Category Archives: My Life

Snapshots and snippets

A sick kiddo and poor sleep left me with little time for writing the past two weeks.  I had a mild version of whatever Gabriel had originally (not the pneumonia), but I think I’m almost back to good.  Whenever I have respiratory-type illnesses, my already not-too-high appetite for sugar plummets.  This was particularly annoying over the weekend when Matthew made chocolate chip cookies . . . .

Speaking of the kitchen, we’ve had some upgrades over the last few weeks.  The end goal is having an externally-vented exhaust fan for the gas range and oven, but the project is happening in steps (more details on that in another post).

Anyhow, our landlord opted to install an over-the-range microwave (with an external venting option), instead of just a hood.

IMG_6604

Step two, microwave installation, is now complete.  The final step is getting the duct work to direct the exhaust outside.

The work in the kitchen forced me to confront our egg carton problem . . . .

IMG_6597

We save the cartons to return to the farmers, but we’re clearly much better at the “saving” part than the “returning” part.  At this point, it’s just ridiculous and embarrassing.  Anyone have a use for lots of cardboard egg cartons???

Leaving the kitchen, let’s talk about nail fungus.  I mentioned my toenail problem almost a year ago, in this health post.  I started applying medicated chest rub (like Vick’s), because the thymol (thyme oil) has been shown to be effective against fungus.  I wasn’t getting results, so I decided to go for the hard stuff — straight-up thyme essential oil.  I’ve been using it [almost] daily for about six months, and I’m happy to report that the fungus seems to be on the way out!

IMG_6602

I used the oil straight, not diluted — dilution is recommended for most applications, this included, probably, but I was tired of messing around.  This is the most healthy toenail I’ve had in eighteen months!

Moving right along . . .

IMG_6568

We spent a little bit of time over the weekend scoping out Properties of Interest (POI), i.e., properties that seemed promising based on location and lot size.  In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be writing letters of interest/inquiry to the current home-owners.  Likely nothing will come of it, but you never know when someone might be hoping to sell!

Preschool honeymoon ends

I feel like Gabriel’s first couple of months of preschool were a honeymoon period.  Sure, I had my initial qualms about giving up the convenience of childcare that was literally just a half-block away (or free public preschool that’s just a few blocks away), but, with the help of lovely fall weather, we settled into a pretty decent routine: Matthew taking G to school on Big Blue most days, and my MIL dropping G off in the afternoon (for the record, it would work for Matthew to pick G up at school most evenings, but my MIL likes spending the afternoon with G; they’re usually out and about anyway, so she just drops him off on her way home). About once a week, I take G in the morning so Matthew can make it to an early yoga class.

With the exception of a couple of rainy days, and a couple of mornings where I was headed somewhere in the car anyway, we’ve made it work with the bikes.  We even made it work on the cold mornings last week, bundling G up in layers for the ride.

And then yesterday it snowed.  It was little enough snow, and the streets were still warm enough, that the roads (even those they don’t treat or plow) are almost 100% clear this morning.  But there are still a few icy patches, and, not knowing exactly what the route would look like, Matthew opted not to bike.

A year ago, that would have been really easy — Matthew grabbed the bus and I walked G the half block to Mrs. L’s house.  Unfortunately, the bus that is so convenient for getting Matthew from our house to work is not terribly useful for getting G to preschool.

So this morning we spent ten minutes scraping off the car.  Ten minutes (sucking exhaust) in which I could have walked G to Mrs. L’s and been back inside our house already.*  Ten minutes in which I could have walked G to the neighborhood school and been on my way back home.  And it’s only the middle of November!

I’m hoping we’ll still be able to bundle up and bike most days, but if the precipitation this winter is anything like last, I’m afraid we’ll be car-bound more often than not over the next four months.**  Sigh.

It’s not forever — it’s just now, just this winter (okay, and probably next winter, too).  I don’t have to like it, but I imagine I’ll get used to it.

*To be fair, the beloved, oh-so-convenient Mrs. L’s is actually not an option anymore.  A month after G started preschool, I found out Mrs. L retired (which shot my back-up childcare plan!).
**Getting G to school without a car (on the days we feel conditions are not safe for biking) would be very tricky — transferring buses, waiting on lines that run infrequently, etc.  So, while part of me longs to be car-free, I am aware of our privileged position, to choose biking most of the time, while still having a car for bad weather, tricky timing, etc.

Small appliance extravaganza

I almost titled this post “Christmas in November,” but if you’ve gone anywhere near a retail location in the past week, you really don’t need a reminder that apparently Christmas now immediately follows Halloween.  (Try explaining to a three-year-old that we still have quite a ways to go until December 25 when you have reminders everywhere!)

Anyhow, I guess when it rains it pours, like last year when we replaced our toaster and toaster oven at the same time.

Food processor
The current small appliance extravaganza started with a new food processor, a decision that’s been a long time coming.  For the last ten years, I’ve been using a basic Black & Decker food processor.  I don’t use it all that often, but given the usual life span of such things, I honestly expected it to die a long time ago.  I’ve started making cashew butter fairly regularly (unlike peanut butter, I can make cashew butter cheaper than I can buy it), plus the occasional batch of sunflower seed butter.  It also gets some use making hummus and veggie burgers, as well as pureeing squash.  And it just keeps chugging.

The problem is not really one of aging, but a design issue.  The basic blend/process feature works fine, but the slicing/shredding blade is basically worthless.  We’ve lived without this feature for quite awhile, making slaw, kraut, and potato pancakes the old-school way, thinking eventually the motor would die and we’d upgrade, but the darn thing just keeps on kicking.  With plans to make a big batch of kraut (and after having recently made a big batch of root veggie pancakes, with only a little bit of shredded finger included), Matthew made the call to upgrade.

After consulting Consumer Reports, we settled on a Cuisine Art.  I must say, I was a bit underwhelmed when we took it out of the box.  Other than having a stainless steel base, it looked a lot like the Black & Decker — was it really worth 3-4 times as much?

Then Matthew tried slicing some chunks of cabbage and you guys!  Magic!  Beautifully shredded cabbage with the press of a button and really quiet (not whisper quiet, but quiet enough that I’m okay running it in our apartment after G’s in bed, which says a lot!  In comparison, I probably should have worn hearing protection when using the old food processor).  Anyhow, seeing is believing — this seems like a good purchase.  If it stands the test of time and I’m using it 10+ years from now, then we’re really golden!

IMG_5994[1]

Gabriel is starting to get really squirrelly when the camera comes out, but he actually asked to be in this picture — future small appliance model?

Electric mixer
No sooner had Matthew brought up getting a new food processor than our electric [hand-held] mixer began to die.  It will still, sometimes, function on the lowest speed, but that’s all we can get out of it.

We again turned to Consumer Reports and selected a fairly basic Kitchen Aid model (i.e., not the most expensive one that comes with all of the accessories).  I don’t expect this to be a major upgrade over what we had, but something that works will be nice.

Grain mill
This time last year, I borrowed my friend Kelly’s electric grain mill to mill our corn.  We really enjoyed using our home-grown corn meal and flour in corn bread and baked goods throughout the year.  Since it’s something we plan to continue growing, it [kind-of] makes sense to have our own mill (really, it would make the most sense to have one mill to share in some kind of neighborhood group, but since we don’t have that kind of set up . . . ).

Matthew found this grain milling attachment for our stand mixer.  I’m interested in seeing how it compares to the electric mill, which worked well, but, even on the coarsest setting, produced a corn “meal” that was more flour than meal (okay for some things, but really too fine for polenta and corn bread — we used our home-grown in combination with store-bought to get the right texture for those items).  The attachment takes up much less space than Kelly’s stand-alone grain mill, so that’s another plus.

And that’s a wrap on our purchases to date.  It seems a little extravagant, but we spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and having these tools does make cooking from scratch easier.  The kitchen is definitely where I would have the most difficulty being a minimalist!

I’ll write more about the grain mill after we’ve taken it for a few spins (if it doesn’t work well, we’ll return it).  I’m considering a soy milk maker, but I want to do a bit more research, including borrowing a friend’s machine to get a feel for the process and to make sure the product is something I want to consume.

 

Lemon chill

‘Twas an odd fall.  Despite not being overly warm (thank goodness), we didn’t have a frost until late in the game (average local first frost is October 15).  Garden-wise, this meant that many plants that would succumb to frost, like peppers and eggplant, hung around for a long time.  We almost skipped a frost and went straight to a freeze.

We’ve also had continued vole trouble at the garden, which prompted Matthew to dig all the parsnips, carrots, and celeriac, which, sans voles, could have been “stored” in the ground for awhile.

The timing of the cold and the root vegetable harvest overwhelmed our second refrigerators (plural, because my MIL also has a second refrigerator — crazy, right?), and we have two 5-gallon buckets of parsnips out in the garage.  Our second fridge is also extra stuffed because we have most of a bushel of apples in there, as well as some cabbage waiting to become kraut.

The sudden turn to wintry weather also meant the return of plastic on our sun porch windows.  We knocked this task out last night, after Gabriel went to bed.  The job was complicated by the fact that after using the same plastic for two winters, I’d decided [somewhat] that it was time for new plastic.

Of course, the only old plastic that I had actually discarded was the sheet that covered the biggest side of our sun porch, and none of the new plastic that we had on hand came in large enough sheets to do the job.  In the end, we taped two new pieces together for the big wall, and then reused the two sheets for the side windows (now on it’s third year).

The trickiest part about reusing the window plastic is that you need new tape every year, and it’s hard to find just the tape (and if you do find it, you pay nearly as much for the tape as you do for a kit with plastic plus tape).  Now that we’ve learned this lesson, we plan on ordering the tape online, ahead of time, in future years (of course every year we tell ourselves that maybe next year we won’t be dealing with this because we’ll be in a house).

Among other plants (citrus, figs, and herbs), the sun porch is housing this baby:

IMG_5946[1]

A “dumpster dive” potted Meyer lemon that I found abandoned in an alley last year.  (Fortunately, it was next to, and not in, the dumpster — not sure I could have wrangled it out.)  As a thank you for rescuing it and giving it a good home, this little guy produced 25 lemons this year!

IMG_5944[1]

We’re enjoying lemon bars and lemony salad dressing.  G enjoys being the official lemon picker when we’re ready to use one.

The porch task took almost two hours, but I’m glad we went ahead and finished it last night (even though it meant opening a new window plastic kit to scavenge the tape) when it was seventy degrees on the porch instead of today when it’s forty degrees!

Peter Pan, a tiger, and a jack o’ lantern walked into a bar

Last Halloween, I bought a Peter Pan costume for G at a consignment shop.  I realized that it was much too large, so I set it aside for this year.  Coincidentally, my mother-in-law gave G a Peter Pan book about a month ago, and someone’s been all about Peter Pan, Captain Hook, and Tinkerbell since then — perfect timing.

The green tights that came with the costume were still far too large, so we completed the look with some green socks and a pair of borrowed, green-striped pajama pants.  I made a sword using cardboard and tape (duct and electrical).

And then, two weeks ago, it occurred to me that our Halloween’s where G wants to be something cute and cuddly were numbered (he’d been enjoying pretending to be a baby cat), and I asked if he would like to be a cat (thinking we could use black clothing we already owned and make a pretty simple cat tail and cat-ear headband).

Gabriel decided he wanted to be BOTH a cat and Peter Pan.  Somehow, word of the cat idea got to my MIL, which led to a trip to the fabric store and ended with homemade tiger costumes (for both Gabriel and Matthew).

For the last week, Gabriel has thoroughly enjoyed dressing up as one or the other.  He likes snuggling up with Daddy Tiger and a book, and he rarely goes anywhere without his Peter Pan hat and sword.  Here’s a Peter Pan-tiger fusion costume.

IMG_5950

I’m not sure which one he’ll decide on for Trick or Treat.  Fortunately, either costume option can be made warmer by wearing either black (tiger) or green (Peter Pan) layers under the tunic-style tops.

Pumpkin carving
We carved one pumpkin on Sunday morning and another on Wednesday night.

IMG_5931

We used a rather traditional jack o’ lantern design for the first pumpkin.  While Matthew was mostly correct in his comment about not getting to eat the pumpkin, I did cook up the chunks that we cut out while carving this guy.  Not the best winter squash ever, but not bad: mildly sweet and not bitter.  We’ll be having pumpkin soup with our dinner tonight.

Sadly, the seeds, which I was looking forward to, were a bust.  I did my normal roasting technique, but the roasted pumpkin seeds tasted like crunchy cardboard.  Matthew suspects that the farmers may have cut the pumpkins off the vines early, before the seeds were totally mature — bummer!

For our second pumpkin, I suggested a cat face.  We looked at some images online for inspiration, and then Matthew drew and carved this beauty.

IMG_5957
Meow!

Happy Halloween!

IMG_5961