foot fetish

I thought I should explain why I haven't been able to put up a post in a while. In addition to staying at home with the lovely Oona and Owen, I also freelance from home every month or so, doing photo retouching for a certain prestigious golf course on the west coast. The images below are something I worked on last summer but I've obscured the logo so I don't get in trouble or, heaven forbid, lose my freelance gig for showing what I do. I was so fortunate in getting this job from a wonderful friend that I used to work with when I freelanced at Martha Stewart. She had been doing this side work for another former Martha employee but had to give it up when her full time job demanded more time. I so love this job! It is absolutely perfect for a stay at home Mom. The person I deal with is great and I like working on the images, which are challenging but fun. Oh, and their clothes are really nice - I received a couple boxes worth of cashmere sweater samples over the summer (so I could accurately match the color) that I didn't want to send back, they were so soft, nothing beats cashmere, and the colors were beautiful. The only thing that could make the job more perfect would be if they offered to fly me out there for a business meeting because it's an amazing part of the country. However, the past few days I've been a bit nervous because I received a huge shot list and the images need to be done by March 1st. A month, no problem right? Well when I started figuring in the time it usually takes me to do an image (approximately 45 minutes to an hour) and the amount of web images to be done I was sure I miscalculated but, alas, no. So it looks like I'll be pulling 60 hour work weeks for the month of February, all while still wearing the Mom hat. This means one very tired Mom who will be making crappy, quick meals and who will desperately need a back massage by month's end. I'm already prepared for one of my eyelids to start twitching uncontrollably by Valentine's day since that's usually what happens when I retouch photos during an intensive 'bender'. I'm exposing you all to the ugly, underbelly of the retouching biz. But I will get one very nice check after this massive order. And I will be sure to put up posts in February too. I'll need to take breathers from the work and that will be a nice rest.

cat's meow

Thanks so much for all the positive feedback on the header. And as for the concerned Oona inquiries, she's doing fine and the staples should come out tomorrow. Currently, she's driving me crazy because she's upstairs babbling in her crib when she should be sleeping and I keep having this recurrent disaster nightmare that she's going to try getting out of her crib and wind up landing on the hardwood floor on her head. I even bought carpet for her floor but I still need to cut the carpet pad to fit her teeny tiny room, move all her furniture out (all 3 items), put the pad and carpet in,vacum and then put the furniture back and how can I do that and watch Oona at the same time? I'll take some pictures once her room is done. Yes it's only taken me close to a year and a half to finish decorating my daughter's room, poor girl.
The cat above is Sam, brother of Frodo, runt of his litter and probably the nicest cat I've ever met. He is such a love bug! He'll just come sit on your lap, lying on his back so you can pet his tummy. I think Sam realizes where most runts end up in Huntingdon, tied in a bag with rocks and thrown in the creek (pronounced crick). He even tolerates the kids picking him up and petting him. In fact last week he just sat there while Owen tried to put a shower cap on his head, don't know why Owen was doing this but Sam didn't seem to mind. I love Frodo too, he's very affectionate but a bit more skittish and a talkative cat which I totally don't like in the wee hours of the morning.

fugue state

You don't want to know how long it took me to figure out how to put up a customized header! I'm sure that I botched my template code somehow so let me know if it's showing up very weird on your browser. What a nightmare! I'm very behind in terms of knowing how to write html code or even effectively cut and paste borrowed code the right way. Oh well. I was hoping to switch this header monthly but seeing how January is ending in 8 days I think I might focus on doing seasonal headers. Yes, this is my dead hydrangea in my front yard. Hard to find wintry photo inspiration close to home when Oona's napping. Let me know what you think. I'm already planning on nice acid green baby leaves off of some tree for spring.

get this girl a helmet

the victim


scene of accident


the injury


You know how there are certain babies that are like Weebles, they fall and never seem to hurt themselves? Then there are those that fall and always seem to land on their head. Oona is in the latter group, possibly because of her huge melon head and the laws of gravity. Two trips to the ER in less than two months due to head injuries, the girl is trying to shorten my life. I don't know how she injured herself so badly on her toy. I guess if I was litigious I could call up Berger and Greene, a shameless law firm here in Pittsburgh, their commercials show cars exploding or money being made at the mint who promise to get you 'all the money you deserve!' But how random is that accident? The toy isn't dangerous, hasn't been recalled as far as I know? It just seems like a million to one chance that someone would fall and cut their head on the yellow deck where the seal goes down the slide, raise the deck and you get a lovely barking seal sound. Toby was in the room and rushed over to her, it was one of those delayed scream injuries where she was gathering enough air to really cry. Initially we thought her injury was more severe because her head is flatter on that side (due to positional plagiocephaly) so we worried that her skull might have dented in a bit. That wasn't the case, thank f***ing God! Toby took her to the ER. I was too shaky and it was snowing with freezing rain, I thought I'd wipe out with her on the stairs much less the drive over to the hospital. As soon as they got there Toby said she ran over to one of the nurses, arms outstretched, waiting for her to pick her up. No stranger anxiety with this one. Toby said she was not happy, basically screaming bloody murder, when they anesthetized her head and were pulling on the cut to see if it warranted staples. They decided to give her a couple to keep the injury from tearing open again. I asked if they noticed that she'd just been there in December and Toby said Social services was called in and that they asked him all these questions aobut why I stay at home with Oona and what are the marks on her back from (there aren't any). But he was kidding with me, he knows how much I worry about 1. the kids getting hurt and 2. if they get hurt that someone will think I hurt them or neglected them. He said all the nurses thought she was adorable and were commenting on how cute her little coat was. Does anyone else ever worry about being accused of being abusive when you're not or is this some bizarre neurotic quirk that's unique to me? Oona came home none the worse for wear, just had dried foamy stuff in her hair and was a little sleepy from spending 2 hours in the 'fast track' part of the ER.

karma karma karma karma karma chameleon

I don't know if I believe in karma but I was very very lucky this morning. I usually bring my ipod to the gym but the past few days I haven't had it. I wasn't real concerned about it, I figured it was lying around the house in one of our many junk piles. But last night I started thinking about when I had last used my ipod when it hit me like a punch in the stomach, I left it in the water holder of the recumbent bike at the gym on Tuesday! Agh, it was too late to call the gym and I didn't sleep real well because I kept thinking about how Toby would react when I told him how I 'lost' the ipod, cringe just thinking about it. I called this morning though and, remarkably, some kind soul turned it in. So now Toby never has to know about what happened - he doesn't read this blog so my secret's safe.

Oona and I went to visit my Grandma and she was happy to see us, how she loves little Oona. She was quite tickled by the new pair of shoes I got her, expensive but I'm the type of miserly Mom who buys her one pair of quality shoes which she has to wear until she grows out of them. Aren't they cute?! I just love the hot pink sole. I put Teletubbies on the TV to entertain Oona and keep her from wrecking Grandma's place and now the Teletubbies have one more fan in my Grandma. She kept remarking about how cute and funny they were. If they entertain her I'm all for Grandma watching the Teletubbies, just might have to put my foot down if she becomes a Caillou fan.

membership has its privileges

When I joined my gym a couple weeks ago I was both elated and terrified that they offered free babysitting. Elated because then I wouldn’t have to wake up at some ungodly hour in order to get my exercising in and would actually have an hour and a half to myself with someone else watching my kids. But that’s what terrified me! Who would be watching my kids and how safe would the room be. I was panicking before signing up at the gym, wondering if Oona could slip out the door undetected and toddle off to her death by falling down the stairs, the good thing is that you have to push a metal handle on the door that’s about five feet high in order to open it – phew. But there are so many other worries; do they leave choking hazards in the room? Do the babysitters know CPR and will they watch my child or watch the tv and chat on their cell? And how much do they make? Could being underpaid, which I’m sure they are, aren’t all daycare workers underpaid given the demands of the job, compel them to harm my child? The gym has two locations and I’ve started attending the Fox Chapel one exclusively because I was less than thrilled the one time I went to the Shadyside location, it’s not up to my safety requirements. I don’t worry quite as much about Owen because he’s at an age where he can handle himself and can talk to me, but Oona’s so small, inarticulate and vulnerable. At Shadyside an attendant had come to get me after working out for a half hour because Oona wouldn’t stop crying, apparently a little boy was bawling and all the babies joined in, misery loves company I guess. When I came in she was hugging an attendant, taking deep, convulsive breaths from crying so hard. I was happy to see someone comforting my daughter but the room smelled bad and was packed with children, so I mentally scratched off ever coming to that location until Oona’s at least three.

I know that I’m a spaz with my children’s safety but I figure it’s a worthwhile worry. Elise told me this awful story about a babysitter killing a baby by giving the baby adult cough syrup. Just the thought terrified me and yet I was plagued with so many questions. Just how old and dumb was this babysitter? Did the parents say the baby had a cold and to give the baby medicine or was this something that the sitter just decided to take care of herself? All the questions are just like picking at a wound but I can’t stop the worry wheels from spinning. I wouldn’t trust leaving my kids with someone like me when I was in high school and babysitting, I was nice and attentive but not up to the job if there had ever been a true emergency. And then there’s the nutter sitter my Mom once got when I was little and my regular sitter, Cheryl, was unavailable. This psycho invited her friends over, used my Mom’s makeup and drank her wine and then chased me into my bedroom with a large knife when I came out after my bedtime because I was scared. Nice huh? I’d probably be happiest if I could find an insomniac, pediatric resident to watch the kids.

So yesterday I brought the kids to the gym after Owen got out of school, I do breathe a little easier knowing that he’s in there with his sister, I fool myself into believing he’ll keep an eye on her too. But when I came in to get Owen the babysitter had a wet towel to his face. He turned around and I saw two large red welts surrounding his eye. Apparently Owen had been playing with another boy his age and they started running around. Well the room isn’t really large enough for that and there was an infant in the room. The babysitter grabbed Owen’s arm to try to get him to slow down but he wound up falling and cracking heads with the very baby the sitter was trying to protect. The mom of the infant was there when it happened and apparently the baby was okay, I don’t know how given Owen’s size and how he looked, and she wasn't mad about what happened. When the sitter first told me what happened I gasped and asked how the baby was, mentally noting that it was a smart move not to start with a gym membership until Oona was at a more solid sized 15 months. When we got out to the car I asked Owen about the story again because I wanted to make sure that no one yelled at him, which they didn’t, and that he was okay and that nothing had been left out of the story, nothing had. Today he would point at the red bruises surrounding his eye, poking at them and telling anyone within earshot that his eye hurt and if they responded to him, proceeding to tell the story of how he injured his eye ‘I fell on a baby at Mommy’s gym.'

choices

Here's a picture of Owen in his bedroom. Notice the strategically placed ambulance? I kept putting it away until I realized that Owen uses it as a step in order to reach the light switch. So Owen is the 'Superstar Student of the Week for his classroom'. It's really a cute idea, every week a different student gets the honor and they put up a picture of them, list their name, birthday and their favorite (the favorite question is open-ended and can be whatever favorite thing they want it to be). The teacher sent along a superstar student form in his backpack for us to discuss and fill out with him last week. We spent time talking about his favorite things while driving in the car, I do a lot of driving in the car and we do a ton of talking there since he's sort of a captive audience at that time. He always seems torn, well that's not the right word because it doesn't seem to bother him that he'll have more than one favorite of a thing and when I ask him to choose between two things he won't... when I asked him his favorite color he said 'red! and all the colors in the rainbow!' For his favorite animal, 'sharks and zebras!' For his favorite food, 'cookies and candy!' He gets pretty exuberant talking about this stuff so that's why everything is an exclamation. We finally decided that we'd list his favorite toys, which are his playmobil castle (It's very elaborate with a dragon, knights, barbarians, and tons of weapons - I think Toby had as much fun getting all this stuff as Owen has playing with it) and his legos.

Last week they were learning about neighborhoods, drawing maps and talking about the various jobs that people in neighborhoods have, so we're driving to the gym (when I picked up Owen from school he excitedly informed his class that I was going to exercise and he got to stay with the babysitter at the gym - he actually looks forward to going there ) and he tells me that he no longer wants to be Batman when he grows up, something he's been planning on for the past six months and even started taking Karate so he can have the Ninja training necessary for Batman. Now he wants to be the person that makes popcorn, cookies and soda at the movies. I asked him if he understood that he doesn't get to eat all that food, that he has to give it to the customers and he said he was okay with that and that if anyone was disruptive at the movie theater that he would throw them out. I thought it was cute but Toby was lamenting his choice trying to convince Owen that Batman is a lot cooler but when Owen was having none of it he shrugged his shoulders saying, 'he'll be the only kid with an IQ of 150 selling popcorn.' Later that week we went out to dinner with some friends and the topic came up. One woman said that when she was 6 she wrote that she wanted to be a crossing guard at her school, because she loved her crossing guard and thought that she was very nice. Apparently the guidance teacher called her parents and was like, 'Mary can do better.' It's all so silly, it seems like kids don't get a chance to just be kids anymore.

A friend of mine used to tutor privileged children who are tracked for Ivy league schools at 4. And at that same dinner one woman who had gone to Yale mentioned that there are ads for egg donors in the alumni magazine and that they will pay $30,000 for successful retrieval of Ivy league eggs. It's all so sad to me. Of course I want my children to be smart - I love to read and play Scrabble and do silly brainteasers and crossword puzzles so I would love to share that stuff with my children. I know Toby can't wait to argue about religion and philosophy with Owen - he's already trying to teach Owen to be a critical thinker asking him if he believes Noah really could have fit two of every species of animal on the planet in his ark. BUT, big but, I think the things that I'd value most for my children would be that they're healthy and happy. Health because it is something so easily taken for granted by most who possess it and happiness because life without it feels more like a sentence of life in prison, I think. Poor Owen is already such an anxious boy; biting his nails, chewing on his lips until the insides are lined with canker sores, waking up crying because the evil monkeys are coming to get him, which I’m pretty sure are the evil monkeys that he saw in The Wizard of Oz. So I tread a tightrope, wondering if Owen has ‘normal’ toddler issues or something larger – his pediatrician said not to worry unless his worries start becoming compulsive to the point where they interfere with his daily functioning. But worry is what I do best and I feel such guilt because I’m an awful role model for my son when it comes to anxiety. I fear that all I’ve passed along to Owen is a legacy of uneasiness with life. But I guess being aware that there could be a potential problem is half the battle. And then there's the battle that awaits me in his teen years because my Dad's side of the family is rife with melancholy, viking alcoholics - oh my! Here's hoping Owen and Oona choose to live squeaky clean. I can imagine the worry that would come if either of them did half the stuff I did as a teen, and my indulgences were pretty tame.

lil leopard girl

I loved the snowsuit my Mom had gotten Oona for her birthday, she's wearing it in one of the first few posts I put up. But, alas, that snowsuit can be pretty tough to get on her when we're running late to drop Owen off at Pre-K and we've yet to have weather where Oona could play in the snow and actually benefit from a snowsuit, so I got her this leopard coat that was on sale at the children's place a couple weeks ago (of course now it's even less expensive). For some reason older women love seeing Oona in this coat. She gets quite a lot of smiles and comments whenever we hit Panera early in the morning - a popular destination for the retired Fox Chapel set here in the 'burgh. I just thought it was funny and it's one of the few things Oona owns that isn't pink or flowered - it's hard to not buy pink or flowers when it seems like that's all that's available for baby girls. So I've superimposed her on an artic backdrop, cheesy but nicer than seeing our crappy couch in the background, and the 'goggles' which are from Owen's fireman's costume add to the whole artic explorer ensemble. This is all I'll be able to get in today because Oona has decided not to nap - grrrrr!

check for signs of wear

So Saturday I went to get x-rays of my back and elbow. I have been having numbness and tingling in my right arm from my elbow to my hand. Looks like the warranty on my body is close to it’s expiration date. But I can’t have my limbs rotated for better wear or replaced. What’s a girl to do? I had a nerve study on my arm a few months ago, it came back negative – meaning the nerves through my neck to my hand seem to be fine. Ever had a nerve study? Consists of getting stuck with a bunch of needles hooked up to a machine that measures how the nerves are working. Then the doctor did a few where he listened to the sound of certain muscles. I’m amazed at the pioneering doctors that figured out all this stuff. The needles didn’t hurt too much, only the one that was put in the fleshy part of my palm beneath my thumb; that stung quite a bit and bruised pretty quickly. So anyhow… I had a chatty Cathy x-ray tech who said everything looked okay to him but we’ll have to wait for the radiologists official okay, that’s why they get paid the big bucks, to know for sure. I went to get a massage after having the x-rays done and every time the woman pressed at points along the left side of my back I’d feel my muscle twitch in protest – I will not be released! I wound up feeling more sore after the massage than I was when I went in. The masseuse was like, ‘maybe you should call your doctor and see if he can give you some medicine for your back.’ You know it’s bad if a masseuse is telling you to go the drugs route.

I’m also supposed to go for an MRI of my head for this numb arm, in order to rule out MS. The doctor wanted to stress that it’s highly unlikely it’s MS and I’m not worried about that, he just can’t figure out what’s causing my arm numbness and said he’d be remiss if he didn’t order an MRI. I’m 38 which doesn’t seem THAT old but some days I wake up and my back’s sore, I’ve got plantar fasciitis in my feet, various hip and knee joints ache – it’s so annoying. And if I feel this way now how what shape will I be in at 50? So I’m really trying to watch what I eat because I think I’m probably 15 pounds heavier than my body would like me to be and I’m thinking maybe that extra weight is taking it’s toll on my various joints. I’ve also started up on the fish oil regimen and going to the gym (only doing the treadmill and bicycle so far but I want to add the dreaded stomach exercises this week). I need to gain core muscles because my torso is essentially jelly. I’m hoping strengthening those muscles will help out a lot with my back pain. My arm doesn’t hurt and I hated to even mention it to my doctor but the slight numbness/tingling won’t go away. It’s not severe, it just always feels different compared to the left and so I’m frequently thinking to myself ‘what’s up with this arm?’ and try shaking the numbness away but that doesn’t help. Oh well, please let me know if anyone else experiences random numbness in a limb or if anyone knows of good exercises to strengthen the lower back. Oh and for something totally unrelated… if anyone knows tricks in order to chop onions without crying I’d love to hear it, I seem to be tres sensitive to those onions!

Dr. Prognosticator

My back has been bothering me ever since I was pregnant with Owen, so we’re closing in on close to five years now. When Owen was just a few months old I went to my Dr to find out what I could do about my back problems, since it was frequently sore and occasionally would spasm on me. She just said it was part of being a mother and that I should take ibuprofen for the pain. I was rather underwhelmed by the advice and quickly switched practices but didn’t complain again about my back until I threw it out two days before Thanksgiving last year. My back had been real sore for a few days, it felt as though I had been painting ceilings nonstop when I hadn’t so I just tried taking advil throughout the day. Then one morning hanging out in the living room with the kids I reached over from the chair I was sitting in to pull Oona up into my lap when it felt like I just got hit in the spine with a knife, I don’t know how I didn’t drop Oona. I had to call my doctor then because it hurt so bad I was in tears and I couldn’t get out of a crouching position without it hurting. I think part of the reason I started crying was that I was home alone with my children and couldn’t reach my husband, Toby, on his cell so I was panicking wondering how I’d manage to get Owen to school and then get to the doctor’s and praying all the while that Oona didn’t get into trouble somewhere where I would be unable to pull her away and redirect her. My doctor called me back and told me to go to the ER because he thought they might want to X-ray it to check if it was a disc problem or a compression fracture and he figured that would be quicker than me going to his office and then needing to go to the hospital for tests. So Toby came back from work and took care Owen & Oona while my sister in law drove me to the hospital. It was empty, thankfully, so we were seen within 15 minutes. I had a resident come in to talk with me first, West Penn being a teaching hospital that’s how it always is. She was a tall, pregnant woman and incredibly rude to me. I started by telling her that I’ve had back pain for a few years now and she interrupted snapping at me, ‘and you only decide to come in NOW?!’ I replied, ‘If you’ll just give me a chance to explain’ and told her the rest of my story while she stood there, white jacketed arms crossed and clogged foot tapping. She had me move a couple ways and asked if it hurt then left the room. A few minutes later a doctor doctor, as opposed to a resident doctor, walked in and smiled ‘sounds like you’ve pulled a muscle.’ He also asks me to tell him what happened and put me through a couple more motions to try and see what’s wrong. ‘Yeah, I can see the muscle that’s spasming on your right side.’ ‘Well you’re back isn’t broken’ he says and then starts rattling off medicine to a male nurse that just appeared saying ‘we’ll give you a muscle relaxant and you should take some ibuprofen now for the pain.’ I asked whether I should wait on the ibuprofen since I had taken Advil an hour and a half ago. ‘What? Could you see in the future and know that this was going to happen?’ ‘No’ I replied, ‘I just told you before that my back has been sore for a few days now and that I’d been taking Advil for it.’
I asked him what I should do because I was leaving for my in-laws the next day and it’s a 3 hour car ride. ‘I’m not a prognosticator. I can’t tell you how you’re going to feel tomorrow.’ was his answer. Whenever I asked him, what I thought were reasonable questions about my injury; what should I do since I’m a stay at home mother to two? How long will this take to get better? When should I call a doctor if my back doesn’t improve? he would say variations of the same theme ‘I can’t look into the future.’ or ‘I’m not a fortune teller.’ or, apparently his big word of the day ‘I’m not a prognosticator.’ By the time I left I was near tears again but held back on crying until I was back home and then I told Toby what happened between sniffles. ‘Am I insane to think a doctor should tell me what I should and shouldn’t do having this injury?’ Toby called the hospital right away and within a half hour the head doctor of the ER called and spoke to Toby about my injury, giving us a lot more information about what I was supposed to do. I just don’t get why they were so rude to me. It’s not like I wanted to go to the ER, my doctor told me to go there and it’s not like I was hitting them up for painkillers or being pushy about demanding treatment. I think it’s reasonable to want to know if I should be lifting a 24 pound baby while dealing with this back injury and what about groceries? laundry? vacuuming? The myriad mundane tasks that Moms do every day that strain their backs. And it’s not like he can blame his rudeness on being slammed with patients, the place was empty. The poor treatment made me want to scream out ‘I’m a fucking human being! Don’t be dismissive and condescending just because you feel I have some sort of small fry injury.’ I got more sympathy from the woman who took my insurance and has thrown her back out before.

the reluctant chef

If I ever decide to write a cookbook, the possibility of which is very slim, it will be called 'the reluctant chef'. I think it would be a helpful niche within the whole cookbook realm, for those, like me, who wander those aisles in the bookstore overwhelmed and hedging on just what book to choose or where to start. I like the sound of the reluctant chef because it has a whiff of Anne Tyler to it, whose books I've never read but really should since I think I would enjoy them. Add it to my ever growing list of books to read. I am a very reluctant chef and I am extraordinarily lucky to have a husband who actually enjoys cooking. I'm overwhelmed with the whole prospect of cooking and eating most times, which is why I like eating out where I can just pick off a menu, although I usually am disappointed in my choice and wind up liking Toby's meal better than mine - he's a much better menu chooser. But he's so different than me, he likes variety in cooking, loves to try eating something new. I am a creature of habit, one who will stick with ordering the same thing again and again because that's what I like and it's 'safe'. I'm so boring. I'm also one to get on food kicks, non-diet related, where I'll want to eat the same thing all the time (bagels, muffins, twizzlers, triscuits) - not a very good quirk to have as a mother. Poor Owen is already showing traces of my proclivities in the food department, eating more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than would seem humanly possible. At least he's getting whole wheat bread and blackberry preserves instead of concord grape jelly. But I digress.

I think I would enjoy cooking much more if some kitchen fairy prepped for me; cutting everything that needs dicing or slicing, measuring all the spices and putting everything in it's own beautiful glass bowl, like they do on TV. I'm so enraptured by all those tiny little bowls...1/4 tsp cumin, 1/8 tsp black pepper. I find cutting food so mind numbingly dull and we don't have much counterspace so I do it all on a table that's 8 inches too low which does wonders for my damaged back.

But my new best friend in the kitchen is my crockpot. I've made roasts! Corned beef and cabbage! Anyone who knows how bare my kitchens were during my single days will be shocked by this news. But I love love love the crockpot. No worrying about coordinating the timing on everything, it all cooks together. My comfort crockpot recipe is one for Blond Chili that I found in a woderful book called 'Healthy Crockery Cookery' which would sounds like an oxymoron because I suspect that most crockpot meals are on the artery clogging side. This chili is so yummy with cannellini beans and jicama - which is an absolute bitch to julienne without a cuisinart. I hand julienned jicama twice before I finally unearthed the proper attachment for my cuisinart. And I do need to purchase a new peeler because I almost peeled off the tip off my finger with our dollar store peeler - you'll get quite a workout on your arms peeling a jicama. I've even been so bold as to modify the recipe and add some of my own flourishes to it (try and guess what they are) before you know it I'll be signing up for the CIA.

1 package breakfast chicken sausage links (the one by Al Fresco, I think they have sage in them, that won best taste by Health magazine are really good) sliced diagonally into 3/4" pieces
12 dried red tomato halves that I use scissors to cut up, they are impossible to cut well with our knives, which are most likely on the dull side
3 -4 shallots peeled and chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled and diced
1 jicama (medium), peeled and julienned
1 (4 oz) can green chiles
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp died oregano
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
2 (15 oz) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth
plenty of grated smoked gouda as a topping for the chili

Combine all ingredients except the cheese in your crockpot. Cover and cook on low 4 1/2 to 5 hours or until tomatoes are tender. Et viola, dinner is ready. For my vegetarian friends you could easily substitute the chicken sausage with a veggie equivalent and the chicken broth with veggie broth. Happy Eating!