Pokemon

Stop me before I buy again! No seriously, I'm bidding on our last mixed sets since I've got enough to last us for a while at this point. Later today they'll be trading them with Marcum and I'm sure that he will cry (literally) to his mom about not having one of the cool Pokemon zippered notebooks that I got for the kids this last week.


Anyone want to buy my duplicate cards from the Elvis trading cards that came out in 1992 and 1993? They are in perfect condition.

yuck and fun

We went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast today - talk about a sugar overload. The kids ate about 6 donuts combined, got grossed out on the sugar, and then we watched the staff make doughnuts for an hour or so. Our KK plays the GREATEST music. I was texting Holly about every song they played - New Order, Heaven 17, Devo, Def Leppard - I was loving it, especially since I was up late wrapping presents while listening to the Hits of the 80's station on Yahoo Radio.

I gotta make some icing and get the cake iced so I gotta run.

Playmobil 5756

Playmobil 5756 Unicorn Fantasy Land
So I bought this months ago in advance of Giselle's birthday. It's brand new but not in the original box so I looked on the Playmoboard for some pictures of the box front to put in the package. I came across this hilarious photo montage of it being assembled. It's really funny!

Dr Who

Dr Who
So, who is your favorite Doctor? I've been so sucked in by the two latest Doctors that I'm wanting to get the old Doctor Who episodes just to get even more background. I do remember watching it sometimes on PBS when it was the younger guy with the curly hair and the super long multi-colored scarf. But I also remember not getting it. Maybe if I watched it now, knowing what I know, I would get it.

I'm doing this on the Mac Snowball and it doesn't have the right-click function enabled on the mouse so I can't insert the hyperlinks at this time. I'll come back in later to add them. In the meantime, if you go to Wikipedia and search for Doctor Who then you'll find what I was going to link to on your own.

Now, back to TiVo and my Doctor Who reruns.

The kids are outside again tonight, just now falling asleep. I'll be joining them in another 2 hours I suppose.

camping - day 2

The kids went to sleep late.
They woke up early but I made them go back to sleep until 7:15 or so.
I stayed in the tent sleeping until 8:30 am! Joe didn't let me sleep indoors.
Giselle wants to do it again tonight.
I don't know if Paul wants to since he's been asleep for the last 2 hours - he fell asleep in the car on the way home from HEB. Giselle thinks he will since he's napped and now will be able to stay up late again.
I did leave the tent up all day just in case they wanted to do it again.
But last night a front blew through the state and cooled things off just before bed. No such luck this evening so they might be too hot. Although we can always depend on the trusty 5 mph breeze that blows most of the night.
We'll have to wait and see.

un-adventurous camping

While the J's are off conquering every campsite in the state, our camping has to stay a bit closer to home - like the backyard close.
The tent is set up, the mattress is inflated, the bed is made-up, the toys and water have been placed inside. All that's missing is the kids and some glowing sticks - we have to wait another 30 minutes until it gets dark enough for those. I guess once this episode of Peep and the Big Wide World is over I'll get out the glowing sticks and kick the kids outside. What am I saying? They are the ones that have been bugging me to camp out since yesterday evening. They'll be happy to go as long as they have those glowing sticks (speaking of the 1980's which is when those things first hit the clubs).
And we can do this on a Tuesday night because tomorrow is a school day and school doesn't start here until 10 am!!
Lightning bugs, here we come!!

phantom pains

The kids are all better but Paul has learned to play the "my stomach hurts" card whenever there is something that he doesn't want to do. I told him this morning that I'm not going to play that game.

what happened to 1988?

Last night I was going through my storage box that contains all of my diary/day planners going back to 1977. Yes, that wasn't a typo. I started in 1977 with a 5 year diary. I still had a year to go in the 5 year diary but on Jan 1, 1981 I shifted to using a pocket calendar. In 1984 I switched to a weekly planner and in 1987 I switched to a daily planner. In 1992 I switched back to a weekly planner and 2001 I started including my Microsoft Outlook calendar into the mix. Don't get me wrong, these aren't journals of my thoughts, they are logs of my day's activities and money earned or spent. With a little drama added in sometimes.

But, back to where this post started.
I can't find the planner for 1988!! It's not in the box, it's not in the other 2 memorabilia boxes either. Maybe it's in a dresser drawer (I don't know why it would be there)? See, 1988 was an important year seeing as how that's when Joe and I started. But we didn't meet until the summer and that leaves a whole 6 months before he came along that is recorded and NOT TO BE FOUND! Not to mention our first 6 months together!

Don't worry, I'm not going to use them to go all PW on y'all; I just like to read through them every few years to see if I can remember people's last names and to shake my head at the child and teenager I was, so desperate for attention and approval and usually going about it the wrong way.
I'm enjoying reading that 5 year diary currently. It covers from just before I turned 11 in 5th grade through the first half of 10th grade just before I turned 16. Anyone that knows me from those days can totally imagine what I'm reading. Roller skating with Suzanne B all around the neighborhood. Seeing Star Wars and Close Encounters at the movie theater. My obsession with boys. Hanging out with questionable people down at the river. Walking everywhere. Ice skating with Robin G every weekend. Meeting up with friends at Sherwood Hall Library. Taking the late bus home from Jr High. Going to the SRA Pool EVERY day for the entire summer. My obsession with boys. Hanging out at FHHS football, basketball and baseball games. Playing a lot of tennis. The long walk to the nearest 7-11. Walking everywhere. Living for church 'activities'. Visiting my sisters at college in Cha'ville and Richmond. Living with my sister in Loxahatchee. Mister Skinner. FHES assemblies.

I read 1984 through 1989 (minus 1988!) last night - what a total roller coaster! I'm not really wanting to read through the more recent books since there's not much in those, although I thumbed through 1991 and 92 and boy, we sure did go to a lot of movies in those days. And ate out a lot too. The first place we ate after I moved here was at Hut's for dinner.

After school today and after grocery shopping I'm going to search high and low for that year. I'd like to find it because I wouldn't want it to be lost but I wonder if I actually destroyed that one. When I boxed these up in 2001 I think that I would have put a note in the box that a year was missing. Wish me luck!

laundry

I've decided that it's not DOING the laundry that I don't like, although I enjoy it less now that they have the lids that stop the action once you lift them - I like watching the laundry get washed. It's folding/putting the laundry away that I don't like.
So, could someone please come over and put away all my husband's laundry please, before the shirts get all wrinkly. My kids do their own if I bug them enough and I'll get to mine eventually, in bits and pieces.

not enough water

I always know that I'm not drinking enough water when I think that it's hot outside. I need to drink another liter NOW!

I made some awesome tabbouleh for dinner last night:
2.5 cups cooked couscous
some olive oil
some salt to taste
some freshly ground pepper
a couple of medium tomatoes chopped
2 small zucchini chopped
about 10 leaved of basil chopped
1 tsp minced garlic

I'm really missing the park

Today Paul has a painful stomach - just like Giselle had. They are both currently at 98.9 degrees F but with Paul's stomach and Giselle's head I'm thinkin' that we are staying home from the park today, again.
POOO!

At least we're getting caught up on all our TiVo shows.

And Giselle has still been doing school. The hazard of homeschooling in our house - you don't get a full sick day unless you are delirious. I am giving her the day off for her birthday though.

In honor of Homeschool Park Day

Another excellent post from Dr Laura yesterday
http://www.drlaurablog.com/2008/05/22/home-schooling-does-not-hamper-socialization/

Is that smoke I smell?

I knew the answer as soon as I walked outside the other morning. Each Spring in Mexico they burn the crops left in the field from the prior season. Every spring, at the end of the tropical dry season, agricultural burning and wildfires produce large amounts of smoke in southeastern Mexico and Central America. The fires usually begin in March and by late May or early June the smoke production diminishes as the rainy season begins. The peak of the burning is usually in late April and early May. Persistent southeasterly winds carry the resulting smoke to Texas, most frequently in April and May. It does put nutrients back into the soil and kill off weeds but it also puts the smell of burning wood and leaves in the air for thousands of miles. Here's our air report from Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ - pronounced TEE-SICK) for today: "Smoke from agricultural burning in Mexico and Central America is covering most of the state with "Moderate" fine particulate levels this morning along and east of a line from Sanderson to Odessa to Dalhart. Strong southwesterly winds will push the western edge of the smoke to near a line from Sanderson to Childress by mid-day, with "Moderate" or possibly higher fine particulate levels over much of the eastern two-thirds of the state."
So yes, that IS smoke that you smell, although not nearly as bad as it was one spring about 10 years ago. That time the smoke was so thick that the skies were hazy all day long and it always smelled like the house next door was on fire. Read about it here: http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/assets/public/comm_exec/pubs/pd/020/98-02/smokin.pdf

Pokemon and eBay

Yeah, my kids are sucked into the whirling vortex that is Pokemon and the trading cards. It happened about 2 months ago when a friend of theirs gave them some of his cards. Then silly me took them to the store to buy some of their own and get some card holding sheets. OH MY GOSH THEY ARE EXPENSIVE! So I started buying them on eBay for a whole lot less money. In the store you can buy a new package of 10 cards for $3.99 or $4.99, a cost of $.40 or $.50 PER CARD! You can also buy a box of 40 cards for $13.99 or $.35 per card, of course that DOES come with a special metal box and a few other special cards.

OR you can go shopping on eBay and WITH SHIPPING pay around $.10 per card. Yes, for the cost of one of those special boxes you can get between ONE HUNDRED and THREE HUNDRED Pokemon cards.





eBay is SO the way to go if you are trying to build a set of trading cards. Yeah, buy a brand new pack at the store for those special occasions - birthday, Christmas, report cards, lost a tooth, etc - but for the rest of the time buy them used and save a lot of money!

food and family

Did I mention that I made tapioca pudding yesteday from scratch? Well I did, I even made it strawberry flavored using my strawberry puree. I soaked the tapioca pearls overnight and made the pudding while Giselle did school yesterday. Until Giselle got a fever this evening, I was sure that her stomach ache was from eating too much tapioca pudding yesterday.
I just followed the recipe on the back of the package of Reese Small Pearl Tapioca:
1/2 C Reese Tapioca
2 1/2 C milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C sugar
2 eggs separated
1 tsp vanilla
In a bowl, soak tapioca in 2 cups of room temperature water overnight. Drain water. (By the way, the balls taste fairly nasty at this point.) In a double boiler (I just used a large sauce pan directly on the stove), heat milk just until no longer cold. Add salt and tapioca. continue heating until small bubbles appear at sides of pan. Cover, turn heat to very low and cook for one hour. Make sure that milk mixture does not simmer or boil. Separate egg whites from yolks. Beat egg yolks and sugar together until light yellow in color. Add a little of the hot mixture to the egg yolks and blend thoroughly. Then add the egg yolk mixture to the hot milk mixture, stirring constantly. Place the double boiler over medium heat and cook until tapioca mixture is very thick, about 15 minutes. Beat egg whites until stiff. (The kids really liked watching the whites go from looking like nose goo to looking like whipped cream in front of their eyes while I whisked it in the bowl.) Slowly fold the egg whites into the hot tapioa mixture. Stir in vanilla (and this is where I stirred in 1/2 Cup of strawberry puree, I should have used a whole cup). Serve warm or chilled. Makes 6 cups.

And last night I had the boys over for dinner again. Mom was out of town so Dad came over and joined us too. We had tamales (black bean, pork and chicken all with green sauce and sour cream) and talapia (marinated and baked with garlic Italian salad dressing) and Italian herbed chicken breasts (made and frozen by HEB, reheated by me) and sauteed mixed veggies (butter and spike seasoning) and that great cole slaw I made the other day and sauteed scallops (butter and Old Bay seasoning) and strawberry tapioca pudding.

Guess who...

Guess who ran into a pricing/sorting table with his face while chasing his sister around Academy yesterday afternoon while I was shopping for swimsuits. Go ahead, I'll give you a chance to think about it.
Yep you guessed it, Paul.

Beautiful shiner even with the arnica. The swelling had got bigger by late this morning so we went by the doctor after the LLL meeting, dropping my ring off to have the prongs fixed, and eating lunch. She said that he really wacked his orbital bone but since he didn't pull away when she pressed on the area, just sat there and said 'ouch', that it wasn't too bad and we didn't need to xray it. So, thankfully, we have avoided a massive dose of radiation to his brain once again! The dr said that it's common for bruises like that to look worse on the 2nd or 3rd day than they did on the first day.

Not to be outdone in the ailment department, Giselle came down with a stomach ache after dinner last night which was still around this evening. When she went to bed she had a temp of 101. So much for going to the pool to try out our new suits.

mending - blech!

I just washed Joe's newest comforter from Garden Ridge for the first time and a lot of the stitching came undone. Now I have mending to do tonight.
Blech!

coincidence?

The dog's really bad stinky gas has gone away since I started feeding her raw meat again. She got plain yogurt and raw chicken breasts for the last 2 days and she hasn't done anything to force us to kick her out of the house since then. Although I'm pretty sure that this last bout was due to the pizza that she got on Thursday night. Just in case, I'll get 2 containers of plain yogurt for her tomorrow when I go shopping and stick with boneless chicken. And I'll add some of my Super Food powder to her bowl too, just for an added boost.

Sunday

We got up fairly early, thanks to Paul leaving the bathroom door open when I made him go pee at 3 am. The light coming in the bathroom window was enough to have us all awake at 7 am. I went back to sleep until 7:45 once I kicked the kids out at 7:15. Sunday School was at 11 then they sat around the house not doing much of anything while I made coleslaw (I'll give my recipe tomorrow) until 4 when I decided that we should go to the pool. So we went and stayed until 6:40, some friends of ours from The Farmers Market were there so we had someone to hang out with. Then we came home, ate some of the coleslaw, the kids had ravioli and I had refried beans with green sauce. They are in bed now and I'm waiting for Joe to get home from dinner so that we can hang out and then I'm going to bed. I refused to deal with the laundry today so I get to do that first thing in the morning.

The coleslaw is excellent already but I think that it needs at least a day or two to lacto-ferment some more.

Fishing is Fun with Pesca Rondonia!

Here's a fishing video that EVERYONE will love!! It's from a Brazilian TV fishing show www.pescarondonia.com.br
We've had this video floating around our family & friends for about 2 years now and we still crack up every time.
Get ready to die of laughter!

ouch!!!

So I'm sitting at the dinner table, finishing off the rest of my supper after the kids have gone to bed, reading the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine (thank you Thomas for letting me read it for a week each time before passing it on to you) and I come across a little ditty in the article about playing through the pain. Now, I come from a VERY athletic family and we were a very play through the pain lot. Not because our parents said to but due to our own sports ethic. So this little blurb is about a rugby player from New Zealand by the name of Wayne Shelford. Now Wayne, in the middle of a typical rugby game, got kicked in the face and lost 3 teeth, got kicked in the head and kicked in the groin.

Stick with me here (or don't) because it gets a LOT worse.


20 minutes before the end of the game he's delirious from the concussion (remember the kick in the head?) and goes to the bench. The doc checks him out and discovers that not only is his scrotum ripped open but his testicle is totally hangin' out!!

I'm not a guy but I think I can imagine what pain that must have been and all I can do is wince and say OUCH!!

If you Google him you can read other versions of the story but this is his version as told to ESPN.

Paul is NOT allowed to play rugby!! I want grandkids and lots of them!

Something for the 'not yet a mothers'

I can't think of anything insightful but Rechelle's mom said something brilliant on her daughter's blog and I have to repeat it here!
Rechelle interviewed both her mother and mother-in-law for Mother's Day and posted it.

Rechelle asked her mom "If you could tell a new mom one secret of parenting, what would it be?"
and her mom replied "Don’t even think about being a mom unless you are willing to love 24/7 for the rest of your life." ..." You have one chance in life don’t miss it by thinking your career is number one."

Thanks Rechelle's Mom for the words of wisdom!
Happy Mother's Day!

Pampered dog

For her food today the dog got Paul's leftovers from the market: some Chicken & Bowtie Salad. Being the starving dog (scavenger) that she is she gulped the entire thing down. Not that unusual unless you read the list of ingredients: White and dark meat chicken, bowtie pasta, red grapes, celery, red onion, rice vinegar, orange & lemon Juice, parsley, chives, brown mustard, salt & pepper, sugar.
I'm in shock that the grapes did not remain, licked clean, in her bowl. Then again, she does eat blueberries if they are mixed in with other food, just not plain.
I guess I should give her a glass of milk to wash it all down with.

Cinco De Mayo!

Grab a Corona or a Dos Equis, or a ice cold horchata for those of you're not drinking alcohol, and celebrate "an initial victory of Mexican forces led by General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguín over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.
A common misconception in the United States is that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day; Mexico's Independence Day is actually September 16 (dieciséis de septiembre in Spanish), which is the most important national patriotic holiday in Mexico." from Wikipedia.


Remember, it's not plagiarism if you put the excerpt in quotes AND you note the source of your quote!

Here's an excellent telling of the history of the day http://www.mexonline.com/cinco-de-mayo.htm

Pot Roast

The other night, Tuesday, when we had Thomas & Bobby over for dinner I was trying to make a dry-roasted chuck roast but it didn't cook for long enough so we ate roasted pork loin and tamales instead. At the time I stuck the roast into the fridge to wait for another day and today was the day. About an hour after we got home from The Farmers Market I stuck the roast and juice into the slow cooker and set it to cooking. I worked on math with Giselle for a few hours and then she went to play across the street with a friend while I watched Monster Jam with Paul. At about 5:45 I threw some garlic, carrots, another onion and a bunch of cauliflower into the slow cooker with the meat to round out the meal. Giselle came home at 6:30, Joe woke up at 6:30 because the dog barked at Giselle coming home, and we all ate dinner together at 6:35. The meat was very good, the carrots were just right and the cauliflower was a tiny bit on the underdone side. I like my cauliflower either raw or overcooked, not really anywhere else in between. Giselle drank her juice out of her bowl, she liked it that much. Joe was very pleased with his surprise dinner - he likes to eat VERY shortly after he wakes up from a nap and he had no clue that I had planned dinner for us.

I'm turning all the leftovers into beef broth - I added another onion, a LOT of garlic and some pepper to the slow cooker and I'm going to cook it all overnight to make a WONDERFUL broth/bullion/stock for future use. I really like having homemade broth handy. I keep raw shrimp shells in the freezer to make seafood broth/stock at a moment's notice for Asian noodle soup.

Do you have a favorite kohlrabi recipe? I've got a lot of it and I'm probably just going to make kohlrabi pancakes with them (very similar to potato pancakes/latkas).

Speaking of latkas, I never really cared for Taxi. Maybe I was too young when that and Barney Miller were on the air to really appreciate the humor. I remember the shows and watched them but never really 'got' them.

A friend dropped off a six pack of Smirnoff Ice in the Strawberry-Acai flavor. I'm trying my second bottle (don't worry, I had my first bottle a week ago) and I think that I like the flavor. Next six pack I'm going to try the Watermelon or the Wild Grape.

I hear a kid crying, gotta go

Go read this blog post!

The 25 Best Hair Metal Bands
First off, I am so glad that he listed Kix! Have I mentioned recently how great they are? Second, I think that it's cool that he listed Angel, I can't believe that anyone other than my husband and my best friend in high school, Jamie Bestgen (I'm still looking for you!) had ever heard of them. Third, I'm glad that he gave props to both Ratt and Faster Pussycat. So many people just write them off. Thanks Rob for such a great list!