Adventures in a Vegetarian Kitchen

Last Blogger Post

2010-01-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

The focus of this blog has changed drastically, and I have considered switching to Wordpress for sometime now. Today I made a new blog on Wordpress and I will no longer be using this blog. Check it out if you want at http://prettystitches.wordpress.com. I am going to leave this blog up for about two weeks then it will be deleted. It has been great fun. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you keep in touch on my new blog.

Were YOU Compensated?

2010-01-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

This morning I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Bittersweet, and there was a post on there titled "Review Rant". It was a great read and it really opened my eyes to the new FTC laws that were recently updated. These new regulations really bother me. I feel that they are a direct violation of our first amendment rights. I can see that the new regulations have good intentions to prevent biased reviews and endorsements, but when the government steps in and begins to regulate how you share your opinions of products as a private citizen, I feel it goes too far.

I agree that it is wrong to write a positive review on an inferior product because you received the product for free or some other compensation. I agree that if you do receive free product from a company you should mention it along with your review, but I think that it is a little crazy to slap an $11,000 fine on anyone who fails to do so. I realize that for now the only real effect on bloggers is that if you received any type of compensation from a company, you have to state that in a review of that company's products. You also have to state if you are connected to that company in any way. I feel that by allowing these regulations to be put in effect, it opens a door for more strict regulation in the future. What next? You have to have a legal disclaimer before saying something nice about your husband because he bought you a nice Christmas present. I realize that comparing these two things is crazy, but I feel that a compromise of our rights is a compromise none the less.

I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I feel that when the FTC updated these regulations, it was not with the intention of protecting consumers. I believe that it was to protect the multi-trillion dollar marketing industry that has been worried about losing revenue to these "non-traditional" marketing outlets. The truth is that a lot of these smaller companies don't have the money to pay for "traditional" advertisement and they have turned to much cheaper methods. I really admire this because I feel that a good product will eventually make a name for itself and a huge marketing budget is a slap in the face to the consumer saying "look how much money we make off of you, we can throw it around with super expensive advertising campaigns."

I feel that these new poorly written regulations are an attempt to scare bloggers away from reviewing products. I feel that they are poorly written on purpose to leave large grey areas so people will feel that it is better to be safe than sorry and not risk a large fine just for saying how they feel about a product. From now on if I buy a product then mention how much I like it, do I have to say that I did not receive any compensation from them just so there will be no question that I am not in violation of the law? Or for that matter if you are wearing a certain brand T-shirt in a picture on your blog do you now have to state that they did not pay you to advertise for them to avoid a hefty fine?

Something was said in a comment on Hannah's blog about reviews not being all inclusive because they don't take into account all the competition. I say that these reviews are not made to do all the research and legwork for you. Even if they were, you would have to be a fool to base your decision off of one person's opinion be it biased or unbiased.

There have been reviews of products written on this blog and I agree with Hannah that it is a lot of work to do a review. Even before I learned of these new regulations I had determined that it is not worth it to receive free products because the time and effort that goes into trying to write an unbiased review is not worth as much to me as the cost of the product. If I want something I will go and buy it. If I love it enough to recommend it to my friends, I will. I also like to research a product before I buy it and blogs that review these products have been a lifesaver. So if that's what you enjoy doing, you should be able to say what you like without fear of reprisal from the government or anyone else. You should also feel free to do this without having a "rulebook" or a legal department to back you up. After all this is a FREE country.

Babywearing

2010-01-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post this for a while. During pregnancy I became acquainted with Attachment Parenting. A part of that is wearing your baby a lot. At first when the baby was born we had so many visitors that I was barely even able to hold him myself. When everyone went home and my husband went back to work, the baby and I were all alone. It was difficult to do anything but take care of the baby. Incorporating babywearing into my day has made life much easier for me and Dylan.

I have a ring sling and a Sleepy Wrap. The ring sling has been difficult to figure out. I took it to a La Leche League meeting and my leader helped me put him in it. He only wants to be upright in it but it doesn't support his head at all. We really don't like the ring sling.

I love the Sleepy Wrap. It is very supportive of his weight and evenly distributes it across my back. Dylan loves it even more than I do. When he's awake he happily looks around as I clean the house, knit, shop or go for a walk. When he's tired he snuggles close to me and immediately falls asleep. When he's fussy I put him in and start cleaning and he calms down. When he's fussy I have to be busy and moving around or he'll get mad again.

A few things I don't like about babywearing is the attention it attracts. For some reason here in South Carolina the southerners have never seen anyone wear their baby. It's all positive attention, but I'm a very shy person and I don't like it, but I'm getting more used to it. It's one thing to discuss it with the occasional mom, but when it's every single person you walk past it gets a little tiring. That's the only drawback I have found.

Attachment Parenting is a lot of work, but today I realized something that makes it all worthwhile and more. I realized that he doesn't use a Binky, have a favorite blanket or toy, and he doesn't attach himself to any material object. He's attached to me. He needs me to hold him and rock him to sleep, to make him feel better when he's scared or feeling insecure. I love this, it's so much more rewarding that I could have ever thought possible.

Happily Domestic is holding a giveaway for the Ergo Baby carrier. I would really like to win it, but I know it's a long shot. I'm keeping my fingers crossed though!

Resolutions 2010

2009-12-31T18:07:00.000-08:00

Well, it's that time of year again. Usually I make a resolution to run a marathon. How many marathons have I run?? Not one! Last year I made it a month into my training and worked my running distance to 15 miles. I was feeling so great, the best I'd ever felt in my life! I was thriving on my vegan diet and vigorous exercise regime then BAM! I got pregnant, lol! It put a halt on my marathon training but something new and exciting had begun.

It just so happens that New Years is around the time I am able to start working out again. It's perfect to think about what I want to accomplish and write it down.

1. Lose the baby weight. I think this will be easy since I just have a few pounds to go. I gained a total of 35 lbs. during pregnancy and already have dropped 30 of them. 5 pounds won't be too difficult to lose. In fact it doesn't even matter if I lose them at all. Mostly I want to lose my sad saggy tummy. I realize I just had a baby 7 weeks ago and it's just going to take some time and lots of ab workouts.

The plan:
- Start working out again. I have to start slow since my stitches from my tear aren't healed all the way yet. So for now I'm walking and doing yoga.

- Have a healthy diet. Mostly this is to have higher quality breastmilk with greater nutrition for my son. I know doing this I will lose the extra pounds and become healther myself. Here's what I will do differently:
* While I don't want to call myself vegan again I am going to follow a mostly vegan diet. I will occasionally eat eggs and allow for the occasional slice of pizza. I am going to try to get most of the dairy out of my diet. I'm doing really well with this already.
* Reduce the amount of wheat I eat. It bothers the baby's tummy if I eat too much, so I will eat a large variety of whole grains and cut my wheat down to one serving daily.
* Eat loads of fresh fruits and veggies!!
* Limit my sugar intake. Now that the holidays are (nearly) over this will be much easier. I'm such a sucker for chocolate... mmm....

2. Remember my family's birthdays. Send cards to parent's, brothers, sister, neices, nephews, ect. I haven't been to great with this in past years. I know, I'm a terrible person. In my defence I call them every year.

3. Run a Half Marathon. Running 13-15 miles at a comfortable pace is my favorite. I get such a great high from it and it's not too far I feel like I'm going to die. Making a goal to run a half rather than a full I think is more realistic for someone who's never ran a full marathon. We'll see if it happens or not.. *snickers*

4.Make time to knit daily. Enough said.

5. Have a kitchen garden this spring. I don't know if I can do this because we're moving in Feb. and I don't know what we're moving into. Even if it's a small apartment I can at least have an indoor herb garden.

6. Use more cloth. Cloth diapering has made me think of other things in my house I can replace cloth for paper. We already have replaced paper towels, shopping bags and sponges. When my period starts again I would like to use cloth pads. I would like to use cloth napkins. Currently we aren't using anything but clean dishrags... anyway... I'll have to give this one more thought.

I think that about covers it. I hope everyone has a wonderful New Years Eve. Happy New Year to everyone!!

What are your resolutions? Feel free to comment!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

5 Years ago...

2009-12-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

We got married!!

It's been 5 of the most blissfully happy years of my life. I love my husband so much, I'm so lucky!

Lady Madonna, Baby at Your Breast

2009-12-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

I love the Beatles. This is the only song I know that refers to breast feeding and that is what I want to post about today.

Today I am celebrating. First I am celebrating that my son is one month old. Second, I'm celebrating the simplicity in life. I am just a mammal and I am doing what all other mammals do; feed their offspring.

I heard that the first month of breast feeding is the hardest and if you can make it through that, you're pretty much set! Looking back it was hard, but not in the way I thought it would be.

People frustrate me. Everyone I know has the mindset "Breast is Best" and of course it is. Before I would tell people that I planned to breast feed they would try to convince me to. When I told them that I was going to, all of the sudden their tune would change to "It's really hard. I know all these women who tried and couldn't do it." or other stupid comments like "You won't make enough milk", "It's just too hard" and so on.

No one told me why it's so hard. Here I am today telling all the women out there who plan to breast feed their children what I personally thought was so hard about it.

I have a wonderful baby who had a perfect latch on right from the first feeding, so teaching him to latch wasn't an issue and I know this is the main problem most women encounter.

The hardest thing for me is that I'm the only one that can feed him. It's hard enough recovering from childbirth, but then when you have to feed every 2 hours around the clock for the first 2 weeks it feels impossible. I had company keep offering to bottle feed him formula so I could sleep for a long time. As tempting as that was, I felt it was pretty messed up to try to sabatoge my goals to breast feed. Not having support from visitors was incredibly difficult.

I had a pretty rough delivery. I tore through three layers of skin and had to have more stitches than if I'd had a C-section. Sitting for 12 hours of the day is very rough on such a tender area. My baby would not latch on well in the side-lying position so I had to sit through all of our feedings.

Dylan has a bit of a tongue tie. No pediatrician we have seen will clip it so for a while I had pretty sore nipples. It's loosened up a lot and things are getting much better.

Growth spurts are very hard. He had to be constantly feeding and when he wasn't feeding he was screaming. I had visitors during one of his two growth spurts and they kept trying to take him from me saying I was feeding him too much. They'd say "He's just using you as a pacifier." It got really bad the night before said company was about to leave. Dylan was at his most crankiest and all he wanted was to eat. The visitors wanted to spend as much time as possible with their grandson before they left. They would not let me have him! He was screaming and I was in my bedroom crying because they wouldn't support me in my parenting style. Finally my husband had to take him from them and tell them we were going to bed (at like 5 p.m.) and we shut the door for the night and I was able to feed him to his heart's conent. The other growth spurt we were on our own and it was so much easier to manage. Although it's hard to sit and feed for hours and hours on end.

I've said a lot of negative things about the visitors we had. I'm grateful for the help they provided during their stay. I was able to rest much more than if they hadn't been here. I never went hungry and I was able to take baths and showers. Once everyone left is when things got difficult.

Babies are hard work! As soon as I sit down to eat a meal he decides he needs to eat. As soon as I've nursed him to sleep and hand him to his Daddy so I can take a quick shower, the baby decides he's not yet finished eating. It's hard to take care of a baby. It's hard to take care of a baby and yourself.

Anyway, today I feel it's time to give myself a pat on the back. I've done well, I've made it through the first month. Being a mother is a million times harder than I expected but a million times more rewarding. I love my baby so much and I'm so happy to be his mother.

Dylan on his one month birthday

Thoughts about diapering

2009-11-29T19:30:00.000-08:00

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks for all the sweet comments about the arrival of my baby boy. You are all too sweet. Also, I'm not back just yet. I'm still enjoying my babymoon and adjusting to life with a baby and the shock of being a new mom.

For the first week, we used disposable diapers. We bought some size newborns and the hospital was sure to give us a large supply to take home. The formula companies send a gift bag home with every new mom, including breastfeeding mothers. I told the nurse I didn't even want to take any formula samples home with me. I don't even want it in my house. She was happy because she knew someone who could use it. In return for the formula, she sent us home with several unopened packages of Pampers.

During this first week of using disposables, we kept having leak after leak. I was changing his outfit with each diaper. One day I was so upset because I felt like I wasn't a very good mother if I couldn't even successfully diaper my child.

I decided to break out the cloth diapers even though I wasn't totally ready for laundering them. It took a few diaper changes to get the hang of folding the prefold around his body. It also took watching a few clips on You Tube (I love You Tube!) but I did figure it out. Guess what? No more leaks! Yay!

As far as laundering them, it's so easy. I just throw in a load every morning. I don't even have to rinse the poop off because my baby is breastfed exclusively. I have enough diapers to go every other day, but so far just doing laundry everyday has worked out well for us.

I'm loving the cloth diapers. I enjoy changing him and I feel good knowing that I'm doing what's healthiest for him and the environment. Not to mention all the money we're saving! I'll save the rest of the oversupply of disposables for going out. Not that we even go out very much- especially now that the baby's here!

I'm just so happy that I prefer to use cloth to disposables. Just thought I would share my thoughts on the subject. I'll be back sometime- I don't know how soon. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays!

Happy Birthday Dylan

2009-11-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday, but I was quite busy all day and night and didn't get around to it.

Dylan Blake was born Thursday, Nov. 12 at 7:58 p.m. He's 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 and 3/4 inches long.

He's absolutely perfect! I never knew I could love someone so much so quickly. Derek and I couldn't be more happy!

Here's the link to the announcement on the hospital's website. They said a.m. instead of p.m. for the time of birth, but if my memory serves me correctly it was definitely p.m.

New Skills learned

2009-11-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

After I fixed my silly mistake with knitting, I've had so much fun. I'm learning all the things I've wanted to. I'm knitting cables, lace, knitting with double pointed needles! I'm even a bit obsessed with making socks.

This is my first attempt at lace. It's a bag for my yoga mat that has been stuffed under the couch for years. It's cracked now from being misused, almost time for a new one! I wish I would have had this and I could have saved the poor yoga mat.

I love love love knitting lace! It's so satisfying because it's tricky and you have to pay attention. It's become a hobby in itself and I'm so happy I was brave enough to try.

These are my first pair of big people socks. They weren't any more difficult than making baby socks, although they took a bit longer. I made them for my stay in the hospital while I have the baby. I figured it would be nice to have a little "feet treat."

Here's my first project with cables. I've always admired cabled knits and been intimidated by them. I'm so weird, I used to think "How do they make it look twisted?" Well, because the stitches are actually twisted. It was easy and fun, I don't know why I get so intimidated by things.

Here's one of my first crochet projects that wasn't crocheted amigurumi style. I had to do turning chains, something I greatly struggle with. I figured out how to work back and forth, I still have to figure out how to join and chain while working in the round. Once I do figure it out I'm going to think I'm so weird for struggling with it. I guess all this takes time.

And finally, my potholders I got for my wedding almost 5 years ago had just had it. I threw them out and made these reversible Lemon Lime Potholders from Bittersweet Blog. I love them, they work out perfect and they match my yellow kitchen! They were made amigurumi style, so not much skills learned with this project, I just like them.