I need to learn how to blog again.

Four days ago Hazel and I had a self-proclaimed snow day – the streets were sheets of ice and seven busses weren’t able to run, but they didn’t call school for our county. I stayed home from work, and she from daycare, anyway. One of those days where I am extra-grateful for my job. Now it’s almost sixty degrees, and yesterday she and her little buddy, Xavier, made “snow angels” in the pea gravel at the playground, with no need for outerwear / hats / gloves.

I’ve ventured into the worlds of air plants (so weird and impossible, inspired by these open-faced christmas balls that I bought on clearance for fifty cents each.) And the world of green smoothies (so far mostly spinach and celery and avocado, with some berries thrown in, a little juice, some chia or flax seeds… whatever leftover fruits or veggies are in the fridge… so far I haven’t had one turn out green because I am still playing it safe with my spinach : berry ratio. Two giant handfuls of spinach is my max.) Only a few days in, and I have markedly higher energy levels, which is much needed after two months of limping along, nursing some now-mild shit-in-my-throat illness that may or may not be whooping cough (apparently it’s going around? Hazel never got what I had?)

And I made a Pinterest. God help me.

Listning: Nick Drake pandora

The best salad I’ve ever eaten – baby lettuce seeded, watered, loved, and constantly chattered about by my two year old farmer. While thinning out the biggest leaves and tossing them into a colander yesterday evening, a friend stopped in our back yard and Hazel proudly announced that she grew the lettuce for our salad. “Want salad now, Mama!”, and downed a few leaves rinsed in the hose. I wasn’t sure about the light against the back of the house, but our container gardening experiment is going well so far.

Two kinds of tomatoes, sugar snap peas, onions, radishes, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, zucchini, and basil. More lettuce to come as soon as I retrieve my yardsailed pots from my mom and buy some more seeds. And maybe some kale. And… ?

Listening: Neil Young

Hazel has been hard at work on her valentine’s day projects – at 27 months she is taking them very seriously and knows who she wants to give them to. The ideas are mama’s, but the execution is (mostly) hers (she doesn’t bake yet, after all.)

She picked out a bunch of internet-found coloring sheets and we made them into a coloring book for “Wookie-Wou”.

What is the noun of assemblage for many robots? And a pound of glitter all over the kitchen? We have those things, along with 24-hour-later chatter of “eye glue” still lingering.

When we made our last batch of cookies, she quickly listed her desired recipients. We ended up putting too many cookies in our bellies and not enough in the mail (although half did end up elsewhere!)… so we made more.

With all of the mama-assisted projects going on, still more in the works, and an entire week spent SICK and cutting FOUR molars at once and not sleeping longer than 40 minutes at a time (oof), her own gift is probably not going to be off of the needles in time. She spent much run-down movie time on the couch rubbing a ball of this yarn against her face and muttering “soffffft”, and holding it for cuddly comfort. What else was I supposed to do with it? Six stripes in, might not get done in time, but at least it looks like a future-blanket. Maybe it’ll be done by the end of March.

(These – yum!)

I feel like I have not had a normal existence since we got back from Toronto – busy busy busy, five million things to do, teething teething teething TEETHING <—although the last two are cutting rightnow, and then we’re home free until the second year molars make their appearance.

Despite that, I have been getting things made here and there, in tiny little chunks of time. I just don’t realize it until I sit down to think about it in blog format. Is that sad?

I’ve been making these little round face scrubbies here and there, mostly in the car, to replace the disposable cotton ones that you buy in a tube. They’re made from the same plain cotton yarn I already had on hand for dishrags, and take less then ten minutes apiece to crochet. They work soooo well, and I just toss the used ones in a lingerie bag to put them through the wash. I don’t wear makeup anymore, but I can only imagine that these would be 500% better than thin cotton rounds for makeup removal, applying toner, etc… they are the perfect amount of soft & nubby.

Laundry soap. Since Mikey and I have freakishly sensitive skin we hate pretty much all laundry soaps. I’ve been meaning to try making my own for awhile, but don’t know anyone who does and didn’t want to pick some random recipe from the internet or a book. Conveniently, Amanda at soulemama.com posted her trusty recipe this week, so I decided to give it a try. For a 10 cup, 80-load batch at 1/8 cup per load, you need three 1/2 oz bars of finely grated castille soap, and one cup each of baking soda (93 cents per batch), borax (67 cents per batch), and washing soda (1.00 per batch). I picked up the couple of things I needed while I was out yesterday and made a batch when I got home. It smells delicious, and I am using it right now. I used Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap, which makes a batch cost about the same as an equally-sized bag of Charlie’s if you can find it on sale for $2.99 per bar like I did. We DO love Charlie’s around here, and will still use it on diapers, but since it’s so hot and muggy and almostsummerey right now, peppermint laundry is just too good to pass up for the convenience of mail-order laundry soap. (And since you asked, Paisley does not have sensitive skin and prefers that her blankets and towels be washed in the cheapest, perfumiest laundry soap I can find.)

To fill the LOST-void and soothe my stressed-mommy-brain, I spent 3.5 hours after Hazel went to bed the other night crocheting the blanket that will never end (the one I ONLY work on when I need to calm down), and watched Dexter. It was magical. I love them both.

Goodies for the little teeny You-Are-Having-a-Baby-Yayyyyyyyyyyy lunch that I gave for Maggie on Saturday. Delicious. Such instant gratification to make AND to eat. (Do you sense the blue & gold theme in my life?)

Listening: The Beatles
(I am) Reading: The Last Child in the Woods
(Hazel is) Reading: When I Was Young in the Mountains, which I had the urge to read with her after kindly booting this guy from our porch the other day (I don’t know why I always assume they are male)

As if you haven’t heard enough whining from me this month: SERIOUSLY. Is it EVER going to stop looking like this outside???

I didn’t realize until I moved away how weird WV winters really are. In Toronto it would snow and snow and snow and then the sun would come out and the sky would be blue and there would be beautiful white sparkly snow all over the ground. And, okay, some horrible, gritty black street snow, and lots of slush and ice that the city was horrible at treating, but lots of white. White and blue. Here winter is just gray. Gray. Gray. Gray.

I’ve had to be hyper-productive to keep myself from going (literally, finally, please let this end soon) insane. I’ve cooked, puttered around working on various projects and organizational things, played A LOT and read books A LOT (mine and Hazel’s.) I made a batch of earrings last night and today I spent at least two hours photographing them, vintage jewelry to sell, and November craft show leftovers that were still waiting patiently. I have about half an hour of photographing left to do tomorrow and I’ll be totally caught up until I make more projects, which I am NOT allowed to do until I finish the Etsy to-do list I made on new year’s eve. It’s huge. I’m making good progress, I think.

Hazel’s pretending is still developing rapidly, as is her vocabulary – I wonder if it would be going so well if we weren’t suck in the house playing all the time? She can identify her eyes, ears, nose, lips, chin, tongue, teeth, tummy, hands, feet, hair… maybe other things I’m not thinking of at the moment. When she gets her hands on a piece of paper and a writing utensil, she thrusts it at you demanding that you write “HEESHA!!” (her name). She also pointed to a couple of babies in a magazine and a baby photo of Cana yesterday and exclaimed “Heesha!” She kisses her reflection in the oven door, licks the fridge quite frequently, spends lots of time tending to Paisley and picking up pieces of dog food, which she diligently returns to the dog food bowl. She still loves books above all other things in life. She can do stickers now, which opens up a whole new toddler crafting world. I never would have thought to give her stickers at 16 months old, but my mom gave her some this week and she caught on very quickly. She loves to have her teeth brushed. She loves to give and get kisses. If you pick up an animal from her little people ark set and ask her to find the other one of the pair, she can dig around and find it in a few seconds. She is a smartypants. She’s getting a little finicky about food, or her appetite is changing or something. She used to eat anything all the time and just kind of taper off with her meals, picking at her food forever. Now she reaches a very sudden point in a meal and is DONE, and will sometimes refuse foods that she loved earlier in the day. The only things I can say with 100% certainty that she WILL eat right now at any given moment in the day: apple juice, smoothies, grapes, and condiments. There is nothing that she has refused twice in a row (her several week long egg aversion has ended), so that’s a comfort. In general she will still eat any food, maybe just not at 5:37 p.m. on Thursday.

Her new word today was ‘ippo… the ‘ippos in her ark set have little red buhds perched on their backs and she loves to kiss them. Those little people animals have gotten more playtime than I ever would have expected, which might make them the best yard sale purchase ever. She got the barn for her birthday and is now into opening and closing all of the doors, putting animals inside and parking the vehicles inside. How is she old enough to put animals in a barn instead of just chew on their faces???

Hazel-made cards.

Angie’s recipe – tofu bites in the making. Coated in tamari & then rolled in wheat germ / sesame seeds / breadcrumbs and baked…. yummmm.

She really does love her smoothies.

Listening: Ryan Adams
(I am) Reading: The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers
(Hazel is) Reading: Itsy Bitsy Spider
Working on: lots and lots

Nothing says desperation like buying squash for $2.13 per pound in December. But oh, how I’ve missed Anna Brown’s pesto mix.

Carlin is the most well-behaved dog in the world.

The sweetest, most delicious sprout-stage. I’m about go go eat some with a little bit of Annie’s Goddess dressing*.

Started wrapping gifts today to drag myself out of a winter-in-the-middle-of-nowhere funk.

Cuddliest little bird.

*I’ve never been to this webpage before. Processed on the same machines as anchovies? My life is over. Time to try making it on my own…

She has been keeping me very busy:

…and a couple of days ago while I was laying down with her nursing her to sleep for a nap, my exhaustion caught up with me and I accidentally fell asleep too. I can’t remember the last time I took a nap. We slept for two and half delicious hours, and I had the most realistic dream ever about broccoli cheddar soup. Now, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually had a broccoli cheddar soup that I enjoy – no, I never ate it at Panera because it wasn’t vegetarian when I worked there – but while Hazel ate a snack I set about finding a recipe. None of my trusty cookbooks had anything to offer, so I resorted to hunting online. There are few things that annoy me more than looking for a recipe online, but I was committed to this dream soup, so I hunted. For about 45 minutes I read and reread tons of recipes, submitted comments from people who had tried them, forum discussions about soup… a little less dense than vaccination research, but it was giving me a headache. Finally I had, on a totally marked up piece of paper, what seemed like it would end up tasting good. Unfortunately the only source I can remember is epicurious.com, which gave me the idea of using tarragon, although the actual recipe was a far cry from a creamy broccoli cheddar soup. It came from twelve or fifteen different recipes and comments and discussions, and some stuff I just made up, so I feel like I can legitimately say this is My Recipe. Anyway… it was divine. I didn’t even remember to take a picture because I was so excited to eat it. Mikey and Hazel loved it too. So here is the recipe for my SIL (the Angie one) and Mama, and whoever else wants some totally yum broccoli cheddar soup. Take that, Panera Bread, and all of your frozen soups too.

I’d say this serves about four. Or more specifically: two huge husband bowls, one normal wife bowl, one tiny baby bowl, and two lunch bowls the next day.

6 T butter
2 lbs fresh broccoli – peeled and chopped stems separated from chopped florets
1 lg. onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp dried tarragon or 2 tsp fresh, chopped
4 c. vegetable stock (next time I will probably just use water, actually)
1 c. whipping cream
3 c. (packed) sharp cheddar cheese, grated

- Melt butter in heavy-bottomed pan and saute stems and onion until the onion is transluscent. Add garlic and tarragon and saute a minute or two more.
- Add stock/water and bring to a boil; simmer until broccoli is tender (15 minutes or so)
- Add cream and broccoli florets, stirring pretty frequently until the florets are tender.
- Puree in batches and return to pan. Add cheese gradually and stir until melted.
- Serve with a yum bread.

The next day when we were eating leftovers for lunch Mikey asked me if it was complicated to make, and I told him no. Then he asked if it was “long and involved”. I told him not really, but then thinking that maybe he was wondering if he’d be able to make it for himself, I corrected myself and said “well, kind of… there are a few steps and you have to throw it all in the food processor and puree it before you add the cheese…” He just stared at me for a second and said, “Well I was just wondering if it was hard becuase I want you to make it… often.” Oh, okay then. I’d worry about his fingers if he tried to use a food processor anyway.

Other odds & ends…

I’m excited about this new shop opening on Bloor Street (my back yard). The owner invited me to participate, via my Etsy shop, but unfortunately (and fortunately) we will be gone. I will definitely stop in when we are back in the city visiting, though.

And… finds like this make all of my time spent scouring dollar stores for things to repurpose worth the hunt. Two packs of kitschy plastic party favor rings, on their way to new lives as pendants.

I’ve got my Etsy inventory about halfway rephotographed. It’s so tedious, and I can only work on it when Hazel is napping, and only then if the light is right, or on weekends when Mikey is home at the right time of day and can keep her occupied. I swear on all that is good and holy (and crafty), when I am done I will not get behind in my photographing. I will not.

I haven’t made any squares for a few days because I’ve been busy making stuff for a craft show, and yesterday I made a Christmas gift for my SIL (the Janet one), which I am suuuuuper excited about and can’t wait to share in, um, three and a half months.

Listening: Iron & Wine
(I am) Reading: The Blue Cotton Gown
(Hazel is) Reading: The Saggy Baggy Elephant; Growing Vegetable Soup (the former, in board book version, was found at the Dollarama downstairs – sometimes they have kids books that have no business being sold in a dollar store. I don’t know how they get there but I am happy when they do.)
Working on: ephemera packs; pendants; photo revamp; etc. etc. etc.
Packing progress: wrapped and taped up a huge pile of framed photos, prints, and posters – a tedious and much hated task, done! Also packed three boxes. Why doesn’t this feel real yet?

Tiny, vintage, mustard-colored elementary school chairs for hazel – $2.00 each at yardsale… freshened up the legs with black rustoleum and they are patiently waiting for her to get big enough to use them.

Pretty fruit skewers for a summer picnic – I love projects where everything comes from the dollarstore. Skewers, wooden bees and flowers, and glittery hot glue – all $1.00 per pack.

Shirt for Hazel’s first rock show :) Stitched a handmade patch onto a long-sleeved shirt that she already had – felt was twenty cents per sheet.

Ok, not a craft project, but she’s so darn cute – Hazel & I sitting on a caboose. She’s wearing her banjo shirt from Sarah Holsapple. She’s going to bust out of it by the end of summer so I really need to buy the next size up… it’s Mikey’s favorite.

Listening: Ryan Adams
Reading: almost done with Columbine
Working on: Etsy photo revamp – after a battle with Ritz camera, who lost the macro filters I ordered and wouldn’t respond to emails, Amazon has refunded my money, I bought filters from elsewhere, spraypainted my props, and I’m ready to go…