Se Hace Camino Al Andar

I was a teacher geek when I taught and it follows that I should be a mama geek, too. Lately, I’ve discovered some great and great-looking lifestyle websites for parents and families. Here’s what I’m obsessively scanning these days:

Simple Mom

Simple Kids

Small Notebook

Steady Mom

On top of that, I’ve developed a healthy obsession for sewing and craft sites! I’ve got a project list a mile long to show for it. Alice’s second birthday is next week and I’ve got some ideas in mind. Since we’re staying local for the July 4th weekend, I’m hoping to complete at least two of them before her birthday. Should I make myself accountable to you, dear reader, and show you what I want to make?

I want to make a birthday crown. I don’t envision anything as fancy as those, but something simple that might become a yearly birthday tradition! It’ll be gender-neutral, lest I have a boy sometime in the future…

I want to make a version of this garland from Purl Bee.  Instead of using scraps (most of mine are jersey fabric, not easy to work with!), I’ll buy a fat quarter set of colorful solids.

I bought this great linen fabric from Hawthorne Threads last week, with plans to make Lotta Jansdotter’s simple dress. I would love to get the dress made in time!

Other projects include more pants, a picnic blanket, a cat bed, the 90 Minute Shirt and an iPad case for my mother (using this fun print!).

With an eye towards taking “staycations,” we are checking out the state parks near us. We have tons of parks within an hours’ drive. How lucky are we? Last Saturday, we headed out to DAR in Goshen, MA. Aside from the incessant whining coming from a certain toddler, we had a nice hike. We managed four miles before we packed it in, finally annoyed enough by said whining. Poor Henry, who had Alice on his back, with her plaintive and not-so-plaintive cries in his ear the whole time. (Me? I had a sleepy Stella on my chest, and I was covered in baby sweat and spit-up. Good times!) There were some fun moments, though! Witness:

By way of encourage, I’ve signed us up for The Great Park Pursuit. Part of DCR’s No Child Left Inside initiative, the GPP is a fun way to get out and explore parks that are new to you. Participants are challenged to visit six sites over the course of the summer, and post photos and stories to the GPP Family Home Page. The event starts July 1st, so it’s not too late to sign up!

Oh, boy. Lots of links here, huh? Have fun exploring!

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.  [inspired by soulemama.]

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see. [Inspired by Soulemama]

Sometimes I let Alice help me bake. If you ever baked with a toddler, you know why it’s only sometimes. So, this morning, we made a fantastic mess in order to use some rhubarb that was quickly going south. If you want to see pictures of the mess, you’re out of luck. I was too messy to hold a camera, and I had the mess cleaned up lickety-split, lest Alice got the bright idea to spread the mess beyond the kitchen.

So, what did we make? We made a rhubarb-strawberry cake, adapted from a muffin recipe published by The White Lace Inn. (No particular attachment to this place– that’s just what Googled returned.)  I replaced a cup of the flour with a cup of whole wheat flour, used half-and-half instead of milk, and replaced some of the white sugar with brown sugar (1/2 cup, I think). I planned to make a streusel topping, but decided to sprinkle maple sugar on it instead. Because it’s a cake, instead of muffins, the cooking time is longer– I baked it for 45 minutes. The cake is incredibly moist, and I think next time, I would skip the oil. I prefer a denser cake. The overall texture  and flavor of the cake reminded me of really moist banana bread. Eat it with ice cream. You won’t be sorry.

I managed to take a picture of it before it was completely inhaled. Yes, very good cake! And now a word about baking with toddlers…

If you’ve never done it before, you should try it, as long as you go in with the expectation that a mess will be made, flour will be eaten, grimy fingers will make their way into the batter and ingredients will end up on the counter instead of in the bowl. Some recipes are dependent on exact science but others are more forgiving, so don’t let your toddler help with the souffle or the 3-layer cake. Your best bets are quickbreads, pies, and basic cookies.

Baking provides a great opportunity to practice hand-eye coordination, following instructions and learning about basic chemistry through visual perception (obviously a toddler will not be able to verbalize the science of baking!).  Alice will be two next month, so she is able to help me with dumping ingredients into the bowl, mixing, and sifting. We break eggs together, my hand over hers. Her reward: licking the bowl clean. Isn’t that always the best part of baking with mommy?

PS Our strawberries, rhubarb and whole wheat flour were local!

Lotta Jansdotter makes awesome and pretty-looking things. I do not.

Witness Buddy, The Armless Doll, or you know, Ugly Buddy!

The Buddy Doll is from Jansdotter’s book, Simple Sewing for Baby.  First, I need to give a shout-out to Brooke at Pure and Noble. I stole her  idea to put pants on the poor guy.

Here’s a bullet list about the project:

• Like Brooke, I also had trouble with the arms and legs. Unlike Brooke, I gave up on the arms, after two tries. Brooke doesn’t say what her problem was but mine was that I had trouble inverting the fabric. The ends were too narrow. In the instructions, Jansdotter says to make one end of the arms and legs narrower than the other end. When I drew the shapes onto the fabric, I drew one long side, drew the ends (one end shorter than the other), then drew the other long side. Does that make sense? So what ended up happening was that one line was straight and the other line was diagonal, to meet the edge of the shorter side, kind of making a really long obtuse triangle or something. Next time, I would draw the two short lines first, then connect them so that the legs and arms taper evenly. I ditched the arms and cut off the narrow part of the legs, because I didn’t feel like cutting more fabric.
• I used jersey fabric to make the pants, because that’s what I had in my stash. If you have non-stretchy fabric, use it. Jersey is hard to work with. I ended up using a zigzag stitch for the seams, and still had to go back and sew parts of the seam again.
• I used flannel for the body, as suggested by Jansdotter. I don’t know if I cut it wrong, or if this is the way flannel is, but it frays easily. Another reason to use a zigzag stitch (or overlocker or serger).
• In the pattern instructions, Jansdotter leaves the stenciling step for last. That didn’t work out for me the first time I made this doll (which had no arms and no legs!). Brooke obviously thought the same, and if you look at her pictures, you’ll see that Buddy’s face is painted on before he gets stuffed. I followed suit.
• As a beginning “sewist,” I learn something new everytime I tackle a project. This time, I learned how to do a slipstitch. Now, I just need to learn to do it well.
• I still need to work on making nice, straight seams. Even when I use a seam guide, I still manage to get them crooked in places.

I’m off this morning to deliver Ugly Buddy to my favorite three year old.

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.  [Inspired by SouleMama]

We went strawberry picking! Check out the pictures on our family blog: http://www.cavillones.com/blog/2010/06/09/uppinngil/

The strawberries we picked yesterday are in the freezer, being saved until my canning supplies arrive. I bought a new kit from Ball, and I’m excited to try it. It’s called the Canning Discovery Kit and it’s designed for the first-time home canner. I like that I won’t have to buy a totally separate pot for canning, since we are low on space in the kitchen as it is!

Alice has a completely locavore breakfast this morning, which I realized as we sat down to eat: yogurt from Sidehill Farm in Ashfield, strawberries from a farm in Sunderland and a local raw honey that I picked up at the Farmers’ Market a few weeks ago.

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see. [Inspired by Soulemama]

{Vacation Edition}

I can’t remember if I’ve discussed this here before (I could check the archives but… ). Awhile back, after visiting friends in Seattle who did the same, we decided to make our kitchen paper-free. It was a pretty painless way to create less waste and green up our household a bit. I went to Target and bought a whole mess of cloth napkins and dishtowels. I can’t remember the last time I bought a roll of paper towels, though I need to buy a roll to keep on hand. They do come in handy sometimes!

I also have a few cloth bags that I try to use instead of plastic, for produce and snacks. I don’t have nearly enough though and need to break out the sewing machine to make my own, instead of buying more.

I think about the small things I’ve done and wonder if I could do more. Enter A Non-Disposable Life, a blog written by two mamas in California. The title is self-explanatory and the posts are inspiring. Start with their first post (http://nondisposablelife.typepad.com/non-disposable-life/2010/05/the-first-step-of-our-journey.html) and go on from there. The mamas start with the kitchen, which makes sense. It is the kitchen in which we create the most waste, both of the biodegradable and non-biodegradable kind.

So, first, What I Do:

1. Use cloth napkins
2. Use dishtowels
3. Buy bulk flour
4. Buy bulk oatmeal
5. Buy bulk spices as I need them
6. Buy bulk peanut butter
7. Buy some of our milk in glass jars
8. Make our own bread, at least twice a week

Second, my Intentions:

1. Get/make more fabric produce bags, to stop using the plastic store bags
2. Get/make washcloths to use instead of sponges, for the dishes and countertops
3. Learn how to can, get canning supplies
4. Can tomatoes and sauce
5. Can strawberries for jam
6. Make bread for everyday, and make different kinds (sandwich, boule, etc)

I think my intentions are honest, and not overwhelming. And in doing this, I share Mary’s goal of simplifying. I think the two go hand in hand, really. I complain a lot about Americans living in a culture of excess but I’m guilty of same. These past few months, with our limited financial capacity, have really tested my ability to make do with what we’ve got.  I’ve surprised myself with what I’ve been able to do with the food we have on hand, instead of rushing off to the grocery store when I have one of those “there’s no food in this house” moments.

Part of the simplifying process, for me, has been spending less time on these here internets. The combination of giving up my iPhone data plan, and Stella’s arrival have necessarily curtailed my internet activity. In spending less time on the internet, I’ve also realized just how neurotic and obsessed I am with checking my e-mail, checking Facebook, checking Twitter. I have less time now for everything, so the question becomes: what do I do with the little time I have? I’m forced to prioritize, so here is a list, in no particular order– except maybe number six; it should be number one, no?

1. Read
2. Sew
3. Clean
4. Go to bed earlier
5. Cook and bake
6. Enjoy my children

Before I let you go, I want to tell you that the summer edition of Rhythm of the Home is now online. I discovered A Non-Disposable Life this way. Mary, one of the contributors to the blog, wrote an article for the summer edition, on upcycling a favorite dress.  Rhythm of the Home is hosting a give-away to celebrate its readers. I entered the give-away, hoping to win Shannon Honeybloom’s book, Making a Family Home. So, head over to RoTH’s blog and enter the give-away!