Susanna’s Blog

I have a great invention – a toy and sweeper combination!  You know those old fashioned, not electric, sweepers?  It seems like a simple concept to put one into a toy, and our carpets would ALWAYS be clean. 

CatholicVote.com put out some great commercials during the presidential campaign, without endorsing either canidate.

I’ve avoided this topic for awhile, but this is my blog and I’d like to let out some steam!  I know too many liberals, and many very nice ones, but why do they feel the need to gush over that turd so darn much???  I voted for Bush twice, even did volunteer work for his campaign, but have you ever heard me praise him as if he were the Lord?  NO.  Sometimes, I feel like screaming on the top of my lungs, but I’m a pretty quiet person and wouldn’t want to scare anyone.

I am trying to stay optimistic.  First, with such high expectations, that fool of a president is destined to fail, I hope.  Remember the women who was asked why she supported Obama, and she replied that he was going to pay her mortgage and buy her gas?  That won’t happen.  He might pay for her abortion, but mortgage….never.  Second, I know many people who I go to church with voted for that moron, but they are still in church praying.  Sometimes I hope they are praying for forgiveness, haha…but honestly, I trust that God won’t let us down.  He might let us suffer temporarily, but it’ll only make us stronger.

Someone forwarded me a video from Improv Everywhere and then I sat at the computer for another hour watching the rest of their videos.  It’s pretty funny, so here are some of my favorites.

Emma is learning to say new words everyday!  For a long time, her only words were ma-ma, da-da, wa-wa (water) and tickle.  Then she started saying “NO!” in a deep and angry voice, which she learned from me.  A few of her favorite things to say are up, down, snow, and mine.   I have heard her say grandma and Mary! 

Since we had so many sweets from Thanksgiving, Christmas and a church bakesale in November, I froze individual portions for later.  Desserts freeze so well!  Here is a picture of Juliana enjoying a brownie.  She loved it so much that she licked the crumbs off her plate and Emma’s plate too!

Last night we made popcorn from an old fashioned popcorn popper, something my mom gave me from when I was a kid.  I guess it’s not really old fashioned, since it’s only as young as myself.  We popped it into this pink bucket, which the girls fought over, spilled most of it, but luckily the dogs cleaned up the mess.

I made lacto-fermented vegetables today. Sounds good, eh? Lacto-fermentation is when starch and sugar from fruits or veggies is converted into lactic acid, a natural perservative. It was so easy! I cut up cabbage, green onion, chile peppers (dried, from our garden), grated carrots and threw in a few garlic cloves. I sprinkled some sea salt on them and pounded until the juices came out. I added some whey to half the veggies, and extra salt to the other half (whey is a better preservative, but either way should preserve for months) and pressed it into jars. I tasted a little as it was, and tasted just like the Russians make it! The jars are suppost to sit at room temperature for 3 days to ferment and produce lactic acid. This process is suppost to enhance the nutritional benefits of the veggies and help with digestion.
Next, I’d like to try homemade mayonaise.

I have become very conscientious about what I eat.  I would eat anything myself, like rattlesnake or pickled herring, but foods with enough presevatives to last a century are rationed in very tiny amounts.  I have a long list of ingredients that I avoid.  I want the girls to learn how to eat properly, and I want to give them the best start to a healthy life. 

I started to write that my kids don’t know what soda pop is, but thought I better verify since Juliana is right next to me.  When I asked her what soda pop was, she said “apple sauce?” and I said “no, s-o-d-a p-o-p” and she said “oh, what is it?”  I told her it was a drink, and she says “what kind of drink? Like apple juice?”  Haha, I’m so proud of her. 
I showed her this picture, and she said “I know what that is, I used one of those grinders to make corn.”  We used one at the Cincy Nature Center, and asked where they got it.  He got it from ebay. 

There is a huge nutritional difference between whole grains that sit on a shelf at room temperature for months and real grains.  Whole wheat goes rancid, so they bleach it.  Would you rather eat bleach or rancid wheat?  I should buy one of these, so I won’t have to eat either.

I would kind of like to live on a farm and grow, process and make all my own food.  Then I would have to become a vegetarian, unless someone wants to hunt and prepare meat for me.  Since that’s not practical, I’m going to start being healthier by getting fresh eggs and raw milk.  I can’t wait!

Yesterday was the church Christmas party, Yolka in Russian.  I took several short videos.  The first one is when the kids call “Ded Moroz,” the Russian version of Santa, really means Grandfather Frost.  He is speaking all Russian, but you can hear the Snow Maiden translating some.

It’s traditional for children to preform before recieving presents, so here is Juliana, Emma and some other kids dancing to a song from the Nutcracker.

At the end of the party, the adults sang Christmas carols and Juliana joined in for her favorite one with her grandpa.

We have an inch of snow….hooray!  I love snow and I would like it to snow so much that I can’t open the front door.  Winter here is nothing like I remember winter as a kid.  When Cincinnati gets 3 or more inches of snow, the city declares an emergency, and everything closes.  It usually happens once a year.  When we lived in Connecticut and I was about 10 years old, it snowed so much that we could hardly open the doors to the house!  It was a Sunday morning and we lived next door to the church, so my parents dug what seemed like a tunnel from our back door to the front door of the church.  I think a couple people showed up, the deacon and probably Anton, who walked to church and lived to be 104!   Anyhow, we had fun playing in the inch of snow. 

I pulled the girls around the yard until I couldn’t pull anymore…then Juliana took over. 

I am reading a great book now, Nourishing Traditions, and that is partly why I haven’t been posting.  When I get a few minutes of free time, I’d rather read than sit at the computer.  Plus, I got my first issue of Gourmet magazine yesterday, thanks Andrea!  So, I will be busy reading and cooking for the next couple weeks.