Bath Recipe

YEARS ago my mom got me a bath book, The Scented Bath by Maribeth Riggs,  for Christmas.  I LOVED it!  I've moved 6 times since then and it's been one of the VERY few books that's made every move.  Sadly, I haven't taken a nice relaxing bath in years.  We had a garden tub when we lived in Columbus, and I loved the idea of taking baths in that, but it took forever to fill the thing up and used a ton of hot water.  Anyway, back to the book.  I was watching Olivia in the tub last night and I thought about adding a drop of lavender essential oil to the tub to help soothe her and get her ready for bedtime. It made me think of my bath book and I dug the thing out and reread some of the recipes.    It's pretty dated now (Clan Of The Cave Bear Bath) but I love the descriptions of each bath almost as much as the recipes. The really sets a scene in each description.  I remember scouring Canton for some of the more "exotic" ingredients.  The back of the book lists locations, addresses and phone numbers.  How much easier it would have been had there been an internet!

Priorities

Last night Ellie had Girl Scouts.  I love Girl Scout nights.  Evan calls it "Stacy Time".  This is true.  While Ellie is downstairs learning all kinds of fun Girl Scouty stuff, I sit upstairs in the church lounge and talk to my friend.  It's an hour and a half of adult conversation.  It's AMAZING!  Granted, we talk about kids a lot, but still, Evan usually has the other 3 at home with him and I can just--BREATHE! This year there are a few other moms that stay and wait for their girls so it's not quite as much "Stacy Time" as it is just adult time (I'm slowly coming to terms with this) but I always leave there feeling more like and adult than like Mom.

We talk about all kinds of things but last night there were two topics in particular that I keep going over in my head.  One was about Stella's surgery.  This is actually a conversation I've had with a lot of people, but I was AMAZED, at how many people would have put Stella down had they been in my place.  The thought never even crossed my mind.  She's my child.  I adopted her with the intent to

Meat/Meatless Vegetable Soup

This is one of my (and now my family's) all-time favorite recipes.  It's a really simple, hearty soup that my mom used to make.  It's called Autumn Soup and I always can't wait for fall to come around so I can make it.  I've tried it many different ways to make this recipe meatless.  Generally, just omitting the meat in a recipe doesn't work, but for this one, I think it's just as good.  The trick is using a good bouillon base.  My recipe says this makes 2 large servings, but I'd say it's really more like 4.  Evan says he thinks it tastes even better the next day, and I agree.

Urban Homesteading

Since I started writing this blog again and since I've been reading a lot more lately, I thought I should probably grab a book on something "green" from the library.  I didn't ask, I just tried to remember where I found "green" books before and I ended up in front of some organizational books with a few homesteading things thrown in there.  I left the organization for another day and grabbed a few books on homesteading.  The first one I'm reading is The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen.  As usually I'm writing this post early.  I should write it once I've finished the book, but I'm a little harried today with the invalid puppy and IAT meeting and crayon in the dryer so you're just getting my take on the first section. So there.

So the first section I read was about farming, which translates to just gardening.  They had a TON of useful info about how to plant in small spaces, which is kind of what I have.  I actually have a really big yard, but so much of it is in the shade that it doesn't allow for a lot of room for veggies.  This book is about homesteading though which suggests that you turn even your front lawn into a useful plot of land for food.  I considered this for about a minute then realized that part of my front yard has a hard time growing grass, so it probably wouldn't make the best place for a veggie garden.  The other half...well, I'm just not ready to make that jump yet.  While I agree that the front yard is really pretty much a waste (this book says that the #1 crop produced in the US is lawn) I'm not totally ready to make such a cut from the "norm".  One thing that I AM willing to try in the front yard is a bean teepee.  You take stakes or poles or anything else that beans will climb and assemble them to make a teepee.  Plant beans around the base of each pole and as they grow they'll naturally climb the poles and fill in the gaps to make an enclosed structure.

Coughs

Short post today.  I just noticed while I was digging around in our medicine cabinet for alcohol (you know, to get the nail polish out of the carpet) a bottle of children's cough syrup.  Seeing this made me remember that the last time I had a kid into the doctor for a cough (not to be confused with the ear infection I took Vince in for Monday) she told me that studies she had read showed that cough syrup wasn't really that effective or necessary for kids.  She said if you're going to use something to help with a cough, just use honey.  I'm definitely going to use this next time we have coughs in our house.  When I was getting sick last week (I really do think the essential oils helped!) I woke up each morning and made myself a mug of hot water, honey and a drop of lemon oil.  It worked like magic,  the hot water opening up my sinuses and the honey sooting and coating my irritated throat.

Stella's Drama

Today's post is about how I don't really have time to blog today because I spent the whole afternoon at the vet.  Last night Stella started puking (mostly on the floor but also all over Ellie's bed-at bedtime of course) and continued to throw up all morning (all over our bed).  She didn't eat at all and she looked miserable last night and this morning.  After preschool the two little ones and I took her up to the emergency vet in Green and after some blood work and x-rays we found out she had something in her stomach.  This isn't a surprise to me at all because I am constantly taking things out of that dog's mouth.  She always has something of the kids and it is though this that I have learned about that famous pit bull grip.  It's like an iron trap.  I can pry Jacks jaws apart to get an action figure from him, but not Stella.  When she clamps down I just have to wait until she's ready to let it go.

Good news is that her surgery went well this afternoon.

Snow Ice Cream!

With all the snow we were supposed to get, I got all my ingredients ready for snow ice cream yesterday!  I put a big container out on the grill (up high enough that that dogs couldn't get it) and waited for the snow to fill it up. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get as much fluffy snow as we were supposed to get, but even with the rising temp, the snow that I had worked great for this recipe.  I'm sure there's more snow in our future so I'm sharing this recipe.  The original recipe calls for milk, but I use heavy cream.  It makes it much richer-if you can imagine that!