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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Today's Random Musings


1. I woke up bright and late (I don't do early), and realized that today was another CSA box pick-up day. Every Tuesday. We are really enjoying our CSA, but because of a bout with the flu a few weeks ago, we've been behind on using our massive amounts of lettuce ever since. To our credit, we've only had to throw away ONE head of lettuce. The rest we've managed to incorporate into salads and stuff them down our eager beaks. Today, however, I knew that I still had two heads + some store bought romaine + a head of kale. We were going to be drowning in wilted greens if I didn't come up with something fast! Enter: the dehydrator. Dun, dun, dun. Really, though, I thought this idea was ingenious when I read about it on the Super Healthy Kids blog. This lady dehydrates all sorts of greens and crumbles them up to sprinkle from a cheese shaker onto pretty much any dish imaginable. I couldn't think of anything else to use salad greens for (red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce, etc.) except salad. If you can, please share! So, this dehydrator trick surely saved us. Now we've got two crisp, new heads of lettuce and a bunch of spinach chilling in our veggie drawer for the next week. Hooray for the dehydrator!

2. I'm really not liking politics these days. I'm rather ashamed to say that I haven't followed or read ANYTHING about politics and I know I need to get on it soon so I can be an informed voter this fall. I'm just sick of all the drama, ya know?

3. My January 2012 calendar has days FULL of appointments, which is unusual for this homebody. However, we haven't been out of the house in a LOOOOOONG time because all those appointments were with window installers, plumbers, water remediation people, homeowners insurance people, drywall professionals, and blind installation techs. All here at our home. We got new windows installed at the beginning of the month and found out shortly thereafter that we had a cold water slab leak under our kitchen floor. Boo. So, then we found out that a previous owner had already rerouted the entire hot water system overhead, but left the cold water below. This = LAME. After gouging our bank account for windows, we suddenly had to yank out another $5000+ to reroute the cold water overhead in order to avoid this same problem in the future (and to avoid ripping up flooring in the kitchen). Ahhhh! And homeowners insurance won't cover it. They would have covered damage from the leak, but there wasn't any (thankfully?). Needless to say, I'm looking at my February calendar, with all those empty days, actually excited to fill them with some activities geared toward getting out of this chicken coop! :)

4. I am really loving the sound of my wedding rings clinking together on my finger. It's been a long time since I've heard that sound and it's like music to my ears. It means that healthier eating is paying off in many more ways than just those invisible, internal miracles I'm hoping are being worked on my body's most essential organs.

5. Today I climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest. Well, my personal Everest, anyway. I think I folded AT LEAST 10 loads of clean laundry that Dan and I have been struggling to sleep under for weeks now (do you have any idea how much that amount of clothing weighs?!  I DO!). Have I mentioned how much I hate doing laundry? ;)  The last load is due to come out of the dryer any time now.  I refuse to give in to my body's aching desire to be laid down to rest (for the night, people, sheesh!) until that last load is folded and put away.

6. Kids grow so stinkin' fast.  Everest took me literally all day because I also had to weed through three boys' clothes and set aside all the stuff they had grown out of since the last time I weeded (which was a looooong time ago - 2/3T socks for Anders (5), anyone?  Yikes, Liz!).

7. Every time I pass Karsten's room (which is also the guest bedroom/junk storage room), I see these two big plastic garbage bags full of maternity clothes and I want to roar at them in victory.  I'm BACK into my regular clothes after vastly improving my diet following my disgusting first trimester.  Not only that, but I'm a few sizes back!  Now, I know people will get all worried on me and start talking about how I shouldn't lose weight during pregnancy, but honestly, if you could have seen the way I was eating before, you would only be able to applaud me now.  I cannot see anything harmful in feeding a developing fetus an excessively more nutrient-dense diet than what he was previously receiving.  Trust me, this can only be a good thing for this little Bagel.  Plus, if you want to pull out ye ol' ketones debate, just go read some on the Internet and you'll see that it's a controversial subject.  You obviously know where I stand, but I'll let ya'll come to your own conclusions.  For now, I'm enjoying my baggy pants.



8. Karsten is really cracking us up lately.  Here's a little storyboard of him shuffling around in Soren's church shoes.  He had a grand old time until he tripped, fell down, and came back up with both shoes on their sides (with his feet still in them).  Yeah, he wasn't too happy about that.  But, with a little help from his mama, he was happily shuffling away again before he could even demand "mew!" (which means "milk" in Karsten-speak).

9. Oh yeah, one last thing for those not on Facebook.  Have I mentioned yet that we're having . . .

A BOY!!  

No?  Oh, well there you have it.  We are having another boy.  Liz gets to continue her supreme reign as queen uncontested (for now)! Huzzah!  :)  Just kidding.  We are super stoked, though, because this little guy being a guy means that Karsten will have a buddy to pal around with just like Soren and Anders have each other (there are two years between them and there will be the same gap between Karsten and this new Bagel Boy).  We love boys!  We know boys.  We get boys.  We are inexplicably afraid of girls.  (Okay, I am, at least.  I'll let Dan speak for himself on this one).  My ideal would be to follow in my wonderful cousin, Kelly Z's, footsteps and have five fearless boys with one little princess caboose.  You hear that, Heavenly Father?!  I've been sending up that request for years now . . . so far, so good!  :)

Okay, peace out, people.  That last load of laundry is calling my name.  It represents my flag planting on Everest.  I go to conquer.  Wish me luck.

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3 comments:

Christa Jeanne said...

Whoa, awesome idea on the lettuce, Liz!!! I can never seem to use it up in my produce co-op bounty. I'll have to get a dehydrator (which is on my March bonus wishlist) and try out that awesomeness. I'm so enjoying hearing about your healthy eating adventures. I'm a few steps behind you on the path but am heading that way and loving it.

Daniel said...

Way to go, Lizzie! The healthy eating sounds awesome. I'll come live next to you guys and somehow be around during meal times. :) And a huge CONGRATS on another baby boy! Love it.

Laurie said...

Congrats on another boy! I honestly was terrified to have a girl after three boys...I was in the thick of raising boys and didn't want to switch over. But it has been fabulous to have a girl, of course. Wow, what a troop of little missionaries you are raising! When I had my third boy, my neighbor's mother was visiting from Montana. I met her and she asked how many kids I had, etc. When I told her I had all boys, she said, "Wow, you must be a great mom to be blessed to raise so many boys." All though not always true, I loved that and it gave me a boost during hard moments of boy raising.