The best yoga mats & a good cause

I don't normally post stuff like this because it doesn't involve delicious food or pretty projects or pictures of my baby. But because my brother-in-law Sky is the CEO of Manduka, maker of the best mats in the universe, I must. (He's also the doting husband of beautiful Melanie.) I'm sure some of you out there are big yoga peeps and if you are, you probably already know all about the coveted black mat that will last your entire life. Their other mats are great too and come in much yummier colors.



This month, in honor of their very pretty new website and Yoga Aid this weekend, Manduka is giving 10% off all online purchases, PLUS they're donating an extra 10% of all sales to Yoga Aid. Which is an organization that essentially raises money through people practicing yoga and gives it to a number of different charities around the world.

If you happen to be in the market for a new mat, now would be the time to get one!

Use the promo code GIVELOVE for the entire month of September.

Liberty scraps from the mail

Fabric, I love thee. Even though I am barely competent with my sewing machine and have learned that sewing things yourself, while satisfying, is not necessarily less expensive than buying them premade.



I was hunting around Etsy for some bits for our Hitched decor and found this lovely Liberty print with tiny white leaves. Which I thought was black and white. So I purchased it, along with 2 other little pieces for good measure. Once you're paying for shipping from the UK, you might as well add a few extras to your purchase, after all.



And then my little package came in the mail yesterday (which I had already forgotten about, is that a sign of a problem?), and my perfect B&W Liberty print is actually navy. But still very very pretty. And by some stroke of luck, I actually picked two other patterns that make up the perfect trio.

If only I were a quilter, and had about 23 times as much fabric, I'd be set. So the question is, what do I do with these? Again, if I had a girl baby the possibilities would be virtually endless. But I don't. Any ideas? I'm actually don't mind just keeping them close to my breast and adoring them for their perfect, soft, silky cotton-ness. But I would also like to actually make something from them one day.

vintage bath toys

My mom saves everything. EVERYTHING. She has a whole box of baby clothes (mostly mine, which wouldn't be great for a little boy), and little blankets and things that my grandma made. Among which she found our Fisher Price bath toys. Which as it turns out are a huge hit even on the rug in the living room.



Dashiell doesn't have room for toys in his bath at the moment, since he bathes in a big bucket. But we're getting close to moving on to the real bath and then I'm sure these will excellent entertainment.



Do you know what's even better about these? They were made in the US in 1974 (which is curious since I was born 4 years later) and they're not the scary kind of plastic that everything is made of today. And, as part of our greener home mission, it's always good to reuse instead of buy new.

Here comes the giant baby, capsizing his little boats and torturing the captain.











Delicious, as always.

Buttermilk Flaxseed Pancakes

These are quite delicious. They hail from my friend Becca, whose husband's dad has been making them since he can remember. I tasted them when I was visiting with her family (she's my BFF Laura's big sis) in San Diego and have finally gotten around to making them myself.

Our babe is still a little young for pancakes, but these are great kid food too. In fact it's one of Becca's son's staple menu items.



Do you want to hear a most satisfying detail? We made butter on Friday night and the leftover buttermilk went into our pancakes. How great is that? I was very pleased. And the homemade butter is something else. It's so creamy.




Buttermilk Flaxseed Pancakes

1 c all purpose flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c ground flaxseed meal
2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

4 T melted butter
2 eggs
2 c buttermilk

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk eggs until well mixed. Add butter and whisk until well combined. Add buttermilk and mix.

Fold in dry ingredients until just combined.

Grease skillet with butter (or oil) and I think everyone knows how to make pancakes. I added sliced bananas to some of ours and they were delicious.

If you want to skip the buttermilk you can substitute 2/3 cup of yogurt and 1 1/3 cup of water (or possibly milk?). Which makes them, I don't know, possibly healthier?

Either way they are delicious.

things grown, things eaten

Mixed carrots.



Pretty washed and lined up.



Peas & avocado, roasted sweet potato with a teensie bit of cinnamon and ginger. These would be for the baby, not for us.





Salsa (stored in a nice glass jar!).



Roasted homegrown pasilla chiles for tacos. (Caved and bought corn tortillas. I was desperate and they are made in LA so I felt a little less bad.)



And our tower of sunflowers. I've always wondered what the plant looks like that grows cut sunflowers. Apparently it's a huge cone-like thing? Though this could just be a mutant specific to our yard.

Also, ventured to Waterloo & City for early drinks (it's right in our 'hood), I worked on a bunch of stuff for Hitched (our table is going to be tres cute!), and Brock made me do a 10K on Sunday morning. 10Ks used to be a piece of cake, just for the record. It was hard and I was completely wasted for the rest of the day. But as a reward we made banana pancakes slathered in homemade butter and maple syrup. Kind of worth it.

Hope you all had delicious weekends too.

the best nursing tanks - threads for thought

Finally, after 6 months of nursing I've discovered the perfect nursing tank. Actually I discovered it a few months ago, but I've just come to realize that it is in fact the perfect top for breastfeeding. And it's not supposed to be a nursing tank or anything. I tried a bunch of those and don't really LOVE any of them. They're fussy and don't fit exactly right and are crazy expensive for how ugly they are. But the Threads For Thought basic tank, available at Whole Foods for $8 (!!!), is quite excellent.



It's super soft.
It has thick-ish straps so I can wear a nursing bra under it.
It's a wee bit stretchy, so I can just pull the neck down to nurse but the seams don't rip out.
It's CHEAP!
And the organic things is a nice bonus.

I think I have 5 of these and I wear them to bed, to yoga, and around town.

Also, mine are a large and I think that's the perfect size since the extra room allows for nursing. (For comparison, I wear a Gap size small and that's sometimes a little big.)

For $8 you can't really go wrong. And now that I've ripped all the seams out of the straps of my other tank tops, these are pretty much all I wear.

less waste kitchen alternatives

In news from the semi-waste free kitchen front, I thought I'd share what we've been using instead of disposables. We haven't developed the perfect set up yet, let me just warn you. But we're heading in the right direction.



Napkins - stupidly obvious - you just use cloth napkins. This is soooooo easy, I can't believe I didn't make the change earlier. We've been using them for the most part for a few months, but cutting out the paper altogether is a breeze. I've been making my own, because they are just rectangular pieces of fabric and I can sew things like that, and it's been pretty fun. Though kind of a lot of work, I'm not going to lie. Not the sewing per se, the ironing and pinning and pressing takes up all the time.

Paper towels - also incredibly easy once you make the commitment. I've had 3 dozen Unpaper Towels that I bought on etsy a year ago (when Joslyn posted about them) and now we're actually using them with gusto. I just keep them stacked up on the counter where the paper towels used to be and toss them into the laundry when they've been used. A better system would be to have little "clean" and "dirty" baskets somewhere in the kitchen, but I haven't gotten that far. I don't think we'll be going back to paper when the experiment is over.

OH HELLO! Athena Creates now makes little wooden bins made specifically for her towels. I'm feeling an etsy purchase coming on...

Plastic baggies - They are incredibly convenient, but I'm telling you, you can live without them. We've been using a bunch of different things but I do love our glass storage containers from Crate & Barrel. We have two sets and use them constantly. Plus I love the french terrine jars from the Container Store (my faves are not online, sadly) for things like baby food and cooked beans and the like. Obviously any glass jars will work, but I like to try to stick with those that are all glass and use a rubber gasket. It turns out the other kind (with the ring and lid) actually have BPA in the liner. Isn't that shocking??? That's another post altogether.

Freezer storage - This one is a little trickier. But for the most part, I use the same glass jars. You can actually freeze things in glass, with a lid that seals, as long as you leave enough room to accommodate for expansion. As in, if you freeze stock in a glass jar it will expand and break said jar if there's not enough air space to start. Learned that one the hard way!

I freeze baby food in little jars, stock in big jars, and actually keep all of my grains, beans, and nuts in the freezer as well. I buy that stuff in bulk and because I'm paranoid about moths, just dump it into large glass canisters and store everything in the freezer.

For buying in bulk, you can use whatever cloth/muslin bags you have lying around and avoid the plastic bags altogether. (if you don't have any, you could try these, these, these, or these.)

And, for your waste-free-ish kitchen, I cannot stress how great it is to have LOTS of tea towels at your disposal. I'm partial to pretty ones of course, but the workhouse of tea towels is still the simple white and red one from IKEA. They're $0.49 each. I probably have at least 30.

Now, the problem areas.

Foil. Haven't found a solution. But you can buy recycled foil at the grocery store and then recycle it again after you use it.

Saran wrap. Sometimes this is kind of useful. Not sure if there's a good alternative.

Freezer bags. In some cases nothing else will do.

And finally produce bags. Rachel uses muslin bags, but I've never felt like cloth produce bags actually keep things nice and crisp.

If someone has a good recommendation for any of these things, please share!

this and that

A few things I've been up to of late... and by late I mean in the last 5 days.



more ciabatta



they look good, but honestly they leave a little something to be desired.



The squirrels have been feasting on our sunflowers.



Piles of fabric everywhere.





Major crafting for Hitched.

Are any of you going to it? It's going to be a pretty awesome party. We'll have a DIY table set up so please stop by and say hi!

documenting a pregnancy, in style

I saw this on Highchair Critics this morn. It's so sweet. Makes me want another tiny baby already! But I think we will be waiting a bit. You know, since we've just started to feel like real people again.

Super busy weekend with lots going on this week, but I'll be back shortly with more to post.

pretty triangley jewelry

I happened upon these pretties from spinthread on etsy the other day. They are quite marvelous. Have they already made the rounds on the blogs? Probably. I'm never first with the etsy finds. But aren't they good?











I bet they would be good baby entertainment if I had one for myself. Tempting.