One Small Change Part 3 - My grow operation

She's growing up so fast, my little sprout! Even though I am WAY late in posting my March task for One Small Change, I actually did the task on time in early March. This year we are planting our first vegetable garden (which in itself would qualify for the Change mission), but starting my seeds indoors with repurposed seedpots (some re-used milk carton bottoms, a few old sour cream and yogurt containers, and some newspaper seedpots a la Bonzai Aphrodite) make this one a double whammy.
Making the seedpots was a little tricky - I never realized how soft and hard-to-crease newsprint is - but I bunched them together to help hold their shape. Since we've had nice weather here over the last two weeks, the seeds got real sunshine and natural warmth out on the deck right away and they really took to it. Just like their mama!
My little darling up there smiling at you is actually a marigold sprout that will eventually border the outside of our raised bed, and her neighbors all around are onions - four different kinds! A red type, 2 yellows and a cippolini. I can't wait until they're caramelizing away on my stove, although I supposed it's a little morbid to already be considering the demise of these little babies. I must remember to enjoy the entirety of their life cycle. My challenge for the season:)

PANTS!

In her new pants!

Pants has been our nickname for Anna since about age, oh, 8 weeks, when she started standing up on my lap nonstop. I started singing "You do the standy-pants!" to the tune of George Michael's "Jitterbug," and well, the rest is history. People still give us strange looks when I yell out in public, "Hey, Pants, get over here!"

AND, I officially finished the first piece of clothing I've ever made for her (I did make her a bathrobe for practice first, but trust me, you don't want to see it), and out of completely repurposed fabric. I feel competent, creative, and responsible all at once:) I got the pattern here, and of course made a few adjustments because, well, I didn't feel like making a whole lining. Which led me to a few extra steps in the end, but all came out just fine anyway. And just in time for our trip to visit Grandpa and Grandma Bobbie in sunny Florida. Here comes Pants in her beach pants!

And in about 90 days, I hope to have some new, smaller pants for myself. More on that later, here comes the lowdown on how I made these polka-dotted pretties!

Baby steps

Somehow they got us to this week.
I remember mashing up her first banana, spending 20 minutes pushing peas through a sieve, grinding rice in a tiny food processor. Tonight she ate cole slaw, fried chicken and rosemary potatoes for dinner. Without help, but with ketchup.
I remember when she took her first steps, chasing after a friend's dog at a party. This week she's riding her tricycle, "all by myself," down to the corner restaurant in the snow, and asking for ice cream when we get there.
I remember all those weeks when her only word was "Da-da." This week she walked up to me and said, "Aw, I miss Grandma Dot." Me, too, honey. Me, too. We have so much to tell her about.

Pad Thai 101

Saturday afternoon was total bliss - and not just because I had a daylong break from putting Anna to bed for nap AND bedtime! (BTW, she's totally digging our new sitter. But I digress.)
All the ladies were invited to lunch by our friend, Ja, who graciously offered to teach us how to cook pad Thai at her place. Since Ja is Thai, I knew this was going to be freakin' awesome. I'd recently read in Hungry Monkey (pretty sure the dude's not Thai, given that he's Jewish) a recipe for pad Thai that was just OK, definitely not great. Ja must have read my mind because I was craving it something fierce!
So, 10 hot moms gathered around the stove, watched Ja do her magic and feasted on some righteous noodles. Beyond amazing. And Thai iced tea. What is in that? Crack? Because I need more! And cake. Enough said.
Two hours later, I plodded out of Ja's house stuffed with THREE PLATEFULS of pad Thai, plus the extra sauce she made so I could have another three platefuls WHENEVER I WANT! Score!
Want to have it, too? You're in luck, just read on. But stop salivating on the computer. That's not good for it. Sorry, talking to myself again...

V-day check

So I promised an update on the house organizing, right? Drumroll please...



Our closet, 3 weeks later! Everything put away, in its rightful spot. And those organized people are right - it's way easier to clean up and put away when everything has its own space.
And our closet isn't the only area with a clean slate - bathroom and kitchen cabinets are square away, and the guest room is nearly done, although we have to make a few bigger decisions on that now that it will be Chris's daytime resting place. Huh, sounds like he's a vampire, but no, he's just starting third shift for 6 months. Which is not nearly as cool as the vamp thing, in my book.
And...you'll notice there's no picture of my sink posted. I could have taken a picture last night and pretended like that's what it looks like every night, scrubbed spotless and shiny. But that's not what it looks like tonight - give me a break, we made from-scratch V-day cupcakes today, lots of extra dishes. I am, however, up to about 50 percent of the time with an empty sink at bedtime. That is a huge improvement over zero, so I'm patting myself on the back even though I haven't reached the end goal yet.
Aside from not doing all the dishes, I've also been keeping busy working on my One Small Change sewing project for family cloth, which I finished today. Here's a pic of my repurposed PJs - please take note of the sloppy sewing and highly professional sharpie & 4x6-photo-as-pattern:


This was super easy, once my machine was fixed (just need oiling, yay!), and was super helpful in getting me confident with all the switches, etc. I even tinkered with the stitch tension to get it to look like my manual says it should. I used the zigzag stitch because i don't have a serger, and although I have no idea really what I'm doing, I read somewhere that it's an acceptable substitute for serging to keep the cloth from unraveling. Of course, I think it's supposed to be way closer to the edges, but this was, like, my third time using a sewing machine since making that pillow in 7th-grade HomeEc. I'd say they look bee-yootiful, and festive, too;) I proceeded to accidentally drop one in the toilet later in the afternoon, but that really says more about me than it does the concept, right?
So...on to the food!
I've been reading this really funny book a friend lent me about this guy and his adventures in feeding his toddler called Hungry Monkey. I finished it tonight, but all the way through I've been wanting to make at least every other recipe he describes (they're located at the end of the appropriate chapters). We tried pad Thai yesterday - we loved it, Anna did not - although it didn't taste anything like the pad Thai I've had in restaurants before, and tonight was the potstickers. Again, we loved them, Anna did not. She had a cupcake for dinner. She had worked very hard spilling half the confectioner's sugar on the counter while spooning it into the mixer for the icing, so she deserved it.

Here's the setup I learned from my mom for rolling egg rolls - overlap the wrappers so you can just brush once and roll the whole lot pretty quickly. I won't even pretend that I can show you the end product, seeing as I forgot to use the non-stick pan for the first batch. What a mess!
I realized about a third of the way in that I also should have been using round wrappers to make anything actually resembling a potsticker, but I had the wontons, so that's what we used and they were SO delicious. I also made up my own filling, but I stole an idea from Hungry Monkey to add veggies to the mix. In this case I had tatsoi. Yum!
Here's my filling mix:
1 lb ground pork
1 bunch tatsoi, chopped small
2 scallions, chopped
1 egg
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 tsp. fresh ginger, finely grated
salt & pepper
Fry for a few minutes in a smidge of peanut oil, add water, cover and steam for about 10 minutes. Voila. And my dipping sauce: 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2-3 Tbsp. rice vinegar (unseasoned!), 1/2 tsp. sesame oil, 1/2 tsp. finely grated ginger.
Good thing I froze half the batch...I'm getting hungry again already! Maybe the second time will be the charm for Anna. Or maybe she'll have another cupcake. WIth any luck, it will be both!

Idle Hands. (Not!)

Here's to bringing back the old-school. Even if for me that means early '80s valley girl lingo. Or, in today's case, taking a stab at the oldest-fashioned of the old fashioned: quilting!
Yes, today at my nearby fabric store I had my first "quilting lesson," which is really a euphemism for "pay this really nice and talented lady to show me how to make Anna a bedspread for her big-girl bed." (BTW, am I the last person in Athens to know of this place? Totally convenient, Kathy is awesome, everyone shop there. The Tatted Corner. Now!)
I didn't get any actual quilting done, given my totally nutso approach: take two completely unrelated but equally sentimental pieces of fabric and try to sew them together into something aesthetically tolerable. In the photo, you'll find my original fabric choice for Anna's room (the light green toile on the right), and in the center is the stunning pillowcase she received as a Christmas gift from Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Sara. They picked it up in France in the fall, and it is an utter sin to have any of it covered for this photo, but there was no way around it. In case your French is rusty, it reads, " Good night, my angel." Ronnie and Sara know we are Parisian wannabes, but they didn't know I call her angel about a hundred times a day. So that was a pretty amazing cowinkidink. The pillowcase was my motivation and inspiration for putting together this big-girl-bed quilt to coordinate with the pillowcase, so she can sleep with it every night!
As you can see, the two fabrics are, well, different. So for about 30 minutes, Kathy and I pulled out a dozen bolts of fabric to try to tie them together, and - ta-da! A bright blue toile and green/blue stripe. This was after she showed me how to work my sewing machine (no small feat, considering that it's apparently broken!) and before she indulged my need to scratch out hideous hand-drawings of the pattern options on her notepad. And then spend another 30 minutes staring at the fabrics to decide which direction to sew the stripes. Really productive use of time. Regardless, we DID come up with a plan!
And then it was time to pick up Anna.
So, I didn't actually do any quilting yet, but the planning phase is complete and we even began cutting fabric. Here's my summary of how it will look:
4 large blocks for the main center panel - each block (each 14 x 24) will have one of the green toile motifs centered in it, oriented vertically (like how you would see it on a made bed)
4 corner blocks (6x6 each) of the blue toile
4 long strips of the green/blue stripe ( two 6 x 28 and two 6 x 54) to run between the corner blocks

I have some seam ripping to do on the green toile (it was made into crib sheets, but to the wrong dimensions, so I have to tear out that stuff to make cutting it easier), and then I'll be back to her shop next week for more cutting and - fingers crossed - some sewing!
I think the actual quilting is, like, a few weeks away, once I can get my machine fixed. Total bummer! I'm so sure!
Stay tuned to see how it turns out:)

One Small Change Part 2

So, it's been a month since we went 100% homemade cleaning for our first One Small Change, and I have to say it's been mostly success - with one big flop. Bummer.
Dishwashing detergent is a giant mystery to me. The recipe for a homemade one from Bonzai Aphrodite(1 part each washing soda and borax) worked OK at first, but our dishes got progressively grimier as the weeks went by. Granted, our dishwasher has had a history of problems properly dissolving any kind of granular detergent. It's freaky and leaves tiny white granules on everything. We need to have it checked out...let's just say it's on my to-do list, OK?
So, yesterday I caved and bought some store-bought detergent, but it is entirely vegetable-based, non-foaming and biodegradable. I figure it can stand in for something homemade until I can find a liquid detergent recipe that works with our wonky machine. Know of one? Send it along!
Meanwhile, I've decided on Part 2 of this little adventure - family cloth. It's something I've been thinking about for a while, and a friend of ours tried it before the holidays with great success. I plan to only use it for #1, if you know what I mean, so my skeptical hubby won't be able to tell the difference:) Of course, we'll keep the regular stuff around for company, but we'll just have to buy a whole lot less of it.
From what I've read and heard, it should be made from an absorbent flannel, and I just so happened to rescue a pair of old flannel PJs from the Goodwill donation pile I made cleaning out the house over the last few weeks. My mom gave these PJs to me for Christmas about 10 years ago, so I suppose I should hold on to them for posterity. But part of me thinks she would have a good howl knowing what we're using them for. It'd be good for a story, anyway, and boy did she live for a good story - particularly about one of her crazy kids!
My sewing machine should be up and running tomorrow after my big lesson at the fabric store, where I'll be starting my first quilt to put on Anna's toddler bed. I figure by the time I finish it, she'll be ready for her big-girl bed! I'll tackle the cloths this weekend, and report back next month. Sew long!