I wanted to follow up on my original post from this morning. First of all I do want to thank everyone for their comments, I wasn't expecting that many and didn't mind any of them. I'm aware that by posting my emotions regarding the situation I wasn't going to be met with warmth or support by everyone. I did choose to post my original post in this community and not others because I thought more of you would be understanding to my emotions.

Anyways...update. A beautiful baby girl was delivered via c-section at 4:27 pm, she was 8lbs 13 oz and 21 inches long and has a head full of black hair. We are waitig to hear the name :) Reason for the c section from my sister in laws perspective were that, her water had been broken for too long and the baby and herself were at risk for serious infection. She was dilated to 10 at 2:00 pm but her doctor was in surgery and there were only interns available. Mom said that they wanted to let her contractions bring the baby down until her doctor was available. I'm not sure what happened from 2pm-4pm if they baby had come down more or what not, but apperently it was determined that there was risk in having a vaginal delivery by her doctor. No fevers, no signs of fetal distress per mom's report.

I would also like to say that I have supported my sister in law in all of her decisions throughout her pregnancy, I would never have told her what I posted here. I do believe in a woman's right to make choices, but my sister in law from day one has said she would rather have a c section than have her va jay jay messed up and often told me, why don't you want pain killers, you don't get an award. So that is what led me to make my original post. Just sad more women don't feel empowered and strong when it comes to labor.

The Holidays are coming up, which ones? All of them, well the good ones at least. I'm sorry, Earth day keeps letting me down, what can I say? And so that means a few things for those of you who like me, work in an office enviromnment. The short list is greeting cards that nobody reads, holiday baskets of which only 15% is edible, big tins of flavored popcorn that just appear out of nowhere, and depression I mean Holiday Office Potlucks.
This season my office is providing a turkey and we are bringing sides and desserts. I am doing a dessert so good I will not eat any. But that reminds me of many years past with the same types of Office Holiday feasts. The good ones and the bad ones.

Good one. One year when I worked in my first tech support job in an office making real money and living on my own, I volunteerd to do a side dish. I brought some good old yams. When we got to the meal, apparently somebody took the easy way out and just ordered a bunch of sides from Dickies BBQ. Well they had yams as well and so they were set next to mine. At the end of the feasting, my container was empty, and the store bought Dickies was barely touched. I felt pretty good, as well as bloated from ham and turkey.

Bad one. A few years back after the wonderful dot com failures I took a job at a smaller company doing data entry. My team was mainly angry young guys who hated kitchens yet loved Limp Bizkit (hmmm there must be a correlation there somwhere). Again, this company provided a turkey and we brought sides. Well like I said, mostly young guys who didnt know how to cook. So most people went to the Krogers next door and grabbed a tray of cupcakes on the way in to work that night. So we had 1 huge turkey, a huge dish of mac and cheese I made, about three cans of canned cranberry sauce and 7 or 8 trays of store bakery cupcakes with neon orange nuclear frosting and sick candy turkeys. Easily 100 nasty cupcakes. Yeah, we tried to make a turkey breast and cupcake sandwich with expected results.

So Food Porn stars, I know you have some good ones.
Come on and share some good or bad tales of Holiday Potlucks.
It could be at church or at work or at school, wherever. Just tales of how the celebration was a success or failure from Holiday potlucks.

I have been thinking about making these and planning them for weeks. Today I finally managed to make them. I thought that they made a suitable subject for my first post here, I can't help but salivate looking at this pic knowing that beneath the buttercream there's a gooey cherry centre surrounded by chocolate. Black Forest Gateaux may be one of my favourite things but the cupcake incarnation is fast gaining on it!



More pics and the recipe over at AnnaInTheKitchen.

After loving breastfeeding more than anything in the world and swearing that I would always love it and that it would never bother me, I have indeed finally hit that wall.

As the mothers of many toddlers can commiserate, I am starting to get those feelings that make breastfeeding no longer enjoyable for me much of the time. I do still love it a lot for the most part. I love nursing my daughter down to sleep. I love nursing her a few times during the day while I read her a book.

The problem is that now she's driving me crazy about the breastfeeding. She's doing the thing where if I don't let her switch back and forth from boob to boob literally every twenty seconds, she goes ballistic. She's always pulling and pulling and pulling on me and she wants the bob for everything. She simply won't sit still for nursing. It's a constant physical battle of her climbing on me as she nurses, twisting around (and taking my nipple with her, OW!), jumping and dancing while nursing, and her hands are on a constant search for the other boob. I literally have to physically fight her the whole time.

I realize it's normal and she just needs the constant attention, but I've hit that point where I just cannot bear having her touch me anymore. I can a lot of the time, but there are many times during the day when I know I just can't do it. I just want to climb out of my skin every time I hear her whine "MMMEEEEEEEEELLLLLKKK! MMMEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLK!"

I was wondering if La Leche League offers breastfeeding support for mothers of older babies. Or is it just to get new moms to breastfeed? I never went because I never thought I needed any help or advice, but now I've hit a wall. I don't want to go there and sit with a bunch of moms with newborns who have no idea what I'm dealing with.

oh yeah, and roast beef, too. And gravy, and peas, and roasted carrots, and garlic mashed potatoes. But most importantly, YORKSHIRE PUDDING.


This was my first attempt at this grand and most favourite meal. I did overcook the meat, which I think is a common issue, but it was still so so tasty. I am currently enjoying cold roast beef sandwiches with mustard.



Brought to you by The Cast-Iron Darling!

My bread fanaticism began when publishers sent me a copy of Andrew Whitley’s new book, Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own. The book makes the case for bread activism -- avoiding possibly harmful and certainly less wholesome mass-produced bread in favor of making your own. Apart from just a political stance, though, Whitley presents breadmaking as an artform -- and one that doesn't have to be too time-consuming, at that. He calculates that a loaf of bread takes about 30-40 minutes of active work punctuated by periods of waiting.

This was my first experience with letting a sponge ferment for days and baking it into a loaf of delicious bread -- and I'm hooked on the experience, from mixing, to kneading, to proofing, to baking, to eating! My boyfriend and I ate our cheese bread with chicken and dumplings, and then used the leftovers for something decidedly more sinister . . . :)




( recipe and photos, including a picture of the PERFECT USE for leftover cheese bread )


To read my review of the book Bread Matters, listen to me waxing poetic about bread, see a photo of how entertaining kneading can be, or just to see more pictures of that amazing breakfast sandwich, please head over to my baking blog, Willow Bird Baking!

x posted to food_porn, bakebakebake, and cooking

I hope this is allright....putting it behind a cut and you can delete it if necessary ( Read more... )

This Saturday Jeff and I put the garden to bed for the year. I'm a bit sore, but I'm glad it's done. First we laid newspaper over all of the sod where we plan to expand the garden. Then we got a bunch of composted manure and spread it over all the raised beds and in the new area. Then we spread mowed leaves over the whole thing. It was funny, we were the only house bringing all our leaves to the back yard rather than out to the street. I harvested the beets and carrots finally, and the rest of the swiss chard. We also got our bulk meat on Thursday, so really we're set on food for the winter. The only things we'll be buying at the store are dairy and onions and potatoes and garlic, also staples like beans and grains. I plan on making all our bread and yogurt, too. I hope to get this into a pretty solid routine.



( Read more... )
Quote of the day:
"We are indeed much more than we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are." -Adelle Davis

I had a beautiful homebirth/waterbirth in September and still can remember vididly how amazing my entire labor experience was. My sister in law is currently in labor and going down a very different path and I'm sorry for her. Sorry for so many different reasons, and for her unborn daughter I am very sorry. My sister in law has choosen to not educate herself, and is currently in route for a labor full of interventions. Her water broke at 4 am, she went to the hospital as fast as possible, got an epidural as soon as she could (she was dilated to 3 when she got her epidural), contractions have all but stopped, and when I talked to my father in law last they were going to give her something to speed up her contractions aka receiving pitocin. The worst thing is that my mother in law called me to update me and told me "Her contractions were so bad she was passing out, that's why she HAD to get an epidural". Almost as though, my labor was a piece of cake, not that her daughter didn't educate herself on what labor stages are, or practice ways in which to work with her contractions, etc.

My husband and I predicted that this would happen....I hope everything goes as well as can be expected.

We have gone too far; we do not know how to stop
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

We have gone too far; we do not know how to stop: impetus
Is all we have. And we share it with the pushed Inert.

We are clever,—we are as clever as monkeys; and some of us
Have intellect, which is our danger, for we lack intelligence
And have forgotten instinct.

Progress—progress is the dirtiest word in the language—who ever told us—
And made us believe it—that to take a step forward was necessarily, was always
A good idea?
In this unlighted cave, one step forward
That step can be the down-step into the Abyss.
But we, we have no sense of direction; impetus
Is all we have; we do not proceed, we only
Roll down the mountain,
Like disbalanced boulders, crushing before us many
Delicate springing things, whose plan it was to grow.

Clever, we are, and inventive,—but not creative;
For, to create, one must decide—the cells must decide—what form,
What colour, what sex, how many petals, five, or more than five,
Or less than five.

But we, we decide nothing: the bland Opportunity
Presents itself, and we embrace it,—we are so grateful
When something happens which is not directly War;
For we think—although of course, now, we very seldom
Clearly think—
That the other side of War is Peace.

We have no sense; we only roll downhill. Peace
Is the temporary beautiful ignorance that War
Somewhere progresses.

We have been in our new house for a couple weeks and we're so in love. This house is perfect for us in many ways. I am constantly reminding myself to take it one day at a time and one project at a time....i just want it to all come together and be beautiful....

yard work is no joke....I hurt my wrist raking around 2 of our trees for a little over an hour. We have over 20 trees in our yard. That's a lot of leaves! Hopefully we can find a used but functioning riding lawn mower to mulch the leaves by this time next year. We are borrowin my moms leaf sucker and making a pile of the mulched leaves....but its a slow process cause we got lots of leaves. I even burnt some in the fire pit one night when hanging out with some friends.

My brother comes home today! His room is not completely finished but I can't be worried cause I just haven't had it in me to over work and hurt myself....one day at a time...one project at a time. I sincerely hope he is not bothered by his nephew's loudness and high energy. it takes a village...

On the eli side of life...well he is just developing in ways I don't have words for. He has all those physical milestones way down but now he is just always improving on language and logic. It is harder for me to remember some of the hilarious ideas that come from his mind and I'd like ot make it a goal to write them down.....when I feel like my work in the house is done :-( I can't ever seem to focus on additional tasks of life until I have completed the ones right in front of me......odd cause I can multi-task like crazy but not when it is toooo many projects.

One project that is consuming a lot of time is our fundraiser. It is in less than a week and we have about 70 people coming. We are having folks sell raffle tickets too and that is making us a large chunk of $$. We should raise enough to send ONE of the 4 kids to college. I would like to sponsor one with my sister too. These kids are well deserving and desperately need something to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Whenever it rains I think about Wendy's family living in the water that has flooded their house....and they have a whole rainy season there.

oh i don't have it in me to really post anymore....im too busy thinking about chickens & gardens and free/cheap paint and making sure i can live in this space when all the buildings are falling down aroundd me....learning how to build from scratch. Oh man sad news on gardening.....isiah planted our annual garlic, 181 cloves in the ground. Warm november days made it sprout....and its growing way too early. Now we must decide if we plant more of our eating garlic or not. Will this garlic still survive?? its a learning experience...but dang that would've been our largest yield yet...we could be selling that many bulbs or just mincing it up and preserving it.....

The board game weekend was loads of fun. The best part was playing a game based on 1001 Arabian Nights. The least fun was, during freeze tag in the pool, when I and a different guy went for the same place at the same time, clocking our heads together REALLY HARD.

me under the green arrow, playing as Sinbad
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2618/4109316624_b9b567b3c9_b.jpg

Oatmeal is one of my favorite foods because not only is it nutritious and natural, it is so versatile. You can eat it hot or pour cold milk in it. You can bake it into cookies. You can eat it any time of day. You can even use it for non-food recipes such as facial masks to soften your skin. Oatmeal is one of the best foods for increasing your milk supply if you are breastfeeding. Unlike cereal, you do not need to add expensive and hormone-filled milk to your oatmeal. It is vegetarian, so it requires fewer resources to produce and is better for the environment. You can even make it vegan.

Avoid buying the processed individually packaged oatmeal from the store. Also, try not to buy quick oats if at all possible. They are not as nutritious as regular oatmeal. I buy the large canisters of 100% whole grain old-fashioned oatmeal at the store and get the store brand for about $2-3. Old-fashioned oatmeal has a delicious taste and is not mushy like the individually packaged oatmeals.

To prepare one large serving of old-fashioned oatmeal, boil one one and one half cups water and reduce to a simmer. Add 1/8 teaspoon salt and 3/4 cup oatmeal. Simmer a few minutes until the oatmeal reaches the desired thickness. If you are adding raisins to your oatmeal, add them when you first add the oatmeal to soften them.

Optional Ingredients:
honey
sugar
brown sugar
milk (condensed, fresh, or dry)
cream
berries
raisins
cinnamon
vanilla
apples
pears
peaches
chocolate chips
jelly/jam/preserves

photo by _marta_

1. Finally got to see my friend, and spent a long time talking.
2. Was given some pink Christmas lights. I already have multicolored ones up on the walls, but I put a string of those up on a rather bare wall and they gave my apartment a really cool ambience. I have another string and will put it up somewhere when I get more hooks.
3. Having a fire going.
4. Making a lot of headway on one of the things I'm supposed to make for that meme. They're getting done one by one.
5. It snowed this morning and it was a pretty day because of it, the kind of day where the trees look frosted and clouds of sparkling snow-dust blow off them.

'Course, it wasn't a perfect day, since I got a killer headache (this one's my fault) and have been eating terrible and the cat's been gross... but it was a pretty positive day.

The spread...