Speaking of Domestication

Mrs B over at Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom is making February Retro Cooking Month. I can't tell you how good this is for me, I've been slowly but surely trying to eliminate processed foods from our pantry and having access to new recipes and ideas is making me a little giddy. ( the geek in me is doing a little dance and clap my hands in glee)

Today Mrs. B is sharing her recipe system, a three ring binder and clip system. It's a great system but it involves collecting recipes on an ongoing basis. I tend to go looking for new recipes when I'm in the mood to change things up a little bit. Take last week for instance.
My parents sent us a large package of meat from one of their cows. I have packages and packages of the leanest, tastiest ground beef I have ever had and there's only so much spaghetti and meat sauce I'm willing to subject myself and the family to. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of spaghetti and meat sauce, We eat it often. So in search of new things to make I came across a wonderful meatloaf recipe in a cookbook I took out from the library last week. I'll be copying the recipe into a book I have for that purpose.

When we moved to BC my grandma gifted me with a journal as a going away present. I've never really been very good with writing in a journal so I used the book to collect recipes that I thought I might make. For me, cooking is a form of nesting; when I first came out here, I looked through stacks and stacks of cookbooks in an effort to settle into my new home. I have a bunch of recipes that have become regulars in our home, from apple soup (a roasted apple and acorn squash soup) and shepherds pie to my grandpa's toffee recipe and my great grandma's recipe for yorkshire pudding. The book sees a lot of use and has been subjected to random drippings and the odd steam soaked lid being placed on it. At the end of the day it's one of the three most used recipe books in my collection.

The other book (pictured above) is one my Mom passed on to me when I moved out. It's a vintage book, full of campy classics like Cheese Bombe and Hawaiian Rice. Mostly we used it for cookie and cake recipes while I was growing up but the book is full of useful information for beginning cooks like cooking charts for beef, lamb and pork, BBQ cooking charts and bread making methods.

The last book I'm sharing with you today is one that my Ma in law made for me six years ago. It's an altered book full of recipes from my husband's side of the family. There are recipes from his great grandmothers and some of her favourites as well, including one of the tastiest meat pies I've ever had the pleasure of eating. In addition to these recipes, she also included little stories about the women in her life, random tips about being a woman and notes about where each recipe came from, where she first made it, how often it was made or how good a recipe was.

This book reminds me of the book The Cure For Death By Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz. In the book the main character's mother keeps a journal/ recipe book that she has made from scrap papers and cardboard. It's a handmade book full of mementos from her life as a homestead wife, including scrap bits of knowledge including how to keep a cat from straying, the proper way to pick peas and of course the cure for death by lightning. The book itself is full of magic and mystery. Like the main character in the book, I can spend hours flipping through this book, gleaning bits of knowledge and magic from the strong ladies that have come before. It's a book that the will eventually be passed down to the Peanut.

If you are interested in seeing dome other recipe systems go on over to Mrs B's blog,I'll see you over there!

IIIIIIIIIIII Love you I Looooovvvvve you

I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you

It fills my heart near to bursting when the Peanut Butter goes into "I love you mode". She'll go on for as long as possible at bedtime, when Daddy is leaving for work or I'm headed off somewhere without her. Well actually I rarely get I love you's on repeat, I get the guilt trip sweet enough to break your heart: "Why are you going? Because I love you" delivered with her biggest eyes and a small pout.

I'm concocting a sourdough starter today, we'll be having fresh bread by the weekend fingers crossed. I've also managed to get our beds made on a daily bases, crawling into a made bed at night has been a nice experience. The trick will be to keep it up on days when we are headed off on play dates and other expiditions and of course on the weekends when one or the other of us is sleeping in, napping or taking some time off to read a little...

We've been

keeping busy busy with holiday plans and activities. We've simplified our holidays a little so that we can focus on more family friendly activities, taking advantage of some quality time as a family as opposed to running into a crowded mall and stressing about spending and buying and buying and spending.

So far:

We stayed up past the Peanut's bedtime to watch the original Grinch. This was a big hit. All three of us snuggled under the purple afghan my grandma made for us, munched on popcorn and enjoyed the genius of Ted Geisel (Dr Seuss) and Chuck Jones. The best part was trying to explain to the Peanut why Max the dog was helping to steal Christmas. How would you answer that question?

We sat at the table with some hot chocolate, strips of construction paper and glue in both stick form and the glitter variety, to make a paper chain to hang our holiday cards onto. The peanut enjoyed this but found manipulating the strips into loops too challenging after the first five so we decided that I would make the chain and she would add a touch of glitter to each link. The glitter adds a little something something.

We went for a walk to the garden center and spent one of our mornings looking at fresh poinsettias, Christmas Cactus, Paper Whites and tiny decorated cedar trees as well as enjoying the decorated trees in the accessories department. there was a tree full of birds, nests and flower picks, one full of garden gnomes, frogs, snails and turtles and an ocean themed tree with shells and starfish.

We spent another afternoon with paper and scissors making snowflakes to hang in the window. This is something we're going to do again.

We set up the electric train and tiny village with the dancing bear music box.

And we braved the cold to watch most of the Santa Parade in downtown Vancouver. It was crowded and people forgot themselves and pushed in front of the Peanut's stroller making it impossible to stand comfortably and for any of us to see. We left fifteen minutes before the end and made our way into a nearby high end hotel to check out the giant gingerbread house and the castles, ski chalets and villages that were also on display.

on deck for this week:
Going out for lunch with Daddy at work, Decorating our own gingerbread house, baking gingerbread men and doing a snowman craft.

I've been making an effort to limit the time I spend on the computer and we've also made a commitment to make some of our gifts this year in addition to buying handmade and vintage for gifts. We're a little behind on the holiday gift getting for some on our list so we'll be focusing on that over the next week too. My posts will probably be a little fewer as the weeks go on.

How are your holiday celebrations shaping up? Are you planning a parties? Making your gifts or buying them? Is there a flurry of baking in your future? Are you making an effort to spend more quality time with those closest to you?

Enter the Sucky Fairy

After a month of talking about it, explaining and answering questions, on Saturday night we invited the elusive Sucky Fairy to come to our home to help the Peanut transition out of Baby/Toddlerhood into childhood. Here's what happened:

Mommy and Miranda composed a special letter inviting the fairy to come to our house with a special request

Taking out the sucky

In the envelope with our special message

In the mailbox

Snuggling down to go to sleep

Did she come?

Mommy The Sucky Fairy Really did come

The Sucky Fairy changed my orange sucky into sea creature magnets and rainbow stones

Miranda's reply from the Sucky Fairy came complete with fairy dust and glitttery fairy finger prints where she carried it from her home

deja vu all over again

When my brother called us on Sunday (something he never ever ever does) it was deja vu all over again for me. I was a little confused for a second or two when he let loose with the news that Dad had had a heart attack. My first thought was of my Dad and then my brain translated for me that Barry, my Step Dad was who he was talking about.

My step Dad has been around for almost 1/2 of my life and I couldn't have asked for a better second Dad. He's rough and gruff and he's treated my sister and me as if we were his family from the start all the while being careful not to try and take my Dad's place. Hearing that he'd been struck down like that was a blow. Not being near enough to know what was going on first hand was really hard.

I've mentioned before that my Dad passed on when he was 36. He had his first heart attack when I was pretty young and heart problems followed him the rest of his life. He had a fairly rare condition that caused his body to produce obscene amounts of cholesteral which would collect in his arteries; which was the cause of death in the end, all of his arteries slowly filled up.

Barry comes home today. With a list of things that need to be changed in his lifestyle and a small handful of pills that need to be taken for a little while and a smaller handful that will be needed for the rest of his life, he's been cleaned out (only the main artery going into his heart was blocked, the surgeons went to work and shunted, ballooned and scraped it out; the rest were all clear and any damage to his heart is at bare minimum) and needs to take a month off of work. It's a hell of a way to add more R&R to his schedule. We are just glad and breathing deep sighs of relief that he's recovering well.

And this, among other things is why my posts this week are a little sparse. I'm hoping to be back on track with my regular posting schedule by next week, in the meantime there is still time to enter my Etsy Anniversary Giveaway. I promise it's a fabulous prize; tell your friends and let me know you did.

It's like deja vu but not really

As time goes on and my Peanut Butter Pie gets bigger and smarter and more loquacious, as she starts asking questions and wanting to learn about the world she lives in; I have these moments. Moments where I begin explaining something to her and the words of my parents dance from my lips.

Whether explaining that "Bees will not hurt you if you leave them alone." or telling her as we look at the neighbors white and pink apple blossoms that "those flowers are where apples come from" Each time I tell her something I hear the same words spoken to me in similar situations. I clearly remember my Dad telling me the same thing about apple blossoms in the back yard of our house in Calgary when I was about 9 or 10 years old.

My Mom is still around but my Dad passed on when I was 15; watching my daughter and my nephews grow up can be very bittersweet at times. Not being able to share these moments with him falls into the bittersweet category very neatly.

I truly believe that he knows and loves is grandchildren and that before they came to us, he was with them. Not being able to share our day to day lives is heartbreaking. I just know that my sister's boys would be the light in his eyes and that my daughter would have had him wrapped around her baby toe.

Trips here trips there and trips everywhere you could trip to

We've returned from our long and busy road trip vacation. It would seem that the peanut can withstand road trips now sans the children's gravol. After eighteen months since our last visit to Alberta we spent all of our time with family and we even managed to slip a visit in with some friends here and there as well as take in a wedding too.

We celebrated Christmas and birthdays and stuffed ourselves with our parents cooking. We stuffed so much in that I'm pretty sure I could use a few weeks off to get back into routine. Because my husband's parents are divorced we split our time between 3 homes and I never really feel like I get a good enough visit in with anyone. The peanut took center stage and charmed all grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as well as a one or two perfect strangers here and there.

We came back with more than we left with and today was spent unpacking and finding places to put everything. Also there was that ant problem but more on that tomorrow. I'll share travel pics over the next few days. (unfortunately unseasonal cold weather hampered plans for more storm photo-shoots and the sun wasn't cooperating for a borealis session but I think I have some new images to list on Etsy once I get through them all despite the husband being ill during most of our trip with insomnia and some kind of gastric bug)

It's good to be home.

Getting there without losing my mind

When we decided to drive to Alberta instead of flying, my first thought after getting a car sick kit together was how to keep the peanut entertained during the insanely long car trip.

I started to do the research and visited parenting forums to see what others had suggested or tried. Almost everyone who answered the forum posts I found answered the same. I'm not sure but I think it's fairly common knowledge that a portable DVD player is an essential tool in travel with kids. If not, one visit to parenting forums would surely drive the point home.

Yes, we have a portable DVD player. It was the first thing on my list of things to keep our Peanut occupied but it wasn't and isn't the only thing I want to take with us.

Growing up, I have memories of watching the landscape drift by as we traveled the TransCanada through the Rockies. We didn't have the luxury of portable DVD players, MP3's and game players (well I did have a Nintendo Gameboy; you know, the one that came with tetris when I was 18 or 19). I want a family road trip to include some of the same things I remember as a child, not least of which is watching out the window for a glimpse of a mountain goat or a bear.

When I was kid, road trip entertainment was a box of crayons in the back window of the Firebird (which usually caused the crayons to melt in hot weather), whatever book I was reading at the time and invisible ink activity books and for some reason legos. Of course there were also games of "Mom, she's on my side of the car!" and "Dad! she touched me" but no one likes those games too much or for too long. My sister and I would sometimes play Old Maid or Go Fish. Sometimes we'd play travel bingo. Other times my parents would make goofy jokes that depending on how old we were, either made us laugh or groan.

One joke my father would always tell at a specific point on the highway, "put your hand on the window" he'd say at the beginning of a large curve in the highway. Then at the apex of the curve where a large hydro building was located he'd turn with a smirk and say "Did you feel the pane? Get it?" Typical, punny Dad joke and it never failed to catch us as we'd always forget the punchline from the last time we made the trip. Once we were old enough to recall it we'd request it. I can still remember the coldness of the glass on my palm and the small part of me ready to quickly pull my hand away in case it might hurt.

Our trip starts Friday night. I'm hoping the Peanut falls asleep on the road and we can quietly transfer her to bed in the motel in Kamloops. I'll be documenting our trip and posting off and on while we're gone. Because we'll be on the road, I'm putting further 5 questions on hold. In the meantime I'm getting all things packed, cleaned and organized.

Speaking of Momentum

A few weeks ago I posted about the challenge of keeping up momentum. I've been actively working towards this, trying to overcome lulls and create momentum for myself as well as grasping opportunity wherever it rears it's elusive head.

Having said that, I'm once more heading into a situation where the temptation to drop the ball is going to be high. We're going on Vacation next week and I'm a little worried about whether I'll be able to keep up with the Blog, Tweeting and TMCPhoto and PeanutButterPie.

With the worrying has also come the drive to keep things going. I'll be posting while we're gone (thank all Gods for Laptops) and I may even add a new photograph or two onto TMCPhoto while we're there. We'll be at my Mom's, the location of my Borealis Photo-shoot as well as the Electric Series. I'm hoping that I'll have the opportunity to take some new and fresh shots while I'm there. Since I'll have the laptop with me I'll also have access to my Creative Suite programs.

It's been over two years since I've been back to Alberta and I'm pretty excited about seeing my family. With the exception of my older sister and my two nephews who came in March for a Hockey Tournament; I haven't seen any family except on Facebook in all that time. I'll either be so homesick to stay at the end of the trip or ready to get out of Dodge and not want to come back until a suitable time period has passed. I suppose any posts I do while there will give clues as to how I'm feeling.

Speaking of momentum and grabbing on to opportunities; I was lucky enough to get in on the recent Etsy Treasury window. In honour of our upcoming road trip I've put together a selection of items that are just making me yearn to get on the road.

Artisan Showcase

What a great weekend! The weather was lovely, we got a few more house things done and managed to fit in some quality family time. For the first time in what seems like forever we had more than two days of warm sun and clear skies. We went to the park on Saturday and stopped for ice cream sundays on the way home and Sunday was a family trip on the Skytrain to Commercial Drive in Vancouver. We played in the park, did a little window shopping, had a yummy lunch and did a little more wandering and some actual spending too. Eostara basket and gifts are now taken care of.

This Friday also marked the return of my 5 question feature. I will say that despite a small glitch in Google Analytics (read: I didn't realize I would need to update the link to GA in order to keep track of traffic to my blog when I decided to change my blog template; another tiny reminder that I'm not half as tech savvy as I wish I was) I think it was a pretty good success. The number of comments on the feature are among the highest in the feature's history which makes me happy since I love Finestra's work.

The return of 5 questions is going to be a little short lived as I'm going to be putting the next one on hold until after the long weekend. I don't want to sell my feature Etsy artist short, and I'm sure every one will be busy with family, bunnies and eggs. The feature will return on the 17th.

One of my photographs has been included in this weeks Photography section of the Artisan Challenge on Blockhead Radio. River Walk Bridge is one of my favourite photograph's from my San Antonio Series. I love the rich blacks and the reflected light on the river.

Please go visit Blockhead Radio's Artisan challenge and vote. I'd like you to vote for River Walk Bridge but there are some pretty amazing photographs in the challenge with me, so vote for what you like best.

In other feature news I'm also happy to be included again in the Etsy Baby Shower. I will be gifting a mixed media artwork for the wall of a 3 month baby boy in Winnipeg, I'm so excited to be a part of the shower again. It was a lot of fun last time around and I really enjoyed feeling like an active member of the community.

A close one.

So Monday morning we are all sound asleep. Visions of a day of packing and playgroup were bouncing around in my head, a week of work and last minute moving details in the husbands and whatever Miranda dreams about in hers. Then screams and the fire alarm.

Apparently I jumped out of bed said "that's the fire alarm, we have to leave" I ran to the Peanut's room, collected her blanket wrapped body up, then back to our bedroom, pulled on the first robe that came to my hand and slipped on shoes. The husband in jammer bottoms put on his coat and we opened the door. Smoke.

I closed the door looked at the husband and then ducked down and made a dash for the stairs. The fire was across and one door down from us. The stairs right around the corner. we headed down the stairs and out the front door at a half run. Out onto the front lawn and then across the street, where I stood and watched a dull glow in our neighbors bedroom turn into leaping flames. Watched the glass crack and break and smoke and flames escape.

Thankfully we had police, fire and emergency services on the scene within minutes. by the time the glass was breaking from the heat, firetrucks and men were setting up hoses and taking aim. No one was hurt. Everyone in the building got out safely and quickly. No one stopped to grab anything but themselves and loved ones.

I remember at once the sound of the fire and that it all seemed to happen in silence with quick bursts of sounds. I was in a bubble with my baby in my arms safe, watching the possibility of losing everything else.

It's been a rough few days, waiting for details, waiting for the OK to go back in, waiting for the building manager to bring out a few things, waiting again for the OK to go in, waiting for the insurance adjuster to let us know what they'll do for us, waiting to see the doctor about the cough the husband, the Peanut and I have now. Waiting to see a councilor to help us deal with everything. Waiting for Grandma to come.

It's been a rough few days of phone calls. making them, taking them. Family wanting to know we are OK. Friends wanting to know what happened.

It's been a few days of feeling blessed that we are all together, that things weren't worse, that we got out so quickly. It's been a few days of reliving moments of shock, of picturing all the things described above. It's been a few days of gratitude for the kindness of friends and strangers. The fireman who gave the Peanut a stuffed dalmatian that morning. The second fireman who went into our home to bring out wallet, keys and glasses, who brought down the Peanut's stroller too. To the neighbor who gave us a pair of socks to put on the Peanut's bare feet. To the staff of the Fatburger who opened their doors to us, gave us coffee, toast and pancakes and juice. To our good friends who opened their house to us. To our friends at the Peanut's playgroup who were so happy to see us and hear we were OK, who gifted the Peanut with one of her favourite playgroup toys (a bean bag turtle) when they heard she had no comfort toys with her. The extra grocery store gift certificates gifted to us by our playgroup friends.

It's been a few days of planning for the future, our new place. Planning measures to keep us safe in the next place. fire extinguishers, roll-up ladders, emergency case with important documents. Planning ways to feel empowered rather than helpless.

I am not a domestic goddess... that statement is only half true.

In a fit of holiday frenzy, I pulled out the baking sheets and the big white bowl and started holiday baking. I could say I started the holiday baking but this is the first year that I have baked in earnest for the holidays; and I don't count last years baking, because it was all done in November and was done for the holiday party I held for Miranda's friends and not just for us.

On the baking menu: Gingerbread Men (in Miranda-speak: Gingenbread friends), Shortbread, chocolate chip cookies, puffed wheat squares and rice cereal squares. If I get around to it I'll add butter tarts but since I've mentioned them here that's probably not gonna happen. Today we did the first two and I even had the table and kitchen reasonably cleaned up when we finished too.

It was a lovely morning of mother daughter bonding over cookie cutters and floured forks.

In other news; I had planned on starting a weekly feature called The Same 5 Questions where I would ask an Etsy artist to answer the same five questions that I plan on asking all the feature artists I'd like to promote here.

I shamelessly borrowed the idea from Jane Magazine, they used to have the same kind of feature in the magazine and it was one I looked forward to reading when I got the magazine each month. I plan on varying the questions as time goes on but I've started with some standard questions that I'm always interested in knowing about.

Anyway, what with one thing and another I'm postponing the launch of this feature until the new year. My brother-in-law and Mother-in-law are coming to spend a few days with us next week and there will be a more random posting schedule than my more recent try to post every day schedule. I want this feature to start and continue for the first while pretty regularly and that's going to be hard if I start this week. So this is your first fair warning, look for a new weekly feature, right here in the new year.

it was so obvious now that I think about it.

I don't know if it has been apparent in my last few months worth of posts or not, but I've been experiencing a little bout of the blues. I did write about my relationship with depression in October and unfortunately the fug has managed to stick around a little longer than I would have liked.

Normally I'm pretty aware of why I'm feeling any given feeling at any given time. I'm an internalizer who reads a lot and I often find therapy sessions (when I have them) to be troublesome because of this.

This time around I haven't been so aware of where my sadness is coming from. I thought it might have been sleep related, or possibly that it was my way of mourning for the lost time devoted to my art because of being a mother, or because I haven't seen a single member of my family since last January. I mean any one of those things and a hundred others would cause a bit of the Down In the Dumpses but really they were just extensions of the real cause.

So here's my moment of clarification, and it came to me as I was catching up on a few Blogs yesterday. I was reading about a the latest in a series of emotional sculptures by ArtMind (see photo to the left) and then I went on to read a very sad post from another one of my favourite Etsy artists The Dreamy Giraffe, she was writing a tribute to her recently lost pet Buddy and it occurred to me, that while this past Wednesday is the anniversary of the day we found out I was pregnant, it also happens to be the anniversary of the day my Dad passed away. This year is a little different for me because I am now the same age he was when he reached the end of his life. It's a bit of a bummer (Understatements are my speciality).

One of my Aunts once told me a story about a dream my Dad had. It affected his whole life and was eerily prophetic. In his dream, a tear-away calender began to flip through the days in a month. As it got closer to 30 and 31 it flipped faster and kept going until it reached 36, where it stopped.

For almost all of his life he lied about his age, even convincing my grandma at one point that he was in fact the youngest child in the family and his little sister (my youngest aunt, who is about ten years older than I am) was older than he was. He made it to his 36th birthday and then died in his sleep about a month later, while he was away working on an oil rig in Northern Alberta.

Now that I'm looking back at the last few months I should have known what the problem was and I'm feeling a little relieved that it's a naturally occurring sadness and not a chemical imbalance. So I've been missing my Dad and a have been a little freaked out over passing this age milestone myself.