Sitting Still

leafy greens are the new Prozac

After some contemplation, Ron and I decided to join a CSA this spring through a local farm. Every Tuesday, we drive to a nearby market, pick up our share of this week's harvest, and fill our refrigerator with healthy, locally-grown produce. It's fresh. It's delicious. It's, frankly, a bit overwhelming.

The crops harvested right now are from those plants that don't mind growing in the cooler weather -- namely, leafy greens of all varieties. This week, we got a box that included kale, green oak leaf lettuce, spinach, tat soi, arugula, mustard greens, and turnips with greens attached. Apparently, somebody thought our house needed some regularity, based on the high fiber content of my refrigerator.

Having all of this healthy food around is definitely good for our diets. We feel guilty letting any of it go to waste, and so I'm searching for ways to get greens into dishes aside from eating them raw. I'm beginning to think that CSA actually stands for "Consume Salads All.the.time." (If you have any favorite salads that take lettuce to a new level, please pass them along. Seriously.)

And while I sometimes wonder whether I can stand another lunch of salad and strawberries (also in season), I'm seeing benefits. Turns out those nutrition experts know what they're talking about when they tell us to eat this stuff. My skin has cleared up, my extra pregnancy insulation is thinning, and my mood has improved. It seems that when I put less crap in my body, I feel less crappy. Genius.

Now if I could just find a way to make those mustard greens tasty without cooking them with bacon, imagine what other improvements I might see. Possibilities are endless: children who never tantrum, a blissful marriage, the perfect work-life balance. All if I could eat my greens without a little salt and fat from the pig.

Yep, pork is all that stands between me and world domination. Delicious, delectable pork.

kitchen nook

kitchen nook
Originally uploaded by Sitting Still.

Way back in November, I bought this material to make window treatments.  In November.  Then I decided to go on a sewing strike for, oh, I dunno, four months and didn't care.  But soon, people are going to be looking at our house, thinking about whether they themselves would like to pay us a large sum of money to live in it.

Gasp!  A house with NAKED windows.  And to read the house-selling advice books, that's akin to porn.

Thanks to my mad sewing skills (all straight lines), they're now decently covered.  But just in case you are wondering, yes: the curtains match the rugs.

Christmas vacation

We leave tomorrow morning for Arizona to spend the holiday with our families.   Translation: lots of crazy fun.  The first four nights we're staying with my in-laws who have ... wait for it... DIAL UP.  It is a blogger's nightmare.  Needless to say, things are going to be quiet around here for a few days while I fight withdrawal symptoms.

I thought I would leave you with a Christmas card and wishes for a very happy holiday season, however you celebrate.  MWAH!

pssst! over there!

Shameless self-promotion: new stuff up at The Soccer Mom Vote.

democracy in action

First and foremost: Today is election day!  Go vote!

Have you returned from the polls?  Did the geriatric election staff explain very slowly how you use a touchscreen computer, or was that just me?  Oh goodie.

Now, grab that mouse and click here. 

It turns out that if you blog long enough, you have to start another blog.  It's, like, required or something.  The Soccer Mom Vote is my new effort to create a space where mama writers can discuss the bigger issues that face our communities, our country, and our world. 

Have you ever wanted to talk about social issues on your blog, but felt that the post would be out of context between pictures of your kid and a discussion of your weekend plans?  Do you feel passionately about some of the issues that affect our families at a policy level -- education, healthcare, the economy, the environment?

If so, I'd like to invite you to join me.  I'm looking for up to 20 women who are willing to post at the site once or twice a month.  You've gotta be able to write thoughtfully about your opinions on these issues, and you've gotta have reasonably thick skin, as these discussions sometimes bring out the worst in people.  I've set-up rules for respectful dialogue and will be enforcing them strictly (see "Rules of the Game" link in the left sidebar).

Interested?  Intrigued?  Vaguely impressed?

If you want to know more, or if you want to join the community, send me an e-mail:
thesoccermomvote (at) gmail (dot) com.

holiday gift guide

The morning of Halloween, I stopped at Target to grab a couple of bags of candy.  They were in the process of moving the plastic pumpkins and leftover costume pieces to the clearance aisle.  The Christmas displays were going up in their place.  Now, we can bitch all we want about how the holiday hype begins earlier every year, but the truth is that when the stores start stocking garland, I start thinking about my Christmas list.

We always buy for the immediate family, but I struggle every year with our friends.  I like the idea of sending something homemade, but I often fail to plan far enough in advance to actually complete all the projects I think up.  I'm never sure with girlfriends whether to send a gift for them, for them and their husbands, or what.   And I'm always restricted, too, by the fact that most of my friends live in foreign countries like Texas.  Anything I buy or make has to be sent, and the cost of postage has to be considered in the overall budget of the gift-giving.

In the last couple of years I've come up with some clever ideas (if I do say so myself).  I'm going to share them here, accompanied by a plea for YOUR clever ideas for me to use this year. 

It's a brilliant idea trade!  Join in!

#1:  Date night in a box.  Each gift included a $10 Blockbuster gift card, two packs of microwave popcorn, and a movie theater size box of candy.  I even managed to find some cute paperboard popcorn containers (like the ones you get at the theater) at Target to lend a most authentic feel to the movie-going experience.   Even with postage, these came in around $15 a piece.  Great for couples or families (though I'd probably up the candy and add some value to the gift card for a whole family gift).

#2: All occasion greeting cards.  I take a lot of photos.  A LOT.  Because of sheer volume, I get lucky enough to get a few good shots.  Last year, I picked my favorite 10 photos that were interesting enough to hold their own on a card, but generic enough to be used for any occasion.  I had enough prints made of each for several sets of 10.  I bought plain white greeting cards at Michael's (either on sale or with their 40% off coupons), and photo corners.  Then I sat on my living room floor several evenings in a row and attached the photos to the cards, cursing the inventer of the photo corner and leaving little white triangles scattered all over the coffee table.  The end result was worth it, though.  I made quite a few sets for girlfriends and kept a couple on hand for the surprise "I got you a gift!" impromptu exchange.  Cost was less than $10 per set.  If you're not attached to the look of photo corners, you could use scrapbooking adhesive and save yourself a lot of trouble. 

#3: Pajamas. I get every single one of our friends' kids a set of pajamas.  Yep, every single one, several years in a row now.  I look for them on sale between now and Christmas.   Because who couldn't use a new set of cute, snuggly PJ's? 

Your turn.  Help a girl out, o' wise bloggy friends.

how hard can a lined bag be?

I thought that by purchasing the pattern from the "Sewing for Dummies" collection, I would be lowering the bar far enough to allow me to actually sew two squares and one rectangle together into a recognizable item.  It might actually even be cute.

I should have looked for the "Morons Can Sew Too!" option instead.

The best piece of advice I got from my ten readings of the instructions: Keep a seam ripper handy.

Son-of-a-beyotch.

site redesign

Since I've been facing a bit of writer's block, I decided to play around with a new blog design.  Every once in the while I get this itch to change things up and feel really cool typing very VERY basic html into Typepad.

Let me know if it looks funny to you, and if so, how many drinks you've had tonight.

sew what's up?

[Warning:  This post includes pictures of a Christmas gift.  If you gave birth to my husband, or in any way suspect that you might be my mother-in-law, you should stop reading right now.]

This is what I did last week:  a reversible Christmas-themed apron for my mother-in-law.  Adapted from a very basic pattern I bought, but embellished with all kinds of goodies for fun.  Upon seeing this product, my neighbor who got me started on sewing declared that my skills have come along nicely.  But don't look too closely.  Just admire the overall effect.

Side A (left), with the hand-beaded tree ornaments:                         
Side B (right), with the custom "A" and snowman iron-on on the pocket:

Jingle bell trim detail:

Lessons learned:
1)  Measure twice, no three times, no again.  Then cut.
2)  It is easier to wait until morning when you are semi-conscious to put in that last seam than to spend precious naptime minutes ripping out the shitty seam you mangled at midnight and doing it over again.
3)  Husbands make funny faces when they ask, "What are you looking for?"  And you say, "My zipper foot!"  And then you get to explain what a zipper foot is.
4)  You cannot decide to keep an item embellished with the wrong initial, no matter how much you like it.
5)  Dude, I can sew.