vacation

I'm going on computer vacation for a few weeks - I have more pressing matters to take care of.

super batteries

So, the old HP digital camera that the kids now use as their own totally eats AA batteries. Or rather did, until PaGee gave us some of the new Energizer lithium AA's at Christmas. The ones that we put in the camera during the holidays JUST NOW TODAY DIED! Now this would be pretty astounding if this camera was used normally but this camera is not used normally. Paul uses this camera 50 pictures at a time about twice a week. Most of his pictures are purposefully of his feet, fingers, eye, computer, windows and furniture so once he fills the camera (it holds 70 on high resolution) I then have to display them all on the camera screen to delete them one by one. One by one since every once in a while he takes a really good picture or else Giselle got a hold of it and took some good ones. Unfortunately, Paul has learned to delete pictures too and earlier today he deleted about 20 good pictures. Oh well, easy come easy go.

Words of the Week

Oh, the words this week are the beginning of the 2nd grade words. Giselle got another 100% on her last week's words and looks to be on track for another perfect score (maybe).
About
After
Again
Animal
Another
Beautiful
Because
Best
Better
Black

and today's math was graphs - learning to read them and make your own.

latest

Last night I tripped on a root in the back yard and almost scalped my right big toe. I took no pictures - I forgot to until after I had already put the bandaid on and, OH MY NO, I can't bear to waste a $.10 bandaid for the sake of a cool picture.
For a fantastically huge laugh go check out Antique Mommy's post for today about how owning something cool does not automatically make you cool. She's in Texas and she's cool!
gotta get back to school work.

Not exactly breaking news but ...

Martha Quinn, the former MTV VJ, is a La Leche League Leader!

Media Releases
FORMER MTV VJ, MARTHA QUINN PLAYS FOR LA LECHE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL ON TELEVISION GAMESHOW "THE WEAKEST LINK"

Schaumburg, IL (October 2001)-Martha Quinn, one of Music Television's (MTV) original video jockeys, or VJ, will be appearing October 29, 2001 on the celebrity edition of the NBC game show "The Weakest Link." She has chosen La Leche League International (LLLI) as her designated charity.
Voted "MTV's Best-Ever VJ" by Rolling Stone magazine readers, she hosted such programs as "Martha's Greatest Hits" and "MTV Prime with Martha Quinn." After leaving MTV, she appeared on a number of TV shows, including playing the role of Mrs. Bobby Brady in the television series "The Brady's," and was featured in several films and commercials. More recently she was part of Bryant Gumbel's "The Early Show" and is currently on hiatus from her nationally syndicated radio show "Martha Quinn's Rewind."
With the birth of her daughter Annabelle in 1997, Quinn took on her favorite role to date--that of full-time mother, which she describes as being "one hundred times as important as any of the other work I have done." She and her husband Jordan Tarlow, a composer of television commercial music, are expecting another child soon.
At her pediatrician's suggestion, Quinn read LLLI's book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding while she was pregnant with her daughter. She later began attending LLL meetings and now wishes that she had attended them before she had given birth. Today, Quinn is as exuberant in her enthusiasm for LLLI as she was with being a celebrity VJ. An LLLI Leader for the past two years, she recommends that all pregnant women "check out a La Leche League meeting, (a place) where they will meet a lot of great people and hear all about what breastfeeding has to offer." She continues, "just because breastfeeding is natural, doesn't mean it comes naturally--a little information can help you get your breastfeeding off to a great start."
Quinn brings the warmth, enthusiasm and talent that she has exhibited in her other work to her work as an LLL Leader and believes one of the main reasons women quit breastfeeding is because of lack of support which she says, "is where we (LLL) come in." She goes on to say, "a mom will present an issue at an LLL meeting and you can feel the community energy supporting her and when she leaves the meeting, she feels validated and empowered."
First becoming interested in breastfeeding because of the unique nutritional benefits it offers babies, Quinn has become a passionate advocate for breastfeeding since learning about the other advantages. She believes she is helping not only her own family, but also her community, and the world. Quinn says that LLLI should sell a T-shirt that says, "World Peace through Breastfeeding--One Baby at a Time."
LLLI is grateful to Martha Quinn for her work as an LLL Leader and for her generosity in choosing LLLI as her favorite charity.
La Leche League International is a nonprofit organization offering mother-to-mother support in 32 languages and 63 countries. It offers a variety of educational opportunities for medical professionals, publishes and sells books and magazines on breastfeeding and parenting and maintains an award-winning website at www.lalecheleague.org
Contact Kim Cavaliero, ext. 233, Mary Lofton, ext. 271, or Mary Hurt, ext. 286Phone (847) 519-7730
Copyright © 2006-7 by La Leche League International and those posting information. All Rights Reserved. This site is for your information only. For medical advice consult a health professional. For more information, please see our Terms of Use.

Sunday Seven #7

Seven things I’m thankful for this last week ending 4/7/07
1 – A zoo that’s close by my house.
2 – A neighborhood that’s relatively quiet at night for camping out.
3 – Paul taking a nap before the Friday Night Friend Dinner.
4 – The temperature stayed above freezing during our entire Arctic Blast.
5 – Paul & Sam not making a mess when they took a bath together at Marie’s house.
6 – Suzanne and her family safely moved back to Austin.
7 – Joe not stressing out yet about me leaving town for 2 weeks with the kids.

Leave a link to YOUR Sunday Seven here>>

Cascarones

172 is the final count for the number of cascarones made at Casa De Galletti this year, that's 14 dozen for the math challenged of you. Last year we had a bit over 20 dozen (that's 240 eggs) but we also started saving the shells earlier in the year. Last year we started at the beginning of the year - Jan 1 - this year we forgot and didn't start until halfway through the month. Also this year Joe is not around as much for breakfast - he's waking earlier and we are waking later so that he can work in the office in silence but that means that he's leaving the house just about the time that we are getting up at 8 - so that's 4 eggs less every day that he doesn't eat here. By the way, I do my eggs the easy way - I carefully crack open the eggs at the pointed end on the side of the pan or bowl and still use the whole egg contents with the yolk unbroken. It takes practice but I was taught to do it that way by the cooks at On The Border over 15 years ago.
I'll post pictures later.



EDITED TO ADD: I finally posted the pictures on July 9, 2007. Here's the direct link : http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-pictures.html

Too Cold For April

AUGH! This is WAY TOO COLD!!!! It's 38 degree Fahrenheit right now out our back door. It was so cold and rainy at the market that even though we've been home for 1 and 1 half hours I just now took off my fleece jacket! Gosh it was miserable there today! And you can see what time I was up until last night since I went to bed right after that last post. We got up at 8:30 and we all would have rather stayed in bed but we had a job to do so we ate some hot blueberry oatmeal and headed out of the house at 9:30. It was already cold so we wore long pants, turtle neck shirts and jackets. The kids wore their new rain suits with their rain boots and I wore my old leaky raincoat and tennis shoes. The kids spent almost the entire market in the truck and the minivan - they were out just long enough when we got there to procure some free black bean tamales.
I got some beef cutlets to cook up for dinner tomorrow, an entire plant of collards, 2 bunches of chard (1 for me and one for my sister), some parsley for my sister (who we'll be seeing on Monday), 2 dozen eggs (Joe hasn't been eating much bacon and eggs so we're a bit over-stocked) and 6 quarts of milk. For helping Aunt Nita break down her tent I got paid a lemon meringue pie and a bag of decorated Easter cookies. From the cheese guy I bought some plain cream cheese, some plain chunk curd cheese, some mozzarella cheese sticks and some of his phenomenal cottage cheese. Like all shrewd dealers of addictive substances, Mike gave me a free container out of the back of his van the other week so that I could try it out - they only make a small amount of it so it's not out on display to the general public. I was hooked after the first bite! Since my sister is addicted to the Kettle Corn at The Market, she requested that I get some to bring to her on Monday. Lenny was happy to pop me up 3 large bags. He very considerately put it into 6 medium bags since those bags are thicker and will keep the kettle corn fresher for longer.
Over all, a very productive day at the market albeit a very cold and wet one.
For dinner tonight it'll be black-eyed peas (from Hariston Creek Organic Farms - bought last summer and kept in the freezer) cooked with a small ham bone from Finca Pura Vida.

Zima

My renewed obsession with Zima is thanks to Big Mama down San Antonio way and her post about living off of Diet Coke while at A&M.
I think that after drinking pretty much nothing but water for the last 7 years I deserve to have drinks occasionally. We're about to move from 3 liters of water a day weather to 4 or 5 liters a day so I'm looking for some taste variation.

This last week's dinner food

Friday night - Friday Dinner With Friends - make your own tacos with margaritas and Zima and cookies.
Thursday night - Leftover Manicotti made into sauce for mushroom ravioli.
Wednesday night - Manicotti made with my home-canned pasta sauce and organic ground beef, organic ricotta cheese, fresh oregano, and organic chard in place of the spinach in the filling.
Tuesday night - Dinner at Marie's - Marie made a turkey pasta salad. The kids liked it but I didn't have any since I've got issues regarding fruit mixing with meat. I had a big lettuce salad for a late lunch and avocado for dinner.
Monday night - Hmm, did the kids have turkey sandwiches? Or was it Asian noodle soup? I think it was the soup because I seem to remember feeding the leftovers to the dog the next day.

Suzanne is back HOME!

After a long strange trip in California for a year, SUZANNE is back home in Texas and this means that RETTA and CLIFFORD are home too!!!!!!
We here at Casa De Galletti are very excited about this!

What happens when you leave 5th graders unattended in Louisiana

This is sad http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3005528

school can be done ANYWHERE!

Today while grocery shopping Giselle started helping me do cost analyses. One in particular was while we were in the cheese section. The HEB Easy Melt individually wrapped slices were all on sale. As I know from running numbers in my head every time I shop, something on sale is not always the cheaper cost-per-ounce/item choice. In this case BOTH the 24 slice packages and the 16 slice packages were on sale, the 24 slice packages were 2 for $5 and the 16 slice packages were 3 for $5. Now Giselle is NOT doing multiplication yet but she is able to understand the concept behind multiplication - it's a way to quickly add together the same number many times - through addition. So I wrote the 2 math problems down on my shopping list (I wrote the actual problems vertically which is a much easier way to solve 2 and 3 digit equations but that didn't translate well into blogger so I'm writing them horizontal here):
24+24=
16+16+16=
First I had her add 16 +16, then she added 16 to that answer for a total of 48. Then she easily added the 24 + 24 and got 48 again. I asked her "So, which is the better deal?" and she said "You get 48 slices each way, they're the SAME!" and then I let her pick which ones we got for our $5 (she picked the 24 slice packages).
As I put back the 16 slice package and got the other package of cheese a young woman that works there says to me "How old is your little girl?" I replied "She'll be 6 in May." and she says "Wow, I've never heard a kid be able to do that before, that's great!" I said something like "Yes it is!" and we went about the rest of our shopping.
Tomorrow we are going to learn on the Internet about how they dry clean clothes - I dropped Giselle's flower girl dress off at the dry cleaners and she asked how they do what they do and I said that we'd find out for school. Maybe we'll ask to take a tour of the facility when we go pick the dress up on Wednesday!

The Backyardigans

Tonight is the first backyard camp out of 2007. It's a full moon tonight so it'll be very bright eventually, currently Joe is out in the workhouse down the hill with his friend Derrick so it's bright from those lights. They've got their water bottles, two animal friends each and some of those glowing necklaces to play with until they get tired enough to try to go to sleep. There's supposed to be a 5 to 10 mph wind out of the South but it really hasn't shown up yet - I'm not hearing any wind chimes. Hopefully they will be ready to come inside by the time it's my time to go to bed, otherwise I'll be out there with them. If it's breezy it won't be too bad - I've got the queen-sized inflatable mattress (turned sideways) out there with sleeping bags and pillows on top of it. I have to say that I love modern tents, they so blow old-timey tents away! It was after 7 this evening when the kids convinced me to let us camp out tonight and the tent was all set up and filled with stuff by 8.
Maybe I'll go take some snacks out there for them.
Next time maybe we'll do this in Marie's back yard or they'll come join us in ours. Giselle says that each family has to stay in their own tent.

Spelling

Giselle got 100% correct on her spelling test from last week!
And she lost tooth #4 yesterday afternoon - pictures later
This week's words are:
This
Very
Went
What
When
Who
Why
Will
With
Your
Zoo
and then next week we start on the 2nd grade words.

Sunday Seven #6

Seven things I’m thankful for in general (feeling too rushed to be specific)
1 – My husband
2 – My kids
3 – My friends
4 – My house
5 – My health
6 – My extended family
7 - My life


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