Occupy Dallas - October, 2011

Another Occupy sympathizer and I went to downtown Dallas October 5th for a march from Pike's Park to the Federal Reserve Bank building. It was a few hours of effort on our part. That last pic is the sign I made to carry.


We weren't the only old people there by any means, but the crowd was mainly young people. Unlike the last protest marches in which I engaged (probably in the early 1970s), the emphasis here was on respect. We were told by the organizers, "You WILL be nice. You WILL respect the police." Just in case, we were given the number of an attorney to get us out of jail, but the crowd was quite respectful and I don't think there were any arrests that day. Since that day, Occupy set up permanent digs, the police got tired of them and ran them off. Last I heard, folks were working in two-hour shifts to maintain a presence around the clock every day. Dallas has never been a "feel free to use our bathrooms" town, so two hours is pretty standard fare with the getting to and getting home adding to bathroom-free time.

No. 2 is coming this weekend,

so I figured it's about time I posted the pics from No. 2's October visit. Jetblue has been having some airline flight sales that were just too cheap to ignore.

I broke my camera the night I took the above pics and just this week got a replacement working. I'm thinking that before No. 2 arrives on Saturday I'll post some pics from Occupy Dallas. I support Occupy as much as I support breastfeeding in public, but I don't tend to post much on my politics (outside of the sidebar).

FINALLY blogging again ... I THINK.

Since having Astrid three times/week for several hours my time has become more limited. There's the time spent before she comes looking around to see if I've left anything dangerous,poisonous,breakable and of sentimental value, or (depending on my energy level) too much work if she got into it. Because I don't have to do the laundry, cleaning, etc. like moms do, I didn't do childproofing beyond plugging the electrical outlets. I'm always with her (except when I'm not).

She'll be 2 years old at the beginning of February and is already long past the "put everything into the mouth" stage. She also seems to understand and heed things like, "This is the only cabinet you can go into." The others are off-limits (due to aforementioned dangerous, poisonous, etc.).



There's the time spent researching and preparing materials for activities and the time spent cleaning up after activities. THIS one was particularly messy and Who Knew food coloring stained skin and nails?



There's the time spent day-dreaming about how I can help her "become all that she can be", the time spent reading reviews on books and materials important to childhood, the time spent ordering them, unpacking them, listening to Em complain, "What did you buy NOW?". Have I mentioned that No. 1 will be having her No. 2 in May of 2012?

Happy Birthday, No. 2!

It's the big THREE OH, folks.

As my dad used to say, "It's getting harder and harder to maintain my 39 status."

Anyway, happiest to ya, darlin', as you go to your voice lesson and work at Frankie's.

Baking With Young Children, AKA It's Okay To Eat the Dough.

Yesterday, Astrid and I made cookies from one of those packaged cookie mixes. We'll get around to "from scratch" eventually, but I wanted her first experience to be fast and easy. She's had the Paula Deen Child's Baking Kit for a while now and loves to "play" stir, mix, etc. She's 17 months old now.

No. 1 doesn't garden or bake, so Astrid's experiences in these things come on my watch, which is still M-W-F from (roughly) 11-2. Her swimming experience is mostly while she's here, too, simply because our housing development has a pool, but No. 1 joins us for that. She's quite good at swimming now with the exception of remembering to keep her mouth shut, as she loves to laugh at the fun of it all.

I got all the baking stuff laid out before she came, set out an egg and a stick of butter to warm up, and pulled over to the island the two stools that typically stand at the counter between the kitchen and living room. I removed their "hats" to provide more friction.

We had fun. She was very interested in the process, using her Paula Deen utensils to beat the egg and mix the butter, egg and batter. Of course everything got tasted individually first and she finished up the mixing with her hands (which I do myself on occasion).

She's one of those bakers who likes to eat the dough as much as the cookies. I was a little worried about that (as well as the raw egg), but it turns out that both are myths unless the egg is "bad", which we'd probably notice.











Since it's WAY too hot to bake, I used the convection oven's bake feature and small pans. I was afraid to let Astrid near the hot pans, so laid out the cookies on cooling racks where she could test each for proper temperature by giving them a lick.

Gardener in Training.

Planting petunia seeds in window boxes.

Step 1: Wash the window boxes. Astrid LOVES any activity that involves washing (or water).



She got them "squeaky" clean.



Step 2: Add soil.



Step 3: Add seeds.




Step 4: Water.

Garden 2011 has begun.

Actually, I'm hoping to complete it tomorrow morning.

Local stores didn't get seed starter in time to do peppers and tomatoes this year, so I chose to order transplants from Seed Savers Exchange.

I ordered 12 tomatoes and 6 peppers. My very first planting this morning was a Mexico Midget tomato ... which BROKE while transplanting. Quite the send-off to the day. I left the plant in the ground and left room for it to continue to grow as though garden fairies would bless my intent.

I ordered 6 tomatoes I thought I wanted and ordered a surprise 6 as well. Oddly enough, I didn't get any duplicates ... meaning I broke my ONLY Mexico Midget. For peppers, I ordered a surprise 6, too.
I have one raised bed this year and space around the fences for gardening purposes. I hired Ken to help me clean up last year's mess and dig in the raised bed. Em helped me amend the soil along the fences.

I bought some heirloom seeds which included round carrots, long red carrots, patty-pan squash, AKA early white bush scallop squash and a few other things. The garden will only have patty-pan squash this year in the squash family. I'm just not into the squash bug problems and these things don't seem to suffer from them.

Spent some $$ on red tomato towers from Gardener's Supply Company and also bought some red recycled rubber edging for everything so Em doesn't have to trim and can just mow the grass in the yard. These things should last as long as I last.

STILL using some seeds that Diane sent me through the years, too. Thanks, Diane!

Pictures will be coming in future gardening posts. I have high hopes for this year.

End of Astrid's First Year. BIRTHDAY!

Astrid's 1st year birthday was held here yesterday. Fortunately, it was the ONE day where milder weather allowed folks to get around easily outside. We'd had ice storms followed by snow the past week. We're even scheduled to have more snow today and even more this week. This is NOT normal weather for Texas. Her birthday is tomorrow, but Em says her birthday will always be Superbowl Day (as it was when she was born).

She started off by showing Grandpa Blue "her" room.



No. 1 was looking exceptionally cute, I thought.



She helped open the birthday gifts while daddy took pictures. The popper was my gift to Astrid. Em made it clear that it was to go home with her, but that was the plan all along.



We had lunch before dessert and most everyone wore silly hats. As expected, Astrid didn't like the feel of the hat.



Ba Ba Blue (her other grandmother) made a lovely centerpiece that was also fun to play with.



Took me two days to get the cupcakes right (never trust a recipe!), but they came out tasty and even pretty good looking after some research. With healthier eating/less sugar in mind, I made whole wheat carrot cupcakes with a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. Ba Ba Blue brought ice cream which Astrid thought much too cold to eat. She thought the cupcake was fun, though, and even good enough to eat.



We did a little reading of one of the new books, but there was SO MUCH TO DO and so little time.





Grandpa Blue helped out with new puzzles and other toys.



She's a lucky girl with two sets of grandparents who love her and regularly spend time with her.



Never thought I was the type, but I'm really enjoying this gig as Mormor.

Fall comes to North Texas.

I sometimes forget while reading the blogs of northern friends, who months ago showed pictures of kids playing in fallen leaves, that winter takes longer to get to North Texas.

Yesterday was 72 degrees outside and Astrid enjoyed playing in the fallen leaves. Having sprained my ankle early last month, I hadn't even noticed the leaves changing color. Children have a way of directing our attention to the important stuff in life.

Meet Birke Baehr.