more musings from peter fernandez

i forgot that this other post was my previous favorite and worth a mention:

"Photo shows Peter Fernandez of San Fernando City with sultry songbird & whiz piano player, Kyle Lardner interpreting on love & a sky sailing, with you & me about a spaceship, but, the trip was shortened, due to a thunderbolt, & yet, had carefully managed a safe return to earth, & knowing now that the good earth is the safest place to completely enjoy a true love affair. Taken on March 26, 2008 at a lively Spring Beats Concert in Hollywood."

yes...i think perhaps he did climb aboard that spaceship and perhaps the aliens in said spaceship taught him English grammer, because all those commas are exhausting to type,,,,,,,

peter fernandez

i so look forward to the long beach telegram on fridays. that is when they have the section where people can post anniversaries and birthdays and congratulations...but more than anything i know that peter fernandez is going to be there.

i started noticing him about 6 months ago and started collecting his clippings last month. he is a genius and a poet...maybe a little creepy...

i dont know if you can see his picture very well but he always has a picture of him and that smile and some musician and then his take on the picture...

i sware i am not making this up, this is what this week's caption said:

"Photo shows Peter Fernandez of San Fernando City with sultry singer & whiz guitar plucker Mon David, interpreting the need of water to rid away drought, with you & me in diligence, to water the garden plants, to let restore their growths & enhance their natural production of blooms & yet, we have earnest prayers and absolute convictions of love, thus, to be drawn closer to God with a song of peace in dedication to humankind. Taken on April 4, 2008 at a lively Spring Beats Concert in Hollywood."

the frumpy sweater

it is rather belated for a mother's day blog, but the other day i put on my frump sweater and couldnt help but conjure up dozens of images of my mom in her frump sweater. she had this hideous sweater that was not only ugly it was uncomfortable - it had been washed so many times that the inside scratched you as you wore it to remind you it had outlived its heyday. any way - my mom loved this horrible thing for some reason and mostly donned it on cleaning days. a few months ago at old navy i found this sweater and the inside of it reminded me of my mom's awful sweater and i bought it for some reason...

no - i know the reason...its because i am inevitably becoming like my mom more and more...especially since i am a mom now myself. it is this thing that can not be stopped - its crazy how it happens to you...i caught myself calling bryson a "buberhead" the other day and gasped...her creepy made up language is even making its way into my vocabulary. but seriously part of me smiles - i would love to be just half the mom my mom was...frumpy sweater and all!

ode to dairy

pregnancy isn't the easiest job in the world and some definitely have it worse than others, but something happened to me during this pregnancy that i am really sad about. i have developed some sort of lactose intolerance. i have researched this and apparantly you can't develop lactose intolerance during pregnancy, but that because dairy is hard for our bodies to digest and pregnant women can have digestive issues anyway, it is sometimes not a good situation. now...i know this sounds silly and it is a little bit, but my great-grandparents were dairy farmers and my mom had us drink whole milk till we were in jr. high and would yell if margarine ever wandered into our fridges and basically started me on this whole dairy addiction...so i blame her. well her and the overwhelmingly awesomeness of cheese and cow by-products. i havent been able to have milk with my cereal - i even cant take the lactaid milk - and anything above a slice of cheese has me naseous, bloated and sometimes even worse digestive problems. anyway - i miss you dairy - and i hope we can meet again one day. i hope that this child i am carrying is not picking up on this lactose intolerance and will never know the joy of yogurt parfaits and real ice cream...till we meet again...

friendkidly

it's here!! we (rashelle, linsey and i) are proud to announce the opening of friendkidly - an etsy shop showcasing our handmade products for mom and baby. this has been a long time planning - not easy to do with 4 kids and 1 pending between us! i was able to post a mini-etsy shop on the right - to showcase some of our products. rashelle is responsible for the car-seat canopy and the birthday crowns, linsey has the adorable onesies and i posted the horsies and nursing aprons. Please add our shop to your favorites and bookmark it and check it often - we aren't finished posting and hope that you will think of us first for any baby shower you attend!

penis

so i had to share because i have been smiling thinking about this all day. today on a walk with my husband and son my son asked me if i had a penis (we have been potty-training and trying to teach him correct terminology and he is FASCINATED!) i told him that i am a girl and girls don't have penises. he said, "you're not a girl, you're mommy". i laughed and said, "boy, isn't that the truth!" he said, "i'm not truth, i'm Bryson."

so true...so true...

Belgian Wit

i finally measured the hef i had been brewing and lo and behold it had fermented, so i bottled it right away on saturday. it needs to sit a week before the taste test...so we still have to see. this time bottling i used the carbonation tablets instead of the measured corn sugar, so we will see how that little experiment goes. i made sure the owner of steinfillers figured out exactly how much both the 12 oz and 22 oz bottles would need because i have heard many a story of exploding beer bottles due to too much sugar.

i also purchased my next batch (i told the owner that my husband's favorite beer was hoegaarden beer so he suggested the Begian Wit Ingredient Kit) and was going to wait to make it because it seemed complicated and time consuming, but our friend D.J. happened into town and was totally into it and totally helped me so i took advantage! the belgian wit beer we are now fermenting uses u.s. golding hops and saaz hops, it also has the following grains: belgian aromatic, flaked wheat, flaked oats and hulls. the spices are bitter orange peel and coriander. look at me and how fancy i am getting...i am starting to feel a little adventurous, but think i will stick to a couple more ingredient kits before i branch out on my own...i plan to develop my own recipe and hopefully submit it for the orange county fair, but that is a lofty goal, so we shall see. anyway, we pretty much followed the recipe to code and there were no surprises or mishaps we pitched the yeast (WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale Yeast) and popped on the airlock and now we shall wait...

Pale Ale Update

(me "racking" the beer before i bottle)

i finished my first batch of beer and was able to not ruin it ( i for sure thought i would contaminate something due to my severe lack of sanitation skills) but it actually turned out pretty good. it was extremely light - due to the fact i didn't boil the hops long enough i am sure, but still tasty nonetheless. i was so relieved that it was drinkable - hek - not just drinkable, but we only have about 6 bottles left of the 5 gallons! we have had guests over that took a fancy to the pseudo brew pale ale style.

there were so many steps that could have gone wrong - i tried to be as careful as i can with the sanitation, which i guess paid off since it didnt have a skunk taste to it.

i look forward to my next batch - the hefeweizen, but i am having fermentation issues...i will keep it udpated - i am giving it another week before i measure it with the hydrometer, but the guy at Steinfillers told me i didnt have to scrap the batch, that i could just pitch more yeast in, so that is encouraging at least...

Spirit Babies

i am currently reading, "Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife" and a story in there really touched my heart and i felt compelled to share:

(the author had just suffered through a miscarriage and her 12 year old son sees her crying at the kitchen table)

Colin asked, "Are you crying about the baby?" and when i nodded tearfully, he said, "Well you just have to have another one, Mom, because it's a Spirit Baby, and you should be its mother."

I must have looked puzzled because he said, "Don't you know about Spirit Babies? How could i know about them if you don't? I mean, you're my mom!" But he could see my perplexity.

So my first child, this not-yet-teenaged boy, pulled a woodedn chair to my side and draped his thin arm across my shoulders saying, "Well, Mom, here's how it is. See, I was one myself, so that must be how I know. Anyway, every woman has a circle of babies that goes around and around above her head, and those are all the possible babies she could have in her whole life. Every month one of those babies is first in line. If she gets pregnant, then that's the baby that's born. If she doesn't get pregnant but something bad happens before the baby's born...now listen, Mom, because here's the really cool part. It goes back into the circle, but it becomes a Spirit Baby, and all the other babies give it cuts. Each month, it's always first in line. Isn't that great?"

"So you just have to get pregnant again, and you'll have the same Spirit Baby. If you don't, though, then the baby circle will just beam that little Spirit Baby over to some other women's circle, and it'll be first in line for her. It keeps being first in line somewhere until it gets born."

"But it'd be a shame for you not to have it yourself, because I know how much you want it. So you just have to try again. Mom, remember that baby you lost before I was born?" I nodded wordlessly. "Well that was me. Really. I've always known Is was a Spirit Baby. I mean, I know what I'm talking about here, Mom."



That story brought tears to my eyes and lifted my heart and I hope it touches someone else out there as well.
My prayers go out to all the Spirit Babies and the moms who have yet to have their Spirit Baby.

paybe tomorrow

my 2.5 year old has the best saying - paybe. i believe it is a mix between probably and maybe based on the way he uses it. i am marveling at his language arts and the way he uses words in such an innocent and curious way. he really loves words - he never stops using them, but he also fixates on how something sounds and will repeat it over and over and over. this parrot-like behavior has caused much anxiety in ensuring my language sounds like a 50s housewife. i slipped and said "crap" the other day and then had to listen to bryson saying crap, crap, crap, crap all the way to his father who then looked at me like i am the worst mother in the world and then me immediately asking myself how we came to age like 50 years so fast. in between me fighting off being extremely annoyed, it has also fanned my flame for words and language. i love that we are all born little poets. i wish i stopped myself more and played with how words sounded. today the lady from the electric company came to check the meters and he asked me who she was. i told him she was going to check the electric meters. he thought it was hilarious and started saying "meters, meters, meters" until it did sound quite funny and i understood what he meant.

some of my other favorite bryson words:
panpakes=pancakes
buck-a-buck-koo=bar-b-que
noo-nos=noodles
foo-do rebels=pseudo rebels

some of my favorite bryson sayings:
it's not my bedtime, it's a sunny day (no matter how dark it is outside)
we're gunna have a good day
i'm going to go to disneyland on tuesday