Small Trips :: Enumclaw and Langley

There weren't any big amazing trips this year, but Mom and I did get out to a few places.  It was really about maximizing what we could do in a single day and getting to see some new things.  My obsession with Outlander is still pretty intense, so the first trip we took was to Enumclaw Washington to go to the Scottish Highland Games.

It was a blast!  I was really stoked to see the pipe and drum competition and we arrived early enough to get to walk around through the marketplace first.  I was hoping to pick up something tartan and hopefully in a MacDonald clan pattern since we have ties to them.  My grandmother's-mother's-father's-great-great-great-grandfather came over from Scotland to Nova Scotia in the 1800's, so the ties are distant but who isn't excited to be a little bit Scottish?  They had plenty of tartans to choose from and lots of kilts, shirts and jewelry was available too.  The other exciting thing they had was in the way of food though, Fisher Fair Scones!  The Fair Scone truck hasn't make it to our fair in years and Mom and I got a strawberry shortcake to make quick work of and six scones to save for later.  It was as delicious as I remember.  On our way around the food and marketplace we saw some traditional dances and music, a small Scottish Highland village with women spinning yarn and men making weapons, and people participating in the actual games competition.  Every clan had their own tent and other groups, such as these Outlander fanatics, did too...

I know this isn't the MacDonald clan, but it's an Outlander thing.

Isn't that kid adorable in that wee kilt?!

Then we waited in the longest imaginable line to get some food (seriously every line to a food booth was a good 15-20 minutes of standing) and then the pipe and drums got under way.  I should have taken some video but I guess you'll have to make do with someone else's.



I fell in love with the music they play on Outlander and ended up getting the soundtrack by Bear McCreary.  Even if you don't love bagpipes he will change your mind about them with his amazing music.


Then while we were over in Seattle we took a day-trip over to Whidbey Island.  Both Mom and I love riding on the ferries around the sound or out to the San Juan Islands, so we of course took one over to Whidbey.  I had read in a magazine about the town of Langley and eating pie at Whidbey Island Pies and I was going to make it happen.  After one of my appointments we drove up to Mukilteo and took the ferry over...

And then drove to Langley...before any of the shops opened!  The town was very cute and looking through the windows, the stores looked very nice too.

There was one store open that sold pet supplies and we looked around for a new retractable leash because one of ours had gotten stuck at as a very small leash.  No luck.  So we walked all the way down the main street and sat for a while near this interesting bench...

And listened to the people coming and going.  We were sort of waiting around for 11:00 because most of the shops opened then.  As we wandered back up the street we saw a bookstore open, so we went in and meandered around, but didn't find anything we needed desperately.  There was a yarn store there that I was thinking of going in, but 11:00 came and went and it remained closed.  Beach time you know is 11ish.  I peered through the window and didn't see anything I couldn't live without and we didn't see the place I was looking for to eat pie.  A quick internet search showed that the cafe was actually a bit north in Greenbank.  Back on the road with nav-lady and we found Greenback Farm and Whidbey Island Pies!

The cafe was so quaint!  It felt like we stepped into a small British country cafe.  We ordered a BLT-like panini for lunch and it was so delicious!

And then it was time for pie.  Blueberry for me, triple berry for Mom...

The crust was perfect and the pies were tasty with generous amounts of ice cream.  I could have tried one of each flavor, but was stuffed.  We wandered around the farm and I picked up some jams made there on the island while Mom picked up some locally made wines.  All in all it was an enjoyable trip including the ferry ride back.  Now I have to start working on the perfect homemade pie crust...

Recipe Tuesday :: Peach Cupcake Fail

Peach cupcakes are the epitome of summer time.  I can envision what the flavor would be; light, sweet, fresh and peachy.  Sadly my peach cupcakes were...bland.  They tasted like Cake with Frosting on top.  Not one flavor distinguished them as peach.  This was one time where Pinterest images had you believing one thing while you cooked up flavorless cupcakes instead.  I mean look at this picture of peach perfection!

Peach Cupcakes with Peach Cream Cheese Frosting

Not true I tell you.  I admit to some blending and tweaking of the recipes I used, but I don't think it's what failed them.  I think the secret ingredient to fix these cupcakes is peach extract.  Nice and concentrated it would put that pop of peach right into those cupcakes.  So if you want to have a go at either of the following recipes my suggestion is to get some extract to make them taste as good as they look.

The main recipe I used was  Peach Cupcakes with Peach Cream Cheese Frosting by Week of Menus.
She wanted you to pulverize freeze dried peaches and peach puree to the batter to get that peach flavor and then add more dried peaches to the frosting.  I did buy some freeze dried peaches, but when I opened them I thought they smelled kinda nasty.  Dried fruits don't always smell like the fresh ones they come from, so I gave them a taste but they didn't taste very peachy.  With two counts against them I omitted the dried peaches.  Using an additional recipe with a different frosting I tweaked the main one.  Peach Cupcakes with Peach Buttercream by Caithlin Cooks used a whole cup of pureed fresh peach.  I upped the peach puree in the main recipe and then also swapped out the 1 cup of butter for 1/2 cup oil and 1/4 cup peach nectar.  I was hoping the peach nectar would add more peachy flavor.  I also lowered the buttermilk to 1/2 cup to keep all the "wet" ingredients to the same amount before tweaking.  My poorest tweak was probably the addition of 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  I just felt there was going to be NO flavor if I didn't add just a little bit of spice.  This ended up making the cupcakes just taste like spice cake.

I topped them with the cream cheese frosting, swapping peach puree for the pulverized dried peaches.  Peach puree doesn't have much flavor to it unfortunately.  Maybe some addition of sugar would have made it tastier?  One will never know (unless you feel like experimenting).  It just ended up being peach colored cream cheese frosting.  The color I am VERY proud of however!  I used liquid food coloring, like you get at the grocery store, in a ratio of 3 drops yellow to 1 drop red.  I kept adding color in this ratio (probably 3 rounds worth) to get that deep permeating lovely peach color.

I hate failures but I admit them fully so that this blog doesn't end up looking like I only do things well and in a perfect world.  I also take any failure as a challenge to improve, so maybe next summer, armed with peach extract, I shall try again!

Life Lately...When Your IVF Cycle Fails

There are a handful of you that know that I was doing my second round of IVF this August and so I thought an update for everyone was in the cards.  Long story short; it failed.  If you want to hear the long story, here it is...


Before I started this round I sat down with my Doc and we went over how she was going to change things this cycle.  The last time I used Letrozole for suppression and then two gonadotropins (Menopur and Gonal-F) to grow my follicles.  I had a bit of overstimulation and my estradiol levels went up above 9,000 (that's not good).  It could be why the most of the eggs they retrieved didn't make it to blastocysts and why the two that did were less than stellar.  This time we suppressed with birth control pills only and then she said we wouldn't do the Menopur, only the Gonal-F and some late cycle suppression with Cetrotide.  Lovely you say, who cares what drugs you take?  This will be important later in the story, so write it down.  Also, if I didn't overstimulate, Doc wanted to do a fresh transfer.  I was for it since maybe the freezing and thawing affected my embryos more than we thought.  But they did a saline-infused sonogram (SIS) to check out my uterus and she thought she saw something still in there (there always seems to be "something" in there...) and the new Backup Doc said that she thought we should do a hysteroscopy to view the uterus again and maybe take back the septum more.  Really?!  Why does my uterus need to look like Angelina Jolie to put an embryo in there?!  But fine, whatever.  So we were back to a freeze all transfer.  I reminded them that they had the pictures from my last hysteroscopy in October 2014 and there was an MRI of my uterus from February 2013.  They didn't have the MRI images, so I went back and got them from the hospital in Yakima where they were done.  I was hoping that it could convince them NOT to do anymore reconstruction of the last piece of my reproductive anatomy that seems to work.  They agreed to put off the hysteroscopy until after the IVF cycle and we had our plan, so everything was a go.

In early August I had my first suppression appointment and my hormone levels and ovaries were looking good.  I started my Gonal-F (150 IU) on Friday and then didn't have another appointment until Tuesday.  That was the weekend we drove down and saw Nicole and family and then drove back up to stay over in Seattle.  Things were progressing pretty well and Backup Doc said I should dial back my Gonal-F just a bit to 125 IU.  I ended up seeing Backup Doc for most of the cycle because my Regular Doc was on vacation (which was sorely earned, she hadn't had a real day off in two years!). The next time I saw Backup Doc on Thursday she said she wanted me to start Menopur.  I said that Regular Doc wasn't going to use Menopur and the nurse backed me up.  Backup Doc said she thought that maybe Regular Doc wasn't going to use it in the beginning, but she probably would have eventually.  Right....  So I started Menopur, decreased Gonal-F to 75 IU and started Cetrotide.  This continued through the weekend and my estradiol was rising slowly and fairly evenly, but my follicles seemed to be growing slowly.  They want them to be an average of 20 mm in size before they take them and so far they were about 13 mm average.  Mine were increasing slowly, but we had said we wanted them to grow low and slow this time around, rather than so quickly as they did in the first cycle.  So I figured they were doing okay.  Also during this week Backup Doc got really concerned about my blood pressure.  The top number was running around 135 and the bottom around 90 to 95.  She said that with a bottom number so high I could be pre-eclamptic.  I said, "Don't you have to be pregnant for that?"  She still wanted me to do a 24-hour urine protein.  Great.  Add another thing to keep track of.  She also wanted me to see another doctor to adjust my blood pressure meds.  I told her I would talk to my primary care physician about it.  I wasn't going to add another cook to this kitchen.  We had gone home one of those days, so I just called early and got an appointment for that afternoon.  Primary Care Physician and I talked and we adjusted the meds.  Done and done, just like that.  The next day when I saw Backup Doc my blood pressure was more like 123/81.  She was surprised when I said I'd seen my Primary Doc and shocked that I could get an appointment so quickly.  That's what it's like in po-dunk hunny; it's called customer service.  So back to the gonadotropins.  Backup Doc continued the lower Gonal-F dose all weekend and my follicles seemed to stall.  On Monday she raised the Gonal-F back up to 150 and because I was already on the Menopur it continued.  Tuesday, I got to see Regular Doc and the follicles were still stalled, averaging around 17 mm.  She increased the Gonal-F all the way up to 225 IU.  That didn't seem good to me.  It turns out that the estradiol went from 854 on Sunday to 1175 on Monday and then dropped to 847 on Tuesday.  That's really not good.  On Wednesday, Regular Doc came in and said as much.  The follicles weren't getting to that 20 mm average and the drop in estradiol was a bad omen.  She said that when that happens the recovery of eggs is poor and that it would be in my best interest to cancel the cycle.  I felt like I was prepared for this eventuality.  I didn't have a lot of faith in what Backup Doc had done through my cycle and Regular Doc even said the same in so many words that the cycle was messed up.  Regular Doc said that if I had remained at a steady amount of Gonal-F through my whole cycle I would have gotten the same amount but not been on a roller coaster of up and down.  I knew that the up and down meant that the follicles I'd made were probably starved and there would be no sense in progressing forward.

So we cancelled it.

This also meant that each ultrasound would be billed out separately and we'd be getting money back to try for a third cycle.  We are going to have to have some time to pull the money together for another try, but Regular Doc also wants me to be on a regiment of high dose supplements for three months.  She said they help with people like me who have PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) have better IVF outcomes.  So it's back to the grindstone of working out and dieting.  Maintaining my weight or losing some more is important to me and nothing gets me going more than being disappointed.  When I'm content I don't seem to have the passion to work out and diet.  But get me fired up and I can do things that I look back at and am surprised I had the time for.  So here's to January.

Don't feel sorry for the things that don't work out how you hoped.  Feel more passionate that you can change it the next time around.

Three Things Thursday :: Florence + The Machine, Anthropologie Homewares and Poldark

When Mom had her retirement party earlier this year we sat down together to make a playlist that would be running in the background during the party.  I wanted music that she liked and was from her era, so we went through a bunch of 60s and 70s music and made a rocking playlist on Spotify.  The album artwork is always shown and I could pick out a lot of the songs she'd like just based on that because I remember playing the records when I was young.  This made me think deeply about the fact that a lot of my music is now on iTunes or Spotify and I don't often buy real CDs anymore.  What are my kids going to play on the stereo when they are young?  Music only from my teenage years when CDs were the only way to get music besides taping the songs off the radio?  I don't think I want them to judge me based on the music I was into then alone.  So I decided recently to start buying more of the music that I really love now, on CDs.  I've listened to The Killers for years and there is always at least one of their songs on any playlist I make, so I bought all of the albums they've released.  Most of them were really cheap because they are older now and it was nice to pop a CD in and listen to every song on there.  I've found some new ones for me that didn't get released to the radio which was like opening a grab bag and getting something you really wanted!  I also ended up purchasing the newest albums by Mumford and Sons (which was only okay, I'm sorry to say) and Florence + The Machine.

Wow!  I really don't think that Florence can honestly do any wrong.  This album, How Big How Blue How Beautiful, as with all of her previous ones, is fantastic and beautiful.  There are songs that make you feel light-hearted and songs that make you want to cry.  The backup vocals are inspiring and there are certain songs that will get stuck in your head.  And it's one of those albums that you'll put in your car and not notice that you've listened to it five times in a row until you're singing along with all the songs.  Best album this summer I would have to say!

My newest weakness is Anthropologie.  Not the clothes or accessories, but their homewares.  Seriously just go to the website and hover over House & Home and then click on Kitchen & Dining and behold the majesty.  I love scrolling through the new-vintage items they have.  Some of them are too high priced for me or not functional enough for the price, but others are amazing and beautiful for what they cost.  My two favorite things have been their Latte Bowls (above), which you can get in a set of four of one color or in this beautiful set of mixed colors, and the Seaside Juice Glasses (below).

I got those in the teal and dark blue and though they are smaller than a regular sized glass, they are great for juices in pitchers or water out of one of these cafe water carafes (which personally I think makes it taste better).  I got my carafe for cheap from Craft Warehouse.

And lastly a new Masterpiece series on PBS for all of you to get into, Poldark.  We all know that Downton Abbey will be showing it's last season this next year and we will need something to fill that English manor sized hole left in our hearts.  Poldark is a period piece drama with plenty of intrigue and romance and characters that you get emotionally attached to.  Mom bought the first season on DVD on a whim and we were addicted pretty quickly.  It was a hurry-up-and-finish-what-we-need-to-do-so-we-can-watch-Poldark kind of week.  I'd thought that it was a stand alone mini-series and I wasn't sure how they were going to be able to clean up all the drama they'd been building up all the way through in just one episode.  Ending with a cliff hanger I jumped on Google to make sure that there was going to be a season two.  Hooray!  And now there's another series to wait for...

In the Garden :: June and July

June and July in the garden isn't very exciting because it's all about growing.  You end up weeding and watering and waiting.  But when you finally do see the first bit of produce show up all of the work that went into it seems to disappear. 

Baby chickies arrived in late June after we got back from the cabin.  They are always so cute and entertaining.  Fluffy and sweet for two weeks before they start to get scraggly as their real feathers start to come in.  Then it's out to the coop for more room to run until they get as big as the adults.  By the fall they'll be all mixed in and you won't be able to tell babies from adults.

Beans were the first to be harvested.  We had so many bags of string beans that there was no way were we going to eat all them even if they were part of every breakfast, lunch and dinner. A few years ago before Mom retired, she bought a pressure canner so that we could preserve the excess beans but never had the time to use it.  This year we got to can some of those yummy beans for later.

Zucchini are always early as well and as you know from a previous post we've been trying to stay ahead of those too.  Some got too big and went to the chickens and I took a few with me when we visited Nicole.  No sense in not sharing the bounty!

We had planted the potatoes in April and it was time to pull them out of the ground.  The tops were starting to die back and that was a good sign that they were ready to harvest.  Mom had a good morning doing that and even remembered to take pictures!

There were portions of a bed that I didn't have any plans for this year, so we ended up sowing a crop of oats.  I had done some research on crops to grow to as cover crops for years when I didn't have plans for all of the beds.  Oats will keep the soil from eroding and adds organic matter to the soil.  We can harvest the heads and try making our own rolled oats, or just give them to the chickens as oat hay by cutting the entire head off.  In truth they are so pretty I may plant them every year!

Other than that all the other fruits and veggies are coming along.  The tomatoes are still green...

The pumpkins are starting to turn orange...

Watermelons are small, but coming along...

And the peppers are getting bigger.

We also have produce growing in the orchard and vineyard.  Make no mistake, our "vineyard" is only five grape plants planted along our fence line, but as they grow they should provide enough for what we want.  They are all Concord grapes for making juice and jelly.  This year we only had a couple of bunches, but we are keeping the birds from them.  We'll see if they just end up straight in our bellies.

And the apple trees we planted a few years ago are starting to produce as well.  I think this may be the tree that provides cider apples...

Beyond all that we got a cow.

Okay, it's not really our cow.

But we feel like we've adopted her.  Whenever Mom goes out to work in the yard or mow she will come to the fence and ask for the weeds pulled or the grass mowed.  Her name is Love Game, but we call her Lovey.  One day when Mom was pulling weeds around the grapevines by the fence she heard a loud snuff, looked up and was eye to eye with the cow.  Now Lovey comes to the fence to watch us in the yard and walk along waiting for nummies.

I feel like overall I abandoned the garden this year.  The weeds grew overmuch, the plants weren't watered well enough and I didn't pay enough attention to it.  I'm really hoping to put bricks down between the beds in the fenced in area to reduce the amount of weeds in there and I am also looking into watering options for next year.  This year we put in a lot of new soaker hoses, but they seemed to get clogged up and not provide enough water early on.  It was also very hot in June, 100 degrees and over for two weeks straight, and I think that affected everything.  All the fruits and vegetables seem small and spare.  There's still plenty of growing time left, however, and a garden can surprise you!