Those Aren't Bath Beads!

Saturday night, Alice-Grace was taking a bath. Our cat, Roger, walked into the bathroom, saw that she was in the tub, and THREW UP IN THE WATER! Poor Alice-Grace was scrambling up the walls like a crazed spider monkey. It was so gross.

The other day, Roger was sitting calmly and we one at a time held our hand out to her. She nuzzled up to Frances, ignored Nigel, and tried to shred all the skin off of Alice-Grace's limb.

Once Roger was hiding in a bag and whenever Alice-Grace walked by, she would jump out and attack her legs. If anyone else walked by, the cat would just ignore them.

What is with my cat's obsession with trying to kill my youngest child?

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

While spring cleaning, Nigel found an old paycheck from 1995 that he never cashed from when he used to teach school.

Not to be outdone, I found an old birthday check from my grandma and grandpa dated 1980.

Ha, take that!

Reading Update

So I finished "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."

Loved it. It was a fun and easy read. You just need to remember that this is a memoir, NOT a how-to book. What would be even more interesting is a book written by her husband that shows his side of the story. I don't think that the kids could write an honest one until many years go by.

I also finished "Mockingbird."

I had a hard time getting into it, but then I really liked it. It was fascinating to see how the girl's mind worked. The Asperger story went well with the school shooting story, but did the mother have to be dead from cancer, too? I thought that was a little much.

I finished reading "Eat More, Weigh Less," too.

An interesting health and diet book, especially since it was written during the whole "no-fat" 1990s and there's chapters on how olive oil, avocados, nuts and salmon are all bad for you. We mostly got it for the vegetarian recipes in the back. So far I've made a sweet potato and tofu stew (delicious -- and I even got to use parsnips and turnips!) and mung bean dumplings (a lot of work for something that is not very yummy -- but I got to use lemongrass and Nigel rigged up a steamer for me). Tonight I'm making roasted eggplant sandwiches.

I'm now reading "The Book Thief."

After much support from people who have loved this book, I've decided to give it another go. I'm starting to get into the story and I'm anxious to use my new vocabulary of German swear words.

Universe Update

My eagle-eye daughter, Alice-Grace, found my scriptures thrown in a bush. Obviously, some thieves thought my leather Bible bag was a really ugly purse or an extremely squatty laptop that I had left in my car.

So sorry to disappoint them.

Now I have to dry them out as they've been sitting in a snowbank for a few weeks. Nigel says that with their water-logged puffiness, I'll look like a total scriptorian (they look VERY well read).

Really, it would've been just as easy to throw them back in my car as to throw them in a bush. Are there no considerate thieves left in the world?

Happy New Year!

I'll admit it. I love New Year's. It's my favorite holiday. I don't even do anything for the holiday, I just love having that clean slate (As Anne Shirley would say, "Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it").

So my resolution for 2011 is to be more "in the moment."

I'm trying to avoid multitasking (I deplore multitasking) and to really think about what I'm doing, be more cognizant of my actions, ask myself what are my motivations for doing something before I do it.

This is actually something that I started about six months ago, but I'm still a work in progress.

It started with going to Frances' play. I just decided that I didn't want to worry about taking pictures or filming it. I'm so distracted by the tools in my hands that I end up not even enjoying the play. And let's be honest, it's not like I'm going to watch the video of it later -- but just in case I did want to, I made Nigel film it (and no, I haven't watched the video).

Then when my kids were taking various classes (Alice Grace in gymnastics and Jeffrey in parkour), I decided to purposely not take anything with me. Instead of reading or knitting, I watched them participate. They loved that I was there cheering them on and seeing every move they made.

Now before I buy something or eat something, I ask myself, "Do I really need this? Am I just bored? Is it worth it?"

So if you see me doing something and I don't stop right away to say hi, I'm not being rude, I'm just waiting until I finish so I can give you my full, undivided attention. So that's my goal for 2011.

Nigella* has nothing on Nigel

If you read my blog, you know that I'm constantly struggling with staying within my food budget. Well, I've given up. I've turned over all cooking and shopping duties to my husband, Nigel.

Why I didn't do this years ago, I don't know.

He is an awesome cook and can make a dollar stretch like nobody's business. It's also nice to just turn to him and say, "Hey, what's for dinner?" And unlike me (where the answer is usually, "Whatever you can find under the couch cushions" or "Shake the toaster, that's dinner"), he actually makes something!

Also, my cooking experiences often turn out like this recent episode:

I was making rice krispy treats (simple, right?) and I was melting the marshmallows and butter over the stove. I was stirring and stirring and there was still this lump of marshmallow that would just not melt! What was the deal? It's never taken this long. I pulled out the spatula I was using to stir in order to turn up the heat and that's when I noticed that the rubber/plastic/silicone part of the spatula was missing! That wasn't a clump of marshmallow -- it was melted spatula!

I had always had those heat resistant spatulas -- but I guess this one wasn't! Gross! I had to dump it in the trash, clean the pot and start all over again.

Is it any wonder I've given up on cooking?

*Referring to Nigella Lawson, the "Barefoot Contessa." I like watching her cooking show just because her voice is so soothing (it's more relaxing than yoga!).

Vegging Out

On a friend's recommendation, I tried out this produce co-op . It costs $16.50 a basket (plus a one-time $3.00 sign-up charge) and this is what I got:

1 bag cherries
10 bananas
1 bag grapes
1 cantaloupe
11 peaches
17 small plums
4 tomatoes
3 avocados
2 stalks broccoli
1 bag baby carrots
1 large head romaine lettuce
1 small bag green beans

I can't get my kids to stop eating the grapes and cherries (I'm finding cherry pits all over the house). The bananas and avocados still need to ripen, so it'll be a while before we can eat those. The cantaloupe was delicious (we ate it as part of our Father's Day breakfast). The broccoli was great (I used it in our Father's Day chicken divan recipe). The romaine lettuce, baby carrots and tomatoes are good (used in our Father's Day salad). We're looking forward to using the green beans (along with potatoes and onions) in a German recipe that Nigel is famous for.

So here's my predicament: the peaches and plums aren't even close to being ripe (and they don't ripen if you just let them sit out -- they'll get softer, but not sweeter). So I'm going to have to cook them to use them up. I know that I can make a good peach cobbler, but what should I do with the plums? Any ideas?

"Running" a 5K

A few days ago I "ran" a 5K.

You'll notice that the word "ran" is in quotes because let's be honest, there's very little running going on when I'm doing it. It's more like a slow, agonizing jog or a very fast walk.

And this was a very BIG race with actual numbers on our chests and timers on our shoes. Very high tech. The best part is that I finished in about 6 1/2 minutes UNDER my goal time and I saw lots of my friends in the race (mostly I saw them as they were all PASSING me by).

Nigel and the kids were there to cheer me on and it was a lot of fun. We've decided that next time we'll ALL run/jog/walk together as a family.

The last time I did one was in 1985. I thought this would hold me for another 25 years, but it was so much fun, I can't wait to do another.

Thrifty Month of May Final Analysis

My month of "No Grocery Shopping in May" is just about over and I did learn some things about my emergency food storage preparedness:

-- It takes a lot more time and energy to make everything from scratch, time that I hopefully will have if there is an emergency (like losing my job), but not so much when I'm working full-time and trying to go to all of the "end of school" activities. Let's just say that towards the end of the month, we just went without bread because I was too tired to make it.

-- I did cheat and went to the grocery store twice, but that's only because my kids had promised certain foods for their classroom's pot lucks and we didn't have those in our food storage.

-- We learned to survive without Kool-Aid, Parmesan cheese and Ramen; and we also learned to eventually like the Apple drink.

-- Don't stock up on the kids' favorite cereals because as soon as you do, they will decide that they now HATE that particular cereal and you'll end up eating all of it (curse you, Cinnamon Toast Crunch!)

-- Luckily my radishes were ready to harvest half-way through the month and I would look forward to picking some each day just so I could taste the crunch of a fresh vegetable.

-- We went through a lot more butter than expected; and we went through a lot less eggs than I expected (we started off the month with two dozen and ended the month with one dozen left).

-- My credit card bill was cut in half just by not hitting the grocery store each week.

-- We really didn't eat that much differently than we usually eat. Makes me wonder what the heck I'm wasting my money on at the store.

-- Stick with the basics. We got sick of fancy canned soups real quick, but we could eat beans and rice every night.

And the most important thing I learned from this whole experiment:

-- Nigel is the "MacGyver" of food storage cooking! He can take a rubber band, some toothpaste, and a roll of duct tape and make lasagna out of it! He's amazing! He's going to be the most important part of my emergency plan.

Food Storage Update

Well, I haven't done any grocery shopping since April 28th, just living off of my food storage, and this is what I've learned so far:

A loaf of bread from the store will be eaten up in seven days.
A loaf of home-baked bread will be eaten up in seven minutes.

I have no parmesan cheese. How can I not have parmesan cheese? The easiest cheese to store and I have none? Major flaw in my food storage plan.

Looking at my car's empty gas tank and my purse full of uncashed checks, I realize that I connect all of my other errands to grocery shopping. Hard to get out of that habit.

When I tell people about my little experiment, they always come back with, "Oh my goodness, what are you eating?" Like I'm forcing my family to eat soup made out of boiled shoes or something. So here's what we've been eating at our house so far in May:

Breakfast
Oatmeal;
Cold cereal and milk (I've got a lot of cereal and I'm still having the milkman deliver fresh milk -- it has to be a major catastrophe for me to drink powdered milk);
Pancakes and sausage (though I'm down to my last package of frozen sausage).

Lunch
My kids still have money in their school accounts, so they've been eating lunch at school and Nigel and I just eat leftovers or bread and butter (my freezer is full of butter).

Dinner
Spaghetti & meatballs;
Meatball sandwiches;
Shepherd's pie (using the freeze-dried meatballs);
Chicken & dumplings (using canned chicken);
Green chili casserole (kind of a Mexican lasagne using tortillas);
Pad Thai (if you're a Thai food lover like me, your pantry is full of curry powder, jars of peanut butter, hot sauce, noodles, and cans of coconut milk).

Dessert
Cookies (finally used up all that frozen cookie dough I had);
Peach cobbler (made with just a can of peaches, a white cake mix, and topping it with a powdered "whipped cream" mix).

Drinks
Milk;
Carnation Instant Breakfast mixed in milk;
Powdered juice.

So as you can tell, we've been eating quite well (probably better than when we DON'T live off of our food supply).

On Top of Spaghetti...

I also decided to try out my #10 can of freeze-dried Italian seasoned meatballs.

That's right, freeze-dried meatballs. Who knew?

I rehydrated them as directed and put them in a tomato sauce to serve on top of spaghetti. They still tasted a little tough, though.

The next night, I made meatball subs (with my bread recipe for the rolls, some Manwich sauce, canned mushrooms and freeze-dried mozzarella cheese). Again, they seemed a little tough.

Nigel and I thought they were OK. My children did NOT like them and said that they didn't taste like meat.

Again, something I won't be buying in the future (after all, how many recipes do you know that use "meatballs"?).

Please note -- I had a meatball sub the next day for lunch and it tasted MUCH better. Maybe they just needed more time to rehydrate.

An Apple a Day...

In our quest to not buy any groceries this month, I decided to get into our long-term food storage (otherwise known as Alice-Grace's "bed") and open up a #10 can of powdered apple juice and try it out.

First of all, the color is...shall we say...disturbing. The juice was a sickly, brown, sewer-y looking color. Yuck.

But it's the taste that matters, right? Well, it tastes EXACTLY like green apple flavored Jolly Rancher candies. Not exactly something I want to drink.

But what do I know? Did you know that Jolly Rancher also makes a soda pop? I've never seen it (and after tasting this "apple juice," now I know why).
I must admit that Alice-Grace and Jeffrey absolutely LOVED it. Of course, they're also known for eating powdered sugar out of the bag with a spoon.

Nigel, Frances and I definitely did NOT like it. I won't be buying any more #10 cans of this in the future. I'll stick to things I know that I like (like packets of cherry Kool-Aid -- I love me some cherry Kool-Aid).

Love is in the Air

Did I mention that for Valentine's Day Nigel gave me pepper spray?

And when he gave it to me he said, "I have a feeling you're REALLY going to need this."

Ah, nothing says romance like mace and paranoia.

(Please note: I haven't had to use it -- yet)

Tuesdays with Meow-y #5

Here is knitted cat #5. This one is based on a cat I had as a little girl. I really like how the two-toned face turned out. This is done with a knit stitch instead of a garter stitch, so it doesn't look as fluffy, but it's the only way I could get the face to work out. Also, I've gone back to the floppy arms. Nigel wanted me to show how the backs of the cats look, so here's some kitty butt for you. I'm not too happy about the white tip on the tail, though, looks too much like a fifth leg.

Coupon Woes -- Revisited

Have you ever had the experience of just being sick of your hair? It never looks good, it's a source of never-ending frustration and you've just had enough. You make an appointment with the hairdresser to cut it all off.

Of course, the day of your appointment, you hair looks BEAUTIFUL! It's never had such body, such shine, it's gorgeous! What do you do? Cancel the appointment? Still get it cut off?

I'm having the same experience with this whole coupon thing. Yesterday I printed off my shopping list and brought out all my coupon inserts. After one and a half hours (literally), I had all my coupons cut out and sorted. I complained to Nigel the whole time, "This is it. I'm cancelling my newspaper subscriptions. This is too much work."

Then I go to the store and as always it takes FOREVER to shop and the pizza coupons don't match up with the pizza that's on sale and some other coupon-hording women have bought up all the yogurt (like I need more yogurt).

I was dreading going to the check-out stand because my cart was beyond over-flowing. "Oh great, this is going to cost a ton," I thought to myself.

Total = $162.77

But then I had the store sales and special offers (they were doing "buy 10 of these various items, get $5.00 off your bill" -- I had bought 40 of those items).

New Total = $85.04

Then I gave the cashier my HUGE stack of coupons.

Final Total = $59.74

So from $162.77 to $59.74!!! I bought 48 products and paid just a little over $1.00 for each one (which is quite a feat considering that I bought three things of Tide liquid detergent).

Hm, maybe I'll give the coupons another chance.

It's All Greek to Me

Yesterday Nigel and I went out to lunch at a new Greek restaurant in town. I had heard that it was run by actual Greek people, so I was pretty excited. (The other night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant and there wasn't a SINGLE Chinese person in the place. Not one! No Chinese people eating, working or cooking. With over 1.3 billion Chinese people in the world, I don't even see how that's statistically possible)

Sure enough, the men working there were very Greek, there were Greek flags everywhere (though they neglected to take the Bavarian cuckoo clock from off the wall from the prior restaurant's decor), and the food was delicious.

The best part? This was listed on the menu:

SIDE OF HOMOS & PITA 4.25

I could just see myself saying, "Why yes, I would like a side of homos with my pita." This is probably the first time in my life I wish I had one those camera phones.

You've got to understand, I love things like that. Maybe it's because of the girl in my high school from Taiwan who had her "Charlie Brown & Spoopy" book bag. Or maybe my Japanese roommate in college and her "Happy New York" sweater. Or my neighbor from Brazil and her son's "Winnie The Puff" teddy bear. Or my husband's tres leches birthday cake from the Mexican market down the street that said "Hoppy Birthdoy."

I think it brings me such joy because I am SOOOOO terrible at other languages. I'm in awe of anyone that can come to a different country and learn another language. I have taken years of French, German, Japanese and Chinese and I can't say a word in any of these languages. I come from a long line of people who can't speak another language. Case in point: many years ago my parents went to Germany to visit my brother in the military. They even took German language classes in preparation for their trip. Once there, they were at a shop counting out their money and my father went from counting in German to Spanish to English to APACHE! Yes, Dad, when you can't remember your German, go for Apache! That's the universal language ALL Europeans understand!

I just hope that the Greek restaurant doesn't change their menu. I think it's perfect just the way it is and will certainly bring me back for more (food and smiles).

2009 Christmas Newsletter

Christmas 2009 for Lois & Family

Lois spent 2009 NOT cleaning her house, NOT scrapbooking, NOT making her kids dinner, and best of all, in this crazy economy, Lois spent the year NOT unemployed.

Nigel spent the year NOT being a starving artist (he actually sold many paintings), NOT getting away from scouts (he went from Webelos leader to Cub Master), but best of all, Nigel did NOT pop any more holes in his lungs.

Frances finished the year NOT reading classic literature when there's a good ghost story or alien book near by, NOT failing in school and NOT being one of those horrible children you see on an MTV reality show.

Jeffrey spent 2009 NOT cleaning up his Legos, NOT giving up his plans for his own Viking-themed amusement park, and NOT letting up on lecturing his family on NOT spending money.

Alice-Grace pretty much spent this last year doing "skin the cat" on an old broom stick that she places between the arm rests of the couch and love seat. Luckily, she has NOT been taken to the emergency room -- yet.

Stupid Rabbit ("Stew" for short) has NOT figured out that he's only supposed to pooh in his cage, NOT realized that he's a vegetarian, and it has NOT dawned on him that a balloon is NOT a girl rabbit.

Here's to a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year from our family to yours.

Priceless

Jeffrey and Alice-Grace had play dates, so I wanted to do something special with Frances (but didn't want to spend any money). Here's what we did:

Two craft projects (a cute embossed Christmas card and an adorable snowflake ornament -- free make & take day) and five sheets of card stock (coupon) at a scrapbooking store at the local mall = $0.00

One really large (though they called it a small) ice-cream cone (coupon) at the food court = $0.00

Frances being able to spend time with her parents without any annoying younger siblings = priceless

Just Plain Giving Up

So in my last post I talked about giving up my laziness and cleaning my house for Lent. Well, let's just say that it's not going so well.

The other night, Nigel told me that he couldn't find our youngest child, Alice-Grace. We looked all over the house, couldn't find her.

Much to our relief (and my embarassment), we finally found her fast asleep in the middle of the living room floor -- there was so much stuff in there, we couldn't see her!

(Please note: In my defense, I just want to say that I have been busy working on our food storage, so most of our living room is filled with cans of food -- next project: how to make furniture out of #10 cans)

Why I Married Nigel

So we're driving down the street and I point out to Nigel a sign in front of the local wild game meat processing plant that reads:

Smoked Dog Bones
$1.25 each

Without missing a beat, Nigel replies, "Wow. I wonder where they get the dogs."