Homemade pizza

There should be a picture but we just ate it too fast. But you will thank me for passing this recipe on to you: homemade pizza sauce. It is delicious. Pair that with homemade pizza dough, the softest gooiest freshest mozarella you can find, some basil leaves and some vegan canadian bacon and pepperoni and you will have yourself a homemade and quite possibly homegrown out of this world meal. You're welcome.

Powdered Sugar

Am i the only one who didn't know that it was so easy to make powdered sugar. I'm never buying the stuff again. I always have a box unused in my cabinet or i don't have any and i need it and lose the momentum to make what i was making because i don't, which results in having the unused box. I'm never buying it again. How easy and fun too for the little one to do this.

Boston it was!

So many of you knew! We had a good, exhausting, hot time. I'm beginning to think it's summer! It's in the 90's again today. I would have some very nice pictures if 1) my husband didn't put the camera where it could fall out of the stroller and 2) i didn't kick something plasticy/metally sounding on the ground and not look to see what it was assuming it couldn't be ours because I secure everything.

That was the bad part but the rest was all good. BG had a tough time, LD gained some serious stubborness. He came back with an attitude of "no, you listen to me lady" and leaving the house after i say no going outside until BG and me were ready. YES. Leaving the house on his own. You better believe that was a violation. It's a bit hard to chase down a 3 year old in your pajamas holding a baby. Not fun. I wish we could have fences in our neighborhood.

He thinks he's the man of the house now. On another note, he saw my empty water cup upstairs next to the bed so brought it down, pushed a chair to the counter and filled it up with the water pitcher, and brought it back upstairs (spilling the whole way i might add) to me without me asking. Sweet. And he now says "my sister is beautiful. And you are too." This age seems to be one of serious ups and downs/high points and low points. It's going to be an interesting summer.

Where am I?

Cup covers

another cup cover
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

I HAD to make something the other day so this is what i made. Two cup covers for my water at night. Quick satisfaction. I was able to make both in a naptime. And i think i have the french knot mastered and boy is it fun to make once you get the hang of it. I got tired of it though and was running out of time so two opposite edges are x's and o's. I like the beads that hang for weights on the corners. LD stole both of these and made a quilt out of them. The words are french words for coffee, tea and water. I thought to put coffee tea or me but then that would be kinda strange to say to myself lol.

Bread and Butter and a Bag

(that's the heel which is never eaten with regular bread but gobbled up with this bread....if that says anything!)

I have been on the hunt for a good non-bread machine recipe and have found a few so far i like. I'm still trying more out but here are two that i've really enjoyed.

The first one is Soulemama's Who Bread (Acoustic Style - that's without a machine) and the other is Beauty that Moves Almost Sandwich Bread. I want to try Blue Yonder's but haven't yet.
Soulemama's is really good for snack bread. LD eats this up with honey. I do one thing different and that is I add dates. I love dates in bread and this one just asks for it.

Beauty that Moves is good for sandwich bread except LD doesn't like it so i need to figure out a way to make it a little lighter for him.

Both are great bases to build with. That Silly Girl also posted some great info on bread.

Butter was next on my list and who knew how easy it was to make. Delish!

Since I've been making bread regularly for a few months now I realized i needed a bread bag. I thought to embroider one and make it all fancy smancy but i needed to make something yesterday quick. It was midnight after all. So, i was digging through my linens and happened upon a great quality vintage linen tablerunner that i thought i'd use for something but hated it whole. I quickly, as in five minutes quick, stitched up the sides and then cuffed it over and threaded some vintage bias tape sewn shut through the loops and voila, finished.

Five minutes and i'm thrilled with it. I'm not even worried about the stain it has. It is such nice linen. Thick and slick. I had put buttons on the ends of the bias tape. Big mustard yellow vintage ones but decided it was too much. It is a bread bag after all. No reason to make it something it's not. This morning i ran into this giveaway by Apron Memories. How perfect did all that work together???

Another question...

DSC02840
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

I scored this at a garage sale of all places a year ago. I really want to make cards, mostly eid ones and some other personalized things. I also love how you can print on wood, fabric, etc.

I bought it for a whopping $20. That'll never happen again. These things are selling these around $200 because they no longer make them and when they did it was in Japan. So, if i do in fact get rid of it, i'll probably never get it again. Here's the thing. If i haven't used it in a year, i probably won't use it for a few more. You need space to make the cards so they can dry. I have little ones. It ain't happening anytime soon.

I'm cleaning out my space can you tell? So. Keep it or sell it? I really want to keep it but i just don't think i'll get around to using it anytime soon and when i do the supplies (lightbulbs and ink etc) will probably be really hard to find. That's the negative. The positive is how fun it would be to make cards!

What to make?

DSC02839
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

I love this fabric. Adore it. It's a nice soft thick cotton...not upholstery like but just lush. I bought it a year and a half ago when an antique store was closing. I want to make something with it but have no idea what. It's about a yard give or take. Any ideas? Only thing i've been thinking is a bag.

Gifts!

Look at the lovliness i got in the mail! and some felting yarn to boot! Her pictures are much better than what mine would be ... Thanks Robyn. We loved everything! I really love that hat. I can't even believe she made it! And that tote is perfect for carrying my yarn projects. Right now it's carrying two. The dress is adorable and can't wait till baby girl wears it. Probably soon. She's one chunky monkey. I got her a bunch of tights and baby legs and it'll look darling with one of the pairs. Good stuff.

And on the note of gifts. I got an email about how i was being sort of shallow about the blanket and in my defense i just wanted to say that had anyone else given me this, i would have been appreciative but it was the friend that was supposed to watch LD while giving birth to BG and backed out at the last moment. After not talking for nearly 4 months i called her and asked if they wanted to come over. She never once called to check on us or to see how the delivery went. Nothing. This was the first time seeing her and i just thought the whole thing was tacky but i wanted to fix things mostly for LD because he loves her daughter. They are a perfect fit. Last week it got worse as i saw her getting competitive with a very good friend of mine. What to do when your child likes another but the moms are a bad fit? I don't know. She wants to get together more and it really is a bit of a struggle for me.

This was supposed to be a happy post soooo....

I also got this cute hat from Gori in the Kitchen. Love. :-) It fits her perfect now and will easily fit her next year. Too cute! Bonus is that it makes her mohawk a flyaway mohawk. Nothing cuter than that! I love the colors too. She's going to wear this today for our walk. Thanks Cindi!

Must reads

Whenever i need a few minutes to escape my reality (dirty diaper, spitup, jelly faced little boy, starving husband etc) i can always rely on my file "must reads" in bloglines. Most of my regular commenters are there in that menu. Some are my true escapes...people doing the things i wish i could be doing right now...mostly crafters. Well today there is a new one... Sigh. Usually i go to Soulemama for a fix, or Beauty that Moves or Qalballah.

Someday, not today, because i have the serious urge to cut some fabric or fondle some yarn before the kids wake up - i will have to share all the blogs i blurk.

time

First off. I want this so bad that it hurts. Seriously. I love it.

I'm tired. Here's what i did today:

- Semi- cleaned the house.
- Mountain of laundry and even folded it.
- Bathed youngest and cut nails. Hey, that's big around here.
- Cooked.for.6.hours. Yes. 6.

See, people are always asking me how i get so much done or have time for this or that. This is how. I do it all in one day.

It is normal for me to cook 3 pakistani dishes and some sides, a pasta dish and some little dude food in one day.

Today i cooked:

Chicken tortilla soup.
Coconut chicken pasta.
Fried chicken.
Haleem.
Keema.
Daal.
Ras Malai.
Pasta (i'll add white sauce to it one day and cheese another and tomato yet another). Most for me and LD lunches.

Still working on chicken curry and chicken biryani.

It wears me out but i'm pretty much done for the first half of the week. I also cook big batches so half goes into the freezer right off. I don't eat much pakistani food these days because it bothers the little one. I love doing pakistani food for the freezer. It's a life saver. I portion it into different sizes. Single meals, double meals, and family meals. Last week i did this with chicken parmesan. We ate it for dinner the first night, then i had it for lunch, hubby had it for dinner when he worked later than normal etc. This week i'll do that with eggplant parmesan. A whole eggplant makes enough for us all to eat it and then a few meals left over for the freezer. The trick with freezing food is packaging it right so it doesn't get freezer burned. I pretty much cook twice a week except for small stuff like lunches and LD dinners. It saves a ton of time to do it this way but it is a lot of work upfront. Midweek i cook whatever else needs to be used up (veggies etc) and another dessert. I don't leave any meals in the fridge past 3 days. They go right to the freezer.

Okay, now i'm off to clean up. Cleaners are coming tomorrow so i gotta clean so they can clean. Then i'm done for the week. You bet i'll be making something this week or scrapbooking. I've also got to pack for a little mini break.

Things I love right now

* Baby Girl checking out her feet yesterday for the first time. Coincided with her first time wearing shoes. Hilarious to watch her check out her shoe from every angle and smile. Such a girl.

* My new stripey shirts from Gap. I love stripes. LOVE them. I buy them whenever i can. I have two new additions. Red and white stripes and pink and white. I cannot, for the life of me, get BG to nurse while wearing them though. The milk goes flying. She simply cannot stop staring at them and smiling. I'm a walking mobile for her. She just watches the stripes and smiles and coos.

* How my baby girl checks out what i'm wearing each day. And seems to have an opinion about it.

* How little dude is his own person with his own likes and opinions now. It's been coming about but now it's full on. I have started taking him to the toy store and he really enjoys it. Now while staring up at the Cars cars he tells me which ones he likes and which ones he doesn't. If they don't have one he wants, he doesn't want one just because. He'll wait for the one he wants. Cute. It's like his first collection. It happens with so many other things but it dawned on me these past few weeks how he really has become independent-ish from me. It saddens me and it makes me happy. Maybe this is the fear he's been feeling lately. How scary for a little one to start feeling independent. Must be confusing.

* How when i leave little dude with baby girl, he will sit next to her and hold her hand and say "i am here." And then give her his favorite car and talk to her about cartoons. LOVE these moments. When i'm around he sort of ignores her and goes about his business but when i'm not, he steps in as the mother role. This sometimes brings tears to my eyes.

* Trees are getting buds. Finally. Never have i felt a season so much...well except maybe fall. But spring usually just happens for me. I never really notice it too much except when you abruptly start seeing so much flesh. This year i notice because we are all anxious to get out in it. LD keeps asking me when we are going to go on picnics again? Soon my love, soon.

* How when BG has gas, she will unlatch, purse her lips into a perfect O and let one rip. Frat boys would be impressed by my little girls passing gas enthusiasm. It is so cute. When LD passed gas it always caught me off guard and made me laugh but when this little one does it, my heart swells. Explain that one.

* My craft space is organized and ready for work. I have spaces for everything i do now. Table for scrapbooking etc. I used the Bernina the other day on a project that would have given me trouble with my other machine and i realize i HAVE to keep her. She's a thing of beauty, old as she is.

* Did I mention Spring? And yellow? And green? And the wild turkey's that make a return this time of year to our back yard? We saw one crossing the road yesterday. It's been raining lots but that brings growth as I keep telling LD.

Best thrift/garage sale find ever!

Best thrift/garage sale find ever!
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

happy happy happy!

Loooove this. And there's even more furniture than shown. Amazing find...and so clean.

I simply cannot wait to start making some stuff for this. Mini quilts, towels, pot holders ...oh the possibilities. I'm happy it didn't come with dolls. This way, BG can go choose the dolls for it when she's old enough to play with it. I say she because i'm not letting LD near it. I have no problems with boys playing with dolls but he has a habit of painting things and drawing on things. I'd rather keep his markers and paints out rather than the dollhouse. He uses them endlessly.

I simply cannot believe my luck on finding this and it almost didn't happen. I was on my way to an estate sale. Passed the sign and thought to myself "hmmm nice neighborhood, should come back after the estate sale since they probably have kids."

Huge houses like this (10 plus rooms) usually have horrible sales where everything is priced super high or really good sales where they just don't want to lug it to donation centers. Guess which one this was? Score! Funny thing is she was just leaving her house to go get the sign from the corner since it looked like it was going to rain. She told me i could take a look. And then i saw it. I also got 3 girly halloween costumes. A cat, a ballerina and a princess.

THIS is why all my friends are saying how lucky i am to have a girl. I get it now. I had no preference before but now i get it. I love playing legos and playmobil too don't get me wrong but this.....this is just right up my alley. I never had a dollhouse as a kid and now i do lol.

A Year of Mornings

A Year of Mornings
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

Fingerprint fun

DSC02792
Originally uploaded by wayfarer

This book rocks. So much fun to make little pictures out of finger paints. I haven't done a "Year of Mornings" post forever so here is one from the other day.

Thanks, but no thanks?

People know i like handmade/homemade but now I have become the recipient of several tacky regifts...those not cute crochet blankets grannies (the uncool ones, not the cool ones) everyone has one of and keeps because they feel they have to. Yesterday was the same "I knew you would appreciate this..." For the record, I don't appreciate ugly, nor tacky regifts. It's funny that people lump all homemade/handmade into one big pile. There is cute homemade and ugly homemade and i have been the maker of both. I'm embarrassed of my first crochet blankets but they were cuter than this. I like special, one of a kind sorts of things. I love the baby blanket i made first even though the first few rows were off. It was my first and i think it's beautiful. Then there's
this one i love and the and ones my mom made but ugly is ugly and please, if you don't like a homemade/handmade blanket, i'm betting the person you are trying to off it on doesn't either because handmade is either good or bad and trust me, if it's good, you like it. So, i don't want to be rude but since she thought the blanket she gave us is really pretty and the ugly shrug too, i was thinking of giving it back because baby girl is surrounded with homemade blankets made with love and she has a lot of them.....like 8. A couple from me, a couple from my mom, a couple from friends and family personally made for her. And this friend knows i am working on a blanket right now too.

This one means zilch to me. It was made for my friend by a friend of hers so i was going to say "Thanks for thinking of us, but BG already has several blankets made by me and family and i'd really hate for this to go to waste. I figured you could give it to someone who doesn't have so many." I'm going to sound really tacky here but seriously, it was a tacky gift, a regift at that. She could have gone to tj maxx and bought a cute pajama for $5.99. Something baby girl really does need because she's flying through them. Money is not the issue either. She has plenty. She throws hundred dollar bills around like they are going out of style so i think she really does think it was a nice gift. But i just cleaned my house and purged. I am trying really hard not to clutter it up with stuff i just don't want. Should i just donate it or give it back with a thanks, but no thanks. I don't want her asking about or not seeing it and wonder what happened to it. I'd keep the shrug since i don't have a million of those and let me mother in law use it when watching tv. It's not ugly, i just don't have the time to put one on and i'm a quilt person anyway.

Do i sound really unappreciative/shallow right now? I bet i do. But seriously this is just a run of the mill blanket. I like special. That's what i love about handmade. Something made with your child or you in mind. I like that even if it's not my style etc because at least it was made with the person in mind. I do believe in "it's the thought that counts" but with regifts i sort of feel different. If you didn't like it, you should assume the person you are trying to off it on won't either. Just put it in the donation pile and call it done. I'd be embarrassed to give something away that someone gave me.

aw.......

i love it when they both sleep. Here's the good, the bad, and the ugly in list form of my past week which was a struggle all around. I don't even know where the time goes.

The good:

- baby girl is finally moving past her colic. love gripe water. only used it a few times but seemed to do the trick
- i scored a wood dollhouse for her today
- we are doing a play date today with daughter of mom who wasn't there for me on birth night. (we'll see later if i move this to the bad or ugly list lol. ld misses her and i was a big girl and called and made good. still irked that she didn't have ANYTHING to say about it. oh well.
- i finished two sewing projects. why does it take me a week to make a quilt and 3 months to bind it. oh yeah, because i hate binding quilts. i kind of dislike the quilting part too. I love the piecing part though and all that ironing. call me sick.
- we have summer plans/weekends building up. dc, philly, toronto, colorado, boston. fun fun fun.

The bad:

- i saw an estate sale listing monday advertising sewing, buttons and things. I have been so excited to go and waited all week to go. i didn't realize it was on thursday and friday so when i went today all the good stuff was gone. but the good thing is what i did buy, i got super cheap (a nice yellow popcorn chenille blanket that if i have the heart to do it, will go on ebay soon for a very pretty penny) and some ephemera stuff. no buttons. BUT on the way home, i scored a lovely wood dollhouse. i saw the lady taking down her garage sale sign. it looks like rain today so she's waiting till tomorrow. i saw the dollhouse and bought it then and there. huge score! Will make playdate super fun.
- ikea is hell with 6 kids. nuff said.
- my son left ikea with a black eye, a dent across his nose and a bad mood. this should go under ugly list, but i'm too tired to move it.
- i'm exhausted. it's been one of those weeks. i feel like i could cry but i plow on. yellow chenille and a nice wooden dollhouse is brightening my mood and both kids are sleeping with only one of them screaming out every 5 minutes or so from gas.
- i'm pulling ld out of preschool. he cries again so much saying he doesn't want to go, that he's scared etc. i'm fighting the school on refunding us. they require a 60 day notice but they have too much turnover. i didn't sign up for that. i'm thinking we are headed towards a homeschooling route. he's just not comfortable in this setting. i don't want to homeschool. i think deep down i do but i'm not organized or patient enough for it. i also want some time for myself to just breathe.

the ugly:

- ikea is hell with 6 kids. yes, it needed to be said again.
- oh, and nursing your daughter hidden by two women and 5 kids while a big gnarly dude with a t-shirt that says "i like boobies" is wondering what's going on behind the people curtain. for real, that stuff is made for movies not real life. i didn't think people really wore shirts like that.
- i about lost it with ld today. you know how kids struggle when they don't get their nap and it's rough going with everyone (totally my fault. or ikea's because i feel like blaming ikea for everything including buying colored plastic when i don't like colored plastic but they make colored plastic look cute but i digress.) but it's the day after the no nap day when you really struggle. this morning was all kinds of ugly. i shouldn't have even drug them out today but i was determined to get out and i actually thought the drive home would knock him out early so he could enjoy his 11 am playdate.
- teachers dislocating kids shoulders and then blaming the kid for it. not my kid but another. if it were my kid i'd be dislocating her shoulder fo'sure. ;-)

i'll end there. must clean up somewhat before playdate. so happy i changed it to the afternoon. gotta set up the table with cloth glitter glue and scissors so they can paste away. It'll be nice for them to see each other again. they adore each other. he needs that today after his black eye yesterday.

Next up....

Homemade peanut butter. And almond butter. And just maybe macadamia nut butter. Oh, i'm loving wholesome (food) living.

I did go to the dairy farm, even milked a goat, last weekend. Can't wait to make butter and yogurt.