Enchanted Winter

Yes, I'm still alive.

2010-10-12T19:18:00.000-05:00

Needless to say, we haven't had the internet for a long, long time. The hubby just can't find a job that pays the bills, and we're struggling. A lot. I hope to get my blog up and running again when things are more stable, but for the time being, updates are going to be few and far between.

Despite our troubles, though, we try to stay happy.

Immediately after our nature walk/hot chocolate grab.

Does this make me a freelance writer?

2010-05-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

I've had three articles published at Associated Content, for a whopping grand total so far of... wait for it... six bucks and change.

I'm not rich, but I think that, now that I've been paid for my writing, I'm officially a freelance writer.

Here are the links to my work:

Repurpose Worn Children's Books

Classical Education for Toddlers

Home Business Ideas for Pagans

I'll post new links as I have more published.

A Blessed- and Windy- Beltane

2010-05-02T00:22:00.004-05:00

We celebrated Beltane today, though it wasn't the celebration of life and fertility we'd been hoping for. Looking out the window, if you didn't know it was Minnesota, you might have thought we were having a minor hurricane. Wind, rain, dark skies.

We did make bannock:

The bannock made the house smell like deep-fried fish for half the day, interestingly. We also went outside to go on a nature walk, but Edy dragged me over to the park instead. Then she got cold by the time we got across the street, so we headed home, picking up some pretty leaves off the ground as we walked. They went into our very eclectic Buddhist-Pagan bookcase altar.

We also selected a tarot card to guide us until the next sabbat, something I like to do because I find that the cards always speak to me pretty clearly. Today's card was resoundingly the nine of cups. It was the card I drew, and then when I opened my book to check the meaning, I opened right to the nine of cups. Then, when I was putting my other deck away, the card facing out was- yes- the nine of cups.

Okay, I can take a hint.

According to Biddy Tarot, the nine of cups represents the following:

The nine of cups indicates good health and much success. There will be a situation which will provide for your best interests. Material gains could be part of your attainment as well as emotional support in life. Your work will start off bright, then turn dark, and then bright again. Don't worry, after a slight retrograde, you'll see material gain or a good outcome. An emotional issue concerning the care or treatment of another will be discussed.

Want personal fulfilment or gratification and to 'keep the faith' in the ultimate workings of good, despite appearances to the contrary. The past is not a barometer, so don't resign yourself to 'that's the way it is, and it will never change'.

Nines represent personal integrity and completion, or the final stage of development. Nine is associated with the Moon - therefore dreams and delusions play a role in these cards. This final stage may bring certain problems with it, and past experiences and methods of coping become important here and are an intrinsic part of the meaning attached to the nines.

Fulfilment The Nine of Cups represents stability and advancement. This is a card of great success, especially material success. It represents triumph, victory, and financial well-being. The enjoyment of good personal relationships, love and friendship, as well as comfortable material circumstances are indicated.

This card reflects happiness which is either health, finances, work, luck, love or relationship. Your desires will be fulfilled, and this fulfilment will bring with it much satisfaction and contentment. This is the traditional wish card, so whatever the querent desires here can be theirs -- however, everything does come with a price, and they should be careful what they wish for because they are likely to receive it!

Achievement, satisfaction, wishes fulfilled, self-indulgence, happiness. The Wish Card. Excellent social life. Parties, good friends and fun. Good health, happiness and popularity. Fulfilling relationships, ease of communication. Contentment.

Given the way my life has been going the last few months, this is going to be a significant improvement.

After that, we napped for quite some time, then Edy and I ate dinner and ran errands, and then it was Edy's bedtime. Not the most eventful Beltane, but it was nice. Hopefully the Goddess will give us nicer weather next year.

ETA: The hubby, the next day, decided that he wanted me to do a one-card tarot reading for him, too. He got the ten of swords. Whoops.

Jamie Oliver would be proud.

2010-05-01T23:55:00.002-05:00

I made the mistake of leaving a roma tomato I'd just bought sitting on the table. Put a couple things away, and turned to find that Edy had decided to help herself to a snack. She ended up eating three-quarters of it, saying, "Mmmmm," the whole time. She does like her veg, my daughter.

A Week of Breakfast: Photo Update

2010-04-29T06:18:00.005-05:00

I'll take a picture of each breakfast this week because, well, I can and it's fun and my new camera takes such pretty food pictures. (It actually has a special food setting! Heh.)

Everything is made from scratch. Here's my rotation:

Monday

-Homemade biscuits and gravy

-Fresh fruit

-Juice

Tuesday

-Scrambled Eggs

-Toast

-Fresh fruit

-Organic milk

Wednesday

-Oatmeal with fruit and honey

-Applesauce

-Organic milk

Thursday

-Yobaby yogurt with iron

-Toast

-Organic Milk

Friday

-Omelette with vegetables

-Applesauce

-Organic milk

Saturday

-Crepes, pancakes, or french toast with fresh fruit

-Bacon for the hubby

-Organic Milk

Sunday

-Cheerios with milk

-Yobaby yogurt with iron

-Juice

The things I do for my daughter.

2010-04-27T21:58:00.001-05:00

It's pen. Blue (and a little green) pen. She thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. Every time she drew a new line, she laughed so hard I started to worry she'd rupture something. Good times.

Daily PST

2010-04-27T05:54:00.005-05:00

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they

Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;

A poet could not be but gay,

In such a jocund company!

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

--William Wordsworth

A Week of Breakfast

2010-04-26T21:47:00.001-05:00

To make it easier to plan ahead, I've set up a weekly breakfast schedule. That way, when Edy drags me out of bed at seven, I don't have to force my groggy brain to calculate a nutritionally-balanced meal for her. I can just look at my list and cook what it says.

I'll take a picture of each breakfast this week because, well, I can and it's fun and my new camera takes such pretty food pictures. (It actually has a special food setting! Heh.)

Everything is made from scratch. Here's my rotation:

Monday
-Homemade biscuits and gravy
-Fresh fruit
-Juice

Tuesday
-Scrambled Eggs
-Toast
-Fresh fruit
-Organic milk

Wednesday
-Oatmeal with fruit and honey
-Applesauce
-Organic milk

Thursday
-Yobaby yogurt with iron
-Toast
-Organic Milk

Friday
-Omelette with vegetables
-Applesauce
-Organic milk

Saturday
-Crepes, pancakes, or french toast with fresh fruit
-Bacon for the hubby
-Organic Milk

Sunday
-Cheerios with milk
-Yobaby yogurt with iron
-Juice

Sunday Update

2010-04-25T21:25:00.001-05:00

I suppose I should start posting a weekly overview, since that seems to be popular here on the blogosphere.

Edy is doing great! She's talking more and more every day, and is definitely putting two words together occasionally. Like the other day, when she made a colorful scribble drawing with her pens, then pointed at it and said, "Daddy poop." I labeled it thusly and hung it on the wall. Edy was very proud; the hubby was a tad embarrassed.

I've been trying to read Edy a story at night before bedtime, but it's not going well. We read books all day long, so she certainly has enough exposure, but I want to start a "reading before bed" tradition. Unfortunately, Edy wants to start a "running through the bedroom screaming and throwing things" tradition. As you can imagine, the two don't really mesh.

I've decided that, beginning tomorrow, we're going to start a more structured preschool curriculum. Not structured as in "Edy sits at a desk while mommy talks," but structured as in some of our reading, playing, and singing will now have weekly themes. I have a lot to do, such as making our learning board (I knew that giant posterboard was worth saving!) and finding pictures and books for this week. We'll be following the Brightly Beaming Steps to Reading Program's Preparatory Curriculum, and here's what we'll be learning this week:

-Cows
-Square
-the letter A
-the number 1
-Hey Diddle Diddle

I'll also be incorporating some of the lessons from the toddler program, which is for toddlers between ages 1 and 2 (the Prep Program is designed to be started at age 2). I don't see much of a difference in the level of difficulty between the two, and I think using them together will work beautifully. So here's the rest of our focus for the week, from the toddler program:

-Bach: Minuet in G
-Learning how to clean up toys
-There will be a foreign language component, but I'm still trying to decide what language to use, so I'll hold off on that for the time being.

If this curriculum turns out to be problematic, I may just do a little reading and write my own. This will work for now, though.

Notable Sig Quotes

2010-04-24T22:44:00.003-05:00

"The memory of having been read to is a solace one carries through adulthood. It can wash over a multitude of parental sins." --Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence

“Showing up at school already able to read is like showing up at the undertaker's already embalmed: people start worrying about being put out of their jobs.” --Florence King

A Brief Excerpt from "The Storm and the Magician"

2010-04-23T20:30:00.008-05:00

Which, as you may have guessed, is the working title for my novel. I'm sure that, should I ever get it published, they'll come up with something much more clever that I can't stand. I hear that's how the publishing industry works.

Now, keep in mind, this is from my (very) rough first draft. I've gotten so close to this, though, that I'm thinking an outside perspective might be helpful.

All you really need to know for this section is that Tempest is my protag, and Cillian is her somewhat older tutor. Oh, and I'm not sure why the paragraph breaks are so obscenely big. My computer hates me, I guess.

Chapter Four

Cillian didn’t return for three full days, and when the doorbell finally rang and Irene let him into the foyer out of Monday morning’s heavy fog, I couldn’t hide my delight at having him back again. I asked if he’d learned anything about the sudden rainstorm and my dizziness, but he didn’t have any answers.

“I’m still looking into it,” he said with a regretful smile. “Lots of musty charts to dig through, you know. Did you do the reading I assigned you?”

The day passed quickly and easily. Peter left for the day to manage the affairs of his own household, and Cillian, for once, abandoned my father’s books and spent hours telling me stories about growing up the son of two poor merchants. He’d spent most of his time at the library, a revelation that didn’t surprise me in the least, but even with his predilection towards bookishness, he still managed a far more adventurous youth than I’d ever had.

“You had so much fun,” I said, a touch envious.

“It was good,” he agreed. “My parents gave me so much.” He stopped suddenly, as if worried he’d stumbled into painful territory, but I brushed it off.

“I did have some amazing birthday parties,” I mused. “My father rented a trained whale when I was seven.” He’d died the next year, but I left that part out.

“A trained. . .” Cillian’s voice trailed off. “I’ve never even seen a whale. Did it do tricks?”

“Oh yes,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Something with a flaming hoop, very impressive. Apparently, there’s an entire village down the coast that trains small whales. My father told me they use them for fishing, mostly, but a few branch out into more, shall we say, dramatic business ventures.”

We talked late into the evening. Cillian had just begun to pack up his things for the night when we heard Irene’s distressed shriek from downstairs. It echoed through the humid, stagnant night, jolting me out of my contented state. The book I held in my lap fell to the floor with a thud.

“What in the-?” Cillian moved towards the door, but stopped when the floorboards shook with the force of the crashes from downstairs. I heard Irene’s voice, demanding and angry, but muffled as it was, I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Another voice, lower and more menacing, gave a short reply, then another heavy thud.

“Thieves?” I said, my heart beating frantically against my ribs.

“Or kidnappers,” Cillian said, honest as always, even when my nerves would beg otherwise. He looked out the window, and must have seen the long drop to the stones below. “We have to hide somewhere.”

I tried to focus, but terror sent my mind spinning. “I- I don’t know where,” I whispered. “I-“

“Think, Tempest. You have to think.” His voice was low and urgent. He didn’t know the house like I did. No one knew it, except for Irene. Oh goddess, what had they done to-

“Tempest!”

“There’s a linen closet at the other end of the hall, close to the stairs,” I stammered.
There were several voices now. One of them was young and female. It sounded as if they were moving through the downstairs rooms. Searching for something. For me. “It has a strange turn at the back. If we wedge ourselves in, they might not see us even if-“

“Let’s go,” he said, grasping my arm firmly above the elbow and leading me towards the door.

He opened the door, slowly and carefully so the worn knob wouldn’t creak. The voices were much louder, much closer, once we were in the hall. It was hard to make out what they were saying, but I caught a few words as we inched silently down the hall.

“-said it would be on the northern side of the-“

“-just a dining room. Ugly as sin, too.”

“It’s not here, either.”

“-upstairs?”

The color drained from Cillian’s face. I nodded towards the door, the narrow one on the left, and he cracked the door open so we could slip inside. He pulled it closed behind us, leaving the dim candlelight flickering in the hall and dowsing us in suffocating blackness.

The intruders walked up the last few stairs as Cillian and I pressed ourselves into the angled corner. I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to stop my body from trembling, but the violent shaking only worsened as numbing cold then blossoms of heat crept over me in waves. I was going to be sick. The fragrance of violet sachets was dizzying. I had to get out of there or I was going to suffocate. I pushed against Cillian’s shoulder, desperate to get away.

“Don’t be afraid,” he breathed. He moved his body against mine and pushed us further into the corner, out of sight. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” His breath tickled my ear, and a tiny bit of the terror drained away, replaced by sudden heat at his closeness. His fingers slid around my arm and he moved me against the shelves, soft and heavy with deep piles of musty blankets and long unused tablecloths. He was trying to keep himself between me and the door, perhaps instinctively, because if we were discovered, there was nothing he could do to help either one of us.

Heavy footsteps moved systematically down the hall. Doors banged open, and the air was thick with cursing and shouting. Cillian was so close I felt the frantic beating of his heart.

Everything seemed to happen at once. The door of the linen closet opened, and at the same time the woman yelled from somewhere else, “Here! It’s here! We have to hurry!”

In the scant trickle of illumination from the open door, I saw Cillian’s face. His dark eyes were locked on mine. They burned with fear and determination, and something else I couldn’t identify.

Happy, happy day!

2010-04-23T20:15:00.001-05:00

We finally got the car fixed today, and it turned out that it was just a power cable and a couple wires that got fried. So the cost, instead of the four hundred or so that we were expecting, was a much more reasonable $125 and change. Score! I'm sure the landlord will be very relieved that we'll be paying our rent on the first, after all.

On a more nerve-wracking note, Edy has learned how to climb up onto the dining table chairs, shimmy over the table, and lower herself into her high chair. The first time it happened, I was doing dishes. Edy was standing on a chair, drawing a picture with her pens (which she later told me, and I kid you not, was called "Daddy poop") and I was washing the dishes. When I looked back over at her several moments later, she was sitting in her high chair. I really wondered for a brief time if I'm starting to have dementia, but then she climbed back out of her high chair and returned to the table chair. Realization dawned, and much scolding and finger-shaking ensued.

And... she's up to seventy-five words now! Keep it up, munchkin.

Daily PST

2010-04-23T19:52:00.000-05:00

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost

Oklahoma: Protecting women by posting their sex lives online.

2010-04-22T18:13:00.002-05:00

Reposted over at Pharyngula:

The governor of Oklahoma is considering tough new abortion bills that would allow doctors to withhold test results showing foetal defects and require women to answer intrusive questions.

The results of the questionnaires would be posted online.

Women would also be required to have a vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the embryo or foetus in a third bill passed by the legislature on Monday.

So basically, if your unborn child has a heart defect, and your OB thinks you might abort, he just doesn't have to tell you? What if the defect is something correctable? What if the defect will require you to have a C-section? "Well gosh, Mrs. Smith, you're just going to have to let me cut you open this Thursday. No, no I can't tell you why."

Idiotic. Absolutely idiotic.

And posting the details of a woman's sexual history online? I honestly don't understand how on earth that could possibly lower the abortion rate. Do they just hold onto it and threaten to post it if you abort? "Mrs. Smith, I'm sure your mother really wouldn't like to know that you performed oral sex on forty-three men in '97. Now, why don't we discuss abortion alternatives?"

Good hairy lord. If this does pass, we can probably expect a mass exodus of pregnant women seeking prenatal care out-of-state. I'd love to know what the Oklahoma OBs think of all this.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-22T17:02:00.001-05:00

-Leftover Caribbean Red Bean Stew (pork, kidney beans, onion, green bell pepper, sweet potato)
-Green beans with butter
-Organic milk

Daily PST

2010-04-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

The Echoing Green

The sun does arise,

And make happy the skies;

The merry bells ring

To welcome the spring;

The skylark and thrush,

The birds of the bush,

Sing louder around

To the bell's cheerful sound,

While our sports shall be seen

On the Echoing Green.

Old John with white hair,

Does laugh away care,

Sitting under the oak,

Among the old folk.

They laugh at our play,

And soon they all say:

"Such, such were the joys

When we all, girls and boys,

In our youth time were seen

On the Echoing Green."

Till the little ones, weary,

No more can be merry;

The sun does descend,

And our sports have an end.

Round the laps of their mothers

Many sisters and brother,

Like birds in their nest,

Are ready for rest,

And sport no more seen

On the darkening Green.

--William Blake

Join me on my bike ride to work.

2010-04-22T16:34:00.003-05:00

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

Because I won't be forced to ride my bike to work every other morning after today (though I'll still bike occasionally, when the weather is nice) I brought along my camera and took some pictures. I often forget just how beautiful Minnesota is, and how lucky I am to live here.

Here's the bike trail, which stretches most of the way there.

I took a few pictures on my way to work:

And several more on the ride home:

This is a block or so away from where I work:

Not sure what the big white things are, but they're a little creepy. Especially with the strange, Seussian plants growing nearby.

Now that's just eerie.

2010-04-22T15:57:00.001-05:00

Given my forced isolation from the world and subsequent realization that, divinely-ordained or not I might as well write since there was nothing better to do, I finished the first 11,000 words of my novel in a matter of, oh, three or four days.

Creepily, and happily, things have started to look up since then.

Our internet has returned off and on (and may I say, Goddess bless you, people who don't know how to password protect your wifi). Also, the hubby went to take a look at the car again, and he now thinks that, instead of having a fried alternator, it might just be a wire that got ripped when a fan fell. Which would be significantly cheaper than the alternative.

And let me tell you, if it is the alternator, I won't be online for some time because I'll be busy selling non-vital organs on the black market.

Keep your collective fingers crossed for me, dear followers. I'll update and let you know if I'm up several hundred dollars or short a kidney.

Thrift Store Treasures

2010-04-21T19:23:00.004-05:00

The flowery head thingie. (I think there's a technical name for these, but I'm not sure what it is.) Edy's going to wear it with her fairy tutu on Beltane.

Our internet went extremely rude noise

2010-04-17T14:28:00.001-05:00

I'm at the library right now, staring dreamily at the rows and rows of books and wondering if the third book in the Ingo trilogy is out yet, because as soon as our new neighbors moved in down stairs, we lost our free wifi. I'm hoping it will come back, but if it doesn't, my posts will probably be a bit fewer and farther between. But don't despair! I will keep posting, so check in every few days if you'd like, and there'll probably be something new.

Maybe the universe really is pissed at me.

2010-04-17T14:15:00.003-05:00

As those of you who follow my blog (hey, now there's two!) may have noticed, I seem to have had a string of bad luck lately, which has been extended by a few more minor things happening over the course of the last few days (more on that later). As a spiritual person, I've been racking my brain, trying to figure out why these things keep happening. I mean, come on! I can't make my life better if I'm trapped in my house all the time because we have no money and the car's broken and and I don't even have the internet, and I can't get a full-time job because of my epilepsy. What the heck am I supposed to-

Oh, right.

Point taken. I have suddenly recalled just how pissed off the gods get when they give you gifts and you ignore them, so I will be working on my novel again. And perhaps I should call Robert Olen Butler's people and apologize for not attending that exclusive writing workshop back in college I was accepted into. Oh, and I'm sorry, Strange Horizons, for not reworking the end of that story that you nearly accepted and resubmitting it. I still have it, if you're interested.

This point was reinforced by my recalling the only good thing to have happened in the last few months. One day, when my laptop was up and running and open, Edy poured a scalding cup of coffee directly onto it. One of those gallon-sized coffee mugs. When I picked it up, steaming coffee actually poured out of the ports on the side. I waited until the next day, turned it on, and it worked perfectly. Not a thing wrong. Not a speck of data lost.

Yeah, yeah. I get it. Thanks for the complete lack of subtlety.

Our first nature walk of the spring.

2010-04-16T13:55:00.002-05:00

And boy, did we pick a cold day for it. And windy.

Poor Edy just about froze her little fingers off. The lake even looked cold.

We did see a few animals in and around some ponds next to the path we took, though. Even they looked like they were freezing their little tails off.

The plant life was fairly sparse, too, though I did get a few nice shots.

I'm hoping the next nature walk we take will be a bit less arctic.

Daily PST

2010-04-16T09:47:00.001-05:00

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

--Walt Whitman

Homemade Pizza

2010-04-16T00:25:00.002-05:00

I love pizza. Especially the crust. And the cheese. And the toppings.

Yeah…

When you buy a pizza from the store, however, you never really know what’s in there. (Or worse, you look at the list of ingredients and you DO know.) So when I’m craving something greasy and cheesy, lately I’ve just been baking my own. Which is what I spent a couple hours doing this evening.

I make the crust from scratch using Jay's Signature Pizza Crust recipe. This will give you a crust with a similar taste and texture to a Pizza Hut pan pizza. If you prefer a thinner crust, you’ll definitely want to cut this in half. It makes a lot of crust.

It starts out much like a loaf of bread:

According to the recipe you can use a rolling pin to get your ball of dough into the proper pizza shape, but I usually just stretch mine with my hands so as not to squish out all the air that formed during the rising. Then I mixed some extra virgn olive oil with a couple sprinkles of garlic powder and brushed that on the top.

We used a two cup bag of pizzeria cheese from the grocery store, along with a few sprinkles of some grated Parmesan I had in the fridge. The hubby likes meat on his pizza, while I prefer mushrooms.

Sadly, I didn’t get a picture of the pre-baked post-topped pizza, because we were all in a hurry to cook the damn thing and eat.

Behold, a homemade pizza is a thing of beauty:

But especially the mushroom half. Mmm.

Daily PST

2010-04-15T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

-William Butler Yeats

Do you ever have days...

2010-04-15T05:22:00.005-05:00

...where you want to tie up your toddler and lock them in a handy closet? Figuratively, of course.

Today (though I guess it was yesterday at this point) Edy spent half the morning screaming because she wanted to climb on the chairs in the kitchen, and I kept removing her back to the floor. Of course, on attempt #4372, she scurried up onto the chair, grabbed my teapot, and flung it defiantly to the floor, where it shattered into many, many pieces.

After the succesive time-out and forced "sorry" and hug, what does she do? Runs to the table and goes after the butter dish. She also spent the rest of the day screaming every single time she didn't get her way.

My precious angel seems to have been possessed by some sort of rabid toddler monster.

On a more positive note, she's up to 66 words today. She started using a new one at the park, saying "step" every time she'd climb up the little stairs. And she's doing amazing well with her walking, moving really quickly now. She sort of at this awkward stage where she definitely moves faster than a walk, yet isn't quite running. Sort of a hyped up speed walk.

Daily PST

2010-04-14T22:12:00.003-05:00

The Catch

It darted across the pond

toward our sunset perch,

weaving in, up, and around

a spindle of air,

this delicate engine

fired by impulse and glitter,

swift darning-needle,

gossamer dragon,

less image than thought,

and the thought came alive.

Swoosh went the net

with a practiced hand.

"Da-da, may I look too?"

You may look, child,

all you want.

This prize belongs to no one.

But you will pay all

your life for the privilege,

all your life.

-Stanley Kunitz

The Collected Poems

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-14T21:58:00.001-05:00

-Leftover stir fried beef from dinner last night
-Rice with diced tomatoes and onions
-Half a banana
-Organic milk

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-14T12:06:00.001-05:00

-Fettucini alfredo
-Leftover baked mushrooms
-Half a banana
-Organic milk

This Week

2010-04-14T07:00:00.001-05:00

The Daily PST (Poetry Suitable for Toddlers)

2010-04-13T19:18:00.005-05:00

Another daily (or thereabouts) feature I'd like to do is to share a poem that would be suitable for a toddler or young child. I love poetry, and I love reading it to my daughter. Poems are great for toddlers, as they are short and often heavy with amusing alliteration. *grin*

The Fieldmouse

Where the acorn tumbles down,

Where the ash tree sheds its berry,

With your fur so soft and brown,

With your eye so round and merry,

Scarcely moving the long grass,

Fieldmouse, I can see you pass.

Little thing, in what dark den,

Lie you all the winter sleeping?

Till warm weather comes again,

Then once more I see you peeping

Round about the tall tree roots,

Nibbling at their fallen fruits.

Fieldmouse, fieldmouse, do not go,

Where the farmer stacks his treasure,

Find the nut that falls below,

Eat the acorn at your pleasure,

But you must not steal the grain

He has stacked with so much pain.

Make your hole where mosses spring,

Underneath the tall oak's shadow,

Pretty, quiet harmless thing,

Play about the sunny meadow.

Keep away from corn and house,

None will harm you, little mouse.

~Cecil Frances Alexander

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Notable Sig Quotes

2010-04-13T19:00:00.004-05:00

I see so many wonderful quotes in people's sigs on the different message boards I visit. I know, I should be reading them in more intellectual places. Books, for example. But I meet a lot of smart people out there on the interwebs, and I'd like to share some of the best quotes I see dragging along behind them.

Here's the first few of many:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." -Isaac Asimov (Yeah, this one is from my sig. What can I say, it's a great quote.)

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours." -John Locke

I love my neighborhood.

2010-04-12T21:37:00.003-05:00

We may not live on a hundred acres of pristine farmland, or reside in a fancy gated community, but compared with the (lack of a) view when we lived in Duluth, I think where we live now is nice. You have to, you know, ignore the power lines. But it's not bad:

Mushroom Bites with Garlic Mayo

2010-04-12T21:21:00.006-05:00

Oh. My. God.

If you like mushrooms, this recipe is orgasmically good. I got it from a cookbook I picked up at one of the local thrift stores, Vegetarian: 100 Best Recipes by Linda Doeser, and it is so amazingly good. Even without the mayo, which I didn't give to Edy because it contains raw egg, the mushrooms alone are fantastic.

Here it is, with a couple alterations that I'll mention later that make it much, much easier.

1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 tbsp grated Parmesan
1 tsp paprika
2 egg whites
8 oz white mushrooms

Garlic Mayo:
4 garlic cloves, crushed
salt and pepper
2 egg yolks
scant 1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375. To make the garlic mayo, put the garlic in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, and mash with the back of a spoon. Add the egg yolks and beat with an electric whisk for 30 seconds, or until creamy. Start beating in the oil, one drop at a time. As the mixture begins to thicken, add the oil in a steady stream, beating constantly. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator until required.

Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, Parmesan, and paprika. Lightly beat the egg whites in a separate clean bowl, then dip each mushroom first into the egg whites, then into the bread crumbs, and place on the prepared cookie sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for fifteen minutes, or until the coating is crisp and golden. Serve immediately with the garlic mayo.

Comments:

The recipe originally called for you to make the bread crumbs from scratch by grating 4 oz of bread, but really, who does that? So I just changed it to what I used, which worked beautifully. You could probably cut back to 1/4 cup of bread crumbs, if you wanted, depending on the size of your mushrooms.

I didn't bother with the parchment paper on my cookie sheet, and I didn't have any problems.

The garlic flavor in the mayo is very strong, so you may want to cut back if you're going to feed this to children. You shouldn't give anything containing raw egg to very young children, by the way, unless the eggs are extremely fresh. Use your judgement.

Here's the finished product, along with a little couscous and some peas:

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-12T21:08:00.003-05:00

Yes, I know lunch the last few days has been fairly repetitive. It's my work weekend. I'll do better starting tomorrow.

-The last of the leftover lentil soup with carrots (I promise!)
-Fresh kiwi fruit
-French bread
-Organic milk

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-11T14:15:00.001-05:00

-Leftover organic lentil soup with carrots
-Fresh strawberries
-French bread
-Organic milk

Apparently, I really pissed off the universe this week. Yikes.

2010-04-11T14:12:00.001-05:00

First, a little background.

We live in Minnesota, a state where having car insurance is legally mandated. Unfortunately, with my history of epilepsy and the hubby's long ago DUI, having car insurance that doesn't leave us unable to pay our rent is simply not a possibility. So we've been (carefully) driving without it, because I have to get to work, and it's hard to get a toddler two miles to the grocery story on foot.

A couple months ago, I was driving when a deer decided it would be fun to throw itself at the hood of my car. (This happens quite frequently in Minnesota.) It smashed up the front driver's side of the car, and wrecked the headlight on that side. We're really, really broke at the moment, and were planning to use our rent rebate to fix it, since we just can't afford to until them, but we still haven't gotten the money. Thank you, Republican governor.

Last night, I had to drive home from work after dark (this only happens twice every two weeks) and took the back roads so I wouldn't have to be around a bunch of other traffic with only one headlight. Of course, there was a cop sitting there, and since I was probably the only car who'd passed in the last hour, he pulled me over for the headlight.

I didn't have insurance, so I have to go to court now for driving without it and will likely get a fine of several hundred dollars.

The court date is the same day as Edy's appointment with her geneticist.

And if all that wasn't enough, as I was pulling away from the cop after getting my ticket, the car freaked out and died. It restarted and I managed to (barely) get home, but the hubby says the alternator is shot and will need to be replaced.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm sick? Headache, stomach issues, fever, phlegmy cough.

I must have been a professional kitten and puppy torturer in my past life. There's no other explanation for the permanent string of bad luck I've had.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-10T12:11:00.002-05:00

-Organic lentil soup with carrots
-Fresh mango
-Organic milk

A Random Bit of Toddler Poetry

2010-04-10T11:20:00.006-05:00

When I close my eyes in bed,
Sweet dreams float into my head,
Of mountains, fairy queens and stars,
And treasure chests and chocolate bars,
And magic spells and Christmas Day,
And all the places where I play,
And woods and rivers, towns and farms,
And Teddy snuggled in my arms.
These are the things that fill my head
When I close my eyes in bed.

-From The Usbourne Book of Bedtime Rhymes

Good thing she kept the receipt.

2010-04-09T23:18:00.005-05:00

Have you heard about the woman who sent her adopted son back to Russia?

CNN Article

I don't care what kind of psychological issues the kid has, and I don't care that the Russian orphanage lied to the woman. When you adopt a child, it's just the same as if you squeezed him out of your very own vagina. You don't get to send him back because he didn't quite live up to your expectations.

Sick. Just sick. I hope they charge the woman with child endangerment, and I hope that Russia stops handing out orphans to any American who can afford the shipping and handling.

Playing around with templates...

2010-04-09T21:50:00.004-05:00

...so bear with me if the blog looks a bit unfinished. :)

ETA: Okay, I think I found the one. Don't quote me on that, though. I'm totally addicted to browsing the free templates. Some are... interesting.

Mission Originality: Phase Two

2010-04-09T21:10:00.002-05:00

As you may have noticed, my blog now has a new name and a new address in an attempt to not unintentionally copy anyone else's blog. I switched to blogger because I really enjoy the ability to customize my blog. Wordpress was nice, and I liked the pretty tabs for the different pages, but I'm liking this better, overall. Also, I plan to try to make a little cash with this someday when I have more followers, and that'll be easier with blogger. If I ever go pro, I'll probably go with wordpress, but for now, I'm loving this.

Mission Originality: Fail.

2010-04-09T14:11:00.001-05:00

When I started my blog, I did a quick google search to ensure that no one else was blogging under this name, and at the time, didn't see anything. Now, of course, when I google it, another blog comes up that looks like it's been around for awhile. I don't know if I missed it the first time, or if it was too far down the list for me to find. Either way, I'll be looking to rename my blog.

Aaargh.

Spring Cleaning: The Master List

2010-04-09T12:59:00.000-05:00

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to massively spring clean our apartment. As you can imagine, this takes some time when you have a toddler running underfoot screaming, "Up! UP!!" so it'll be a slow, steady thing.

Here's my to-do list. I'll cross things off as I do them and re-post periodically.

-Deep clean the living room rug (Note to self: Off-white rug V. V. BAD IDEA.)
-~~Organize shelf above coat nook~~
-Clean out huge storage closet
-Donate stuff we don't need
-Finish painting the kitchen
-Clean out car
-Scrub down Edy's stroller
-Clean the couch
-Dust everything with a horizontal surface
-Scrub fridge, inside and out
-Clean out cupboards, inside and out
-Wash windows (We live on the floor, so this is an inside-only thing.)
-Sort clothes and donate anything unused

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-09T12:36:00.000-05:00

-Leftover roasted chicken that I made last night
-Green beans with butter
-Fresh strawberries
-French bread
-Orange/mango smoothie

Rude playground urchins.

2010-04-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

I took Edy to the playground today- the nice one by the lake- because running around picking up rocks and sliding and bringing Mama sticks makes her radiantly happy. Of course, we picked the same time to visit as thirty local elementary school kids attending a birthday party, which meant that the park had descended to levels of chaos I only thought were possible when the local thrift store has it's huge clear-out-the-store sale.

Anyway, Edy was crawling happily through one of the tunnels, when a boy who looked to be about ten literally stampeded over her in his haste to get through the tunnel. No sorry, no how-do-you-do, just a storm of feet and kool-aid stained teeth and then he was gone, with Edy lying on her back looking dazed and a little rumpled.

She recovered, and so we resumed our play. Five minutes later, I was standing on a ladder, helping Edy get around, as she is wobbly and a bit afraid of heights. Now, the playground equipment has probably twenty ladders, stairs, and other methods of ascending to the slide platforms, so it wasn't like I was blocking some critical access point. Nonetheless, Pamplona-boy ran up behind me and shrieked, "Hey, get out of my way!"

When I turned to see who was speaking, he shoved past me, climbed up the ladder, and nearly ran Edy over for the second time in several minutes.

What do you do about kids like this nowadays? I didn't want to say anything, because heaven forbid I correct someone else's little angelface. God knows they'd probably sue me for the emotional trauma that my saying, "You should say excuse me," would have caused.

Seriously. What should I do about this next time? This kid seemed immune to the evil-mommy-death glare.

My thoughts on dumb educational trends.

2010-04-08T23:42:00.000-05:00

One of the posts over at the WTM forums today discusses dumb educational trends to which some of us have been subjected, and I found the post fascinating. I love anything to do with educational philosophy and the like, and so here's my personal commentary on some of what was discussed.

Initial Training Alphabet
Wow. This looks like a horrible idea of megasuperepic proportions. Why on earth would you teach children a special alphabet in order to teach them the alphabet? Good lord, if you're going to make a child learn more than one alphabet, at least make the second one the greek alphabet. Comes in handy in college.

Open Classrooms
I've never had the, um, privilege to, er, learn in one of these things, but it sounds torturous. The way people describe it, it's basically a school with no walls between the classrooms so that you can hear what everyone else is doing over a square mile radius. Someone said that the idea was that happy little facts would just drift between classes, with kids absorbing them like sea sponges. Or something to that effect. Apparently, the schools just end up being noisy ADHD factories. And what's worse is that schools today are still doing this.

Whole Language
Thankfully, I was taught the finer points of reading through phonics. My mom swears that I taught myself to read simple books at home, and just worked on the details at school, but I digress. If I had learned to read by memorizing words off of flashcards, or however they do this, there is no way I would have been able to stumble through the genetics paper I read earlier today. I think I sounded out three-quarters of the words. If I would have had to look up every unfamiliar word in the dictionary, I'd still be at it this very minute.

Feelings > Facts
What is it with schools lately teaching that your feelings trump everything else, including important literary criticism and historical fact? It doesn't matter why the War of 1812 was actually fought- what matters now is how you feel about it. Nice, in a get-in-touch-with-your-inner-self sort of way, but academically useless.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-08T23:20:00.000-05:00

-Lentils
-Fresh strawberries
-Banana
-Organic milk

Giftedness... pffffft.

2010-04-08T05:54:00.000-05:00

Honestly, if I read about one more mother who claims to have a "gifted" one-year-old, I may scream.

(And, just for the record, I've been saying this for months now, and contrary to the opinion of some snarky women, it has nothing to do with "jealousy" that Edy isn't reading untranslated Russian literature before the age of two or whatever.)

I'm terribly sorry, but the fact that your 18-month-old recognizes a few letters or letter sounds does not mean they are gifted. Yes, there are gifted children out there, but the whole idea of "giftedness" is just a label for the upper percentages of the IQ spectrum. And as a child that young couldn't possibly have taken an IQ test, it simply isn't possible for them to have that particular label, not to mention that normal development at this age is amazingly uneven, and being temporarily ahead in one area is no indicator of future intellectual and academic success.

The entire reason I have such an eye-rolling, annoyed reaction to the term is people like this. People who think that, because their child is mastering basic concepts at an appropriate or slightly advanced age level, he or she must be a budding genius. If you look at what children were expected to learn and when one hundred years ago, the vast majority of children today are anything but geniuses. Most of our kids would have failed spectacularly back then because they've grown up with so little expected of them.

Aside from the increasingly broad use of the term, I also have a problem with the term itself. It makes it sound as if kids who did happen to win the genetic lottery were hand-picked by some magical deity to be extra-smart, while the rest of them, well, not so much. I mean, if we call smart kids "gifted," should we be calling children with mental retardation "cursed"?

And as a person with an IQ that places me squarely in the "highly gifted" range, I can tell you that in today's society, being a smarty is anything but a gift. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've wished that my IQ was twenty or thirty points lower. In a culture that values wealth and consumerism far above anything else, being highly intelligent is just a recipe for mental health issues.

If you have one of the many, many children that fall into the average range, do yourself a favor and don't try to label them as gifted because they can do division a grade-level ahead or whatever. If your child is average, that's fine. That doesn't mean they aren't going to grow up to be a smart, successful, passionate, creative person, and trying desperately to figure out a way to fit them into the "gifted" box because you base your worth as a human being on how quickly they master literary analysis isn't doing anyone any favors.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-07T15:26:00.000-05:00

-Organic creamy tomato soup
-Grilled cheese sandwich
-Mandarin orange slices
-Organic milk

Autism thing vs. toddler thing?

2010-04-07T15:25:00.000-05:00

So I had to make the rounds today at Edy's toddler class, telling everyone who needed to know about her newly diagnosed genetic disorder (her teacher, her speech therapist, etc.). I asked her speech therapist if she's observed anything that could be a potential sign of autism. She said, "Well, when I ask her to do things, a lot of the time she doesn't do them."

???

Perhaps I'm blinded by the fact that this is my daughter, but I was under the impression that's a toddler thing, not an autism thing. From what I've seen with other kids in Edy's toddler class, a 22-month-old not doing what you ask them isn't exactly shockingly strange.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-06T13:17:00.000-05:00

No, she didn't really eat lunch twice today. I'm just not a day behind, like I normally am.

-Mandarin orange slices
-Couscous with diced tomatoes, garlic, basil, and parmesan
-Organic milk

Optimism.

2010-04-06T13:12:00.000-05:00

I think Edy definitely knows I had a rough day yesterday, because she's been talking and dancing up a storm today. She's been a little chatterbox since she woke up, saying words constantly, and she was dancing like a fiend to the Doodlebops this morning. She even learned a new shape today, pointing at a heart I drew for her and saying, "Art!" She also pointed at a picture of ice cream in a book we were reading, said "Eam!" and tried to lick the picture. Then, at the library, when she got her fingers stuck between a couple of shelves, she yelled, "Tuck!"

She also said to the cat this morning, "Hi Arwen!" It was only the third original sentence she's ever made, so it was quite exciting. And the other words are all new words (well, "eam" is really more of a word fragment, but the others count) so I'm very happy. If she keeps up this level of progress, I can't see that she'll have too many problems down the road. Now if I can just keep her from developing autism through sheer force of will, everything will be good. I was reading a pamphlet off the internet last night saying that around one in three kids with this deletion develop autism, so that means her chances are much higher than average, but it's not set in stone, either. Fingers crossed.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-05T22:43:00.000-05:00

We've somehow exhausted our food budget for the last thirty day period with four days still left (oops) so meals are going to be sort of... meh.

-Homemade fried rice with shallots and mushrooms
-Mixed berry Yobaby yogurt w/ iron
-Organic milk
-Strawberry kefir (yes, lunch today had lots of yogurt-type substances)

I'm glad I decided to only post our lunches, because dinner tonight was unspeakably bad. Let's just say there was a drive-through AND a delivery person involved.

One thing that gives me hope...

2010-04-05T21:15:00.000-05:00

...is when I was sitting in the kitchen earlier, crying, because I had just gotten off the phone with the doctor and received Edy's diagnosis. Edy ran up to me, patted my head, then gave me several hugs. I was still crying, so she ran out to the living room and brought back one of the couch pillows I always snuggle with when I'm reading.

Even this young, she reached out and did everything she could to comfort me. They can tell me she's behind, that she'll never be a genius, but they'll never be able to tell me that Edy doesn't feel empathy, that she doesn't feel love, because I know she does. Even when everything is dark and scary and I don't have much hope left, knowing that Edy loves me will keep me going through anything.

16p11.2 Deletion Syndrome

2010-04-05T20:57:00.000-05:00

The doctor called today, and this is the reason Edy has delays. It means that part of her sixteenth chromosome is missing. This means that twenty-five of her genes are just not there, and three of those normally govern some brain function. Which, when you put it all together, means that she'll likely have some sort of intellectual disability, and has a very high chance of being somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

I'm not even sure what I'm feeling right now. Grief. Hope. Pity. Regret. Confusion. Hopelessness. Anger. Frustration. One minute I'm sure she'll be fine, that her symptoms will be mild and she'll have a normal life. Five minutes later, I'm sobbing because I'm convinced that she's going to end up in a group home as an adult and will never be able to take care of herself.

Here's a link that explains a little more about the syndrome: 16p11.2 Deletion Syndrome

From the site:

16p11.2 deletion syndrome is a disorder caused by a deletion of a small piece of chromosome 16. The deletion occurs near the middle of the chromosome at a location designated p11.2.
People with 16p11.2 deletion syndrome usually have developmental delay and intellectual disability. Most also have at least some features of autism spectrum disorders. These disorders are characterized by impaired communication and socialization skills, as well as delayed development of speech and language. In 16p11.2 deletion syndrome, expressive language skills (vocabulary and the production of speech) are generally more severely affected than receptive language skills (the ability to understand speech).
Some affected individuals have minor physical abnormalities such as low-set ears or partially webbed toes (partial syndactyly). However, there is no particular pattern of physical abnormalities that characterizes 16p11.2 deletion syndrome. Signs and symptoms of the disorder vary even among affected members of the same family. Some people with the deletion have no identified physical, intellectual, or behavioral abnormalities.

One positive thing to come out of this is that the hubby is now equally adamant that Edy be homeschooled long-term, since neither of us wants to send her to ps if she is behind or might be a target for bullies.

We have an appointment with a geneticist on May 20th, so we should have more information then.

Kefir = tingly?

2010-04-05T00:55:00.000-05:00

I've been hearing all kinds of good things about kefir lately, so when I saw some in the grocery store today, I thought I'd pick up a bottle and give it a go. When I got home and tried a cup, it made my tongue tingle. Not fizzy, like pop, but more of a delicate tingle. I'm not sure what to compare it to.

Is this normal? Should I be stocking up on epipens just in case this is the precursor to some sort of massive allergic reaction?

Edy had some too, and she didn't seem concerned.

Edy's Lunch

2010-04-05T00:49:00.000-05:00

Here's what was on the menu today.

-White rice with parmesan (yes, brown is better, but we're all out at the moment)
-Edamame and corn
-Papaya (came out of a can, but fresh papaya in Minnesota in April is hard to come by)
-organic milk

Edy's Word List

2010-04-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

As mentioned in the "About Us" section of my blog, Edy has had some delays (which I think are really normal variations in development, but I'm certainly not going to turn down free speech therapy for her). She didn't walk or start talking (other than "mama") until between eighteen and nineteen months. I started giving her half a teaspoon of fish oil each day, and within a week she'd begun to walk and she'd learned three new words. I don't know if the fish oil is helping or not- I'm not silly enough to assume that correlation equals causation- but it could be helping, so I still give it to her each day.

Anyway, at twenty-two months old, she's now up to over fifty words, and has made a couple of two-word sentences. Because I'm her mommy, and mommies live to brag, here are the words she says now:

Arwen (our cat)
Baby
Ball
Birdie
Bite
Bob
Boob (don't ask)
Boot
Brush
Bubble
Bye
Daddy
Dirt
Dirty
Dishes
Duck
Eat
Ew
Eye
Fish
Hat
Hi
Hot
Juice
Kitty (sounds more like "i-ee")
Leaf
Light (sounds like "yight")
Mama
Meow
Mine
Monkey
Ow
Pizza (she can't say z yet, so she says "pia")
Poop
Pop (she isn't allowed to drink it, but she sees mommy and daddy with it)
Potty
Push
Read
Ready
Rice
Shoe
Star
Stick
Tea
Thirsty
Uh-oh
Uh-uh
Up
Watch (she says this when she wants to watch Firefly *grin*)
Water
Woof
Yeah

She's starting to say "bye, mama" when she leaves the room, and the other day she said, "eat pizza." So I'm hoping we'll see more and more sentences in the near future.

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Daily Food Posting

2010-04-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, I do realize that I have, erm, neglected to post this for several days now. What it boils down to is that, when evening rolls around, Edy is tucked away in bed asleep, and my brain begins to unwind, I have serious trouble remembering everything we ate during the day.

To remedy this sad state of affairs, the daily food posting will now become the daily what-Edy-had-for-lunch posting. Much easier to remember, and lunch tends to be my most creative meal, anyway.

Here's what we had today:

-organic carrot and coriander soup (Edy loved it, she ate three helpings)
-a bit of leftover corned beef
-steamed broccoli with a bit of butter
-organic milk

A Day at the Mall

2010-04-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Oh, dear.

She liked the race cars much better.

Then we came home, where Edy chugged a sippy of milk and promptly passed out.

What I Believe

2010-04-01T18:07:00.000-05:00

Technically, I classify myself as a Pagan with Buddhist leanings, or just a Buddhist-Pagan, if I'm in a hurry.

My primary beliefs:

God doesn't exist as an omniscient person up in the sky who hears all of our prayers, but is more of a divine force, the collective energy of the planet and her living creatures. When we pray, or will something to happen, that energy is directed and can help make wishes reality.

God doesn't care about the specifics of our religion so much as s/he cares that we just believe in something. It's the act of faith that matters, whether our faith is in God, science, or just the goodness of humanity.

We live many lives, and our spirit is reincarnated. There are those who progress to the point that they are able to understand things that an unenlightened person simply cannot grasp.

God will not magically save the planet. God did not create the planet knowing the exact amount of resources we'd need, and planning thusly. If we wreck the Earth, we're screwed.

The big bang theory is accurate. Both macro- and microevolution occur.

There is an afterlife, but there is no heaven or hell. We all go to the same place. Our transgressions are visited back upon us in this life, not in the afterlife.

Thrift Store Treasures

2010-04-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

The arbitrary lantern:

Homemade Tacos

2010-04-01T17:32:00.000-05:00

I hate using the little packets when I make tacos- god only knows what's in there- so I tried a recipe for homemade tacos last night, and it was awesome. Two thumbs up all around.

Here's the recipe, which I got from allrecipes.com:

1 1/2 tablespoons corn flour
4 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon beef bouillon granules
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 1/3 pounds lean ground chuck
1 cup water

In a medium bowl, combine the corn flour, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, and seasoned salt. Stir in the paprika, cumin, garlic salt, and sugar. Blend in the onion, bouillon, and ground red pepper, stirring until all spices are well blended.
Crumble the ground chuck into a large skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until browned. Remove from heat, rinse meat with hot water, and drain water and grease from beef.
Return meat to skillet, and pour in seasoning. Stir in water. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until most of the liquid has cooked away, about 20 minutes.

My comments:

The first ingredient is NOT corn starch. Corn flour is different. At my grocery store, it's sold in bags in the Mexican food section and is called "masa."

Per several suggestions from the website, I poured the water into the pan as soon as I put the ground beef in, then stirred a lot as it cooked. Crumbling the meat and cooking it in the water gives it a better texture, more like what you find in restaurants. Also, we used a pound and a half of meat, and found that the spice level was still plenty.

You should also check the ingredients on your beef bouillon. Some of it has MSG and other unpleasant things added, so if you're trying to avoid icky additives, try looking in the organic/health food section of your grocery store.

Sorry there aren't pictures- we were too busy stuffing our faces. :) To give you a better mental picture, we eat our tacos with shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and sour cream, on flour tortillas. Edy got a big bowl of everything but the tortilla all mixed together.

Mmmm. I'm getting hungry all over again.

Tea Pots

2010-03-31T23:46:00.000-05:00

Earlier this winter, my mom came for a visit and we browsed the local thrift stores. I wanted to find myself a nice teapot, and lo and behold, there sat the perfect one:

I love my teapot. It makes great tea, and the cups are the perfect size. It's even from Japan.

Unfortunately, Edy loves my teapot and cups, as well. Now that she's learned to climb onto the table, my precious tea set was in serious danger:

Today, Grandma came to the rescue by sending a gift card for Target so that I could pick up a few things. One of them, of course, was Edy's very own tea set:

I know there are people out there who are horrified at the sight of any child playing with a toy made from something other than organic rowan wood cut from an untouched Albanian forest by virginal sylphs with BPA-free axes. But when you're limited to whatever is within the walls of your local Target, you have to accept that plastic is a given, and fine European craftsmanship- not so much.

Anyway, she adores it, and spent the rest of the evening pouring me tea.

Thrift Store Treasures

2010-03-30T14:22:00.000-05:00

I spend a lot of time wandering through thrift stores, looking for a few pieces to add to my apartment. The theme we have going is sort of a mishmash of Asian/classical/ugly 90's stuff, and I'm trying to slowly phase out the latter. I thought I'd share some of the more interesting things I've found.

And so, I bring you, today's thrift store treasure: The Buddha bell.

The Search for the Perfect Buttermilk Biscuit

2010-03-30T14:09:00.000-05:00

I’ve been searching for awhile now for the perfect buttermilk biscuit recipe. I’ve tried several- some were okay, some were awful- but none were worthy of going into my recipe book as THE buttermilk biscuit recipe.

I tried another recipe today, and though it was certainly good, it wasn’t great. Here’s the recipe, from http://allrecipes.com:

Kentucky Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 dash salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. Cut in 1/2 cup butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in the buttermilk. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead 2 minutes. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet, roll into a 6x6 inch square, and cut into 12 even sections. Do not separate.
Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center of the square comes out clean. Separate into biscuits, and serve hot.

And the finished product:

My commentary:

These were a little powdery for my taste. I'm not sure how to fix that. Also, kneading this dough for two minutes would be way too long, unless you're planning on using the biscuits to resole your shoes. I lightly kneaded a couple times, and found that was plenty for the dough to stay together.

I baked at 375 for a little over twenty minutes, based on some recommendations on the websites.

A Surprise Gift from The Toy Society

2010-03-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

On our way home from the aforementioned restaurant, Edy and I found something rather surprising beribboned to a pole out in front of one of the local bookstores:

I wish I had brought my camera with me and gotten a picture of it tied to the pole.

The picture is a bit small, so here's what the package says:

Free!

TAKE ME HOME

I'm yours, to keep forever and ever. All I ask is that you let The Toy Society know I've been rescued:

-email thetoysociety@gmail.com (feel free to include a photo if you like) OR
-comment at www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com

The Toy Society is a craft/street art project spreading love throughout the streets of the world. From Melbourne to Lisbon, Antwerp to Michigan and everywhere in between, The Toy Socieyt is all about giving you a 'something for nothing' experience.

Every Toy Society toy 'dropped' around the world is handmade.

You can read other 'Finders' stories and see all the latest 'toy drops' at www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com. You'll even be able to see your toy there too and find out who made it for you. If your toy hasn't appeared on the blog yet, try again later or look on the Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/groups/thetoysociety.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Hugs and love, The Toy Society xxx

PS This toy was made with love by: Carol

Isn't that the coolest thing ever?

Here's a pic of our new little guy out of the bag:

Uh-oh.

2010-03-29T21:03:00.000-05:00

I knew this day would come. I’ve been dreading it. Having nightmares about it. Making sure our medical coverage is adequate in preparation for it.

Edy has learned how to climb the kitchen chairs.

Perhaps I should explain a bit further. We don’t have a regular table and chairs. One thing hubby brought into the marriage from his long days of bachelorhood was a pretty mahogany (well, mahogany-looking) bar-style table and chairs. Bar-style means they’re tall. Really, really high off the ground. When I stand up to the table, the top almost reaches my bellybutton, and the chairs are only a little lower.

Up until now, Edy has just sort of stood there, staring at the table and chairs that towered over her tiny self.

I realize now that she was plotting.

Today, I watched as she walked up to one of the chairs, not a care in the world, and hoisted herself right up. Then she climbed onto the table, sat down in the middle, and helped herself to a biscuit.

I should also add that Edy has gross motor delays, so this was a big deal on multiple levels.

I would have taken a picture to illustrate just how scary this image is, but I was busy going into cardiac arrest. I’m seriously considering lining the floor under the edge of the table with pillows. I honestly don’t know how I’m going to survive the teenage years.

After an hour and a half of, “Get down.” Thirty seconds pass. “Get down.” Thirty seconds pass. “Get down.” Thirty seconds pass. “GET DOWN!” Thirty seconds pass. *Incoherent mumbling* I decided that we needed to get out of the house, so we walked to a little restaurant down the road and had lunch.

An Evening at the Park

2010-03-28T23:48:00.000-05:00

Book Review: The Last Apprentice

2010-03-28T23:06:00.000-05:00

For the last week now, I've been happily making my way through Joseph Delaney's "The Last Apprentice" series. The books, which are definitely not my usual magic-and-mayhem variety of fantasy, tend quite strongly towards the darker side of the genre. I've read several fantasy books that flirted with the dark side, but these books go dark, and really commit to it. I like that.

The books revolve around a young farmboy who, as the gifted seventh son of a seventh son, becomes the apprentice of the local "spook," who spends his days roaming the countryside, evicting errant witches, ghosts, ghasts, boggarts, and the like. The main characters are vividly drawn, though I would say that Delaney makes them perhaps a bit too likeable. It works, however, and the result is that the books feel very comfortable despite the increasingly horrific antagonists.

They definitely aren't for the under-twelve set. I found a few scenes creepy, and I've been reading Stephen King and his lesser-known peers since before puberty.

One thing that does stand out to me is the very interesting way Delaney portrays religion in the books. He alternates between casting priests in a somewhat useless light, with the Spook stating that they don't know anything about the dark and how to deal with it, and showing them as very noble and self-sacrificing later on. I found that the way he depicts faith is very real, neither demonizing it nor placing it upon a pedestal, and that helped me get into the books even more. And really, when your subject matter is evil, it's hard to avoid having an opinion one way or the other on God and religion.

I still have a couple books to go, but overall, I love them. They go quickly, and are definitely worth reading if you're into supernatural horror. Even if you aren't, the books would be a great introduction. You can learn along with the apprentice.

Another work weekend behind me... ahhhh.

2010-03-28T22:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry I've been sort of incommunicado the last couple of days. I've been working, and just haven't found the time to post. Also, the internet's been acting up again, and in order to get a signal I have to have my laptop pressed up against the window at such an angle that typing becomes rather uncomfortable. I'll pick things back up tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I love my life...

2010-03-25T23:07:00.000-05:00

Buttermilk Pie

2010-03-25T22:41:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a single pie crust sitting in my freezer for a couple of weeks now, left over from when I bought a package to make a spinach quiche for brunch, so I thought I’d try making a buttermilk pie. I’d read about them, but never actually tasted one.

Here’s the recipe, taken from “Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie,” by Ken Haedrich:

Indiana Buttermilk Pie

Single pie crust, refrigerated
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups buttermilk
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1. If you haven’t already, prepare the pastry and refrigerate until firm enough to roll, about one hour.
2. On a sheet of lightly flour waxed paper, roll the pastr into a 13-inch circle with a floured rolling pin. Invert the pastry over a 9 ½ in deep dish pie pan, center, and peel off the paper. Tuck the pastry into the pan, without stretching it, and scupt the edge so it is even with the rim. Place in the freezer for fifteen minutes, then partially prebake and let cool. Reduce the oven temp to 350.
3. Combine the sugars, flour, and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add the eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla and pulse again. Add the buttermilk and butter and process for five to seven seconds, until well blended. Slowly pour the filling into the cooled pie shell.
4. Place the pie on the center oven rack and bake until the top is golden brown and the custard is set, about forty minutes. Rotate the pie 180 degrees halfway through the baking, so that the part that faced the back of the oven now faces forward. When done, the center may move very slightly when the pan is shaken.
5. Transfer the pie to a wire rack and let cool thoroughly. Serve at room temperature, or cover with loosely tented aluminum foil and refrigerate before serving.

And the final result:

And yes, it does taste as good as it looks. It has a sort of spongy-yet-creamy texture, and is sweet but not overly so.

A few comments:

Most importantly, I had to bake the pie for seventy minutes, not forty. When I checked it at forty, it was still liquid. It didn't have the required jiggle-factor until seventy minutes. When I took it out, there was something liquid- looked like butter- sitting in a small pool in the center. It disappeared as the pie cooled, and the pie didn't get soggy or anything.

I usually make my own pie crusts, but as I had the frozen store-bought, I skipped right to the partial pre-baking. Right from the freezer into the oven for six or seven minutes, and it was done enough for the filling.

I didn't bother with the food processor. I mixed everything with a wooden spoon and had no problems whatsoever.

I love this pie. Really, really love it. I usually have everything I need to make one already in my kitchen, so I'll be able to whip one up whenever the urge strikes. Which hopefully isn't too often, since we finished this one off in a little over twenty-four hours. Edy loved it, too, so much that she learned how to say "pie" just so that she could ask for more.

Having a full-time job and a part-time job

2010-03-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned previously, I work around twelve hours a week with severely autistic, non-verbal children, and I am also a (mostly) stay-at-home-mom. Edy has never been to daycare, never even stayed with a sitter. The only other person who has ever watched her is the hubby, and that happens very infrequently.

Which essentially means that I have a full-time and a part-time job. I do all of the cooking and the household chores, except for the rare occasions when I sleep in and the hubby takes care of breakfast, and my part-time job is very demanding. Suffice it to say that there is a great deal of screaming (the kids I work with, not me), bodily functions that end up on walls, beds, and kids, and endless bickering among the undertrained, underpaid staff.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult not to resent the time that I have to be away from Edy. I know, I'm actually very lucky to be able to stay home with her almost all the time, but that's really hard to keep in mind when I'm scrubbing someone else's poo off of their couch cushions. I want to be at home, taking care of my kid, cooking meals for my family, not doing all that for someone else because their parents didn't want to deal with them any longer (and I do it for a meager nine bucks an hour).

Don't get me wrong, I adore the kids I work with, and if I do leave my job at some point, I'll miss them horribly. I'm very conflicted about the whole thing, and at this point I'm not really sure what to do. Honestly, I'm hoping that the hubby will find a full-time job with decent pay that conflicts with my hours so that I'll have to quit. Yes, I'm wimping out. And I know I don't sound very progressive, despite being almost as progressive as they come. But I adore staying home with Edy, and if the hubby were willing, I would love to have a herd of children, live on a farm, and spend my days cooking and milking goats.

Yesterday's and Today's Food

2010-03-25T21:47:00.000-05:00

Here's what we ate today:

Breakfast: I got to sleep in *happy sigh* but hubby told me he gave Edy a yobaby yogurt and a banana

Lunch: Um... *thinks real hard* I'm having a brain malfunction. I'll have to get back to you on that one.

Dinner: Penne with ricotta cheese and Italian sausage (I planned to make sauteed spinach with onion as well, but there was so much pasta we just went with that); fresh strawberries; organic milk

The internet wasn't working so great yesterday, so I'm posting yesterday a bit late.

Breakfast: Chopped up strawberries, banana, and orange, drizzled with fresh-squeezed orange juice; whole wheat toast

Lunch: Leftover baked salmon; leftover peas; half a banana; organic milk

Dinner: Sauteed zucchini; rice with chopped tomato; fresh strawberries; organic milk

Infantino Sling Recall

2010-03-24T07:50:00.000-05:00

From CNN:

Infantino recalls more than 1 million baby slings
By Blake Ellis, staff reporterMarch 24, 2010: 8:14 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Infantino LLC is recalling more than 1 million baby slings after three infant deaths were reported, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday.

The CPSC said consumers should immediately stop using the slings for children younger than four months due to suffocation risks.

Complete Article

I had one of those. The exact one they've been showing in all the pictures. I realize that the odds of anything actually happing are miniscule, but thank god Edy despised the thing. She'd scream just at the sight of it. Maybe she knew something I didn't.

We eventually moved on to a homemade baby wrap, which is essentially just a long piece of fabric tied in a certain way with the baby tucked inside. I would try to explain the procedure myself, but I'm sure I'll only confuse you, so here's an easy to follow link:

Pocket Wrap Cross Carry

I've found this method to be comfortable, as well as cooler in the summer than other types of carriers. It's also more comfortable for baby.

I worry about Edy being so small- she only weighs 21 pounds at almost twenty-two months old- but on the plus side, I'll be able to carry her practically until kindergarten.

The Plan for Tomorrow

2010-03-23T21:54:00.000-05:00

I shouldn't use my blog as a to-do list, but it's just so darn convenient.

We've got Edy's toddler class and speech therapy from eleven to twelve-thirty, then home for lunch, then a nap. Edy usually wakes up around three, at which point we'll walk to the used book store and browse the current stock. Then a quick stop at the grocery store, then home for dinner. (I'm thinking possibly corned beef. We'll see.) Then after dinner, I'm thinking a trip to the park will be in order, as we live in Minnesota, the weather is nice at the moment, and we could have snow at any time through May.

God, I love being a (mostly) stay-at-home-mom. I do work with autistic kids for twelve hours a week, but most of that is an every other weekend thing, so I'm not gone very much at all.

Daily Food

2010-03-23T21:01:00.000-05:00

I know, not the catchiest title. I'll think of something better soon.

I love cooking, and make every attempt to use whole foods. We're not perfect, but I think we do pretty well. To help myself be more accountable, and to provide other people with ideas for toddler-friendly foods, I'm going to post what we eat each day.

I should note that we strive to eat whole, organic-when-possible, nutritious foods. We don't really try to be a low-fat, low-calorie family, though a lot of what we eat is naturally light.

Breakfast: Steel-cut oats with a spoonful of brown sugar; Yobaby berry yogurt with added iron (for Edy); Bolthouse Vit-C smoothie

Lunch: Grilled cheese (the hubby had to make lunch while I took a short nap); organic whole milk (for Edy)

Dinner: Baked salmon with a maple syrup (NOT pancake syrup) and soy sauce glaze; canned peas with butter; baked potato wedges with olive oil and parmesan

Tomorrow will hopefully have a picture or two.

Homeschooling

2010-03-22T22:07:00.000-05:00

For some time, now- since first grade- I've been increasingly concerned about the state of the country's schools. Minnesota is especially bad. While we used to have some of the best schools in the country, we've been steadily slipping further and further down the list, and I believe that we're now hovering somewhere around the middle.

Also, I was driving past the local elementary school the other day, and heard a girl who looked to be less than ten scream at another little boy, "You c***sucking motherf*****!!"

I'll let you fill in the blanks.

And so, slowly but surely, I've been trying to bring the hubby around to the idea of homeschooling. He's been warming up to it. Very, very slowly. Like getting a pot of water to boil with a bic, to be honest. But we've now agreed that we can at least give it a try for kindergarten.

Words cannot express how excited I am about this. I've always been one of those people who loved school. I could spend days poring over the class lists, trying to decide between so many options and always ending up with twenty credits because I just couldn't choose. So to say that I'm enthusiastic about getting started with my daughter would be a massive understatement. I fully expect that she'll start kindergarten at the age of three because I won't be able to wait any longer.

The only thing that the hubby is worred about is socialization. I've explained that it isn't exactly social for a five-year-old to sit quietly in a classroom with thirty other kids while someone talks at them for eight hours a day.

Now the preparation begins. And yes, I really can stretch out the planning for kindergarten for the next year and a half. Easily. I checked out a book from the library today, "Homeschool Your Child for Free," and I can't wait to get started reading it. I'll let you know if it's good.

I'm back! Well, back-ish.

2010-03-22T21:52:00.000-05:00

We still don't have the greatest internet- we're using free wifi with spotty coverage again- but it seems to be up and running at least three-quarters of the time, so I'm going to attempt to get my blog up and running at long last. Blogging is fun, and strewing the random minutiae of my life across the blogosphere gives me something to do after the baby is in bed.

Yes, we lost our internet.

2010-02-15T14:49:00.000-06:00

The internet we'd been, erm, let's just say borrowing, bit the big one. Which means, until hubby gets a job, the only chance I get to browse the interwebs is when I spend half an hour at the coffee shop. Which happens, oh, maybe once every month or two.

Once I do have access again, I'll get the blog up and running, but until then, I'm afraid I'm on indefinite hiatus. Happy living, all.

One of the aforementioned excerpts. Critique?

2010-01-15T22:25:00.000-06:00

The uneven illumination of windows stared at Tempest Catherwood like gaudy jack’o’lanterns, casting a drifting particulate light into the mist. She burrowed deeper into her oversized coat, but the wind seeped in through the holes and gnawed at her flesh until she had to turn and face the other side against the cold. Something screeched from within one of the buildings. Tempest shivered.

If she squinted at the horizon, she could almost imagine the glow of distant cities. Now, she had only imagination and purpose to keep her warm, and these, like the sun, faded quickly over the dark horizon.

Even then, long after the tides had rushed inland and man had been all but wiped from the grassy, sandy surface of his mother earth, you could see the pollution he had left behind. It hung in a gauzy blanket beneath the sky, walling out the sun and tainting the air with the spicy smell of chemical death. Tempest was used to the gray, to the gentle transition between day and night that eased upon them instead of the brilliant color that had once arrived with the morning. It had been so long since she’d seen the sun that she didn’t miss it, much like the mother she’d barely known. In her mind, the two had become strangely intermingled, a glowing presence that watched, hidden, from the sky.

. . .

I look forward to your thoughts, good or bad. Heck, at this early stage I'll gladly accept spam telling me about this website where rich men go to meet women.

Do I love writing? I don't even know anymore.

2010-01-15T22:16:00.000-06:00

I think most of us that write have sort of a tortured, finicky relationship with the craft. Deep down, we do enjoy it, but we enjoy it in the way that a normal person enjoys a breakthrough therapy session or a painful massage. Writing is like daytime dreaming- it can be fun, it can be horrible, and it's great for exorcising old demons, but it leaves you pretty well spent.

I can't even figure out what genre I want to write. I love fantasy, obviously, but I have nightmares about finally writing a book, getting it published, and then having it relegated to the dusty shelves of obscure novels graced with gasping, furry-bikini-clad women and less-than-subtle dragons. I love post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but thanks to Cormac McCarthy, everything that comes after The Road is going to seem clunky and overdone. I love young adult fiction, but you don't exactly get awarded Pulitzers for writing the next Twilight.

They say to write what you love, and so I'm trying my hand at a young adult post-apocalyptic fiction work, but I think I've been tainted by reading The City of Ember too many times. Everything has been done, and done to death, and the only way to write something new is to toss yourself so completely out there that people begin to wonder if you're going to shave your head and start referring to yourself in the third person.

I don't have any other directions to start off in, however, so I guess I'll just have to keep trudging along this road (See? Even my metaphors are derivative) until I get somewhere. I'll post a few excerpts as I go if I find any good ones.

Tortellini, I love you and I hate you.

2010-01-15T21:57:00.000-06:00

I made an amazing recipe that I got from Allrecipes.com tonight, and wow, did I say it was amazing? Here it is, if you want to give it a try. I used fresh, three-cheese tortellini from the refrigerated section, and actual grated, not powdered, parmesan. I loved it, my daughter loved it, and my husband loved it.

Spinach Tomato Tortellini

1 (16 ounce) package cheese tortellini

1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with garlic and onion

1 cup chopped fresh spinach

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the tortellini, and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.

While you get the tortellini going, combine the tomatoes, spinach, salt, pepper, basil and garlic in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook and stir until the mixture begins to bubble.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, milk and cream. Stir this mixture into the saucepan along with the Parmesan cheese. Heat through, then reduce heat to low, and simmer until thick, about 2 minutes.

Drain the tortellini, but do not rinse, then pour them into the saucepan with the sauce. Stir to coat, and serve.

Original Recipe

The only problem I have is that a single serving, which, when you measure it out, is about the amount my daughter would eat for an afternoon snack, is over 400 calories. And when you're trying to keep it under 1300 for the day, that puts a serious dent in your ability to eat for the next couple of days. Especially when you have seconds. Whoops.

From Jungle Safari to...?

2010-01-15T00:34:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about redoing Enchanted Daughter's (Edy's) bedroom for awhile now, as the jungle animals that sounded so cute when I was hugely pregnant and enamored over anything with big puppy dog eyes now just give me a headache. During the initial decorating process, I was going for "Exotic Indian Jungle," but seem to have ended up with "Noah's ark exploded here." And so, it is definitely time for a change.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that we co-sleep, which means that Edy, who is almost twenty months old, has spent a grand total of one night in her crib. But I have faith that she will end up there one of these nights, and when she does, I'd like for her to have something pretty to look at as she enragedly screams herself to sleep.

Edy's walls are a soft shade of yellow, so using too much pink will leave her with a room that vaguely resembles an easter egg. I've been thinking about perhaps going with a sort of "English Fairy Tea Garden with Cats." Rather specific, I know, but I think it could work. The only problem I seem to be having is that the fairy market has been flooded by Disney, and finding toddler gear with fairies but without Tink is becoming increasingly hard.

Rosenberry Rooms has some wonderful pieces that are much too expensive for our meager budget, but give me inspiration for things I could potentially make myself or find buried in a thrift store.

This clock rocks my world:

And this ceiling fan would look amazing:

But at $374.00, it is, alas, so far out of my price range that it's almost comical.

I'm thinking that I'll have to make her bedding myself, as I've got my heart set on a red and yellow color scheme (red roses against a yellow backdrop) and, for toddlers, that simply doesn't exist. As you can see from the above pictures, girls in the under three set want their decor either pastel or hot pink, and I don't have much love for either.

I'm dreading having to drag my sewing machine out again. The thing is a behemoth from the sixties that spends more time bunching up my fabric and then spitting at me than it does sewing anything together.

Who is Enchanted Mama?

2010-01-14T22:39:00.000-06:00

That would be me, Em. No, my name is not Emily, and yes, I did briefly consider other variations before deciding that they sounded a little too much like rather unpleasant medical procedures. So Em it will be.

I've loved all things magical since I was a little girl, when I believed that an arch formed by our neighbor's trees was a gateway to an enchanted fairyland, and that you could cast a spell by soaking dandelion and lavender petals in a bowl of water overnight. I have dragon tattoos and a library of fantasy literature that rivals pretty much anyone's, with the possible exception of the Library of Congress. I write stories about creatures that live only in my imagination, and TV is mostly banned in my home, unless Galdalf is involved. So, to summarize, I'll be sharing a bit of my magical life with my readers.

I'll also be covering other topics that are near to my heart, such as eco-living, crafting, books, food, homeschooling, toddlers- yeah, you get the idea. I'm an avid follower of the political world, but I know how much opinion varies, so I'll hold back as much as possible on that one.

I look forward to sharing a bit of my world with you.

Enchanted Winter

Yes, I'm still alive.

Does this make me a freelance writer?

A Blessed- and Windy- Beltane

Jamie Oliver would be proud.

A Week of Breakfast: Photo Update

The things I do for my daughter.

Daily PST

A Week of Breakfast

Sunday Update

Notable Sig Quotes

A Brief Excerpt from "The Storm and the Magician"

Happy, happy day!

Daily PST

Oklahoma: Protecting women by posting their sex lives online.

Edy's Lunch

Daily PST

Join me on my bike ride to work.

Now that's just eerie.

Thrift Store Treasures

Our internet went *extremely rude noise*

Maybe the universe really is pissed at me.

Our first nature walk of the spring.

Daily PST

Homemade Pizza

Daily PST

Do you ever have days...

Daily PST

Edy's Lunch

Edy's Lunch

This Week

The Daily PST (Poetry Suitable for Toddlers)

Notable Sig Quotes

I love my neighborhood.

Mushroom Bites with Garlic Mayo

Edy's Lunch

Edy's Lunch

Apparently, I really pissed off the universe this week. Yikes.

Edy's Lunch

A Random Bit of Toddler Poetry

Good thing she kept the receipt.

Playing around with templates...

Mission Originality: Phase Two

Mission Originality: Fail.

Spring Cleaning: The Master List

Edy's Lunch

Rude playground urchins.

My thoughts on dumb educational trends.

Edy's Lunch

Giftedness... pffffft.

Edy's Lunch

Autism thing vs. toddler thing?

Edy's Lunch

Optimism.

Edy's Lunch

One thing that gives me hope...

16p11.2 Deletion Syndrome

Kefir = tingly?

Edy's Lunch

Edy's Word List

The Mysterious Disappearance of the Daily Food Posting

A Day at the Mall

What I Believe

Thrift Store Treasures

Homemade Tacos

Tea Pots

Thrift Store Treasures

The Search for the Perfect Buttermilk Biscuit

A Surprise Gift from The Toy Society

Uh-oh.

An Evening at the Park

Book Review: The Last Apprentice

Another work weekend behind me... ahhhh.

I love my life...

Buttermilk Pie

Having a full-time job and a part-time job

Yesterday's and Today's Food

Infantino Sling Recall

The Plan for Tomorrow

Daily Food

Our internet went extremely rude noise