cashmere goat farm

while in virginia we visited a nearby cashmere goat farm: Spring Gate Farm, in Barboursville, VA. it was awesome! jane, the owner, took 2 hours out of her day to show us around the farm.

the first resident we met was jonesie, the jack russell terrier mix that wiggled his way into our minivan as soon as a door opened. he jogged alongside the truck as jane took us around, the very picture of canine energy and happiness.

then we met the goats. one of them had triplets, and has been unable to make enough milk to support them all; so jane has been bottle feeding one of them (with a dr. brown bottle from babies r us!). she let evan feed him, which was incredibly cute. it was hard to tell whether evan or the baby goat was happier. (sorry, i haven't figured out how to rotate the video)

jane sends the fleeces out to be spun into yarn, and we got to feel (and buy) the softest yarn ever. as a way of quantifying the softness of fiber, you can figure out the diameter of the fibers in the yarn. the smaller the diameter, the softer the yarn. alpaca is usually around 22 microns, and wools can go up to 70 microns. at around 30 the yarn starts feeling itchy. this yarn is about 13 microns - buttery soft, and super warm yet light!

it's also a big plus that the goats are being fed on the lush pastures of virginia. a lot of cashmere these days comes from mongolia, where farmers are totally overgrazing and destroying the land in the effort to provide the world with cheap cashmere. as a result, the lands now look like a moonscape and are unleashing dust storms creating pollution that can be felt as far away as washington. for more information, read this expose from the chicago tribune. this is why you can get cashmere sweaters at macy's for $50; and this is why they don't feel as soft as you would expect cashmere to feel. you're getting cheap stuff from starving goats. yet another reason to boycott chinese goods.

national zoo pics

our hotel was right next to the zoo, so we were able to go a couple of times during our week in d.c. had great luck with animals in motion - the pandas were roaming around looking for their frozen treats, elephants were doing tricks, the tiger and lion were released to pounce on their steaks, orangatuans were climbing on wires overhead ... despite all this, his favorite part of the zoo was the giant excavator that was working on a new elephant habitat. he was riveted for half an hour.

toddler marriage

today we went to a 3 year birthday party for one of boo's good friends, our neighbor noah. it is really cute to see them play together. for the most part they do the parallel play thing, but noah is one of the first kids that boo started more interactive play with. sometimes they seem to have their own language and conversations, it's really cute. mia is the one of the other neighbor girls who was there, she's the girl in this picture. her house shares a backyard fence with ours, and last summer they would look shyly at each other over the fence and boo was always eager to play at mia's (the 2 year old version of a crush, i suppose). however, mia is a bit older than boo - she's right about noah's age, which is about 6 months older than boo. apparently mia tells her mom about once a month that she's going to marry noah. when her mom asks what about evan, mia says, "evan is too little to marry me." indeed. :)

this morning i went to a rummage sale. there was a huge one benefiting a local montessori school, and a neighborhood one in the area. boo thought we were going to go see a sailboat, because i told him we were going to a sale [sail]. he was delighted to play with the toys and i told him before we went in that he had to stay very close to me otherwise we would leave and stop playing with toys. that actually seemed to work somewhat well. i would steer him by saying "let's go see if they have more toys over here" even if i was clearly heading for an area without toys. got some great finds! among other things: a brand new looking train table for our basement, a thomas portable playset and a non-portable track set, 2 sets of bob the builder legos, a bob the builder puzzle and game, the entire clifford book series, a dozen "little golden book" slim books (including "the little red caboose," the current favorite), a play microwave, a wooden racecar, a wooden puzzle police car from melissa and doug, a lego-like "clicit" set from belgium that makes a car among other things, and some megablock cars. what finds! most of the toys have been hidden away, to be brought out for a rainy day or for potty presents.

this may be a good thing, too, as the weather forecast predicts snow in the next couple of days!

much as i love rummage sales, i worry about buying boo too many toys. i feel like this boy already has more toys than me, my husband, and all our siblings had combined. how am i going to teach him to appreciate what he has and to not expect to possess everything on earth? i already asked for no presents at his last birthday party. i'm not sure how long i'll be able to keep that up, when he sees all these other kids opening presents at their birthday parties.

i just can't resist a good sale, though. part of it is my thrift instinct - who doesn't love getting a $10 melissa and doug wooden toy for 75cents? my brother went to a different sale today and got a toy for nico that the owner said, "i spent $300 on this and my kid played with it once!" - and paid only $10. rummage sales also appeal to my environmental instinct, sort of - i'm giving these basically brand new toys a new life, rather than having them end up in a landfill somewhere, or instead of buying a new product with all its packaging. occasionally i do find something that i have been looking for - this time, i was looking for a purely analog phone to be part of my "emergency kit" to have in the house in case of disaster, and i found one for a buck.

stencils and blankets

the other day i was helping a friend paint some t-shirts, and while the paints were out i stenciled this one for boo. i have a bunch of tshirts i have been meaning to stencil / tiedye but just haven't gotten around to it ... in fact, i think he has probably outgrown all the shirts by now. oops.

while we're on the subject of crafty endeavors, here is a blanket that i made for boo's friend noah (going to his 3 year birthday party tomorrow). i used a "skip stitch" blade around the edges, and then crocheted a border around the fleece fabric with homespun yarn. this is based on a pattern that i used when making some blankets for project linus (a charity that gives homemade blankets to sick kids). i then made my own label with a ribbon and some iron-on transfer paper.

boo and noah both love the disney cars movie, and so on the card i wrote: "i'm happier than a tornado in a trailer park to be your pal. happy birthday!" (inspired by tow mater's gleeful exclamation as he's getting lifted by the helicopter near the end of the movie)

tulips and a toddler

a few pictures from outside our hotel, which had the loveliest tulips in bloom ...

homeopathic remedies

this cough is driving me crazy.
i've consumed about 3 bags of cough drops in the last week.
so i go into clinic today and one of the other docs recommends a homeopathic remedy! maybe that's just the thing for this lingering cough. i figure, she used to have her own practice, she's the medical director of our clinic, it must be worth trying.
first i go to GNC and discover that it's even more homeopathic than what they sell.
i find what i want at the "earthly goods" store down the road. it's sold in a chapstick-size tube that dispenses the tiny little sugar balls, and they have a big rack that sells about 50 different kinds of "medicine" in 3-4 different strengths. it almost looks legitimate.
so i am taking: kali muriaticum, hepar sulphuris calcareum, and drosera rotundifolia.
i find it interesting that the package label refers you to a physician no less than 3 times. clearly not a physician with conventional training, as i have never heard of this stuff :)
placebo? they even taste like sugar pills. hey, it can't hurt, and nothing else is helping. so today i'm trying that ... and DH's advair.

monuments

we're back! i've overdone it again with pictures - over 400 from the last 2 weeks! i really do take too many pictures of boo. anyways, here are a few pictures from our last day visiting the monuments.

















































i'm keeping the text brief. still sick with this silly cold. i find myself over-thinking my symptoms. for example, i find myself actually experiencing shortness of breath for the first time and using my husband's albuterol. for the last couple of days i've even been tachypneic. today i timed myself - i'm breathing 28-30 times a minute. oh no, i think, do i have a blood clot in my lung? but i'm not tachycardic and DH had exactly the same symptoms before he gave it to me, so i think it's just some virus that's sitting in my bronchioles in some funky inflammatory way.

family portraits

back in october we bid on and won a portrait session at a charity auction ... we were going to do christmas card photos, but she was already booked up.  so, we had a free day a few weeks ago and we decided to get family pics done.  check 'em out!  they'll only be up for a few weeks.

www.sarahbaldwinphotography.com

click on "PROOFING"

enter "chenm"

haven't blogged much because i have come down hard with a flu-like virus that adam had.  i gave him something, he mutated it and gave it right back.  i'm just glad we're around family - evan is having a grand time here in virginia!

virginia spring

we made it to virginia!  left at 8:30am (had to wait for the kennel to open) monday and arrived at 12:30am.  boo did Great except for the last two hours.  at least we didn't have to break out the dvd until 10:30pm!  i printed out a list of all the mcdonalds playplaces along the way so that he could run/climb off some steam during our breaks.  the climbing part worked well (except when i had to climb after him, to the very top of the structure), but the kid still won't eat a non dinosaur shaped nugget or even a french fry.  he just licks the ketchup off the fry.  

grandma and grandpa have a wonderful house in an absolutely beautiful setting - rolling green hills bursting out in spring colors.  2 cherry blossom trees in front of their house are absolutely vibrant.  big contrast to chicago, where there are still some piles of snow in the shade!  though there were some crocuses blooming and other bulbs just starting to poke out of our yard when we left.  i hope i don't miss them while we're gone (i planted over a 100 bulbs last year).

evan is loving this house.  grandma has a big train set laid out in the entry, and various toys scattered throughout the house - legos, puzzles, a parking garage.  when he came into the house at midnight, he said "look at all those toys!" and didn't want to go to sleep.  he has also traversed every square foot of the property, going through woods and delightedly running up and down the hills.

went for a run yesterday.  half an hour, all uphill.  painful.  and i still didn't get to the top of the hill behind their house.  i'll have to take a picture next time of the views.  they tell me if i get to the top of the hills, there is a rock where edgar allan poe used to sit and compose his poetry.

i'm a little confused by how this post is appearing.  i can't seem to get the font or the spacing to match up with my previous posts.  when i go in to edit it, the font size is Always different from what i set it to - i've been shooting for the "small" font, yet when i go back to edit it shows up as large or largest!  hope it looks normal. 

crazy staircase

yesterday we had a little "date night" - went to the city and visited the Homer / Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute. unfortunately we got delayed by traffic so we had to speed through it before closing time. but we could take our time in the gift shop. found some hardbook books at a great price, thanks to a publisher sale. got an escher book for less than $15. boo seems to like looking at the pictures. he has an escher gecko/lizard foam puzzle that he puts together better than i do. he likes following the path of the infinite waterfalls, and calls this the "crazy staircase":


then we had some great steak at gene and georgetti's with an old friend who was in town for a conference. kunal and i went to RSI, college, and med school together! he and adam used to play golf together in med school. it was very nice to catch up.

tryin' to be green

oops. so i missed/forgot about "earth hour," an hour that all of chicago was supposed to turn off the electricity. when my mommy brain is not working against me, the environment has actually become a bit of a mini-crusade for me. here are some ways we've been trying to be green ...

- cloth diapers
- cloth napkins
- cloth kleenex (just for me and boo)
- cloth rags instead of paper towels
- reusable shopping bags (we use my parents' paper grocery bags to contain our recyclables, so i figure i'm offsetting some of their environmental karma too)
- compostable trash bags
- recycle glass, aluminum, paper, plastic, plastic bags
- turn off lights when not in use (boo is starting to get into this too ... except he also likes to turn on lights willy nilly, so i don't think the concept has sunken in)
- non-phosphate dishwashing/dishwasher/laundry detergents
- green versions of windex and 409
- stopped all unwanted catalogs on catalogchoice.org (have stopped over 50 catalogs that i never solicited!)
- donate still-usable items
- buy used clothing sometimes
- beef - only organic or very local (there's a farm around the corner!)
- organic food when possible (we're probably 80% organic for boo foods) (though those dinosaur chicken nuggets from walmart probably negate a lot of this)
- avoid things made in china when possible
- shop the farmer's market in the summers
- reuse the sturdier ziplocs (have a dishwasher attachment that helps get them really clean)
- silpat reusable baking liner instead of parchment paper
- unbleached items where possible
- replacing burnt out incandescents with fluorescent bulbs


last frontiers i've yet to muster up the wherewithal to do ...
unplugging appliances/electrical items when not in use
composting
knitted reusable dishcloths?

environmental vices i won't be able to give up ...
minivan (i hear it's going to be a while before a hybrid minivan comes out)
plane trips
non local fruit, especially citrus, apples, berries and bananas
bleach, albeit chlorine free (how else am i supposed to really clean the rags and the diapers?)

dinosaur muffins: now you see them, now you don't

boo's picture was in the local paper! we had gone to a "toddler open gym," a playhour in which the gym puts out a ton of balls and some toddler friendly things and the kids basically run around like crazy for a while. there was a photographer there (guess news was slow that day) and took a picture of boo climbing through a tunnel, with his friend (same friend pictured below) standing on the outside of the tunnel.

i made these great muffins this morning, added grated carrots to an apple cinnamon mix, and poured them into my dinosaur molds. kind of a pain because the molds only make 6 at a time, so after i empty them i have to clean them out before putting more batter into them. boo liked them! a little vitamin A, finally.

while we were at playgroup this afternoon, our 70 pound dog stole the tupperware off the counter and ate a dozen dinosaur muffins. :( so much for her diet.

what an angel

today i practiced my photo shoot skills, which are really rusty ... still haven't gotten the full hang of this digital SLR thing. for some reason every shot i take is really underexposed, and i end up adjusting the exposure of almost every picture in the computer. i even have exposure compensation on the camera set to 2 stops higher, yet it still doesn't seem like enough.

(not to mention the challenge of getting a 2 year old, a 6 month old, and an 8 month old to all smile and stay still at the sasme time. not happening!)

but sometimes your models are just so cute you can't help but take a decent picture. here is boo's best friend: i had just laid down on my side to try and get a better angle on her, as she was sitting on the ground, and she laid down too and thought it was great!

portly one

here's our dog, dixie, with her grizzle making her look older than her 4ish years. (i think boo is the cause of her whitening.) i took her to the vet today for her kennel cough vaccine and weighed her just for fun.

69.2 pounds!!
when we adopted her as a 1ish year old stray, she was 45 pounds!
she's been pretty stable at 55-60 pounds till this winter. not only has she not had the exercise (walks, runs) that she's used to, but boo has also figured out how to open her biscuit jar. i caught him feeding her copious numbers of biscuits once.

circles around the house

trying to catch up a bit on photos and movies before we leave for d.c.... here's a video of boo and his cousin n. when n. was staying over. this represents a daily activity for evan in our house.

nemo presents

we went to a friend's 2 year old birthday party this weekend (guess what theme), and here are the presents i made - exercising my new sewing machine :). a fleece blanket with a fabric applique (the first time i ever tried to applique something!); a fleece pillowcase for a "travel"-size pillow; a pillowcase to "wrap" it all in (i've decided this is the year to make truly reusable gift bags for everything i give), and a birthday card wishing "best fishes!"

easter snowbunny

between playdates and feeling a bit under the weather, haven't posted in a little while. a foot of snow fell just before easter, so we made a little snowbunny in the front yard. the carrot as a nose seemed a bit cruel to me. it's always right in front of him ...

here's some pictures from another snowfall that i never got around to posting. boo with his best friend:




we just got back from library storytime and a playdate at her house. boo was super excited at all the new toys (new to him, at least). "i found a wallet!" (her cute pearl easter purse). "i'll make this warmer" (putting stuff in the toy microwave). then he saw the thomas set in the box right before we were about to go. he really wanted to open that one, but it was naptime for two kids ... so it was constant time-outs before we got out of the house. actually, he has even started to put himself in timeouts, i think he kind of realizes when he needs a little quiet time. it's a little bewildering. one time he even asked me if he could have a longer timeout.

this morning DH went in to see boo when he woke up, and i was right behind him. he was having a good time reading stories on his daddy's lap, and looked up at me and said very sweetly, "mommy, please go bye bye." they grow up so fast.