Think before you cook

We should have read this article in NY Times (via shelterrific) before our first "all of Sam's mom's family gets together sometime around but never on Thanksgiving day" at our place. We made a recipe for stuffing that was enough to feed all of Cincinnati's homeless. Seriously, it filled two large turkey roasting pans; you know, the big, disposable aluminum type. There were 19 people, and we didn't even eat a quarter of one pan. We froze the leftovers, thinking we'd eat it later because it was really good chorizo and cornbread stuffing. Never happened.

Why I'm not going to let the clutter build up in my house.

Because help can't get to you.

HIGH gas prices - the fault of religion?

Comedic post on a blog had this fact:

"Fun fact #3: A Washington DC church group has launched a “Pray at the Pump” campaign to implore God to lower gas prices. Since they have started the national average for unleaded has gone up about $0.43."

My caffeine addiction

I'm not alone.

What I learned (well, I knew it but now I can prove it) from this article:

1. Caffeine "slips effortlessly across the blood-brain barrier" and blocks "the adenosine telling us to go to sleep because we’re tired". However, small amounts throughout the day don't seem to impare sleep.
2. Caffeine produces a high similar to cocaine, and like cocaine "the brain develops a tolerance to all of these drugs, ever-increasing quantities are required to achieve the same high." The good news is that caffeine has a "built-in restraining mechanism. Technically called caffeinism, it’s the state in which an overcaffeinated user hits the drug’s “dysphoric” range and is overcome by the shakes, anxiety, tension, and nausea... Too much cocaine makes you feel invincible; too much coffee makes you think you’re having a nervous breakdown." Oh, and I have been there! (With caffeine; no idea about the other.)
3. Drinking coffee before breakfast is bad. "A study released in late May found that drinking coffee before breakfast could cause blood-glucose levels to rise sharply, which can be dangerous for people with type 2 diabetes. " Plus it gives me a stomach ache and my muscles get tense.

Breakfast advice

Not from me. I am a breakfast eater, and according to this study, I am eating the best breakfast of all!

Excerpt from last paragraph:

"So what, then, to eat? The path of bread crumbs—or cereal flakes—through the thicket of breakfast suggestions is this: Breakfast is not dessert. Most muffins and bagels are out, as are those breakfast bars with the creepy strip of ersatz milk, and the many cereals that claim to be “whole grain” but are in fact sugary and fiberless. Out too are my beloved toaster waffles, unless I find a version containing the recommended five grams of fiber per serving. What remains are the foods that we probably should have been eating all along: unprocessed, low-GI, fiber-rich foods like fruits, vegetables (in omelettes if nowhere else), oatmeal (slow-cooking or steel-cut rather than instant), whole-grain breads and cereals (that are also high in fiber and low in sugar), protein in the form of low-fat dairy, and eggs in moderation. "

Provençal Chicken

We roast whole chickens all the time, but this sounds like it would be an extra kick. It's so hard to find easy, healthy recipes!

Pas de Margarita

Try a Paloma.

Baby bok choy

Gettin' Asian with it.

Brunch food

Baked Eggs and Asparagus with Lemon Bechamel

Good produce

I don't know about anyplace else, but lately produce at the grocery store has been really bad. I'd like to start shopping at the local farmers markets. Find one in your area.

Ooooh!

Inspiration!! Or, What I'd like our house to look like.

Middle Eastern Chicken Recipe

So yummy. We made this one night, and then made the marinade/rub again to use on turkey sausage. (via shelterrific)

A life I'm glad I don't live

This post, while truly hilarious, makes me glad I'm not involved in this in any way.

First recipe

Cucumber salad

Yummm

First post

Post 1. No particular topic. I read a lot of blogs. I like to share stuff I find interesting with others I know. This is easier than sending tons of emails. Yep, I'm lazy. No, really I just like you and don't want to clog your email inbox. I plan to post links to individual blog posts that I like (usually because they make me laugh), not entire blogs.

Ta da.

Stevenisms: 1-20-03b

driving along. baby is babbling. steven tries to make sense of it. "parker said, "daddy" and "typhoon.""

proud mommy says, "how many eight-year-olds know what a typhoon is?" :o)

hmm. maybe he doesn't know the exact definition.
better check. "steven, what is a typhoon?"

"something that hits things."

uh. close. next try is closer:
"hits the earth?"

sort of.
gotta call mom with the latest stevenism. after i tell mom the first answer, steven is offended that i didn't give him proper credit. "i said it hits the earth! i know what a typhoon is!" i think i may be planting the seeds for what will later be known as steven's "issues." i don't think i'm setting him up for a very ordinary existence. maybe i should bake him some cookies. could i borrow 6 cups of sugar? 

Stevenisms: 1-20-03

if you didn't know intuitively, bedtime with steven is no picnic. when we got home tonight we told him to go upstairs and brush his teeth. twenty minutes later i went up to brush my teeth and found him playing in the bathroom. big surprise. not.

so i told him to start brushing. he applied the toothpaste. and continued to dwaddle. i asked, "what are you waiting for?! a written invitation?" "no. christmas." ooooh. that was quick for one so small! mom get back in the game with, "merry christmas. ho, ho, ho. brush your teeth or i break your nose."

i called in reinforcements. step parents are good back-up. he quickly got steven in bed and lights out. almost smooth. scott soon joined me downstairs complaining, "i think that kid manufactures his own flashlights. he must have fifty!" they have an ongoing flashlight battle. scott takes away a flashlight. goes back a few minutes later and confiscates another. and another. scott stashes the flashlights. mommy finds them and gives them back to her beloved baby. for some reason, it is difficult to get steven up for school. i can't understand it.

mommy's other baby has his own battles with mean, old scott. teeny guy gets a stuffy nose. daddy goes for the "nose bulb." for those who are not familiar with the "nose bulb," it is a torture device developped by hitler to extract mucous from infant noses. "nose bulbs" produce much screaming. mommies learn quickly to avoid use of the "nose bulb." having a higher tolerance for baby screams, daddy battles the sick, shreaking snot nose. but today, daddy left the bulb within baby reach. little parker spends his days performing highly scientific experiments. (remember yesterday's hyothesis: mommies are too big to stuff in the drawer.) so parker starts to stick the bulb in his nose as he has seen daddy do. but this is no ordinary baby. his quick little baby brain decides it would be a better idea to stick the buld up daddy's nose. BABY POWER! oh, yeah! get that big bad daddy with the bulb torture!

earlier that same day:

mommy sleeps in. first mistake. wakes up and starts down the stairs. peels a soggy cookie from the carpet. enters the kitchen and puts the cookie in the trash can that parker believes is his toy box (for those of you who didn't figure that one out from yesterday's e-mail). mommy steps into the living room and sees the next soggy cookie mess mashed into her favorite cashmere sweater. hard to believe mommy was so naive that she believed her sweater was safe in the presence of mini monsters. removes some cookie remains from the sweater and deposits it in a delicate woolite bath. second attempt to enter living room. the tiny artist has been busy this morning. today's mmasterpiece is a post modernist soggy cookie and oyster cracker collage on cream carpet. various other items are added for texture. but mommy is not a fan of parker's work because she spent all day saturday viewing parker's work (and cleaning it up). mommy gives up and returns to bed. daddy emerges from his couch coccoon and utters, "don't worry, honey. i'll clean it up." right! i'm not holding my breath. daddy issues the order for steven to clean up his room in hopes that he can coax mommy out of bed. steven, of course, accomplishes this with the usual super steven speed.

an hour passes. steven is lying on the floor with his feet on the bed busily straightening his game boy. enter scott. "i told you to pick up your toys!" "but i'm playing with them all!" mercury rising, "PUT THE TOYS AWAY!" admittedly, this was not a clever line for an eight-year-old. but give him credit! he has been using it for six years now.

rewind:

even earlier than when mommy got first got up:

steven is once again playing chessmaster 9000.

fast forward:

steven is talking to his dad on mommy's cell phone since he is a deprived child and does not have his own.

"i can only win at chessmaster if i play against myself." i can't recount the next few minutes' conversation because it involved a bunch of 'bishop, d2. queen, h6.' etc. as steven rattled off all of the moves in the chess match. persistently proud mommy whispers to daddy, "he may not be able to beat the monkey on chessmaster, but he can rattle off all the moves in the match. see, he is a genius!"

the conversation illuminated me on why he is losing. he is not using pawns. he is using "ponds." all that water is shorting out the computer. better get that kid some pawns before he drowns.

steven pulled a loose tooth while he played chessmaster. fast forward to dinner at the olive garden. he pulls another loose tooth. the waitress comes by. standard line "can i get you anything else?" steven replies, "do i get free dessert for pulling my tooth during dinner." doesn't stop there: "my mommy told me to say that." waitress laughs and returns to the kitchen. steven asks, "can i see parker's toy?" "NO! and if you ever tell anyone i told you to something again, i will take away all of YOUR toys!"

back up:

waiting approximately 25 minutes for our table in the olive garden lobby. some kid who looks to be about 5 is being held by his daddy. aaaawwww. how cute. except for that the kid continuously punches daddy in the throat. daddy is apparently accustomed to this behavior because he only winces from the pain and does not tell the kid to stop! after watching for a few minutes, tactful katy decides to speak up. "you don't have to worry about anyone kidnapping him, do ya?!" geez!

i don't exactly have kidnappers lining up for me either. scott dropped me at the door to put our name in with the hostess while he parked the car. i studied the dessert tray while awaiting my family. steven walks up and i show him the tiramisu since i know he loves it. to demonstrate proper adult behavior, i shove his face in it. heee heee heee.

IT'S PLASTIC! hee hee hee.

aaaaaaaaaaa! the tiny one is calling me. 

Steven and Parkerisms: 1-18-03

everytime we turn on our computer now, a little dinosaur is walking back and forth on the menu bar at the bottom of the screen. he is a pain because he uses system resources and slows down anything else we try to do. he is also an ancestor of the roach. he is almost impossible to kill. while his program shows up on the menu bar, clicking on it doesn't bring up anything. even right clicking has no effect. i have been hitting control-alt-delete to bring up the task manager to kill him.

when i turned on the computer a few minutes ago, steven was sitting next to me rotting his brain on nickolodean cartoons. i had just opened the task manager when steven said, "right click on the dino." when i did, i whole menu came up with a variety of thing to do to the dino like 'capture' and other options i ignored in my rush to click on the one that said 'exit.' i asked steven, "did you put the dino on the computer?" he said, "no. i guess it just knows that i want to play with the dino." he thought a moment and then said, "how does it know?"

i explained that it was probably a program that loaded when he did the setup to put one of his games on the computer. kinda like killing santa claus, huh? dino is a cookie and not an extension of steven id, ego or little wizard. hope you all had psych in high school on that last line will make no sense. if you slept through psych class, let me know and i will send you an explanation. if you care.

steven is balancing yin yang right now. he is rotting his mind on nickolodean cartoons while assembling a toy from about ten thousand tiny pieces. there is a set of direction as thick as an unabridged dictionary. the directions are all pictorial becasue if they even attempted to use words the directions would rival an encyclopedia set. he apparently has more patience than his mother who would have resorted to using a hammer to pulvarize every piece into dust after the first 6 hours of assembly.

if you haven't seen me lately, then i will fill you in. my head is twice the size it used to be in order to accomodate my motherly pride. steven spends hours upon hours playing chessmaster 9000. so cerebral. scott's mother bought the game for him for christmas. i'm not sure how good he actually is at chess. as far as i know, he can only beat the monkey. he usually plays against himself. but maybe quantity of play time will eventually result in quality of play. on chessmaster 7000 he beat the monkey and the little girl.

i fell asleep on the couch last night and woke up to chess coach directions. "you can only move your own pieces." "the king can only move one space at a time." "checkmate." i think every phrase is emblazoned in my subconscious. unfortunately, knowing all of the chessmaster quotes do not improve my game. i am still as bad as when my ex-husband refused to even play me because it annoyed him that i was so bad. he bought a chess video game so that he didn't have to play me. my dream is for steven to become a better player than his father so that i can vicariously kick steve's $#%*! at chess. i bore the child, i claim the glory of his genius!

as for the spare child:

i was in parker's room watching him make messes for me to clean up. he pulled a teletubby out of the toy box and put him on the rocking chair. he then climbed into the chair. i handed him the teletubby. he screamed and threw it on the floor. i apparently misinterpreted babble. he wanted me to make the chair rock, not hand him the stupid toy. my deepest appologies, sir. i noticed a spot on his teddy bear which sits on one of the two chairs at his little table. as i tried to get the spot off of teddy, parker slid off of the rocking chair and spent the next 10 minutes trying to get into a sitting position on the other little chair. i pulled one of the drawers under the table partially out and positioned the teletubby so he was sitting at the table with parker and teddy. parker spent the next 2 seconds getting off of the chair and coming to see what was up with tubby. drawers are so fascinating. open the drawer. slam it closed on tubby. open the drawer. slam it closed on tubby. grab tubby by the head. pull. fall over backwards when tubby suddenly pops out of the drawer. open the drawer. try to stick tubby in. miss. slam the drawer. open the drawer. mommy sticks tubby in the drawer. slam the drawer. open the drawer. grab tubby and slam him on the floor. close the drawer. open the drawer. study the empty drawer. notice mommy. grab mommy by the head and try to put her in the drawer. on the second failed attempt, fall over backward. lesson learned: mommies are too heavy to shove in drawers. close the drawer. open the drawer. try to climb into the drawer. fall. lesson learned: it is too hard to put the baby in the drawer. open and close drawer a few more times. give up on the drawer because it doesn't make enough mess to keep mommy busy. go in search of toilet paper. failing to find any toilet paper, resort to inserting more drool into mommy's phone which no longer rings. work really hard at putting in drool to see how many more functions baby can destroy before mommy loses it. note to baby self: remember to give mommy wet, sloppy kisses until she gives up on spanking the baby for all of the havoc he wreaks.  

Stevenisms: 12-31-02

jenny sent steven a video game system. he has really enjoyed it. he was playing donkey-kong when it was time to leave for the meeting. david was getting upset trying to get steven to get in the truck. steven just continued to play the game. david finally left the room in huff and mom tried to reason with steven about the need to stop playing. he exclaimed, "i could use a little help here!!" mom asked, "what do you want me to do?" "turn off the tv!" just couldn't escape that game alone....

steven has been staying at mom's lately and he insists on sleeping with mom and david. i could go on and on about the problems of sleeping with steven, but the real surprise is that he can endure mom's snoring which shakes the foundation and david's sleep apnea and the machine he wears to treat the apnea. it has to be like sleeping in the middle of construction site.

the guest room across the hall is where steven is supposed to sleep. but his toys are spread all over the room and the bed is buried in legos. steven refers to the room in various ways. sometimes it is the 'lego room' sometimes 'the toy room'... mom and david were trying to explain that he is supposed to sleeping in that room. steven was astonished at their suggestion and blurted, "I am not a GUEST!"

we just moved to a bigger appartment so steven will have his own room. apparently sleeping with a silent baby is torture for steven. maybe i could make a recording of his noisy grandparents to ease his transition back into his mommy's home. or maybe i could practice sawing logs as loud as my mother. forget it. my throat would bleed if i ever attained that decibel level.

cassandra accompanied me to birmingham to go to target. we live in sensory deprevation and just seeing the variety of merchandise available outside of selma is a joyous event. i miss meijer!! steven asked to look at the toys. after our standard "what do you do if a stranger even comes near you... what do you scream... how do you fight..." i know that my bloop pressure and heart rate go through the roof at the thought of letting him out of my sight. but he is an expert at torturing those who tell him 'no.' this obstinance is part of the reason i allow him to go look at the toys. i have tried physically dragging him to do something he doesn't want to do (brush his teeth). if he didn't want to be kidnapped, i find it hard to believe that anyone could get him. he becomes a blurr of feet and those fingernails he won't let me trim.

cassandra was unfamiliar with our traditions and went to collect him from the toy isle. he had enlisted the help of the store manager to locate the toys he was seeking. he was looking at two lego toys when cassandra found him. he told her how he really wanted legos. thinking he could bring them to me to make his plea, she said, "put them in the cart." steven's big blue eyes were as big a saucers as he said, "(gasp) cassandra! you're going to get them for me?! that is sooo nice of you!!!!" stunned, cassandra replied, "only one." i think steven has an easier time with victims who haven't seen the 'toy room.' 

Steven and Parkerisms: 9-10-02

scott and steven were driving in the car and steven informed scott that he didn't "want to go to montgomery for a couple of weeks because (he) will miss out on all kinds of fun." scott asked what he would miss. "allkinds of stuff like going to grandma's and playing with the super soakers in the pool..."

scott took him to check out an after-school program. steven played with things and looked around. he kept ringing the bell he found on a desk. as they were leaving, someone said, "bye, steven. see you tomorrow." steven exclaimed, "you didn't say i was going here!" scott told him he would be and asked what he thought of the place. he said, "it's okay i guess. but that bell is COOL!"

we were running late and i told steven to pack his lunch. scott called me at work in the afternoon and told me that steven's school called out of concern that his lunch consisted solely of a large bag of starburst candy. i should have expected that.

steven was looking at a picture of a rabbit and told me (again) how he loves rabbits and wants one for a pet. i said (again) that he could when he is grown and has his own house (filthy little beasts). he asked (again) what i thought of having a snake. i said that it would be okay. he said that he wanted a cobra. i said that people don't generally keep cobras as pets since they are deadly. he said, "well i MEAN a TRAINED ONE!" so we will just get him a 'docile' cobra.

he decided he wanted to be a paleontologist when he grows up. he already knew he wanted to be a scientist. this was just a refinement to his plan. i find it to be a useless endeavor so i suggested becoming a veterinarian with paleontology as a hobby. i explained that he could have lots of pets if he were a vet. last night i mentioned college and he informed me that he has changed his mind about his career. he wants to be the crocodile hunter.

we were car shopping and steven's very firm criteria was to buy a car with leather seats. i took the boys to mcdonalds and threw scott to the wolves (let him haggle with the salespeople). steven was playing on the gym equipment and decided to join another family's table. they didn't exactly look well-to-do. i listened from a few feet away as he told them how he was shopping for a car with leather seats and how cars without leather seats make him sick. i took the opportunity to point out that a veterinary practice would help him reach his humble goals.

i was a little worried when scott was unexpectedly called away and had to take parker to the sitter. scott isn't the best at planning. my fears where not eleviated when i looked in the diaper bag later that night. he include: one dress shoe, half of a clean outfit. 3 pairs of socks (for a child who never wears socks or shoes), parts and pieces of various at least 10 different toys, one very dirty onesie.... no bottles, formula, etc.

gotta go put on makeup (mom would say "gild the lily"). parker is busily trying to find items to tear and bash and smash