Spring / Rebirth

Winter over these past two years hasn’t bothered me the way I expected it to. Living in what felt like single-season SoCal for nine years should have ruined me for cold weather, but putting mind over matter seems to have helped in so many ways. This year, we were ready. After scouring Mercari and Facebook Marketplace and (gulp) Amazon in October, the boys and I were set with good snow boots and snow pants and winter jackets that all served the purpose of actually keeping us warm. And thanks to the concept of “There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather,” we utilized our winter clothes for good almost every single day. It was truly a joyful winter.

Amidst the joy, winter 2021-2022 was also one of our hardest- living in a converted Girl Scout lodge that never did get quite fully converted, waiting on promised insulation for months that was to help our home keep in the heat … finally installed in January but the heating issues never resolved; searching for community in our second location of residence in less than a year; all four of us getting very sick over the course of three weeks throughout January … we had a lot going on. But we had each other. And warm winter clothes that we frequently wore in our 50 degree house (we hit 37 in the kitchen quite often). And honestly we were happy. And when the realization hit that what we were actually doing was paying rent to live in an unlivable house, an opportunity very quickly came up to move just down the driveway. To stay on this property we loved. To live in a house, an actual real house with a garage and a basement and closets and two bedrooms and an office … and not to mention oil heat and real insulation. A livable dwelling on 320 acres of wilderness. Wow! Any emotional ties I had to our quirky lodge quickly drifted away. We called on family and friends and with the help of them, my Dad’s flatbed trailer, a pickup truck, and our minivan, we moved in on February 5th … when I was just about 35 weeks pregnant!

about a month after moving into our new home, 12 days before baby was born

The beginning of spring always gets me, and this year the change of season has caused me to be especially weepy at times. Nature is starting its perfect display of the renewal of all things. Canadian geese and a pair of ducks chattering overhead and on the pond and creek outside our windows, wild turkeys putting on a show for mating season- tail feathers fluffed up and loud gobbles piercing through the trees, and the little birds singing their songs from the branches while woodpeckers hammer for their breakfast. Jer and the boys saw a herd of deer swimming across the creek, neck deep in water the other day. A thunderstorm wiped away winter's last remains and the trees have started to bud. These details have made me FEEL. Spring is rebirth

turkeys outside our bedroom window, April 1st

… and so four days after the spring equinox, as I took a slow afternoon walk through the beginnings of these changes in the nature surrounding our home, I found myself pausing for the more rapidly occurring pressure waves crashing through my abdomen. In these moments I appreciated all the more the rebirth I was in the beginnings of, and the new life that was in the process of emerging. 

early labor forest walk, 3 hours before baby was born

When the waves started to pick up, I took my last deep “forest bathing” breath and headed inside, knowing that the next time I walked outside, my baby and I would have been made new with the trees and grass and flower shoots.

Jer and the boys and my youngest sister made happy chatter in the dining room while I instinctively labored alone in the living room for a brief while. Ultimately, Oscar found me and jumped onto the back of the armchair I was leaning on, and insisted on putting his front paws on my stomach. A sweet and intuitive gesture. He’s been actively one of my birth partners for all three labors. I don’t understand how I got the compliment of being his person, but that quirky cat has my affections forever. I think Oscar knew labor was about to get intense. 

Oscar the birth partner, paws on my belly, just as things were starting to feel intense, 2 hours before baby was born

Everyone walked into the living room at right around that time, and suddenly as I felt another wave coming on, I knew it was different. I lost focus of the world around me, and motioned for Jer to follow me into the bedroom. I tried calling our midwife and was able to get out three or four words to her before throwing the phone down to work through another wave. Suffice it to say, Erin was in her car almost immediately, and by our side 45 minutes later. Leading up to and during that time, I labored through an hour of transition with Jeremy by my side. Between the rushes, I could hear my sister reading books to the boys in the living room, everyone contented and relaxed, even as I am not an especially quiet laboring woman. When Erin and her assistants arrived, I got into the birth tub between waves. The relief was immediate. Every tense part of my body faded into itself … this was what I was missing with the other two births (not for lack of trying! The tub was there in its box and left alone in a corner for each of my other two labors, due to how slow one was and how fast the other was).

Moments after getting situated in the tub, my waters released … and the hardest work began.

Reflecting, the pushing part of labor has always been a relief. It’s when the mental effort you're putting towards the waves combines with physical effort, and the combination gives a sense of purpose which in a way turns into a sense of ease. I enjoyed pushing during my other two labors. I was looking forward to this relief once the urge to push started shortly after my waters released. But the relief during these waves never came this time. For an hour, each time a wave passed, I did everything I could to work with my body. I pushed so hard that I briefly became fearful of it. And with a gentle prompting from my midwife, who told me I'd get better results by pushing harder, I did. I pushed through the unease and embraced the discomfort and pushed hard enough that I was certain my whole body was breaking apart. 

And then, I rested. In the sweet, quiet moments between those intense waves and the body-splitting effort, I opened my eyes and saw Jeremy inches away from my face, his expression full of tenderness and love. I saw our boys sitting on the edge of the bed in rapt attention- the way they get when completely taken over by something- quietly and curiously and happily observing. And then another wave would start to rumble in, crash over me, and I would start the hardest work again. My brain brought me to the image of a lioness during a few of these moments, and for that hour, I emulated one. My voice was hoarse later that night, and upon questioning it I was reminded that my baby was born through a succession of roars. Apparently loud enough that the boys were covering their ears through many of the rushes. (Oscar was undisturbed.)

curious and attentive brothers

This lioness externalized was bringing baby down. Many rushes, three different positions, and an hour later, I felt the telltale ring of fire, and baby’s head finally came earthside. For the first time in any of my labors, my mind felt clear enough to move one of my hands down and rest it on the top of my baby’s head and stroke its hair for the couple of minutes we had left to labor together. Partway in, partway out, the hardest work still felt like the hardest work with this baby, and my midwife found baby’s little left hand resting on its cheek. She gently helped it come free, and with the next wave, we got to meet all of this baby. With some help, baby was brought out of the water and I held it to my chest. The only things I was capable of in the next few minutes were laughing, vocalizing a tearful “hi” over and over again while kissing baby’s head, and silently sobbing. 41 weeks + 2 days led up to the beauty of these moments and beyond. I felt new again. A mother to three. A family of five. Jer and the boys (and Oscar) climbed into bed with me once I was able to get there (with lots of help) and we all existed together, reveling in the newness. 

  

I found out shortly after that there had been a blue heron just outside the bedroom window, standing silently on the closest side of the pond to our house, throughout the time I was pushing my baby out. No doubt it was fishing, instinctively taking care of itself while happening to be in close proximity to me. But all the same, the timing was impeccable. Upon looking up the meaning of a blue heron sighting, one of the first things that comes up is “spiritual transformation.”

The parallel continues to astound me … all the way back to scouring the Internet for winter clothes in October, to finding my warm maternity winter coat, to embracing the cold season with the boys, to dealing with an uninsulated home in the dead of Pennsylvania winter, to moving homes a fourth time in 15 months and nesting while setting up our new space, to spending some final sweet family of four moments together while in early labor, to working through transition with Jeremy in the peacefulness of our bedroom, to ultimately pushing our baby out while the presence of a blue heron was just past the glass pane of the window … birth is transforming. Life is transforming.

There’s a video of me from about fifteen minutes after baby is born. I’m laying bed, filled with birth hormones, newborn on my chest and we are both covered in blankets, the boys and Jer surrounding us. Harrison and Dylan had already asked a few times if baby was a boy or a girl and we felt ready to find out. I peek through a few layers of blankets as Jer pulls them back, and my face immediately turns into that stereotypical surprised face- eyes wide, mouth in a circle. All I can say is “is that …” and as I’m internally processing there’s a nice long pause before I externalize “are those balls?” Cue the laughter in the room. My motherhood journey has led me to be a boy mom of three now. And I am fully embracing it. Bring on the continued boy antics … these three have fires in their hearts that will keep me smiling and laughing for a lifetime.

one day old

all three boys have worn this onesie now

the boys

And would you know, we actually had TWO boy names ready this time! We weren't entirely certain which one suited him best that first night, so we waited until the next morning to make the decision. Ultimately, we chose the name we had thought of during the early weeks of my pregnancy; a name that I used in a very vivid dream at some point later on during the third trimester- a dream that maybe I should have given more clout to, considering how I saw this baby and used his name in it, yet still was mostly convinced I was having a girl for the duration of my pregnancy with him

Denver Elijah, we can't imagine anyone else but you, the perfect addition to our family.

Denver Elijah, 2 days old

Notice all that chunk? There's certainly a reason why pushing felt more intense this time. In addition to his left hand making the journey next to his cheek, and a head circumference of 14.75 inches ... he came into this world weighing a very surprising 10lb 6oz! Never let anyone tell you your baby is too big to push out, God's design is so perfect.

proud of this birth, proud of this boy
the sweetest outfit, gifted by our midwife

settling in, 10 days old

yes, he has a namesake

Open up your eyes and see the brand new day, the clear blue sky and brightly shining sun.

Open up your ears and hear the breezes say, "everything that's cold and gray is gone."
Open up your hands and feel the rain come down,
taste the wind and smell the flowers' sweet perfume.
Open up your mind and let the light come in, the earth has been reborn and life goes on.
Do you care what's happening around you? Do your senses know the changes when they come?
Can you see yourself reflected in the seasons? Can you understand the need to carry on?

Riding on the tapestry of all there is to see, so many ways and oh, so many things.
Rejoicing in the differences, there's no one just like me.
Yet as different as we are, we're still the same.
And oh, I love the life within me, I feel a part of everything I see.
And oh, I love the life around me, a part of everything is here in me.
A part of everything is here in me, a part of everything is here in me.

-John Denver, Spring

Those three bolded lines at the end were an anthem for me during the last weeks of pregnancy with Denver, though to the tune of the "Summer" song. And in the first trimester of my pregnancy, the boys and I drove back and forth from Kentucky to Pennsylvania quite a few times. This drive involves going through all of West Virginia, and our tradition is to listen to John Denver's greatest hits album a few times during that part of the drive. It's sweet to think back on those drives, knowing now that little Denver was growing inside me while we sang along to his namesake.

And here we are, the end of April, a little over a month after his birth. I've slowly become more active as the weeks have passed; emerging from the intensity of labor and the quiet moments of caring for an infant at the same time the trees are blooming and the daffodils and dandelions are peeking out like sunshine through the green grass. The birds are surely singing and the tree frogs put on a chorus every night. There is new life everywhere. 

taken two days late, third child woes

these boys have expanded my heart, and they have all of it

Kozeluh family of 5, joy abounds

Birth Unassisted

A few weeks ago, one of my dearest friends gave birth to her third child. I had the honor to witness the birth and support Kelly and her husband Shawn through the process. The journey that they took for this pregnancy and birth has had a profound impact on me. Kelly chose to have an unassisted birth- no medical care providers present, relying instead on her intuition and the emotional and physical support of Shawn and me to bring her baby into the outside world.

To process through that powerful night, I wrote out their birth story. A story of labor from the perspective of my role as their doula. I shared it with the family, and they have given permission for me to share it here. I share it to shed light on one of many options families have when considering where and how to birth their babies. The journey of a wild pregnancy and an unassisted birth was the perfect journey for Kelly and Shawn.

--- --- ---

Kelly called me at 11:35pm on Thursday August 6th. I had stayed up too late that evening, and only got in bed around 11:20. Interestingly enough, I had been working on things for Kelly while up that night- details about her meal train, and ordering a book I wanted her to have as a gift. We had also spent much of the day together, fairly unaware what the night had in store. 

I had just fallen asleep when I heard my phone ring. I knew exactly who to expect as I sat up and reached over to answer. My mind was groggy, but I heard Kelly say that her water broke. In my half-awake stupor, I asked her what she wanted me to do, and the consensus was to just get to her place as soon as I was able to. She reminded me to bring our bathroom scale. I remember being very thankful for that reminder, because it was the last thing on my mind. It was also a good tell about where Kelly was in labor- early enough to be very alert, enough to remember that she needed the scale.

I cobbled together a change of clothes in my dark bedroom, and made way too much noise looking for a bag to put my things in. I hadn’t yet prepared to leave the apartment at a moment’s notice, but thankfully I didn’t need much. I said goodbye to Jeremy, handed him Dylan’s water bottle, and told him “good luck.” It was about to be Dylan’s first overnight away from me, and only one of a small handful of nights that Harrison was away from me. Jer and I briefly talked about how I was going to have our car for an undetermined amount of time, but he was okay with that (another detail we hadn’t yet gotten around to fully figuring out). My cats were super confused about what was going on when I was rummaging around in the living room. I bid them goodbye and walked to the car by 11:50. 

When I arrived at Kelly’s, she was in good spirits. Shawn had already gotten together everything that they needed and the birth tub was ready to go. Kelly worked through a few rushes in between chatting excitedly about how she couldn’t believe she was in labor. She was alert, and the rushes required some focus but nothing that took her breath away. She had to go to the bathroom, and after saying she wanted me to be in there with her, she quickly realized she changed her mind. It was a good progression of labor, her body was showing all the signs of continuing labor.

For a little while, the rushes were straightforward and Kelly was happy and laughing and in shock all in one. She was getting tired, simply due to the late hour, and so I left her and Shawn to rest and I spent some time in the living room. I meant to get some sleep, but it didn’t happen. It was interesting- I knew I was tired, but I didn’t actually feel tired. 

Their 3-year-old, Lyla, woke up and ran into her parent’s room shortly after I walked down the hall to the living room. I remember being so concerned that I was the one who woke her up. In hindsight, and with a clear mind, it wasn’t me- there was no way she would have heard anything with her loud noise machine- I was just concerned due to my tiredness and not thinking as clearly as I usually would.

After maybe an hour (or less) of resting in the living room, Shawn came to get me, since Lyla was way too excited to go back to sleep and the three of them were just awake together in the bedroom. Kelly was working through the rushes on her own; she didn’t want any hands-on support at that time- just the presence of the people she trusted.

Shawn and Lyla left the room to get a snack, and Kelly and I sat on the floor together while she read her birth vision out loud. 

Kelly got in to the tub shortly after- the rushes were starting to feel stronger- and Lyla joined her. They had some really sweet moments together, hugging and snuggling and kissing. There were a few times that Kelly worked through a wave while Lyla happily played with the duck thermometer- swimming it back and forth in the pool with a big smile on her face. The contrast between Kelly and Lyla in those moments was almost comical, while also being very adorable.

Kelly started to get more uncomfortable with each passing wave, and eventually decided to get out of the tub. (The amount of time that passed here was lost on me, I don’t remember.) She wanted to sit on the toilet to work through the next part of labor. After a few rushes, with Lyla very present in the bathroom with Kelly and Shawn, at someone’s request I took Lyla into the living room with me. 

Lyla and I read a little bit together, and briefly played with some magnatiles that were still set up. We were not in the living room for very long- she decided she wanted to go back to her parent’s room, and no amount of gentle conversation could convince her otherwise.

When we got back to the bedroom, it was clear that Kelly had moved into a different headspace. I think that laboring on the toilet, and being alone with Shawn without the distraction of Lyla, helped her to progress a bit more quickly. She came back in to the bedroom shortly after Lyla and I came back, and she worked through a few waves on the floor and sitting in bed. I held her feet and sent some Reiki through one rush, because she seemed a little out of body in an unhelpful way and I wanted to help her stay grounded. Soon after, labor picked up even more and Kelly wanted to get back into the tub.

Lyla was getting very tired and harder for any of us to manage at that point, and Shawn set her up with a movie on the tablet while I kept an eye on Kelly in the birth tub. She still didn’t want any hands-on support, so I sat there and held space for her. She was starting to get a little bit wild, in a good way. When working through a rush, her eyes were strikingly different- wild is the only word I can find for how they looked- and they would dart back and forth at different things in the room. I tried to make eye contact with her as often as possible in an effort to bring her back in to herself. She was starting to make a lot more noise at this point also, though she was still aware enough to be concerned about the noise she was making, and requested a towel to moan in to. She often looked at the affirmations and artwork she had hanging around her. Shawn read some of the affirmations out loud to her throughout the process.

Shawn and I were sitting on the bed while Kelly was working through labor in the tub, and Lyla was slowly falling asleep behind us while watching her movie. Kelly asked Shawn to stand behind her and hold her while she worked through the waves. She was very good at asking for exactly what she wanted. Shawn got into the tub shortly before transition started. I remember at 4:47 Kelly told Shawn something along the lines of “I can’t do this anymore.” I knew then that she was in the final stretch. Shawn was an amazing support for Kelly throughout the whole process. It was so clear how much she trusted him and needed him. He was very present with her and in tune with her needs. She worked through all of transition in his arms, either cuddling with him or asking him to hold her up from behind so she could float while going through another wave. She kept telling him to not let go of her. He was her rock.

Kelly was getting very loud in a very primal way while working through transition. At one point, from my perspective on the bed, Kelly’s head was next to one of her drawings she had hung on the wall of a lion. And she let out a roar not unlike a mama lioness. It was beautiful.

Kelly was also very quiet between the waves. Often times she looked asleep. She was getting a minute or so in between them and seemed to be making the most of the breaks. She was also getting weepy in those quiet moments. She wanted it to be over. She talked to her baby often, telling baby it was okay to come out now, she wanted baby to come out.

I continued to sit on the bed, in front of her, and hold space- that was what she needed from me. She started to seem like she was trying to escape the rushes, and I made eye contact with her and assured her how well she was doing and affirmed the process. Shawn did the same. She was able to settle back into the rushes and work with them instead of against them. She was also starting to make noises a bit higher in her throat, and I, just loudly enough, made some noises with her that were lower. She heard me and mimicked what I was doing- one more connection back into the rushes rather than trying to avoid them. 

She asked for a towel again, and I was perplexed at how she was still alert enough to be self-conscious about the noise she was making- but the towel didn’t end up being for noise. With the next wave, Kelly took the towel in her teeth and bit down as hard as she could. And for a few waves after that she continued to lash out at anything around her... including Shawn, and at one point the tub liner, which thankfully didn’t get torn off, but it did move around quite a bit.

Lyla seemed to wake up towards the end of transition, and Shawn and I were both a bit bewildered about what to do. I'm fairly certain Kelly was the one to mention giving Lyla the tablet again. That, in hindsight, is so comical and so telling- even towards the end of a very trying labor, when she was working through some of the most physically and mentally difficult moments of her life, Kelly came back down to be present with Lyla for a moment. Moms never stop Mom-ing. I got Shawn to unlock the tablet and turned around to give it to Lyla… who had fallen back asleep while we were sorting everything out. Which was perfect, because Kelly needed all of us in those final moments.

I heard the distinct change in the noises Kelly was making around 5:40. She had made it through transition and started pushing. And then around 5:49 she started letting out the LOUDEST yells. It was clear that baby was crowning. I turned around to look at Lyla on the bed behind me, and she was still fast asleep. Nothing was waking her at that point! Shawn briefly asked me to take a picture of Lyla, and Kelly heard him and said “No!” She needed us to be present with her. I took a quick moment to snap the picture anyway, but I waited until Kelly was resting in between pushes.

Baby’s head was visible at 5:50 or 5:51. Kelly got on her knees and put her hands on Shawn’s legs so that she was essentially on hands and knees. She had a break between the pushing waves, and it was in that brief moment that I experienced the only personal moment of hesitation throughout the whole process- baby’s head was out, and I was wondering why the rest of baby hadn’t come out with the next wave. I wasn’t highly concerned, but it gave me room to pause and wonder for a moment. Then I brushed that out of my mind and watched Kelly work with her instincts to get the rest of baby out. She moved around so much, she knew exactly what her body needed from her to get the rest of baby out and onto her chest. She went from hands and knees to sitting in a reclined position, and somewhere in that process, between 5:53-5:54, baby was fully out, and in her arms right at 5:54. 

Within a minute, Shawn said the word “baby” out loud and Lyla woke up in a flash, saying “I want to see the baby!” She didn’t wake up to the primal yells of her mama pushing out her younger sibling, but she woke up when she knew that baby was present in the outside world. I helped Lyla get into the tub and the family enjoyed many minutes of pure bliss. They sat in shock and happiness after realizing their new baby was a girl- baby Lotus.

I went to the kid’s bedroom and gently woke Liam up around 6:15. His first words upon seeing me were “Is the baby coming today?” I told him that his mom and dad and sister were in his parent’s bedroom and they had something to show him. He ran into the room and joined the happiness of the rest of his family.

Kelly moved to the bed at this point, thinking she was about to birth her placenta, but it ended up being a large blood clot instead. She was able to get Lotus to latch quickly and easily. We had a brief conversation just before 6:30 about what to do since her placenta hadn’t been birthed yet, and she was very ready to have it out. Thankfully, within a minute or two after that, right at 6:30, her placenta easily came out, whole and perfect. Kelly said she immediately felt better and was happy to have it out.

--- --- ---

Witnessing this birth has given me a newfound awe for birthing women. What an amazing process. What amazing bodies we have. What amazing stamina we have. 

Kelly seemed almost broken throughout parts of the labor. Not in a bad way. She was being broken open to be reborn into her new self. Motherhood the third time around. She dug deep and used every part of her fiber to bring Lotus earthside. She laughed, she yelled, she moaned, she cried, she sighed, she breathed. She wasn’t just giving birth, she WAS birth.

Instant Pot Roundup

It’s no secret that I love cooking in my instant pot. Jer bought it for me a year and a half ago and it is truly one of my most used kitchen appliances; I typically use it 4-5 times a week, and sometimes it gets used multiple times a day.

I’ve used it for foods I didn’t plan to, like when we had a potential gas leak in our stove and I had about five minutes to decide how to cook dinner so I attempted cooking pasta in the IP and it worked! Or the time we were having friends over for dinner and I burned rice so badly on the stovetop that I couldn’t clean out the pot well enough to start over so the IP became a rice cooker that night. I haven’t perfected pasta or rice so they are not on my list below, but it was nice to be able to cook them in a pinch.

And I meal plan around as many simple IP meals as possible, especially during the summer when I don’t want the stove on in our un-air-conditioned apartment. 

I so often sing the praises of my IP to anyone who will listen so I decided to do a roundup of many of my favorite methods and recipes to have them all in the same place. Let’s be real, this may be just as much for me as it is for anyone else.

Here are some of my go-to's:

Quinoa, perfect every time

I use this method (from Detoxinista)

Put a 1:1 ratio of dry quinoa and water or broth in the IP. Cook on high pressure for one minute and let it naturally release for 15 minutes. The pin should drop by then. Open the IP and fluff your perfectly cooked quinoa!

Some of my favorite quinoa recipes are variations of these:

-Quinoa & feta salad

-Black bean and quinoa enchiladas

Beans

I buy beans in bulk for a few reasons. It’s a huge money saver, for one. Cans leech a lot of unsavory things into food so I mostly avoid canned foods. I am able to know my beans are properly prepared with an overnight soak when I cook them myself, the soaking makes the final product more easily digestible. And they really just taste better when you cook them yourself.
Method:

Soak up to two pounds of beans overnight. Rinse in the morning, put in the instant pot and fill with water until just above the beans. Cook on high pressure- black beans for 8-10 minutes, garbanzo beans for 12-14 minutes. The longer cook times are for softer beans. Let the pressure release naturally until the pin drops, typically up to 45 minutes. The beans make the water very frothy so if you manually release the pressure you will clog the release valve with aquafaba or the like.

I make big batches and once they are cooled off in the fridge I store them in 1.5-3 cup portions in the freezer to use as needed. (One 15oz can of beans = 1.5 cups.)
Some favorite recipes:

-Homemade hummus
-Cook & mash black beans down into a paste with salt, chili powder, cumin, lime juice, and the like and use that as a base for tacos or dip
-Black bean cake (made with butter and honey) This cake used to be a standard in my baking repertoire; I even made it for Harrison's first birthday, topped with homemade whipped cream. It is delicious and I've never noticed a bean taste while eating it.

Beets

Jeremy, Harrison, and Dylan all have an affinity for beets. I do not, but they are a weekly staple on our grocery list. After buying pre-cooked beets for a time, I realized that buy fresh beets and pressure cooking them could save some money and it didn't require boiling or roasting forever to make them tender.
Method: Rinse the beets to ride them of dirt. No need to peel. Cut the tops and bottoms off if you'd like. Put some water in the bottom of the instant pot, along with the trivet. I cut the beets into similarly sized chunks as needed for even cooking. Cook medium sized beets for 18 minutes or so. Larger ones for 22 minutes or more. Longer if you want them soft enough for a baby who is learning to eat (hi Dylan!) Release the pressure manually when the cook time is done. When you are ready to eat them, rub your fingers over the skin and it'll come right off. Or leave the skin on and enjoy the assumed extra nutrition. Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica. You're welcome.

So many squashes
It's almost winter and the squashes are everywhere. You can turn on your oven and roast them to perfection if you want, and sometimes you really do want that, or you can pressure cook them in minimal time, and then reheat and season at will with other recipes.
Method: spaghetti squash- cut in half crosswise rather than lengthwise, this will get you longer strings of squash in the end. Scoop out seeds. Put a cup of water and the trivet in the IP, put the cut squash on top. Cook at high pressure for 7 minutes, release the pressure manually, and carefully remove the hot squash. When it's cooled enough to touch, use a fork to scrape the squash out of the peel; it will come out in strands. Adjust the cooking time up or down if you want firmer or softer squash.
Method: butternut squash- I prefer to peel the squash before cooking it. Cut it in half, remove the seeds, peel if you choose to do so ahead of time. Add water and the trivet to the IP, put the two halves of the squash on top. Cook at high pressure for 12 minutes, wait 5 more minutes before releasing the pressure manually. Remove the squash and slice or dice as preferred. I make a vegetable lasagna with thinly sliced butternut squash, and this IP method is the best way to get the squash cooked but still firm enough to slice and layer in the lasagna.
Method: acorn squash- this I have not perfected aside from making mashed acorn squash. So if you want something that holds its shape, cook for less time or search around for a real recipe. But if you don't want to deal with too much cutting and any peeling, mashed acorn squash is the ideal. Cut off the top and bottom, cut in half and remove the seeds. Add water and the trivet to the instant pot. Put the squash halves on top, season with salt and etc, add butter or oil where the seeds were, and cook on high pressure for five minutes. Release the pressure manually soon after. Once the squash has cooled enough to touch, scoop out the flesh into a bowl and mash it, adding more seasonings as desired.
I also cooked a sugar pumpkin in the instant pot this season using a similar method and it yielded some great pumpkin puree!

Sweet Potatoes
I used to not like sweet potatoes. Why? I really don't know, and I can say now that at least I know I was missing out. They are a staple at this point. And truthfully I prefer them diced and roasted, doused in coconut oil and/or butter, sprinkled liberally with salt and cinnamon, and maybe mixed in with some cooked apples and whole cranberries; or seasoned with chili powder and cumin and mixed in a bowl with similarly seasoned chickpeas and diced chicken. But, if I want simple steamed slices that Dylan can easily grab on to, or if I want to mash them for this that or the other recipe, the Instant Pot for sure comes in handy.
Method: Detoxinista has an in-depth post about cook times for a variety of sizes of sweet potatoes, so I'm going to let her do the talking here.
One of my favorite recipes with mashed sweet potatoes is this brownie recipe. What? Sweet potatoes + chocolate? Yeah, it's a thing. But let me be real, this particular recipe isn't like a typical brownie, but I still find it tasty. There are other recipes out there with more ingredients that may hold up to regular brownies a bit better. Yes, there's a whole internet world out there with sweet potato brownie variations. Give them a try!

Hard-boiled eggs, so easy to peel I've done it with one hand

I like my hard-boiled eggs with soft yolk, still gooey in the very center. Also I don't ever have much ice in my freezer. With the combination of those two factoids, I've learned the best method for my hard boiled eggs is as follows-
Put a cup of water and the trivet in the instant pot. Place eggs on the trivet, as little as you'd like or as many as will fit. Cook on high pressure for 3 minutes and release the pressure manually as soon as the timer is up. Have prepared a bowl with cold water and a few cubes of ice (as is all I ever have on hand). As soon as the pressure is done releasing and the pin drops, open the lid and take the eggs out with a spoon and put them in the "cold" water. The ice will melt quickly and the water will get warm quickly. So the eggs will slow cooking but still be hot enough to cook themselves for a bit longer. Drain the water and add more cold tap water once or twice. Then eat the eggs or store in the fridge. If I had enough ice to do a real ice bath, 4 minutes in the instant pot would be my magic number. If you like your yolks firmer then a longer cook time is for you. Experiment to find your favorite version!

Shredded chicken

At 10.5 months old, Dylan is showing quite the affinity for food. So much so that there are times I'm not sure what to feed him when we sit down to eat but he's so excited that we are sitting at the table that I need to give him something. He often eats what we are eating but there are still many foods I'm waiting to introduce so sometimes our dinners aren't quite Dylan friendly. Enter: shredded chicken. I try to keep some on hand and he loves it! Also, shredding chicken was one of my gateways into eating meat again after 10 years as a vegetarian. I eat shredded chicken in a variety of recipes many times a week, and the Instant Pot has made it remarkably simple. I typically buy chicken thighs (have I yet made it clear that I am all about saving money while still eating well? Thighs are a cheaper cut of meat so that's what I get).
Method: Add a cup of water to the bottom of the instant pot, and the trivet. Place the thighs on the trivet and season with salt, pepper, and whatever else. (Lime juice and cumin? Thyme and lemon slices? Smoked paprika and sage?) Cook on high pressure for 8 minutes, and manually release the pressure. Move the thighs to a bowl and immediately shred with two forks. The longer they rest the harder they are to shred. Or use this hack that has theoretically changed my chicken shredding life, except that I don't have a hand-held mixer and I'm too lazy to lug my Kitchenaid out of the closet so I just use two forks more often than not. Save the chicken in the fridge or freezer and re-heat and re-season to add it to anything your heart desires. Save the liquid in the bottom of the pot for cooking grains or making soup.

Elderberry Syrup
Elderberry syrup is a staple for us. It's a great preventative for getting sick, and it is proven to shorten the duration of a virus if you have one. It works with your immune system without introducing anything to your body that will keep it from working optimally. It is not something you should take every day for a long duration of time, as it stimulates your immune system so you don't want that day after day. So during the late fall and winter when our vitamin D levels are a bit depleted and our time spent outdoors is often less than optimal, and we are often stuffing ourselves with junk food in the name of holiday after holiday- factors that cause the "flu season" to be a thing- we take small doses of elderberry syrup a few days on, a few days off. If we are sick we take higher doses for the duration of our sickness.
Method: I use Wellness Mama's method. It doesn't take much less time than making it on the stovetop, but it's less hands-on time since it doesn't require watching and stirring, which is why I prefer to use the IP.
I also like to make elderberry gummies out of my syrup. They are so simple to make, and if you don't have any type of silicone molds you can let the liquid cool in a glass container in the fridge and then cut into pieces. Harrison likes to take it either way but the gummies are especially fun.

Some favorite full meal recipes

Vegan quinoa burrito bowls
This recipe is a great base for a meal or a side dish. It is light and tasty, and easily customizable. Cook in bone broth and add cheese to your finished product if that's your fancy. Switch out the veggies for something you like better. Top with any variety of foods. Use it as a base for a taco filling. Etc etc etc. It is an easy to make one-pot meal, requiring a small bit of vegetable dicing and then sautéing in the IP before adding the rest of the ingredients and pressure cooking it all together. It doesn't require much time at all.

Turkey Vegetable Lasagna Soup

I just love this soup SO MUCH. It requires a bit of prep chopping veggies, and while the ingredients list isn't expansive, there are still a lot of parts involved to get to the finished product. But it is worth it every time. It's a one-pot meal, hooray for the minimal kitchen clean up that it requires! And it's definitely customizable. I typically use my homemade bone broth as the base, and I don't often add any noodles, I find it hearty enough without. Instead of melting a bunch of mozzarella cheese into the final product after cooking, I just use Trader Joe's delicious organic vodka sauce in place of the marinara the recipe calls for. Or you can omit the dairy altogether for a soup that is still tasty. It calls for 2 tablespoons of tomato paste but I don't think I've ever added that. And I've also never made the optional cheese mixture that is for serving the soup over. (For the sake of simplicity and less groceries to buy.) Do what you want with it!

Southwestern Chicken and Rice
This is a go-to almost every week. It's very much a dump meal. Put it all in the instant pot, turn it on, and forget about it (until it's time to shred the chicken). Then customize it to your meal preference. We usually just eat it in a bowl, topped with cheddar or goat cheese depending on our mood. Sometimes I fail to add the corn and/or the beans. Still tasty!

Butter Chicken

I LOVE Indian food. And this recipe... well, THIS RECIPE YOU GUYS. It has me licking the bowl. The recipe theoretically makes enough to save half the sauce for another meal, but that is never the case here. I roast or boil some vegetables on the side and add them in with the cubed chicken at the end to bulk everything up. Combined with rice and naan (Indian food is 1000x better with naan), and combined with my love of extra sauce on everything, there is just enough sauce even while the recipe  claims you are making a double batch. You can make this dairy free by using coconut oil and coconut milk. But I've never tried it that way because I love butter and will never be afraid of it (helloooo Kerrygold all day every day). And getting an immersion blender made this remarkably easier, as I no longer need to transfer boiling liquid and chunks of tomatoes into my food processor for a 4 second blend. This recipe is everything.

Dal Makhani
I haven't made this recipe in a long time, but I'm adding it here because it is in my original instant pot post, and I remember how flavorful it is. It's great as a side, or eat it as a meal over rice and/or with naan or whatnot. I will definitely be giving this a try again very soon. If you are a fan of Indian food, the blog this recipe comes from, as well as the blog the above butter chicken is listed on, has some amazing recipes that have never failed me.

Other recipes

My previous Instant Pot post goes over my methods for whole chicken, bone broth, (no need to roast forever and ever!), a sweet potato and lentil stew recipe, and my own lentil soup.

So, there's a start. There's always more, but the above are most or all of my go-to's. I may add to this as I find more favorites, so check back if you're curious. Happy pressure cooking!

six cars

Way back in 2011, Jer and I were dating, I was driving a Ford Ranger, and he a very old Honda Accord. We both lived in Lexington and my truck was used to drive to work and to hang out with Jer. And once we took it to a drive-in movie.

Jeremy moved to Los Angeles in and when that move came to be a reality in my life, I determined that driving across the country and living in a large city was not fit for my trusty truck. (Jer’s Honda didn’t make the move either.)

It was my first foray in to car shopping- my parents had generously given me my first two (a GMC Sonoma before the Ranger). With advice coming from ALL directions, I set my sights on a brand new dealership hatchback, and it ultimately came down to a 2012 Honda Fit or a 2011 Ford Fiesta.

A lime green Fiesta ultimately made the cut- car number one of six in me and Jer's six years of marriage, and the reason, perhaps (or most definitely), for all of the car shuffling we’ve done over these years. Should have gone with the Honda.

Her name was Gemma

We held on to that Fiesta for a while actually. It officially became *our* car in 2013 when we got married. And then it wasn’t until 2015 when we started noticing issues with it. Like the time we were stuck in traffic on the 405 and it stalled out. Or how it occasionally decided to not accelerate when we asked it to. And then doing some reading on it led me to realize that though the model had been in Europe for a while, the transmission in our car was brand new to the USA for its model year. And everyone with the car was beginning to have transmission problems. Great. 

We started looking around for a more reliable car, as we didn’t want the issues to pile up and render our car un-driveable, and we test drove a brand new Honda Fit (again!) After a failed attempt at lowering the price, we went home with the Fiesta and navigated through our next steps.

Cue: our Credit Union’s car buying program. They had someone on staff specifically to purchase cars for the Credit Union members, provided the car was purchased with their financing. Win-win, yeah?! No haggling, no searching, no effort aside from telling them what we wanted, just some waiting. We gave them a budget and decided we wanted a Honda Accord, and then the waiting began. Two months later we sold the Fiesta to a Ford dealership, took a Lyft to our Credit Union, signed some paperwork, and drove off with our new-to-us 2012 Honda Accord. It had heated seats and I was happy.

Let it also be known in this timeline that I was knowingly pregnant with Harrison in the last few weeks that we had the Fiesta, so he has technically been in all six of our cars.

So that was sometime in September of 2015. My full-time job had unexpectedly ended a week or so before we got the news the Accord had been found, and being pregnant meant I didn’t want to search for any long-term commitment to replace that job. I worked very part-time during my entire pregnancy with Harrison, and stopped working completely around 37 weeks. 

This part-time/no work was not because we could afford to live that way. Our budget was in the red every month after Harrison’s birth for quite some time. (Hello student loans and hello car loan and hello Los Angeles rent prices and all that.) Towards the end of that year (2016) we were out of ideas for how to sustain ourselves and decided to join a Financial Peace University course that some friends from our church were facilitating.

Admittedly, I was skeptical. I had heard of Dave Ramsey/Financial Peace University and knew that people had good results but my skepticism came from already having a good handle on money, no credit card debt, no extravagant purchases, and literally only spending money on what we needed. So how could spending $100 (that we didn’t have) on this course really help our situation? We really just needed another income.

Well, Dave Ramsey wasn’t necessarily life-changing in a big bold exciting way, but we learned some very beneficial information, and at the end of it all, Jer and I came to the decision that we needed to get rid of the Accord and purchase a cheap car with cash- to get rid of our monthly car payment and to lower our insurance rate.

So that’s what we did. In late January 2017 I scoured Craigslist for weeks and found a 2001 Toyota Corolla that we test drove, got a pre-purchase inspection on, and bought with cash. We had some equity on the Accord and it all worked out. Then the brakes went out when someone cut Jer off on the highway, resulting in a fender-bender, but even with all the truthful information it was determined to be the other driver’s fault and we were cut a check for the damages to our car (scrapes and scratches that blended in with the older scrapes and scratches!) So we ... made some money? Except the brakes needed fixed and then other things needed fixed and then 16 months down the road Jeremy had strong feelings about the safety of the car and we were making a little bit more money (yay full-time nannying with Harrison in tow!) and we said sorry Dave Ramsey and purchased a car that required a car payment. At that point we knew we had baby #2 on the way and a beater just wasn’t cutting it for a family car.

Good bye old Corolla

Enter our 2010 Ford Fusion, purchased in June 2018. Sporty silver exterior, heated leather seats, a back-up camera, and a V6 engine that proved to me driving could be for fun and not just for function. We got terrible gas mileage but we felt safe in it and truly enjoyed that car. After the Fiesta fiasco I hadn't anticipated purposely seeking out a Ford again (unless it was a truck), but the Fusions had great ratings, and our Credit Union car guy, while he wasn’t directly involved this time around, did give me some advice on a car that would last, in our price range, and the Fusion was one of them.

Hello new Fusion

Six months later, a week or so before Dylan was born, we put his car seat in the Fusion with Harrison’s help, and with that came some lovely moments of excitement and reflection and joy for the times to come. Visions of Harrison and our new baby in the backseat of the car, together.

Happy anticipation for baby #2

And then just about two weeks after Dylan’s birth, and before he had even been in the car (yay, homebirth!), the Fusion was totaled. Jer and Harrison were in the car and there were two other cars involved and thankfully no one was hurt. And the Fusion was towed away that day, never to be driven again.

We didn’t know right away if it was totaled or not, that news took a (very frustrating) week. Once we got the news we didn’t know what to do with it. Should we start looking for a new car right away? Should we wait on more information from our car insurance? (Our car insurance coverage, by the way, was UP TO SNUFF thanks to what we learned from Dave Ramsey. So thankful.)

We ended up going two months without a car. Two months of grocery shopping and baby appointments and two emergency room visits with Dylan, all while learning how to be a family of four. I don’t recommend it, though if you need to deal with something like that, it’s great to have a community of people around you who are willing to help. And we CERTAINLY did. I am forever grateful to all the friends who lent us cars and gave us rides and brought us necessities.

In the midst of those two months we actually went to Carmax and purchased a car. A Honda Fit! (Really! The third one in our car history!) And we owned that car for ... six days... and it didn’t feel right from day one. Carmax has a seven-day return policy, and I can now vouch for how no-hassle that return policy is. Almost immediately after we decided the Honda was not right for us (car number 4.5?), we received two generous gifts in quick succession that lead to us getting a 2006 Volvo sedan in early March.

number 4.5

I praised that Volvo up and down and all around. It was gifted to us and we couldn’t have been more thankful. We got a pre-purchase inspection on it, got new tires and a new timing belt, took care of other miscellany, and kept a running list of a few other repairs down the pipeline. No car payment + a generous financial gift + some savings = we could repair this car and keep it forever.

It was supposed to be forever ...

Well, forever lasted about four months. Volvos are one of the safest cars on the market, but the repairs this one needed kept getting put off, for no externalized reasons. Jer and I just independently couldn’t figure out the benefit of putting more money into a 2006 car with 120k miles, particularly as the repairs list kept getting added to, so neither one of us pushed to get the work done.

Jer ended up externalizing the thought that maybe the money could be better spent, and I realized I was on the same page. So in early July we hesitantly had the Volvo appraised at Carmax; simply to see what we could get for it, and evaluate our options from there. We had every intention of keeping it for at least another week, or for a lot longer.

Interestingly enough, while Carmax was doing their appraisal inspection, they apparently forgot to latch the hood properly before taking it for a drive. And so while they were driving it, the hood flipped up and the mounts on either side got so bent out of shape the hood could no longer be latched back down. And so immediately our car was rendered un-drivable. Of course this would happen to us. Thanks, Carmax! They ended up offering us more than we anticipated for the car, and refunded us for a three day rental car, so we took their check and left that day with no car to our name. That was not the plan in any way, but goodbye car #5!

It was very evident that even as a single-income family, getting a new car that was reliable enough and safe enough for the four of us meant financing. (Sorry Dave Ramsey.) So we dug deep and went car shopping for the next three days. Stressful, frustrating, annoying. But we did it and on the third day we found the car that was meant to be. We test drove a Honda Fit! For the fourth time in our car saga! And we didn’t get it! Again! Instead, our new to us car is a 2015 Toyota Corolla. Nothing flashy, though it does have the convenience of keyless entry and a backup camera. It’s little things like that that we don’t need but greatly benefit from. We feel safe, we are assured through the brand and through the certified pre-own program that we probably don’t have a lemon, and we are hopeful that this is finally the car we hold on to and will see Harrison learning to drive in 13 years from now.

Actual forever?

— — — 

Now ... if we went back to 2011 when I made the decision to buy the lime green Fiesta instead of the Honda Fit, and went home with the Fit ... where would we be today?? Hah. I guess it’s clear enough at this point it’s not the car for us. And if it could have been ... we’ll never know.