Pretty Toes II

Andrew chose the colors and the design for my pedicure. Let's all give him a hand! Reddish purple would not have been my choice, but the final result is awesome. WTG Drew!

I can't help but be a little sad, remembering the original Pretty Toes. Last year for Mother's Day Yasar got me a gift certificate for my first pedi ever. I was still pregnant then, Leila still safe and sound. At that point, I was still a week away from meeting my little angel. (sigh).

Jesus Says,

"Please recycle!"

Happy Earth Day!

(unrepentantly swiped from Jesus Needs a New PR)

Really, Really Good Flaxseed Bread

Ingredients:

1 tbsp dry yeast
1 3/4 cup warm water
2 tbsp sugar (organic if possible)
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp salt
1 cup ground flaxseed - I pulverize mine in a coffee grinder
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached AP flour
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dissolve your yeast in the warm water mixed with the sugar. Make sure you get your kids to watch - it's really fascinating, and kids love to discuss how the yeast "burps" and "farts".


Add oil, salt, flaxseed, and one cup of whole wheat flour. Stir. Add second cup of ww flour, then your AP flour. Mix until incorporated.

Knead for at least 10 minutes by mechanical means or 15 minutes by hand, adding flour as needed to make a soft, slightly-sticky dough.

Rub some olive oil in a large bowl. Turn dough into bowl and flip around to get it coated with the oil. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place.

I fill my water pan with hot water and put it in the oven with the dough - makes a great incubator. (here it is with my sourdough starter, a story for another time).

Punch down, put into a greased loaf pan. Let rise again, covered.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then finish cooling on a wire rack.

Try (really, really try) to let it cool completely before slicing. And never, ever feel tempted by grocery store bread again.

Yesterday

Yesterday I was heading out of town on a milk run into the next county.

My route takes me right past our old house.

Usually I'm pretty good about turning my back on the past, but this time I made that right turn into our development. I just wanted to see our house again.

I came to the stop sign, looked down the street to our address, and saw it.

A truck in our driveway. Loading up the things we didn't take from the house.
It was like a shot to the gut.
Once upon a time, we had a dream in our hands....

Photographs

As the days tick down to Leila's birthday, it seems like all the grieving "progress" is going down the tubes.

I'm weepy. Always on the verge of tearing up. Oversensitive.

Is this normal?

The first line of "I Will Carry You" just echoes in my head.

"There were photographs I wanted to take..."

That photo of Leila at about 6 months old,

forehead to forehead with Yasar,

a little pink bow in her hair,

a look of adoration in his eyes.

I wanted to take that photograph so badly.

Usually it's hard to separate the sadness of infertility from the sadness of having a daughter in heaven.

That's not been the case lately.

I can SEE her in my mind. And I miss her so intensely.

God, please give my little girl a hug for me. Tell her how much I love her.

Our Organic Revolution, and a New Diet Experiment

Yesterday's dessert was an organic grapefruit that came from Happy Box. Never before had I tasted such a delicious grapefruit - sweet, soft, so juicy it ran all over my clothes. "This is the way food used to be", I thought. "It's a tragedy everyone can't have one of these, they would fall in love with grapefruit all over again."

Personally, this organic journey started as a means of being socially and environmentally responsible. The chemicals that farmers are using in our soils are slowly killing us. The best and fastest way to stop this is to vote with your dollars. So that's what we did.

Now this journey is growing into more. The food really does taste better! It's more vibrant and full of nutrients. The eggs, those beautiful deep yellow yolks. The milk. Oh, the fruits and veggies. You eat them and you feel as if you're bursting with life.

To go back to pale, insipid grocery store findings would be an insult to our bodies. As long as we have the money to keep this up, that will never happen again.

So I'm trying something new, weight-loss wise. For the last week, the amount of processed foods this family has eaten has dropped waaay down. We have an "alternate" schedule, so we don't often get the chance to do family dinners. But we're almost always together for breakfast, so we have a cooked, sit-down meal together first thing in the morning. My typical breakfast is a 1/4 cup of Bob's Red Mill muesli mixed with 3/4 cups homemade, full-fat yogurt. Add a tsp of pure coconut oil and a tsp of ground flaxseed. Then I take some nibbles of what the boys are eating (oat flour pancakes, eggs, labne, zatar, olives) and round it out with a piece of fruit.
Lunch is usually salad from Happy Box with some homemade Asian dressing (made in my new Pampered Chef Measure, Mix, and Pour - oh how I love thee!) and some wild caught salmon or chicken breast of questionable origin (GFS) with half an avocado and a slice of bread with butter. Dinner? Homemade fried rice, or minestrone, or some other leftover. And then usually there's a snack at night, either popcorn with evoo or a slab of fresh coconut and half an ounce of dark chocolate.

Now here's the kicker. I've lost weight. About 6 lbs in the last 10 days. And I'm not hungry. And I have a boatload of energy. This confounds Yasar - he doesn't see how it's possible. But it's absolutely true. Despite the high fat diet, the pounds are coming off.

True story: at the store the other say, I had one very dry turkey burger to choke down. Thinking it could use a little help, I dunked it in some of the BBQ sauce on the cut table. After finishing the meat, it was like my appetite woke up and I was instantly ravenous, looking for things to shove in my mouth. I will tell you the list of ingredients on the sauce container is long, and has lots of -ose endings. Take from that what you will.

I haven't come to any raw conclusions about this except that our bodies weren't designed to eat all the processed foods on the market today. Going back to unprocessed foods is working for me. I don't feel deprived - quite the opposite. And last night I took a 4-mile walk with my kid.

I feel like I'm getting my life back.

Miami River Foods Project Beta Box 2.1

MRFP Beta Box 2.1 In Da Howse! (my house, LOL!)
Sourdough bread with olives? Oh, baby....
Cheese, butter, and eggs.
My one little green egg (I'm saving it for Andrew).
Dry goodies - brown lentils, black beans, white basmati rice, and quinoa. All in green compostible bags.
Kamut? This is going to be something new for us.
Hopefully that's enough t.p. to get us through the month. It's not double-roll.
And my dinner tonight. The menfolk are in Columbus, so I got to sit down with some of that amazing colby cheese, a slab of sourdough bread with my spreadable butter (equal parts softened butter and evoo mixed together), a couple medjool dates from the Middle Eastern store (which are amazing, mushy and sweet - YUM!), a glass of zinfandel (thanks Shari!), and a well-loved book.

I am thankful. :)

Not Much to Say

Well, technically that's not true. There's lots to say, but I'm concentrating it down to one simple sentence:

I'm so grateful this week is almost over. It's a week I would never want to repeat.

It all started with this post over on Almost Frugal.

Then we had some very, very serious family problems. Also on Monday.

Tuesday saw us reeling in shock and heartache for my family, and so many prayers for healing here. With a healthy side of that horrible joy/self pity feeling that goes along with someone you know announcing a new pregnancy. Oh, and this post. (stay tuned on Monday at AF for my response)

Wednesday was a doctor's appointment. Since moving to this new house, I've been having breathing problems. Bad enough that I wasn't getting any sleep without Nyquil. And I bared my soul to my wonderful doctor about my weight problem. It's been impossible this last year to lose weight, something that's never been this hard before. I've been walking around in this cloak of failure and self-loathing for too long. So I asked him if it's the stress of all that's happened, or just me getting older, or maybe a medical issue?

Thursday - bloodwork to check my thyroid level, blood sugar, cholesterol, BUN, creatine, and pretty much anything else my doctor could check for. An afternoon with Yasar and Andrew in Dayton getting the car fixed and doing some grocery shopping at the Middle Eastern store.

Yesterday, Andrew and I went to Charleston Falls after work. We needed that time together to talk and just soak each other in. I am blessed to have a great kid.

Today? I pray for a quiet, uneventful day. At midnight I will celebrate the resurrection of my King as well as an end to this horrible week.

Charleston Falls 4-2-10

The Great Raw Milk Debate

Clearly I read too much.

So many different ideas and opinions can be found in your local library!

I'm smack in the middle of reading Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck. Some very interesting facts in there, about how high cholesterol is a fairly recent malady, and our ancestors didn't really deal with heart disease and cancer. Her main philosophy is that "industrial food" is slowly killing us.

I'm down with that.

So, we're already eating way more organic than we did, and I expect to wean out the rest of the processed foods over time (I'm way too cheap to throw away food!). I drive out into the country and buy our milk and eggs from an old order Amish farm, which almost certainly doesn't use growth hormones or antibiotics on their cows. The milk is very lightly processed, still having that beautiful cream line in it. Look at that and tell me you don't want some!

Yes, this is better than the white stuff they try to pass off as milk in the dairy aisle of the grocery store. But it's not raw.

Raw is what our forefathers drank every summer and fall. Then they supplemented their winter calcium needs with preserved milk. Cheese.

There was no low fat or skim milk. Our bodies needed (and still need) the fats and proteins and bacteria found in milk.

But wow, finding raw milk, not so easy. I contacted a local farmer about purchasing raw milk, and was told you have to be a shareholder (called a herdshare) in the cow. So you pay a monthly maintenance fee to feed/house/medicate/etc. the cow, and in return you get a share of the profits. It's expensive, too. $75 one-time contract fee, $36 monthly upkeep fee. All for a gallon of milk a week. Yowza...

I desperately want the benefits of raw milk. Planck even mentions in her book that it can help with asthma and allergies, both of which I'm really suffering with right now. But I can't justify it at that expense.

So we'll keep trekking out to the country (which I love) for our milk. We'll keep shaking up that gallon jug so we distribute the cream into the milk. And we'll hope that someday we'll be able to afford to take on a herdshare. Or to buy our own mini-farm and have a family cow.

If you're gonna dream, dream BIG!

Surrounded By Love

(my supply shelf with pictures of my grempop as a baby, and a wedding photo
of Yasar and I, his parents, my parents, and my gremom)

Somehow the office has kind of become my space. (maybe because Yasar has his "man cave" in the garage).

(my favorite Christmas gift from this past year, my sister-in-law
Chris put together a family montage clock, and included my Leila!)

So I let my taste in art take over.

(pictures my friend Joy took of my mom, Andrew, and I in Chincoteague the summer of 2007)

And my choice of wall decoration has always been family pictures.

(gremom and grempop with their 45th anniversary cake)

To me, it's what makes a house a home.

(my working corkboard, with a Mother's Day card that Andrew and his dad made for me, Andrew holding the bass he caught, a photostrip of Andrew and my mom, and one of Yasar kissing my dearly missed quaker parakeet, Furby)

I am always reminded of the love that surrounds me.

Happy Box = Happy Boy!

The Locavore Box:
Beautiful heads of lettuce, complete with a bug! I think this is Romaine. Andrew thinks it's delicious.
These giant onion tops will make Yasar a happy man.
Spinach heads and kale.
My kid chomping into some fresh kale. He said, and I quote, "it tastes like candy!" Gives me a warm & fuzzy feelin'. :)

Just a Quick Note...

...to all my fellow BLM's - please head over to Dandelion Dreams and give Lindsy some love and support. She's not new to this journey, but she's just starting to speak out about her emotions. You're all such a supportive bunch! :)

Karate Kid - Demo for Orange Belt

Flaxseed Morning Muffins

Adapted from the Fiber One website.

Ingredients:

1 cup high fiber cereal (I used Kellogg's All Bran)
2/3 cup milk (cow, soy, almond, que sera sera)
3/4 cup AP flour
1/2 cup oat flour (pulverize steel-cut oats in food processor until flour-texture)
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1 medium apple, cored, peeled, and grated
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1/4 cup shredded coconut
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cake spice (or cinnamon)
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs, beaten, mixed with:
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Arrange 12 muffin papers in muffin tin, use pan spray on the bottoms.

Pulverize cereal, either by rolling pin or food processor. In a LARGE bowl, soak cereal in milk for 5 minutes, until mooshy.

Stir in remaining ingredients. Divide between muffin cups (they'll be pretty full). Bake for 22-25 minutes, until tests done. Cool on wire rack, serve warm, cold, in a box, with a fox. They're delicious!

Behind the Scenes

These last few weeks have been very, very hard. Emotionally draining. There's been lots of tears here in the Wasouf household. More than our share of drama.

Even the most perfect marriages hit speed bumps and potholes. Ours is barely climbing out of a sinkhole right now.

Not that you would ever know it by reading the blog.

I just ask for your prayers today. There's much going on behind the scenes here, and not much of it's good.

10 Months

Thinking of you today, precious little girl.

Got Some Milk For Me?

Announcement

I am very pleased to tell you that I've accepted an invitation from my friend Kelly to write for her very popular blog, Almost Frugal. It was a great honor to be asked to stand next to her and two other talented bloggers, Beth and Nicole. Please stop by and see my inaugural post, What Is Almost Frugal? Take the quiz, leave a comment, add AF to your reader! :)

Somebody Wants What You Have

~shamelessly stolen from Jessica's blog~

It’s easy to think the grass is always greener in your neighbor’s yard. And perhaps it is. At least the part you can see.

But remember…

When you’re weary of fixing another meal and doing dishes yet again, somebody wishes they had food to put on the table.

When you’ve folded and put away a mountain of laundry, somebody wishes their children had proper coats and hats to wear to school.

When you’re groaning over the highest heating bill yet this year, somebody wishes they weren’t so cold.

When you’re losing sleep and gagging over a child’s stomach bug episode, somebody is praying for a miracle over her child’s hospital bed.

When the exhaustion and nausea of the first trimester are about to do you in, somebody is weeping over a negative pregnancy test. (so very, very true)

When your headache intensifies over your teen’s college financial paperwork, somebody is visiting the site of her teen’s fatal wreck.

When you wake up to another cloudy, rainy day, somebody is praying for moisture to end a season of drought.

When you pick up your husband’s dirty socks and take out the trash because he forgot, somebody is wishing that for just a moment she didn’t have to do it all alone, all the time.

The next time your situation threatens to steal your joy, try to remember… somebody wants what you have.

Give thanks in all circumstances…
1 Thessalonians 5:18