"How?", some of you may ask. Well, that's funny. Perhaps you were never born yourself and can't imagine that being born had an impact on any mother or child. Perhaps you think I'm being snarky, and perhaps you're right.
As you may suspect, I don't remember being born, but I do remember giving birth to William just over 19 months ago, on the first of January in 2012. Wonderful day for birth, don't you think? New Year's Day is always so fresh feeling, and like it's the perfect day for beginning something.
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| Sweet little William, just 2 days old. |
The next morning, after realizing that I was maaaaaaaaybe in labor, my husband and I leisurely started our day with some cuddles and jokes, as we are wont to do. An hour or so later, quite unexpectedly, my water broke all over our bed and we had to make some decisions, and fast. Did we decide to move things to the hospital? Yes! Buuuuut we thought we probably had hours and hours of labor ahead of us, so I didn't move very quickly. Then it was too late to go anywhere unless someone carried me because transition hit like a prize-fighting bull on top of a freight train.
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| After being transported to the hospital, we were transported into different clothing. |
The urge to push was overwhelming, and it felt so good to curl up on our guest bed, moan like a cow, and just relax into my body and do whatever it wanted to do. It was incredible, so empowering and awe-inspiring. I felt like I could have done anything in that moment, had I wanted to--and yet there was nothing more that I could do or wanted to do then focus inward and try to work with my body.
Just a little after noon, my baby was born on my guest bed, into my husband's hands. He cried out, "Little dude!!" and handed him immediately over, both of us in wonderment at this little person. The paramedics were pounding at the door, and from that day forward has been a bit of a blur.
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| My sweet, sweet boy. |
That statement might feel a little grandiose, that from one morning's work of going with the flow, I was able to come to a vast appreciation for the universe and everything living and growing within it, but that's really how it felt. It's too big to contain in just one person! It was wonderful and empowering and so, so joyful.
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| Holding a 3-day-old William on the bed where he was born. |
This is what Empowering Fearless Birth is all about, people. Either experience. ANY experience. We want to help women be educated in their choices and then validate whatever choice they make. We want to gather up the wounded women, give them a safe place, and encourage them to show their strength again. We want babies to be born in the best way possible for the mama and for the baby. We want so, so much! And with a lot of incredible help, we are trying to make it happen.
September 21st of this year, we're holding our second event--the first one sold out, so we know it's something that's wanted and needed in the community. We want to help mothers see the different choices for what they are, and not for what the media portrays them as. We want to support all mothers, from women who are planning on a scheduled c-section to women who want to do a home birth in their backyard. All of it, all the between too. We love you and we want you here with us.
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| Rachel holding fresh fruit of her womb--doesn't that look say absolutely everything? The joy, the love, the overwhelming sense of awe and accomplishment? (Image courtesy of Katie Loveless) |
I am a huge fan of creamy things, like cheesecake and pesto mayonnaise and funeral potatoes. All super tasty things, in my opinion. Cooking such things is bred into my bones, my mother taught me from since I was as high as an apron's ties that adding cream of chicken soup and/or sour cream to a recipe made it instantly superb. I like superb. I adore superb, actually. I crave funeral potatoes like nobody's business, but I really don't want them enough for anybody to die over them, despite the awful name they've gotten.
Anyway, back to creamy deliciousness--Cody becoming a vegan changed the way I had to look at recipes and it greatly changed the way certain dishes needed to be made.
Enter cashew cream!
This stuff is luscious. Creamy, bodacious, and only slightly nutty (because factoid! Cashews aren't nuts!), cashew cream makes an incredible alternative to dairy cream in vegan recipes, especially savory ones as coconut cream kinda tastes weird in certain contexts, like in a creamy vegetable soup, for instance.
Last week we had this fantastically easy to make, amaaaaaazing tasting cream of broccoli soup because we'd gotten more cruciferous vegetables than we needed in our Bountiful Basket, and so needed a way to use them up. We gobbled it up in under 24 hours, even William had his share. So if you have picky eaters that don't like veggies, try this! It's got great fats in it too, and makes panini companions shine like the sun.
Because I rock at the photography thing, here's someone else's picture of cream of broccoli soup that looks surprisingly like ours:
Vegan Cream of Vegetable Soup
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 11th Edition
Cooked vegetable (see amounts and variations below with herb combinations)
3 cups broth
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (omit if doing a strict Paleo version*)
1 teaspoon sea salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup cashews
boiling water (about 1 1/2 cups-ish)
In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, measure out the 1 cup of cashews. Pour the boiling water into the glass measure up to the 2 cup mark. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and let soak for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally if you want. It doesn't NEED it need it, but sometimes stirring is fun.
Once the cashews are sorta bloated and softened to the tooth, dump the cashews and their water into a blender or food processor and blend those punks up like they deserve it, a.k.a. until the mixture is white and creamy and no little bits of nuts remain visible.
Set the cashew cream aside and blend up the cooked vegetable of your choice in 2 batches, with 2 cups of the broth (1 cup of the broth with each batch of vegetable.)
Heat a pot over medium heat. Make the roux by melting the coconut oil then whisking in the flour, remaining salt, pepper, and chosen seasonings for your vegetable. Cook until the mixture bubbles quite a bit. It won't look like a traditional roux, but it will still work, don't worry! Whisk in the remaining 1 cup of broth and cook until thickened and bubbly. Add in all of the blended goodness, warm, and serve.
Vegetable Options:
Asparagus
6 cups cut asparagus/2-10 oz frozen package asparagus, 1 teaspoon lemon peel, 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Broccoli
6 cups broccoli florets/2-10 oz package frozen cut broccoli, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
Cauliflower
6 cups florets/2-10 oz package frozen, 1-1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
Mushroom
10 cups sliced fresh mushrooms, 1/4 teaspoon thyme, 1 tablespoon sherry
Potato
6 potatoes, peeled and cubed, or 3 &1/2 cups mashed, cooked potatoes and 1/2 teaspoon dried dillweed
Pumpkin
2 cups canned pumpkin and 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Squash
2 1/2 pounds acorn squash, cooked and scraped from skin, and 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or nutmeg
Soup it up!
*The soup is certainly thick enough to not need the roux thickener; however, if you feel it needs thickening, consider using arrowroot instead.
She found a new home yesterday, and it's happysad. She's a good doggie and I already miss her, but this new family has a yard and kids that are anxious to have a dog, a family that hikes and runs and plays outside. I love you, Truffle, and I hope you have all the love and cheese they can give you!
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| One of my postpartum pad sets. These are AWESOME for the post-baby goings-on. |
The lovely Rachel Joy Jackson interviewed me as her blog sponsor on The Crunchy Cottage, and the interview is up today! Go check it out, and enter to win a $30 gift certificate to my Etsy shop.
After contributing for a 25-lb. box of Roma tomatoes in my Bountiful Basket this week and wanting to put up some pasta sauce, I decided I would buy the pressure canner that I'd been eyeing online for a while. It cans 22 quarts at a time and is $100, a super good deal, and will hopefully see our family through many a summer produce surplus.
ANYWAY. All of this canning talk urged me to peek at the canning supplies at the grocery store tonight, and I was enthusiastic to see that Ball put out a low- or no-sugar pectin that does flexible batches! Finally! I'm not sure but I think it's a better deal than the boxed pectin used to be, too...but I don't have any of my old receipts or anything to see. You can get 22 half-pints from this $5 bottle, and I thought that was pretty nifty. The only negative thing that I see about this new pectin is that it still contains dextrose as its first ingredient, so even if you choose to not add sugar to your recipe there will still be added sugar with this pectin, even if it is a miniscule amount. It's more readily available than Pomona's Pectin, which you really CAN make sugar-free jams with.
So, if you're into all that preserving whatnot, check it out. It was $5 at my grocery store (not on sale) or on Ball's website, but on the web you gots to pay shipping, so getting it at the store is naturally the better deal.
P.S. I'm really not trying to sell any of you on stuff with all my links and whoodlyhaa. I just liked this stuff and felt the need to share! ;D
Last month, I started a service called Stitch Fix. I've really appreciated seeing other people's blog posts about it so I could get an idea for the items sent out and the cost of the items, so I thought I would contribute my own post to aide others like me! --I'm very novice at both blogging and fashion, so be kind. :0)
This coral Moon pencil skirt has a fabulous invisible zipper detail, you can see it on the right-hand seam. I love the color, it's more pink in person than it appears here. The biggest problems were that I'd just bought 2 pencil skirts from Target a month ago on clearance for $6.88 each, and that this pencil skirt costs $88. Cute, but I think I'll pass.
A snazzy shirt by Everly, this 3/4-sleeve Zig-Zag Blouse is a better deal at $58. I like the neckline, the hem length, and the sleeve length. I'm not so sure about the fancy buttons or the shapelessness of the blouse, but it's definitely a trendy print and in a classic way, so I'm paying attention.
At $58, this shirt by the brand Angie is (in my opinion) expensive but exquisite on details and fit. This thing may be made of chiffon, but it's absolutely gorgeously crafted. I love all the little studs, the gathers, the pintucks, the beautiful hem... It's just a cute shirt. I'm not sold on it because A) it's sheer and B) I'm not sure I want to spend that much money on yet another blue shirt.
Aside from the ADORABLE!! star facing, this denim shirt by Lovemarks is a major "eh" at $68. Maybe I can't style chambray shirts? I just feel like they look super dowdy on me, no matter what I try.
And finally, the accessory:
This sweet little Marjorie Baer triangles short necklace. It's industrial chic, something I'm into lately, and it's a bit spendy for this cheap girl at $68.
So then I tried them all on. And tried to take pictures. It's kinda funny, so laugh if you want--I won't feel bad because I can't hear you.
"Is this thing on?"
"Oh hey, it's on." Here's the skirt and the denim shirt together. I slapped a necklace and heels on with it. Probably not the most flattering pairing, but I knew these two were the least likely to be picked to keep and ugh I dislike that shirt. The skirt is cute, just not $88 cute.
Again, probably not the best pairing. I love the way this shirt lays, though--it's really gorgeous. I think it's a toss-up between this one and the zig-zag one, unless I just go crazy and get the necklace instead.
An attempt to show the details on the shirt.
Chevron? C'est vous? I think this is pretty cute aside from the flats. Needs a bubble necklace and you can call it a Pinterest-worthy outfit.
The necklace! I like where it hits. I think it works great with scoopnecks.
Detail. I like the silver's finish, it makes it look sorta like galvanized steel.
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So yeah, that's my Stitch Fix for the month. I'm still not sure which I'm gonna keep or what--if you have opinions, I'd love to hear what you'd pick and how you would style everything!
Every year for Christmas my siblings and I all draw a couple name for gift giving. This year we got Elden and Rebecca, so we're donating to their daughter's Therapy Dog.
Go forth, donate to it too if you have a few extra dollars! She could really use a helpful canine companion. ^_^
But enough about us and our givings, this year we received a gift from Sarah and Jared...and it's quite awesome, if I may say so. They gave us a star!! The star's named after Cody and me! And as if that weren't enough, they wrote a poem to go along with it! I'm going to post it here for you:
a star in the sky that rings out your name
actually it doesn't the notions insane
but named for you it will stay in the sky
till the good lord tells it not to and it falls by and by
from movies past we had seen this done
as a prize from a contest but someone else won
so when we drew you for christmas this year
and wondered what would offer you some long lasting cheer
we thought of the night at the movie so long ago
when we chose to kiss and not to watch the show
you stared in the sky
and averted your eyes
like a brother and sister
appalled at the picture
but now in the future when you look up so high
you will have much more to look for with your star in the sky
Love,
Jared and Sarah
PS - my poem is awesome and has no punctuation as an artistic representation of my disgust for school.
We love it. ^_^ Thank you, and Merry Christmas to everybody!
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