Mel's Baby Shower (and Planning a Party for Someone Who Can Hardly Eat Anything)

Confession: In the past, I always thought of people with food allergies as being kind of high-maintenance-types, akin to picky eaters.  (Yes, I recognize that this was terribly judgmental of me.)  Then my beloved sister developed intolerances to dairy, gluten, soy, peanuts, sunflower seeds, most tree nuts, and shellfish.  Most of the time, I'm able to alter recipes so that I don't poison her, but this became even more challenging when I wanted to throw her a baby shower.  Given her allergies plus the added food restrictions of pregnancy (no deli meats, sushi, alcohol, raw sprouts, etc.) and I stepped into a veritable culinary minefield.

After an undue amount of recipe searching and deliberation, my mom, sisters and I pieced together this menu that is friendly to the majority of food allergies.

Food
Cowboy Caviar and tortilla chips
Zeek's Wild Green Salad with Balsamic Dressing - cashews and gorgonzola (aka poisons) on the side
Veggie platter and hummus

Lumpia with sweet chili sauce - this is just an example of a recipe, not the actual recipe.  In fact, there is no recipe.  Mom is just magical like that.
Mom's pancit - Again, I won't even bother with a recipe because NOBODY can make pancit like my mom.

Gluten and Dairy-Free Chocolate Layer Cake - I skipped the coffee and instead made the frosting chocolate, then garnished with toasted coconut, which covered a multitude of frosting sins.  I'm really bad at frosting cakes.

Beverages
Spa Water
Seahawks Punch in honor of the Superbowl, which immediately followed the baby shower (Yes, there was Hawaiian Punch in it. Don't judge.)

Party Favors
Coconut Macaroons - I substituted all-purpose gluten-free flour for the white flour and vanilla extract for the almond extract.

Decorations
Lucky for me, the mom-to-be's friend also named Mel handled decorations with the theme of kites and clouds in teal and orange.

Games
I spent way too much time searching for ideas on Pinterest but eventually settled on two games.  One, based loosely off the Newlywed game, I entitled "What Would Nathan Say?"  This is where we learned that Nathan thinks newborns use an average of 3 diapers a day, and yet he still thinks Mel will change most of them.  The next game I entitled "Mel or Nathan," where guests had to guess who played with toilet water at 10 months, who hit his/her baby sister, and who ate a jade plant, requiring a call to poison control (Mel, Mel, and Mel).  Yup, that's my sister!

A Room of Her Own: Painting

How embarrassing, only one blog post for the entire year so far.  It's true, there hasn't been much in the way of projects this year, aside from one big one (born in October):

Between hyperemesis gravidarum and a couple other pregnancy ailments, growing her pretty much took up all my time and energy this past year, leaving little space for creativity.  Now that she's out, we have some catching up to do!  But first, a few old projects that I never got around to posting.

First, Tess' room.

Why is it that some major life decisions can come so easily while seemingly minor decisions can be agonizing?  For both of the houses we purchased, we literally walked in, looked around, and put an offer within 24 hours of laying eyes on them.  Sometimes you just know.  I also choose my medical school in the span of the five minutes it took to drive through the beautiful forest surrounding campus.  So why oh why did it take three months to settle on the right paint color for Tess' room?  (Not to mention the four years it took for us to select couches for the family room, but that's another story.)

Some of the deliberating stemmed from the fact that my beloved second-born would finally have a room of her own.  She might have her older sister's hand-me-down crib and hand-me-down clothes, but the room decor would be 100% chosen for her.  It was my tangible way of saying to her, "You are important!  You are loved!  We made this room just for you!"

Anyway, after dozens of paint swatches and several trips to various hardware stores, we took the plunge on a light but warm shade of gray.

My super-talented graphic designer and artist sister assisted in painting a flowering branch design using painters' tape to make the freeform branches and a stencil for the flowers.

I added a few splashes of pink and some finishing touches.

And the nursery is complete.  Alas, just in time for her to turn two and a half, graduate to a big-girl bed, and be displaced by her baby sister.

49-cent Dimmer Fix

The dimmer switch controlling our family room lighting started making sizzling noises when you flipped the switch, and finally died. This type of dimmer has an on/off switch and a brightness slider. I took apart the switch and found the little rocker switch inside failed a simple resistance test with a multimeter.

The Lutron S-10P dimmer switch is $76 at Lowes, $65 at Home Depot, $50 online, as it does handle 1000W loads (that's the largest size offered by Lutron.) The simple rocker switch shown above is $0.49 at Jameco (Jameco.com part number 1945284) and is rated 10A @ 125VAC. The switch is black instead of white, but we think the install shown below doesn't look too shabby.

Not much to tell about replacing the rocker switch. Using a soldering iron, you remove the defunct switch and solder on the new one. The trick is finding a replacement having the correct dimensions. This one isn't a perfect match, is a little bit recessed and doesn't have quite the curved switch as the original.

I'm Still Here, El Guapo

We're back after a four month blogging hiatus, and what a whirlwind these past four months have been.  We started casually talking about moving, with hopes of finding a new house in the next couple years before Anna starts school.  We thought, why not have a look at a few houses?  Who knew that in our first DAY of visiting houses that we would find the one?.  Apparently, we're the kind of people who take three years to buy a couch, but one day to buy a house.

our awesome realtor, wheeling and dealing to make this house ours

The harder part was/is selling our old house.   First we had to prepare it for staging.  This meant removing 75% of the furniture from the house, though really that meant removing 100% of useful furniture and leaving only decorative display tables and wicker baskets.  Then our realtor hired a professional stager.  The stager continued on the theme of rendering the house unlivable by replacing kitchen appliances with fake orchids and placing breakable knicknacks in low places.  For an entire month, we had to pull the coffeemaker out of the oven in the morning and go to the garage to toast bread.

this is how it looks all the time, really

This was all while going about daily life with a toddler, who has an affinity for scattering toys to the farthest corners of the house, and a baby, who insists on feeding herself and does so with exuberance.  Every morning, the beautifully staged house would last about 10 minutes before being returned to its natural state.  Whenever a realtor would call wanting to show the house, I would fly into a cleaning frenzy while the kids attempted to undo my efforts.  Did I mention that they were also on totally opposite napping schedules, meaning that any time of day that someone wanted to see the house, one of the kids would have to be rudely awoken from a nap?  If I had known how difficult this whole process would be, I would've said, "Forget it, dream house.  You're pretty great, but this might be the death of me."

In the end, we survived the house showings (though it's still on the market), survived a nail-biting multiple offer scenario on the new house (thank you, Jesus!), survived a move (just barely),  and here we are.  After the move, Anna told us, "I want to stay here in the new house forever."  We couldn't agree more.

the new house's treehouse

The new house is rife with possibilities and just crying out for projects, so we hope to get some of them up on the blog soon.  First up is putting Tess' room together.  After living in our closet for the first year of her life, she deserves some guilt-ridden overcompensation in the form of a really cute room.

the Mouse Frother

Our milk frother, for making lattes/cappuccinos/etc., gave up after years of use. A replacement usually runs $20. That didn't seem right to pay that much for what is essentially a battery holder, switch, and electric motor. So I created the mouse frother using a wireless mouse from the Goodwill for $2.99. Click the mouse button for frothy goodness!



Ingredients:

• old wireless mouse, $2.99 from Goodwill


• frothing wand, salvaged from defunct frother


• electric motor, in parts bin (from Arduino starter kit)


• two AA batteries

My first step was trying to salvage the old frother. I used a Dremel cutting wheel to open up the stainless steel casing, only to discover a dead electric motor within. At least the shaft of the frothing wand pulled off easily from the motor, and happened to fit exactly onto a spare motor I had from an Arduino starter kit.



With the shaft from the old frother, plus the electric motor, the Logitech wireless mouse had everything needed for a frother: a hand-holdable casing, battery holder, and push button switch. My $2.99 mouse even came with a bonus rechargeable battery.



I removed the left mouse button switch and mouse wheel to make room for the new motor. The actual button cover that your finger presses will flex upward to make room for the new motor. The fun part was removing various components from the mouse PCB. Capacitors, resistors, optical encoder, "laser", and the like. With the left mouse button removed, a right-click will activate the frother. The idea here is to disconnect all components from the switch while leaving the switch intact. A multimeter testing resistance to ground will tell you when you've electrically detached enough, should have infinite resistance with the push button open or closed. Then you can solder the motor wires so the right-click delivers positive voltage.



One side benefit of the mouse frother is that the batteries seem to last much longer powering this new motor. Another nice mod would be making it rechargeable with a charging stand.

Fruit Fly Trap

Jeff and I have differing philosophies on dealing with bugs in the house.  He has a zero tolerance policy and kills all intruders (aside from the time in college when he caught a fly and put it on a leash, but that is another story).  I, on the other hand, believe in catch and release.  I wish I could say that it was out of the goodness of my humane heart, but it’s more that I don’t like to feel a bug squish beneath my fingers, even through a piece of paper.  One thing we do have in common is our shared dislike of fruit flies.  When their population seems to be climbing, Jeff puts together one of these incredibly simple but effective fruit fly traps:



Supplies:

• A clear container such as an old bottle or jar


• A piece of paper


• Tape


• Scissors


• Fruit scraps, such as a banana peel or apple core

Instructions:

1) Place the food scraps inside the jar

2) Form the paper into a funnel with an opening just big enough for a fruit fly to crawl in (roughly 1 mm) and fasten with tape





3) Tape the funnel to the jar



The finished product:



The flies crawl in but cannot find their way out, and the odor stays contained.  I suppose you could wrap the jar in some decorative paper to make it more aesthetically pleasing, but around here we keep it simple and unadorned.  It's more fun to see our growing swarm trapped in the bottle.  And rather than feeling bad about killing bugs, I like to think that they happily live out the remainder of their days in an all-you-can-eat fruit fly buffet.

Pumpkin Everything, Take 1: Pumpkin Spice Bread

Fall is here, and with it comes my annual foray into all things pumpkin.  What is it about pumpkins that are so irresistible?  Is it their cheery orange color or their empty slate ready for the carving?  Do they bring to mind fall leaves, warm sweaters, and cozy fireplaces?  Or memories of hayrides and apple cider and traipsing through the patch in search of the perfect specimen?

Maybe all of the above, but mostly, I just think pumpkins are delicious.  And if not the pumpkins themselves, then the  sugar and cinnamon that comes with them.  My plan this glorious autumn season is to make as many pumpkin-flavored goods as possible, either until my family revolts or Costco stops carrying the seasonal canned pumpkin mega-pack.  It's anyone's guess which one will happen first.

Today's offering is a classic: good old pumpkin spice bread.  But who am I kidding?  It's so sweet and delicious, it's really pumpkin cake, and that's what we call it when we serve it to the toddler as a special dessert (poor, sheltered toddler).  I did make a few changes from the original recipe to make us grownups feel better about eating cake for breakfast.



Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar


• 1 cup brown sugar


• 1/2 cup vegetable oil


• 1/2 cup applesauce


• 4 eggs, lightly beaten


• 1 (16 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin


• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves


• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice


• 1/2 cup water

In a large bowl, combine sugars, oil, applesauce, and eggs.

Add pumpkin and mix well.

Combine dry ingredients.

Add to pumpkin mixture alternately with water

Pour into two greased 9x5 inch loaf pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until done.

Cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing to wire racks.