Update on the to-do list

So a couple of blogs ago I listed many things that I was hoping to accomplish. Here’s an update.

1. I got another cloth diaper made for Trinity. I now have the prototype and one that actually fits her. Wayne and I have both noticed that these diapers are rather bulky. Too late to switch materials, I already have several old T-shirts destroyed to make the diapers and I WILL make more of them. The one I did finish worked just fine yesterday. Apparently Trinity likes to save all her poop for one diaper, and it held it all nicely.

2. I did get finished with the massive amount of reading I had to do for the meeting in which I was supposed to present two papers. On the day of the meeting, as I was walking into my office, my advisor called me to tell me that the meeting was postponed. This was about 10 minutes before the meeting. We have yet to reschedule…Fred (my advisor) is in Denmark this week, and the other person we are meeting with is doing something that takes up so much of his time that he can’t even send me a quick email.

3. The blanket I am making for Trinity is a rather simple one: four colors, 9 squares of each color sewn together. I have completed 6 of the 36 squares, and I am almost done with number 7 of the purple.

4. Yesterday after I did a pitching lesson I went to the store for a few things and bought some sweet potatoes for Trinity. I got 2 pounds at 65 cents a pound. I used ice cube trays to divide them up once they were all pureed and froze them. They work quite nicely and I think two cubes are probably close to one jar of baby food. So this is definitely WAY more cost effective than buying it in jars.

Trinity is so funny when she eats solid food, especially sweet potatoes. It’s like a dog getting a treat. She sees the spoon, and gets all wiggly and giggly with excitement, and her eyes and mouth get all big, and she grabs my hand to get the spoon to her mouth. It makes me laugh every time.

5. I am currently in a frustrated mode regarding making butter. I did try it the same weekend I made the yogurt, but I bought ultra-pasteurized half and half, failing to notice that the instructions said not to use ultra-pasteurized cream to make homemade butter. I realized this after half an hour of the cream being in the mixer doing nothing but swirling around being cream. Today at the store I noticed ALL the heavy whipping cream there was ultra-pasteurized, as was most of the half and half, causing me to curse under my breath. It’s a damn conspiracy!

6. I got a little more done toward the project I am working on at school. It seems like I should already have all the data collected, but then I remember that I am only in the lab part time and I have only been working at it for a few months. It just seems like it is taking forever.

7. I have made no progress on the container garden or the hats I am supposed to be knitting for my brother and sister. I do not feel upset by this in any way.

8. I have started a rag rug with the scraps from making cloth diapers. Because everyone knows I need another project.

Other news: Riddick is almost fully potty trained. It is truly a miracle. I never thought the day would come. He still wears a pull up at night because he isn’t night trained yet, but he has had only a few accidents since the last blog, none of which involve poop. He has been to the ball field during one of my games with underwear and did not have an accident, but this was because my husband taught him how to pee outside at the playground at the ball field.

And Riddick is talking. A LOT. I even get the play-by-play from the bathroom (Mama, pee! Mama, I done! Mama, I flush! Mama, pants!). Most of it is comprehensible, but he still has those words that he says that make Wayne and I look at each other with that question in our eyes, “Did you understand a word he just said?” And then we just smile and say ‘ok’ or ‘yeah’. He loves to watch Diego and Dora, the Backyardigans and Wonderpets, and any cartoons involving superheroes. He seems to pick up new words every day when he watches morning cartoons.

Trinity is rolling from her back to front and back again in both directions now. She is getting closer to sitting up on her own, and is also getting closer to pushing herself up on all fours. At her 6 month checkup on the 12th she was 20 lbs, 6 oz., which puts her in the 97th percentile for weight. Still. She was 26 ¼ in long, putting her in the 58th percentile for height. Her first “word” is ‘dada’ which she says NONSTOP. She has started getting upset when she can’t have/reach an object she wants, and gets even madder when you take something away from her. She is sleeping “through the night”, which basically means she sleeps for a 5 hour stretch (like 11p-4a), which also means I am still tired.

So that’s the update on my to-do list. Although it is slow, progress is being made.

Making yogurt

So I decided to try and make my own dairy products because they typically come packaged in plastic and I am trying to reduce my/our plastic consumption. I searched the internet for recipes for homemade yogurt, butter, sour cream, and cream cheese. A few weekends ago I attempted to make yogurt. This is that story.

Friday: started at 3:30 pm
I found a really neat recipe for making your own yogurt in a crock pot here. The instructions seemed really easy, and there was a lot of down time, which is perfect for my life because I have two children who demand a lot of attention.

Ingredients: 2% milk, one container of plain live active culture yogurt

Details to be aware of:
1. Don’t use ultrapasteurized milk.
2. Use 1 oz of store bought yogurt for every cup of milk you use.
3. Once you make your own, you can use it for starter culture to make more yogurt instead of buying a container from the store. I have no idea how long you can do this, because at some point the bacteria die off and you will have to buy another container from the store.
4. The site I found directions on says the yogurt is good for 7-10 days.

Procedure:
1. Add milk to crock pot and heat on low for 2.5 hours.

2. Turn off crock pot and let sit 3 hours.
3. Remove two cups of the milk to mix with the yogurt.
4. Put the milk mixed with yogurt back in the crock pot and stir it up.
5. Wrap a heavy bath towel around the crock pot and let it sit overnight.

6. Open the crock pot and view the magic that has occurred while you were sleeping.
7. Eat with fruit, unless you like the flavor of plain yogurt.

Saturday: 8 am
SUCCESS!!! This recipe is sooooo easy!!


The yogurt had a layer of liquid on top, and I tried my best to spoon it off, but most of it got mixed in with the yogurt. I also attempted to drain it with a coffee filter in a colander, but a lot of it got stuck to the filter, so I just quit trying that. It really isn't that big a deal. The crock pot yogurt is pretty much the consistency of low fat yogurt. I mixed some yogurt with some peaches I had and it was DELICIOUS. Most of it I froze, and I kept out a little bit for me, since I am the only one who will eat it. I might get Riddick to try some if I mix in some blended berries.

I will definitely do this again. I totally can’t wait for there to be all sorts of wonderful fruits at the farmers market to try with my yogurt!

Too much stuff

So yeah, I am not so great about keeping up with this blog. My life is literally a whirlwind of activities, only a few of which get accomplished, and blogging is a pretty low priority. Here is a list of things I am trying to get done:

1. reading a massive amount of material before I have to present a couple of papers tomorrow to my advisor and a collaborator so we can talk about a thesis project. I was the last to find out about this meeting, but I guess that is what happens when you are low on the totem pole.

2. making cloth diapers for Trinity. I have a prototype completed, but cannot get the others made because I cannot get any sewing done without my husband taking care of the kids.

3. blanket for Trinity that I started knitting 9 months ago.

4. knitted hat for my brother that was supposed to be a Christmas present, and now is looking like it will be a Christmas present this year.

5. knitted hat for my sister that matches the scarf I made for her, also was supposed to be for Christmas.

6. making baby food for Trinity. She REALLY likes sweet potatoes.

7. starting a container garden. I think I’ll start with tomatoes and green beans this year to keep it simple.

8. making butter.

9. data collection for the current research project I am doing.

10. blogging about all these things, complete with photos.

11. keeping up with household stuff.

I have mentioned in a previous blog that mornings are pretty much only good for a couple things—keeping kids entertained and maybe doing a load of laundry…blogging if I get lucky. Afternoons are spent in the lab or reading stuff pertaining to research. So that leaves evenings, which involve very little of the things listed above. Maybe I will try to incorporate a day into my week where I try to do something that gets me closer to completing the projects listed above. That means sacrificing a research day, though, and I don’t know if I can afford to do that at this point.

Not being able to get these things done sometimes stresses me out. It stresses me out because some of the items will save us some money if I can only get them done.

In other news, Riddick is no longer fighting with me to wear underwear and is going pee in the potty by himself regularly. And he has to inform me every time that he has to go pee. And he also has to inform me that he needs to turn on the light, when he has finished going pee, that he needs to flush, and needs to wash his hands. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes exasperating. However, he still refuses to poop in the potty. Completely exasperating. Trinity no longer hates being on the floor on her belly and is trying to get up on all fours. She still only rolls from her back to front in one direction, but she is almost sitting up by herself. She is also easily distracted, and we have lots of distracting things to look at and examine, especially when she is nursing. I love the feeling of warm breastmilk dripping down my side while she squirms around to look at her brother. And when I say love, I really mean hate. But like anything else, this too shall pass.

So as soon as humanly possible, I will post about my recent experience with making homemade yogurt (hint: it went great!), which will be in a few days, at best. We have the baby dedication and a wedding this weekend, so maybe early next week.

***Update 9:45AM***

Riddick did it! He went poop in the potty by himself while I was laying down in bed with Trinity trying to get her to sleep. He didn't say anything, he just went in the bathroom, sat down, pooped, and then yelled to me that he pooped.

I wonder what else will suddenly happen if I blog about it...

Spring and softball

I love spring. I love the warmer but not too hot weather and all the flowers and trees blooming. Mostly I love spring because it means the beginning of baseball and softball season.

Wayne and I love Cardinals baseball and catch the games when we can. I just had my first softball game Thursday night. Wayne plays on Friday nights and started pitching this season, and pitched a great game this past Friday. I am playing on two teams this season (Mondays and Thursdays...Monday was rained out), despite Wayne’s wish for me to only play one night because he has such a hard time with Trinity. I wasn’t able to play much past the first half of last season due to the pregnancy, and I haven’t been to any practices yet this season, so I was a little nervous about how rusty my skills were. Fortunately, I have been giving fastpitch pitching lessons for the past two months, so my arm has been worked out several times. However, I was right to be nervous about rusty skills, at least offensively. I fouled out three times. Not good. Defensively I was solid, though, which I am pretty happy about.

Speaking of pitching lessons, I love giving them, especially when I see results. The girl I am teaching is mostly a beginner, but she knew the basic mechanics when we started. After 8 lessons, she has significantly improved her mechanics, which has led to a faster fastball.

We had another lesson today after a rough session last week. I gave her some things to work on through the week to help her help herself improve. Apparently this is paying off in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. For example, today I noticed that she can throw her fastball as a drop pitch. This is FREAKING AWESOME! The first time she threw it today both her parents and I had to pick our jaws up off the floor because the ball literally looked like it dropped off the edge of a table, and it was over the plate. I think this pitch is similar to what is called a peel drop pitch, but I haven’t taught her that (yet). I showed her how to throw a turnover change-up (although, admittedly, way earlier than I should have) which drops quite nicely when thrown correctly, so I thought maybe she was turning her wrist over when she snapped the ball, but that wasn’t the case. Whatever it is, I am all for it. Every good pitcher needs a good drop pitch. So I was very excited to see this naturally from a pitcher I am coaching.

I love softball.

Other peoples' lab skills, or lack thereof

Sometimes I hate the fact that some of the experiments I do require other peoples’ help. Not because I don’t like working with other people, but because I don’t like relying on other peoples’ lab skills, or lack thereof. I am not saying that mine are perfect, but I do have some good lab skills thanks to extensive experience working in a few different labs before becoming a graduate student. If my advisor were to pick one student out of the lab to try a new protocol, it would be me. I know how to do a lot of stuff, and I know how to do it well.

Recently I pulled out some frozen homogenized tissue samples to thaw, or what I thought were homogenized samples. It turns out they weren’t as homogenized as they should be, as in there are LARGE, clearly visible chunks of tissue that I wouldn’t have missed had I been the one doing the homogenizing. The strange thing is that all the samples that have this problem were processed on the same day, but I can’t figure out who has crappy homogenizing skills. Even if I did know who the culprit was, it wouldn’t make any difference…pointing out the fact that they have potentially screwed up several samples isn’t going to make the samples any better, nor is it going to make the person feel good. The only potential good I can see from pointing this out is that, in the future, the person might pay closer attention to make sure the whole tissue is homogenized, and that may not even matter because I have no way of knowing if the person is ever going to homogenize tissue ever again.

I do realize that at some point in one’s career, you have to take some necessary risks to get some things done. I consider one of these risks to be allowing others to help you do lab work. In order for this to happen without bad things occurring (i.e. ending up with crappy samples), these people need to be properly trained. Sometimes the training takes a long time. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes. Homogenizing tissue with a tissue tearor (basically a dremel tool with a fancy attachment) is one of the 5 minute lessons. It isn’t hard. Really, a five year old could do it. All it takes is some manual dexterity and good eyesight. And your eyesight doesn’t have to be THAT good to do it. Hence, my frustration at having unhomogenized tissue samples.

One also realizes at some point in their science career that the more samples you have, the better, and in my case (and especially lucky for the non-homogenizer), I have samples that can replace these that have been properly homogenized. Murphy’s Law strikes again.

Organic shampoo Review

So I have recently switched to using baking soda instead of using shampoo, but I thought I would review two organic shampoos that I tried before making the switch.

I have a horribly dry, flaky scalp. As in if I let it go without some kind of dry scalp shampoo, it looks like a blizzard hit my head when I brush my hair. So in the past I used Head and Shoulders Dry Scalp Shampoo Plus Conditioner. It worked ok, but I always had a low level of flakiness, probably due to the hard water we have. But then I started being more conscious of the chemicals I put on my body and decided to switch to an organic shampoo.

I went to Walgreens to find a replacement shampoo and conditioner. They have a good selection of products that are more natural than regular shampoos. After looking for awhile, I decided to try the Jason Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing shampoo and Yes To Tomatoes conditioner. I chose these products because it says on the shampoo bottle, “Say goodbye to dry, flaky, itchy scalp”, they have less nasty chemicals in them, and they were on sale. Plus the shampoo has a cute koala on the bottle. The first couple times I used the shampoo, it worked fine, but after a week I noticed it made my scalp more flaky and itchy than when I used the Head and Shoulders, even with the conditioner. Next.

I decided I would try to find something at Clover’s Natural Market instead. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Clover’s has a huge selection of products. Which means a lot of ingredient reading. Remember, just because something has “organic” or “natural” on the label, that doesn’t mean it is free of harmful chemicals, and Clover’s has plenty of examples.

I looked at probably 15 different shampoos. For me, it isn’t just a matter of being chemical-free, but it also has to be a price I am willing to pay. I found the perfect combination: Organix South Thera Neem Shampoo. It claims to be “perfect for those with sensitive scalps…” I decided to try it out.

This shampoo is thinner than most, and you are supposed to massage it into the scalp, then leave it for 3-5 minutes. It smells ok, and it does keep the flakiness of my scalp to a minimum, but there is still flakiness when I use this shampoo.

Most recently I have been using baking soda to clean my hair. I just make up a paste with water, massage some into my scalp, and rinse. Right now I am following with Yes To Tomatoes conditioner, and the plan is to switch to apple cider vinegar when the conditioner runs out. This works just fine for cleaning my hair, but the flakiness persists. It is less flaky than ever before, but I think I am just destined to have a dry scalp forever. But I tried, and now people who read this blog have a handy review of a couple “organic” shampoos.

Treehugger

I have been called a treehugger twice in the last week. By my husband. I told him I wanted to make my own butter so we wouldn’t have to buy margarine in plastic tubs (reducing plastic use) or butter (with PFOA lining the paper—read about PFOA here), and he called me a treehugger. And not in a good way, in the usual derogatory tone that accompanies the word. This really hurt my feelings, and he later apologized, saying that he is just overwhelmed with the amount of information I have about chemicals.

In addition to trying to use products without harmful chemicals, I have been inspired to reduce our plastic use recently, so I have been trying to find ways to eliminate using things with plastic packaging, make my own stuff that normally comes in plastic, or try to find items packaged in glass. The reason I don’t want to use plastic is because it doesn’t biodegrade. Ever. And I think about the amount of plastic used in this country (it’s everywhere) and how much we consume and throw things away, and it makes me sad. Hundreds of millions of tons of plastic are in the landfills and ocean (see here). And it doesn’t biodegrade. It will break into smaller and smaller pieces over a long, LONG period of time, and did I mention it doesn’t biodegrade?

I never really thought that trying to reduce consumption, protect my and my family’s health, and protecting wildlife were bad things. Apparently, though, this makes me a treehugger. If this is the case, then so be it. I would rather be a treehugger than be an ignorant, narrow-minded, not-interested-in-protecting-the planet-that-supports-our-life {insert catchy term for anti-treehugger}. Not saying that my husband is one, because he is trying to be more conscious, but he doesn’t need to insult me about it.

Incidentally, the second time he called me a treehugger, he was being more sarcastic and joking, and it didn’t hurt my feelings.