Two Popsicles: January 2012

Jan 27, 2012

Favorite Things Friday

by Erika

I've seen other bloggers do this, and it really is fun. This is just a little group of things that I've/we've been loving recently.

1). Target girls Jeggings. These things are the BOMB! My sis turned me onto them. Emma is built just like me - long waisted with short legs. Even with adjustable waist jeans, pants just never fit her right. Well, helllllooooo ladiessss. These are fantasic. They pull right up, and go with practically everything. She tucks them into boots or wears them with her twinkle toes. We picked up two pairs the other day and wore one to school today. She came home ranting and raving about them being the best pants she's ever worn. Done. And done.

2) Kashi frozen pizza. I always stock up on a few frozen pizzas for our usual Friday night pizza night. Usually the basic ones are fine, and I throw on some veggies and extra tomatoes. But then I discovered Kashi brand frozen pizzas. If you're a Kashi fan, you know how GOOD their stuff is. The pizzas are great too! The three of us can split one pizza, and I feel good knowing that we're eating a decently healthy meal. My favorite part is their Flax Seed Meal crust. We usually get the Mediterranean ones, but the others are fab too. Dinner in 10 minutes? Um, okay!

3) My black and tan boots. They rock. They're the only boots I've owned that did NOT gap at the top of the calf. Minor detail, but I am anal retentive about boots fitting me properly. Plus, they go with everything!

4) The Cooking Light's Way to Cook Vegetarian cookbook. Cooking Light has a series of Way to Cook cookbooks and they are all visual guides to cooking. This? Is for me. I need pictures - lots of them. I happened to pick this one up at the library, and I've already tagged it up. This could be revolutionary for me. We eat pretty well, but I always want to find a way to incorporate more vegetables - especially into breakfast and lunch. We're not going to go full bore vegetarian, but I like to have a couple nights a week where dinner is meatless. It's recession chic. :) Roger enjoys a good protein, but Emma doesn't eat much, and I could take it or leave it. So this is a good compromise for all of us. I LOVE visual guides when cooking. Definitely a favorite for us, give it a try!

5) Spinach smoothies. Ok, before you get all turn-up-your-nosey at me, just hear me out. It's JUST like any other smoothie you would have, except it's green. I'll give you that. For this one, I threw some bananas, frozen berries, frozen mangos, a little orange juice, a little water and a handful of baby spinach in a blender. That's it. The raw baby spinach doesn't taste like much (the strong flavor comes when cooked) and everything else is sweet. I topped it with whipped cream for fun. I've been getting a request for this daily, so I'm clearly not forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do :)

6) Sundown Naturals Vitamin D3 caplets. There's been a lot of talk recently about Vitamin D deficiency. I didn't worry about this as much in San Diego, but according to some research most people living in the Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast USA are not getting enough Vitamin D. I started taking these a few months ago (as soon as the days threatened to get shorter) and I definitely think it's improved my mood. I take 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 a day, along with a Calcium supplement, Cod Liver oil and Folic Acid. I am always interested to hearing people's vitamin stories. What do you take?

Happy Friday!

Jan 23, 2012

irish cows

by Erika

In an effort to blog more (and less self-consciously), I'll probably end up posting a lot of randomness. Today's randomness is brought to you by Irish cows.

The picture below (albeit not a very good one.....it was hard to get the white balance just right) is of two sticks of butter. The one on the left - Kirkland brand unsalted butter (which we buy in bulk at Costco. We go through a LOT of butter). The one of the right - a stick of Kerrygold butter. This is "pure Irish butter" made from grass-only fed cows.

I first heard about Kerrygold watching a great cooking show that seems to air sporadically on PBS (Rachel's Favorite Food at Home). Pretty standard (if British...so everything is in metric) cooking show, but she made a point to talk about the benefits of dairy from grass-fed cows, and the show ends with a commercial for kerrygold (clearly, a sponsor). Anyway, the food looks amazing and easy, but the last few seconds featuring those shiny cows grazing on neon green pastures, fresh mountain air, birds singing, and I! was! sold!

I stumbled upon a stick last week at none other than Trader Joe's. At almost $3 a stick it's a luxury-butter, but my point to all of this was to show you a visual! The Kirkland brand butter on the left looks tired, doesn't it? The grass-fed cow butter on the right looks rich and yellow and scrumptious. Who knows if there's any scientific weight to grass-only fed, but I sure feel healthier eating it!

Happy Monday!

Jan 21, 2012

snow-ish

by Erika

To a 4 year old, the one inch (was it even that much?) of snow we got today might as well have been a blizzard. Girlfriend bounded out of bed, and flapped her little arms and couldn't stop jumping up and down. We kept it easy and walked around the 'hood looking for a couple of light hills. She was less than enthusiastic about having to carry the sled back up the hill.

I know, I can't believe I posted these on the same day either. I'm getting to be such a big girl! :)

happy snow day!

Jan 10, 2012

2012 goals & 2011 year in review

by Erika

This ridiculous post has been open on my browser for 10 days. This phenomeon of blog-post-procrastination of mine is listed below, because I am tired of my inability to publish regularly. Stop being so perfectionistic - it's just a blog, Erika. So, I'm finally going to publish this! It may not be interesting to anyone other than my mom, but it's a way for me to go back and keep track of my own progress throughout the year. I tend to forget my own goals.

Speaking of goals, I'm going to try something new this year. I have a little mental graveyard of resolutions made in years past. Maybe they were unrealistic, or bad timing, or just plain silly. My list for this year is going to be referred to as 'goals', as perhaps the terminology will soften my anxiety about whether or not they get done. These are things I would like to accomplish in 2012, but I am not going to flog myself if I don't. In fact, they might be better accomplished next year. It's a respectable task by itself for me to get all my thoughts out of my head, and on paper (or the web, lol) so that's what this list is. This is unusually long for my blog posts, so feel free to skip over to the pictures if that's your fancy. :)

Here they are in no particular order:

Find and research our next home. Driven by the hunt for a better school district, we would like to move in the next 1-2 years. Preferably to a single story, contemporary stone or brick rancher on at least an acre. ISO 4+ bedrooms, hardwood floors and the character that older homes usually possess. Must have fireplace (a real one!), a garage and a yard. In a close, child-friendly neighborhood. Anything else - a plus. Above all, the house has to have a lot of natural light. I am a photographer after all. :)

Take better care of myself. I am OCD about Emma's doctors appointments and her fluoride treatments and her nutrition, etc. But when it comes to me, I get lazy. I haven't been to the dentist in @(#**$ years. I'm scared. Until we moved to California, I had been to the same dentist for virtually my whole life. He came to our wedding! I'm terrified to go anywhere else, and yet, I can't bring myself to drive to D.C. to see him. He's probably going to retire soon. I really need to get on it. Mom, you have my permission to bug me on this one.

In addition, I need to find a good dermatologist, an ENT (to find a solution to my chronic post-nasal-drip), a thyroid specialist, and a few others. Did I mention I'm 35? Did anyone mention that your metabolism turns to crap when you turn 35? Do they have a doctor for that? :)

Take better care of myself - part II. Part of this goal is to get back into two things I love: running and yoga. I have missed regular yoga classes, and I finally found one at my local gym that is great for me. I can go to 2 classes a week and incorporate it into my running schedule. As for the running, my sister cajoled me into signing up for a half-marathon in April. I paid the money, and I downloaded the app onto my phone. My training schedule is on the calendar for all to see, and my new running shoes are coming in the mail today. I guess this means it's on like Donkey Kong. God help me. :)

Research and find and Emma's kindergarten. Directly related to the first item, I would like to find a great school district for Em by the time she starts kindergarten. Luckily, we have a little time. The cutoff in Maryland is September 1st, so she misses it by 3 weeks. That means, she'll start kindergarten in the fall of 2013. Fine by me - but I would prefer to find a school that she can plug into and stay in for the remainder of her schooling. Western Howard County has great public schools, so that's where we'd like to end up. If we haven't made the move by then, I think we'll send her to a private (Catholic) school. That means, we would like to become involved in the parish, and that means we have a lot of work to do.

Photography goals. This is such a scattered list, but I do want to keep pursuing my business. This year will probably be the year to make the switch to Lightroom. It took years, but I have perfected my ACR/Photoshop workflow. I'm terribly anxious about learning a new workflow, but I have heard so many people have done it, and would never go back. I'd also like to attend some PPA workshops, buy a new lens, and take a little more of a 'fashion' photography approach to my posing/images. We'll see. The big thing for me is just to keep myself out there. I tend to get intimidated by other photographers' progress, and it holds me back. Be gentle on myself, and above all, BE myself. Those are my goals.

Plant a garden. We got our toes wet with this idea last year. Roger and Emma planted a few simple vegetables in containers on our back deck. Eggplant, basil, tomatoes, and lavender. They all did remarkably well for such simple living arrangements (and overly eager squirrels). Maybe this year we'll try a few more. We have to practice now for when we have our big farm and grow bushels of corn and live off the grid. :)

Get Emma in her own bed. Regularly. If 2011 was the year of the paci, then 2012 is the year of the bed. 9 times out of 10 we have a visitor in our bed a little after midnight. The problem? Is that it's not really a problem. She is a happy little bedmate and rarely interrupts our night. It's so easy. She climbs in, we snuggle in together and everyone sleeps happily until 7 or 8 in the morning. She doesn't even roll that much. So why even bother? Well, it does have some drawbacks - mainly that it's really really hard for me to try and wake up a little early (to have some 'me' time). I might set the alarm with the best of intentions, but inevitably, I'll always chose sleep, especially nuzzled next to her warm little body.   If we have another baby, it might make things complicated, so it's something we keep talking about working on. It's a work in progress. :)

Read more. This was something I was terrible at in 2011. When you're working for yourself, and working from home, it's a constant juggle. You're always 'on'. If you're not doing family/house stuff, you feel as if you should be working. At night, the time I could be reading is usually spent in front of the computer. Occasionally, I watch tv, but aside from a few regulars, I really don't watch much. I'm part of a great book club, that pushes me to read things outside my normal mystery comfort zone, so it's going to be good to exercise the old wrists.

Fearless blogging. It seems everyone has a blog now. Some of them are really good. And some of them have a gazillion readers. Gah! How do these people do it? I mean, there are blogs written about how to get more followers of your blog! I realize that this started out as a little family blog. We were living in CA at the time, and most of our family was back east and curious at how tiny baby was growing. But I've encountered blogs along the way that develop real relationships with its readers. Neat! I'd love to think I have something to relate to. Anyway, the only way to start is by blogging more often. So I'm really going to try!

Thrift more. I really want to try and make a concerted effort to buy used whenever possible. My first instinct is to rush out to a big box store if I need something, but the truth is, it's likely already out there - for half the price - in just as good condition.   I suppose I could turn this into a giant political statement about our society's excess, materialism, consumerism, landfills and waste, but really, it's just about the thrill of the hunt, and saving some money. Thrift shops are like libraries to me. There's just a whole experience involved. I love to scout out the good ones, the trendy ones, the cheap ones. If I end up reducing my overall 'global footprint' then that's a plus.

Get an EZ-pass. It's been on my 'to do' list for 6 months, and I keep forgetting to do it. Between road trips to NYC, the new Inter-County Connector and the bay bridge/beach, it's a nobrainer. So....I'm going to put it on here so I stop forgetting! **You'll be happy to know that while this post was being written, I finally crossed this one off my list!**

Emma's baby book.   This is embarrassing. I still don't have a baby book for Emma. For the first 3 months after she was born, I took the obligatory 9,384 pictures of her - all on a crappy point-and-shoot. The pictures are grainy, every shot used the flash, and there are 45 versions of the same pose, each picture only slightly different than the previous. I got my SLR for Xmas that year, and my life changed as I knew it. I was now taking 18,391 pictures of her each month. The point is, I got totally bogged down in pictures. And I just let it build up. I was new to photography, so I couldn't bear to delete anything. Well, four years later I have a much better workflow, and a much better perspective on which picture I should keep and which one I can delete. In fact now, I have some months with only 8 pictures, but they're all keepable and album-able. So my goal this year is to have an album to give to her before she turns 5. My baby's turning 5 this year!   Nooooo!!

Baby. Speaking of babies, we'd love to have another baby. Le Sigh.........That rascally stork doesn't seem to pay us any mind. Infertility ain't for sissies, and this isn't our first rodeo. It was a crazy journey the first time around, so we took a much more relaxed approach the second time around, assuming it wouldn't be an issue. Well, apparently life has other plans.   It didn't happen last year, or the year before that. After just 'seeing what would happen' - we realized it wasn't - and started working with Shady Grove. We tried a little of this and a little of that. We got all the way up to In Vitro. We can't afford IVF, so my goal for this year is to try and a find a new set of doctors who are willing to work with us. I am 35, so I am now in the lovely (and ridiculous) category of 'Advanced Maternal Age' (whatever that means).   Hopefully, we can find someone willing to figure out a little more about what's going on, and in the meantime, we'll still take a relaxed approach to it all. At some point, we might have to make peace with it not happening, but 2012 is a long year, so keep your fingers crossed for us. :)

Well, congratulations if you've made it this far. I can't believe I am finally publishing this. With that, here's a little photo recap/year in review for 2011. Happy New Year!