Intentional living: making some baby food

One of the areas in which I have tried to be more intentional is watching our budget, more specifically, our food budget. As any parent knows, aside from diapers and formula (thank God we don't use formula because that ish is pricey!), one of the pricey items is jarred baby food.

I never made Gabriel's baby food, mostly because I was lazy and partly because I didn't realize how easy it was. With Jonas, I decided that I would give a shot, see how I liked it and go from there. Turns out, it is one of the easiest things to do! Not only that, but I love it because I know exactly what is in the foods I'm giving to him - no preservatives and he gets real-tasting food. Shocker...broccoli actually tastes like broccoli!

Here are my weapons of choice:

It's really tricky to make the food so let me explain. 

Wash veggies. Place in steamer (or oven if you're doing potato or squash). Push buttons. Let steam (or roast). Open contraption. Place in immersion blender. Push more buttons. Blend. Place in ice cube tray. Freeze.

It takes about 1.3456 minutes to put the veggie in the steamer (or oven). Then it takes about 3.6934 minutes to blend and place in the freezer. So...all in all I spend about 4.98 minutes, once a week, to make Jonas' meals for the next 40 days.

To the untrained eye, this may look like science-experiment-turned-moldy-mushy-mess, but to a 5-month old, this is green bean bliss. 

So far, I've made sweet potatoes, carrots, butternut squash, asparagus, broccoli and green beans. I'd estimate that the veggies have costed me approximately $8.50. I've made about 40 servings, meaning it costs me around 0.21 cents per feeding. This means I've already saved $11.50 at the very minimum, if baby food costs .50 cents per jar. The organic jars are more like .80 - $1.00 so the savings only increase since all of the veggies have been organic. I'd say that the 5 minutes spent per bag is well worth that extra dough!

So what do you think, would it be worth it to you to make your own baby food? Am I nuts for doing it?

Happy (day before) Memorial Day!

Remembering the past...

...and honoring the present.

Thank you for your commitment and service.

Book Review: The Tortilla Curtain

In my mind, this book was too good to not talk about. I'm not sure if book reviews will become a part of this blog or not, but reading is something I enjoy that has not been reflected on this blog enough. I took a little break from reading regularly because I couldn't find a book that I really enjoyed, but The Tortilla Curtain got me rolling again.

via

The Tortilla Curtain by Tom Coraghessan Boyle, in a nutshell, describes the lives of two distinctively different couples - one, an affluent husband and wife who live in a private hilltop community in Los Angeles, and the other, two Mexican illegals who have come to the States to search out the American dream. Their lives converge several times in unplanned, unfortunate and usually disastrous ways. 

Boyle uses flowery descriptive vocabulary to describe even the mundane; at times it felt almost superfluous but most of the time I found it to be captivating. 

To be honest, what I got from this book was not what I expected. I assumed that the upper-class family would run into the illegals, they would take them in, have them as their help staff and all would live happily ever after. If you are looking for a book with closure, pass on by. This book brings to life real racism and common stereotypes about illegal immigrants. Between those circumstances, natural disasters, language barriers, rape, judgement and being on the brink of starvation, how will the four characters ever come to a mutual understanding - a common existence?

Go read it. It's good. I found it at my library.

And now I'm signing off to go enjoy story time at the library, shopping at Target and then we're driving up to Camarillo to enjoy lots of friends and family on this Memorial weekend. 

See you Monday!

Awkward moment: World Market

I used to be really outgoing, or at least I think I did. I also used to be really great at making friends, I'm pretty sure. It must have had something to do with living on a mountain where everybody knew everybody and there was never anybody around that I wasn't familiar with.

Well, as we all know, my social life has taken a nose dive since college and my adult interaction really took a hit when I decided to become a stay at home mom. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of people that I talk to, they just happen to live in Vegas, San Diego, New York, Texas...you get my drift. I have to make an extreme effort to take a step out of my comfort zone and engage with people because I would honestly rather pull a celebrity move - cover my face with enormous bug-eyed sunglasses, stick my cell phone in my face and pretend like I don't need to know you.

So now that I have prefaced my awkward run in with my awkwardness, here we go....

Oh wait, I have to take another step back. So, several weeks ago at the Mother's Day performance at Gabriel's preschool, I gave up my chair to a pregnant young woman, perhaps my age, who was sitting on the floor. We smiled at each other, she said thanks, then we both turned back towards the stage. Prologue over.

Last Wednesday, I'm walking around World Market in San Diego with Gabriel before our play date with a friend at Chuck E. Cheese. Who do you think I see? None other than the sweet pregnant lady I gave up my chair to. So I'm like, okay, it's fate. We're 100 miles away from home, we run into each other. It's destiny, we're supposed to be best friends.

Me: Hi, this is random but...uhhh...do you live in the Valley? 

Pregnant lady: Umm...(looks around uncomfortably)...yes?

Me: Oh, yeah, okay, I thought so. You look familiar. I'm pretty sure our kids go to the same school?


Pregnant lady: Ohhhh...Little Pioneers. Does your son go there?

Me: Yeah, him, yeah. I took him out today to go to Chuck E. Cheese.


Pregnant lady: .....................

(Clearly I didn't really think this conversation through)

Me: Okay, well ummm...yeah. Thanks. Okay, bye. I'm going to walk over here now.


I'm pretty sure this is like when Adrian saw the love of his life aka Lauren Conrad at LAX and could not open his mouth to profess his undying love for her except I opened my mouth and word vomited awkwardness all over her.

How do I recover from that the next time I see her??

Weighing my options: going back to work

It keeps coming up that I maybe should go back to work. Husband's words, not mine. Granted, I'm kind of keen on the idea, especially if it means I have an extra couple seconds to myself every day. Not that I want to escape my kids or anything. You know what I mean. I don't have an official job offer yet, but let's face it, I'm awesome. Okay, not really but the truth is whenever I've set my mind to find a job, I've found a job. And in this town, it helps that I have a leg up with the second job I applied for - it just so happens that Adrian knows someone who happens to be looking for someone for their marketing department. Allegedly.

But then I think about this:

And what I might miss if I go back to work, which makes this decision much harder and about a zillion times more confusing. It's not just Gabriel anymore, not that it would be any easier. I've grown quite attached to being at home with my boys, watching them change and grow. So, I came up with five reasons why I want to go back to work and five reasons I want to stay home. Nice even numbers that basically help me not at all in weighing my options.

Five Reasons Why I Want To Go Back To Work:

1. I would like to converse with adults regularly. I have no friends, we all know it. It would be nice to have "forced friends," AKA co-workers who are forced to be in the same room with and listen to me all day. 
2. My brain is turning to mush. I need stimulation. It's very evident when I play the game Cranium and try to spell.
3. Someone (again, the husband) has mentioned the fact that I can relinquish house cleaning duties if I go back to work. Or at least split them. I'm thinking a housekeeper who would come once a week. BAM.
4. I genuinely like to work. I like feeling productive, leaving the house every day, putting on pants, you know...the usual stuff.
5. My brain is supposedly worth $24,000 according to Sallie Mae, lender for my student loans. If you account for the entire amount of tuition, whoa. My brain is worth at least $192,000. Say what? I want to get my money's worth usage of this noggin, ya'll! I didn't spend a pretty penny to sit at home, just saying.

Five Reasons Why I Am Totally Freaked Out About Going Back To Work:

1. DIYing and blogging and cooking and baking and catching up on all of the good shows is way too much fun. I'm getting a little too used to doing all of those things on a regular basis.
2. I really like wearing yoga pants. I'm sure I could find some comfy slacks, but really, is there anything that beats yoga pants?
3. When I worked last year, my life was a whirlwind. Things are already moving in light years, so I have a feeling if I go back to work I'll wake up next week and all of a sudden it will be 2017. 
4. Having someone else raise my children for 8 of the 12 waking hours of the day seems a lot more daunting when it's not someone I know. I was way too lucky in SD. 
5. The most important reason - see above photo. And this. And this. And this. 

Tell me what you think. I need some help (mental help, clearly), some clarity, maybe some chocolate.