Here are a few of my favorite things right now:
~Palms silhouetted against a sunset. I think I could never tire of it. If I remember to open my blinds, I can see this every day. (Maybe not today though, it's raining.
~Getting into bed. I just love the feeling of anticipation and relaxation when I'm tired and laying down in my bed. Again, something I can experience almost every day. I get excited like a little kid and feel it in my body.
~White chocolate peppermint tea from Teavana. It's really good.
~The way Bons explains the world to her little sister. I'll do a voice for the baby and ask questions. Bons' explanations delight me.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Monday, December 1, 2014
On being strong and competent
I am a strong person and a strong personality. Sometimes this is fantastic and a real advantage to me, and sometimes it's problematic.
My strength, more specifically knowing my strength, gives me confidence. I can take on a lot and withstand a lot. I'm willing to take some risks because I know I have the strength to get through if it turns out bad.
Just because I can be strong doesn't mean I always want to be. I can take care of myself, and sometimes I like to be taken care of. Even though I'm strong, I still get hurt. I hurt when someone yells at me, points out my flaws, or disrespects or ignores me. I'm only human after all. I think that because of my strength and confidence people around me might overlook this last point.
I always did well in school. Schoolwork came easy, and I worked hard. Again, in some ways this was great and sometimes it lead to me not getting my needs met. Let's take writing, for example. Because we did a fair amount of peer-editing in my English classes, I know my writing was advanced beyond some of my classmates. More often than not I got no useful feedback from my peers and little from my teachers. A "Fantastic! You're doing better than your peers" type comment is great for my ego but does nothing to help me improve my own skills. The longer I was in school the more frustrated I became when I didn't get helpful feedback and the more I came to value when others pointed out things to help me grow.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this. It's just thoughts.
My strength, more specifically knowing my strength, gives me confidence. I can take on a lot and withstand a lot. I'm willing to take some risks because I know I have the strength to get through if it turns out bad.
Just because I can be strong doesn't mean I always want to be. I can take care of myself, and sometimes I like to be taken care of. Even though I'm strong, I still get hurt. I hurt when someone yells at me, points out my flaws, or disrespects or ignores me. I'm only human after all. I think that because of my strength and confidence people around me might overlook this last point.
I always did well in school. Schoolwork came easy, and I worked hard. Again, in some ways this was great and sometimes it lead to me not getting my needs met. Let's take writing, for example. Because we did a fair amount of peer-editing in my English classes, I know my writing was advanced beyond some of my classmates. More often than not I got no useful feedback from my peers and little from my teachers. A "Fantastic! You're doing better than your peers" type comment is great for my ego but does nothing to help me improve my own skills. The longer I was in school the more frustrated I became when I didn't get helpful feedback and the more I came to value when others pointed out things to help me grow.
I'm not sure where I'm going with all this. It's just thoughts.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
On what I love about my baby right now
~Her fuzzy hair. Fuzzy is the best word I can think of to describe the quality of her hair. It gets kind of matted down when she lays on the pillow to nurse and then sticks out funny when I get her up. For the first few weeks she'd reach her hand back around her head while getting changed, feel her fuzzy hair, grab on, and then cry because her hair was getting pulled.
~Her little baby legs. I love the look of her little leg when she's laying on her side, the thigh all soft and rounded.
~How soft the skin on her back is.
~Her smiles and coos and little snores and she sleeps on my chest.
~Her little baby legs. I love the look of her little leg when she's laying on her side, the thigh all soft and rounded.
~How soft the skin on her back is.
~Her smiles and coos and little snores and she sleeps on my chest.
On what I love about my daughter right now
~She cried genuine tears about the idea of needing the throw away Carvey the Pumpkin. We got Carvey at a pumpkin patch the first week of October. Daddy assured her she could still play with him for a few days but was trying to prepare her because Carvey is getting some soft spots. Through her tears she says, "Maybe at Christmas we can make a snow Carvey and play with him."
~I walked by the baby's crib yesterday and saw a stuffed animal all tucked in for a nap. When I asked my daughter if she had done this, she got very excited and smiled.
~She likes negotiating deals. We make deals for taking a bath and going to bed and eating her dinner. I think it's adorable and delightful that she works for what she wants.
~She loved helping to get ready for the baby party this weekend. She did a great job filling treat bags and showing people how to play our game and making sure everyone had water and juice.
~I walked by the baby's crib yesterday and saw a stuffed animal all tucked in for a nap. When I asked my daughter if she had done this, she got very excited and smiled.
~She likes negotiating deals. We make deals for taking a bath and going to bed and eating her dinner. I think it's adorable and delightful that she works for what she wants.
~She loved helping to get ready for the baby party this weekend. She did a great job filling treat bags and showing people how to play our game and making sure everyone had water and juice.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Tidbits from our trip to the California Citrus State Historical Park
Navel oranges are seedless and are grown by grafting, not planting. The first navel orange trees in the United States grew in Riverside, CA. You can still visit them. Any navel orange you've ever had that was grown in the US came from one of those two trees.
Cuties are a brand name and not a variety. Cuties brand actually sells several different varieties of mandarins. The varieties differ mainly on when they are ripe, so Cuties brand can sell mandarins for a longer portion of the year.
Citrus picked fresh off the tree is amazing. Our guided tour allowed us to eat lemons, citrons, and two varieties of mandarins right off the tree. After eating one of the mandarins, Bonnie said to me, "Can you ask that guy if I can have another one of those. It was really good." The guide gave us several to take home. Bonnie ate them all, except for one I made her share with her friend.
We also learned that citrus trees can be grown in pots. This is great news for us renters! Citrus tree here we come!
Cuties are a brand name and not a variety. Cuties brand actually sells several different varieties of mandarins. The varieties differ mainly on when they are ripe, so Cuties brand can sell mandarins for a longer portion of the year.
Citrus picked fresh off the tree is amazing. Our guided tour allowed us to eat lemons, citrons, and two varieties of mandarins right off the tree. After eating one of the mandarins, Bonnie said to me, "Can you ask that guy if I can have another one of those. It was really good." The guide gave us several to take home. Bonnie ate them all, except for one I made her share with her friend.
We also learned that citrus trees can be grown in pots. This is great news for us renters! Citrus tree here we come!
Friday, November 7, 2014
On WIC: It's a really great program
Starting with the layoff about 3 years ago, we've been on and off WIC. We were living on unemployment and qualified. (We made too much money on unemployment to qualify for food stamps, which still baffles me.) Then I got a job and as my pay went up or my hours went down or my pay went up again or we got pregnant we did and didn't and then did qualify for WIC again. Now with Blake's new job and the raise I got when I got licensed, I'm fairly certain we'll be saying goodbye to WIC for good.
When we first got on it, they had us come in to the office and watch an explanatory video about the WIC program, how to use the checks, and which foods did and did not qualify. We laughed that all the people in the video, who were real WIC participants, said, "It's a really great program!" After our first shopping trip with WIC, we laughed again because we said to each other completely seriously, "this is a really great program!" Especially in those early months when our baby was just eating cereal and pureed foods, her entire diet except for breast milk came from WIC. It was such a relief as we were unemployed/underemployed for those months to know that she was taken care of. We could cut back and cheap out on our own expenses, especially food, but we never had to make that choice for our child. I'm still tearing up a little thinking about it. Thank you, WIC, thank you.
Being on WIC has forever (we hope) changed the way we buy and eat food. Now that we're making a little more money and could afford to, we can't imagine going back to the way we used to eat. WIC changed our eating habits in three important ways: beans, produce, and meat.
Beans. Neither of us had ever cooked with dry beans before and now we were getting 1-2 pounds of dry beans every month. We needed to figure out how to use them. A google search led me to a post about cooking dry beans in the crockpot from Budget Bytes. Crockpot is easy; we could do that! Now we could cook the beans and needed to find recipes that used beans. Again, Budget Bytes. We love Budget Bytes! (We considered that an added benefit to the name we chose for baby 2 is that she's Beth M.) The fabulous Beth M at Budget Bytes blog provides tasty recipes that are economical and usually pretty quick. We haven't tried every recipe on there but also haven't yet found one we hated.
Produce. WIC gives a set amount of money to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables: $6, $8, or $10. Knowing we had a set amount, we watched grocery mailers closely to see who had the best prices. We wanted to get the most food possible for our $6 or $10. The mexican markets always came in the cheapest: El Super, Superior Grocers, Maxi Foods, El Tapatio Markets are the ones we've frequented. We routinely find produce there for half of what we could buy it for at other discount grocers (Food4Less or WinCo). You might be surprised just how much produce you can get for $10 when everything is less than $1/lb. Sometimes we get things as cheaply as 7lbs/$.99. Seriously. So, we eat and cook with a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables than we used to.
Meat. More beans and more produce had meant less meat. Meat is also often the most expensive ingredient, so cutting it out entirely or reducing the amount so it's more like a garnish and less like the meal is more economical. And you know, we don't really miss it.
The consequence of all of this is that I eat a lot healthier now and feel a lot better. I haven't had trouble maintaining the weight loss I got from running even after I stopped running because I eat well. I can't imagine giving that up because we make more money now. Another great benefit is that our food is delicious! We really like the food we make. I was known at my office for having fantastic lunches. Several coworkers routinely checked in when I was in the breakroom to see what I'd brought for lunch. One even asked if he could pay me some money every week and have me just bring him lunch.
I love WIC! It's a really great program!
When we first got on it, they had us come in to the office and watch an explanatory video about the WIC program, how to use the checks, and which foods did and did not qualify. We laughed that all the people in the video, who were real WIC participants, said, "It's a really great program!" After our first shopping trip with WIC, we laughed again because we said to each other completely seriously, "this is a really great program!" Especially in those early months when our baby was just eating cereal and pureed foods, her entire diet except for breast milk came from WIC. It was such a relief as we were unemployed/underemployed for those months to know that she was taken care of. We could cut back and cheap out on our own expenses, especially food, but we never had to make that choice for our child. I'm still tearing up a little thinking about it. Thank you, WIC, thank you.
Being on WIC has forever (we hope) changed the way we buy and eat food. Now that we're making a little more money and could afford to, we can't imagine going back to the way we used to eat. WIC changed our eating habits in three important ways: beans, produce, and meat.
Beans. Neither of us had ever cooked with dry beans before and now we were getting 1-2 pounds of dry beans every month. We needed to figure out how to use them. A google search led me to a post about cooking dry beans in the crockpot from Budget Bytes. Crockpot is easy; we could do that! Now we could cook the beans and needed to find recipes that used beans. Again, Budget Bytes. We love Budget Bytes! (We considered that an added benefit to the name we chose for baby 2 is that she's Beth M.) The fabulous Beth M at Budget Bytes blog provides tasty recipes that are economical and usually pretty quick. We haven't tried every recipe on there but also haven't yet found one we hated.
Produce. WIC gives a set amount of money to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables: $6, $8, or $10. Knowing we had a set amount, we watched grocery mailers closely to see who had the best prices. We wanted to get the most food possible for our $6 or $10. The mexican markets always came in the cheapest: El Super, Superior Grocers, Maxi Foods, El Tapatio Markets are the ones we've frequented. We routinely find produce there for half of what we could buy it for at other discount grocers (Food4Less or WinCo). You might be surprised just how much produce you can get for $10 when everything is less than $1/lb. Sometimes we get things as cheaply as 7lbs/$.99. Seriously. So, we eat and cook with a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables than we used to.
Meat. More beans and more produce had meant less meat. Meat is also often the most expensive ingredient, so cutting it out entirely or reducing the amount so it's more like a garnish and less like the meal is more economical. And you know, we don't really miss it.
The consequence of all of this is that I eat a lot healthier now and feel a lot better. I haven't had trouble maintaining the weight loss I got from running even after I stopped running because I eat well. I can't imagine giving that up because we make more money now. Another great benefit is that our food is delicious! We really like the food we make. I was known at my office for having fantastic lunches. Several coworkers routinely checked in when I was in the breakroom to see what I'd brought for lunch. One even asked if he could pay me some money every week and have me just bring him lunch.
I love WIC! It's a really great program!
Monday, October 27, 2014
On Sisters
Baby girl #2 is here. She's not quite 3 weeks old yet. Juggling two kids is challenging. I don't have a ton of time to write or edit thoughtful posts, though I still think many thoughts.
Today I'm thinking about sisters. I'm so glad that my daughters will have a sister. I think I've written here before about siblings, still I will repeat that I wished I had a sister I was close with. I have a cousin who is as close to me as she could be without actually being my sister. I have a sister but we weren't raised together and are barely more than strangers now. I'm envious of my friends and family members who have close, loving, fun, supportive relationships with their sisters.
I think on some level every parent wants to give their children what they didn't have, to make up for what they felt they were missing in their childhood. I am so happy my girls each have a sister.
Today I'm thinking about sisters. I'm so glad that my daughters will have a sister. I think I've written here before about siblings, still I will repeat that I wished I had a sister I was close with. I have a cousin who is as close to me as she could be without actually being my sister. I have a sister but we weren't raised together and are barely more than strangers now. I'm envious of my friends and family members who have close, loving, fun, supportive relationships with their sisters.
I think on some level every parent wants to give their children what they didn't have, to make up for what they felt they were missing in their childhood. I am so happy my girls each have a sister.
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