Goings On

It's been a crazy couple of months (I was going to say days, then weeks, but no... months) really. As for today's craziness, I've been trying my darnedest to find a source to print some business cards on recycled paper that won't cost me an arm and a leg. I'm all out of cards and it's time for a change. So, I'll take a break from that annoying research to post a little bloggity blog. It's been a pretty darn exciting couple of days so I'll do my best to squeeze it all in.
First of all...
Here's the poster I made for the Think Local First campaign
[Ooh what's a Local Lumpkin Look See? Hmm, more on that to come]


Secondly,
I got my hair all chopped off...
My bro's girlfriend Sandie cuts my hair and she always does such a great job. She actually sculpted it with all of her cutting instruments so that I don't have to dry my hair or style it (because I never do) but it still looks like it's been styled. She's like Edward freakin' Scissorhands.

And last but not least,
I decided to start C3 on some solid food. I know, I know, she's only just turning 5 months this week so why the rush? I always held out to the 6 month rule for the other two, but then I realized. What the heck, I don't follow any other rules? Why such a stickler on this? Basically the kid was hungry. She has been up all night fussing lately and my goodness she does have a tooth already- might as well put it to work. Here's my baby rice cereal recipe that I've always used (taken loosely from this book) :

4 parts short grain brown rice
3 parts sweet rice
piece of kombu seaweed

wash the rice and cook the ingredients on low heat with plenty of water for a couple hours. (I keep checking on it and adding lots of water so it's really soft and sloppy.) Process the rice through a food mill (this gets rid of the chunky parts)

I usually make a big bowl and keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days and reheat small amounts at each meal. As she gets older, I'll add flax oil to the mix and some nutritional yeast. Later I'll add in lentils and I'll begin adding in some of the chunks that get processed out in the milling.
This rice is really sweet and yummy. My 9 year old just had some for breakfast too, so you know it's good.
C3 of course did a bunch of gagging spitting, but she was very interested in putting the cereal in her mouth and she was very curious about it. So this week I'll be working with a layer of crusted rice on everything!
That's all for now, I'll see you Thursday...

Last Year...

at this time I was only about 8 weeks pregnant when I started having very heavy bleeding and thought I had most certainly lost the baby. After a day in the ER and an ultrasound confirmed that the baby had a heartbeat and the presence of a large blood clot, I was told it was a threatened miscarriage and that I would most likely completely miscarry in the days to come. It was impossible for me to understand what was happening inside my body. The doctors couldn't tell us what was causing it or how I could stop it. I just had to 'wait and see'. Regardless, what a wonderful way for the extended family to discover I was pregnant.

Hey mom I'm pregnant... or at least I was a couple minutes ago.
I remember feeling responsible in some way. I tried to remember what I had been doing that morning? Too much running around? Too much bending over? Does that cause miscarriage? And when I went to the ER and explained that I was about 8 weeks pregnant they looked at me like I was nuts. They wondered where I had confirmed the pregnancy and who was 'in charge' of my prenatal care. You mean besides me? I'm sorry did I miss some critical milestone of pregnancy by not getting an official diagnosis of my condition from the doc before 8 weeks? My goodness, I know when I'm pregnant and how pregnant I am. It's amazing to me how condescending the medical community can be to people regarding their own bodies.

After that first weekend of the ever threatening miscarriage that never completed, I was told to go about business as usual. Nothing I did or did not do would contribute to the inevitable. Despite this advice I tried to take it as easy as possible, convinced that I could prevent a complete miscarriage by remaining still or crossing my legs or 'sucking it in'. Basically I drove myself nuts. I spent the days reading about other peoples similar experiences and how it had panned out for them in the end.

Since couldn't yet feel the baby moving and I didn't have the luxury of owning an ultrasound machine, I pretty much worried all the time in between doctor visits which were weekly for a while. I mourned the loss of my baby every time I went to the bathroom and noticed the bleeding had gotten heavier. The threatened miscarriage continued for weeks. The bleeding slowed and stopped at about 12 weeks and then began again with a vengeance. After another trip to the ER I was finally told to try complete bed rest for two weeks as a last resort . Finally I was able to take what I had felt was the obvious course of inaction. I laid on the couch at my parents house for weeks, while Lorenz was working in Pittsburgh. They cooked for me and served me and did the same for my girls. Aside from the constant inquiries into the amount of bleeding I was experiencing that hour, they were really great. A couple more weeks and ultrasounds went by and the doctors advised me to remain on complete bed rest. "Don't be too optimistic, but it's not quite time to throw in the towel just yet", I was told by one incredibly crass physician.
So we spent another mournful Christmas and New Year at Grandma's house. But, amazingly after another two weeks on the couch I was told that the blood clot was almost completely gone and at about 24 weeks gestation I started being optimistic about the baby. From that time on I had no troubles at all. Everything was perfectly normal. None of the doctors could ever really tell me exactly what had happened, but from all of the different explanations they provided me, I gleaned that somehow the placenta detached from the wall of my womb just enough to cause heavy bleeding. I'm so grateful that I was finally prescribed bed rest after weeks of being told to go about with business as usual. I really think that that's what did the trick for me. Once the wound had time to heal I really was back in business. I'm especially grateful to my parents, family and friends for caring for me and my children and allowing me the time my body needed to heal.

Everyday for those two months last year, I thought I was in the process of miscarrying. As the threatened miscarriage went on there were plenty of times that I wished I had a window into my uterus. There were a handful of times when my family and friends had to help me fish blood clots out of the toilet and try to assess if it was just a clot or something more. Often I feared that I was just postponing the inevitable and as the baby grew larger everyday it would be harder for me to cope with eventually losing it.

But when it was all over I never did miscarry.
Now I look at my 4 month old daughter today it almost doesn't seem like that was her. It seems like a different pregnancy. Those two months were like a time warp. And then suddenly I was 24 weeks pregnant and it was like I had just discovered it for the first time.

Threatened miscarriage is such an emotional roller coaster (seriously, I know it's an overused expression, but it applies) . There is almost nothing the doctors will tell you to make you feel better. But I did find so much comfort in other people's stories, while I was in the thick of it at this time last year.

(and here's the little bouncer now)

cozette

Well we named the baby. Here's the announcement I finally got to make this morning. She'll be 8 weeks old on Friday and she finally has a name! For the purposes of this blog she will henceforth be called C3 with her sisters M1(Mab,8) and M2(Mae,4). It sure feels good to be able to call her by name although I have to admit it's hard to get used to not just calling her baby. Soon enough she'll just be Cozy to us. We are still in Pittsburgh for couple more weeks so the shop is still closed for now, but feel free to window shop until September! The holidays are coming up fast and i'm working on lots of new items this year. I have to figure out a way to travel with my inventory or maybe just have two inventories. Stuff I make in Lancaster and stuff I make in the PBG. Or better yet, maybe just pick a city permanently, that's an idea!

We have been obsessed with Phelpsvision-
I mean the Olympics. oops. I love the hype! Swimming is so fun to watch. At least for me it is. I can practically smell the chlorine. In related news, I'm about 20% finished with my Ravelympics project.
I'm freestyle knitting another kiddie vest in the Freestyle Free For All event. I am only really knitting while I watch TV at night- and that's usually Olympic coverage lately so it's very fitting. I'm using a commercial yarn instead of my usual KDG variety since I was out of Lanc when I discovered the Ravelympics so I wasn't prepared. It's pretty yarn, but I have to say that I miss the lumpy bumpy texture of the handspun. It really is my fave.

My parents visited this weekend and we took them to the Zoo and Phipps and we took a scenic drive up Mt. Washington. It was a nice couple of days. M1 went to Outdoor Discovery camp here last week, which I highly recommend for parents looking for a nice simple educational nature day camp for youngsters. It was her first camp experience and she loved it. Her favorite part? Digging up leaches in the pond...gross me out.

I probably won't get a chance to post again until I get back to Lancaster, unless something amazingly exciting happens. So, until then, have a great time winding down your summer. I hope you end it on a high note. That's what I'll be working on too.

(M2 overlooking the gritty city)

One Month

Baby X
Well, baby's first month flew by in a flash, as usual. I'm sure next time I look at her she'll be huge and doing some amazing new tricks. You can't look away for second! She still has no name, which I hear is completely ridiculous at this point (everyday, from everyone I meet). Soon, very soon.

In the meantime, I finally listed some of the new goodies I've been working on for the shop. I love the new sweaters. I love making them. Most of them require lots of different skills, so I don't ever get bored with them. From the moment the yarn arrives at my door from Rachel-Marie I'm excited about those little sweaters. Unfortunately, since they are each unique and rather time consuming, I tend to become very attached to them, so hard to see them go after all the time we've spent together. I have to say, seeing a little one wearing the sweaters makes all that sadness melt away though.


So sweet! I knit each one freestyle, that is, I just start knitting and see what happens. At first I thought I should try to write down the patterns as I go, so I can duplicate the sweaters later, but I get so easily bored creating the same thing over and over again (as I've experience with my beloved seamonster collars). I'm happy with my decision to keep them OOAK, it makes kids feel extra special knowing they are the only one to have that particular sweater.

In other news, the fam and I will be heading out to Pittsburgh for most of August so any orders placed during August won't ship out until late in the month. Bummer, I know.
Have a loverly weekend.

CHANGING my ways

Hello hello, this week we are on vacation in Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania's top vacation destination, of course. But seriously, last night we went to IKEA and actually purchased my first ever piece of baby furniture. Thats right, I've had two children in the past 8 years and never purchased or even entertained the idea of owning a single piece of baby furniture. Behold the changing table...

The SINGULAR-It's very simple and solid wood. It doesn't look much like a changing table and we can use it for storage later on. So why the ban on baby items? I don't know. I just hate the idea of having this tiny piece of furniture that will be useless to me in 2 years. I've never had a crib since I feel weird about people sleeping in cages and my babies have always slept with me while I'm nursing them. I feel better that way. I'm also a pretty lazy mama and my kids probably wouldn't have gotten fed, if I had to get all-the-way-out-of-bed (droning voice) to go nourish them. They also never would have gotten fed when we were out and about, because I am way to disorganized to to mess with formulas and bottles and all that jazz, plus my kids aren't cows so they drink human milk. Ok, this has become the lactivist blog entry today. So, anyway, I caved on the changing table because while my laziness tells me that diapy changes on the couch/bed/floor are perfectly acceptable, I understand the appeal of a poo-free environment to sit/sleep/stand upon. Plus, papa was itchin' to buy something for baby and how can I deny such sweetness.

Snow Day!

Well, it's not exactly snowing out, but school is most certainly canceled. I am all for it! We are looking forward to watching the snow start to fall, staying cuddled in bed and doing some much needed baking. I go through these baking spurts in my life. In the past month I've baked more than I have in years. Coffee cake, chocolate cake, cookies, granolas, sticky buns and of course the donuts(which aren't exactly baked). I've got a killer sweet tooth that will need to be reined in at some point soon. This chocolate cake recipe was from sweetpepita, you can find it on the YetiLovesSeamonster blog

I substituted rice milk and I used my Martha mini loaf pan to make tiny little cakes. The frosting is just powdered sugar, Earth Balance, vanilla and rice milk. I added the rice milk until it was nice and creamy and I whipped it really well so it was light and fluffy. Mmmmm. So here are a couple of other updates on the home front. First, we went to our ultrasound a couple weeks ago and baby3 is superb and I'm feeling almost normal. It's a little bit strange to be in bed for so long at the beginning of pregnancy and then when I finally get up and start moving around again, I'm huge. Oh don't worry I'll get even bigger, I'm only half way there! They gave us another 3D shot this time, so cute. Baby has been kicking up a storm and we started childbirth classes in the Bradley Method taught here in Lancaster city by Kelly Cassidy a couple weeks ago. It's a refresher for me, and a beginners course for pops. It's really fun and informative. My first birth 8 years ago was a pretty sad home birth attempt/ emergency cesarean. But my second was a very successful almost pain free VBAC delivery. Thats the goal again this time! Bradley is really great because they teach you all sorts of information about what you body is going through, relaxation, prenatal exercises, medical interventions. It makes you feel really well informed and empowered when it comes time to birth that baby.
I tried my hand at dying some roving last week and that was a complete fiasco. I only did a little bit of wool because I have Procion dyes and they work best with plant fibers. I dyed some really beautiful tencel and bamboo in pink/purple, and yellow/green.
I love that stuff, so shiny, soft and silky! The gray yarn is some "black diamond" bamboo roving I spun. It's my favorite of them all. In other fibrous news I also squeezed through a little loop hole in my fabric buying strike and bought a pack of king sized organic sheets on clearance at Target for $30! I've been craving some organic fabric to go with some yarns I bought a while ago, but I'm not buying new fabric, remember? I'll dismantle the sheets, dye them in a variety of colors and see when I can do with them. Luckily the dye is still out from the roving mishap. This is the funniest.
It started out as beautiful light and fluffy wool and then it became a pink mass of sheep dreads. I have no idea what to do with it, does it need to be carded again? I have no means to do that though. Oh, so many silly little projects like this, but I do honestly have about a million ideas these days and I'm actually bringing them to life. I feel so much better about this craft business when I worry less about the business and more about the craft. I'll leave you with some happy family vegan dinner ideas that we've been eating around here lately.
Chili with 'cheese', no-smash guac, fruit salad, 'Red Hot Blues' chips

Miso soup, tofu-veggie rolls, salad, blood oranges

Baked potato, garlic sesame tofu, fruit salad, green salad, carrot apple juice

tofu salad on toast, potato salad, fruit, greens, tomatoes

veggie star pasta soup, 'cheesy bread' w/ pizza sauce, chard, rice milk


Happy Snow Day to All!

busy busy busy

I haven't been doing much of anything lumpkin related lately, but the excitement is building for some new ideas to come. Frankly, I can't wait for Spring to arrive. I get into such a funk over the winter, but Spring will come as it always does and with it my seasonal boost. And this Spring I have the added bonus of crazy pregnancy productivity so I am expecting big things. For now I'm doing little things around the house and such. This morning I am attempting to make vegan doughnuts. I settled on this recipe . Hopefully it will work out. I don't do much frying in my life but I've had a hankerin' for dough lately. I'm sure it will be way more trouble than it was worth. The dough is rising as we speak. Here some other things I've been attempting.

This is the front view of a sweater I knit for the baby while I was couchbound. I know it's blue, you're probably thinking it must be a boy, but I never reveal the sex, I just prefer darker colors for girl and boy babies. I used a gorgeous skein of KnittyDirtyGirl yarn that I had previously attempted to use for a knit hood, but there wasn't enough. I had just enough yarn to make this little sweater though. I knit it freestyle, as usual, but i think I managed to write down a vague pattern for it as I went this time.
That's the back view. I've been experimented with these rolled edges and random holes lately. I really like the way the handspun looks. The rolled edge is done in my standard Patons wool that I use for the seamonster collars. I have a ton of ideas for those little holes and a bunch of experiments to try soon. I love the handspun so much that I tried my hand at the drop spindle which I've been trying to avoid for fear of failure. Extreme boredom while on bed rest allowed me to overcome the fear and I gave it a try.

I only had some random roving that I've collected for felting over the years, but I gave it a try. I know nothing about the different types of wool, but it was fun trying them all out and seeing what was easier and struggling with the more challenging ones. I've since spun all the other roving in the back, the green one is bamboo which was my favorite. It was really wispy and messy but it was so beautiful and I was able to adjust the thickness better. I think that it was pretty fun, but I will probably resort to purchasing most of my handspun if I end up making any sweaters for the shop. Well, I'm off to fry up some dough. I'll take some shots to share with you soon....