Coffee Break Post: Suburban Homesteading

I'll post more about this later, but I just wanted to chronicle, as much for my own memory as for anyone else's edification, what I've been reading lately (or would like to read in the near future). Most of them are offshoots of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver:

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan -- this and Kingsolver's book are primarily responsible for my recent and dramatic conversion, as much as is practical, to purchasing and consuming locally-produced organic foods. More on that later (when I'm not at work).

Two books by Wendell Berry: The Art of the Commonplace and The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture.

The Good Life and other books by Helen and Scott Nearing.

Marion Nestle's What to Eat.

John Seymour's The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It.

David E. Robinson's The Complete Homesteading Book.

And, for fun, Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve. ;-)

Nothing to it!

I don't know what the heck is wrong with me lately -- work is just as tiring as ever, but somehow the tiredness isn't bothering me as much. I guess maybe part of me has decided to accept tiredness/exhaustion as par for the course for the next umpteen years, and this is my subconscious's way of preparing me for it. Anyway, today after work I stopped by the local organic farm market near work and picked up some in-season veggies (plum tomatoes, a zucchini and a yellow squash), and then I went to the "regular" store and bought organic flour and yeast and cornmeal. I brought all of this home, whipped up a double batch of homemade pizza dough (made with whey from the batch of homemade mozzarella I made last night -- more on that later), and assembled the veggies I'd bought, plus olive oil, fresh basil from the garden, the rest of a roasted red pepper from the jar in the fridge, and, of course, some Parmesan and what remained of the fresh mozz on the pizza dough. My friends, let me tell you -- this pizza was fantastic, if I may say so myself. I even had some sliced veggies left over that wouldn't fit on the pizza crust, so I stuck them in the oven in a crock next to the pizza while it baked, layered with olive oil and cheeses and herbs. So I had an action- and veggie-packed evening!

Yes, you heard me correctly: I made homemade mozzarella cheese last night. It's ridiculously easy to do. Of course, it takes about an hour, plus one gallon of whole milk (and I bought the expensive organic kind for my first experiment, which cost $6.99!) and some cheesemaking supplies (I purchased a kit that makes 40 batches of mozz or ricotta for $25 plus shipping). But that's beside the point. The point is that I made my own cheese! And it was really, really good! And we actually ate all of it!

So yeah, I've been a little manic lately. Not only did I shop and then cook from scratch tonight, I also did a load of laundry and worked on Daddy's afghan. Oh yeah, and I whipped up a homemade batch of dog biscuits in the oven, to boot. This is despite the fact that my dog woke me up with a sort of sneezing/coughing/gagging attack at 5 a.m. in the crate next to my bed, and of course after he recovered he had to go out and pee, and of course by then it was light out, so....you get the picture. Not much sleep for MurkyMama today. But what do I do? I work all day and then play the role of Suburban Homesteader!

This is bound to catch up with me soon. ;-)

Birthday weekend

I had a lovely, if eclectic, birthday weekend -- a day in Boston for MurkyDad's alumni softball game on Saturday (he can tell you how much "fun" it was), then down to CT, where we spent the afternoon/evening preparing a delicious homemade lobster risotto from scratch -- including homemade lobster stock made from simmering real lobster shells with wine, onions, garlic, and herbs. I won't go into detail about trying to grind the shells in the Cuisinart before boiling them in the stock, which is what the recipe suggested, but suffice it to say that 1) there was Massive Cuisinart Leakage, and 2) MDad was extraordinarily sweet and even wiped down my fishy-guts kitchen for me.

Sunday night we had delicious risotto and local corn on the cob and ice cream and cake with a thousand candles (it seemed) on it. MDad gave me sweet, sweet earrings shaped like dragonflies with my birthstone on them, and I'm also going to be treated to a prenatal spa day this weekend when we're down visiting his mom. My mom, ever the practical Yankee, gave me a day's worth of work from our local landscaper (some of my trees have grown to Lord of the Rings proportions), gift cards to Motherhood Maternity stores, and a new travel mug that can be microwaved and washed in the dishwasher (both qualities my former mug lacked; but hey, it was a free gift from the guy who sold me my car). We ended the evening on a quiet note, as Daddy worked on his computer and I worked on Daddy's afghan -- which I've been working on since January-ish...

On Monday I ate breakfast and then fasted for 3 hours for my Glucose Tolerance Test. While fasting, MDad and I worked on measuring and cutting ceiling moulding and chair rail for the nursery. After the three-hour fast, we headed to the lab so they could draw the usual 5 vials of blood (sheesh). I don't know if I passed the test or not, but the phlebotomist did tell me that my doctor should have the results today at the latest, and I didn't hear anything from him today, so I hope that's good news. I've had friends with gestational diabetes, and it doesn't sound like fun.

After the lab, we came back and put up all the chair rail and got started on the ceiling moulding -- brad nailers are fun! Then we headed down to New Haven for dinner at a fabulous Indian restaurant, where they serve, rather incongruously if you ask me, Giant Vats of Mojitos. It's really the only way I can describe it. You kind of had to be there. This was no normal mojito.

In all, a lovely, lovely birthday weekend. Oh, and Murky gave me a present, too: On Saturday morning, Daddy was able to feel him kick for the first time. What more could a girl ask for?

6 Impossible Things Before Breakfast

"I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Vege-tainment

I've been listening to Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in the car. My book group is discussing it next week. In a departure from her usual fictional format, Kingsolver, her husband and two daughters chronicle a year spent growing, buying, and consuming as many locally-grown items as possible. It's unbelievable how much petroleum it costs to grow and ship foods around the world the way we do. I also didn't know that the American Broad-Breasted White turkey -- the one with which most of us are familiar, from supermarkets to our Thanksgiving tables -- has been inbred so instensely (to ensure fat, meaty birds), that the mature birds are fully incapable of foraging for their own food or even of mating. That's right, folks: the chick that grew into your Turkey Day meal started out as the product of Artificial Turkey Insemination. There are people whose actual job it is to collect turkey sperm from live turkeys and inject it into live turkey hens.

Oh, Murky -- I promise Daddy and I will take you to real farms, where real food is grown and harvested (and where the turkeys are able to have actual sex). Or, even better, that we'll try to grow some food of our own. Not sure we're up to raising turkeys, but you get the point...

In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. ...Through a difficult period, you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Buddha Mama?

I'm in the middle of reading Bangkok Haunts, John Burdett's third novel about one of my favorite characters of all time, Sonchai Jitpleecheep. Sonchai is a thirty-ish Bangkok cop who co-owns a brothel with his mother (his father is a white American who split after the Vietnam war). Sonchai is also basically the only cop left in Thailand who doesn't take money from suspects, criminals, and the like. John Burdett's "Bangkok" series is a fascinating jaunt into the southeast Asian mindset: Sonchai is a devout Buddhist who has some interesting justifications for, say, commercialized prostitution (despite his abhorrence of commercialized pornography). According to John Burdett's Wikipedia article, "Sonchai's internal dialogues are a cross between Sherlock Holmes, Carl Jung, and Buddha."

What the heck does this have to do with your baby blog, you ask? Well, being the dutiful librarian (read: nerd) that I am, I've been reading up on Buddhism a bit since getting into Burdett's third "Bangkok" installment. Turns out there's even a Shin Buddhist "congregation" at the college in my town! (Interesting, since there's not even a damn Starbucks within 10 miles, but that's beside the point) Anyway, what really interests me about Buddhism is its focus on life as a journey of enlightenment, its acceptance of suffering as distinctly human (and a way to enlightenment), and its emphasis on compassion for ourselves and others.

Without going into detail about a horrible tragedy that happened in the town where I work recently, or about the callous disregard with which people treat one another on the highway or in other public or even private spaces, I will say this: I want to be kind, loving, compassionate, and respectful of others. I want my child to do the same.

In the end, I want to be measured not by what others have done for me, but what I have done for others. I want to be able to love without thought for what it "costs" me. In particular, this quote struck me:

"...life is a bumpy ride, but the universe is fundamentally good; it is our ego-driven life that causes most of the suffering but luckily our self-centeredness can be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassion."

Since Buddhism does not purport to offer salvation through a higher power, but rather through ourselves, it offers hope through the belief that despite the fact that we humans are the cause of most of our own sufferings, so too can we be the solution.

I think this also appeals to the Libertarian in me (the whole self-reliance thing, and all), but I won't go into that right now, in the interests of keeping the post brief.

So much to do

One of the cruel twists of being exhausted is the irritating appearance of insomnia at inopportune times. I was hoping, after spending all morning house-hunting with Mom, followed by a full day at work (ending after 9:00 p.m.), to come home and just fall asleep. No dice. I think it's because I'm worried about how much I have to get done between now and B-Day on or around November 26. So, to facilitate a clean, fresh mind before bed, I'm going to dump that list here on the blog:

In no particular order:
1. Find a home for Mom. If you know me and/or my Mom, you know that this means hours of house-hunting, advising her re financing, discussions about her budget, getting her to transfer her job to another town (she works for a large supermarket chain), packing and moving, and of course getting all of her utilities, etc. set up.
2. Arrange for daycare after my 12-week maternity leave is up. This will involve making appointments at several places near where I work and visiting on my lunch hours over the course of the next several weeks. Target for choosing a daycare and -- hopefully -- reserving a slot: end of August.
3. Work on getting out of the lease on my 2-door Acura coupe. Obviously, I leased this car not imagining a baby in the back. I mean, it can be done, but past experience buckling my dog into the back (yes, my dog has a safety harness that he wears on long car trips) has not been pleasant. I want a four-door car.
4. Clean out the nursery. It's been used as a spare (read: "junk") room for the 3+ years I've been in the house.
5. Find a good pediatrician.
6. Consider selling my house -- financially and geographically, it's probably not going to work out long-term. If I sell it, it'll be pretty much the same process as #1, with the added "enjoyment" of getting and keeping the house looking as good as possible, inside and out. At all times. While pregnant or with a newborn around.
7. Cancel gym membership. It's a waste of $33/month because I never use it.
8. Ensure Full Baby Readiness -- research and then buy or register for all manner of gear; take childbirth/newborn care classes.
9. Come up with a birthing plan.
10. Sign up for a Flex Spending Account, which is a great place to park money tax-free, for things like child care and unreimbursed medical expenses. Problem is, I have to wait until late this calendar year to sign up for an account beginning January 1st, and I'll be a little...busy at that point!

On top of this, continue to do the following:
-Clean the house (if you can call what I manage to get done "cleaning").
-Pay the bills.
-Work full-time (and then some, given the nature of my position).
-Care for the pets.

So yeah. No sweat, right?

Wow, 5.5 Months?

Today we're 5.5 months (-ish) along. Our little boy is very busy at various times of day -- most predictably when I lie down in bed at night to do some reading. Sometimes I can even see my tummy move! MurkyDad still hasn't quite had the pleasure of feeling the baby kick, but with the little guy growing steadily now (he's probably up to about 2 lbs!), that's sure to happen soon. But hey, I seem to be feeling enough of it for the both of us ;-)

We've picked out a nursery color and theme, and now we're on to the "reading reviews of cribs and other furniture" phase. We've been trying to reach the lady who schedules the birth classes at my hospital, but she's either away from the phone or on vacation lately. This makes me a bit nervous.

Nerds indeed.

The Murkys. Courtesy of Simpsonizeme.com