Category Archives: NanoPoblano

Gold Stars

I want to get gold stars again.

Little shiny stickers so the world knows I did something well.

Today I correctly answered this tricky question on the first try:

“Mom! What’s that other word for wrong?”

“Left,” is, of course, the answer.

I think I should get a gold star for that one.

A little shine during one of my typical slapdash, seat of my pants day of mothering to remind myself to stand taller.

I know lots of things!

…just not how much toilet paper we have or where the thingamabob is or who’s got gym class today or what we are going to eat for dinner…

But I know lots of other things and so do you!

I want to get little gold stars for them again.

Don’t you?

(And no, we don’t teach our children that being left handed is wrong or evil or that that particular direction has anything to do with the devil. Geeze what do you take me for?!?)

This half written post from earlier this year was pulled out of my file of drafts tonight. Thank you NanoPoblano for the incentive to rescue it and it’s little gold stars! nanopoblano1

Freezer Meals

Now you might think this is going to be a post where I enthusiastically tell you about how I started bulk cooking meals and freezing them and my life is changed forever and is now a million times better.

I mean, I’m sure it would be if that’s what I was doing (at least that’s what 345,987 websites out there tell me will happen) but no, I haven’t started purposely making meals and freezing them for later. I’ve thought about it many times. I like the idea of the finished product in the freezer. But when it comes to devoting a day to cooking those meals… well frozen pizza’s are a good emergency stand by and I can throw them in my shopping cart in 25 seconds or less.

No freezer meals for us, until today… the day that shall forever be known as AGGGHHH-the-blankity-blank-blank-freezer-died-while-we-were-out-of-town day.

Remember these guys?broiler chickens

They were in the freezer.

Remember these guys?


One of them was in the freezer too.

Remember this?John with spike buck

The last of that was in the freezer too.

…

Fortunately not everything thawed.

Fortunately the neighbors are letting us use their chest freezer today.

Fortunately all the freezers everywhere are on sale.

Fortunately I was able to spend the afternoon (and probably tomorrow too) cooking what did thaw and putting it back in a freezer.

And so today I accidentally fell into making freezer meals.  I’m sure I will love to pull something out of our new, actually freezing-cold, freezer and heat it up for dinner. And while I’m certain this isn’t at all the way one is supposed to go about this endeavor, I can’t say that today’s experience has made me a believer in freezer meals.

I’m not sure though, maybe it will make my life a million times better,  I think I’ll go cook up another ten pounds of taco meat and think it over…

“It’s Too Hot!”

Jane dislikes her food when it’s too hot.

No.

That’s not correct.

When Jane’s food is too hot, she perceives it as a personal attack on her happiness and well being and holds me directly responsible for the offense.

Yes.

That’s more accurate.

While she howls and give me looks that would no doubt sear the meat from my own bones I try to explain to her, how this “cooking” thing works.

I try to tell her that in order to melt cheese that heat must be applied. I try to tell her that in order to eat that nice pig we raised we need to cook the meat. I try to tell her that we have to cook the meat so that the proteins in the muscles become denatured as that makes them more palatable and digestible. I try to tell her that cooking kills the cysts of parasites we would very much like not to contract as well as a number of bacteria we do our best to avoid. Most importantly I try to tell her that the very act of “cooking” implies that heat is being used and that heat is, by very definition – hot.fire

Then I try to tell her to just wait a minute and it’ll cool down enough to eat.

Then I try to tell her that it is cool enough to eat.

But when she pokes it with the end of her dainty finger she still finds it to be higher than her 98.6 degree body temperature she howls at me again- clearly I was trying to trick her into scorching her mouth with food that is certainly still, by her definition, “too hot!”

Eventually, because thermodynamics is a real thing, the food is no longer “too hot” to her sensitive touch and she eats a bite but by then…. you guessed it…

It’s too cold.

 

 

 

The Sorcerer’s Garden by D. Wallace Peach

I have a new belief.

The word “entrails” should not be used more often than necessary, possibly never and certainly not more than once a book.

I’m not sure how often “entrails” was mentioned in The Sorcerer’s Garden but it was, per my new belief, too many times.

I am well aware that not everyone has the same beliefs as me (My own husband, for instance, can not seem to grasp the fact that sheets should never be tucked into the bottom of the bed when you go to sleep or your feet will suffocate in the confined space). To each his own. If you are of the type that does like such things, I have a book here for you that is chock full of amazingly detailed, exciting, graphic fight scenes, complete with gushing blood, rolling heads and… entrails.

If you have a similar belief system as I do, I have a book here that is hard to put down. There is a story within the story and when the main character starts showing up in the story within the story, well even a bit of entrails couldn’t stop me finding out what happened next.  And if that sentence confused you a little bit, I understand, it was a little bit confusing, but in a good muddled-for-a-purpose sort of way.

Would I recommend it? Here’s the thing, entrails aside, I didn’t love the wrapping up of the plot. Not the actual ending, that was great, but the part that would have been the Clue master proclaiming “It was Mr Green in the conservatory with the lead pipe!”  Which was sad because the rest of the book was engaging with likable characters and sprinkled with humor. But who knows, maybe it was just me. I always was more of a Colonel Mustard type, perhaps you’ll like it, just watch out for those entrails!

Rosie's Book Review team 1

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I discovered this book because I’m a proud member of Rosie’s Book Review Team!

Hey did you know that not only do I love books but I love sharing books too!?! November’s Book at the Door giveaway is open- come and enter I’d love to send you a book too!!!

 

Toilet Paper

Thirty Six.

I’m thirty six years old.

I have three children that I haven’t manged to lose or have taken away from me. I can put food on the table on a regular basis. I take care of dogs and cats and chickens and ducks and geese and pigs and bees and a dove and they all seem content with my care. I can do the laundry and build tables. I can write blogs and repair minor electrical issues. I can shoot a shotgun and cut up the hindquarter of a deer. I can do a handstand, race a canoe and grow my own vegetables.

I am in many regards a totally successful adult.

So why, why, can I not remember to buy toilet paper on a regular basis?

Why are we always making an emergency toilet paper run?

Why do I do things like beg my friends for a roll of toilet paper so it doesn’t have to be an emergency and then forget it ?

Why have I done that exact same thing twice this year?

And why, why is it that it takes a half a roll of toilet paper in a house with four girls before I realize that we are out.

Every. Time.

Come on all you lovely readers, it can’t be just me! Make me feel better, what’s the one thing you always forget?

nanopoblano1

 

Crazy Quilt

I was thinking about relatives of mine and women I’d never met the other day.

Specifically I was thinking about my Great-Great-Grandmother Betsy Amelia and her friends.dscn6983-2sm

Sometime around 1892 she and her friends made a Crazy Quilt. Crazy QuiltThere are many quilts in the family trunks, but this one has always been my favorite.

Part of the appeal is the quilt itself, I love to search for all the different embroidery stitches that dance over the many fancy fabrics.  But the real draw is the hidden stories.crazy quiltWhen I see an old quilt or other handmade item, I wonder about the person who made it. There are always stories hiding within things if you can find them. A quilt like this sets my over-active imagination wild. Not only was it made by many hands but those hands purposefully left their own marks on it.

Who were these women who left their initials behind in so many colors and styles? crazy quilt Where did all those fabric pieces come from?crazy quiltWho did the painting?crazy quilt

Why did my great-great-grandma take the quilt home when it was done? Did they make one for everyone?crazy quilt

So many questions.

It was over a hundred years ago and her life, their lives, were likely much different than mine. But the big question that always sticks in my mind is, once they all sat down together, was the substance of their conversations really that much different than when my friends and I gather for a book club? crazy quilt Elizabeth Amelia ConnellI like to imagine that they talked about babies and husbands and friends and families just like we do. And for all that the world has changed in the years since, I find that thread of conversation that weaves us together to be more important than the rest of it after all.