AidynElyMama

New Beginnings

2010-10-18T20:12:00.000-07:00

As my short lived career in the finance world ends and I get back to doing what I sincerely believe is my calling in life, I'm finding that I actually have time to pick my blog back up. It was a little dusty to be sure, so I started tweaking a bit this afternoon and finally published a rough place to start again from. It will take me a few weeks to get everything put into place and update my widgets and whatnot, but I feel a little better already just having it started! It's been a busy year while my poor little corner of the world sat neglected, so I'll do my best to fill in the missing pieces over the next few weeks and hopefully soon I'll be back to my random musings and it will be like I never was away.

Cheers!

The Payoff

2009-05-21T06:56:00.000-07:00

It's close at hand, finally. After two months of planning, tomorrow is finally the big stocking I'd mentioned in my last post. It's taken every bit of my spare time and weekends the last month to have it completely ready, but I'm happy to report that I actually accomplished all that I wanted to! I have over 20 other vendors stocking with me, I was blown away by the response I got when I started inviting the people who I wanted to stock with me. That's one of the best perks of this job, I have made so many friends online who share the WAHM title and have the most amazing talents. If you'd like to check it out, feel free to click the banner below!

In the middle of getting the listings up, organizing everyone's contributions and of course, dyeing, knitting and spinning to my little hearts over-content, I've also been slowly working on the main site and working out the details of some wholesale arrangements. The main site, helped along by my old friend Dustin, my go-to man for all my tech and site issues, is getting re-worked a bit so that the four different sites I'm on now are being streamlined and linked together by the main site. That includes, actually, this blog, which will be being moved onto my own server. I believe I will leave this blogger one up instead of transferring everything over there, but from now on I'll be using the one on my main site once it's up. I think. I'll have to wait for the finished product to completely decide what will happen. As for the wholesale deals being worked out, most are just products that I want to carry in my store, but there is one that is a partnership of sorts as well that I'm truly excited about. I can't reveal it quite yet, but as soon as the last little details are hammered out I'll be posting, you can be sure of that.

So forgive the dreadful way I've neglected this little corner of my online world, soon I will be back with the usual pictures of fiber and stories of munchkins. And for those of you who have emailed me to let me know you miss my posts or ask where I have been, thank you. I'm sorry I've been away, but I'm rather touched by just how many people apparently find this blog amusing enough to return to. Cheers!

What's Going On?

2009-05-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

And why haven't I been blogging? Short, sweet and to the point - I've been busy. I have a huge stocking coming up with a ton of great guest vendors that I've been organizing, and in the meantime this blog, my home site and my Hyena cart are all getting a much needed face lift on the old design and some new features that will help them all flow together a little better. I plan on slowly moving more and more into my home site, so this will help with that change.

Then of course there's the day to day general business of raising a family, a huge amount of yard work as we redo the backyard (still a little torn up from last year's garage raising) and put in a huge garden, and some settling in as I continue to adjust to life with food intolerances. It's kind of touch and go with that last one right now.

Today I'm taking a much needed break to hang out with some fiber homies and get some knitting and spinning out of my system. I'll have to post pictures of the projects that I've been filling my spare time with soon.

In the meantime, bear with me and watch for some changes around here!

Mom-isms

2009-04-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have a journal that houses the best tidbits of my childrens' childhoods. All of the sweetest and most hilarious things they've said and done is recorded in there for me to love over at a later date in time. Some of my favorites:

"I'll have a chocolate without steam please." (Aidyn, overheard "ordering" in his room)

"That's my arm knee." (Aidyn, on his elbow)

"I smell like a doughnut!" (Aidyn)

"Ely fell and hurt her brains." (Aidyn, said unconcernedly from one chair while Ely lay screaming beside the other she had just fallen off)

I realize those are all Aidyn's. Ely is just coming into her vocal own and I'm sure soon hers will be overtaking her brothers, but at this point, as I look back through the pages, I'm giggling at Aidyn's unintentional wit.

As I was adding one to the list this afternoon (when Ely unloaded the contents of a couch cushion in her room and then sat in the middle of the giant pile of white fluff so she could play "bubble bath"), I started thinking about the funny things that have come out of my mouth that I should be recording. You know, the things that you just don't get until you're a mom. The things that would stop a passerby on my sidewalk should they waft through an open window. For instance:

"No, we do not put the cat in the dryer! Or the toilet!"

"I swear the next person that says penis is going in timeout for an hour!"

"Do not drink your bathwater! That's like licking a butt!"

"If I say it has germs it does!"

"Just brush it off, you won't even taste the dirt."

"I know you like all the pinecones, but only one gets to go live with us."

"Sometimes we just need to pee outside."

"Because people don't like your feet in their face, that's why."

"We don't talk about boobs in front of other people."

To all you moms who understood that perfectly without having been there, cheers. :)

Easter Schmeester....

2009-04-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

Hoping you all had a splendid Easter!

Afternoon in my Room

2009-04-06T15:50:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the late hours of afternoon here in my home. The breeze blowing in through the front door, opened to take advantage of the sunny weather, has that sweet earthy smell that comes with Spring. The sound of the neighbors washing their car and kids playing basketball is further proof that winter is releasing us at last.

Today has been a lazy but productive one. I got the simple chores that keep my mind sane done early this morning, leaving me free to enjoy time with the kids and planning my garden. This weekend is ground breaking day, so the seeds must be in order and plans drawn to give all that new plant goodness a home. The little seedlings that have taken root indoors over the last several weeks will soon be moving out as well. After nap time we ventured out to clean Vanny and then take a little trip to the store to find some potato free ice cream. Then it was home again to play some more and eat drippy popsicles!

There's so much that I've meant to share with you all this last month that just went by the wayside in the midst of my health concerns and life in general. The pictures of the little tomatoes, peppers and lettuce pushing their way through the soil in pots around the house (25 of them in all). The daffodils that Evan surprised me with that brightened my table for a week. The little projects here and there that made my day. I know they're late, but they deserve to be shared, so here are little glimpses of the way Spring has made its way into my home over the last few weeks.

:daffodils:

:hello tomatoes:

:a hat for ely:

:newborn shorties for a customer, it had a matching hat as well:

There is one recent event, however, that I can show pictures for in a timely manner! This last weekend my Evan, sometimes known as P.I.E and Steven Eller, turned 27! I gathered our friends for a last minute surprise party and we hit Outback Steakhouse to get him some prime rib and then the casino so we could all lose some money!

:that's his "i'm in the mood for prime rib" face:

:our friends kept complimenting me on my shirt. i hardly ever wear lower cut shirts so i guess it was a bit of a change:

:evan and mark, my two best men:

:showing some brother love - my little brother levi to be exact:

I hope your day has been pleasant and mild, full of sunshine and belly laughs like mine has!

Poll Says

2009-04-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

It's snowing again this morning. That has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I thought I would note that once again, Mother Nature has missed the memo.

I had my follow up and first adjustment with the chiropractor yesterday afternoon. The x-rays showed that although my right hip is indeed sitting higher than my other it's not because it's out of joint. My pelvis is tipped backward, a fact I was already aware of after 13 hours of labor with Sharkbait when they told me I would need a c-section because he couldn't fully engage thanks to said pelvic tilt. Apparently I can also thank it for the state of my back! Because of the way it's positioned one of my lower vertebrae has twisted so that it now sits rather sideways, and it just so happens that it's the one located adjacent to the muscle and ligament that pain me every night...coincidence? I think not. That poor muscle is all balled up with tension there, accounting for my sleepless nights. So the plan of attack is to stretch that muscle back out, twist the vertebrae so it sits right again, and ease the hip back down into position. I have to go in twice a week for six weeks to get it fully straightened out. He also wants to keep an eye on the scoliosis in my middle back, something I was aware of but didn't realize quite how bad it was until I saw the x-rays. The only plus side to this whole thing, besides of course eventually being pain free, is that the doctor and his aides are so nice!

Anyway, they did the first adjustment yesterday. I was pretty sore last night but didn't wake up once in the night - which at this point is nothing short of a miracle for me!

The other news this week happened a few nights ago when Evan's aunt called us to tell us that his grandma had been hospitalized. Apparently she'd had an internal bleed that they couldn't figure out where it was coming from, then she developed Influenza A, and finally a blackage somewhere in her bowel. With all the other problems she's had she's not a good candidate for surgery, so they basically told us that she had a 50/50 chance, and that if she couldn't pass it they wouldn't really be able to do much. We got there as soon as we could the next day, just in time to be informed that they were moving her to ICU. For some reason she was getting air in okay, but couldn't get it back out, so there was CO2 building up in her lungs and they had to intubate her and put this huge mask on her as well. She didn't cooperate so they had to restrain her slightly. By the time we were able to see her she was pretty well out. However, I'm happy to report, that as of yesterday she was improving. Talking, ordering the nurses around, and demanding pudding and her checkbook so she could pay bills! She still hasn't passed the blockage but the doctor said things were starting to move again so it's more hopeful. We were all pretty scared there for a while.

All in all it's been a full and rather draining week, as it's end of month and quarter for Ev at work and so we've been waking up even earlier than our usual butt-crack-of-dawn time. Yesterday we rolled out at 4:30, today 5. It looks like it's ending on a positive note though, with grandma looking better and some answers for me. I also managed to crank out several customs that are blocking right now, pictures to come. Even better, tomorrow my other and better half turns 27 and I get a night away with him for a relaxing dinner and maybe a movie after (Fast and Furious comes out tomorrow!).

Two years, four doctors and one crazy later.....

2009-03-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

This story starts a little over two years ago. For those of you who know this part already, feel free to allow your attention to wander until I get around to the new facts that you're looking for. A few months before The Bean was born I started having some little problems with my health, namely my hips were sore (but what pregnant woman's aren't?) and I started to have little panic attacks here and there (well, yeah, I'm about to give birth). I brushed them off, but in the end they ended up taking Ely by C-section three weeks early as my body "just wasn't coping well" to quote the OB. The problems got a little worse after she was born, especially the mental issues, but I figured PPD was to blame for a lot of that and it would get better. It didn't.

Fast forward a year. I'm now having regular panic attacks and am having trouble simply functioning. My legs randomly turn a splotchy purple/red color at intervals. I've lost 70 pounds - in just the last 4 months. My hips, knees and back are becoming increasingly painful, and I've started getting headaches like you wouldn't believe. Some days I don't even want to get out of bed - and don't. My in-laws are telling me I look anorexic, Evan is pushing and pushing me to go in to the doctor, and I, true to form, am giving them all withering looks and trying to pretend that every day isn't worse than the last. Finally, as I hit 100 pounds and realize my kids are more used to seeing me cry than smile, I go in. I tell the doctor all about the physical and emotional junk. She does blood tests and finds nothing. Her take - because I'm so mentally and emotionally overwrought my body is going crazy and falling apart. Diagnosis - bipolar. (That post here.)

So I go on meds and she tells me that once my body has regulated itself the physical stuff should lessen. Three months later - I seem to be more stable emotionally, the pain has gotten a little worse. I go back in and she runs more blood tests. Nothing. She says the meds haven't had enough time to do their job and I need to be patient. Three months after that the pain has started worsening. I go back in and this time, she sends me to a rheumatologist. That doctor determines I'm expremely hypermobile, but nothing else is physically wrong with me. Her last words as I walk out are, "That's something that's just going to get worse and there's really nothing we can do except maybe manage the pain". Those words were like a deathblow.

Fast forward again to a month ago. After a few more failures to find anything, I've stopped going to the doctors and looking for a new opinion. I'm tired of tests and no results. The meds that seemed so hopeful for making me "stable" now seem to have little effect, as the panic attacks and anger and sadness are creeping back in at more regular intervals. The pain in my hips and back has come to a place that keeps me awake at night and makes sitting to play on the floor with my kids impossible at times. I've lost hope completely, I've come to a place where I've decided I'll just have to live out my life like this.

And then a mere two weeks ago, as I sat with a group of knitting buds, a little bit of it came spilling out of me. My frustration, my anger, the pain - and they listened and then happened to mention that another knitting pal of ours had gone through some similar issues and had seen this naturopath in town who had been able to give her answers the doctors couldn't and clear the issues up. So I emailed her when I got home, without really giving it too much thought. The email I got in return was long, and the story it contained seemed similar to mine - pain, unending tests, no answers - except for the end, which ends in perfect health. She talked glowingly of this clinic and encouraged me to make an appointment, although she warned me it would be months before I could probably get in for a consult. With that in mind, that I still had months to ponder (and perhaps cancel?) this appointment and prepare myself, I called. Wouldn't you know it - they had two appointments, one for the testing, a second for the results, the very next week.

Slightly excited, mostly nervous, I made the appointments. Then I turned my head to the more practical aspect of this venture...the $$$. Most insurances don't cover any alternative medicines, so I'd be footing the $375 bill to go through with this. Two days later my friend Cindy, who also happens to be in the bible study group I lead as our "mentor mom", stopped by with a check from the church for $200 to "help out" with some expenses. My mood was lifted slightly by this and I figured it was a sign I was supposed to go. However, a day before, as I sat figuring bills and realizing that this was still going to stretch us a bit more than I wanted, I started to get nervous again. An hour later as I was still pondering this, my phone rang and the secretary at the church told me there was a check there for $100 for me donated anonymously from someone. My jaw dropped and I started bawling. Talk about someone trying to tell me something.

And so, last Tuesday morning, I went in to the small clinic. The doctor herself comes out to get you, no nurses, no waiting in a room endlessly. She led me back into a small room and sat down with me. Used to doctors who want to be in and out of your room in 10 minutes I proceeded to give her the cliff notes of the past two years. She asked questions, filled over two pages with notes, and was interested in every little detail, not only of how I felt, but how it affected every aspect of my life, what had been done before, the tests they'd run, the meds, their reasoning, my thoughts on my treatment so far...it just went on and on. I realized I'd been there for 45 minutes just talking to her. She allowed me to interuppt and ask questions, she explained everything to me. Then she did a series of tests that frankly I was slightly dubious about - if the doctors, with their high tech machines and in depth lab tests couldn't find anything, what in the world was she going to find with just her hands and a few simple machines? She looked into my eyes and using a method called iridology made a list of the parts of my body under stress. She hooked me up to a tiny machine that measured my heart tones. She tested reflexes and pushed pressure points. Last, she poked my ear and took a tiny blood sample that she said would be dried and examined.

After all this she asked me to book an appointment with a chiropracter she worked closely with because she wanted me to have x-rays on my lower back and hips, as she believed there was some skeletal issues there contributing to the pain. She said she was frankly surprised and disgusted that I went in complaing of pain there and no x-ray had been taken before. She sent me off saying she would see me Thursday and would have a full report for me. I went home and called the chiropracter's office and they said I could come in the next day.

So the next day found me sitting in a cheery waiting room where the staff seemed to do nothing but smile and laugh. They grabbed me coffee, chatted while I waited - it was a waiting room as I'd never seen a waiting room before. And then the woman who took me back sat with me asking a slew of questions about my pain, my health in general, how it made me feel. It was like talking with a friend, totally relaxed. Then she did several tests with me and the doctor came in. He also sat and talked to me, then did even more tests, and then sent me off for x-rays. When I was done he came back in and discussed his preliminary findings with me, although he said he wanted to wait until he had seen the x-rays to offer his official diagnosis. So his unofficial diagnosis: My right hip is sublaxted, meaning a slight dislocation, and has been for quite some time, probably since my daughter was born and I first started having hip pain. I didn't notice because of the extent of my hypermobility, which causes my joints to pop and move more than most people's anyway. Over the last two years, my body has compensated for this by shifting an extra 20 pounds of my bodyweight over to my left side, throwing my spine out of alignment as well. And finally, because the muscles on my left side were working overtime supporting that extra weight, they had become twisted up in a solid knot of tension that happens to lie, you guessed it, right where the back pain sits and where the spasms I have orinate from. I went from "there's nothing we can do and it will only get worse" to "here is the problem and I can help" in two minutes flat. I cried on the way home, a mix of relief, sadness over the lost time, and a new hope I hadn't driven there with.

Thursday found me back at the clinic in the small but interesting office of Dr. Potenza for the results. Nervous is an understatement. (What if they just said, "Wow, you're just messed up, good luck with that!) The answers were neatly typed up into a packet of information for me, which she spent the next hour elaborating and answering questions on. Her findings were a shock to me, and so utterly simple. Here they are in neat bullet list form for you:

I am intolerant to potato. Yes, potato. My body cannot digest it properly and so it's making my body try to work in ways it shouldn't have to.
I have a secondary intolerance to fruit and wheat. This means I can eat both of them, but not in combination or my body has difficulty digesting them. I ideally should eat them no fewer than 6 hours apart.
I have adrenal insufficiency. Your adrenal glands are "chiefly responsible for regulating the stress response through the synthesis of corticosteroids and catecholamines, including cortisol and adrenaline (epinephrine), respectively." (Wikipedia) Because of the physical and emotional stress at which my body has been operating at for the last two years my poor little adrenal glands are basically worn out, and so everything is just going wonky.
The best part - she doesn't believe I'm actually bipolar. The original doctor's claim - that because I was so stressed my body was physically in pain. Dr. Potenza's thoughts - if you're in pain all the time and feeling like there's no hope, your body's natural emotional response is going to be anger and/or sadness. So when the original doctor told me I was bipolar and that the meds would help, I did feel better for a time because I had some hope. But then as it just got worse physically the anger and depression came back, as a natural response and that's why the meds weren't really working, because there wasn't something there for them to treat.

So what does all this mean? First and foremost, on Thursday of this next week I go back in to the chiro, Dr. Mario, and he will give me an official diagnosis and begin treatment, which at this point is looking like the major adjustment of putting my hip back into place, followed by I'm sure several other adjustments to get everything else back where it belongs. I think some physical therapy for the muscles will be in there as well. I'm nervous about the initial popping the hip back into place part, but excited to not be in pain anymore.

It also means I can't eat potato ever again. Easy peasy, right? Not so much. See, potato is cheap, potato is useful...and it's in everything. No, really, I kid you not. Let me elaborate. I cannot have anything that has potato starch, potato flour or any other part of the potato. Most prepared foods contain potato starch or flour in some form. So packaged convenience foods are out. B vitamins are cultured on a potato base (niacin, thiamin and riboflavin), and happen to be used to enrich many foods, including most baking flours, pasta products, breakfast cereals and rice. Dextrose is a potato sugar derivitive, and is found in most canned foods, bacon, lunchmeat, ham and iodized salt. Iodized salt tastes bad, so they add dextrose to it to make it tasty again. Now the canned goods and bacon and lunchmeat, not such a big deal. Salt? Yes, it's in most everything pre-made. So anything with salt in the label...can't have. Even many uniodized salts have dextrose. The only salt I can have is something called Celtic Sea Salt. I'm not finished, the list is longer still....

Baking powder contains potato starch and it may not be listed on labels...so no eating pre-made baked goods. Tapioca has potato starch as well and is in a fair few items. Most yeast is grown on a culture made from potato. Other potato dirivatives that I have to look for are modified food starch, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, vegetable broth, MSG or "natural flavorings", and propylene glycol (in soda and ice creams). Penicillan type antibiotics are grown on potato cultures. Lastly, and this one is actually funny, I cannot use plaztic bags (like Ziploc) or plastic wrap, as they contain potato starch byproducts to make them biodegradable.

This means, in a nutshell, that I have to make pretty much everything I eat from scratch. Any baked goods, including making my own bread from a sourdough started or the one (1) type of yeast I can eat, have to be made by me. I can find certain types of pasta that won't have any of these things in them, but they're more expensive, so noodles will be more efficient handmade. Anything canned or pre-packaged is pretty much out thanks to the salt, so snack type foods and many convenient things I used for dinners, like canned tomatoes for spaghetti, are out unless I can them myself. My garden this year just became ten times more important to me. Basically, my entire diet will now revolve around vegetables and meats, supplemented by my homemade goods. If I go out to eat most of the menu will be off limits, so I'm looking to be a cheap date by eating mostly salads, and if we go to a friend's house for dinner I'll have to bring my own food. So don't be surprised when I show up for the summer BBQ armed with my own bread and appetizers. I'll be happy to eat those ribs though, pending that they haven't got a lick of salt or BBQ sauce on them.

The secondary intolerance means that I can't have grains or fruits within six hours of each other. Pretty straightforward in the main really, with grains being any type of grain under the sun and fruits being fruit in any form - raw, cooked, dried, juiced. Main thing here is that fruit is hidden in many things and means that the few foods left to me are limited further by the time constraints on them. Rather than take up an entire paragraph I'll revert to bullet list form again.

Anything with fruit or fruit extracts
Citric acid, which is added to quite a few foods including all canned tomato products
Nuts, as they are shelled using citric acid
Wine and vinegar, unless it's distilled, and therefore many condiments, as they contain apple cider vinegar
Oils, including my main cooking standby olive oil. The only neutral one is safflower oil
Additives like sorbitol and polysorbate - 80; found in chewing gum, toothpaste, cream cheeses, and salad dressings
Vanilla extract, depending on base
Commercial yogurt, due to the grape enzymes added
Vitamin A palmitate is fruit and is added to most milk and cereals
Fructose and date sugar
All colas and pops are fruit
Most juices
Annato coloring - in most butters

So any of that on the above mentioned list has fruit of some sort in it and has to be eaten at least 6 hours apart from a grain. I can buy milk and butter that don't have the fruit in it at health stores, and maple syrup so I can continue to enjoy some pancakes (as long as said pancakes don't have salt or baking powder in them). You can find yogurt without the grape enzymes there as well.

What this horribly long post that has taken me two hours to write boils down to is this: Aside from the physical issues that can be helped by the chiro, is it worth it? Am I willing to give up a huge portion of my diet and take on making almost everything from scratch? Will the lack of headaches, pain, digestive troubles, and anger and depression make up for the fact that I can never eat a french fry or slather strawberry jelly on a piece of bread I pull from a convenient bag again? I don't know. But I'm willing to try.

So in closing, I'd like to take this opportunity to bid farewell to the things I will miss most that I'm trading in (I refuse to think of it as giving up) for this new adventure (yes, I am trying to look at it as such). The last bullet list of this post, I promise.

A Starbuck's white mocha with a little bit of vanilla bean powder on the top
A whole wheat bagel smothered in cream cheese and strawberry jam
M&Ms and her relatives Milky Way and 3 Musketeers
Spaghetti sauce on whole wheat noodles
Those oatmeal cookies from the hospital cafeteria
A crispy chicken sandwhich from Burger King with fries and a soda

I've decided that was the most horrible idea I've ever had. I'm now thinking that perhaps I should finish off everything on that list. Instead, I'm going to walk away and put my own no yeast, no baking powder, potato free flour bread into rise and trust that in a few hours time when I pull a sweet smelling loaf of my own bread from the oven I'll realize that it beats greasy fries and over sweetened coffee anyday.

Homemade Fun!

2009-03-17T09:25:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been trying to be very hands on with the kiddos, doing projects to reinforce our lessons, letting them make messes instead of picking them up immediately, and all around letting them learn in ways that are fun to them. So last night we had some family cooking fun!

I made this recipe for pizza dough a few hours ahead of time so that it was ready when daddy came home from work. While it was rising I cut up and prepared the ingredients, a whole range of veggies and meats, and whipped up some homemade pizza sauce with tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and Italian seasonings. It turned out a little runny but who really cares when it's so much fun to make?

To make it as kid friendly as possible I just laid a huge sheet down in the kitchen and put all the ingredients on it. Since we didn't have a round pizza pan we made some rectangular shaped pizzas, one with red sauce and one with white Alfredo sauce, not homemade in this case. Bertolli knows their stuff there. The kids quickly got the hang of piling on toppings and pitched in with gusto!

:the toppings:

:careful preparation:

:even daddy helped:

:into the oven:

:pizza one - alfredo sauce, garlic chicken, yellow peppers, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, mozzarella:

:pizza two - red sauce, tomatoes, canadian bacon, pepperoni, olives, onions, yellow pepper, mushrooms, mozzarella, cheddar:

:happy kids:

Total Feng Shui

2009-03-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

This is a picture heavy post people. You've been warned. And it's a subject near and dear to my heart, so I'm waxing a little poetic about subjects that may seem odd to you. You've been dually warned!

When we first bought our house I adapted the Better Homes and Garden mentality. You know what I mean...everything had to match, I needed the perfect color scheme, and most of all, I needed everyone who walked in to leave thinking, wow, that is the perfect home. In the meantime, I just grew to hate it. My perfectly balanced color scheme was bland to me, the matching furniture and accessories drove me crazy! Last year we redid the basement and the family room moved from the front room of the house down there, along with the kids' play stuff. The front room became mainly my room - my office, craft area, and the dining area where my friends sit and knit with me. And then the perfectly balanced scheme annoyed me even more as I tried to keep all that yarn and fiber and office stuff stowed away so as not to break the perfection. I realized that a lot of the stress and moodiness I felt when I was here was probably due to the fact that I felt like a visitor in someone else's home. I'm an eclectic and random sort of person (that's an understatement, I know) and why should the place I spend so much time in seem so foreign to that nature?

And so, last summer, I finally snapped and on a whim painted over the dark green walls with a yellow that shocked my husband a bit. Of course, that left the scheme of things a little wonky looking, and so over the last year this front room has been a work in progress. My main issue was that my obsession with fiber was taking over. And I wanted things to flow without completely matching. I rearranged, I redid, I bought a piece here and there that spoke to me, like the copper lantern from Inspiration Hardware, and pulled some out of storage, like my great grandmother's vintage books. I added little touches of inspiration that came to me. Evan gave me the shifty eye when I announced my intentions to accent with black. He told me the room would look like a bumble bee. But when the black curtains arrived and were hung, he decided it wasn't such a bad idea. And when I told him I was going to let the fiber be my decoration, he gave me a pitying look that clearly said, "You've finally lost it.". I think he still thinks it's odd, but maybe not so out of place as he imagined.

And now, after all this time, today, it is my room. My dream room. My dojo. I went a little snap happy with the camera, I admit. I had to record for posterity the exact moment it all came together. And here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

A view from the front door. Welcome.

The entry area. Tidy baskets to hold shoes and outdoor gear, a shaggy warm rug, a bench to sit, and my shelf, which I love, to pull the look together.

Just opposite the door is the Learning Wall. My kids are not in preschool, we do a form of early home school here. And I want them to know that their work is just as important to me as my own work, so I proudly display it on this piece of wall, just by the hallway to their rooms. The quote says "You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. ~Clay P. Bedford".

This week we're learning about how seeds grow. They've learned all about germination and have planted their own little plants to see it firsthand.

Above the doorway to the kitchen is the Inspiration Wire. This holds all the things that we're loving at the moment that inspire our creativity and happiness. At the moment there are several drawings, some spring flowers we put together, and a quote, which reads "Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves. ~Abbé Dimnet, Art of Thinking, 1928"; it reminds me to keep it simple.

My favorite feature of this room I think. My photo wall. This is a huge collage that spans the length of the room filled with my favorite moments from the last year. I'm talking the crazy pictures people normally don't display, not the studio shots.

Why do I love this wall? This is the wall that firmly establishes my love of the fiber arts and ties it into the room and decor itself.

Look closer. Interspersed with the fond memories are some of my favorite colorways brought to me by the good ladies of HC. Those pieces of knit are more decorative and colorful to me than any painting I've seen, and I loved the idea of incorporating them as what they truly are...art.

This whole picture spoke to me, I couldn't just take the colorway, and so Ryann of Woolen Wishes is forever immortalized in this one!

On to the creative corner. This is, as they say, where the magic happens. This is where strands of fiber become colorful hanks of yarn, and where that yarn becomes knitted art. My yarn and fiber and wheel and needles are proudly on display, part of the decor and feel of the room.

In the other corner, my desk. For those who aren't familiar with the story of my desk, you can see that here.

Last, the little touches that really make it mine. The bowls and baskets of yarn and fiber throughout the room, along with their knitted counterparts in frames.

Simple pieces made by me - the magazine holder made of an old box covered in fabric, the cushion for my desk stool, a table runner and matching chair pillow from some old fabric and bias tape, the glass jar of "daffodils" made from the kids' hands one day.

And the kids' favorite part of the room, the desk where their own creativity happens. I like to think that now, in this room where I've put so much of my own creative energy, maybe theirs will be inspired just a little more.

The New Do.

2009-03-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Ely had her big moment yesterday, her first real haircut. Er, minus the one she already gave herself. She sat through it so well! I was amazed. First we stopped to get coffee, because what's a girl outing without some java? I felt rather sorry for Juli, trying to make something of the ragged mess that Ely left behind. I told Juli she went at it like she does everything else, with a vengeance and gusto! I let her go wild with my camera, taking pictures of everything while Juli snipped away - herself in the mirror, the floor, Juli, me - she captured it all. Juli let her blow dry and then brush her own hair as well, which she loved. She giggled every time Juli sprayed her hair with water, Then when we were done we went to the store and picked out some new clips for her little summer hairdo. Honestly...I hate it. I miss those beautiful long tumble-y curls. I'm sure I'll get used to it, and it is cute, but until it grows out a little and looks less choppy I'm sure it will just seem weird to me. So on to the pictures, and there are a lot of them, because I've turned into my mother after all and I'm entirely snap happy!

Coffee fix!

Assessing the damage.

First cuts.

Starting to enjoy it.

One of the 23 paparazzi Ely shots, yes, I counted.

Telling daddy about it.

Future stylist

The results

Still cute :)

A few little highlights...

2009-03-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

A WIP, a pair of Shorties for Holly.

My Elliebelly yarn that arrived today, a OOAK paintbrush colorway called 'Michelangelo'.

The newest additions to my roving/yarn stash. The yarn is MM 'Turning Leaves', the top roving is 'Woodland in Spring' and the pink toned one is 'Lorelei'. They're from Aimee, the yarn is payment for the roving, which I will spin up for her, and the other will be sold once it's spun up.

A detail of the bolero that I finished for Heather, the flat version just looks wonky, so just look at the post that has me wearing it, and imagine it in this lovely red!

No, no, no!

2009-03-09T12:16:00.000-07:00

Friday night after watching some television, Evan got up to check the kids and I followed him to check my email before turning in for the night; the house was dark, because who bothers to turn on lights? I heard Evan's shout about the same time I stepped in something soft, and no, it wasn't dog doo. I wish it had been.

It was Ely's hair. Piles of silky, beautiful, golden hair. Evan found her holding my knitting scissors, surrounded by the wreckage of her mop. Apparently unable to sleep, she had climbed the gate at her door (another skill learned!), found the scissors I stupidly left on my desk, and proceeded to give herself a little trim, plus cut up a book that apparently wasn't to her liking. When I entered the bathroom and saw her head, I literally burst into tears. And continued to sob amidst the locks of hair for 15 minutes after that. Ely, however, was rather pleased with herself and patted my shoulder while I bawled, before looking into my rather watery eyes and saying solemnly, "It's okay mommy, I'm pretty!". Her bangs, which she didn't have before, are now almost at the top of her forehead. On either side portions were cut haphazardly out, the worst being the large chunk taken out right beside her ear where her ear now shows plainly through, like a little curtain has parted for it.

So before, Ely's hair had never been cut once in her 2 1/2 years on planet earth, and fell in silky golden locks that ended in ringlets to her bum. On Saturday I trimmed it up to the very longest piece of her hack job, which ended right at her shoulders. This Wednesday she has an appointment to clean it up, which I'm sure will end in her having hair about the length of mine or less, and I will post pictures of that final job, but for now, here is Ely post self given haircut, after her little job, and finally, what is looks like now while we wait to get in for a real appointment. Trust me, these pictures don't even begin to do justice to what it really looks like. And please excuse the runny nose in these, she's had it for the last week and it never stops!

About a week before.

The massacre

Ugh, the bangs.

You can tell she's proud, can't you?

This is where the ear chunk is, although it's hidden in this picture.

I want to cry every time I see this.

Post mommy trim up.

The back

She was saying, "Seeeee?" in this one.

I'll make sure and post pics on Wednesday of the completed look. At least now I won't have to try to keep it out of her face and it will be nice and cool for summer. Look at the positives, look at the positives, look at the positives, cry.

Oh, and before I forget this funny tidbit!
Not only did she swipe my scissors, she swiped my permanent marker. And snuck into her brother's room. And pulled off his covers. And drew all over him. And the kicker? He slept through the whole thing, we found him laying in bed with no covers and marker all over him!

As If You Didn't Notice....

2009-03-05T19:35:00.001-08:00

My blog has changed! Again!

I was playing with some code earlier today and realized, much to my consternation, that I had in fact deleted a very integral part of my HTML and had no real way to make it come back to me. With it so far gone already, I decided the time was ripe for a little redesigning and so coded in something new. I've kept certain elements that were dear to me, added in a little new flavor and tried to integrate all the aspects of my life. You'll now find project updates via Ravelry, mood updates via Twitter, and tons of fantastic links to the places on the web I hang most. I also decided to help out my fellow HC mamas; those three ad buttons you see over on the right will feature only Hyena Cart stores for your browsing pleasure, because the world would be that much better if everyone shopped hand made, and more specifically, HC!

Hope the new format is to your liking! Cheers!

The General Hodge Podge

2009-03-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

On to the promised post!

The last month has been crazy busy with tons of family, friends and business. I've tried very hard lately to organize and streamline and come up with a schedule that allows me to do a little of it all every day and still feel slightly sane at the end of the day. Happily, I'm getting into the groove and the day to day business of my life has become just a tad smoother.

First off, family. Sharkbait and The Bean are, as usual, a mix of terror and sunshine. We've been doing actual lessons during the day and it's going well. Ely is working on colors and learning her alphabet. Aidyn knows most of his letters and numbers and we're working on reading small words. Every day we do some kind of craft to reinforce the lesson and so far the approach seems to be working. Ely potty learned overnight it seems, and we have now been a diaper free house for a little over five months. My cloth diapers are still sitting in a basket here though, I haven't had the heart to sell them yet.

One of the things they're getting really interested in is my knitting and spinning, so we've been having mini lessons in knitting. Ely mainly clicks her needles together and pushes the needle in the loops; Aidyn is actually trying to loop the yarn around.

We celebrated Aid's fourth birthday in February. He wanted, and this is verbatim, "a cake in the shape of a four, because I'm four now mommy *holds up four fingers*, and it needs to have pirates on it with treasure and some dinosaur sprinkles. Oh, and candles, four candles." Luckily I found a pirate set and dinosaur sprinkles, and I think it turned out pretty well. He certainly thought so.

My brother Nathan made a surprise visit this last weekend and so my little family here, that's my brother Levi and his wife Dani, plus of course Nathan and ourselves, gathered for a night. We ate some pizza, then Nathan and I took off for a little one on one at a cafe, and when we returned we stayed up until one playing cards and having a grand time.

At one point Levi started telling Nathan about the previous weekend, when Evan squatted so much weight that his barbell was bending in the middle. Just to prove it, Levi and I hopped up on his back where he squatted our combined weight as if we were just Aidyn and Ely up there.

I started watching my darling nephew Turner in the afternoons; he's almost a year old and the cutest little guy ever! Here he is modeling a knit for me.

Last week one of Aidyn's little friends, Alexandria, came over and they had a princess dress up party. It was hysterical.

Alright, so on to business!

Business is good. Great actually. I constantly have a customs list out a month and a half, which keeps me busy and is somewhat intimidating, but I like it. I've been dyeing and spinning and knitting my heart out and have turned out lots of lovely (if I do say so myself) items. I even broke out my sewing machine and finished a knitting bag and accessories holder combo for a mama.

A few spins and some roving I've dyed.

My congo also participated in this really cool promotional gig called The Spotted Box. It's chock full of WAHM samples. We sent in a total of 60...whew!

And then, finally, me!

I finally made something for myself, a lace shrug from a gorgeous cotton silk yarn. Laugh at the serious pictures, I'm purposely trying to get one here.

I scored a very hard to get yarn bowl from Rising Sun Earthworks in a gorgeous purple. A yarn bowl is basically a regular bowl that has a slit in the side for your yarn to come out. The ball of yarn sits in the bowl instead of rolling all over the floor :)

I can't talk about me, of course, without mentioning my other and better half. Evan is busy with work and all the rest as well, but we find little moments together that make the in between a little more bearable. Here's a peek at one of our silly moments, an impromptu photo shoot one night while watching some TV together (Top Gear, what else?).

That's about it, lots of laughter and plenty to keep me busy. Maybe as I grow into my new schedule I'll be able to fit in more blogging time, in the meantime, cheers!

Bump-bum-bum-ba!

2009-03-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

This is the official post to announce that tomorrow I will actually be making a post. I've decided that by the simple act of writing it out and committing, perhaps I will follow through on this good intention as I've meant to so often the past month. There will be pictures of the tiny moments that have made me smile, tons of details on family and business, and of course, that quirky personality you've grown used to weaving its way in and out of it all. Until then!

Simple Pleasures

2009-01-26T19:06:00.000-08:00

Blogger Interuppted

2009-01-23T15:11:00.000-08:00

I was just sitting to write this and take advantage of some kid free time courtesy of naps when Aidyn's door opened, he walked very solemnly up to me, put his face on my leg and said (with those big blue eyes shining up at me), "Mommy, I didn't take a nap, I won't lie. But it's okay. Okay?".

Sorry friends, blogging can wait, my son's childhood will not. And that's okay. Okay?

A New Dawn

2009-01-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

This morning, as I watched the 44th president of the United States of America being sworn in, my heart swelled with pride. Pride in a nation that was willing to cross boundaries never thought possible to achieve the best. A nation that is standing up and moving on, ready to face the obstacles that are ahead of us.

For the first time in a long time I feel hope. I'm hopeful that our country will recover. So much has happened in the last several years, and the last year has felt like one batch of bad news after the other. When you're waking up in the same nightmare day after day it becomes hard to hope that someday there will be a better way and a brighter future. Listening to his conviction and measure of dedication to working towards that better tomorrow makes me believe that it can be done, despite the obscene amount of hurdles in the way.

And finally, I was inspired. The American people have been at odds with their neighbors and their world for far too long, feeling their voice doesn't count and that the odds are too insurmountable to be bothered with. Today a nation crowded into our capitol and congregated around their televisions as one, ready to watch history in the making and witness the start of something new.

My kids are too young to remember this at all, but someday I will tell them about the day that boundaries were crossed and a country came alive again. I will recall the tears in peoples' eyes, the way a nation opened its heart and mind, and how in that moment we began the journey once again to become one nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. Because YES, WE CAN!

Yummy Squishiness

2009-01-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

Today I took a little trip to my LYS, that's Local Yarn Store for you non-fiber obsessed peeps, AKA my mecca, and spent well over an hour petting fibers of all kinds. I cuddled the Alpaca, chatted up the Mountain Colors, played with color combos in the rovings, and tickled the tencel. I even had a short conversation with some bright sock yarn about the merits of socks in the summertime.

I also hit up JoAnns and spent a few dollars on some copper wire and beads, a present for Lemon. She's been feeling a little blue the last few days as I picked up my knitting again after my extended wheel-moon and have left her to sit for longer than an hour at a time, so I figured a little gift to show her she's still my best girl wouldn't go amiss.

What does one give a spinning wheel? A blinged out threading hook of course! There's a small little hook that you use to pull the yarn through the orifice. In Lemon's case, it happens to be built in and the little knob at the end makes the perfect place to wind the end of the yarn when I get up so it's easy to pick back up again. However, I'm afraid that someday in our travels together, this little doodad might wiggle itself free and I'll find myself hookless. So I fashioned a fancy little threading hook out of the copper wire, and strung it on a small chain of blue glass beads. Then I made a small clip of matching copper to secure it in place on Lemon.

Here's the result. It hangs around the Mother-of-All (that's the head of the wheel), ready for pulling those lovely strands of handspun through the orifice for me. Lemon expressed her gratitude, of course, and how much she liked the blue/copper combo.

I also, while I was at it, added a little matching copper bling to the WPI tool that sent me into Paradise (ah, how aptly named) today. It measures, by means of wrapping yarn around it, how many wraps per inch there are in any given yarn. What use is this? It tells me what weight my yarn is. A worsted weight, what I normally spin, has 9-11 WPI. If I'm afraid that my yarn isn't going to be heavy or light enough, all I have to do it check!

Wheel of Dreams

2009-01-16T09:46:00.000-08:00

Here it is, the promised spinning wheel post. I bought my wheel right before Christmas, a present for my business. Um, yes, we'll go with that. It's a Lendrum folding wheel, meaning A.) It's the best and B.) It folds up compactly so I can take it to knit club and places like that. There's a waiting list for Lendrums here at Paradise Fibers in my beautiful Spokane, but I went in so many times to oogle it they told me that they had just taken out their floor model several days prior, and that I was the only one who had used it at this point. And...they offered to sell it to me, with a fiber discount as it was a floor model, albeit an unused one.

They did mention that it had actually come to them with a cracked piece, which their man there, something of a spinning wheel expert, had repaired by completely replacing it with different parts. So my wheel is just a little different than your average Lendrum...a fact I love. Because she started out a defunct, I named her Lemon.

So Lemon and I have been spending long hours getting to know each other. We have conversations of yarn we'll be spinning together, what colors we love best, and what tension we work best at.

Me: "Lemon, I really think this blue looks fabulous on you."

Lemon: " I actually preferred the purple from yesterday."

Me: "We'll be plying the two together actually, I bet that will be the best blend we've done so far."

Lemon: "I quite agree...Loosen the tension a bit, I'm starting to get a cramp."

So how does a spinning wheel work exactly? First of all, let me introduce you to Lemon. Charmed, I'm sure.

To start, a piece of "leader" yarn is tied onto an empty bobbin, ready to grab up the roving and start.
It's threaded through two pieces of metal on the flyer, which is the part that spin round the bobbin and winds the yarn around it, and then a little tube called the "orifice" (snicker, snicker).

At this point you take up your roving or top. Roving is a batt of wool that has been cleaned but not combed, top is a roving that is combed so all the fibers run the same way and is normally cajoled into long slender roped that put me forcibly in the mood of intestines.

You give the wheel a little spin to start it and being to treadle the foot pedals. Mine is a double treadle, meaning there are two pedals as opposed to the more traditional single treadle. As you treadle the wheel spins round in a merry little way, and for every time around it gives your yarn a spin. In the space between your hands and the orifice the yarn is spun repeatedly until the tension is just right before entering through the orifice, where spinning stops and it wraps around the bobbin.

A finished bobbin at this point is a single ply of yarn, and looks something like this.

After spinning several of these single ply bobbins, you move them to an ingenious little device called a Lazy Kate, which has three rods, cleverly tensioned so they don't spin out of control, to hold your bobbins as you do either a two or three ply yarn.

And the finished prooduct looks like this, in this case a two ply yarn.

Once finished you give it a little bath to set the twist in, let it dry, and twist her up into a compact skein to keep it nice and ready to go.

Here are some examples of different types of handspuns, from bumpy novelty type yarns on the left to more even worsted weights on the right.

So now you know how my days are being spent - repeating this motion over and over, talking with Lemon, and creating one of a kind pieces ready to be turned into beautiful knits that will be loved.

Shakin' it Up

2009-01-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

You're going to be seeing a few changes on here. I've come to the conclusion that the reason I spend less time blogging these days is because I'm spending more time with my knitting and spinning and business in general. So I'm combining the two!

I could, of course, open an entirely seperate blog for the business aspect, but I imagine that would make my absences even more obscene. Therefore, I plan to make this my record of craft business-y things as well, so that even if it's not my usual witty banter on my kids, dog, house, husband, and life in general...at least I will be here! And who doesn't like seeing an awesome knit or rocking handspun from time to time?

The truth is, fiber is my life at this point. It seems to be always in my hands, whether I'm knitting away at a custom or relaxing to the steady whir of my wheel. My front room has become my getaway, my dojo. While the kids quietly (and sometimes not) build their puzzles at my feet, I'm content to fold into my big leather chair and meditate on how the stitches come together, how the colors blend, and how art grows from humble beginnings.

And I see things differently from that chair. The light seems softer, turning my yarn different shades, and life seems better, slower, more refined. I love those moments. Is it any wonder I spend more and more time seeing things from that view?

Um, right, back on point. I didn't mean to wax poetic on you.

Anyway, don't be surprised if you start finding my love of fiber creeping into this blog more and more often. I'm sure when summer hits I'll be back to posts of family fun and my garden and friends, but for now, I am content to share the simple joys of my life with you.

Yarn Whispering

2009-01-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

I read a post on one of my absolute favorite blogs, Three Irish Girls, about how, if you let it and are so inclined, yarn can speak to you. That it may have wants and wishes of its own completely unrelated to your agenda. After wrestling with a certain skein through the entire holiday season this made a modicum of sense to me, so I decided to give it a try. When I was explaining to Evan that I intended to get in touch with my yarn he adopted the same look he wore when I told him that I was pimping out my van with zebra pillows - slightly incredulous barely veiled behind a hint of laughter. Undeterred, I sat down with said skein, part still knitted into the intended cabled wrist warmer I last saw when I threw it down in frustration and stormed off. It's a beautiful yarn, a cotton and silk blend in a dark, dewy purple that shines when the light hits it. With only slight hesitation, I started my experiment.

I'll spare you the rather lengthy conversation in its entirety, however. I began by apologizing to yarn for having not asked it's opinion in the first place, to which it remained quiet. The Yarnista told me to expect this, that yarn is quite as rebellious as a teenage boy at times, so I plowed on undeterred, asking yarn why it had so rejected the beautiful bag done in lace that I had originally intended it for. After a little cajoling yarn explained that she didn't fancy being a bag, especially a dainty lace one, and wanted no part in carrying around my collection of lipglosses.

I pondered a moment here as I realized perhaps yarn was right. After all, my current bag is roughly the size of volvo; how I could have expected the variety of mish mash I carry around with me to fit into such a small and delicate bag makes me wonder if that was the same day I left my phone in the rice cooker. Obviously, my judgement could have been a little off.

I admitted yarn was right, to which she looked a little too smug and fired off some choice comments that I chose to ignore.

My next line of questioning was what objection she had to the beautiful cabled wristwarmers, whose pattern I found after an extensive search of Ravelry, and why she hindered me every step of the way. Apparently the cables weren't the problem, rather that she believed herself too good to be a seasonal object that would end up in the back of the hall closet for half the year, likely losing her mate in the process. Again, perfect sense. And very true, she really is a beautiful yarn.

And so, finally, I asked yarn for her preference of projects. She requested something that would show off her gorgeous sheen, perhaps something that would keep the lovely cables. I let her think for awhile before she decided she needed time to decide, and also requested that she not be put back in the yarn basket, but on the bowl on my desk with my beloved handspuns, as she believed herself better than the common yarn in the wicker basket below.

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I did move it to the bowl. This particular yarn, though a little more demanding than I'd prefer, has certain qualities that remind me of myself, and far be it from me to stifle a kindred spirit. Perhaps in the sunlight, surrounded by bright handspuns, yarn will find it's way and help me create something we'll both be pleased with.

A little while later I picked up the skein of humble Purewool slated to become a pair of shorties for a customer. After the rather lengthy debate with the first yarn, I was a little hesitant to even ask, but....

I explained to yarn that he would become a pair of shorties for a little girl who would love him, but that the job wouldn't always be easy as he was stretched and played in and enjoyed. It assured me in an easy manner that it wouldn't mind that, and if that made me happy that he would be happy as well. He then suggested that I use a size 8, which of course, was an excellent idea.

This skein, quiet but kind, begins to remind me a bit of Evan.

Yarn and I begin our journey; the waistband shapes up nicely and before I know it I'm starting on the body. At this point, however, Bean wakes up and begins to cry. I start to lay my project down on the table beside me, reconsider, and move it to my bed. I have a sense this yarn would prefer the quiet comfort of my room, ready to be picked up at the end of a long day and enjoyed.

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I think I made headway today with some of my yarn, only time will tell how much fight the rest have in them. I'm going to have to watch that blue handspun still on my wheel though; I swear I hear it snickering already.....

A scrumptious idea!

2009-01-14T13:05:00.001-08:00

I normally can't do a Paula Dean meal, thanks to the exorbitant amount of butter she seems to use in everthing, but as I was thumbing through grandma's PD magazine she subsribes to I found this recipe. I changed it up a bit and had it the other night and it was absolutely delicious...and completely healthy!

Grilled Vegetable Salad

1/3 c. light olive oil

1/3 c. balsamic vinegar

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. pepper

2 hearts of romaine, chopped

2 zuchinni, cut into slices

2 yellow squash, cut into slices

1 large sweet onion, cut into slices

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 c. reduced fat crumbled feta cheese

Whisk together oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Put in fridge to chill.

Preheat skillet to 350 - 400.

Add a little oil to skillet, then add garlic. Let saute one minute, then add zucchini, squash, onion, and tomatoes.

Saute until they begin to soften, then add to romaine in large bowl. Add in olive oil mix and toss to coat.

Serve and top with feta cheese.

It took me all of 15 minutes to prepare this. We also decided to add chicken to ours, but to keep the prep time low bought a premade rotisserie chicken from our supermarket deli and added that to the salad as well.

*A note: This salad doesn't hold up well overnight for leftovers. If you were looking forward to a big healthy plate of it for lunch the next day you'll be sadly disappointed...as Evan and I were when we discovered the wilted, soggy mess the next day.

Come On Get Happy!

2009-01-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

All I can post is that it is a good day. My kids are dressed, fed, happy, and playing together nicely. I managed to get completely dressed this morning (makeup and everything!) before the kids wanted breakfast. My dog is loving the sunshine and wants to run and play outside. I ordered the seeds for my garden while the little ones napped - and they actually both did! I got to enjoy a (slightly interrupted due to four kids) chat with my lovely Becky. The house is cleaned, the laundry all put away, and the bedrooms even got picked up completely. Best of all is the anticipation of a good night! My buddy Mark is coming over for dinner, which is going to be pot roast, potatoes, corn, carrots, and...wait for it...orange rolls. Do you ever just look around, breathe in deep, sigh, and think...Life is good? I'm there with you.

Life is good.