FreshMD

A day in the life

The topic of the week at Mothers in Medicine is "A Day in the Life." Check out the typical day of a neurologist, pediatrician and internist. I describe a typical Tuesday at the refugee clinic here.

The antidote: knitting

Post up at Mothers in Medicine on why I consider knitting the perfect antidote to medicine and parenting.

Finished

When I began blogging, a family member unfamiliar with blogs looked over this site and said politely, "It looks nice. Is it almost finished?" 

Well, now it is. 

I feel hamstrung by the mix of personal and professional anecdotes under my real name in the face of increasing readership. I find myself censoring and second-guessing myself and that really dilutes the pleasure of blogging.

I started this blog for the satisfaction of crafting bits of my chaotic days at home and work into a tidy package. But now my domestic and clinical days have settled into a relatively unruffled routine and I'm eager to pursue other projects. Any creative energy (and time) not exhausted by children or patients is in short supply, not enough to slather over multiple projects.

And so I need to absolve myself of this blog. I'm not sure if I'm euthanizing it or inducing an indefinite coma. The site will remain up but expect this post to greet you for the foreseeable future.

I'll still be active at Mothers in Medicine, Twitter and Flickr. 

Thank you to my little band of readers, especially those who commented or emailed over the last year and a half.

Decorating with vintage records

I covered one of Saskia's bedroom walls with vintage record covers.

Collected one or two at a time over a year of thrifting, they cost 25 to 50 cents apiece. Most of them are from the 1950's and 60's. The art on some of these is quite wonderful, and I'd admired them for years but couldn't think of a use that would justify relaxing my efforts to stem the flow of goods coming through the front door.

I keep getting asked how I mounted these to the wall. I drove a nail through each one. All those years of renting as a student, where pounding holes in walls was expressly forbidden, make pock-marking my own walls that much more satisfying.

Now I have a drawer of LPs that I'm sure Saskia would enjoy, but no record player. I don't want a 70's one with giant speakers, but I don't want one that's meant to hook up to a laptop, either. Sony makes this attractive option, but spending $90+ US for a machine to play these two-bit records seems a little self-defeating.

So, another corner of Saskia's room done, another one with which we're equally happy. Really, I should be focusing on the adult living spaces: removing wood paneling, getting some hardwood floors installed, finding a couch. But somehow that feels so much more like work.

Tidying Saskia's room

I just spent an hour cleaning Saskia's room; most of that time was used to organize her desk. I separated beads from stickers, put the ink pads and markers out of her younger siblings' reach and threw out a million snippets of paper collected from previous cutting sprees.

I sort through Saskia's creative messes carefully. I discover drawings I've never seen filed away in drawers, and notebooks with the sweetest things documented: a list of what we had for Thanksgiving dinner; poems about animals; journaling about her day (I got up at 6:38 this morning. I read On the Banks of Plum Creek and did crafts.)

What strikes me is that for the last couple of years, the things she makes hold value for her whether or not her parents see them. Everything Ariana makes is shown to Pete or me so that we can exclaim over it. All of Leif's projects are gifted to us or Scotch-taped to his bedroom wall. Stumbling upon Saskia's projects that she feels no need to show us is bittersweet.

As it is now, Saskia is pleased when she comes home to a freshly organized desk. But I'm acutely aware that the day will come that she doesn't want me to touch her things. We've currently designated one desk drawer as private. (We discovered at Christmas that all those mornings crafting in the wee hours, she was churning out stocking stuffers and stashing them in the drawer. Six for each of us, and seven for Ariana.)

But that pocket of privacy is going to keep on growing.

And so I find nothing tedious about tidying my seven-year-old's room, and leaving the kitchen floor unswept to vacuum glitter off of the bedroom rug seemed a perfectly reasonable choice this stormy Monday morning.

Last one before I'm back to patients and disease

One feature of visiting Ontario that I particularly enjoy is the relaxing familiarity of Pete's parents' house. Every year as I set my suitcase up against the south wall of the bedroom and flip open the lid, top-heavy with balled-up socks and wads of underwear, it's like déjà vu.

The kids quickly reacquaint themselves with the wonders of Opa and Oma's house. There's the marvel of a dog sleeping in his bed behind the stove. ("I want to pet his hairs!" Ariana said over and over.)

There's another Christmas tree, with new ornaments to discover,

puzzles to do at the kitchen table,

and grandparents with whom to cuddle.

 

As for me, I read Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, knit up most of the Morehouse striped vest for Leif, drew up lists for the New Year, roamed around with my camera and didn't have to cook a single meal.

And when my brother-in-law asked me about a pain in his knee, it required supreme effort to recall anything medical.

Advent ring

I wanted to do some kind of Advent countdown with the kids this year, something that would build up anticipation and allow for discussion about the meaning of Christmas, that didn't involve cheap foil-wrapped chocolate or me wrapping twenty-five times three tiny treats.

I found the perfect answer in this birthday ring, which I adapted for Advent. The wooden German-made rings are by Spiel und Holz Design, come in four sections and are available with twelve or sixteen holes. They hold candles, wooden figures, vases and picture holders. 

In our family, a different person selects an item for the ring each day. We light the candles at dinner time, and little hands position the donkey and the ox to gaze at whatever's deemed most exciting in the ring that night. 

The setup is flexible. I've arranged the quarters in all sorts of ways, and in the first week sometimes put out just the piece or two that was in use, not the entire ring.

I'm already looking forward to using this for the next birthday (Ariana's in May). I plan to pick up a few more figures that would particularly appeal to her, and to put photos, cards and notes in the holders with Leif and Saskia the night before.

There's actually a spiral that's intended specifically for Advent. However, the shape doesn't appeal to me, and I didn't want the cost and clutter of buying both the spiral and the ring.

It doesn't bother us that we're only counting down sixteen days until Christmas. I could use a bit of leeway in the first weeks of December, anyway.

* Ring, candles and ornaments purchased from The Wooden Wagon and Nova Natural Toys + Crafts.

Nativity set

I've been looking for a nativity set for ages.

Several years and many Internet shopping excursions later, I've collected the ox and the donkey. That's it.   

That's because the options out there are these:

the obscene,

the anemic and vacuous,

the wooly Waldorf,

the folksy,

the inaccurately ethnic,

the unaffordable ($1,100),

and the vague and washed out.

Actually, Ostheimer (above) and Engelberger (first photos), both German wooden scenes, appeal to me the most. But I'm not sure I like them enough to go for the entire set. And so we settled for the two Engelberger animals this year.

The hunt for a beautiful, child-friendly, respectful, well-crafted crèche will resume next year.

Forcing bulbs

Every day that I'm home that's not rainy, we head out to the yard for an hour or two. The kids tie their bikes together with skipping ropes and I putter in the garden. There are few things that I enjoy more than moving dirt and rocks around while the kids play, squirrels chatter and boats drone up and down the Arm. But it's almost December, and I know our days are numbered.

When I picked up a few hundred bulbs last week, I decided to get some hyacinths and paperwhites (white daffodils) to force indoors this year. The idea of tricking bulbs into thinking it was time to bloom captivated the kids.

For the paperwhites, we put some pebbles in the bottom of a glass (with much analysis of the merits of each stone as it was carefully placed by little fingers), set the bulb on the rocks and added water until it was just touching the bottom of the bulb.

That was Thursday night. On Saturday morning Saskia and Leif literally screamed with excitement when they noticed the hundreds of little roots budding from each bulb. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed myself. And at a dollar a pop, this is the most affordable fun we've had in a while.

For the hyacinths, we set the bulbs in hyacinth glasses, added water, and set them in a dark cupboard in the cellar. They need an eight to ten week chilling period before they can come upstairs to bloom. I'm limiting check-ins on those ones to once a week. 

I do find the term 'forcing' bulbs a little off-putting. It sounds so unnatural. And when I read that a forced bulb will not usually bloom again because of the tremendous amount of energy required, I felt a little pang of guilt.

Hopefully that will abate when I have a windowsill full of narcissi blooming in December.

For more information, HGTV has a good article on forcing bulbs.

Cathedral window quilt

Check out the circa 1950 hand-stitched cathedral window quilt I purchased won on eBay:

I'd been keeping an eye out for something along these lines (vintage, handmade, multi-coloured on a white background) for Saskia for years, and given up on thrifting anything remotely similar.

This is a blanket I would have loved as a kid. I would have spent hours dreamily acquainting myself with all 780 coloured windows. And when it arrived from Texas, folded neatly in a slender box, Saskia loved it instantly. She picks out her favourite fabrics, and the ones she thinks others are most likely to appreciate (her choice of red gingham for my mom was spot on). She sets up game pieces in the squares, tucks her stuffed animals into it, and reads with it draped around her shoulders.

I'm no quilter, but I'm fascinated by the construction of this thing. I can't quite figure out all the loops and folds. The fabrics are beautiful, and I love to wonder what their origins were. When it passed inspection by my visiting mother-in-law last week, I was almost as proud as if I'd quilted it myself.

Now I need to stop putting together Saskia's room and focus some energy on the rest of the house. Believe it or not, Pete and I just ended a year of sleeping on mismatched single mattresses pushed together on the floor. And we weren't sharing any nice vintage bed linens, either.

All of my DIY projects involve a staple gun

I finally got around to fixing up this desk for Saskia:

I've wanted a craft table for her for a long time. I don't mind scratches and glue on our kitchen table, but clearing it five times a day for snacks and meals becomes tedious. When we moved here two years ago and I found this desk sitting outside with a stack of paint cans on it, I earmarked it for Saskia:

I used a leftover can of white oil paint to cover all of the desk but the top, which was gouged and buckled beyond repair. I staple gunned a piece of vinyl (purchased online for $8) to the top. Those polka dots are covering a multitude of sins. And it's an easy-wipe surface that is simple to replace should Saskia destroy it or Leif eventually want the desk for his room.

There's a bin on her desk for those treasures that I come across every day that I'm loathe to throw out because I see the potential for seven-year-old crafting: bits of ribbon, extra buttons, sales tags, packing peanuts, tiny boxes.

Saskia was delighted with the desk and is putting it through its paces. A little too eagerly, actually. When I get up at six, I can see the light on under her door. When I check on her, she's sitting at the desk in her pajamas with a row of completed crafts in front of her, gluing feathers onto yet another popsicle stick. I'm not sure what time she's been getting up.

Yesterday she said, "Do you know what I would love to have on my desk?"

"A jar for your beads?" I guessed.

"No. A computer!"

And I must confess that this morning, I brought my laptop up to her new desk. Working with the sun streaming in her room and glowing pink vinyl as a backdrop is very pleasant. But it's going back in my study before she gets home at 3:30.

(See Yvestown's tutorial for details on table stapling.)

Breakfast Fruit Souffle

I originally envisioned this blog as a mix of the medical and the domestic, but it turns out I don't enjoy blogging about household chores any more than I enjoy doing them. That 'domesticity' category to the left is woefully tiny.

But I must share this fruit souffle recipe that I've made every Saturday morning for months. It's ridiculously simple to make, only dirties two dishes, uses whatever seasonal fruit you have on hand, and brings a blissful silence to the breakfast table as kids and adults alike savour their meal.

My only reservation is that the amount of sugar it calls for might require a dose of Humulin R prior to ingestion. I've been cutting back each time I make this, trying to find the point just short of where the souffle collapses or the taste suffers. Just remember that this recipe recommendation comes from me as a mother, not as a physician.

The recipe is from Simply in Season (p. 35). Here's my slightly modified version:

Breakfast Fruit Souffle*

Preheat oven to 375. Place 2T butter in a 9" pie pan and place in oven to melt.

In blender, mix 3 eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk.

Add 3/4 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar**, 1/4 t salt and 1/4 t vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Pour into pie pan and bake until edges are golden brown and centre is set, 30 minutes. 

Mix 3 cups fruit with 2T sugar. (I use a different combination every time: pears and wild blueberries, nectarines and blackberries - whatever's in the kitchen on Saturday morning.)

Spoon fruit mixture onto souffle. Cut into wedges. Serve topped with sour cream or plain yogurt, and brown sugar. (Do not skip the toppings! They are crucial to the end result.)

* Technically, this recipe doesn't meet the textbook definition of a souffle. It's puffy, but it doesn't involve beaten egg whites. I don't mean to quibble, but I do strive for accuracy.

** I've reduced the sugar to 1/4 c with no trouble. Going for 3T next time. Tomorrow morning.

The end of eating outside

What I'll miss most about summer is eating outside. With the exception of rainy days, we ate almost every meal on the deck for the past three months.

We ate breakfast in the early morning sun,

and afternoon snack in the shade.

 

At dinnertime, as we moved into dessert, a raven would often settle silently on the deck railing. When we brought the kids inside to put their pajamas on, it would hop down and clean up anything that had been spilled.

Last night we barbecued ribs and did up some fries outside, but it was cool enough that we had to put on socks and sweatshirts.

Time to move our meals back inside, I'm very sorry to say.

Ma Ingalls makes suet

I think most at-home mothers have Ma Ingalls moments, when they quite like the idea of airing the quilt from the trundle bed, churning butter and sewing calico dresses by firelight in the evening while Pa cleans his rifle.

I consider myself a modern-day Caroline when I make salmonberry muffins for the kids, or plan how to fill our cellar. Or when I make suet, as I did today.

Red-breasted nuthatch - February/08

Discarding bacon or hamburger fat has always struck me as wasteful. I'm not quite willing to do as my Oma did, and spread bacon grease on toast or saute vegetables in it, delicious though that was to an eight-year-old. But I couldn't think of any other use for it until we ran out of store-bought bird suet recently.

"We're not bird people," I reassured a house guest this past weekend. "I find birders a bit odd. I went birding once and it was painfully boring."

Throughout the afternoon, our conversation was interrupted by Pete and I commenting, "Check out the one out that side window," and "Hey, is that a goldfinch? Wait, no - it's too big. Where's the book?"

Our friend finally asked, "So, you're only birders from the comfort of your own home?"

"We're 'Don't call us, we'll call you' birders," affirmed Pete.

Hairy woodpecker - March/08

We have a suet feeder hanging in front of the living room window, and while at times it does strike me as strange that we would choose to have a brick of fat interrupting our view of Indian Arm, I do love the constant stream of visiting birds. And I like the challenge of trying to photograph every species that drops by.

So the Ma Ingalls in me wanted to whip up my own suet, and an Internet search (like Ma would have done) yielded several recipes. I've been saving every spare ounce of fat in a container in the freezer for a few weeks now.

This morning I melted down two cups of the salvaged grease in a pan, and stirred in a cup of peanut butter, a cup of flour, a handful of oats, some stale hazelnuts and some crumbs from the bottom of a bag of tortilla chips. I only sampled the mixture once. Pete was not nearly as excited about this whole process as I was. If only I got this much pleasure from cooking for my family.

I poured the concoction into an 8 x 8 baking pan and put it in the freezer to set. Two hours later I carved it into four squares of suet, perfectly sized for a standard feeder. Pete was quick to point out that when suet is a dollar or two at Canadian Tire, this exercise is not exactly cost-saving. That didn't deter me for a moment.

It's pouring out, and the birds are nowhere in sight, but I'm sitting on the couch knitting and drinking tea and waiting for the first visitors, feeling very satisfied with myself. Tomorrow's project on the homestead: headcheese.

Sites I like

I've started to compile a blogroll in the sidebar. As I sifted through the blogs I enjoy, I realized that they appeal to me for a variety of reasons. I might appreciate the writing, the photography, the subject matter, the blogger's personality or the site design. Some blogs spark pleasant memories of my past experiences, some parallel my current situation and some give me something to which to aspire. I'll be adding to the list.

I've had a few requests for a contact email, so I've moved that to the front page. Apparently there are things people need to tell me that can't be left in the comments. That makes me curious, and mildly apprehensive. And I'm always interested in ideas for posts.

White

Over Christmas, our place was painted the creamy side of white. It's light and gentle and serene, just as I had hoped. I think there's colour enough in everyday objects and through the windows; I prefer the walls to serve as backdrops.

There's a handful of pictures on Flickr. I tend to focus on windows and skylights and ceilings. It's a lot more pleasant than looking at my floors, let me tell you.

Paint

We've hired the Palestinian painter who did work for us on our last two houses to finish painting our place. I can hear him in the other room, grunting as he deftly manoeuvres the roller. The house smells like paint and sweat.

We hire him partly for the meticulous job he does and partly for the opportunity to interact with an unusually kind and decent person. He waves aside offers of being paid up front: "What if I die before the job's done?" he roars. He goes outside for cigarette breaks between rooms and strikes up conversations with the neighbours.  When he takes time off, he heads up north to hunt. He's demonstrated a moose call for me, and given us packages of moose steak and hamburger. His favourite exclamation is, "Holy God!" said appreciatively, with a quick upwards glance.

The previous owners of our house were a writer and a window designer, artistic types who translated their creativity into the paint choices on the walls: bright orange, forest green and lime green, even on some ceilings. The house was designed by the first owner, an architect, and we're after a clean modern look that will do it justice. The whole thing's going to be the creamy side of white.

"We just moved, and I just had a baby," was my all-purpose excuse that I've just recently acknowledged to be outdated. The baby is eighteen months, and we've seen every season from our new house, some twice. In that time, I painted three rooms. Do-it-yourself home improvement projects with three kids are next to impossible.

I was a student for a very long time. I'm home with the kids three days a week. And I'm Dutch. Which have all contributed to a deep-seated notion that I have more time than money. I'm finally beginning to admit that the reverse is true; more because of competition for my time than an increase in earnings. And so I'm spending the morning decorating a gingerbread house with the kids while the painter works in the next room.

I go through periods of restlessness. During one such time, a few years ago, Pete and I considered a move to Paris or San Jose. In the end we bought a new couch, and it turned out that was all the adventure we needed. I've been feeling unsettled again, and here's hoping a creamy coat of satin paint over the entire house, applied by a particularly kind human being, will do the trick.

Failure

I'm collecting old records to hang on Saskia's wall.

I came home with the one on the far right a few days ago. When I showed it to Saskia she gazed at it, pleased but puzzled.

"You know who that is, right?" I asked.

"No," she said slowly. "I don't know their names. Yet!"

I am ashamed that I have reared a child to the age of six without introducing her to Ernie and Bert.

Chair

My decision to purchase this chair was heavily influenced by the handwriting on the tag.

Almost everyone who works at my preferred thrift store is old and has blue eyes. I can see the white-haired men in the back of the store repairing washing machines and testing toasters. Every item is marked with a sticker, with the details carefully documented in cursive writing.

I never argue with a price or doubt a description that looks like it was written by my grandfather.

Green Girl

I'm always on the lookout for original, affordable children's wall decor that I can appreciate as much as my six-year-old does. This precludes this.

My latest discovery is Lori Joy Smith, a Vancouver artist from whom I recently ordered a custom piece. I ran over to her apartment building in the rain on my lunch break last week and we did the handover in the lobby. Green Girl then came with me to a Main Street coffee shop where I had tea and repeatedly peeked into the bag to admire her.

When I introduced her to my daughter, Saskia studied her for a while. "How come she's not smiling?" she finally asked.

"She's shy. She was nervous about having her portrait done," I offered.

Satisfied, she pointed to the yellow heart floating above Green Girl's head. "Hey! Her barrette fell out!"