Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Three months. . .

I am offically thru the first trimester and had my first appointment with Karen today. She has an office now up in Charlestown WV that she shares with an accupunturist, so I drove out there today and got to see her apprentice. (Karen was out at an Amish birth today.) I loved the building. It was a cool old victorian in downtown Charlestown and her apprentice was really helpful. She was young, maybe a couple years older than me and she had this really pretty little tree branch tatoo on her foot kind of spread across it. Other than the tatoo though she was mostly dressed like a grad school student on vacation. But man her tatoo was so cool.

I got to listen to the baby's heartbeat but it took her a while to find him as he was so sneaky. Karen's going to do blood work for me this time which is nice. I'm glad that she can do it and I don't have to go to the doctor to get it done. Otherwise everything was normal and the baby is measuring right for the due date so that's comforting.

I also found yet another 200 dollar thing that is SO cool but I will never afford. Ben thinks he can make it for me if he has the time. Okay I'm gonna try a link.

here.

Sunday, June 17, 2007



Probably my favorite chilren's book author is Else Beskow. Part of it is her stories are sweet, very inncoent and full of charm, but her illustrations are also so beautiful that I could look at them again and again all day long. (which is what one has to do with the books one owns and is demanded to read at any moment of the day. )

Anyway I recommend her books highly. I haven't read them all and there may be a weird one in the bunch but they are simply fabulous. They run a bit expensive so I try not save up and buy them one at a time or ask my mom for them for gifts for the girls. I have also found them on Amazon for cheaper.
Okay and while searching for else beskow pics on the web I found this lady's really neat house in maine. I probably drooled over these pictures too long. My favorite is the baby sleeping by the hearth on the sheepskin. Sorry the URL is so long. (sigh) I still have to figure out how to link to something the cool way. ( By the way make sure you find the link on her page to "IN MY HOME". . . . )

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://home.maine.rr.com/soules/safe3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://soulemama.typepad.com/soulemama/2005/02/index.html&h=492&w=369&sz=64&hl=en&start=23&tbnid=0Qz5a2-QqSTt0M:&tbnh=130&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3Delse%2Bbeskow%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Well you know you are pregnant when you start to go thru photos. Here are two old one new. Just be thankful I'm not posting hundreds of darling photos of Zita as a baby. (who even thought of giving digital cameras to the mothers of new babies. . . . . )



Here is a cute picture of Angelica on one of our trips out to CA, taken right after Z was born.


Here she is the other day so exited about strawberry jam, (so exited it would appear she is picking her nose.:)


Here is what I have been missing latley. . . . .I can almost smell the cafe from sweet, sweet Cafe Bellotti.

(sigh)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

All hail KALE!

So I have been trying to follow Sally Fallon's guidelines for heathy pregnancy diet and I have been pretty good about some parts. I have been pretty religious about eating my two free-range fresh eggs every day. I have been drinking fresh milk, avoiding processed foods. . . I've even been taking the cod-liver oil. But then today I find out that you are supposed to take WAY more codliver oil than I thought, in fact so much that it would cost you like several dollars a day. So I'm not following that rule out of sheer lack of a deep pocketbook, but I suppose some is better than none. Sheesh!

I bought a bunch of strawberries on monday from the Asper's and made strawberry jam. I found this great stuff called Pomona's Pectin so that you can make the jam low sugar (like half a cup instead of two to three cups) or you can use honey or rapadura or whatever in place of the sugar so it is healthier and it still gels fabulously. If you use really ripe sweet fruit it turns out really sweet anyway. We whipped thru one whole jar at breakfast the other morning (yikes). . .so the girls and I are going to pick more strawberries at the Asper's farm tomorrow and then going up to the Wingates for a picnic by the river, while Ben and Henry do more life drawing sketches with the model they have been working with.

Bridget invited us over to their pool earlier this week and we all had a simply wonderful time. The girls actually got comfortable in the water for the first time this summer, but I'm realizing we have a long way to go. I'd really love to have Angelica swimming at least by the end of the summer.


So far this week has been full of stawberries and swimming and I finally feel like summer is here.

We are still in the middle of our house rennovations and I am beginning to feel like we never will never have a living room again. All I can say is thank God it is summer and the girls mostly play outside all day anyway. I can't wait till everything is done so I can post my before and after photos.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

A good moment yesterday. . .

Yeah I found it again online!

Angelica used to love watching this as a baby and I put it on for the girls again yesterday and they loved it just as much. I am so happy it is still around.

http://www.franciscanfriars.com/gallery/index.htm

(click on "Original slide show. ")

I would love to get a copy of that version of the Magnificat but the website where they sell it is not around anymore. Shucks.

breakin' the law. . . .or laws as the case may be.

The other night we went to Jalisco's for dinner as it was insanley hot, and my stove is a beast in this house if the weather gets hotter than 85. As always I walked away from Jalisco's heavy with corn chips and fresh salsa (yum,yum)--feeling madly dissapointed that I wimped out AGAIN and didn't order the shrimp fajitas. I also am so thankful that those Mexicans cross the border and while they may take our jobs they give us so much good food. Hey, I can't complain.

Today it got me thinking though about illegal immagration and illegal this and illegal that. I had the interesting experience last year (during our soujourn overseas) of actually being an illegal immagrant for a short period of time. The only time we had a close call was when a policeman was doing a routine check and asked to see Ben's passport and he had left it at home. (yeh, Ben!) But whenever I saw the "guarda di finanza" I did always shuffle along and tried not to look too foreign. ( Always a hard thing when you are carrying a backpack carrier and talking to an English speaking child.) I also had to figure out where to buy things, how to speak that crazy vowelly jibberish spoken in Italy, and how things worked in a foreign environment. I felt like a Mexican all the time for the first four months there. But I also learned that it is not easy and that the people who are patient and smile kindly and try to teach you Italian are gems. So in the end I have a lot more sympathy for Mexicans than I used to. And even if they are illegal, I suddenly realized that there are many things I do on a regular basis and have done that are illegal too. So I certainly cannot cast the first stone. . . . and so far I am certainly not walking the straight and narrow.

Here goes:

1. Buying raw milk in church parking lots.
2. I have drunken alcohol underaged, and given alcohol to underaged people in my own home. (wait that second one might actually not be illegal, I'm not sure. . . . But I did see a sign the other day that said "Parents who host, lose' whatever the heck that means. Probably parents who don't teach and encourage responsible drinking by drinking with their children in a responsible manner lose. . . . but that's too long for a sign)
3. I have trespassed.
4. I have homebirthed.
5. I have owned livestock in an residential zoned neighborhood.
6. I have stayed illegally overseas for six months without proper paperwork.
7. I earned 4000 swiss francs which I never declared on my taxes because I was paid in cash overseas.
8. I have rented out part of my house which is not in an area zoned for high density rentals. (well actually I share my house
with lovley folk who give me generous cash gifts every month (wink)
9. I have had fires before 4:00 pm
10. I have gone above the speed limit.
11. I have jaywalked.
12. I have run red lights. (well this was mostly by accident)


Well that's enough for one night. Are we all shocked by my criminal record!!?? I assure you when I am not keeping illegal chickens I am really quite harmless.

Shucks. even as I speak I am hopping on the neighbor's internet. I know, shamless, shamless.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Annie, Here are your photos.



Happy Birthday Ben!





Thanks for the pasta sauce, mama!