Abundance

Things have been super busy, but also a bunch of fun lately.

Here are some highlights:

sleeping soundly after her bath

Alchemy turned 5 months old a few days ago (Feb 12th). I can't believe how fast this time has flown by and how much she has grown. She is developing quite the personality- mostly a happy baby, but during those moments when she is upset, she sure can let you know! I am not sure if I have ever seen a baby this young so observant and expressive. We have started signing with her a bit to try to teach her a few basic words- the other day I signed "I love you" at her when I said it, she looked at me really intently, then curled her fingers into the sign!! We were astounded, and although it may have been just a fluke and she hasn't done it since, I can't help but think that she is watching us carefully and may be able to make her first real intentional signs soon (hopefully "milk" so she can tell me when she is hungry).

before our weekend adventure together

tummy time is fun!

 She is getting so much stronger- tummy time is becoming something she is starting to enjoy- I need to do more of it not to strengthen her neck so much, but to strengthen her arms so she can push up eventually and begin crawling (What a terrifying thought). She is drooling more than I thought possible- we suspect that her teeth are moving around in her gums. I suppose its only a matter of time before the first two make an appearance and the days of more comfortable nursing are over. *sigh* She is chewing on just about everything at the moment- I was just eating a pear and smooshed some up with my finger to let her taste. She actually seemed to like it, which hopefully bodes well for the first set of baby food puree I am about to make and freeze. Hopefully she will still like pears when we really start trying food.


She is also getting better at sitting up with my support. I am looking forward to when she can sit up on her own and play with toys more. Recently she has taken an interest in Jezebel, my scaredy cat who is not all that scared of Alchemy. They lay on the bed together most mornings and occasionally Alchemy will reach a hand out an touch her. I am trying to encourage gentle touch rather than the "fist full of fur" yanking approach that she has previous tried. Thankfully, Jezebel didn't even seem to notice.

making friends with Jezebel

Beyond the amazing cuteness that is my daughter, the garden has also been a delight lately.

My favorite of what we have recently grown is the cauliflower- this year we grew two varieties:

Purple Graffiti

Veronica Romanesco

Both varieties getting tossed in the oven to roast!

Chilli lime cauliflower breakfast tacos

As you can see, one is a gorgeous purple color- that head of cauliflower was ginormous- I have never seen a cauliflower so large before. I was worried it wouldn't taste good but it has turned out to be very sweet. I had never grown let alone cooked one of the fractal variety before- I was delighted at how beautiful the Romanesco turned out. Both mixed together have made us some very tasty meals. Grant made us breakfast tacos one morning with chilli lime cauliflower.

A neighbor gardener also has shared a ton of his food with us, including a beautiful head of purple cabbage that I would have loved to turn into a dye or paint. I didn't think I liked cabbage much because I had so rarely had it in the past, but it came out good sauteed with caraway and wine.

purple cabbage

 I have really enjoyed eating from our garden. We have had almost no cold days/nights here, and the lack of winter has in some ways let our garden really flourish. We have had rain which has also helped quite a bit. I keep waiting for a frost to hit, but so far we are managing to keep things going well and the weather seems to be warming up. This worries me, since no winter may mean our summer is even more unbearable than last year.


The last exciting thing to share is that my art room is finally coming back together into a usable space. Since Alchemy was born, the room has been in a weird stasis. First it was the residence of my mom while she was staying with us (which I will once again say was absolutely wonderful), then it became my sister Gina's bedroom when she visited (also absolutely wonderful!), then it became the baby & mama clothing storage space as well as the place to put everything in transition for our big house remodel over the holidays. Finally, it is back to almost normal-

I sat yesterday afternoon for the first time at the desk and made some much overdo art again. We plugged in my ipod for some good music, Alchemy hung out in her old bassinet, or on her playmat on the floor, or in her bumbo chair playing with toys. I sang, she giggled & art got made.

 

I can see the desk top again! Art is once again being made.

When Alchemy is not using her bassinet, Jezebel loves to sleep in it. It has gotten to the point where I have to put a towel down to catch all the hair so when we actually want to use it for Alchemy we can. 

Alchemy's library and toy box

 Probably my favorite new addition to the space is Alchemy's library. I have been gathering the books we got for her, books we have received as gift and new books that I picked up for her at Recycled Reads- the local bookstore that has all the books that are out of use in our Austin Library. The awesome part is that all their children's books are fifty cents, their adult books only a dollar. For the cost of one book at Half Price, I was able to get her a ton of books! It is my hope that I can eventually fill this shelf with books for her to read.

I love our glider rocking chair.

We often sit in the rocker together in the afternoons reading- lately we have nursed there often and she has fallen asleep while rocking.



I still have some things to hang on the walls, shelves and a mirror to put up, curtains to hang- but overall, it is really coming together.

I'm Smitten.

I am completely in love with Smitten Kitchen.

Since I am no longer working out in the world, I have taken on a lot more responsibility in our home for cooking, especially dinners. This week, our friend is here from the Bay area visiting, giving me the perfect excuse to make elaborate tasty meals each night.

I planned my meals for this week over a week ago, shopped to buy the perfect ingredients and then jumped in.

On Tuesday, I decided to make a meal that would bring together ingredients I love with other ingredients I have previously disliked- this nights specific challenge: lentils. I know, you are probably thinking "WHAT!? You don't like lentils!?" I have tried and tried many times to love them, and finally decided that what I needed to do was be the one to cook them in a recipe that sounded good to me so I could learn to love them like everyone else in the world, especially since they are such a healthy legume to take in. That is when I found a recipe for spicy squash salad with lentils and goat cheese.

The photos are what really drew me in- beautiful soft roasted squash mixed with creamy cheese and studded with lentils- it felt like something I could get into. Of course, being me, I changed it up a bit.

For one, I used a Kabocha squash instead of the butternut or sugar pumpkin it called for, knowing it would be just as wonderful because it still has a sweet taste.

After peeling, seeding and cubing it and tossing it with the oil and spices, it went into the over for a while to roast.

Next up was the lentils- I used green lentils instead of black because that is what I had on hand, and Grant says they are a bit more mild in their "dirt" taste (as I call it) than the black would be. First I soaked them....

.... then I cooked them until they were tender.

Her recipe called for greens that she didn't use, but I decided to amp up this salad by adding not just the arugula but a mix that also contained spinach. Goat cheese is pretty expensive, so I substituted feta.


The final result was better than I could have hoped for- drizzled with balsamic vinegar (instead of red wine vinegar) and olive oil, it was absolute squashy lentil perfection.

I had the leftover for lunch today, and it was just as awesome.



Last night, I ventured into a new squashy delight with roasted acorn squash and poblano quesadillas.

Now I can roast squash no problem, and absolutely love to- acorn squash looks like beautiful ridged flower petals on the baking sheet to me. I sliced up the squash, seeded it and roasted it on an oiled baking sheet.

While it was in the oven, I had a fun new adventure in roasting a poblano pepper. I have never roasted a pepper before, but by the pictures on the Smitten Kitchen blog, it looked as if she just held it over the flame, so I gave it a try.

 I have to say, this was crazy fun!!! Peppers make a popping sounds as you roast them, the skin cracking and softening to be peeled afterward.

I didn't do a very good job peeling them afterward, I probably could have roasted them a little longer to make it easier, but they came out good just the same. 


All the yummy roasted stuff got cut up, or sliced in the poblano's case, and tossed in a pan to cook with the onion, garlic and serrano pepper until it was hot and soft and ready to be used to make the quesadillas.


I used thin slices of muenster cheese along with the squash spread inside my tortillas. I wanted to use the Pacqui pumpkin tortillas, but the Coop was out of them when I shopped, so instead used regular flour tortillas. The quesadillas came out beautifully! Served with refried black beans, salsa and sour cream- they were so good I forgot to take a photo of them before I scarfed them down. Next time I make them I will use those pumpkin tortillas if I can get them and will try to remember the final photo.


This all leads me to today- I had the desire to finally make the cast iron pan pineapple upside down cake my husband loves, so I went on a search for a good recipe. I googled it and found a bunch of recipes I couldn't hang with- one called for shortening. No way. I don't do shortening. Another called for "yellow cake mix". I am sorry, it's not really cooking if it came from a box. Finally, I found one in the search list and was pleasantly surprised to find out- it was from Smitten Kitchen!


This recipe made me especially happy, calling for all the ingredients I have and the main special ingredient I love in a pineapple upside down cake- rum!


This really is the perfect cake.



Perhaps one of the best parts of this cake is the cast iron pan. I am not sure it would turn out as well if it was made in any other type of pan. This cake is also lots of fun to make, starting with the caramel topping. The recipe called for light brown sugar,  but I used dark because I love it for this cake. That mixed with butter stirred constantly over a medium heat. I tossed a bit of rum in at that point just because I am rum-happy which caused a bunch of sizzling, very nice!  After my caramel was done, I added the pineapple and homemade maraschino cherries Grant's mom made to cover it.

It was so beautiful, I almost didn't want to cover it in batter, but alas, it wouldn't be much of a cake if I didn't. On to making the batter!

More sugar, butter, eggs, pineapple juice, flour, vanilla and rum- all beaten together.

Butter, sugar and eggs, oh my!

I discovered in the process that Alchemy was unhappy with the sound of the beater until I brought her over to the kitchen to see what it was. Then she became my baking helper.

Finally the batter was ready! In went the cake and we played a bunch while attempting to patiently await it. I decided it would be fun to play with the rum during the wait as well, taking my photo for the new 30 day photo challenge- today's challenge was Reflection.

Day 3 challenge photo: Reflection

I love LOVE Kraken rum! 

When the cake came out of the oven, I was speechless. I have never seen such a beautiful cake, ever.

 

I excitedly sprinkled it with a good amount of rum, and wa-la! It was done. The hard part since has been not tearing into it before Grant got home, then sprinkling the crumbs around Alchemy to blame her for it. 

 

She would have looked totally angelic and innocent anyways- helping baking is a tiring job.

Three fabulous things, all from Smitten Kitchen. I am super excited to see what I end up making next week.

Adventures in Spanish Rice Casserole land (For Lucy) & the New Year is under way!

First blog post for the New Year- I am happy that the little blog undertaking I took up shortly before Alchemy's birth actually turned into 29 blog posts from August to December, and 1000 page views. Not bad for a blog in its newborn stage at all! :) Here's to hoping folks will begin to follow this (thanks to all two of you that do) and I will have many more post and views in the year to come.

With that in mind- every year I tell myself that I should make resolutions. I have a ridiculous obsession with list making & take pleasure in crossing things off lists, most especially to-do lists. I have been known to add things to a list I have already done but forgot to write, just so I could cross it off (yes, I am that woman... seriously bad habit, I know). This year I thought about resolutions again, but realized that the reason I rarely keep them is because I make too many of them. My solution to this is to have a handful only. I think my list looks a little something like this:

Resolutions for 2012

1. Be the best wife and mom I can be as I take care of my family

2. Work hard to reduce our debt, be smarter with money and work well with our budget

3. Take care of my body- more exercise and healthy eating

4. Be more creative each day- art, blogging, gardening- anything that feeds my soul

 and lastly-

5. Enjoy life each day- they go by so fast and nothing measures it like watching your baby grow, so I am gonna get out there and live it to the fullest!

Not such a bad list right? So, this leads me to what I wanted this post to be about- my cooking adventures. I have become the main food shopper and cook in the house since taking on my new job as house-mom. It has made me far more aware of what we are putting into our bodies and how healthily we are (or are not) eating. I love to cook, but have never had to be the one cooking almost 7 days a week, so this is a new fun adventure for me. I have been found sitting with a cup of tea amongst a pile of cookbooks with little post-it tabs for all the recipes I love or at the computer digging through my favorite food blogs searching for new awesome recipes to try.

http://smittenkitchen.com/

http://www.101cookbooks.com/

Not long ago, I found a recipe in an old cookbook of Grant's to make that we both love- Spanish Rice Casserole. While I cook most things the way they come the first time I make them, I tend to change it up quite a bit over time to morph it into my own version of a recipe. I have promised this recipe to my friend Lucy, so here it is in a blog post version.

Spanish Rice Casserole 

adapted from Flavors of the Southwest Vegetarian Style by Robert Oser, original recipe in italics.

Yields 4 servings 

Ingredients:

2 cups long grained brown rice

4 cups of veggie stock or water (we use Veggie Better than Builion paste)

1 onion chopped ( I use way less than that)

1 sweet bell pepper, diced (or any sweet peppers)

3 to 4 tomatoes chopped (I often use canned diced tomatoes, drained a bit in a pinch)

mild or hot chiles to taste (hell yes! Bring on the serranos or the hatch chiles!)

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced (the more the better)

1 tablespoon of chilli powder

1 teaspoon of cumin

2 tablespoons of cilantro, chopped (I never add this, I don't like cilantro)

1/2 cup of Monterey Jack cheese (which is yummy, but use whatever you have on hand shredded. I want to try pepper jack one day)

For the meat lover that may be in you- this recipe is awesome with some browned ground beef in it, that is the way I love it best.

Preheat oven to 350* F (I question this temperature- more on this later)

In a large bowl, mix everything except the cheese.

He intends for all this to go in a large casserole dish to bake, but I don't have one. I tend to use a smaller sized dutch oven (oven safe with a lid) pot, which I start on the stove with my water to heat up so I can add the veggie schmoo (what we call the bullion paste) to it. I often also add the rice to this and let it sit while I chop all the other stuff into a bowl. Use what you have as long as this fits in it well and can be baked with a lid. 

Brown your meat if you are adding any and have it ready to go in the pot as well. 

Pour into a large casserole dish, cover and bake 45-50 minutes. 

This is where I think he is either crazy or a damn liar, or perhaps he got his temperature wrong.  I started with 50 minutes. 

In that time, I managed to contemplate this blog, organize in the kitchen, play with the baby a bit. I photographed my cat Oscar for a 30 Day Photo Challenge I am a part of.

50 minutes are up, and this stuff looks like it hasn't been in the over at all. Add another 30 minutes.

In those 30 minutes I played on Facebook, downloaded more photos, then decided to photograph the sunset out my back window just for the hell of it. It was an absolutely beautiful view through the trees.

30 minutes are up- it looks better, but still no. Add 20 minutes. Then add another 20 minutes. Still NOT READY! Dang brown rice takes FOREVER to cook, but the plus side is this dish is just soaking up all those tasty spices as the rice cooks slooooooooowly. Finally, at an hour and 40 minutes, it is ready to add the dang cheese- having almost no liquid left in it but the rice still looks damp and is nice and fluffy.

Remove lid and sprinkle top with cheese. 

 Here is where I divert again because I am a cheese-a-holic. I added 1/2 cup that I stirred into it, then another 1/2 cup sprinkled on top. 

Bake another 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted on top, hot and bubbly. 

That I can certainly agree with! Finally after an hour and 45 minutes from in the oven to out, this dish was ready. (all the prep took me an additional 45- an hour before it hit the oven)

So, you are potentially thinking that I must be some sort of incompetent cook, or perhaps wondering if it was all worth it? My answers to those questions are well maybe, and hell yes it was.

It came out looking wonderful like this-

I am drooling just to see it again. The recipe suggests serving it with hot tortillas and frijoles, but we decided to break out the salty yummy tortilla chips that we used to scoop it up and shovel it into our mouths, as well as a tasty beer (which I deserved after that 3 hour ordeal!).

I wonder whether raising the temperature would cook this faster, or just burn the hell out of it. I am too afraid to try it after the time it takes to prep, so I just accept that on the days I am making this awesome dish for us to eat, I need to start cooking about 3 hours before we intend to eat. I would suggest it as a weekend meal. Also, that whole "yields 4 servings" suggestion seems wrong as well. We always have TONS of leftovers that we pack up for lunches, and it is still just as amazingly yummy reheated. 

Lucy- I hope you enjoy this should you decide to give it a go. Let me know how it goes if you do. 

Tonight we haven't really had much of a dinner, Grant is not feeling all that well. (No, I didn't poison him with my Spanish Rice Casserole, just so you know.) Alchemy has been a bit grumpy but is finally asleep in her Ergo carrier while I type this. I am enjoying another beer just because I can and contemplating the next few photos I have left to take for the 30 day challenge. Today was day 25- Something Pink. Pink is not a color I desire to interact with much, ironic since having a baby girl, everyone seems to want to drown us in it. I walked through the house looking for something pink that I love and found Gloomy!

He is so cute and cuddly. I hope Alchemy loves him when she is older. (Om nom nom, children are tasty!)  

Even though this photo challenge I found online is about to be over, a friend and I decided to keep it going by making our own list of 30 things which we are posting in a few days to all the friends who have joined us this past time. I am hoping many of them will continue on with us. I was really concerned that I wouldn't keep up with the challenge, but instead I really got into it and have had a blast. It has allowed me to connect in with my creativity even on the hard days where life keeps trying to get in the way. Most days I shot with my Canon Rebel T2i that I got as a wedding present from Grant- I have been trying to learn how to use it better, so this has been great practice. Some days I took shots with my phone's camera, but even those came out well. I was also challenged by the shots that seemed impossible- clouds on a yucky overcast day. Sunset on a day where the sun never came out at all. The next list we made up is going to be even more challenging and fun I am hoping. Once this first set of 30 days comes to an end, I will blog to recap it all and share out the images. I will also post the new list here in case any of you want to join in!

What a wonderful wonderful year.

I have to say- 2011 was an absolutely fabulous year. A year ago today, Grant and I spent a wonderful time hanging out with several of our dear friends in Portland Oregon, ringing in the New Year over tasty home made sauerkraut and amazing lemon cake and plenty of wine & laughter. Grant and I called it quits early in the night and went back to our friend's to crash because I was so tired, missing midnight entirely as we prepared for the flight home the next day. Little did I know then, all that tiredness was the very early warning signs of being pregnant! I spent most of my honeymoon thinking about our recent wedding and desire to try for a baby in the coming 2011 year, not realizing I had succeeded in getting pregnant on our wedding night. January 15th- many tests confirmed that my dreams had come true- I was pregnant!

What followed was a very beautiful year including:

The last semester of my 3rd year at Citizen Schools & the joyful graduation of the students I had taught for 3 years as they headed off to high school, but also the sadness of closing down our program in Austin.

10 wonderful, beautiful months of pregnancy- each day bringing a new experience and sometimes a new challenge as I discovered how amazing my body truly is. I have never felt more in sync with my body as I did during pregnancy- feeling my little girl grow in me was absolutely mind blowing at times & miraculous. After all those months, finally she was born on Sept 12- each day since has been an absolute blessing. She is now 15 weeks old and growing so quickly!


Grant and I celebrated our one year anniversary a couple of weeks ago- it has been such a wonderful first year of our marriage- I am so grateful to him for being such a supportive and loving husband & best friend- & an amazing father to Alchemy.


We have spent the past 2 weeks working very hard in our house to rearrange and deep clean everything in the hopes of resetting up everything in a more family/baby-friendly way. It has been hard work, but by the time our guests arrived for New Year's we were mostly done. There are still some finishing touches that need to be taken care of, art to hang etc.. but I am very very satisfied with how it has turned out. The whole place has a much warmer feel to it & our bedroom with the addition of the crib set up has become very family oriented, which feels wonderful.

The photo challenge has been really great to be a part of and very challenging for me technically- I feel like I have gotten some good shots and some that I would have done differently. It has been good using my camera every day. I am hoping beyond this 30 day challenge I will continue to try to take a new shot daily. A friend and I want to create our own lists and keep it going- I hope we will.

30 Day Photo Challenge

7 minutes to go before midnight and the New Year- I am happy to be here with my daughter asleep in my lap, my husband and a friend of ours hanging out in the living room behind me over stout beers and good conversation. Gone are the many other friends who stopped by to celebrate with us tonight, the homemade eggnog and mulled wine, the tasty food and the fast pace of the day leading up to our evening celebration. As I approach the new year I hope that it can bring me as much happiness as this past one has. This year Alchemy will turn 1! It feels like just yesterday that I gave birth to her, I can't believe she will be 4 months old in 10 more days.

Perhaps this year I will set some resolutions/intentions for the year to come, but those will take more thought that I can give them after wine, eggnog and the busy day with only 2 minutes left!

Happy New Year everyone! Welcome 2012- may you bring joy and love to us all.

Day 4- Something Green & the Rainy Adventures

Day 4 of the Photography Challenge has arrived with the new theme of "Something Green". To get into the mojo of the day, I pulled my green Docs out of the closet, cleaned them up and gave them some new black with red star laces & tied them on. Got Alchemy dressed warmly and strapped to my chest, grabbed the camera and then out the door we went!

While I could have chosen to shoot indoors on this cold rainy day, I wanted to get out in it. This is some of my favorite weather- the kind where you want to curl up with a hot chocolate and a good book or your knitting kind of weather. With an infant however, I rarely get the time to do than in this weather anymore. Rather than hibernating indoors, I decided to take us out into the drizzly rain and cool air for a walking adventure.

Find something green. No problem. This rainy weather always seems to brighten anything growing around us, especially after so many months of severe drought. The plants soak up the water and just seem to glow. Yesterday while Alchemy and I were outside escaping the heat (yesterday it was 80 to today's 50) and waiting for Grant to come home, we sat at the front of our complex near the driveway where we have a big concrete flower bed and admired what is left of the pretty plants we had not long ago. Several took a pretty hard hit from the freeze last week and are now a withered slimy mess, but I know once spring gets here and it is warm and sunny, those same plants will be back with a vengeance. Poking out in several places amidst intentional plantings in that bed are many little baby Agave plants. When we first moved in to our complex, when needing to direct someone to our place we would tell them to "turn in at the Agave" because we had a ginormous Agave plant in that bed. Then a day came where as I was walking to catch the bus for work, I saw several guys out there digging out our huge Agave, presumably to take to another property they like better, or more likely, to sell since an Agave of that size would go for a good amount. Lame sauce. I managed to rescue one of the baby Agaves and put it in a pot outside my door and have been caring for it since. Now however, several more little baby Agaves have popped back up and are growing very well in that bed. Alchemy and I were admiring one yesterday- noticing how all at once it is both soft and extremely sharp on the tips, and a beautiful grey-green color.

About this time, I noticed that although she and I seemed to be doing fine with the rain, my camera may not like it so much, so I took us back towards our own front door.

One of our guardian Happiness cats greeted us when we arrived. He normally sits in the window staring out and wishing to play outdoors, so I let him out for a while.

He seemed to be extra happy outside, but ever since our Gnome disappeared while out walking one of our Fu dogs, I never trust letting them out for long. (who steals someone's Gnome and only ONE Fu dog?)

Back safely indoors, my eye caught a bit of gator mojo by my altar- beautiful green glass catching the light.

I bought this piece of art a couple of years ago at festival and have really loved it. It brings a cool protective energy to my altar while hanging off the spindly arm of a cactus.

All in all, a fun adventure was had. Now with mist clinging to our eyelashes & hair & dampness in our clothes, Alchemy and I were inside and toasty.

Her finally asleep of course- AFTER I was done shooting. Shooting with a baby attached to the front of you who is wiggly messes with your shots some. It is hard to get my shot with a head bobbing around in front of my screen and the constant worry of shaking, although somehow my steady hand seemed to be able to compensate for her well.

Tomorrow, we get to explore something from a high angle. We will see how that goes.

The 30 Day Photography Challenge

The other day I was hanging out on Pinterest pinning things I thought were neat, when I stumbled upon a list of things called the "30 Day Photography Challenge". Basic idea- pick a start date and each day, using your list as a guide, take a photo and post it.

I have always wanted to do something like this and have often said I would do a "photo a day" project. At one point in a different incarnation of this blog it was a photo-a-day blog, but it didn't last very long because although I had the desire, as happens so often with things I want to do, I lost motivation and let crazy life get in the way. In order to avoid that this time, I decided to get other folks on board with me. I posted the list as a photo to my Facebook and called upon my photo friends from college as well as any other photographer or photo loving friends to join me in it, thereby holding myself accountable to others. 

Day 1 felt hard to me- I have issues these days with self portraits for some reason. I used to be really good at them and took them all the time, especially when I was in school, but ever since I got my new camera, I have felt creatively blocked and technically stupid when I have tried to get a good photo of myself. I struggle when I need to set up my tripod, attempt to focus where I will stand and get the exposure right, set the timer, run like hell... and .... damn, it was blurry. Drives me nuts. I would like to get a remote for my camera if possible, especially a wireless one so that I can at least not do the running part.

Yesterday was such a difficult day with Alchemy being extra fussy, so my ability to get the big camera and tripod working with her fussiness was just not happening. Thankfully, I take pretty good photos with my phone, so I got a shot of myself that I was happy with, although felt timid about using as my first photo in this series. Finally, I grew some balls and posted it.

Day 1- Self Portrait- Mother & Child

 Today, however has been a pretty good day with a relatively easy subject matter- What You Wore Today. No problem, I really like my outfit today, as I am finally wearing something that I am both very comfortable in and that lets me play with my style a bit. Lately none of my clothing seems to fit post pregnancy, but thankfully, Grant also outgrew a pair of his pants that now fit me! ;)

Day 2- What you wore today: Brown Cords, submarine socks with my red Doc mary janes & a black tank & hoodie.

 Easy as pie.
 
Part of this challenge also for me is learning to love this camera lens. It is the basic lens that came with the camera when we bought it- 18-55 mm, and although I can get good shots with it, I really desire (in the magickal future where I actually have money) to buy a more versatile lens, especially for portrait work. After all, I do have the best model ever sitting around.

I could photograph her all day long.

Overall, I am excited about this challenge and will keep posting occasionally to show you guys how it is going! If you want to join in the fun, follow the list- starting with a self portrait & ending with one, or just post a link to your photos in the comments here! You can see my post daily if you check out the Picasa Album- I will try to keep it updated daily (if possible to access Picasa) with the photos.

30 Day Photo Challenge

Baby Steps, Leaps and Bounds

I feel very blessed that I am currently able to spend each day home with Alchemy thanks to Grant's hard work to support our family. It's good for her to have the continuous care from me, and I honestly couldn't imagine it any other way because I couldn't bear to part with her if I had to take her to a daycare.

One bonus of spending so much time with her is being able to note the tiny ways she is developing daily. So much has changed in the last 12 weeks, and although she would seem much the same to most folks only bigger, it is so much more than that to me.

This week she has decided after almost three months of nursing just fine using nipple shields that she will no longer have it. Just the tiniest touch of one to her lips sends her screaming until I take it off and offer her the nipple sans shield, which she responds to sometimes too eagerly. I may not have nipples by this time next week, but I am glad to see she still has a strong desire to nurse (& more naturally) since we have had to supplement so much by bottle.

Her mobile used to be her favorite thing in the whole wide world. She would lay for long periods of time, happily smiling coyly and cooing at what Grant and I came to refer to as "her boyfriend"- the image of a deer dangling in the center of her mobile. They day I switched it to a car instead she threw a huge fit until I switched it back- then went back to smiling and cooing. Too funny! Now however, I have noticed in the past few days that she no longer seems to care about the mobile at all and has hardly looked at it even though it is often dangling 8 inches above her head. Her new favorite thing to stare at- me, especially if I am sitting next to her. While I am very happy to be one of her new favorite things, this also poses a tiny problem- if I am not staring at her, she will fuss until I do. :)  (Very much like right now- she is in the swing 3 inches from my leg, but if I turn 45 degrees away from her to type, she fusses, but when I look at her, all smiles. Little booger!) I am hoping she redevelops a love for her mobile again somewhere along the way, but I am unsure of whether a kid will come back to something they seem to have developmentally gotten bored with. Only time will tell I suppose.

On to diaper changes- don't worry, it's not gross I promise. My little breech baby, having been folded up for 10 months in my womb absolutely loves to fold herself in half. She is happiest when she is naked and all folded up again with her toes touching her nose or forehead. This actually makes diaper changes sometimes super easy because she gets her little legs out of the way for me. It used to be that they would just flop around all folded, but today I noticed that she has now learned to hold her toes or ankles with her hands and is actually grasping and holding her legs up! So cool!! I am hoping very soon now she will start trying to grasp and hold more things, like her toys. I am noticing she tries to hold her bottle when we feed her and will grasp our fingers as often as she can.

Her bendy ways back when she loved kicking her mobile

When I sit her upright, she is able to hold her head up straight and look around the room- turning her head very well from left to right, although still a bit bobbly. I am looking forward to her strengthening it just a bit more so we can use her Bumbo chair and she can sit up more during the day.

Trying out her Bumbo chair, soon she can sit up in it!

Next Monday on December 12th, she will be 3 months old. I can't believe we have made it three months already, it seems like just yesterday she was born. She is getting big quickly and while I am very excited to think about the upcoming months of development where she will learn to hold her head up more on her tummy, or start to crawl etc.. I am still a tad bit sad to know that soon she won't be my teeny tiny nugget anymore.

Ah! A free moment!

I have been wanting to post a new blog for weeks now, but every time I think about it, something seems to get in the way.  Often, I would post from my Ipad using a blogging app, but recently since the OS update, that app crashes when you try to open it, so.. no posting from bed which is unfortunately where I spend much of my time hanging out with Alchemy while nursing/pumping/napping.

Thankfully, the other things that often make up my day/week are cooking and laundry- both of which require me to be downstairs and which I am doing right now. Alchemy fell asleep earlier in my arms, so I transferred her to her bassinet for just long enough to switch the laundry before she woke up, but now downstairs she is fast asleep in her swing giving me a moment to post now that I have dinner in the oven. Phew!

We have had pretty busy days in the past week or so. Yesterday was Grant's birthday. Unsurprisingly I got him the exact give that days after I bought it he mentioned to me as a "just in case you are having a hard time picking something out..." suggestion. Thankfully, since great minds think alike, he liked the Unicursal hexagram tie I bought him from a tie seller we both have been wanting to order from for some time now. There are so many other ties on that site I would love to buy- both of our favorites being their hops tie.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Cyberoptix?ref=ss_profile

I think if I had that tie, especially in purple, I would start wearing ties again. We didn't get much of a chance to celebrate his birthday together yesterday since it fell on a Tuesday which is his long day at work. Thankfully, he comes home for dinner between classes for an hour, so I at least was able to make him a good dinner of Quesadillas Unda- meaning with egg instead of the usual overhaul of cheese, smoked gouda and apple sausage, & kale cooked with balsamic vinegar & apples. The quesadillas were especially awesome because they were made with pumpkin spice tortillas made by a local Austin tortilla company- absolutely divine! I am tempted to just toast them in a pan, butter them and eat them by themselves. Grant enjoyed dinner before he had to run out the door to teach his last class. Thankfully, we are going to celebrate this weekend with friends at Billy's, a local pub we recently went to for the first time and love. I am already drooling at the thought of one of their yummy burgers and a tasty beer to go with it.

As if celebrating the birth of the most awesome husband alive wasn't enough, our one year anniversary is coming soon- December 18th. I am so happy to celebrate our wedding together, especially after this past year of love and the growth of our family- we conceived Alchemy on our wedding night, so this anniversary will always be doubly special to me. That said, I am having a difficult time figuring out what to do to celebrate. We have considered dinner together at a local restaurant we love and don't often get to treat ourselves to. I wish we could do something more together- I keep trying to figure out something special that we could do with Alchemy with us, but I haven't been able to figure anything out yet. I did however figure out a gift that goes well with the paper theme for Grant- I am hoping he likes it. (no spoilers, he reads this!)

As a gift to myself, I keep wanting to get my butt to the social security office & DMV so I can finally legally change my name. Doing this with a baby who is very needy and quite vocal about it, not to mention unpredictable from moment to moment is another story- I don't really want to be trapped in those offices all day with her, but I don't currently see a way around it. *sigh*

The other big adventure of our upcoming weeks is balancing the holiday season with the complete tear down, cleaning & remodeling of our entire house. In preparation of Alchemy's future mobility, we want to get the carpet as clean as possible and rearrange the house in a more baby-proof/friendly model. My awesome sister-in-law bought us a crib that is arriving soon, so we definitely need to rearrange our bedroom for it to fit in there, but we are also rearranging every other room in the house.... again. I usually struggle to get behind this type of change because I like things the way they are when I am comfortable with them, however, when I know there is no getting around it, I go into interior design mode. So, to embrace the change, I have now made about 10 different drawings (not to scale yet) of possible floor plans for each room. Designing gives me slightly less anxiety about it all, but it won't completely go away until the change is here. Now I just wish we could start already, but we have to wait until the semester ends for Grant and he has more time here at home to move all the furniture and steam clean the carpets with my help.... while watching Alchemy. I may be asking for someone to come over and be our tryout babysitter at that time. Grant thinks I need to get comfortable with the idea of having someone occasionally watch her for a while anyways so that she can socialize with other adults more and get comfortable with folks that are not us. I am betting she will be just fine with it, but I have to get myself okay with it! I am used to being with her 24/7 and have only ever not been with her for about 45 minutes, when she was with Grant. Must learn to let go sooner rather than later I suppose, so Grant and I can potentially go out together without her one day.

Ahhh the timer for my oven has rung- I guess my free moment is over! Spaghetti squash is calling me.

Gratitude or Thankfulness

I just had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving. Grant and I drove with Alchemy out to my parents house in Damon where we got to spend time with them, my sisters Lisa and Gina, and my niece Sarah. It was so good getting family time all together for the first time in a long long time. Lisa and Sarah finally got to meet Alchemy.  Now as we are driving home from their house back to Austin, I find myself thinking about a practice I have seen a lot of lately where people listed one thing they were thankful for each day leading up to Thanksgiving. I did something similar a few years ago for a month and I found it to be a very useful and nourishing daily practice for me. As I thought about it, I realized that I hear people using "thankful" and "grateful" pretty interchangeably. Discussing it with Grant, we decided that the difference between the two words was more about whether it involved another person or their actions (i.e. I am thankful to Gina for the baby clothes and gifts she bought Alchemy) where grateful could be for things not pertaining to a person but that I feel gratitude for (i.e. I am grateful for the rain we had yesterday that watered our garden so well). I am not sure if this is how it works for everyone else or what the proper definition of each is. I suppose if I was not in the car between cities and had Internet access I could look them up and be much more clear on it, but for now we will stick with my reasoning, although I suspect that I will still use them interchangeably as well.  I ponder all this and share it with you because I am considering taking up that practice again, but instead of just a month, trying to journal one thing I am grateful/thankful for a day. If it involves someone else, I may write a thank you card to go with it and mail it to them. What better day to start this practice than the day after Thanksgiving when I just came off of a week full of wonderful family time that I am so grateful for. 

Things that make me happy.

I love this season. Today we are having the perfect weather- beautiful, sunny, breezy 62 degree weather. Alchemy and I took a walk to our garden to water all the new plants. Alchemy was awake for the trip there and my time caring for our garden, but once we started exploring, she was fast asleep.

One of my favorite things being grown by one of our neighbor gardeners is this ginormous pumpkin. The first day I saw it I almost had Grant back the car up so I could figure out what it was sticking out from all the green surrounding it, because I had never seen a pumpkin so large. Today I had a moment to walk up and inspect it more. It looks like something out of a fairy tale, perhaps the pumpkin that becomes Cinderella's coach. I keep wondering how much larger it will get and hope that it stays alive in our cooling weather.

 There is also this beautiful area of garden lush and full of plants that is what I hope our garden will look like once it is more established and fills in- this particular area of one garden has a gorgeous Morning Glory growing full and tall surrounded by many other lower plants. I keep hoping for a multi-level garden like this. We have two big metal fence structures that we are going to sink into the ground somewhere in our plot- I am hoping we can use them both as structures of support for plants, dividers of the different beds, but also to grow things up as well, perhaps even a Morning Glory of our own. We used to have one in our old garden, I would love to have one again.

Our garden is also looking good at the moment. The summer took it's toll on it for sure, killing off many of our plants. We were okay with it and basically abandoned it to the heat, preferring to let it go dormant for a while rather than waste water trying to keep it alive in such a bad drought. Grant has been working really hard to get things going for our Fall/Winter garden. I am finally physically feeling like I can join in again in the gardening although I think I will have to take it slow until my muscles regain strength, and of course gardening with Alchemy is still hard unless she sleeps through it. 

Our plot from the back entrance

Keyhole bed with our artichoke from last year, a blue daze, and shallots, plus a clump of wild onions.

Same keyhole bed, soon to have lots of green beans!

Back corner bed with our Pride of Barbados, a new artichoke, the Mexican marigold mint from spring about to bloom, oregano and mint coming back up slowly, and new beds of spinach and carrots.

Love this bed- all our new greens with a bamboo and snap dragon border.

This greens bed has our kale, brussell sprouts, cauliflower, and tatsoi.

Our front bottle lined herb bed has our artemesia, a pepper and our basil from the spring still alive, plus new plantings of skull cap, St. John's wort, pansies that are starting to bloom, and nasturtiums, plus one bean that is only now sprouting from our spring plantings!

 Not only is this weather perfect for all this gardening, but it also gave us a wonderful Samhain night to go trick or treating with Alchemy. She couldn't actually trick or treat of course, but we wanted a good excuse to dress her up in the bee outfit my mom got her and walk around the neighborhood.

 As you can see, she makes a super cute bumblebee with her lovely little striped socks and the booties my mom made her. This outfit is also a little big, so we are hoping it will fit her in the springtime so she can wear it to the garden!

Our calavera pumpkin I spent hours carving!

Last night I had the pleasure of doing my first henna session since Alchemy was born. Friends of ours are heading to Puerto Rico to have their wedding vows renewed in a ceremony, and so the lovely lady of that pair wanted to have her hands done. She asked me to incorporate flowers, leaves and stars and so, I did. It was tons of fun to do, not to mention just getting time to hang out with them and catch up a bit since we haven't seen them in a while. I also had the opportunity to try out my new henna glitter that I am excited to use on more clients, it gives a nice finish to the paste you have to leave on for so many hours and dresses it up a bit. I think it will be especially good at festivals should I ever henna at one. Soon for our Totocon happening in about a week at the lodge, I will have an opportunity to vend some henna for folks should anyone want some. I am hoping to do another party or two and may have another lined up at the Knitting Nest again in the spring. I am also just hoping to take more private clients- I love doing the henna in the comfort of my home for folks where I can easily still take care of Alchemy.

This week I developed a new addiction. Pinterest. Crazy awesome website that serves as a virtual pinboard where you can "pin" images of things you love onto different boards to organize them and then share them out with folks, or see other folks awesome boards and repin things to your own. I am loving it!! Anything that allows me to organize visually is perfect. I have a board for things I love, one for favorite recipes, one for my dream home- all the things I would want in the perfect house. I have a board for beautiful garden ideas, one full of things I either have or want for Alchemy, and a board full of crafty things I want to make. I even added a "follow me on Pinterest" button to this blog so folks who read this can follow me, and a "pin it" button in case someone likes this blog enough to pin it!! Come check it all out, I promise you will love it. Just don't blame me if you get completely addicted too.