Bread - attempt number 2

After my first attempt at baking my own bread a couple of days ago, I am trying again. Same flour, but instead of the quick rise yeast I'm using the normal one. And, I'm following the recipe on the flour bag, rather than the one in a book.






Visit my Quick Slow Food blog recipes, food commentaries and cookbook suggestions.










Well. The homestyle white dough is rising as I type this.


Before rising ...




After rising.








Hm...the bread is now doing its second rising, in the designated pans. I had to punch it down first...that was kind of fun...



Before second rising...







Stay tuned.

psss...I just peaked into the oven window....there seems to be some rising happening again....a little bump is visible through the tea towel....shhh, don't disturb my bread. Thankfully the little sickie is napping....

Well, the bread turned out yummy! I'm too tired to download the photos today but will post them tomorrow.

Benjamin saw them cooling on a rack on the kitchen table, climbed up on a chair, picked up a loaf and said

ooooooooooohhhh

He had some for supper with

butta

Can't wait to get a nice multigrain done next...or maybe a rye or sourdough...

Next day: I'm not any less tired than yesterday but did have an opportunity to download some photos, among other tasks. Why I'm not napping now while he's napping, I don't know. Tried, but couldn't shut the brain off...

Bread pictures: Here they are.....SUCCESS!

Visit my Quick Slow Food blog for recipes, food commentaries and cookbook suggestions.

Misery

I had a little break from my misery today because we went to visit some nice people with a cute little toddler boy and a sweet little dog who served us a fantastic lunch and provided us with an interruption from the daily blah.

For the past couple of days I have had nothing positive to say. Everything and everyone was pissing me off. Deep, dark, black mood.

So I went on a blog hunt to see if anyone else feels the same way. Misery loves company.

Blah.

Bad (drinking) mother of branded child

Yes, we let our toddler watch TV.

Specifically, he watches programs of our choosing, for a limited amount of time, either pre-taped, DVD or on the kids' TV channel Treehouse. He likes Mighty Machines, Thomas the Tank Engine, and similar programs. Thankfully he doesn't like Dora or Diego (I find Dora in particular very annoying).

We don't have any time limits or specific rules regarding TV. Yet. And yes, sometimes I allow him to watch more than I should, for various reasons most parents of toddler would immediately understand.

So imagine my surprise when this morning, upon seeing the treehouse icon, my not yet two year old actually says the word at the exact time he's looking at the word!


No...he can't read yet. I think this is clearly a case of brand recognition (GASP).

Fortunately he has not yet imitated the catchy little tune that they play between segments. You know..."♪ you're watching TREE...house ♪".

I was astonished, shocked and surprised, and immediately turned the TV off. My brain feels bombarded. Is he branded now? Commercialized? RUINED?

Perhaps I'm exaggerating a tad. It would help if I could remember the author, or the book's title, about a topic related to this situation. (Elisabeth Schor? Juliette Schorr? The branded child???) I would love to re-read her research results. But I can't for the life of me recall it, nor are the various search engines very helpful in that regard.

The reality however is that TV is a part of our life. Although hubby and I don't watch much, we do tune in and sometimes even tolerate shows that could best be described as idiotic. I even admit that I taped, during various times throughout my adult life, soap operas or other similar shows. Yes, taped them, so as to speed through the commercials. And you'll find me occasionally watching sitcoms like King of Queens, or Seinfeld, or Frasier, or even the one with Charlie Sheen in it...what's it called again? Something about two men?

Benjamin loves his videos. He knows which one he likes to watch, and picks them out at the library himself. He can have a mini-meltdown if he's not allowed to tune in at the exact moment he wants to.

But I redirect him often, and offer to play with him. As a SAHM (for now) I recently re-discovered Lego, and I have to admit I'm having great fun creating little vehicles for him (if it's got wheels, he's interested in it). We also read books, paint, do crafts, shovel snow and do an assortment of other things. He even has his own chores.

What does this have to do with the drinking part in the title of this post you ask?

Well...visit some mom blogs today and you'll note that almost all of them, particularly those of our American friends south of the border, have seen a segment on the Today Show a few days ago with Meredith making some comment about drinking mommies. You'll have to tune in to the various rants yourself to find out about it if you haven't heard. Try Notes from the Trenches (she's got 7 kids), or Mom, Ma'am Me (the first one I saw on this topic) for some of those rather funny commentaries.

Which brings me back to the drinking.

I enjoy my glass(es) of wine with some (many) homecooked meals. Given today's revelation however, that my toddler is now officially brainwashed, I can't help but think that Meredith would cast judgement on me too.

I know one thing for sure. We're having at least one glass of red wine with our T-bone steak tonight.

Cheers.

Bread

I am not a baker.

But recenty the National Post published an article, actually two I think, by Rosie Schwartz, called Sorting through the chaff. You can read the internet version here. It's about how Health Canada labels, or doesn't label, the food we buy in stores. Namely, what the real definition of whole wheat is, or should be. Specifically, the word "whole" in whole wheat is what is being debated.

Anyway. Some years ago the hubby read a book by James Beard called Beard on Bread. He made a couple of interesting breads from the book, and was given a slew of different kinds of flours and various sized baking pans by some family as a gift, all in the hopes of encouraging the hobby.

But hubby got busy with his job and continuing education and hasn't been able to practice the bread-making hobby much. So I figure, I may as well start doing it. Rosie's article kind of helped push me toward it too. Not that it was a big push, we like eating whole and organic foods, for taste and health.

Back to the baking. I just made a simple white bread dough using dry active yeast. Normally yeast and I don't get along, but apparently that's the yeast's fault, for being expired. I didn't know that yeast can expire. Beard and hubby helped educate me in that aspect.

I "proofed" the yeast as per baker Beard's instructions. Seems that our yeast was dead. Alive yeast was needed. So I stomped off to the corner store wearing heavy winter boots (new snow fell over night!) to buy some overpriced packaged yeast. (It's kind of like craving chocolate - when I want it badly enough, I go out and get it, no matter what the weather.)

So. The dough is rising as I type.


Before rising
About 1.5 hours later....looks bigger, doesn't it?

Stay tuned...






Ok. The first rising seemed to be working, although perhaps I should have waited even longer than the designated 2 hours.

Then, there's the situation about the second rising. It just didn't happen. May have been the inconsistent heat or humidity in the house, who knows.

I also decided to make two smaller loaves instead of one bigger one, but the dough looked kind of pathetic in the smaller pans that I had in the house:



After second rising, before baking...







...after baking.








I took a ruler to measure how high/tall/deep the bread "grew". Asked the hubby to hold the ruler. He of course was smirking away, and to counter the smirk he proclaimed that "it'll taste really good". Or something to that effect.



I snapped the photo and then sent him on his way before the ruler ended up someplace where the sun don't shine.

Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.




PS It wasn't till later that I found out that my mother NEVER EVER does a second rising. She just knocks the risen dough around a few times, throws in a few punches, and bakes it immediately afterwards. Her bread always looks like normal bread. Not like mine, all flat and dense.


Visit my Quick Slow Food blog for recipes, food commentaries and cookbook suggestions.

Exciting (cold) night

Of course furnaces never break down during mild weather. Ours, less than 3 years old, decided to give up its igniter ghost sometime during the day yesterday.

The nighttime temperatures measured something like -27°C.

To make a long story short, a few strategically placed space heaters kept the night fairly comfortable. After all, we were still indoors and protected from the elements. But naturally, the coldest night of the year also caused a resurfacing of my post-nasal-dripping-cough thereby pissing hubby off enough that he donned some longjohns and his housecoat and stomped off to sleep on the couch. Something about needing six uninterrupted hours of sleep in order to be able to fly the damn airplane the next day.

And predictably, not only did the darling toddler go to sleep more than an hour after his usual bedtime, what with his parents running around with extension cords and painters tape and funny looking noisy towers that emit hot air, but he also decided to whine and cry twice during the night. Finally took him to bed with me since hubby wasn't coming back to my bed anyway.

He wakes up a second time because he lost his Nuggi. Since I couldn't find it reaching around I had to get up, walk through the coldish house to his room, find the backup pacifier, walk back, resettle him and try to get warm and comfy enough to get another couple of hours of rest.

Not to be.

Felt wetspot between legs.

Get up again, go to frigid bathroom, turn on light (now I'm really awake) notice blood stains along new longjohns, underwear, down the leg, blah.

Take everything off, place in cold water (more cold), leave bathroom light on to go stumble around in bedroom closet to find new bottom-fitting garments, succeed, turn off light, and go back to bed.

Guess what? Toddler is sitting up now.

Guess what else? Dog thinks it's time to get up now.

Aim without success to resettle all just in time for hubby to get up, coffee maker to kick in, and lights to be turned on.

Sleep is overrated anyway.

PS Furnace guy (brother-in-law aka "unca Kevin") came by at 6 am, and we had heat minutes later. Drink hot coffee, take hot shower, drop toddler off at daycare for morning, pick up groceries, pick up toddler, put whiny tired miserable sack of potatos in his crib, and let him have his blissful, four-hour afternoon nap.

Broken furnace

It's cold outside and feels like -24°C with the wind chill. The house is currently 16.5°C and getting colder fast.

It's 5 pm.

Daddy isn't home yet.

This should be fun.

Blah

This is what I want right now:





And not just a little piece of it either...gimme the whole damn cake!







This is what I have on my brain today:

It's not like I have nothing to say. I'm just all dried up. Feel like chatting with someone but no one is around. Feel like IM-ing on yahoo, but nada. Feel like emailing but want response and no one out there is responding so forget it.

My friend's dog is sick. May have to be put down this week. I was there when she picked him out at the breeder.

I feel sad.

Blah.

Toddler screeching

It has become apparent why the greater powers have made me lose my hearing over the years.

They knew that someday I would give birth to a very noisy child.

He is currently going through the phase where he's experimenting with his body. This includes screeching and noise-making in an assortment of vocal tones, high and low pitches, not to mention excessive volume.

But I have to say that when the screeching starts, I have an advantage in that my right ear barely hears it at all, and my left ear, once the hearing aid has been removed, hears it at a significantly lower volume.

That doesn't mean that it's any less annoying.

1 more thing that happened but wasn't obvious till today

When I threw the carseat back in the wagon, the door caught on the belt.

Door remained slightly ajar most of the day.

Didn't notice.

Drained battery.

1 thing that didn't happen this afternoon.

He.

Did.

Not.

Nap.

Mama is very tired.

50 events that happened to me this morning

1. Toddler wakes up at 4.
2. Crying for no apparent reason.
3. Take him to bed with me for another couple of hours of much needed sleep.
4. Husband leaves for his day and forces us to wake up and get the morning started.
5. Start morning.
6. Realise I lost keys. Probably did this but can't remember. Previously blogged about it at length here.
7. Car's wipers don't work. Other car at airport with husband.
8. It's snowing.
9. Daycare starts at 8:30 am.
10. Found backup key for car.
11. Snowing slows down. No accumulation.
12. Leave door unlocked, tell Rusty to guard the house (ha) and leave.
13. Drive car to daycare with fan blasting windshield.
14. No further incidents on 8-minute drive to the school.
15. Drop off child, take down names of kids for future Valentine's card-exchange, look for grocery list.
16. Decide to cancel grocery shopping because it starts snowing again.
17. Get home.
18. Plan on drinking coffee, lurking in blogworld, and start looking for keys.
19. Coffee is cold.
20. Phone is flashing, voicemail.
21. Husband left message he has my keys.
22. Men.
23. Can't call him back because he is an airline pilot.
24. Call neighbour to schedule pick-up at daycare in her car.
25. About to go out to take carseat out of my car when an urgent email appears from daughter of next-door neighbour.
26. Next-door neighbour is sick again, and needs to call a cab to take her to emerg.
27. Could I keep an eye out to see if the cab appears.
28. Call neighbour. She's 86. Been sick on and off since August.
29. She asks me to call the cab.
30. Called cab for her, then go over to see if she can walk, breathe, etc.
31. Help her to the cab and send her off.
32. Can't accompany her due to keylessness and daycare situation.
33. Email daughter back that I put her mom in the cab, they're on the way.
34. Correspond with her for a few minutes to calm her down.
35. Coffee still cold.
36. Jump in shower, feel headache coming on.
37. Come out of shower, Germany on IM, we chat about my exciting, eventful morning.
38. See neighbour pulling into driveway for daycare pick-up.
39. It stopped snowing and the sun is out.
40. She still wants to take me to the daycare.
41. Lock front door.
42. Leave by back door, install carseat in her car, go to daycare for pick-up.
43. Hang out until Ben comes out of classroom.
44. Come home, take out carseat of neighbour's car, throw it in backseat of my car.
45. Listen to usual 5-minute whine about having to go inside and have lunch.
46. Make lunch.
47. Eat lunch with child.
48. Child is now watching a video and will (hopefully) have a nice long nap.
49. Made tea.
50. Blogged this.

A different kind of toilet training

I have two separate toilet training occasions to blog about today. The first one is about this:










The second one is about Pull-Ups.

First:

We found some nice fresh dog poop on our front yard today. This is not the first time nor will it likely be the last.

We have a dog. We pick up after our dog.

What do I have to do to get ignorant people to pick up after their pets on private properties, on walkways in public parks, on sidewalks for god's sake? Supply the bags???

Ok. Next.


Second: (warning, there is some serious mother-pride ahead)

My 22-month old toddler made pipi in the toilet today. At his school! (daycare)

We've been doing semi-regular toilet training for some time now. He has a seat for the big toilet and he has a potty.

He pees in the toilet often enough that it felt appropriate to mention to his teacher at his school. His class is comprised of one-and-a-half to three-year old toddlers (Montessori) and during washroom routine, there is opportunity to expose the younger children to the older children's "methods".

Today he must have felt included enough to try it out himself, and he succeeded!

So we stopped at Shoppers Drug Mart on the way home and got some astronomically priced pull-up diaper-undies to try out. The teacher suggested we try this and see what happens.

I'm not convinced this will be a regular routine for him, or that he will continue to pee in the toilet at school. I have blogged enough about his toilet training adventures in this blog to know that we may take a step forward but inevitably take two or more back.

He may regress. He may refuse to try. Or, he may proceed and improve for all I know.

But I am proud today. And encouraged.

PS note to self: I am happy that it was me who showed him the ins and outs of pipi in the toilet. For him to feel secure enough with his bodily functions to try it out at school reinforces my self-esteem about this mothering thing.

Technological procrastination

When I procrastinate I almost always end up on the computer. Doesn't matter what time of day or night it is. If I feel like procrastinating, an internet connection is all I need.

This is what happens:

Almost every day I log onto the computer, sign into the Yahoo Messenger system, and make myself appear "busy".

Then I go about my day. I may check email occasionally or see if someone is on the IM to chat with.

Often I drop by a favorite blogger to see what they're up to:

• Sometimes that inspires me to do any number of things, which contributes to my productivity
• Sometimes I simply get annoyed that there is so much stupidity out there
• Sometimes I laugh
• Sometimes I feel like crying
• Sometimes I get depressed

For example, I may visit a blog that talks about the importance of teaching our children about healthy body image. At the same time another blogger whose picture looks perfectly normal to me claims that they are fat. She proceeds to rant and rave about some sweet that is beckoning her and she admits to all kinds of unhealthy food choices to counter the effects of the sweet she ended up devouring. Pass the processed crap as long as it says lite or low fat on it and doesn't surpass 4 points. Or whatever. Same chick has a tiny female child who is no doubt listening and learning all these bad habits.

On the other hand, I may get so inspired by a craft idea by a fellow blogger that I cannot get my mind off it and spend hours of endless fun making stuff.

Sometimes I write a blog full of procrastinating blugger like this which no one will read. And even if they do, they won't leave a comment to agree or disagree with me. But at least I feel like I've been proactive in my productivity. At least I WROTE something.

I made up the word blugger. I was going to say blubber but that means something else. I like the effect this word has so it stays.

My ultimate reason for bluggering right now is because I'm pissed off that my query letter I wrote a couple of days ago has L.E.F.T. this computer and now I have to start from scratch.

Poof.

Nothing like a blog post to help get that writing feeling back.

Winter

Today we had to wear these.









Then we did some of this...









...but also some of this...

...Winter has arrived!

Tea cravings

Currently I drink massive amounts of decaf tea. This is mainly to keep from eating massive amounts of chocolate.

I crave comfort foods. Always happens when winter comes. And today, for the first time THIS winter, we have snow too!

note 1: It's been unseasable warm in the south-western Ontario area for the month of January, so a bit of fluffy white stuff is actually welcomed by some.

note 2: There isn't enough fluffy white stuff to warrant taking out the shovel, but it does look nice when rooftops and dead grass are covered with it.

So what's one to do when all this cool, wintery weather appears? Well, I made a pot of tea, and thought about the chocolate I don't have in the house.

Anyway, while shopping at Loblaws earlier, a place I rarely visit but had an inkling to do today, I hesitated picking up a nice container of orange-cranberry scones. Pushed the cart back to the display shelf a couple of times, but didn't cave to the crave.

Arg.

I should have bought them. Despite of the unpronouncable ingredient list.

I had nothing to eat with my tea, so I had to toast two frozen waffles. Spread them with unsalted butter, and maple syrup.

It was good, but the scone would have gone better with my seven cups of tea.

Maybe I'll bake another cake for tomorrow's emergency craving.


Visit my Quick Slow Food blog for recipes, food commentaries and cookbook suggestions.

Naming the nutty household

There is someone who has a very clever way of disguising her real name. I like her innovation, it's cute, and I hope she doesn't mind that I noticed and mentioned it here.

She calls herself Miche (which may or may not be her real name, I have no idea) and she has a blog which I have stumbled across on occasion. What's clever is that she calls the hubby Mr. Miche, and the child WeeMiche. Not sure if the child is a wee boy or a wee girl, haven't spent too much time visiting her blog, but how adorable!

Anyway. When I started blogging I was naively unaware how addictive this pastime can become. My original intention was to journal my thoughts and ramblings primarily for myself, and possibly for an odd friend or family member should they be so inclined to visit my blog during bouts of procrastination.

Then I got a comment or two, so I added a site meter.

My site meter tells me that I do have a few hits, which brings up the whole privacy issue. Which brings me back to the clever Miche name-calling.

So I start thinking about what I should be calling our household. I named my blog Nutty Notes, since 'nutty' is how I feel often, and Looney Bin didn't quite suit the purpose.

But I called myself and the others by 'normal' names. Not interesting ones like some bloggers have come up with.

HOW. BORING.

If I were to follow Miche's example, I could come up with an assortment of plausible names:

• I could be the Head-nut, the Nutress, Ms. Nutty or simply the Nutcase. (ha)
  
• My little guy would be the Wee-nut, or the Little-nut.
  
• Hubby could be....well, I won't go there today.
  
• And the dog? Nuttmutt? (HA)

Anyway, I thought I'd run this by the blog. Perhaps someone will respond, or comment, perhaps this will just be another nutty note to fly aimlessly around the blogsphere.

I will send Miche a note that I wrote this though. Since I started a dog-poop-in-ordinary-non-biodegradable-plastic-bag commentary. That was supposed to be a comment about a Zero Garbage post by Miche but ended up somehow causing Andrea at the fishbowl to wonder how it connected to her no-shopping contest.

Cheers.

Language explosion

I am absolutely astonished how his language is exploding.

want milk or want cookie

to

Mama sit hea

to

Mama put it up hea


All this in a week.

Amazing.

And wee baby...

Had to fit in a little tumble across the unmade bed after daycare drop-off and before desperate groceries.

Last day before the window shuts.

Child labour

I have assigned my toddler household chores. This is entirely his own fault.

There we were one morning sitting with our cups of coffee and the dog wants to go out (and in and out and in, it never ends). Neither one of us was fully awake and neither one of us could be bribed to get off our butts and walk 7 steps to let Rusty outside.

P.N.D. (Poor Neglected Dog).

Disclaimer: if anyone is reading this post out in blogland, we do NOT neglect our animal in any way, shape or form. He gets daily walks, food twice a day, has several dog beds in the house, toys, you name it. The PND remark is simply a sarcastic comment.

Anyway, since Benjamin was running around wide awake with no intentions of slowing down, we asked him to let the dog out.

And he did!

So we've been telling people that our child has become our servant. He loves doing stuff for us, and we love it when he does!

Benjamin, can you let the dog out?
Benjamin, Rusty is scratching at the door, can you let the dog in?
Benjamin, that belongs in the garbage/compost bin/diaper pail. Will you put it in there?
Benjamin, do you need your nose wiped? Go get a kleenex and I'll help you.

Ha!

His newest responsibility is to feed Rusty. This is quite the procedure. He has to:

1. open the pantry door
2. remove the stuff sitting on top of the Rubbermaid Bin where the dog food is located
3. pull the bin out
4. take the lid off (with help he can do it)
5. take the cup
6. fill it to almost full (that's quite the task in itself!)
7. carry it without spilling the contents (he's not looking at the cup when he's walking, he's looking ahead. And, he's walking very, very cautiously!)
8. pour the dog food in the dog bowl without spilling
9. return the cup into the bin
10. put the lid on
11. push it back
12. and close the door

That's a lot of steps for a 21-month old!

Of course we have to supervise but what the heck, start 'em young!

Duck toy (sleep-routine)

I bought this little battery-operated toy when I was a teenager. I kept it in my parent's basement and stumbled across it recently. So I took it home, put some batteries in it, and turned it on.

My toddler is delighted!

It has become part of the pre-nap and pre-go-to-sleep-at-night routine. He wants to see "gucks" and he wants to turn the switch on and off himself.

Personally I think it's just another delay tactic, but it keeps him quiet for a few minutes.

When we're done looking at the "gucks" we put them "up hea" on the shelf.

Whatever works I guess.

Quick dinner idea

I made Chicken on spinach a couple of nights ago when I was in a hurry.

If you have chicken and frozen spinach in the house, and feta cheese (or any salty, sharp, or crumbly cheese), this meal takes minutes to make.

It bakes for about an hour, just enough time to accomplish a task off the to-do-list.

Visit my Quick Slow Food blog for recipes, food commentaries and cookbook suggestions.

Lying to my child

I admit it. I lied to my little toddler. Wasn't the first time either.

There was this lemon poppyseed cake cooling on the table. There was also a bowl of soup in front of the child. But he kept eyeing the cake. He says:

want cake

I encourage him to forget about the cake by removing it to another location and saying things like:

eat your lunch
have some soup
try the beans
we'll have cake later

But he's not buying. He still wants cake.

Then comes the whining.

Finally I tell him the cake is too hot and that he has to wait. That was the lie. The cake is too hot.

He knows about hot. He tests his food by sticking his finger in it and announcing 'hot'.

Technically the cake was still cooling. Describing it as 'hot' was a tad exaggerated.

But it worked. He stopped asking for cake.

Rewind to this morning:
On the daily walk with the dog, he kept asking for

more cookies

The only thing I had handy was a bag full of library books, a bag of dog poop, and some kleenex.

He didn't understand that there was no more cookies right now. He tried to understand, I could tell by the way his wheels were turning. His lip was pouting. His eyes were glazing over, ready to spurt some tears. But every explanation just reinforced the one fact in his immediate little life: there was no more cookies in his cup.

I tried explaining about cookies being at home in the cupboard, not out here in the middle of the street, but I'm not sure if he got it. After a while he let it go but once we reached the house he started wailing for cookies. Even refused to walk up the steps. The only thing on his mind was the cookies.

Such trauma in a baby's life.

Hypoglycemic

My blood sugar crashed. Probably because I ate 4 waffles today. Too much simple carbs in my system.

After several days of non-stop energy and a toddler who is sleeping through the nights, I'm feeling rather pooped today.

No energy to write.
No energy to surf the blogsphere.
No energy to get up off this chair and and get tea.

Blah.

Reading cookbooks part II - Healthy eating

Andrea of Quietfish has written a blurb in her blog called Promoting a healthy body image in young girls. It is an important message even for those of us who are raising boys. After all, Mommy is a girl. And the boys will most likely have a girlfriend at some point, no?

Coming originally from a European background where healthy eating is (was?) the norm and not labeled "healthy" per say, I found it fascinating and to some degree irritating as a teenager and young adult that people my age were drinking diet coke for breakfast and visiting fast-food joints on a regular basis and calling it their favorite food.

In University during the late 80s and early 90s, I drank diet coke because all the girls drank diet coke. I didn't even like it! But back then, it was the in-thing to do. (I'm not like that anymore).

Today, we grow our own veggies in a little plot at the back of the house.

Offer someone who claims that Wendy's or KFC is their favorite food a sun-drenched tomato harvested seconds prior to eating it and see if you can convert them. (If you live in Canada you may have to wait till next September to do that).

Is it me or is counting calories, or points, unnatural? I have heard from many people that Weight Watchers works, but that in itself is a lifestyle choice too. If you have to weigh food and consult a chart, and make that as part of your lifestyle, why not just pick fresh food, and on that topic, ask questions about how the food was raised or grown, and make that your lifestyle?

There is someone I know casually who has successfully (not!) tried Weight Watches over many years, AND KEEPS GOING BACK THERE WHEN SHE GAINS THE WEIGHT BACK. Maybe this system works for some people, and if so, all the power to them, but I still think it's unnatural to weigh food.

Eating healthy seems so simple to me.

But I know it's not for some people.

If you grew up with packaged convenience foods, whose shelf life would survive a nuclear war, well, a whole new approach to food must be considered in order to make healthier choices.

You could start by reading Fast Food Nation, French Women don't get fat, or any number of Whole Food type cookbooks out there (go to the library and borrow a book if you participate in the contest of not spending frivolously, or visit some of my recommendations and spend a half hour at a bookstore), and see if you can take one step in the direction of eating right and making healthy choices.

You will feel better.

You will learn to enjoy cooking if you don't already.

And you will be amazed how disgusting a Big Mac really tastes after you've had an opportunity to eat an organically grown hamburger, topped with home grown (or farmer's market) veggies and few, if any, prepared condiments.

And on that note, I must have lunch right now.

Reading cookbooks

I've been reading cookbooks lately. There was a time when I was obsessed with mysteries (Robert B. Parker, John Lescroart), and Montessori education but these days it's vegetarian and vegan cooking.

We are not vegetarian, nor are we vegan. But the cookbooks I've come across recently have a wealth of information that help inspire cooking healthy, quick and cheap (!) meals that satisfy and taste good too!

Here's a sample:

The Versatile Grain and the Elegant Bean, a celebration of the world's most healthful foods
by Sheryl and Mel London
This book has a neat layout. It introduces each grain or bean with a historial analysis, discusses its uses (or lack of uses) from the contemporary (American) perspective, and then provides a series of recipes that cover all meals throughout the day.

The One-Pot Vegetarian Dishes
by Amy Cotler
I like the way this author writes. She writes like the Urban Peasant, and the recipes are so easy!

The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, meat-free, egg-free, dairy-free dishes from the healthiest region under the sun
by Donna Klein
Just reading this book gives you the impression you live in the Mediterranean region; you can almost feel the sun and taste the freshness!

To do list part II

We found the Excel CD. Yay. But a whole set of new problems have arised now. Has to do with Microsoft's restrictions and limits. There is a reason why we focus on using Open Office on some of our computers. But he needs Excel for his homework, and it is a versatile program, so what can you do.

Blah again.

Got my hair cut. New layers, more layers. Looks good, I think, but as soon as I got home and saw the mess, I pinned it back. Can't embrace the mess with stylish hair hanging into my eyes.

Busy new year - To do list part I

I haven't posted on this blog because I've been busy doing stuff.

I have been writing "in my head" and have found (one of) my elusive notebooks and started making notes again. I have a million ideas, but just no freakin' time!

In order of priorities this is what must happen today:

1. Find the Excel CD so he can install it on his computer for his two courses he's taking and not steal my laptop all the time.
2. Get my hair cut
3. Continue with the basement cleaning and look for the flippin' CD down there
4. Plus do the usual daily cooking/eating/cleaning-up toddler routine.

It is amazing how much stuff accumulates when one has kids. Or when the mailman drops off all this useless junk.

The boxes the diapers come in are great for storing baby stuff he's outgrown or doesn't play with anymore. I have 5 going on 20.....neatly labeled and everything.

I feel blah.

Pipi in the toilet!

It occurred to me that I harp on about the lack of pipi in the toilet.

Well tonight he made pipi in the toilet.

We clapped and then had a nice, quick shower.

Success with the pipi however does not mean that there won't be any night-time antics at bedtime. But I'm not in the mood to anecdote those right now.

Since I'm typing these words however one must assume that the child is slumbering...which he is.

Yay.

Naptime Shmaptime

Please tell me he's not done napping yet. I heard that some kids stop napping around age 2 and a halfish. He's nowhere NEAR there. Yet for some reason this is becoming a regular recurrence.

This is not helping me. Mama is not happy.

Made a mighty fine coffee cake though...didn't have chopped pecans so I used chopped hazelnuts (filberts).

PS He did finally fall asleep, to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider. Mama is a little bit happier now.