My little brother turns 28 today!
Hope you have a wonderful day!
It was a Tom and Jerry weekend
On Friday night we went over to my parents’ house to make a scrapbook for Tom and Jerry of their family, pets, and home, so that when Matt and I travel to Ethiopia we have this to show them so they can get familiar with the people, animals, and places in their lives. (My mom thought of this great idea.) I know we could just have taken some snapshots, but this was also a fun family activity that got everyone involved and hopefully made them feel a part of the process. (Side note: before we travel we are allowed to send a soft photo album filled with pictures of just Matt and me so Tom and Jerry get to know our faces)
Matt and I holding up the cats’ page
My mom clearly trying to explain something to us (She was the only one who had scrap-booked before)
Jason and Michelle working away on their pages (which were awesome, we also did some pages for Baby A, I am pretty sure she will make her appearance before T&J)
My dad even got in on the action, he was our official circle cutter
We still have to do the pages for the nursery (that needs finished first), Matt’s sister, and me and Matt’s (yeah we forgot to take pics of ourselves).
On Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go garage sale shopping, there was a community garage sale, so we had high hopes. There were several garage sales, but most were extremely small and not much to choose from, we still managed to score some fun stuff.
A soft touch fire truck
Tiger xylophone
12 Pooh books for $1
Jackson getting concerned with why we keep coming home with toys
Matt playing with his hot wheels (yes we know that T&J could both be girls, but this boy wanted some hot wheels and I played with them as a child) Jackson was totally cool with the hot wheels until someone almost nailed him in the head with a flying car.
We also scored a gender neutral, tiny kid’s bike and I already caught Matt working on it
Friday Update – 10/03/08
Adoption Update: Five referrals this week, four infant girls and one infant boys. Congratulations to the lucky families!
Running Update: I ran one day this week! I was also going to run today, but woke up with a headache and I am not dedicated enough to run with a headache. I did walk every day this week.
Push-ups: I completed the last column of week 2 this week and will be finally moving on to week 3. The sets are getting harder and harder for me, and instead of advancing a week at a time I have decided to advance a column at a time. I don’t really care about getting it done in six weeks (obviously, it has already been more than that) so I will take it slowly. I am sure I will get to 100 before Tom and Jerry get here.
Gardening: My seedlings are doing great, I will probably be able to plant most of them in the garden this weekend. It is still fairly warm, but I think they will survive.
Jackson noticed the water droplets in the seedling starter boxes and attacked, it was pretty funny until he tried to bite through the plastic
Random Stuff: There are two more tractor tires in the field behind my house along with several smaller ones, I plan on rescuing some of the smaller ones in the future to make a potato container in the spring. If anyone is interested in rescuing tires just let me know.
A solution to the obesity epidemic in America.
I also learned about the Phoenix Permaculture Guild this week. They have some interesting classes and a good tree buying program.
Cookie Monster loves me
Last night I decided to make some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. (They are seriously yummy!) I decided to double the batch to make sure we would have enough for our small group on Thursday night. Doubling the batch was a bad idea! I couldn’t even use my mixer to stir it because there was so much, luckily my buff husband stirred the batter for me. It ended up taking me about 2.5 hours from start to finish (I didn’t even do the dishes yet because it was past my bedtime) and I estimate I made somewhere between 8 and 10 dozen cookies. I wish I had more room in my freezer to store some of these. To all the lucky people that live near me you will be getting some cookies.
Here is the recipe for those who are interested, I got it from my mom:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Mix together:
1 can pumpkin – 15 oz
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup cooking oil
Add:
5.5 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
Mix together then add to batter:
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla
Stir in 1 package mini chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes.
Waking up to good news
The Ethiopian courts reopened early. They were supposed to open October 9, but we got word this morning that they opened yesterday. Hopefully this gets things moving again.
Thanks so much for the positive comments yesterday, they were very nice to wake up to.
On a random Ethiopian note, here is a link to an article on Lucy.
Keep Hoping
Matt and I are still slowly preparing. It is not so easy for us to keep preparing when we don’t know when Tom and Jerry will be here. Sometimes it feels like it will never happen and you just shouldn’t bother reading a book on attachment, or prepare the nursery, or even think about child proofing.
Christine recently shared this post with me and the last paragraph really spoke to me at a time when I really needed to hear it.
Do not give up. Lay your all on the table. Everything is worth it. They are already yours, you have just not found each other yet. Keep hoping, keep praying, keep investing…they are coming. Be ready.
I had recently come to the realization that I had lost my hope that this would happen. I had stopped day dreaming about what it would be like to take Tom and Jerry to the park or the zoo or to watch them play with their dad. I started to pour all my focus to anything but being a mother or adoption. I just stopped. I didn’t want to prepare anymore, I didn’t want to dream anymore.
After a nice long talk with Matt last night and reading that post this morning I am feeling a renewed spirit. I will allow myself to day dream again, read some books, prepare the nursery, and maybe even childproof the house. I have hope again.
Friday Update – 9/26/08
Adoption: There were no referrals this week. The courts reopen October 9 and hopefully things pick up then!
Running: I walked a lot again this week, hopefully next week I feel up to running.
Push-ups: I so wanted to keep up with the push-ups this week, but I had a clicking pain in my right shoulder (probably from all the lifting I did on Monday and Tuesday) so I took a couple of nights off from the push-ups, but Matt kept up on his. He is getting pretty buff!
Gardening: The tire gardens are full of dirt and ready to plant! I just want to get a little fence up to keep the dogs away from the gardens, then the real fun begins. I did plant a few other things this week. (Well Matt did the hard work of digging the hole for me.)
Pomegranate Tree
Artichoke Plant
Gerber Daisies, because a girl has to have some flowers
My seedlings
Carter keeping the seedlings company
My New Toy
My Solar Oven finally arrived this week. I figured since we lived in one of the sunniest places on the planet we should put all that sunshine to good use. So, now the sun dries my clothes, makes my garden grow, and cooks my food.
I put it to use the very next day to make of all things cookies. Yes Matt asked me if I would make him cookies in the solar oven.
I made basic chocolate chip and they turned out just fine. I think they are a little crunchier than from the oven, but they taste the same. It was so nice not heating up the kitchen to make cookies. It is a slightly longer process because I cannot fit very many cookies in the oven and it takes an hour and a half to bake. I just kept the dough in the fridge and made it a day long project. I even left the cookies in the “oven” and ran some errands.
I was making this pie last night which uses butternut squash and sweet potatoes and both had to be pre-cooked. I put them in the solar oven in the morning and was able to make the pie by the afternoon. They smelt so good and were cooked perfectly.
I didn’t actually bake the pie in the solar oven because the instructions discuss making cookies and cakes but not pies and I didn’t feel like doing any research yesterday, so I used the oven to finish the pie.
It gets topped off with marshmallows:
I forgot to take a picture of the pie before the neighbors and us dug in:
It was yummy!
The solar oven can be used similarly to a slow cooker and I will soon be making some meals in it. It is so nice to be able to cook without using electricity.
Solar cooking is similar to slow cooking. Slow cooking retains flavor, moisture and nutrients and makes meats tender. Recent studies indicate that foods cooked at moderate temperatures may be healthier. Solar cooked food is succulent, moist and delicious.
You can learn more about Solar Ovens here.
One Year
Last year on this day Matt and I filled out our application to begin the adoption process. At the time the whole process from start to finish was taking less than a year and we thought we would be parents by now or very close to the one year mark. It is becoming apparent to us that is no longer going to happen. The fact is with international adoption you have to be willing to accept the changes, because there are always changes, in the process, in the timelines, in your agency, with government rules. So, for now we are rolling with it, staying patient most days, and more positive than negative feelings. We know one day we will hold Tom and Jerry in our arms and the wait will melt away. We happily await the day our family is complete.
Planting Time
Dill, Peas, Green Leaf Lettuce, Lettuce, Green Onions, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, Rue (herb to keep cats out of certain areas)
Cauliflower, Turnips, Broccoli Raab, Riverside and Valencia Onions, Swiss Chard, Kale, Radishes
I still have some more planting to do and hopefully will get these seeds started by the end of the week.
(I set up my seed photo-shoot and the boys thought they should help)
Two pics from this weekend:
Matt sawing my tire garden
Me watering the stuff we put in the beds to compost. We put down a layer of cardboard to kill the grass, then we had a ton of tree branches to get rid of (from our tree that was hit hard by the last couple of storms we had), and thought we should just compost it in the gardens. We are now adding manure and compost to fill up the bins.
Friday Update – 9/19/08 (late edition)
Adoption Update: No referrals this week. I am really needing to see some siblings referred so I can feel some movement.
Push-ups: We started back on our push-up program this week! We had to start over at week two, but I don’t care, I am just glad we did them.
Running: I did not run this week, but I did start walking again and the weather was much more tolerable.
Gardening:
I started some of my seeds early this week:
Matt and I started working on the new garden beds today:
It was getting a little warm out so we had to come in and cool off for a while and we’ll head back out this evening to hopefully get some more work done.
A big thanks to my cute hubby! You have done so much hard work for me this week and it is very much appreciated.
So Tired!
. . . and a little sore this morning. Why you ask? (okay you might not be asking but I am going to tell you anyway)
Yesterday morning I was walking Taffi and minding my own business when I noticed that someone had dumped a tractor tire in the field near our house. I thought to myself I must tell Matt, because believe it or not we had just discussed tractor tires this weekend. I know we are weird. Anyway I decided we must have said tire. I figured it would make a nice sandbox or garden.
Matt came home last night and asked why I hadn’t brought the tire home. Ummm because it is a large tire and I thought it would be fun easier to do together. I had to remind him we needed to do this before the sun went down as it was in the middle of the desert. He was still being slow because he thought how long could it take to bring home this little tire, yes apparently in his head it wasn’t all that big.
Here is Matt standing next to the tire:
For those of you who don’t know my husband is over six feet, so it is a decent size tire and I couldn’t even lift it by myself.
Lucky us when we got there we spotted two more smaller tractor tires and decided to take one of those home too. Here is me with my tire:
It took as around 30 minutes to roll the dang things home! I dropped mine way too many times (believe it or not they didn’t roll all that well). Matt managed to keep his upright the whole time, he must be super strong.
In the end we decided to use the tires as gardens. I checked and it is a safe use for gardens, at least according to the internet. We were planning on building raised bed gardens this weekend out of wood and now we will have less to buy.
For anyone interested in the Maricopa area there is still one of the smaller tires left. I will gladly show you where it is if you are interested, but I will not roll it anywhere. Okay I might, it was a really good workout.
Here is a picture of how dirty I got rolling the tire home, for some reason Matt wasn’t nearly as dirty:
Friday Update – 9/12/08
Adoption Update: Our agency had five referrals this week, four infant boys and one infant girl, a sibling group of a girl and a boy ages 5 and 7 was also placed off of the waiting children’s list. Congratulations to all the happy families! The families waiting the longest right now are the ones waiting on referrals of young sibling sets. Overall I am still doing fairly well with the wait and fully expect to be waiting into the new year. In fact, I have always had a very specific date in my mind for our referral date ever since we sent our dossier to Ethiopia, but I didn’t even pick it in our Guess the Referral game because I wanted my referral sooner. The date that has always been in my mind is February 23, 2009. So if anyone wants in on the referral game and trusts my instinct, have at it!
I also met a fellow Inskeep this week through the blogging world who is also adopting through CHI. They are still in the paper-chase phase, hopefully soon to be in the waiting stage.
In the meantime I have been doing some shopping for Tom and Jerry, mostly on etsy.com. I love that place! (side note, my friend Sandi just started her very own etsy store, so go check it out) Here are some of my more recent buys:
Clock for the nursery:
Some embroidered diapers:
For some reason this one is my favorite, it makes me smile every time:
Running and Push-Up Updates: Yep still not much happening in the exercise department, but Matt and I did discuss why we thought neither of us felt like working out. It is HOT and we are sick of the heat! For those of you who don’t know Arizona summers can be a little long and wearing, like long winters are to some of you. This end of this week we finally started seeing temps in the 70s again! Albeit only in the early mornings, but hey it is a start. So I think exercising will pick back up, even though I am sure September has one more heat wave for us, it always does.
Gardening: My little garden is still going strong and there is okra galore! I need to do some more pickling. I am also starting to get a few more tomatoes and it looks like I will have some jalapenos before long.
This week also marked the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. My dad participated in the memorial held here in Maricopa. (he is the one in the front of the group of bagpipers)
Alone time in the kitchen
So while Matt was gone on his epic trip, I had some down time to spend in the kitchen. I decided to try out a few new recipes while he was gone and was happy with everything I tried.
The Awesome-est Blueberry Muffins. Very yummy muffins, but not the awesome-est I have ever had. I do suspect the blueberries I had could be to blame, they weren’t very “blueberry,” kwim?
Crisp Rosemary Flatbread. This was a big hit with my neighbors, some friends, and even nine month old Ethan.
Marinated Eggplant with Capers and Mint. Eggplant is not one of my favorites but we get quite a bit from the farm so I am always looking for new recipes. This one wasn’t too bad, probably the best eggplant recipe I have tried where it wasn’t completed smothered in some sort of cheese. (cheese makes everything yummy!)
peanut-butter-oatmeal-cookies.
Okay this is actually the second time I have made this recipe, the cookies are so yummy. It is actually a vegan recipe, but since I am not a vegan I did use regular white chocolate chips the first time and butterscotch chocolate chips the second time. I also substituted the egg replacer powder with 1/4 cup of apple sauce. Mmmm these cookies are good, I think I need to go eat one right now.
(Sorry no picture on this next one.) Grilled cheese with Fontina Cheese, Fig Jam (good thing I made that a couple months ago), and arugula. I think regular old grilled cheese might be ruined for me now. I really liked this recipe.
Actually it wasn’t really alone time, Tank was always nearby waiting for me to drop something. Someone knows his mom is a very messy cook.