Jan. 2: Tevye said (sang) (hollered?) it best

Over the past 15 years as a family of 3-4, we’ve created some traditions to help make our Christmas season special and memorable—that’s what traditions are for, right? The kids know they always get new PJs on Christmas Eve, which they open after we’ve finished our Chinese food dinner. Sometimes they get to open another gift, but we choose the gift because I am Controlling And Overbearing Mrs. Claus, or so they say. Actually, we wait to put most the gifts under the tree until the kids have gone to bed (they’re not Santa believers, we just like to see the looks on their faces when they come down on Christmas morning). They know they’re not allowed to start opening presents until Vic and I each have a cup of coffee in our hands. Depending on what other family members we’re with on Christmas, the rest of the day’s activities vary from year to year.

I cling to our long-standing traditions, but I like to try out new ones here and there too. In recent years, I’ve made a point to prepare an extra-yummy Christmas morning breakfast/brunch. We don’t always sit down together to eat, but when each of us gets hungry, I like to have something delicious ready. This year I planned two dishes: my bodacious frit-TATA (originally Debi’s recipe, but tweaked into my own) and eggnog baked French toast. Both required preparation the night before.

Although I can’t seem to find the frittata recipe on my blog, I’m sure I’ve shared it before. Basically, it’s potatoes, cheese, eggs, and sausage. Savory. Delicious.

Here’s the French toast recipe we followed. It was new to us. We enjoyed it immensely, and its very sweet, Christmas-flavored goodness was the perfect companion to the frittata. 

The new part of this Christmas breakfast tradition—and my favorite part, the one I hope stays—is that Katie and Jack prepared the frittata and French toast. The only thing I really did was put them in the oven on Christmas morning. We loved turning the chef responsibilities over to them, and they loved all the compliments from our stuffed moufs. :)

“Tradition!” Those Anatevkans were really onto something.

Sep. 17: Caliente!

My tip of the day: If you aren’t someone who regularly posts recipes to your blog, don’t enter a blog challenge with a friend whose blog is MOSTLY recipes. You will regret it every time you look at the day’s topic and say to yourself ARE YOU KIDDING ME ANOTHER RECIPE I DON’T MAKE ENOUGH NEW STUFF TO DO THIS IMMA KILL HER.

And the month isn’t over! There’s another recipe day next week. Ugh. Here we go.

Today’s the 17th day of our September Blog Challenge and that means you get another recipe! Aren’t you excited? Yaaaay.

This is the recipe we use for homemade taco/chili seasoning. The packeted stuff is full of preservatives and things with many syllables, and we found that the homemade is tastier, less expensive, and, well, it’s pretty much just spices. That’s good. Of course, I prefer to cook with fresh ingredients when I can—garlic and onion, especially—but this works in a pinch.

Taco/Chili Seasoning

• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• ½ tsp. garlic powder
• ½ tsp. black pepper
• ½ tsp. dried minced onion
• ¼ tsp. paprika
• ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• ¼ tsp. dried oregano

Put all ingredients in a glass jar, make sure the lid is on tight, and give it a good shake. It’ll look something like the photo on the right. If dried spices can be beautiful, they don’t get much more beautiful than this. And the smell? OMG, the delicious aroma of this combination of spices is sooo yummy. It’ll make you want to use it right away. And you better, because you didn’t add any preservatives. (For realsies, if this is kept in an air-tight container, it’ll last as long as any other jar of spices.)

Use 2-3 tablespoons of this spicy goodness per pound of meat. Depending on the fat content of the meat, you may also want to add a little water (I don’t use water if I’m cooking with higher fat ground beef, and about ½ cup for lower fat beef and chicken).

Want to make a big batch? Here’s a similar recipe for two cups of the stuff, in which the math is done for ya.

Interested in how other people make taco/chili seasoning? Here’s a recipe from Alton Brown, one from Whole Foods, and a bunch from Yummly.

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If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.

Sep. 12: Ooooh, fuuuuuuuuudge

It’s Day #12 of our September Blog Challenge. When Sherilee and I created the list of topics, she made several recipe days, which I thought was a good idea at the time. Then I realized that I don’t often have recipes to share, and this made some extra work for me. Pffftt.

I’m totally taking back the many thousands of gold stars I awarded her for using so many photos in her post the other day.

Soooo… I dug around in the collection of recipes I’ve saved and decided to try the one for chocolate sauce. I first saw the recipe on epicurious, but as I set out to make it the other night, I tweaked the ingredients a bit, as I am wont to do. What’s the rule about changing a recipe? Something like “if you change two things, it becomes yours”? No? If this is mine now, then I hereby present you with the recipe for…

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Chocklity Chocklit Sauce

(Otherwise, call it Hot Fudge Sauce from Gourmet Magazine, but with a bunch of changes by Jen)

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• ½ cup organic extra-virgin coconut oil
• ½ cup light corn syrup
• ⅓ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
• 8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1. Combine ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk gently until blended.
2. Bring to a low boil, stirring constantly.
3. Reduce heat and continue low boil for five minutes, stirring occasionally. (The boil is important; finished sauce will be gritty if the sugar is not dissolved, and that’s just gross.)
4. Remove from heat and let cool. Store in a tightly-sealed glass jar in refrigerator.

Jen’s Notes

• Serve warm over ice cream or cake or brownies or gooey butter cake, or just eat it by the spoonful. I won’t judge.
• Heat single servings approximately 15 seconds in microwave.
• The original recipe said this would keep for up to a week. See if it even lasts that long! This stuff is goooood.
• Substitute bittersweet for semi-sweet chocolate if you prefer.
• The original recipe called for a teaspoon of salt. I forgot to add it, but enjoyed the finished product so much, I don’t think the salt is really necessary.
• The coconut oil adds an ever-so-slight coconut flavor to the sauce. If you don’t like the flavor of coconut, then leave that out and also, what is wrong with you, coconut-hater?

Enjoy, Ralphie.

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If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September.

Sep. 4: A recipe what gots butter in it

It’s Day #4 of our September Blog Challenge and Sherilee’s over there sharing some delectable fancy-ass recipe. I decided to share a fancy-ass recipe too, admittedly LESS fancy-ass, and without apologies because Sherilee and I are not having a fancy-ass contest, right? RIGHT.

A few weeks ago “butter cake” was mentioned in my Facebook feed by at least three different people. I knew I had to investigate, because BUTTER is good and CAKE is also good but you could say that about fruitcake too and we all know how that abomination ended. Here’s what I found out about butter cake origins.

California Pizza Kitchen has a type of butter cake on its dessert menu, and the one time I tried it I thought it was pretty good. It wasn’t gooey, though, and according to the Wikipedia description, butter cake is more accurately called *gooey* butter cake.

GOOEY, like BUTTER and CAKE, is gooooood. This is a recipe for fruitcake the tastebuds!

And this is how dedicated I am to posting every day this month: I actually made this cake last night, just for the blog. For you, I mean. (And also me, because I did get to taste this nummy thing. I took one bite and then grabbed the whole pan and retreated to a corner, inhaling the cake while fighting off family members with my fork. If I hadn’t been sitting there next to my KitchenAid mixer, by the air conditioning vent, passersby might have thought I was a cave-woman. Instead they just thought, “Oink, Jen. Very oink.”)

I didn’t have to look very hard for a recipe. In fact, I stopped soon after I started because the first few I found were 1) almost identical, and 2) incredibly easy. Here’s the recipe I used, after some Jen tweaks:

St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake

• 1 box yellow cake mix with pudding in the mix
• 4 extra-large eggs (2 for each layer of cake)
• ½ cup butter
• ½ tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 3 cups confectioner’s sugar + a little extra for powdering the cake when cool
• Non-stick spray

This cake has two separate layers. First, the cake-y layer:

1. Put cake mix into a mixing bowl. DO NOT FOLLOW BAKING INSTRUCTIONS ON THE CAKE BOX!
2. Add 2 extra-large eggs to bowl
3. Add ½ cup (1 stick) melted butter to bowl
4. Add ½ teaspoon vanilla extract to bowl
5. Mix until smooth, using a stand or hand mixer. The batter will be thicker than a typical cake batter, but not as thick as cookie dough.
6. Grease a 9x13 pan and spread cake batter evenly. Set aside.

You can rinse off the beaters and bowl to use again to prepare the gooey layer:

1. Add the softened cream cheese to bowl
2. Add 3 cups confectioner’s sugar to bowl
3. Add 2 extra-large eggs to bowl
4. Mix until smooth. This batter will be more liquid-y than the first layer. You might even call this layer “gooey.” (Duh.)
5. Spread the gooey mixture smoothly over the bottom layer in the 9x13 pan

Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until the top is lightly browned. The edges will brown more quickly and that’s okay (they’ll be totally chewy and yummy). The top does not harden, so toothpick testing won’t help.

Remove cake from oven and cool on a baking rack for at least an hour before serving. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Slice servings like you would brownies.

I don’t normally go for the cake mix recipes, but I’m glad I made the exception for this one. Everyone in our house enjoyed it last night, once I decided to share. I recommend drinking a big glass of milk with a piece of this cake. Or serve it with vanilla ice cream! That’s a much better idea!

I almost forgot the most amazing part:

I TOOK PICTURES! I never remember to take pictures when I bake!

Note the top is cracked. It’s ‘posed to be like that. 
The cake absolutely could not contain its deliciousness and it burst forth.

Here’s what it looked like before I shoved it all up in my mouf.

If you’re a blogger and want to do our blog challenge with us, let me know and I’ll send you our list! Otherwise, tune in here (and on Sherilee’s happy little blog) every day in September!

Mar. 14: Jen follows up the D-I-Y post

Way back yonder in my blog I posted links to a bunch of recipes for cleaning products that used normal-ish ingredients. I was eager to rid our home of as many unpronounceable chemicals as possible, and things were going well.

Until I noticed, after using the laundry detergent for several months…

It made our whites all grey and ugly.

I don’t recommend the detergent recipe anymore unless you don’t care about your whites being white. Did the homemade detergent get the clothes clean? Yes, ma’am. Did it make them smell good? It made them smell okay-ish. Did it whiten and brighten where it should? Not even a little. I’m back to Tide and Oxy-Clean.

The other recipe I am un-recommending from that post is the fabric softener, an incredibly messy and not-worth-it exercise in good intentions. It made our clothes soft but the messiness factor got to be too much and we have decided to give it a big thumbs down. I’ve gone back to dryer sheets, which I don’t love, but they certainly are easy. I’m looking into dryer balls or steam softeners to avoid those hateful chemicals, but haven’t tried anything yet that I’m ready to commit to.

I stand by the rest of the recommendations in that post, and I have some more. Yay! You are happy to hear that, I pretend!

Coconut oil. I’ve been using it as a moisturizer and I LOVE it. It smells yummy, and it’s solid at or below 75° so a small chunk turns to liquid as soon as you touch it to your skin. Some people say coconut oil dries out your skin, but a lot more say it’s one of the best natural moisturizers out there. It works great for me. The greasiness disappears really quickly. Here are a gazillion ideas for how coconut oil can be used.

One of the skin care items that’s hardest for me to surrender is Bag Balm. We started using it for the kids’ diaper rash, and kept buying it because it heals the skin so well for just about everything else too (DISCLAIMER: may not work as effectively on broken bones or deep/gaping/spurting wounds, but I can’t say I’ve tried). I want to stop using ALL petroleum products (here’s a blogger’s explanation why) but dang it, Bag Balm is a favorite. In its place I’ve been using pure aloe—great for soothing my brow skin after a waxin’—and coconut oil—for extra-dry hands and heels—but haven’t found ONE exact potion to completely replace my beloved Bag Balm. More research required.

Carmex is another tough thing to give up. I’ve made some lip balms that work pretty well though—they are a combo of coconut oil, grapeseed oil, essential oils, and beeswax, mostly—and am planning to tweak my recipe until I get it just right. I’ve done some research on anti-wrinkle potions too, that are very similar.

Neosporin can be made using essential oils. I haven’t tried it yet.

Have you hear of oil pulling? It sounds crazy! Of course, I’m also totally curious.

Alright, that’s enough kooky witch doctor talk for now. Besides, this high fructose veal syrup with a trans fat chaser isn’t going to ingest itself. I need to get busy!

Aug. 10: IDCEAYWTPFriday

My favorite thing about I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday is shirtless Ponch. Yay, shirtless Ponch!  Don’t deny it—you’re happy to see him too.

• This might have been my favorite thing that’s ever come out of Jack’s mouth, right up there with “Mom, you’re so much cooler than Dad” and anything that isn’t vomit.  Yesterday we were watching the Olympics and I mentioned how funny diving is because every dive looks so great until they show them in slow motion and then everyone’s all WOW, THAT TOTALLY SUCKED!! Jack said, “What I don’t like about watching football on TV is that after every play they have to show it in slow motion and talk about it forever. It takes a really long time.” Since he’s pretty much all-football-all-the-time these days, and I am what you call a Hater of Football, this surprised and thrilled me. He’s starting to get it! He’s finally understanding one of the most annoying things about a sport that makes no sense! Also, I hope he doesn’t get it completely until this season is over because football is very time-consuming for Jen and we’re already committed.
• Have you seen these free handwriting fonts? I love ‘em!
• Last week I shared some of the DIY cleanser recipes I’ve been using. Here’s a site that lists a whole bunch of them. I can’t vouch for any of them, but if you’re looking for varieties on the theme, you’ll have a lot from which to choose.
• Tonight’s Mary Carillo report on the Olympics was about royal titles and family coats of arms (coat of armses? coats of arm?). Here’s the Saltmarsh coat of arms images I found in Google image search:
  
   
  
  The Latin phrase on the “Saltmarshe” one means “power to the stars.” I don’t know what all the other symbols represent but I think I’m supposed to be more impressed than I am.
• Did they seriously just interrupt the Olympics with the “breaking news” that Mitt Romney’s going to announce his running mate tomorrow? Why is it breaking news that he’s GOING to announce? How ‘bout we break into stuff with actual news? Pffft.
• Y’know those fabulous Dole Whips at some Disney parks? Here’s a recipe to make them at home. Yuuuum.
• Have you seen the latest Simon’s Cat videos? So cute.

In closing, here’s a photo just for Sunshine.

 

That is all. Have a good one, peeps.

Aug. 2: Jen Does-It-Herself

NOTE: I have updated my recommendations here.

I’ve read for years about people who make their own soaps and cleaners, makeup, baby food, yogurt, etc. And I admit, I’ve been leery. Like, people who insist on making their own stuff are cheap-asses, right? Or Mother Earth hippies. And so much of the homemade crap never works as well as the store-bought stuff—deodorant comes to mind.
Then I got that effin’ you-know-what. People have theories about what makes cancer happen—we are certainly aware of some common carcinogens—but we really don’t know what causes a lot of killer diseases. I started taking a new look at the chemicals we have in our home and decided that, where possible, I would make some changes. I hate to admit that being “green” was actually secondary in my desire to change; I really just wanted to get rid of lots of ingredients that I can’t pronounce because WHO KNOWS what they’re doing to us?
I had to get past the “cheap-ass” part of the D-I-Y recipes and instructions that are widely available on the ‘net—that was a bigger challenge than finding some of odd ingredients. And honestly, I’m still not 100 percent convinced that D-I-Y is always the best solution. Here are the things I’ve tried and the results I’ve had.

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Ant Killer

I wrote about this one here. It totally worked like a charm, and we’ve been ant-free since a few days after I posted.

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Window Cleaner

Vinegar and water, using newspaper or lint-free cloths to clean.
Ease: Eh. Easy enough. Put it in a spray bottle and clean away.
My thoughts: Nothing works like my all-time favorite. I’m sticking with the chemical-laden, aerosol solution for now. It smells a lot less like dyeing Easter eggs. I also don’t like the newspaper thing—messy.
Will I D-I-M again? No.

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Laundry Detergent

Borax, washing soda, Fels Naptha soap, water. Here’s the recipe I used.
Ease: It wasn’t as hard to find the ingredients as I expected, but this was a colossal effort involving feats of insanity. I mean, we had to shred and cook the soap. Cook the soap! I know!
My thoughts: It seems to clean as well as Tide, and it has a decent enough scent. The link says it’s 20¢ a gallon. I actually have no idea, but that sounds about right. Yes, it was a lot of work to make, but when I see how long it’s lasting, and how often I don’t have to make a trip to the store for detergent in the middle of a big laundry weekend… totally worth it.
Will I D-I-M again? Definitely.

Fabric Softener

I decided to make reusable dryer sheets and change softener brands. I used instructions similar to these—water, liquid softener, pieces of fabric, and a lidded container. Dilute the softener in a baby wipes box and soak washcloths (that’s what I used) in it. I didn’t bother rolling them up to pop out of the wipes box—too much work. Instead, after washing a load of clothes, I wring a washcloth out a little and throw it in the dryer with the wet stuff. After drying, I put it back in the box to soak.
Ease: Very easy, but messy.
My thoughts: Two laundry-related things I hate are static cling and clean clothes that don’t smell fresh. I don’t like heavy scents, but I want my clothes to smell different coming out of the dryer than they did going into the washer. I love Downy and was not looking forward to changing softeners. I bought Ecover, one of the few all-natural liquid fabric softeners; it gets our clothes comparably soft, static-free, and smells fine.
Will I D-I-M again? Yes. The only thing I don’t like about this is having to wash my hands after wringing out the washcloth to toss into the dryer—we don’t have a sink in the laundry room. Oh, and the time Vic knocked the box off the table and it went SPLAT all over the floor? We now have the softest laundry room floor EVER.

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Hardwood Floor Cleaner—Heavy-Duty

This isn’t the recipe I used, but I think it’s better than the one I followed.
Ease: Very simple.
My thoughts: The recipe I used had more soap in it and was awfully sudsy on the floor. It worked great and got through the paw print grime.
Will I D-I-M again? Probably, but not for everyday cleaning.

Carpet Spot Remover

The instructions I found said to brush baking soda into the spot, then spray with vinegar/water mixture.
Ease: Simple enough.
My thoughts: This was a disaster. The soda turned into a paste and was virtually impossible to get out of the carpet. It might have taken the pet odors out, but it made a bigger mess than it was worth.
Will I D-I-M again? Not with this formula.

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Shower Cleaner

This is not the daily cleaner (see below); this is a regular ol’ shower cleanser. I’ve used Scrub-Free for years. I knew any change I made would definitely have to be easy (scrub-free or scrub-a-little). There are lots of recipes out there, but I chose a very simple one: 12 ounces warm vinegar and 10 ounces blue Dawn. It must be Dawn, and it must be blue. Combine in a spray bottle, shake gently, and spray the hell out of the shower. Let it sit for 30-90 minutes and sponge off.
Ease: Could not have been easier. Really. I spent more time looking for an empty spray bottle than I did blending this potion.
My thoughts: Even with the window and bathroom door wide open, I thought I might die from the overpowering vinegar smell. That can’t be good, can it? Yikes. Anyway, I directed the solution primarily to the glass shower doors because they get soap scummed-up quickly and heavily without regular cleaning. I let it sit for about an hour and then scrub-sponged it off. I probably could have just sponged it off, though—it really cut right through the film all on its own, probably even better than the Scrub-Free that I usually use.
Will I D-I-M again? Definitely. Some caveats: this makes for a very slippery shower floor and OMG, plug your nose.

Daily Shower Spray

Again, there are dozens of recipes out there for this stuff and they all seem to work. I chose this one, which contains water, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, Jet-Dry rinse agent, blue Dawn, and hate. I wanted something that could go in our automatic shower sprayer, which meant that it needed to be put in the special automatic shower sprayer bottle, and the cap does not come off the bottle easily because then nobody would buy their refills.
Ease: Pain. In. The. Ass. Mixing the ingredients was no problem, but getting them in the empty automatic shower sprayer bottle was a challenge. There are all kinds of instructions online to getting the damn cap off, but I couldn’t get anything to work. I finally gave up and used a small bottle with a very narrow nozzle tip to fill it up in the spray hole (heehee).
My thoughts: I did this one mostly because the automatic shower sprayer refill bottles are crazy-expensive. I didn’t calculate the price of this, but it’s way cheap. How’s that?
Will I D-I-M again? Yes, as long as it keeps working well. So far so good. I’ve heard that Rain-X on glass shower doors is also a great way to keep build-up off—that sure would be easier.

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Room Smell-Good

This was a simple little jar of baking soda with several drops of essential oil.
Ease: Yes. Easy.
My thoughts: It worked great if you held it directly under your nose. Not so much if you set it down and walked away.
Will I D-I-M again? Not with this recipe.
Hey, remember those Glade Solid air fresheners that your mom told you not to touch but you couldn’t resist sticking your fingers into them to feel their cold, squishy gross-ness? Me too.

Room Smell-Like-Williams-Sonoma

This was a Pinterest find: a sliced lemon, some sprigs of rosemary, and two teaspoons of vanilla, simmered on the stove.
Ease: Slicing and turning on the stove. Can-do!
My thoughts: This combination is supposedly what Williams-Sonoma uses to make their store smell so delightful.
Will I D-I-M again? I haven’t given up, but I want to play a bit with the proportions, because while it made the kitchen smell great, the rest of the downstairs still smelled like dog butt.

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Astringent

Witch Hazel.
Ease: The greatest of.
My thoughts: Witch Hazel doesn’t dry the skin like every other astringent (most of which contain alcohol) and is cheap.
Will I D-I-M again? I’ve been using this for years and have no intention of stopping.

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What household D-I-Y recipes have you tried? How were your results?

Jul. 1: June in review

Shoulda posted this yesterday. Oops.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• The last day of school on June 14. From what I remember, it was a good time.
• Mother Mary’s birthday. We took her out for lunch but that’s about it. Bad Jen.
• Father’s Day. I don’t remember how we celebrated. Wow. I’m a terrible daughter and wife.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

• End-of-the-school-year parting gifts from friends. Such sweet surprises!
• Mother Mary’s birthday gift was a slightly customized version of this bracelet. I got myself a matching one. The etsy seller has some really fun items—she’s my new favorite. 

Books I read this month:

• Why Moms Are Weird, again, by Pamela Ribon. I so enjoy the way she weaves stories.
• Forget About It, by Caprice Crane. Very light, but cute.
• Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown. A page-turner.
• The Girls’ Guide to Hunting & Fishing, by Melissa Bank. Fun read.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• Katie and I saw Brave. Loveliness.
• I Redboxed Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Great cast, so-so movie.

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

• The kids and I had breakfast at IKEA. I like some of their regular food, but had never tried their breakfast before. It was delicious. Totally cheap and way yummy.
• I made key lime cake balls. More accurately, they were cookie balls. Or truffles. Yes, truffles sounds better. Key Lime Truffles. Here’s the closest thing to the recipe I ended up using. They were pretty good, but I will definitely add more lime juice next time to cut the crazy-sweetness.

Special or unusual purchases I made:

• We bought two tents for using at Relay for Life this year. I never thought I’d own a tent, since I hate camping so, so, so much, but THANK BUDDHA the North Clackamas Relay isn’t in the wilderness. With air mattresses and my favorite down comforter, I be way cozy, but JUST FOR ONE NIGHT. Then I go back to having a nighttime restroom closer than a half-lap away.
• I bought the supplies for our Lap Beads Relay for Life fundraiser. My fingers are sore from adding jump rings to eleventy billion charms and lobster clasps.
• Floats! I floated! I’ve pre-purchased four more floats; just the idea that I have them available to me at any time is relaxing all by itself. That’s weird, isn’t it?

This month’s disappointments:

• We had to send Oliver away. Sad face.
• June 7, the anniversary of my dad’s death, is always a tough day. It’s been seven years.
• The weather. Ugh. We’ve had a few perfect and gorgeous days, but they’ve been unpredictable, with way, way too much rain and cold.
• Sunshine visited, but then she left again.

My accomplishments:

• My office is in a usable state again! Lucy’s got roaming rights to the entire house now, so I don’t have to be downstairs all the time and that means I’m pretty much living in my office. I like. I like very much. It’s a happy place.
• I made planning calendars all pretty-like. Picture proof to come.
• I lived through the school year. That’s big.

Anything else noteworthy:

• Katie and Jack had their piano recitals—Katie’s fifth, Jack’s third. They’re both doing so well and really enjoy it—though if you ask Jack, he’ll deny it. Katie is starting guitar now, and I’m sooo glad it’s not violin. Early guitar practice, even when the notes are wrong, is much less likely to make my ears bleed than anything as vile as a violin. Vile-lin. THAT’S what it should be called.
• One of Katie’s electives for the last term of sixth grade was Musical Theater. I don’t know why they called it that, because there was nothing musical about it. The class went to a high school play—not a musical, just a regular ol’ play—and their big performance at the end of the term was changed from an evening program to a during-class performance; most parents couldn’t even be there. We took off work to watch, and I was surprised at how unprepared the students were—they didn’t have props or microphones when they needed them, didn’t know their lines, and the whole thing was as though they were doing it for the first time. I don’t expect perfection, but I don’t see what guidance the teacher gave them at all. I was disappointed with what could have been a very fun learning experience for them.
  
  This wasn’t the only meaningless middle school elective, though… my friend’s daughter took a sewing class in which the only project was one of those no-sew fleece pillows. WTF???
• I finally figured out how to get Jack to clean up his room: ground him. Unfortunately, he thought it was kinda cool to be grounded, so it took him a week to clean enough to be set free. Whatever… it’s done. We had to go through his garbage carefully, though. Where Katie keeps every scrap of paper EVER (oh, how I wish I were exaggerating), Jack throws out old yearbooks, pictures, books he wrote in first grade, and clothes. Sheesh.

Here’s to a sunny July! Smell ya later, doods.

Mar. 10: More of the same

My last several blog posts have contained very little continuous thoughts of the cohesive variety. You probably haven’t noticed, but I have, and it just seems like that’s how my brain is working these days. My life, really… just lots of little stuff happening. Weird, since I’m usually obsessed with something, it seems.

But not lately. Nope. Just a constant flow of nothingness.

Soooo… here’s some more!

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Here’s Sunshine demonstrating my new hands-free device for my iPhone. Awesome, right? Even though she’s holding it, I still call it “hands-free” because you can totally prop it up on your shoulder and use your hands for typing or making dinner or playing games on your phone while you talk. I love it! I ordered mine from a Groupon special a couple weeks ago, but if you search for “retro handset” you can find lots of others out there. Overstock has the inexpensivest I’ve seen.

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I offer this one without comment.
OK, maybe with apologies to certain people who exceeded their texting allowances this week.

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I read this book last week. You can probably guess what drew me to it—I thought it would be a how-to guide. (hahaha hilare…) The story was amusing/cleverish and not exactly a painful read, but as our PTO treasurer put it, “it’s not going to win a Pulitzer prize.” What bothered me more than anything? The author’s name on the cover in Comic Sans. Ugh.

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We made something similar to these treats in honor of the school’s classified employees this week. I thought they were cute, and they were easy to put together. I actually didn’t find them on Pinterest, but I’m sure they’ve popped up there—such a great resource for teacher gifts, that Pinterest.

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A bunch of the area schools went in lockdown on Thursday morning because of this. It’s hard to believe people are that flippin’ stupid. Gah.

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This Pinterest find is going in the crockpot this morning.

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I’m off to get my hair cut—it’s been months and I’m actually getting shaggy. I found this book that I’m hoping will help me manage the texture of my post-chemo hair, which seems to be here to stay. Argh.

Have a great weekend!

Feb. 27: February summary

It’s been forever since I’ve done a month recap, but the timing seems right.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

Well, there was Katie’s birthday (recapped here—dinner at Grandpa & Grandma’s, sleepover with friend, manicures and shopping) and Valentine’s Day (recapped here and here—most celebratory thing was B&tB). Our 15th anniversary was last week. Victor took the day off and we had breakfast together at Carver Café—in spite of Twilight, not because of it. We’re going to celebrate bigger than breakfast soon, hopefully getting out of town for a couple nights. To the coast? Seattle? The mountains? We have no idea yet.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

For Katie’s birthday, she got shoes and her party.

Vic and the kids gave me flowers for Valentine’s Day.

They don’t really counts as gifts, but we won two of the raffle baskets at our school carnival Saturday night—Oregon Ducks and Dental Care (possibly provided by this dentist, but I’m confirming nothing). Right now there is an awful lot of yell-o and green in our house, but it’s certainly not on our teeth—they’re clean as can be!

And lookie here, I gotta rant for ya:

We heard rumors that some people were suspicious that a PTO board member won a basket. I wasn’t the only PTO winner—Sharon, Wendy, and Adam’s families won baskets too. We planned the drawings carefully to show that PTO had no advantage, so if someone still thought we were cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eaters, they’re just jerks. People also might not have considered that we on the PTO bought hundreds of raffle tickets, so, y’know, odds were in the favor of everyone who did that. Duh.

And then there were people like Dina, conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, who tried to convince everyone around her of a vast and devious PTO cover-up. Nice try, Dina! Good thing no one ever listens to you.

Also, Jenn K’s family won the Disneyland passes. I call shenanigans on that one, but only because I’m sooo jealous.

Books I read this month:

The Red Garden, by Alice Hoffman. Out of Oz, by Gregory Maguire. It’s supposedly the final of the Wicked series. I’m halfway through and still waiting for it to get interesting. The other night I bought a new Chris Bohjalian book that I might just dump Out of Oz to start reading.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

No movies, really. I am LOVING Downton Abbey, and watching Season 2 as slowly as I can because I know I’ll go through withdrawals until Season 3 begins later this year. I’m balancing it with silliness like Suburgatory and fun like Smash, along with the other sitcoms I’ve watched for years. Toss in a little Grimm and SVU and I’m good.

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

On Facebook last weekend, I posted a picture of a new potato recipe I was attempting: Hasselback Potatoes (or, as I prefer, Hasselhoff Taters). They were pretty good, but I want to work on variations to make them special-er. But ultimately, they’re potatoes, so how can they be bad?

Special or unusual purchases I made:

It’s not every month I buy 48 whoopee cushions... Yes, stocking the carnival prize room was some very fun shopping for Jen.

This month’s disappointments:

I hate Express Scripts (mail order prescription service) so much I wish I could shoot surly bumblebees ass-first at them through the phone. Besides being complete morons, they have the most archaic system EVER. Dealing with them is so painful EVERY TIME. Effers.

Also disappointing is that we didn’t win that Disneyland basket Saturday night. I curse the kid who drew Jenn K’s family as the winner! (Not really. It was a totally nice kid.)

My accomplishments:

Well, planning our school carnival wasn’t my doing alone, but it feels good that I helped make it happen, and that it’s over and people enjoyed themselves.

Met some deadlines at work, blah blah blah…

Facilitated one of our best PTO member meetings yet—we spent $10,000! It was exciting to see how much good our little group can do.

Anything else noteworthy:

Crocuses are blooming! Daffodils and tulips are sprouting! That means spring is on its way! Just ignore that weird ice/snow that was on the ground this morning! It means nothing! Winter, be gone witcha!

That’s all I got.