Wow, I’m not trying to say that people don’t get much work done between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but you guys came back from vacay, roaring — which was awesome. PHILOSOPHICAL MONDAY re: Tall Drink of Nerd: Bye Bye Wheat, in which Amy Robinson decides to give up wheat after finding out that it’s making her sick. Joshua from GeeksPodcast.com: I really enjoyed reading this, but it does hit a little close to home for me. My grandmother, who I was closer to than anyone in the world just about, passed away about 4 years ago from Celiac disease. Information about the disease was more scarce and there wasn’t a lot of awareness surrounding it. She was up in years and doctors couldn’t seem to figure out why she kept losing weight after all sorts of testing. Finally, near the end my mother (who works in the medical field) was able to figure out the symptoms and get doctors to concur, but it was already too late. While I can’t deny a twinge of sadness when I pass the gluten-free section at the grocery store or see a post like this, it’s usually replaced by a happiness in knowing that a lot of families now won’t have to go through the same frustration and heartbreak that we did. Thanks for writing this :) OH, IT’S TUESDAY re: Procrastinate on This! Mama, I Just Killed a Muppet, in which we posted the Muppets take on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” DebraB from Notes from a Nester: Thanks for posting this — my friend Jason actually edited this. They are thrilled with how much attention it has gotten. Apparently it was released on the anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death, though they didn’t realize it at the time. WOW, IT’S...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow So far, summer 2009 has been a positive one in our household.  The baby chick continues to grow and appears to be healthy.  I’m plagued by growing pains as my belly continues to expand, but moms keep telling me it’s all worth it once she’s born.  I just hope she’s better behaved once she’s in the world, because right now she doesn’t do a thing I tell her. We are also one step closer to a new nest to put our little bundle of joy in.  It’s an incredibly stressful process.  I was always focused on the sheer amount of money that had to change hands, but that’s only a small part of the stress that comes with purchasing a home.  At a certain point, you just accept the expense and are grateful for the tax breaks that you might receive because of it.  But the investigation period has been more stressful than I could have imagined.  No doubt made more so by the crazy pregnancy hormones coursing through my body.  The anxiety of something catastrophic being wrong, so much so that we’d lose the house altogether was distracting and almost completely overwhelming.  Luckily, things all turned out to be okay. The entire experience, though, reminded me of dating.  More specifically, it reminded me of introducing a new boyfriend to particularly judgmental friends.  Here you are with someone (the house) that you have a huge crush on and you’re imagining all the things you’ll do together – the meals you’ll cook, the backyard parties, the evenings curled up by the fire and then the friends (inspectors) come in and start to point out all the flaws you either didn’t see or didn’t want to know about. It starts...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow Pedro Moura Pinheiro The house hunt is still on and as my belly gets larger and the pile of baby stuff continues to grow, I get really nervous that we will not make it into a larger space in time for the arrival of our little one. There is a prospect – one that I’m too superstitious to talk about and too worried about Google leading the prospective seller to this blog (if you do find it, take pity on a young knocked-up couple!) to divulge too many specifics. The main point is:  there would be a room for our little girl.  Just for her. She wouldn’t have to share with us or the office or various visiting relatives.  And now, I want so badly to make that a reality for her. Of course, with the prospect of an entire room devoted to all things baby comes increased desire for shopping!  A lot of things that I had dismissed as not absolutely necessary I am revisiting with a new eye. Now that she won’t be crammed in a drafty corner of our tiny bedroom, it seems like maybe we should have a rocker.  Besides, all my friends are doing it! (Does that still apply after the age of 16?  I really think it should.) The idea of sitting in a comfy chair in the corner of her nursery while I sing off-key lullabies and rock her to sleep is all of a sudden very appealing.  Of course, this fantasy is built on a house of cards at the moment, but I’m choosing to ignore that while I daydream about paint colors and rugs. My other new potential homeowner obsession is landscaping.  I’ve never cared much about gardening, but...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow Photo Credit: Heartlover1717 “Notes from a Nester” has been on a brief hiatus for many reasons, not the least of which is…our nest is getting a little bit bigger.  In a little over five months, we’ll be welcoming the newest addition into our family and we couldn’t be more excited.  Well… now I couldn’t be more excited.  Four weeks ago I could barely sit up straight I felt so sick. Luckily, some of the yucky pregnancy symptoms have started to wane and I’m feeling more like a normal, albeit fatter, version of myself. From a nesting perspective, I’m dealing with two main anxieties as we prepare for our little egg to hatch:  where we’re going to put the baby and the sheer amount of stuff you need to care for this small, helpless being. If the baby was born tomorrow – and let’s assume tomorrow is actually 18 weeks from now and the baby would be able to survive outside of mommy – s/he would be sleeping in the top drawer of my dresser.  Our tiny apartment is already full to overflowing with mommy and daddy’s stuff.  I’ve spent countless sleepless nights trying to figure out how to fit baby into this small space. Enter brilliant plan #1:  let’s try to buy a home and move in, in a four-month span of time before the baby comes! Because, let’s face it, what you want when you’re expecting your first child is more stress in your life. It’s comforting to know that we aren’t the only expectant parents who’ve experienced this nesting overdrive – I know at least three couples who have done the same thing.  So now we’re actively house hunting (and by house, you know I mean...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow It’s hard enough to eat healthy when you work all day and drag yourself home in the evenings with just enough energy to throw together dinner. It’s even harder when money starts to get tight and the fast food drive through starts to look more budget friendly than that head of broccoli. Like any commitment, the commitment to eat more fresh fruits and veggies can fit into your tight budget – you just have to know a few tricks to make it work. Buy in season. Whether you shop at the local farmers market or a chain supermarket, you’ll find the best deals on items in season. Epicurious has a great interactive map that allows you to see what is in season in your area at any given time of the year, along with tips for cooking. Check your supermarket circulars (you know, those annoying pieces of junk mail you usually just toss in the recycling bin?) for updates on sale items at your local store. But be careful with produce – just because asparagus is a dollar a pound doesn’t mean it’s time to stock up, especially with a refrigerator life of only 4 days. Plan your weekly menu around sale items, with an eye towards ingredients with multiple uses. Found a great deal on peppers? Use a site like allrecipes.com to help you find ways to use up your surplus. Stock up on frozen fruits and vegetables.  In my freezer, I always have frozen peas, corn and green beans on hand to help round out a quick dinner.  They are also a great way to add a healthy punch to casseroles or pasta sauces. And best of all, they are usually extremely affordable. As for making...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow I was at a bit of a loss this week as I sat down at the computer.  Nothing is really going on to inspire a column.  I baked some more bread and it turned out better, but still not perfect.  I’ve started using a new organic laundry detergent, but I haven’t been using it long enough to have a useful product review.  All the material I have these days centers around working all the time on tough production deadlines and having no time to think, let alone cook and clean.  So I Googled ‘nesting’… Since I’m not a homeowner, a professional decorator, a pregnant woman or a mother… it seems like I don’t fit into what Google seems to think nesting is all about.  I would perhaps like to be one or all of those things when I grow up, but right now I’m just a young working wife who really likes household gadgets. I also like organizing, but like a lot of people, I don’t really have the time to commit to organizing my house on the level that I’d like it to be.  If I had my way, everything would be labeled to within an inch of its life. As it is, I’m a little anal about how my kitchen is put together.  My husband learned long ago that he should never help unload groceries b/c I will just take everything out and put it back myself.  Canned goods must be organized by type, with the oldest can towards the front.  Every shelf has designated things it can hold.  Put the rice on the shelf meant for soup and I have to take it all out and reorganize.  I even went through and organized my refrigerator...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about slowness.  Maybe it’s brought on by the hectic pace of my life, the years rolling by faster and faster, work and goals that pile up but never seem to get fulfilled or the economy causing every increasing anxiety, my mind has been drifting toward slow things.  I long, some days, for a slower pace of life.  An idyllic country life.  But the reality is I live in one of the largest cities in America and life is anything but slow.  So, I’ve decided to take slow where I can find it. One thing that really intrigues me is slow food.  Or at least my interpretation of it.  Strictly speaking, slow food is a movement that encourages people to look to regional, organic produce, traditional foods and biodiversity. The actual slow food organization’s anti-globalization views are a little too leftist for my taste, but their ideas about slowing things down and learning more about the food you eat and paying attention to where it comes from really appeals to me.  In my interpretation, it’s more about returning to the roots of the foods we consume and finding ways to make your own as opposed to the fast, conveniently packaged versions at the supermarket. I’ve already talked about making your own pasta.  It’s a staple of my diet and knowing that I can make it at home makes me feel like I have more control.  So it was only a matter of time before I conquered another staple – bread. As I think I’ve mentioned, I have a great fear of yeast. It smells weird and it’s strange to me to be cooking with a living organism.  There’s just something gross about it. ...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow This past weekend was my birthday.  Since I didn’t feel like going out on the town, I had a few close friends over to help me celebrate.  One of my guests was shocked that I had spent my entire birthday cooking and cleaning in preparation for my guests’ arrival.  I had hard time understanding why she was so shocked (especially since she asked me to write a column on nesting), but then I gave it some thought.  I guess, to most people, spending an entire birthday doing what amounts to chores does seem like a drag. And on most given Saturdays, I would lament having to spend 2 hours cleaning the apartment.  But for some reason, when I get the urge to entertain…it no longer seems like a chore. I’m a perfectionist by nature.  When people come into my home, I want them to feel relaxed and I want it to be clean.  Spotless even.  If it weren’t for parties, my couch would probably never get vacuumed and the ceiling fan never dusted.  Unlike your average Saturday once over, cleaning for other people feels like it has a purpose.   But the cleaning didn’t take up much of my birthday. The cooking did. I love cooking, as you’ve probably noticed by now.  And spending my day in the kitchen prepping was perfect to me.  I remember manipulating phyllo dough for Buffalo Chicken Bites and thinking how very happy I was that I had given myself permission to spend an entire day just cooking.  That was my gift to myself – a day to do whatever would make me happy.  I could’ve done anything — shopping, Disneyland, spa day – but, for this one moment in time, the thing that...

. a blogumn by Debra Barlow Santa smiled on me this holiday season and I did receive my much drooled over pasta maker.  Once the holiday craziness was over, my husband and I couldn’t wait to give it a try. I always thought pasta making would be a labor-intensive ordeal.   In my mind, it’s up there with making your own bread as the height of tedium.  After all, there must be a reason that there are so many lovely, pre-packaged versions of pasta lining the grocery store shelves, right?  If it is an easy thing to make at home, there’d be no reason for the time saving dried variety.  Consider that bubble burst.  It took a little time, but making our own pasta could not have been easier or more fun!  It’s not something I would undertake on a weeknight after work, but for a Saturday evening meal, it was perfect.  The attachments came with a handy recipe book and we started our odyssey into homemade pasta with a basic egg recipe.  I was amazed that I didn’t have to buy anything special – it only called for eggs, flour, water and salt.  Then I began to realize why pasta is such a staple for so many different cuisines:  it’s cheap to make and requires the most basic of ingredients.*  After the dough was mixed, kneaded and rested, we had to thin the dough into flat sheets.  This was the most time consuming part because you have to feed it through again and again, each time narrowing the width of the roller.  Then, the fun part –putting it through the pasta cutter! We opted for fettuccine. As first timers, we thought the bigger pasta might be easier.  Our one big mistake was not using...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow I love buying gifts and I like to think I’m pretty good at it.  Anytime someone casually mentions something that interests them, a hobby they’d like to take up, a favorite director or band, I file it away for future use.  And, despite the crowds, I really enjoy Christmas shopping.  However, when someone asks me what I want…I never have a great answer. As a young girl, I always had a long list, ready to hand out to interested parties the day after Thanksgiving.  After getting married, registering for all those gifts and receiving at least some of them…well, I’m out of ideas.  Now, I spend so much time pondering the things I need, it’s hard to indulge in something I want, even if it’s coming from someone else.  However, this year, I’m at least allowing myself to dream of some household items that I would love to have.  So in no particular order, here is a nester’s wish list: KITCHENAID MIXER ATTACHMENTS: As I believe I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion – I am obsessed with my Kitchenaid standing mixer.  And most of the toys I’m dreaming of this Christmas are attachments for said mixer.  They transform a simple mixer into a kitchen workhorse.  Number one on the wish list:  the pasta roller attachment.  Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  You can walk into any store and buy a pound of pasta. And, at least in Los Angeles, there are several really good Italian delis where you can buy high quality pasta.   But I want it!  I want to invite you over to dinner, serve you lasagna and wait for you to rave about it.  Then play the hostess trump card of, “Oh, thank you.  I...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow It’s December, folks, and that can mean only one thing: the holiday season has begun!  My husband and I were in Napa for Thanksgiving and sure enough, by Friday night all the little towns had their holiday lights up.  I felt so festive driving around.  But after the grueling drive back to Los Angeles, my holiday spirits were slightly dampened until we were sorting through the mail and found our first Christmas card (thanks to Lindsay for kicking off the season for me!).  After that I gave in to the holiday cheer. And that means…cue the little drummer boy…it’s time for every nester’s favorite holiday pastimes – baking and decorating! I’m debating doing any decorating this year simply because we’ll be out of town for the holidays, but I may be persuaded to haul out a little holly.  But I have big plans for baking. Between parties, office gifts and one very competitive charity bake sale, I plan to be spending a lot of time with my Kitchenaid mixer over the next two weeks.  And chief among the things I’ll be baking are several recipes from the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook. As a foodie, I love cookbooks. Most of the time I buy them off the sale racks at Barnes and Noble, flip through them and never cook a single thing out of them.  I didn’t buy the Martha Stewart book.  It was a gift from my friend over at Sew Girly Alterations (who has no affiliation with Martha, just to be clear).  After a quick flip through the book, there were already three or four things I knew I had to try immediately.  Even now, I’m having trouble narrowing down my baking list to three or four...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow I love Thanksgiving.  Unlike a lot of families, this holiday was always fairly stress free in our house.  It existed more as a trial run for the Christmas feast that loomed large on the horizon.  It was always the same exact meal for both holidays, so I think it suffered in comparison. We gave thanks, as you do, but Thanksgiving in our house always focused on eating too much without guilt, taking a nap and then watching the Dallas Cowboys.   Not necessarily in that order. That said, the Thanksgivings of years gone by all blend together into a generalized family holiday tradition.  Only a few stand out in my memory as different or special. Every few years the holiday coincided with my little brother’s birthday.  On those occasions, we had a choice of apple pie or birthday cake on the dessert cart. There was the year I had my wisdom teeth pulled on Thanksgiving Eve and then spent the holiday popping Vicodin and eating mashed potatoes.  Then there was my now husband’s first trip to Texas for Thanksgiving.  At the time he was just the live-in boyfriend my parents had only met once before. It was a little more stressful than previous Thanksgivings, but it turned out all right in the end.  When my father shared the last of a bottle of long-cherished Scotch with my boy, I knew he was for keeps. But of all the Thanksgivings gone by the one I will never forget is the one I spent in London.   I had just graduated from college and set out to conquer the world.  I’d been living in London for about two months at that point, in a house with a lot of other ex-pats from...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow Something about the prolonged Los Angeles summer this year has me feeling in a not very nesty mood lately.  My house is actually quite disgusting, if I’m being honest.  Sunday, I spent most of my morning weeding through three weeks of newspapers that had accumulated by my front door.  I only subscribe for the coupons (who doesn’t love coupons?) and I spent about an hour happily clipping  while sipping my morning coffee.   That was about the only chore I could muster the energy to complete.  I thought about vacuuming.  Or doing laundry.  But between the heat and the smoke in the atmosphere, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and watch cheesy movies.  That’s when I noticed it:  a huge tear in my duvet cover.  It wasn’t too hard to figure out where it came from.  The culprit was napping at my feet. Cats are fantastic pets, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I can never own anything really nice as long as I have them in the house.  My cats aren’t that bad – they don’t claw the furniture or anything.  It’s damage caused by general feline antics.  The couch is pilled from their claws just walking over it.  The buffet in my dining room has a scratch in the wood from a mistimed jump.  And the tear in the duvet cover is the product of a play fight between the two of them.   The same can be said for the pulls in my bath towels, the broken wine rack, the now-lopsided rattan chair in my bedroom…you get the idea.  Reading the list of grievances, I realize I do have extremely klutzy kitties, but still — it’s frustrating! I love the cats much more...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow Like any good nester, I am also a planner.  I grew up in a military household and I thrive on order.  I like to know where I am and where I will be within a certain time frame.  I do not do well with spontaneity and uncertainty.  So this particular time in our country’s history is a little hard for me to navigate. After Tuesday, something will be changing, no matter who wins.  And things will be in flux.  I hate flux.  Flux is particularly hard when you are making plans for your nest.  My husband and I have been married for two years and we’re considering expanding our nest.  First with a nest of our own and then maybe adding a few little ones to go in it.  The problem is that with the country and economy in this state of flux, I wonder if it’s the best time to pull what little investment we do have and put it into such a large purchase as a home.  In LA, even with the housing market in the toilet, home prices are still higher than the average middle-income family can afford (side bar:  do you ever watch House Hunters on HGTV?  How depressing is that show?  I can only take so much of people complaining about housing prices in Des Moines).    And so I find myself stuck in the middle of the rent versus own debate. Technically we are throwing our money away by renting, but it’s considerably less money than we’d be spending each month on a mortgage, especially if we find a place with HOA fees.  But if we were to add a new addition to our family, we would have to find a bigger place,...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow Last weekend, my husband and I attended a wedding in Solvang, CA in the Santa Ynez valley.  It’s beautiful this time of year and the cool, crisp autumn air was a nice break from still-stifling Los Angeles.  Solvang is a cute little town settled by Danish immigrants almost a hundred years ago and built to resemble a typical Danish village.  There are lots of mom and pop shops, antique stores, wine tasting rooms…and not much else.  After we’d enjoyed the wedding festivities (congrats again, J and JD!), ate too much of the local Danish cuisine and drank a lot (a lot) of wine, we were left with a sunny Sunday afternoon and nothing on the agenda. On our way to yet another winery we passed Apple Lane Farm.  Its cute farm stand and rows of apple-laden trees convinced us to pull over.  If you’ve never gone apple picking before – go.  Go now.  Hurry, before the season ends, which according to the little calendar the farmer gave us, will be sometime next month.  It was so much fun!  The simple kind of fun that is cheap and full of cheesy photo opportunities.  My husband and I walked as deep into the orchard as we could to find the most under picked trees, figuring most lazy day tourists wouldn’t have ventured that far.  We were right.  Fresh Granny Smith and Fuji apples were abundant.  And the best part – there was no one else around.  We were completely alone with the sun, the breeze and the apple trees.  With bags in hand we picked apple after apple, imagining ourselves as Bohemian farmers on some organic collective.  I might blame that part on the wine. When we were done, we...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow Growing up, my mother was obsessed with cleanliness.  Not in a germophobic sort of way. She just wanted her house to sparkle like a Mr. Clean ad. And it did. I distinctly remember her cleaning the house every single day, only taking a break on weekends.  And I also remember the way our house smelled after those cleaning sessions:  a mix of Lysol, Lemon Pledge and Windex.  So to me, lemon scented ammonia is the smell of clean. But I am not my mother and I don’t clean every day.  If I clean once a week I consider it a triumph.  With a full time job and a busy personal life, I don’t always find a free Saturday afternoon to scrub floors.  But when I do, I like the smell of Clorox cleaner lingering in the house.  It makes me feel accomplished.  At least it used to. Now, with two cats prone to allergies and the hope of children on the horizon, I’ve found myself turning away from that ‘clean’ smell and searching for something to help break me of my chemical dependency. Enter all the new green cleaning products that are flooding the market.  They’ve probably always been there, but now my eyes have been opened and I see them.  At Trader Joe’s. At Target.  At the grocery store.  In the coming months, I will be experimenting with different products and I’ll let you know all about the good, the bad and the really, really foul. Before I go into today’s product review, let me just explain to you the love affair I’ve had with Clorox toilet cleaner. Seriously, it’s always been one of my favorite cleaning products.  You already know I love the smell, but it’s...

. A blogumn by Debra Barlow My Kitchen Obsession I don’t know when it happened.  Maybe it was the day the dial switched from 29 to 30 or maybe it was the moment when my dear husband slipped that band on my finger.  But I suspect it’s been longer than that.  Really, I suspect it’s been buried deep down under piles of clutter for most of my life. The awful truth is…I’m domestic. I am obsessed with all things house and home.  I blame William-Sonoma.  When their catalog comes in the mail I devour it like it was the latest issue of Us Weekly.  And from this obsession comes one of my favorite things:  the Kitchen-Aid ice cream maker attachment. First, if you like to cook or bake or just like to have an enviable collection of kitchen appliances – stop now and go out and buy a Kitchen-Aid standing mixer. They are the greatest things and, let’s be honest, a kitchen status symbol if there ever was one.   And while you’re out buying the mixer, go ahead and buy that ice cream maker attachment.  If you like ice cream – and clearly, you have to like ice cream – this will be your new best friend.  Gone are the days of those clunky old machines.   This attachment is stored in the freezer and is ready to make a delicious quart of ice cream at a moment’s notice. My parents are visiting this week and to demonstrate my new found frozen-dessert making expertise, I tried a Buttermilk Peach Ice Cream Recipe from Homesick Texan, one of my new favorite blogs.  Being from Texas and, let’s face it, a little homesick, I have fond memories of this sweet peach treat.  We had some last night...

A blogumn by Debra Barlow Notes from a Nest Two weeks ago I co-hosted a bridal shower for a dear friend.  The matron of honor organized the guest list, the food and decorations.  I offered my home. So maybe co-host is too strong a word, but I did help! And, as before any party, my house was spotless and clutter free for about 2 hours.  And, as before any party, I vowed that it would remain that way always.  I think we know how that turned out. The bride is in her thirties and so were the vast majority of the guests. It really got me thinking — how do you plan a shower for a thirty-something bride when so many of the typical shower traditions are based on the bride being young, naïve and lacking any kitchen appliances? With parties I feel there are three cornerstones to making it a success:  good company, good food and lots of good wine.  And, in this case, one very strong vodka cocktail! In the post college rush to the altar that I witnessed amongst by friends, we had delicate cucumber sandwiches, frou-frou salads and tea at every shower.  We made wedding dresses out of toilet paper and twittered about the wedding night.  They were casual affairs – short, sweet and all about the gifts. And they bore no resemblance to the shower I helped throw two weeks ago. My friend’s shower was elegant and the gifts, while appreciated, were almost an after thought at the very end.  The decorations were simple –fresh flowers, colorful linens and lots of Martha Stewart pomanders. The food was thoughtful – featuring the bride’s favorite comfort foods classed up for the occasion like coconut shrimp, cheese and crackers and crab cakes....