Another set of videos for grandma

It's Tuesday, which is usually the day that grandma comes to watch the baby. Sadly, grandma is on vacation. She'll have to get her baby fix at a distance.

Mom, these are for you:

(P.S. For the record, Pahoran should be pronounced pay-hor-an or maybe puh-or-an but not power-on.)

A Bit About Food in Our House

I read a lot of "health" articles. By health I mean a wide range of topics, from food to exercise to cleaning. Most of the articles are about food -- what it means to have a balanced, healthy diet; tips and tricks for developing such a diet; the importance of eating organic and "abnormal" foods; and cooking/baking advice.

What do I mean by abnormal foods? Well, are you familiar with quinoa? It has become a staple in our household. At the recommendation of a friend, I purchased a bag of quinoa from Costco quite awhile ago (maybe it was about this time last year?). We tried making a couple of different things with it, but mostly it just sat on the shelf. Then, rather suddenly, I started coming across quinoa articles quite frequently. And quinoa came up in several conversations. So last summer we ordered a cook book that's all about quinoa:

We've made a lot of the recipes from this book. I wish I could tell you they were all great, and that I love every recipe, but it's not true. Some of the recipes are terrible. Many of the recipes are bland. Most of them just replace the rice or flour in a traditional recipe with quinoa or quinoa flour. BUT there are some GEMS in this book. For instance, I LOVE several of the soup recipes (we had the Italian wedding soup for dinner this evening; it's a tad bland for Nate's taste, but I like it). There's a DELICIOUS mango chicken recipe, and I like a lot of the breakfast meals (which use quinoa flour, which my mom brings me from the Bob's Red Mill store in Milwaukie). In particular, the waffle recipe is great. Oh! And there's a recipe for banana-and-creme-filled chocolate crepes. Yum-tastic.

In addition to incorporating foods that are less common (but way better for us) into our cooking/baking, we've also switched to whole wheat. I've been using whole wheat flour for years, and we slowly switched over to whole wheat breads (including hamburger buns, which are MUCH tastier with whole wheat), but now we've transitioned all of our pastas and many of our cereals.

Another big change is that we've gone organic with our produce. We're not perfect about it, but when I/we go grocery shopping every week, I first go through the organic section to buy the organic version of everything I can. If something on my list isn't organically available, I go to the regular section. But I try to avoid non-organics, if at all possible. (Note to self, I should really check out the "hippie food" store down the street from my house, as it probably has a wider variety of organic produce. And bonus, it's a local business!) We also try to eat more "seasonally appropriate" produce.

I am looking forward to doing a lot of gardening this summer so that we can cut down on our grocery bill and get even more fresh, healthy, organic foods into our diet. I need to buy some heirloom seeds (mom, remind me to ask you about this later). But we also have a lot of yardwork to complete before the new gardening area will be ready for summer planting! Fun times ahead, for sure. Stay tuned!

House Hunting for My Folks: Part 1

Every Friday night I think about writing a blog post. Sometimes I even sit down to the task. But I often feel like I don't have anything to say. Then Saturday comes with its whirlwind of activity, and usually I find something to talk about. (On Sundays, I start making mental notes of all the things I could write about in future posts; I often dilute myself into thinking that I will get another post in on Sunday or Monday.... or maybe Tuesday... but it doesn't happen. Life happens. And life doesn't usually stand still long enough for me to sit in a chair and type about it.)

The post I wrote yesterday (about doing demo in the basement) was started on Friday. I kind-of think of it as Friday's post. The post I really wanted to write for yesterday was about house-hunting for my parents, but I ran out of time. (Typical!) Today we had church in the morning, and it's nap time right now. Baby and dad just cuddled up in bed... I have one hour to myself. Apparently I want to spend it typing because here I am!

During naptime yesterday afternoon I went, on behalf of my parents, to look at three possible houses. They were all on the East side of town, about 30 minutes from my house. Sadly, the outcome of the houses was fail, fail, fail.

The first house was an excellent house. It had four bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. The floor plan was very open, everything was easily accessible, the master suite was just the right size. It had a huge upstairs space with a couple of bedrooms and a full bathroom -- a good setup for dual living, if needed. The lot was a little more than half an acre in size, with beautiful lawns and beautiful houses on two sides....

Then there was the other neighbors. Even though the house is out in the country, it just happens to be located right next to a small cluster of very shabby houses. Apparently the other dozen residences are (or were?) part of an agricultural co-op. If the house were in a different setting, I would tell my mom to go see it. Unfortunately, half the "neighborhood" is very undesirable.

So we moved on to the second house. It was likewise a lovely residence on a large, beautifully manicured lot. There was plenty of room for my folks to park their RV and do some gardening (a hobby/passion of my mom's). But house two was too small. The kitchen was tiny -- it felt smaller than my kitchen, even. The doorways were all quite narrow, the rooms weren't especially roomy. Plus it was boxy.

We didn't stay long; we continued to the third house...

Ahhh, privacy. Safety. Luxury. Rich people! House three was in a very secluded, gated neighborhood full of big houses on large lots. You could smell the money.... or maybe just hear it. (Homeowner #3 happened to be at home, and she wasn't especially nice. I guess I can't blame her -- it's obvious that I'm just a middle-class gal in my late 20s; it's not like I'm going to buy a big, fancy house. She became somewhat nicer after I explained that I was previewing the house on behalf of my parents.)

The landscaping felt like a park or country club. There was a bubbling stream at the foot of the property and lots of lovely, mature trees. The house itself was... so-so. It was all one level, which is great, but it had a lot of angles. The spare bedrooms were a bit small. And the master bathroom... oh gosh... carpeted throughout. And needed a lot of work besides. So house three wasn't a good fit. And I was happy to escape that gated den of gluttonous living.

(I'm hyperbolizing, in case it's not obvious.)

Thus the search continues. I still have a long list of potential properties, and I plan to preview plenty of them, probably continuing next Saturday with another two or three. Stay tuned!

In my free time this week: Demolition

During the week, I have the distinct pleasure of spending every morning with my daughter. She likes to get up early, usually about 6am. I'm not much of a morning person, but I always get to bed by 10pm so that I can be fresh and happy when she wakes us up oh so very early.

We pack a lot of great things into our morning routine, before I have to "go" to work. There's the normal stuff -- food for both of us, a shower for me, and a few diaper changes. We also like to play and read a book together, and I get some basic things done around the house (cleaning, laundry, putting things away, chopping up ingredients for dinner, etc.). Around 9am the baby goes down for a nap and I have some quiet time to read and do other, quiet little things. After naptime we like to go for a brisk walk around the neighborhood. Then I eat lunch, baby "eats lunch" and I start working.

This week I decided to use some of our morning time to do a little bit of demolition. When we moved into our house three years ago we started tearing apart the hallway and utility room in our daylight basement. This time last year, we got things stripped down to the studs. Recently Nate put in some new framing in the storage space underneath the staircase. Before we can continue with the new framing, the rest of the studs need to come out. So that was my goal for the week -- to tear things down.

Every morning this week, I wrapped the baby in a down throw blanket and set her in a large wicker basket with toys:

And I worked on tearing down the studs. The baby was content in her basket, playing and watching me work, for about 20 minutes at a time. So I worked around her schedule. It turns out that 20-30 minutes is plenty of time to get some work done without totally wearing myself out.

After five mornings of work, I created the following pile of wood:


And here's the before-and-after of the space:

Our plan is to re-frame this space, but do things a little different. There will be a wall in exactly the same place as the old studs, but the doorway will be shifted over about two feet. This will allow me to make better use of both the hallway space and the utility room. For instance, if the door moves toward the middle, I can build cabinets against the right wall in the above picture. (Previously, since the doorway was basically against this wall, you couldn't build anything, and this made for a lot of wasted space.)

This is a terrible rendering (made via MS Paint, ha!) but here's an idea of what I'm talking about:

Videos of the baby (for grandma)

Mom, since you're missing "your baby" so very much...

A picture of my darling

I prefer to post most of my pictures on Facebook. In my experience thus far, Blogger is not an ideal platform for uploading, organizing, and labeling pictures. But the blog would get dull if I never posted any pictures, so here's one from about a week ago, when I was experimenting with some of the different settings on my camera:

Ahhh, my daughter. Isn't she sweet and lovely? I adore her.

From this week: Sleeping in, running errands, and flowers

Last Saturday I started my blog by mentioning that it had been a pretty rough day. I am happy to report that the next day, Sunday, was much better. The baby woke us up early again but after I was done nursing her, Nate offered to take her and play with her for awhile so that I could get more sleep. Ahh, sweet sleep! I sneaked in another 30 minutes before baby's (joyful) cries from down the hall again woke me up. When I hauled my tired sack of bones into the baby's bedroom, I found Nate dressing her up to go for a walk!

"Go back to sleep. We're going for a little walk -- the house will be nice and quiet."

It was about 7am at this point, so there was no chance I was getting back to sleep. But their adventure gave me the chance to take a shower, dress, and eat in blissful solitude. By the time they got home I felt like Super Mom, ready to tackle the day and enjoy every minute. It's amazing what a little bit of extra sleep and a low-stress morning will do for one's attitude.

It was a bit of a long week, as baby is again teething and seems to be going through ALL of the symptoms this time. She was feverish early in the week, poor darling. Thankfully the fevers have passed (for now). No signs of the culprits poking through her gums yet, though. I'm guessing we will see the top two teeth come in next, since the bottom have already arrived.

Tuesday was a thrice-special day this week. It was Valentine's Day, the baby's 8-month "birthday" and my mom's last day of babysitting for awhile (she's going on vacation until the end of March). I am amazed that my daughter is already 8 months old. It seems like a big number -- 8 months. I feel like we're about to hit some major landmarks, like saying real words and crawling. How exciting!

For Valentine's day, Nate usually buys me flowers. A large, beautiful arrangement. And while I LOVE getting flowers, I feel pretty sad when they start dying, and I don't like to clean up dead flower bouquets (nor can I bear to get rid of them while they are still even a little bit pretty). So this year I told my dear, sweet husband that he is welcome to buy me some plantable annuals or even bulbs for Valentine's Day....

And he took my advice. After we plant my new bulbs, I can spend the summer enjoying a violet-colored clementis, three purple dahlias, and half a dozen bushes of red lillies. They will be lovely! I am very excited -- I love bulbs.

Today was a fairly nice day. Nate was gone on a snow trip with the youth group for most of the day, so it was just us girls. We did a quick grocery trip and then spent some time with my sister. It was wonderful to see my sister. I really love to spend time with her, as she is very easy to talk with and always lets me unabashedly unload any of my frustrations. Unfortunately, she is VERY busy right now with nursing school, so she doesn't have a lot of free time. I'm especially sad that my daughter doesn't get to spend more time with her aunt, as my sister is amazing with babies and they seem to really enjoy each other. It warms my heart to watch them play.... I'm a tad impatient for my sister to have children.

After a brief nap back home, we ran a couple of errands. Then I was pretty tired (it's been a long week!) so we went home again for some quiet playtime. Baby took another short nap and I rested my eyes, too.

Nate came home shortly thereafter, which was really good timing. I was starting to feel burned out. (It's such a relief to have an extra set of hands around the house.) We decided to enjoy the temperate afternoon by doing a little yard work as a family; Nate used the baby backpack to carry around our daughter and weed the flower beds while I trimmed some bushes. It only took about an hour to get the front yard looking significantly tidier. There's still a lot of work to complete, but we're making progress. Every little bit helps!

After finishing up the yardwork we headed out to Costco. The shopping list was only three items long, but I really needed to get out of the house. When we got to the store I made the mistake of checking out the kid's clothing section.... they just got a bunch of new Carter's spring- and summer-time outfits in stock, in sizes ranging from 3 months to 24 months. I have had a hard time finding 12- and 18-month-size clothing, and I "needed" to get a couple of little things for the baby. So I used my allowance to buy her a couple of outfits -- one because it was too cute to resist, and another because it included a zip-up jacket and baby needs jackets/sweaters in the next size up.

I mentioned earlier in this post that my mom is on vacation through the end of March. She and my dad left on their trip just today, in fact. It's their annual "snow bird" adventure down to drier, sunnier climates. My mother will come back with a beautiful tan, a brighter spirit, and a couple of random gifts. (Seriously, random is the appropriate adjective: Last year we got olive oil; the year before we got pistachios and vanilla; my dad once got Nate some allergy medicine from Mexico. I'm not complaining -- we enjoy the random presents. Quite a bit.) My dad will come back with a slight sunburn on his bald head (teehee, love you dad) and also in better spirits. They really enjoy their trip, but I always miss them when they're gone, and this year it is especially hard to see them go. I'm hoping for a speedy return... I miss them already.

The one fun part of their absence is that I get to look at houses on their behalf while they are out of town. I love to go see houses, so I anticipate having a lot of fun. I've already contacted their realtor about a handful of properties. (One of today's errands was doing a drive-by on a couple of properties. I saw promising prospects.) I plan to take videos of the really good houses. The videos will be posted on YouTube so my mom can check them out... Hmm. I maybe I will link to them in a blog post so that you can all enjoy them, too.

Well it's after 9pm, so I need to get off the computer. (Where does the time go?!) I'm looking forward to another wonderful week. Until next time...

My history with TIME magazine

Today was not a very good day. It was the kind of day that kept going wrong, regardless of my actions. Frustrating. I would like to box it back up and ship it RETURN TO SENDER. I've decided to go to bed an hour early (i.e. as soon as I am done with this blog post), and look forward to a much better day tomorrow. If the baby decides to kick-start my day at 5:30am again, hopefully I will be prepared. (BTW, what is with her and waking up early on Saturday morning? There is no television with which to watch Saturday morning cartoons! Go back to sleep, crazy little bugaboo!)

Anyhoo, let's move on to something else...

I have a subscription to TIME magazine. From time to time (pun intended), I read an article in the magazine that arouses strong feelings, and I want to share the article and my reactions. This happened just a couple of weeks ago... although I can't remember the particular article. (How sad is that?) Nevertheless, I wanted to give fair warning that I might share some things from TIME as the mood strikes me. You might see a bit of my nerdy/analytical/economist self poke through on these occasions. Beware. :o)

So how did I become a TIME subscriber? Glad you asked...

Once upon a time (pun definitely intended) when I was a teenager, I did a bit of traveling. I racked up a fair number of frequent flyer miles. Not feeling that said miles were of much value for anything, I did not hesitate to trade in some miles when, in my freshman year of college, Delta made me a sweet offer. Get a free magazine subscription in exchange for.... flyer miles? What the heck are those things, anyway? Deal.

My subscription was good for a year. When it came time to renew, I had to pay money. What?! I liked the magazine, but I didn't like it that much. No deal. Goodbye, so long, I had a real nice time. (Yup, pun intended.)

A couple of years went by. I got a part-time job and got married. I was in my senior year of college and TIME made me a new offer -- one year for $30. Okay, not bad. A year was 52 normal issues, plus four bonus issues, which were all about seasonal fashion trends and were printed on extra large pages. I also got a cheap alarm clock thing. Good enough -- deal.

Another year lapsed. TIME stopped doing the seasonal fashion issues, but they offered me a pretty neat history book with my one-year renewal. Ehhh.... okay. I was working at my first post-college job and felt like I could afford to "splurge" on this magazine that I had come to enjoy.

Things got a little more interesting the next year. I was pretty busy when the renewal reminders started coming in the mail, so at first I ignored them, setting them among a stack of to-do items. And a funny thing happened: The closer I got to the renewal deadline, the better the offers became. A lower renewal price...a better bonus gift...an even lower price... etc. So I delayed my renewal right up to the very last couple of issues (maybe I even let it lapse for a month?) and finally they offered me three years for $30 AND a fairly nice duffle bag. I was mostly excited about the heavy discount on the cover price; when the duffle bag came in the mail, I was surprised by its quality. Deal? Heck yeah -- score!

My subscription is up this summer. They've started pestering me to renew... But I'm holding out for at least the same deal as last time (oh! pun not intended, but that was funny anyway).

Moral of this story? Do nothing and you can get everything you want. Or something like that.

Positively another 2012 goal

We set a lot of personal and family goals for 2012. I didn't use to think much of New Years "Resolutions" and, well... I still don't! But I do recognize that January 1st, the start of a new year, is a good time to set or update some goals for oneself. So Nate and I chatted about it at the end of December and each decided that we would set goals for ourselves. After sharing, comparing, and discussing our goals, we recognized some common themes and decided to create a few family goals.

Related to this, I like to come up with a personal theme/motto for myself each year. (Several years ago, this is something I read about on a friend's blog, and decided to copycat the idea. Brilliant.) My first motto year was 2010, when I decided to do hard things. That was a phrase I'd heard in a church talk (stake conference), and it hit home. Sometimes doing the right thing also means doing something hard, or something that involves sacrifice. Like many people, I tend to shy away from challenges and look for the easy road. But in 2010 I wanted to work on that problem! I also knew that 2010 was, finally, the year we were going to try and "start a family" (I pretty much hate that phrase). The idea of being pregnant and having a child terrified me. So I knew that if I was going to take a huge leap of faith and get pregnant, I would have to do a very hard thing! It was a perfect motto for me that year.

Last year, in 2011, my goal was to pray always. Not much to say there, except that I needed to be more prayerful in my life. I was less successful with following that motto, probably because I didn't even come up with the motto until April or May. Arg.

This year, I want to become a kinder, more positive, more considerate person. As much as possible, I want to fill my life with good things. So my motto for 2012 is "Think Positive | Be Positive". I strongly believe that change starts in our minds and hearts, with our attitude! So if I want to be happier, friendlier and more Christlike, I better start getting my head in order.

I shared this motto with Nate, and he loved it. He decided to also set a goal of thinking positive thoughts and being positive. So we've started to work on it together, and oh! What a blessing it is to be a team on this one. We've been able to remind each other to look on the bright side and to always say nice things about others. I am looking forward to 11 more months of building and encouraging each other towards this goal, and growing together.

Well, I had hoped to share some of my other goals, but it's after 9pm so I have to get off the computer! Maybe I will find time for another post this weekend. :o)

Blog goals, getting things done, and (helping with) house hunting

As I mentioned in my last post, I set a goal for myself in 2012 to blog more. To be specific, my goal is to blog at least once a week. The post can be as long or as short as I'd like. It can be on one topic or many. It should be positive; ideally it should be encouraging or at least uplifting. Knowing myself and my schedule, the posts will probably be written in the evening after the baby goes to sleep. I will most likely write on Friday or Saturday. For now, I intend to just talk about what's happening with me and my family. (And as I mention elsewhere, I will try to avoid politics or other derisive, divisive topics.) My blog posts should not come at the expense of journal writing. That is, I should not avoid the more important, more introspective and personal format of a journal in favor of a blog post. But if I sit down to write about something that could just as easily be a blog post, I can blog instead of writing in my journal.

There. Whew. I put my goal into specific, measurable terms and posted it in a public place, so it will be easier to be accountable. You can all hold me to it.... all of you, my readers... okay, my one reader... Hi, mom.

Now on to the updational portion of this blog post!

It is Saturday evening, a little after 8pm. Today I went to the grocery store, dropped a package at UPS to be mailed, dropped off some donation items at Goodwill, checked out a baby-clothes thrift store, made cinnamon raisin rolls, spent time with my parents, balanced the checkbook, helped limb part of the evil fir tree in the backyard, and talked to the neighbor. (Oh, and all the usual mommy stuff -- diaper changes, nursing, naps, playtime, kisses, snuggles, etc. :)

I need to make a chicken and rice casserole, which will be dinner tomorrow. I also need to sort and fold my white laundry. (Did I do the laundry today, or is it left over from yesterday? I honestly can't remember. I think it was today, so add that to my list.)

It's interesting how my definition of what's an accomplishment has changed during the last several months. It use to be that loads of laundry and grocery trips were just routine to-do items, and that I measured myself by the amount of yard work I completed, or my progress on a home renovation project (take your pick), or some other "big" thing. Now I measure myself on the routine things, celebrating if I can get two loads of laundry through the washer, dryer, folded and put away, all in one day. On Friday evenings I make a to-do list of all the possible errands and tasks (simple tasks, like vacuuming the office) that I could do on Saturday. Then I decide which ones are the most important, and which ones I will forgive myself for skipping if I can't find the time.

Such a change in perspective! I never thought doing laundry would make me feel accomplished!

Getting back to the topic of today's errands: I spent time with my parents. Currently, mom and dad live about 90 minutes to the north. My mom is retiring in a few months and so they have decided to sell their house and move closer to some of "the girls" -- meaning me and the baby, and also my sister (who lives about three miles south of me). They also want to stay close to "the boys" (my older brothers, who live closer to their current home), so they are looking primarily at properties north of town.

Thus the reason my parents came to town, as suggested by the previous paragraph, was to look at a couple of houses. The houses were both... how do I say this?... less than ideal. The first one had a beautiful, breath-taking view, but the house needed a lot of (primarily cosmetic) work. The land was also underdeveloped. The second house... there's no way to briefly summarize the experience. There wasn't really anything redeeming about the house or land, except maybe one of the out buildings, which was fairly large and appeared to be in good condition.

It's disappointing, not finding the right property. My parents have very specific criteria and no reason to rush the process, so it will take time. Nevertheless, I'm REALLY excited to have them move closer, and thus I'm REALLY impatient for them to find the right property. I honestly wish I could go preview some properties for them. I love looking at houses (do I get that from my dad, I wonder?) and it would save them some headache of traveling all the way down just to be disappointed.

On the bright side, with spring rolling in and summer soon to follow, more houses are popping up on the market. The perfect place might be listed next week, you never know! In the meantime, maybe I can convince my parents that they don't really want to live out in the country with a couple of acres... they want to live down the street from me :o)