Crochet Slippers

As winter settles deeper and deeper in, I am painfully reminded that I need new slippers!  Lucky for me, I have a lot of old yarn lying around and the ability to do a few simple crochet stitches.  These slippers were made using a single, double and triple crochet stitch and a simple slip stitch.

Here is the short, easy version of do it yourself slippers

First I made two soles.  These are simply single crochet blocks the length and width of your foot, plus about a half of an inch on all sides.  I decreased stitches along the toe line by dropping one stitch at the end of a row.  (See picture)

Crochet Slippers Sole

To make the “body” of the slipper I went around the base by stitching across the single crochet row around the edges.  I used my foot as a guide, so that the edge followed my foot.  Next simply start single crocheting around this edge.  Occasionally drop stitches around the heel and toe as needed to snugly fit your foot.  I also dropped stitches in the middle of the sides so that it was a sort of ballet slipper.

Crochet Slipper Sides

You will have to drop quite a few stitches in the toe as you get about 3 or so single crochet rows high.  I mainly dropped around the edges and in the middle of the toe.  Use your foot as your guide and check the fit often.  If the slipper is too big, take out some stitches and drop a stitch or two along the “big” area.  You will find that this is a very easy way to get a good fit. Once you are done building up the slipper until it snugly fits your foot, turn inside out so that the “seam” is on the inside.  Your slipper is done.  I suggest that you make the slipper so that it fits pretty snug.  They stretch out after a few wearings, even after  you wash them.

I like my slippers to feel secure, so I threaded a string (you could use a thin ribbon) in and out of the top row of single crochets around my ankle, I ended the string under the flower on the inside of the slipper.  I tied a bow so they are snug but I can still slip them on and off.  You could knot this off and hide the string but I left it so I can adjust as necessary.  This really made the slippers so much better as they feel secure and won’t fall off my feet no matter how stretched out they may get.

Crochet Slippers Side View 2

For the flower I made a chain of four, slip stitched to create a ring.  I then double crocheted around the ring until I had a full circle.  In order to make the next “round” I made of chain of four or five single crochets and connected to the circle to make 4 loops around the central circle.  Now you have four loops to make your leaves on.

Crochet Flower

For the leaves simply triple crochet on each loop until it is full.  To make the inside of the flower double crochet where you want the petals, choosing two of the inside double crochets of the central circle to double crochet in.  Slip stitch one or two double crochets until you get to your next position.  Repeat until you have 4 petals.

Crochet Slippers Final

Tie the flowers on the toe of the slipper using the same color yarn as the inside of the flower.

Done.  Toasty Toes!

Toasty Toes

Montana; A Love Love Relationship

Montana Sunrise

Montana is God’s land. God lives in the wide open skies, in the colors of the sunrises and sunsets, in the lone wind as it rushes across the sage filled prairies.  God lives along the fences of the highline, along the waters of her lonely rivers, in the song of her birds and in the roar of the bear.  God lives in the stillness of the early morning, and in the weary moments after a long day’s work, in the farmer’s face and in his fields of wheat.  God may live everywhere, but here, in Montana, God’s a whole lot easier to see.

Montana Fences

Butternut Squash Soup with Raviolis

 I’m not a huge fan of soup, but there is something amazing about Butternut Squash Soup, weather you add the extra onion and sweet potatoes or just have it pure Butternut Squash, it is ridiculously fabulous winter comfort food.

Ingredients:

Butternut Squash (1-2 depending on how much you want to make; 1 makes about 4 servings.)

1 onion

1 sweet potato

28-32 oz vegetable broth.

20 or so cheese Raviolis

Molasses

Directions:

Place the squash in a pan face up with a little water in the bottom; bake, covered, in a 350 degree oven until soft, about 30 minutes.

Scoop squash out of skin and place in blender with enough broth to cover, blend until smooth and place in a pan on the stove.  Repeat until the Squash is gone.

Cut Onion and potato into chunks, roast in oven about 375 or so until tender.  Once done place in blender with broth to cover and puree until mixture is smooth, add to pot on stove.

Adjust if too thick with more broth.  Bring to light boil then turn down to a simmer.

Cook Raviolis according to package directions, about 4 raviolis per bowl of soup.  Garnish soup with a drizzle of molasses.

Eggplant and Black Bean Enchiladas

For a heartier meal add cooked 1 inch chicken cubes.

Black Bean and Eggplant Enchiladas

Ingredients:

2 medium eggplants

1/2 Onion

2 T Olive oil

1 can Black Beans

Chilies 1 medium can

Spices:  curry, turmeric, cumin

1 can cream soup, mushroom, celery or chicken

8 oz yogurt or cottage cheese

1 cup cheese

½ milk

Vegatable filling

Dice 2 medium eggplants, peeled and cut into ½ or so inch pieces

Salt and place in collinder for about 1 hour if you don’t have time you can skip this step

Dice ½ onion

Sautee in 1-2 Tablespoons olive oil

Add eggplant, cook until soft.  Turn off heat.

Add 1 can black beans

Add 1 can chilies minus 3 or so Tablespoons.

Add spices, curry, turmeric, cumin

In another bowl combine:

1 can cream soup

8 oz. yogurt

3 T.  chilies

½ cup milk

Stir to combine.

Grease a 9×11 inch pan and place a scoop of the sautéed onion mixture on the center of a tortilla shell roll up and place in pan continue until all of the onion mixture is gone

Pour the soup mixture over the top of the enchiladas

Cover and place in a 350 degree oven until bubbly about 45 minutes, remove cover and sprinkle with ½ to 1 cup cheese.  Place back in over until melted.

5 Steps for Getting Back on Top of Your Life

I have to admit, I’ve been a little off my game lately.  Making the transition from on the go, professional mom to stay at home mom has not been all easy.  The past few months I have found myself slipping into unstructured, laziness.  Here is my list of “TO Dos” to get back on top of my life.

1.  Get moving.

Exercise is an essential part of feeling your best and of being on the top of your game.  Studies have shown that people who exercise have better brain functioning.  In fact exercising in the middle of the day or before work is a great way to get the old gray cells firing.

2.    Get Social

It is way too easy to become a hermit when you’re not forced to go outside every day.  And though I regularly see people, I still feel a little isolated.  One way to increase social time is simply by getting out.  I’ll start by doing more activities with my daughter, the library story time, the nature center kid hour and add a few sessions with my close friends and I should feel more in touch with the world and be more in tune with my support system.  Additionally group activities are great places to meet new people with similar interests.

3.  Get Zen

Getting Zen for me means meditating mixed with quiet prayer.  The best time that I have found to do this is early in the morning while sitting up.  I have tried to do it while laying down, or before I fall asleep and I never even get close to the meditative state that I can reach when I am sitting up straight cross legged.  I find that when I mediated my eyes naturally look up and my tongue rests on the top of my mouth.  I recently read an article describing this as a meditative pose.  I meditate in two ways by letting the thoughts come, observing them as an impartial observer, then letting them float by.  Or if I want to get a deeper meditation I clear my mind and dismiss thoughts as soon as they enter my head.  During this type of meditation I also focus my inner eye on a clear bright light and often repeat one word, my favorites are Faith, Hope and Love.  I find that I reach a great level of clarity and closeness to God by doing this.  I resolve to meditate at least 5 times a week, by waking up before my daughter and having 15 minutes to myself.

4.  Get Goals

How has it happened that I suddenly don’t have any concrete, tangible goals?  I feel like I’m floating around my life without a purpose.  And while this is nice for awhile, finding definable meaning in life is an essential to happiness.  A good way to get in touch with your goals is to write them down for different time points.  For example write down three goals for the week, three for the month, three for the year, three for 5 years.  It’s o.k. for them to change; the main point is that they continue to fit.

5.  Get Me Some Learnen’

In the chaos of the move and all of the changes, I have forgotten to take time to do the things that I love the most, one of them being to read.  I will read for at least 30 minutes every night before bed.  Dishes can wait.  Reading clears my mind, calms me down and transports me into another world, escapism?  Maybe a little J  Reading is a great way to learn new things, and learning new things is linked to lower rates of Alzheimer’s and overall better ageing, learn away!

Why You Should Buy a Bunch of Plants for your Home

Living in a basement in a valley that is notorious for getting smogged in makes me a little nervous about the air quality of my apartment.  I recently bought an air purifier that removes some Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) but the really effective air purifiers at removing VOCs easily run 500$ and above.

VOCs are any compound that contains carbon (most things around us including us are carbon based) and that are volatile enough to get into the air.  Some you can smell, some you can’t smell.  VOCs are both good and bad.  The chemicals that flowers release and the bad breath coming off of your husband are both VOCs, one good, one not so good.

The hazardous VOCs are chemicals like Benzene and Formaldehyde and are often found in household applications such as paints, carpets, plastics and cleaning products.  As a side note don’t ever put anything hot in a plastic container then eat it or microwave your food in a plastic container, ug the thought makes me shudder.  Plastics have their good side but I avoid having plastics around food as much as possible; that will be a future post.

Breathing bad VOCs, even at very low levels can be hazardous to your health.  As everyone knows “Huffing” fumes is very dangerous.  Breathing hazardous VOCs can be likened to very low level huffing.

So in order to supplement my attempt at removing VOCs from my apartment I’ve gone on a plant frenzy.  All plants convert carbon monoxide to oxygen, thereby increasing air quality.  The best plant that I have heard of for doing this is the spider plant.

Below is a short list of plants that are relatively easy to grown, resilient and have been shown to be efficient VOC removers, including benzene and formaldehyde.  For a detailed description of the plants and the first studies to look at their ability to remove VOCs see the book by Dr. Bill Wolverton, a NASA scientist entitled: How to Grow Fresh Air: Fifty Houseplants That Purify Your Home or Office.  A mixture of various plants works best at purifying the air due to their differing abilities to draw harmful substances out of the air.  I have kept this list short as there is an abundance of information on VOC removing plants on the internet.

I aim to have about 5-6 medium sized plants (6 inches or so) spread throughout each room in my apartment.  Or 3 large floor plants.

As a side note most plants probably remove VOCs to some extent so don’t worry too much about the type of plant.  I always look for low fuss, resilient plants that don’t need a ton of sunshine (basement apartment).  So look for plants that fit your lifestyle.

 

Spider plants

Peace Lilly

Asparagous Fern

English Ivy

Mother in Law’s Tounge or Snake Plant

Gerbera daisy

Mums

 

 

The Best All Natural Cleaner: Baking Soda

My kitchen is so small that I don’t have room for wine glasses.  I use small white porcelain coffee cups instead.  I believe that they are perfectly suitable for drinking wine out of.  Except for when you have guests over and you hand them a cup of beautiful dark red wine in a white cup with brown coffee stains on it, the horror!

That actually happened the other night.  I hadn’t noticed the disgraceful state that my coffee/wine cups were in.  A friend, in town from Santa Barbara, and one of her friends came over to my apartment for dinner.  Both of these women are meticulous dressers and look like different versions of my daughter’s Barbie.  So you can imagine that I felt a little grimy as I explained that the cups were clean even if they didn’t look like it.

Whether you’re using a dish washer or scrubbing by hand, coffee stains can be difficult to remove.  The process becomes a cinch when you sprinkle a wrung out sponge or rag with a few tablespoons of baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, a natural alkaline salt found in hot springs.  Baking Soda is such a super cleaner that you don’t even have to scrub, just wipe clean.

Now if I only I had done that before my little dinner party.

As a side note, baking soda gets almost any stain off of any hard surface.  Just sprinkle it over the area to be cleaned and scrub.  For extra scrubbing power sprinkle a little salt over the soda.

Mall Trains and Sweet Potatoes and Couscous

The Many Dangers of Mall Trains

Yesterday morning when I asked my Daughter if she wanted to go to the park or to the mall, she didn’t even hesitate.   Go outside and get wet or play inside on a giant train, hmmm…  Maybe I shouldn’t have given her a choice.  Taking your kid to the train at the mall is like playing Germ Roulette.

For some reason 10:30 am on Thursday is a hot time in this town to take your kid to the train.  And even though there is a sign that clearly states no children over 5, there were giant children jumping all over the place.  I almost grabbed one of them and demanded proof that he had legal rights to be on the train.  But I figured that most of those overgrown toddlers weren’t carrying I.D.’s and from what I could tell their parents didn’t care what they did as long as they weren’t torturing them.

On the other end of the spectra from flame throwing, wall scaling super heroes is my daughter.  She is one of those kids who know the value of relaxing.  Ever since she was a baby, she would manage to get her feet propped up and herself situated into a lounge position.  It didn’t matter where she was, she could get comfortable in a shopping stroller, in her highchair, in her baby bath.  She was born a lounger.

This mentality extends to play situations as well.  Instead of running around and screaming she actually lays on the train, no matter how busy it is.  She stretches out lazily and watches the kids running wildly by or occasionally looks a bit surprised as she is shoved out of the way.  But even when she’s shoved aside she quickly resumes her position lying along the steps or directly at the top (or bottom) of the slide.  It would be funny if I wasn’t so scared that one of the larger, more energetic children was going to jump on her head.

In the history of mall trains I’m certain that children have landed on each other’s heads at least a few hundred times.  And though I am nowhere near as protective as Brad is, it’s embarrassing to go to the train with him and my daughter, he’s a hoverer.  I certainly don’t want anyone jumping on our daughter’s head.

Right as I was trying to decide if the very miniscule chance of head injury was grounds to remove her from a play situation a mall worker began to clear the train for a cleaning.

‘Great,’ I thought, ‘we played on the train right before the cleaning.  God only knows how long it has been since the last time this thing has been cleaned.  Oh well,’ I try to convince myself, ‘she’s building a good immune system right?’

Whole Wheat Couscous and Sweet Potato Dinner

Another way to build up the immune system that doesn’t usually cut into the parent’s sleep schedule is healthy eating.  And one of my favorite and easy healthy dinners is the wonderful Couscous and Sweet potatoes.  As most of my dinners occur, this happened as a result from leftovers.  In this case left over sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving, but if you don’t have any sweet potatoes in your fridge, simply boil them with the skins on, let them cool a bit, take the skins off and cut into small chunks.

Ingredients:

Makes about 5 medium size portions

 

3-4 Sweet Potatoes

1 Cup Whole Wheat Couscous

Boil Sweet Potatoes until soft, remove casings and cut into about 1 inch slices or cubes, or use left over sweet potatoes or sweet potato casserole.

Cook Couscous according to package directions (plain whole wheat couscous is best) or buy in bulk and boil 3 cups of water, add 1 heaping cup of  Whole Wheat couscous, stir and bring back to a boil, remove from heat, cover and let sit for 5 minutes.  Fluff with a fork and spoon a portion onto a plate.  Top with the sweet potato chunks.  I like mine sprinkled with a bit of brown sugar, or another “brown” sweetener (molasses, agave etc), a little nutmeg and a touch of butter.  This is so good and so simple.

Whole Wheat Couscous and Sweet Potatoes

Magic Spoon Hooks

Where’s the Magic

Today as I was doing the dishes there was a brief moment where I felt as if I was back in my old house at my old kitchen sink.  I stared down at the measuring cup I was washing and focused on the feeling of my hands in the water, careful not to look up.  Because even in that moment I knew that there wasn’t a window in front of me looking across a yard with two large Red Maple trees.  In its place was a bare white wall with a small basement style window set well above eye level.

Instead of feeling sad and wistful, I was strangely rejuvenated.  I can walk 100 yards down the road and take my daughter to the playground.  We can walk to the bookstore where there is a children’s corner with books and toys.  We can go to the grocery store that has carts with cars attached to them.

I can still create and play and experience and it is mattering less and less where I do it.  And strangely outdoor art in Wisconsin comes to mind.  Where grown men, one who calls himself Dr. Evermore, have created lots filled with metal or cement sculptures where metal Dinosaurs, Space shuttles and entire orchestras of animals prowl the grounds.  The eerie inspiration, the feeling of magic that is present in these places cannot be explained on paper.

It’s a grown up version of my Care Bear Land that I created when I was a child.  Between two narrow rocks on the cliffs behind my house was a small area sheltered on all sides by 20 to 30 foot high boulders.  It was my magical place, my happy Care Bear place.  We tend to lose our faith in magic as we grow older.  But look around.  Look at where we are, suspended in space upon a ball rotating around a sphere of fire.  Think about that and tell me that magic isn’t all around us.  Look at what man has created and tell me that man is not filled with the same magic.

We are here to create, to experience, to be.  However big, however small; dream on.

And as far as that white wall goes, here’s my attempt at making it a little more beautiful and a little more fragrant.

Spoon Hooks

Spoons and forks make amazing hooks, particularly for the kitchen.  All you have to do is bend them and use two screws to secure them against a wall.  Make sure that you use the kind of silverware that is triangular in shape.  A straight handle won’t work very well because the weight on it could cause the silverware to slip down the wall.  I think these would be particularly cute in a pantry to hold up aprons.

I tied ribbon around Thyme, Sage and Dill and hung them on the spoons.  I’ve never eaten a lot of dill before but I’ve got to say it is positively addicting!

Wall Before

Wall After the Transformation

Wall After the Transformation

Ode to Habilitation Technicians and a Chicken and Rice Skillet

Ode to Habilitation Technicians

I have to admit it, maybe Brad deserves some credit.  Yes, he made us move here, to the middle of nowhere in the depth of winter, away from a stable home and job.  But I have to confess that he is trying.  After all he took a job as a Habilitation Technician.

What is a Habilitation Technician?  Before a few weeks ago I had never heard of the term.  Being a PhD scientist (out of work scientist) I was always surrounded by researchers and the occasional MD who decided that they wanted to dabble in research.  So I never really thought about the practical, down and dirty side of health care.

And that is where a Habilitation Technician comes in.  They do the dirty work.  They change diapers, wipe bottoms, give baths, smile when they are called F’en idiots and try to redirect their charge’s anger and frustration and make them smile.  It is the nitty gritty of health care that I had never heard of before.

So I have to say, Good job Brad.  I am proud of you; proud that you are making friends with people who can’t remember your name on a day to day basis.  I am proud that you find out the things they like and bring them magazines, balls and books.  I am proud that even when paid a miserly wage you do your best to take care of the people who can’t take care of themselves.  These are the real unsung heroes of health care.

So to all of the Habilitation Technicians and other Health care workers who are under paid and over worked.  You are the basis of the system.  Your care truly changes lives.  Thanks for caring.

Here is Brad’s amazing Rice and Chicken Stove Top dinner.  He whips up ridiculously beautiful diners like this all of the time.  No recipe needed.  The rice is left over from the rice and bean dinner the night before and the result is awesome.

Rice and Chicken Stove Top Dinner

Ingredients:

Chicken breasts or other pieces

Olive oil

Broccoli

Carrots

Red peppers fresh or canned in oil

Honey

Curry powder

Rice

Cook the chicken breasts in a large skillet in a few tablespoons of olive oil over medium to high heat.  Once the chicken breasts are browned, turn the heat down to low/medium and continue to cook until chicken is cooked through.  Brad checks this by cutting the chicken into smaller pieces and by the time they are done they’re nicely cut up

Cut carrots into about 1/2 inch pieces, break the broccoli into small chunks and if using fresh red pepper cut into small slices.  You can add almost any other veggie as well.  Pineapple or mango added near the end of this dish would also be delicious.  Place the veggies in a small sauce pan with a few tablespoons of water and a few tablespoons of honey and simmer until soft.  If using canned red pepper, add once the other veggies are nearly soft.

If you don’t have a few cups of left over rice, make some fresh.

Drizzle the rice with a tablespoon or so of oil.  Add the rice and vegetable mixture to the chicken once the chicken is cooked.  Add spices, in this case Brad used curry power and it turned out great.  Other spices would work as well.  Mix to combine and dinner is served.

Yum!

Chicken and Rice SkilletChicken and Rice Skillet