The Heifer Bank

09 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by katsmama in holidays, learning


when we got to the bank, they took it out of the rolls to count it in the machine, so we pretty much just practiced counting for half an hour.

We get kind of greedy this time of year- I know I do, more sweets, more stuff, more presents- I want a new yoga top, but I want to pick it myself, I’ll just wrap this for myself and put your name on the tag, I want 6 new cookie sheets before Christmas.

Maybe you don’t get this way. I do. My kids feel greedy this time of year, too. Sometimes the wanting and the waiting is just overwhelming and impossible. For everybody.

Our heifer bank is meant to be a cure for that- I think it helps a bit.

We have a kitschy cow-shaped bank that we fill all year, and before Christmas we empty it and decide who to donate the money to. (Ooh- an 8th grader laughed at me the other day for using “whom” and I find it is getting to me- darn 8th grader.) ahem, “to whom we will donate the money.” That’s better.

When we started, our charity of choice was Heifer International, (www.heifer.org ) which is why we have a cow bank, but in other years, we have done the local food bank, and this year, our local science museum, which is moving to a new building. We put change into the bank all year- money from the couch, or when I lighten up my purse.

This year, we were astonished to count up almost 100 dollars in change, plus a 5 and a 1. That is a big enough donation to get our name on a plaque. We get a plaque!!!! Wait, it isn’t about the plaque- it’s about helping out the science museum.

What do you do to change the feeling of greed for yourself? Or, do you just roll with it?

This is what a hundred dollars in change looks like.

Gratitude

19 Nov 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in learning Tags: ,


Yes, that is a pink venus flytrap...

The boy brought home a piece of art created in computer class the other day.
I love it. It goes without saying that I am thankful for photosynthesis myself. I am also thankful for my favorite planet, Earth, and the sun that shines.
I am thankful for my boy with a quirky sense of humor, and my girl who is balancing the twin loads of trying to make her parents happy and trying to become independent.

I am so grateful for DH, who can somehow get like 5 hours of sleep, and still wake up dutifully to drive carpool. Notice that I didn’t say wake up “cheerfully.” He’s not superman.
I am grateful for the kids at my school- that the girl who moved here 2 months ago from Korea laughed at my story of hitting the coyote with a rental car, because that means she understood the story. I am also grateful for the other kids, who know more English than she does, and were able to explain to her what a coyote is, and how it’s different from a fox or a wolf, and draw a picture on the board, and ask, “Don’t they have coyotes in Korea?” Apparently, they don’t.
I am grateful for the public school system I work for, and the public school system my kids attend. I appreciate the difficulty of meeting all children where they are, and bringing them farther down the road to an educated adulthood.
But most of all, I’m grateful for photosynthesis.

This wetland is close enough to my house to make a lovely walk- one I should take more often.

Blogoversary- 1 year

09 Jul 2011 4 Comments

by katsmama in learning


Kite flying in Idaho- completely unrelated photo, but I like the colors. My nephew was at the other end of the string.

It’s been a year since I started this blog- I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, and set a goal for myself to get more people (any people) reading my stuff. There are fantasies about getting a book deal, but I try to keep those a secret, most of the time.

I didn’t start out planning to write as much about knitting as I have, it was going to be mostly gardening and food. The food content is way down- goal for this coming year is to experiment with food more, and do more food posts.

I like to believe the photography has gotten better, partly because I upgraded my camera, but there is still lots of room for improvement.

In a survey, people who love photos wish there was more text, and people who love good writing wish there were more photos. All respondents agreed that 1 haiku per year is too many.

I don’t know much about search engine optimization, but my most popular post so far has been about wrapping gifts in scarves.That seems odd to me…

Thanks to all who have clicked through, or searched, or who are just friends. Also thanks to those who comment- it is great to know all my geniusness isn’t just floating out into the ether.

Getting dressed from the clean clothes pile

25 Jun 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in learning Tags: , , ,


A mom of  a friend of the Girl and I were talking the other day- I was getting cleaned up for a party,and she said that she honestly expected to have a messy house until her kids moved out- she joked about getting dressed off of the clean piles of clothes in the living room. I’ve done this, of course, and you probably have, too.  Maybe not.  Maybe you are better than me… just stop rubbing it in.

When I was planning our party, I figured that I would have to spend like an hour a day cleaning, and I wanted it to be really clean, not just have all the piles of stuff moved into the bedroom, which is what I usually do.  The problem with doing an hour a day, is that is so bleahhh- there’s no system.  Then I came across http:www.flylady.net

I had read about it in the past- in lady’s magazines.  It is a cute little cult about changing your life by setting up routines about keeping your house clean. Cult is mean. It’s not really a cult. Don’t be mad at me, FLYlady!

The routines are simple things like “shine your sink before you go to bed” at first you’re like, what? why clean my sink? but I have been doing this, and it makes a huge difference- when I leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight, they make breakfast that much harder, then DH and the kids pile more dishes in, then we have to run the dishwasher, unload it, then reload it, the counters are awful, and it becomes harder to do anything in the kitchen. But, if I clean the sink and run the dishwasher before I go to bed, then unload it while I am waiting for coffee, everything is smoother, all day.

Another routine is “put out hotspots.” A hotspot is a place where junk accumulates- at our house, my dresser top is one (we have several, but only I am responsible for my dresser) If I don’t take 2 minutes to put my clothes away,then my dresser is piled with bras and unmatched socks, and shirts, and that isn’t any better than getting dressed in the living room. I deserve to live in a clean house.

So, a couple of weeks into these routines, and our house is still relatively clean after cleaning it up for the party.

FLY, by the way, stands for finally loving yourself, and at first I thought, ick, mushy self-love, but I am realizing that I do deserve to live in a clean house, and I have been taking some time to make that happen, rather than yelling at everybody about it.

Wonton Gluttony

31 Jan 2011 4 Comments

by katsmama in food, holidays, learning Tags: ,


I stopped in the grocery only to get milk the other day and somehow by the time I got past produce, I had decided to get the ingredients for dumplings. There had been a story in the paper about Chinese New Year, and it was like a time bomb ticking. (I have mostly had to stop calling it Chinese new year, by the way. I had a Korean student a few years ago who confided that it really bugged him when people said Chinese New Year, instead of Lunar, or Asian. It’s a hard habit to break, though)

I had a roommate just after college, Mei,  who was from Shanghai, and she taught me how to shape these little dumplings. The filling she used was pork-based.

Two dumplings, hot out of the fryer.

I made mine last night with fake crab- krab with a k. My frugality bit me here- crab, or krab, is so mild flavored that I didn’t want to spend big bucks on something that would pretty much taste like ginger and onion. Looking back, though, I only used part of the package, maybe 4 ounces, so it wouldn’t have broken me to use real crustacean. If I lived closer to the ocean, I probably would. When Mei taught me to make these, we steamed them to ensure the pork cooked all the way through. Since the krab is already cooked, this is less of a worry. I steamed about 9 dumplings while the rice for the rest of our dinner was cooking, and fried the rest.

Oh my gosh. They are good both ways, but wow. the filling is bright, and the oil was hot enough, and I was eating them quickly enough, that they were better than I’ve had in a restaurant. I wouldn’t fry these for a party, because they’d lose that texture, and it would be a big pain in the ass.  But to make them for me and DH (and we ate an emabrrassing number) wasn’t too bad, frying a few at a time in 1/2 an inch of oil in a small frying pan. We leaned on the counter and talked about our days after he got off work, to the tune of sizzling oil.

Adjust the heat until the oil is hot enough to sizzle- too hot it just burns, too cool, it soaks up a lot of grease.

I didn’t really use a recipe for this filling, although I did google a bit for proportions. You’ll see from my parentheticals that this is extrememly variable. Put in the things that you like- DH didn’t say it, but he probably would have liked this better with chili paste in it. Watch, this will be the blog post that he comments on! It would be great with ground pork, or beef, or salmon, or scallops. Or tofu, if you insist.

Krab Dumplings (this quantity served 2 shameless people)

4 oz flake style krab (or whatever)

 1 knuckle sized piece of fresh ginger, minced

1 tablespoon minced onion (Traditionally green, but I had purple, so that’s what I used)

2 or 3 drops vietnamese fish sauce

1 splash rice vinegar (or lemon or lime juice)

1/2 package wonton wrappers (use the rest to make Krab rangoon next week)

Finely mince the onion and ginger, shred the krab and mix together. Put it all in a bowl and add the fish sauce (a little goes a long way here- it adds salt and savoriness, but too much and you’ve got 7th grade feet) and a splash of rice vinegar (my rice vinegar is unsweetened, but if you have the sugary kind, use it- I wouldn’t use regular vinegar, because it is way more acidic.)

I like round dumplings, so I use a juice glass to cut the corners off the square wrappers. Keep the wrappers covered so they don’t dry out, and try not to let them touch each other, or they’ll stick. It is surprizing how little filling goes into these. Half teaspoon, really. When you overfill them, they burst, or the liquid leaks out and makes the oil spit and sizzle. 

Now, the girl and I made a video showing how to fill and seal the dumplings, then I discovered I will have to pay extra to upload it to this blog. I balked. Maybe I’ll put it on Facebook.  So, now I’ll narrate the video as if you are watching it. Umm…so take the wonton skin and put a half teaspoon of filling in the center, then dip your finger into the water and run it along the edge of one side. Press together in the center, then dip your finger again and poke in the corners.

Steam: place in steamer basket or colander and put over boiling water with lid. Cook until wrapper is transparent. Some people put a lettuce leaf under the dumplings so they don’t stick, but I didn’t and last night didn’t have any trouble.

Fry:  I use my smallest cast iron skillet, about 6 inch diameter, and heat about 1/2 inch of canola oil til it shimmered.  I was going to check the temperature with my thermometer, but then the boy got upset with me because I told him he spelled Jurassic wrong, and all hell broke loose. Fry a couple at a time until they are goldn brown and delicious, place on a paper towel to cool. DH thought any dunking sauce was gilding the lily, bless his heart, but I used a little orange sauce (from a bottle- I’m not perfect)

Asian New Year is February 3 this year- I love stretching out the holiday season, and I can justify this better than having a big groundhog celebration. Happy New Year to you!

Ferment with me…

19 Jan 2011 1 Comment

by katsmama in food, learning Tags: ,


Got a new book the other day- “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz. I got it with yogurt in mind, but it has a ton of stuff on pickled vegetables, too.

Yeah, it bugs me too, that they divided fermentation after the T, instead of between the N and the T.

A couple of years ago we had a glut of cabbages from our CSA, so I decided to make sauerkraut. I’m a white American, but I don’t have childhood memories of kraut- either my parents had it growing up and hated it, or it was considered “too ethnic” by both sets of grandparents. Anyway, I had a ton of cabbage, and all of the instructions I found online called for a ton of cabbage. The problem is, I wound up with a ton of sauerkraut…I didn’t know I didn’t like sauerkraut… yeah, I know, too ethnic.
Now, there’s a Mexican restaurant in town that serves pickled cabbage as a side. I learned it was called cortido, and it is essentially…Mexican sauerkraut. Too ethnic? No!

The recipe I found at the library made only a quart of it, which was just right.  The ease of the recipe inspired me to get this book- Wild Fermentation, for more recipes. I started a batch of Kimchee this weekend, which is like… Korean sauerkraut.  It has napa cabbage, radishes, carrots, onions and jalapeno peppers. The veggies are soaked in brine, and the spices are minced, then we drain the brine off and stirred in the spicy paste, then jar, cover with brine and let sit at room temperature for a week.

Minced jalapeno and garlic- see how fast my knife goes? No, it's just that I can't focus with my left hand.

 I’m very excited- just a few days for it to ferment, and I can try it.

I have a friend who loves pickles- only a week until we can try it.

 The cookbook has a ton of other ideas- I am thinking about sour dough and yogurt and a ton of other naturally fermented stuff. Not beer, though. Beer’s gross.

Just Right

11 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in learning Tags: ,


Finished the hat this afternoon- the girl is happily wearing it now. Can’t prove love through material things, I know, but there is love in every stitch. I hope she can feel it.

Just in time for icy weather...

As Promised, Dyeing Tutorial

04 Jan 2011 Leave a comment

by katsmama in arts and crafts, learning Tags:


No, not the death kind of dying, yarn dyeing. I have some desperately soft wool and silk blend that I made a sweater for myself with. Knitpicks has what they call “bare” yarn, white and ready for dying. I just wanted a white sweater (it’s like a sickness- how inconvenient are white sweaters? but I have a bunch already and must have more!) but I had quite a bit of yarn left over after my sweater was finished, just waiting in the closet for a project. A striped hat for the girl is just the project it was waiting for.
Step one: find the ball of leftover yarn. This was surprisingly easy.

This handy dandy tool is a niddy noddy, perfect for winding a ball into a hank. The loop is roughly 1 yard, so I can keep track of how long it is.

Step two: unwind it from the ball and into a hank or long loop. Tie the ends together and also loosely tie loops around it, to prevent it from getting tangled. Don’t tie it too tightly, or it will tie dye, and that’s a different tutorial. If you order bare yarn from Knitpicks (www.knitpicks.com), it comes packaged this way, so there’s no need for this step. If you are over-dying another color, make sure you are using “protein fibers” like wool or silk. Cotton, linen or other plant fibers (hemp anyone?) use a different process. I have over-dyed light yellow with blue to make a funky green, but the process is kind of hit or miss. If you feel confident with color mixing, go for it. Or if you only paid a dollar for the yarn…
Step 3 Soak yarn with a drop of dish detergent in the water. The detergent breaks the surface tension, and lets the yarn really get soaked, so the color will penetrate more evenly.
Step 4 Prep materials: Since I am working on this with my daughter, we are going the low poison route- I have used commercial acid dyes before, but I don’t want to be concerned with the safety of doing it inside with a ten year old. We are going to use neon food colors, white vinegar, and a pyrex dish with lid. We have also used Kool Aid before, but the colors aren’t as mixable, and the cost adds up, believe it or not.

The dark pink wound up taking about 60 drops of neon pink dye. Yes, we counted.

Step 5 Mix color: the girl wants pink and red stripes, which I will interpret as pink and dark pink, and just use different concentrations of the same food color. I mix the dye in a measuring cup, keeping track of the number of drops of dye. Two cups of lukewarm water and a slug of white vinegar are about right for dyeing 75-100 yards of yarn. Part of the fun of this is experimenting with the kids, and you could probably turn it into a science project by tracking the amount of vinegar it takes to get maximum concentration. Or, you could just have fun and make a mess.
Step 6 The microwave: put the lid on the bowl and put in the microwave for about 5 minutes. It will stink like vinegar.
Step 7 Let it cool off. Really, seriously, take the lid off and walk away from the boiling water. Ask me how I know this.  Seriously, have some tea and fudge, and just wait until the yarn isn’t boiling hot anymore.

After 7 minutes in the microwave, the water was still kind of pink, so I added more vinegar and put it back in for 2 minutes.

Step 8: Using a chopstick, or spoon, move the yarn to one side and see if all the dye has been taken up. It always astonishes me to see the water turn clear. If there is still lots of dye in the water, microwave a few more minutes, and if it isn’t dark enough, mix more dye solution and add, then microwave more.  If you want to play with varegation, drop some dye directly onto the yarn, otherwise, mix it with water.

Step 9: pull out of the dye bath and rinse with lukewarm water. Don’t run the faucet directly over the yarn, but dunk the yarn in clear water, to get rid of any dye that hasn’t been taken up. Hang it up to dry, away from the cat.

Because of the rinse, your shower probably won't turn pink. Probably.

Make sure it is entirely dry before winding into a ball, or it might get mildewy.  It will still smell kind of vinegary until you wash whatever you knit with it. For some people that is a deal breaker…and the only advantage to using Kool Aid is that the yarn smells fruity instead of like vinegar. Colors will lighten up when the yarn is dry, and you can always re-dye if you are not happy with the results.

Blood, toil, tears and sweaters

20 Dec 2010 2 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, favorite things, learning Tags: , ,


I highly recommend using sock yarn for sweaters because it's machine washable.

I knit for fun, really I do. I like to have something to do with my hands when watching TV, or riding in the car, or waiting at the dentist.  I also like to plan projects, and see them come alive.  A couple of years ago, the girl was reading the American Girl books, and when reading the Kirsten series, she asked me for a sweater like Kirsten’s mom made for her. It was cute- a black and white, Nordic ski sweater. I had played a little with knitting in two colors, and felt comfortable with it, so I took on the project.  http://www.amazon.com/Changes-Kirsten-Winter-American-Collection/dp/0937295949/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1292820841&sr=1-1

We wound up misplacing the book- it turned up later in the closet under the stairs, so I couldn’t make up the pattern by looking at the illustration on the cover.  At that point I didn’t feel comfortable looking at an illustration and making up a sweater pattern anyway. 

The inspiration for the sweater. we never made the hat or mittens.

Actually, I don’t think I could do that now, either… So I found a pattern in “Knitting Without Tears” from the library. This is a book I highly recommend, by the way, if you are ready to graduate from scarves.

I cast on about 200 stitches in sock yarn for the body, and started on the patterns going up the body to the armpits. It was kind of fascinating- you hold the black yarn in one hand, the white in the other, and go across the rows, knitting four of black, 3 of white, or whatever, and row by row the pattern builds. Checkerboards, snowflakes, giant backward letter “s” . With the amount of work this was going to be, I wanted it to fit for a  few years, so I made it extra long, and by the time I got to the armpits, it was time to start the sleeves.  This was where I got stalled. 

You look at a sleeve, and it looks small, but it winds up being more than a quarter of the size of the body of a sweater. I cast on what I thought was the right number of stitches, and went about 4 inches, before I thought of trying it on the girl. Too small. It is now a mini dress for Barbie. Start over, The other thing about sleeves is that they can’t be just cylindircal, because arms aren’t. But the thing about working with two colors, is most of the patterns have repeats of 8 stitches, so increasing gradually messes up the pattern, and increasing too suddenly makes the arm look goofy.  Ask me how I know. 

By now it was March, and even though in Norway, I am sure people wear Norwegian sweaters well into summer, here in Northern Colorado, we are riding bikes and playing soccer. I put away the sweater for a while as being just too frustrating.

Took it out again in the fall, ripped out the sleeves, reknit to make sure they matched, then attached them to the body of the sweater. At this point, I really started cruising. It still took a while, though.  The girl’s school had a spirit day, whose theme was “Dress as a book character” I made it down the home stretch and finished the Kirsten Sweater in time for her to wear it to school. 

Now, the reason this has come up now, 3 years after I started knitting that thing, and 2 and a half years after I finished it, is that when I picked up the girl the other day at school, she was wearing it. “Oh, you haven’t worn that for a while.” I said.

“Yeah, I just found it in the lost and found.”

Yikes- the school newsletter had just announced that as of  Friday, anything still in the lost and found would be taken to Goodwill. As I said, I knit because I enjoy it, but that sweater has a little bit of my soul in it, and the thought of it being sold at a thrift store was a little jarring. I’m glad to have it home again. Don’t ask me what I’ll do when she outgrows it. I’m not ready to think about it.

The line must be drawn here…

20 Dec 2010 2 Comments

by katsmama in arts and crafts, holidays, learning Tags: , ,


This year, I haven’t made or given teacher gifts, I didn’t handknit anything for my secret Santa recipient, I haven’t made batch after batch of cookies. And I am okay with that, I think. 

In previous years, not only have I given presents to all the kids’ teachers, and aids, and speech therapists, I made the presents from scratch- one year I knit 7 mini stockings, and put Starbucks cards in them. It was good because I totally was able to internalize the structure of sock knitting, with all these mini socks. But I also remember staying up late the night before the last day of school, weaving in ends of yarn.   This year, I decided to cut the teacher presents, for lack of time and energy. 

A noro striped scarf I made for Secret Santa last year- if the recipient has worn it, I haven't seen it...

In previous years, I have made scarves or felted bags for the person I’ve drawn for secret santa at school, and this year I couldn’t bring myself to it.  Part of it was that my local yarn store has closed and I don’t have anything stashed away that would have worked. But I noticed that when I made the decision to skip knitting something for my colleague, a weight lifted off my shoulders.

Similarly, when I decided to skip the cookies, I felt so relieved. We’ve made tons and tons, and given some away, but eaten a lot myself, too. Not having to make several different recipes of cookies, and put together tins or plates for people was a relief.  There is the chance that I will be able to zip my ski pants, too, so there’s another benefit. Don’t get me wrong- we aren’t entirely Scroogey-  we have decorated, and hosted a party, and we have gifts, (some homemade) but having a slightly simpler Christmas has helped us with some peace on Earth.

Gingerbread houses- another project we didn't do this year.

Or at least peace in our own house. I don’t think my kids will look back, and say, “Hey, remember when we made gingerbread houses, and mom yelled at us for putting too much food coloring in the icing?”  This year, I am trying to draw the line at yelling.

Previous Older Entries Next Newer Entries