Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! In honor of this most festive occasion, I offer you:





Thanks to Dirt and Diapers for this idea.

The rest of the year, I'm just about 25% Irish. But today, I bleed green! So I'm gonna grab me a pint of Guinness (no green beer here) and celebrate appropriately. Thank goodness this feast doesn't fall on a Friday.

Sláinte mhaith!

The Resurrection of the Starter

This is Wilson.

Wilson was my beloved sourdough starter before I got pregnant.

Yes, I said was, for Wilson has since passed on. He was hidden in the back of the fridge during my first trimester and neglected for so long that he eventually turned grey and went into extreme hibernation. When we moved from our apartment, I wasn't in the mood to try and revive a clearly troubled starter so I let him go to Sourdough Heaven. Besides, he was starting to smell like potato chips (not a good smell for a starter).

Why am I telling you about Wilson? Because I am going to reincarnate Wilson! Yay Wilson!

I'm following the "recipe" for a wild yeast starter here. I'm using Hodgson Mill whole grain rye flour and R.W. Knudsen organic pineapple juice.

Why pineapple juice, you ask?

Mixing just flour and water creates an environment that is almost neutral pH, but the yeastie beasties we want prefer an acidic pH. The neutral environment is good for other organisms in the flour that produce acids as a by-product, thus lowering the pH to a level where the yeast can grow. But this takes longer and can be very frustrating because the starter will look like it's doing awesome around day 3 and then appear to "die" on you. This is because gas-producing bacteria cause the starter to grow and then die out when the environment is no longer to their liking. It's only after these bacteria die out that the yeast is allowed to grow. By using pineapple juice, we bypass that initial phase and go directly to an acidic pH favorable to the yeast. The yeast get a foothold right away and don't have to do battle with the gassy bacteria.

Make sense? If not, don't worry. You don't have to know why something works for it to work (thank goodness!)

So last night I mixed 2 tablespoons rye flour with 2 tablespoons pineapple juice in a mason jar.

I will continue adding 2 tablespoons each flour and juice for the next two days until it starts bubbling and then I will start discarding and feeding (if I didn't discard some of it every time I fed it, Wilson would take over my kitchen in about a week! First stop kitchen, next stop...WORLD).

Stay tuned!

Gee Williker's! It's Time For Lent!

It's that time of year again. The time of year where I vow to give up coffee (and end up drinking lots and lots of tea), clean up my language (and fail miserably in less than twenty-four hours), and pray a daily rosary (as long as it doesn't interfere with tea time and/or brainstorming sessions to come up with alternative words that don't sound like they came from an episode of Leave It to Beaver).

As you can see, I'm not very good at this "Lent" thing.

This year, the Lenten season has taken me completely by surprise. Despite the fact that Easter is way later this year, I haven't taken advantage of that extra time to prepare myself...at all. So here I am, the day before Ash Wednesday, compiling a haphazard list of possible sacrifices and practices for the next 40-ish days that I will probably end up dropping by day 12. Maybe I should give up self-deprecation? Hmmm...

So what should I give up? Usually I give up coffee as my material sacrifice, but I used to be much more of a caffeine addict than I am now. We're talking 4-6 cups a day! Now I'm down to 1-2 a week. So that wouldn't be much of a sacrifice now.

I've heard some say that instead of giving something up, one should take up a new (preferably good) habit. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1438:

The seasons and days of penance...are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).

And, from the Pocket Catholic Dictionary:

Its purpose is to better prepare the faithful for the feast of the Resurrection, and dispose them for a more fruitful reception of the graces that Christ merited by his passion and death.

Ah, so the season of Lent is in the business of spiritual purification. So giving things up and adopting new habits are both in keeping with the spirit of Lent. Instead of an either/or mentality, however, I think it would be a good idea to purge a bad habit (swearing, let's say) and replace it with a good one (using the selfsame gift of speech to pray, for example). For me that would mean that whenever I feel the urge to use a profanity, I would replace it with a prayer for patience (my use of profanity is pretty much restricted to instances of anger or impatience). It....could....WORK! (Young Frankenstein, anyone? No? Nevermind...)

Now I know some would say: "But profanity is something you should avoid all the time, not just during Lent!" True, and I know that Lenten observations shouldn't take the form of New Years resolutions. But, let's be honest, we all use this time of year to try and make ourselves better. After all, Lent is prime time for conversion. It originated as a time of purification for those entering the Church that year. Over time, the congregation joined them in their preparations, readying themselves to renew their own baptismal promises at Easter. A big part of our baptismal promises was the renunciation of sin. So as part of my preparations to renew my baptismal promises, I hope to rid myself of my attachment to this particular sin. Self-justification complete.

I was also thinking of picking up St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises and incorporating them, to some extent, into my daily prayer life (or lack thereof). I'm afraid if I try to do too much too fast I'll end up doing none of it, so I'll focus on the Daily Examen.

And in the spirit of self-denial, I'll probably give up Facebook, like the rest of the Catholic world. It might free up more of my time to write blog posts! One can only hope...

Now at least I have some semblance of a plan going into Ash Wednesday. Let's hope (and pray!) I can stick with it this year!

Check out these FAQs About Lent over at Catholic Online. It explains the connection between Lent and Baptism.

Also, my darling husband has posted some resources for Ash Wednesday and Lent that are worth looking at.

Four Month Anniversary of Dom's Escape from the Womb!

My little guy is four months old! My how time flies! Next thing I know he'll be walking...

Dominic's Birth Story

WARNING: The following account may be too explicit for some readers. Use caution.

I wanted to share my birth story with you all for a few reasons. First, I'd like to get it down in words while it's still fresh in my mind. What was already somewhat of a blur might become hopelessly unrecognizable should any considerable length of time be allowed to pass. Second, I think it important to demystify as much as possible the birth process, especially since most of our understanding of birth likely comes from watching A Baby Story on TLC. If someone like me, who despises even the smallest discomfort, can endure a natural labor, anyone can.

Seriously.

No, really, the last time I stubbed my toe, I thought I was going to die.

Anyway, if this subject makes you squeamish or uncomfortable, I won't be offended if you don't read it. You won't hurt my feelings. That said, I begin my tale.

The estimated date of delivery given to me by the hospital after a 14 week dating ultrasound put me at 40 weeks on November 2nd. I was pretty sure that date would prove to be too soon since a 6 week ultrasound showed me to be due around November 8th, little less than a week later. I was prepared to be considered "overdue" and began planning how I would put off an induction, should the subject arise. November 2nd dawned and I wasn't in labor...yet. My Braxton-Hicks contractions picked up a bit in intensity, but they weren't cause for any alarm until that evening. I couldn't sleep through them, and in fact they intensified when I laid down. Being the newbie I am, I was convinced that labor was starting, and around 3am we made our way to the hospital...an hour away. Long story short, we (me, my darling husband, and my mom) found ourselves home once again at 11am the following morning. False alarm.

Needless to say, I was pretty discouraged. My contractions gradually petered out as I attempted to regain the sleep I had lost while at the hospital and by the end of the day had completely disappeared. How was I ever going to know when real labor began? I tried to keep my mind off of it the rest of the day, hoping that I wouldn't have to wait too much longer.