How to tell if something is genetically modified...

An orange is an orange is an orange, right? Well, maybe not if it's genetically modified (GM). My sister-in-law shared this info about how to easily tell if produce is GM next time you're in the supermarket. All you have to do is look at the little sticker on its side:

• A four-digit number means it's conventionally grown.
• A five-digit number beginning with 9 means it's organic.
• A five-digit number beginning with 8 means it's GM.

Books and the new twin mom

Part of my push to get into more creative endeavors is a vow to read more. And not about Bunnies and Caterpillars.

So for a few months I've belonged to GoodReads. It's kind of like Facebook, if that site were called Faceliterature. GoodReads is part social networking, part lit crit. It allows me to keep a Netflix-style list of the books I want to read. Especially since it sometimes takes a little while for a book to show up in my library's catalog after I first hear of it. And o GoodReads you get to review it and see what friends are reading too.

Now GETTING to the books is a whole other issue. I came across this site called BookSwim which will let you rent books and will actually ship them to you. It's a little pricey... $14.99 a month to get 2 books at a time and the cost structure goes up from there. If I ever have a friend on bed rest, though, I'm definitely getting them a subscription to this site as a gift. Once the babies are born, it's a different story. I just don't think I have enough time to read to justify that cost.

Speaking of reading, I'm currently in the process of reading Boomsday. I wanted a good laugh and it supplies.

Boycott IKEA

I know this isn't a popular sentiment, but IKEA just pushed me over the edge yesterday. Bottom line is that for a store that tries to get all sorts of environmental cred, they are the worst abusers of the disposable culture ethos. I'd much rather pay double or even triple for something that will be in usable condition for 20 times as long.

See, I bought this butter dish there a little over a year ago...
And the other day I was making mashed sweet potatoes for the girls. I heard this crunching sound when I went to cut off the butter and when I looked closely I realized part of the glass edge of the dish had chipped off on the butter pat. It had stuck to the butter and I was now mixing it in with their food. I looked even more closely and saw that there were a bunch of small to large chips missing from the inside edge of the butter dish. I tried to take a pic and it didn't really show the chipping but for what it's worth...Who knows how many of those shards we've ingested over the past year?

Now we are not hard on things, and use dull butter knives. So I emailed IKEA corporate saying this was a dangerous item and got this reply that basically said (and I'm paraphrasing to adhere to their privacy clauses):

thanks for writing. we forwarded your message to someone else. i hope this email has been helpful.

So I decided to pack us all in the car and go return the butter dish. Get some sort of credit. And try to be helpful to them because it really shouldn't disintegrate in your food that way.

Well they basically laughed at me at the return counter, focusing on the fact that it was A YEAR OLD and the unspoken message was: what here is supposed to last that long? They weren't even interested in taking a report about it being possibly dangerous.

I vowed to never go back there unless there's some really compelling reason. With craigslist you can find much sturdier, REAL furnishings at competitive prices anyway, unless you're way into it being brand new. So I got everyone back in the car and we headed off to Goodwill (the one on San Pablo near Ashby - love that store). Unfortunately no butter dish there, but we got a bunch of good stuff for them to use for playing pretend kitchen.

As far as Boycotting IKEA, I googled that and it turns out I have some very diverse company:

• a pro-Israel group that was mad at Sweden;
• white extremists - they're going nuts (no wait they're already nuts) over ads that show couples from different ethnic backgrounds - not gonna deign their hate speech with a link;
• Catholic politicians in Italy who are upset IKEA doesn't sell nativity scenes;
• and even our mild-mannered neighbors to the north, Canadians who say IKEA was offering unfair pricing schemes up north and blocking access to the US website for comparison shopping.
  

the Kitchen Cheat: Mint Chocolate Chip Brownies (low fat!)

Full disclosure: I looove mint chocolate chip ice cream.

I used to enjoy making cookies, but current reality doesn't allow for that much. All the in an out of the oven and scooping and trying not to burn them. Pan cookies are a lot more practical these days. But always making them from scratch isn't going to happen. So I compromised. I found a mix I liked (the No Pudge Fudge brownie mix at Trader Joe's) and gussied it up a little... fashioned the brownies in the image of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Might as well lean on the extracts to give all the rich goodness!

The only bummer with these is that the batter tastes kinda like toothpaste because the peppermint extract is pretty strong until the alcohol cooks off a bit in the baking. Just a warning so fellow batter addicts aren't diasappointed!

1 package no pudge brownie mix (available at Trader Joe's)
2/3 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 tsp. pure peppermint extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup white chocolate chips

You basically just follow the box's directions using those ingredients. I bake them in an 8X10 pan for 24 minutes (but that's because I don't have an 8X8 pan like the box calls for).

These are a great treat to take to new moms since that's a time when you constantly need a pick me up, but ideally one that's guilt free.

Time to laugh a little: Sky Maul

I've always noticed the Sky Mall catalogs in the plane seat pockets, but until the last flight we took with the girls, I didn't really read them. Looking at the pictures and flipping the pages completely held the girls' attention, though, so we got a peak at some of the over the top stuff inside. The First Insulated Mug with a Clock Embedded That's Dishwasher Safe? Or the Full Scale Replica Plane Propeller? It almost doesn't need a parody, but...

There is one.

And maybe because we had just studied the original so thoroughly I found it really entertaining. Plus there's some great stuff for parents... the hybrid stroller-lawn mower and the flask inscribed upside with a quote about your kids so you can think of them midgulp.

Hopefully there a few laughs there to chase the winter blahs away.

On-line book publishing deal

One of my creative endeavors this month was to make a photo book of the grrl-ios' first year. With everything digital these days I hardly have any prints and so I thought making the book would be an easy way to make albums for posterity for each of them, for us and for grandparents, too.

I just stumbled on this GREAT deal for printing photo books, in case it's useful for anyone:
http://www.winkflash.com/

It's $19.95 flat rate for a 10" X 8" book with up to 100 pages of photos.

Say "cheese!" (that just happens to be one of the grrls new words, too)

The Big Purple Mommy

That's not me (though I am wearing a big cozy purple fleece right now). That's the name of a book I just discovered about keeping creative endeavors alive while entering new motherhood. I'm looking forward to reading it after finding this article about it.

And speaking of creativity, I'm off to go ride the Imagine Art Bus for a feature I'm doing. Looking forward to being inspired by these kids!

Be double prepared

Living in earthquake country I try to have an emergency kit together. The nights I've been home alone with the girls I always keep a carrier in my room next to the bed, too, in case I suddenly had to scoop them both up in my arms and get out of the house (I know... there's a line between prepared and paranoid).

It's challenging trying to keep an emergency kit up to date for little ones who are changing so much all the time, but fortunately now they're out of the hard core baby food stage. As long as I have canned goods we're set. Though making sure diapers and clothes are current for them is another thing.

We do have one new item in our emergency kit that's very cool and could even make a great gift for someone in the coming year. It's called a BOGO light and it is a high efficiency LED light that stays recharged via a solar panel on its side. You just leave it in the window and whenever you need it it's good to go for hours. There's a great story behind it, too. The guy who invented them actually created them for families in Africa who had no power. BOGO stands for Buy One, Give One. You get an emergency light, and one is donated to someone who needs one for light every evening.

On the theme of being a broad'

Broad-minded mama, that is. I just heard part of a Talk of the Nation show about what it's like going through life in a wheelchair. Definitely a good change of perspective. And it links to the documentary that inspired the program which I have to remember to put in my Netflix queue (the film didn't seem to be listed there yet).

I've actually thought a fair amount during the past year about what it must be like to get around in a wheelchair. Whenever I get frustrated pushing the double stroller and getting dirty looks for taking up the whole sidewalk or the doorway of a store, I remind myself this is a temporary state and was a happy choice. For some people it's not that.

New Year, new and improved Blog

Okay, time for my creativity manifesto:

One thing that I’ve been frustrated about since our twins arrived is feeling a real creative void in my life. My mom tries to give me pep talks,: “Raising a child, especially two at once requires lots of creativity.” I do get that. There’s the aha! moment when you figure out just the trick to meet two totally different needs at once. Or when you mentally rewrite your recipes to allow for entertaining two kids at the same time as cooking. And the there’s keeping up with a toddler’s delightfully fresh perspective on the world.

BUT when you have two little ones, especially two going through the same stages together, there are definitely periods that feel assembly-line-o-rama. Diapers. Getting dressed. Eating meals. Getting redressed after messy meals. Getting out the door. Immediately turning back around to get back in the door and change a diaper.

By creativity I don’t mean knitting and crafty things. I just miss the time to work over an idea in my head uninterrupted, the ability to just pick up and go to an event that sounds interesting. The chance to explore worlds other than my own that invariably make me think about what else is possible.

So my resolution is to try little things to get those sparks going even as my thought process is fragmented and my ability to get out of the house to non twins friendly events is limited.

And I'm going to blog about my attempts here – all in the context of mothering and keeping a career puttering along and trying to be good to the earth Sometimes that might be posting a YouTube video that got me inspired. Sometimes it could be a magazine or person I find online who is doing something relevant to my life but a little askew. I recently signed up for Facebook as a way to connect with friends and just be a part of a universe that’s new to me.

And I’d love any ideas others have to carve out and keep that creative space going.

Happy New Year: a look back

The New Year almost coincides with my girls’ birthday. So I took a few minutes to look back on the highs and lows of the first year:

HIGHS…
The first smiles

Watching my husband be an amazing dad to our girls

Finding great childcare

All the newfound friends in our neighborhood, and the opportunity to connect with strangers who wanted to admire the girls whenever we went out

The first time I saw the girls laugh at and enjoy each other

A newfound and deeper appreciation of family

LOWS…
Searching for childcare

The usual – no sleep, leaving the house with a shirt on inside out, realizing I have way too few photos of their first year because who has time to take photos?

Ordering and paying for lunch at an eat-in restaurant but abandoning it when the girls just wouldn’t stop screaming at the tops of their lungs

Having an ear clogged with wax but not getting it taken care of, because it was useful when holding a wailing infant

AND A LOT OF THINGS WERE BOTH…
When Aurora figured out what “no” meant -- exciting to see her understand, but heartbreaking to witness this loss of innocence

The first time I went to pick up and hug Amalia and she tried to squirm away – independence good, rejection of me sad

Travel -- great to venture out and have a great time, horrible to venture out and be in a different time zone

Sleep training – horrid to sit through the crying, wonderful to finally get the sleep