Bellydancing for Birth

Check out the link on the left underneath my little animated MEEZ Witchy preggo girl (obviously I don’t look like that yet, but it was my only option!)…there is a great e-book you can get about bellydancing during pregnancy and birth. It’s AMAZING! Check it out!

More later…..

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We’Moon

is my most favorite planner ever. I am unsure-rather-I cannot remember-where it was I first saw the We’Moon, but I instantly loved it and ordered one and have ever since. The ’08 calendars have been put up for sale now so go here: http://www.wemoon.ws/index.asp?DC=wm2008   and see what I mean.

I love the ’08 calendars already and plan to order mine asap! LOVE THEM!

That’s all. Just had to do that quick. I make no money off of it, I just love them is all….

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Are You Going To Scarborough Fayre?

This song is a folkloric song with a traceable roots in England and Scotland. It is a duet between a man and a woman who are said to love one another but for whatever reason they are not together. They sing to each other giving the other completely impossible tasks. Here are the most modern lyrics (not the Simon and Garfunkle version) 

“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there,
For she/he once was a true love of mine.

MAN

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Without any seam nor needlework,
And then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Tell her to wash it in yonder dry well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Which never sprung water nor rain ever fell,
And then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,
And then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Ask her to do me this courtesy,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
And ask for a like favour from me,
And then she’ll be a true love of mine.

BOTH

Have you been to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Remember me from one who lives there,
For she/he once was a true love of mine.

WOMAN

Ask him to find me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Between the salt water and the sea-strand,
For then he’ll be a true love of mine.

Ask him to plough it with a lamb’s horn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
And sow it all over with one peppercorn,
For then he’ll be a true love of mine.

Ask him to reap it with a sickle of leather,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
And gather it up with a rope made of heather,
For then he’ll be a true love of mine.

When he has done and finished his work,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Ask him to come for his cambric shirt,
For then he’ll be a true love of mine.

BOTH

If you say that you can’t, then I shall reply,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Oh, Let me know that at least you will try,
Or you’ll never be a true love of mine.

Love imposes impossible tasks,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
But none more than any heart would ask,
I must know you’re a true love of mine”

The words and a good history were found on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough_Fair

I made Rob a cambric shirt out of green hemp linen…I made it from hemp because I couldn’t find a good organic cotton for the task and get it in time. Of course it has seams and needlework…a shirt with no seams or needlework is clearly impossible, bit like the last line of the song, love imposes impossible tasks….I would always attempt any impossible task, even though it’s impossible, just so he would know he is my true love…

Today we are married for two years and I look forward to the day when our kids are telling our grandkids that we are having a hard time talking and hearing each other….not becuase we are angry, but because we are old and wearing out. Two years. It has seemed like a lifetime already, but it has also seemed as though we got married last week. There is nothing terrible about Rob. There is nothing terrible about our marriage. In fact, I think we have a VERY enviable relationship and friendship and marriage. We have a take notice love. People notice how we love each other because it never stops. It never turns off no matter where we are or what we are doing. Our kids take notice and Grace tells us we are gross when we kiss….you know, in that, “eww mom and dad you are so gross oh my gawd stop it!” kind of way. Our girls will know what love is and will know what to expect out of a marriage and a spouse by seeing how we love each other and it is the best gift we can give them.

I love you Rob. Immensly. Indescribably even with my army of adjectives. Eternally. In this life and each coming life I love you, I adore you. You are my best of everything, my only. Thank you for who you are and who you inspire me to be. I am grateful for our everyday together.

Happy Anniversary.

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New Etsy Shop To Boot!

I have an Etsy shop now in addition to the Mystic Woods Farm website.

You can find me at

http://gaiasrose.etsy.com

Stop by….I am working hard to have this vision I have had for over a year now come to fruit. I am very excited about all of it!

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Spaghetti ala Tasha

Spaghetti ala Tasha

Originally uploaded by GaiasRose.

Dinner alst night was so super tasty. Here is how it went together:

Need:
whole wheat organic spaghetti (we have Annie’s)
fresh or canned from the garden tomatos (mine were canned from our garden last season.,..mmmmmm)
one small white onion
6 decent size garlic cloves
1/2 medium green pepper
meat of choice (optional)
arrowroot
fresh motzarella cheese
olive oil
kosher salt
frech gorund pepper
organic (we use muir glen) tomato paste-if needed

garlic bread

baby spinach leaves
grape tomatos
basil pesto
feta cheese

To make the sauce:
cook meat, if you are using it, until cooked through., empty into a bowl and set aside.

pour 2 -3 TBS of olive oil into a sautee pan and heat about 30 seconds. Add your garlic, chopped how you prefer (I chopped them large) and sautee until you smell the garlic. Add the chopped onion and the chopped green pepper. Sautee until peppers and onions are soft and onions start to become clear. Add your tomatos, seeds and juice and all, chopped up to the pan. It will probably be watery, but will will add some arrowroot and possibly some tomato paste if it is too watery. sautee until everything is softened well. I added some basil, oregano, parsley and tarragon flakes, this is, of course, your choice.

Meanwhile you will have been boiling your water for your noodles which will have been cooked to al dente.

Serve it with the sauce on the noodles topped with two slices of fresh motzarella cheese. Also serve with a piece of toasted garlic bread (we LOVE LOVE LOVE garlic in our house) and a salad of baby spinach, grape tomatos, feta cheese and basil pesto for the dressing.

Enjoy!

We were all members of the clean plate club last night, I assure you!
Spaghetti is a favorite around here, and everyone who has had mine tells me it’s the best they have had! yes I shall toot my own horn on that….they come from far and wide excited to eat what comes from my kitchen!

bon Apetit!

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More Ways To Use Breastmilk

Can’t say I would do all of these….

More Ways to Use Breastmilk
By Liz Laing
Issue 133, November/December 2005

• Acne Treatment and Facial Cleanser Wash face with a mild soap, rinse, and gently pat a breastmilk-saturated ball of cotton (not a synthetic material) over the entire face. This process is great for removing eye makeup as well.
• Burns and Sunburn Apply breastmilk gingerly to burns and they will dry up and look much better the next day. A burn treated with breastmilk and mashed-up blueberries will dry up within an hour, wrote one mom on a Midwifery Today online forum.1 Elena Michaels, PhD, CCH, LMFT, a traditional naturopath in Santa Clarita, California, told me that she often applied her breastmilk to her kids’ sunburns. The soothing milk would stop the pain immediately,” she said. “I believe the lauric acid found in breastmilk is antiviral, antibacterial, healing to tissue, and contains analgesic properties. Besides human breastmilk, virgin coconut oil is nature’s most abundant source of lauric acid.
• Chapped Lips Dab a bit of milk onto dry lips, leaving them wet. Apply often, and lips should take only a day or two to heal.
• Cold Sores and Fever Blisters Place milk directly on a cold sore with a clean finger or cotton ball. This should speed the healing process and also help relieve some of the pain.
• Cuts, Scrapes, Scratches Clean wound first using breastmilk if you don’t have soap and water. Drip milk onto the wound, then let it air-dry. You can also use a cotton ball or a 4-by-4-inch gauze pad soaked in breastmilk. If the cut is on a baby’s lips or mouth area, allow him or her to nurse. An upset child will be calmed by the gentle, loving act of breastfeeding, and the milk will help heal the wound. I’ll never forget when my 15-month-old daughter was bitten by her grandma’s dog right on her face.” says Nancy Levesque, a former La Leche League leader. “I immediately put her to my breast and nursed her as we were deciding what hospital to take her to. I’m so glad that I was able to comfort her during this traumatic time, and I believe the act of nursing did help to begin to heal her wound.
• Diaper Rash Gently pat baby’s bottom with breastmilk, being especially generous when applying it to reddened or rash areas. Leave baby’s diaper off for a few minutes and let the bottom air-dry.
• Ear Infections Place a few drops of breastmilk in the ear; follow with warm (not hot) olive oil and garlic, or bottled garlic mullein oil (sold at natural food stores).
• Red or Puffy Eyes Place two cotton balls saturated with breastmilk over closed eyes for a few minutes – works better than tea bags or cucumber slices!
• Insect Bites With a clean finger, dab breastmilk on the bite; this will help stop the itching.
• Skin Rash/Wounds Apply breastmilk on itchy spots – even chickenpox – for soothing relief. One woman claims that she used her breastmilk to clear up an elderly relative’s leg ulcers. It’s also possible that breastmilk helps heal skin wounds in nursing women themselves.
• Sore or Cracked Nipples Gently rub milk onto nipples or area of soreness and let air-dry. Another option is to bathe the sore nipple by dipping it into a clean, shallow dish of breastmilk.
• Sore Throats Baby can benefit by directly nursing.
• Warts Leave a breastmilk-saturated cotton ball on the wart for a few minutes twice a day. Continue for several days until the wart dries up.

Liz Laing, ACE, is a freelance writer and mother of four beautiful, breastfed children. She has been a stay-at-home mom for the past 12 years and most recently is overcoming the challenges of single motherhood. A certified childbirth educator and doula, Liz lives in Los Angeles, California.

Source:

http://mothering.com/articles/new_baby/breastfeeding/use-breastmilk.html

You know, Hathor has a bread recipe using breast milk…..wonder how that would go over at market………..eh….a little too progressive for the masses maybe.

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What I Have Learned…

so far in my tenure as a parent:

-you CANNOT win every battle. There are some things you have to let slide for the sake of your child learning.

-parents fail when they have more than one child because each child is different, yet they use the same parenting for different children. You have to change your parenting per child, per personality. You cannot parent and introvert like you can an extrovert. You cannot parent a logic reactionary child like you can a feeling reactionary child.

-you CAN reason with a child.

-even though you are the parent, you are not better than your child.

-even though you are the parent, you may still need to explain some things to your children.

-you cannot be friends with your child and maintain a parent/child relationship. There will be no respect given or received from either of you.

-you don’t have to hit your children to get them to pay attention, or for them to learn from their mistakes.

-kids know when they are full. you should never make them eat all that is on their plate, but you should always make sure they have good food available…..and it is ALWAYS your responsibility to set and enforce eating patterns. If your kids have unhealthy eating habits, you are the one to blame, not the kids.

-you are responsible for the feelings of your children until they are of an age of reason, when the frontal lobe has developed and they are able to determine for themselves how a situation is going to affect them. If you say an angry word to your child before bed and they go to bed feeling like garbage-that is your fault. Now if said child is 25 and goes to bed after getting into an argument with you on the phone and feels like shit, well, they then decided that feeling and are completely responsible for it themselves.

-children are loud. You can tell them to tone it down, but THEY WILL reach a crecendo again and you will have to tell them to tone it down again….and again….and again…..and again………..

-little kids cannot help but run. Sit back and watch children once without saying anything. Watch their legs. Their legs hav eminds of their own and take children where they are going in a rush that is unavoidable. That’s why kids need to play outside as much as possible….especially if you don’t want them running in the house.

-There is no reason to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, CAN I STRESS EVER (?) raise a hand to a child, scream at a child, strike a child, give a child an angry word. There is no reason good enough save for yelling for your child to stop and not run into the street when there is a car coming.

-You CANNOT hug and kiss and love on your children enough. There is no such thing as too much.

-you cannot tell your children you love them enough, so keep saying it.

There is more, and I am sure I will share as I can articulate them.

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While I am on a Crusading Streak…

I HAVE to cover this. I am a breastfeeding mom. An extended breastfeeding mom. Zoe is nearly 15 months. Grace, though she is 4 1/2, does not nurse, but does receive a dose of Breastmilk in a cup when she is under the weather, and let me tell you, it is a cure-all if there ever was one. I am open about breastfeeding and I believe that had I the proper support when Grace was a babe, she would have been a completely breastfed babe. I regret that I gave up so soon for  truly lack of knowledge and lack of emotional support from those in my periphery. I am now and will ever be what has come to be known as a “Lactivist”. I support a woman’s right to feed her baby and  a baby’s right to eat whenever and wherever. Period. I have the shirts, the stickers, the pins etc. So of course I will post this so that people can see how ridiculous this truly is….There is a blogger, thelactivist.blogspot.com, who is being harrassed and threatened by the Pork people…you are no doubtedly asking yourself, “what the heck does pork have to do with breastfeeding activism?” Well, go to her site here: http://thelactivist.blogspot.com/2007/02/overzealous-big-pork-stomps-on.html

and read the story. It is idiocy at it’s best! I cannot wait to see Hathor do a strip on this one!

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Burger With Hummus and Potato Wedges

Dinner

Originally uploaded by GaiasRose.

I got this really great cookbook for a really great price at the grocery. It is called “Bill’s Food” by Bill Granger, an Aussie chef. My entire menu this week is out of this book and I am soooo looking forward to making the chocolate chip banana bread on Saturday!

Anywho….here is the recipe in it’s entireity (the photo is VERY similar to the one in the book. He used a smaller plate and better lighting though.)

(I am going to re-structure the order of the recipe because it seemed to work time wise to do the potatos first.)

Potato Wedges

1 1/2 TB vegetable oil (I used EVOO)
5 garlic cloves unpeeled and crushed with the flat side of the knife
1 1/2 TB lime juice (I squeezed it fresh)
2 tsp (I used 2 TB cause we lke spicy here-A LOT) Tabasco sauce
500g (1#) potatos, unpeeled, scrubbed, dried and cut into wedges
freshly ground black pepper (I used white and black)
sea salt

Preheat oven to 400F/200C. Put the oil, garlic, lime juice and tabasco sauce in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the potatos and pepper amd stir until thje potatos are coated. Transfer to a baking dish (I just used a cookie sheet) spreading the potatos evenly with the peel down. Bake for 45 minutes or until crispy. Sprinkle iwth sea salt and serve.

Burgers

4 good quality whole wheat burger buns or rolls
1#2oz lean beef mince (I presumed ground beef-got mine freshly ground this afternoon from the meat market here in town)
1 red onion grated (use a small one. The one I used was much too big and i used only about 1/3 of it.)
sea salt
freshly gorund balck pepper
3 TB EVOO
1 punnet cherry tomatos sliced
1/2 tsp sumac (I omitted because I couldn’t find it at the co-op or the grocery)
1 small white salad onion cut into thin wedges
1/4C cut fresh parsley
1TB lemon juice

Cut the buns and prepare the toaster oven.
Put the mince, onion, salt and pepper in a bowl and combine well with your hands. Form into four rounded patties, making them slightly larger than the buns to accomodate for shrinking.

Heat 2 TB of the oil in a large nonstick frying pan over a medium to high heat. Add the patties. Cook for four minutes on each side until done to your liking.

Make the salad to top the burger by tossing the tomatos, sumac (I used fresh spinach) onion and parsley together with the remaining EVOO and the lemon juice. While burgers are cooking, toast the buns. Spread the hummus (next recipe) on the toasted sides then top with a patty, salad and bun tops. Serve with the wedges.

Hummus

14 oz can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
1 garlic clove
2TB lemon juice
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Process the chickpeas, garlic and lemon juice in a food processor with 3 TB water until the hummus is smooth. Season to tate with salt and pepper.

Tasty tasty. We had a loverly dinner. I hope you get to enjoy it also!!

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No Shampoo, Weather By John Deere, Paganism and Chicken Soup

I have had three days of no shampoo. I am never buying shampoo again, and I have Rob convinced as well. We are using nothing more than simple baking soda and water to wash and apple cider vinegar to rinse. My hair has never felt better. Not only is it better for me, it’s better for the planet and better for the bank account. I love it!

What gets me though is that I had never heard of this before! Why hadn’t I heard of this? Why was I stuck-as a friggen Witch-for so many years using crap that clogs up my skin and my hair? oh yeah, that’s right, baking soda and apple cider vinegar don’t drive the market on hair care and people really don’t care.

I used it on Grace yesterday. Afterward, Her hair was the easiest to get through than it has ever been. SOLD!

 In other news, we bought a weather station yesterday at Fleet Farm (told you we loved Fleet Farm.) It gives us all matter of information and has SOLAR panels so we have weather info even if for some reason we don’t have power. The solar panels were the selling point (Should be for $300!!) It’s a pretty ahndy little piece of equipment though. Rob is busy setting up the outdoor elements to it right now. It has a rain gauge that reads the rainfall and reports back to the main unit, a wind thingy, an outdoor temp and humidy barometer windchill etc. thing and an indoor temp and humidity thing. All of it gathers the info and feeds it back to this very light weight, green touch pad that tells us everything we need to know, plus the time and history and a few other thing. It’s really kinda neat. It will go up in the kitchen where we plan to put our base CB unit. We are geeky like that.

In Pagan news, we have a very close person to us who is asking questions and I fear that it may be because ANOTHER close person to him is pushing him too hard. I don’t want him to want to walk this kind of path unless he truly, heartily wants it. Though antagonizing this other person because of the pressure is hilarious to me-ah well. I have never educated a person who wants to walk a Pagan path before. I have only vaguely educated non-Pagans about the things which I believe, and even then it was VERY vague as, once you get talking, to most people who are not Pagan, about Paganism, they kinda shut off. It’s disheartening, ESPECIALLY when it is people who are suppose to care for you and be interested in you and your life. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

So this was a tiny rambling post. Just a few things I felt the need to share with you. We are getting eggs left and right from the chicken-yay breakfast! and still getting the house organized after the holiday. For every step forward, I take two steps back with the girls….I start making my headway and then something else gets mussed….oh well, they are only little for awhile.

I will have photos and the instructins for my homemade chicken and wild rice soup later on ass well as my “Corners of MY Home” for the week. The soup is cooking in my new 16 quart stock pot as I type. Time to go listen to NPR and clean up the kitchen and feed and water the chicken.

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