Log Your Lunch for the win!

Look at all those lunches! Woo! Lunch! And pants.

So today's lunch for me is the same as yesterday's. More quiche and salad-y shit with the addition of radishes. It was good and then I had some grapes and Smartfood for my naptime snack. See, the children nap and I eat as I clean my classroom.

In other news, I am back on The Coffeez. For realz this time. I had some yesterday afternoon - full caff - and had no trouble getting to sleep.

Don't forget to log your lunch!

teh round-up plus bonus new idea (!)

Thanks for the sweet comments after my crap day last week, y'all. You're the best. For real.

Aren't you dying to know what I've been doing? On the edge of your collective seat? I'll give you a list o' the highlights, because who needs narrative form? Not this girl.

Thursday

• pre-ovulation wanding showed good early response to the femara: cushy lining, 3 (!) follicles - 1 on the left (12.5mm), 2 on the right (15.5mm and 13.5mm)
• dinner of potato chips, fancy cheese and bread + lambic beer with LB on the porch
  
• nothing else of note

Friday

• stupid work thing turns out to not be so stupid in the end and anyway it's over
• 2 pitchers of gimlets at IB's house! (Cut me some slack, it was a small pitcher.) Yay IB! Topics of discussion included, but were not limited to: When Bad Things Happen to Good Friends (extended mega-mix edition), Generous Parents (grateful edition), What's Going on With Our Friends (vol. 1,000,354).
  
• what can top that?

Saturday

• the market! Sightings of Elsie, plus various other folks. Lots of fab spring produce (yay real food!) and additional goods, e.g. lesbian bagels! Plus, a kid from my school was there and she had a flower with her that she'd brought, just in case she saw me. And her ever-kind mama told me she had a small box of very nice organic baby clothes that she'd love to give me, if that wouldn't be too hard for me to deal with/seem like bad luck and if it was, she'd hang onto them for a while longer and check in again. Wow - generous and understanding together are an unbeatable team. All good things happen at the market.
  
• laundry! (I heart laundry)
  
• yard work made easier and better by various neighbors (note to self, when getting plants from mom, only take as many as you can remember the names of).
• lounging made easier by finished yardwork
• coffee date that brought up some interesting ideas about doula shit

Sunday

• Teh Coffeez with cho-girl!
  
• Sunday comics!
• stupid cold rain (blah)

Monday

• bonus wanding! With New and Sure To Be Improving Med Student! Honest, I love when there are students, because I can ask even more questions and listen in on the medical banter. My RE asked the tiny med student all sorts of fertility related questions and I could answer every one. To the point the the RE told me to shut up, joking, but really I think he'd had enough out of me. So it seems I responded quite well to the femara in terms of ovulation, now we'll see what it can do for my luteal phase issues.
• more stupid cold rain (blah again)

Good job getting this far! As a prize, I'll tell you my idea. See, I used to go on this sight called "Lunch Is Fun (TM)" all the time. All the fucking time. What's better than seeing what other people ate for lunch? Also, what's better than the word lunch? Maybe the word pants. Maybe. Anyway, as I was making tomorrow's lunch just a mere hour ago, I though, well, Starrhillgirl, you could just log your lunch on your very own blog and maybe that would make you post everyday. And maybe your internet people will want to log their lunches, too! In your comments! Because you love a good comment almost as much as a good lunch!

It's like a game! We'll even give it it's own cleverly named tag: Lunch. Woo and Hoo!

So today I had a piece of quiche and a little salad of watercress (yay the market!) and lentil/bean sprouts with ponzu, which is the dressing of the month here at Starrhill. What did you eat? Remember, a good lunch can salvage a crap day, so log your lunch, y'all.

just another morning in spring

So it's been weeks since I worked a full 5 days in a row. Weeks, I tell you. There's no school today and it smelled like spring when I opened the front door to let the cats in. I've given up on cutting out coffee and so I am here in the sun with a totally indulgent cup of 2/3 coffee, 1/3 heavy cream. And did I mention the sun? And the lack of school today?

I woke up and walked down here to pick up my milk first thing, because I have been slack this week and didn't pick up on Wednesday, which is my usual pick up day. The whole milk deal is a little shady, which I kind of love. You cannot buy or sell unpasteurized milk in Virginia, so people get around it by purchasing a share in a cow, so the milk is technically theirs and they consume it at their own risk. I do sometimes wonder what part of my cow I own - the tail? The cute nose? Anyway, I'm not one of those Raw Milk Will Save the World people, but I'm pretty happy to have local milk and I'm always after food that's had less shit done to it. And it is good - the real test for what to buy and eat in my mind. Local and organic and unprocessed are fab and all, but really, I'm into food that tastes good. Which this milk does. The poorly lit warehouse and the old soda refrigerators and the sneaky hidden key are all pure entertainment for me - the real deal is that I like this milk better. Now if only I could ride my bike down to the IX to get it....

Yes, it's true. I do not know how to ride a bike. I thought this wasn't news here on teh internets, but the injector has only recently discovered my lack of biking prowess and is threatening to come come south and remedy the problem. Others have tried - valiantly - before, but with no luck. (somewhat embarassing pics here)I'm not so good at the whole practicing thing, you see, and I think that's probably key. Anyway - I do want to know how. It fits in well with everything else about my "Lifestyle." But falling is so scary!

Moving on to other things I cannot do yet - let's talk about ttc, shall we? (That' trying to conceive for those of you just joining us here in Starr Hill.) Here's the lowdown from the RE's visit this week: I will be doing an unmedicated, monitored, home insemed cycle this month. Woo and hoo for the home insems! Go DIY AI go! There's several things going on here so I'll try to be all linear and shit so you can get the full picture and the you can weigh in as you see fit.

From the information gathered during my monitored cycle in January, the RE thinks that I had 2 problems: old Polly and low progesterone. Now we'll all bow our heads a minute to Polly and then move on because that particular problem is gone. Woo! So then the issue becomes the prog. Now, I knew from blood-work with my nurse practitioner that my progesterone was low back last summer and she put me on prometrium (by mouth - whew) for it, but her protocol for the dosage was very different from my RE's protocol and I don't wonder (or rather I do wonder) if hers was not so hot. See, the half-life of prometrium is 12 hours and my NP only had me take it once a day, so I'd imagine the level could float around more than would be ideal. The RE has folks take it 3 times a day, which know knowing the half-life of it (thank you Obsessors) makes far more sense.

Anyway. My RE deals with low prog in one of 2 ways: dose with prometrium or take...... clomid. His thought process is this: The corpus luteum is what produces progesterone after ovulation, so if there is a problem with progesterone, perhaps tweaking the follicle that will become the corpus luteum will make for better progesterone production. Plus the "bonus" of more follicles - i.e. more "targets" for the sperm to hit. He very, very slowly and seriously did the math for me on how the chance of multiples goes up in this scenario and listened patiently when I said in no uncertain terms that I was scared shitless of the mood swings I hear can come with clomid and said femara was a fine choice when I asked about using that instead. The man's a dream. And he delicately pointed out that, in his view, time is not an issue. I'm young and healthy, as they kept telling me before my surgery. All that said, I am going with no meds for this cycle other than a prometrium supplement. Because I like to ramp it up slowly.

As for the home insem part - well, there's some bureaucracy involved here. In the past, sperm that needs washing for an IUI would get sent to Richmond, washed and sent back. But my sperm don't roll like that because they've been Bio-Tranzed. The shipping method my donors (Remember them? You can't beat them with a stick.) and I are using, bio-tranz, only keeps those kids alive for 24 hours. Not enough time to get from the West Coast to Richmond and then here. They'd be dead. Now, the University has been promising my RE a machine for washing sperm here for sometime now. They said October 2007 at the latest, he told me. Then we both looked at the calendar and sighed. Any day now, they keep telling him. He sighed again. So if there's a machine here, I'll wash those prostaglandins right out of my sperm and do an IUI. But I'm not going to count on that, so we'll just all plan on one very last home insem. What do you say?

There's a mess of us cycling together this time, which has to be worth something. There's me, the injector's best girl KK, Mrs. B, Chips, Tiff, Katie who has no blog (ahem) from FF.... damn. I though there were more of us. Anybody else? Anybody?

friday for the win!

From the beginning, because you know I love a list:

* all clear HSG. Spill on both sides, warmed gown from the nicest nurse in the world, totally cheerful and nice and again with the nice folks in Radiology, comforting but totally unnecessary hand holding from cho-girl, pretty pictures of my insides, polyp confirmation (whew - known is better than unknown, yes?) and also did I mention how nice? Those folks in Radiology - Teh Best. There were a million of them and they all introduced themselves ("Hi, I'm Dr. So-and-so, you can call me Stphanie" - love her.) and shook hands and explained exactly what they were going to be doing and laughed my my jokes and they didn't hurt me. Not a bit. The most amusing part was that Stephanie, my newest BFF, thought cho-girl was a Radiology tech, because she had on a lovely lead gown. And really, it was a lovely gown - flowered and with a nice embroidered "L" for lovely.

*breakfast at the diner after aforementioned hurt-free and all clear HSG. Out and about 10 am! Woo and Hoo! With bacon! And with a vastly entertaining Other Patron at the table next to us who drove up in his big maroon Cadi, walked in, ordered a whiskey on the rocks, chatted us up, realized he didn't have his wallet, left his drink and drove off to get his wallet and came back only to be joined by his wife. He was charming except he said I talk like a yankee.

*love from the internets.

*tidying to prepare for the arrival by train of Hard Girl and company. Yay! It's illness that brings them, but I'll take it.

*warm and amazing sun and did I mention warm? Warm enough to have the front door open - it's been since October since I've done that.

*walking downtown to the post office (I heart the USPS) with the Hard Girl Fam. So warm and lovely. Plus we got to hang with the post office guy because I was foolish enough to think that sending a package to Ireland would be a simple matter of a stamp. No, no - there's customs, you see. Heh. I was sending off my full pack of Instead Cups to another IVP kid, but the post office guy seemed pretty nonplussed when he asked me what was in the box and I said "feminine supplies." Perhaps he was too taken with Tiny Fruit Baby to be worried about what sort of things the IVP likes to put in it's respective hoohas. Anyway, I think my home insem days are done, and so I gleefully send off my Insteads and welcome the world of western meds with open arms.

*bacon from the neighbors. Yes, that's bacon from the neighbors. Pork belly from Polyface, some magic salt/brown sugar/spice thing plus curing in their shed equals bacon. From the neighbors. Damn. I've got a good half pound of it in the kitchen right now, waiting to be breakfast for the guests.

*errand running in the car. Not normally something I do, but there was the need for cat food, else I'd loose a limb. Plus, as the whole Hard Girl Extendo Fam is here, there is a grandma who needs a nightgown. So I went for cat food and debated Rose's vs. Kmart for the nightgown for about 1 minute before picking Rose's, which took me over the (small) mountain to the east of town, giving me the view to end all views - looking west to the other (larger) mountains as the sun set behind them. Holy fucking shit, y'all.

* CD release party not too far from home tonight. Out of the house is sometimes good for me

.

There were daffodils just blooming outside the hospital this morning and crocus by Main street. Two more weeks of February, kids. I think we'll make it.

oh, the agony....

My L-word dealer is out of town. No fix for me this week. Ack. I've been distracting myself with this. Warning - spoilers and sooooo NSW (nudity *and* guns).

Did anybody make dinner this week? I forgot. But next Sunday, I'm all over it. Tell me what you're bringing so I can menu plan.


Oh, god. You're all watching it right now! I'm dying.....

as promised

Virtual Sunday dinner.


What? Did you think I'd start before you got here? Nah. Go sit by the fire and entertain me while I cut up this chicken.

Could you please distract the cats? I might loose a limb.

Shh... this is the part where I kind of need to concentrate. Note my new pan.

You like gravy, right? Everything in this is local, mostly stuff I froze from summer. Except the peas. Oh, and the potatoes. Those are from the store. You can't have everything.

Ok, let me get this in the oven and then you can refill my wine glass. You did bring wine, didn't you?

Wash your hands, now. It's time to eat.

I sure hope one of you brought salad, because I don't have any. There's lots, so whoever wants some pot pie - come on down.

friday it is

So my full snow day did not materialize today, but it was a good day none the less. We started late and there were only 6 children and, although the post-nap period sucked, I did get a new hat from one of my kids, which he was very, very excited about. Pictures and lengthy prose about my lost hats to come.

Anyway - how about a list? You know you want it.
Teh Nice, in no particular order:

• new hat, see above
• at least half an hour in the card aisle at CVS with Sophie, buying cards for her mama, who does not want gifts for her birthday this year. The child's sense of humor is coming along nicely, thank you.
  
• guess who I just had drinks with? The currently most famous blogger near Starr Hill and my very, very dear old friend. Yes, you wish you'd been there. Yes, there was Maker's Mark.
  
• roasted chicken. Fuck me. I get chickens from my neighbor, who runs a restaurant and gets his meat from Polyface. The meat was falling off the bone, despite the over cooking and lack of brining. I rinsed it, salted and peppered it, stuck half an onion in it, stuck it in the oven and called it done. Amazing. All local all the time, y'all. Come over for chicken pot pie on Sunday.
  
• good news, or, rather, no news, about my lower GI challenged cat. All her blood work came back normal - no thyroid, kidney or liver issues. Whew. Now I get to dose her with anti-diarrheals and home made yogurt.
• sadly short but delightful phone chat with Hard Girl
• going to bed with a good but kind of scary book
• possible coffee with cho-girl tomorrow
  

all local all the time

My roommate gave me a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for xmas. Yes, I am late to the party, as usual; I know everybody's been talking about it for months now. But anyway, it's great. For my money, better than The Omnivore's Dilemma, which I did love. (Although, The Botany of Desire was better, I thought and it was Fast Food Nation and The Jungle that really made my shopping habits what they are today.) Now that my vacation is ending (cue sobbing), I'll have *so* much time to write about it. Because I am sure nobody else in the world of food blogs has talked about it yet.

Who else has read it? Chicory, A, this is right up y'all's alley. Not an euphemism. I swear.

Now, ask me why I do book links with Powell's.

Whoa, that's a lot of links, little lady.....

mulitfaceted

I just had a very schizophrenic time on ichat, talking about sex parties with one friend, child development (and sex parties) with another and then Sophie, my pretend child, showed up on-line, too. Thank you Jesus for making sure it was not a group chat.

I was, as Sophie put it, multitasking, as I was also making dinner. There's been precious little time to go to the grocery store since I got back from The Trip I Will Pine For Forever, and so I broke into the summer vegetable stash* in the freezer. Tomatoes, broccoli, yellow squash, chicken broth and basil from the freezer, with lentils and quinoa, Super Grain of the Future, and berbere from the "pantry." I just added some Bragg's and a smidge of vinegar. We'll see.

Interestingly, Sophie comes across on IM as something of an adult. I'd like to take credit for her good sense of sarcasm, but I can't. It's all her.

Website of the day: FreeRice. Get smart and feed the world. Courtesy of my mama, so you know it's good.

Today was a Dr. Accu day. I do love him. He got rid of my day-long headache, as well as doing his usual thing - needles and a brief but great shoulder rub. I've got 3 more days of follicular-phase herbs and then it's on to the ovulation herbs.

Woo and hoo, it's CD 10, y'all! I got a high on old Clear Blue this morning (WTF? There were/are NO other estrogen signs. Stupid monitor. I give it pee, just like it asks for, and all I get from it is ambiguity. This is no way to build a relationship.), and my donors are set to go.



*for the sake of accuracy: I didn't use any of the foods pictured in that link, but you get the idea. I will totally throw you a picture of my freezer, soon because I know you care.

let's pretend

Let's pretend this is a food blog, not a ttc blog. 'K?

The glut of summer produce is over. At least for me. Because it is fall and because my CSA ended weeks and weeks ago in Spetember. I really am not sure why it ended so early - it's gone well into October previous years. I'm also not so sure what I think about staying with the farm next year. There were several people who'd worked there for a couple seasons who "left" last spring and I've heard varying reports as to why. From the rather innocuous "new management" explanation, to the rather troubling (or at least head-scratch inducing) allegations of stealing directed at the folks who "left" (the leaving, which could and has been described as firing, happened over a scattered amount of time). So I am torn. I don't want to take part in something where the folks who work there are treated less than well, but I do have a tie to this farm now, to the land itself and the view from the barn looking north past the house towards the woods.

I've broken into my stash of frozen goods and, really, frozen broccoli? Not as good a fresh, even when you've frozen it yourself. I don't know why this came as a surprise.

Recipes For Trouble has a good post up about making meals - for yourself, for other folks. In your home, what do you do about meals? Sit down at the table? Stand up at the sink? (Of course you do this in the summer with peaches, leaning over to keep the drips off your shirt, there's no other option - oh, summer..... I miss you already.) Who do you cook for and does it "mean" something when you do? Who cooks for you? I tend to eat sitting down, at the table, more out of habit than anything. I do make meals for myself; I love to cook. But I'd rather you show up around dinnertime and help me eat. Except sometimes it is nice to read the comics with dinner if I missed them at breakfast.

Also, the Flavor of the Week? Browned butter on popcorn. You'll love it. Almost as much as I love you.

peeves and other shit

My roommate situation is pretty good. I cannot complain.
But why, god, why don't people clean out the shower drain? Why?

I just broke into my stash of birthday popcorms from the Crazytown kids. What's better for a cold than popcorms? Don't answer that.

Also, my sourdough from yesterday turned out pretty good. I'm proud.

And cho-girl left her salty-caramels here. That is not a euphemism, but it should be. Damn those caramels are good. Now they are mine. What's better for a cold than salty-caramels? Don't answer that either.

things to do while wating to knock yourself up

1. try again to make sourdough starter
2. have drinks with friends
3. herd some cats, I mean, corral your class of 2 year olds for a class picture

1. In the vein of trying not to buy shit I can make several months ago, I thought, "Starrhillgirl, why the hell are you buying yeast, when there are millions of micro-organisms out there just waiting to leaven your bread?" And so I read the sourdough section in The Tassajara Cookbook, consulted Teh Internets and threw together some flour and water. It was not such a success. Check it out. It worked once. And then, for a couple reasons (namely, throwing out those batches that didn't work hurt me - wasting food is the worst), I quit and went back to my old friend, Red Star yeast. It was so familiar, I could make bread with my eyes closed. But I've been hit with the itch again. So the other day, I mixed up some flour and water. And a pinch of yeast. Yes, I cheated. This is not San Francisco, so I feel somewhat justified. Somewhat. I'll be sure to keep you posted, because I *know* y'all are on the edges of your proverbial seats, waiting to see what happens with my sourdough. Bonus points if you caught the Ramblers reference in there.

2. Tonight, that is. Shortly, in fact. With folks I know, and then some. The some being one of cho-girl's new Waldorf friends! Waldorf and Montessori at the same table? With fancy drinks? Ack! What will happen?

3. HA.


Also, because what's a Caved post without reference to ttc, I did 2 different kinds of OPKs today. At the same time! With 2 different results! The Answer one (courtesy of K) gave me a very faint line, very faint. The internet cheepie (found courtesy of The Obsessors) had nothing. Hmmm. And old Clear Blue gave me a low reading today. So to summerize: CD 10, no nothing from the various tests, plus no CM. Yet.

With a nod to Cali, here's the October horoscope for us Libras, from Free Will Astrology, my favorite kind:

Here's a brief mythic history of the birch tree, according to Philip Carr-Gomm's book, Druid Mysteries. The birch used to be called the pioneer tree because it was often the first tree planted on virgin soil, and so in a sense gave birth to the forest. The word "birch" is derived from a root meaning "bright" or "shining" in Indo-European languages. In Britian, birches were made into maypoles, which celebrants danced around during the fertility feast of Bletane. Siberian shamans, at the climax of their initiation ceremonies, climbed a birch tree, circling its trunk nine times. In the spirit of this rich folklore, Libra, I nominate the birch to be your tree of power as you begin a phase of bright beginnings and exuberant fertility.

"Tree of power"? "Exuberant fertility"? I'll take whatever help I can get, y'all.

revisited toast

CHO-girl seems to think something is lacking recently in my posts (length? depth? thought?). Really, I am just so motherfuckingtired. So tired I can't even hit the space bar enough, let alone pull a new really and truly post out of my ass.

So. Just for you, CHO, I've added my favorite food and cooking blogs in their very own linked-up list. Because I live to entertain you. Because I know the lunch gods need their sacrifice. Because Food Is Good. And because it is lamer than lame for a 32 year old to go to bed at 8:30.

CD 17, 5 DPO - generally more irritable and "fatigued" (as FF puts it), but maybe that's because it is the second week of school.

putting up

I had to send a friend my great-great-grandma's recipe for pickled peaches yesterday and so I got all motivated to put up some food of my own.
You know you want to watch.
Tomatoes from the farm. So good, but how many fucking cherry tomatoes can a person eat? So I've been sun drying them. In my car, which doubles as a solar cooker.
After cutting them in half, they went on this old window screen and then into the car/solar cooker and stayed there until they are dry - about 2 days. Some times I am attentive and I flip them over after the first day. If you put them cut side up at first, the screen stays clean.
And the chiles. Spicy and delicious.

Roasted on the stove until they are all charr-y. Use tongs to turn them. Really.


Sweatin' to the oldies. Or actually sweatin' to Girlyman and my long-ass conversation with Sian about sustainable food choices. I did some in a paper bag and then got lazy and put the rest in a bowl and threw a plate on top for The Sweating Process. They had their sauna time for about 10 or 15 minutes, I think. Then I rubbed and rinsed all the charr-y skin off and they were beautiful roasted chiles.



All ready for the freezer.

dinner

There's a long-ass, but so, so, so great, post over at An Accident of Hope about local food. I love some local food (actually I love all things local; it's the result of working at an independent bookstore when The Devil, I mean, B*rns and N*ble, came to town), but it's a slippery slope, man. Once you start noticing what you're eating that's local, it's great: you get to chat with the folks who grew it or made it, there's not petroleum stains on your food, the tomatoes are all the better for living though a winter without them, blah, blah, blah. You know all the arguments, I'm sure. But then you realize you're counting! What's local on my plate today?! And you strive for more - this cheese is from Fredericksburg, but this one, *this* one is from northern Albemarle! Hooray! And then one day you wake up and you see your roommate has bought some grapes. In Virginia? In early June? When there are more strawberries and blueberries and raspberries (from the back yard, no less) than you can shake a stick at? Ack! And they are on a piece of green styrofoam, and shrink-wrapped! And your head explodes.
Meanwhile, here's tonight's dinner. Yes, you know I'm counting. Can't help it.

• black eyed peas, from the market, shelled on the porch
• tomatoes from the farm, beefsteak and flame
• cucumbers from the farm (also in the pitcher of water back there - Best Drink Of The Summer™)
• zucchini bread from one of my home visit families, local zucchini from their CSA, not sure of the origin of the flour, certainly the sugar wasn't local- but damn, that's some good zucchini bread
  
• local beer, used to be brewed just a couple blocks west, but now it's in Crozet, I hear
• salt, not local, but delicious
• balsamic, also not local, also delicious
• butter, not local (yes, I have some guilt over not making my own butter)
• lemon in the background, not local *sigh*
• mass o' peppers in the background, from the farm, destiny unknown - I don't like plain peppers that much; I wish they were spicy, but they are not