We're still here!

We haven't written much for awhile, but things here have been pretty good lately. Last week I worked almost every day, except for Tuesday, when I took a road trip with a few of my favorite coworkers up to Malvern, PA, for a conference on Support Techniques for Women in Labor. We had a great time and learned some new things, including how to use a rebozo. It was fun to get out and spend some time together, especially in such a pregnancy- and birth-positive environment.

Yesterday we had our second successful acupuncture treatments and also spent a few hours volunteering in the office there. Our acupuncturist is a former Wisconsinite located in Frederick, Maryland, which is about an hour's (lovely) drive north and a delightful little hippie enclave that reminds us a lot of Madison or Iowa City--a yoga studio on every corner, fun little restaurants all over the place (which got us into trouble last time--this week we were smarter and forced ourselves to pack a lunch).

Today is more of a home-based day. We got up and made a batch of waffles, strained some yogurt (which turned out to have gotten too warm, and cooked into hard curds--better luck next time!), and made paneer so we can make a batch of mattar paneer later in the day. We also put on some brown rice to soak in whey for later in the day, a practice which makes it softer, fluffier, and actually more nutritious. We also need to wash a batch of rags, tidy up the apartment a little, and tie up a few other loose ends.

So not much has changed around here lately. We're feeling more and more ready and excited for the baby, but otherwise life continues on much as usual. We're starting to see some flowers on the trees, but spring hasn't totally sprung just yet. We're looking forward to warmer weather and the opportunity to spend some more time outside soon!

Tough act to follow

It isn't easy to follow up a blog post like that last one, so for awhile, I haven't! And now I'm back, not because I have anything great to report but more like just the opposite. (Not that I have anything BAD to report, I just don't have anything particularly exciting). I got put on call for work today and my schoolwork was finished a week or so ago, so I don't have anything in particular that I really need to do today.

Not that I'm complaining. I love being at home, and it seems there are always more things to do than hours in which to do them. Here's what I've been up to so far:

Did a few loads of dishes
Vacuumed the apartment/tidied up
Scrubbed up an old hairball I found on the carpet (hot vinegar works wonders!)
Enjoyed a nice long chat with my mom
Left a message for my sister (who will most likely call back once we're in bed tonight)
Made yogurt and strained it (more on that below)
Started a batch of these naan to go with the mattar paneer we're going to make tonight
Made a few phone calls

After a long hiatus, we've been back making yogurt again. We like our yogurt thicker as opposed to runnier, which is how homemade yogurt tends to turn out--a situation that leads many to add powdered milk as a thickener. The trouble is that powdered milk (and eggs, for that matter) contain a form of cholesterol called oxidized cholesterol, which some studies show is much more likely to contribute to the buildup of plaque in a person's blood vessels. Plus, it is inherently a very processed food. So we've opted out of that and instead thicken our yogurt by straining it, thereby yielding a product referred to alternately as Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese, which is absolutely delicious with fruit and/or honey. We just pour it into a piece of muslin, tie it up above a bowl for an hour or two, and let the whey collect underneath. Voila! Naturally thickened yogurt.

The only frustration with this method is that it obviously cuts down your yield. Okay, that, and we haven't exactly found a really good use for the whey yet, either. I know you can use it in baking or to water plants, or to soak grains or rice, but those just don't come up that often and I wish I had a really useful use for it. In the meantime, the naan recipe above calls for yogurt, and so I mixed a little yogurt in with the whey and used that. We'll see how it turns out. Maybe next we can try our hands at Gjetost.

Interesting to note that a year ago this month, we were up to pretty much the exact same thing!

Happy Birthday, My Lovely!

You may notice that I have not posted here in a number of months. This is mainly because my job requires me to sit at a computer all day long, answer email, Google stuff, type, edit, and the lot. In the end, computers are no longer fun--they are work. But, this caused me to ignore the chance to wish my favorite person a happy birthday this week on the blog. Katie, you are simply wonderful, and it is an honor to be your husband. I really enjoyed celebrating your birthday this year in our standard close, frugal, joyful manner. So here I wish my most important person, best friend, wife, and soon to be fellow parent to the first in a line of Sullenbrand hellions a wonderful birthday. I look forward to many, many more with you Katie, and I am honored and grateful for every wonderful day we get together in between. 

I also wanted to mention to everyone how excellent of a job Katie is doing with the pregnancy. She is a real tough girl. She has been working a lot lately, mostly 12 hour shifts, and still does more than her share of housework. And, she still has the energy to go on walks almost every day. It is hard for me to see her have to deal with the various challenges of being pregnant--bodily changes, harder time sleeping, harder time moving around, all while having to just go on with life. I think most husbands feel this way, and if you dont, YOU SHOULD. It is a lot of work to be pregnant, and if ladies didn't do it, we would not be here. So, Katie, thank you for all that you are doing to expand our family. I am always here for you, for all that you need, every step of the way.

For all that you are, I am eternally indebted. I love you, always and forever!

It ain't easy being green

There seems to be a lot of buzz on the Internet lately about "green smoothies." Basically, you add greens (spinach being the most popular) to a mixture of fruit and juice (or water). I'm not the world's biggest veggie lover and so I was skeptical, but neither am I especially fond of eating salad every night, which I've been doing since I'm pregnant, and so reams of positive comments (like "even using 70% spinach, you can't taste it at all!" and "My kids love these!") on multiple blogs convinced me to give it a try.

Or rather, convinced me to make Matt give it a try. After first blending up the greens as recommended, I added a cup of orange juice and a little splash of carrot juice (my usual morning blend). Even after spending minutes in the blender, then transferring to the Cuisinart for a few minutes, as soon as I stopped the blades I noticed a bunch of little hunks of leaves settling at the top. It looked and smelled kind of like vomit to me. Uh-oh...this is just what I was afraid of. I still have a pretty low gag threshold in the morning and so I asked Matt to try it for me.

One look at his face convinced me this had been a mistake. (The green smoothie itself, not having Matt try it for me. THAT was a lifesaver.) Matt, who likes all kinds of earthy teas and other foods that I tease him taste like dirt, said "I don't think you want to drink that. And I don't really want to, either."

Needless to say, we won't be making those again. I guess I'll stick to salads.

More Bread

Recently I posted that I was going to give this bread recipe a try. I mixed up the starter and about five days later, pulled the whole thing out, let it rise (which it didn't really--it more collapsed into a puddle, but that seems to be okay), and baked it according to the directions. It worked out really well. It seemed to have a more developed flavor than other no-knead bread we've tried, and the amount made for a nice, round, full loaf (previous no-kneads have come out kind of flat--fine for dipping in soup, but not great for making sandwiches). Here it is:

the spots on top are flour

I liked the flexibility of just having it on hand in the fridge, though I wish I could get away from the 2-3 hour rise time! On the whole, though, I'd definitely make this again. Note: This recipe seems to imply that you can get away with rising it for 30 minutes, which I'll definitely be trying!

Birthday Cake!

Interestingly enough, we actually got this recipe from a coworker of Matt's, who apparently got it off of 101 Cookbooks--one of our favorite cooking blogs. The cake is delicious, rich and spicy and full of wholesome ingredients. We used whole milk and 100% whole-wheat flour (both of which I would recommend), and a 13x9 pan because we only had an 8x8. I'm not sure I'd recommend making it in anything any smaller, because a 13x9 seemed just right to us. We served it with clove-spiced whipped cream, which was divine. The picture below was taken the day after we made it, so the whipped cream was a little more...laid-back than when we first whipped it up, but the taste didn't suffer at all. Note: this cake is also awesome for breakfast!

Black Sticky Gingerbread
From “In the Sweet Kitchen” by Regan Daley, via 101 Cookbooks
(photo mine)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses
3/4 cup flavourful honey, such as a dark wildflower, berry or chestnut
1 cup tightly packed dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup partly skimmed milk (2%)
1 packed tablespoon grated fresh ginger root

1. Preheat the oven to 325. Lightly grease a 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper that has been cut to hang over two opposite edges by a couple of inches. This overhang will make removing the cake from the pan clean and simple.

2. Combine the butter, water, molasses, honey and brown sugar in a medium non-reactive saucepan and place over low heat. Stir the mixture frequently until the butter is melted, and all of the ingredients are well blended. Remove from the heat, pour into a large bowl and set aside to cool.

3. Meanwhile, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice and cloves, and set aside. When the molasses mixture feels just warm to the touch, add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the milk and stir to combine. Fold the dry ingredients into the batter in four additions, using big, long strokes. Don't be concerned if you can't get all the lumps out-settle for most of them! Stir in the grated ginger.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the centre of the oven for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the top of the cake springs back when touched and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool for 15 minutes, then, using the overhang of parchment, lift the cake out of the pan and cool completely on a wire rack before cutting. Well-wrapped in plastic, this gingerbread actually improves with age. If stored at room temperature, it will have a sponge-cakey texture and will keep for about 4 days. Refrigerated, it becomes stickier, denser and wonderfully chewy and will last at least a week. Allow the cake to return to room temperature before serving. This cake is fabulous warm, and the only adornment it needs is mounds of softly whipped cream.

Amen!

You've got to rearrange

This weekend, spurred by a successful garbage-picking, we needed to rearrange the furniture a bit to make everything fit. We're super happy with the results, which feel neater and cozier to us. Among the changes: inserting a bookcase in between the two couches, adding a folding table, moving the lamp to the opposite end of the couch (since we put a different lamp on top of the bookcase), and removing the middle section of our 3-seater couch, which is now a 2-person reclining loveseat. Gotta love having a husband who's handy with the tools! The loveseat fits the room much better, and the two lamps give the room a nice warm glow. You can kind of see what the room looked like before here; here's what it looks like now, from two different angles.

Matt took the section of couch we removed and managed to fit it in our storage locker in the apartment, which is a miracle in itself, but we are getting to the point where we're almost ready to admit that we may be outgrowing a one-bedroom apartment...

Weekend Update

So far we've been having an excellent weekend. Friday night, we kicked off birthday weekend (my birthday is on Tuesday) by redeeming my free birthday noodle bowl from Noodles & Company. There was a Baskin-Robbins a few blocks away and so we were also able to scoop up my free birthday cone as well. We came home and rented Elektra via iTunes to cap off the night. The tab for dinner, dessert, and a movie? $8.48. Well within the confines of a $10 date!

Elektra was OK--entertaining, but riddled with plot holes and completely in a different vein than its companion film Daredevil, which we enjoyed last weekend. And renting from iTunes is something I think we're going to stop--the selection isn't what we had hoped it would be, it takes us four hours to download a single movie at any time of day (which I think maybe has something to do with our internet plan, but who knows), and at $2.99 a movie, it's cheaper than the movie store but more expensive than renting a movie per weekend through Netflix. I know we just canceled our Netflix policy, but we're actually considering going back...who knows. The weather is nice again, so we may not.

Yesterday we went to a free "Cloth Diapers 101" session put on by a nearby small business owned by a local mom. We learned an absolute ton, had a wonderful time, and came away with some really helpful ideas. The owner is so helpful and knowledgeable, and it's always wonderful to find a resource like that nearby.

It broke the $10 date rule, but we'd saved up for a little bit to go out for lunch to our favorite Indian buffet. It did not disappoint, although the fact that I got a turmeric stain on my new favorite maternity tank top did...we're still trying to work on that. The lunch was delicious and, of course, necessitated a nap once we got home. I also wasn't feeling great yesterday--I seemed to be retaining a lot of water. My hands, feet, and face felt painfully puffy, and so we spent the afternoon at home, resting and drinking lots of fluids. Today, my wedding ring is fitting just like old times, and I no longer feel like the face in the mirror is twice the size of what I'm used to looking at. I think being on my feet for long shifts on Thursday and Friday had just taken its toll on me. Luckily, I've been blessed with a wonderful husband who will encourage/force me to lie down, put my feet up, and rest at times like these, and it seems to have been just what I needed.

Today, we got up and had the usual Sunday crepe buffet and plan to spend much of the day getting our apartment organized. We made a really fruitful trip to the dumpster behind our building last night and came up with a bookshelf, a 13-gallon kitchen trash can that we'll use for recycling (we're currently using three office-sized wastepaper baskets, which are really a pain because they fill up so fast), two brooms and a dustpan, a vacuum (which Matt cleaned out and now works just great), a small folding table (so we don't have to set beverages on the floor when we watch movies and pray the cats don't knock them over), and three huge blue glass canisters that will be GREAT for storing grains etc. There was also an entertainment center which I really wanted pretty badly, but that sucker was incredibly heavy and being almost six months pregnant, I'm somewhat less willing to strain myself moving heavy furniture than I might otherwise have been. We took it as a sign and left it for someone with a more able-bodied accomplice. We also received a free Pump in Style double electric breastpump off Freecycle, which is around a $300 value. We'll just need to purchase new tubing and accessories (the only parts that actually come in contact with your body or your milk) for a cost of around $30. What a day!

Kitchen Day

photo by Jeremy Pullen

Today is Wednesday, which makes it grocery shopping today. It's also the first Wednesday of the month, which makes it pickup day for our monthly co-op bulk order. As a result, much of my morning has been spent shopping for, picking up, sorting, and putting away food. For anybody who likes food as much as I do, it's a pleasant way to spend part of the day!

Once that was done, I thought I'd extend my time in the kitchen a little by doing some baking. I don't think I've made cookies (or brownies or anything else for that matter) since before I was pregnant--the first few months I spent as little time in the kitchen as possible because I was so horrifyingly nauseous, and more recently, we've been trying to ration our pricier ingredients, as well as make it a priority to insure that everything I/we ate was as nutritionally sound as possible. Finally, though, I decided it was time to break the stalemate; we have the ingredients right now, and when you're cooking with pure fresh better, soft rich brown sugar, farm-fresh eggs, and freshly-ground whole-wheat flour, it's hard not to feel like you're nourishing yourself (and, of course, your baby!) on all kinds of different levels. As I write, some are baking and others are cooling, and several others (both cooked and uncooked!) have taken up residence in my belly. Yum.

I'm also intrigued by the convenience of this idea for easy artisan bread, so I whipped up a batch of starter in a 1-lb plastic lettuce tub. It's in the fridge now, and we'll probably bake from it on Friday night or Saturday. We'll let you know how it goes. I used 4.5 cups of whole-wheat flour and 2 cups of white as a starting point. I'm especially interested in how she said it began to develop a slight sourdough aroma as she reused her tub.

I think I'm also going to make up an enchilada casserole so we can just pop it in the oven for dinner tonight. We both have chiropractor appointments this evening, and so dinner will be a little later than usual, and it's nice to have something almost ready to go.

Other than that, I'm laying fairly low today. Yesterday I didn't feel well at all--achy, crampy, tired--and today I feel better than that, but still a little less than 100%. I work the next two days, so I'm trying to rest up for that.

Toilet paper post: cleanup lap

photo by Pygo

I didn't realize when I posted about our cloth wipe adventures on Sunday that the New York Times had just printed an article about the very wastefulness of wiping one's ass with virgin timber. Here it is. (You might have to create a login to view the whole article, but it's free and they don't send you any spam.) An excerpt:

...fluffiness comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.

The focus of the article is the switch to recycled toilet paper, but personally we feel like that's a distant second-best to not generating more paper waste at all by using cloth.

On a similar note, click here for a visual representation of the waste you can eliminate by switching from disposable menstrual products to a reusable cup like the Keeper. I have to say-- makes me miss mine a little bit!

Smells Like Clean (Green) Spirit

Today was a nice quiet day. We got up and made our usual crepe buffet, hung out around the house for a bit, and then bundled up and walked to Home Depot to get the materials to make a diaper sprayer to hook up to the toilet.

Matt used these directions and it worked flawlessly. It cost us $27 and took Matt about 20 minutes to do, as opposed to $39.95 plus shipping for a prefab one. We've switched back to cloth toilet wipes (by popular demand--while it was originally my idea to do it, Matt requested to bring them back after I did away with them during my first-trimester nausea and vomiting; he volunteered to do all of the toilet wipe maintenance--and he has) and so until the baby comes and we have diapers to rinse, we can always use it for rinsing out those.

Our system for toilet wipes these days, in case anyone is interested, involves homemade flannel wipes (thanks, Matt!) and a Diaper Champ we got off Freecycle. It sits next to the toilet and has a few inches of water and homemade laundry detergent in it. It works great and there's absolutely no odor involved. Used wipes go easily in there; when we start to get low on cloth wipes, we dump them out, spray them off, and boil them (in a giant aluminum wok we've designated solely for this purpose) along with some vinegar and washing soda. We boil them for 20-30 minutes to take care of any germs, then we run them through a regular wash and dry cycle. They always come out fresh as can be. I'm imagining once our baby comes along, we'll do something similar with the diapers.

In terms of diapers, I'm guessing we'll wind up going with a mixture of inexpensive/homemade prefolds and pricier fitted all-in-one diapers. Prefolds are what you think of as a typical "cloth diaper" like you might also use as a dusting cloth or general cleaning rag. (At least my mom always did.) You can make your own from flannel receiving blankets, and we've already tried that out with decent success. In terms of fitted cloth diapers (which are basically shaped like a disposable), BumGenius seems infinitely popular because it's all-in-one (doesn't require wool or plastic pants over the diaper) and one-size-fits-all (while many other fitted diapers require buying multiple sizes as the baby gets bigger, and so to us that seems like a great diaper to start out with. Prefolds will also fit all different sizes of baby, but do require a cover (or "soaker" as they're sometimes known) to prevent leaks.

A lot of people have mentioned the "ew" factor of dealing with baby poop when you cloth diaper, but honestly, you deal with it no matter what kind of diapers you use, so I would rather roll up my sleeves and get comfortable than dip my toes in halfway with disposables. And I'm pretty sure that breastfed baby poop is pretty darn tame compared with what I dealt with day in and day out working for seven years at a nursing home. Not to mention the fact that we're currently cloth-wiping ourselves without any problems to speak of.

I know lots of people also like to argue that cloth isn't any better for the environment because of the water it takes to wash it, but studies arguing that have inevitably been funded by--guess who?--THE DISPOSABLE DIAPER INDUSTRY. And as this comprehensive article notes, if that argument held water, shouldn't we ALL be wearing nothing but disposable clothes? It also points out that washing cloth diapers at home (as opposed to through a commercial diaper service) uses the equivalent amount of water as flushing the toilet five or six times a day--basically, what a toilet-trained child or adult would use. Disposable diapers, on the other hand, take a ridiculous amount of water and a dangerous amount of dioxin and other chemicals to manufacture, and several of their ingredients are suspected carcinogens. Not to mention the fact that they hang around in landfills for several thousand years--something cloth diapers don't do. Disposable diapers also put human waste into landfills, rather than through sewage treatment, which is an environmental hazard in and of itself.

Given all that, and our general pioneer spirits, we're pretty excited to cloth diaper our baby.

WATCH THIS

from A Doula Story

A Doula Story, despite its cable-television-sounding name, is a a wonderfully inspiring and beautifully produced 1-hour documentary about a woman in inner-city Chicago (a former teen mom herself) who devotes herself to educating and supporting pregnant teenagers. I wish all pregnant women had access to this kind of information and support--her girls are far more educated about their bodies and their choices than 99.9% of the middle-to-high-income women I see every day. It also reaffirmed for me how INCREDIBLY difficult it would be to be a single mother--especially a teen mother. My pregnancy was planned and wanted, I have the world's most supportive partner, and the baby and I have always been healthy-- and STILL there are times I've felt like I was falling apart or not going to make it. Pregnancy is taxing and hard and motherhood even more so; I can only imagine what these girls go through. This woman is there for them 24/7, even and especially once their babies arrive, teaching them how to be strong and loving mothers, and she deserves a medal for it. Well worth your time! You can watch it for free at the link above.