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Tag Archives: nablopomo
The Great Pumpkin Carving
I’m not the girly girl romantic type. As a matter a fact, I don’t think I’m girly at all. I can appreciate the sentiment behind a bouquet of flowers, but I’ve never demanded, begged or other wise hinted for anyone to send me any. I have a few treasured pieces of jewelry such as the one pair of earrings that I have worn since I was fifteen, but again I don’t get sparkles in my eyes as I pass by stores nor do I become envious of people dripping in ice. I just don’t care. It’s not my bag.
I’m not a big shopper. I don’t mind going to stores, but I never buy anything. I don’t wear makeup and I don’t keep up with any sort of fashion. Upon returning to work from maternity leave, one of the guys congratulated me on my “mom pants”. I knew he was being a little shit, but I thought he was insinuating that my pants looked like a sausage casing that I had been stuffed into. I wear I size six. Even if just after maternity leave I was bursting at my size six seems, nobody could honestly look at me and say I was fat, so I protested. “These are the same pants I’ve worn since high school.” He had to explain that “mom pants” had to do with the long pants zipper, not weight. Whatever, I don’t do fashion. I don’t like the show-off-your-belly pants, and I certainly wouldn’t couple the fuck-me-tattoo across the small of the back with the ass-crack-and-thong-display pants. I used to wear super short shorts in high school (as in wore it to school) and then wear a pullover top that was barely longer than my shorts. I was asked on a regular basis if I was wearing any pants underneath, and if I moved in a certain way the bottom of my bottom could be seen, so I’m not judging anyone’s fashion. I’m just sayin’ I had my own twisted sense of style.
Until I met Kurt I really didn’t care for kissing or cuddling. No, that isn’t a euphemism for something else. If I meant to say fucking, I would say FUCKING. MYGOD you really didn’t like kissing or cuddling? No, no I didn’t. And no, I’ve never been raped so spare me the wealth of Dr. Phil-isms and other such things that pass for psychology knowledge.
The first fall season Kurt and I were together, I went over to his apartment one night and he wanted to go buy pumpkins to carve into jack-o-lanterns. Really? Huh, ok. We walked across the street to the grocery store and picked out a couple of pumpkins. It was our eighth month together. My one girly trait is that I knew after four months that he was “the one”. I waited for him to indicate he felt the same because I knew if I said anything too soon I’d scare him off.
We took our pumpkins back to his kitchen and laid out newspaper for the ensuing mess (not that type of mess my twisted little monkeys). I had only carved a pumpkin once before so I didn’t really know what I was doing. Mr. engineering spreadsheet ruler and protractor fanatic went to town laying out his secret design. I followed suit and started with the typical triangle eyes. I turned my pumpkin around to face Kurt for design approval. “No,” he said, “we can’t show each other till weren’t done.” I turned my triangle eyed pumpkin head around again. I continued with my basic, very traditional toothy grinning pumpkin face and finished long before Kurt with all of his precise measurements. It was obvious that he was doing something much more elaborate than I had. I had no clue what type of decoration he was doing, but is was freehand, so sight unseen I was impressed. He finally finished his masterpiece and asked if I was ready to turn mine around. We turned our pumpkins around to show each other at the same time. He didn’t do a face at all! He wrote, “Kurt + Erica”. He didn’t actually tell me he loved me until after we’d been together for a year, but I knew.
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Jewy Jew Baby
I have a routine with Sophia, when we stand in line at any store she knows that when she sees my wallet she gets to hold it for me. I’ll ask to have it back in order to take out the store card and/or credit card, but then she gets to hold it again. Sometimes I’ll hand her the card after I swipe it, while other times I ask for the wallet again and put the card in it’s place. Either way she holds the wallet all the way to the car. If she drops it, I get it back before then.
Kurt didn’t know about this routine, so when Kurt pushed the cart right past me as I took out my wallet, Sophia threw a fit. I think he ruined her Jewy Jewy day. Jew baby calmed down immediately after I discovered the break in our routine and handed her my wallet. Funny thing was, she was wearing her “little devil” outfit, so if needed we could grab the little Jew by the horns.
Relax, she really was wearing her little devil outfit today, but the Jewy parts are a joke. However, if you insist on being a humorless bastard you may email my complaint department at half (dot) beaner (at) yahoo (dot) com. Have a Jewrific day!
This Jewy post was inspired by the Jewrific comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen and Lewis Black.
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Finding Balance in Zucchini Bread
I found a recipe for zucchini bread from Paula Deen’s website. On first glance I new this would more like a cake than bread, but I followed the recipe exactly as written. Well, except I used Olive oil instead of some other vegetable oil, but I don’t count that as a major change. It’s still oil. I also used lime instead of lemon juice; again, I don’t think that makes a difference. It’s still an acidic citrus juice.
Ingredients:
2 cup grated zucchini
1/3 cup water
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1½ teaspoon salt
3¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine oil, eggs, water, zucchini and lemon juice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 greased standard loaf pans, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.
Yield: 2 loaves
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
I love that she says the prep time is ten minutes. Obviously there isn’t a demanding toddler tugging at her pants leg and weaving between her legs like a cat the entire time she makes her zucchini bread. The recipe made “as is” was very tasty, and is fabulous if you hate zucchini, but I wanted something that would allow me to actually taste the zucchini. So I altered this recipe. I doubled the amount of zucchini. I relied on the added zucchini to provide the bread with enough moisture so I removed the water entirely and cut the amount of oil in half. I saw a few other recipes that replace some of the oil with applesauce but I didn’t want to add another ingredient. I cut the amount of sugar in half and used brown sugar instead of cane sugar. Cutting the sugar made the nutmeg stand out a lot so I cut that in half as well. I added the nuts in my very first batch, but in following batches I left them out. I find that nuts are a normal part of everyday life but they optional in bread. Here is my final revised sugar and zucchini balanced recipe:
Ingredients:
4 cups grated zucchini
4 eggs, beaten
½ cup olive oil
1½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1½ teaspoon salt
3¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, nutmeg, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine olive oil, eggs, zucchini and limejuice. Mix wet ingredients into dry, add nuts and fold in. Bake in 2 greased standard loaf pans, for 1 hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Alternately, bake in 5 mini loaf pans for about 45 minutes.
Yield: 2 loaves
Prep time: 10 minutes (depending on distractions)
Cook time: 1 hour
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55 Flash Fiction Friday: Ambient Abuse
In her typical humorous manner, she informed her coworker of the latest work developments and the growing ambient abuse. They chatted keeping the quick-witted quips rolling. After a hearty laugh her coworker said, “You should be a comedian.”
“No,” she answered, “I don’t have enough material and I don’t want to work here that long.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
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Toddler Trash
I had to convince Sophia that her socks and shoes aren’t trash. I could have saved myself from retrieving them from the trashcan multiple times by putting them on her feet, but what fun would that have been? She finally gave up after the third time and started playing with my set of shiny mixing bowls. She scared herself when she dropped one on the ceramic tile kitchen floor and it bounced all over making quite a racket. I thought she was about to cry, but she didn’t. My big girl didn’t let it get to her. She threw them in the trash.
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Dishwashing Toddler Tango
Today I made tamales with my mother again, so I was cooking chicken and making chicken stock early in the morning. As I let the chicken cook I did dishes and made sure to set the dishwasher tray which holds the silverware on the counter lest the toddler hands find the shiny knives. Doing dishes with a toddler around is like learning a sixty step dance and I have no rhythm nor patients when I just want to get something done and move on.
I start with the dishwasher door open but both drawers pushed in. At first, Sophia is just playing with the lid to the soap dispenser so I’m able to pull out the top drawer to place the first dish. She pushes it in for me. I pull it back out again to place the second dish. She pushes it in again and starts to close the door. I open the door and pull out the bottom drawer for the third dish. Sophia pulls out the top drawer. I push in the top drawer so that I can reach the back of the bottom one. Sophia pushes in the bottom drawer and starts closing the door again. I think you get the point. I think there was only one occasion in which she either pushed in or pulled out a drawer at the same time I needed it. I got so frustrated at our lack of coordination that I yelled at her to, “stop it!” She laughed at me. She really is her father’s daughter. My frustration amuses them both.
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Wordless Wednesday: Frankenbaby
(click on the picture to see the movie)
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Ergo Baby Wearing
There are tons of sites about baby wearing and a bazillion slings, wraps, and carriers. Though I bought a jogger type of stroller for all day outings, I knew that I wanted to carry my baby for shorter outings like trips to the grocery store, so I bought a Karma Baby Carrier Sling online while I was pregnant. I did use it, but over all that before baby purchase was a mistake. It didn’t fit us well and I wound up using it only on our few restaurant outings. I had her in my lap while I ate and the sling simply kept her from rolling off. It was wholly uncomfortable to walk around with her in the sling because I wound up walking as if I was pregnant again. My sling wasn’t adjustable at all because all the slings with tie, wrap, hoop ring adjustments looked like one needed to be a Navy Seal knot tying expert to use and I suck ass at knot tying.
My baby shower doubled as Kurt’s birthday party and he received a Snuglie baby carrier made by Evenflo. It didn’t fit him at all. I found it comfortable for short periods, but it was difficult for me to get Sophia in and out of it. Sophia didn’t like it especially when I tried facing her out, but I used it for my grocery trips until she was big enough to sit in a grocery cart on her own with a cover. It wasn’t comfortable at all when she was old enough to sit on her own, so I stopped using it. By the way the Snuglie looks and functions very much like the BABYBJÖRN, but costs A LOT less. I’m just sayin’.
At that point I stared using an simple umbrella stroller for quick shopping needs at places without shopping carts, but then I found the Ergo baby carrier. Something about it made me think, “This is the one”, but because the other two products didn’t work out, I wanted to try this one on in person. I went to their site and found a retailer near me. It turned out that the place I chose was also a chiropractor’s office. Talk about a great endorsement. They let me try on the Ergo and helped me fit it right. I was sold. It’s an awesome carrier and well worth the price.
Infants cannot be carried front facing with the Ergo, but Sophia never liked that anyway. She prefers to face me and know that I’m right there. An infant insert can be purchased for use with newborns which sort of turns the Ergo into a sort of sling. Older babies can be worn on the hip or on the back, which makes the Ergo last into toddler hood. I LOVE my Ergo! It’s so comfortable and for me it’s so much easier than a stroller that I use it for all day outings. It’s awesome. Did I mention that I love it? 
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Bisphenol A and the FDA
From the executive summary of an FDA report on Bisphenol A (BPA):
Coupling together the available qualitative and quantitative information (including application of uncertainty factors) provides a sufficient scientific basis to conclude that the Margins of Safety defined by FDA as “adequate” are, in fact, inadequate.
The FDA has gone from their April 14, 2008 view of BPA levels are too low to cause any health effects
Based on our ongoing review, we believe there is a large body of evidence that indicates that FDA-regulated products containing BPA currently on the market are safe and that exposure levels to BPA from food contact materials, including for infants and children, are below those that may cause health effects.
to their new and, depending on your point of view, improved October 28, 2008 statement that BPA won’t hurt you right away.
Consumers should know that, based on all available evidence, the present consensus among regulatory agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan is that current levels of exposure to BPA through food packaging do not pose an immediate health risk to the general population, including infants and babies.
Apparently the FDA based their original BPA is safe view based on three studies industry funded studies and just ignored those Henny-Penny-The-Sky-Is-Falling independent reports. Thanks for doing your job and looking out for us little guys FDA! But don’t worry, they aren’t swayed by money, big business, lobbyists…
NIH reaffirms BPA concerns
08 September 2008
The ACC (American Chemistry Council) has launched a major campaign to defend BPA, including one effort that helped killed a California state bill aiming to ban all but trace amounts of BPA from the food and beverage containers of babies and young children.The trade association publicly suggested that any ban on BPA would threaten food safety and increase grocery costs. On 29 August, the California State Assembly rejected the bill by a 35-30 vote. Fifteen of the state legislators were absent or didn’t vote.
‘California’s legislators made the right decision for their consumers,’ said ACC’s Steven Hentges. ‘Products targeted by this bill have been affirmed to be safe by government bodies around the world based on the science, most recently by the FDA’.
There was some criticism, however, of industry efforts to defeat the bill. ‘It is a very powerful lobby,’ says Scott Belcher, a University of Cincinnati pharmacologist. ‘With the worldwide production capacity at over 6.4 billion pounds per year, BPA is an important chemical and an important money maker.’ The US chemical industry produces roughly 2.3 billion pounds of BPA annually, and the chemical’s global market is estimated at $6 billion
Whatever kickbacks were being passed around must have stopped or no longer covered the cost of gas for FDA scientists to drive to work, or maybe the severely underfunded agency is finally able to properly address BPA.
FDA ignored evidence when calling BPA safe
Updated 10/29/2008 11:55 PM
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAYThe scientists took the FDA to task for basing its safety decision in August on three industry-funded studies. Another government agency, the National Toxicology Program, decided many other independent studies deserved consideration. The toxicology program concluded last month there is “some concern” that BPA alters development of the brain, prostate and behavior in children and fetuses.
The expert panel also found the FDA underestimated how much BPA babies ingest on several counts. For one, the agency failed to consider the cumulative effect of being exposed to BPA from dozens of products, a fundamental error that “severely limits the usefulness” of the FDA’s safety estimate.
An advocacy group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, believes BPA is too toxic to use in baby products at all. The group formally has asked the FDA to remove BPA from food and beverage containers.
This report from Chemistry World talks about the effects of BPA:
BPA linked to heart disease and diabetes
16 September 2008
Animal studies have long suggested that low-level chronic exposure to BPA can lead to reproductive and developmental problems, such as breast and prostate cancers, as well as the early onset of puberty. A report from the National Institutes of Health found ‘some concern’ about the effects of BPA on foetuses and children. But the FDA says it has not been proven that typical human exposures pose a safety risk. And in July the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that the chemical appears safe at current dosages since humans metabolise and eliminate it more rapidly than do the rats used in scientific research.Although it is complicated to work out a ‘safe’ level of BPA exposure, Galloway says her paper raises doubt about whether the current guidelines set by US and European governments are adequately protective. ‘We are seeing the effect of concentrations lower than the level currently recommended by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),’ she told Chemistry World. The EPA’s safety limit is 50 micrograms/kg bodyweight per day, which is also the tolerable daily intake according to the EFSA.
When will we get results?
FDA criticised by its own experts over bisphenol A
04 November 2008The FDA is unlikely to resolve the BPA safety issue quickly. The agency doesn’t have to officially respond to the Science Board report until February, by which time a new president will occupy the White House and a new Congress will be installed. The agency says its reply could include anything from a call for specific research proposals to the implementation of some type of BPA ban.
Consumer tips to avoid BPA exposure from the Environmental Working Group.
I’ve seen a lot of chatter about BPA in baby formula and found this information through the Environmental Working Group stating that powdered formula does not appear to contain BPA even if the can may be lined with BPA.
BPA does not appear to leach into powdered formula. The Canadian government recently published testing results showing no BPA in any of 56 powdered formulas sampled, and the tests include the same companies that make the formula sold in the United States (Cao 2008). Previously little was known about BPA in powdered formula. Three of the 4 major formula companies had told EWG that they used BPA in powdered formula containers or gave us conflicting answers. FDA recently analyzed 2 types of powdered formula containers and concluded that there was no BPA epoxy lining the metal portions of cans.
More on safer products for feeding your baby from the Environmental Working Group:
EWG’s Guide to Infant Formula and Baby Bottles: Guide to Baby-Safe Bottles & Formula