Neither Here Nor There

UPDATE YOUR FEEDS! (new blog) :P

Is that title alarming enough, if not catchy?  

This blog will self destruct in a few weeks.  I have transferred the contents of it to my new blog at

http://www.neither-here-nor-there.com/

See you there!!

Poor Bebe!

So little Natalie Joy has pneumonia.  I'm not sure how this started but she's been sick on and off, as babies tend to get when they are around with kids.  Two weeks ago, she had this horrid rash.  Last week, she had a cold.  She seemed ok this past weekend, a little feverish but nothing terribly concerning.

On Monday, she started making this noise with her throat and said it hurt her.  We thought maybe she swallowed a coin or something so we were set to go to the hospital.  But then she started eating and drinking and having fun again.   

Today, Hanna brought her home and said she was lethargic and feverish.  She was still making the noises (like she was trying to swallow and couldn't, or trying to breath deep and getting caught on something) and breathing fast and shallow.  So we took her to the hospital in Achern.  They don't have a ped on staff and seemed a little clueless over what to do about that (both Peds in Achern are on vacation.  How convenient! I wonder if they are in Mallorca together sipping on umbrella drinks and laughing about how there are no peds left in the city).  So we drove to the Children's hospital in Offenburg (40 mins from our house).  

It's not quite as bad as when Vanessa had it.  We are to attempt to give her antibiotics orally over the next 24 hours and if we can't get them into her, or there's no improvement then its back to the hospital we go.  It's a little shocking, really, how quickly this came with no indication that she was that sick.  So imagine the guilt we feel now that Christoph took her out for a long hike on Friday, and we took the train to Offenburg on Sunday.  Both on pretty chilly days, too. 

I can't not include pictures, so here are some from our little excursion on Sunday. Little Natalie on healthier days.

When Life Gives You Grapes....

Ok, we know how this is going to end, right?

When I casually asked my neighbour earlier in the summer if she ever did anything with her grapevine behind their barn, I honestly wasn't hinting.  I totally forgot all about it until there was a knock at the door yesterday with her 8 yr old daughter standing there heaving a basket of grapes up to me.

What else could I do?  I made grape juice.   I had to, because at the rate Natalie was eating the grapes themselves, I was risking massive purple diaper blowouts.

So one of these:

Made two of these (cleaned and destemmed):

And made a lot of these (mashed, boiled, sieved, settled, sieved, boiled, bottled, boiled):

It sounds like a lot of work, but it really wasn't.  It was easy!  And the juice has absolutely nothing added but is honestly one of the best tasting grape juices I have ever had.  It's that perfect mixture of sweet/tart.  I'm not sure if my Weck canning system worked and the seals actually sealed (I'll find out tomorrow), but I don't think I'll have any problem getting rid of the juice before it goes bad.

That's more than I can say about Natalie.  Seems like she's taken to the canning pot.

*by the way: this is a different neighbour than the one who shares her apple orchard with me.  I know, I know, I seem to have an affinity for mooching fruit off neighbours.  But we do have our own plum tree....

The Fruits of Our Weekend

I had a strong craving for hummus lately but I always have an issue finding something to dip into it.  Long story short, I had Vanessa making homemade pitas in no time! No kidding, she actually had an excellent handle (no pun intended) on the rolling pin and making them *just so*.

About half of the puffed, so I consider that a success.

(and the recipe, of course..)

Next up, Apples!  I took the girls in the bike trailer out to our 'community orchard' out in the country (really, its our neighbours, but 'community' sounds so much hipper than me just sponging fruit off people) to pick some apples.  This was our second weekend out there, so all in all, we got about a bushel.  I'd love to say 'we' for the next sentence, but lets be honest: When you peel over 100 apples by yourself, you kind of want the credit for it yourself.   Here's a batch getting ready for the freezer. 

I mixed the wedges up with some ascorbic acid (other wise none as Vitamin C) powder (to keep them from browning) and sugar (to hold their texture and flavor) and Voila! Now we have a freezer full of apples to keep us through the winter.  They aren't as green as they look, by the way - I just took a crappy picture.

I couldn't let them ALL go in the freezer, so I made a yummy breakfast for the girls by experimenting.  Here's what I came up with:

Baked Apple Oatmeal:
3 cups of oatmeal
2 cups of sliced apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup of oil
1 cup of milk
a handful of flax seed
2 Tbsp maple syrup
cinnamon, to taste

Mix up the dry ingredients first, then the wet, then bake it all in a greased casserole dish at 175°C until its brown.  

The kids LOVED it!

Super Foods

Life is boring at the Footprints household this week, as we continue to recover and catch up from a long and stressful trip to Canada. Or, life isn't that boring but I'm just lazy. I struggle with posting during these times, because most of what is in my head are ideas adapted from other people, so I risk writing "already been done" posts.  And we all know I prefer to be.....different.

But this one, I couldn't not mention.  Moxie, at "Ask Moxie" has compiled a list of known healthy "Super Foods" as a challenge to readers to make sure you can get two in a week.  We do pretty good over here - but I feel like I'm cheating because of my garlic and nut addictions. We're a little lacking on the Supergreens, thats for sure.  I think "Two EACH a week" is a fair challenge though - can you/do you do it?

Super Foods Checklist

Live Small, Be Free

I always have conflicted feelings when I see something, in print, in a mainstream medium, that jives with the inner workings of my head.  On one hand, it's confirming, it's validating....and it gives me hope.   On the other hand, I always get a petulant "hey! that's MY idea" feeling as well - as if everyone else is going to hop on board, it's going to be trendy, and I won't be that unique person anymore but instead, another yuppy bandwagoneer (right).

I really shouldn't be so selfish.

I am proud to say, that when I happened upon this article in the NYT today, my first reaction was that of the former.   The latter took a few minutes to kick in. ;)

Although the article is about 1/20th the length of what it would have been if I would have wrote it (thanks to my verbal diarrhea and yearning to convince the entire population), it covers all the various motivations for living small, and how living small can benefit us:

Financial: "When you build small, you can spend money on higher quality materials" Can you imagine what you can do with all that extra cash? 

Environmental:  Tiny house, tiny footprint. 

Unencumbered Lifestyle: less stuff, less stuff that requires maintenance and repair, more relaxed living, closer family.  The biggest appeal of all, and one that I have personally enjoyed, and continue to enjoy.

I believe the opening ad to this book, says it all:

 How much space does it take to be happy?

Even if you aren't into the TINY houses, its still a question worth asking of oneself - even just as a personal exercise.  Even though I am still pretty hell bent on my off-the-grid concrete/earthwood/yurt with a living roof top, I still love to visit all the Tiny Homes websites to imagine what we could fit into. Personally?  I like The Loring. 

And of course, whenever I get lost on Jay Shaffers website (or video tours), I can't help but to hum a modified Don Ho:

"Tiny houses 

Make me warm all over

With a feeling that I'm gonna 

Love you till the end of time"

Rodelbahn and Triberg

What is a Rodelbahn?

Rodelbahn is a track built down the side of a mountain. You sit on a cart and then zoom down as fast as gravity will take you. You can't stee, but you can brake. It's pretty much a rollercoaster, except you control it yourself.  And, three year olds are allowed to ride on them.  And, they aren't that safe - but nobody told me that until it was too late.  In fact, when I went to google the proper name, I read a bunch of accounts of people flying out of them.  Nice.

Here we go anyways!

Vanessa and Christoph embarking - she was SO excited:

Going up, up, up.

Coming down....

Vanessa had a blast on that thing.  I refused to go because Christoph said it WAS scary at the top, but Vanessa kept trying to convince me 'Its not scawry, Mama!' 

Next, we carried on into the Black Forest to Triberg, which is deep in the centre of it, and quintessentially German. Whenever someone says that they visited the Black Forest, chances are, they mean Triberg.  On the way in, we saw a cuckoo clock shop and decided to stop in and see what we could find.  Little did we know that it was only the first of many on that road, as Triberg is littered with cuckoo clock shops and other tourist traps.  However, at the end of the day, we all agree that OUR cuckoo clock shop, really was the best one. And that the rest, were all made in China, while ours was an old fashioned mom and pop one.  Good thing, because Rob spend a good pile of dough in there.

Last but not least, Triberg.  Home of the tallest Waterfall in Germany.  Which is a little misleading, because its actually a set of cascading waterfalls, so much so that you can't even get them all in one picture.  Still, it was very nice.  Except for the fact that you had to pay ADMISSION to see it.  What rot is that? This is Germany! Socialism, common good, fenceless nature, SOLIDARITY! And all that crap!

At any rate...I bitterly present...The Triberg Waterfall series. Oh, and check out the dude.  Hey Buddy,turn around! It's right behind you!

Oh how could I forget this one? Taken by the friend of the dude in the above pictures.  Never ask a foreign tourist to take a picture of you.  This guy actually looked at the camera display, post shot, and said 'yup, its good.'  Then he RAN. Obviously, he thought my kids are hideous, since he seems to have taken great effort to make sure they are cut out of the shot.

Visitors and a jaunt into the Black Forest

We are so lucky to always have a constant influx of visitors.  Even luckier, we actually have places to take them!

This weekend, Rob and Kumi, who we met in University came for a quick visit.  We used their visit as an excuse for our long-awaited visit to the Freilichtmuseen ("Open Air Museum"), an awesome display of Housing and Life from this region throughout time, and a plethora of inspiration to Christoph and myself for building green and traditional.

The kids loved it too. We walked from house to house, touring through rooms and down pathways, where there were lots of little things for kids to explore and play with.

Michelle and Vanessa debate the effect of the Bauhaus movement on traditional Black Forest Vogtsbauernhaus architecture:

Rob shows Vanessa how to make shadow puppets in a remake of a child's play room.

Vanessa is impressed:

 

Rafters and Roof:

My latest fascination in home building:  The Living Roof on the main entrance to the grounds.

 Next up: The Rodelbahn and Triberg.

There's No Place Like Home

I haven't updated for a while, because....

1.  We've been in Canada for FIVE weeks! And life was more chaotic than ever during that time.  Working, renovations and trying to organize 100 different peoples time tables into ours.   We just got back earlier this week. More later.

2.  I've been horrendously swamped trying to catch up from said trip.  I'm slowly making my way through getting Vanessa set up for school, arranging her activities, tying up lose ends with our house in Canada, work, more work, and a billion other things.

3.  I just got a new computer!  I spoiled myself with a new MacBook Pro.

It's not like I'm biased or anything, but this is the BEST laptop, nay, computer ever.  I love it and I can't believe it took me so long to get the nerve to get one.  Thank you, Reg, for encouraging me.....11 years ago.  Sorry it took me so long to believe you.

More on that, and our trip, later.  Lots of updates should be expected soon as I figure my way around this thing and transfer all our pictures and videos to it.  

We are here. Or there.

We made it to Canada a week ago, and I have to say, I am still not used to having a blog to update.  I'll try harder. 

First things first:

- the flight went well.  21 hours of travel time, door to door, with lots of delays.  The girls did great, all in all.  About as great as a 1 yr old and 3 yr old could do under the circumstances.  Still, even with rock star children, I wouldn't volunteer to do it again.  I just kept thinking postively (even with Vanessa spilled her apple juice on her seat mate on the plane - an "all in black, nobody understands me" emo teenage geek.), like "well, the good news is, I don't think I'll ever have to travel with a 1 yr and 3 yr old ever again and I'm SURE travelling with a 2 yr and 4 yr old is easier....right??"

- the closing on the house went well.  Ok, there were some hiccups and I won't be able to relax for the next year about the "conditions" under which we closed.  Don't ask. 

- jet lag is not so good this time around.  I'm not sure why, but it took us longer than I remembered adjusting.

- on the "adjusting to canada" front, I got internet and a cell phone at the house.  If you are a personal friend or family member, and I did not send you our number, give me a holler here and I'll gladly oblige. 

- we have started working on the house.  So far we have peeled off some gross wall paper (that was pasted RIGHT onto drywall), primed and painted over the most offensive colours known to WOman, peeled up rug to discover some sort of 1950s vinyl tiling (most of which was chipped and cracked), washed off the cobwebs and crap from the back of the house and play structure.  We've had just a few curveballs, but we are under the tutelage of Uncle Donnie, who has been AWESOME at giving us a hand and learning us Europeans real good on the finer points of Canadian home renovations.  (I am guessing he is wondering what he got himself into and thinking "All i wanted to do was drop off a couch and they sucked me in!" :D

- On the sustainable living front (because I can't resist), I am proud to say that we have nice living conditions in the house but have not bought a single NEW household item.  Ok, so most people don't count eating out of my old tupperware as "nice living", but to each their own right?  We like bring frugal in some regards, and hey it looks good on us.  Did i mention I'm about to buy a Mac laptop? ;)