A pile of paper

Well, I printed out my novel. I have to say that although I thought I would be prepared for the weight of it in my hand, I wasn't. I've never printed out 277 pages before. It felt a bit heady and, well, exciting. It felt good to write the last lines. I've been reading it during C's nap time and making minor edits. The big editing will happen later.

Although that has been a fulfilling accomplishment, one that I am still savoring for its timeliness (I so wanted to complete it before delivery), I awoke this morning feeling very low. I think it's because my hormones are high. But, also, it feels like the more difficult moments of life sometimes rise closer to the surface, become more visible. The rest of the time we can hide away in the relative bubble of our own lives, focused on the daily goings-on that affect us and our immediate existence. Last night I learned about the loss of a friend's father and I went to bed with a heavy heart and awoke feeling sad and lost. My friend is pregnant, due in a month, and already lost her mother to breast cancer several years ago. I know of a number of people who are very ill, or battling cancer, or dealing with severe financial strain. Reading the daily headlines over at msnbc doesn't help, either. The repercussions of the current economic crisis splash themselves across the page in hectic reality, and then, too, it seems that we have entered a particularly stormy environmental time filled with earthquakes, disasters, and massive oil spills around the world.

I am aware that one of the greatest antidotes to sadness is gratitude. There are many things to be grateful for, in my life and in the lives of my friends and family. And, truly, the view of my daughter as she wandered through the house with her teddy bear this afternoon as she sang him a song before her nap ranks right up there as a reminder of the continuum--the cycle of life and the palpable feeling of watching life beat by, one pregnant moment at a time.

Getting there

It's getting close. I can see the finish line. 270 pages written and, I think, about 20 or 30 more to go. Three to five weeks until the little guy arrives. I'm almost there. A baby and a novel. Somehow this feels like this might be the most productive (passively and actively) nine months of my life. Still a ways to go, but this feels pretty good.

Things have slowed down lately without the cadence (and the free time) provided by Cora's nanny share. This is our second week without it, and I am finally tucked away in my neighborhood coffee shop again while she enjoys a play date with one of her favorite little girls and our incredibly energetic, fun babysitter--a woman who teaches PE to elementary kids all day long and still has energy to babysit, work at a coffee shop on the weekends, and play soccer several times a week. I left the house listening to Cora and her friend shrieking while they catapulted themselves off the downstairs couch onto a giant pile of pillows, blankets, and down comforters--one of C's most favorite pastimes, as loftily illustrated in the photo above.

Memorial

On Sunday I went to a memorial for my crew coach Senior year. He was also my coach for a short time my Junior year when I rowed as a replacement with the heavyweight JV boat in the San Diego Crew Classics (I was a lightweight for three years, varsity for two of those). It was an emotional day, for a ton of reasons. First, there is no way for me to attend a memorial without needing Kleenex. I went through four sheets. Seeing people cry is enough to move me to tears, anytime. Listening to people cry while saying kind, loving, inspirational things is a heart-filling experience that always makes me brim over.

It was also emotionally exhausting to remember high school sports--the strength I used to have, the competitive spirit, the awkwardness of being a teenager, the things I don't like to remember about being young. And I realized how foggy my memory is. There are so many things I don't remember. Faces, yes. Names, no. Erg tests, yes. Timed runs and wind sprints, yes. Races, strangely, not really. I remember feeling so strong and capable, able to run 30 hills and 30 stairs and run Green Lake in under 19 minutes, hold a boat steady on my shoulders, and sit at the starting line with adrenaline flying through my blood. I miss that. I miss seeing the value of hard work in such a tangible way.

Dave was a fantastic coach and he tested everyone. He tested me, and he made me a better person. It is rare to be able to say that about someone.

"It's not always your height, your size, your weight, a lot of times it's the size of the most important muscle--your heart--that matters." --Dave Baugh

Cora's first flower arrangement

Cora's aunties helped her pick flowers and arrange them in a bud vase. She loved all the praise for using her small fingers to press the stems carefully into the vase, and took the privilege seriously when she was allowed to carefully carry it out to the table for a fancy dinner of quesadillas (her very favorite meal).

She gave my tummy kisses this morning. She likes to say, "Kick for your big sister!" although he rarely cooperates. He's busy right now, doing a small jig in my belly.

She's asleep. She had an active morning at Sheri's house while I plugged away at my novel. (I'm nearly 260 pages in and I still have more to go. I just wrote another five pages and I'm ready for a break.) We ate a picnic lunch in the backyard and planted carrot seeds in our garden, then raced around and tickled each other. Well, she raced. I guess I sort of waddled. Hopefully she'll wake up soon so we can go for a walk around the lake.

I have been feeling emotional about the changes ahead, about the fact that she will no longer receive my undivided attention. I know it will be a good thing, and that she will handle it fine, but I also know it will be a transition for us all.

Last night I felt him kick and I wanted to pour a thousand words of love into his ears. This pregnancy has been distracted and busy and I wanted to explain to him that he will be another great, bright light in our lives, and that we are getting more and more excited by the prospect of meeting him soon. Only 6-8 more weeks to go.

You know you're pregnant when...

I've stopped drinking decaf tea and coffee the past couple of days and I am soooo tired. Clearly the 3 percent caffeine that my body isn't good at metabolizing these days makes a difference in my alertness. I tried to write this morning and managed to get out a few pages before staring off into the distance in a trance-like state. I finally gave up and went to the store.

And now I'm going to take a nap.

Oh, nap. How I love thee.

Oh, Belly

This morning was the first in a long time that we didn't have a play date or event scheduled. Cora and I went to Green Lake and walked around, picking apple blossoms and counting dogs along the way. We ran into a few friends and played at the park. I say "play," but really all it involved was Cora swinging on various swings for over an hour: the big swing, the red bucket swing, the baby swing, and back again. We took a break for a moment to play on the merry-go-round but it was far too passe for her. The swings are where it's at. She's in a major swinging phase, feels very grown-up, and is trying to figure out how to pump her legs.

The cool thing is that I plan to walk around Green Lake more often. The weather is improving. I don't have constant contractions. And worries about the baby getting enough oxygen have diminished considerably since Monday's doctor appointment (I'll explain that in a second).

My belly is feeling quite large these days: it's a basketball-positioned, right-out-in-front, large and in charge, 31-week-old belly. Phew. I feel huge. And I gained six pounds in 2-1/2 weeks to back up the feeling. Fabulous. (Honestly, as long as the baby is healthy and I'm feeling good, I'm happy. Knowing the path ahead toward being able to run again and having my body back, I can sometimes feel a little, oh, chubbalicious, but that's alright. I can hang, people. It's cool. Just remind me I said that when I stand on the scale two months after delivery and running feels like carrying a backpack of bricks.)

I found out some good news at my doctor's appointment on Monday. At our 18-week ultrasound we had discovered that the umbilical cord was implanted on the edge of the placenta, called "marginal cord insertion," which can sometimes result in growth restriction for the baby due to a potential lack of nutrition and oxygen (since the cord isn't implanted in a more secure, central part of the placenta where the majority of blood vessels are). Considering that Cora was only 5 pounds, 13 ounces at birth, I couldn't help thinking, Well, geez, how much smaller can we go? However, the good news is that our 28-week ultrasound presented great statistics, the baby is well within normal ranges, and also the cord is no longer on the edge of the placenta. My doctor was surprised. She said it was pretty cool, it appeared that the placenta had worked to compensate for the issue and had built itself up around the cord. That made me very happy.

So, 7-9 more weeks to go. I love single digits! I am so excited to meet this little person. We still have a lot to do to prepare.

And, lastly, I'm almost done with my novel. I can't believe I'm finally writing that sentence here. It looks like if all goes well I will, indeed, have a draft before the baby arrives. I have a few more chapters to go, but I can see the end. I'm at 228 pages and anticipate about 30 more. We'll see. I'm getting warmed up here and will soon tuck myself onto our couch and get going.

Baby on the brain

I'm starting the 30th week this week. THIRTY weeks? With a baby in my belly? He's kicking all the time these days and I'm definitely getting more uncomfortable. And tired. And excited. And intimidated, too...about birth, about caring for two, about months ahead of crazy, lost sleep.

I really just want to meet him. (Not yet, of course, not till it's time. But SOON.) I'd like the next 10 weeks to speed by, but at the same time I feel like we still have a lot to do to prepare.

Like put together their shared room. Buy a bed for Cora. Get a double jogging stroller. Buy more cloth diapers. Prepare for lots of poop.

Over the next year or so, we also plan to finish out the second half of our basement. If it's possible, we'll add a 4th bedroom which will make our five-year plan in this house more feasible, I think.

This year has already felt much more dominated by long-term goals than ever before. Things like four-year-debt removal plans. Remodeling plans. Savings plans. School plans. Writing plans. Career plans. Gardening plans.

I think about them all the time. It is empowering. I can see things rolling out before us. Even amidst all the unknowns, there is a certain kind of security that comes from setting goals. It feels good. We've been sorting through old things, cleaning out the basement, throwing stuff away, visualizing our next steps.

I think what I need to do is buy a teeny, tiny pair of newborn shoes for a little boy and stare at them for a long while. Maybe then it will really, truly set in that our family will soon become four.

It's been awhile...

Ooh, it's been awhile since I posted here. I've been writing. I think I have about 60 pages to go before the first draft is finished. It feels good.

And I'm starting my 29th week on Friday. Almost 30 weeks! I'm excited. I can't believe we're getting so close.

A perfect day

I don't usually like Sundays. They seem too squished from beginning to end. I spend too much time thinking about Monday, and often wish I was born with multiple hands to accomplish everything I see that needs doing. Sundays bring that out in me. Everywhere I look, I see a project. Sundays are usually a great day for a local outing away from the house and all the work that beckons.

I thought yesterday would be a pretty awful day. I didn't sleep well, waking often and pacing the house, getting drinks of water, checking on Cora, falling asleep to too-busy dreams. But in the morning the sun was shining and the day beckoned with possibility. We decided to go out to breakfast, but as soon as I checked our bank balance and saw how much we've managed to spend over the past couple of weeks on birthdays, outings, dates, babysitters, and $400 garden building materials (including soil and compost), I dug in my heels and made a huge breakfast with all the yummy produce in our refrigerator--scrambled eggs with red peppers, onions, and mushrooms, served over fresh spinach with grated cheddar, roasted potatoes with paprika, toast with butter and blueberry jam, fresh fruit, and coffee and tea.

While I whisked the eggs and roasted the potatoes, Brian and Cora played with Play-Doh at the kitchen table. They made trains with wheels and tracks, chug-chug-chugging along.

It was so much better than waiting in line. The sun streamed through our kitchen window. I listened to them talk animatedly. We sat down and ate and listened to each other. Somehow, breakfast turned out perfectly--crispy golden potatoes, acres of flavorful eggs, just-browned toast. All of us agreed it ended up being so much better than going out. And we meant it.

Afterward, Brian played the guitar and then he and Cora headed out to the backyard to pick spots for our garden beds, and replant our indoor plants.

I started cleaning. You might not think this sounds like the beginnings of a perfect day, but hear me out. I cleaned the baseboards, dusted all the furniture, vacuumed under the beds and sofa and chairs, watered the plants, cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen. Meanwhile, every time I looked outside I saw Brian and Cora in different parts of our yard, bending over to study bugs, picking flowers, spinning and falling down, transplanting our potted plants and sifting through dirt, scoping out areas for the garden while Cora pointed and offered her opinions. Finally they took a break and rested in Adirondack chairs while studying the bird house and searching for bumblebees.

The windows were open, a breeze wafted through the house, everything started to feel organized and clean. By the time I was finished, there wasn't any more dust. I went outside and played with Cora while Brian started building the raised garden beds. I kept getting distracted by the clear view of the Cascades etched in the sky, still partly covered with snow. But in our yard bluebells, tulips, and daffodils are pushing up and blooming everywhere.

Soon, the neighbor kids came out in their backyard to see what we were up to. Shortly after, a little girl who lives behind us climbed the fence and we all started playing soccer in our backyard. Then we migrated over to our neighbor's super cool play structure and zipped down slides and swung on swings and played a hilarious game of T-ball. Meanwhile, just over the fence, I was able to see Brian constructing our cedar gardens.

By lunchtime we were filled with fresh air and sunshine.

It is spring here. It really is. It feels amazing.

We ate an easy lunch of leftovers and put Cora down for a nap, and then Brian and I spent several hours working in the yard. He finished the beds and I raked the yard and swept the patio and just generally looked up at the sky and felt happy. There's still a lot to do out there. There always is. We don't bother with the yard during the winter. The lawn doesn't grow, but the weeds do. We have some major weeding to do. Major. But I'm excited about it.

The garden beds are arranged and ready to go. We just need to fill them with dirt and compost and plant some seeds. I went to bed reading my gardening book. I'm going to start with some of the easy seeds that don't require indoor starts: carrots, bush beans, radishes, corn, spinach, yellow squash, and potatoes. This week I'll start the ones indoors that need it: cauliflower, lettuce, onions...and a bunch more that I haven't decided on yet. Hopefully more greens, but I can't remember the growing cycle for those.

The apple and pear trees are starting to bloom. I'm worried we didn't prune them back last year and thus may have another year of low fruit production, which makes me sad when I think about all the lost apple sauce and apple butter and apple pies. But we'll see. Maybe we'll get lucky.

Today, Cora and I sat in the sun and had a picnic, then wandered around barefoot, feeling springy wet grass and moss beneath our feet, and puttering around in the raised beds. We spent a long time listening to the birds and filling the bird feeder with seeds, then sitting quietly on our blanket waiting for them to come.

"Shhh, Mommy. The birds are coming," said Cora.
"Yes, I'll be very quiet," I whispered.
"I maybe see a bird!" she shouted. Then, "Shhh, Mommy. Quiet. The birds are shy."

We sat like that for a long time. The sun made us drowsy. Now she's sleeping and I'm going to start writing.

Okay, seriously.

Let's be honest. Sometimes being a "stay-at-home" parent is complicated. It's blooming with happiness and contentment on one hand, and rife with scheduling and squeezed personal moments on the other. And there are the goals, the things I want to accomplish for myself and my family. Like, trying to write a novel during 2-hour stretches a few times a week. Or vacuuming the house in the morning and finding crumbs all through the hallway in the afternoon. It can start to feel defeatist. Like, where's the story now? Where did I leave off, anyway? And why bother vacuuming at all? Who the bleep cares whether my house is clean? Why not just live in a hell-hole and call it a day?

But I am on page 157. That's something, right? Making it there slowly, but making it there I am, Sam I Am.

And the dust bunnies are being held at bay by teeny tiny people carrying itty bitty guns attached to the psychic vibrations of my vacuum, which is calling out to them from the confines of its closet: I want to run screaming through the house and get it allllll! Let me out, the dirt is callllling me! I can hear it shouting now.

And things in life, as they are for everyone else, is a series of juggling acts. I am not going to be able to write today because I am making baked macaroni and cheese for a family who just had their second child. I am going to go upstairs and grate the cheese and cook the pasta and enjoy watching the white sauce simmer on the stove. And I'm going to be at peace with that. It is a joyful thing to be able to help friends. I hope the food turns out alright.

All the while, my little one will be sleeping, as she is doing now. And I hope I will always remember the feel of her hand in mine as we cross the street. I want to remember forever what it feels like to take her to gymnastics and watch her swing into a pile of foam blocks and crawl out like a wriggling fish. I want her to always trust me when she needs help, like she did this afternoon when trying to walk on the balance beam alone. And I hope that by writing this down I'll always remember her 2-year-old voice today as she said sleepily, "I'm going to wake up and see you in the afternoon." Then tucking her head in my neck she started singing, "I love you in the morning and in the afternoon, I love you in the evening and underneath the moon. I love you so much, mama."

Ah, crikey. Does she have any idea? My heart is still lying on the floor in her room.

Confessions

I'm trying to believe that we're going to have one of these in just three months. A lil', wee, curled up, sleepy babe that dozes all day and wakes all night.

I am intermittently overjoyed, shocked (even though this pregnancy was planned), overwhelmed, and awash with feelings of guilt because I dread the sleeplessness yet I can't wait to meet him and cuddle him up in my arms, a real, live, small little being.

Right now he's kicking at my belly, probably protesting the influx of too much food. I seem to be extremely into eating all the time. Breakfast, snack, snack, lunch, snack, snack, snack, dinner, snack. Um, yeah. I just finished a plateful of salt and pepper ridge cut potato chips. They were delish, but not exactly full of the nutrients my growing babe really needs. Fat, salt, starch, yes. Vitamins? I'll have to get back to you on that.

I've also been distracted by how to accomplish a shared room with a 2-1/2-year-old and a baby. Granted, we're not going to attempt the shared room until the littlest is four or six months, but still. Phew. It's intimidating. I have to keep reminding myself that if all else fails, we can move downstairs and put the two kids in separate rooms upstairs. I've staved off anxiety by flipping through a recent spring copy of Pottery Barn Kids, finding peace in the uncluttered representations of perfect shared room bliss. All the combos of pinks and blues and toy boxes and loveliness makes it all look so idyllic.

I'm all for shared rooms. I think it's a great way to get kids to bond and learn important lessons about sharing and boundaries. But the wake-all-night sleep pattern of a newborn and the uninterrupted sleep habits of Cora feel highly at odds with each other.

Still, somehow if I focus on the idea of decorating the room for functionality and harmony, I feel better. I'm not thrilled about painting the room a third time in just a few years, but I feel like it would be a good way to jump start the process. Plus I really want Brian to paint a mural on one of the walls.

Aside from general young family angst, I have a few things I need to get off my chest:

1. I haven't written anything in my novel for TWO WEEKS.

2. One day, instead of writing, I watched Cutting Edge 3 while Cora napped. Yes, in case you are wondering, that is the third in a series of teen ice skating dramas. Don't ask why I chose it. It's enough that I am confessing it to you.

3. We spent nearly $1,100 on food in February, not counting nearly $300 on going out to eat.

4. I recently read (in a magazine in my doctor's office) that cell phone use while pregnant and during young years is linked to a 54% increase in behavioral problems, major depression, and messed up brain waves in kids. It's caused me to feel a bit obsessed and worried about how much I used my phone for conference calls and chats while pregnant with Cora. I think I'm officially going to get a pay-as-you-go phone in April when our two-year contract is up with AT&T. I even turned off the wireless on our modem because supposedly that is bad for their brains, too.

5. I have been looking on Redfin lately. (That's a real estate site.) I'm committed to staying here, but I still like to go there and look at big houses on big lots in areas where I don't think we want to live. Let's face it, I have a problem, people. It's better if I just don't go there, but I do. I'll have to work on that.

6. We are putting in 64 square feet of raised bed gardening space in our backyard and I'm sooo excited about gardening with Cora and harvesting good food. I'm even excited about learning how to can what I hope will be an over-abundance of good produce. However, I am intimidated about growing starts or mapping out how best to use two 4x8 beds, and how to manage Seattle weather. I mean, it was nearly summer on Saturday, 60-degrees and sunny and blue blue blue. Today it snowed. Nothing stuck, but still. Snow? Now? After the crocuses have shot up and the cherry blossoms have started their snowflake descent on our lawn?

7. I miss my body. I miss running and wine and braxton-hicks-free living. I miss feeling in charge of my life.

On the budget front, one thing I've noticed is that January's thrifty days provided some shopping training. Instead of anticipating a cart bursting with hundreds of foods and flavors, I've started to get a better sense of how to walk out of the store for under $100 a week. Along with our CSA deliveries, that means that we might be able to come in at under $150/week, which is great. More on that soon.

Conversation with Cora

On the way home today, Cora and I shared a little conversation. This is how it went:

Cora: Do you want to talk about jungle animals? (She's learning about these in her nanny share.)
Me: Sure! That sounds like a great idea. I love animals.
Cora: OK. Um. Elephants. Giraffes. Flamingos--they're jungle animals. Lions.
Me: Oooh, those are all really cool animals. Did you talk about those today? What did you learn?
Cora: Yup. We did. And horses and dogs, too. Kitty cats.
Me: Hmm. Do you think horses and dogs and kitty cats are jungle animals?
Cora: Maybe sometimes.
Me: Oh, OK. I guess you're right. They can live in the jungle sometimes too.
Cora: That's the end of the story.
Me: Hmm?
Cora: I'm all done with the story. That's the end.
Me: Oh. Well, that was a great story! Thank you for sharing. I'm glad you're learning about animals.
Cora: Yes. Mom, you know what?
Me: What?
Cora: When I am a big sister I am going to sing Lullaby and Goodnight--like that, hum de hum dee dee dee--to my little brother.
Me: That will be a wonderful thing to do with your little brother. He will really like that. You are going to be a great big sister.
Cora: Yup. I am.

Intention vs. Reality

I threw out my back last Friday, making it the fourth time it's happened since I first did so in early 2007. Which makes me realize that it could be becoming a chronic problem, my Achilles heel. The problem is that I can't do anything when it happens--can't do errands, clean the house, play with my child, write, cook, get outside...nothing. I have to just lie in bed or hobble from one room to the next before collapsing in pain. It's ridiculous and debilitating, and it can feel very discouraging, perhaps even more so this time around because I couldn't take any pain killers or lie on my back while pregnant.

I felt pretty mopey this weekend, at times downright depressed. It didn't help that it was one of the most beautiful weekends we've had all year--sun streaming through the windows and a warm breeze blowing the curtains into giant, billowing skirts. Granted, it turned out to only be four days of relative difficulty, but it made me reaffirm my goals to get back into shape as quickly as possible this summer following the birth of our baby. And do all the things that worked last time to help support my back--acupuncture, chiropractic, lots of stretching, start running and hiking again. Maybe I'll also try yoga.

I hate not being able to do anything. I hate not being an active parent. I hate hearing Cora say, "Mommy's back is hurting. Mommy's sick." Ugh. I don't want to be that person.

Also, our budget is completely out the window this month. Completely. We're just going to have to start fresh in March because I have given up even trying to track our food spending. I'll just wait till the end of the month and tally it all up and wish we hadn't spent as much.

Which brings up an interesting point. I've enjoyed not worrying about it. I've enjoyed just going out and picking up something from the store that sounds good and going home and eating it. It's a feeling that is diametrically opposed to how inspired I feel when we're living according to a simple, strict budget, like we were last month. More plastic bags are collecting in our recycling. More packaging is going into the garbage. I noticed this afternoon that for the first time in weeks some of our produce was going bad. Granted, it was a bag of spinach I'd designated for a gnocchi recipe that I couldn't attempt making from bed, but still...

It made me wonder, what side am I on? The simple, community-minded, conscious eater who enjoys cooking everything from scratch, feeling ingredients between my hands and enjoying the process as much as the product? Or the convenience-seeking flavor finder who would like to browse through a world of gastronomic delights created by other people at substantially higher price to me and the planet?

I'd like to be the former, but in truth I am both. I woke up this morning wanting to go to the French countryside. Who knows why, maybe I dreamed of France last night and the images seeped into my psyche, or maybe it was because a trip to France is very different from being bed ridden with a backache, or maybe a trip to France is simply always an attractive option that doesn't need any justification. Regardless, I woke with images of a country cottage near a cobblestone village. I imagined waking with our family and gathering our baskets and bags, and walking down a country road to the tiny town, browsing various shops and outdoor markets for perfectly roasted coffee beans, rounds of golden cheese, braided bread, local produce.

I can imagine enjoying doing that nearly every day--here, or abroad. If I lived near Pike Place Market, it's likely you could find me looking through the stands every afternoon and coming home with a little bit of everything--fresh herbs, a surprising fruit, seafood, fresh poultry, as many vegetables as I could carry.

Next month, I'm going to have to start fresh. I'm not sure what the budget will be. I think I'll try to just spend $100 per week on groceries, outside of the $40 we spend on CSA deliveries.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our daughter? I don't think I have. But it must be mentioned before I sign off for the day. I can't believe we created her. I can't believe she exists. She is growing up so quickly. Yesterday as we drove downtown she made up a song that she sang in various iterations for a few miles, making me grin and giggle:

"I like my mommy, I like my house, I like dogs and kittens and cheese, I love my mommy, I love my daddy, I love animals, I love to wear my shoes."

Then she said, "Mommy! I have a bird in my hands!"
I asked, "Where did you find it?"
"Right here in the car!"
"What color is it?"
"It's blue."

She also found a small brown bird and they all had an animated conversation together. Then they flew away.

Finding inspiration--and holding on

Our budget went out the window last week. It's because I didn't plan--no menu, no blogging about it, no strict rules for myself.

And I discovered something funny. If I'm not accountable to anyone, it's easy to let the rules slip. It seems I'm accountable to you. Brian didn't care. He was all for going out to dinner and spending money all weekend. When we're both feeling weak, it's over. We enable each other.

That's OK. We're starting fresh this week. We'll see how it goes.

And next month we're starting the next phase: spending $2,000 per month on student loan debt. Wish us luck. It's hard when I consider the other things I'd like to do with that money, but when I imagine paying down our student loans until they're PAID OFF, I feel better.

Also, I've been feeling creatively rejuvenated. Brian and I seem to fill our spare time--especially our walks--with discussions about creativity and stories, and it makes me so happy and inspired. I was talking with Brian last week and determined that every spare minute I have should be spent writing my story. He encouraged me to stop writing here if I find it too distracting (which I sometimes do). I think maybe I just need to tone down my obsession with food and budgets and reach an easy pace with it all.

I feel the approaching day of our son's birth in June as an increasing thrill--and deadline.

I want to finish a draft before then. Can I do it? I don't know. I've set these goals for myself before and perhaps I am always too aggressive. It's taken me seven months to get to 140 pages, so can I reach the end by June? I'd like to think so but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment and feelings of failure.

So. 140 pages and climbing. Another writing session tomorrow morning, more nap time throughout the week, a chance to get closer to my goal.

Regardless of that, I'm taking a break and planning out this week's meals based on our Full Circle Farm produce delivery:

1 each Cauliflower
3 each Hass Avocados
1 bunch Green Kale
1 each Cucumbers
1 each Bunched Carrots
6 each Braeburn Apples *
1.5 pounds Baby Red Beets FCF
6 each Navel Oranges
1 each Green Leaf Lettuce
6 each D'anjou Pears *
0.66 pound Shiitake Mushrooms *
1 each Mangos
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
FCF = Grown at Full Circle Farm
* = Grown in the Pacific Northwest

Tuesday:
Lentil-rice pilaf and roasted vegetables. (I love roasted cauliflower.)

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean chili and cornbread.

Friday:
Stir-fried shiitake mushrooms, chicken breast, and kale, with steamed rice.

Saturday:
Handmade rolled quesadillas with chicken, onions, cumin pintos, fresh tomatoes, baby spinach,and guacamole.

Sunday:
Roasted beet and baby spinach salad and salmon OR spinach potato gnocchi. (I'm excited to make the gnocchi--the recipe arrived in our CSA box and it sounds delicious.)

Hiking

This is one of my favorite recent pictures of Cora, taken near Twin Falls, an easy hike in the North Bend area. She spent most of the trip in a backpack, but took full advantage of snack time to roam around and use her fancy hiking stick.

El Nino Tuesday...with pictures, a budget, and menu

Unlike this picture taken last week after we received our Full Circle Farm CSA delivery, our fruit bowl is looking rather sad today. That's the thing about waiting until Tuesday for a produce delivery--you can find yourself rustling through eight limes and an apple in search of a little snack. Our vegetable drawers are looking equally dismal: five lonely carrots thumping about in the bottom drawer, and a few heads of romaine trying to look brave.

I guess it's one way to make Tuesdays take a walk on the wild side. I feel like it's Christmas today. I'm rubbing my hands together in glee, waiting for our produce to arrive.

Cora's sleeping and I should be, too. I'm recovering from a cold. It could be me, but I think it sucks to be pregnant, sick, running around with a toddler, AND not be able to take any kind of medicine. But anyway. Here I am. Instead of napping soundly, I'm going to write about food again. Which is becoming a trend, I admit. It's not that I think I am going to permanently veer into the world of food blogging, I'm just interested in this right now. I think it's contagious. In fact, as I was tucking Cora in for her nap, she drowsily looked up at me and said, "Mommy, someday soon we're going to have a garden."

One reason she's so excited about having a garden is because of a story called First Tomato, by Rosemary Wells (found in her book, Voyage to the Bunny Planet). In it, Ruby has a difficult day at school and daydreams about the Bunny Planet on her bus ride home. She flies to the Bunny Planet, where her mother asks her to pick the first tomato from their garden. Ruby puts on boots and a coat and runs outside by herself with a basket, where she harvests vegetables and the very first, red tomato from the vine. Her mother makes her First Tomato Soup "because she loves her so." I sing Cora a song based on the book and we've talked about going out to the garden and picking our very own food. I like that it is something she considers before drifting off to sleep.

We're all excited about the prospect of filling our fruit bowl with apples and pears from our trees, and bringing in baskets of green beans and peas, carrots and tomatoes and lettuce and broccoli and all the good things we hope to harvest from our garden. We're building the raised beds this month and hope to plant our first starts in early March.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ahem. I meant to quickly log on to show you a few pictures because, well, my blog is dreadfully bare of them. I'm trying to be better about that. So here goes.

Today we were supposed to meet Brian for a picnic to celebrate a sunny, El Nino Tuesday. Just as we were about to jet out of the house with our tasty wares, he called and told us he was still in a meeting. So we unwrapped our sandwiches and plunked down our various containers of fruit and puffs and raisins and had a picnic in our kitchen. Here's Cora sampling the grapes:



And this is where I might make you laugh. That is, if you're one of those normal people who has no experience with gluten-free bread. The thing is, if you're accustomed to buying gluten-free bread at the store, you know the drill: you have to toast it to make it taste edible. That's how my life has been since I was 12. However, fast-forward to these last three months of baking my own bread, and you might stumble into my kitchen and wonder why one earth I'm taking pictures of my sandwich:



I didn't plan to take these pictures. I admit they're not the most artful, or in focus, or perfectly arranged, but they're real. They were quickly unwrapped and photographed just so I could post them here. But you do see, right? It's all there: mustard, jack cheese, tomato, romaine, stacked turkey, mayo, a sprinkle of black pepper. It's not just because I'm pregnant, I don't think, that I took such joy in eating this delectable little bit of goodness. I seriously thought I'd gone to heaven. I made the bread yesterday and it's soft and filled with seeds and gluten-free oatmeal, and it tastes hearty and soft and absolutely perfect, and it's not toasted, and it just makes me happy. I've been tinkering around with a couple of recipes and I'll post one for it someday soon, I just want to make sure it works every time. (In the meantime, if you're dying for delicious GF bread, look to this delicious recipe by Gluten Free Green Mommy.) It makes me happy to cut up a sandwich into pieces for Cora's little hands, too:



After our lunch, we tramped up to our park and I watched Cora race around in the sun. She was happy to swing for a full 10 minutes, which is unusual. I think it was because she was busy soaking up the sun.

JANUARY BUDGET UPDATE
Alrighty. We spent about $650 on groceries (including food and household supplies like dish soap, sponges, shampoo, toothpaste, and pull-ups) in January. We went out to two lunches and one dinner together, and Brian went out to about four in all with colleagues and friends. We both bought coffee and tea, too, on more than several occasions. I haven't added up the cost of those outings line by line, but I think they all add up to about $120. This is most definitely a significant savings over what we were spending last year.

FEBRUARY BUDGET GOAL
This month I hope to spend at or under $600 on groceries. I've already spent $280 on a couple of big trips to Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and we're fairly well stocked on the basics. We've bumped up our CSA delivery to the Family size (total monthly cost: $156), which I hope will give us a bit more to work with each week, and I plan to keep my weekly trips to the store very minimal--to purchase dairy, poultry or fish, and some kind of "treat" to round out the week. This could be sliced turkey for sandwiches, a chocolate bar or fancy cheese or wine, additional produce, or something uber-prepared to make a few meals more easy. We have about $150 to portion out over the next four weeks, or about $40 each week. Does that sound crazy? I don't know. I'm curious.

As you know, I plan all our meals around the weekly CSA delivery. This week I had a slightly more difficult time planning the menu, and I realized it was because our delivery was missing a winter green (like kale, chard, collard, etc.). I love hearty greens. And we're out of onions. So I purchased these items through Full Circle Farm's Green Grocer, as indicated below. (I bought $3.50 worth of garlic through the Green Grocer a couple of weeks ago and received eight lovely heads of garlic. I was impressed.)

Here's this week's CSA delivery:
0.75 pound Snow Peas
2 each Golden Bell Peppers
1.75 pounds La Ratte Potatoes FCF
3 each Avocados
0.66 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Romaine Lettuce
1 each Celery
1.5 pounds Roma Tomatoes
0.66 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
6 each Braeburn Apples *
6 each Navel Oranges
6 each Fuji Apples *
5 each D'anjou Pears *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Items from the Green Grocer:
1 bag Green Kale $3.49
1 bag Yellow Onions * $1.49

Here is this week's menu:

Monday:
Pasta salad with romaine, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and chicken sausage. (And leftover turkey chili for those who want it.)

Tuesday:
Stir-fried snow peas, chicken, Cremini mushrooms, and baby spinach, with a ginger-garlic-tamari sauce; and steamed Jasmine white rice.

Wednesday:
Party/dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Dinner with a friend at our house. Soft homemade GF flour tacos with Mexican brown rice, refried pinto beans, roasted mushrooms, peppers and onions, guacamole, romaine lettuce, black olives, Jack cheese, and salsa. (Make this in stages so it’s not so work-intensive.)

Friday:
Chicken Caesar salad and roasted potatoes.

Saturday:
Salmon noodle casserole with green peas, and apple-blueberry cobbler.

Sunday:
Toasted buckwheat (kasha) pilaf with sunflower seeds, and sautéed kale and chicken in garlic and olive oil.

An Insight Into Local Hunger

Please take a moment to check out Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef's delicious, inspiring blog, especially this week's post that discusses the maximum food assistance for individuals living in King County.

That's $7/day.

For a family like us, or for Shauna, Dan, and their little bean, the maximum allowed is $18/day. That's $540/month.

The comments on Shauna's post are equally inspiring and informative. Give them a look, too. You'll be glad you did.

Oddly, $540 is just around the amount I'd like to spend per month. Why? Because I think that's all we need. I think we can eat well--organically, locally, deliciously--on that amount. But I am deeply grateful that it is a choice for us, an exciting challenge, a health investment, a way to accelerate our student loan repayments. Not a necessity. Not a do-or-die situation. Not scrounging for change or eating food that is nutritionally compromised. There are so many people who are hungry tonight--not just in third world countries, not just in the devastation of Haiti, but somewhere in your own neighborhood. And they're trying to eat on less than that.

I remember counting change with my mom during one of our more haunting episodes into her newly single motherhood, just post-separation from my dad, trying to figure out how to buy some food. We had to live on assistance for a brief time, and I remember it being so difficult for my mom to deal with that reality. I didn't care. I was too young to mind. But I never went hungry. I never got home and looked in an empty refrigerator or tried to make tomato soup from ketchup. There was a rule in our home that we ate for good health. It was my mom's best health insurance plan, she said. We were vegan at the time, which certainly helped financially. In our house, food was our first priority.

It has to be.

Just think of it. Hunger. Kids, adults, elderly. There's nothing like looking at the world through empty, hungry eyes. Perspectives shift. Faith fails.

I feel grateful tonight. And I am inspired to give to our local food banks on an ongoing basis.

Weekly Menu and Salmon & Potato Salad Recipe

We just switched to a Family sized CSA produce box for delivery next week. This week we received another Standard size. I am pleased with the service. In fact, there has consistently been such a vast improvement over our first order that I think we'll stick with Full Circle Farm.

Here's what we received from Full Circle Farm this week:
1 bunch Broccolette
2 each Red Bell Peppers
1 pound Red Thumb Fingerling Potatoes FCF
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 each Bunched Orange Carrots
0.33 pound Baby Spinach
1 each Red Leaf Lettuce
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
3 each Comice Pears *
4 each Fuji Apples *
4 each Braeburn Apples *
4 each Navel Oranges
*Grown in the Northwest

Here's this week's menu:
Monday:
Indian food at Bengal Tiger on Roosevelt. Yum!

Tuesday:
Quinoa and brown rice pilaf and sauteed broccolette with soy sauce, green beans and tofu.

Wednesday:
Baked salmon, steamed green beans, and red potato salad with red peppers and fresh baby spinach dressed in an olive oil-garlic-herb vinaigrette. (See below for recipe.)

Thursday:
Soft tacos with whole garlic-cumin pinto beans, chili brown rice, baby spinach, roma tomatoes, black olives, jack cheese, and roasted chili and tomatillo salsa.

Friday:
Cannellini bean and pasta soup.

Saturday:
Dinner with friends. Homemade pizzas with GF and wheat crusts, Italian chicken sausage, red peppers, roma tomatoes, black olives, crimini mushrooms, yellow onions, and mozzarella. (We'll customize them for vegetarian or kids' preferences.)

Sunday:
Cream of carrot soup, fresh GF sunflower rolls, and a spinach and red lettuce salad with shaved apple.


BAKED SALMON with RED POTATO SALAD
Serves 4

1.5 pounds Wild Alaskan Salmon fillets
Soy sauce
Olive oil
Paprika
Ginger powder or fresh grated ginger
Salt and pepper
Optional: 1-3 T butter

8-10 medium red potatoes
2-3 cups washed baby spinach
1 red pepper, chopped into 1/4" pieces
Paprika

Dressing:
Equal parts olive oil, grapeseed oil, and apple cider vinegar (or to taste), to equal about 1.5 cups
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Ume plum vinegar, to taste
1 T Italian seasoning
1 t dill
2 T minced onion
3 small garlic cloves, pressed
Salt and pepper to taste

Salmon:
Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over salmon fillets--enough that you produce adequate sauce to cover the bottom of the baking pan and guarantee a little leftover to spoon over each fillet when serving. Use about 2 parts olive oil to 1 part soy sauce. S

Sprinkle a small amount of ginger powder over each fillet (or, even better, use a small amount of fresh grated ginger), sprinkle each fillet liberally with paprika, and finish with a small dash of sea salt and ground pepper.

Marinate in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

Bake at 400 until salmon is tender and flakes with a fork.

Optional: For a more tender fillet, dot the fish with small cubes of butter.

Potato salad:
I served this cold, but I think it would also be excellent served warm.

Cut potatoes into quarters and boil in salted water until tender but not mushy. Drain (and cool if you're serving a cold salad). Add spinach and red pepper and toss thoroughly.

For the dressing, follow your intuition and taste buds and use my portions as a guide only. Ume Plum vinegar is a wonderful flavor to add to this dressing, offering a tangy, salty boost that I love to add to nearly every salad dressing I make, but it is not necessary. You might prefer to skip the onions or garlic or add chopped fresh herbs or substitute chives or green onions--all would be great ideas. I combined the ingredients and shook them in a jar to thoroughly incorporate.

Dress to taste. I dressed the potatoes lightly with about 2 tablespoons of dressing. Because of the garlic, this made for a flavorful dish without very much dressing at all--you might prefer more; also consider serving additional dressing at the table for those who prefer it.

Sprinkle potatoes with paprika before serving.

Tea and 37,054 words

It's a foggy morning. Clouds hang outside our windows and hover beneath the trees. I have a cup of dark, decaf Irish Breakfast tea, and three whole hours to write. The only sound in the house is the hum of our oil furnace. Cora is at her nanny share this morning. I left her at Jane's house, inspecting their very cool kid's kitchen and chatting about what she planned to eat at snack time.

Our little boy is kicking. That's the first time I've written those words. Our little boy? We found out about a week ago and it's still surreal. I can't get over it, and I'm thrilled.

I've been pretty exhausted this week. I'm finding that I'm just physically more prone to exhaustion in general, and my body will tell me when it's time to stop--usually that means I'm lying in bed with cramps and contractions thinking, "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant. I guess I can't do everything in one day." I'll hit 20 weeks tomorrow--halfway there!

So I've been trying to take it easy...and that brings me to a discussion I had with Brian the other night: Since when did making burritos turn into a two-hour dinnertime adventure?

Answer: Since I started roasting and pressure cooking the rice with spices and chopped tomatoes, and soaking the beans overnight and pressure cooking them with garlic and cumin seeds, and making refried beans with fried onions, and making tortillas from scratch, and mashing the avocado, and cooking the corn, and cutting the tomatoes and making the salsa, and chopping lettuce. This was after a day running around town and parks with Cora. The meal was delicious but let me tell you, that is a weekend meal. No more Thursday burritos of that caliber for awhile. I was lying on my bed with contractions before dinner even began. I AM PREGNANT. Remind me of that sometime, will ya? Burritos used to be a lot easier when we had canned beans and premade tortillas and a quick pot of rice on the stove.

So. The food has been delicious, this budgeting experience has been very valuable toward helping us realign our thinking--how much do we spend? How do we eat? What are our goals when it comes to food? I'm enjoying the whole thing. However, I have to make sure the meals are less labor intensive to avoid going into premature labor, you know what I mean? Simple will be the goal and theme next month--both in preparation and ingredients. I'm excited about it--sort of like a new monthly challenge. I want to try making more meals with fewer flavors, highlighting herbs and sauces and fresh ingredients. I'm working on our weekly menu right now, but I'm not sure when I'll post it. Hopefully soon. I'll do a monthly budget recap next week, too.

Yesterday as I was writing, I looked down at the page counter and was surprised to find that I'm nearly to 120 pages. Slowly, slowly goes the tortoise. So, I'm returning to my tea and my 37,054 words, and hope this morning will let me get lost in that adventure until Noon.

Budget Update and Weekly Menu

Bread is cooling on the stove. The house is filled with the smell of yeast and grain. All the windows are open to let in the sunny air and sounds of birds. It's a beautiful day.

My favorite meal this week was creamy parmesan polenta cakes with turkey-artichoke heart pasta sauce. The parmesan polenta recipe came from Moosewood Cookbook. The turkey pasta sauce was inspired by Joy of Cooking. See below for a recipe if you're interested. (No picture yet; I'm still not in the habit of photographing my food, but I'm trying to remember to do so.)

We didn't end up making stuffed cabbage. We weren't in the mood for it, so we made a fresh broccoli-cabbage slaw inspired by Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef. We didn't have brussels sprouts or Napa cabbage, so I used endive, radicchio, and green cabbage instead, and added julienne carrots (1 carrot) and toasted sunflower seeds (3 TBSP). I followed their dressing recipe exactly. We served it with rice pilaf and sauteed mushrooms. Delicious.

Alright, so we're over our budgeting goal for January. I'm at $638 for this month. We ran out of some essentials: butter, almond butter, and eggs. I also bought mozzarella cheese (I'm having a pizza craving) potatoes, olives, apples, and raspberry and blueberry jams.

Here's what I'm noticing about our new budget, health goals, and attempt to do a monthly shopping trip:

*It has inspired me to cook everything from scratch. So far I haven't opened a package, jar, or can in two weeks, except for the bags of frozen food in the freezer, our almond butter and jam, and some mayonnaise and mustard for a salad (although, as soon as the mayonnaise is gone, I'm going to start making ours from scratch...and I'm thinking I should do the same with the jam). The creative process of cooking from recipes and from instinct has been a total joy.

*I have discovered the incredible pleasure of making and eating warm, homemade tortillas. I love the way the dough feels in my hands when I roll it out on a lightly dusted counter top, and the way the tortilla peels off the surface of a hot pan.

*I've been baking a great deal: GF breads, cookies, muffins, crumbles. It's part seasonal (I always bake more in the winter than any other time of year), and partly because I've committed to making everything from scratch.

*I love dessert. It makes me happy to sit down at the end of a long day and dig into a warm dish of apple-blueberry crumble. Amy over at Dish inspired me to make an apple pie that I hope will taste as good as hers looks.

*It's easier to create weekly recipes based on what you have, rather than what you plan to buy. My weekly CSA box deliveries shape our weekly menu, in addition to what I know I already have in the cupboards and freezer.

*I think we need to bump up our CSA delivery box contents to the Family size, which is designed for a family of four. The Standard size (what we receive now) is designed for two adults and a small child. I thought it would be perfect for us, but because our family lives for good produce and fruit, I think we need a bit more. That will bump us up to $160/month on produce.

*Next month I'm going to try going to the store either weekly or biweekly, but limiting my total grocery purchases to $400, if possible, resulting (hopefully) in a total monthly bill of $560.

*We've only gone out to eat once this month. Brian has nearly stopped going out to lunch at work. One of the main reasons is that we're keeping our budget at the forefront of our minds. The second biggie is that the meals we're eating are adequately diverse, both in content and level of food prep complexity.

*Lastly, I've been conscious about how cooking food from scratch energizes me creatively. I rarely feel depleted after making a good meal.

This week's CSA delivery will include:
1 bunch Broccoli
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
2 Romaine Lettuce
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
1 pound Zucchini
1 each Collard Greens
4 each D'anjou Pears *
4 each Navel Oranges
4 each Cameo Apples *
2 each Hass Avocados
4 each Braeburn Apples *
*Grown in the Northwest.

Here's our weekly menu:

Monday:
Leftover lentil soup, kale and wild rice salad, and fresh-baked bread.

Tuesday:
Coconut curry with zucchini, red potatoes, onions, and chick peas, served over a bed of quinoa.

Wednesday:
Burritos with homemade GF flour tortillas, cumin black beans, roasted Mexican brown rice, black olives, lettuce, jack cheese, lime tomato salsa, and guacamole.

Thursday:
Baked russet potatoes with melted cheddar cheese, spinach, and caramelized yellow onions, and a salad.

Friday:
Pizza with homemade GF crust, homemade tomato-artichoke-Parmesan sauce, mozzarella, olives, Roma tomatoes, Italian chicken sausage, and onions, and a Caesar salad.

Saturday:
Homemade GF egg fettuccine with roasted broccoli, roma tomatoes, with a browned butter OR an olive oil herb OR an alfredo-style sauce. (I'm excited to try this, I've never made fresh pasta before.)

Sunday:
Baked rice, broiled chicken, and collard greens.


Turkey Pasta Sauce
Olive oil
3-4 small garlic cloves
1 lb ground turkey
1 large yellow onion
3 carrots, diced
3-4 small stalks celery, including the tops, diced
7-8 fresh or frozen roma tomatoes, with skin and seeds, quartered
10 artichoke heart quarters (I used frozen)
1/2 cup tomato sauce OR 1-2 TBSP tomato paste
1/2-3/4 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1 TBSP dried Italian seasoning, or more, to taste
1 tsp poultry seasoning, or more, to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Brown the turkey and set aside. Drizzle a generous portion of olive oil in the pan. Add chopped onion and garlic. Saute for several minutes. Add carrots and celery and saute until nearly soft. Add browned turkey, Italian and poultry seasonings, and several generous grounds of fresh pepper. Cook for several minutes before adding tomatoes, broth, tomato sauce or paste, a pinch of salt, and more pepper. Simmer for 2-3 hours, salt to taste, add artichoke hearts, and simmer for about 10-15 more minutes. (Can be ready within an hour, but the flavors mingle best with more time.)

Seriously cheesy and fiscally fit

We ate some incredibly creamy, cheesy pasta for lunch today. It was the perfect warming meal after a long morning wandering through the wetlands at Magnuson Park and playing in sand and mud puddles. I made a quick white sauce using unsweetened soy milk and flour, and then added chopped Italian chicken sausage, a finely chopped leaf of kale, salt and pepper, and about half a cup of cheddar cheese. Yum! This turned out to be another excellent way to get Cora to eat kale (I have a bit of an obsession with wanting Cora to love green food).

Also, I noticed this article on Yahoo this morning: Fiscal Fitness: Find Your Biggest Cash Flow Leaks, which reminded me of my ongoing quest to find hidden money for savings and those thousands in student loan repayments.

Quiet day

This pregnancy has been one marked more frequently by fatigue, cramping, and spotting. Yesterday night I felt exhausted and crampy and sure enough by the end of the day I was spotting again. Not a lot, but it stresses me out for obvious reasons. Every time it happens I worry--even just a tiny bit--that this is the moment when the beautiful pregnancy is signaling that it's almost over. That said, it helps that this is my fourth or fifth time spotting with this pregnancy, and I can still feel the baby kicking.

I decided to make it an easy day, as low-key as possible. Cora and I ended up sipping chamomile tea after breakfast, painting at her easel in the kitchen, playing with her dollhouse (which today mainly meant walking the paper dollhouse dog on a long leash around the house) and catching a break of sun and springlike weather in the backyard. We ate a leisurely lunch of burritos stuffed with chicken, kale, corn, olives, and cheese (she claimed she didn't like the kale but she ate it anyway) and then sat back on the couch under a blanket and read 10 stories.

She's battling sleep right now. Even though I'm tired, I'm downstairs doing this instead of trying to nap in the next-door room. Vegetable broth is cooking on the stove and lentils are soaking for tonight's soup. We'll bake a new GF sandwich bread this afternoon when she's done napping.

My sister sent me home the other day with several books, and I'm well into The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, which is proving to be the perfect combination of mystery, adventure, and culture for cozy January nights.

These mild, Northwest mid-winter sunbreaks confuse our plants. I noticed today that, along with a million weeds, we have bluebells pushing through the ground. Bluebells in January? The earth is soft and everything smells rich. Cora and I talked about our apple and pear trees and the site for our garden (I'm so excited to start growing food!), and wandered around studying birds and rocks and moss.

I think all my pregnancy hormones have catapulted me into a relative state of domestic bliss. This is nothing like the wanderlust I felt last year. I've never felt so much contentment from cooking and quiet afternoons of writing.

Now if only the little lady would fall asleep and I could write a few paragraphs of my story.

Tortilla Heaven

Plato was right; necessity is the mother of invention. Not that I invented these tortillas, but I've never really considered making them until this week when we ran out of our gluten-free rice tortillas. True, I've never been a huge fan of the store-bought rice ones, anyway. They're relatively flat as paper, difficult to fold even when warm, and they get hard as soon as they cool--a frustrating scenario for a slow-eating toddler. Still, I was feeling rather sad about our lack of already-prepared food inventory--one more thing we didn't have to make lunch prep less of a scenario. I couldn't help feeling a bit ho de ho de hum about this whole budgeting and food thing.

However.

These tortillas are sooooooooo good. So good that I am having difficulty writing this rather than running upstairs to eat another one.

Okay. So just imagine you haven't been able to eat flour tortillas in a long time. Like, pretty much since you were 12 except for a gluten phase in college when all the same symptoms showed up but you tried to ignore them and eat pizza and drink beer instead. And then imagine it had been 12 years since you ate a flour tortilla, and instead you were relegated to the joy of discovering flat-as-paper brown rice tortillas in the refrigerated section of the health food store, and you diligently chewed through them with the usual ability to balance the benefits and flaws.

And then imagine you spend 5 minutes mixing up some flour and water and flipping a few tortillas on the stove while your kid zooms around the kitchen with her frog, asking you to please help her undress it even though the frog is meant to be dressed, the vest doesn't come off, that's the way it's made.

And then zip. You are suddenly transported to this heavenly place where a soft, puffy, warm tortilla is on your plate, rolled with melted cheddar cheese and chicken and covered with salsa. You would be speechless, too.

Cora loved them. It was seriously a joy to see her eating a quesadilla without having to tug and tear at the tortilla.

Even if you're not gluten-free, I think you'll like these. And if you can eat regular ol' flour tortillas, I say get theeself to another page on the interwebs and find thee a good recipe and start cooking. It's heaven. Tortilla heaven. Save yourself from the monotony of dry, packaged goods and make them yourself, even just once.

Mary Frances Pickett's Gluten-Free Flour Tortilla Recipe
This recipe was inspired by Bette Hagman and adapted by Mary Frances Pickett. I followed it almost exactly except:
*I used her suggestion to substitute garbanzo bean flour for the soy flour.
*I sprinkled the counter with a mix of rice flour and garbanzo bean flour when flattening/rolling the dough.
*I didn't roll them as flat as possible. I left them a little bit thicker than the average tortilla, going for the more "handmade" tortilla thickness, if you've ever stumbled upon one of those delectable disks at a restaurant or grocery store.
*Lastly, I used a copper skillet and didn't use any shortening. An ungreased pan on medium-high heat worked great.

$595...three weeks to go... & tortillas and a menu

It's been a busy week, filled with a lot of cooking. But we've been well-fed. I've enjoyed working off of a set menu, even though we've deviated from it a bit when dinner prep actually occurs--making a quinoa-kale salad and paprika baked chicken with roasted mushrooms and artichoke hearts instead of plain quinoa and a green salad and basic baked chicken, for example. Brian cooked this meal and Cora and I ate it in awe. It was that good.

I made some red potato and corn chowder yesterday that is truly tasty--I'll write down the general ingredients and proportions and post it here at some point. Also simple (and heavenly) baked salmon with an olive oil, soy sauce, pepper, and lemon juice marinade. And chicken-bean-quinoa enchiladas (made with homemade corn tortillas), homemade refried beans, and tomato-lime salsa. And GF pumpkin bread, GF bread, and GF blueberry-pear crumble.

I'm considering taking pictures of the meals and tracking the ingredients and proportions, but I hesitate to go there because then it feels like this will be entering the realm of a food blog. Still, it might happen. (See below for this week's menu and a corn tortilla recipe, if you're interested.)

As far as the food budget, we're doing OK but I'm nervous because we still have three weeks to go and I've already had to go to the store three times. The additional purchases include:

*Soy sauce (totally out of it, should have looked more closely)
*Sea salt (ditto)
*Eggs (we'll probably need more)
*Yogurt (I think we'll be OK till Feb)
*Sorghum flour (for GF bread)
*Garbanzo bean flour (for GF tortillas)
*Masa Harina (for corn tortillas)
*Bananas
*Trail mix

Supplies (remember I'm counting these in our general grocery budget):
*Dish soap
*Toilet paper
*Bio bags
*Compost bin
*Aluminum foil
*Plastic wrap (for making tortillas)

Total spent: $595.

I'm a little nervous, but I think we can make it. It's definitely a switch to try to shop once a month. I'm going to do it a little differently next month; I think I'll still do one big shopping trip, but will leave about $80 for additional purchases each week. Also, I'm hoping that next month I'll have a better sense of my own food inventory; this month I clearly forgot some staples--salt, dish soap, TP, baking supplies.

The CSA delivery last week was disappointing. Four items were from Mexico, which generally I don't take issue with except when it arrives in my "support local" CSA food box. Even though they were out-of-season items (avocado, broccoli, roma tomatoes, grapefruit), I was under the impression such items would be culled from warmer states within a U.S.-based CSA network. The kale was wilted. The avocados were hard as rocks. Three of the apples were bruised. It was nothing like my previous experience with them, making me wonder if their recent expansion has caused a decline in quality. I wrote to Full Circle and complained, and they sent back a nice email explaining their stance on food sourcing--they source locally, nationally, and internationally, believing that supporting organic agriculture anywhere is a good practice. Maybe so, but they need to make this more clear in their marketing material. They'll also replace the apples and kale, or offer an equivalent, in this week's box.

We had plenty of produce to last the week, but we did find ourselves "rationing" the apples. We're used to eating several apples a day, which can't happen with this system. I think next month we'll need to either try a Family size box or else set aside money for additional fruit each week.

Full Circle Farm's online system does identify which items are local; I tried to pick as many of those this week as possible. Tomorrow's CSA delivery will include:

1 bunch Green Chard
0.4 pound Cremini Mushrooms *
1.5 pounds Russet Potatoes FCF
2 Yellow Onions *
1 Bunched Carrots
4 Braeburn Apples *
1 Green Cabbage FCF
4 Navel Oranges
1 Broccoli
4 Fuji Apples *
1 Red Leaf Lettuce
3 Bosc Pears *
*Items with an asterisk are from the Northwest. Items marked FCF are from Full Circle Farm.

Here's this week's dinner menu:

Monday:
Leftover corn-potato chowder or chicken-pinto enchiladas.

Tuesday:
Roasted sausage and potatoes and a green salad.

Wednesday:
Spinach lentil soup with sugarplum tomatoes.

Thursday:
Baked chicken, quinoa pilaf, and steamed green chard with raw carrots and an olive oil, dill, ume plum dressing.

Friday:
Tofu-broccoli stir fry and pressure-cooked brown rice. (We had this last week and it was delicious and very easy--perfect for a tired Friday night.)

Saturday:
Baked stuffed cabbage with turkey, rice, mushrooms, and chopped chard.

Sunday:
Homemade pasta sauce with parmesan polenta cakes.

Tortillas
I started making my own corn tortillas. I never knew it was so simple. The big deal is that you need to use Masa Harina rather than corn flour. I found a bag from Bob's Red Mill and it's worked beautifully. They never use GMO ingredients, although they can't guarantee GMO-free products due to wind drift.

The recipe is easy. You just need:
2 cups of masa harina
1-1/4 to 1-1/3 cups hot water
(I also add a dash of salt to the hot water, although I haven't found any recipes suggesting it.)

Mix the ingredients, being careful to achieve a smooth, malleable consistency. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes under plastic wrap or a damp towel. Then break off small chunks of dough (about 14 in all) and roll them into individual balls. Place them between two sheets of plastic wrap, and press down with a heavy pan. (If you have a tortilla press, even better.) Use a rolling pin to flatten out the tortilla to the thickness of a standard, store-bought tortilla. Peel off the plastic wrap. If the dough sticks, it's too wet. Return it to the bowl and add more masa harina, a bit at a time. If the dough crumbles, add more water, a tablespoon at a time. You can't over-knead the dough, so don't worry about working it to get the right consistency. Place in a preheated, heavy, ungreased pan on medium-high heat. Cook 30 seconds. Flip. Cook 1 minute. Flip again. Cook another 30 seconds. Set aside and cover with foil. You can make all of them at once and keep them warm in foil for up to 2 hours before dinner. Any leftovers can be reheated on the stove.

100 pages

I just hit the 100-page mark of my story. Wooo! :)

A little bit of dreamy

Whoa, two posts in one day, you say? It's just that I wanted to write down one more thing, a new year's memory. We went to Bainbridge Island yesterday and walked along the water on one of our favorite, quiet stretches. I swear, maybe five or six cars passed us in the span of three hours.

Slate gray water was speckled with seabirds. We threw rocks off the end of a big pier, then sat on the beach and combed through green rocks slick with saltwater, flinty and barnacled, interrupted sometimes by a red jasper or abandoned shell.

Cora napped in her stroller and Brian and I had one of those rare walks that only parents can truly appreciate: it was quiet. Then we heard the wind in the trees and the waves lapping the rocks, and the songs of seabirds and the cries of gulls, and our noses and hands were cold from the damp January air but our bodies were bundled beneath coats and hats. Eventually, like always, we started to dream, and plan, and imagine. It was the best start to the first week of 2010 I could have wished for.

Organic meals on a budget

Since my last post, I have been obsessed with finding ways to save money and eat well. Once we made the resolution to change our habits, I've combed through budgeting and organic living sites, reading about how other people save money and eat food that's good for you and the planet.

I should mention here that I understand organic produce and poultry have reached unaffordable levels for many people. It angers me beyond measure that we've screwed up something so basic, so simple as food. It didn't used to be this complicated. It used to be that we bought or grew nutritious food grown in hardy soil, hand-picked our eggs, and let chickens roam around in fresh air. Greed has messed up something vital to our health and well-being by mixing up food with what people can manage to pull out of banks and pockets.

Check out last week's article on MSNBC about how antibiotic resistance in animals is leading to antibiotic-resistant infections in humans.

Or this one about toxic stuff in the regular ol' food we eat (things like canned tomatoes, butter, non-organic potatoes).

The food industry has spent a lot of time and money convincing us that eating a chicken that's spent its entire life in a cage--beakless and footless, being pumped full of antibiotics and food it's not meant to eat--is natural, healthy food for us and our children. It's simply not true.

And studies now show that produce grown with pesticides is less nutritious, not to mention less tasty. In the meantime, to make it easier to produce mass amounts of corn, soy, wheat, and canola, they're genetically engineering the cells of these products to cause pests' stomachs to explode. Coincidentally, there has been a significant rise in allergies to these common foods--especially in young children.

I'm not saying good food guarantees good health; it just helps a great deal. So we've made a priority out of eating well. The thing is, as I mentioned before, we've spent a fair bit of money doing it. I want that money for our student loans and savings.

To get started with our new budgeting goals, I spent some time tagging all our purchases on Wesabe, a third-party money management tool/financial community and looking at our spending trends. I also read financial, budgeting, food, and family blogs, and found families of six who live on $62.50/week. Of course, I am always also reminded the voice of Barbara Kingsolver from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, who ate locally and off their (giant) farm for a year. And finally there are few of my friends' gourmet foodie blogs that inspire me to try to make ingredients count toward something tasty enough to be worthy of all the effort.

Trying to make sense of these resources in a personal way that actually works is turning out to be a fun challenge for me.

So, I suppose some figures would help here. Eventually I would like to spend $400-$600/month on food and general supplies. This is more than some people spend and less than some people spend, but for us this would be a very significant savings over what we've spent on a monthly basis in the past. On average, we spent $750-$1100 on groceries and supplies per month (in December, we spent more). This includes diapers and toilet paper and general household supplies, of which we generally buy very little. It doesn't include going out to eat. Yes, it's true. I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but somehow our food resolution doesn't feel as compelling without sharing the numbers.

I should add the caveat that we spent the most during months when we entertained a lot, made big dinners for friends, and hosted holiday dinners. Wine and beer is included in the grocery purchases. (For large groups this adds quite a cushion of moolah.)

Looking at some of the food budgeting resources out there, I can at least acknowledge that we aren't the only average consumers who dip into the four-figures when it comes to food. At the top of the line, I found a family in London spending the equivalent of $2,000 a month on food. People who live in highly urban settings with higher costs of living tend to spend more. Those with ready access to farmland and big backyards and lower costs of living tend to spend less. This makes sense, of course.

Combined with a renewed sense of being conscious about how much we spend, Brian is also interested in eating less meat for health reasons. Because I'm content eating mainly vegetarian food, his interest makes it easier to cook more healthy, easy, whole foods-based meals. We'll see how long this lasts.

So, the big experiment this month is that I'm only going shopping once, except for a biweekly trip to purchase more eggs and yogurt (and maybe something else, we'll see). To help us accomplish this, I signed up for our local CSA produce delivery system through Full Circle Farm. Coincidentally, Brian's company just signed up to be a community delivery location, so every Tuesday at 1 p.m., Brian will be able to go into his lunchroom and pick up our box of vegetables and fruit.

We used Full Circle Farm for over a year and quit the service when I stopped working, largely because I wanted to go out and pick out all our own fruits and vegetables, and because we were tiring of the winter fare--beets, squash, potatoes, and more beets, squash, and potatoes. Now, Full Circle Farm allows you to substitute every item in your box with something else, making it more flexible and accommodating to our needs. It's a great way to support small--and local--farms. We signed up to receive a standard size box on a weekly basis for $30/week, a total of $120/month of our food budget.

This week's box contents include:
1 Broccoli
2 Hass Avocados
3 Fuji Apples
1 pound Roma Tomatoes
1 bunch Green Kale
4 Pinova Apples
0.75 pounds Green Bell Peppers
4 Fairchild Tangerines
0.4 pounds Mushrooms
2 Ruby Grapefruits
1 Green Leaf Lettuce
3 D'anjou Pears

Here's our dinner menu for this week:

Monday:
Apple-butternut squash soup and fresh-baked bread. (I cut up 2 butternut squashes and an apple last week and stuck 'em in the freezer. I'll cook the soup this afternoon.)

Tuesday:
Baked salmon, avocado-tomato-cucumber salad, and pressure-cooked brown rice.

Wednesday:
Dinner with friends at their house.

Thursday:
Black bean and rice Mexican bowl with lettuce, red onion, avocado, and corn. (Optional: ground turkey.)

Friday:
Sauteed broccoli and tofu with rice.

Saturday:
Quinoa with toasted seeds, green salad, and baked chicken.

Sunday:
Red potato (and maybe corn) chowder and salad.

Other options if the mood hits: enchiladas, chili and cornbread. Regardless, I'm cooking the enchiladas and chili this weekend and freezing it for easy lunches and dinners.

With this monthly shopping system, I've already spent about $405, not including four weeks of CSA deliveries. Total including 2 wks of CSA: $525. Over the goal, but it's my first time out of the gate. I'm guessing by the end of the month we'll hit $550. This total includes $85 I spent on a bunch of gluten-free flours and 3 giant bags of Pamela's (very expensive) gluten-free baking mix. I'm splitting the cost over the next 3 months. I like our home-baked gluten-free bread a lot more than what we can find in the store. And Pamela's makes the best cookies, crumbles, sweet breads, and Sunday morning pancakes. Probably not a lot of cost-savings in the end, unless I compare it to buying all the sweets pre-baked and going out for pancakes every Sunday, but worth it to be able to make treats whenever we want.

I think I managed to buy a lot of stuff. A month's worth? I don't know, I guess we'll find out. I think we have enough other staples (nut butters, jams, soy sauce, salt, rice, etc.) to last this month. Want to know what we bought? I'm just going to list everything out, which is going to take awhile but for right now, hey. Once a month. Big deal. Why? Because it'll keep me honest. Also because I like to read this stuff on other people's blogs. I don't know exact measurements for a lot of it, but here goes:

Vegetables:
CSA plus--
*3 bags org frozen corn
*3 bags org frozen green beans
*3 bags org frozen spinach
*3 bags org carrots
*2 bags of frozen artichoke hearts
*2 large cartons org Roma tomatoes
*2 cartons org sugar plum tomatoes
*5 big hass avocados
(I bought the corn, beans, carrots, spinach, and tomatoes from Trader Joe's, but next time I'm going to go to Costco and buy their organic options). I got the artichokes from Trader Joes--Costco doesn't have 'em. Okay, admittedly, they're not organic, but they do happen to be the the most delicious addition to pasta sauce ever. Yum. I'm going to stew the roma tomatoes and freeze them for soups.)

Poultry (bought fresh then individually bagged and frozen):
*5 org free-range chicken breasts
*5 org free-range chicken thighs
*10 org chicken sausages
*2 boxes kosher ground turkey (oops, on reflection, I don't think this was organic)

Fish:
*4 large fillets of wild frozen salmon

Grain/pasta/bread:
*2 lbs org quinoa
*3 lbs org gluten-free oats
*28 ounces Rice sticks (Pad Thai noodles)
*2 lbs org rice pasta
*Multi-grain bread for Brian

Beans:
*2 pounds org black beans
*2 pounds org pinto beans
*2 pounds org kidney beans
*1-1/2 pounds org lentils
*3 packages of org tofu
*4 big containers of org soy milk and 2 small unsweetened containers

Dairy:
*Organic 2% milk
*Cheddar cheese
*Organic jack cheese
*Parmesan
*Organic yogurt (large tub)
*Organic butter
*2 cartons of organic free-range eggs

Baking supplies(this was split b/w Whole Foods and Amazon purchases--Amazon offers wholesale-style quantities and prices on specialty flours):
*Sorghum
*Teff
*Potato starch
*Tapioca starch
*Yeast
*Brown rice flour
*Pamela's baking mix

Fruit:
CSA delivery plus:
*2 pounds org raisins
*Big bottle of org apple juice
*1/2 lb shredded org coconut
*3 bags org frozen blueberries
*4 lemons
*6 limes

Nuts/seeds:
*1/2 lb org sunflower seeds
*1/4 lb org sesame seeds
*1 lb mixed nuts
*1/2 lb slivered almonds

Sweeteners:
*Large bottle org maple syrup
*Large bottle honey

Oil:
*Lg bottle olive oil
*Lg bottle grapeseed oil

Vinegar:
*Organic apple cider vinegar

Misc:
*Pad Thai sauce (I need to start making this from scratch, it'll probably taste better)
*Jar of pineapple salsa
*Jar of regular salsa
*2 bags of 7th Generation pull-ups
*Conditioner
*Liquid multi-vitamins for Cora
*Homeopathic medicine (1) for Brian