Pictures!!!

After my camera dying slightly and my long-term dissatisfaction with its picture quality, I finally caved in and bought a new camera.

Know what this means?

PICTURES!

River is 20 months old

She loves making some silly faces! This one is her "boob face"... according to her. yeah.

Not that you can see much of the background, but these pictures were taken at Family Grounds Cafe in Chicago, IL, and Nibbles Play Cafe in Wheeling, IL. They are some of our favorite places!

I'm a big fan of free play time and think that it's more important for child development than most people give it credit for.

(I really need to do a book review of Your Brain on Childhood, by Gabrielle Principe, it was great! And a review of the two places that the pics were taken.... I should start a todo list)

Book Review: Twelve by Twelve (cont.)

Recently I posted about the book Twelve by Twelve*; a one-room cabin off the grid & beyond the American dream, by William Powers. When I had first posted, I was about 90 pages into the 260 page book, but I was loving it so much and the book was so relevant to my dreams of having a tiny self-sufficient home.

One of the concepts that stood out to me most was the idea that we vote with our money. Specifically, it's the concept that the decision to spend money in certain ways has much larger impacts than just the exchange of money for goods. A good example of this is spending money on something hand made from conscientiously farmed Alpaca wool and paying a fair price versus buying something that was sewn in a sweat shop where the laborers do not get a fair wage and the product is made with possibly toxic ingredients.

I've read about this concept in a couple other places, but this book talked about how the author really worked to change his spending habits and his own battle with the increase in price for goods that are less damaging to the environment and the places they originate from. It was very nice to hear more than just the theory, but to see actual examples of how it was put into action. On the other hand, I think he was very lucky to have free-range farmers living just across the street.

Anyways, to wrap everything up, since this is supposed to be a book review instead of a book report, I really liked the book. The author's voice was engaging and fun to read, and while there may not have been an identifiable conflict-resolution story line, the book did keep me interested and thinking.

*Though I link to the book on Amazon.com, I highly encourage purchasing the book from an independent retailer or borrowing it from your local library.

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also, I'm thinking about starting a parallel blog for reviews, that way I can share it with family and friends and still keep this blog a little more anonymous.  Any thoughts?

Book Review: Twelve by Twelve

   Normally I would wait until I finished a book to write a book review, but I find myself so engrossed in this book that I feel the need to share my journey through it. Twelve by Twelve: A one-room cabin off the grid & beyond the American dream*, by William Powers.

   Recently, I posted about my dreams (I am a Dreamer). Now, please understand that I am a compulsive researcher. If I'm stressed about something, I research it. If I feel like something I want is out of reach, I research it. If I'm bored, I research. Unfortunately, this only works when I don't NEED to research (give me a paper to write, and I'll put off any sort of research until the very last minute).

Exterior of 12 x 12 house

   Increasingly my dreams include living in a tiny, self-sustainable home of some kind, whether it's a mobile home or a small permaculture alpaca farm. I've read a few books specifically about green building and living in small homes as a way to minimize our ecological footprint. They just don't seem to fulfill whatever need it is that is driving me to research the subject.

Interior layout of 12 x 12 house

   Then I found this book, about a man who met a woman who lived in a tiny, 12' x 12' cabin and was helping to restore some of the land around her through the use of permaculture.

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that are modeled on the relationships found in natural ecologies.
Permaculture is sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. -Wikipedia

Map of permaculture around the 12 x 12 house

   The book tells of the man's internal journey while living in the 12 x 12 house over a period of time. The reflections about American society and how the 'American Dream' has destroyed not only our own ecosystem, but the ecosystem of the entire planet is incredibly well written and researched. The author gives a great view into his thought processes as he changed his ideals and realized that the change needed to accomplish his life goals needed to begin at home.

Exterior of 12 x 12 house

    Keep in mind that I'm only 90 pages into the 260 page book. If I remember, I'll update again when I've finished it, but I make no promises.

* though I link to the book on Amazon.com, I encourage all readers to order the book from an independent retailer or check it out from their library. Amazon simply provides a good website where you can read reviews and find used books.

note: all images are used without express permission from the media section of http://williampowersbooks.com.

also note: I love my library!

ETSY

Since the divorce, I've been trying to find ways to stay at home and make some money to supplement the child/spousal support I've been getting. It's been hard dealing with the fact that I may have to compromise on some of the parenting plans I had for River in order to stay afloat. One of the things I've been trying has been an Etsy.com page full of dorky cross stitches :-)



Take a look, comment, buy if you'd like. It'd be really helping out a mom! If you'd like something else or something you see there on another base, let me know and I'd be happy to wip it out ^.^

Product Review: Ikea play fruits and veggies

Even before River was born, I had very strong intentions to surround her with hand-made fabric and wooden toys instead of the typical mass-produced plastic toys. I have not been able to stick to this as much as I would have liked, having received a lot of plastic toys and being unable to afford hand-made products.

One of the toys I intended to buy for River was a good set of play fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, sets on Etsy run about $30, and are pretty limited. During one of my random visits to Ikea though, I found THESE:

Veggies

Fruits

Each set is $7.99 and come with a good selection. Plus, the lettuce leaves velcro on and off, and the banana can be peeled! The sets are standing up really well to River's chewing and don't have any loose fibers that she can eat.

My little hobbit loves the mushrooms!

In the same product line, Ikea also has a breakfast set and a dessert set, both of which I was not incredibly impressed by and didn't buy. Specifically, we didn't purchase the breakfast set because I plan on raising River vegetarian, so play meats aren't really encouraged, and I didn't really feel the need to encourage a love of sweets...

Then again, if you can afford buying handmade, this products looks great: Handmade Eco Friendly Felt Play Food by MsMagpieGirl on Etsy.com

Book Review: Elusive Moose

River and I are avid library goers (ALA | Campaign for America's Libraries). We're there AT LEAST twice a week, sometimes as often as every-other-day! River is a big fan of preschool story time and I love playing Scrabble with the older folks.

Part of our library habit includes checking out a certain number of things once per week: 2 child-friendly CD's, (at least) 1 adult nonfiction book, 1 adult fiction book, and 3 board books.

This week I was particularly impressed by Elusive Moose, by Joan Gannij and Clare Beaton.

Front Cover

The book features pictures of mixed media (mostly felt and embroidery) art. It identifies multiple woodland animals with a hidden moose on every page. There are no pronouns or any other identification of sex/gender other than the fact that the main moose has antlers.

Random page

I think that the part of me that wants to live in a cabin or yurt in the woods is what really draws me to this book. I also love all the pictured textures and the creativity that must have gone into making the original art.

My only wish is that this book came as a felt or soft book. While it would definitely need to be simplified (no buttons or sequins), it would be fantastic to be able to feel all the pictured textures. A soft book would also be great to guard against my child's voracious apatite for eating board books when I'm not looking >.<

In conclusion, Five Stars! Two Thumbs Up! Bravo! Buy this book or borrow it from your library!

Some Unbidden Advertising!

I have to take a moment here and do some un-asked-for advertising for my midwife... If you live in the Chicago-land area and are pregnant, seriously, GO TO HER!

SHE IS AWESOME! I had the coolest, silliest, most awesomely supportive midwife EVER! She really made J and me feel comfortable and we really had FUN with her! She supported every decision we made.

I have a big problem with most people in the medical profession talking to me like I am a child. I spend a lot of time reading medical literature about anything pertinent, I'll ask questions if I don't know something. It usually feels a lot like a strange parent-child relationship where the child is paying the parent... Instead Cynthia was amazing about treating us like adults. She approached everything by giving us recommendations and information and letting us make the decisions.

Our pre-labor appointments honestly felt a lot like social visits! We would chat about emotions, work and financial situations, as well as pregnancy health related issues.

Our labor and delivery was peppered with awesome geeky jokes, fantastic support, and amazing encouragement. She respected everything I did, even allowing me to push even though I was only 9cm, with a lip, and I wouldn't let her check me again. She trusted my body and my instincts even more than I did. She even took the time to stay hours after birth and sit with me while my husband went with the baby to get measured.

I honestly don't think I would have gotten the delivery experience that I wanted without Cynthia Mason as my midwife. If I ever am pregnant again, I have no questions about who I would go to.

So seriously, if you live in the Chicago-land area and are pregnant, make an appointment to meet with Cynthia Mason. DO IT!

A big congatulations!

A big congrats to a friend of mine who just had a blog post get featured on Offbeat Mama!

Check it out here: Raising Babies in a  Two Religion Household

or check out her blog: Becoming SuperMommy

I've been reading Offbeat Mama since the website was born, and consider it a huge honor to be featured there, so CONGRATS!!!

Huge Picture-Filled Update

I've been horrible about updating again, but this time I have an excuse: the computer that I normally use at home (a huge desktop tower) has gotten this horrible trojan virus that masquerades as an antivirus program and blocks access to EVERYTHING. it sucks. And the laptop, which is normally the hubby's computer, has a sticky space bar, which is the most annoying thing to type on.

Oh, and I suddenly find myself busy again! ACEN is coming up and a friend is having me work on his costume at the last minute :-/, and the awesome doula who runs the childbirth classes I am taking is having me crochet some boobies!!!  They're going to be used as aids for lactation awareness and breastfeeding classes. I'll be making multi-racial boobs first, then eventually making boobs with inverted nipples, clogged ducts, engorged boobs, small boobs, droopy boobs, etc, etc... it's going to be awesome! Talk about a craft market that I never considered before! I've been tapering off the costuming contracts, partially because my sewing machine is wonky and keeps eating fabric and partially because it's just too hard for me to cut out pattern pieces and work around a table (i'm HUGE, or at least I feel HUGE!).

The birthing class I'm taking has us all start a pregnancy nutrition diet. To be honest (sorry Colleen), it annoyed me a lot at first (I'm a junky eater with no money for much better than mac n cheese and hot dogs), but it's helped me keep track of what I'm eating, I just don't know if I can afford another expensive can of protein powder since I have to go through so much of it since I don't really eat much meat. ANYWAYS, I didn't mean to complain so much, the point of mentioning the diet is to brag about the dinner I made myself!

I saute'd potatoes, carrots, broccoli, corn, and almonds with olive oil and seasonings. It was DELICIOUS. I just can't imagine cooking like that every day. I know some people can, and some people enjoy it, I'm just not one of those people. I'm lazy and I know it. Now if only I could get myself to do those stretches >.<

Lately I find myself freaking out over the baby coming and not having enough ready (I'm not sure i'll every feel 'ready'). This has led to a lot of frantic crafting and organizing on my part. Here are some of the things I've been working on. I've been stuck on a crochet streak since it seems to be the easiest with my low energy levels and my huge tummy.

This is the first blanket I've every crocheted. It has huge spaces between the stitches so that the baby will be comfortable in the summer. Unfortunately, I didn't think ahead and buy a large hook for the large stitches, so the blanket is also incredibly uneven, but has a sort of hand-made charm to it. It's made of the Sugar'n Cream brand's new stripes yarn in green and white.

When I was little i always needed something to do with my hands, and I still do. I also always needed to have some sort of comforting object around. I crocheted little cloths out of more Sugar'n Cream yarn. The larger has some huge buttons on it for when the baby is teething or needs something colorful to fiddle with. If she doesn't end up liking them, they'll make great washcloths too ^.^

I also made a baby cocoon. For those of you who aren't familiar with them, they're another way to swaddle a baby and make sure that she doesn't hit herself in the face while she's sleeping before her coordination has developed. For the picture, there's a stuffed lamb in it pretending to be a baby. Extra thanks to my aunt Linda for the stuffed animals she gave me (they'll show up in more pictures a little lower.).

This is my current crochet project. It's another blanket, this time made yellow and green yarns (the colors didn't photograph so well >.< ) and the proper sized hook so it will hopefully turn out square and even.


I'm tempted to sell crocheted things on etsy, but I'm not sure that I'm willing to put in all the time it takes to make these things with how little they will sell for. unfortunately the market is so permeated by machine-knitted things that people are not really willing to spend the money on something that is hand made and takes forever to make.


In a frantic effort to convince myself that I am ready for the baby, I've done some nesting. Unfortunately my comfort and energy levels haven't been enough to let me actually CLEAN the house, but I've worked on putting all the baby things together and in order of size:

I cleared off a set of shelves and used it for all the baby-appropriate books and assorted toys we've acquired so far.
The top shelf is a couple of dragon needlepoints that a friend made me a while ago and I framed. It also has the adult books that are child appropriate and a couple very old childrens books. Unfortunately the Tolkein collection, which I will be reading my child from birth, did not fit on these shelves and aren't pictured.

The second shelf has a plushy version of our cat that we got at ACen last year, my stuffed bunny from when I was a baby, and the assorted children's books that I've gotten from a used book store near us. My favorite is Not A Box by Antoinette Portis. I was really into playing pretend as a child and this book is all about a bunny playing pretend with a box. it rocks my socks.

The third shelf is full of stuffed animals from my aunt (the giraffe and the bear), a few toys I've bought (the lion mirror, the cow rattle/teether, and the linkies), the sun that used the hang over my crib when I was a baby, and two wooded teethers from etsy. I posted before about the 'I love you' ASL teether in both my Sign Language Post as well as a Featured Seller Post. It's from an awesome Etsy.com seller; EcoAyris. The smaller teether is a squirrel from Etsy seller Little Sapling Toys.

And below the shelves, this awkward giraffe sits :-) I have a thing for awkwardly cute animals.


Along the same lines, I organized all the baby things in the closets. I sorted them all by size >.<

This organizer hangs in the closet and is acting as a stand-in dresser until I can get my old changing table-dresser from my family (they're jewish and don't believe in giving me baby things until the baby is here so as not to jinx it). If you look really carefully, you can see the Star Wars onesie on the fourth shelf down :-) now I just need a Lord of the Rings onesie to balance the hubby's nerdiness. Almost everything in this organizer was bought by us at Goodwill or Salvation Army or made by me.

All of these were gotten by my mom and my grandmother. They're crazy shoppers. I'm pretty sure my grandmother would be pissed if she knew that my mom already let me take these clothes home but my mother needed the closet space.

Here are the rest of our baby supplies so far. There's a wipes case, wipes, baby soap, as well as disposable and reusable diapers.

I've also been doing a lot of child-centered reading, here are the three things I'm working on right now:

There's The Thinking Woman's Guide to a  Better Birth by Henci Goer, Baby Sign Language Basics (I'm using it to teach the hubby sign and to brush up on my own skills) by Monta Z Briant, and the most adorable manga I've ever seen: Yotsuba&! vol. 3 by Kiyohiko Azuma.

Also, here's an obligatory baby belly pic and a pic of me. The dress I'm wearing is the only thing that still fits me and manages to cover my belly >.< everything else is too short now.

I'm generally a pretty tiny person, so the bump really stands out. I've caught retail workers with a terrified look on their faces, I'm sure they think I'm probably ready to pop! and honestly, I feel like I am.

And then there's this horrible facebook-style picture... really just because I realized there aren't any recent pics of me floating around the web and I wanted to show off my badly dreaded hair (i'm too lazy!) and my newly acquired acne (never had it during puberty, it decided to show up during pregnancy).

And last but not least, since my cat always insists on being the center of attention and it's impossible to take any pictures without taking at least one of him:

He likes sniffing and rubbing on my childbirth class binder because it came from a house with a dog :-) oh, and you can get a glimpse of our AWESOME COW PRINT OFFICE CHAIR in the upper right.

 So yeah, THE END!

Offbeat Mama Giveaway

After a fantastic nap, I was occupying time by alternating reading The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth and crocheting the awesome summer blanket that I'm making for my baby :-) until my cat decided that the blanket was his for snuggling with, and the blanket happened to be on top of the book >.<

So now I'm on here, giving a quick pimp to Offbeat Mama's newest giveaway: a mothers day necklace from Turtle Love Co. (which happens to be the website that J and I got our wedding rings from!). The company is awesome and probably will be one of my featured sellers at some point even though it's not on etsy.

Check out and enter the contest!