These are some of my favourite things:
Eco Travelling Parents: dreams | love | life
I’ve been really enjoying reading blogs in French lately. One of my favourites is LeGrandVillage. In his blog, the author discusses current topics and some historical ones, mostly from the political and green perspectives. His view is often refreshing and ads insight that we don’t often get on mainstream media.
I am new to Twitter and are in the midst of trying to understand how it works. I know how to RT and how to send twits tweets using @ – not much more, but enough to figure out that a whole group of people were really angry at Motrin. So I went to YouTube so see the video in question and see what all the fuss is about.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have pretty good sense of humour and definitely don’t get offended often. I didn’t find the video particularly offensive because I know babywearing is the right thing to do, however, I can certainly see why parents are pissed off – almost every frame of the video has some stupid comment attached to it:
Babywearing “seems to be in fashion” – really? I guess all the women of the world who carry their babies around in Senegal, Nepal and Mongolia are all following the latest fashion trend.
“in theory it’s a great idea… supposedly it’s a great bonding experience… babies carried close to the bod tend to cry less than others…” – can easily be replaced by “in fact it’s a great idea” – there is thousands of years to prove this; drop the “supposedly” and just agree that babies who are worn cry less – it’s a fact.
I sure don’t cry more when I carry my baby. Nor do i complain about it. Nor does it cause pain. Nor do I have backpain because I carry my baby. Do you give Motrin to your kids because they have to carry that heavy backpack to school?
And of course we all wear our babies so we can look like official moms, otherwise we might just be fake moms. What about when the grandparents carry the baby, does that make them official grandparents?
And no, baby wearing does not make me tired and crazy. What makes me tired and crazy is a cranky baby, one that isn’t being carried around.
Motrin dug it’s own hole here, trying to reach out to moms for baby-wearing week and is instead tasting bitter backlash. Making fun of a group of people using unfounded theories does not work. Twitter, however, does work. It takes one to get the message out, and then it spreads like wildfire. Just like it did in Moldova, where they only expected a few hundred protesters and ended up with 15,000.
Lately I have been doing a lot of research on stinging nettles. I already use dry stinging nettles for infusions and wanted to expand my repertoire. Sourcing from various herbal books and sites, I came up with a few experimental ideas: stinging nettle soup, stinging nettle saute, stinging nettle hair wash and (of course!) stinging nettle fertilizer.
So, armed with theories but no practice, a few days ago we put the littlest Picu in the instantaneous sleep inducing car seat and made our way to the coast. It only took about 15 minutes to gather an entire grocery bag over stuffed with stinging nettles. Important –> use gloves!!!! I actually doubled up because I only have surgical gloves around the house and found that I was still getting stung while only wearing one layer.
Notes about gathering Stinging Nettles: It’s best to gather them on sunny days around and after lunch time. Ideally when it’s been sunny for a few days. For all uses except for health infusions (teas) you can gather them at any time during their growth cycle. For infusions however, it’s best to gather them when the plants are flowering.
That evening at home, I cleaned the nettles and separated them according to use into 2 big bowls:
- Big bowl #1 – in this bowl I gathered all clean nettle leaves and young stems. Usually I included all the tops of the plants I harvested. I drained as much water as possible and stored them in the fridge for later use in the kitchen.
- Big bowl #2 – everything that was left after selecting nettles for bowl #1. I then covered everything with water and will let it all soak and ferment for about 3 weeks.
Make a pot of tea in the morning – make a lot! You can keep it in a thermos and drink from it all day. Plus when you make tea in larger amounts you don’t need to use as many tea bags. Two or three tea bags for 1 litre of water will do.
Plus it’s portable, healthy, tastes better than water (for those who don’t like the taste of water, though i don’t know know what there is not to like!) and makes it easier to keep track of those 2 l of water we should be drinking every day.
Get your drink on!
Here is a quick and simple recipe for a great face mask:
3 tablespoons of carrot juice + 1 avocado + 4 drops of almond oil = mix ingredients and apply on face as a mask, leave 15 minutes and then rinse off.
Ingredients:
Stinging Nettle Soup
6 cups of tightly packed nettle leaves
3 medium onion, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups stock (veggie, chicken or beef will do)
4 cups milk
4 tablespoons oat flakes – the ones used for oatmeal [if you don't have any don't worry, it's not a reason not to make the recipe]
4 good sized carrots, peeled and cut into round pieces
5 pieces of garlic, chopped
What to do:
Melt butter in a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients listed above. Saute the onion quickly – don’t let it brown! Add nettles, carrots, garlic, stock, milk and oats. Simmer for about 50 minutes. We like most soups creamed so when it was done cooking I creamed in the food processor.
I’d love to hear what you think and how your soup turned out, as well as about any exciting changes you’ve made to your recipe! Feel free to comment, email me or bookmark this page!
{fr. Ortie | rom. Urzica}
from Bartleby.com:
“It’s better to do something after it was supposed to have been done than not to do it at all.”
Finally starting the blog. It’s only been 5 years in the making. Yes, the first time I planned to start a blog was in 2004 – maybe even 2003.” Better late than never” – yes, it’s been said 10 gazillion times, it’s a cliche, but it’s true.
The last two weeks have been spent reading a plethora of blogs [between breastfeeding a 3-month old little carebear], trying to figure out where mine will fit in. Is it a mommy, travel or green blog? I know it’s not a techy or a political blog. Not due to lack of interest, rather lack of know-how. That implies that I know a lot about mommyness, green everyting or travel, I don’t, I’m just learning, but I love to share!
