summer – Page 5

Kitchen-ing

September 16, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

Yesterday we had a kitchen day – I turned on the White Stripes station on Pandora, popped him into the bouncer, and we hung out together in the kitchen while I prepped some items for dinners this week and cleaned and organized some cabinets. It’s been a bit since I’ve really been in the kitchen and I quite missed it, and I’m trying to make more of an effort to incorporate him into the chores I do especially while he’s awake, so it was nice to be able to combine the two. I had a bit of wine, cooked up some mashed potatoes, and had just a lovely afternoon while he looked around (or napped). And having a clean kitchen, even if it was just for an hour, was fantastic.

The fall temps are here for good, it seems, which means the garden is winding down. We’ve been picking tomatoes and peppers as much as we can but I’m running out of counter space and I have zero clue how to store our veggies to make them last until we can get around to eating them. I’ve even been giving away what I can! This is the struggle I have every year with the garden… a huge bounty of veggies, and nowhere to store them and not enough meals in the day to eat them. I know I can freeze them for sauces later, but we just don’t use tomato sauce very often, sadly. I think this winter I need to plan the garden better and pare back on the number of tomato plants we grow since we certainly don’t need all of these. We could do with a bit more variety in the garden, anyway, especially since by next spring we’ll be feeding Declan real foods – it’d be great to grow a lot of baby food friendly things for him to eat and try!

Knitting, knitting, knitting

September 6, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

I’ve been pretty out of commission for the last week thanks to a nasty mastitis infection. It’s not something I ever care to repeat so I’ve been strictly adhering to the rest, rest, and rest some more orders from the urgent care doctor I saw last Saturday. Which means if I haven’t been napping or tending to the Little Mr, I’ve been knitting. I considered this a perfect opportunity to binge watch Star Trek: The Next Generation while downing water, snacking on just about everything I could get my hands on, and knitting up a storm.

First up we have a little fox hat, which is what the munchkin will be wearing for Halloween this year. Second, a bitty little baby onesie ornament to send to my friend Jo who had her daughter shortly after me. I’m knitting one for myself at some point for our own tree this year, too, but I need to decide on the colors and chart I want to use on mine. And last, but not least, I finally knocked out my Dark & Stormy cardigan. Things of note on this: I got lazy on the collar. I hate 1×1 ribbing and this sweater lingered so long in my knitting basket that I just decided to bind it off as-is, resulting in a nice collar and pretty much no edging on the rest of it. Which, I’ve decided, is perfectly fine because it makes the sweater a perfect candidate for having a zipper sewn in. The other thing… it’s big. Which doesn’t help with the fact that I already feel awful about how I look in my new postpartum body. I know I’m a curvy girl and all but somehow seeing it in photos makes it all the more painful. Oh well. It’s a nice pattern, and the sweater looks nice, and it’s going to be warm and cozy – an important characteristic should we have yet another bitter cold winter this year.

I still have more lingering projects to finish but that hasn’t stopped me from casting on for a Whorl. A friend of mine designed it and I happened to have lace in my closet that isn’t already tied to a pre-planned project. The pattern is easy to remember but not mindless, I’m just finding that I’m having a hard time focusing so I have to watch for missed/dropped stitches.

Slowly adjusting

September 1, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

I’m just over 3 weeks in on this motherhood thing and I still feel lost. I’m assuming that’s normal for a first-time mom? I’m not even “on my own,” yet, either, as the husband is still working from home in the mornings to help me out. I wish I could say that everything has been perfect and ideal, and that I’m doing everything I imagined I would. But that’s not how life is working out. And it sucks, and I’ve cried over a lot of it… and I’ve moved on (mostly). Motherhood is hard, but not because you’re taking care of this needy, crying newborn. No, it’s hard because you’re second guessing yourself and questioning your own decisions and constantly wondering if you’re doing something wrong because clearly if you were doing something right your baby wouldn’t be screaming almost inconsolably. Or it’s hard because you tell yourself if something isn’t working out then you’ll do something different and not stress about it, and then do the exact opposite and feel overwhelmed with guilt and tell yourself “if only I did ___” or “if only I would have ___.”

I’m slowly adjusting, and slowly learning to let go of some of my expectations. Very, very slowly. I know things will get better. I know I’ll get better. I know I’m just being hard on myself – I always am, after all. Learning to go with the flow has never been something I’m great at, anyway.

Apple tart and birthday celebrations

August 24, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

Saturday we celebrated my grandfather’s 94th birthday with a little shindig. I probably wasn’t expected to actually make anything to bring, and I’m certain that I could have just ran through the grocery and bought a tub of potato salad or something, but that’s just not me. No, I had to go and bake something. Apple tarts from the Pioneer Woman, to be exact, mostly because I had apples that needed used up and the recipe is crazy easy and I had the itch to bake. The Mr took charge of the munchkin for the morning so I could do it, for which I’m incredibly thankful. This might end up being a new go-to dessert recipe for me since my time in the kitchen is going to be more limited.

I’m the very last grandchild to have a baby (only took me 30 years!), and I’m very thankful that my grandfather is still around to see his great grandson. This picture is, to me, priceless. I only wish my grandmother was still alive to see and hold him as well :(

Garden Fresh

August 20, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

Fresh tomatoes and peppers from the garden. I don’t dare show you the actual state of the garden – it’s quite the disaster this year, what with weeds growing everywhere and the tomatoes sorely needed tied up to the stakes more. I knew, going into the year, that the garden was going to suffer since I’d be pregnant and uncomfortable and not able to keep up with it much. I knew the tomatoes were going to ripen and that I wasn’t going to be able to can them up. I’m really pretty thrilled with the harvest we’ve managed to get with pretty much zero work, though. Weeds are going to be a problem next year, but hopefully by next year I’ll have some more energy and focus to give to the garden, especially since by next year we’ll have a 9 month old trying new foods and we can introduce him to the awesomeness that is home grown veggies right from the back yard.

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