No, I wasn’t nesting at all. At least, I didn’t think so. Not at 37 weeks pregnant. (They say that although you’re considered full term at this point, most first-time moms deliver an average of one week after their “due” date.) So when contractions began at 12:30 that night on March 21, I was sure they were just more intense pre-labor stuff. What I thought were some painful braxton hicks woke me out of a not-so-sound sleep. My moans soon awakened my husband, who promptly grabbed the latest “app for that” and persisted in tracking my contractions on his iPhone despite my insistence that “this can’t be the real thing.” We tried several things to see if they would stop – drinking water, changing positions, walking, and sitting in a warm bath – but all to no avail. Though I  eventually convinced Caleb to go back to bed for a couple more hours, I couldn’t figure out why I was unable to sleep through the contractions. It really disturbed me that I’d awakened him, and our midwife, for what I thought was nothing. Especially since I’d just been checked the day before and nothing had indicated I was anywhere this close to having our baby.

By the time Caleb wandered back into the living room to check on me, contractions had begun to get a bit more intense and longer than the 30-40 second ones I was having at first. He’d already suspected this was the real deal, and at 8:12 am, finally insisted that we call our midwife because, he said, “I don’t want to have to deliver a baby on my own.” I agreed, and by the time she arrived, even I had to admit that something really was up . . .

After all, my contractions were now coming even more regularly, they lasted longer, and they felt different – like a band of pain starting in my front and wrapping around my lower back instead of just extreme cramps. I told Caleb: “If this isn’t real, I don’t think I could handle the real thing!”

The funny thing is, I had been determined not to have everything prepared for baby before my 38th week and have to sit around waiting anxiously for baby’s arrival. So I didn’t even have her clothes washed! My wonderful husband came to the rescue and began throwing laundry in the wash in between my contractions. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help at this point!

Stacie arrived about an hour later, and after checking me, announced, “You’re at a six! You’re going to have a baby today!” I couldn’t believe I’d progressed that far already. Caleb helped me back into the tub where I found the most relief from my pain. He was an awesome coach, keeping me focused on breathing correctly and praying for me when I couldn’t find the words. I prayed for God to give me strength because I knew I couldn’t do this on my own, but most of the time all I could get out were the words, “Lord Jesus help me.”

Then we were transitioning to our bedroom, trying different positions Stacie suggested to help baby get ready to come out, and my water finally broke. (Well, the first bag anyway! Apparently I had two.) They had been unable to get the birthing tub set up on such short notice, so I ended up on the bed as I entered the pushing stage of labor.

Talk about the hardest work I’d ever done in my life! At one point I had the crazy thought of, “Whose idea was this anyway? Maybe I can just stop for now and finish this later . . . ” I started saying I couldn’t do it . . . that it hurt too much . . . but Stacie kept telling me I could and Caleb gave me oxygen which really helped me calm down . . .

Then I decided to give it all I got, and with one final push and a whoosh she came out! Stacie laid her on my belly and I came face to face with the most beautiful little baby I’d ever seen. For a minute I forgot that we didn’t know the gender yet. But soon we saw that she was a girl! (Which was what I thought all along, but everyone else was a little more surprised.) The only problem was that she’d taken quite a beating on her journey into this world and her poor little head was swelling with blood under the scalp. With a shot of vitamin k, she was soon doing much better. We thanked God for the safe arrival of our little girl – at exactly 6 pounds and 19 inches long, she was tiny but healthy.

Oh and that placenta . . . Well, I’m not planning on eating it, in case that’s what you’re wondering. I’m not THAT crunchy. You see, although our midwife and her assistant graciously cleaned up any mess after our baby was born, we were responsible for disposing of the placenta. Apparently you can’t just throw those away – that is, unless you want to chase the neighbor’s dog down who’s gotten into the trash!

Well, Sourdough Sally, you have finally earned your name and your keep. I confess there were times I wanted to be rid of you. Oh, it wasn’t your fault – you did produce some good waffles, yummy tortillas, and great bagels. Problem was, I was just plumb tired of sourdough anything. Maybe it was my pregnancy hormones changing my taste buds, but whatever it was, I suddenly didn’t like the taste of sourdough anymore, even when the finished product wasn’t actually sour.

Yet, somehow I managed to keep you alive . . . and boy am I glad I did! Because these English muffins are quite possibly the best I’ve ever tasted, if I do say so myself. And best of all, they don’t taste like sourdough – they have a hint of yeastiness to them instead. Mmmm . . .

Okay, enough about Sally. I’m sure you would all like to know how to make these amazing muffins. The original recipe comes from the King Arthur Flour website, but I had to make a few substitutions.

Amazing Sourdough English Muffins

You’ll need:

For the starter

½ c. active* sourdough starter

½ c. water

1 c. white wheat flour ( I used ½ regular wheat and ½ all purpose)

1 tsp. instant yeast (or active dry)

1 tsp. rapadura (sucanat or cane sugar will do)

For the batter

¾ c. buttermilk at room temp (I used milk and about 2 ½ tsp lemon juice to equal ¾ c.)

2 Tbsp. honey

1 egg

½ c. all purpose flour

¼ c. wheat flour

2 Tbsp. oat flour *

½ tsp. sea salt

½ tsp. baking soda

Cornmeal for sprinkling

What to Do:

1)      Combine starter ingredients. Cover and let rest 4-12 hours. When ready to be used, the mix should be risen and bubbly. Mine only took about 4 hours.

2)      Whisk together buttermilk, honey, and egg. Add to starter.

3)      Mix dry ingredients together (except cornmeal) and stir into batter. Batter will be thick.

4)      Let batter rest while you preheat a griddle to 325 degrees F or a cast iron skillet on medium heat. If you have English muffin rings (I didn’t), grease 8 and place on griddle or skillet. Sprinkle griddle and inside of rings with cornmeal.

5)      Pour a ¼ cup batter onto the skillet (or into each ring and push batter out to the edges).

6)      If you have rings, you should bake for at least 8 minutes or until bubbles appear and edges look dry. If you don’t have rings, they may only take 4 or 5 minutes depending on how thick they are, so just watch ‘em that they don’t burn. Sprinkle tops of muffins with cornmeal and flip over.

7)      Check temperature; when centers are between 195 and 200 degrees F, muffins are done. If you use a skillet to cook them, you may need to pop the muffins in the oven for a few minutes to reach this temperature. I didn’t have any problem cooking them in the skillet, however.

*Refrigerated starter that’s been fed within 4 days should work fine, as long as it’s bubbly and homogenous. Mine had been fed 3 days prior.

*I ground up some oats to make my own oat flour, but I think next time I will just use regular flour since the recipe seems to lend itself well to adaptations and that will make things easier.

Oh and I also made half of mine into cinnamon raisin by adding ½ tsp. cinnamon and ½ c. raisins.

Happy English muffin making! I challenge you to resist eating more than a couple in one sitting. My husband says he needs a whole plateful of them.

Okay, so this recipe isn’t exactly the healthiest: While sugar needn’t be involved, you can’t make this pancake with 100% wheat flour or it won’t turn out very fluffy. (I’ve tried.) Puffy oven pancakes should be, well, puffy and airy! You can, however, make it with half white wheat and half all purpose. Oh, and the orginal recipe states that this is a recipe for four, but I don’t know who could eat just a fourth of a pancake! It’s easily devoured between the two of us.

Okay, let me give you the recipe real quick before I head into the kitchen to make one of these myself!

Apple Oven Pancake (adapted from bettycrocker.com)

You will need:

• 2 TB butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup white wheat flour
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/4 Tsp sea salt
• 1/2 Tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 apple, peeled and sliced (I’ve also used frozen sliced peaches)
• dash cinnamon
• dash brown sugar, optional (Organic is best, if you don’t want to eat GMOs; sucanat would be even healthier – I just didn’t have any)

Here’s how:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

2. Drop butter into a 9 inch pie pan or cast iron skillet of similar size and let it melt in the oven. Then tilt the pan to coat with butter.

3. Place sliced apples into the melted butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar.

4. In a medium sized bowl, beat eggs slightly and stir in milk.

5. Add flour and salt just until blended.

6. Bake 25-30 minutes or until puffy and deep golden brown. Enjoy! (Bet you can’t eat just a fourth!)

 This recipe is shared at Real Food Wednesday and Thank Your Body Thursday.

The other day,  I told Caleb what I thought of my pregnancy experience so far: 

The first trimester is a little discouraging. I mean, I feel like crud most of the time and my baby looks like a dinosaur.

No laughing, you guys. This isn’t funny, you know.

Oh, and I also decided that I have felt like a little kid again…Since I became a picky eater and it seems all I did for a while was eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom! (Thanks to a certain little kumquat sitting on my bladder. )

Anyway, it actually wasn’t that bad and it’s all worth it for such a great cause. But in the meantime, the well-intentioned words I received from friends and family – such as, “It will all be over soon” – didn’t help me much at the time. Here are a few things that did:

• Homemade Ginger Ale
•  Digestive Tonic*: Contains ginger, lemon, and peppermint (scroll to the bottom of the page to find it). It works great, but I try to only use it when I really need it since it’s the more expensive nausea/stomach upset solution.
•  Queasy Beads: Uses acupressure to relieve morning sickness and motion sickness. Between wearing these bracelets on my wrist and sipping a little ginger ale or digestive tonic, I was able to endure car rides much better.
• Yogi’s Stomach Ease Tea: Their lemon ginger tea helps too, but I can’t stand the strong ginger flavor. Stomach Ease actually tastes pretty good.
• Getting more sleep
• Eating more protein: At first, I wanted to eat lots of fruit, but soon found that it was making me feel worse, not better.
• Eating more often (as in, all-the-time!) and varying my snacks so I didn’t get tired of eating the same things
• Staying off the computer; as I said before, the barely perceptible flickering of the monitor made my morning sickness worse.

And here are some things I enjoyed:

• Learning about our baby’s growth each week
• Being pampered by my husband
• Buying my first pair of maternity jeans (and some shirts I can’t wear yet): Yay for Goodwill and consignment sales!
• Organic Turkey Jerky from Whole Foods: Caleb bought it for me once, even though it’s pretty expensive, and I had to restrain myself from eating it all in one sitting.
• Raspberry leaf tea and Yogi Woman’s Mother To Be Tea
• And my favorite: Hearing our baby’s heartbeat!

I’m really excited to see what happens in the second trimester. Now that I’m feeling more like myself, and Baby looks more like a baby, I’m looking forward to having more of visible bump and feeling our little one move!

*Note: I don’t earn anything from most of my links. But if you click on an Amazon link and purchase something, a little of the profit goes to me and I use it to help keep the site running. Thanks for your support!

Now, I know what you may be thinking:

Do we really need another blog post about making vanilla extract? Because if you’re like me, you’ve been overwhelmed with the countless options google presents you with. But that’s exactly why I’m writing this post for you – to save you hours of frustration as you try to decide which method is best.

You see, the main problem with most homemade extracts is that they simply aren’t flavorful enough. As I understand, that’s because factories have their own methods for producing them and they have equipment which we at home simply don’t. But that’s okay; as it turns out, this is a very easy “problem” to fix.

The secret is to use way more vanilla beans to vodka than most recipes call for. I also chop them into half-inch pieces to increase the surface area that is exposed to the vodka.

So are you ready to get started?

Here’s what you’ll need:

• dark colored pint-sized jar with a lid (or use a regular glass one and keep it away from light)
• 2 cups 80 proof vodka (Buy the cheapest stuff you can find, unless you plan to drink the rest of it! )
• 20 vanilla beans (Buy them in bulk on ebay for the best deal; doesn’t matter whether they are gourmet or extract grade)
• cutting board and a sharp knife

Here’s how you make it:

(Optional: Boil jar and knife in hot water for 5 minutes or so to disinfect before beginning – Just don’t burn yourself!)

1. Cut the beans into about 1/2 inch pieces.

2. Put beans into the jar and fill the rest of the jar with vodka. You may not fit all 2 cups of vodka in with the beans, but that’s okay, because you have all that extra vodka to make more extract in the future.

3. Screw the lid on and shake once a day for about a week. After that, shake it when you think about it. Extract is ready to use a month after you make it, and will continue to get stronger for several more months.

Oh, and don’t forget to label it so you”ll know when you can start using your extract.

Wondering what to do with the rest of your vodka (besides cleaning with it, of course)? Pop on over to my post about Orange Peels and read about how I make orange extract!

This post is linked to Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesday Blog Carnival, Simple Lives Thursday, and Creative Juice Thursday. 

Resources:

VanillaReview.com

How to Make Vanilla Extract

I’d always wondered why foaming soap cost so much. I mean, it just looks like watered down soap to me. Then I found out that…..it is. When I saw how easy it was to make my own, I almost felt silly for sharing the “recipe” with you. But if you’re like I was, and you didn’t realize this was possible, you’ll be happy to see how incredibly easy it is to make your own and save a good chunk of change. And, let’s face it – it’s just more fun to use instead of the regular ‘ole stuff. There’s more bubbles and….well, foaminess!

So, are you ready for this? Here’s what you’ll need:

•  Soap, the regular liquid kind (I like to use plain castile – Dr. Bronner’s or Dr. Woods – since it doesn’t have any mystery ingredients and I can add my own essential oils to it).
• Empty foaming soap pump (well worth the investment if you don’t already have one)
• Water
•  A tablespoon
• Any essential oils you want to use

First, clean the stickers off your pump if you need to. Then measure a tablespoon of castile and pour in. Add water until you reach the “fill to” line – about a half  inch from the top. Add a few drops of your essential oils, and gently tilt upside down to mix everything. Now test it out and see how it works! If it’s too watery for you, you can always add a little bit more castile to the mixture. This soap also works well as a shaving cream.

Note on the soap pump: It’s a lot cheaper to buy a foaming soap dispenser with soap already in it, than to buy one of those without. Although I’d love to have this cute mason jar foaming soap pump:

You can either buy some semi expensive good foaming soap without all the added chemicals, or you can buy the cheapest pump you can find (less than $1.50) and just dump all that nasty triclosan loaded crap down the sink (like I did). Either way, you will save money. And if you figure out how to make your own foaming soap pump, let me know!

Oh wait . . . You wanted to know what triclosan is? Well, it’s an antibacterial agent found in a lot of different products, but especially in antibacterial soaps and toothpaste. Now I know “antibacterial” may sound like a good thing, but besides the fact that antibacterial agents destroy both bad bacteria and beneficial bacteria, there are other reasons to be concerned.  For instance, did you know that triclosan reacts with the chlorine in tap water and creates a compound similar to that found in Agent Orange? Yeah, I know. That doesn’t sound good to me either. But wait, there’s more! Just google “triclosan side effects” and see what else pops up.

Now go enjoy your homemade foaming soap, worry free!

This post is part of Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways Blog Hop.

Resources:

LiveRenewed.com

FrugalLiving.about.com

Triclosan – Wikipedia

Toxic Chemical Triclosan

Even though I love surprises, I’m horrible at keeping secrets. And this secret was a very big one: Caleb and I are expecting our first baby in April! Right now he’s the size of a kumquat. Or the size of a prune. I prefer the prune, since I’m not very familiar with kumquats. I wonder what they taste like? Hmm . . .

Anyway, the other reason I’ve been gone so long? It’s called morning sickness. Or all day sickness. For me, it meant that looking at computer screens for any period of time caused me to feel nauseated. Apparently computer screens have this barely noticeable, yet constant flickering which can trigger nausea. Who would have thought?

So, now that I’m feeling better, I hope to start posting some more exciting and useful articles for you. Including some on pregnancy! Look for a post about my first trimester in the next couple of weeks. Hard to believe it’s already almost over!

Tired of using those “cream of” soup cans with mystery ingredients in your favorite dishes? Frustrated because the “natural” or “organic” versions don’t seem to taste quite right and are too costly?

I’ve been there. And I thought, “Why can’t I just make my own?” Well, you wouldn’t believe how difficult it was to find a recipe that worked as well as the canned versions. But after several “experiments,” I’m happy to say that I’ve finally developed a recipe that tastes great.

This recipe is adapted from passionatehomemaking.com. The original recipe is actually for a cream of mushroom soup, which I haven’t tried because my husband and I don’t eat mushrooms. But I’m sure it would turn out well for those of you who enjoy them.

Anyway, here is what I do. This will make the equivalent of one can of cream of soup from the store.

You will need:

• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. white wheat or whole wheat flour
• 1 cup whole milk or 1/2 cup milk & 1/2 cup chicken stock + 1/2 tsp chicken bouillon (for a chicken flavored soup)
• 1/2 Tsp. sea salt
•  1/4 cup minced frozen onions (I keep these in my freezer to pull out for recipes. If you are using fresh, you may want to use a little more since frozen onions tend to be stronger.)
• 2 cloves minced garlic

Here’s how:

1. Heat a small skillet on the stove. (I love to use my smallest cast iron skillet for this.)

2.  Add butter to skillet and let it melt.

3. Add onion and garlic and saute on medium heat for a few minutes, until tender. You may also add other veggies at this point, depending on what kind of soup you would like – such as celery or mushrooms.

4. Whisk in salt, bouillon, and flour.

5. Turn the heat to low and gradually add milk and chicken stock.

6. Bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly until thickened.

And voila – you’ve just made your own cream of soup from scratch! Now you can use it in your favorite recipes!

So I purchased a bowel detox kit….Wait, no, please don’t run away! This isn’t that scary, I promise! Let me start over:

A few weeks ago, I did something I had never done before: I had nothing but juice (and water) for three days straight. This was my first attempt at juice fasting, and truth be told, I wasn’t too sure I could do it. So yes, I’m pretty proud of myself right now. (And yes I know that there are people who have done it for weeks and even months at a time. Don’t burst my bubble, m’kay?)

Why did I do it?  I’d wanted to detox for a while, because I liked the idea of helping my body rid itself of toxin buildup. Especially after watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, I began to seriously consider a juice fast. Juicing sounded like a great way to give my body the nutrients it needs while allowing it to take a break from digesting and do some cleaning up.

Now, I don’t have any major issues with my body, but I’d never done a detox before and I figured it could help a few minor problems I was struggling with.  But I was intimidated. You see, everyone I’d heard of who had been on a detox seemed quite miserable the first few days. Apparently, toxins can not only make you sick when they enter your body, but also when they leave.

Then I learned that a detox doesn’t have to be gross and scary . . .

Since being miserable isn’t really my cup of tea, I wasn’t sure I could do the whole detox thing after all. That is, until I stumbled upon Dr. Schulze and his herbal products. (And no, this is not a paid endorsement. But I do highly recommend his products.) As I read about the 5 day bowel detox program, I learned why people are often miserable as they detox.

Here’s how it works: When detoxing, all the bad chemicals get dumped into the bowel so they can be eliminated from the body. But if the bowel isn’t working correctly or hasn’t been cleansed in a while, all those other chemicals just add to the buildup. In order to not feel miserable while detoxing, those chemicals need to be able to leave the body in a timely fashion.

Um… How do I say this? My bowel wasn’t eliminating, even daily, like it should. I should preface this by saying that most people, if they are like me, do not realize how often BMs are necessary. (*blush* did I really say that?!) The idea is that after every major meal you eat, you should be “getting rid of” the last meal you ate. Hmm . . . now that I think about it, that makes sense. Anyway, I realized that if I was going to do any kind of detox, I needed to start eliminating regularly first.

So I purchased that Dr. Schultz bowel detox kit . . .

Per instructions, I took the Intestinal Formula #1 first to get regular. Then I started the 5 day detox capsules, aka Intestinal Formula #2 (along with the first formula) to clean out my bowel.

In other words? I swallowed a LOT of herbal capsules. And drank more water than a camel after a drought in the desert. But I didn’t feel bad. In fact, due mostly to the Intestinal Formula #1 my stomach felt flatter and less bloated than it had in years. I actually felt pleasantly “empty” instead of sluggish and bogged down.

Now that things were working a little better,  I still wanted to try a juice fast. So I decided to take those same herbal detox pills while juicing. My goal was three days of juicing plus two days of raw, vegan food and juicing.

I wasn’t sure I could do it. The first day of juicing wasn’t so bad, because I had been sick that morning and didn’t really feel like eating until that afternoon. The next day was the worst. I felt grumpy. My mind kept telling me that I needed food, even though I wasn’t starving. As long as I juiced every couple of hours, I really wasn’t hungry. But I wasn’t ready to give up – not yet. I kept telling myself I could make it just a little bit longer.

The third day of juicing was almost a breeze. I won’t say I wasn’t tempted to eat real food, but I had gotten used to juicing instead of eating and I liked the way it made me feel: Lighter and more energetic. I also knew that eating “real” food right away would probably make me miserable, even if it looked yummy.

By the fourth day, I was eating salads, veggies and whole fruits along with juicing. And by Friday night of that week, I was able to sit down to my first “real” meal of the week. When I ate those mashed potatoes, chicken, and cooked squash, I felt so strange! It was almost like tasting food again for the first time.

So, you see, detoxing doesn’t have to be gross and scary. And if you’re considering a juice fast, just remember: If I can do it, you can do it too!

Here’s a summary of my main suggestions:

1)      Detox with a friend! It was really difficult to cook food for my husband and not eat it.

2)      Start small. Instead of going for 7 or more days off the bat, try for 3 and see how it goes.

3)      To avoid being miserable, take some herbal bowel detox pills while you are juicing.

And don’t forget to check out my juicing post where I talk about my juicing adventure! If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email at melody@lifeisamelody.com. Oh and I’d love to hear how your adventure goes!

If you were to ask me, “What’s one item you always carry with you?” I’d say lip balm. You see, I can’t stand for my lips to be dry. Not even the least bit. I’m always reaching in my pocket for my little tube of moisture, but some days it comes up missing.

The problem is, the stuff I like to use costs about $3. I know that’s not a lot, but I go through it pretty quickly and occasionally I will lose an entire tube of it – usually right after I bought it, too. And who likes to lose $3? Not me!

I just knew there had to be a cheap, simple way to make my own with ingredients I already had. So today, I decided to make my own lip balm for the very first time. And guess what? I was right – this stuff costs pennies and it works great! Let me show you how.

First, you’ll want to gather the following items:

• A small container with a lid or 2 empty lip balm tubes
• 1 Tablespoon grated beeswax or pellets
• 1/2 Tablespoon coconut oil
• 1/8 Tsp. Vitamin E oil
• Your choice of essential oils – this is optional, of course – but who wouldn’t want their lip balm to smell good??

Next, you’ll want to melt the beeswax and coconut oil. I put them in a small glass measuring cup which I set inside a pan of water on the stove. Once the mixture is completely melted, remove it from the heat and add your vitamin E oil and a couple of drops of your favorite essential oil. Stir together and immediately pour into your container or empty lip balm tubes.

And that’s really all there is to it. It only takes a few minutes for your lip balm to cool and solidify. I do have a few tips for you, though. If you don’t want to buy empty lip balm tubes, you can use your old ones. That’s what I did. I just emptied them out the best I could and then boiled them for a couple of minutes in hot water and wiped them clean. If you want more in depth instructions, Crunchy Betty has a great article on how to do this.

Also, please don’t be like me and buy a huge chunk of beeswax from Hobby Lobby. It’s more trouble than it’s worth – trust me on this. After I finish using mine (however long that takes!), I plan to buy some beeswax pellets from Amazon.

One last thing: While this recipe is pretty simple and easy, you would save more time by making a larger batch – say double or triple the recipe – so you only have to make it every few months. This also cuts down on cleaning up time afterwards. By the way, beeswax and oil can be a little bit of a pain to remove, but it’s much easier if you clean them the same way you would the old lip balm tubes.

Okay, that’s it. Go forth and be moisturized with your thrifty lip balm!