Malin’s birthday was in September. She turned 30. We had a small party. Unfortunately, I did not really get any pictures. Birthday girl wasn’t taking pictures that day either. We had food from Star Provisions (thin crust pizzas, focaccia pizzas, and soup) along with some usual party food (wings, chip, dips…).

The week before Malin’s birthday, Malin busied herself with a new crafty enterprise: canning.

First on the agenda was fig jam. Malin had a craving that week (early pregnancy does a number on women with respect to cravings – late pregnancy, too, sometimes – heck, maybe even mid-pregnancy).

The fridge was full of figs. Most of them were black mission figs, but I think we got some green kadota figs mixed in there, too. Our neighbors across the street, Joe and Frances, provided some of the green figs – fresh from the fig trees in their backyard.

Before we can can the figs, we must first turn them into jam. This is made easy with the help of sugar and heat. Apparently the first step is peel the little skins off of the figs. Then you toss them into a big pot (the figs, not the skins) with the aforementioned sugar and finally apply the aforementioned heat. It’s so simple, right?

A little stewing on the stovetop

After you have jam, you fill the mason jars. You then “process” the jars to seal them via partial vacuum. When you’re done, you have cute little jars of jam like in the picture (above right).

We still have some to this day. We eat it on toast with breakfast regularly.

Second on the agenda was everyone’s favorite: a piping peck of pickled peppers.

The peppers were courtesy of a friend and co-worker who grows peppers as a hobby – including some really nasty hot peppers like Habaneros.

And now, to break up the monotony, how about an oddball picture of yours truly:

I don’t know what I was doing. The face is unlikely authentic – probably hamming it up for the camera. I don’t know. Don’t ask.

And now on to the end of September. The last week I brewed a truly terrific double IPA:

Sack o’ grains, waiting to be turned into beer

That same day, before brewing began, Malin had a photo shoot: she was taking pictures of baby Nye, the young daughter of our friends Kevin and Patricia. Before the shoot, Malin showed Will how to take pictures using her old D50. He has been taking them ever since. Here are some of his first images:

Later that day, Malin got this picture of Will playing with baby Nye:

He’s already practicing to be a big brother. And look at those curls. Who the hell let him grow his hair out like that? Amusingly enough, he now prefers to keep his hair very short and occasionally even asks if he can shave it, “I want no hair! Like Randy!” (Randy is my mother-in-law’s boyfriend).

And thus concludes yet another chapter. The next chapter will be the longest and the most interesting: California! We’ll write all about what we did in LA in October. Lots of pictures, too. And I have a busy weekend coming up (plans for Friday and Saturday), so I won’t get a chance to post the next chapter until Sunday at the very earliest. I’m sure you will all be on the edge of your seats, losing sleep for days.

À bientôt!

Winterizing the men – scarves for both and mittens for Will.  The mittens are made from a felted wool sweater I got from the salvation army for $5. I have been collecting them for some time. We have decided to cloth diaper the new little dude, and the felted wool is being made into diaper covers. On a side note, does anyone know how amazing the properties of wool are? It is right up there with baking soda, in my humble opinion.

And speaking of natural things, I am still on my all natural beauty regime for the exception of the hair. I do use natural shampoo because the baking soda quit working a bit after I got pregnant. I will be giving it a go again once all the crazy hormones have left my body – which will not be for a long time.

Back to why I have been making scarves, other than it is cold: I became very tired this week and had brushed it off as being pregnant. On Wednesday I got a call from my doctor to tell me they were putting me on a new medication because my hemoglobin was low, meaning I was anemic. Then another call from another one of my army of Dr.’s to tell me I needed more blood thinner, so they upped that dose too.  Now it makes since as to my I have only been able to sit and crochet because all I could think was, “man, cooking dinner sounds like climbing Mt. Everest, and screw that Christmas party – I can’t imagine how bad my legs will hurt if I try and pull that off.”  I am feeling 100% better now, which is great because I have to go to work in an hour.

More things I have been making:

Love this deerbit with the crazy huge antlers. My sewing machine keeps gumming up the thread, but this project went somewhat smoothly – right up until the end when I had a few choice words for the hunk of plastic.  I am in the middle of making a bird. Hopefully I can bore you with pictures of it later.

I have been feeling very nesty, so I have been crafting a lot. I made Will these little Elves.

Full body:

Her arm is wonky as she is the first one I made. Just don’t look.

Santa will be sending magic dust in the next few days and a letter as to how to make them wake up in the night.  I think the story goes something like this: the elves wake up at night and get into mischief but they are always watching and reporting back to Santa if you are naughty or nice. It should be interesting.  I got the idea here, but I thought the elves looked lame so I made my own and painted the faces on. The boy looks a bit grim, but we will just say he’s mysterious.

We got a tree this past weekend though it has only lights on it so far. Maybe it will get ornaments this afternoon. Almost all the Christmas shopping is done and hidden or in the mail on its way. I would show more craft stuff, but a lot of it is going as gifts so secrets must be kept.  Oh, I do have a birthday gift I made that was delivered last week.  A crown for the birthday girl (a girl in Will’s class and whose mom is a friend):