Family Update and Some Wisdom From Others

Baby Update: The girls are both doing fine, & gaining weight like they’re supposed to. They both had gained more than 2 pounds in 6 weeks, & they were happy with that at the doc’s office when we took them in to be weighed. They’re sleeping longer now most of the time, & we’re able to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep in a row. That is a blessing! I’m about 6 weeks into being a dad now. I have to tell you, it awesome! They keep us extremely busy, & don’t let us sleep much. It seems sometimes like a constant cycle of feeding, changing diapers, and trying not to nod off in the middle of it. But it is SO worth it, & I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Here are a couple of pictures from the photo session with Michelle a couple of weeks ago. Michaela is on the left, Melayna on the right.

Michelle did the maternity photos of Marisa when she was pregnant, & she does a great job! If you need photography done in the KC area, send me an email & I’ll get you in touch with her.

I was listening to an episode of TSP, & Jack Spirko had Paul Wheaton on the show. It was a good show, full of lots of useful information. If you don’t listen to The Survival Podcast, I highly recommend it! I thought I’d share some of the info here, for those of you that don’t listen to the show.

CFL’s: You know those squirrely little corkscrew fluorescent light bulbs? The ones that supposedly will save you a ton of money, provide just as much light as an incandescent (real) light bulb, save the planet….yada, yada, yada. Well there is a lot about those bulbs that you may not know. If you ever fell for the hype (I did), you probably were disappointed in the light you got from them, how long they lasted, and decided to switch back to real bulbs. I hate those crappy little bulbs. After reading the information that Paul Wheaton has on his website about CFL’s, I hate them even more! Read his article HERE. Also, in case you didn’t know it – our government, in it’s infinite wisdom is planning on phasing out all of the regular incandescent bulbs over the next few years. Stock up on incandescent bulbs now, because you won’t be able to buy them anymore. The ban will begin on 1/1/12 with 100W bulbs, and move on to the 75W bulbs 1/1/13. I found this informational sheet that you may find helpful. Click Here.

Cast Iron Tips: In the same TSP episode, Paul Wheaton was talking about cast iron, & I got some helpful tips. I own & use several different cast iron pans & dutch ovens. I have to admit that I abused one of my dutch ovens, & let it get pretty gross. We made some cherry cobbler on a camp out, & it was late when we got done eating, so I decided to clean it the next morning. However, the next morning we were in a hurry to break camp & get home for some reason or another. So I decided that I’d just clean it at home. Then when we got home, something or another was happening & I said I’d just clean it later….. So, a couple of months later when I noticed it sitting on the floor in the garage, it was pretty disgusting.

I tried the method Paul mentioned of putting it in the oven & using the self cleaning cycle on the oven. Three hours later - the dutch oven was completely clean, except for a little bit of ash, & it had a little bit of surface rust on it. It cleaned up quickly & easily with a scrubber. I re-oiled the pan, & it looks even better than it did when I bought it! Check out Paul’s article on cast iron HERE. this is the end result of my dutch oven overhaul. If you look closely at the surface of the dutch oven, you can see the rough surfaces that Paul was talking about, as compared to the older styles of cast iron that were much smoother. I have two other dutch ovens. One is newer like this one, & one is old, & much smoother.

So, as I’m finishing up this post, I just pulled a BBQ brisket out of the pressure cooker, and I have some potatoes & onions in one of the other dutch ovens that will be done in a few minutes. Everyone is getting hungry, so I’ll finish for now. I hope everyone has a good week, & please email me, or comment on the blog. Thanks for reading! ^MM