the machine know my secrets?!!!
It's like a little sit-down with my conscience every time I pump!
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| Hospital Birth Plan |
[23 Jun 2008|03:03pm] |
The caracola Family Hospital Birth Plan
(Note: This plan attempts to be assertive, not combative in describing my preferences. Also, never underestimate the power of bribery. I suggest handing the birth plan to the hospital staff with a box of doughnuts or homemade cookies and a box of Starbucks or other brewed coffee, followed up with thank you note - if they deserve it, of course.)
( Hospital Birth Plan )
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| Milkies |
[21 Jun 2008|01:54pm] |
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I'm still in awe of my ability to make milk.
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| Song for a Fifth Child |
[20 Jun 2008|12:45am] |
This makes me feel a little better about 4 days of dishes in my sink:
Song for a Fifth Child
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton
Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
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