A Lookback at My Favorite Writing on Medium This Year

Year-in-Review 2018
See it here (with all friends links, so you don't need to be a Medium member to read any of it).

Balloons. Photo by Sagar Patil on Unsplash

I'm Featured in P.S. I Love You's Favorite #Family Submissions!

Here's a link to P.S. I Love You's Favorite #Family Submissions!
Three of my pieces are included! Wow:
The Truth About Santa Claus
The First Time Your Baby Smiles at You
and
Love Letter to My Dog

Image Credit: Pixabay

Love Letter to My Dog

It's bout time I wrote about this little beast who snuggles me as I type.
Love Letter to My Dog, just published in P.S. I Love You on Medium.

I'm Trying to Dismantle Gender Roles, but Society Keeps Getting in the Way

“Lupin’s a boy dog, right?” my 3-year-old Tzivia asks me, about our fluffy rescue mutt. “Are there girl dogs?”

I stifle a laugh and give her the sex vs. gender talk again...

Read the rest at Medium!

Sidecar Your Crib: A Co-Sleeping Solution

My newest piece for Raise Vegan is one for all the pregnant people and exhausted new parents out there.

For me, the hardest part about co-sleeping with Tzivia right in the bed was that I like to pull my blankets up all the way over my mouth. Obviously, this wasn't going to work with a newborn in the bed, so I abruptly had to change my habits. I started wearing a fleece blanket as a hat (see below) and sleeping in a cardigan (to keep me warm but be unbuttonable for nursing in bed) so I could leave my blanket safely at my waist, but I just was not getting any sleep that way.

When we put Tzivia in the sidecarred crib, it was a total gamechanger.

Trying to keep comfy/warm without smothering her (pre-sidecarred crib)

Is Veganism Too Good to be True?

My newest piece on the Raise Vegan site is called Could it be Possible? Is Veganism Too Good to be True?

It was equally inspired by all the awesome factual research that keeps showing veganism is healthier and better for the Earth, but also by the fake news I keep seeing on my FB feed. Much of this fake news is anti-vegan (or has nothing to do with veganism), but I've been dismayed to see vegan-promoting pseudoscience/lies as well.

Me with my too little ones, in the rain at the Farmers' Market

Facts don't try to take sides, but the facts keep being on the side of veganism.

So let's tell the truth: Veganism rocks!

Vegan Dog Food - Yes, Your Dog Can Eat Plant-Based Too!

Here's my new article for Raise Vegan all about vegan dog food.
Did you know our perfect lil Lupin eats vegan?

All dressed up

at Marymoor Dog Park

Lupin and Tzivia in the hammock

Only one of these dogs is not Lupin.

Give up on this blog thing?

Perhaps I (Darcy) don't have what it takes to keep up a blog anymore. I probably averaged more than one post per day in my livejournal for 7 years straight or so, but I just don't spend that much time online anymore (a good thing!)

When I'm online now, it's usually to totally relax -- to watch documentaries or browse necklaces on etsy.

I think Facebook ruined blogging for me a little, not because I took my blogging energies to Facebook, but because I resisted using Facebook for so many years, and the principle of the thing -- that we should be creating real community and truly talking with our friends and going outside and experiencing things -- holds true for blogging.

At the same time, I do still love some blogs, when their purpose is in no way trying to be a replacement for face-to-face interactions. But I guess I just don't feel like I have the time in my life right now to live AND to tell about it. Or maybe I do want to tell about it, but in my paper journal. And I want to do a better job of connecting with friends.

One good thing that came out of this (well, two) is that we've started taking more photos (even if I didn't find the time to share them), AND those photos have revealed to us that we have a really great life, filled with love and laughter and food and nature. I sorta suspected our lives were great, but now we have proof.

Maybe (probably) we'll pick this up again sometime.

xo

I'll leave you with some pictures from the last week or so:

Belly rubs at Pigs Peace Sanctuary

Dinner I made us one night

Reflections at Greenlake

Ducks!

Swimming back to shore, duckless.

Tuckered out.

Our family <3

so much to share and so little time.

He drank the whooooole thing and then he started a bar fight.

P.S. We climbed hiked up a mountain yesterday. And then, instead of resting my weary limbs, I went to work. THEN I rested my still wearier limbs. Now back to work.

It is so beautiful out.

Scone Day!

Baking
plus engagement ring
minus gloves
= delicious mess

Batter, batter everywhere.

Luna and I were both scheduled to work at the doughnut shop today, but after about 20 minutes of set-up, another worker showed up; apparently she'd been scheduled too. Buuuut... you only need two people on a Monday, so I moseyed on home, pretty bummed that I had crawled out of bed at 7:25am for nothing (after 3 nights in a row of working dinner shifts at Pizza Pi).

To cheer myself up, I made scones with some Rainier cherries that I swear had been in our tiny fridge for like a month (but were miraculously still good).

He was so worn out from playing that he *almost* managed to sleep through the delicious smell of scones.

I used the currant scone recipe from

as my jumping-off point, but I obviously used cherries instead of currants, a little tapioca and potato flour instead of Ener-G, half whole wheat flour (instead of all white), and I added some vanilla, almond extract, nutmeg and ACV. And then I put sliced almonds on top of half of them (should have put them on all of them. OMG goooood).

Luna will be home from work soon and then I get to share them.

I accidentally shared a little with someone already.

Also, I made a box of chocolates today as a belated anniversary present. (Our year-and-a-half-together anniversary or our negative-1st wedding anniversary? Take your pick.)
I had been saving this box since... Valentine's maybe? Oh no, of course not; we were in Thailand on Valentine's Day. I guess I'd been saving the box since our 1-year-together anniversary in December, planning to make my own chocolates for Luna. There's just something so special about hand-making tiny treats for someone.

(I covered up the original brand name with a heart I cut out of a magazine.)

 Anyway, the coating on all of them is just melted chocolate chips.
The insides (with a couple repeats) are
chocolate peanut butter cream
Mounds (basically)
Almond Joy (basically)
a marshmallow
mocha cream
and whole peanuts jumbled up in the chocolate.

I hope he likes them!