inner pickle

eat some dirt

In his fantastic book "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved", Sandor Ellix Katz tells us to go eat some dirt. 

Clean dirt, obviously. Not dirt downstream from a chemical processing plant. 

There's actually a word for it: geophagy. The practice of eating dirt to obtain nutrients. Often seen in rural societies among pregnant women. Those crazy country breeders.  

Awesome, hey?

Ellix Katz also sees eating local soil as a fast track integration into the wonderful microbial ecology of where you you live. "Be here now," he says. "Learn to love the flavour of the earth."

I love that. 

Washing my (local Kipfler) potatoes a little less energetically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

xxx

looking for my mojo

I'm sure it's around here somewhere. 

Hello? ... Mojo?

Dammit I need it. And totally do not have it. 

Right when it's all systems go, I seem to have hit the wall. Which could have something to do with about four weeks of religiously interrupted sleep (not just the six month old I must add. We could be running a good Catholic establishment here - up for Compline, Matins, Lauds. There's a bit of invoking the Lord's name on Adam's part which I guess might disqualify us.) 

Two. Weeks. Left.

As I am perennially guilty of burying fairly major news at the bottom of posts, may I refer you to the bottom of the previous post on Emily and the Wiggles?

Yep, we're moving to a distant green hill.

And seriously, I'm not kidding about the tiled orange bench top. You wait. 

But after catering Christmas and keeping up the energy through a gorgeous celebratory New Year with friends, we seem to have ground to a halt. Well, I say "we" but actually I can smell the chemical not-home-made cleaner which Adam has just attacked the oven with. Plus he de-spidered all the outdoor furniture today ready to move it. And he has a Master List. And a clipboard. 

Obviously, notwithstanding my lethargy, I'm in good hands. Lucky!

Meanwhile, shall we have cake?

Here's one I made earlier. For Tilly's last day of daycare, actually. She wanted to take cupcakes, but has a couple of severely allergic kids in her class. So the cook gave me her "allergy-free" cake recipe and actually it's pretty good! 

I fiddled with it a bit and reduced the sugar, but it rises well and tastes like cake. (Doesn't have the heart of a good butter and eggs cake, but sometimes you need something different.)

Egg-free, dairy-free and you could easily sub in gluten-free flour, which I didn't need to for this group. 

I made vanilla ones (above) for daycare but was pretty impressed with the simplicity of the recipe so made a chocolate batch for the next gathering of kids at my place to see how they went down. Quickly! Enthusiastically! 

 

 

Egg-free, dairy-free Cupcakes.  

INGREDIENTS
3 cups self-raising flour

2 cups warm water

1.5 cups sugar 

Half cup vegetable oil

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract (don't use imitation if you're making these for really sensitive kids)

 

METHOD

Prepare cupcake tins -either butter and flour them or use cases. My mix makes (weirdly) 23.

Combine all the ingredients together and whisk well until smooth then pour into pans. 

Bake at 160C (or 150 fan forced) until cooked and golden (approx 12 mins).

ICING: I mixed pure icing sugar and water to a paste and just piped it from a ziplock bag with the corner cut off. 

 

Right. Maybe my mojo is at the bottom of a cup of camomile tea. Better be somewhere. There is a giant bookcase waiting to be culled by 25% tonight. Yep, much smaller house, no built-in bookshelves. Adam is standing next to me with a determined look and a big box. 

P.S. If you find my mojo, please send it home? I'll send you back cupcakes with grins?

xxx 

watch your back

So here's what happened to me yesterday.

The kids had had breakfast, they were dressed and I was bending, packing the last bag when my back suddenly gave way. Just up and left the room. Damn thing. I yelled. The kids came running, full of "you SCARED me Mum" accusations. 

I take full responsibility for the swear words Henry and Tilly learnt yesterday.

My first thought was: how do I ever move from this crone-like hunched over position ever again? Second was: how do I get to the toilet? Is this going to be the most embarrassing day of my life? And third: I can't pick up my baby. 

The phone was in arms reach so I called my wonderful next door neighbour, but she'd left for work. I could call Ad but he was at least forty five minutes away by train. Drugs, I thought. Drugs might solve this. 

I somehow got over to the medicine cabinet and looked up to the high, high shelf where we keep the box of stuff. How the crap am I supposed to raise my arms high enough to reach that? More swearing. Swung an arm. Hit the box. Knocked onto floor. Decide bending is even more painful than reaching. Am so totally screwed. 

But have birthed three babes naturally, the last with zero drugs, so dammit, I bend, I grab, I shuffle to the the kitchen and pop three Nurofen Plus and am about to skull when I remember I'm breastfeeeding. "Do not take while breastfeeding" says the packet. More swearing. The kids are fascinated. 

I somehow managed to pack up the medicine box and pull out some panadol. That'll have to do. I stand, all skewed and bent, in the kitchen until it makes a tiny dint in the pain. 

Then I bark at Henry and Tilly to pick up their bags and wait at the front door while I ponder my 8kg almost-five-month-old and how to pick her up out of her rocker. 

I do a smooth maneuver involving sitting on a chair with her at my feet, propping my arms on my knees and lifting her with one hand onto my lap. Oh yes, more swearing. 

Why did I not consider just letting Henry and Tilly stay at home? I really have no idea. It's like I was on  trajectory that had to be completed. The Thursday morning daycare and school drop off. Immutable. 

I cursed my way to the door, and got outside to the car. I dropped, or perhaps, rolled Ivy into her carseat and the other kids buckled up. 

I got to daycare and threw Tilds out, marvellous self sufficient child that she is. 

I got to school and threw Henry out and bribed him with Angry Birds time on my iPhone after school if he would walk in the gate by himself. (Yes, he did that that one time only.)

Back at home I waited by the car for ten minutes hoping someone would come by and help me lift my sleeping baby out, but then I thought about Nessie and I asking some random passing-by guy to help us carry a toy kitchen out of her house to my car and he totally dropped it, so I abandoned and lugged her in myself. 

Ivy, the most accommodting baby in the universe, slept all morning. Just slept in her little rocker, woke up once for a feed and dropped off again. I lay down flat on the floor next to her on a mattress and played an hour or so of Cut the Rope (an iPhone app way more addictive than Angry Birds.)

Jim and Jen, Ad's folks, a.k.a. The Cavalry, arrived at lunchtime. 

And after some physio and acupuncture I am finally standing upright. Mostly. 

How much do we rely on our backs though? Gosh!

Time to start looking after mine. 

Hope you're looking after yours. 

xxx