The Smallest One Was Madeline

I started thinking about Halloween costumes months ago. You need to start planning early so you can figure out what you can buy locally and what needs to be ordered from the United States. I can buy a lot of fabrics here but not a lot of other craft supplies. Some ideas were heavy on things that needed to be ordered or purchased whole rather than made. After a while I gave up the idea of a family costume and decided just to concentrate on Muffin, because my October activities calendar was filling up. Eventually I decided I could easily make one really great dress, so I gave Muffin the choice of Olivia or Madeline, two of her favorite characters.

She chose Madeline. I turned to the books for inspiration. I decided on a yellow hat and cape with a blue dress and found a vintage pattern -- 1970's Simplicity 7410 from Lanetz Living -- that was perfect for the cape and dress. I opted for the sleeveless dress because it's 80 degrees outside and it would make my life easier.

I got a little stuck on the hat. I couldn't find a suitable hat locally and I was afraid ordering one would result in a crushed hat. None of the patterns I had in my stash seemed appropriate. I turned to the internet to find hat tutorials. I couldn't find a good hat tutorial, but I did see a lot of Madeline costumes -- all of which looked like the modern cartoon rather than the classic book, which made me a little worried about my cape and my color choices. (And I'm sorry, but grown women wearing Madeline costumes rather than Madeline-inspired outfits is a little sad looking.)

Still full of indecision about the hat and having a little bit of self-doubt about the costume in general, I went fabric shopping for my blue and yellow fabrics. I knew exactly which store I wanted to go to, but my driver suggested an expo instead. Against my gut instinct I agreed to stop in at the expo. And after fifteen minutes I'd assessed the whole place as having many lovely fabrics but nothing that was anywhere near what I was looking for. It felt kind of good to continue on to the shop I'd originally asked my driver to take me to, walk in, and find the exact fabrics I wanted right away. I bought cheap "matching fabric," the material used to make the blouses worn under saris. It comes in all shades of solid colors and it was at least a cotton/poly blend if not 100% cotton (I could live with a  blend for this project.). I brought it home, washed it, realized it was a little too see-through and decided to line the dress, and gave my driver a swatch to take back to the store to buy another meters' worth for the lining. With my blue and yellow fabric and some black ribbon from the grocery store I was ready to sew a Madeline costume.

I made the cape first. Muffin was thrilled with it. As I started working on the dress she became anxious about my progress and started "working" in the sewing room with me so she could monitor how things were going. She has a Madeline doll and I keep some craft supplies especially for keeping Muffin entertained in the sewing room. While I worked on her Madeline dress she worked on clothes for her Madeline doll. It was kind of sweet and it was the first time she did independent projects while allowing me to sew, so it was a nice milestone for us.

With a Halloween party bearing down on us I still had to figure out a hat. I went back to my patterns and decided to use the sunhat from Butterick 3846 with the brim turned up. I made the brim slightly wider to give me a little more to play with. I was prepared to "starch the hell out of it," as I'd read in one of the many hat-making tutorials I'd poured over in the last few weeks, but it actually worked out quite nicely with just some interfacing. The hat and cape were so cute together that I didn't care anymore that it didn't look exactly like the book or exactly like the cartoon. Muffin looked like a little French boarding school girl and the vintage pattern added a bit of style.

Her new black Mary Janes arrived in the mail just in time to finish off the look.

Happy Halloween!

Our crazy week of parties and bake sales is half over and all three of us are fending off colds. We're trying to get lots of sleep and fresh fruit and veggies in between all the candy and fun. 

I hope everyone has a nice, fun, safe holiday!

Anantaghiri Hills, Vikarabad, India

A few weeks ago we decided to leave the city in search of nature. Not just any nature. Forest. Green nature. The rainy season was going to be ending any day and we wanted to see something green before the dryness set in. If you take the Outer Ring Road toward the airport and take the exit for Vikarabad (and watch the roundabouts -- the signage is not clear), then drive for another hour or so and take a left at the T intersection, you'll get to Vikarabad. If you go another ten kilometers beyond the center of town, you'll reach the temple with the big Hanuman statue in front. Park at the temple, follow the sidewalk down the hill into the woods, and within a few minutes you'll find yourself surrounded by more trees than people. Once we passed the huge banyan tree after a few hundred meters, we didn't see any people at all anymore.

It was wonderful. We let Muffin run on the path for an hour, then we turned around and let her run back to the car for an hour. There was a little bit of road noise and at one point we veered off the main path and found ourselves nearly in the middle of the road. We could forgive being close to the road for all of the fresh oxygen we were breathing from the trees.

Stop and park at the Hanuman.

Go down the steps.

Trees!

These giant spiders were everywhere, mostly in webs over our heads. 

Back at the car for peanut butter sandwiches and apple juice.

One of the AP tourism resorts is out there, so you could spend the night and explore other trails, but it's perfect for a day trip. We brought lunch but there's a small restaurant across the road from the temple where you could probably get edible dosas and drinkable chai. We arrived around 10:00 and by the time we left around noon it was getting crowded with holiday folks visiting the temple. It might be worth a try to get there even earlier, but I don't know if there's a time the parking lot technically opens.

It was a perfect one-day getaway from the city.

Doughnut Dreams

My doughnut pan arrived while we were in Thailand a couple weeks ago and since then I’ve been busy trying out recipes. I’m telling myself I’m testing them for an upcoming charity bake sale, but really I just want to eat doughnuts.

Chocolate frosted.

I blogged about chocolate doughnuts at the Hardship Homemaking blog recently.

Next up was pumpkin doughnuts. I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour but I replaced the regular flour with Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking and Pancake Mix. The recipe has potential but I made a few errors that resulted in overly sweet, sticky doughnuts with almost no pumpkin and spice flavor. Muffin and I both have a major sweet tooth and these were even too sweet for us. When a two-year-old puts down a half-eaten doughnut and says it’s too much, it’s way too much.

My first error was using coconut oil instead of light olive oil or vegetable oil. I thought it would be a healthy alternative to vegetable oil and it’s cheaper than olive oil. I wasn’t counting on the flavor completely overpowering the rest of the doughnut.

Sprinkling the cinnamon and sugar.

Also, I ran out of white sugar so used half white and half demerara sugar, which is a local brown sugar substitute that has a burnt-sugar-caramel taste to it. I thought it would complement the pumpkin and spice flavors. It was too sweet and too sticky. It was as if the doughnuts had been dipped in syrup when all they’d done was sit on the counter for a couple hours.

For my next attempt at the pumpkin doughnuts I am stocking up on white sugar, I will use a light, flavorless oil, and I am also going to amp up the spices a bit. I can’t find canned pumpkin here so I have to make my own puree and the pumpkins here don’t seem to be as flavorful as American pumpkins. 

I’m definitely doing the pumpkin doughnuts for the bake sale since pumpkins are in season right now in India. I think they’ll be popular among Indians and Americans alike, given the time of year. I’d like to make a second variety of doughnuts as well. I’m trying to decide between the chocolate doughnuts, replacing the pumpkin puree with applesauce for complementary pumpkin pie and apple pie doughnuts, or trying another new recipe entirely – toasted coconut. What do you think?

Motivation Monday: Awesome Edition

Image from Pinterest.

"Is this... is this a weekday?" says The Dude in The Big Lebowski. Between the family illnesses of the last couple weeks, last week's strikes, holidays, and car troubles, and today's holiday, I have absolutely no feeling for what day it is. But Muffin went to school today so it must be a weekday.

I have to run again. I have to finish up my homework this month before I begin two months of school vacation (while Muffin stays in school!). I have to make Muffin's Halloween costume. I have several baking commitments for charity bake sales and seasonal parties. I must be awesome right now. But I must also delegate tasks where I can and not spread myself too thin.

Accomplishing all that stuff means I should probably either be doing homework right now or going to bed early instead of messing around online. I have a plan though. Rest up tonight. Do homework while Muffin is at school tomorrow morning and continue with that every weekday. Go fabric shopping for her costume while she naps tomorrow afternoon with the baby-sitter and do my sewing during subsequent afternoon naps. Start hoarding ingredients for holiday baking whenever I see them in the grocery stores. Stick to my Saturday long runs even if I don't do any other running during the week.

It's not impossible. Just wake up and be awesome. And really, really go running to combat the effects of all the baked good test batches.

Cranky Mommy

My day started with Muffin breaking our last working coffee maker, my beloved French press that saw us through eighteen months in San Francisco, two years in Burundi, and two years in India. It was partly my fault for not watching her more carefully, but I warn her every morning not to pick it up because it will break if she drops it. Luckily only a few pieces of glass chipped off so it was easy to clean up, but a giant crack through it prevents us from ever using it again. I can buy a new one here, but it left me in a lurch over what to do for coffee this morning as the water was boiling. Mike to the rescue! He scooped some ground coffee into the pot of boiling water and then sieved the coffee into our mugs. Without caffeine I was unable to come up with that solution on my own.

Muffin did not have school on Monday and Tuesday so the extended weekend made getting ready for school today a slow process. I was finally hustling her out the door when I nearly stepped on a dead gecko in my bare feet. (Hadn't made it to our flip-flops sitting by the door yet.) Not only did I not step on it but I managed not to yelp out and draw Muffin's attention to it. I did not have time for an explanation of why a gecko was sleeping, legless, in front of the door.

We made it to school in plenty of time for Muffin to play before heading inside. Relieved, I immersed myself in checking email on my phone for the drive across town. I planned on meeting some mom friends for our weekly coffee; however, our driver pointed out a terrible crunching sound that the brakes started making. We were close to our house so carefully made our way there. But I couldn't use the car for going back to pick up Muffin. I made a few phone calls to friends and resigned myself to taking an auto-rickshaw (not a great choice looking at the dark rain clouds forming in the direction of Muffin's school) when one of my friends came through and said I could use his car. The most important part of the day, picking up Muffin from school, was taken care of. Nothing else mattered anymore.

I'll have to shop for a new coffee maker another day, using Mike's method for the next couple mornings. Starting on October 1 I'd planned a rigorous schedule of homework and Halloween preparations during my free time. Thanks to the bandh on Monday, the holiday yesterday, and car trouble today, so far I have not done a minute of either of those things.

I'm thinking of taking a nap this afternoon. I can be Super Mommy tomorrow.