D'n'A - The Great Adventures of

2 minute brownie - aka, the most dangerous recipe in the world

2012-01-25T14:18:00.000-06:00

Only click on the link below if you have willpower. Click it not for curiosity or for thrill seeking. Those who are ruled by sweet teeth or forbidden fruits must not enter the website which I shall shortly share. There is a whole world of instant indulgence where the innocent are laid bare before the awesome power of creative thinking in the kitchen, taking us to places and heights of lazy decadence from which many never return.

Who among our beloved children with the shining eyes could ever imagine the great calamity of hot, gooey brownies made from ingredients immediately at hand, using a common cooking device which divorces us from effort and the process of creation, and dirtying no more than two individual dishes? Not even Poe himself could have contrived such an awful state of lucid captivation by a diabolically seductive substance.

Click at your own risk. But one final warning, friend. Do not increase the lure of this recipe by getting (shudder) creative. Don't even contemplate the addition of peanut butter chips, toffee bits, chopped peanuts or (The Horror!) whipped cream with a drizzle of caramel sauce!

I do a disservice to the world by providing dangerous knowledge in a medium most likely to ensnare the unsuspecting. Go forth, and be strong.

Do Not Click This Link!

(mine took 2 mins of microwave time, which just goes to show you how evil this recipe is, making me wait a whole extra minute)

Cheesy veggies chowder

2012-01-24T09:51:00.000-06:00

Inspired by this recipe: Cheesy Vegetable Chowder

Alas, I have no picture to share. This made a pretty sizable pot of soup but that last serving went into my belly for breakfast and I didn't even think to get out the camera.

Here's my take on it.

2 Tbsp butter
4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 large sweet onion
3-4 stalks of celery
1/2 pound shredded carrot
1 Tbsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp smoked paprika
3 tsp chicken bouillon
4 cups of water
about 1/4 cup flour
1/2 pound broccoli florets
1/4 pound frozen peas
4 ounces cream cheese
1 cup Mexican blend cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a pot. Add chicken, onion, carrots, and celery. Put lid on at an angle and allow to simmer until chicken is cooked through and veggies are tender. Add the coriander, paprika, bouillon, and water. Whisk in flour. Add in the broccoli and simmer another 10 mins. Add in cream cheese and cheese and stir until melted. Correct salt and pepper. Serve with home made bread.

Verdict: all of the kids ate at least one full helping, which around here gets 5 stars. It was a great way to use up the broccoli from a side dish and the carrots that have been languishing in my freezer, not to mention the last remnant of a block of cream cheese from the last time we got bagels and the last handful from a big bag of cheese. All of the little odds and ends of veggies went into the pot without complaint and it smelled wonderful.

Baby cabbages

2012-01-23T12:35:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Bountiful Baskets, we enjoy a wonderful variety of fruits and veggies. There are some things that we tend to get frequently like lettuce and tomatoes (homemade salsa from fresh tomatoes??? Mmmmm, thank you) but then we get nice surprises like persimmons and fresh Brussels sprouts.

We used to eat Brussels sprouts frequently but I got tired of them blowing up in the microwave while steaming. Yesterday I took the fresh ones, removed some of the tougher leaves, split in half long ways, sprinkled with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted cut side down on a jelly roll pan at 350° until they were toasty. Holy run on recipe! They were so very good and sweet and pungent. I should have done the same with sweet onion slices on the side.

We'll be eating more Brussels sprouts from now on. Especially since there are all these recipes involving bacon.... Yum!

Homemade cleaners

2012-01-22T18:41:00.000-06:00

Asthma, allergies, and cost are all beasts of hurdles around here. My fragrance sensitivities cause me to make quite the production of buying even simple things like deodorant. I will go the the deodorant section, pick something out that looks promising and take a deep whiff through the nose. Then I wait. If I don't get a stuffed nose and an itchy face, I buy it. After that it's still a bit of a crap shoot.

Anyway, I've taken to making household cleaners because it's cheaper, there is no fragrance (at least once the vinegar dries) and the cost is mere pennies.

This is the glass cleaner we found yesterday once we ran out of the blue stuff. And it works! There's cornstarch in it which is totally counter intuitive but what can you do in the face of solid evidence that it works?

The bathroom cleaner we use is a mix of 1/4 cup vinegar, 1 T borax, and 1 T dish soap and fill the rest of the bottle with warm water. Swirl it around to help dissolve the borax. My dish soap happens to have bleach in it (Ajax, once again CHEAP) and I use the grapefruit scented variety. It seems to work pretty well, and of course it's ridiculously cheap.

Other homemade products I love include using normal baking soda as an exfoliant for the face. Wash your face with your normal soap. Sprinkle a bit of baking soda on a damp cloth, gently massage your skin with it (paying particular attention to the T-zone), and rinse. Finish with toner and lotion.

What are your favorite homemade solutions?

The New Samaritan

2012-01-19T14:01:00.000-06:00

Luke 10: 25-37 describes the parable of The Good Samaritan.

This past Sunday I had the privilege of teaching a lesson called "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself" and the first parable that came to mind was of The Good Samaritan. However, the young and those not well versed in the parable don't always understand the significance of the different players in this brief drama. So I printed out some appropriate clip art, dashed off a retelling, and it was a real hit.

Here is the text:

[post picture of a tourist]

A certain man went on a vacation to see Yellowstone Park. On his way from Denver through Wyoming he stopped at a picnic site to enjoy a thoughtfully packed and most frugal lunch. He was about to get underway again when a carjacker held him at gun point, took his keys, wallet, and phone, and spitefully kicked him in the ankle.

The tourist sat on the ground, his ankle swelling by the moment, and wondered what to do. After a period of time, a caravan of large vehicles pulled to a stop at that very picnic site. Within seconds the whole area was swarmed with college youths in matching t-shirts, a passel of men in black suits and sunglasses, sweaty camera operators, perfectly coiffed reporters, and a good looking, middle-aged incumbent senator with huge, white teeth.

[post picture of politician at lecturn]

The politician stumped for education, environment, economic reform, and immigration policy. He was just getting to the welfare system when he saw the stunned tourist and, sensing a photo opportunity, went to sit beside him. He shook his hand and asked for whom he'd vote in the coming election. Blinded by camera lights and white teeth, the tourist stuttered that he was from Colorado. The Wyoming senator said "that's too bad, son," and in a whirl everyone packed up and left the tourist sitting in the dust.

Not too long after that, a certain caped crusader [post batman symbol] came to a screeching halt in a flying-rodent-mobile.

"Citizen," he said with deep voice and chiseled jaw. "I'm responding to a certain signal that was spotted just south of Rexburg, Idaho. [the home of BYU-Idaho] Apparently some reckless youths got hyped up on Mountain Dew and are on a rampage through the city, cutting neckties and stealing left shoes. Can you tell me how to get to the I-15?"

The tourist responded that he only had directions for getting to Yellowstone, but good luck anyway. Away the super hero sped and, as in the tradition of sad tales, it began to rain.

The next person to pull up was a trucker named Billy-John. [post pic of Billy-John. Let's just say that I Googled "scary trucker clipart" and picked the most grotesque face out of the bunch]

His cattle truck was as unwashed as he was, and both made the same sort of windy noises. Billy-John silently looked over the tourist, taking in his swollen ankle, sad expression, and inexplicably and offensively bright button up shirt. The trucked spat an enormous geyser of tobacco juice on the ground and said in a drawl:

"Y'all need some hep 'ere?"

The tourist tried to hold back tears of relief and pain as Billy-John helped him into the filthy but dry cab of the cattle truck. They traveled into Casper where trucker helped tourist into an urgent care center, telling the front desk to mail him the bill. He also booked a room at a modest motel and gave his new friend his spare shirt and pair of pants. The tourist gratefully embraced his most unlikely savior and was forever grateful.

Hungry monster pillow!

2012-01-12T12:34:00.000-06:00

This little guy comes from here: Leslie's Art and Sew.

It's the perfect little project for a beginning sewer or someone who is rashly considering making 28 of these things for Valentine's Day! All of the seaming and stuffing was done by my little friend B. I did the cutting and put the eyes on. The "mouth" is actually a little pocket! Our version is about 4" tall and 3" wide. I love that this little guy doesn't need a hard and fast, let alone complicated pattern.

Sea Turtles

2012-01-12T10:36:00.000-06:00

For Christmas this year, my interest in sewing simple little "softies" was kindled. Softies in the new name for stuffed animals. Go figure.

Anyway, after making up elephants, manatees, frogs, turtles, and mazes, I thought it might be fun to try a sea turtle on my own. They have flatter shells and more wing-like front feet so I thought it might actually be easier to make them.

Wrong!

I began the process by finding a good line drawing of a sea turtle online and tracing it right from my computer monitor. I then added a 1/4" seam allowance.

Prototype #1, made with muslin because I'm cheap:

His poor front feet didn't get nearly the wing shape I was going for, his head looks like a tail, his tail looks like a pimple, and the shell is puckered. My girls took the opportunity to take markers to it to make it look more festive.

So I modified the pattern to make prototype #2:

The front feet are what I want. I sewed them, turned, then added the extra lines of stitching to keep the feet flat. Then I stuffed (using a chop stick, which works very well). I added small lines of stitching to the back feet to keep those flat, too. I'm considering adding a circle of stitching to the shell to help with puckering and to keep that relatively flat, as well. Perspective in this picture make the head look nicer than it is, but it still needs some work. Crusty, I know I'm being self critical, so let me qualify all of this by saying I love how my sea turtles are evolving! The little girls love them and I can't wait to get my final pattern worked up so I can make this little guy radiantly colorful! I look at them and want to talk like the surfer turtle dudes in Finding Nemo!

Rice Cooker Lunch: chicken, brown rice, and spices

2012-01-12T10:10:00.000-06:00

1 tsp cajun seasoning
1 1/4 cup brown rice
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp chicken bouillon
4 chicken thighs
2 1/2 cups water (if you're at my altitude, add an extra cup of water)

Throw rice, spices, and water into the rice cooker. Top with chicken thighs. I also added about three shredded radishes that were starting to wilt. It's part of my "don't waste food!" campaign. I couldn't taste the radish at all but some sort of inner voice from my childhood whispered that it was at least adding nutrition and, more important right now, it's using up food that might otherwise get tossed.

Verdict: Chicken was nothing special. The rice was tasty. I served with sliced cucumber and tomato, splashing my veggies with a a bit of balsamic and ground pepper. Hot rice and cold tomatoes in the same bite were absolutely delish.

Also, why 1 1/4 cups of rice? Because that's what I had left in the bag. :D

Simple, filling, and nourishing. The side of veggies is very important with this meal. Steamed broccoli or a Normandy blend would work well, as would a shredded radish and sprout salad. I removed the skin since this was basically boiled.

Organization

2012-01-09T16:11:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking about organization. Why is it that I like to organize things but I'm so terrible at keeping them organized in my own home? I've come to realize that I'm very good at the sort of organization that goes away and leaves me alone, or organizing for storage. What I need to work on here in functional organization, or a system of order that helps us to live and thrive.

Ergh.

My baby

2012-01-09T11:31:00.000-06:00

My last baby. She just turned 4 and knows with an absolute certainty that she's cute, beautiful, and brilliant. I love it! She's into ponytails again, which I also love.

Ring out the old, ring in the new

2012-01-09T11:13:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year! A week late. I hope it was safe and that you are now well rested.

I'm at a huge crossroads in my life right now and it seems to be appropriate that it would happen right around the new year.

I've recently completed an online certificate course in medical coding. I now have the opportunity to work, or to do more schooling of the brick and mortar variety, continue and expand on my volunteer work, or focus almost exclusively on my family, home, and church.

There are many complicating factors for every choice I make, whether it's funds or finding quality child care for my youngest. Swapping hours with a husband who's rocketing toward grad school and working a part time job is no mean feat. His options regarding working hours are limited and his homework has to get done at some point.

Anyway, there are other things I'd like to do besides those of a professional nature.

1. I teach once a month for the women's group at church.
2. Assistant scout leader for Webelos.
3. I want to read the Bible from beginning to end, instead of just studying one book at a time.
4. Continue (albeit slowly) in the Young Women's Personal Progress program. My current project for that is making preemie packets that include wee hats, blankets, and a small stuffed animal.
5. Organize my home. It isn't a dismal hole or anything but it certainly has more chaos lurking in closets than I can appreciate. How can I streamline this place so that my kids don't find chores quite so overwhelming? Sure, they need to learn to muscle past difficult circumstances but they're kids, not contractors! And who really needs all this stuff?
6. Learn how to have less waste in every area of my life. Included in this is learning how to plan meals that are welcomed as leftovers or sides later in the week, how to keep the self agreeably occupied when "bored" (haha) or, to put it better, how to recharge my batteries in a more constructive way.
7. Continue my education. Whether or not I work or attend accredited school, I've decided to go through the CERT courses.
8. Continue to take care of myself by eating well and working toward my first 10k run.

Add to this the daily joy and necessity of loving on my husband and kids, putting out dozens of life's fires, maintaining treasured friendships, and making scriptures and prayer a priority in my life. Perhaps I'll work on the various short stories floating around my head. I still want to home can food for its wonderful frugality and flavor. Maybe this whole post would sound a lot less ambitious if I had waited to write it after the Prozac kicked in (anti-anxiety meds for the win!).

So! Since I'm a woman and getting my thoughts out in words, whether spoken or typed, helps me work through problem solving scenarios, I've decided to update the blog more often than I update my Facebook status. Also, it's time to get the dust off the camera and start posting my progress mostly for my own benefit. It's back to journaling online.

Ready to see my sewing projects and kids and cooking again??? Thanks for bearing with me. And, my wonderful Crusty Cupcake, thank you so much for faithfully commenting on my sporadic blog posts! Squishy hugs for you, fine woman!

Cottage cheese, bowties, and onions

2012-01-06T19:01:00.000-06:00

Yes, all of those go in the same recipe. Years ago, when I still lived in California, my friend M told me about a recipe that I just didn't understand at the time. What in the world could onions do for cottage cheese???

It turns out that there is more that one website with more than one recipe for this questionable cuisine.

Behold:

Ingredients

1 1lb. box of bow tie pasta
1 medium onion
1 stick butter
1 16oz. container of cottage cheese.
salt and pepper to taste

Chop onion and saute with half a stick of butter. Cook until tender on low heat, then increase heat to medium-high just until onion turns gold. When onion is done, turn off heat and add remaining butter.
Boil pasta according to manufacturers directions.
Mix onions, pasta and cottage cheese in large bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Now... I'll be trying this soon and let you know how it goes. Has anyone else ever heard of such a thing??

M, if you're reading this, big hug!!

Fajitas II, from the family cookbook

2011-12-13T11:17:00.002-06:00

Chicken Fajitas II

I’ve fiddled with my fajitas a bit (don’t give me that look, Echo!). It’s more complicated but still quite tasty.

Serves my family of 6

1 cup of rice, uncooked
salt, to taste
6 chicken thighs, boneless skinless
3 T. Grill Mates Sweet and Smoky rub with cinnamon and chipotle
1-2 T butter
1 large onion, rough chopped
2 large bell peppers, one each red and green, seeded and rough chopped
1 can of mushroom bits and pieces, very well drained
4-6 roasted roma tomato halves, chopped
condiments as desired, sour cream, cheese, salsa, lime juice, olives, fresh tomatoes, avocado, hot sauce
6-8 6” Tortillas (I like wheat)
More butter, salt, and (optional) fresh cilantro

Echo, don’t be intimidated by this wall of text. It’s a simple recipe, really; I’m just overly verbose. Start your rice. Salt the rice water until it tastes like ocean water. Use a rice cooker. I love those things. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add in the chicken thighs (frozen or thawed, doesn’t matter) and sprinkle the rub over the meat. Cover and cook until the bottoms are cooked. Flip the meat and schmear it around in the spices. Cover and cook until the other side is cooked. Remove to a cutting board and take pan off of heat. It doesn’t matter if it’s cooked through yet. Chop the meat into rough pieces and return to pan, and return pan to heat. If the meat is cooked through, add a splash of water and stir the meat into the caramelized spices. If it isn’t cooked through, it’ll sweat enough on its own to be fine. Either way, get all the tasty stuff off the bottom of the pan, make sure the chicken is cooked through, and put it into a bowl. Use your best judgement about how much oil is still in the pan. If it’s too dry, add the butter before adding the onion, peppers, and mushrooms. Cook until the onions are tender (yes, I prefer tender fajita veggies) and the mushrooms are turning color. Add in the roasted tomatoes and heat through. Remove to another bowl. Heat tortillas on a hot skillet or electric griddle. Toss your cooked rice with small chunks of butter, a pinch or two of salt, and the (optional) cilantro. My fav way to assemble mine is to forgo the tortilla. Small bed of rice, sprinkled with lime juice. Top with a small sprinkling of cheese, a scoop of veggies, a scoop of chicken, a sprinkling of lime juice, and a dab of sour cream. If I have avocados, it doesn’t matter where they are as long as they end up in my belly.

Pie in a jar, rusk, and potato pancakes

2011-12-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

I am getting rid of a bit of paper clutter, so I'm posting these recipes so I can recycle the paper they're on.

Pie-in-a-jar
From Sister Cox

Cherry Pie Filling
2 - 12 oz bags of frozen cherries
1/3-1/2 cup flour
1/2-3/4 cup sugar
1 T lemon juice
1/4 tsp vanilla (or almond extract)
pinch of salt

Mix together, folding dry ingredients into cherries until combined.

Pie crust
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz butter
2 cups flour
Mix together in an electric mixer until soft dough forms.

Pie in a jar:
Roll out dough to approximately 1/8th inch thick. Cut a 6" round of dough and gently press it into a 4oz canning jar. Fill jar with your choice of pie filling. Cut a small circle of dough to fit the top of the pie jar. Fold the bottom crust down over the top to form an edge. Bake at 425° for 20-25 mins.

Potato Pancakes

Apparently Mormon pioneers made this dish during their time in Nauvoo.

4 large potatoes
3 eggs, beaten until light
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Peel, wash, and grate the potatoes. Add the eggs and seasoning to potatoes. Use no baking powder or flour. Fry in hot drippings (ham, bacon, or sausage). Have pan very hot as for hotcakes.

Rusk

Make cornmeal bread according to your favorite recipe. After it has cooled, allow to dry fro several days then bake slowly in a warmed oven until it is thoroughly dry and slightly browned. Grate it on a coarse grater or crumble with a rolling pin. It can be eaten with cream and sugar, or with hot milk and honey poured over it. This makes a tasty, quick mush. (Recipe used the they Nahum Curtis family at Nauvoo.)

Twinkling stars

2011-12-05T21:13:00.000-06:00

Princess: Mom, what does twinkle mean?

Me: It's like light flashing off of something, little lights.

Pebbles: There's a song about twinkle!

Tag: Yeah, stars are other galaxies.

Me: Well, suns and stuff.

Princess: So what does tinkle mean, then?

Me: It means to pee.

Princess: Oooooh, so that's why people laugh at school when they say tinkle...

Tag: Tinkle, tinkle little star! [8 year old boy laugh]

Me: I don't know that stars tinkle. They're more of a gas thing. [crickets]

This was all discussed over our family home evening dessert. Yum!

Bibles and freezing

2011-12-05T16:11:00.000-06:00

Today, I picked the kids up with wet hair. It was 13° outside. Yeah, I felt like the White Witch or that guy in Cool Runnings who breaks off a dread after sitting in a freezer.

Last night we were reading in the New Testament, Matthew. We got to the part where Jesus healed a leper.

Princess: That doesn't make sense at all. Aren't lepers like cheetahs? Why would it need be healed?

Man: You're thinking about leopards. L-E-O-P-A-R-D.

Go Fish

2011-12-01T19:06:00.000-06:00

Playing Go Fish with Freida and a deck of face cards.

Me: Ok, you have four cards in your hand. Look at them, and ask if I have one like it.

Freida: Do you have one?

Me: No, see how this card has a four on it? Say, "do you have a four?"

Freida: [measured and careful] Look, I have a four.

Me: Nonono, say "do you have a four?"

Freida: I don't want a four.

Me: Ok, what do you want to have?

Freida: A sandwich.

Me: Do you want to play the game?

Freida: Yeah, I wanna go fish.

Me: Ok, go fish. Now, do you have a two?

Freida: Hmmmmm... [pursing her lips and pushing them sideways] No, but can I find one in the fish?

Me: No, you say "go fish."

Freida: Go fish!

Me: Look at your cards. You need two cards to make a match.

Freida: Look! I have two black ones!

Me: No, no they need to have the same number or letter.

Freida: Here's a six and a six! [holds up a six and a nine]

Me: [crickets] Maybe we should do this with fish cards instead.

Family cookbook online

2011-11-14T17:17:00.000-06:00

I've tried to assemble recipes throughout my adult life with only moderate success. The recipes I yearn for as my children grow are the ones I remember from that time of my life. My mouth waters remembering Grandma's poppy seed bread (though I confess that I lived for the sweet glaze on top), Dad's potato salad (no recipe, it's one of those dishes you just *feel* as you make it), Grandpa's ravishing burgers and brats with his garden tomatoes, Uncle Jim's beans (once again, a recipe written in his bones that doesn't translate onto paper), my Mom's homemade chicken soup served with a thick, buttered slice of homemade, half-wheat bread, and Aunt Cindy's almost miraculous Christmas dinners.

Everyone has a flavor or scent that takes them back to simpler times, when the cost of butter wasn't quite so troublesome and we didn't know nor care about genetic modification or any hormones but our own.

I've made all kinds of recipe cards and binders with printed sheets that still manage to get splashed and covered in cocoa powder despite living inside plastic protectors. I've made Word documents that always get lost in the great shuffle that occurs when computers die and we load backups onto the new model. Now, I think I may have a solution that works for many members of my family.

Google Docs is a program that you don't have to use Gmail to enjoy. I made a document which sports the misnomer "Christmas Cookbook", because that's what it was going to be at its inception. What it has become over the past several weeks is nothing short of a marvel.

I began by throwing a bunch of recipe titles into the document, hoping someone would fill in the blanks. Invitations to my family of origin, uncles and aunts, and grandparents were sent and there was a flurry of additions as people dug out their recipe boxes. I expected that. What I didn't anticipate but kind of hoped for were the stories and conversations that went with the recipes. Food has long been a language of love for us, especially when it comes to sugar. Working in a kitchen with those whom I love nourishes me in body and soul. What could the holidays possibly have been without helping Grandma peel potatoes or put salad in her wood bowls? At such times I even started to like doing dishes with the kitchen sound system suspending songs of the holiday above conversation and laughter like flocked mistletoe.

I love the organic nature of this digital document. We can all add notes to the margins, as it were, and post several variations of a core delight depending on the diet du jour or a mere flight of fancy. We post tips on cooking techniques and explain exotic ingredients.

Most of all, despite the barriers of continents and decades, we can still enjoy having each other in the kitchen.

School!

2011-08-16T10:38:00.000-06:00

Princess is in 4th grade. Her teacher is quite nice and young, as opposed to her 3rd grade teacher who was older and, though a good person, tended to be severe. She's thinking of joining the extracurricular choir since I've decided that having them both in a sport as well as school as well as their church activities would put me under very quickly. Her class didn't seem exceedingly full as I escorted her to the outdoor access to the room where she will now spend the majority of her waking hours. Her body language was defensive and miserable, but not as bad as I expected it might be on the first day of school in what still feels like a new town. She looked so much older than her peers, towering at 5'3", carrying a purse with her glasses in it, and already turning into a physiological teen.

Tag bounced right into his classroom with nary a backward glance for his old mum. His teacher is also young and seemed to have an easy-going attitude that I think will make all the difference for him this year. His last teacher's level of oppression increased in direct proportion to his level of difficulty in class, and the converse was true as well. It was a nasty spiral. I'm really hoping that this teacher will give Tag enough breathing room to feel like working is his own choice, without allowing him to let his work get lazy. It's a tough balance and I know I'll be conferencing with her on this one several times over the next year.

Pebbles has her Dibles (sp?) test this morning. She was to identify the letters of the alphabet (cake) and identify the letters that make the sound with which some simple words begin. We find out tomorrow who her teacher will be and then she starts full day kindergarten on Thursday. She's so very excited about school, but the thing about which she's most thrilled is the idea of eating lunch at school like her older siblings. I'm trying not to dampen her enthusiasm for the activity which caused me the greatest discomfort in school at any grade level. Whatever.

Frieda is already soaking it up. She has the tv all to herself, her pick of lunch options, and either mom or dad at all times since we're working to stagger our different obligations. Life is tough, being the youngest.

My school is starting off a bit rough. My books are all online but the access codes are invalid. The technical difficulties are fairly easy fixes, though, and I fully expect to be able to dive in in the next few days. My volunteer hours with the Angle Food Ministry, Bountiful Baskets food co-op, cub scouts and teaching at church all keep me fairly busy. I've been preserving boxes of peaches and cherries over the past month or so, polishing up a food storage plan, and trying not to freak out too much that Man has decided to go to graduate school rather than earnestly hunt for a job. My successes have outweighed my failures, even though those failures have been slightly spectacular at times. I've made a few friends out here, including a couple of walking partners. We average between 3.5 and 4.5 miles a day. I've also made friends with a young, aspiring author in need of a pool of beta readers for a series that will begin publishing soon. There's a quilting group at church that meets every Wednesday that makes a huge stack of blankets to give to shelters around the holidays, a playgroup that meets on Tuesdays, a group that travels up to the big city to work in the wet pack cannery once a month (have you ever three 100 gallon pots of tomato soup all in a row before? Neither had I!) and temple trips about once a month. Am I busy? You bet your sweet Aunt Sally!

Man starts school next week. His degree program is Masters of Innovation: Game Design and Development. The program is engineered to teach people how to make games and build business that make games. He hopes to be an entrepreneur in the gaming industry. Honestly, I really hope it works out. He has already invested a lot of time and effort into learning how each aspect of game development works, teaching himself how to use various software programs and beginning his learning in several programming languages.

I'm still low carbing it but took a day off yesterday to celebrate a great new bread recipe and our latest bunch of peaches that "need to be used." Today I get back to it with a breakfast of chicken breast and asparagus.

And maybe I'll sneak in a nap.

South Beach: Back to Phase 1, and general update

2011-07-28T19:59:00.000-06:00

So, I'm back to phase one of the south beach. I've even put a little back on over the past few weeks and I'm disappointed. Again.

I have a new walking partner until she gets a job, and I'll be making another doctor's appointment after the kids get back into school. It just seems to be utterly ridiculous that the addition of just one or two servings of carbs should halt or negate my weight loss. The book says to work your way up to five or six servings as long as it's reasonable veggies, whole grain breads, and all refined flours and sugars are avoided.

I just don't know what to do anymore. One of these days I'll scrape together my pennies and buy some sort of exercise machine off of Craig'slist, but my big hangup there is how to transport and then get it into my home when my partner is gimpy. If I were feeling optimistic, I'd just call around and see if a youth in the ward wouldn't mind earning a stack of cookies for helping me out.

School is going well. I finished my first class in half the time allotted. My next class starts in mid-August. It's been nice to take a break. My home is now back in order. I just need to find a good storage solution for my food storage which now overflows the craft room and Raul. We've been putting what money we can into mid- to long term food storage against the coming months. Man's school starts soon, along with a student job (IT support) that he landed earlier this week. We're just going to take it one month at a time and hope that my certificate can land me a decent job. If not, it's back to school , most likely at Pueblo Community College which is 40 mins away. There's nothing local that has got medical degrees, and Pueblo has an embarrassment of them and a surprisingly large campus for a community college.

Areas of study, (note that they offer seven of the degrees I've considered over the past few years) and a pic of the campus.

Man has kept himself busy by teaching himself some of the basics of game creation. He's keeping a bit of a record over here. Since his short job search didn't go well and ended with his decision to return to school, he's been scouring the internet for resources on learning how to code, develop graphics, and generally put together a fairly ambitious game. He's going to use it as his master's project and hopes to sell it later on. I have to admit that it looks like a fun game and I hope it works out for him.

No kids in public

2011-07-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

Link to an article about banning kids from some public places.

I can understand not wanting disruptive behavior from children in certain venues. Heck, it raises the hair on the back of my neck to hear a kid who just won't quit when all I want to do is shop (code in my house for getting out because my ears are tired of bored/tired/hungry/miserable kids). My kids have been guilty of vociferous transgression in public. In fact, I've waited in line for 15 mins at a Walmart and still been two people back from the register when they've started to whine or cry. I've waited it out, letting the kid cry because my cupboards at home were bare and I couldn't afford to just leave the cart and order a pizza.

But why begin a culture that is exclusive of children? Families with kids go out to eat fairly often, and kid portions are restaurants are dismal. I'm sure that the $3.50 we paid for our daughter's grilled cheese and small pile of French fries yesterday was about seven times the amount of money the restaurant paid for those ingredients. On the other hand, an adult who orders a full spread is obviously putting more money into restaurant pockets than my tots are. Perhaps these venues are trying to keep the most profitable customers happy.

On the other hand, there is nowhere an airplane passenger can go to escape a child who doesn't understand how to relieve pressure in their ears. A DINK (dual income, no kids) can simply go to a fancier restaurant to avoid brats. If you go to Chick-fil-a, there will be children. But do they have the right to banish children from a portion of an aircraft when they themselves can simply apply a pair of cheap ear plugs or noise cancelling earbuds and achieve quick peace?

I don't know of many parents who can afford first class plane tickets in the first place. And I can understand how some restaurants simply aren't appropriate for the little ones, specifically black tie or sports bars. On the other hand, why Whole Foods?? Why on earth would I continue to shop at a store where I must memorize and respect exclusive rules when my life is already laden with obligations? I have a hard enough time remembering that Costco closes early on Saturday nights (shame on them, as a Costco trip happens to make a fine date for us old parents) without keeping a whole list of store hours that I might reasonably observe on my person at all times lest I embarrass myself by entering, with a child, during the wrong business hours.

My least favorite comment on the article is as follows:

If you dont know how to raise a child then don't have them.

Ha! As if anyone on this planet has any idea on how to raise a child from scratch before actually having one and raising it. The only people who seem to do well with this from the get go either have degrees in child development or a passel of younger siblings they were forced to raise. I can understand that those who don't know how to drive a car shouldn't own one, but what about houses? In owning one, you sort of learn as you go and mistakes will be made. There aren't classes on how to maintain a home, are there? If so, I want to take one as soon as possible. But even classes on child rearing can't possibly prepare you for the day Little Johnny learns that screaming in public makes mommy crazy, and the fact that it takes a lot (a LOT) of training to get some of them to behave.

I dunno. I writing this in a sort of fatigued haze. I know I feel outrage, especially because kids are the future of our species and treating them like an inconvenience is kind of churlish. But, on the other hand, I hate it when I have to listen to kids scream.

What do you think?

Tamale pie

2011-07-20T15:30:00.000-06:00

A new recipe over on the recipe blog:

Linky.

I'm doing the "I'd rather not cook tonight but I'm too cheap to order out so what's fast and easy and bland enough that the kids won't whine about it oh I think I've found something" dance.

LOTR -- again

2011-07-19T19:08:00.000-06:00

A new installment in the LOTR saga, The Quest To Sort This Tripe Out.

When we last left our heroes, I was begging for a refund for a mis-sent box of LOTR so I could order one for the right address. The idea was that the people at the old address would refuse the order, it would get sent back and reshelved, and all would be right in the world.

I got my refund and then used that money to order a new LOTR. As far as I knew, all was as it should be.

Then my original order came in the mail today. I was surprised, to say the least. It managed to get itself forwarded at no cost to myself (a surprise since a different package that has toiled the same dark path was forwarded to me to the tune of $10).

So, I wrote to Amazon again, asking if I might mail them the wayward LOTR so I wouldn't be cheating them out of $XX.XX, especially since they had been so kind to me through customer care in the past (and, well, I try to be honest in all my dealings).

Then I got this email this afternoon:

Hello,

I'm sorry for any inconvenience caused.

I've requested a refund of $XX.XX for the full amount of this shipment, including shipping, if any. You'll see the refund to your MasterCard in the next 2-3 business days.

You can check on your refund by viewing the order in Your Account here: (linky in the email)

From your e-mail message, I understand that you've received the Lotrbree [which was my frenetic abbreviation, which the poor, non-English speaking CSR didn't bother to correctly capitalize] package that we already issued a refund. However, no need to concern as a goodwill gesture, there is no need to return the item you received.

Thanks again for your feedback.

AAAACK!!!! So, they've successfully issued a refund for the second purchase, meaning I now have two copies of Lord of the Rings Blu-ray Extended Edition (LOTRBrEE, pronounced Loe-tar-bree) and I've functionally gotten them both for free. I think. They wrote to let me know that the refund was successfully processed, but nothing has cleared my bank account yet.

What do you think??? Should I chase this even more to make it all right, or just enjoy some Amazon good will? I'm so confused.

South Beach, Month 1

2011-07-07T10:02:00.000-06:00

Well, still only down 13 pounds. It seems that as soon as I added any carbs at all that my weight loss completely stalled. After the first two weeks, you're supposed to add in one serving of carbs (of course as unrefined as possible, and you may be astonished at how small real servings are) which I did. Now, I will admit that I had a piece of Dave's birthday cake, but other than that I've been pretty good. The rice I've been eating is a brown/wild blend mixed with half quinoa, and I only eat it once or twice a week. Other than that, I've had meatballs made with 9 grain breadcrumbs (a mere fraction of the meatball, and yet it must be considered) and some barbecue sauce here and there (which I know has sugar, but in most cases it was the only carb I ate all day), but it's still pretty disappointing to so completely plateau despite the fact that pasta, ice cream, and white rice and I havn't been on speaking terms for a month.

My next step is to exercise more while still allowing myself one serving of carbs a day. The only problem is that I'm limited to things in the home while the kids are still home for the summer, or to go biking before Man goes to work. My track record of waking up when I don't really have to is kind of dismal. (sigh)

On the other hand, every single unit in my online class discusses a single organ system, and each organ system has discussed the impact diabetes has on it in bold detail. My most recent unit was on the sensory aspects of organ systems, and diabetic retinopathy was particularly poignant. So, if that doesn't get me biking I don't know what will.

But off I go to the cannery to pick up a home canning unit. I'm stashing things that the cannery doesn't offer, like basmati rice, quinoa, anasazi beans, sugar that's actually much cheaper by the pound, and egg noodles. My 90 food supply menus need a massive overhaul due to my new (and most despised) dietary concerns, so I can't put too much away until that gets done.

Overall, I'm most frustrated with this body and its strong tendency toward diabetic traits. I'm angry that I can work so hard for such slight results. I'm tempted to go to my doctor and demand metformin to at least get me to a normal weight range, which is still 50 heavy pounds away. I'm tempted to once again use Alli but the speed at which I regained all of the weight lost in that manner was a very bitter experience.

So, this week, biking and maybe a nod to Jillian Michaels and her 30 Day Shred.

my first grey hair

2011-07-01T22:10:00.000-06:00

Well, the first one I know of. It came as a bit of a shock, and with good timing: next week is my 29th birthday. I hope silver hair makes me look distinguished.

What did I do with my first grey hair? Yanked it, of course. Given how stressful this past decade has been I'm actually surprised not to see one sooner. Ignore how dusty my desk looks. I just didn't know how to take a picture of a single hair in dim conditions.

Amazon, oh Amazon

2011-06-28T19:40:00.000-06:00

Written to Amazon a few minutes ago:

To properly illustrate my suggestion, allow me to tell you a story.

My husband is a Soldier, so we move a lot. In fact, we've moved as a married couple nine times in the past ten years. As our family needs have evolved we've found it increasingly difficult to update our address with every entity with whom we do business. Imagine my chagrin the first time I had an Amazon order, my most treasured Teeccino coffee substitute, fall into the possession of the hapless folks who took up residence in our wake in Fort Meade, Maryland. I changed the billing address but neglected to change the delivery address for my subscription order. That was my mistake. I changed the delivery address for my subscription order after clearing up the mistake and was confident that changing that address had solved my delivery problems.

I then made an order for canvases and an anatomy book, which were also sent to Ft Meade because I had a little too much faith, or perhaps complacency that changing my subscription address had also changed my default shipping address. Alas, this was not so and of course it was my oversight. Your ordering process is so quick and easy that I didn't take the time to carefully peruse my order information. Shame on you. (Yes, I'm playing coy on that one.)

Now, in the latest installment of items sent to Ft Meade by mistake, I find that my most anticipated order of The Lord Of the Rings Extended Edition Blu-ray (with bonus scenes! and interviews! and Weta documentaries!) is sauntering into the arms of an unknown recipient like a filthy harlot. I had forgotten that something which I pre-ordered might have an old address on it, even after deleting every other address in my Amazon address book as a precaution against such an occurrence.

Dear, wonderful Amazon and the poor CSR who must read my wistful missive, I have a suggestion for you. When someone changes their billing address, please ask if they would also like to change their shipping addresses on various orders at that same time in a popup box, perhaps one that flashes pink and is bordered by animated pythons sipping the tears of a thousand customers whose orders went awry. I understand that many customers ship to many different addresses at the same time, but I find it overtly complicated to have to go in and manually change the shipping address on every single service which you have to offer. Call me flaky (which I know you won't, but you're thinking it by now, I'm sure) but I simply forgot to manage all of my orders in an appropriate manner in the midst of disconnecting, reconnecting, and updating everything from my bank to my cell phones to my doctors to my relatives and ad infinitum.

My adored Amazon, I appreciate your tolerance concerning this terrible tangle. I can only imagine the consternation of the people who live in that old house, wondering why the schizophrenic previous tenants insist that they live where they do not, not to mention why they order such disparate and geeky items.

Now, for hopefully the final time, I would like to request a refund for the movie, if possible, so I can order it again and have to sent to its rightful home. I solemnly promise to look over my shipping and billing addresses three times before every order, throw computer hamsters over my shoulder before confirming the order, and thank the great User every time an order arrives in a safe and timely manner.

Thank you.

(note: every item that was sent to the wrong place has been shipped back to Amazon. My refunds are for returned merchandise)

add in me?

2011-06-28T13:13:00.002-06:00

heh. Unofficial, but it would explain a lot.

Week 2

2011-06-15T10:58:00.002-06:00

Week 2: total weight loss, 10 pounds. So, we had a bit of a slow down, but that's ok! I check earlier data in the Wii Fit and it said that in March I was 20 pounds heavier than I am now. Groovy.

dare I brag? dare I boast?

2011-06-08T22:52:00.000-06:00

There are 15 sections plus a final exam for my first course, medical terminology. I just finished the second section in as many days. The whole course is due by August 29th. I wonder if they'll let me take the final early.

Hey, not a bad way to end my tenth wedding anniversary. ;)

how do you say integumentary?

2011-06-08T12:29:00.000-06:00

Homeschooling taught me a number of things, one of which is the following nugget from which I may never recover:

reading only rarely teaches you how to actually speak.

But, then, neither do sound recordings.

My book says: in-TEG-you-MENT-ah-ree

The guy who does the pronunciation recordings says" in-TEG-you-men-terry

Who do I believe? I just don't know. I guess I'll have to ask a doctor from the Midwest and then just go with it.

week 1

2011-06-08T07:20:00.002-06:00

6.6 pounds, according to my Wii fit.

Meh, I'll take it.

South Beach

2011-06-04T09:40:00.000-06:00

I'm not feeling too deprived, even after three days. And, dare I say... the Wii Fit says I'm down four pounds already since June 1st.

Man found the biggest artichokes I've ever seen last night, for 80 cents apiece. Tonight, we feast to the tune of (modest amounts of) butter, garlic, and the barest pinch of thyme. Maybe I'll broil them by halves and then roast some parm on them as well. Who says that dieting has to be torture?

Jobs and school and getting by

2011-06-02T10:22:00.000-06:00

Things are crazy busy. And yet I managed to find enough time this morning to poke around my Cityville game. It's suitably brainless and if I walk away the only bad thing that happens is crop whither. Ah, Cityville, you forgive me always.

Man is looking at training through a program called LeaderQuest. The VA will pay for the training. He's been to at least three job fairs in the last month and hasn't gotten a single phone call despite the federal resume building classes. He's gone through vocational rehabilitation to try to find a job and nary a nibble. So, when he starts this training we'll be working with his disability check, a stipend from voc-rehab and unemployment benefits. All three of those should get us by, as long as we're pretty careful. The end result of these training courses will be all of the certs he needs to get a job in computers... or, at least that's what they're telling us. Regardless, I have 6-10 months to get my certification with some fairly good job potential. His training is supposed to take about four months, so he'll have two months to look for a job before I start looking. I'm trying not to feel depressed about the whole situation.

Tag is now in scouts, so we're working on that stuff and his Faith in God program. Princess also has Faith in God, but the requirements for both of them are the same. I've got it figured that we can do all of the Faith in God stuff this summer pretty easily, and then we can knock out his whole Bobcat, a good chunk of his Wolf, and at least one arrow of light before Tag heads back to school. In the fall Princess wants to do volleyball and Tag wants to do soccer. He had so much fun with basketball that he may do that after soccer season as well. Between Man's new callings (assistant scout master + young men's second counselor) and mine (assistant Webelos leader), Tag's scouts, Princess' activity girls, and the potential for each of them to have a sport complete with Saturday games, and my school starting next week, I'm feeling a little queasy.

Pebbles is learning to read one baby step at a time. Freida inexplicably has the whole alphabet memorized and can recognize most letters even upside down. We honestly have no idea how that happened or whether it will lend itself to reading.

Oh, and I've started the South Beach Phase 1 yesterday. Day one wasn't too bad. I was feeling a little under-sugared and headachey by dinner, but made it through. I've heard it's the third day that knocks you on your butt, really. I was doing weight watchers before the move but I became somewhat disenchanted with the idea of continuously digitally inputting my food choices for the rest of my natural life, and weekly meetings are right out. So, South Beach it is. I've given up on trying to get Man to quit bringing ice cream and related stuff into the house since it's such a big part of his coping system. As long as I've got broccoli and mushrooms to munch on, I don't feel deprived. Yet.

But I can't really argue with caramelized onions and mushrooms in scrambled eggs for breakfast. It feels like a treat. Yesterday was onions and bell peppers in the eggs, with a big salad with broiled chicken for lunch. Dinner was more chicken with mushrooms, onions, and bean sprouts. I figured I needed to get the first week over with before school started and life really took a turn for the busy.

Who knows? I tried moderate carb last summer and lost 20 pounds... but only with the use of Alli, a fat blocker. So the weight came right back when I quit taking the pills despite continued moderate carb intake. A wee spot of Googling has informed me that insulin resistance, as diagnosed by my dietician, is also known as metabolic syndrome, Syndrome X, or pre-diabetes. Yeah. No strokes or heart attacks for this girl.

Now I need to start putting food storage by that has whole wheat products instead of the normal white. Which is more $$$ but then, strokes and bypass surgery can be pricey as well. And apnea is already expensive, not to mention Lane Bryant clothing and my back hurts. So, that's enough of that.

a woman's worth

2011-05-31T12:48:00.000-06:00

I was watching a documentary on a woman's image in advertizing, called Killing Me Softly.

Tag came over and enthusiastically exclaimed that "women are not all about beauty! Beauty isn't everything."

At this point I said "that's right!" and I was reaching out to hug him with feminist joy when he continued:

"Like Sonic says, it's all about speed!"

I laughed so hard at this point, even as he concluded:

"It's not about beauty or speed, it's about fun!"

Ah, my son. My eight year old son. How simple life was back then.

pics of chicken soup in a jar

2011-05-27T12:02:00.001-06:00

Well, just one pic.

chicken soup in a jar

2011-05-24T22:15:00.002-06:00

Link to my first dinner in a jar.

Which wasn't in a jar. I was just trying it out before I committed any jars to it.

The price of cooking from scratch

2011-05-24T13:04:00.000-06:00

Going out to eat is expensive, and that's all there is to it. We never go out expecting to save money over cooking at home, so that's not what this is about.

When cooking at home, there are different levels of economy to which one may aspire, with of course a cost/benefit analysis that one must consider when purchasing quality ingredients. How much is organic worth? How much does it really save me to buy dry beans when I have to spend many hours of energy and water preparing them, as opposed to cans of beans that cost more but are both still quite cheap and much easier to cook with?

When it comes down to it, the difference between a can of organic beans vs a sack of dried beans is quite huge, but I find myself wedged in a world of penny pinching.

I just bought this book:

Dinner is in the jar.

It's a great little book and I find myself interested in a good percentage of the recipes. I sat and did some math and found that one of the meals, I believe it was chili, would cost a little over $12 to assemble the whole jar of food (dried mushrooms, dried bell peppers, tvp, etc). The jar makes roughly 15 cups of food, a quantity that would feed my family twice with one or two lunches left over. I found myself crunching numbers of fresh vs frozen vs dehydrated vs freeze dried peppers and cans of dried mushrooms vs those little cans of stewed mushrooms and I realized that I'm taking this whole thing way too seriously.

It's food storage! Does it have to give me maximum food savings in order to be worth the time and effort? Does it have to yield absolute efficiency with zero waste in the form of long-term yummy insurance in order to give me some peace of mind?

So, with the exception of a couple of rewrites (like tiny cans of tomato paste instead of tomato powder, because, what the heck?? tomato powder??) I'm going for it.

After Tag gets baptized this Saturday. :D

pictures

2011-05-17T22:41:00.000-06:00

Warning, if you click on any of these, they're huge unless you have a browser which automatically sizes the pic. Man's nephew, Paul, took these pics today. I'll link his website once he tweaks it a bit.

Faceblogging

2011-05-11T11:27:00.000-06:00

I realized some time in the past few months that the reason I don't blog as much is that those bitty bites that get posted on Facebook somehow scratch my sharing itch.

So, I'll start to cross post for those friends and family to elect not to participate in such websites.

Bluegrass and thunderstorms, a crockpot already making delicious promises, and we're down to under a dozen boxes with which to deal. I'm soaking up a peaceful moment.

Alison Krauss soothes my soul.

Embroidered egg shells

2011-05-10T23:48:00.000-06:00

This is from Facebook a while back. Names have been obscured to protect the guilty.

Embroidery on egg shells

by Annie H on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 12:26pm

Flippin' embroidery on egg shells. Why does this outrage me so much? Next we'll be discussing how we can gild spider webs for that understated elegance that makes attics warm and inviting.

Here's a conversation my friend Brian and I had about these eggs.

**A: I almost had a stroke when I saw this project. Poor Man had to listen to me holler "never never never!" a couple of times in response to this utterly ridiculous project.

**B - Why "never never never"?

**A - Really? Sewing on an eggshell? Shoot me now. Maybe I havn't been very public about my recent wrastlings [sic] with the fiber arts.
Just... just shoot me before I ever attempt this project.

**B - I don't know... In school they had us do threading projects like this all the time. Granted, it wasn't on egg shells, but I'm failing to see how egg shells turns a rather ordinary craft into something that is worse than death. Maybe I was born from an egg... ???

**A - Working with eggshells is extremely difficult. They are sturdy little guys, sure, but playing with rough edges on an egg shell is just asking for disaster. Pulling a thread tight on a hole is a crack waiting to happen. And after you spend hours making these things cute, what do you do with them? Take pictures for the interwebs and try not to cry when your kids "just wanna see" and they end up in a pile of shards and floss and broken dreams of cute mommy blogs where everything glows in immortal, pixelated glory.

Maybe I've been traumatized by my dogged persistence in trying to make some crafts work out despite the reality that delicate materials tend to perish in my man hands. Maybe I have white, housewife guilt because I'm capable neither of decorating my home nor of making elegant handicrafts. Perhaps I just tremble with my compulsive desire to approximate my smaller scale, more refined sisters and their single frame successes. Maybe this project represents the hours and money I've poured into attempting to make similarly inane pieces of homey expression as effigies of domestic felicity, because my efforts to create that same felicity in relationships has been such a monumental struggle.

And now you've done it, Brian. You've tapped into my reservoir of shame, shaped and filled to overflowing by hopeless Christian aspirations toward perfection, my racial achievement culture including the hyper-hip and coastal power earners, and the need to deserve my place in this country despite obesity, pimples, my uncanny ability to have sweaty palms even in the dead of winter, and the fact that I've never had an Asian boyfriend. So, for that, THANKS.

(Actually, this has been an interesting foray into some creative writing. Thanks for that, man.)

**B - Oh. I just thought maybe you had a thing where eggs grossed you out.

The lady in the blog DID say that not even a single crack formed while drilling the little holes. Maybe she just had more Asian boyfriends than you.

**A - I almost blew half chewed apple out my nose. I am so fake-outraged that you would throw that in my face.

(My note: after reading this exchange, Man said that I should write more for the masses that are normal, like me, rather than pretend perfect, like the Stepford blogging mommies who would freaking embroider egg shells. From him, that's a huge compliment.)

cart stalking

2011-05-10T23:44:00.000-06:00

I admit it:

I just spent about 15 minutes going through the coupon clippers website, carefully selecting coupons for my desired products and in carefully considered quantities. Then closed the tab and walked away.

Then I spent about 30 minutes putting together outfits from the Coldwater Creek outlet website. One was a nice skirt/sweater combo in blue, another in purple. And a fabulously beautiful tshirt in gorgeous greens. Then I closed the tab and walked away.

My Amazon wishlist is getting a little out of hand, but only because I actually have an account there and closing the tab doesn't erase my cart.

Don't even get me started on the thousands of dollars worth of dreams I've shuffled in and out of my Webstraurant cart.

It's funny how idle dreams don't always spur me to acquisition.

What sorts of sites do you cart stalk?

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T23:41:00.000-06:00

To this day and forever, the greatest moment I can recall in my relationship with my mother is when I called her, on this holiday ten years ago, to let her know that I was carrying an illegitimate child. Her response is something I cherish:

I will always love you.

Mom, you're the best.

Man invited me to select a new set of silverware as a gift for mother's day. It has been some years since we bought our current set and the teaspoons and salad forks have undergone a mysterious attrition. I happily ordered a set which I had studied in minute detail over the past several weeks. And a whisk.

Today we visited the home of one of Man's sisters, where we enjoyed delicious grilled salmon and shortcake topped with fresh whipped cream and macerated strawberry/mango/rhubarb. Afterward, my sister in law, niece and I happily polished, sorted, and admired sea glass from Cuba while all of our wee children played outside on a warm, slightly breezy evening.

Of course mothers were extensively praised and thanked in every church meeting we attended today, and we were showered with chocolate and angel food cake topped with strawberries and cream.

All in all, I feel celebrated.

I met the visiting teacher (church thing, where women visit each other to foster friendship and make sure everyone is getting the love and help they need) of the lady who owns the home which we are renting. She fervently extolled the virtues of the dear sister who occupied this house before me, praising the tidiness with which she kept her home. Dude. No pressure.

But hey, I'm celebrated.

A rant, copied from Facebook

2011-05-02T10:55:00.002-06:00

Just shush. No, really, SHOOSH!!

by Annie H on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 10:53am

Oh, the conspiracy theories, assumptions, and stick up your butt suspicions about politicians of every stripe and creed! Don't you realize that for every point of conspiracy you fabricate you only add to the number of lies in the universe? You think you are so wise that you can see through a media portrayal of a situation for which you have no special intelligence beyond your own pride. Internet! Really! I don't care if you think that they sliced Bin Laden from neck to navel and found a mini Jimmy Hoffa quietly constructing a dirty nuke out of unobtanium! You're not helping by making more lies.

The only reason you're puking these abominations is to make yourself sound savvy, jaded, and just slightly more in the know than any other American who has access to exactly the same information you do. You think you've merely had a brilliant epiphany, made the rare connection, and totally Da Vinci Coded the American Government. You don't even understand the American government, let alone the motives and imminent reactions of a culture which you've never bothered to study!

Let me tell you something that your parents may have tried to pound into your skull while you were still an adolescent: no one cares about your opinions nearly as much as you do, especially when they are based on noxious vapor. The only people who will agree with you without question are called toadies, and for good reason. They want to ride the coattails of what they perceive as great wisdom and insight, and they want to be hip enough to say later "I told you so" to pathetic unbelievers who might have been among the elite who knew, if only they had listened to your tripe in the first place. They make heuristic analyses where you are the main source of information and you use their sycophantic fawning as confirmation that you are a flippin' Nostradamus.

Well, congratulations. You feel so good about yourself, spouting off your assumptions in a public forum where arguments are safe as long as you use enough CAPS and buzz words from obscure political ideologies to make the rude dissenters finally walk away in disgust. Bravo.

Now, shut up. Really.

We've arrived

2011-04-30T03:31:00.000-06:00

The house is marvelous. It's in the upper end of our price range, but well worth it. The owners are obviously conscientious with smart improvements all over the place. The wood floors on the main level appear to be that self install stuff from Costco, most of the main rooms have a personal touch to the paint (in most cases most definitely not what I would have chosen, but it shows a deep care in the property nonetheless since specific texturing techniques were applied), among a number of other little tweaks here and there. A shed outside contains many cans of touch up paint and property maintenance supplies. Half barrels and carefully trimmed rose bushes outside, and the lingering scent of candles in one kitchen cupboard give mute evidence that aesthetics mattered here.

So we've littered the place with boxes, both filled with our belongings and recently emptied of pizza. We toiled all yesterday afternoon and today to begin fitting our home into this house, wondering over and over again why we have so much stuff. My shoulder began to ache again, as is its wont when I am experiencing great stress. It sometimes renders my arm numb if left to its own devices. I'm awake now having attempted to sleep with that ache unchallenged, waiting with blogging and Cityville (a game in facebook) for ibuprofen to make it possible to sleep. Princess came to see me earlier this evening and I mentioned my shoulder pain to her. Her face looked tragic and she exclaimed "not you, too!"

Moving losses so far: one electric griddle which snapped under the weight of a toaster oven and various other kitchen-type things. One candy thermometer, un-used. :( Some damage to my beloved stand mixer. And one box that has simply vanished from the Earth. More losses to come, surely, as these packers have been our worst by far. Nice guys, with great customer service as far as smiles and howdy-do's go, but wretched organization which labeled two rooms' worth of items as "girls' room", "den" became the room where all boxes and furniture went to live when Man's back was turned or someone hadn't bothered to check one of the room label boxes printed right on the side of the flippin' box (my poor craft room,which I'm overwhelmingly lucky to have, is bursting at the seams), and several "last minute boxes" have an assortment of items each worthy of a hoarders favorite junk drawer based on their eclectic nature alone since the first wave of packers couldn't be bothered to finish the job despite knocking off for the day quite early and leaving all of the rest of the packing to the loaders, who couldn't be bothered to bring any "just in case" boxes.

Ok, Annie, take a breath.

I've got some ideas on how to make my kitchen fit into this kitchen, utilizing some free standing plastic drawers and one of the shelves that won't fit into the den, but this place is seriously lacking in drawers. Three small and two medium mean that most of my utensils are homeless and laid bare on the counter, waiting for my decree to see them safely nestled in a resting place where Man, the official dish put-awayer, will never remember to put them until shortly before we move again. I intend to label my free standing organizing solutions to within an inch of their lives.

Mostly I miss having a pantry option right off of my kitchen. We had converted a linen closet into a pantry in the last house, and now we'll have to make do with one corner pocket lazy Susan (which seems to be a ubiquitous feature in these Colorado homes. I think there was one in every home through which we walked) and one cabinet. Other than that, we have Raul in the craft room (which is where my shiny boyfriend belongs, thankyouveddymuch), shelves we've squeezed into the laundry room, and the half of a garage where we'd eventually like to put a second car. It looks like bed risers are our food storage option du jour, which we won't really be gathering in earnest until we actually buy a house anyways, so it's not a huge loss.

Snow has been scheduled for my beautiful city for the next two days.

And now my motrin seems to be working. I'm going to top it off with some tylenol and see what sort of sleep I can get tonight. Tag wants to go up and down the street meeting the neighbors tomorrow and it wouldn't do to look like an ill hag for that first impression.

House hunting

2011-04-21T22:12:00.000-06:00

Where to begin.

The housing inspection went pretty well, except they charged us $500 for one room's worth of carpet replacement. Any guesses on which room? The carpeted dining area, the only area in the house designed as an eating space. Idiots.

The drive out to the Midwest was a lot more sane this time around, with a hotel to break up the long drive from MD to IL. We had a great visit with one of Man's sisters and her son.

My most difficult goodbye yet came in Kansas. It took a lot of effort to not bawl over, once again, driving away from a family I love so much.

I'm so grateful that the trip was boring. The most eventful event was finding a shocked and lost mother in the restroom of a restaurant, faced with her two month old baby's first ever diaper blowout. I offered help as she numbly stared at what her son had wrought in his shorts, showing her how to roll the back of his clothes to get them off without getting his whole body dirty. Hehe. Poor lady has no idea that it only gets worse in the diaper department until that glorious day when he becomes potty trained.

Anyway, our first day of house hunting was rather promising. We had a bunch of leads and liked two homes for sure. We'll head out again tomorrow morning to do more house tours before putting in applications.

We stopped by Ft Carson to get a bead on what resources are available here for wounded warriors and the spread is extensive. Man even got a tip for a bunch of job openings that somehow involve computers, and it's a GS11 position. We're hoping and praying that something works out soon.

As it is, I'm shocked that I'm not panicking. No job, no home, and greatly reduced paychecks after July. Ack! Maybe I'm in shock. Maybe the last 10 years have traumatized me so much that my capacity to feel in these situations has been diminished. Whatevs.

More house hunting tomorrow and then we bend all efforts to the job search. Pray for us.

Saying goodbye is hard to do

2011-04-09T18:46:00.000-06:00

Gosh, I love my friends. They come in all shapes and sizes, in all colors and creeds. They all share a few traits: humor, intelligence, and kindness. I've recently enjoyed the company of one friend who moved all the way across the continent to come see me again (the Crusty Cupcake family). I've enjoyed the company of friends who followed us all the way from California, with one little detour along the way (Rochelle, Brian, and their sweet children). Friends here have been kind and wonderful and helped us limp through a tumultuous year.

And now we move on to yet another city and new friends, continuing to enjoy the friends we now leave behind in a geographical sense.

The packers come on Monday and I still have a bunch of crap to get done. We'll weigh the van after the trip. Some good news is that Man's promotion right before his retirement means that we have a 9,000 pound weight allowance, inside of which we'll rattle.

So now we just have to pack the van and frickin' figure out where we'll live. My uncle was kind enough to scope out a neighborhood we've had out e-eyes on for a while, with a very promising report. Our real eyes checked out a few other neighborhoods over Christmas break but we didn't reach any conclusions.

So, without internet for a few weeks, I bid you a hearty "see you soon, friends." We'll be unplugged beginning Monday morning, which includes our landline. All communication will have to go through our cell phones until we get plugged in again, whereupon our current numbers will still be valid thanks to Google Voice.

Any prayers you'd like to send our way with fond wishes for finding a house soon would be most appreciated.

Chocolate and almonds

2011-04-08T20:03:00.002-06:00

It's getting hot and heavy over at my product review blog (wherein I whine about or praise some interesting finds)

Almonds. And chocolate. Oooooooooo......

Of Oranges

2011-04-04T09:34:00.002-06:00

Frieda is peeling an orange.

F: Mom, what's this?

Me: Pith.

F: Pith.

And that's when I remembered that she has a lisp.

Weight Watchers and yogurt

2011-03-29T07:21:00.000-06:00

I joined Weight Watchers online. I have been struggling to eat like my dietician instructed since breakfast, lunch and I are only minimally acquainted. She told me to increase my food intake earlier in the day so I don't get ravenous by dinner time. So I said "ok" and started to eat a slice of toast and a couple of eggs every day. It got soooo old. Especially since I'm so lazy about lunch, getting sandwiches and fruit for the whelp but turning my nose up at the same for myself. I started to turn to canned soup to get something in my belly, but those efforts still left me starving by evening.

I finally decided to begin from the basics. Please, oh Great Weight Watchers where old ladies yammer on about points and brownies and guilt, tell me how to feed myself that I may have relatively even blood sugar, yea verily even blood sugar that will keep me in good temper and good health.

I figured online was a better way to go given that events like this with a strong social element tend to get very old for me. And I was stunned to find that I am terrible at feeding myself.

I mean, I knew I didn't feed myself. But this was stunning.

I decided from the outset to evenly distribute my points across the whole day, just like the nutritionist prescribed. That first morning I ate jicama, eggs, and toast and typed it into the program. It was only 6 points out of 49. Then I added an orange, a string cheese, and finally half of an avocado. I was stuffed and I moaned about what I was going to do about lunch.

Lunch was another orange, a burger without the bun, almonds and olives. Once again, I was full. Dinner was chili, almonds, and a slice of sugar free cake.

I wasn't hungry one single time all day long.

This trend has continued for the last two and a half weeks. The only time I've been hungry was the day Man and I ran errands and I forgot to eat lunch. I had no idea that learning how to eat appropriately didn't involve being hungry. I was hungry through all of high school and it made me thin. Is it a shock that, 4 babies and several bouts with depression later, I've got some extra weight?

Total weightloss so far is 3 pounds, which is appropriate for two weeks of measuring. I've stepped up gym time as well since I have so much gosh darned energy. I'm more patient with the kids now that my insulin resistance isn't ruling my moods as much. WW even reminds me to take my multi and drink bunches of water, and to include plenty of veggies and fruits and good oils in my diet. Who knew? I might even learn how to style my hair after this triumph of personal care.

Now on to yogurt. This lady has a new recipe on her blog for homemade yogurt. I've looked through lots of resources that describe yogurt making machines and other horrifying measures to make what's essentially milk riddled with tons of bacteria. This new recipe involves nothing more fancy than a crockpot and a bit of your time, and it uses powdered milk. A lot of people who store powdered milk don't know what to do with the stuff besides bake with it. I've managed to expand my use into breakfast breads (eg pancakes and French toast), hot cocoa mix, and smoothies. This new application uses two quarts of reconstituted milk, plus more powder for extra milk solids (which is about a scant 3 cups of non-instant powder).

I started the yogurt last night so it could do its voodoo whilst I slept so I wouldn't peek at it every half an hour to make sure crazy things weren't happening in there. I thought about hitting snooze three times like normal but then remembered my shrouded crockpot in the kitchen. I ran on over and stabbed at the smooth white surface in my crockpot with a spoon and heavens to Betsy there was yogurt in there! It even tastes like yogurt! And I'm not sick yet from sampling it! It's now chilling in my fridge, a semi-solid quivering mass of milky-white pro-biotic goodness, just waiting for whatever the heck I'm going to do with two quarts of the stuff. I think it's going to have to be naan, and.... I dunno. I'll think of something.

Hair cut

2011-03-26T14:17:00.001-06:00

F: Mom! I want to play a game on the tee-bee!

Me: No, honey, you have great toys! Go play.

F: Noooooo!!!

[Wailing, sadness, distress]

So then I went to go pick up her sister and friend (same person) from Pre-K.

Pebbles: Mom, I want to play a game on the tv.

Me: No, you have great toys. Go play.

Pebbles: [thoughtful look and a grin] Ok!

Results? Behold:

I forgot to take a before picture but it was bad. Her bangs were almost buzzed, the whole left side was chopped to bits. I took her in today to get it cleaned up and we first went with an asymmetrical bob but then it looked more like a mistake than fashion on a 3 year old. So we went with a traditional pixie. It was a bit shocking at first but it's really growing on me and it makes her big eyes look even bigger. So we went out and got some sparkly headbands, some with butterflies, to up the girlie quotient on that haircut.

Favorite quote comes from Tag: Wow, I think it's beautiful like Aunt Cheryl's hair.

That melted my heart right there.

Testing out screen shots

2011-03-25T11:03:00.000-06:00

So, I'm way behind on tech savvy sorts of things. So I'm playing with screen shots today.

Guess who's getting promoted!

2011-03-22T13:59:00.000-06:00

On the last day before he's retired, Man will be promoted to Sergeant! Woohoo!!

It's complicated, but because of the nature of his retirement he could eventually be reactivated but that's only if the stuff that's getting him retired resolves before Oct of 2014.

Sergeant H. He's already bought his rank patch. :D

Fridge scrapple

2011-03-21T07:19:00.000-06:00

Scrapple is the most questionable delight of the Pennsylvania Dutch, boiled up from "everything but the oink," mixed into a congealed loaf, and pan fried to perfection.

We've been keeping our fridge and freezer so low on food over the past few weeks that I've started calling our meals "fridge scrapple" in honor of the oink my kids make when presented with our creative fare.

An example:

Rice-a-roni (Man just had to buy two cases of the stuff at a caselot sale), 2 salmon patties, 1 fillet of tilapia, steamed cauliflower from the freezer.

Odds and ends of chicken (one breast, two breast tenderloins, two boneless thighs, one bone in thigh) cooked in the last of the bbq sauce, the remainder of our instant potato flakes, and steamed brussels sprouts from the freezer.

Steaks, roasted potatoes (the last three slightly shriveled spuds), cut up apples, steamed peas and corn from the freezer.

Breakfast one day was the last bagel, three eggs, the last two servings of Malt-o-Meal, banana chips, and two frozen turkey sausages.

Oink.

Why do I do things which infuriate me?

2011-03-18T23:45:00.000-06:00

I've long wanted to make my own reusable sandwich wraps. It just seems silly to throw out a perfectly good plastic bag when I'm too lazy to wash the poor thing. Buying them on Etsy is pretty expensive ($10 per) and it looks like a fairly straightforward project with my favorite sort of straight lines.

Then, one day, I found this sandwich bag pattern: Baggie o' dreams.

What a great idea! It works just like those old baggies with the top that gets a flap folded in and then *whoosh!* you flip a pocket over the top and it's a delightful little leaky package. The lines were so clean and the fabric looked so nice that I had to give it a try.

I used the fabric I had on hand and a freezer bag from the drawer and went to town.

Here are my results:

Do yourself a favor and don't click on those photos. They're garbage because it's 1am here and I'm too tired to rig lights.

Laying flat:

Sandwich bag insides:

I measured everything with exact precision. I measured backward, forward, examined the instructions until even I, in my OCD perfectaplegic torment was satisfied that I had done it right. When the *whoosh!* flippy pocket got folded I realized that my sandwich would be more along the lines of peasant panini roadkill instead of fluffy goodness:

There was sadness, anger, and a Google search as follows: the whole thread thingy fell off of my Brother sewing machine.

Which, oddly, led me precisely to the answer I needed. Go figure. One crazy tiny allen wrench, thirty swearing minutes, and thankfully no broken needles later, I was able to finish my pathetic prize. Yah. Saving the Earth one screwed up project at a time.

But no. I was in peachcot mode and I wasn't letting this one go without a fight. So I researched. I researched materials (nylon is agreed to be the best plastic for food purposes, saving mylar's presence which I don't have. I guess I could have sacrificed for the peachcots and bought a bag of Doritoes just for its mylar but whatever) and patterns and applications and care instructions until my eyes literally crossed.

I get emails from this great website called Tipnut. Here's what they say about lunch bags and accessories.

Down in accessories, I saw #4 and knew that simplicity was what had to happen after I came this close to throwing my machine into the street. Once again, I'm being literal. Into. The. Street. (there are some potholes in front of my house)

I liked the idea but I wanted something that would at least attempt to keep juicy tomatoes to themselves.

Behold, my creation:

(repeat above disclaimer about garbage pics)

Flat with the pretty side up: I happen to love colorful daisies. Not those insipid white chaps.

The inside:

Three slices of bread, middle slice representing the cornucopia of options for sandwich fillings.

Sides folded in:

Bottom side folded up to showcase the strip of velcro (hook and pile fasteners, sorry) that help the whole thing adjust capacity:

And voila:

Work those angles, baby:

Here was the process: Iron some Stitch Witchery onto nylon rip stop. Which sucked because the adhesive seemed to soak right through the nylon. Which kind of defeats the point of using pure cotton and neutral nylon if you're just going to get cancer from the adhesive after all. Anyway, the adhesive soaked through which clung to the red cotton I used under the whole thing "just in case" (go me). You can see some of the red spots on the solid blue side. I'll have to figure that one out. Maybe iron with parchment paper underneath. And yes I tried ironing plain old nylon and, though it became misshapen on the cotton setting, it didn't melt on its own. It's definitely the interfacing.

Anyway, peel off the paper backing and then iron the rip stop onto the wrong side of your cotton. I went ahead and stitched around the edges (bead stitch) just because I don't trust things that look sturdy enough as they are (big girls never do). The velcro is in an experimental arrangement with which I'm not entirely happy.

But it'll do. And now my obsession can wane long enough for me to go back to the store and get more interfacing.

Oh, it measures 18" and I trimmed the corners off since they didn't seem necessary. The wrap doubles as a place mat. I'm going to fiddle with the whole thing some more and see if I can come up with something with which I'm really happy, and that process should net us enough wraps to have a picnic at the very least.

This rotten project has kept me up until well after pumpkin hour for me, but season 7 of Scrubs kept me company.

As painful as the whole thing has been, I still feel triumphant that I didn't spend $10 on the mat now on my dreadfully abused dining table. I can see how one might be able to "whip out" such projects after one can swiftly and with ease fix their sewing machine when the needle thingy comes loose or when one finally realizes that it's better to just buy the bolt of Stitch Witchery instead of running out after one and a half projects. Maybe, one of these days, I might try to make an article of clothing once more. Hah! I made a funny.

Holy crap I need sleep. Have a good weekend, people.

New story

2011-03-13T22:06:00.000-06:00

I'm finally working on a new story.

Yes, it's a story. A fantasy. A long spinning tale that uses an entire book to make a few interesting points.

And yes, the grammar will suck until I get Brian to look over it. Hah!

So I ask you: do names in a fantasy book have to be weird? If you've ever heard of one of the names in a fantasy book (ie Amos, Tomas, or Pug from Riftwar, or Barak from Belgariad) does that diminish the experience for you?

Fantasy people are supposed to be speaking in languages we've never before conceived and yet we can come up with word play and jokes and oh-have-mercy PUNS that work in our language and never could in theirs and yet... we suspend skepticism of such things because we like it when fantasy characters speak English. We can't exactly use subtitles through the whole book, can we? It'd get tedious.

So, tell me in a comment. I want to know if you like names that are strange yet eerily familiar (Calin, Macros, Borric, Rincewind etc), the totaly bizaare (Gandalf, Bilbo, Xanthura, Zanados, etc) or the nice and mundane?

It seems to me that a weird name is the one concession that fantasy authors make concerning the not-so-obvious language barrier. Odd beasts, fantastic realms of demons, armor that is logistically hopeless, and "why do they say that the door is a jar? That's just absurd!" In another language the nuance would be completely lost but I'm sure it'd still get a groan just because the guy with that line will most certainly have had one like it before.

If we go with eerily familiar, I may just name someone Pickle. After all, parents sometimes name their kids after virtues, and in fantasy books we often find agrarian societies where the preservation of food is the greatest virtue of survival.

Once again, it's too late and my brain is still half in fantasy land. Good night!

Aaaaaaaand psych

2011-03-11T22:11:00.000-06:00

The short version is this: it turns out that everything has been delayed by a month.

Someone accidentally wrote down the wrong date somewhere in the orders process and they just went with it. So, instead of Man's retirement date being June 20th, it's now July 21st and everything is getting rearranged accordingly.

This morning, after learning of a potential Monday move, we industriously gave away the larger items we needed to find homes for, sent notes to the school, etc. Sorry everyone! False alarm. Thank goodness we don't have to worry about those larger items anymore.

I'll keep everyone apprised as things progress. Maybe, one of these days, we'll actually move.

Further updates

2011-03-11T11:01:00.000-06:00

Man talked to his sergeant this morning. Sgt is trying to get the transportation office to move us next week but there was a part of the termination process that apparently has to happen after we've cleared housing, so he's going to try and get us moved next Monday or Tuesday.

Hah!!

So, yeah.

Alternatively, we may still delay things by a week. Isn't this so fun?? All I can do is keep the trash cans empty and the laundry and dishes clean at all times. Living life on a trigger, that's me.

Oh, beautiful Japan!

2011-03-11T08:15:00.000-06:00

My thoughts and prayers are with Japan and all those who may be affected by any resulting tsunami. Stay strong, beautiful little islands.

Homemade furniture

2011-03-10T10:53:00.000-06:00

Oh, I love to make things. It isn't very often that I put them to much use since I like the process more than the application, but I'm starting to think that making things only to hide them until I feel good about throwing them away is an utter waste.

So, I want to make one these:

Link.

And look at all those tools you need for it. I'm sure I could get by without a nailer and a sander, and a jig saw might do the work of the circular saw as well. It would be really hard to hide one of these babies, especially after painting it something fun like bright blue. If I made two or modified the plans to make six cubbies we're all have no excuse for putting backpacks and jackets on the couch (not that we wouldn't try with all our might to make new excuses stick). One lady even modified hers to add small drawers above the jacket cubby which makes the unit even more desirable.

It's interesting how DIY used to be a necessity, just something young people of a certain social class grew up learning. Now it's a sort of elitist hobby. What a funny old world.

Updates and inspections

2011-03-10T10:07:00.000-06:00

We had an inspection yesterday which was attended by the IG and company. Man had told me that we'd be getting an inspection to make sure that no one is living in the squalor they found a few high ranking soldiers enjoying in post housing. He just didn't know when. So I was a little surprised to answer the door to an inspector yesterday, and shocked to learned that it was the Inspector General, four of his attending sergeants, a nurse case manager, a representative from the Fire Marshall's office, an electrical engineer who was interested in wiring since two houses have burned down in as many years due to wiring issues, and a rep from the government housing offices (so, our housing office's boss).

And I hadn't yet made my bed or vacuumed. Oy. At least I got my 8 loads of laundry put away the day before.

Anyway, it was interesting that many of them had already heard of Man because of the issues we've been having with getting his orders drawn up. "Oh, you're the guy with 90 days of leave they're wrastlin' over?" Man has 73 days of leave, which is unusual. The IG assured us that despite the confusion everything would work out for us. He spoke with authority and consideration. I've shaken hands with congressmen and mayors who didn't project nearly that level of certainty that he would speak and be obeyed, and yet he was kind and listened. Overall, despite my minor messes, it was a good experience.

Today, we had our pre-move out inspection. We were told in a letter that we'd have to pay all damages by this Saturday which made me mad, considering that if I had to pay damages before I'd even had a chance to clean without furniture in the house that it didn't seem worth the effort to set things right at all. In short, it seemed like a disincentive to leave the house nice.

It turns out that we can just leave a check at the office on the day we move. Sweet! And the damages are relatively minor: 3 sets of blinds that were the sad victims of a runaway basketball, and one door with an inexplicable crack in it. I'm thinking of spackling the door since the crack is small and merely cosmetic anyhow. So, now I just have to rent a carpet cleaner and do some more priming and I'm good.

It's funny how things turn up when an inspector is there scrutinizing things. We found nail polish on one wall, the above mentioned crack, and pen marks on more walls than we have previously noticed.

The last few weeks have really been revealing to me: Man and I are indifferent house keepers. That's it. I love, LOVE these wonderful blogs about having nice, well decorated houses:

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/
http://www.younghouselove.com/
http://orgjunkie.com/
http://lauragunn.typepad.com/

And for us it's more of a fairly tale ending we'll achieve after the kids are older or even gone. I don't know the first thing about window treatments or "balancing" a room, whatever the heck that means. I've thought about picking one room at a time and finding something online to imitate, which may be the only realistic solution for my decorating short comings. In the mean time, I browse and sigh and make plans to buy the tools to rock this website:

http://ana-white.com/

Ok, so updates on the orders. Man's leave has been approved, but someone wrote the wrong date on some papers that accidentally got signed off on which means things have been delayed even more while they decide whether to honor the real date or the accidental date. At this point we're thinking of putting the move off of a week or two since it's impossible to schedule a move without orders (despite the high ranking memorandum Man has been using to begin outprocessing this week) and it'd be extremely difficult to move ourselves since we're both gimpy and there are only so many missionaries and guys from church who aren't on TDY at the moment.

I've also been in touch with MilitaryOneSource for employment assistance. They've already researched my case and sent recommendations for employment placement agencies (both civilian and military) and information on the Military Spouse Preference Program, which gives me a slight edge when applying for a government job or any job on a military post. Sweet!

So, we may be moving in 8 days or not. Heh. Exciting, yes?

The one trilogy to rule them all

2011-03-10T09:37:00.000-06:00

It's official.

I'm finally going to buy a set of Lord of the Rings. The one trilogy to rule them all.

It's finally coming out on Blu-ray in extended edition.

So far, I've got the $5 theatrical dvd's. What I really want is everything from the extended edition in Blu-ray, including interviews and documentaries. I've held off on getting the extended editions for this long because I didn't want to be one of those material hungry fans who just hauls off and gets each new version that hits the market though heaven knows I wanted to be that material hungry fan. I can't even bring myself to watch those $5 dvds on my big, beautiful tv when I know that I'm missing essential parts of the story which are still billed as "extras." Finally, I'll be able to watch these movies the way they were intended to be enjoyed: full length, blu-ray quality, in the comfort of my own home, munching on my favorite brands of popcorn and licorice (Red Vines, man).

Now The Hobbit is going to come out and I'll wait for that special edition to come out on Blu-ray as well. And it will be sweet. My daughter is asking for the Harry Potter series on Blu-ray, but my understanding is that they weren't even filmed in hi-def until the fourth movie anyway.

Oh, I'm so excited. The One Trilogy won't even be available for many months yet but I hit that pre-order button after just a moment of awe. It will be mine...

...my preciousssssss.

Freida again

2011-03-09T08:47:00.000-06:00

I love little kids and the way they don't quite get words right. At the moment she's playing Mario Gaxaly, and likes ephelants.

Me: Elephants?

Her: No, eph-el-ants, mom-uh.

And most of the last words in her sentences end with "uh."

Her: I want to go to the store-uh. Please-uh?

Perhaps it's infatuation, but it hasn't gotten old yet.

Resume.

2011-03-08T17:07:00.002-06:00

Items that ought to go on the resume but wouldn't look professional: I can cook, help with homework, defrost a freezer, and arbitrate World War III in my kitchen all at the same time. I can sit with a stony face when everyone in the room doesn't like my work and make them say "thank you." I can do a load of laundry, prepare a tax return, fix or make a piece of jewelry, design and prepare two dozen cupcakes or announcements, and even occasionally shower and shave, all before school. I can discern in an instant whether the sad face in front of me is ill from nerves, germs, or laziness. I can find a system of success for my son who has ADHD wherein he now happily undertakes tasks which, a year ago, sent him into instant melt down. I can make, with a square foot of fabric and some thread, a couple of dolls that will keep a 5 year old and a 3 year old happily occupied for hours. I can clean every bodily fluid from nearly every kind of surface without adding to the mess myself. I'm a problem solver for issues both great and small, day and night, messy and classy, both what goes on the body or into it, for feelings and reactions and appointments and hurts seen and unseen. I treasure awkward story telling when it means that my child or partner is excited to share something with me, and intolerant of awkward story telling when in involves such heinous crimes as lamp breaking or cookie stealing. I can do all of this and still relax at a moment's notice during the day, I can be all of this and still have a centered identity, I can get the job done when heroes and leaders of men turn their faces. And my future employer will only know of these things after I've been on the job for a few months because it is unprofessional to show what being a mommy or a wife has taught me.

Freida-isms

2011-03-08T12:21:00.000-06:00

Laying down in bed one day, she reached her hand into the air.

"Mom, this is my favorite hand friend."

Aw... wasn't sure if that was cute or sad.

Just now...
Me: That's so cool.
Her: Yeaaaaaaah. That's some cold water.

She always knows exactly what she's talking about.

tug of war

2011-03-04T08:35:00.000-06:00

We found out yesterday that Man was supposed to contact a transition office 30 days prior to outprocessing from post. But then his squad leader said to not worry about it and just keep moving forward with the move as planned. Two housing inspections next week, one of which is for moving and the other is because some higher ups were found to be living in squalor. Ack!

"He's not so bad-guy" movies and job openings

2011-03-03T15:01:00.000-06:00

It's a tale as old as time: cute [kid/woman] meets bad-guy who slowly starts to appreciate then love cute [kid/woman] and then he turns out to be a not so bad-guy after all. Cute story. Modern versions in cinema include Lilo and Stitch, Despicable Me, and my most recent favorite, Megamind.

I've seen it before in over a dozen iterations but for some reason Megamind really speaks to me. I may have to buy that one.

Speaking of putting your money where your fandom is, have you heard about the new Firefly brouhaha? Yeah, wow. I'm totally on that bandwagon.

I've posted my job qualifications over on LDSjobs.org. Things are so uncertain at the moment that it's looking like I'll definitely be getting a job while Man sorts himself out. Which isn't a bad thing. I've wanted to get back into being a some sort of professional for a while now and this is forcing my hand. Oddly enough, I'm attracted to working at Home Depot so I can learn how to use a forklift and maybe build stuff. There are other administrative jobs available but I'm starting to think that I want something that will also get me up and moving my body. I'm good to go for Military to Medicine which will get me a toe into healthcare as well with a certificate.

Another fabulously viral bit of news is a young lady named Amanda Hocking. She writes books and electronically publishes them through Kindle. I've also seen her stuff for Nook. Anyway, she has no publisher and no overhead and makes about $2 million a year just writing from home and getting noticed. Man wants me to finish my NaNoWriMo book and give self publishing a whirl. Who knows? Maybe we could retire to Italy after I become a best selling author. Wouldn't that be a peach.

Just keep on trucking

2011-03-02T23:11:00.000-06:00

So our latest date to get out of here may or may not be a go. Again. What's wrong with March 20th? Well, first of all, it's a Sunday. No one thought of that when they were doing the math on leave and TDY. We may not get that leave approved despite the best efforts of Man's chain of command but it's still coming up soon. Two weeks.

How are we doing? The kids have been enjoying this new job chart website: Link.

It's free and you don't have to put personally identifying info in except for an email address. I like it because I'm notoriously inconsistent with my kids and this is a way for them to take the initiative and get their own rewards. One of the rewards I put up for Things 2-4 is to get a toy out of toy jail, where toys go to live when their owners don't clean them up when asked. Some toys skip Go and end up in the trash or the thrift store box but the rate of return on the toys is slow enough that the younger kids don't even miss the ones they never see again.

I've also finally got a working financial system for the kids now. I made checking accounts for most of them (sorry Freida, wait another two years or so) and savings for all four. Transfers to their accounts are easy (my fav four letter word) and there's a much lower minimum transfer than we had with their prepaid allowance cards. Money goes into savings as easily as into checking. The result is that they can watch their checking accounts like hawks now and suddenly Money Chores are all the rage. They have normal chores but there are things for which I'm willing to pay a nominal sum and they're all too happy to make it happen. Suddenly I've got a gaggle of entrepreneurs on my hands. Between Money Chores and the points system of the above website, their rooms are clean and the dishes get done with no questions asked.

Let's just hope it lasts this time.

I loved the House Fairy lady's ideas. She was far to saccharine for me, really, but the system was sound. The only problem is that leaving a small reward at random intervals didn't work so well when the two kids who stayed home from school learned that unguarded prizes were sprouting from pillows. It didn't occur to me at the time to make mail boxes. Oh, well.

At any rate, I like the new system and my new white board upon which I record all of the little things I've never been good at tracking in my whimsical brain. Who has earned a quarter for reading a book to their sister and recording it in her reading log? Who is grounded for how long, from what, and for why? I also write down the following day's events the night before or in the morning which helps keep things on my radar somewhat.

All in all, it's madness. No job yet, no house, and I'm scared. The events of the last year have heaped themselves on top of a decade of more madness and after this past Christmas I found myself imploding and I havn't recovered. Thus, I do not blog, call, write, or see anyone if I can help it. My instinct is to push away all relationships when things get this hairy which hasn't been the best way to keep up with friends at all, but I'm slowly learning to not exclude everyone all the time even if it's messy. I went to a church meeting last night and the most common greeting people met me with was "oh my gosh, are you alright?" It would seem that my troubles are written on my face in plainer language than I had supposed. I've been taking things one day a time for so long that two weeks from now is an eternity away, but unfortunately it's an eternity into which we'll be face planting soon. Private sector and all your woes, here we come with a gaggle of kids and two distinct but cold-comfort advantages: Man is soon to be a disabled vet (preferential treatment when applying for gov't jobs assuming he's qualified for them) and we're debt free (but without a solid assurance of future income).

My heartburn is back. I think I'll name it Portia. Portia is a high maintenance name, a name that demands attention and intimidation. Yes, "Portia came to visit after supper" seems to set the right tone and it's easier to say than Dyspepsia.

Moving date

2011-02-22T09:48:00.000-06:00

At least we have a date that's written into soapstone: March 20th. Apparently we have to remain a tiny bit flexible still, but it's nice to have something that's as close to official as we can get before getting the house inspected.

Congratulations! Here's a punch in the stomach

2011-02-17T09:13:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I came home from picking up Pebbles to Man, who greeted me with the news that our approximate separation date would be March 28.

What??? You mean that we have to move out of here within two weeks so we can go find a house only to get cut off with no paycheck until May, with no job and no house lined up yet????

Yeah, something like that.

So I started to furiously clean the stove, prime some walls, and apply spackle to corners that have chipped. Man came home from a recon mission to the the transportation office and the human resources office to find that when they told him his date that they were flippin' looking at the wrong paperwork.

So I swallowed my heartburn and cleaned at only a slightly slower pace, because we still have to be out of here by mid-March at the latest. We get a lovely benefit called terminal leave, which is the leave Man's allowed to take to look for a job/house out in his home of origin (home of origin is how the military knows where to send you when you get out of the military, and it's how the IRS knows how to tax you. State income tax on military members is based on home of origin, which is why you've never known why so many soldiers "come from" states with no income tax, nudgenudgewinkwink). He also gets a block of time called Permissive TDY, or an opportunity to travel with the same goal as terminal leave. It's a way of getting him some time out in the real world to land on his feet while still drawing a paycheck for a short while.

I have to say that, despite knowing that the other shoe would drop for the last year, it came as a shock. We were told last November that the whole process would take three months. Obviously, there was a miscalculation. Taking school in the spring was a risk, because we thought were might have to move soon. Taking school in the fall was even more of a risk, and I prayed that we'd be in the area at least until mid-December so I could take my finals and dash. Then we were told that we would have to move in mid-January. Now, mid-March actually has some credit since that's what's written on the orders packet. All they have left to do is calculate his actual retirement pay, how much Tricare is going to cost us (military health coverage), and get him outprocessed from post.

We have learned that they definitely will move us if we ask them to. And I'm going to ask them to. I don't want to pack and lift my house any more than I have to. We've given up on buying at the moment so we know that after we do buy we'll have at least one more move to do before we throw out our strap clamps, old blankets, and plastic grocery bags (cheap packing material). But my mom has suggested that we keep everything as boxed up as possible if we're only going to rent for a year. Which might sound like a long time, but it truly isn't.

It's still a complicated situation. No job, no house (those are the two over which I'm all but obsessing, because it leads to...) no idea where to put the kids in school after we get there, no real understanding of the layout of the city, no knowing where to shop for groceries in an affordable manner, and no way of knowing how long this situation will persist. Anywhere we move, it'll be stepping off of a cliff yet again and I'm getting dizzy from all of this cliff diving over the past ten years.

Nutrition

2011-02-14T19:46:00.000-06:00

We can't send goodies to school for birthdays, Halloween (aka Fall Festival), Christmas (aka Winter Holidays, with which I'm actually ok given the plethora of religious observances at that time of year), Valentines Day (aka Friendship Day), or Easter (I don't know what PC moniker they've got for it this year, but anything's better than the now popular "Zombie Jesus Day").

On the other hand, they'll serve chicken nuggets to my kids every Monday, hot dogs/chili dogs every Tuesday, crispy chicken on a roll every Wednesday (once a month it's grilled instead of crispy), tacos on Thursday and pizza on Friday.

If they put as much thought into lunches as they do for keeping treats from home out of schools, they might get more creative with the menu, yes? There are alternatives for each of these digestive horrors, along the lines of macaroni and cheese, ravioli (from a can), cheese fish sandwich, and fish nuggets.

(this rant comes after my son came home with a stomach ache today. Poor kid did nothing worse than eat what the FDA put in front of him.) (yes, yes, I'm a parent with all the power to teach him to pack his own lunch each day and I should, but this rant is more about a pathetic irony than a towering outrage over his lunch choices.)

Monsters

2011-02-14T09:58:00.000-06:00

Adrianna the Monster. The purple flower on her left arm is to cover a slight mishap.

Adrianna and Linus. Linus was my first monster ever, Adrianna is the third.


A new haircut.

I've been having some fun with stash busters lately. Man found out that his orders hadn't even entered the Human Resources department yet, so until that happens we're perpetually T - 2 weeks until we get them. In the mean time I've been working with all the odds and ends in the freezer and cupboards to clean them out as gracefully as possible. In between job and home hunting, I've also been doing some stash busting. The above monsters require about 2/3 of a ball of fun fur and just the knobbly little bit of a ball of yarn left over from any project for arms and legs. The flowers are from the $1 store and buttons are also from the stash. They are stuffed with old rags. My little girls are going nuts over these little guys, including one little girl whom I see regularly at Tag's basketball practices. I made hers pink with heart eyes because she's about as girly as little girls can get. Princess may break me of monsters though, due to high monster ambitions. That girl's got plans nigh unto a French court where its appearance is concerned.

Then there's Freida, whose ambitions merely included a personal topiary on her head. Luckily she didn't get very far before getting caught. In the photo she's demonstrating how she can fly like a butterfly when she's wearing her butterfly shirt.

from the block: Music Monday - Valentine's Day Mix

2011-02-14T07:25:00.000-06:00

from the block: Music Monday - Valentine's Day Mix

Bwahahaha! The Bee Gees crack me up, but I always come back to them somehow. Seeing a good looking, manly man singing like some sort of chipmunk never gets old. And the music sounds pretty good, too.

The H Times

2011-02-07T09:13:00.000-06:00

Me: Pebbles, your birthday is tomorrow! Do you want to send a treat to class?
Pebbles: Yes, I do! [giggle]
Me: Ok, the school says you can send in pencils.
Pebbles: Mom, pencil isn't a treat.
Me: I know. [sigh]

No sugar, no allergens, no soda, no candy. And we're celebrating Friendship Day next week and we can send in "snacks that are good for our hearts." I thought about sending in ribbon wrapped Omega 3 capsules. Those are good for hearts. Or maybe some granola bars made primarily of flax seeds and oat bran.

This morning we found that the door wedge that was missing from the chapel doors was tucked into my youngest daughter's purse. Sweet. We'll be surreptitiously giving that back next week. "What wedge? You mean this wedge? Oh, yeah, I found it over there. Just putting it back over here. Good Sabbath!"

Youngest daughter has also been caught in the infinite loop of "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb...."

So I rebelled: Mary had a little ham, little ham, little ham. Mary had a little ham that tasted good with jam.

Freida: No! Not a ham.

Me: What about a fan? Do you like fans?
Freida: Mary had a little fan?
Me: Yes!
Frieda: [looking at me like a deer in headlights] Noooooooo, not a fan. [pause, thinking] Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-Ohh!! Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-Ohh!!
Me: [my turn for deer in headlights, right before I turn Pandora up]

No orders. No house. No job. Sigh. Man takes an A+ exam tomorrow to see if he can get a certificate. If he does, then he'll qualify for a lot more jobs in the government. He'll also have his degree by this time next month.

In the mean time, I'll be nudging a little 3 year old out of any number of infinite loops.

Another week, no orders

2011-01-29T21:46:00.001-06:00

Here we are again, on a Saturday, and we have no orders.

No real news either. My very long application and testing process has been completed for Military to Medicine, only to have them tell me that my assessments would place me somewhere in legal or editing. Health care isn't a terrible match for me (says my Fit exam) but I most definitely shouldn't go into the restaurant business. Ha! I'm taking it with a grain of salt. However, I like the sound of my greatest individual strength:

Savvy: Tendency to read other people's motives, understand office politics, and anticipate the needs and intentions of others. Your responses suggest that you are highly-attuned to the motives of others. You can perceive what others may be thinking or feeling, and adapt well to social situations as a result. Your high level of perception usually leads to appropriate action in different social and professional settings.

Can you just hear Captain Jack Sparrow tell me how great I am?

I love how these personality tests are all so complimentary. Here's an example:

Goodwill: Tendency to be forgiving and to believe that others are well-intentioned. Your responses suggest that you normally treat others kindly and are willing to lend your support to coworkers when you can. You usually trust that others are well intentioned, and you treat colleagues with compassion when you feel they deserve it. [emphasis mine]

Behold, my most wan virtue. Who knew? But it takes my greatest personal weakness and makes it sound like I do people a favor when I think well of them. Ouch.

Edited to add: I guess I should say that I havn't been rejected from the program but I am looking forward to their phone call. Will they talk me out of medicine? Not as long as someone is holding their checkbook open. Maybe I should be a paralegal. Although, with my goodwill levels so low, I guess I could be a real lawyer. (Love you, Kelly!)

No orders yet

2011-01-20T21:42:00.000-06:00

My friend, the lovely Cupcake, has asked about orders since it's been almost a week since I talked about them. Nope, no orders. Funnily enough, after I wrote the blog post Man came home and said they had orders for him, but they were orders that transferred him into the unit to which he's merely been attached for some months.

Updates (not much)

2011-01-14T10:05:00.000-06:00

So, we were told that Man would get his orders this week. Surprise, surprise, unless they give them to him this afternoon, we'll have to wait for a different week.

Our bank, USAA, has a great program where they put you in touch with a vetted real estate agent. So far we've had the chance to browse through a dozen or so homes and dream. The first picture I look at is always the kitchen. We have a page-long list of wants in a home (no stupid-type closet doors, like the sliders), a slightly shorter list of needs (two living spaces for him and her) and a budget we won't be able to nail down until Man finds a job.

Speaking of which, he gets his resume back from a resume guy today, and then the hunt begins in earnest. I'm withering inside from stress from it taking so long to even get the job hunt started. The withered part of me thinks it would feel better for some chocolate, but the only virtue added to any part of me from consumption of the same is my behind. Lunch today is a healthy mac and cheese with bbq sauce on top. Yum. Don't hate.

Tag has started basketball at long last. He's had two practices and there's a game on Saturday. I'm taking my camera to that. He is LOVING every minute of it. He even shrugs happily when he doesn't make a basket. His focus on the ball when he dribbles is a bit exclusive, so it'll take a while to get his senses opened up and his muscles well trained, but as long as he's loving it and working hard I'm sure he'll do well. I do know that wherever we go, we must find him a team.

He's finally doing better academically after a trial run on Concerta. I've noticed a huge change in him for the better since he started. His rage is more easily managed but his creativity is undiminished. It's the best of all worlds as far as I'm concerned. His appetite is somewhat depressed but having pizza a little more often keeps his weight where it ought to be (in a steady incline). Best of all, he says he loves school and his teacher and his homework gets done without a huge hassle. I used to have to sit down with him and ask that no sounds of technology or siblings reach him for a 45 minute wrestle over three pages of homework. Needless to say, the overall improvement has been a huge relief for everyone living here and his teacher.

Princess is the very picture of a preteen, despite her 9th birthday coming up. Unfortunately, I'm not taking this as well as I should. Combine sass with her intelligence and extremely literal perception of most things and you get a tussle between mother and daughter that shouldn't have started until a few years later. I find myself chewing the inside of my mouth every time I snap back at her and I know that my reactions aren't helping the situation. Sigh. So I'm trying to find ways to spend proactive positive time with her.

Freida is growing into quite the independent young lady. Her personality is a force of nature and her gleeful verbal expulsions must be acknowledged upon pain of hearing them repeated ad nauseum. She just can't understand how anyone couldn't or wouldn't hear anything she has to say and find it terribly clever. Every morning this week she has put her clothes and shoes on with the older kids and informed me that she's "go-een skool." And then she needed at least an hour of lap time to overcome the trauma of having to stay home.

Pebbles has really opened up this year. She is happier and tends to express herself more fully. Along with this development is the advent of temper tantrums which are so theatrical that they are almost comic and had to have been observed. She's drawing more, reading more, forming some definite opinions, and insisting that her tastes be respected.

Me? Tired, depressed, stressed. I struggle between the need for action but an almost total helplessness while I wait for either the Army or Man to take care of business. I get into a job search of my own only to have Man insist that he's got it covered, or I look at schools only to realize that I don't know what financial aide, including the GI bill, I might have available to me. Fortunately, there's a program for which I've applied called Military to Medicine that was made specifically for people in my situation who would like to get into the medical field. It's a certificate program that I can do online for free through a teaching hospital in Virginia. One of the demographics it serves is spouses of wounded warriors who are transitioning out of the military. I don't know if it could get more specific unless they started bringing in religion and height requirements. So I've got some hope there.

Man is still marching on. Pain is the same for the most part, depression is the same, but I can tell he's making a big effort to be here mentally for the family. He's spending more time talking to the kids and me, reaching out for more hugs, and he seems less angry. But he still flinches when people talk about hiking or skiing, some of his favorite ways to exercise. Living life with a disability is a daunting idea and he's still grieving over that and the constant pain.

So we're getting by. Sometimes just barely, but somehow the kids get dressed in the morning and go to school, somehow I get dinner on the table, and we all even bathe occasionally.

As Kay R used to say to me almost every Sunday, "don't forget that the scriptures say that it came to pass, not it came to stay."

My son, the inventor

2011-01-10T19:05:00.000-06:00

My son has a lot to deal with. He has asthma, amblyopia, ADHD, allergies to a couple of nuts, and he's brilliant.

Tonight, following basketball practice, he lamented.

"Mom, I'm just worried because I'm so smart. I'm so smart that I don't spend much time with the family anymore and that makes me sad. I'm a great inventor, and that's so important but I want to have time to have some fun as well. I ran so fast at basketball and I'm sad that I have so many amazing skills."

Yes, life is hard. There, there.

photo dump

2011-01-04T20:10:00.000-06:00

In no particular order:

Thanksgiving turkey. This was the first year I used a real, honest to goodness turkey roasting pan. Delicious.

Colorado Springs:

And again:

This is a wall they put between you and the mountains so you don't become blinded by mountain awesomeness. They say "see these fake mountains? Yes, I'm a tease."

More mountains and a goofy sign.

Casa Bonita. Expensive. Go for the experience, not the food.

The detail in this place is stunning.

My gringo kids eating chicken nuggets off of a Mexican (well, bastardized Tex-Mex) menu.

Caught her by surprise. Her photos are all weird faces otherwise.

Also caught by surprise.

We had the best seats in the house, right above this pool that people jump into every 15 mins for our entertainment..

Fun seating arrangement.

Wall details.

Main dining area right off the waterfall.

After leaving a little feature called Black Bart's Cave.

A dining area with a cave theme.

Dining area with a mine theme.

Dining area with a fine dining, magic show theme.

Ceiling in the magic show room.

Actors, including someone in a gorilla suit, playing a game of limbo with my mother in law and nephew.

Details, folks. I want to know how to do this.

Tag. A sign of things to come? Only time will tell.

A lizard, people watching.

This little dude is a crab...

... A crab that sometimes looks like a manta ray.

Komodo Dragon. Bigger than my 3 year old.

Assassin bugs.

Tarantula.

Eyes and a crusty nose.

It's her "I'm done walking now" face.

"A leaf!"

Pebbles.

Freida.

Tag.

Princess.

Princess who made a nice face after I threatened to give up taking pictures.

Fog we drove through on the way home after Christmas.

Santa

2010-12-13T21:46:00.000-06:00

Belief in Santa seems to follow many of the rules of religion: there are basic tenants common to many variations on a central theme, it's an idea most commonly perpetuated between generations, there's some very hot debate over it, and there always comes a time when you really have to question its basic existence.

Oh, come on! Like you havn't questioned religion's basic existence. Yes, you, the one who's been a good, faithful Christian your whole life. No one's fooled.

I don't remember how old I was when I stopped believing in Santa. It wasn't cool to believe in baby things when I got to be an older-kid (called The Age of Not Believing in Bedknobs and Broomsticks) but a little piece of innocence sobbed and withered when that childhood magic was abjured.

Man and I decided long ago to "not do" Santa with the kids. Some people nod politely, others are shocked. One little girl in Princess' class was completely floored upon learning that Princess doesn't believe in ol' Saint Nick, declaring "but Santa is as real as God!" Man and I chuckled and felt good about our decision from nine years ago.

Tonight we had a chance to do a little shopping at our local PX. I felt an old ache when I saw Santa loitering near a counter set up for Christmas photos. This Santa was richly dressed in brocade and heavy velvet, and his long white beard was very real. It appeared slightly yellow next to the pure white of his fur trim. His coat was the longer sort, an apparent crossover between the old Saint and our own jolly Elf. His eyes were blue and twinkly and his voice, though not deep, revealed inexpressibly endearing kindness. My son loudly proclaimed that "Santa's not real!" right to the man's face and Santa merely smiled patiently.

Later, as I wandered aisles with my two littlest girls, he came to play with the toys in a slow, deliberate manner as if taking both enjoyment and mental notes, and struck up a conversation with Pebbles. He was generous in speaking with her, always inquiring about her interests and actively listening to whatever she wanted to share. He enjoyed some interaction with Freida and remarked on her strong grasp of colors and counting, his eyes lingering over her smile and the fascination she had for one particular toy.

I walked away from that encounter with one thought ringing through my head: if I had met that particular Santa at any time during my childhood, I would have believed for much longer. I might still believe. I wanted at that moment to buoy my children with innocent wonder and a rich understanding of the ancient myths of stockings and reindeer and an improbable but imminently possible race against time and science.

I thought about his interest in my girls and the soothing kindness of his voice. He didn't "HO!HO!HO!" with gusto, but merely chuckled quietly. Nowadays, some parents might keep their kids as far as possible from a man who would randomly converse with a child in the toy aisle, no matter how he was dressed. Santas only belong on ornate chairs in front of cameras or in front of stores swinging bells for charity and some Santas don't even have kids sit in their laps anymore. Litigation and bitter fear have broken whatever lingering sweetness we might have felt about our childhood dreams.

This Santa might have creeped out those who read too much into him, and those caught up in the traditions for tradition's sake would merely have seen him as a prop for the Christmas card this year and future memories already planned out in soccer mom style.

I made my purchases and bundled my shivering babes into the van and longed once again for that old magic. There was a thrill at seeing a full stocking Christmas morning; a thrill at seeing a plate, intended for cookies, sporting merely crumbs after a night of fitful sleep; and a thrill at wondering what miracles Santa might bring to pass on my behalf to make at least one day out of the year completely special and safe. Perhaps such times as these make us long for simple miracles. Perhaps we perpetuate that magic to feel like rockstars when we know that Santa's miracles are our own doing.

All I know is that, tonight, the whiskers were real, the clothes looked incredibly gorgeous, the voice was like a hug, and I felt an odd sort of honor that he would take a special interest in my own children. And there's nothing wrong with any of that.

Room swap and good weekend

2010-12-12T13:43:00.000-06:00

You know those weekends that leave you tired but oddly refreshed? Yeah.

Friday night we had the missionaries over. They always, no matter who, where, what, or how you are, ask whether there's anything they can do to help you. We've always said no after a polite pause where we pretended to ponder the question. However, Man's shoulder prevents him from doing some things around the house like lifting entertainment centers and it's nice to have strapping young lads willing to lend a hand.

My beautiful, wee girl-children don't need as much sleep as their old mom and they go to bed early besides. We moved into this house a year and a half ago in the spring and unwittingly put them into the coldest room. Couple that with two windows that seem to catch every vibration of the 0630 Reveille and you end up with a 0632 Reveille for one tired mom in the form of two giggling, shivering, bickering lumps fighting over who gets to lay directly on top of me and who gets to wiggle into the warm spot at the small of my back. Even if I kick them out of bed so I can doze until my 7:30 alarm, they can't reach the cereal and their rumbling stomachs soon get the better of their good natures and my rest. I've considered leaving some sort of small food offering on the table overnight, as a Breakfast option to be followed by Second Breakfast after I wake up, to buy me some time. The fear of pests has prevented any action in this direction.

At any rate, warmth and less noise has meant a weekend of little girls leaving us alone until 0800. Bliss, I tell you. Even if we only have a few more months to enjoy this arrangement, it's worth it and I don't have to grit my teeth and remind myself why it would be unethical to dose them with Nyquil every eve during tooth care time.

It's also a smaller room which suits the mass of their possessions and persons.

Tag has also needed less space. I considered putting him into the room in which his sisters now live, but that seemed to be a little tight. He has shelves and a desk and a powerful need for a room that's calming and safe. First thing he did when he moved into the little girls' old room was take the butterflies off the wall. It's a cozier fit and he no longer shares a room when the pantry and some miscellaneous storage. The one closet is easier to close, which is important to him since it "freaks me out, mom." The room he was in before has closets that have to be beaten shut.

So now we're all happier with the current arrangement. I'm glad for the extra rest we've been getting.

Yesterday we went to a ward Christmas Party where the food was a little ugh but the company was great. Someone actually cooked bacon and then kept it warm in a crockpot... it was spooned on to plates. I reiterate: ugh. Tag asked Santa for a motorcycle, Freida asked for a birthday, and Pebbles asked for a flashlight. Princess was too old for such foolishness and uttered a tween harrumph at the thought of visiting with the patient, old elf, but happily made reindeer candy canes and sugar cookies.

We set out to visit my sister in law and had a blast! Clam chowder for lunch and then we decorated cookies. Her husband "went out and got a deer" because our state is so thick with the critters that you can drive 10 mins down the road and bow hunt, field dress, and return with your trophy in a mere two hours. The cookies were exceptionally delicious and it was the first time I've ever seen a fresh kill that close before. Once again, it was some excellent company but the food was also excellent.

We stopped at the temple on the way home and enjoyed the breath taking glory of the Christmas lights. The colors were rich and magnificent but had the inexplicable understatement of LED lights. Every tree and bush around the parking lot was embraced with Christmas celebration. It was so crowded that evening that the stake center parking lot next door was filling up fast and parking lot attendants worked chilly shifts making sure that patrons of the temple had closer access than light voyeurs. Tag almost got creamed by a bus once and I found the voice of a crazed grisly bear ripped out of my chest in warning. It worked and he jumped back in time but we were both shaken.

A quick stop at Chipotle brought us home in time for a bite and a timely bed time.

All in all, a great weekend.

Home shopping

2010-12-10T11:15:00.000-06:00

Man wants to buy. He wants to buy soon. I'm nervous about that idea.

Here are the current plans: He has the opportunity to participate in occupational rehabilitation which will help guide him to a job that utilizes his various talents, which he will then either enjoy or have to swallow the tangy pill of realization that when you're upset at your ideal job it's time to buck up and get over it. He seems to be hopeful, which is nice.

So, part of the occupational therapy is training in the field of his choosing. Yes, more school. He is, even now, enrolled in an online college where he's taking the one capstone class he needs to graduate with a Bachelor's degree in liberal arts. I was a little upset by that, seeing as he could quintuple major in Chinese, Music, German, Computer Crap, and National Defense. Whatevs. At any rate, he's doing this online class in ethics, which has brought up some lively debate regarding euthanasia and the fundamentals of morals themselves. He'll be getting his degree some time in the spring at which point I'll be throwing a party to which you all are invited. Details to follow.

So, we'll be moving at some nebulous point in the future. The idea is that we'll move to where the job is. Failing a decent job, we'll move to Kansas which is where my people are. Now he wants to move to Colorado because the houses seem to be about $100k cheaper due to the tanking of the housing market out here which he says will make up for the difference in living expenses. Right, says I, but it's still far from my family. Well, replies he, at least it's way closer than any other place we've lived the past 4 years. Whatever, sigh I, living that far away has taught me longing and appreciation. Closer is better, but I'll go to CO if the job is good. A day's drive is much better than a full days' drive (9 hours vs almost 24 if you factor in hourly potty breaks for little people), but I've got this pit in my stomach over it that says "I don't wanna and you're not the boss of me!" That's the same pit that sometimes wins when I do my own menu planning and contemplate scrubbing behind the toilet.

The problem with moving where the job is that he won't be getting a job while doing the occupational rehabilitation. Really? Really. Makes me nervous? You bet your sweet Sosa. Which means that there isn't likely to be the sweet job in CO that'll make it ok for me to be far from home. All of this is still in the incubation/theoretical stage which means that ~~we're still arguing about it~~ none of the above may ever come to pass. He could land a sweet job in Europe or Iceland just in time for the cancer cure and common global language to shake hands. Who the heck knows.

Anyway, looking at the price difference on these houses has got me thinking. In real life, cheaper isn't always a good thing. A decent rule of thumb can be to determine the level of quality you want to go for, often associated with a brand, and then find the cheapest price on that exact item. Houses don't often have brands. When they do, they're out of my price range in any case. How do you know what the true value of a house is? How do you know it won't be a money pit? How do you know if you can afford it even if the price is great? Do I have to learn a new level of home maintenance when we buy a house? Dude, it's a headache.

In the mean time, Tag's teacher called in a tizzy the other day. Apparently he's still refusing to do his work in class so I've gone all Mr. Monk on him with checklists and consequences with if-then statements and loud lectures which (bless the little guy) he took with humility and resignation. It breaks my heart. It's looking like a strong possibility that he'll fail the 9 weeks, which could lead to failing the year, No Child Left Behind notwithstanding. He will, however, get an IEP which might help somewhat. Yes, ADHD is finally official, diagnosed, on the record, and snickering at us as we glare at it and frantically research our eyeballs out and work with at least four entities besides his normal doctor to come up with a way to get this child some academic and behavioral success. I don't want him to fail the second grade especially if it's because of frustration as opposed to a real intellectual deficiency. I wouldn't mind a dumb kid. Someone's gotta have them. But he isn't dumb by any stretch and my sense of justice is not ok with a failure of this nature when something could be done about it. Yes, I'm taking it personally. He really is trying, sits (mostly) nicely to do his homework at home and finishes it in reasonable time with only occasional intervention. The problem is primarily in the classroom and I'm not there to see it. All I have is the teacher's word against his and that poor lady has 28 kids who are all precious snowflakes wilting under the burden of his squeaky-wheel-ness.

I love my boy. He doesn't hurt anyone at school, doesn't break stuff, doesn't vandalize the bathroom, I've heard no reports of name calling or bullying. All he does is refuse to do academic work while his teacher hovers over him. I strongly suspect that we have a serious case of bad behavior cycle. Once again, whatevs.

Two classes have come back with A's, just waiting on one class to see if the GPA stays at a 4.0. I should know by this afternoon.

That's all from H land at the moment. Happy holidays, Reader!

the delicious end

2010-12-09T12:27:00.000-06:00

Oh, there are delicious ends. There are heels of fine bread, the last lukewarm sweetness of an herbal mocha, the last end woven into a deep, fluffy scarf, and a final exam that takes 30 mins to whip out.

I wrote until my hand shook, which wasn't much considering my generation Y upbringing. Then I sold back my text books and skipped down the hall with a whistle on my lips and a laugh in my throat. An odd combination, but I didn't care. The door to my freedom opened with a blast of frozen air that felt like baptism on my flushed face.

It was most welcome.

I'm taking spring off, unless I take just one online class. House hunting, job searching, school looking, but first, there is Christmas. I'm going to take off my shoes and take a hot bath.

Oh, and I had another book idea when Freida came to visit my bed at 3 am, complaining of her fear of crickets. It kept me up for an hour.

From my facebook page:

2010-12-04T16:19:00.000-06:00

From my facebook updates:

For the first time in (mumble mumble) weeks, my house is almost clean. I'm sure the Chesapeake isn't thanking [me] for all the spraying and scrubbing, but neither are several trillion microscopic beasties.
Vacuuming in the blackness of space beneath furnishings, I'm very carefully curbing my curiosity about the blub-cha-clank going on in my long suffering vacuum. Was that a toy? A hair clip? No, don't think about it! FWOOMP!! Oh, crud, that had to have been a sock or a tissue... NO! Don't think about it. Crackling hiss! Sand. It had to have been. Or cracker crumbs. Rattling clink might have been money... No. No. Don't think about it.

I did end up taking those two finals yesterday. The psych final was my one and only chance (as far as I know), but the sociology test is a three striker, with the prof taking the highest score out of all three. He'll email on Monday to let me know if I need to take another whack at it, but with 38 points of extra credit to apply to a 100 point test, I'm feeling pretty darn good.

Last but certainly not least, my English final is this Thursday. It's going to be four questions regarding the plays A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen and Fences by August Wilson. If you have the chance, A Doll's House is a completely haunting movie as well (1973 version), starring a startlingly young Anthony Hopkins and including the lady who plays Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest.

It's felt really good to feel like I have the time and energy to give the house a good scrubbing. I've gone through a lot of cleaning supplies today and I may actually go through more than one whole vacuum bag. Of course the kids havn't been as enthusiastic as I, but everyone seems to breathe much more easily when you can stride through a room without kicking anything, or easily find towels and clothes and cups and forks. We're starting to get the rearrangement itch as we learn that the three youngest kids seem to have too much room. We're moving the spare room into the former master bedroom on one side, which is where Bren is living. We're going to get him a smaller bed and a smaller room and a room with fewer closets to worry about. So that's going to begin in earnest this week, and then we'll have missionaries over for dinner to do the heavy lifting since Man isn't up to that sort of thing anymore.

Also, the kids are getting older and wanting more money. So now I have to start calculating how much money I'm going to offer for extra chores. Hehe. The chores have worked very well in the past but they've been more sporadic. One time I charged Bren a lot of money to let him make a dinner on a night he didn't like what I made, but I let him do chores to earn it all back. We havn't repeated that since then, since the little stinker really needs to eat the food I make and I don't want him thinking he can just throw money at something he doesn't like to fix it. So I'm wondering what it is they can do for money that isn't something they should be doing for themselves or the family anyway. Claire should be doing her own laundry here pretty soon, I'm thinking at the beginning of the next school year. Basic yard care, dishes, caring for their own and public space, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, and cooking once in a while are all part of being in a family. So what's left?

WEBstraunt

2010-11-29T14:13:00.000-06:00

I'll write a full review of my newest favorite website after the semester is over, but I just have to geek out about it for a moment.

I originally found WEBstaurant when I was looking for pizza screens. Since then I've fallen in love with it over and over again as I browse and dream. I want to open a bakery just to get my hands on all the wonderful goodness to be found on this amazing website!

Anyway, I wrote two reviews for the things I bought there, and they were both accepted! They're giving me a $2 credit for each review that they publish! I know it's only $4 but man, that's a new set of stainless steel measuring cups right there! What a great incentive to keep reviewing.

Hm... what else can I do with my $4? I'm oddly giddy over that tiny sum of money.

Almost

2010-11-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

The end of the semester is almost here.

It's almost Christmas.

It's almost time to visit family and friends.

Man is almost out of the Army (no disability rating yet).

The kids' long string of birthdays is almost here (Dec, Jan, Feb, April) and they all want parties.

I have a new story idea that I'm almost convinced I should start writing on right away. Almost.

I'm almost convinced that we need to swap three bedrooms in my house. Heh. I need to decide before I have the missionaries over for dinner, so I can get them to lift the furniture for me. They're always asking if there's anything they can do, and Man sure as heck can't lift.

I'm almost done Christmas shopping.

The kids are almost... no, not almost. The kids are sick, have been sick for a long time, and they're not better yet. Should that keep us home for Christmas? It might if they don't get better, and I can't tell you how awful I'd feel if any family got the lingering crud we're fighting.

All this almost is making me a little crazy. I'm so not used to much sugar anymore that when I sat and nibbled on Hershey's Kisses all day yesterday without eating real food, I went nuts. I suddenly have a lot of sympathy for those who suffer with bipolar disorder.

Two more class periods and one day full of finals. Yep, all of my finals are on the same day. ALL. That's six hours of hard core testing, man. And a lot of #2 pencil lead. Thank goodness there's only one hand written exam. The other two are a combined 160 multiple choice questions and the turn in of one take home essay test, which I've already completed. I might actually try to take the psych test early this week. Hm... time to get one that, I think. Wish me luck!

Fun little project

2010-11-13T18:46:00.000-06:00

I was fiddling around with blogs and started this little guy:

Something Clever and InconsisTent

Check out my fish!

I was thinking about doing that blog for product reviews. I don't want my blog to become a commercial but there are some consumer items I'd like to share and discuss, for better or worse. Amazon has a nice program that gives me the power to easily link pictures of what I'm preaching about, including a little photo carousel.

(My favorite part is the fish, which I may have to integrate into this blog as well.)

Reading

2010-11-13T13:30:00.000-06:00

In an effort to understand and work with the people with whom I live, I'm currently reading Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus, and The Parenting Breakthrough.

I read Mars/Venus quite some time ago and thought it made a lot of sense. This time through it's making me mad. It has a lot of anti-feminism undertones that just rub me the wrong way. The author comes across as some sort of male apologist who's trying to coax volatile yet delicate females into getting along with their mates.

"To expect a man who is in his cave instantly to become open, responsive, and loving is as unrealistic as expecting a woman who is upset immediately to calm down and make complete sense. It is a mistake to expect a man to always be in touch with his loving feelings just as it is a mistake to expect a woman's feelings to always be rational and logical." (Mars/Venus, page 37)

I understand that when he says feelings can't always be rational and logical that he is NOT saying that they never are. That first sentence is the one that gets to me. Perhaps it's an irrational feeling of irk that cannot make logical sense because life has me by the nads and I'm incapable, due to my female nature, of calming down and making complete sense. Jerk.

The Parenting Breakthrough is a really great book though. The author is funny and visual, laughs at herself and has a lot of very practical solutions to teaching children that have astounded me. I didn't know how to be a mother or even a babysitter when I brought home my first beautiful, impossibly tiny and delicate baby. I didn't know what to do about kids or babies or homemaking or finances. I was so afraid of finances that I just spent as little money as possible when I got out on my own. It kept me out of debt, but money didn't do me any favors either. I'm learning more about how to be a practical adult from this book than any other book I've read. Have you ever heard of something called E-Trade or Ameritrade? The stock market has long been one blurry mystery to me, something that accountants and rich people who employ accountants know about and something you need $1 million to even begin to play with. The author talked about buying a small online trading account for her teenager to give him a feel for what stock markets are like. What??

Obviously I'm getting more out of one book than the other and I switch between them as I get too irritated to keep reading with interest (Mars/Venus) or too overwhelmed by what I don't even know about myself (Breakthrough) like interior decorating as a means of teaching, life plans, and investment banking.

I feel too tired to roll up my sleeves right now. I feel like I don't have the strength to do much of anything besides get food on the table once a day and churn out homework and tests like a cross eyed pasta machine. Similes that don't make sense? Largely inexplicable irritability? At least one hot bath a day to scorch some endorphins into my screaming mind? Dragging myself through exercise only to want a nap right afterward? Check, check, check, double check.

And now I must go grocery shopping. Work on the van plus getting Man into one last college that only requires that he take one class and transfer his 250+ credits in before FINALLY getting a Bachelor's degree (which may actually turn out to be a double or triple major, thanks to the military) means beans and rice for a week or two, but really, it doesn't get much better than a good pot of beans and basmati rice. I thank God for times when I can really enjoy simple things.

Chalk mat

2010-11-08T12:31:00.000-06:00

This is for Amber!

Here is a link to a tutorial for a chalkboard mat that's a bit more stylin' than the ones I made, but the visuals may be useful.

Link.

Here is a reworded version from the directions I used (clarifying, mostly, and getting rid of some yokel grammar).

Supplies:

1 piece 10x13.5" chalk cloth (aka blackboard cloth)
2 pieces 12x20" cotton fabric
1 piece 5x12" cotton fabric
1 piece 12x20" fleece (either fusible or baste it into place)
1 piece 12" elastic
1 piece 12x20" fusible interfacing
Chalk, half a sponge

First half:

Pin or fuse the fleece to wrong side of one 12x20" piece of cotton.

Second half:

Fuse interfacing to wrong side of the other 12x20" piece of cotton fabric (to prevent the fabric from bunching when sewing on the chalk cloth. A simple way to overcome this is to use a quilting foot if you happen to have one). On the piece of cotton that's 5x12", finish one long edge by folding over twice and then top stitching. Align the unfinished 12" edge with one of the 12" edges of the larger piece of cotton, mark the center, and stitch straight from the edge to make a divider for the pockets. Each pocket should still be loose except for the one stitch in the center. Center the chalk cloth in the remaining open area of your fabric and zigzag stitch around the edge of the chalk cloth. Pay close attention to any bunching. Pin the ends of the elastic to the edge directly opposite of the center stitching on the pocket, making sure the loop of the elastic is toward the center of the fabric.

Putting it together:

Put both pieces of cotton right sides together, pinning the edges. Sew together with 1/4-1/2" seam or whatever seam securely catches all of your edges (this was a Souper Saturday project, so it wasn't too precise) leaving a window on one of the long edges open for turning (preferably away from the pockets so they get caught in the initial stitching). Turn and top stitch around the entire edge. I ended up not top edging the pockets on one of them because the fabric was too thick for my machine. It turned out fine.

They're cute, easy, infinitely customizable, very inexpensive relative to color wonder, compact, and durable. I want to make a couple more for the older kids but this time actually use a cutting mat and some decent fabric scissors.

author

2010-11-03T14:59:00.000-06:00

Princess: Mom, how do you spell author?

Me: [we live in a loud house, I didn't hear her very well] What do you mean? Arthur or author?

Princess: Author, like the guy who drew the map.

Me: [distracted] Um, c-a-r-t-o-g-r....

Princess: Wait, what?

Me: Cartographers draw maps, not authors.

Princess: [grunt in exasperation] Never mind!!!

Yeah, wrong teaching moment.

various halloween pics

2010-10-31T07:17:00.000-06:00

This makeup was for a costume birthday party. The face paint was for the trunk or treat, and the pics without makeup were from the school's costume parade.

Fire and Ice Ball

2010-10-18T07:08:00.000-06:00

It's that event that middle-upper class husbands dread. It the means of raising many thousands of dollars for many larger charities. And it's where the wealthy go to "get a good deal" on jewelry and sports memorabilia.

The Red Cross has a charity ball called The Fire and Ice Ball.

Here's the event info: Red Cross Ball

It was fun! We sat at a table with two other couples who had been sponsored that night (in other words, got in for free) -- one couple were injured soldiers and the lady in the other couple is a Red Cross volunteer. The other two couples at our table were there to actually donate money and/or bid since it was a charity ball. From what I could see, I believe that members of the armed forces, preferably injured, were placed at each table so that donors could rub elbows with the people whom they were indirectly benefiting.

Marine General James T. Conway was honored with a lifetime excellence award (40 years of service in the Marines!!), along with injured members of each branch of the military. The Army recipient stood tall enough to reach Man's armpit, but that didn't stop him from performing some heroics and receiving a traumatic brain injury in Iraq. The only honoree to struggle to contain his emotion was the Air Force guy. You better believe that the Marine to receive the award was on his very best behavior with General Conway standing right behind him during his speech. The poor guys barely spoke 10 words in acceptance.

There were silent and live auctions on trips, jewelry, and sports memorabilia. One man at our table, a former Soldier, commented on how good of a deal it was to have 4 signed baseballs (Ripkin, Ryan, Rose, and Aaron, whoever those guys are) at a starting bid of $800. The most expensive sports item was a blueprint of a stadium signed by Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Joe DeMaggio valued at $16,000. Lots of bats, jersey's and helmets were on display next to necklaces whose value I just didn't understand. $1200 value for what, exactly? I've seen similar stuff on WalMart shelves for $5. The most expensive non-sports item on the silent auction was made out of mink, something I thought East Coasters would have a raging fit over (valued at $5,000). The weirdest thing I saw was a salad bowl valued at $450. It looked like beaten silver with sort of glass tongs. Seriously? It seemed like a lot of the items up for bid didn't get sold for quite what they were valued at. At the end of the live bidding there was a push for straight up donations. A large screen showed the goal ($20,000) and displayed names of those who were contributing funds via little machines that looked like iPhones. There was a gasp and applause as the goal was met within a very few minutes and then exceeded.

The food was 5 star catering, for sure. Menu included a squash soup, poached pear salad (on a bed of greens with fresh made Dijon dressing; a lump of mild but tangy cheese was nestled in a hollow in the pear), halibut (perfectly poached with a delicious sauce), guinea fowl, delicate veggies of many kinds (didn't care for the carrots or potatoes), and tiny deserts you only see on the food network (brie cheesecake, chocolate pyramid bursting forth with a caramel center, and mango sorbet in a little inverted pastry hat; each offering was the size of a golf ball; Man was the happy recipient of the diabetic lady's untouched dessert). Gourmet cupcakes with mile high icing were piled high and available before and after the meal.

A live band played Big Band type music and some Sinatra and Tom Jones. A lady singer whaled on a tambourine and shook her booty in time to her maracas. She minced her way out to the dance floor and gracefully interpreted direction from the sound crew when her position in the hall started giving feedback from her microphone. Single soldiers stared at her with their mouths hanging open and one plump but brave young man danced with her while she sang with a slightly alarmed expression on her face. After that she took a drink break and didn't leave the stage again. One of the weirder songs was a jazzed up Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.

Gift bags afterward included brochures on how to donate even more money to the Red Cross and a little flashlight that plugs into the wall and lights up in a blackout or whenever energy flow is otherwise interrupted. They also act as nightlights. Tag was happy to get one of those for his room.

We rode down and back with some nice Sergeants and had some good conversation. One of them was in full dress blues and wanted to stay very late because "it took me all week to put these blues together, I'm going to ride them 'til the wheels fall off." All those little medals and things are difficult to adjust to Army standards. Man looked very good in formal greens, which is just the Army dress greens uniform with a normal white shirt and bow tie instead of the green shirt with black hanging tie.

All in all, a good time and I was glad to take my shoes off at home. I still have a couple of flowers pilfered from the centerpieces. Their heavy heads (three rose and one crimson Gerbera daisy) bow over the edge of a plastic glass, classy meets mom un-chic. A girlfriend of mine helped me do my hair since my awkward attempts netted me a headful of fuzz and a few bent bobby pins. Best comment of the evening came from my 2 year old "Oooooh, mommy's a peen-cess!"

Kojo!

2010-10-13T11:25:00.000-06:00

My new fav radio program:

The Kojo Nnamdi show!

(I just love his voice and he's either good at picking topics or he's got some great producers)

update

2010-10-12T17:25:00.001-06:00

Official Army determination: Husband, due to injury, is no longer fit to be an active duty soldier. Which means he'll seen be a disabled vet at the ripe old age of 30-something. (this is something we've known for months, but now it's chiseled in stone)
What does this mean?

Let's pretend, for a moment, that there are only two ways this whole thing could turn out (even though I giggle at how utterly ridiculous such an assumption would be):
1) We get a percentage we can live with, so we accept it, sign on the dotted line, and get some orders cut for separation from the Army. This will take anywhere from 2-5 months, depending on how long it takes to cut orders.
2) We don't get a percentage we like, so we appeal. Then we get out of here in a year or so.

Now, there are a lot of complicating factors going into this decision and subsequent decisions. Where we move and when is largely determined by how good of a job Man can get, taking into consideration my desire to attend school.

More news as it becomes available.

72 hour kits

2010-10-02T12:52:00.000-06:00

Growing up, we were told that a great way to rotate your 72 hour kit food was to eat it over General Conference weekend. I don't know that we really want to though, given that it's all Beanie Weenie, beef stew, and canned ravioli (whatever had a pop-top for convenience) and more granola bars than I'd eat on a normal day. But, we could break out the wing stove and give it a whirl.

The wing stove lays very flat, measuring about 1/2" thick when folded. It is very easy to set up. The sterno was most surprising. Tag touched a match to it and nothing happened. The only thing that changed was the heat distortion observable in its shadow. We tried putting an unlit match over it to see if it really was heating (since we didn't believe our own eyes) and it burst into flame. Alrighty, then.

Into the oven it went, and we placed a mess kit pot of Beanie Weenie over it:

Within 3-5 mins, it was boiling. That is some very hot fuel.

I think the only things I need to replace this soon are the granola bars. The slim jims were a little gross so I think I'll replace those, too.

Coupons

2010-10-01T11:14:00.000-06:00

I don't like couponing. I never did it before I was married, havn't really done it after I had kids, and didn't understand doubling or Coupon Games or what the heck ever it is housewives crow about when their receipts end up at near a zero balance despite being about three feet long.

I started to look into it in Kansas but it looked very complicated. How do you organize that many pieces of paper with such a diversity of information on them? How do you scour stores for sales like they say you should? What if you never find a sale for the coupon you've clipped before it expires? What on earth is doubling, how do you know where to double, and how often are coupons doubled? I've even read about people hauling in tons of loot from playing CVS. It looks like a hobby as well as a necessity in these troubled times. One days says that she already saved over $700 this year and the year ain't over yet.

What what does it get you? CVS lady has tons of deodorant and toothpaste in whatever brand happened to work with her game, in addition to other items of a drug store nature. Other coupon deals involve junk food and other name brand items that I just don't often buy. Aldi usually covers my itch for a good deal especially when I compare those prices with mainstream grocery stores out here. You never realize how awesome the Commissary is until you stop by Giant just for one little thing and flee in a panic at $5 cereal or $2 bananas.

As you all know, I've signed up with this menu planning place called E-mealz. One of the money saving tips they have is to go to a website that sells coupons (just google "buy coupons") so you don't have to go to the expense of buying newspapers. In my coupon readings I found one tip that said you should buy 2 Sunday newspapers per person in your family. Is it worth buying coupons rather than buying Sunday newspapers? Let's take a look.

My local newspaper is the Baltimore Sun. There is no option to receive only the Sunday paper, so I'd have to subscribe to Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun at $1.50 a week. I don't really read the newspaper as all the comics and newsfeeds I want already hit my Google Reader. I would literally be buying this for the coupons and to maybe mulch my garden (if I had a garden). 2 papers per person in my family of 6 would amount to $18 per week.

I just got an order from TheCouponClippers.com . I browsed their coupon selections and picked precisely that which I wished to purchase, carefully selected for the best deals I could find on items that aren't typically available at my go-to cheap zones and for name brands I prefer. Examples include Bandaid brand products (Neosporin which we go through in quantity, Cortaid, and the bandaids themselves), and Ziploc brand for the bags. Also, you've heard it before but I'll say it again, it isn't a deal if you never would have bought it in the first place! I went through this big "I cook from SCRATCH!!" phase where I scoffed at coupons because they were never for the basic items I bought like flour and milk. But life is so busy now that I have no delusions about food preparation. There are frozen pizzas and make ahead meals and on Saturday I make pancakes for breakfast which ends up being the most time consuming meal I make all week.

So, between my carefully selected coupons, shipping and admin fees, I spent $7. I will use each one of these lovely little coupons. Total savings if I use these coupons amounts to $53.75 including the deduction for the coupon purchase.

(full disclosure: the only time I buy Nutella is when I find a great coupon which I use on the smallest jar because I have no restraint around that stuff. So I got one Nutella coupon, which doesn't technically qualify as something I'd normally buy.)

Bonus: I didn't have to go through 18 newspapers to get the coupons I wanted, only a very tiny tree was sacrificed for my small stack of coupons, I don't have to deal with recycling a stack of newspapers, and I can buy whenever I want in whatever quantity I choose. I can see myself doing this once every month or two, which is a far cry cheaper than $18 per week or $81 per month, or even 6.75 per month for one subscription which may or may not have one coupon I want.

I really enjoy adding another smooth move to my money saving efforts. If I find myself buying a frozen pizza, I may as well knock a dollar off that bad boy, eh?

face paint

2010-09-28T20:37:00.000-06:00

There was a really great face paint artist at Golden Corral tonight.

Pebbles asked for "rainbow princess."

She did this on a spontaneous request from him, from memory.

I think that Princess had an artistic vision that wasn't communicated very well. Oh, well. We hear that she's there every now and then. We'll have to go back some time. She also works for tips only.

The flowers were awesome!

She painted a little boy's face to look like a dragon, complete with horns that appeared to erupt from his face. She was very quick and detailed.

The Big Two

2010-09-26T20:44:00.000-06:00

My sister requested a reading of the whole document. Be sure to leave suggestions. I'm interested in fleshing this out even further just for fun. It's due Tues morning.

The Big Two (M7.9)

The first 20 minutes: According to statistics found online, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 will kill “1,800 people at night or over 3,400 people during the day, and seriously injury about 8,000 people at night or over 12,500 people during the day,” (1, 31-32). 10,000 commercial buildings will experience structural damage, “or about 15% of all commercial buildings in the study region, and includes about 40% of all commercial buildings in San Francisco and San Mateo counties,” (1, 30). About 600,000 will be displaced from their homes, requiring alternate shelter either from the public or among friends and family, (1, 30). Sewer lines will be disrupted as well the primary waterways that deliver water to the city, (2). There is also the significant chance that fire will become a dangerous issue within just a few minutes of the initial quake, (1, 24). Loss of water flow to the city will hamper firefighting efforts. Loss of electricity will happen, automobile infrastructure will shift, bridges will break, phone lines and cell phone towers will experience damage, and some radio stations may cease to broadcast, (3). The Golden Gate Bridge may or may not have been retrofitted to withstand great seismic activity as the project to thus retrofit it is due to be complete in 2012, but knowing government construction time frames (as well as extensive cost cutting measures) it’ll be late (and poorly done), resulting in a massive collapse of the entire bridge within minutes.

24 hours after earthquake: Stores will be unstaffed and won’t have electricity. Some foods will begin to spoil if the earthquake happens during warm months. Freezers have failed. Medicine requiring refrigeration may not be available. Some people won’t have access to their pantries if their homes have been completely destroyed. Those who had a 72 hour kit available and were able to flee with it will have food, water, and warmth. Hospitals and any impromptu infirmaries that happen to spring up will be overwhelmed with those seeking help. The death toll, either from untreated injuries or due to critical damage with delayed mortality, will rise. Those who are trapped in collapsed buildings will need water and medicine very soon. Rubble will continue to shift as environmental temperature fluctuates, wind and rain occur, and any aftershocks perpetuate. Gas lines will need to be secured to minimize fire hazards. Reporters are on the scene already, giving you live coverage of the devastation as it occurs.

72 hours after earthquake: The National Guard has been mobilized and may be arriving. Fires have spread. Firefighters and law enforcement from other states may have arrived to help restore order in the city itself and surrounding counties. Efforts to evacuate are hampered by destroyed roads and airports. Outbound traffic will be severely strangled. People will run out of gas while still miles from their destinations or even other gas stations. Fuel may run out entirely due to demand and tankers’ inability to restock gas stations. Communication is still hampered by power outages and downed cell towers. Some radio stations may have generators to help make emergency broadcasts. Residents are in serious need of water and food, and some are in serious need of shelter. Sanitation is becoming more of a problem as human waste and trash are not collected and removed from the city. Lost pets may be loose and scavenging. Some people may be resorting to raiding grocery stores and pharmacies for need or profit. There are language barriers as rescuers seek to locate or treat the missing and injured.

One week after earthquake: Some sort of benefit concert featuring a number of celebrities and music stars has been arranged. Outrage over how this emergency has been handled is all over the news, along with scathing analysis of how much of the damage could have been prevented. Fires are either out or under control and one half of the homeless have been put up in tents or farmed out to neighboring counties. Relief is finally starting to pour in at a pace that was needed days before. Blame is in the preliminary rounds of discussion and everyone is attempting to use the situation to their advantage. There is a heavy Asian population in San Francisco, so allusions to the Japanese-American internment camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor are flying across the media airwaves. Hopefully this emergency doesn’t occur during a presidential election year. Funds are allocated to send emergency aid to the area and California goes into receivership, (4). Many will rally around California but will quietly move away to Colorado, throwing the Colorado housing market and public schools into disarray. Several companies with headquarters in San Francisco have a stiff upper lip in the media, but prices go up on such products as Dolby, Gap, Gymboree, Del Monte, and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Servers have been disrupted at Wikimedia, Blogspot, Craigslist, and Flikr, further disrupting national communication. Many fruit crops are declared to be in danger causing the price of artichokes, strawberries, lettuce, celery and peppers to go up dramatically and people horde seed packets and canned goods (where available) of the same.

One month after earthquake: Hard data begin to be available concerning casualties and damage assessments. Outrage still circulates concerning the treatment of various evacuees, with declarations of“it’s Katrina all over again” in more than one media outlet. By now several people in political positions have been replaced by other people with similar levels of competence but with nicer teeth and fresher faces so the common people feel that the movers and shakers are finally placing blame on the appropriate heads. A national holiday is proposed but shouted off the table since it wasn’t an act of war that caused the devastation. Media are finally catching on to the damage in surrounding areas, including the Point Reyes National Seashore, the toppling of flora in Mt Diablo State Park, and Henry W. Coe State Park (home of TarantulaFest). Many people question whether San Francisco should be rebuilt, to which lobbyists for those companies headquartered there respond with vehement schmoozing. Candlelight rallies take place where half of the candlelight vigilees wear tie-dye rainbow t-shirts, eat dim sum and sing Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay to support the city of the now fallen Golden Gate Bridge. The country has recovered from its shock enough to finally start making fun of the tragedy, with Jon Stewart’s Chief Earthquake Correspondent reporting live from the scene that the greatest tragedy of the day was the loss of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookies factory. California begins to relax its immigration rules when it becomes desperate for repairs to be stepped up so that tourists keep coming to spend their money in a state that was ailing even before the natural disaster struck. Lax immigration regulation results in a sharp uptick in crime and drugs in the state, straining law enforcement resources. It also creates a greater strain on state aid programs like WIC and some state health benefits, sapping away the money that the state was trying to bring in with cheap labor.

6 months after the earthquake: Long term funds for reconstruction have been stymied in the senate since the Republicans are back in power and they don’t want to fund a city known for its socially liberal reputation. They try to attach relief funds to a bill that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Further argument comes up when they realize that with the large Mormon population in the state that they also want the bill to declare marriage to be between one man and one woman, (5). Damage has been assessed in the many delicate aspects of California ecology. Biologists lament the demise of an entire species of shrimp, the sickening of two species of seaweed, and the disruption of both sealion and monarch butterfly reproduction and migration patterns. All other potential for major disasters is ignored by the public because they live in a culture of instant gratification and little thought for the past or future. Disasters have happened, the government came to rescue them even though they didn’t prepare emergency supplies, and they now have an additional form of entertainment: recreational outrage. The tv movie starring Dennis Quaid and the Olsen twins entitled The Day the Iron Horse was Put Down (with distinct animal rights and environmental awareness agendas) has been shown twice during primetime and put out on dvd, along with a documentary by Michael Moore entitled They Gelded the Iron Horse: Why FEMA and Obama Allowed a Golden Symbol to Fall. The government has made, more aggressively publicized, or renamed a committee to predict future disasters and prepare for them. They’ll call it CARMA: Collectively Addressing Resoundingly Maleficent Ado (since it’ll be name by a hippy liberal who is native to San Francisco). CARMA is intended to work closely with FEMA. They end up having a public squabble on CNN after CARMA refuses to divulge its prognostications, whereupon FEMA refuses to respond to any disaster which CARMA doesn’t publicly predict.

1 year later: National media ask the country to observe a moment of silence beginning the minute when the earthquake first struck the year previous. The victims of the tragedy are still largely displaced and some of them are still very angry at insurance companies or relief efforts that they felt were insufficient. A new ribbon has emerged in memory of The Big Two (otherwise known as The Second Big One): black and gold striped lengthwise. This ribbon appears on cars and windows in an effort to renew anxious awareness of a tragedy which happened very recently in the context of human history, but so long ago in the age of text messages and speed dating.

1 -- http://www.1906eqconf.org/mediadocs/BigonestrikesReport.pdf

2 – A video found here: http://www.1906eqconf.org/

3 -- http://www.training.fema.gov/emiweb/earthquake/NEH0103140.htm

4 -- http://www.slate.com/id/2246915/

5 – Full disclosure: I’m LDS (aka, Mormon).

part of my essay

2010-09-24T19:23:00.000-06:00

This is for sociology. I was told to write 5 pages on what the aftermath of another 1906 earthquake would look like. Here's an excerpt from the half where I start to run out of serious material and now I'm just trying to fill 5 pages:

One month after earthquake: Hard data begin to be available concerning casualties and damage assessments. Outrage still circulates concerning the treatment of various evacuees, with cries of “it’s Katrina all over again!” in more than one media outlet. By now several people in political positions have been replaced by other people with similar levels of competence but with nicer teeth and fresher faces so the common people feel that the movers and shakers are finally placing blame on the appropriate heads. A national holiday is proposed but shouted off the table since it wasn’t an act of war that caused the devastation. Media are finally catching on to the damage in surrounding areas, including the Point Reyes National Seashore, the toppling of flora in Mt Diablo State Park, and Henry W. Coe State Park (home of TarantulaFest). Many people question whether San Francisco should be rebuilt, to which lobbyists for those companies headquartered there respond with vehement schmoozing. Candlelight rallies take place where half of the candlelight vigilees wear tie-dye rainbow t-shirts, eat dim sum and sing Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay to support the city of the Wounded Golden Gate Bridge. The country has recovered from its shock enough to finally start making fun of the tragedy, with Jon Stewart’s Chief Earthquake Correspondent reporting live from the scene that the greatest tragedy of the day was the loss of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookies factory. California begins to relax its immigration rules when it becomes desperate for repairs to be stepped up so that the tourists keep coming to spend their money in a state that was ailing before the natural disaster struck.
6 months after the earthquake: Long term funds for reconstruction have been stymied in the senate since the Republicans are back in power and they don’t want to fund a city known for its socially liberal reputation. They try to attach relief funds to a bill that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Further argument comes up when they realize that with the large Mormon population in the state that they also want the bill to declare marriage to be between one man and one woman, (5). Damage has been assessed in the many delicate aspects of California ecology. Biologists lament the demise of an entire species of shrimp, the sickening of two species of seaweed, and the disruption of both sealion and monarch butterfly reproduction and migration patterns.

(5) - Full disclosure: I'm LDS (aka Mormon).

And that's where I sort of putt-putted out of ideas for the night. I guess it's a good thing it isn't due until Tuesday. The first few sections are missing from this, but it's mostly statistics and the demise of the Golden Gate Bridge since it is even now being shored up against seismic activity but we with military experience understand the integrity of government construction projects. I just need one more full page of jabber and then I'm done!

So busy that I actually....

2010-09-21T13:49:00.000-06:00

Busy. BUSY. .......busy.

There are some days where I have about one hour of downtime (in 10 minute chunks) and, unfortunately, blogging tends to come last.

This morning I was getting ready to head out the door and I hollered out to the Things.

"Princess, shoes, backpack, jacket, homework, lunch, brushed hair?"

"Yes!"

"Tag, shoes, backpack, jacket, homework, lunch?" (he doesn't brush his hair)

"Yes!"

"Pebbles!"

"What!" (her voice echoed in the distance)

"Ready to go?"

"Yeah, on the potty!!"

"Ok. Freida, got your backpack and shoes?"

"Yeth!" (she has a slight lisp)

This whole time I was making a turkey and sprouts wrap in a low carb tortilla and cramming my binders into my backpack, running around with my head down in the sort of focus that running behind induces in large families.

"Princess, take my key and head out to the van please."

So they all troop out, buckle, I run out there, dump my stuff in the front seat, buckle Freida, and actually make it to the school in good time. Everyone piled out when Princess suddenly asked "where's Pebbles?"

Oh. My. Gosh.

"Oh my gosh! She's... she's.... on the potty!!"

A mom happened to be walking past with her little brood when the exclamation was made. I looked around desperately and said "if my husband is still at home with her, does that mean I'm not actually a horrible mom?" She laughed and said "of course not" and I laughed and then RAN back to the driver's seat.

So I put my cell on speaker, started to drive, and thanked heaven that Man had not yet left for work when he picked up my frantic phone call. She was very upset since preschool is about her favorite thing in the whole world, trumping even Princess movies and ice cream.

In my defense, Pebbles is by far the most quiet and, dare I say it?, almost the most compliant of all the kids. Had she not been in the bathroom I know she would have gone out to the van like a shot and been happily belted and seated with her backpack and lunch box perched on her knees before I ever left the door. She also sits in the very back of the van.

There. I've made my excuses.

All told I was only 5 minutes late for class which wasn't a huge loss. We were discussing Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and I'm already sick of that book.

And I cheaply learned a million dollar lesson today: always count noses.

Getting everyone on board

2010-09-11T08:36:00.000-06:00

Home organization.

It's an organic process and one that can be elusive to those with the best of intentions. So many blogs, stores, magazines, and tv shows are dedicated to organization and home decoration, proving our desire to consume and produce the same.

I've got the notebook prepared, the house sectioned off into manageable chunks, and sketchy plans to put into action. All I desire at this point is input from the spousal unit and his expertise in sorting the cord boxes. He hates "projects" but this is a project worth doing for the peace and happiness of the whole family.

How can we make our home relatively easy to clean and maintain?

It's a heavy question. More to come as we work our way from one end of it to the other.