Author: Marie Haigh

I started knitting 15 years ago right around the time of my marriage and the birth of my niece.

Sore Hands

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On Saturday, I knit so much that my hands became sore. It was wonderful!

Lately, all my knitting is accomplished during car rides. On Saturday, not only did I get to knit during the drive to Granny’s house but I got to knit throughout the entire visit. Elly is quite independent now. Outside of the diaper changes and a New York minute  nursing session, she didn’t need me at all. She was happy to play with her cousins and to drag her doting Aunt all around.

I was so darn proud of her. I was also a bit sad. My little girl is growing up.

Envious of Toys No More

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I’ve been cured. May I never be envious of another child’s toy.

Remember the water table I fell in love with at a friend’s house? And how I bought one for Elly only a few days after seeing it.

The toy is headed to an early retirement after only being in service for about a month.

Elly has become a climber.

She’s quite good. She can even reach places we thought were only reachable by adults.

Perhaps we encourage her, but it’s hard not to laugh.

Elly’s 1st Apron

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Elly loves to help me in the kitchen now. A step stool sits in front of the island so Elly can reach the countertop. Stirring is still difficult for her but she keeps trying.

Jake cleans up most of her spills. When she’s not stirring, she’s tasting. Often she ends up covering her face along with whatever she’s wearing in flour. Rather than change her clothes repeatedly and in turn have to do more laundry, I whipped her up an apron.

Full details about the pattern and fabric can be found on my Elly-Made blog.

More Zucchini Please

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Article first published as More Zucchini Please on Blogcritics.

Beginning last week, the zucchini plant in my garden started bearing fruit. Thus far I’ve made sautéed zucchini rounds, zucchini bread and zucchini chocolate cake. That might be enough zucchini for some folks, but I was hoping for much more.

I’m the sort of person who likes to buy several pounds of a fruit or vegetable that is in season -much more than Dan and I could possibly eat before it all spoils. Then, I sift through my pile of cookbooks searching for ways to use it all up.

I had come across some zucchini recipes I was excited to try: soup, a walnut bread, etc. Mostly, I just want an excuse to bake another Zucchini Chocolate Cake. My, it was so good. The zucchini made the cake incredibly moist. I didn’t even bother to ice it. Though Dan turned his nose up at the idea of putting zucchini in a chocolate cake, he was impressed by the results. Unless you grated the zucchini by hand or someone you trusted swore she put it in the cake, you wouldn’t believe it. You don’t taste the zucchini at all.

The recipe I used can be found here. Though the instructions didn’t specify, I finely grated the zucchini and drained off the excess liquid.  I also made a change to the list of ingredients by adding 1 teaspoon of espresso powder. I learned that little trick from Ina Garten. She always adds coffee to her chocolate recipes to enhance the flavor of the chocolate.

Well, here’s hoping the current orange blossoms on the plant bear more squash.

Earning Her Keep

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Elly may only be 17 months old, but already she helps out with several household chores. She can put dirty clothes in the hamper, put wet clothes in the dryer, and turn the washer on. Hands down, her favorite task to do is helping her Daddy make coffee.

An Artist Blooming

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Since Elly had her 1st birthday and officially became a toddler, I have had an intense desire to introduce her to the world of drawing and coloring.

My first attempt didn’t go well due to her intense desire to jam everything in her mouth, despite buying markers designed especially for her age. After such a failure, the crayons were hastily packed away. I try to be a lax mom, but the thought of Elly crapping a rainbow of colors made me nervous and a bit sick to my stomach.

Last week, I finally had the privilege of mailing Elly original artworks to her grandparents. What changed? I tried letting Elly draw with the humble pencil. For the first five minutes, it was a perfect match. Elly held the pencil between her thumb and middle finger, like she had been doing it all her life. Then, she proceeded to flip through her notebook and draw on the pages as inspiration hit her. I was thrilled and quickly ran to get the camera.

After those first five minutes were up, things started to go downhill quickly. Elly chewed the eraser off and spat it out. When she turned the pencil around and bit off the lead tip, I called the drawing session to a close.

Certain that surely somebody designed pencils for kids, I searched online for a fatter pencil that didn’t have a tasty eraser on the back end. Leave it to Crayola to have exactly what I wanted: Write Start colored pencils.

After ten minutes of drawing, Elly still tries to eat the pencils, but she hasn’t managed to snap the lead tip off like she did with the narrow #2 pencil nor is there an eraser to eat. Plus, she loves the designs on each pencil. I think her favorite is the apple pencil, which of course is the red pencil.

Using up Buttermilk in Cookies

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Article first published as Using up Buttermilk in Cookies on Blogcritics.

After making waffles last weekend, I still had 1/4 of a bottle of buttermilk leftover. Unable to dump such goodness down the drain, I rummaged through my recipe book to find a way to use it up.

There were the usual recipes for buttermilk: biscuits, scones, and pancakes. Yet, I wanted something different and something sweet. Then, I found it: buttermilk sugar cookies.

The recipe I used is here on Maggie’s Madcap Life blog. The only changes I made were to sprinkle coarse sugar on top, to use parchment paper and to use a cookie scoop. These are changes that I would make to almost any cookie recipe. Coarse sugar lends a cookie a touch of crunchiness. Parchment paper makes for easier clean up. Cookie scoops are ingenious.

Really. I don’t know how I lived for so many years without one. They cut in half the time it used to take me scoop the cookie dough up with 1 spoon and then scrape it onto a cookie sheet with a 2nd spoon. If you don’t have one, trust me; you need one.

The cookies came out moist, puffy, cake-like, crunchy on top, and sweet but not too sweet.

They are the perfect quick-to-make sugar cookie to have with a cup of tea or coffee. Your kids should love them too. My almost-18-month-old had a blast helping me make them and she loves to help her Daddy and I eat them.

However, they are nothing like Christmas sugar cookies. If Christmas cookies are what you want, don’t skimp on the work. Don’t try to bake drop style cookies and expect them to taste like the cookies that must be refrigerated, rolled, cut out, rolled again, baked, iced and decorated. It’s not fair. This recipe is good but it can’t produce a miracle.

In Need of a Goat

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5 years ago when I researched how to remove poison ivy without chemicals, I came across 2 recommendations.

1. Dig up the entire root system
2. Buy a goat

Since the poison ivy was wound tightly around a section of the hedges, the odds of me being able to locate the entire root system in amidst the roots to the hedges were slim at best. So, option 1 was out.

Option 2 was ruled out because of our location. The Borough of Pottstown does not allow its residents to keep a goat as a pet. It’s for the best. Not only would a goat eat the poison ivy, it would eat everything else in sight. Perhaps the only shrub a goat would steer clear of is my Firethorn bush; the 4-inch-long thorns are wicked.

Thus, 5 years ago, I bought the strongest chemical I could find and sprayed the heck out of it. Yes, I lost a section of the hedges, but I killed the poison ivy. I had won.

This year, I had broken out in a rash on my arms and feet several times from poison ivy. I assumed it was because my neighbor had the ivy intertwined among his prized raspberry bushes.

It wasn’t until my neighbor pointed out a small weed underneath my pin oak tree, labeling it as poisonous, that I realized the problem was right in my backyard. Not only was it in my backyard, but it was infested in the very area we like to sit and relax in: underneath the pin oak tree.

I bought Round Up for poison ivy from Lowes and sprayed any plant that had leaves of 3. I probably sprayed over 20 plants. I wasn’t quick enough though. Poor Elly broke out in a rash on Saturday. Thankfully, it was only on her ankles.

Despite spraying with chemicals, the poison ivy still thrives. Maybe I could borrow a goat and corral him to the area underneath my pin oak tree.

Toy Envy

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Last Saturday, we attended a birthday party for Penny, who was turning 2. Elly had a wonderful time being around so many kids her age, yammering to anybody who would listen, and playing with Penny’s toys. She particularly liked Penny’s toy laptop and her water table.

Although Elly still has an “out of sight – out of mind” mentality at her age, her Mommy does not. Heck, I was just as amazed as Elly was with Penny’s water table. I had to buy one!

As soon as it arrived, I put it together, threw Elly into her new bathing suit, and invited our neighbor Irene over. Both Elly and Irene had a great time playing with the water table.

Even Jake approved; it’s the perfect height for lapping up a drink of water.