Blessings

Ethan,

I know your dad has already begun a journal of sorts for you, but I already have this blog and I may as well write in it, right? Three months late. :) Or months or years late, if you want to take into account how long I've had this and how long it's been since I wrote in it.

Today seems like an auspicious day to start up again since it was the day of your baby blessing. I read somewhere once that in Bali (I think), babies are carried by their parents for the first 180 days of their lives, no part of them ever never touching the ground. They aren't named and are simply kept alive, carefully. It isn't until the end of that 180 day period that they are celebrated with a grand party, given names and allowed to touch the earth, the rationale being that if a child that young was to die, it belonged to the gods anyway, not to their human community on earth. Once that period of limbo passes, the babies then belong to their families and are tied to the land. While I wouldn't ever say you belonged to the gods at pretty much any point past the moment you left my womb, I thought it a good parallel to begin writing to you today, the day you were celebrated and officially "sent off" onto your great journey of life. Plus, several local people I admire (Lara, Princess Lasertron, your dad of course) write monthly letters to their babies and I want that record for you, too!

We aren't religious. We both grew up Catholic but left the church for varying reasons, the explanations of which I'm sure you'll be subjected to throughout your life. I feel more spiritual-agnostic, personally, and I think your dad feels the same (although he'll gruffly say he's atheist-agnostic. Get a drink in him and he'll soften up). Regardless, we both felt it was right to have some sort of ceremony officially welcoming such an amazing addition to our lives--you-- and speaking to the hopes we have for and promises we make to you as your parents. Plus, it made your Grandma Magnuson really happy to have something slightly resembling a baptism. ;) So we planned this totally personalized, non-traditional gig with secular readings, a Beatles song, a pagan ritual, Christian oil to rub on your body, and invited lots of people who love you.

It was great. It was a beautiful, cool and sunny fall day out. I filled your tummy ahead of time so you'd be content and quiet throughout. You wore this ADORABLE hand-woven jumper and booties we bought in Guatemala in 2009 (we figured we'd have a baby someday). Your grandma and great-grandma Magnuson made some little hors d'oevres and I bought cupcakes and pumpkin whoopie pies from my friend Joni. Your Mimms (Grandma Lawson, just in case that nickname doesn't stick) listened to the ceremony via Skype; unfortunately, the video feature wasn't working. What can you expect from a free service, right? Several of our closest friends came, some with their own babies. Everyone spoke some words of blessing or wishes for you, and wove a ribbon onto a wreath for you to represent their sentiments. And we, your mom and dad, were humbled and pleased to find ourselves surrounded by people gathered there for a common purpose-- to show love and honor to our greatest joy, our first child, our unbelievably perfect boy. You.

Welcome to this life, Ethan. You're going to love it.

Generally unrelated

I read this today and really liked it. I don't want to forget the lesson so here it is.


Ancient Native American story:

An old Cherokee told his grandson about the battle that goes on within us. "My boy," he told him, "Inside every one of us dwells two wolves-- one evil, one good. The evil one is angry and jealous, full of regret and arrogance, greed and sorrow, guilt and self-pity. The other is good. He is kind and loving, full of hope and peace, joy and compassion."

The young boy thought about it for a moment. "Which wolf wins?" he asked his grandfather.

The old Cherokee smiled and simply replied, "...the one you feed."

New Year, New You?

So it appears I never blog unless it's a new year. That sucks! I'll try harder this year. Maybe. :) Well, probably, since I created this blog for the express purpose of detailing Eric's and my lives and this year will bring a rather dramatic change: we're expecting a baby! Rejoice, all two of you who read this blog! We weren't even trying-- we just sort of gave up and made a bunch of plans to go to Peru in June and move to Seattle in the fall. Um, derailed. I'm three months along! Or in preg lady speak, 13 weeks.

So here were 2011's resolutions. Let's see how I did.

1) Blog more often (forcing me to be more aware), either here or potentially the preserving blog.
FAIL. The last time I blogged here was 12/28/10 and the same for the canning blog.

2) Spend more time outdoors. 
I accomplished this.

3) Let myself be less busy.
I also accomplished this, to the tune of fewer self-imposed projects and obligations. I did go back to school though, and that's as busy as I'm letting myself be.
 
4) Relinquish expectations.

I'm not sure. I think so? Maybe that's why I got knocked up, I stopped expecting it to happen and busied myself elsewhere. 

Let's see what we can do with 2012!

1) Eric would like to fill our larder with home-preserved foods so we don't have to buy non-perishables in winter 2012/2013. We got a dehydrator for Christmas and he's all about it with his jerky and dried fruit aspirations. I like to can and I'll have three months of maternity leave smack dab in the middle of the best canning season-- summer. So I think this is doable. We're gonna try it.

2) On that note, I will try to chronicle our preserving adventures here: http://putupyerdukes.blogspot.com/

And I'll chronicle baby adventures on this blog, hopefully with at least monthly pictures. Sheesh. 

Welcome, 2012! I love you already. :D

Oh dear!

Well, I suck at blogging regularly! I logged into to look at last year's resolutions and saw I haven't posted a dang thing since April. Perhaps this New Year I'll resolve to blog more often? It's a thought.

So here is last year's list:

1) Become pregnant.
2) Tone up!
3) Knit and crochet passably by year-end.
4) Can more often, one project per month.

And here is my report:

1) HA.
2) I didn't do too badly here! I've gained some muscle and I can also run farther and faster than before, so score.
3) I can knit okay but had a lot of trouble learning to crochet. I have box of cute crocheted animal projects gathering dust. :(
4) I rocked at this and actually got 13 projects done instead of only 12. I've been so pleased that I started a different blog specifically for preserving and have a long-term project in mind to feature local agricultural talent (I am in the bountiful Midwest after all), but I'm currently on the fence about whether to launch it. I'm not sure if I'll have time and even if I do, I should have some semblance of personal time with Eric. I don't know if I should be putting any more irons in the fire, so I'll have to think on it.

With all that said, here is 2011's resolutions list (For now-- it's not the end of the year quite yet).

1) Blog more often (forcing me to be more aware), either here or potentially the preserving blog.
2) Spend more time outdoors.
3) Let myself be less busy.
4) Relinquish expectations.

So this is probably my last post for 2010! What will your resolutions be?

One missed call

This post is about a story submission I sent to the Anything Ghost podcast. I listen to my friend Wayne's podcast, Worlds of Wayne, and Wayne and I have similar tastes that run toward the supernatural so when he interviewed Lex Wahl of Anything Ghost, I was all over that like zombies on brains. You can hear that episode here if you care to take a gander.

So I went and had a listen at Anything Ghost. On Lex's podcast, he reads stories of supernatural and weird experiences that people have every day. He also composes the creepy music. Awesome. Anyone who is a listener can email him their own story, or better yet, record it and send it to him. He likes when people can tell the story in their own voice. I do not have that option, so I just emailed him. You can hear my weird experience here on episode #112. I recommend listening to the whole episode because it's cuh-reepy, but if you really want, you can skip to my story beginning at minute 23:15. He mistakenly calls me Gina but I guess that's better than Jenny. :)

I have a whole list of stories, so I'm sure I'll be posting about this again!

March Project: Charoses-inspired jam

I was all set to make Meyer lemon marmalade when this post over at Food in Jars piqued my interest. What's charoses? It's Passover right now? Why haven't I heard this word before? It sounded tasty, the pretty "cha" pronounced like "challah."

My co-worker and friend Beth confirmed that charoses is a staple of the traditional Seder meal, a savory sweet dish composed of walnuts, chopped apples, cinnamon, wine and honey. It's meant to remind the faithful of the mortar between the bricks that the Jews had to lay while they were enslaved in Egypt.

I followed the recipe at Food in Jars pretty much exactly, and was quite pleased with the outcome: a chunky mix of fruits and nuts, not very sweet but not un-sweet either. Good if you're not much for really sweet stuff in the mornings, si? It was a little hard to spread on a piece of toast, but I think it's a pretty decent morning mouthful. I gave a jar to Beth and await her verdict with matzo crackers next week. As for me, I think it's a success!

I'm going to be an auntie!

So this has been on the super downlow for awhile, but now Melissa's showing so it's pretty much pointless to try to deny it. Can you imagine how that conversation would go?


"Hey! I didn't know you were pregnant, congrats! When are you due?"
"I'm not pregnant. You dillhole."
"...but you have a baby bump. Like right there."
"THAT is my STOMACH, you JERK. What, are you calling me chubby? You think it's cool to assume? OW!"
*bump moves*
"What was that?"
"The ba....my lunch kic....I have gas."

Awwkwaarrd. So now that that's settled, Meliseester had an ultrasound this morning where the sex of the baby was revealed!

TA DA!

If you'll look carefully at the picture, you'll see IT'S A BOT! Just what I've always wanted!! I have lots of knitting to do...gotta keep those steely joints warm. :D