Knock Me Flat

I love using cloth diapers, but I lost my momentum with using them eighteen months ago; the Infanta has been primarily in disposable diapers since then. Elessar has also been in mostly 'sposies since she was born.. I make sporadic efforts to switch to cloth, but since it mostly ends up being an extra layer of stress that triggers my PPD*, I've been purposefully letting it go.

But I keep looking for inspiration to get back to my cloth. One of my Twitter mamas started talking a couple days ago about the Flats Challenge and it sounded interesting, so I checked it out and I'm in! Back when the Infanta was born we purchased a package of flats; they languished unused in a drawer until Elessar proved to be a spitty baby, and we needed burp cloths stat. I also have assorted receiving blankets that will work well, too.

Because of my PPD*, I'm going to modify my participation some (and therefore won't be linking myself to the challenge directly - they seem pretty all-or-nothing). 1) I'll be machine washing. 2) I will use 'sposies (or other diapers) as needed - at night, or if I just need to go for the "easy" route.

*I say "PPD" (post-partum depression), but I mean "PPMD" (post-partum mood disorder) because I have a lot of anxiety, too.

In which money is spent.

At our family Easter dinner yesterday, my sister in law told us that the sporting goods store formerly known as G.I. Joe's is going out of business. I don't know if it's just the one here in town, or if it's chain-wide, but it doesn't much matter for our practical purposes.

So tonight, when Josh had decided for assorted reasons that don't matter here that we were going to go out for dinner, and we ended up at the local Sonic, located just a couple of blocks from the Joe's, it seemed inevitable that we would end up wandering its bargain-hunter-crowded aisles in search of bargains ourselves. (How's that for a sentence?) Thing is, we really want to be able to go camping, and the gear we have is really pretty minimal, so we took this opportunity to improve our equipment. We're still going to be working with our previously minimalist setup (teeny tent, one ancient sleeping bag that has to be supplemented with blankets, no padding...), but at least we have a few improvements. We bought a roll-up table, a lantern, a few camp dishes, a ground cloth... Oh, and a baby bicycle helmet, in case we manage to get bicycles we like any time soon. So, not a ton of things, and we'll still be bringing a fair amount out of the house next time we attempt camping, but a few more refinements. These things take time...

Morning Girl

Blessed are they

I do a lot of my meal planning for the month on the fly while doing our monthly grocery shopping at WinCo. It's not that I don't have things in mind before that, it's more that that's when I manifest the realities of what I need. Anyway, I saw a recipe a few weeks ago for lasagna made with egg roll wrappers for the pasta, and thought that was such a good idea that I picked up a couple of packages while shopping this month. Then, sometime last week I decided that it was time to actually make the darn stuff, and decided, influenced by this book and this post, that I would make my own ricotta.



So here's my first cheese, draining. I wanted to take more pictures during the process, but I had put my camera battery to charge, so I couldn't... let's just say it all went as planned, and that it really does work to make ricotta out of a gallon of milk from Safeway. Oh, yes, and if you're using lemon juice as your acid, it really works much better if you add it after the milk is heated, not before!

The things you see when you haven't got your gun.

In no particular order:



Yes, Lina is very much her mother's daughter, complete with glares.



This is rapidly becoming my favorite dessert: marionberry shortcake, with ample whipped cream (of course). The berries were fresh from the farmer's market, the shortcakes were courtesy of Bisquick. Sue me, I'm lazy!



More uses for a mei tai.

I spose it's time to start posting about the food budget challenge, since I went shopping for next week's food today. I spent about $60 today; yes, I know, that's more than I'm supposed to spend for a week's food, even if you count Lina towards the total. However, that wasn't all food (we slipped a couple of soda-type drinks in, and I also added a $5 food container), and some items will stretch for weeks or months - for example, the tahini I bought to make hummus with. All in all, I feel pretty good about today's purchases.

I also went a little crazy this evening with food pre-preparation. After a yummy bowl of leek and potato soup (leeks bought a week or two ago, potatoes delivered from our CSA), I randomly decided to start using up my white bread flour (unbleached, natch) by making some pizza dough to freeze for later use. For the curious, this means I made the dough and gave its first knead, then popped it in freezer bags (one ball of dough to a quart bag, two quart bags to a gallon bag, air squeezed out as much as possible) and into the freezer. The dough will rise in the freezer, but very slowly; the double bag method means that if any should burst their initial bag, the outer bag will contain the dough. Honestly, I don't expect it to last long enough for that to be a problem. When I'm ready to use a ball of dough, I'll pull it out of the freezer and let it defrost; by the time it's room temperature, it will also have finished rising. Then, since I had momentum (if only sort of energy), I chopped the veggies for the pot roast I'm making tomorrow. We're actually having some folks over for dinner, and since I like to cook my pot roasts until the fall apart in the pan (which takes forever), I want to make sure that I start the roast early enough that it's actually ready on time. I figure that having the veggies all ready to go will expedite things - it won't necessarily save time, since I generally do them while the roast is browning, but it will certainly save energy and brainspace (which will promptly be used up by the above cutie pie). I also started some chickpeas soaking to make that hummus I mentioned earlier; it seems that I've corrupted my picky-eater husband into liking it, and since it's WAY cheaper to make than to buy... you do the math.

Carolina Bright-eyes

That's my cutie!

She's now two months old (or nine weeks, take your pick on how to gauge it), and currently spending much of her waking hours screaming - because she's processing so much she can't cope right now. Not much fun for any of us, and Josh and I hope it passes very, very soon.

At her two-month checkup on Friday, we found that she's 24" tall (in the 95% for her age) and 11 pounds (50%) - tall and slender, much like me. With her height, she's almost grown out of three-month clothing, but too skinny for six-month pants. Fortunately, the weather seems to be warming up again, so maybe by the time she needs pants again she'll have plumped up a bit.

And now for something completely different. A month or so ago, I joined a group here in town that's exploring ways to make our lives greener without breaking the budget. At our last meeting, we talked about food, and Stacey passed out a set of menus and recipes aimed at eating local, cheap, and healthy - and organic as much as possible. Several of us have decided to try out the menus this month, and report back how it worked for us. Since we're going camping much of this week (in fact I need to get off the computer and go shower and pack and stuff!), and I believe we have ample food to carry us through the rest of the week after we return, I'm going to start counting next Saturday, when we go food shopping next. The goal is to spend $15 per person per week; I'd usually say that would be $30 for me and Josh, but I may fudge and add a few bucks in Lina's name, since I'm eating for two still. We'll see how it goes!