I had a great month for completing the goals on my big list! I knocked 6 items off my list and made progress on 3 more. Woooo! Here’s what I accomplished:

Completed:

• #19 Make a softie for my niece-to-be. I used this pattern from Betz White to make this cutie little hedgehog out of some of the many sweaters I’ve felted in the past couple of months. While I was putting him together, I started calling him by the name Hedgie von Hedgenstein. My favorite part is this little heart on his tummy:



• #21 Make at least 30 scrapbook layouts. — I participated in the Layout a Day Challenge that Lain Ehmann put on and I made 28 scrapbook layouts in 28 days! Phwew! That was hard. I already posted about my first 12 a few weeks ago. Here are the final 16 I made. (You can view a larger version of any of these by clicking the appropriate link below the mosaic.)


1. August, 2. I Bento, 3. Valentines Day 2009, 4. That Kind of Mom, 5. good bye, old friend, 6. The Bay Area Discovery Museum, 7. Jumpers!, 8. Life Lessons, 9. Sweet Little Evelyn, 10. puzzles and hot chocolate, 11. Good Eater, 12. Laundry Love, 13. the best toy ever?, 14. Augie at 18 months, 15. Breakfast Out, 16. Bean Dirt

• #34 Sign up for a Mommy and Me type class with Augie. — I tried out a free Gymboree class with August this month to see if it was something he would like to do. He was completely terrified by it and it was crazy expensive so we decided not to go that route. I looked around a little more and found a baby gym class at the local Y. It was crowded and chaotic, but Augie seemed to really enjoy himself, so we are going to start attending semi-regularly. And at $5 per session vs. $17 per session at Gymboree, it fits a lot better in our budget.
• #36 Take August to ride the steam trains. — I took both boys up to Tilden and we rode the steam trains. Yay!
• #42 Buy a laundry hamper. — We haven’t had a laundry hamper since we moved into this house. I bought two so we can sort the laundry on the fly. If I had my preference, they would have had lids, but I couldn’t find anything I liked with lids, so I’m making do with these. In any case, it looks way nicer than a big mountain of clothes on the floor of our bedroom.

Before:



After:



• #52 Buy an every day skirt. — I bought this skirt at Old Navy. It’s totally boring, but that’s sort of the point.

In Progress:

• #3 Find five reliable, healthy, delicious soup recipes. — I’ve got one more soup recipe under my belt: Easy Sausage Tortellini Soup. I followed the recipe pretty closely, but instead of cabbage, I added in baby spinach at the end. This soup took about a half an hour to throw together and it was beyond delicious. For a recipe with so few ingredients, it had an  incredible depth of flavor.
• #54 Find a babysitter. — I’m visiting some day cares this week to see if they’ll be a good match for Augie. Wish me luck!

Upcoming:

• #4 Learn to make pickles and/or marmalade. — My brother-in-law gifted me with a huge bag of oranges so I can try making marmalade. I consulted with my friend Shae who is a marmalade queen and she suggested that I pick up a copy of the Ball Book of Home Preserving which I have now acquired. I’m going to need to look the book over and get some equipment still, but I’m hoping to knock out some marmalade in the next couple of weeks.
• #7 Make macarons. — I also got my copy of I Love Macarons in the mail this week, so I’m hoping to try a batch of those in March too.

Susan Yuen of Hawaii’s Bento Box Cookbook and Pikko from Adventures in Bentomaking are hosting a lottery style fundraiser with proceeds going to the American Red Cross Haiti fund. For a $5 donation you can be entered to win one of 11 bento prizes including the grand prize — a fabulous assortment of bento accessories that includes a beautiful Totoro bento box!

Would you look at that?! That, my friends, is the result of the money and diapers that you donated via the diaper drive I held for Help a Mother Out.

In the first two weeks of November, friends, family, and my darling blog readers brought me diapers and donated money via Pay Pal to help this fine organization. Tuesday I met up with Lisa from HAMO and passed along 1701 diapers! That translates to 20 boxes of diapers, 6 packs of pull-ups, and 3 shopping bags of single diapers. Because most of the donations were cash-based, I ended up buying the bulk of the diapers. This allowed me to shop around a bit and get the best per diaper price. It also allowed me to be picky about sizes when I shopped so I could purchase diapers in the bigger sizes  — pull-ups and size 4, 5 and 6 diapers –which are more urgently needed. (And in case all you bargain shoppers out there were wondering: even when I took coupons for other brands of diapers into account, Target’s Up and Up brand diapers were the best deal by far. Good job, Target!)

When it was time to deliver the diapers, they completely filled the back of our station wagon and I had to pack some into the back seat with Augie. (He helped me deliver them and even dressed to match the diaper boxes.)

Melissa, the person I randomly selected for the thank you gift chose to forgo her prize and together we decided to use the money I would have spent on it to buy more diapers. Isn’t Melissa sweet?

Many thanks to the following generous donors:

• Amy K.
• Beate K.
• Bethany K.
• Bryan and Erin B.
• Catherine B.
• Celest
• Celeste K.
• Dennis M.
• Elaine E.
• Gabrielle H.
• Lia L.
• Linda K.
• Melissa S.
• Robert and Karen T.
• Sara B.
• Sue S.
• Tawana H.
• Tom C.
• Whitney M.

I also want to give a special thank you to my brother-in-law, Bryan. Bryan kindly sent out an email to his co-workers and collected diapers from them at his workplace.

I’m thankful for so many things, big and small.

I’m thankful for two beautiful, healthy boys.

I’m thankful for a husband who loves me and our family and who works long hours to make sure we have everything we need. I’m thankful that even when I’m (mostly) unemployed, our family wants for nothing.

I’m thankful for a huge family who loves me.

I’m thankful for cheese.

I’m thankful for the nice weather in the SF Bay Area.

I’m thankful that my baby always goes to bed in a clean diaper.

I’m thankful for patterned paper and wool felt.

I’m thankful for a roof over my head and a working heater.

I’m thankful I live within easy driving distance of stores that sell bento supplies.

I’m thankful for technology and all the ways it makes my life better. Digital cameras, iPhones, laptops, RAIDs to hold our data, a hosted instance of Wordpress — I fully realize that not everyone has the access to gadgetry that I enjoy. And I’m thankful that so many of my other needs and wants are being met that access to gadgetry is something I even care about.

I’m thankful for plumbing.

I’m thankful for the internets and all of the people who are part of my life because of it.

I could go on all day, but I’ve got desserts to prepare (for which I am also thankful).

This morning, my dad found this graphic on an old back-up disk. This was the very first thing I posted on my very first website. My best guess is that this if from some time in 1996.This might have been the first “photo-shopping” I ever did, though I’d be surprised if I actually did this in Photoshop and, really, my dad probably did most of it.

In any case, it cracked me up!

I’ve added a list of frequently asked questions about bento boxes over in the right nav.

Curious about where I get my supplies?
Want to know more about baked tofu?
Ever wondered if my kid actually eats these lunches?

All this and more can be found in the Bento Box FAQ!