Nesting Galore

On Easter my mom showed me a box of baby books she'd collected, and my mouth actually started watering at the sight of so many books.  There were titles in there that were totally stuff we would have picked, like "I Dreamt I Was A Dinosaur" and "Black Crow, Black Crow."  Something magical happened in that moment, and I started feeling like it was time to start preparing for the baby's arrival.

Now, I am totally in nesting mode.

The painting was finished a few weeks back, and the new carpet was put into the baby room and guest room on Tuesday... it's green!  A lovely, dark mossy green.  It gives me the sensation of being outdoors, which is exactly what we were going for.  It is frustratingly difficult to get a photo that shows the color properly, but here goes:

In person, it's less dark and a tad more green.

On Wednesday we went over to a family friend's house to pick up some of their baby stuff that had been waiting in storage.  Holy crow, that was a lot of awesome stuff!  Probably half our baby shopping needs are now taken care of, it is hard to believe.  Or more than half, if you count what my parents gave me too.  Thank you!!

Today I plan on starting to fill the rooms with furniture, though I'll have to wait for the husband to get home to move the bigger stuff.  Next we can pick a theme... maybe dinosaurs, space, or jungle?

Do you have a hunch?

And so, in honor of nesting, I started up a BabyHunch pool.  Basically, you can go there to guess the baby's due date, weight, length, hair color, etc.  It is nice because you don't have to register to make a guess (and if you change your mind, just contact me and I can change it for you easily).  Just something a little fun for you non-monetarily gambling folks out there.

Kendra and Ryan's Baby Pool

I will declare the winner on my blog, and your prize will be the satisfaction of knowing you are a winner.  :D

Now, if you have any ideas on where to find a better baby pool website that lets me add personal things like "number of eyes" or "placement of first tattoo" or "first words" or "race of father" (hey, that one was Ryan's joke!), lemme know!

That's a lot of flour.

I learned a lesson... a giant 50-pound Costco bag of bread flour does NOT fit in a 5-gallon bucket.  I need another half bucket, or some other large storage solution until I use up the excess!  For some reason, I just couldn't imagine a bag of flour being larger than 5 gallons. 

In any case, since I recently ran out of my stock of 1-pound bags of flour, this'll keep us in sourdough, yogurt bread, pizza dough, holiday rolls, and random science experiments for a long long time.  We're not huge bread eaters, so I would be shocked if this didn't last us the rest of the year.

LET THE BAKING BEGIN!!

Hamming it up on Ostara

Yesterday I was particularly grumpy and lethargic, and couldn't figure out why... until I noticed the neighbor kids across the street setting up a table on the front lawn for egg dying.  I immediately put a pot of water on the stove to boil some easter eggs.

My husband offered the idea of doing gradient eggs, where you make a concentrated batch of dye, then every so often add more water so that the next layer up gets diluted dye.  I'd never tried this, so I made a few colors while I was baking, on both white and brown eggs.  I just did 1tsp white vinegar, 20 drops of food coloring, and a bit of boiling water, then every 10-15 minutes added more hot water.

Ta da!  Greens and blues did best.

I'm spending the day with my parents, brother, and the pup out there in the super green countryside!  Stormy doesn't know it yet, but she is about to have her first taste of ham.

I guess I should say or do something profound about being pregnant enough to start showing right on a fertility holiday.  Or I should make a joke about how we're eggspecting.  However, I'm not feeling inclined to gradient-dye my growing belly at the moment.  Instead, I'm just gonna eat ham.  Lots and lots of ham.  And I might wear a dress so I don't have to deal with a waistband as I feast.

Did you dye anything this year?

Mediocre Cinnamon Rolls... do yourself a favor and don't make these.

Just for my records, so that I can figure out where to improve the recipe:

Meh.

The reason I have not yet begun the 2014 whole foods diet

I have the food.  It is sitting there in buckets, just waiting for its moment to shine.  Full, healthily gluttonous buckets of grains, legumes, coconut oil.

My food aversions in the first trimester drove me batty.  I was nearly useless, like I had the flu plus motion sickness.  I pretty much could only eat fruit, eggs, nuts, and homemade yogurt the whole time, with occasional forays into the realm of chips, hot salsa, pizza, and thai food.   

Obviously, this has really thrown a wrench in my plans to begin the 2014 whole foods diet, and to be experimenting with lots of recipes for dried legumes, whole grains, and garden veggies.  It's a totally healthy plan for pregnancy though, so now that my stomach is normalizing, I'm slowly getting back on track.

Parsley Pesto Recipe

Remember the giant parsley harvest?

I ended up deciding to make a batch of pesto, using ingredients I already had on hand and pulling from a bunch of different recipes.

Here's how it turned out:

• 3 cups of tightly-packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
• 1 cup grated parmesan
• 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 0.5 cup pecans
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp salt

... yep, that's all.

I used my blender to liquefy the mixture, which was kind of a pain because the leaves filled the whole thing... I really should get a food processor one of these days.

So green!

Over the course of 30 minutes my enjoyment of the parsley pesto increased.

First impression:  It looks like pesto, so my brain expects it to taste like pesto, but it does not, so my brain is confused.  It's not horrible?

Second impression:  You know, this isn't half bad on pasta.  Wait, this is really good.

Third impression:  MUST HAVE MORE.  Steamed broccoli makes an excellent vehicle for the deliciously addictive green paste.  It is difficult not to eat it by the spoon.

And so, I have decided to make a bunch of it and freeze it into ice cubes for later use.  Ryan is only so-so about it after his first impression (which was the same as mine:  "my brain expects it to taste like pesto"), but thinks it'd be really delicious mixed with some sort of an alfredo-ish cream sauce on pasta.

It's a Blood Moon, Baby!

Last night's blood moon wasn't that spectacular from my vantage point, 'cause it was a bit foggy and it only ever turned a light yellow (no blood!), but it was fun watching.

I figured, hey, it's not like I have to get up for work tomorrow or anything, so why not?  I dragged the outdoor couch over by the pool along with a pile of blankets, and just stared at the moon from about 11:30-1:45.  Stormy was curled up at my side the whole time, and Ryan came out for the best part.  There's something really peaceful about watching the night sky that I didn't even realized I missed... I just don't do it anymore!

Due to light pollution, the stars don't look nearly as impressive as they do out in the country at my parents' house, so I was wondering how it looked for them.  My dad took an amazing picture:

Now THERE'S a red moon!

I am in awe of his ability to capture the moon so crisply!  I really need to sit down and have him show me how to work my camera.  :)

This lunar eclipse was the first in a cluster of 4, so there'll be another chance to see one on October 8th.

It's a superstition that lunar eclipses spark labor, so now I'm hoping the baby comes 2 days early.  Then, instead of "Danger" as a middle name, we could use "Blood Moon."

Massive Parsley Harvest

What I thought was one giant bolting cilantro ended up being three giant bolting flat-leaf parsleys squished tightly together at the base.  I've been eating it, calling it cilantro all along, but only now realized that the wrong seeds were in the Burpee package (interestingly, they use the same photo for both packages of seeds).  It is SO not cilantro. 

Turns out that the culinary world has a saying to help tell the leaves apart:  P is for Parsley because it's Pointy, C is for Cilantro because it's Curvy.  Should be easy to remember.  Mine has pointy tips.

Here's an action photo of Stormy Pouncing over the Parsley Pile.

8 pounds of parsley! The bowl contains a pound and a half of kale.

Each of those tiles is a square foot, so you can see the crazy amount of herb I dumped on the floor!  Egads!

My task today has been to pluck off all the leaves and weigh them, and separate out the stems to be preserved for use in flavoring soups... this process took me almost 3 hours.  Next, I'll blanch them, then freeze them flat in ziploc freezer bags so I can chip off chunks as needed.  There is just no way I can use all of this at once.

Maybe there's such a thing as parsley pesto?  Hmmm.


The official numbers:  2lbs of leaves, 3lbs of soup stems (veggie soup 4 life!), 3lbs of woody trunk not used.  Just for a mental picture of the mass, the parsley leaves fit very tightly into a plastic grocery bag... same for the stems.  Since I threw so much away, I'm gonna call today's harvest 5lbs.


I have an equal amount to harvest tomorrow!

What would you do with a mountain of flat-leaf parsley?

Garden Progress

Many long hours were spent in the garden yesterday, harvesting and aphid-destroying and fertilizing and digging and planting.  I've been just going one bed at a time... so far 2.5 main beds have been processed, plus another small raised bed on the other side of the back yard.

Here were the results:

An abandoned pterodactyl sprawls in the center.

Compared to the last photo, there's a lot less greenery.  Most of that was harvested and preserved, but some was abandoned due to an overwhelming outbreak of aphids and won't count toward my year's produce poundage.

So far I've put 8 tomatoes, 4 squash, and a peppermint in the ground.  Next I'll get some seeds nestled in amongst those seedlings... radishes, basil, calendula, etc.

Alright!  100 square feet down, 332 to go.  Progress.

Kale Juice Recipe

We've been juicing a lot of kale this week, about half a pound a day!

Mmmm, breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

• 1/2 lb kale chopped fine, including the tough midribs (this loosely fills one of my large salad bowls)
• 2 green apples, cored (put these through the machine with the kale to help it process)
• 1/2 inch ginger
• 7-8 carrots

It is pretty much the perfect balance for a really green juice, and fills 2 pint glasses to the brim.  The pulp goes straight into the worm composting bin, so it'll get recycled to grow even more kale.

I've been trying to empty out the "winter greens" raised bed so I can put the new batch o' plants in there, and didn't realize exactly how much produce was in there!  All those plants are bolting and scraggly after having been grown and harvested all winter, but it's still been slow going.  I can either spend another week juicing, or have a big blanching-and-freezing session, but I think we are done with kale salads for now.

I am really excited to have an "excess" of something so early in the season.  I'll just keep this recipe here, for the next time that we have too much kale and too little time. 

Those Little Suckers!

I fully planted the main tomato raised bed yesterday, and realized that some of those tomatoes had a little extra potential.  I trimmed off the suckers, and have been keeping them in moist soil.  If 25% of these make it, I wouldn't even need the tomato seeds to sprout.

Still alive after 24 hours... a good sign?

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, and sacrificing lots of goat blood to make sure a few survive.  The two round pots contain the strongest volunteer tomatoes... no knowing what they'll turn into.

Now all that's left for the week is to plant the:  chard, calendula, cilantro, lettuce, nasturtium, red malibar spinach, sage, sunflower.  And replant kale, radish, turnip, beet, carrot, thyme.  And harvest the heck out of the kale that's starting to bolt.

*GULP*

36 square feet down, 386 to go.

The Best-Laid Plans

As you may know, I have plans for this garden. 

BIG plans.

432 square feet of raised beds and pots utilized.  465 pounds of produce... produced.  7 varieties of tomatoes, 4 types of squash, 18 herbs and greens.

Exotic and fun varieties like dragon's egg cucumbers, black Spanish radishes, mammoth sunflowers, Lakota squash.  And, get this - a zucchini plant that actually gives me zucchini!

This garden is gonna be awesome!!

Plans A, B, and C went really well.  I still have a photo of plan C's success.

The aftermath.  :(

This is plan D. 

I misplaced my green thumb.

How is the garden going?  Well... 

I wonder if I can only have so much fertility success at once.  Like, in order to get uterus success, I had to trade in my green thumb.

80% of the seedlings I planted did not come up for various reasons... weird mold in my potting soil, garden gnomes with a bad sense of humor, or I somehow pissed off Demeter.

The 20% that did sprout (which were pretty much only the ones in the rehydrated coconut-husk pellets), just STOPPED growing after getting out their cotyledons.  They were supposed to continue to grow, and then I'd plan them deeper, and once they grew some more, I'd plant them even deeper.  To some I added extra lighting, some got light fertilization, some had normal growing conditions.  Nothing. 

Never fear!  

Our Stormy is a Lady Now

As of today, Stormy has been in heat for a full month!

Both the vet and the breeder have said we can't bring her outdoors for walks or to the dog park until a week after she stops bleeding, but so far there is no end in sight.  The poor pup is getting neurotic from the lack of doggy socialization, and diapers make her cry.

Really, it needs to stop.  I was told to expect 19 days of isolation, not 40.  How am I supposed to tell if her brand new seizure thing is caused by a heat, if it never ends? 

Even though she hates the diapers, she is kind of cute in them, and I am getting lots of baby practice.

Her sits are so awkward.

In the photo she's sitting on a carpet sample we brought home... flopped it on the floor, and she immediately knew it was a prime sitting spot.  Bet the flooring store is glad we kept that diaper on.

Yep, 2 years after moving in (has it really been that long?!) we're finally painting and changing the carpet in the guest rooms and baby room, and will finish the much-needed house renovations.  More on that in another post, of course.

In any case, I had no idea that a puppy's first heat could be so very long.  If it's still going on tomorrow, I'm calling the vet about it AGAIN.  Mint.com has started to alert me that our veterinary bills have been unusually high.

Post-April-Fools Placation

Okay, since I pranked you guys with the hammerhead shark ultrasound on April Fool's Day, it is only fair for me to give you a real view of the little bean.

A week ago we had our nuchal translucency scan, which measures some markers for genetic defects and whatnot (no worries, the results were great).  It was amazing to see how much the baby moves around in there though, I had no idea!  I can't wait to be able to start feeling it move, but have 2-7 weeks before that should happen.

It flailed, and wiggled, and waved. 

The ultrasound tech's description was a nice touch.

Our little spawn is beginning to look like daddy already... see the goatee and growing horns? 

D'aww.

That's it for today... I'm off to pick up my extra-spicy Thai soup cold cure.

Looking for Natural Cold Remedies

Alright people, this is the situation.  I have a cold.  I can't take medications for it, or any herbs "more than dietary amounts."  Hit me with your ideas!


This is what I'm trying so far.

• Lots of steamy teas to sip and inhale, including ingredients like:  chai, fresh peppermint, fresh ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice
• Raw garlic
• Super spicy foods... will definitely get some Thai food tomorrow! 
• Vitamin C rich foods
• Chewing crunchy things like apples 
• Keeping super hydrated
• Warm or cold washcloths over the sinuses
• Brief hot steamy showers
• Pressing the vibrating head of an electric toothbrush to my sinuses on my forehead and cheeks to loosen stuff up while having face under hot shower water... sometimes this is magical.
• Rocking the vomer bone in the nose... used to work temporarily for me, but now just makes me sore for some reason.
• Blowing the nose with a relaxed jaw (prevents mucus from being forced backward)
• Sleep whenever one nostril clears.  (I can't sleep and breathe through my mouth at the same time, so I was up until 5am.)  Use lots of pillows in an attempt to improve drainage.
• Bumped up the asthma meds slightly for the impending movement of the cold from head to chest.

Things I can't use.

• My trusty turmeric-honey-pepper remedy!  It only works in "much higher than dietary amounts," so I'm not gonna risk it.  In medicinal doses it can cause uterine stimulation, stimulates menstrual flow.  It can also slow blood clotting, and nosebleeds have been a problem.
• Neti pot.  No matter how many times/ways I have tried this thing, I just end up feeling like I have water in my ears/sinuses for 3 days afterward.  Doing it during a cold has been a one-way track toward a sinus infection.  It is obvious that my sinuses are a treacherous labyrinth that trap neti pot liquid.
• Any medications.  Sure, I'm in the second trimester by now, but I'm paranoid and won't use anything unless it's Tylenol to reduce a fever that's too high (and even then, Tylenol is associated with ADHD, so it's emergency-only).

Got any ideas?  Foods?  Safe herbs?  Yoga poses?  Anything?
I am all ears.  And stuffy sinuses.  And achy head, achy body, and sleepless.

I have a feeling that once the cold is over, I'll realize that the morning sickness and exhaustion of the first trimester have lifted, and I'll feel freaking amazing. 

Edit:  Well, that was a short cold.   2 days of tingly throat and feeling it about to come on, then 2 days of actual cold, then 5 days of a mild cough that didn't even count as being sick, and that didn't give me asthma.  Whoa.  It usually lasts 2 weeks... I have never had a 2-day cold!  And I've never had an asthma-free cold.  I guess 4 meals in a row of super hot thai food did the trick?  Or being pregnant gives me superpowers.