Mei Tai making

Anyone curious about how to make a mei tai? Here's one in process. I sewed up the straps first, then sandwiched them between the body pieces and tacked before sewing. Still working on the design so any input is much appreciated.

Abigail's smiles

These are the moments every mother of a newborn awaits eagerly!! The things that make her smile are having her diaper off...and the tinkling of Nik's spoon against the mug as he stirs his morning coffee.

Children are a blessing from the Lord

Thanks for the blueberries Mary!

Mary Brewer gave us a bag of blueberries from neighboring Kosovo. What a great treat. We've done a lot of smoothies with blueberries and the other day I made this nice little stack of blueberry pancakes. They were awesome. Thank you Mary!!

Easiest meal ever - pastice

Boil up a packet of hollow pasta (like a straw) till al dente and strain.

Break 2-3 eggs into your baking dish along with about a teaspoon of salt (or less) and beat up, then add 1/2 -3/4 a liter of fresh milk to that and beat well.

Add 70% of your cooked pasta to the pan with milk and egg mixture and crumble up feta cheese on top (you can use any cheese you have left in your fridge - it doesn't have to be the most expensive kind). I put anywhere between 100-300g of cheese, whatever I've got on hand really.

To finish, top with the remaining pasta and some knobs of butter around the surface. Add a bit more milk so only 10 percent or so of the pasta sticks out of the milk. Bake at 200 Celsius for like an hour. The trick with this dish and most Albanian dishes I've found is to bake 40 minutes or so in the center of the oven on the rack, then move it to the bottom of the oven so it browns a bit on the bottom for the rest of the baking time. This dish tastes better and has a better consistency if you let it set by cooling it.

I post this recipe for those who don't have time to chop vegetables and just want to get a nutritious meal in the oven with as little hands-on time as possible.

Cowboy in Diapers

Abby loves the mei tai.

don't mess with this cowboy

before he realized the glue stick could be used as facial cream.

Boze Warning

So, I've found the culprit of why for the last two days I couldn't keep Abby out of my hands... boze!! For all the talk of it's breastfeeding benefits, I have found that it gave me and Abby almost constant gas, which in adults is barely bearable and in newborns absolutely impossible! I've been off it for 36 hours now and no gas for me and a happy and sleepy baby again. I do have half a bottle staring at me in the fridge but I will not touch it until after my breastfeeding days are over. ;)

Getting chunkier

I think that Abby is definitely showing a little chunkiness now at almost 1 month.

Boze and watermelon

I also wanted to post a picture of the aforementioned watermelon that my sweet husband brought home. He told me it cost him 200 Lek - close to $2.00. Not bad from an American perspective for something that size... :-)


I can acquire the taste for just about anything. In particular, for those of you who know durian, I wasn't always as in love with it as I am now. Now it's very stinkiness is a sweet aroma. I think it took me only a few short months to like it. Boze is another story. This is a drink that it has taken me all of four years to acquire the taste for. My husband loves the drink and so I have said to myself "if he can like it, it can't be that bad" and so I have tried it again and again, and hated it intensely again and again. Only this year when Nik's cousin who had just given birth offered me a glass when we went to her house for a visit, was I brave enough to down the whole glass and - wonder of wonders - rather like it. Since it is hailed as a great drink to help lactation, I have been buying it rather often of late to make my milk sweeter or more of whatever for Abigail's benefit. ;) I'm not really sure what it is, but it seems to be some kind of fermented malt drink made from maize and wheat. It must be enjoyed cold or it will be rather less pleasant. This picture is for Sona who I know reads my blog and who also needs lots of good milk. ;-)

Finding my voice

Just wanted to write that I still feel I haven't found my online voice. This is probably why I don't blog much or update facebook or still haven't joined twitter. Still wonder how one lives life while writing about it. Must be a balance somewhere. That said, I'm looking for my voice because I believe that some small piece of my life might be interesting to some and may encourage. I will try to find that voice. As I type my sweet husband has come home from work so I will leave the blog for now and go and get him a drink. He has lugged a load of milk and a huge - maybe 12 kilo - watermelon home for us to enjoy. Bless his heart.