An Oasis in an Urban setting

At least that's my ultimate goal. We have this tiny side yard with a plot of dirt that has to legally be able to be used as a parking spot.

It's a bit beat up from the construction gang and general lack of care. I really want to get a vegetable garden planted this year, I have grand plans! But first I need to clean up my yard.



It's pretty bad.

But I got a ton done today! I filled up both my trash bin with left over construction detritus and my green bin with random, large, freaky weeds. Tomorrow is trash day so hopefully I can fill 'em up some more.



Some of the left over construction junk


The tiles are actually left over from our bathroom remodel years ago, but they were stored in the yard and the boxes they were in turned to mush around them


Now all I need to do is figure out a way to make brightly colored children's toys = oasis for me.

Just for good luck here's one of Oliver playing half in the yard.

Adventures in Cooking- CSA style

Last week I bought a box of CSA (communtiy supported agriculture) vegetables from the South Central Farmers.

Holy lotta greens Batman!

It was a bushel box, think large cooler, full of greens that I had never cooked before let alone seen.

Thank goodness there was identifying information on their website. They had a handy little "What's in the box this week" link with a list of the vegetables that might be in your box and links to pictures of almost all of them.

I gave away a fair amount, there's just no way two people can eat that much food before it goes bad, and today I had to throw away some Purple and Green Mustard Greens (or at least I think that's what they were) because they were just gone.

Cooking took a little imagination and got some tasty results!

Greens and Grains Quiche- mustard greens sautéed in olive oil and garlic,combined with pearled barley, and a ton of Parmesan in fantabulous quiche form.

Pureed white bean soup with Red Russian Kale (so far my favorite new green, really tasty and not at all bitter)

Stamppot Van Boerenkool- a tasty potato and kale dutch dish that is one of Peter's favorites. Traditionally served with sausage or bacon, but we had it with soy hot dogs. Although a Bratwurst or anything from Wurstkuche would be amazing. . .

I also made some Beet Crisps- tasty but too much work for too little output and Oliver wouldn't eat them even though he loves anything salty and chip like usually.

Coming up this week, I still have Swiss Chard, some sort of lettuce, beets, teeny tiny carrots and red onions, and radishes.

I have plans for all but the radishes. Maybe just serve them raw with a salad? Anybody else have any ideas?

Gotta go my toaster oven just dinged, my roasted garlic is done. Yum!

Pattern Challenge: McCall's M6016

So I did it. I created a piece of apparel in the month of February. Actually I completed three! But so far I only have pictures of one.

The pattern overall was pretty easy. I made view B with the fold down collar and no contrast cuffs.
I made the extra large which could be considered an 18-24 month or maybe a 2T.


My biggest issue with the entire pattern was the fact that the instructions had you baste every seam, sometimes twice? before sewing. I skipped the basting for the most part, or just used pins to hold it in place.

I thought the collar application was easy and that had me worried, and although it did turn out a little wonky due to seamstress error, I didn't sew it at the correct seam allowance and it ended up being slightly too big, I'm really proud of it.

And my little man looked super cute in his Valentine's Day Shirt.

Trying something new

By 4 o'clock, Oliver is usually done. He wants a lot of attention and playtime with Mama.

Problem is by 4 o'clock, Mama needs to start thinking about dinner.

The horrible solution- Sesame Street.

O is usually in  a great mood late morning. Today he's been running around with the cat, a lunch box, and a pull toy. So I'm trying something new. Prepping for dinner.

I like to try new flavors and recipes. I like to cook. But with a whiny toddler around and all sanity gone, we often end up with frozen pasta.

Tonight's dinner. . .Creamed Fennel with Quinoa and a side of Roasted Butternut Squash. The fennel and onion needed are already chopped and hiding in those plastic wrapped bowls, now in the fridge.

It might not be slow cooker easy, but I'm excited!

Never wake a sleeping baby. . .

It took three days.
Three days until Oliver "got it." Now he sleeps, (almost) through the night, without crying.

Last night he actually was so tired that after book and boob he reached for the crib, pretty much saying, "That's what's next and I'm sooooo ready Mama!"

We're also working on naps and that's not going so good. He wants me there holding his hand until he falls asleep. I tried to be tough yesterday but ended up in sobbing hysterics after an hour of his sobbing hysterics. The hardest part was having an audience, Oliver's Oma and Opa were here.

I'm still in a state of disbelief on his new sleeping skill. I'm so glad it happened, it's nice to sleep the whole night undisturbed (except for my own bladder, I feel that's something that'll never be normal again.)

The past couple of days have been adventurous, grandparents mean lots of fun.

Here's a few fun photos.

Swim class with Oma!

Valentine's Day Popcicle in his Awesome Mama made shirt!

Posing with Mama and Dada

Oma and Opa took me to McDonald's for breakfast!

Sleep Training, Volume one.

Oliver has slept with us pretty much since he was born until about a week ago. We're talking 17 months of all night access to Mom and Dad, but more importantly the boobs.

Peter and I have had a lot of reasons not to sleep train him, the two biggest ones were:
1. It is was easier to co-sleep when you are nursing a newborn. Getting out of bed when you only get to sleep in two hour increments, if you're lucky, sucks.
2. We didn't have a room for him to go to because of the construction and of course that took 4 months longer then it should have.

So while Oliver got to sleep with us, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. I'm a bit cranky when I don't sleep well and I haven't been sleeping well since I was 4 months pregnant. We're going on two years here where I haven't had more then 4 hours in a row of sleep and that 4 hours only happened twice.

It was time. It was way past time.

After one night of success, we all got super sick and Oliver came right back to bed with us. Last week we started again. The book says if you're transitioning out of co-sleeping into a child's own room and crib (that'd be us), to spend a couple of nights soothing him however he needs and be prepared to spend some time on the floor in his room.

It was a long week. There were lots of wake-ups, I went and nursed him the first wake up and then Peter went back each additional time to get him back to sleep. Eventually, Peter spent every night from 4 am on on the floor of Oliver's room with his hand touching the baby. I missed him, but it was nice to have all that space in bed again. But more importantly I felt really guilty that he was sleeping on the floor with the whiny baby.

Last night I decided to re-read the book (Sleep Easy Solution) and we got tough. Oliver didn't like it. He cried on and off, mostly on, for 90 minutes. We,really Peter, went in a few times, told him we loved him, didn't touch him, and left. That just pissed him off. I did it once and seeing my tiny man screaming and reaching for me broke my heart, I delegated that job to Peter, and had some wine. I would have had more but it was the last glass in the last bottle in the house.

Of course Oliver was fine but in my Mom state I feared the worst and it brought me to tears.
What if he was mad at us and didn't love us in the morning? -He was all smiles and cuddles like usual.

What if the world ended, earthquake happened, someone snuck in and stole him, fire, flood, war, etc. and his last memory of his parents was them abandoning him? - Well the world didn't end last night. Oliver was still alive and in his bed this morning.

Overall I think we did ok. He did wake up once and Peter continued with the verbal check-ins and Peter fell asleep outside of Oliver's room. When he woke up about half an hour later, all was quiet on the western front. Our little man woke up for his day at 7am ready to go, we all survived night one of sleep training.

A challenge

I know the New Year happened a little while ago and it's customary to make a resolution. I'm never good at resolutions. Last years to be less self-deprecating didn't go so well, 'cause well I'm a loser. (ha, ha, ha?)

So this year I'm going to challenge myself. My goal, to sew one piece of apparel every month.

12 new garments sewn by me, for the myriad of people in my life.

But wait, it's February how are you going to do this? I'm slightly cheating. I've already sewn a great little hoody for a friend of ours for his first birthday in January. I'm retroactively invoking it into this challenge.

I'm also doing this as part of a larger blogger challenge and I think it's totally attainable.

And so this isn't a text only post. Here's a photo of me in a dress I made in November. It's a Colette Pattern, Chantilly, in a gorgeous satin finish cotton from Sew LA .



Well I'm off to work on the challenge. I'm making Oliver a button down shirt for Valentine's Day. I'll post pics and a review of the pattern when it's done.