For the last few years, I have been asking the Husband to agree to buy into a CSA. Nay, begging. And every time I bring it up, he brings up some sort of logical concern about not being able to eat all the vegetables before they rot and why don’t I go to the farmer’s market and see if that will work before we shell out the money for rotting vegetables in the crisper.

There are days I wonder why I am still married to a man that uses reason so blatantly.

Then at the beginning of the year, a friend asked if we wanted to go on a share with them, splitting each week’s veggies more or less evenly. So with less veggies coming in, we could try the CSA without as much waste as we would most likely have with a full, 4-person share. Of course the Husband agreed. How could he disagree with that logic!?! It was fool proof. It was beautiful. Granted, I was ready to throw in a bike toy or something else for his crazy triathlon ways, but it didn’t come to that. Who’s sorry now, Husband?

Let me just say that I love my CSA and the Husband is right *pause to look for lightning, monsoons, or locust* we could not keep up with the full share. That’s a lot of veggies. What I love about our CSA is that I don’t have a choice in what I get. I get what’s given to me and I have to figure out what to do with it. It’s made cooking extremely interesting. So far I have roasted beets, which the Husband hates. So I looked for recipes that might work for him. So far this burger was a hit:

Aussie Burger from http://www.gourmet.com/food/2008/06/the_recipe_aussieburger

as were the Beet Donuts we made. Then there was drying spices, roasted kohlrabi, fennel orange salad (in the burger photo above), zucchini fritters, and oven baked sugar snap peas. Many veggies I would never ever buy in the real world either because I had never heard of them (kohlrabi, really? Is that a word) or one of us hasn’t liked it in the past.  Every Tuesday I get an email of what may be in the box and the recipe research begins. It’s so exciting, which may be more a commentary on my life at the moment. I mean, the idea of making zucchini fritters is exciting to me, more than going to the movies.

Maybe the Husband will say no next year to a 1/2 share just so I will go on dates again. Crap.

I reread yesterday’s post. Talk about choppy and random. That’s what I get for typing while watching TV. The Young Avengers, to be specific. The Husband has been recording a lot more cartoons lately because of OP. Or so he says. He’s always watched cartoons, as have I and I highly recommend it, but I think he loves having a little girl to watch them with.  Of course, I think he loves having a little girl who enjoys watching cycling with her Daddy.

Look, Dadda. It's the peloton!

I have my Central Park Hoodie sleeve blocking for class on Wednesday and I’m about 4 rows in to the back part. Since we were asked to aim to have a blocked sleeve and half the back done for Wednesday’s class, I think I’m doing okay. My only goal was to have that darn sleeve done and I have met that goal. I can’t wait for the next class.

Happy Pi day! Sadly, I did not have any pie to celebrate. Do hamburgers count? They’re round.

This has been one sick winter. OP has had 3 rounds of ear infections, all direct results from various day care illnesses. Of course, then she infected Daddy and Mommy, and we both ended up with ear infections. We were all on antibiotics last week. My ears are still funny and I haven’t been able to fully exercise yet. The elliptical today made me a little dizzy so no running this week I think, which is a shame because I was getting so close to a 30 minute 5k on the treadmill. That’s okay, I’ll start up again next week and get back on track. I’m learning in my old age that if you fall or if you stop,  you can always start again.

Trying to look innocent after playing with Mommy's yarn and knitting book

Case in point, my Central Park Hoodie Sweater. I’ve finally finished the sleeve after 3 weeks of knitting, frogging, knitting, frogging. etc. My basic problem is even though I did a really good gauge swatch and even though my first inclination was correct, I had issues trusting the gauge, measurements, and pattern. Thankfully, I’ve cast off and I’m leaving the sleeve be unless it doesn’t fit in the sweater. Then I’ll rework it. I’m just not going to think about that right now.

Taking a break from cleaning the house.

I am amazed at how hilarious my daughter is. OP is just crazy funny. She thinks everything is hilarious and her little personality, that of an imp, is starting to show. She is very much her father’s daughter, always up to something. One of her favorite games is to pull my yarn out of the bin and hand it to me, take it a way, snuggle with it, hand it to me, and so on. I suspect we will have a knitter on my hands in a few years. I am definitely enjoying the whole parenthood thing. I’m sure I’ll have a different story when she’s a teenager.

Last week was probably the week from hell for our little girl. Tuesday we received a call from daycare notifying us that OP had a rash. It didn’t sound like a major rash; all over her body, yes, but just an allergy. We decided to wait and see what she actually looked like in a few hours when we picked her up.

Our daycare is awesome and we are very happy with it, but occasionally we get a call that, “OMG come quick get the child! She’s diseased!” and we dutifully leave work and she’s 100% fine. Since the rash started in early afternoon and didn’t seem to be bothering her, we decided to wait. Of course, we called the doctor’s office first to make sure she was okay to stay but that we should get her in to see someone that night or the next day.

And here’s the fun part that you must remember for later in our story. Our doctor’s office was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday because there was something wrong with the building. No doctor was physically available.

The Husband and I walked into daycare to get OP. Our plan was to take her to dinner and the store before bed. That plan was derailed when we saw how bad the rash was. It had been getting worse with raised red bumps over a good portion of her body. Much screaming from the Daughter because THE NURSE LOOKED AT ME! and THE DOCTOR USED A STETHOSCOPE! and THEY! LOOKED! IN! MY! EAR! and we find out that our poor little girl had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics for an ear infection. Poor thing went into this appointment hating all things medical and that did not ease up after Tuesday.

We were sent home with a new antibiotic script and ben@dryl. Shortly after we got home, OP looked like this:

You have to love her attempt at a smile.

This was much better than when we saw her at daycare. You can imagine we were extremely relieved. That is, until found her in the morning looking like this:

Needless to say, we were worried, but we figured the ben@dryl just wore off and the rash came back like the doctor warned. Unfortunately, ben@dryl makes OP’s heart pound, teeth chatter, and body shake. Yup, some kids become hyper from the drug and ours was one of them. To be fair, she really enjoyed having teeth that chattered.

As the day wore on, she developed a temperature and her red spots started looking like bruises. Call the emergency line for the doctor’s office that is currently closed and get sent to their partner doctor 30 minutes away. Fever of 103, negative for flu, and the bruising spots are normal. OP screamed throughout BUT got her very first ice pop and that seemed to be almost worth the torment. I bet if they had given her a good flavor and not orange, she would have learned to love the doctor’s office.

Unfortunately as we were leaving, we were told to go the next day to our regular doctor to check on the fever. Our poor little girl who has been tortured by stethoscopes, suffered a fever, looked like she had the plague, and to top it all off had ears that hurt, had to go back to the doctor for the third time.

In three days.

At least she got a script for something to help with the rash.

Thursday OP still had a fever and the rash. Her fingers and toes had turned blue, but her oxygen levels were fine she just had to suffer the injustice of the oxygen clip on her finger a couple times which of course she did not like.

By Friday, she looked like this:

Much better, no? Her fever was gone and she was a happy little camper. Until Monday when she had a follow-up appointment. If I had my way, she’d be away from doctors for a while because it is so traumatic, but she needs to do it and eventually it will get better. We are thinking of buying her a stethoscope to play with so maybe that part will be a little more fun.