He also has a habit of wandering off with my phone, taking pictures and videos of seemingly random things. I found this video on my phone. It’s a little dizzying, but it’s so Duncan.

The other day at bedtime, Duncan (or Nanny, I’m not sure which) put an eye patch on Dora. She was already wearing a tutu from Berry’s baby’s outfit. I think a Pirate Dora movie is in the works!

And, just to prove how much Duncan adores Dora, here they are together having a nice cuddle at nap time.

From 2010-05 May

As a 10-year-old, I remember standing behind my mother’s head, plucking the gray hairs from her scalp, one by one, while she applied makeup in the mirror. As the years went by, she told me to give up. The bottles of color came out then, reeking of ammonia. Didn’t the henna work anymore? Still, it was pretty cool.

I was obsessed with the one long strand of white hair that grew on the left side of my head, back behind my ear. I would search and search for it–the needle in the haystack of my mane–and then, when I’d finally found it, I’d fondle it and wind it around my fingers, then yank it from my head. Always with immediate regret. Because then it was gone.

It always grew back.

When I was 15, my mum let me dye my hair. I don’t know why she gave in so easily. Perhaps she had been worn down by the years of battles of begging to buy bras, shave my legs and get my ears pierced. Only henna was allowed at first. But that sneaked its way to “wash out” color and quickly onto the permanent stuff. The Christmas we went to France when I was 16, I’d unfortunately tried the black-hair look. Oh, it wasn’t my color. By the time I was a junior in high school, after attempting every available option to turn my hair purple (without first stripping it of all it’s color) it had developed into a stunning shade of maroon. It was ironic that was my high school’s color. I could have been a human pom-pom at a football game–had I ever deigned to go to one.

My obsession with purple hair faded to red. And it seemed that during every life change, stress or breakup, I became compelled to dye it red. I even wrote a song about it. But it was a lot of work to keep it up. When you have really dark hair, it’s hard to get it to take much hair color. You have to use a lot of developer to first take your natural color off the hair strand to make the new color show up. Which meant dyeing my hair every 3 weeks–or suffer with black roots.

On the morning of my 24th birthday, I was horrified to find that a true white hair had sprouted from my head, seemingly overnight. I was 24 years old and the mantle of aging pressed down upon me. I’d also just broken up with a boyfriend. We were still living together. It was awkward and I’d had to go out and buy my own bed. I went into work, bemoaning my white hair, and coworkers laughed at me. I was the young one, the unaged. Had I no idea of what was to surely come?

I was 28 when my son was born. After 2 hours of pushing (he was 9 lbs 3 oz) before I could hold my baby boy, I got up to pee and saw myself in the mirror–broken blood vessels on my face and, I swear, a white hair sticking straight up from my scalp. Had I pushed that out, too?

The last two years haven’t been kind to me in the stress department–you can tell by my hair. I stopped coloring it for a while. I figured it was my last chance to not worry about it before I had to chose whether to age “gracefully” or not. I’ve never been accused of having too much grace, certainly not the physical kind. On my wedding day, as it poured with rain and I ran around happy in my muddy white dress, my brother-in-law complimented me on my grace. I remember that so distinctly because it’s not something I’ve often heard about myself.

I’ve gone back to henna these last few months, as the white hairs make themselves more apparent. Of course, no one else sees them. But I know they’re there, slowly greying me into oblivion. I know that plucking them out, even as they taunt me, is futile. Yet still…I can’t quite resist. And perhaps one day I will go back to highlights and salon color. Or not. Maybe I will find my inner grace again.

Update: I found a selection of my red hair photos to illustrate the many shades of red I once sported. I miss the red highlights…maybe I’ll get into them again.

I ate my first asparagus of the season today. There it is on my plate (or in my bowl, rather). Joining it was a sliced beet that Duncan dug up earlier this week while playing in my garden beds. Who knew that it was hiding there all winter?
Before you get too impressed by my incredible lunch, I feel I should explain. It’s true, other than the salmon it was all organic — from the mixed baby field greens to the mostly-ripe roma tomato. And the beets and asparagus, of course. But, I know, I know, farm-raised salmon! What am I thinking? Plus it was leftover from what the kids and Kevin didn’t eat at dinner last night.

People close to me know that I don’t ordinarily care for salad. However, I have recently had 3 salad revelations:

1. Baby salad greens make it so much easier. Sure, they seem expensive in the store at $5.99/lb for the organic variety. But the bag I buy that lasts me multiple salads a week weighs only about a 1/2 lb. And it means I actually take salad greens out of the bag and put them into a bowl and eat them, rather than letting a head of lettuce rot in the fridge because somehow, pulling it apart into little pieces fit to eat seems “too difficult.” I realize I should probably be washing it, but, hey, it’s organic e-coli, right?

2. Warm weather = shorts (as in pants). Mine don’t fit. This is a problem. I’m not buying more pants. And I can’t ride my bike in a dress. Therefore: salad for lunch.

3. It’s a great gluten-free meal. And when I add fish (or chicken or lobster or egg or king crab legs) it has protein, too. (Just kidding on the yummy sea food. I can only wish!)

Plus, it’s an easy way to throw in whatever happens to be ready to eat from the garden. I’m so glad I got my first stalk of asparagus. I’d been prowling around the bed for days.

I still don’t know what caused it. I was staying pretty stable at my body’s set-point (which is, of course, at least 10 lbs more than I’d like it to be). I don’t think I got less active. I don’t think that’s possible. I conserve as much energy as possible, all of the time. Did I manage to conseve even more somehow without realizing it? Probably not.

But, for some reason, things started shifting upward (my weight — on my body it shifted outward). Maybe it was reducing Duncan’s nursing before his 3rd birthday with that valiant aim of weaning him come late July. The boy likes his milk. He was probably drinking a lot.

In any case, no matter what caused it, it happened. And now I have to deal with it. I’ve been waiting for “the right time” when things aren’t too stressful. That time will never come. But, school is well underway for both Duncan and me and our recent lead hazard reduction home makeover efforts are (almost) over. So I figured it’s time.

Last Sunday, weighing in at 170.8 lbs, I signed up for Weight Watchers online. I weighed myself mid-week — and to my horror, I’d gained weight. Apparently, I may still be nursing, but not enough to warrant an extra 10 points in my daily food allowance. Once I realized that, I altered things a bit and ended up weighing 2.2 lbs less this morning.

I also switched to the CORE plan this week (as opposed to the FLEX plan where every food is given a point value). On the core plan, there are certain foods you can eat as much as you want of. They’re mostly vegetables, fruit and fat-free, sugar-free stuff. Since I don’t eat artificial sweetner, that limits my options.

Just to complicate things, you get some FLEX points to use each day/week and you also earn activity (or nursing) points. I use those to “buy” sugar. Seriously, I can’t live totally sugar-free. My sugar choices aren’t that bad, either — honey, maple syrup and raw brown sugar. No corn syrup here.

So we’ll see how it goes. I dream of dieting without feeling hungry — the only time that happened was when I did high-fiber, high-protein (ala Atkins), but that was such a pain in its own way. This way, presumably, I can eat all the fat-free cottage cheese I want — should I want to, of course.

Dinner tonight – currently bubbling away on the stove — features tilapia (from who knows where) cooked in a tomato and pepper sauce. The tomatoes, red pepper and herbs all come from the garden. The green pepper comes from our CSA (I love getting organic peppers in my bag each week!) and the garlic is from Seven Bridges Farm from the South Wedge Farmer’s Market. The only other seasonings are salt and pepper — I brought back the salt from a trip to France and the pepper is freshly ground from organic black peppercorns.

It will be accompanied by brown rice and broccoli (conventional, both – but at least broccoli is now on the “12 Foods You Don’t Have to Buy Organic” list.)

I’d better get back to dinner, but I snapped a couple of pics with my camera phone.

Here’s dessert – home made peach pie. The pastry is an oil pastry recipe and the peaches, while conventionally grown are at least from a local farmer, bought on Saturday morning at Gro-Moore Farms in Henrietta.

I finally got around to screening my compost. Oh, what beautiful stuff. It’s not such good work for my back, but good for the rest of me (thigh muscles, spirit, etc.).

This was the best batch of compost I’ve made yet. Full of worm castings, hummus and rich black stuff. And worms. I’ve never seen so many worms (except maybe on RIT’s sidewalks after a heavy rain).

What am I supposed to do with the worms in the compost? Put them back into the pile? Put them in the garden? Eat them for dinner?

I tried hard to sift the compost lightly, to reduce the likelihood of grinding any worms on the hardware cloth. I probably cut a few in half as they desperately tried to wriggle through the holes into the lovely black screened compost beneath. Most of my worms went into the screened compost and then into the garden. I figure the garden can always use them. And, since I didn’t put any worms in the bin to begin with, they migrated from somewhere on their own and more worms will find the bin again for the next batch.

In order to answer my question — so I know what to do next time — I turned, as always to the Internet. Not, say, the Cornell Cooperative Extension, a reliable source of knowledgeable information. Why do that when you have Google at your fingertips?

What I found? Not much.

In worm composting (where you have a couple of pounds of worms in a bin!), you put the worms back in the bin. Gives me the heebies just thinking about it. I can touch worms, with gloves on. But I don’t want 2 lbs of the them in a container, thanks.

According to compostinfo.com:

Screening Compost

Your composting system may not break down all the larger materials, such as corncobs or wood chips, in the first batch of compost that you make. When you screen your compost, any material larger than your screen size can be removed. These materials are called “overs” which can go back into the compost system the next time that you build a pile. The overs provide bulk for aeration and microbes attached to these pieces will help jumpstart the new composting process.

Yes, nothing about worms.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has directions on how to build a free-standing compost screen, but, again, no worm info.

Surely I can’t be the only person with this question? I guess I’ll have to ask the Co-operative Extension folks at the South Wedge Farmer’s Market this week after all.

We recently switched banks because M&T Bank just screwed us out of almost $600 and was very rude about it while they were at it. So we need to order new checks. I was procrastinating about getting on with work today, looking at checks designs online. I barely use checks — but do need them for the few occasions I used them — so the design is important. Plus, I’ll have them for the next 5 years. I’m still using the (Winnie the Pooh) checks I ordered when we moved into this house.

I was clicking around, not totally satisfied with anything I was seeing. I’d like something modern, but not too over the top. And then I thought to myself, I should get a flower design. Those roses are pretty.

Then my brain freaked out. A flowery check design? Roses? Hello? Welcome to Official Oldness.

Yeah. That was too much for me. I’d rather work and order checks another day.

We still put leaves and yard trimmings back there, but have otherwise neglected it.

I’d forgotten how much I love the smell of decomposing organic matter. It’s like a forest after the rain.

Sorting through what compost we do have from our pile & screening it through hardware cloth made me happy today. I felt more connected to my vegetable garden than I have in a long time. Something was missing.

The last 2 or 3 years I planted a garden but didn’t really tend to it well. Often I let the harvest go by without reaping much of it. Sure, I’ve had young kids every year since 2005. But I wonder if it’s been more than that.

My first real garden was in North Carolina at my mountain wilderness home. The first year went well – I built lots of beds & planted tons of strawberries and asparagus. Maybe a rhubarb plant, too. Every garden should have one.

Then the next year, right after I got the spring crops in, my husband & I separated. He stayed on the property and I moved out.

I never got to enjoy the harvest from that garden. It’s a sadness I still feel. Perhaps this year I can fill that sense of loss with a deeper connection to a garden I won’t be leaving. Besides, the asparagus are finally coming up this year.

Why?

My new obsession. Duncan’s babette blanket.

I don’t know how I came across a web site about it. But I did. And it stole my sanity. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent (often at 3 a.m., rocking Berry) thinking about the next square I’m going to make or what color combinations I like best together.

It started out as 20 balls of yarn, purchased with some “frivolous” birthday money while vacationing in Florida at my mum’s.

Since then, it’s been slowly growing into squares of lovely, intricate, fine cotton crochet. I’m honestly surprised that I can make something this pretty.

Duncan loves it and asks about his “blanket squares” often. I try to keep him out of my crochet bag, but he’s figured out how to work the zippers.

This is where I was a few days ago. I know, I have many months to go. My goal is to finish it by Duncan’s birthday in July. I’ve actually created a few more squares since then.

What kept me up late last night was drawing a diagram for putting the finished squares together. Finally, between last night and nap time today, I have a finished drawing. I know exactly how many of each size squares I need to make. And I know approximately how big the whole thing will be. Big. Maybe not big enough. But big.

I also know I have…oh, a lot of squares left to go.

Here are the stats:
I’m using DMC Senso cotton yarn and a size D 3.25 mm crochet hook. I’m making squares with 4, 6, 8 and 12 rounds. The finished size for each square is (or should be) as follows:

4 rounds – 3″
6 rounds – 4.5″
8 rounds – 6″
12 rounds – 9″

Actual sizes vary. For the 4 and 6 round squares, I’ll be using a 3 mm hook. Otherwise they don’t match up with their multiple equivalent (e.g. 3 4-rounds don’t equal 1 12-round square).

For the complete babette blanket, I’ll need a total of (good God!) 128 squares in each of these sizes:

4 rounds – 44
6 rounds – 60
8 rounds – 16
12 rounds – 8

I think I’ve made about 17 squares so far…

I’d get back to it right now, but I’ve decided to make Duncan a “June dress” tonight as he keeps begging us to put his blanky/a purple pillowcase/a kitchen towel/whatever around his waist so he can pretend to be June from Little Einsteins.

I’ll get back to it shortly, though, no worries there. At least it’s a healthier obsession than, say, eating tubs of ice cream. It is an obsession, though. I’ve gone so far as to join the Flickr babette group. But crocheting keeps my hands busy and relaxes my mind. Both good things.

Playing that FreeRice “game” and eating Girl Scout cookies. Why did I bring a box upstairs with me?

I’ve donated 1020 grains of rice and I need to stop myself. Must. Close. Browser. Window. My wordiness is about 39 (or whatever they call it, I closed the window, so I can’t check). This is where reading millions of books pays off — being able to waste time on the computer and donate rice to starving nations.

Ironic that I’d do it while stuffing myself with All Abouts. Maybe I should just ship off some boxes of cookies while I’m at it. Or donate the money I spent on the cookies, as that would buy plenty more than 1020 grains of rice. I was hoping I’d get to some magical number where the whole bowl would fill up.

Now that my belly is full of useless nutrients and my brain is full of cool words, I’d better get on with things.