Sleep at Last

As you know, we have had some adventures with Mathias and his sleeping pattern. After the last breakthrough, we settled into an acceptable pattern of him waking up twice to eat, once right before we went to bed and once more sometime in the 2:00 to 3:00 am time period. Things were looking good, even if I still had to get up at night.

Then he stopped wanting to nurse during the day. Sorry, Bud, but that is not acceptable. Mathias would nurse well at night, and then not nurse much until dinner time. To me, there is nothing worse than wanting to feed my baby and to have him refuse, expressing his desire with wiggles, screams and bites.

Luckily, I spoke to a wise friend at church (the wisdom coming from having six kids) who said that she had had the same problem with some of her kids and that the only way to fix it was to stop nursing them at night. Inspired by her experiences and the hope that there was a solution to the problem (that I would be happy with), we started that night.

A week and a half later, I'm happy to say that Mathias is well on his way to sleeping through the night. I started by just cutting out the second feeding, but the last couple of nights, he has cut out the first one as well. I've been getting so much sleep that I am just exhausted! And even better than that, Mathias has nursed well during the day ever since I started. He doesn't get as distracted as he used to so I don't have to shut myself up in a room and warn Anna to stay away or else.

Hurray for Sleep!

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I went to grind some corn in my Nutrimill this morning (for cornbread). I poured the corn in, turned it on and it just didn't sound right.

I stopped it, fiddled with the dial a bit, and turned it on again. Still didn't sound right.

Fiddled with it some more. Still didn't sound right and then stopped making any sound at all. Ummm, not good. Especially when there is smoke coming out of the back.

WHAT DO I DO!?! HOW DO I SURVIVE WITHOUT MY GRINDER!?! (at least until I can find a Bosch store in the area who's phone is not answered by a fax machine.)

Parsnips A-Plenty

What do you do with parsnips? After Oma (my mother-in-law) left some for us at Easter time, I've been wondering what to do with them. Roasted parsnips are great, but the flavor of parsnips is so distinct and unusual that it is hard to pair them up with other dishes, at least the meals in my repetoire.

Then, the other night I was watching Good Eats at a friend's house and Alton made this recipe. Now, it seemed a little strange to me too, using parsnips in muffins, but I was surprised with how well they turned out (yes, the parsnips were still good after all that time in the refrigerator). What a great way to highlight the flavor of parnsips, Alton!

And for those of you who like Homestarrunner, I hope you enjoy this.

It's that time again...

It's gardening time!!!!

 

 

Just in case you were interested, this year we planted: four tomatoes (Oregon Spring, Cherokee Purple Heirloom, Siletz, and a cherry tomato), arugela, a small romaine lettuce, swiss chard, cilantro, green onions and green beans. Oma donated basil, parsley, thyme and oregano for my birthday and Anna brought home two black bean seeds from church that sprouted and were added to our rooftop garden. We already had the chives.

Though I really don't like gardening in containers (I ache for a real yard with space to garden in), our roof deck is the greatest place to grow tomatoes. Every day that there is sun, our tomatoes get every bit of it. And here in the Northwest, we need to use all the sun we get.

Oh, I just love growing edibles!

One Man's Junk

Let me tell you the story of our water pitcher.

Once upon a time, Hubby and I got married. With said marriage came gifts, for which we were very grateful. And one of those gifts was a lovely Brita water pitcher, making it possible for us to drink the water in Utah. Oh, we loved that pitcher. So much, in fact, that we carefully packed it up, sent it in a trailer to Oregon, and picked it up on our way to our new home.

Somewhere in this process, however, the unthinkable happened: the pitcher cracked. Being the frugal (cheap or miserly also works) person that I am, I could not bring myself to purchase a new pitcher and instead took epoxy to the outside of the crack.

Though the epoxy wasn't exactly food safe, the pitcher worked just fine and we tried to be careful to keep the water line below the crack.

Now, after three something years of living with the crack, we have finally moved on. We now have a new pitcher!

But wait, you might say, I thought you were miserly, I mean cheap, I mean frugal! How could you possibly convince yourself to purchase a new pitcher when the old still worked just fine? Well, I have one word for you:

Freecycle

Oh be still my miserly, cheap, frugal heart! And I thought Craig's List was amazing. Here is the description from their website:

Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,763 groups with 6,854,000 members across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them's good people). Membership is free. To sign up, find your community by entering it into the search box above or by clicking on “Browse Groups” above the search box. Have fun!

Have fun, indeed. Once I discovered Freecycle, I was able to start getting rid of perfectly good stuff lying around our house that just couldn't be given to a thrift store and that I just couldn't throw away, like a partially used bottle of perfume. And through Freecycle, I was able to get a relatively new Brita pitcher (complete with three unused, still-in-the-wrapper filters) for free. And yes, keeping usable things out of the landfill is a great bonus.

Now, should I post my cracked pitcher on Freecycle? After all, it does still work...