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!

Chocolate marshmallow ice cream

We made the ice cream today - remember, Edgar gave us extra milk on Saturday so that we could make some this week. It's mmm, mmm, delicious. I didn't use marshmallow creme, instead I mixed 1 cup of mini marshmallows into each half-gallon before I froze them in their containers.

Here's my recipe for this batch:
In a large metal bowl beat together 8 eggs and 1.25 cups of sugar. Beat for 5 min. Switch out beaters on mixer for whiskers. Whisk in 6 cups of whole milk, 3 cups of heavy cream, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 tsp vanilla and an entire 9 oz bar of La Popular Mexican Chocolate (melted). Whisk until blended. Pour into the metal canister of your ice cream maker (if your maker does not hold a whole gallon then half the recipe), put the dasher in, put the lid on, attach the turning mechanism and churn or plug it in until it's solid or your electric ice cream maker says that it's done. Transfer the soft/uncured ice cream into 2 half-gallon containers (those Ziploc/Glad/store brand 8-cup plastic storage containers work great) and stir 1 cup of mini marshmallows into each one.Put the lids on and stick them in the freezer for curing/hardening/storage. This batch made almost 3 cups more than 1 gallon so the 3 of us ate the rest as soft ice cream in our way cool ice cream cups - I had mine without marshmallows.

The next batch will be mint - I'll use crushed candy canes!

Since we ate the ice cream as our first course of dinner, the kids had cheese tortellini for dinner and I had a bowl of mixed veggies. As soon as this is done (transferring the pictures from my camera to the 2 computers, resizing for the Internet and posting them into this post) I have to tackle the dishes from the ice cream making.


Oh, I haven't mentioned the dishwasher yet!
Joe bought me a new dish washer last week! The one that we had was original equipment from when this house was built in 1983 and it had long since not worked correctly. Well, I never used it anyway for anything other than a place to store my oversized metal mixing bowls and the oversized plastic serving bowls. I'm still storing the bowls in the new dishwasher but I have actually used it 2 times! Or is it 3 times? No, just 2. The deal is that I can't stand using the washer as a holding tank until I have enough dirty dishes to do a full load and that takes about 3 or 4 days. So I end up washing by hand most of the time like I've done for the last 25 years of my life. I usually don't have many plates, it's mostly silverware, cups and bowls that need to be cleaned. And all of my cookware which can't go in the washer anyway. But it sure makes washing the milk bottles easy! I'm sure that as the kids get older and use more plates & cups (regardless of my nagging to rinse and reuse instead of dirtying another one) that it will get more use.

Who would play you?

Donna at Quiet Life has a fun post going on http://booshay.blogspot.com/2008/04/amy-j-and-i-bumped-into-one-another.html where she asks who you would have play you in the movie of your current life. I'm going to continue that here but instead of telling me I want you to post a picture of that person on YOUR blog. Please play along!


I said Andie MacDowell minus the fake hair color - mine is white and dark brown and I'm sure that hers would be also if she didn't color it.



the above picture is from here

Joe would say Cher in the movie Moonstruck.
http://www.videodetective.com/titledetails.aspx?publishedid=1330



I started this post just before school this am and just now finished it at 3:15. It's impossible to find any stills of Cher from Moonstruck that are the ones that I want.

EDITED ON 4/30/08 TO ADD: Joe found this one for me

Hail and rain

We woke at 6:45 this morning to hail pounding the other side of the bedroom wall that we sleep next to. We had some 'snow drifts' of large pea-sized hail to play in outside the back door and off the side of the back patio. Nothing dented, nothing broken, just a steady gentle rain since then and scheduled until noon or 1.

no time tonight

Spent the first part of the day at The Farmers Market and spent the second half of the day at Eeyore's Birthday Party. It's a big HUGE party that they've thrown every year for 45 years to celebrate the birthday of the Winnie the Pooh character. It's a wild party and I try to never miss it, this year was no exception (last year was since we were in Florida and couldn't make it). Everyone is supposed to be in costume, some choose to wear JUST body paint as their costume. The beer is flowing, there is a LOT of pot smoking, people are chomping on smoked turkey legs, kids and dogs are EVERYWHERE and everyone seems to be having a great time! It's just crazy and it's so much fun; the kids (my kids) love to go (although we only drink water and lemonade, eat ice cream, sausage wraps & chalupas (no beer or pot for us)). It's the only time that I let them get their faces painted, we ride school buses to get to and from the party (the free shuttles), they get to bang pots and pans in the drum circle, they make god's eyes, we untie and keep giant tissue paper flowers and they get to see grown ups doing very unusual things!
Here are some YouTube videos showing the full flavor of Eeyore's
Most are from 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZH3gGC_lAg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tISpQAmybvU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi8uvrq9ug8&feature=related

but I've got to get some of my TiVo shows watched and delete off a bunch of suggested shows that no one will ever watch so I'm outta here for now!

My Review of FLIP FLOP MATS

Originally submitted at UncommonGoods

Clean your feet - and the environment at the same time - using these colorful and durable mats with a storied past. Sandal factories have always generated surplus foam rubber in the production of their flip-flops. Instead of heading to a landfill, that flip-flop rubber is now made into these door...

FLIP FLOP MATS

It sure looks cool!

By Mommy of 2 from Austin, TX on 4/25/2008

 

4out of 5

Pros: Attractive Design, Cleans Shoes, Dries Quickly

Best Uses: Wet Weather, Front Door

Describe Yourself: Regular person

The one we received is not as cool looking as the one in the picture but it's still pretty cool. The ends of the wires that hold the mat together can catch on shoes or rolling luggage so be sure to rebend them down periodically. I think think that it will hold up well for a lot longer than the coconut fiber mats that we've had previously. It definately stays drier!

(legalese)

I gave blood again

Yesterday we went to the local blood and tissue center because it was time for me to give blood again. This makes 7 times that I've donated since last February! Giselle asked the woman at the front desk how many people donate each day and she said "About 70." We did the math: 70 pints = 35 quarts = 8.75 gallons donated every day! If I continue to give blood 6 times a year I will hit the 1 gallon mark next time I donate, I'll hit the 5 gallon mark in another 5 years. It'll take me 6.6 years to donate each 5 gallons, so I'll need 11.6 years until I hit 10 gallons and I'll hit 20 gallons 25 years from now. That'll be a total of 160 pints donated, with each one of them possibly saving a life, so that's the potential of me saving 160 lives! WOW! Now doesn't THAT make you want to go and give blood today?

The world's bravest crawfish

Late last night, around 11:15, Joe was in his workshop doing something that involved playing music loudly. He felt something on his Croc, looked down and saw the biggest scorpion that he had ever seen. When his heart palpitations stopped he realized that it was NOT a scorpion, that it actually was one of our crawfish! The bizarre part of this to realize what that crawfish went through to get to Joe. This time the pool is located under our bedroom window, on flat ground. He had to climb up the sandbox lid that we use to cover half the pool, drop over the side of the lid and then walk diagonally across the yard 25 feet to get to the gate in the chain-link fence; I don't think that he would have been able to get through the fence unless he was one of the ones with smaller claws. The gate is always open so that wouldn't have been a problem. Then he had to walk down a steep hill (at least a 45 degree angle) regardless of where he got through the fence, walk across the vast concrete slab in front of the shop and then walk 20 ft through the shop to the middle were Joe was. Joe looked down to see the crawfish waving his claws at him as if to say "Take me back to the water!" The poor little guy was covered with dust, dirt and metal shavings so Joe carefully picked him up (I would have loved to be there to see that! Then again, if I was there Joe would have made me pick it up), carried him back up the hill and put him back into the pool with his friends. What an adventure he had to tell his friends (both Joe AND the crawfish)!!

This morning Giselle fed the crawfish some frozen peas/carrots/corn/green beans because that's what one of the websites that we investigated said that they like to eat. We'll find out later if these guys actually like it.

Quote of the Day

Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can’t live without. - James C. Dobson

I saw the above quote on Dr Laura's blog the other week and thought that I'd pass it along. Especially seeing as how Joe and I hit the big two-oh in another 4 months.

Crawfish Feeding

I was just outside feeding the crawfish and I stuck around to watch them eat (we are using our leftover Betta food). They eat while laying on their sides! They climb up on the bricks or into the shallow water and turn on their sides so that the food floating on the water just floats into their mouths. It looks really cool and you can even hear them. Giselle and I spent a long time watching them eat and talking for them. We have to run some errands so we'll get some more food for them while we're out. Later I need to Google to find out why they eat on their sides.

Sunshine House Surf Shop T-Shirt pictures

Last year I posted this about my Sunshine House T-Shirt. Yesteday I was going through some boxes that are about to go back up into the attic and I came across my Surf Naked pin. This morning while checking my site stats I saw that in the past 2 days that I have gotten two hits from Google searches for Sunshine house. In my ongoing efforts to increase my stats I decided to actually post some pictures of the shirt that I've had since 1982 and the re-print shirt that Joe got for me earlier this year. There is a store that is doing re-prints of the shirts, they are not the original Sunshine House tee-shirts but they still pretty neat. Oh, and my amazing friend Holly used to work at the Bethesda location of Sunshine House back in the day!

Here is my Surf Naked badge. Identify this quote and I'll send you a prize "Badges?! We don't need no stinkin' badges!"

This is the front pocket of my old shirt.

This is the front view of my old shirt. For whatever reason when I was younger, I felt compelled to cut the necks off of all of my t-shirts. Not the whole neck, just the top of the ribbed area. Yeah, I don't understand why either.

This is the back of the shirt. The bird is pretty big and covers most of the back of the shirt.

This is the front of the new shirt that Joe got for me. There's no pocket on this one. The shirt really is navy blue but with the flash it totally washed out the color. I don't usually use a flash anymore but it was the only way to get it in focus. I guess I could have taken the pictures outside but I was too lazy to do that.

And this is the back of the new shirt, in the true navy blue.

Now go and find yourself one at Chauncey's Surf Shop! The shirts aren't listed on their site but if you contact them at chaunceysurf@aol.com or call them at either 410-289-6005 or 410-289-7405 they can get you set up.

sorry, but you'll have to wait some more

I know that I promised to finish up the Juanes story soon but I just got the kids to bed and I really want to finish watching ER on TiVo and then watch Friday's new episode of The Dog Whisperer. Sorry but you'll have to wait longer.

Juanes! Insert teenage-girl scream HERE!

I met Juanes! Yes, that's right, I did! And that's because things like that happen whenever Holly is around. The funny thing is that we had no intention of meeting him and when we actually me him that's the way that we acted - "Oh yeah, Hi Juanes, I'm Natalie." and then turned back to our conversation. Yes, inside I was screaming like a teenage-girl and thinking "Should I ask him to autograph the goofy Polaroid picture that I have in my purse?" but on the outside I was simply watching him out of the corner of my eye.

We left Paul and Giselle at home with Joe for the evening. Paul was sick with a fever and some nasal congestion (he's all better this morning) so I had to give Joe the babysitter talk. They had pizza for dinner and watched a movie, "Surf's Up"

I've got some things to take care of so I'll tell more about this later.

Boys will be boys

This afternoon we had just gotten home from yet another closing and DS, who turned 4 just a few months ago, proceeds to start to drop trou (yeah, when’s the last time you heard THAT expression?) to pee ON THE DRIVEWAY in our suburban neighborhood! I caught him just as he was about to let loose and told him “Hey, you're 20 ft from a toilet! Go inside and pee!!” I think that their brain really IS in there sometimes!

Just a quick check-in

Dinner ended up being some phenomenal chicken noodle soup. Yes, I'm so very not modest about my cooking when it's good; and I'm totally honest when my cooking is not up to par.
I used some turkey consume from Christmas, some diced turkey from Christmas (did I say that this was CHICKEN noodle soup, well, that's what I told the kids before I made it so that's what I still called it after I made it so as to not have a big freak out on my hands), some chicken consume, 8 oz frozen mixed veggies, some mini-lasagna noodles broken into 2-inch pieces, 1 lb of ayote squash, 2 giant cloves of garlic - pressed, 1/4 cup diced onion, 2 cubes of my frozen pesto from 2006, some Spike seasoning, some sea salt, some white pepper, some water and that's about it. The kids loved it and I forgot to take pictures, again.
Since Paul has a sore throat I gave the kids tapioca pudding for dessert.
Some how my sink is full of dishes again! Oh yeah, I changed pots for the soup halfway through and I changed out every one's bowls for wider, shallower ones so that the soup would cool off quicker.
I've got laundry going right now, I just started it so that will have me up all night. Two loads for the kids and me combined and two loads for Joe's clothes. I'll hopefully get them all put away tomorrow morning before school.
I need to stop this blogging thing and attend to the HUGE pile of give-away clothes that is engulfing a corner of the living room. I need to separate it all out now that I'm done going through all of our drawers and closets. Actually, I'm not done going through Joe's closet but that can wait another week.
On a more fun note:
Saturday night we stayed over at our dinner/birthday party friends' house until almost 3 am! The kids had fallen asleep MUCH earlier but I stayed around talking.
Holly gets here in 1 and 1/2 days!
Gotta go, the chores are calling me away!

My stats are crashing!

Gee, I guess that I need to actually post in order to keep my stats up. I've dropped below 10 hits a day 3 times over the last week!
I promise to post later tonight but I've got to make dinner for the kids right now. I already had my dinner - a Pay Day candy bar on the way home from ballet lessons.

Off the Grid

No specific reason but I've been off the grid for the most part this last week and might continue to be for the next several days. I haven't even been checking my favorite blogs. I've probably missed 2 contests over at PW's.
See you when I get back

games

I can't stop playing the games on www.care-bears.com because they are FUN!

Crawfish 2008 part 2

On Sunday afternoon we took last week's crawfish down to one of our local creeks and let them go. Only 4 out of the roughly 16 crawfish had died over the week so about a dozen happily entered their new home. It's chock-a-block full of minnows and tadpoles (Yes, I watch a lot of Steve Irwin) so they'll have plenty to eat.
Today we bought 2 pounds of them, these guys are a little bigger than last weeks were - as you get further into the season they get bigger at the store. One is the cutest little teenager one - he's only 2 inches long - I picked him out cause I want that little guy to make it back into the wild next week. They're out in the pool.
I gotta go to bed - my upper back is killing me from taking care of all of those strawberries.
I just realized that once again I forgot to take any pictures!

Blogger keeps wanting me to call them craYfish but I refuse!

Done!

7 and 3/4 quarts of pureed strawberries later, I'm done! I left one container hulled but not pureed so that we have some to eat for tomorrow. The 3/4 quart container is in the fridge for use in fruit milk soon and all the rest is in the freezer. 3 quarts are in quart-sized Ziploc bags, 3 quarts are in empty sherbet containers (from last week) and 1 quart is in a Ziploc freezer container. All the cleanup is done except for washing the 1/4 cup measuring cup and my sampling spoon and the measuring spoons.
Per quart of puree I added in 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar.
With all of this puree in addition to the 4 pounds that I froze whole last week, we'll be set for the next year.

Fruit milk is simply 1 quart of very cold milk, some honey or sugar, several dashes of cinnamon, 2 dashes of ginger, and a bunch of whatever fruit you want (frozen or fresh, it doesn't matter). If you like it fruitier then add more fruit. If I'm NOT using any bananas then I'll add a bit of vanilla flavoring. Oh, you put all of this in the blender (or in the big 5-cup mixing container that came with your (my) immersion blender) and blend it on high until it's smooth. Pour it into cups and enjoy. If you don't want to drink it right away it's great to pour into those cool popsicle molds that have the built-in straws and freeze them up for eating later on a hot summer day. Today I made it with 3 or 4 very ripe medium-sized bananas, 3 ripe baby bananas, honey, cinnamon, ginger and about 3/4 cup of frozen blueberries (from last summer). It's my kids' favorite!

Hummingbird

On Friday afternoon I was standing on the back deck and along came a hummingbird, the first one of the season, to check out the EMPTY hummingbird feeder. She buzzed around it a few times, landed on it, stuck her tongue in to double check, turned to look at me and then flew off in a tiff. I IMMEDIATELY took down the feeder, cleaned it and filled it and rehung it before she came back to fuss at me.
Some of you may be laughing in disbelief, others of you that have had hummingbirds of your 'own' know exactly what I'm talking about.
8 years ago, I'm camping out in the back yard with the dog one Summer night. At dawn the next morning I wake up to an angry buzzing and chirping outside the tent entrance. It was a hummingbird letting me know that the feeder was empty and that he was hungry NOW! He stormed around the tent for a good 10 minutes until I came out then he flew over to the feeder, he fussed some more and then flew off while I went inside to make more food.
Bossy little things!

Strawberries

Sorry to post and run but I've got 32 pintss of strawberries to wash, hull and process in one way or another before I go to bed this evening.
Yes, I said 16 POUNDS of fresh organic strawberries that I bought at HEB today. I know, I'm only supposed to be buying locally and these were grown in Mexico ... But HEB IS a Texas company and I went to my second closest store and Mexico is less than 4 hours away by car. And, most importantly, they were on sale for $1.97 for each 2 pint container. Yes, I paid 98 and a half cents per pint for organic strawberries! I know - overhead, underpaid Mexican workers (at least they weren't illegals!), etc - I told you, I'm not proud of what I did but DANG! I got 16 pounds of fresh organic strawberries for $31.52!
Gotta get back to hulling!

EDITED AT 10:41 TO ADD:
If I could read, I would be deadly. Each container is 2 dry pints which equals 16 oz which equals 1 pound. But it's still a screaming deal!!!

My Paul is not bald

The difference between my Paul and Paul who went to Damascus is that my Paul is not bald. That's what Paul learned in Sunday School yesterday.

The Backyardigans

It's been a while since I mentioned the Backyardigans but I still love this show! I love how each episode has a musical theme and even though the songs are originals they are all of that same theme. I went to Blockbuster earlier today to pick up Marie Antoinette (2006) for Marie and I to watch tonight after my kids are in bed. I'm sure that Joe will get sucked into watching it with us! The kids were busy in the Kid and Family sections while I was picking out my movie so I didn't have to let them know what I have planned for after they go to bed. Back on track with the story - So the kids picked out some movies too. Giselle found Island Princess and every other Barbie movie ever made, Paul grabbed a Care Bears and some Veggie Tales and I picked out the original version of Doctor Dolittle and since they didn't have the old version of Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs I got Cinderella (the original Disney version). I made the kids put everything back that they had picked out except for Island Princess. Then Giselle brought to me a Backyardigans movie that we hadn't seen before - Super Secret Super Spy. It has 3 'shows' on it - International Super Spy, The Secret of Snow and A Giant Problem. A Giant Problem was all 80's-style music. It's just so neat, 5 friends that live close by who meet up every day and play imagination games! How fun! And they make up their own songs while they play too!
We're watching Cinderella now; I wish we had been able to get Snow White. Doctor Dolittle is 2.5 hours long so we're going to watch that on Saturday after the Farmers Market. I sure hope that Marie Antoinette is good otherwise we'll have to find something on live TV.
What wine should we have? Georges Duboeuf or Louis Jadot or a Texas white? I'll go ahead and chill a white but I think that in honor of the French Queen we should have one of the French Beaujolais.
Kick ball at Park Day tomorrow!
What'll we have for dinner tonight? Paul says tortellini so that's what it is! With sauce and meatballs for Giselle and no sauce and no meatballs for Paul, spinach for both.

Real Simple Daily Quote

I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. — Martha Washington

Good food and great family

Today was Thomas' birthday so of course we had him (and his roommate Bobby) over for dinner. Lisa had already come up over the weekend for a surprise visit so she wasn't here for the big day.
I did a total Wonder Woman effort today: did 2 loads of laundry, made and baked a carrot cake for the birthday cake, started a pikes peak roast cooking on the stove in the dutch oven, taught school for 3 hours, had a neighbor kid over playing with Paul, made a deposit at the bank, got ingredients at HEB for the cake icing and sherbet for dessert (half gallon each of lime, orange and pineapple), cooked tamales for 4 (3 pork, 1 chicken and 1 black bean), cooked a 1.88 lb pork tenderloin roast for Joe and me, made orange ginger cream cheese icing for the cake and iced it, sauteed up some more spinach, served and ate dinner and dessert, played several rounds of Uno, put the kids to bed, finished shredding the beef roast and bagged it up into 5 half-pound bags for the freezer, laughed at the dishes in the sink, hung out with my fantastic husband for 2 hours, ate a baby banana and now I'm blogging for the night.
The kids helped out a lot today with the cooking but once Thomas showed up at 5:30 they abandoned me to play outside with him for the next hour until dinner was almost ready. He did need to leave shortly after dinner to finish up a loan application for his new car - I found out about the car and forwarded him the email, Joe checked out the car with him this afternoon and tonight he's buying it - Happy Birthday to Thomas! I told Bobby that since he's also far from his parents that he should expect a tamale dinner complete with cake and ice cream for his birthday in June.

The pikes peak started out weighing about 3 lbs. Since I was going to be cooking it for several hours and then shredding it, I didn't bother searing it first. I put 4 cups of water into the dutch oven with the roast and halved about 8 large cloves of garlic to throw in there. I took one of the big branches of rosemary that trimmed from my bush yesterday and put it in on top of the roast and chopped up one of the spring onions and put it in there too. After about an hour I took out the rosemary and let the roast continue to simmer for about 4 hours total (always covered but with the lid askew for about an hour half way through) - until it could be easily shred using two forks. Like I said, when it came time to package it up for freezing I had 5 1/2 pound packages. Now I'm set for the next time that I need to turn one of my packages of 3 servings of chili into a meal for 5 - I throw in one of the packages of shredded beef and a can of beans and that's it. Oh and I'd throw in some more ayote squash too and maybe serve it on top of rice to help stretch it further. Of course I forgot to take any pictures until I was bagging up the finished product so I didn't bother with that either. That's why I got inspired to do this post.

Well, it's midnight now so I'm going to bed.
Read you in the morning!

Bug Season

It's crawfish time again (some folks call them mud bugs, or bugs for short) and we have a kiddie pool full of about 15 to prove it! While at the seafood counter getting some super jumbo shrimp and bay scallops I noticed the sign for live crawfish at $2.49/lb so we got a bit over a pound to take home and play with. We haven't had much rain lately so the creeks are not exactly flowing right now. We'll have to search to find a good release spot for them this spring. For more about our past crawfish adventures check out these old posts:
http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/02/crawfish-in-pool.html
http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-i-i-im-stayin-alive.html
pictures in this post http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/03/fish-and-bugs-and-moon-and-mud-bugs.html
more pictures http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/03/crawfish-release.html

Since I already had a pot of boiling seasoned water on the stove from cooking the shrimp, I grabbed 4 of the crawfish and threw them in so that we could eat them for dinner. Paul, who loves scallops but doesn't care much for shrimp, didn't like the crawfish at all since it tasted just like shrimp. Giselle ate 2 of them. I always plan seafood night the night before trash day so that our inside and outside trash cans don't get all stunk up. We rounded out the meal with some fresh spinach sauteed in butter and garlic. The kids pretty much love any food that we get from Finca Pura Vida and the spinach is no exception! Tonight I think that I'll cook up some more spinach and the rest of the snow peas.

MS Office 2007 Word

Last night's post was written in MS Office 2007 Word. There is an option where you can send it directly to your blog. I did that but I still had to go back into blogger manually so that I could label the post as a food post and to tweak the fonts a bit.
I think that I prefer posting directly here especially if I want to include pictures.
It took me ages to figure out a font that I like to use as my standard template. The new idea of Office 2007 is that your pull-down menus are no longer pull-down - they are there in the open as quick tabs. The icons are kind of big on some of them but for the sake of learning something new I'm using them instead of just making it all the way that I am used to. It IS throwing me off that this keyboard has a number pad on the right hand side - I'm used to my hands being centered on the keyboard in the middle of the computer, not off to the left. I'm getting used to it but it'll take some more time.

School is going so much better now that all the candy is out of the house!

Beans

Dinner tonight was beans and rice. I know that to a lot of people this might not sound like a very exciting dinner option but those people have never had MY beans and rice. Tonight the bean was Pigeon Peas. I know that technically they are not beans but I consider Black-eyed Peas to be beans also. Maybe I'll make up a new name for them – PEANS! That's it, from now on all the peas that I use like beans will be referred to as peans! There, I just added to my Microsoft Dictionary so it's a real word now. The rule in our house when I was growing up was that if the word could be found in the dictionary then it was a real word. I'm just going by what my dad taught me – I don't make the rules, I just follow them.

Let's get back to dinner: Pigeon Peans and Rice.

Into a medium saucepan over high heat pour in all of the following:

• 1 15 oz can Goya Pigeon Peas* not drained
• 2 cups uncooked Minute Rice Brown Rice**
• 2 cups water
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 2/3 to 1 cup Pace organic mild salsa – I didn't actually measure it
• 1 cup home-canned seasoned cooked tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 cup spring onion chopped – only the bulb part (I used 1 small whole onion)
• No added salt or pepper or 'bean seasoning'
• No added oils or meats

Stir all ingredients together thoroughly and bring to a boil and then reduce temp to low, cover and simmer for 10 to 15 min. I prefer my beans/peans and rice to be 'wet' so add water and stir it in if there isn't enough 'juice' in the pot.***
Serve in bowls with a generous dollop of Daisy sour cream (full fat only in this house) and I topped mine with the 1/2 cup of spring onion greens chopped (I've got full on onion breath at this point so I probably could have used a quarter of a cup instead but it tasted good!)

*I guess that any brand would do although previously I've never tried another brand. I do have two cans of another brand in the pantry that I'll be using next time, El Jibarito.
**I've tried Uncle Ben's instant brown rice but was not as pleased with the packaging. Inside of the cardboard box it's inside of a plastic non-resealable bag. It's also not as pre-cooked as the Minute Rice so it takes 10 min to cook and 5 min to rest instead of 5 to cook and 5 to rest. When I've got to feed a hungry me and 2 kids as quickly as possible then every 5 minutes of cooking time matters.
***I'm not talking soupy, just hearty, kind of like chili consistency. That way you know that the rice is fully cooked and the rice won't absorb all the moisture in your stomach and bind you up the next day.

I am tired

Yesterday while driving home from the park, Giselle asked me if we had missed the Rodeo Carnival this year. I told her that regretfully we had missed it when it came through earlier in the month. She then remembered the small carnival that we had gone to one Saturday shortly after the rodeo was in town last year and she asked if I knew when that one was coming. I said that I didn't know but that I hoped it would be soon. Well low and behold, when we pulled into the parking lot of The Farmers Market this morning there it was RIGHT NEXT TO THE FARMERS MARKET IN THE SAME EXACT PLACE AS IT WAS LAST YEAR; the small carnival! We were all very excited and as soon as The Market was over and we had finished helping Edgar & Gayla pack up and we had finished picking up trash we headed on over to the carnival. We got there at 2, just as it opened, and stayed until the kids' wristbands were no longer valid at 6 pm! We are all beat! I didn't even bother to heat the luke-warm tamales for dinner; I just unwrapped them, put them on 2 plates, cut them up and put a giant dollop of Daisy sour cream on the side.

I would have gone to bed with the kids but I had to adjust all my personal settings on this new computer. I've only fixed up Internet Explorer and Outlook 2007 so far. Tweaking Word and Excel will take a bit of time since evidently the newest versions are 'different'. I'll have to use the new changes a bit to see how exactly I have to adjust them to my liking.

I think we might go the the Zilker Garden Festival tomorrow after church (Giselle wants to go to both Sunday Schools this time) instead of going to the Fairie Festival at the local Waldorf Preschool.

Thanks for reading, good night.

new computer alert!

Joe brought me home a new (to me) laptop yesterday and I'm using it right now to try it out! It's an HP Pavilion and it blows my 2001 Gateway laptop away. Since it's new-ish, the battery still holds a charge so I'm actually cordless in the living room - I haven't been able to do that for over a year. Thanks old man, I think that this is a keeper (and so are you)! See, Joe just recently noticed how much gray hair is showing up in his auburn colored facial hair, thus the 'old man' comment. It's about time that your goatee started matching the amount of gray in my hair. Now I'm not the only one that looks like I'm over 40 years old.

I'm not sure about this touchpad thing though. I'll use it when I'm not plugged in but I think that for regular use I'll still use the mouse. Then again, I thought that I'd never give up my trackball and I dumped that for a scroll mouse that looks like a ladybug a few months ago. Maybe I'll convert someday. But the kids will have to still use a mouse - I don't want any grimy fingers all over it. Unless of course they are using MS Paint, then they can use the touch pad. I guess that the old Gateway will become the school computer - most of our educational software is PC only and Paul will start using the Edmark ones this fall for preschool. I'm thinking that this fall is going to go really well for schooling; I think that Giselle is feeling confident in her abilities and I've planned a fairly light school schedule for the summer. Paul will be ready to play with Jaden every day after school just like Giselle plays with Jessi each day. Paul in preschool, Jaden in kindergarten, Jessi in 1st grade, Giselle in 2nd/3rd. I see a lot of trips to the library in our future. Speaking of which, we've got a homeschool field trip coming up next month to the local public library. And I think we are supposed to have a field trip to the local natural gardening center soon too. When was the last time we went to the zoo?
I'm going to bed - it's 12:30 and Joe's watching Battlestar Galactica which I can't stand.

The new season of Dr Who starts Friday April 18!!

Earth Hour US 2008

Hey,
I just found out about this event where millions of people around the world are joining together to make a statement about climate change by turning their lights off for an hour. It's called Earth Hour and I just signed-up to participate-I thought it might be something you'd want to sign up for too. Earth Hour is on March 29 from 8 - 9 p.m. local time, and it looks like it's going to be really big. So far 25 cities around the world are taking part, including Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco in the U.S.
Watch the video about it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_c5K7Jdw9E and then sign up for Earth Hour by visiting www.earthhour.org/sign-up to join the movement with me.
And remember - Lights Out on March 29!

Photographias para Mas Chili

Earlier this month I made another big batch of chili http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2008/03/mas-chili-por-favor.html

and here are the pictures of it cooking and being tested.

Sorry that I forgot to take pictures while I was prepping everything but that happens sometimes.

dog

The dog is still afraid of popping chewing gum! And today she was being rather 'dumb' about the lawn mower. I guess I should give her a break since she'll be 14 this year but by this age she should really know better.

Juanes in Austin!

¡Juanes está viniendo a Austin el 16 de abril y así que es Holly de modo que poder verlo juntos!
¡Juanes es nuestro favorito! Holly es una de mis mejores amigas y ver Juanes con ella será tal convite.

first mowing

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. The spring grasses and weeds finally grew tall enough to warrant me mowing the lawn. The St Augustine still hasn't gotten tall enough to mow so I could skip those areas (shh, don't tell Joe) which is a good thing since that's where the blue bonnets and evening primrose are blooming. I should water tomorrow morning since the yard does look pretty parched. Wow, I sure did sweat a lot while mowing. I drank a liter of water before mowing and 2 more after mowing. Joe's comment was that I still needed to edge. I'll get to it, LATER. Tomorrow is Park Day and I've got 2 extra kids so it's not going to happen on Friday. Maybe I'll get to it after the farmer's market on Saturday. I LOVE mowing the lawn but I'm not exactly thrilled about edging. Maybe because I had to do it all the time when I was a kid, manually.

Calendars and Monster Trucks

Know what, after filling out all those online forms for free calendars I only got 2 - one from the PA state lottery commission and the other from some church in the mid-west. I was at Office Depot/Max the other day (I never know which one I'm in and I wonder if the staff knows either.) and their calendars were not yet marked down to basement price. I did get one for $1 at Garden Ridge last month and that's the one I'm using for our dinner calendar. Pencil doesn't write very well on it but at this point in the year, I'm not willing to re-write the first 3 months. Although I am willing to tear out those pages and staple them to a new easier-to-write-on calendar. I made the kitchen Georgia O'Keeffe one work by cropping off the bottom (top) edge of the pages and punching the hole further down so that the calendar hangs higher. Wait, I'm having a strong feeling that I already wrote/complained about this before. Well, if I did and you are groaning about reading it again, I'm sorry. If you never read it before then great!

I gotta go delete stuff of of TiVo to make room for more things to delete. The kids were watching Monster Jam this evening and they loved it so I had to give it one thumb up so that it would get recorded again. It was a TiVo suggestion in the first place. I guess it knew something that I didn't know. Then again, Paul does already own a die-cast tiny version of Grave Digger but tonight he wanted to sleep with it. I, of course, said NO! He's now watched Cars three times in the past week and currently wakes up every morning asking some random question like "If they painted Lightning McQueen blue would he still be Lightning McQueen?". I've got a feeling that tomorrow morning's question is going to be something like "If they put really big tires on Lightning McQueen would he be a monster truck?"

There's good vanilla and then there's BAD vanilla

So, Gayla mentioned to me in a conversation several months ago that Mexican vanilla is known to have some BAD (toxic) ingredients in it. That's what gives it it's special taste. A fellow blogger had a post since then remarking that her giant bottle of Mexican vanilla had finally been finished off, it took something like 15 years to use it all up. I mentioned in the comments that Mexican vanilla may not be all it's cracked up to be but said that I'd have to do more research before I passed on the information.
Well, tonight when we got home from watching for the space shuttle and the International Space Station to pass by in the Southwestern sky at 8:30, I decided to do my vanilla research.

Tomorrow we'll research the space shuttle and the ISS for school - find out when we'll get to see a re-entry of the space shuttle next since it looks like a ball of fire in the sky. It freaked Joe out when we saw it early one morning about 12 years ago.

Back to the vanilla. So the first link that I clicked on after Googling "ingredients in Mexican vanilla" was this place www.gourmetsleuth.com/vanilla.htm where they informed me (and anyone else who wants to read it) that "Coumarin is a the bad guy of the vanilla industry. It is derived from the Brazilian tonka bean from Dipteryx ordorata, a tree. The bean can be used to make flavoring very similar to vanilla. Sadly the concoction is dreadfully toxic and can cause liver damage and is a know carcinogen. Coumarin is used extensively in synthetic vanillas manufactured in Mexico. The U.S. banned imports of the coumarin laced products back in the 1950's. Unfortunately the products still make their way into the U.S. If you purchase any Mexican vanilla make sure it is clearly labeled "courmarin free". and "Most of the vanilla extracts that come to the US from Mexico are synthetic. The best way to determine quality is price. If you are offered a large bottle for a cheap price it is most assuredly a synthetic product. Also, real vanilla is not "clear". No matter what the label may tell you if it is clear it is synthetic. True vanilla is amber colored. Synthetics tend to be dark and murky either from the coal tar from which they are produced or from caramel and red food colorings. Mexico today still uses coumarin in much of its vanilla products. Lacking strict labeling laws as we have in the U.S., Mexican manufactured products may not list accurate ingredients. Again, purchase from a reliable source and steer clear of those large "bargain" sized bottles found all over Mexico." also "The other synthetic common in Mexican artificial flavorings is Ethyl Vanillin derived from coal tar. " EWWWW, gross!
Now don't go thinking that American vanilla is any better since "U.S. manufactured artificial vanilla is produced from synthetic "vanillin", Lignin Vanillin, which is made from a by-product of the paper producing industry. This by product is chemically treated to mimic the flavor of vanilla. The product help take care of a ecological problem with paper producers and created an "affordable" vanilla flavoring for the public. "

According to this site http://www.mexicanvanillaextract.com/ "Vanilla was discovered in Mexico by Spanish invaders. As a precious item, it constituted one of the tributes paid to Aztec overlords by some tribes. The quality of the aroma and flavor of vanilla varies with the geographical regions from where the beans are obtained, because of their vanillin content plus other factors. It is generally accepted that vanilla beans from Mexico are superior because their vanillin concentration is higher."

In conclusion, read the label to make sure that it's pure vanilla extract and buy the expensive stuff. And the Mexican vanilla DOES taste the best!

Bra Baby follow up

The Bra Baby worked great and I recommend that every woman who owns a bra should go out and buy one today! My bras will now stay looking new until they ... I guess until they wear out which will take longer since they aren't getting abused in the washing machine.

Marbled Eggs follow up

Well, I didn't have enough dye in the water because even though I left the eggs in the water for 5 minutes the color on the egg white was not as vibrant as I would have liked. Next time I'll add more dye to the water.

Just a quickie

I had to jump back on quickly to let y'all know about the greatest idea. Mom's Cafe gave me the idea to go ahead and color some hard boiled eggs for Easter. See, all our eggs are brown eggs so doing the traditional dye bath for them doesn't work so good - the colors don't look so great. But thanks to Garden Gnome I gently cracked a dozen hard boiled eggs and dropped them in one of 4 colors - red, orange, purple and blue. I'm not telling the kids. They'll see the eggs when they get them out of the cheese/meat/hard boiled egg drawer of the fridge and say "Oh Mommy, you DID color some eggs!" Then they'll peel them and yell "OH MOMMY, THE EGGS ARE COLORED ON THE INSIDE!" I can't wait until they see them!

Paskafton or Pask Eve or Easter Eve

Tonight is the night that Swedish kids go trick or treating to ward off the witches who are returning from a trip they (the witches) took back on Maundy Thursday. I know, it seems pretty odd to me too but over the last year I've learned several odd Swedish customs (http://www.internet-at-work.com/hos_mcgrane/holidays/nora.html) so I've come to expect the unusual from the land called Sweden and the people from there.
I don't ever plagiarize and my brain is not up for 'restating in my own words' other than my explanation above so here are are bunch of links if you want to learn more about Paskafton and Pask in Sweden:
http://www.luth.se/luth/present/sweden/history/folklore/easter.html
http://www.scandinavianheritagesociety.org/HolidaysandTraditions.html
http://mianshome.com/sweden/easter.html
http://minareceptsamlingar.blogspot.com/
http://www.vastsverige.se/templates/article____18117.aspx
http://www.sverigeturism.se/smorgasbord/smorgasbord/culture/lifestyle/festivals.html
http://glitteradventure.blogspot.com/2008/03/happy-easter.html


I'm off to finish filling the kids' Easter baskets and then watch the latest episode of Torchwood.

Oh No! We've forgotten the cascarones!

Oh no! Easter is in just THREE DAYS and we haven't made our cascarones for this year yet. We better get cracking!! (Get it: "cracking" and the cascarones are made out of empty egg shells? Well, I thought that it was amusing.)
If you want to see what ours will look like then see my post about making them last year. Here's the link for you so you don't have to search for it.

http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/04/cascarones.html - about us making them
http://casadegalletti.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-pictures.html - pictures of us making them

And here's one of the pictures from last year. I'm so proud of how nice this picture is that I'm posting it again. Look at it in the big version, the colors are so nice and the edges are so crisp. I rarely take a still-life picture this nice so forgive my crowing (another bad egg/chicken/rooster pun, sorry).

Happy Purim

Thanks to my sister Cea for the the Mishloach Manot (Purim goodie bag) and the donation in our name to her school.
Purim is a really cool holiday celebration so please read all about it here http://www.holidays.net/purim/index.htm
It starts tonight at sundown

And on Saturday night is another holiday that's cool - Sweden celebrates Easter Eve with a Halloween-type celebration. I'll write more about that in another post.

Where is the dad in all this?

Oh, Dr Laura posted an EXCELLENT piece the other day! http://www.drlaurablog.com/2008/03/13/nanny-cam-horrors/

added on Wed at 2:20pm:
The Dr Laura Show is too much for me to listen to but I enjoy her blog and her books.
In this latest nanny thing, the press was all over the nanny for flopping the 7 month old twins around like sacks of potatoes and being very careless with children that she was "hired by THE MOTHER" to look after. Dr Laura was wondering the same things that I was: Where is the father of these twins? Why isn't he taking care of them when she's at her job? If she's a single unmarried mother of twins then why hasn't she moved close to other family members to help her out with child-care? If she's a divorced mom, why isn't the dad paying enough child support that she doesn't need to work full-time to support his kids? And the big question that I'll maybe regret saying out loud - (WARNING, THIS IS MY PERSONAL OPINION AND IT MAY OFFEND OTHERS) If she's unmarried, then what was she thinking getting pregnant in the first place?

Bra Baby

Possibly right now you are saying to yourself "Huh?" but let me explain. If you've purchased a new non-nursing bra in the last 3 years you have discovered that they are ALL padded. I have to admit that while I find the padding unnecessary for increasing my profile, I do like the smooth appearance they give when worn under cotton shirts, especially the shirts with a touch of Lycra in them. On with my story. So these micro-padded bras are a PAIN to wash. Hand washing gets the foam all strange. And there's supposedly something in hand-laundering soap that is bad for bras (I have not confirmed this so don't quote me on it, yet). Tossing them into the washing machine kills them - both the foam and the underwires get mangled.
Last year some brilliant lady (ladies) came up with the perfect solution - Bra Babies. I'm sure that the idea came from those baseball cap holders for the laundry that have been around for several years. You wrap your bra around this vented plastic ball (think wiffle ball) then you put it inside of a bigger wiffle ball and toss it into the washing machine with the rest of your laundry. The idea is that your bra gets swished in the soapy and rinse water but doesn't get mangled by the agitator.
I saw an ad for the Bra Baby (or it was a review in a magazine) back in the fall and I've been wanting one ever since. I got my new bras last summer and have been very delicately hand washing them since then. I finally bought a Bra Baby today at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It was $9.99 so I bought a plastic citrus juicer for $4.99 and a bottle stopper for $1.99 (I actually did needed both) to bring my total over $15 so that I could use my $5 off coupon! I've now firmly entrenched myself onto BB&B's mailing list. I'm trying the Bra Baby out for the first time right now. It's designed for washing A, B, C & D cups; my bra is larger so it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. It certainly will be better than washing it either by hand or loose in the washer. The instructions say that you can put the whole thing in the dryer but I never put my bras in the dryer - my Momma taught me right. After the bra is done drying I'll let you know if it passed the test.

lies!

I read recently that if you peel a banana from the bottom up (supposedly this is the way the monkeys do it) then you won't get any of those strings sticking to your peeled banana. I decided to try it the other day and you know what? There were still strings attached to the banana. I just tried it again now and I swear that there were MORE strings attached to the banana than there usually are.
So, the supposed tip to peel a banana from the bottom up to decrease the amount of strings is FALSE. Try it yourself if you don't believe me, you'll see!
Just trying to help out my friends and protect them from falsehoods.

It runs in the family on his mom's side

Monday morning I'm laying in bed talking on the phone at 7:30 AM and in the half-light coming through the blackout curtains I see a half full .75 liter bottle of water falling towards my left eye. Evidently, I had nudged the bottle when I was picking up the phone and 10 min later it decided to fall on me. It nailed me right in the eyeball. Arnica, Hypericum and Ledum; the black eye cocktail. I managed to not look like a prize fighter and by the next morning my vision was no longer blurry out of that eye.

Don't even ask me how many times in a week I run into the kitchen table with my thigh! And no, my vision is fine - I just got it checked 2 months ago and it's 20/25.

In 7th grade I was walking down the hall in Jr High and one of my 'friends' came running down the hall with a block of wood from shop class. He hit me on the top of the head with it as if playing a game of Duck, Duck, Goose and I was Goose. It landed me in the Nurse's office for the rest of the day with a mild concussion. Did you know that most schools don't even have a nurse on staff all day 5 days a week anymore?

In 3rd grade I got my fingers closed in the wrong side of a classroom door. I got a metal finger splint from the doctor for that one which got reused several times over the years.

In 7th grade I was running the 100 yard dash one day in PE and at the finish line I tripped on the toe of my own shoe and skidded along the blacktop for a few feet. That was not one of my most graceful moves.

At 3 years old I was carrying a sandwich on a plate, tripped while walking down a flight of 3 stairs in my own house, cut my forehead open and got several stitches.

Just before I turned 5 I was riding my tricycle in our carport and came up behind my about-to-be 6 yr old brother who was shoveling snow. My upper lip contacted with the shovel as he threw the snow over his shoulder. A snowy ride to the local military hospital for that one. A week later that same brother got his head stuck between the banisters on the upper staircase in the house.

No one was harmed, but one day in sixth grade (elementary school) we were playing kickball at lunch recess and when I kicked the ball my platform Mary Jane went flying through the air. It actually went further than the ball did. The perils of wearing hand-me-down shoes that don't quite fit yet.

I'm not even going to go over my brainless bike accident when I was in 5th grade, other than to say "big steep hill", "downhill with no hands", "swimsuit, shorts & flip-flops". You can imagine the rest.

Then there was the time that I went dirt bike riding with Joe and ended up with a gravel-sized hole in my jeans and knee.

And the 10 stitches over my left eye from playing catcher in the local co-ed softball league when I was 30. The pitcher was having and off day and one of the pitches bounced off of the plate into my eye socket. "No, it's fine, I can keep playing!" "Uh, Natalie, it's bleeding. A lot. I think you should go to the hospital" "Fine, but I'll be back for the end of the game." NOT! But I was back 3 games later, this time with a catcher's mask! Yeah, we didn't wear masks before then, but two other catchers got hit over the next week after I did so they became standard equipment for the league. That was before I knew about Arnica so I had one of the nastiest, coolest, grossest shiners ever seen. Joe couldn't go out in public with me since most people assumed that I had been beaten up by him. Fortunately I had both neighbors and co-workers on the softball team that had seen the accident happen so they knew the real story and kept the false stories from spreading.

To think that I had 3 years of ballet. Come to think about it, it could have been worse if I hadn't taken ballet.

2 cans later

I'm halfway through my second can of cranberry sauce - I'm paying the price for participating in 2 bubble baths in 2 days earlier in the week. And drinking lots of water too.

Paul got hit in the face with a golf ball this evening. That boy gets in more accidents than I could dream possible. I carefully watch over him 95% of the time, but sometimes I gotta go to the bathroom or blink my eyes. At least once every other day I'm saying one or more of these: "Paul, please watch where you're going on your bike.", "Paul, keep an eye on where you're climbing and not looking at me.", "Paul, that's not a good decision, you need to get down.", "Paul, you know how Mommy feels about sticks, stop running with those in your hands.", "Paul, you're stronger than you think so calm down when you're playing swords and light sabers.", "Paul, pay attention to the other people around when you're playing sports."
That last one was the one that I was on my way around the house to remind him about when I heard him crying from the neighbor's back yard. His first words to me were "He wasn't paying attention to where I was!" I'm figuring that this is his first lesson in defensive driving (golf pun intended). Several Arnica, Hypericum and Ledum, a dab of ointment and 1 Motrin later, he's on the mend.
Did I mention that he fell out of a hammock 2 weeks ago?

mas chili, por favor!

Dinner for the kids last night was hot dogs with chili and it used up the last of my big batch of chili. So this morning, before school started, I commenced to making another big batch of chili so that I can have perfect-sized portions available at all times in the freezer. Chili is one of those things, like soup, stew and pasta sauce, that I never make the same way twice. This time I actually wrote it down, although I totally forgot until just now that I should have taken pictures! I did just now take some after shots.

So here's the latest recipe for Natalie's Homemade Chili
3/4 lb frozen shredded beef (seasoned w/ taco seasoning when first made from a Pikes Peak Roast from Finca Pura Vida back in August)
1/2 lb uncooked ground beef from Finca Pura Vida
1 15 oz can Eden organic black beans
1 15 oz can Eden organic garbanzo beans
1 15 oz can Westbrae organic salad beans
1 15 oz can Natural Value organic refried pinto beans
1 28 oz can Muir Glen organic whole peeled tomatoes (seasoned w/ basil)
1 15 oz can Muir Glen organic fire roasted diced tomatoes w/ green chilies
8 0z Pace organic mild salsa
1/2 c frozen chopped organic celery tops (from Finca Pura Vida Dec 2006)
2 c frozen chopped organic sweet peppers (from Finca Pura Vida July 2007)
1 1/2 lbs frozen chopped organic ayote squash (from FPV Nov 07)
3/4 c fresh minced organic onion greens from the backyard
a boatload of organic cumin powder
a boatload of dried organic oregano
about 3 Tbs of minced garlic
1 1/4 c minced fresh organic cilantro from FPV
NO added salt or pepper
I cooked it on the stove at 4 then 3 then Lo for 2 hours at which point, after giving the kids and myself a taste test, it was determined by Paul to be PERFECT!
Now I have to let it cool off enough so that I can bag it up to chill it down so I can freeze it and store it.

In getting the peppers and shredded beef out of the chest freezer, I noticed that I still had a whole chicken in there so I took that out and it's sitting out thawing for 'I don't know what' for dinner tonight. Maybe I'll make a chicken casserole. Oh, I've got everything to make another King Ranch Casserole so maybe that's what it'll be.

The many faces of Babar

OK, I just learned the details of this tonight while organizing the Babar books that I have to read tomorrow morning before they have to be returned to the library later in the day - I've already renewed them once so we've had them for 6 weeks already. Which reminds me, I REALLY need to go pick up my boots from the shoe doctor tomorrow!
So, back to Babar.

Babar was originally written by Jean de Brunhoff. He wrote 7 books about Babar before he died at 37 years old in 1937.
Jean de Brunhoff's Babar books were:
The Story of Babar (1931)
The Travels of Babar (1932)
Babar the King (1933)
L'ABC de Babar (1934)
Babar and Zéphir (1936)
Babar and His Children (1938)
Babar and Father Christmas (1941)

Seven to nine years later, his son Laurent de Brunhoff started to continue the Babar series and has now written over 30 books about the Elephant King.

Now, the tricky thing is that Babar became a TV show with 78 episodes and, in collaboration with that, there are books published that are "Based on the animated series "Babar"". These books are "Based on characters created by Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff" but the books themselves are based on stories written and illustrated by other people. For instance we own the book "Babar; The Best Present in the World". It's based on a story by B.P. Nichol with image adaptation by Van Gool-Lefevre-Loiseaux. It was published in 1990.

So I guess that the point of all of this is to pay attention when you are buying or checking out a Babar book to notice who actually wrote and illustrated it.

For additional information see:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17640

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?SZE=100&WRD=babar

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=babar&tag=writerswrite&index=books&link%5Fcode=qs


We ran into a similar issue when we started collecting all of the "Lars the Little Polar Bear" books by Hans de Beers. And come to think of it, we also ran into this when we were collecting the "Harold and The Purple Crayon" books; not all of those are written by Crockett Johnson.

make me stop!

Over the last few days I've watched too many old music videos on YouTube and I HAVE to stop!
The Cure - Love Cats, A Forest, Boys Don't Cry, Lovesong, In Between Days
Sisters of Mercy - Walk Away
New Order - Temptation, Bizarre Love Triangle, Blue Monday, Perfect Kiss
Siouxsie & the Banshees - Cities in Dust, Dear Prudence
Joy Division - Love Will Tear us Apart
U2 - I Will Follow, Sunday Bloody Sunday
I almost played a Smiths song but I came to my senses
I played a few Gene Loves Jezebel songs
Propaganda
Art of Noise
ABC
Human League
and some others that I was randomly clicking on.
Argh, now I want to go see some more!

Hey Angie

Yesterday someone from Saint Kitts and Nevis was reading my blog! If it wasn't for you I wouldn't even have ever heard of that place.
Thanks for being my sister!

A Book Tag

The Activities Coordinator of Life on the Planet posted a book meme and tagged anyone that felt like playing along. I did so here are the rules, my results and who I'm passing this on to:

The rules are:
1. Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.

The book I grabbed is First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise
Page 123 is Lesson 69 on pronouns and seasons.
"Instructor: What two seasons have we learned about?
Child: Winter and spring.
Instructor: The winter months are December, January and February."

I'm glad I didn't pick a Little House book to write from, that Laura Ingalls Wilder is the queen of run on sentences! I counted the words in one of her sentences in The First Four Years; it was 55 words long. Although it would have been more exciting than the quote I ended up with, I'm sure.

I'm tagging
Suzanne
Jamie
Donna
Tanya
Kelly
and the next person searching for korv stroganoff (since Rechelle won't do memes)

September Dinner Calendar

Here's the list of what we had for dinner each night for the month of September 2007. I need to add that the listed dinner is what the kids eat for dinner. Depending on what I've made, I may or may not eat the same thing. For instance, I don't eat the hot dogs and chili but I may have a spoonful of the chili. Instead I'll have a salad or some cooked mixed veggies. And I usually don't have a serving of my own of the tortellini or ravioli, but I will have a piece or two and a meatball out of the cooking pot. Most nights Joe eats out with friends or at business dinners; he's home for the seafood nights and the meat meals or he eats after the kids are in bed when I'll cook him up some seasoned chicken breasts.

1 - Asian noodle soup
2 - Eat out - Buffet Palace
3 - Pork chops, sauerkraut, carrots
4 - Group Dinner - Salmon, grouper, stuffed crabs, mixed veggies
5 - Homemade pizza w/ summer sausage & olives
6 - Black-eyed peas & rice, eggplant, okra
7 - Take out - Don's BBQ
8 - Paul - tortellini w/ meatballs & sauce; Giselle - hot dogs w/ chili
9 - Spaghetti w/ meat sauce made with leftover BBQ meat
10 - Group Dinner - Salmon, tuna, shrimp, mixed veggies
11 - Leftover spaghetti w/ meat sauce, I had a black bean tamale
12 - Chicken fajitas, okra w/ rice, mixed veggies
13 - Hot dogs w/ chili
14 - Asian noodle soup
15 - Pizza bites, mixed veggies
16 - Ravioli w/ meatballs, mixed veggies, ratatouille
17 - Salmon patties, shrimp, mixed veggies, shark, ratatouille
18 - Lasagna made with cubed chuck steak
19 - Leftover lasagna
20 - Eat out - Joe and Giselle at Cheesecake Factory; Paul and I at Maudie's Milagro
21 - Eat out - Joe and me at Hyde Park Bar & Grill - South; kids at Marie's house
22 - Eat out - Dynasty Buffet
23 - Eat out - Taco Bell
24 - Eat out - Olive Garden
25 - Eat out - Satellite Cafe - Oak Hill
26 - Asian noodle soup
27 - Lasagna, ratatouille
28 - Shrimp, salmon, tuna, mixed veggies
29 - Eat out - Chik Fillet
30 - Tortellini w/ meat sauce

We had family in town, that's why we ate out a lot in the middle of the month.

New Spelling Curriculum

We start new spelling words this week since we've now finished all of the words through the 3rd grade non-negotiable words as required by AISD. I think that we're going to go with the words from Time4Learning but I'm not sure if we'll start with the 2nd grade words or the 3rd grade words. I'll test her on them and see if she knows all the 2nd grade words already.

This weekend

The Farmer's Market was great! Finca Pura Vida had milk for us! After we came home we rode bikes and played with the stomp rockets in the court and then we grilled shrimp and pork shoulder steak at home for dinner. Joe was at a friend's birthday party at a bowling alley so Thomas joined us for dinner.
We started watching The Electric Company on DVDs after dinner and the kids are HOOKED! As a kid I never watched Sesame Street but we watched The Electric Company every week in school. I loved that show and if you did too and you have kids then you need to go to Amazon and get yourself the Best of The Electric Company DVDs. There are two volumes and each are 4 DVDs - over 10.5 hours in each set. You know what, even if you don't have kids of the 'appropriate age' get it for yourself for the memories.
This evening Paul said to me "Momma, was today a long day?" and I said to him "Well Paul, let's think about all we did today."
We got up
played
ate breakfast
got dressed for church
watched more Electric Company
went to Sunday School
played on the playground
watched more Electric Company
ate lunch
went to the kite festival from 2:30 to 6:15 hours
came home
watched more Electric Company
ate dinner
went to bed

That sounds like a pretty long day to me, considering all that happened in just 12 hours!

I'm finishing up the kids' and my laundry right now and need to get Joe's started before bed. I can't watch last night's Torchwood since the DVD player is hooked up for playback instead of TiVo and I don't hold the knowledge for doing that myself, YET.


Wow, Paul just woke up with a scream fest. I don't know if it was night terrors (unlikely since there are 7 dream catchers hanging over our bed) or just that he was angry about having to go pee so badly but he thrashed about in my arms for a good 5 minutes just screaming. After the first minute I remember to start humming "Deep in the Heart of Texas" which is the bedtime lullaby that I've sung and hummed to them since they were born. After several minutes of humming he calmed down enough to open his eyes and say to me "I have to pee really badly!". So we took care of that and I put him back to bed and hummed him back to sleep and I think that he's all back to normal.

I don't feel like doing the dishes right now so I'm going to make them wait until after breakfast tomorrow. Joe, I swear that I'm gonna go back to getting up with kids starting in the morning so you'll have breakfast again. I even thawed out a fresh package of bacon for you.

Gosh, it was really windy, blustery even, at the kite festival. I was too busy trying not to kill people with our kites to get many pictures but I think I got some good face shots.

I'm going to bed now after I finish my glass of Louis Jadot 2006 Beaujolais-Villages AND put a load of Joe's laundry into the washer.