house of peanut

I knew you were trouble when you walked in

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:34:00 +0000

The Two Best Dogs Ever, Spike and Peanut, have had birthdays recently, and are 13 and 11, respectively. Not puppies any more, they spend most of their days napping. Spike's kidneys aren't doing so well (typical for an old dog), so the vet put him on the Hill's k/d special food which is much lower in protein.

This food is expensive, but that's fine. We're in "do whatever it takes" mode with these guys, since they're both fairly healthy and don't seem to be in pain. The problem, though, is that Spike HATES this food. To the point where he will leave it in the bowl and just not eat.

This is a BEAGLE, y'all. You know, canine garbage disposal? Crumb vacuum? This is the dog that spent 15 minutes trying to get at a chickpea that rolled under the stove. For him to refuse food is baffling. And sad. He actually got skinny, down to 21 measly pounds from his fighting weight of 25.

So we caved and started giving him Peanut's food, which is a high quality dry Old Dog food. Or maybe it was Fat Dog food. It was the lowest protein content we could find, around 18%, but not as low as the vet-suggested food.

But Spike's latest bloodwork showed that his kidneys were still not working well, and we needed to reduce his protein intake to help. The vet asked me if I would consider home cooking for him. I looked at him like he was crazy. Then I said yes.

I still can't believe it. But Spike is my second baby. Despite all his annoying barking, refusal to do anything that HE doesn't want to do, and the tiny black and white hairs ALL OVER EVERYTHING, including BabyM, he's part of our family. And I'm willing to do what it takes to keep him healthy.

So here I am, cooking for the DOG every 3-4 days. Fortunately it's pretty easy. I mix equal ratios by weight of meat, vegetables, and grains after cooking, and the doctor gave me a list of each to choose from.

Meat: beef, chicken, tofu, beans, turkey

Vegetables: Pumpkin, squash, green beans, carrots (no leafy greens or onions)

Grains: Brown rice (best), quinoa, amaranth, white rice (no wheat or corn)

Doesn't actually look too bad, right?

So far I've used ground beef because it's inexpensive and easy to cook, canned pumpkin because it's easy to open a pre-weighed can, and whatever grains are languishing in our pantry now that I haven't been cooking them (all of which I can just throw in the rice cooker). So far he's had quinoa and wild rice and likes them both.

The size of my pans and bowls limits me to cooking about 6 lbs of food at a time, which is about 4 days' worth. I've been trolling the "manager's special" meat section at the grocery store, because they mark down the meat with sell-by dates coming soon. I cook the meat the day I buy it, so that works well.

Spike is also taking a bunch of supplements to help his kidneys, and fortunately we can just add the pills to his food, and he doesn't even notice.

Because Peanut is over 100lb, I decided not to cook for him. He'd require 4 cups of food a day which means I'd need to cook daily to make enough for both of them. So he gets whatever is left over after portioning out Spike's food, and is happy about that, but seems a little sad the rest of the week when he's eating his regular food. I'm not THAT crazy yet.

In 6-8 weeks, we'll go back to the vet and see how Spike's kidneys are doing. I'll be disappointed if all this effort isn't helping. Then again, I haven't seen him this excited about his food in a long time, so that's something.

If you need an ego boost, I recommend cooking for a dog. Never has anyone been so excited about my cooking skills!

So, would you cook for your pets?

Wordless Wednesday: Ladybug Side-eye

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:35:00 +0000

Ladybug #2 gives her sister the side-eye, by Kristi Lloyd Photography

Tuesday Lovin': Three of My Favorite Blog Posts EVER

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:00:00 +0000

Gratuitous BabyM photo,
by Kristi Lloyd Photography

In 8 years of blogging and Internet-time-wasting, I've read a lot of blog posts. Inspirational ones, funny ones, useful ones, not-so-useful ones. In the weird way that ideas converge, I was thinking about doing a post on my favorites, and a Facebook friend randomly mentioned one of them today, in a completely unrelated discussion. So I had to write this post - it was destiny, right?

I can't pinpoint exactly *why* these posts stuck with me over all these years. Two of these bloggers have consistently excellent posts, and the third is someone I don't read regularly, but his (?) post is just so ridiculously awesome that I have it bookmarked for when I want to laugh.

Tea & Cookies Kitchen Gift Guide

My friend S posted this link on Facebook a couple of years ago. I was home on maternity leave with BabyT so I had a lot of time to click links and read them. I now own and USE nearly every single item on her list - they are *that* useful. She hooked me with her lovely writing and all the stories that went with the gadgets.

I think of it every time I use my fabulous green plastic spoon (and I'm thinking of buying another!). I panicked in early 2010 when I was looking for the post, because I couldn't remember where I had seen it, and my fabulous friend S found it for me again. :)

AskMoxie: What Would Have Kept You in Your Job?

I knew once T was born that I would be happy to become a stay-at-home mama. Right as I was returning to work from maternity leave, I read this post (wistfully). This post encapsulates the brilliance of Moxie's blog - the comments are a goldmine of information from parents all over the world. I read her regularly, but this particular post stuck with me, for its anecdata of what everyone would need to make their jobs more compatible with family life. A few commenters discussed why they still worked.

A close second was the one describing the Newborn Witching Hour. I bookmarked it to try solutions for both of my babies. It didn't fix the problem, but made me feel a lot better about The Crazy that descended on our house for those few weeks each time.

littera_abactor: I Has a Sweet Potato

This is the post that came up in discussion on Facebook today. I cannot articulate how much I love this. Anyone who has an always-hungry dog will understand. It makes me laugh out loud every single time I read it, so I keep it bookmarked. If you're not a dog person, you won't get it. Here are some cute baby photos instead.

Enjoy, and drop me links if you have a super favorite somewhere in Internet land.

Project Life 2013: Space Needle Wedding Letterpress Style

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:26:00 +0000

I finished this layout last night and it was hard. Nothing was coming together the way I wanted, my handwriting was terrible, and I messed up some journaling cards that I loved. Sigh. That's the way of creativity, right?

I've learned that if something is bothering me on a layout (or any creative project) that time won't fix it. That thing will *always* bother me, every time I see it. So now I know to listen to my intuition and fix it. Maybe that means I have to completely re-do something, but it also means the end result will be pleasing to me.

So last night when I was working on it, I struggled. I was anxious to get it done before bed so I could blog about it today. But I wasn't in a state of "flow". Every pocket was hard-won. But I'm fairly happy with the results.

I used the lovely letterpress invitation from Allison's baby shower as inspiration for the color scheme, then gathered up matching journaling cards from Studio Calico, the new Me and My Big Ideas line from Michael's (love those things!), and the new striped vellum paper I got at Daiso, the awesome Japanese dollar store we have downtown. I've also been making a more conscious effort to use my stamps rather than just collecting them.

These pages cover our Big Outing to ride the Seattle Monorail and go up to the observation deck on the Space Needle, our friends M & T's wedding, and multiple trips to local parks thanks to our stunning weather.

I made some progress in figuring out my printing issues from Adobe Lightroom - I set Lightroom to manage the color instead of the printer, and now the photos are brighter and more true to what I see on-screen. I still need to tweak the settings, but am much happier with the results now. (Click for larger images.)

Apr 22 - May 5: Wedding, Space Needle, Parks

Apr 22 - May 5: Babies & Penguins

Here's a slide show of my 2013 pages, including close-ups. If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

We live our lives on a feeling

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:53:00 +0000

PaleoBaby

I think I've written this same post 5 or 6 times over the past 8 years I've been blogging. (8 years!). I read a post by Cathy Zielske that's been rolling around in my head. She's struggled with the hard work of losing weight and getting healthier, and her therapist-type person told her that she:

simply keep(s) this a problem in my life because it allows me to act like a child and indulge every whim rather than do what is needed, which is to feed my body healthy, nutrient dense food in appropriate amounts and to exercise.

My first thought was "damn, she's paying someone to say mean things to her?!". And then my second thought was "Huh, I think that applies to me too."

I'm smart. I know what I need to do to lose weight (a staggering amount, after this second pregnancy). I am lucky enough to even know *exactly* how I need to eat, and that I will feel *incredible* when I eat the right things and get just a little bit of exercise.

For me and my PCOS, diabetes-family-history self, the Paleo diet works best. Doing the Whole30 back in Oct 2011 was really transformative for me - I had a TON of energy, needed only 7-8 hours of sleep, and felt mentally clear and just *ready* for whatever life was going to bring.

So who wouldn't keep doing it, with those fabulous results? It would be stupid to stop, right? But I did. It was a gradual process, and I've still kept some good habits, so it's not a total loss. But it started with just one plate of French toast, and continued down the slippery slope of "I've got 2 little kids now and I'm starving and the Taco Time drive-through is easy."

I was angry about having a restricted diet and felt that with all the transitions in my life lately, I "deserve" to eat what I want. But I'm a grownup. I'm in charge, and making the choices. I shouldn't feel like "someone" is forcing me to eat healthy against my will.

I'm not a person for whom "everything in moderation" works. I need ironclad rules. I also HATE food journaling with a passion. Whole30 and on a larger scale, Paleo, meets all these needs. No counting, no hunger, and all the (sustainably, humanely sourced) bacon a girl can eat.

I am starting fresh today with my second Whole30. So if you see me in person, help a girl out. Don't bring me cake or ask if I want to see the dessert menu. And most definitely do not order me a diet Coke if we're meeting for lunch.

I feel good about this. I'm mentally ready to do what's right for me. I know it's going to be hard, especially at weekend breakfasts out. But I do not want to arrive at my 40th birthday (looming!) still fighting with myself about weight and wishing things were different. So here's to DOING.

Wordless Wednesday: The Chubbers Has Delicious Feet

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:37:00 +0000

Crazy 8

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 08 May 2013 02:21:00 +0000

Today TJ & I have been married for 8 years. Our marriage is the same age as a 3rd grader. He explained to T that an anniversary is "the birthday of our marriage". His simple yet accurate explanations are just one of the many things I think are awesome about him.

I made a little photo collage and discovered that I don't have a single photo of us together in 2008. (Click for a larger version.)

In true tired parent form, neither of us remembered our anniversary until a few days ago. Since my parents will be in town soon, I'm looking forward to planning our first date night since BabyM was born. Yes, it's really been that long since we went out alone together. It's complicated when BabyM will only nurse to sleep. At least now her bedtime is fairly predictable, and she mostly can settle herself back to sleep if she wakes before midnight so we may be able to squeeze in a nice dinner somewhere fairly close to home.

One of the things I loved about M & T's wedding last weekend was how they involved all the guests in the hand-fasting, and asked us to affirm our support for their marriage. It was similar to the Guest Affirmation in our own ceremony 8 years ago.

In honor of 8 years, here are 8 things I am grateful for in our marriage:

1. He is an equal partner in our home life.

2. We made some nice babies.

3. He will watch the crappy TV shows I like (Law & Order, Gray's Anatomy, Glee)

4. We are both introverts, so we understand each others' need for alone time.

5. Babies love to sleep on him.

6. He fixes things when they break, when my "solution" would be to throw it away and get a new one.

7. He's always up for a trip to Canlis.

8. Our travel "personalities" are well-matched, ie. we're homebodies who enjoy a big trip every few years.

I still marvel to myself how lucky I am to have found someone who suits me so well. 16-year-old me would have thought it was crazy if you said she'd marry that "mysterious older guy" she was crushing on.

Life is pretty amazing sometimes.

Love and happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Tue, 07 May 2013 03:16:00 +0000

Yesterday we went to a wedding. This was the first one we've attended in 7 years, unbelievably. I guess we're just in that phase of life where everyone is already married, has decided not to get married, or elopes.

T was very excited about it - we got her a new dress and matching hair clips, told her she could wear her dress-up black shoes, and said she could dance. I prepped her for the part where she would need to sit quietly and listen to the ceremony.

The invitation said "aloha attire" and BabyM was the only one who had anything vaguely resembling that. TJ and I settled on ocean blue, and T's dress had flamingos, which I figured was close.

we honestly didn't plan this level of matchiness!

It was a perfect day for a wedding by the lake. Both girls were in remarkably good spirits despite interrupted naps. The room was filled with love and good wishes for the happy couple, as all weddings are.

But this wedding was different from all the others we've attended. This one had two brides, who have been together for 14 years and married for 10, but are only now able to make it legal. It was an honor to be invited, and I am *so* grateful to M and T for the opportunity for their wedding to be the first one my girls experienced.

T asks a lot of questions, and yesterday she asked *why* people get married. I told her that people get married when they find someone they love very much and want to spend the rest of their lives with that person.

I love that T never got the memo about marriage being only between a man and a woman. I hope that when she and her sister are grown up, they'll be incredulous that it was such a big deal for two women or two men to get married, just like I am still surprised that my own marriage would have been illegal in some states a few decades before I was born.

As expected, we had to leave a bit early due to missed naps and early bedtimes, but it was a wonderful, perfect, lovely way to end our weekend.

I'm always workin', slavin' every day

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Fri, 03 May 2013 22:47:00 +0000

Baby.

Bonus points if you guess where that song lyric is from.

I had the perfect flexible "job" today where I was able to bring my baby and leave in time for T's preschool pickup. Even better, it involved craft supplies.

A few months ago, I signed up for the Citrus Twist kit for my Project Life pages. The first month it arrived, I was surprised to find that the return address on the package was a small town 20 minutes from us. That month, my kit took a week to arrive because USPS thought my box needed a vacation in Jacksonville, FL (seriously).

You know I have a weakness for craft supplies, and especially papercrafty kits. Given that I was soon going to be jobless but didn't want to give up my kit subscriptions, I asked Trina, the business owner if she needed any help.

To my surprise she said yes! So today I got a behind-the-scenes peek into the fascinating world of running a scrapbook kit club. BabyM and I went to her house after our Starbucks run (I really need to give that up!) and Trina gave me a job to do - measuring and cutting lengths of gorgeous ombre-colored twine for this month's kits.

Tasks like this relax me. One of my all-time favorite jobs in college was sorting mail for the Chemical Engineering department. Campus Mail Services dropped off a huge box with all the mail for the building. It was my job to put the mail into each individual's mailbox and forward items to folks who were no longer there. I did this for one hour twice a day every weekday.

It was a welcome respite from hours of chemistry, math and physics lectures and the looming problem sets that were always due. Not to mention that $10/hour was a kingly sum for my 18-year-old self. Unexpectedly, that job yielded me 2 offers for paid summer research positions and I met a lot of graduate students and faculty I never would have talked to otherwise. Opportunity often knocks when I'm least expecting it.

Today I had a great time chatting with Trina about how she runs her business, new paper products (swoon), and our families. BabyM played (mostly) quietly on the floor next to us. I didn't get as much done as I had hoped, but will go back next week while BabyM plays with her grandparents.

It was a neat way to spend a few hours this morning, and despite forgetting to take photos, I'll definitely include it in my upcoming Project Life layout!

She blinded me with science

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:29:00 +0000

BabyM loves Science

Shortly after each of my babies was born, I got a postcard in the mail from the University of Washington asking if we wanted to add them to a roster of experimental subjects for research studies.

This sounds weird and ominous, right? But actually, it's pretty cool. UW has some amazing research programs on humans - the kind of biology and neuroscience stuff I know nothing about. I was a molecular bio/biochem person in my previous life.

T only got called once when she was about 15 months old, for a study to determine when babies understand cause and effect. The study is mentioned here, but I can't find an actual reference for it.

We went down to "the U" on a sunny day, and she got to play with some toys and watch some things light up. The researcher would arrange a group of toys in a particular orientation and then see if she'd imitate him. T was more interested in naming the objects - ladder, octopus, helicopter. He was impressed by her verbal skills, and she wanted to play more when we were done. She got a small toy elephant for her "work" and our parking was free.

Last week I got an email asking for babies to participate in a non-invasive hearing study. BabyM and I went to our first of three sessions today, and it was the first time in YEARS I wandered around the University District. I went to school at UW nearly 15 years ago, so I'm familiar with the area, but it's changed so much since then. I don't remember it being quite so seedy-looking, to be honest, but maybe I'm just viewing it with my suburban mama filter now.

This study required BabyM to wear a tiny earpiece and listen to some (quiet) white noise, over which they'd play people speaking. They were watching to see if she'd react when the sounds changed.

Since she was sitting on my lap, they needed me to be "neutral" so I got to listen to music so I couldn't hear or influence her reaction - Mama is nothing but a piece of furniture in this experiment!. I listened to half of U2's The Joshua Tree, and remembered what an AMAZING album it is. It was the first album I bought on CD, back in 1990. Yeah, I'm old.

BabyM is happy and smiley when she's not tired or hungry so this morning went well and she charmed the (all-female!) staff at the lab. We'll go back twice more next week and earn our $15 and free parking again (probably just enough to pay gas and the bridge toll!).

I like the idea of contributing to Science, and of course, the studies I agree to are totally safe for my girls. I'm obviously not doing it for the money. I do think it's good for babies to go out and meet new people and see different things. BabyM was fascinated by all the colorful photos on the walls at the lab, as the same building has a Speech and Hearing Clinic for kids.

I did decline the request for a 2-year study that required us to come in 6-8 times for a sleeping MRI, right around bedtime, for 1-2 hours each. I don't think MRIs are harmful, but wrangling a tired baby and trying to get her to fall asleep in an unfamiliar environment seemed like a recipe for stress.

But the easy studies during the day? Sign us up!

Turn it on, turn it on again

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 01 May 2013 04:29:00 +0000

I need more of this

I'm thinking of breaking up with Facebook, blogs and crafty message boards. Not "I'd like to see other people, too" or even "I just want to be friends", more like "I never want to see you again." It's making me complacent, lazy and tired.

It's so much easier to *read* about crafting while I veg in front of the computer than actually sit down in the craft room and work actively on a project. I can pretend like I'm informed about current events and social injustices by reading links friends have shared on Facebook, without actually *doing* anything to right wrongs in the world, in whatever small way I might be able to help.

I can claim I'm "keeping in touch" with friends as I passively read their updates about new babies, parenting challenges and cool jobs, without actually seeing them in person, chatting with them on the phone or exchanging a detailed personal email. Or (gasp!) a handwritten letter.

I'm starting to feel like Facebook is like an adult version of preschool, where a bunch of kids are all together in a room and learning how to interact with each other. We're all shouting things out about ourselves, without really taking turns like you would in a one on one conversation, or just shutting up and listening quietly while someone tells their whole story. It's loud and chaotic. Everyone is only listening with half an ear, while they talk themselves.

Sure, I have made and strengthened friendships on Facebook as I've written before. I've gotten some great parenting advice there. But right now it's just overwhelming. How many different articles do I need to read about the Boston bombers or gender inequality? Do I really need 17 affirmations every day about how awesome I am, in fonts and colors that make my eyes hurt?

I'm starting to feel the same way about blogging. I do love reading posts that are useful to me, especially time management and parenting topics. But I'm finding myself in that same rut, where I'm desperately reading every new time management book or post I can get my hands on in an attempt to structure and control this new stay-home life I'm in.

My new genre is apparently "mommy time management" books and blogs. And I know, they're probably meant for dads too, but most dads I know don't spend time reading about this stuff, they just jump in and do whatever they think is right. I need more of that kind of action right now.

The irony of posting this on my personal blog is not lost on me. How many people really need to see my scrapbook pages? Or the photos I post on Instagram? I can say proudly that we don't have TV in our house, but we have more than 12 Internet-enabled devices (seriously). If I'm sitting in front of those all day, is that really any better?!

I'm saturated by all this media, social and otherwise. I need to figure out my path through it. I think for now it might involve turning a lot of it OFF. This is different from our "tech sabbath" where we did the "no screen" thing for 24 hours (and didn't quite make it). This is more of a selective process, trying to decide what I need and want from the chaos. Email obviously will stay, since I'm job hunting. But the rest of the "infotainment"? I think it has to go.

Thoughts?

Project Life 2013: Big Outings and Pink Kits

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:57:00 +0000

I got my mojo back and finally felt like working on Project Life. The nice thing about doing a layout every 2 weeks is that it allows me a little time and space to NOT work on it, without that nagging feeling of "getting behind". I'm not sure there's anything I hate more than guilt induced by crafty stuff that's supposed to be FUN.

I didn't have a strong color scheme or materials in mind for this layout, so I thought I'd let my April Citrus Twist kit guide me. There was a lot of bright pink in it, and even though it didn't exactly match the colors in the photos I took, I charged ahead anyway.

Am I the only scrapbooker who doesn't care about matching photo colors to paper? I just think it makes it less fun that way. Given how often T's jackets appear in photos, I'd always be using the same colors, and I'd get ridiculously bored.

We had some Big, scrapbook-worthy stuff in these couple of weeks. I gathered up the kids and we went to the Tulip Festival, BabyM had her first solid food (avocado!), and we went to the Olympic Sculpture Park in downtown Seattle. (Click for larger images.)

April 8-21: Tulip Festival, first solid food for BabyM

April 8-21: Sculpture Park, Starbucks demographics, Uwajimaya

April Project Life Studio Calico Calendar close-up

I keep my PL pages pretty flat and free of bulky embellishments so I can fit all the year's pages in one 3 ring binder. But when I finished this spread, I thought it looked *too* flat. Fortunately, there were some cute embellishments in the Citrus Twist kit to fix this problem - four little circle "gems" with patterns and bright pink floss. I like how they added just a bit of dimension and shine to the page.

My handy-dandy Tiny Attacher stapler is awesome for keeping the floss in place. I still love those tiny staples. I'm also in love with the crazy triangle stamp from a recent Studio Calico kit. I'm looking for excuses to use it everywhere. It's especially cool stamped in metallic ink.

I'm still having challenges printing my photos from Lightroom so they're nice and bright. I found a video from Scott Kelby that may help, so I'll hopefully get that sorted out before the next spread.

Here's a slide show of my 2013 pages, including close-ups. If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

Some nights I call it a draw

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:10:00 +0000

One of my challenges for nearly my entire adult life has been cooking and eating at home. I love eating out, but more than that, it's *easy* to eat out and fairly cheap. Not as cheap as cooking at home, but when you come home to a fridge with soy milk, ketchup, and one shriveled up apple, cooking at home isn't going to happen without a giant grocery run and by then I'm so hungry I'm going to eat the next person who looks at me sideways.

So the real problem for me has been planning. Not coincidentally, this is where I go off the rails with any healthy eating plan, too. The first week after a grocery run is great. Then I run out of stuff and start eating dry cereal out of the box and the leftover chocolate chips, because all the healthy snacks are gone. You feelin' me?

Now that we've essentially cut our income in half, it's not prudent to just grab takeout, or hit up the Claim Jumper when the fridge is empty. Also, we have a 6 month old, who has not yet mastered the concept of "restaurant behavior" since she's JUSTABABY. So eating out is often a *stressful* exercise, and one parent usually ends up eating their meal quickly with one hand while holding a fussy baby. NOFUN.

So, meal planning. It's been one of my goals this year to master this skill that eludes me. Luckily I know my way around the kitchen. I love to cook. But for me, cooking is a multi-hour, multi-course *project*, something I did for fun once a month or so on a weekend day with no other obligations. Not the daily grind of getting a meal on the table.

I found SimpleMom's brilliant meal planning technique using Google Calendar. She advocates planning 2 weeks of dinners at a time, then repeating them, so you have a month done at once.

I made this even easier by picking a "theme" for each day of the week, and made the "theme" an All-Day appointment, recurring, on the Google Calendar. I'll change it up when we get tired of this rotation, but it's general enough that it'll be a while before that happens.

Monday = Breakfast for Dinner

Tuesday = Dinner Out (since T has dance class in the late afternoon)

Wednesday = Dinner in Asia

Thursday = Beef. It's What's for Dinner

Friday = Chicken.Chicken.Chicken (based on this brilliant paper)

Saturday = Dinner in MexicItaly

Sunday = Dinner with Friends

Here's the process I use. Maybe it'll help someone out in Internet-land who finds meal-planning incredibly annoying/hard/exhausting. (Click for a larger view of the calendar.)

1. I do a quick check of the fridge, freezer and pantry to see if there's anything I'd like to use up - meat, veggies, etc.

2. I grab 2 cookbooks and find main dish recipes that use those items, matching them to one of the themes above.

3. For 2 weeks, I fill in the main dishes and sides on the Google Calendar in an appointment at 5pm (which is when I have to start cooking). Sides are *extremely* simple, like steamed veggies, cut fruit, a baked potato, etc. unless the main dish is heat-and-serve. I also put down the cookbook and page number so I can find the recipes easily when I'm ready to cook. Each "appointment" is repeated in 2 weeks on the same day. At least once a week we eat something very easy to "cook", like a frozen or pre-made item from Trader Joe's.

4. On Saturdays, I look at the coming week and write up a grocery list for these meals (plus anything else we need for breakfast and lunch). If this is a "repeat" week, I remove anything we didn't like the first time and replace it with something else (and repeat it in 2 weeks to make planning easier). I also check for other evening commitments in case things need to be moved. For example, when I have a dinner with friends, I feed T something simple before I go, and TJ can fend for himself.

5. I'm keeping a running list of the things that were easy to make and well-liked so I can build up our own list of what we like to eat regularly instead of always picking out new things.

I started this a month ago with skepticism. I've gone down this OMGBRILLIANT path before and fizzled out. But seriously, this just worked. We've followed the plan most days of the month, and have reduced the random items languishing in our freezer. Most nights we are all eating the same thing (except for BabyM, of course), which is brilliant. No more kid meal + adult-fend-for-yourself. We're definitely spending less money eating out, and are more organized about our grocery shopping since I have an actual list.

We're luckily not in a position where I have to clip coupons or figure out what meat is on sale before I buy it, so I don't stress too much about what to choose. I do try to avoid the $18/lb filet mignon at Whole Foods unless it's a special occasion. Since we don't buy a ton of processed foods and snacky items, spending a little more on meat doesn't affect the grocery bill much.

The nice thing about this plan is that I can tackle health at the same time. I've mostly eliminated simple starches from our dinners, though we do love our potatoes. (TJ and T are definitely not into sweet potatoes as a substitute, yet.) We were already dairy-free, and now I can make sure we're getting enough vegetables in too.

Another awesome result of this is reducing my mental load. I don't have to make decisions each night about what to do for dinner, then throw up my hands and decide we should just go to Five Guys and get burgers. Now I just look at the calendar, make sure we have everything we need, and get to work at 5pm, usually with my 3yo helper. My routine-oriented self LOVES this part.

So now maybe I can earn one of my SAHM merit badges. :) My next goal is to tackle lunch, as we don't have as many leftovers as I thought, and then I skip lunch and then THECRANKY.

What about you? Do you plan meals ahead?

I ain't workin' here no more

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:24:00 +0000

Photo by JASELabs on Flickr

I sent out my "goodbye email" today at work. I sent the email to about 75 people I've worked with over 10 years. 10 years! I can't believe that I'm even old enough to have worked somewhere for 10 years. Sigh.

It was emotionally harder than I thought, considering I haven't actually been AT work since mid-September. I've been in limbo for so long with my job - maternity leave, my extended vacation/internal job search, and before that, the never-ending reorganization in my group.

But now it seems real and final, and the checks will stop coming. That's the scary part for me right now, even though I have some good leads on part-time consulting work. I've been earning at least spending money since I was 15. I've been supporting myself since grad school in 1996 (with a few noteworthy exceptions when I got into some crazy credit card debt in college).

My identity is not tied up in my job. But I do love saying I work for Microsoft. It's instantly recognizable (good or bad, you decide). It's got prestige. People dig Bill Gates.

I quit because I want more space in my life to do things - work a little, spend lots of unstructured time with the kids, craft a little (ok, a lot), keep our household running, exercise again.

So now I've got to work on my elevator/cocktail party speech. What is it that I do, exactly? How do I avoid saying "I used to be..." or dismissing what I do - "I'm home with the kids, for now".

Stay tuned.

Project Life 2013: A Riot of Color

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:16:00 +0000

I don't usually comment on current events, but if you and/or yours were in Boston today, hope everyone is safe.

This Project Life layout was a bit uninspired. I was excited to have time and space to work on it, but couldn't settle on a color scheme. I was underwhelmed by the Kelly Purkey kit I bought for Project Life, and also not that thrilled with the April Studio Calico kit. Not a good month for new supplies, I guess.

I knew I wanted to use the yellow "Springtime" card since we've finally had some decent weather! So I built the color scheme around it, which is not my favorite, but at least it's bright and fun. I used cards from the April SC kit, my new Jade Project Life kit, and the new Me and My Big Ideas line at Michael's, along with some of that fabulous American Crafts glitter tape.

I also used a lot of sequins, and after some experimentation, found that Scotch 2-way scrapbooking glue is the best for adhering individual ones, because it has a nice small tip on the bottle.

This isn't one of my favorite layouts - it just ended up being a bit too eclectic and not cohesive enough. But with 52+ pages in the year, I can't expect to love all of them. Imperfection is acceptable, and what's important to me is that I have photos I love and wrote down the highlights of our weeks.

(Click each photo to see a bigger version.)

Mar 25 - Apr 7: Favorite restaurant, friends, activities ;)

Mar 25 - Apr 7: Food & sleep!

Glitter tape, sequins and SC kit cards, oh my!

One really cool thing I learned this week was how to use Lightroom to simplify my photo selection and printing process. I used their 'Smart Collections' feature to filter on the date range for this spread, which quickly gave me the set of photos from which to choose. I then used a color label to mark the ones I wanted to print, which made it easy to review my selections and swap things in/out.

I then used Lightroom itself to print (instead of the Canon EZ Print app), and taught myself how to save templates to get multiple photos on a page. Now I've got a few standard templates for my PL photos, which will really streamline the process for me. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to fix the fact that my photos print much darker from Lightroom than from the Canon app. I'm sure it's some horribly complex issue about screen brightness and ICC color profiles, neither of which I care to understand in great depth. I'll be searching online for a quick and easy solution.

And in good news, I've commandeered BabyM's bedroom to be my temporary craft room until we figure out a solution for the leak. Since she sleeps in our room and will until she's no longer eating at night, we've been using her room for miscellaneous storage and the occasional guest. I'm so excited to have a dedicated space again.

Here's a slide show of my 2013 pages, including close-ups. If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

Shake it off

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:38:00 +0000

I am so tired. All the time. Not because I'm not getting enough sleep - nights are decent around here - the baby is (mostly) sleeping in her crib now, with a few wakings at night, but better than the all night nurse-fest we had going on a few weeks ago.

But this staying-at-home-with-2-kids thing? Freakin' exhausting. Even on the good days. By the time everyone is in bed, which thankfully is no later than 7pm around here, I'M ready to turn in for the night. My brain and my whole body is just DONE.

I've felt pretty crappy the past few days so I think I've got a virus or a cold threatening to break, or maybe it's just the crazy pollen thing going on here. I'm also getting NO exercise. T is on Spring Break, and even when she wasn't, it was mostly too rainy to walk, or we all just got up too damn late to take the 20 min walk to school. (It's less than a 2 minute drive, I think.)

I know, you just read 3 paragraphs about how tired I am. That wasn't much fun, was it?

Oh Say Can You See?

On the bright side, we had An Outing on Wednesday. Since it's Spring Break, my Big Girl is home all day, which is lovely. So I suggested the Tulip Festival about an hour north of Seattle, and being game for most adventures, she readily agreed. I love that kind of enthusiasm - great for my ego. I'll have to store that up to get me through ages 13-17, I suppose.

Despite the crazy traffic and the ridiculously cold, windy, rainy weather, we had a good time. T got her face painted with a remarkably detailed set of tulips, M napped in the car both ways (timed carefully by yours truly), and no one melted down during lunch at the yummy Skagit Brewery.

I also remembered to take the Big Camera and got some good shots of the girls, and even a few tulip shots, though the "nifty fifty" prime lens I use isn't great for sweeping landscape tulip field shots.

If I had thought about the outing too much before we left, I likely would have decided it was "too hard" to get everyone together and go by myself. So I didn't think, I just decided. And it worked out great.

Wordless Wednesday: Bliss

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:15:00 +0000

Getting rid of the F word in kids' books

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 04:20:00 +0000

And now you're thinking, "what kind of books is she reading to her kids?!"

One of the common themes in kids' books is words that are opposites. We have at least 3 books that tackle this topic: Boynton's Opposites, the most excellent Hippo Opposites by Janik Coat, and parts of I'll Teach My Dog A Lot of Words by Frith.

In I'll Teach My Dog A Lot of Words, there's a comparison that bugs the crap out of me. Fat and Thin. The illustration is with animals and it's not making a value judgment, but it still bothers me. First, as anyone with a toddler or preschooler knows, they are way into classifying things in their environment.

They also have no filter, especially when in public. Like the time T pointed out "Mama, look at that brown baby eating a banana!" very loudly while we were in Trader Joe's. Not offensive, of course, just a little uncomfortable when everyone can hear.

So back to the books. I don't really need "fat" in my preschooler's vocabulary. I can't think of one situation where it's ok to apply that word to a person and I sure as heck DO NOT want them using it to describe themselves.

There are plenty of other words to describe *things* that weigh a lot or look big - heavy, fluffy, large, etc. Boynton and Coat both get it - they use heavy/light and show animals on a see-saw or in a hot air balloon/under water to illustrate this.

And no doubt, preschoolers raised on these books will likely find some other way to comment on people's size, like big or heavy, and they still need to learn that it's not appropriate to comment on strangers' appearances (unless directly giving them a compliment, of course).

But I think getting rid of "fat" would go a long way. Language matters.

Tuesday Lovin': Adobe Lightroom

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:18:00 +0000

Starting Project Life in 2012 changed my photography process significantly:

I took many more photos, deliberately, because I knew I needed stuff for the album
I went through those photos EVERY WEEK, because I need to print them
I used my phone camera a lot more, because it's handy. So I needed to coordinate two sources of photos - phone and the "big" camera.

Prior to Sept 2009, I only took photos at special occasions and on trips when I remembered to bring the camera. When T was born, I was excited to capture her rapid changes, so I ramped up, even remembering to get a photo of her on most days of her first year.

In 2010 and 2011, I just dumped all those photos onto our hard drive. I went through some of them to make photo books for the grandparents, but still have loads of unprocessed photos from those years.

2012 and Project Life made me realize that my current process or "workflow" as fancy photographers call it, was really cumbersome. It worked, but it was a PAIN:

1. Dump photos from phone and camera into a folder called "import"

2. Sort those photos manually into folders based on subject matter - crafts, family/date, house, etc

3. Using the painfully slow Windows Photo Viewer, go through and delete unusable shots

4. Open the remaining photos in a photo editor like Photoscape or Adobe Photoshop Elements and go through each one to make edits: crop, adjust exposure/white balance, apply filters and actions as desired.

5. Save copies of the photos to their "final homes" on our server.

6. Upload those photos to our Smugmug site.

After several months of this, I was ready for a change. Someone suggested that Adobe Lightroom might help. I was skeptical that another expensive software package was going to HELP matters, but bit the bullet during the Black Friday sale on Amazon.

I'm not a "click it and see what happens" kind of person, so I did a lot of reading online and watched some videos on the Adobe site to learn the software before using it. (More on those resources in another post.)

At first it seemed overly complicated. But then I realized I don't need to use *all* the features of the software and I can grow into it over time.

A few editing sessions later I fell in love, because it made my biweekly photo sorting process *much* easier and faster:

1. Dump photos from phone and DSLR memory card into monthly folder via Lightroom .(Settings saved so all I need to do is choose a different folder each month)

2. Quickly review imported photos and mark the rejects. One click deletes the rejects forever.

3. Crop and edit photos, still in Lightroom. Easily do more extensive editing in external programs, without leaving Lightroom.

4. With just a few clicks, save the final JPGs to our monthly/category folders *and* send to Smugmug *and* Facebook as desired, all at once.

Lightroom is really fast at displaying photos and moving to the next one. There are lots of options for flagging and marking images as you go through them, but I just mark the ones I'm not keeping because there's a beautiful menu option called "Delete Rejected Photos".

It also can process multiple jobs at once, as in my Step 4 above - I can start all of those items and still work in Lightroom while those are being completed. Much faster than uploading at each site, or manually copying files to the hard drive.

The one thing I needed to get used to is that Lightroom doesn't actually edit the original files. It's a nondestructive editor, so it just saves those edits separately from the photos. If you want an edited version, you have to "export" a JPG file with those edits. But this way I don't shoot myself in the foot by irreversibly editing a file beyond repair.

Lightroom is also superfantastic at cataloging large numbers of photos. We have 16000+ and growing, and I haven't yet tackled the aspect of sorting through and categorizing all of them, but I know that Lightroom will be able to handle it, as many professional photographers use it for their hundreds of thousands of photos.

I'm making my way through Scott Kelby's excellent Lightroom 4 book (slowly). I love that I can pick and choose what features I need, and slowly get better at processing photos and storing them in a way that makes sense for us.

So if you're serious about taking pictures and keeping them organized, even if you never intend to do it professionally, I highly recommend using Adobe Lightroom. You can get by without it, but it makes life so much easier.

I love, love, love it. (And no one is paying me to write this. Though if you buy something on Amazon after clicking through my links, I may get a few cents to spend on chai.)

Project Life 2013: It Ain't Easy Being Green

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 05:26:00 +0000

I am inspired by color. On the too-rare occasions when I get a pedicure, I always have a strong feeling for what color I want, and it's all over the board. It depends on my mood and the season.

This also happens when I'm making beaded jewelry - I nearly always have an idea for color combinations first, and then I search through my bead stash to make it happen. This is why I sort my beads by color. I also sort all my paper scraps and embellishments by color for the same reason.

For my last Project Life layout, I took inspiration from a few bright green and white cards I got in the Studio Calico Project Life grab bags I bought a few weeks ago. It was perfect for the 2 week period encompassing St. Patrick's Day, even though we didn't really celebrate it. TJ and I tried to remember what we did that day, and all we came up with was "we wore green" and "we ate out somewhere". Sometimes I'm not so good at documenting these things.

What I also love about this layout is that I mixed super-old and new products. The "THIS WEEK", "LUCKY", "this is my beautiful life", speech bubbles, and "FAVORITE" cards and the white letter stickers are from recent Studio Calico Project Life kits. But the photorealistic grass paper, which matches the color scheme perfectly, is ancient in scrapbook years - mid 2000s? So are the kelly green number stickers on the calendar and hello card, and the vinyl bracket border on the week card.

Mar 11-24: Mostly @ home, daily routine stuff

Mar 11-24: Daddy Day at preschool, dinner with friends, deep thoughts

The calendar thingy.

I'm still working at our kitchen table, since the hole in my craft room ceiling is still open, which means I've got limited embellishments to use - some sequins, wood veneers, Thickers, miscellaneous stickers and die cuts. The upside is that my layouts are coming together faster without the decision paralysis of having a whole roomful of stuff from which to choose.

Here's a slide show of my 2013 pages, including close-ups. If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

Isn't it lucky?

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 06:57:00 +0000

We had amazing weather this weekend - temperature in the high 60s (Fahrenheit!), bright sunshine and dry. It was just enough to remind me why we live here and put up with 9 months of grey.

TJ took T to a birthday party yesterday - her first one where we don't know the parents. It seems like a sort of milestone. She had a great time, of course. While they were gone, BabyM and I headed over to our local outdoor mall to walk and shop. I wanted to find some cute outfits for the girls to wear for our family photos next week.

Cute matching tutus from naartjie.com

I got lucky and found these gorgeous blue tutu skirts on sale at Naartjie. Oddly, the only one they had left, in size XXXL (9 years) fits T just fine. It's a little long, but the waist fits just right. Crazy. And I was able to find one for BabyM as well. I'm a sucker for little girls in tutus. But not the super short ones - I definitely prefer the ones that can be worn as skirts.

I like having coordinating outfits for family photo shoots - not totally matching, but I like the girls to match, and TJ and I will both wear black shirts and jeans. I found a nice black shirt at Eddie Bauer, so I can see the end of the nursing-wear tunnel, finally. BabyM eats a lot less frequently than she used to, so I can try to wear some normal shirts again.

Awesome necklace from anntaylor.com

We passed the Ann Taylor store on the way back to the car, and an item in the window display stopped me in my tracks. It was a bold sparkly necklace with round clear stones edged in aqua metal. Very retro cool. I had to have it. I walked into the store, ready to pay dearly for it, and was thrilled to find out it was "only" $58, but even better, IT WAS ON SALE. 30% off, baby.

So it's now mine, and will also make an appearance in our photo shoot. I'm excited because the aqua matches the cute shirt I bought for T, so we'll be matching too!

Today TJ made us waffles for breakfast, I had some crafting time, he took a motorcycle ride, the girls napped at the same time for a whole hour, and we had a picnic in the park with some good friends.

This weekend really felt like an unexpected gift. (Insert sigh of contentment here.)

Project Life 2013: There's a Hole in My Craft Room

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 05:31:00 +0000

My craft room has a giant hole in the ceiling. There's a leak and we need to figure out how/if we can fix it. Fortunately the water never came into the room itself, but it was collecting over the ceiling, making a lovely bulge that looked like impending disaster. So we moved *all* of my stuff out of the room, and are working on figuring out where the water is coming from.

So for the next couple of weeks my craftiness will invade our kitchen. I put together this biweekly Project Life layout with very limited supplies. Since my printer is now in the garage, I had the photos printed at Bartells Drugs, a local chain. They offer a matte finish, which is very cool, but the photo has a tendency to "rub off" when it gets scraped by something. I learned that the hard way when using one of my old crappy paper trimmers.

As usual I had more photos than I could use, so the crafty bits are limited. I used one of the Seafoam Project Life kit cards for the week summary, and then noticed that the Echo Park Photo Freedom ampersand and 'you are my sunshine' cards matched really nicely, too, and that got me set on an aqua and yellow theme. And that gave me a fantastic excuse to go crazy with the super cute KI Memories 'smile' washi tape I got in one of my Studio Calico kits.

Feb 25 - Mar 10: Redmond outing and dance class

Feb 25 - Mar 10: New glasses, coloring eggs, sisters

Calendar closeup - tiny bling

I filled my supercute IKEA Raskog 3-shelf cart with my essential Project Life supplies so I can continue to work on my pages while my craft room is being fixed.

I've found a formula that works for me to keep the layouts looking cohesive:

One type of alphabet stickers
1 or 2 washi tapes, glitter tape or ribbon (coordinating)
Use same journaling pen for entire layout
Adhesive gems, enamel dots, brads, *or* wood veneer (choose one)
1-2 patterned papers only (coordinating)
Month card with days marked off
Week card with dates and bullet point summary
Stick to color scheme for *all* embellishments

This 2 week period also contained TJ's birthday but I didn't get any good photos of our birthday dinner at Zeek's Pizza, or him opening his presents. (Sad!).

Here's a slide show of my 2013 pages, including close-ups. If you can't see it, click here to view my entire 2013 Project Life gallery.

I belong with you, you belong with me

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 03:11:00 +0000

So remember when I wrote wistfully about how cosleeping never worked with BabyT? Yeah, let's file that under "be careful what you wish for".

BabyM will not sleep in her crib. She will begrudgingly stay there quietly for 10 minutes since we bought her this flashy light up musical "soother" (which does not soothe!), but sleep she WILL NOT.

She's been sleeping in our bed for a few months now, aka most of her life since she's only 5 months old. I got over my paranoia about blankets and suffocation and baby being squished by one of us, in favor of more sleep.

And it's true, we do get more sleep. I do not feel sleep-deprived, but the quality of the sleep I'm getting isn't great, so I need a LOT. And I'm a high-sleep-needs person to start with, so now it's even worse. It seems as though BabyM is enjoying her proximity to The Milk, so she wakes a few times to nurse. On the rare occasion we've gotten her to sleep somewhere else (like the crib - once!) or when I go sleep elsewhere, she only wakes once.

So yeah, we'd love to get her to sleep in her crib at the end of our bed - just a few feet away, which to BabyM might as well be across the country. I can't say I blame her - our memory foam mattress and fluffy duvet are very nice to sleep with.

She's training us well - anytime we invest some time and effort into getting her to sleep elsewhere, she falls asleep easily but then wakes every 20 minutes or so, requiring us to soothe her back to sleep. When we give up on this plan, and just take her back to our bed, she sleeps the next 7 or so hours straight. That's one smart baby.

Sleeping with her is very much like sleeping with Spike, our beagle (who, thankfully, is not allowed in our bed). We start out in our own space, but in the middle of the night, I find a little warm body snuggled up next to me, slowly pushing me over to the very edge of the bed.

It's frustrating because I keep waking so often - I think I must be responding to some kind of change in her breathing, because I wake up right before she does most of the time. And as nice and cuddly as she is, I do like sleeping by myself, with no one *touching* me.

But as they say, "the days are long but the years are short" and soon enough she won't want to sleep in our bed. It makes sense that evolutionarily, babies probably like to stay with their mamas most of the time. And I know every time we try to "make" a baby do something, it never works, and just frustrates us as well as them.

So I'm admitting defeat. I don't want to make it harder on myself by doing some elaborate "sleep training" routine. We'll try something different when she's not sleeping well, or if we aren't getting enough sleep. But for now, I'm embracing my inner crunchy mama.

Wordless Wednesday: Published!

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 20:57:00 +0000

There's so much more that you need to work out

noreply@blogger.com (Anandi Raman Creath) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 03:58:00 +0000

I keep composing blog posts in my head during the quiet times while nursing, showering, and driving but haven't been able to sit down and write them.

My daily life has been turned upside down by TJ's return to work. Not in a bad way, but just in an "I need to get used to the new normal" way. Before he started work, I literally had not spent more than 4 hours alone with the girls - just the time it took for TJ to get a good motorcycle ride in over the weekend, or have dinner with a friend.

Four hours is very different from an entire week, which is what I had when he had to go to the East Coast for his new job's orientation. It was a trial by fire, serendipitously aided by the arrival of my friend Di who just happened to be visiting that first weekend. She helped us get in the groove by chatting with T while I was nursing M, or hanging out with M while I helped T get dressed.

Sadly, she had to leave on Sunday night, but we made it through the week. By the end, I even felt like we had our routine DOWN. I got T to preschool on time every day that week with her lunch, everyone got a couple of baths and we slept ok. We were in "survival mode", doing only what we needed to get through the day. Sometimes we all went to bed at 7:30pm.

When TJ returned from his trip, we had to figure out our routines again, this time with him. It was great having him around to handle bedtime and tag-team again when he was home, but there were new wrinkles, like the fact that he gets ready for work around 5:30 or 6am, and BabyM is a ridiculously light sleeper, so suddenly my day was starting then too.

But now we're 3 weeks into this new life and finding our way through it. Once a week or so, I get to that magical state where I got everything done during the day that I was planning to do: basic chores, something fun outside the house with the girls, some exercise, an actual home cooked dinner, and maybe even a blog post or some crafty time.

The rest of the time, I'm still muddling through trying to figure out how to get the girls to nap in parallel rather than in series, how to keep the baby entertained for a few minutes while I shower, and how to convince the 3yo that her mere presence while I'm nursing the baby causes the baby to completely ignore me.

So by the end of the day, I'm worn out and way too tired to use that time to craft or blog. On the bright side I've been getting a reasonable amount of (crappy, baby-bedsharing) sleep, which makes me a better mama overall.

I think I'm going to have to switch my "me-time" activities to the early morning, which is painful for this night owl. We'll see. Every day is like a new (tiring) adventure.