30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 12

Oops, forgot to post yesterday. Was having way too much fun with the family :) Cooper and I spent some time at the ISsaquah Farmers Market in the morning. He was checking everything out--we must return! And by the afternoon he had even more fun with grandma, grandpa and auntie once they arrived from Cali. We had a lovely time out on the deck (using it again...yay!) as it was a gorgeous, sunny day.

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 11

Almost forgot to post. Baby is waking up every 20 minutes. He's got to have something going on developmentally--teething? wanting to crawl? Preoccupied at the moment, so this will be short. Took a nice walk with a mom friend on the Sammamish River Trail as the weather cleared. Looking forward to the family coming into town tomorrow...yay!!

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 10

Rainy, rainy day...got together with a mom friend and her 2 adorable little ones. She reminded me last week when we got together how Cooper reached over to the table behind us and stole this guy's keys. That was a little nugget I don't want to forget! Anyhow, her oldest is about a year and a half and kept saying Cooper's name. Precious. The special treat of the day was watching a good movie for once: Pirate Radio. Fanciful, entertaining, good cast. Quite enjoyable! Oh, and found out the IT Crowd (2 actors from that show were in the movie, btw) is coming back for a 4th season!

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 9

Major props to daily bloggers. Even these short paragraphs I'm doing I'm finding difficult to get to! So today I ordered a birthday cake, walked around Fred Meyer with Cooper (he enjoys the toy aisle; we try all the toys that say "try me"), came home and napped 2 hours, which was delicious! Ahhh I felt so much better, so did Cooper. Hooray, sleep! We went out again to Ross where I was looking for a birthday dress, but only found a headband. We went into the store and the weather was clear, we walked out into buckets coming down. I did take the brolly with me, so we were dry-ish. Not wanting to go home straight away, we walked around Target (across the street), but Cooper was fussy so we went back into the car where I fed him and he proceeded to sleep for an hour and 40 minutes. So I did some chatting, facebooking and texting. Should have blogged instead!
Made dinner, some cookies (banana/chocolate chip). After dinner, we watched Cooper's floor show. He is getting to be ultra mobile. Sheesh! He can't crawl yet, but he's finding ways around it--rolling and rolling and rolling and sitting up, back on his belly, then on his back, then belly, then back, then sitting up and all of a sudden he's across the room! And trying to get into everything he's not supposed to get into. We really need to babyproof...

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 8

Already a week into June. I know it's gonna fly. Just like every other month. I'm holding my eyes open with toothpicks, so I'll make this quick. Barely made it through the end of Food, Inc. We need to make some changes in our food buying habits. Anyway, had a great day with the boy, starting with a playdate with a mom friend/baby. Got my hair done (it had been far too long). My stylist's boyfriend happened to be there and entertained Coops. He never made a peep! Good boy! It was such a pretty day, we took advantage by walking the Kirkland waterfront. Cooper really enjoyed watching and listening to the lapping water, people watching, dog watching. Now it's raining again for a few days...looks like the weekend has a sunny forecast. Countdown to mummy + sissy's arrival!

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 7

Cooper and I had a great day together! Started off with a muuuuch needed sleep-in (well, til 7:30, anyway! An improvement over the last few days). Got some things done around the house, Cooper had a nap, took Wes his lunch (he literally had to run to catch the Connector this morning!) and met KJ for lunch at Boom Noodle (to celebrate our "big" birthdays next week [hers is one day before mine]). Had a great time catching up, then headed to the Tot Spot Cafe in Woodinville to check out some cloth diapers at the Cozy Baby Boutique. The Tot Spot is a neat space for little ones to play, but Cooper's not at that stage yet and I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to go there (Woodinville is a bit far for this Issaquahan [?]). Anyhow, had a good chat with the gal at the Boutique and bought a pocket cloth diaper to try out (we'll see how it goes. We weren't fans of the prefold/diaper service, but I hear good things about Fuzzibunz). The boy was really good today (and seemed to be feeling much better) and was extra excited when we wheeled out to greet Daddy at the entrance to our complex. I timed it perfectly -- I was one bar into "Where is Daddy?" when Wes was in sight! You should have seen the giddiness physically overwhelm the little guy!

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 6

We were going to go to a Mariners game today, but it was raining most of the day, I had a sore throat, Cooper is still congested, we didn't sleep well and Cooper's buddy Austin is sick too (we were going to go with him and his parents), so our plan didn't work out. We needed to get outta the house though, so we went to Microsoft for awhile. Wes got some work done, me and Coops hung out. Went for a few walks throughout the day, which the three of us really enjoyed, so that's the celebration :)

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 5

Got up with Cooper at 2:45 this morning and he wouldn't go back to sleep! Wes stepped in at about 5:30 and I got to rest about 45 minutes. Needless to say, we were both pretty exhausted today. Still, we rallied around 1 pm and went for a hike on the Grand Ridge Trail in the Issaquah Highlands. When awake, Cooper really enjoyed it. I'm glad he was able to sleep. It was such a gorgeous day today, I'm so happy we made it outdoors despite our long night/morning. So, the hike was definitely the celebration of the day. In trying to decide what kind of cake to have for my birthday, I trialed making a pavlova, but decided it was too sweet (and I made a bit of a mess out of it!).

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 4

Rainy day today so I went for a walk with a mom friend around the mall. It was blasted hot in there! They really crank up the heat when it's slightly chilly out; although it wasn't really chilly. Anyway, me and Coops were super tired when we got home so we took a long nap. Unfortunately, I silenced my phone and Wes needed a pickup at the park + ride. FAIL! Wow, lack of sleep really has a poor effect on my brain. I felt terrrrible. He was banging on our front door for about a 1/2 hour, calling me, texting me. So, before that happened I was going to say I treated myself to a nap, but I'd say that's out the window. Ended up making a pretty good pea/bacon risotto despite my loopiness. Maybe that counts.

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 3

The weather turned out to be really nice today, so I went for an hour-long walk along the Sammamish River Trail in Redmond. When we lived in Redmond for the first month of being up here, we were a stone's throw away from this trail and I used it alllll the time. We do have the E. Lake Sammamish trail nearby, but it's not paved (not stroller friendly unless you have a jogging stroller) and I have to drive there.

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 2

I got a great idea for a Father's Day gift off a blog, so today I celebrated by starting this project. I haven't done a craft project in awhile, so I'm excited to have one on my hands! Can't say what it is, though. I'll post a photo on Dad's Day ;)

30 Days to Celebrate 30, Day 1

I recall my friend Jodi celebrating her birthday throughout her birth month in the past so I thought I'd steal her idea and do the same for this "big" birthday. I also thought I'd blog every day about it.

To celebrate today, I treated myself to a froyo at Costco. Haven't had one of those in aaaages! We'll see what tomorrow brings...some yoga?

ah the early days

The Worm Lady's Response

I tried responding to Aimee's comment, but it wouldn't publish my comment. So here is my response ;)

So the lady first apologized then said, "Yeah we had some problems with the last delivery from our supplier. I thought I got them all." Riiight. She knew about it and removed the worms and packaged the flour up anyway! Grody! I asked why I never have experienced this in a regular grocery store and she said SHE has, that it's fairly common. That was basically the end of the convo, then she asked if there was anything wrong with the rest of the stuff I was returning and I told her nothing, I just didn't want to take the chance. That was the last time I'll step foot in that nasty place!

Poached Pears, Wormy Oat Flour

I was in the mood for pears so I bought a big bag from Costco. Even though I've had 1-2 pears each day for the past 5 days I STILL have about 5 pears left. Oy. Costco will do that to you. Overload!

This is what I did with 2 of them (only one shown). I steeped some earl grey tea, added sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, lemon juice + zest. Then added the halved pears and poached 'em. Put them in a dish, reduced the sauce a bit, then poured the and chilled. Pretty tasty, but I wasn't brave enough to serve them after dinner with friends. Didn't seem to be the kind of dessert everyone would enjoy. I also made some ginger cookies that were a DISASTER. Mainly because I substituted 1/2 of the flour that was called for with buckwheat flour. Yeah, they tasted like ginger-lemon flavored cardboard. They would have been sooo good, too.

HowEVER, next time will be awhile. At least 4 weeks. I went to the naturopath (having him manage my thyroid issue now) and he suggested I retest for food sensitivities. I thought I'd give it a go again as last time wasn't too difficult. I eliminated dairy, eggs and wheat and felt really good. This time 'round I'm sensitive to HEAPS more foods. It's gonna be a lot harder. Here's the list:

All gluten flours, soy, all white fish except cod, almonds, cashews, pistachios, peanuts, blackberries, yeast, yogurt, corn, coffee, milk, cheese, black pepper, dates, nutmeg, whey.

I went to the store the next day to replace at least one of the things I'll miss the most (peanut butter) and discovered sunflower seed butter. YUM! Wow, all the goodness of sunflower seeds minus the annoyance of getting them stuck in your teeth! Really, the only use I'll have for it is in my morning oatmeal. Breakfasts are going to be very limiting. Oatmeal, rice porridge, quinoa with berries and nuts. I'll miss Egg McWahlins.

The next big item I needed to replace was flour so I can still bake and Wes and I can still have pancakes. A mom friend recommended this market in Issaquah that sells organic and alternative, nongluten flours on the cheap. As Wes and I approached the place, we got kinda sketched out as we had definitely entered the low rent district and were a bit hesitant to go inside. What was this market really all about? Exactly why is it an outlet? When we entered, we noticed the proprietors were a friendly older couple and they really did have every flour known to man stocking the shelves. It didn't feel nearly as sketchy upon first judgment. We picked up a bag of oat flour for 2 something, 3 fairly decent sized bags of spices for $1 each, some lentils, New Zealand salt (I recalled salt mines on the northern end of the South Island; can't beat $1 for nostalgia) and $1 bag of Kettle Chips (needed a snack). I immediately texted my mom friend, relaying my excitement for this rockin' find. I could see myself becoming a regular.

Then the next morning came. We were set to have pancakes, so I was came down the stairs to Wes announcing he had some bad news. No pancakes this morning ;( But whyyyy??? Yeah, there were WORMS in the flour. #(@)*%& WORMS! You can't see them in this photo (well that's probably a good thing), but they're there. We were going to take everyhting back the next day, but they were CLOSED. Until Wednesday! They're only open Wed-Sat. Shady. What are they doing the rest of the days? Digging up worms to add to their flours? TGTBT. Their reaction should be interesting. I'll try to remember to post again after I go back Wednesday.