I am not a runner

Just to be clear, I’m not a runner.

One time in middle school they made us run a mile. I actually ran, I didn’t quit and walk- I ran the whole thing. Just the once. A few times in high school my swim coach tried to get me to cross-train. It didn’t take. Before I got pregnant with Jack I had signed up for a sprint Triathlon. I avoided the running as much as I could. Then I got pregnant and the whole thing went out the window, not that you can’t run while pregnant, but as a non-runner the idea of crossing the finish line at 25 weeks pregnant sounded awful!

I have always preferred no impact or low impact sports to something as jarring as running. With asthma I had the perfect excuse. I’ve only ran a handful of times, unless someone was chasing me. Yoga, swimming, walking, these were my exercises of choice.

But now I have 3 kids under 5 and a gym membership is not in the budget- so my only way to get exercise is to do it after the kids are asleep. Which means I put the baby down and either roll out my yoga mat or pull on my sneakers and go for a run. I’ve been running, okay, lets be real: its jogging, its not running, for 9 weeks.

So I did the sensible thing, I signed up for a 5k. On July 4th. Never-ever-ran-just-had-a-baby to 5k. They do not have an app for that.

Bedtime

So earlier this week I recorded a yoga video, but we’re having a hard time compiling the files to make one single video… something about my husband’s fancy new camera and how it made the video in a newfangled format that is confusing to his dinosaur of a computer. Technology is superfun.

Instead of yoga (hopefully later this week) I have our view of bedtime:

Bath time

Sleepy Maggie

Book Jack

Bedtime Henry

How did this happen?

Jack is in Space Camp.
Henry is in Tot Camp.
Maggie is 3 months old today.

Too busy to blog

I find I often have big plans when it comes to my blog. Lofty goals and aspirations that are torn asunder by laziness, not enough time and the needs of the tiny humans. This is one of those times. I wanted to do a yoga video blog and talk about Henry’s first day of school/camp and talk about how I am a crazy person and have just signed up for a 5k on the 4th of July…. but I am entirely too busy living life, taking care of the hooligans and driving them to summer camps all over the sweaty sack of humidity that Maryland becomes each summer. It is a good problem, I feel busy and productive and not at all about to have a breakdown, not for lack of trying though. I think I might be trying to do that thing people do- I think it’s called balance. Where I prioritize and try not to do too much and try not to freak out.

Consequently this means I will do some catch-up blogs at some point soon, but not today. Not today.

Instead, I leave you with this: we are alive and busy. Stay cool folks!

This little piggy went to market.

Henry has started “Doing Piggies” as we call it. Our little copy cat, he sees me “Doing Piggies” on Maggie and he insists on participating as well.
He’ll grab his own toes but really, anyone’s toes will do (he has yet to try the cats, thank God!) and then he says “Piggieeeeee” and grabs the next toe and says “Piggieeeee” and so on. It’s adorable, and sometimes unexpected. The piggy ambush can happen at any time- making morning coffee, during downward facing dog, while blogging. You’re never safe.

Saturday we loaded up our three little piggies and went to the farmers market in downtown Silver Spring.
This farmers market is great! Some vendors take credit, but most only take cash. The market has a token system so if you can’t get to the ATM they can swipe your credit card and give you the equivalent amount in tokens- there is a $2 charge per transaction, but the money goes to continue running the market. The fountain is a great place to let the kids play; the movie theater is right there if you want to catch a show; the band (there is entertainment of some kind nearly every week) plays. The food is locally grown and some farms are organic. They’re even on twitter! @FRESHFARMSlvrSp

We love the French pastry chef and his lemon drop cookies.

Brothers.

This violinist was great.

These summer squash came home with us and made a fabulous veggie kabob!

I scored two loaves of bread one peasant wheat and one cheddar jalapeno. YUM!

Here’s the haul.

How to tie dye: The hippies have invaded!

Updated!  (Scroll down for before and after stuff)

I’m going to try to compile the best of the information I found about tie dye on the web and interject what worked for us.

As a kid when we tie dyed at summer camp we threw a few rubber bands on a shirt and dunked it in a tub of dye (or two). And I was always a little disappointed that the pattern wasn’t very dynamic and the colors looked faded. Turns out all I needed were 3 simple things: a dropper dye kit, soda ash, and the swirl method.

This YouTube video by cacacarkeys was great. It’s long (as she says herself) but it’s a full demonstration of what you will be doing start to finish. This talks about the ash, the swirl and the droppers.

I love this folding technique demonstrated by expertvillage. He uses the summer-camp dunking method, but we used this fold and variations of it with the dropper dye applicators and it worked great. The one exception being the shirt I made for myself- I did not apply enough dye. More on that later.

I set up the soda ash rinse (which happens first and helps the dye adhere to the fibers) next to the sink. But next time I would set it up right next to the work space.

Here are the dyes. I got the Jaquard Tie Dye Kit from Hobby Lobby and used my smart phone to get the 40% off coupon. We were dying for 2 women 3 girls and 2 boys so I also snagged a purple Tulip brand packet and an extra dropper. Next time I would get a pink packet as well because diluting the red didn’t really make pink. The Jaquard colors can be mixed to create orange, green and purple, but having additional colors on hand worked well for our purposes.

Our yellow dropper had some issues at the spout, extra plastic stuck to the end made it hard to spray out.  In addition to the items recommended in the video and in the dye box I suggest having a needle or small nail available, because you don’t want to have to look for one after you’ve started and got dye all over your hands or gloves!

Trash bag on dining room table was a great work surface. The only adjustment I would make is I would buy a plastic table cloth and tape it in place so it doesn’t shift. **The table needs to be wiped down between items- use a paper towel or clorox wipe or similar because we kept finding rogue dots of color on our shirts.

Do wear gloves.

Our post-production staging area. I put another trash bag on top so the shirts could sit for a full 24 hours.  The box said 5 shirts.  We got 15 items out of the deal and still had dye to spare.

They really felt like little mysterious packages. We had no idea how they would look until they were opened the next morning.

This morning I rinsed the shirts, removed the rubber bands and tossed them in the washing machine. I recommend doing this far away from any other linens and in a sink that you’re okay staining. (Horray for utility sinks!)

Just so you know:

Before:

After:

I’m kinda excited that my shirt got messed up because it gives me a reason to do this again. Especially because the Husband said to me this morning “Where’s my shirt?” Ummmm…. awkward. Next time, babe. Next time.

Here they are rolled up:

Here’s how they turned out: the location of the shirts are the same in both pictures for easy referencing.

The swirl method is really pretty. The red/white/blue shirts were folded and then rolled onto a swirl. The adult tanks (both purple) were folded and then rolled, this doesn’t seem to work well on adult clothing, especially things that are to be dyed in one color. There just isn’t enough color penetration happening that way.

Three Yoga Poses to help ‘get my body back’

Tags

yoga

I should start by saying ALL yoga can help you get your body back, at least I find that to be very true for me. But these are three poses that when I add them to my home yoga practice I can feel the impact they are having on my target areas: arms, core & legs. Thank you, Sally for helping to keep me motivated!

The V Sit:

Sit on your mat with your knees bent and feet on the floor.
Raise your feet up as you lean back for balance. (The first time I like to let my feet hover above the floor to check my balance.)
While in the V position isometrically pull your belly button towards your spine and hug your shoulder blades together pulling them towards your spine.
Keep your back straight- it’s easy to forget and round or arch it while doing this pose.
Hold it as long as you can, breathe normally while holding the pose.
To come out of the pose lower your feet and return to a proper seated position.

The Powerful Pose:

Start standing on your mat with your feet parallel and hip width apart.
Lift your toes (just your toes) to activate the muscles in your feet and legs. (If you really want to feel it- keep them lifted for the duration of the pose.)
Bend your knees slowly, keeping your spine straight.
Pull your belly button towards your spine.
Keep your shoulder blades on you back (it’s easy for them to wing forward and to the side in this pose).
Lower to a low seat, the lower the better- but if you find yourself holding your breath back off because the pose is not as effective if you can’t breathe normally.
Hold the pose as long as you can, breathing normally.
To come out of the pose straighten your legs keeping your arms above your head. When you are standing again, then lower your arms to your sides.

Warrior 2:

Stand with your legs wide apart, feet parallel.
Turn your back foot in slightly and your front foot out 90 degrees.
Raise your arms to shoulder height. Activate the muscles in your arms and back by spreading the fingers wide -imagine palming a basket ball- and hug your shoulders on to your back, moving your shoulder blades towards each other. Be careful not to hunch your shoulders.
With your arms raises now bend the front knee towards 90 degrees. Be careful to check the position of the knee in relation to your ankle. The knee should be directly above the ankle, bending beyond the ankle means you need to give yourself more space by moving your back leg back.
Hold the pose as long as you can, to come out straighten the front leg and lower your arms to your sides.

I have to say this: as a good teacher I try to explain and demonstrate things clearly to help you avoid injury, but if you start to do something and it doesn’t feel good -be a good student and stop. Yoga shouldn’t hurt. Feel the burn? abso-freeking-lutely but pain? not so much.

I keep swearing to myself that I will put a video of one of my home practices up to share- but for now I have photos and explanations. Enjoy!

How can I tell the difference between my spring onions and my garlic?

Tags

Suburbanhomesteading

If you’re me, you can’t.

The garlic is clearly taller and has more stalks. But at first glance I thought the onion was the garlic. Luckily,I can incorporate it in the meal pretty easily- otherwise it would go to waste.

The garlic smells amazing!!

“Label your plants” is such an obvious solution!

Weekend in Photos

This is our weekend in photos:

Our homemade growth chart.

Farmers market finds (which went in vegetarian shepherd’s pie)- so good!

Maggie learns to giggle

Henry plays with chalk.

We enjoyed a pool-party! Jack demonstrated his swimming skills: (floating, retrieving objects from the bottom of the pool, swimming underwater, breath-holding.) He is now working on bobbing, crawl stroke and streamline for the swimmer followers). Henry demonstrated his ability to try to do everything Jack is doing. Next on the list find a way to get Henry some swim lessons. I can teach him, I still remember my instructor training but something magical tends to happen when Mommy is NOT involved.

We played with the new RC car.

Maggie proved her fluke roll-over was not a fluke.

Sometimes change is good, but I don’t have to like it.

Last night Maggie slept in her nursery for the first time.

She has been in a bassinet right next to my side of the bed from the beginning. Moving her to her own room is so sad, and so good. She’s waking up only once a night and she falls asleep at a predictable time each night. I can now read in my own bed without eye strain. Our bedroom is less cluttered. Her stuff is more contained to her room. She slept better last night in her own space. She is growing up. Already.