Last night I dreamed I was tidying up the ferrets. They were all sleeping together cuddled in a blanket, just as they might be in real life. I looked under the blanket, and Ulysses was curled up in there with them.
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Michelle Godwin and I have been trying to get together for weeks. Make that months.  Finally, we got together for a Serbian Christmas celebration. ...   more »

To celebrate Don's birthday, we went to Poppa's Gyro's on ...   more »

This morning we looked out the window to see ...   more »

I look at this baby, and I think, "Who is this person? This new person?" I think, "Where did you come from?" and "Who are you?"

Sometimes it seems ...   more »

I posted a new photo to AmmasVisit.
While Janice was in town, we did some research at the State Historical Society and were able to visit the very spot where Ulysses's (and Don's, and his mother's) ancestors settled in Wisconsin in the 1840s.   more »

Today Don's mother, Janice, arrived on the Greyhound from Savannah. She's here for ...   more »

Happy 8-month birthday, Ulysses!

Today I went to a Kefir and Kombucha workshop at the Willy St. Coop. Finally, I got kefir grains! We put them in pasteurized, organic milk soon after I got home.

Another coup: Finally, I am very close to ongoing sources of raw milk! One of the workshop participants has a neighbor who is in a raw milk coop. Three of us gave her our contact info, and she promised to pass it on to the neighbor. I hope she follows through! Even if not, I got the name of a farm in Rubicon that sells ...   more »

Finally, for the first time since Ulysses was born, I got let out of the house without the baby ...   more »

I posted a new photo to MissouriTrip.
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I posted a new photo to MissouriTrip.
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I posted a new photo to MissouriTrip.
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I posted a new photo to MissouriTrip.
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On the way home from Missouri, Don and I went to a Cracker Barrel for dinner. We were served big steaming plates heaped with food. Ulysses sat in a high chair. He looked at me and all my food, and across the table at Don and all his food, and then down at the gleaming expanse of dark wood before him: empty. And he began to cry. Don began blowing on a French fry, trying desperately to cool it. He reached across the table to hand it to Ulysses. Yoink! No more tears.

Clearly, we were having a feast. Why ...   more »

Our first road trip with Ulysses. His first highway rest stop! On the road at Route 39 going south through Illinois, we were headed to Columbia, Missouri to visit our friend Sharon.

When we drove down to Missouri on Friday, Ulysses was in the rear-facing infant seat. By the time we were on the way back the following Monday, he was in a sit-up chair facing forward.

Our little boy is growing up!


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Check here for lots of pictures and details. You can even view it as a slide show! But be sure to look at the pix separately, too, so you can read the text under each.
Today we celebrated Ulysses at 6 months old with a touching-the-ground ceremony and ...   more »

I stepped on the scale today and found that I'm 18 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight of March 2003! Wow. I credit breastfeeding. This makes it all the more satisfying to have such a nice, healthy, chubby baby!
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Don's legs are strong, strong, strong, like oak trees. Ulysses is his daddy's boy!
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Tender.
Silky.
Pensive.
How is it that you seem so
familiar to me?
Your face --
it's as if I've known it all my
life.

Even in the ghostly ultrasound
you struck me that way.

I can't imagine that I've ever
not known you.
Perhaps it's true that
in past lives
our loved ones
today
were also around us.

Or perhaps it's from this feeling
that the
belief
was born.

Could we have loved in a different time and place?
But you seem so
fresh, so
new.

New to the things of the world,
I mean.
Not new to me....   more »

This afternoon I gave a babywearing presentation to the natural childbirth preparation class at the Madison Birth Center.

This is the second   more »

Don took this photo of U and me after I'd gotten back from a run with the baby. I always
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Today I've been cooking up a storm while Don is at work. Miraculously, Ulysses slept most of the morning. So I made some things to go for the week. A big pot of chili is in the oven, made with stir-fry beef, kidney beans, chili beans, pinto beans, Penzey's chili con carne blend, and extra cumin, hot pepper, and paprika. And of course my favorite secret chili ingredient, a big tablespoon of cocoa powder. Also a sack of dried chilis: pasillos negros.
Before that, I made a tray of Greek pastitsio, kind of like what I remember from when ...   more »

Ah, pot roast. Nothing like browing up a big hunk of beef and then stewing it for hours and hours in a not-too-hot stove. Today I put an Organic Valley arm roast in our fabulous enameled iron French casserole (a big, heavy, oval number) and let it go at 275 all day. Basically, I follow Alton Brown's technique.
Also present: sauteed onions, garlic, capers, raisins, a sack of dried Oriental mushnrooms (Shiitakes? Maybe.), daikon, carrots, Penzey's Fajita blend seasoning, eggplant, and a bundle of herbs from the garden: summer savory, basil, and lovage.
Also jicama. I ...   more »

Don had the day off from driving cab, so we went with our friend Jennifer Moore to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation we've been visiting. The weather was sunny, blue, and beautiful. After, Don and I rolled Ulysses in the stroller up the hill to The Runway Pub & Grill, which used to be the landmark eatery Tony Frank's. I had Wisconsin cheddar soup and    more »

This is April 24, the Friends of Troy Gardens volunteer day. Also the first day of the Troy Gardens Community Gardens season. The cluster of people in the back are here to work on their community garden plots. The people in the foreground on either side of me are here to work on the prairie garden. They're digging up the plants from the prairie nursery that was planted last year, loading it into wheelbarrows, and hauling it across the field to the prairie garden. It's going to be stunning when it all grows in. Behind the prairie garden is a restored ...   more »