May 24th, 2010
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How To, Political |
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So you all know how I despise, and refuse to ingest, chocolate that supports the child slave industry. I hear the wailing of mothers who have woken to find their sons stolen. And then I cry.
So on that note, here is how I’ve been making the most delicious hot chocolate ever. I may be addicted, it is just so good!
Ingredients (per serving):
1 tbsp cocoa powder that has been guaranteed ethically produced (I’m using an all Peruvian one by Holy Kakow)
1/3 cup organic powdered sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash of cayenne pepper (for 2 cups, I use 1/8 tps just for reference)
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk (you can replace this with more almond milk for a diary-free version)
Directions:
Sift together the dry ingredients. Heat the almond milk and vanilla extract in a small pot over medium heat. Slowly add in the dry ingredients, making sure to smash out any lumps before adding more. I like almond milk, because it has all the best qualities of milk and of water for dissolving. By the time you get all the dry ingredients dissolved, your mixture should be boiling. Stir for a bit to make sure all the lumps are out. Then, while it’s still on the stove, add the rest of the milk. Stir until the hot chocolate reaches the ideal drinking temperature, then serve. Yum!
May 24th, 2010
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Other, Personal Events |
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Recently a QF blog that I enjoy posted this about planning your birthing wardrobe. What really surprised me, was the ratio in the comments of women who wear clothing during transition and birth! Geez! I decided that this would be a good intro into posting about my feelings of Original Sin and painful childbirth.
So here it is. Pain in childbirth is a blessing. It is a gift from the Lord to be able to return to a state of pre-knowledge. To commune directly with Him as the animals and plants do. A time to be wild and pure. A woman may have been tempted, but she is also the one who receives the ultimate forgiveness.
Obviously there are lots of women missing out on this experience! That is so sad. Why under Heaven would anyone be concerned about modesty while they are pushing a human being out her bottom? And if she is, then she hasn’t risen to that place of pre-knowledge. That is just sad. It makes me feel sad that they miss out on the intense perfection of labor.
Now I can see how a woman may be wearing clothing, then go into transition and not notice it any longer. However, most wild animals would tear it off. So, again, the disturbing part is the ratio of clothing-wearers vs. ripping-it-offers.
May 17th, 2010
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Personal Events |
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The weather report for the last few days in TX matched the report for the first few days back in the PNW. Well, at least in words, not so much in essence. So for fun, and to show the disconnect in language, I took pictures of the sky all day today.
Here’s the first shot this morning off the south end of our back porch. Not looking too cloudy yet. Just a few whispy bits.
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Clouds are starting to puff up and look like popcorn. Still lots of bright light and warm weather. Perfect weather, really! Sunny and 90 degrees. A note about the sky–the near indigo color in the top left corner of this picture may be my favorite color in the whole world. It is certainly my favorite color of sky!
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We went to get ice cream in the early afternoon. On the way back, part of the sky seemed to be cloudy. However, any darkness in this picture is a result of my very dirty windshield. It was a super bright and beautiful “mostly cloudy” day!
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We arrived home and I was able to find a mostly cloudy patch off the north end of our back porch.
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However, this was the south end of the porch at the same time. So far, this day has turned out to be mostly sunny, not mostly cloudy. Hooray!
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The real show came just in time for dusk. A thunderstorm rolled in! Oh, how I have missed thunderstorms! And you see, there is still a patch of blue to be seen surrounded by dark storm clouds. Oh, rain. Sweet, ploppy, never-face stinging rain. The rain that charges the air and excites everyone. Rain that is the stuff of romantic scenes. Not the sad, parting kind of scenes like in Casablance. Oh, no! The suddenly getting stuck in a barn through the storm kind of romantic scene. Flashing lightening in the background. THIS is the rain to run outside and dance in. THIS is the rain that encourages puddle jumping. This is REAL rain. Rain that brings with it a show so awesome that only God can create it. The theatre of the world at its best. Sweet and wonderful thunderstorms.
I took a few more photos, trying to catch a lightening bolt with my tiny point and shoot camera. No luck. However, my 4.5yo daughter LOVED how the lightening made the sky turn pink! :) Here are some gorgeous shots I did get in:
April 30th, 2010
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How To, Sewing |
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My friend has somehow let her serger become unthreaded, so I am going to try and explain looper tensions without pictures to help. Yikes!
I am also going to assume that you know what a serged stitch should look like and can figure out if the tension problem is the upper looper, lower looper, or a combination.
Tension and Sergers
I am assuming that you can figure out the needle tensions–as that is not dissimilar from a sewing machine and is usually not the difficult issue with sergers anyway. So we will focus on the loopers.
Every serger is different in threading. Some have built in ways to reduce or increase thread tension separate from the tension knobs. These are fantastic! Others only have ways to increase tension. This is why they will not feed Wooly Nylon well. My Viking is this way and that is how I became aware that the Gutermann Bulky Nylon will take the same tension as regular, polyester cone thread.
Using polyester cone thread, serger loopers prefer their tension knobs to be set between 3 and 6 out of 8/9 to feed well. So, basically in the middle third. If you reach 6 and the loops are still too loose, don’t keep pumping that tension knob up. You have to find a way to increase the tension separate from the knob. This is accomplished by wraping the thread around a guide that it would normally just go through.
Some sergers have this wrap-around technique built into their regular threading pattern. With these, you can pass the thread through the guide instead of wrap around it to lower the tension. This is how you should thread Wooly Nylon. However, even with removing that extra tension, you may need to adjust your tension knobs to lower than 3 for Wooly Nylon, and the thread will make up the difference in the uneveness.
If you try to go out of the middle-third range, your stitching will not be even or always accurately tensioned. Don’t ask me why this is, I just accept it as fact.
When you get the threads wrapped around and set just right, take a picture!
I am a stay at home mother to a toddler and an infant. I enjoy sewing and learning css. My greatest dream is for 70%-80% of women in the U.S. to recieve the safest prenatal and labor care available for low risk births--a midwife's care!