The Gamble Life

If we have a food crisis...

(you know, to go along with all our other current crises) the Life & Science Museum of Durham has the answer:

I wish I'd taken a little video so you could see all the wiggly meal-worms in their glory.  

Crickets in the wok!  Sure, who wouldn't love that?  A tasty little cup full ready to be devoured.

Our friend Stuart seemed to actually enjoy his insects and even went back for seconds.

His daughter shocked me by going right up to the table and eating two crickets without even a pause or second of hesitation.

Gus required a little more coaxing.  He also "dropped" half of his crickets and so only had two to taste.

He did it though. 

Although I don't remember him asking for seconds!  What do you think, does he look like he's enjoying his cricket?

Even Chris joined in, albeit after adding a little chocolate sauce to his cricket.

I'm glad this isn't the face he makes after tasting my cooking.

Abe was frankly horrified to see what his brother and father were doing.

Unfortunately, as the official photographer I just didn't have a chance to eat any bugs myself.  Oh well, as a mom I'm always willing to sacrifice for my family.

My Boys

I'm so behind on things I want to post about.  While we were in Austin we held our annual cascarones party and it was pretty awesome.  A little smaller than in some previous years and that made the party completely stress-free; everyone just relaxed and had fun.  And the "big" kids (5 year olds) are really getting into the egg hunt now so that was really fun to watch.

During that time after which we are ready for the party, but it hasn't started yet, Gus was READY FOR KIDS.  He sat out here on the porch just waiting for the first person to show up.  Isn't that so sweet?

Here's Abe doing what he does every time he sees me pick up the camera, a phone, or anything remotely electronic.

And here's Gus posing as T Rex for me.

Chris and I got iPhones and I have to say I am having so much fun.  I was exploring knitting apps last night and discovered that the awesome folks over at Ravelry have on their to-do list an app to link your Ravelry page to you iPhone and can I just say that that alone will make the iPhone totally worth the cost for me.  Who knows how long before they get that done; I know they work pretty much around the clock as it is, but I'll be waiting until they do!

I realized this morning that I missed my window to mail something important off in time to get where it was going which is very frustrating for me.  It's completely my fault.  I really hate it when I let things slip like that.  I'm trying to figure out how to fix it; I don't want to spent $20 or whatever mailing it overnight and I don't know if priority mail can guarantee a Thursday arrival.  I guess I'll be heading to the post office to find out.

Well, I have hilarious bug related pictures and stories to share but that will have to wait because I have actual family work to do this morning!

Seven Wonderful Years

Happy Anniversary honey!  I'm so happy we got married.

Don't we look sweet in this picture?  We literally had the time of our lives at our wedding.  We just had a fantastic and super fun time.  It was really really hot in Austin that day but I swear I hardly noticed and normally I am the first to complain of the heat.  Our whole wedding and reception were outdoors and I loved every second of it.

Thank you to everyone who was a part of our big day--we literally couldn't have done it without you!  And it sure wouldn't have been as pretty!

(By the way, my mom and I made my dress and wrap.)

Beautiful Spring Day

Yesterday was just one of those spring days when you do everything you possibly can outdoors because it is just impossibly beautiful; warm with a nice breeze, sunny but not too so.  It was glorious!

I finished another baby girl sweater, this one for Harper.  I hope she likes it!  Funny, both of these new baby girls live out in San Francisco.  This pattern is Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Sweater and I used 1824 cotton.  Ravelry link here.

In other springtime news, I started up the grill for another season.  My in-laws gave me this grill as a kind of new-baby present after Abe was born and when I cooked last summer, it was on the grill.  My favorite thing is to make the entire meal on it, like this:

Yup, that there is a fresh loaf of bread baking in my grill!  It works great.  You could bake it on a pizza stone in your grill, but my pizza stone doesn't fit along side my pan thingy (I cannot remember what it was called; I bought it at Williams-Sonoma but a quick search of their website did not turn one up.  It is essentially a very heavy pan with a trough for oil drippings for cooking veggies and other things that don't work so well on the grill itself.  I love it.).

As you can see, baking the bread there worked perfectly.

My bread recipes (all of them these days) all come from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  Last night I just used the "master" (basic) recipe. 

Today looks to be another fabulous spring day and Gus has the day off from school so we are off to do projects while Abe naps, then lunch with Chris, and then lots of bike riding.  I hope everyone else has as fun a day planned.

Happy Earth Day

I thought to celebrate our beautiful and bountiful Earth (shouldn't every day be Earth Day?) that I'd let the joy of discovery bring us all back to our childhoods.  Abe and his first strawberry:

I haven't come up with any special way to mark Earth Day this year.  A couple of years ago we went to a really neat festival at the Austin Nature and Science Center where Gus got to make paper and do other nifty things like that.  I think today maybe we'll go on a bike ride after school or a walk and just enjoy the beautiful spring day.

My baby sweater is coming along nicely; I thought I might finish it last night but ran into a bit of a delay casting on stitches for the sides of the body.  Perhaps tonight!  I've got birthday banners to sew after all.  Some of the fabrics I bought for the banners:

Socks

I've been knitting for twenty years but until the past year I never had any interest in knitting socks.  But about a year ago I decided I really wanted to knit Chris some socks.  The poor guy suffered so gamely through my first two GIGANTIC and extremely loose pairs of socks.  He's such a good husband that he even wore them until I took them away, because really they were disasters. 

Then I knit a slightly better but still too big pair for my mom.  I'm not sure what she does with hers. 

Then I decided I'd do some research from a few sock experts and test the next pair on myself.  Lo and behold they are perfect!  For you knitters out there, I actually dropped down to size zero needles.  I probably could have knit on ones and been okay, and I'll try that next time.  But really, it's all the same number of stitches regardless of needle size so I don't mind the zeros. 



Ravelry link here.  I used locally hand-dyed yarn by Three Waters Farm that I bought at Yarn's Etc., and it is just luscious.  The pattern is a free one and it is a really ingenious pattern.  There is no sewing at all!  After working a short-row toe, you do a three-needle bind off which is so easy and makes this beautiful toe ridge:



I love these socks.  As soon as I finish up some other projects I'll be casting on for a nice pair of socks for Chris which he definitely deserves after being my sock guinea pig!

But first, another new baby girl is desperate for a sweater (the fabric underneath is for a simple baby blanket for yet another new baby girl!):



Tomorrow is Earth Day and I want to do something neat with Gus (and Abe), any ideas?

Made From Scratch

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life by Jenna Woginrich

The book is light, but infectious. Jenna Woginrich is so excited about all the self-sufficient and sustainable aspects of her life that you absolutely want to join her.

As a child my parents raised chickens and rabbits, and the occasional other animal (a duck, a flock of turkeys--turkey eggs have such a thick inner sac you have to cut it with a knife, but they are BIG). I loved it. I love fresh eggs, and I liked hunting around the yard for them. We raised big New Zealand rabbits, meat rabbits, and I really like rabbit meat. I did actually help with the slaughtering, and I continue to believe that if you are going to eat meat you should be knowledgeable and comfortable about the fact that an animal did have to die for you to do so.  And you know absolutely what they ate and how they lived.

Woginrich isn't eating any meat but she eats eggs, wishes she could have harvested some honey, and spins her angora rabbits' fur. She also gardens (another thing I love), knits and is a serious thifter.
I challenge you to read the book and not want a flock of chickens of your own!

One of my main wishes for my children is that we lived in a place and time where they could have more freedom.  Raising animals in the backyard feels like that for me.  It isn't the same as letting my five year old explore the neighborhood on his own, obviously, but it brings a bit of "wild" into the yard.  It makes the yard a place with more opportunity for independence, exploring, responsibility, learning, and all while still being a kid.  And knowing Gus he'd quickly have the idea to set up an egg stand and pretty soon he'd have all the money for Juicy Fruit and Pez he could ever want and I'd be back to supermarket eggs!

We rent right now, and live in a neighborhood with an HOA and associated rules.  We also have no fence.  I'm not willing to do the research and work to figure out if I could raise chickens here and then do it.  But, when we are living in a different situation I am going to do it.  Nothing beats an egg straight from the backyard!  I have big plans too.  Raising bees, a big garden full of fresh veggies, chickens.  Who knows what else?  I already want to skip the grass and grow fruits, flowers, and veggies in my next sunny yard.  One thing at a time though--I'll start with hens* and see where that leads me.

*Oh yes, hens only.  I do have one not-so-fond memory of my childhood chickens involving that time the rooster decided I was too close to his space and thought he'd deal with me.  Nothing is quite the same as having a rooster land on your shoulder and start pecking your head!  I'm not so sorry to confess that I did enjoy having him for dinner quite a bit!

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New Baby Girl Tess

One of my best friends has just had a daughter!  I'm so happy for them, and excited because my friend got to have her daughter at home, just like she'd been dreaming of doing.  Most of my close friends have had their children at home, the lucky ducks.  That was always my plan too, but it didn't quite work out that way.  I'm not disappointed though...my labors and births were really wonderful and I was able to control much of how they progressed and of course I have my two beautiful and healthy boys now and there just isn't much more to ask for.  Still, I'm really happy she got the birth she wanted.

I knit Tess a little summer sweater, because she lives in Berkeley and I figure she might need it there.  Pink, of course, since I don't do any pink knitting for my own house.  The yarn is ecobutterfly's farfalla, an organic fair-trade yarn.  It is quite soft and is sure to feel good against baby's skin.  I prefer a neater stitch look, but I think this is quite sweet.  I didn't follow a pattern, instead I knit top down and sort of made it up as I went along.  I did have a similar sweater in a photo to follow.  Ravelry link here.

I'm finishing up my first successful pair of socks and then I think I'll tackle a season-appropriate lace shawl.  Pictures soon!

Book Sale!

The Durham County Library had a book sale a few weeks ago and we scored so many great books!  I can hardly wait for the next one.  All of the books were 50 cents for paperback and $1 for hardback.  Unfortunately the aisles were very small, it was very crowded, I was carrying Abe (in the sling, but still) AND bags full of books we were considering or buying, and we had to cram the whole thing in a short window of time between naps with time for lunch.  All of which is to say that next time I want to go alone and really get to browse through all the books! 

The kids books section in particular was a treasure trove of awesome finds.  I let Gus go through and pick out some that looked good to him, and I also picked some out.  I am not sure why the library was getting rid of some of these books.  Some had torn pages and I can see why they were selling those.  But some were in pristine condition, like the Douglas Florian poetry books.  Wow, these books are so GREAT.  Gus and I really like to read poetry and these poems are perfect, funny and short.  We love them.  I recommend them to all the parents; see if your library has them, you'll probably be surprised by how much your child likes poetry.

The craft section had probably already been pretty well picked through because I didn't find anything tempting except for the Simply Handmade book.  The first day of the sale was only open to folks who pay $25/year to be special supporters of the library system; that's okay, it's not like I don't already own some crafting books.  I did get a few of the old-fashioned hardback books, without dust jackets, that I'm planning to turn into journals.  This is a project I have been wanting to do for months now and just haven't had or made the time to sit down and do it.  Soon I hope.

But first I realized today that I have less than three weeks to make Abe's birthday banner, and plan his celebration!  Tomorrow includes a trip to the local quilting store for sure.

Why Rush the Grow-up?

I carry Abe in a sling (exactly like this one, only in black) pretty much everywhere.  He's heavy, at least 23 pounds, and I find strollers to be a lot of trouble.  But lately I have started to get a lot of comments:  "he'll just show up walking one day!" "are you going to carry him in that until he's walking?" "he's going to be five and you'll still have him in there!" "Is he going to learn how to walk?"  Man!  What gives?  I've never heard anyone make similar comments to a mom with their baby in a stroller and that stroller-riding baby is getting exactly the same lack of walking that a sling-baby is. 

There is something about being unabashedly close to your baby that starts to make people, especially other parents, uncomfortable after a certain age.  I do not even want to start a giant controversy here but it is the same with nursing, co-sleeping, or kissing.  Once your baby starts to look like a kid folks expect you to put away all that snuggling you do, or keep it at home and not talk about it.

So I think when they see me still holding Abe close to my body in his sling they don't know how to react because they aren't used to it, or it makes them wish they held their own babies longer, or something.  Most people enjoy seeing a newborn nurse, but feel funny seeing a toddler nurse and I think my sling is generating those feelings too.  Abe had a bit of a growth spurt over the last week and he looks more toddler-ish and less baby-ish now and I guess people have noticed.

Believe me, I use the stroller plenty.  At 23 pounds I have to!  He's too heavy to carry for long distances (like at the airport or on a long walk), even in the sling.  Strollers are great, but for us a sling is something special.  Abe never cries in the sling, he can nuzzle right against my face or chest and get comfort, he can turn away from someone who might be demanding too much attention from him (he's got nowhere to go to get away in a stroller), in a sling he can choose how much to interact with other folks (and sometimes he chooses so much interaction I pop him right out and hand him over!), he can rest his head and close his eyes or he can look around and take it all in.

I love my sling and I know Abe loves it too.  We aren't going to stop using it anytime soon, no matter how many silly comments we get.