A New Beginning

Day 1

It's crazy to think that my last post was in October. Even crazier to know that I'm writing this post with a sleeping baby in my arms. Our daughter was born five weeks early on December 7th and my life has completely changed since that event. Zoe Lorraine burst into this world at 7 pounds 3 oz and 20 inches long just anxious to meet her moms and make us the happiest women in the world!


Month 1



It's amazing to me how in one minute with one event everything changes. Even things that still exist, like my relationship with Michele, my love of reading and sewing and chocolate, my wonderful family and friends, are different. Everything is filtered through Zoe: Michele and I aren't just a loving couple, we're parents; I ravenously consume books on child care and development and children's books, plan quilts for Zoe and other projects that will make my life as a mom easier, and limit my chocolate consumption because, as a breastfeeding mom, I want Zoe to get only the best from me; and our family relationships and friendships all seem to center around Zoe: "Oh won't it be fun taking Zoe to meet Casey," "Aunt Kym is coming to meet Zoe," and "Zoe do you hear Nana on the phone? Say 'hi!'"

Month 2



I absolutely love it all. Everything is new and exciting. Things that were routine and maybe a bit boring are new challenges with Zoe. A trip to the grocery store used to be "Let me stop at Wegman's real quick for cheese" and is now "Okay, I have my list; Zoe's fed, so she'll probably sleep; do I have her sling to tote her around the store?; I'd better get cheese, it's not on the list, but I won't be able to get back out here this week, so I'd better get some just in case; Oh, there's Rita, she'll want to see Zoe before we leave; Zoe slept through shopping, but is awake the minute we get to the register, maybe if I bounce up and down she'll be okay until we get to the car; ok, we made it out of the store, but I'd better climb in the backseat and nurse before heading home(although we live 5 minutes away) so that we can make it home peacefully and I'll be able to get the bags in the house and the perishibles put away. . ." Grocery shopping is now a weekly adventure that I enjoy each time!



I just had no idea how completely this little girl would change my life and my outlook on the world. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to be a mom to this special little person! Hopefully, I'll be posting here often to share my new adventures as a mom, partner, quilter, gardener, vegetarian, daughter, friend, sister, and whatever other title this new beginning bring me!

Composting is not for the Faint of Heart -or- Was that a Mouse in My Compost Bin?

I was so enjoying working in my yard yesterday. The day was beautiful: sunny, warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt, but cool enough to still work outside. My compost bin did it's duty through the Rochester winter and was now ready to provide me with a good amount of rich wonderful compost. So, I was turning the pile in the bin to access the finished compost and I do believe I saw a mouse! I screamed bloody murder and leapt away from the bin. Rita, my savior and go-to gal for anything I cannot handle in the yard was not home, so I went to beg my other next door neighbor to come help me. I just wanted him to take out the pitch fork and close the lid so that I could pretend I didn't encounter a mouse. He graciously did so and I spent the rest of the afternoon convincing myself that I hadn't really seen a mouse - it was really a leaf that moved as I was turning the compost and from the corner of my eye it LOOKED like a mouse. Oh, how I really want to think that it was a leaf! Then, this morning, I made the mistake of googling it to see if there was any possibility that a mouse could be in my compost bin. BIG mistake!! Story after story of people finding mice in their bins, of people who understood going into it that mice would be something they could expect. It makes me dizzy just thinking about it! I can deal with a lot of things, but not that and I really have no idea what I can do about it! I need to find someone to take care of this for me - this is truly above and beyond my capabilities and tolerances! You know what would be ideal? If I could use one of the Enterprise's transporters to beam the whole mess - mice and all - out into space!

Bug Attack

I have made it plain over the past few weeks that squirrels and bunnies are not my friends. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned my long-standing antagonists: bugs. Now, I haven't minded them much in the garden - they have a purpose and, plus, that is their domain. I believe that if I leave them alone in their world, they will leave me alone in mine. Well, on my way happily to work this morning, (and it was indeed happily: I stayed up late working on my commission, which was a joyful way to spend the evening, and sold three more items straight off the showroom floor!) a bug attacked my car. Now it wouldn't have been that big a deal as I was inside the car with all the windows shut tight and he was outside the car, but he was clinging to my driver's side mirror right on the other side of the window from me. He was huge, too! He stubbornly clung to the mirror and kept staring at me through the window. Then, when I pulled into the parking lot (after having barely made it to work alive because I was driving so distractedly!) he started cleaning his antennae maliciously and gazing at me in a furtive manner, as though he were preparing to attack me the minute I got out of the car! So, really, when you think about it, he was holding me hostage inside the car, right? Well, I took a series of deep breaths, steeled myself, braved up, and climbed over the seat to get out on the passenger side of the car! No bug is going to get the better of me!

Busy Week of Firsts

My intention for this week (it's a "vacation" week since my company closes every year for a week for the 4th of July) was to finish the bathroom floor once I returned from Georgia. Well, since Michele was home so unexpectedly, I didn't do that (OK, maybe that's just a really convenient excuse.) I did, however, do a lot of other things, most of them firsts for me. I've mentioned wanting to open a shop on Etsy.com. Well, this week, I made the first three items I will sell in that shop (I still don't feel ready to open the shop, likely do to the fact that I am the consummate planner and procrastinator with a good dose of perfectionist thrown in there.) I also got my first commission for a quilt. The commission is from my sister, but I actually drew up a contract (another first) and consider it a professional engagement. I need to check with her to see if the person for whom the piece is meant reads this blog before I post progress pictures of it. It's really fun to work with her to design it and it's really great experience because I am confident that this will be the first of several such commissions from others (OK, I want to be confident, so I will claim confidence - Michele calls this "acting as if!") One of the biggest firsts for me this week was an impromptu road trip I took with Michele to Toledo to reunite her with the truck that her crazy ex driving partner abandoned there. Although Michele and I have taken many road trips together, I have never driven alone anywhere farther than an hour away, so the trip home from Toledo on my own was a definite first, but an enjoyable one. I can't say that I will take many solo road trips in the future, but it's nice to know that I am able and now have the experience. Another first is that I had a friend over for a ladies lunch today. I made a really yummy salad, set the table with the good napkins, and had a delightful lunch with my friend, Ann (you might remember her from a post several months ago: she lives in the country and I had to return home from her house down a long, dark, dark, dark road.) And the final first is that I received my partner's information for that quilt swap that I am nervously participating in. I can't tell you who she is - it's a mystery swap and she is to be surprised - but I will tell you that my partner is from another country. I checked her blog today to learn a bit more about her likes and had to use the Google translator. Unfortunately, it does not do a very good job of translating - or maybe it does and a lot of stuff is just lost in the translation. Either way, it was really quite fun trying to read the translated blog and discern some meaning out of it. I did discover that she likes flowers, so I feel one step closer to figuring out what I will create for her. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Fruit Tastings - Day Two

On this the second day of my fruit adventure, I tasted baby coconut, green mango - the one as big as my head, mango, sugar cane, golden kiwi, and two different baby bananas. The bananas, kiwi, and sugar cane are my favorites. The kiwi is so different from regular green kiwi - which I don't like. It's another indescribable flavor. I really enjoyed both the bananas, too. The smaller, yellower one was incredibly sweet and intensely banana. The larger, whiter one was so moist and creamy. You really had to bite it - it had a lot of tooth to it. Sugar cane was really surprising. It's really juicy, and, of course, sweet. It's like chewing on sugar water-soaked straw - an activity I enjoyed very much! Both of the mangoes were very tart - the green one was very under-ripe, as it was supposed to be. The other mango was just a bit under ripe, so that accounts for it's tartness. Now, the baby coconut was just wrong! It felt like I was eating thin slices of lard. It had such an awful texture that I could not get over. I wanted desperately to spit it out, but I muscled through it and actually chewed and swallowed the whole piece - much to the amusement of Daddy and Gloria. The taste was not that bad, though - much more delicate than a full grown coconut, which surprised me. I thought it would be more intensely flavored than it's fully ripe counterpart, as was the baby banana, but it was quite delicate. I also drank some the the juice from the baby coconut - it's clear, like water. I thought it would be sweeter. I followed both the flesh and juice with a chew of sugar cane to erase the flavor. I'm glad I tried it all, though! It was a great adventure!

Fruit Tastings

I tasted four fruits today: persimmon, lychee, Korean pear, and guava. They were all really good, but pretty indiscribable flavors. The pear really bursts with flavor - I think that was my favorite. The lychee came in second, but I had to get past the fact that once peeled, lychee looks like eyeballs with bloody, red irises. They are really tasty, though. Persimmon is a flavor I've never tasted, but I really liked it. Same with guava. I've had guava nectar, so it was not totally unfamiliar. I still have the baby coconut, two types of bananas, two types of mangos, sugar cane, and golden kiwis to try. My stomach is a little gurgly at the moment, though, so I am taking a break.

Farmers Markets

Hello all! I am actually in Georgia visiting Daddy and Gloria for the holiday. We just got back from two farmers markets - Dekalb Farmers Market and Bufford Road Farmers Market. They are like no markets I have ever seen - they are massive indoor grocery store-like places with food from all over the world. I, of course, wanted to try one of everything. So far, I've tried a few snacks from other countries: spicy cassava chips from the Indies, soy sauce watermelon seeds from Taiwan, squash seeds, puffed corn, and puffed green beans all three from the Philippines, and seaweed wrapped rice cakes and purple corn from Japan. All were really good, except the watermelon seeds take a lot of work to crack for a very little seed. The rice cakes aren't like dried, puffed rice cakes. They were moist sweet rice cakes with pureed red beans and green peas inside - yum!! I thought the purple corn would taste like regular corn, but purple, but it wasn't. It was so much denser and firmer than any corn I'd ever had. It was on the cob, but you really had to eat it kernel by kernel.

We also got some fruits for me to try, though I haven't yet. We got lychee, persimmon, baby coconut, guava, sugar cane, two types of baby bananas, Korean pear, and two different kinds of mango, one as big as my head! We also saw jack fruit, which was so massive I could hardly lift one, but we didn't get one because we'd never be able to eat all that fruit - if my camera wasn't malfunctioning I would have taken a picture of the jack fruit, but I was able to borrow one to capture all the fruit we brought home. I can't wait to try something, but need to let all the snacks I tried to digest. I'll report on it all tomorrow.