Outta here!

littlegreenbums has up and moved. See you there!

Keeping up with the Joneses (or whoever they are)

This morning, I opened the curtains to admire the view and was greeted by this unusual fellow on the Nameless (We’ll assume, for now, that their lack of neighborliness is due only to the chill in the air. I’m sure we’ll be fast friends come spring….) Neighbors’ front lawn: A challenge, plain as the nose on his (oddly misshapen) face. I gathered the troops and finessed them into their various items of cold-weather gear. Under the guidance of Thing One and Thing Two, the munchkins descended upon the snowy slope outside our front door and tackled the task at hand: reclaiming our snow-sculpting claim to fame. They left me with a sleeping baby (yes!) and a still-disastrous craft-room. I turned a deaf ear to the siren’s song of dirty dishes and a mountain of unwashed laundry, and made my way into my sanctuary. (See that scary-looking pile in the corner? That’s my fabric stash. I promise you, it self-propagates.) Despite the overwhelming amount of work to be done, there’s a happy little vibe in here. Itty-bitty corners of calm are emerging from the madness, and naturally, I’ll share. I went around whacking at things with a hammer (mostly nails, no children, I promise…) and that seems to have had a soothing effect. Meanwhile, the loin-fruit were busily building the coolest snowman on the block. Mission accomplished.

No more frozen fingers…

I drink my water ice cold. And I drink it from a stainless steel water bottle. Which adds up to trouble, when you live in Des Moines, and it’s January. I’ve been suffering for months with frostbitten fingers, and yesterday I had myself a little brainstorm. I made a dash for my felted sweater stash (What? You don’t have a felted sweater stash? You don’t know what you’re missing.) Thirty seconds later, My water bottle had a new sweater, and my frosty fingers were a thing of the past.

Just desserts

Chevi earned a special ice cream date with the ‘rents this afternoon. (Seven solo sleeps in the top bunk!) Then Mommy came home and neglected to feed her brood while she futzed with the computer till she figured out how to make a Picasa collage. Life is sweet.

I flunked…

…my own Bookmarkable Blog Assessment. That smarts some, but it’s true. To earn my “CTRL-D” a blog must meet each of my Rigorous Standards of Excellence:

1. Tutes? Sweet! In the world of the craft-blog, tutorials and giveaways are absolutely de rigueur. I seem to be sadly lacking in both departments, at the moment. However, once I dig my way out of the rubble that is my craft room , I’ll make an attempt to rectify this lamentable state of affairs.
2. Great Photos I’m looking for clear, well-cropped, and relatively germane pictures. Ahem. Well, at least I’ve got photos…let’s just say I’m working on it.
3. Je ne sais quois Call it voice, charisma, or just plain personality–if it’s not there, I’m gone after the first click. Make me want to read about your coffee, your carpool, or your new drop spindle. (Getting there, I think…)
4. Spelling Counts–use your spellchecker, folks. And if you truly can’t differentiate between you’re and your, they’re, their, and there or its and it’s, then it’s probably time to get a new hobby. (I give myself full marks in this small regard, at least.)

‘Kay. That being said, I offer you, my unsuspecting readers, an utterly gratuitous snap of tonight’s supper: Kirk’s Curry (I can get my kids to eat most things by sticking a Trekkie reference into the name. Try it…)

Swamped.

I am buried in boxes. Surrounded by stuff. Engulfed in ephemera. You get the picture? I’ve been a very good girl, and held off unpacking my craft stuff till it was all here. Well, now it’s here, and I’m officially overwhelmed. (I’ve also confirmed my ADD suspicions, in case any of you were wondering. Actually, you could establish that diagnosis just by looking at the way the boxes are packed, without so much as casting a glance at the poetry in motion that is me, putting stuff away.)

At this rate, I figure might be ready to make something by June.

For Chava: Fat-Free Pumpkin Muffins

My kiddos call these ‘Pumpkin Pasties,’ and they eat them straight from the pan. They’ll keep, theoretically, in the freezer, for months…just pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds and enjoy! You can also make this recipe in a loaf pan or Bundt pan.

1 large can pumpkin
1 c. applesauce
8 eggwhites or 4 eggs
2 c. brown sugar
3.5 c. whole wheat flour (I like King Arthur’s White Whole Wheat)
2 t. baking powder
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg
2 t. ginger
1/2 t. cloves
2/3 c. orange juice (I use Rice Dream)
1 c. raisins, craisins, nuts, chocolate chips or chopped dates (the chocolate chips kind of kill the “fat-free” deal, but they’re yummy!

mix, fill (sprayed) muffin cups 2/3 full, and bake until done. 🙂

Before and After

Subzero temperatures seem to lend themselves to leisurely Shabbos preparations. (So leisurely, in fact, that I almost forgot to make the salmon!) Luckily, this week’s recipe (from Old Bay) was super-quick and foolproof:

Zingy Dipping Sauce
Ingredients

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup ketchup

2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons OLD BAY® Seasoning

Directions
In a small bowl, mix honey, ketchup, lemon juice and OLD BAY until well blended.

I use this on salmon and chicken with equally great results. Brush it on and bake till done.
(No, that’s not the salmon in the photo above. Those would be the chicken stew and the quinoa, respectively, which for some reason proved far more photogenic than the fish.)

After havdallah, it was time for a quick tidy-up. (Denny, if you’re reading this, will you please come install my dishwasher? My dishpan hands are waiting…) Thankfully, the littles have developed an affinity for sweeping, so with their help, things got done in twice the time no time at all.

Say “bubbles!”

The cream of the crop from the almost-annual Bernstein Family Torture Photo Session:

My Book-Stack

There’s always a Pisa-esque stack of books threatening to topple off of my night table. The fruits of my frequent library raids keep me entertained while I nurse the baby, and in the (highly unlikely) event that I have a few minutes to spare, I bury my nose in a book. While I do read my fair share of fiction, my book-stack tends toward the how-to, DIY variety. You can gauge my obsession-of-the-month (week?) by scanning the stack at my bedside. (My bookmarks kind of echo my library pile in that regard.) Right now I’m enthralled with the whole urban-homestead movement. I’m planning our garden with a vengeance borne of cabin fever, and the kids are drawing up increasingly complex chicken-coop plans.

Now you tell me: what’s in your book-stack?