Ready for Spring

I gave birth to my son, our first child, in the heat of last summer. I spent the fall entertaining visits from friends and family, taking late afternoon walks once my husband got home from work, and driving to the mall and grocery store on the days I had our one car. When winter hit, the car went to my husband (at my own insistence) so that he didn't have to walk the 20 minutes to the bus stop in freezing temperatures, just to endure a nauseating 40 minute trip to campus. I had the car one day a week, when I would drop him off at work and then head out to whatever adventure I chose. The other four days were spent inside, with a not-yet-crawling child, as we stared out the window at our bare peach tree. It was a tough winter.

But we survived! Now we're back to taking walks twice a day, and I can claim the car whenever I want. So far, we've enjoyed throwing the softball at the big open field by Kenwood Elementary and explored the gym equipment at Zahnd Park. Unfortunately the weekends haven't been up to par with the warm weather of the weekdays, but we're hoping that will change soon.

Emerald Margarita

Boston's has a bad reputation, but I think it's awesome. Mainly because this is the place that introduced me to the margarita. For some reason, in my 21+ life I have always avoided the margarita. I assumed that I wouldn't like tequila, which goes back to some vague memory of an old boyfriend telling me it would be too strong for me.

Anywho, I decided to be brave and ordered an Emerald Margarita on my last visit to Boston's. The waitress exclaimed "Oh yay! It'll be like Unofficial all over again!" which instantly put stress in my evening as I envied my friend's choice of a Guinness. I felt a little awkward when the drinks came: a glass of white wine, a Guinness, a bottle of Corona sans lime, and a huge blue martini (margarita?) glass with a bright green liquid in it, topped with what looked (and tasted!) like lemon slushie.

Oh my heavens, it was fantastic. It was also $6.50, so it's a good thing I went without dessert and appetizer. I was sort of able to recreate it last night, but I think it needs more sweetness than frozen margarita mix + tequila. I need to go back and see the menu again, because I don't remember what else was in it. Another trip to Boston's for me!

The Organic Quest

I'm trying to get on the ball and make baby food for my little guy, but there have been many road blocks along the way. The first issue is selection, since I'm a wannabe crunchy mom and I want to do organic as much as possible. Meijer claims to be rolling out a line of organics sometime soon, which is great since we do most of our shopping there. Maybe I'll start going to the Common Ground Coop once it has its grand opening at the Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana this summer. I've seen signs up all around town about it, so I'm getting excited!

As for making the food, it's been a little hit or miss. The first time I tried, I made a lovely puree of organic baby carrots. Well, I guess it was too chunky, because it was decidedly rejected. Then I made some yummy organic pears, which the baby loved, but since it was so runny I spilled half of it out of the food processor. Those little guys were $1.99 a pound!

I've been doing better lately with apples, purees of frozen peas and carrots from the organic section of Jerry's IGA, and even a full meal of sweet potatoes, apple, chicken and a hint of onion. So now I'm feeling pretty good about our hints of organic in daily life, though the hubby and I still have plenty of aspartame and high fructose corn syrup in our diets. Ah well, one step at a time.

First Garage Sale of the Year

This morning I got out of the house bright and early and headed to one of those church garage sales for baby stuff. It was at St. John Lutheran Church, and it was crowded. I got there right when it opened and there were probably 100 people in line, and the parking lot was twice as full when I left as it was when I arrived. The sale itself was really organized with lots of helpers, and they had a good variety of well priced toys and clothes. I did pretty well - $10 for an umbrella stroller, little toddler ride on thing, some shovels, and an outfit. I'm on the lookout for outdoor toys, hopefully a sandbox, slide, basketball hoop, and the holy grail - a LittleTikes Playhouse. Chambana is crazy about the garage sales, so I'm sure I'll be kept busy these upcoming Spring weekends. Just gotta keep checking the News-Gazette.