Who knew?

Two is the first of many "awkward" ages.

2012-01-28T17:34:00.000-06:00

There's been a lot written about the "terrible" twos, and I'd admit that there's a little something to all the fuss, but it's hardly the worst period in one's life. It's more the culmination of independent thought that's been building for 6 months or more. There aren't even any hormones involved (as in puberty and menopause). So, it came as no surprise to me that Astrid showed up one morning in a mood previously reflected by "I don't want to go ; I want to go back to bed!"

I had paints ready for her that day, and there certainly wasn't any need to eat breakfast BEFORE doing the sticker exercise that I always leave on the little table in my office for her, so I suggested that dad just leave her when she chose to do the sticker exercise before breakfast. That was about a week ago and I think she's done the sticker exercise every day since before choosing to eat.

Painting is a great way to "expel the demons", and I suspect the famous painters of old had their share of demons to expel.

I didn't even bother to don her paint smock -- this new paint washes out readily anyway --- and I pulled a chair over so she could sit while painting. When she was done painting (using both brush and hands) the demons had been expelled and she was once again happy and (what most of us notice more) compliant. We had more fun together that day than usual.

Tomorrow is another painting day. I try to fit one in each week even with the added time-waste of a Mickey Mouse video. I also try and fit in a bath play period once/week because we have a huge bathroom tub in our master bathroom that we never use.

Until now, we'd been adhering to recommendations that children under two years old watch zero TV/videos. Somehow she learned of Mickey Mouse, though, so I started searching out free MM club videos.

Local weather has been pretty spring-like lately, so we've been taking walks each time she's here, as well. Last Friday we had magnets I'd ordered, so I tied two of them to pencils and we "fished" for objects on our walk. She caught a pretty big screw.

Wordless Wednesday.

2012-01-11T14:40:00.002-06:00

Wordless Wednesday.

2012-01-04T14:13:00.002-06:00

2012 begins.

2012-01-01T13:17:00.000-06:00

As usual, Em and I fell asleep before the new year; we don't even TRY anymore to stay up. I got a wall calendar sometime last month that's kindof a do-it-yourself, start whenever you want thing designed with kids in mind, so I started it and have been jotting down little references on the days. For instance, today is not JUST New Years Day, but also Dad's Birthday (Astrid's dad). The calendar came with lots of stickers for holidays and family/school related things, so I'll use those as well as write in "made cake-mix cookies" the recipe for which should really get some attention because I thought the cookies ruled. Em loves cookies and I learned about using cake mixes because I had tons of coupons for cake mixes and we couldn't eat all those cakes before the cake mixes expired. Also, we rarely have any all-purpose flour on hand as we grind our own whole wheat flour for most baking purposes.

So, I've started Astrid's introduction to the concept of time with the calendar, a short video song "Days of the Week" and the globe spinning one revolution each day, etc. She'll take from it what she can at this age. I'm also introducing her to the Dolch sight-reading words before we get into phonics. Right now, we're working on the pre-primer list and will include some nouns before moving to the next list. She won't be two years old until Feb 7, but she's a quick study and already toilet-trained. While my three kids were reading at 3 years, they toilet-trained more in the third year than the second, so that time-consuming learning hurdle is behind her with expectations of some set-backs due to the new baby.

Some might consider it a bad idea to have any kind of "structured" education at this age, but the human mind is never again as receptive as it is during the first 6 years, so I like to toss out as much material as possible with the thought that "what sticks sticks". A (to me) interesting question was introduced at Amber Strocel's blog on whether boredom should be addressed in young children. You'll definitely want to check out her site if only to listen to the beautiful music used to background the slide show of their 2011. I pretty much dedicate myself to Astrid in the hours during the week when she's here and I introduce lots of learning activities hoping that she'll have an interest in one of them. If she shows no interest, I move on to the next activity and/or take clues from her. If she brings me a book, we read. If she brings me the play-dough, we make stuff. If she wants to go outside and the weather is decent, we go outside. If the weather sucks, she learns about weather. She seems content to do whatever.

Here she is starting on breakfast (the first event of our days together).

Here she is washing the dishes we dirtied making the cake-mix cookies. At one point I thought she might have lost interest and tried to take her down from the stool, but she said, "No! I help wash dishes." Probably never again in her life will she enjoy washing dishes as much as she does now.

Here she is just relaxing in her favorite dress-up hat while eating one of those cookies.

Christmas, Santa Claus and non-Christians.

2011-12-24T12:55:00.001-06:00

I don't believe that there's a god, let alone a god who had a son born in a manger to a virgin, but I really hate to influence children (including my own) by stating that aloud. So far, I don't think that any of my children are Christian, although that could change and I wouldn't care at all if it did. Belief systems, in my opinion, are personal. I don't want to sway you from yours and I sure don't want you to sway me from mine.

Christmas and the gift-giving tradition born out of it, however, presents a dilemma for non-believers who don't want to engage in the hypocrisy associated with so many Christians. Children are too new to the world to deal with belief/non-belief systems out of the norm, and as No. 1 has reminded me too many times to count as I asked her how she always seemed to end up with Christian boyfriends, "The US is 85% Christian".

So, when my kids were little way back in the day, I pretended that there was a Santa Claus. BIG MISTAKE! No. 1 would say things like, "Why would Santa think I would want something like this?"
GULP!

As the years went by, I think the kids just enjoyed getting gifts and the fun associated with opening the gifts even if the gifts weren't what they wanted.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped pretending. The kids were grown and aware of my non-belief, Em's a non-believer as well, and there were/are other venues for everyone. Then came Astrid.

I fancy myself her teacher in these early preschool years, although No. 1 and husband are doing an excellent job at ensuring appropriate development, as well. It's my intent to teach her bible stories along with Aesop's fables and Greek/Roman mythologies. She's a bit young for that now, IMO, but is totally smitten with Frosty the Snowman. We watch a 3-minute Frosty video every visit THREE times. So far, she's not asked about Santa (who appears at the end of the video with Frosty), but I suspect I'll suggest to her that Santa is "the spirit of Christmas" if (and ONLY if) it comes up.

Cooking With Small Children.

2011-12-20T10:24:00.001-06:00

Astrid LOVES to cook (unlike her mother). She'll pretend to cook if I don't have a cooking exercise planned for her. She won't be 2 years old until Feb 7, 2012, so I'm still leary of her impetuousness when it comes to the stovetop. I read today (on the internet) that anyone with a brain would realize that small children shouldn't be allowed to use the stovetop. I'm more of the opinion that small children should be taught how to use a stovetop safely, so (for now) she's still watching me flip the pancake while she wears the oven mitts, but I expect her to be safely flipping the pancake under my supervision within say a year if I still have the pleasure of watching her three times/week after her family moves.

No. 1's inlaws want to buy them a house in their neighborhood before the new baby is born. This would mean a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a good public school. It would also mean a longer drive to bring Astrid here.

So far, we've made cookies, pudding, and pancakes (from mixes). We've also made play dough (from koolaid) and we'll make jello this week. We haven't yet made anything from scratch and we haven't yet made anything that requires electricity to mix. She came early yesterday so No. 1 could make a prenatal appointment, so I figured she wouldn't be so hungry that she couldn't help make her own pancake.

What are your thoughts on cooking with young children? If you have children, how old were they before you allowed them to use the stovetop?

No. 2 visits yet again and creeates a video of Astrid.

2011-12-06T18:54:00.001-06:00

Occupy Dallas - October, 2011

2011-12-03T10:59:00.001-06:00

Another Occupy sympathizer and I went to downtown Dallas October 5th for a march from Pike's Park to the Federal Reserve Bank building. It was a few hours of effort on our part. That last pic is the sign I made to carry.

We weren't the only old people there by any means, but the crowd was mainly young people. Unlike the last protest marches in which I engaged (probably in the early 1970s), the emphasis here was on respect. We were told by the organizers, "You WILL be nice. You WILL respect the police." Just in case, we were given the number of an attorney to get us out of jail, but the crowd was quite respectful and I don't think there were any arrests that day. Since that day, Occupy set up permanent digs, the police got tired of them and ran them off. Last I heard, folks were working in two-hour shifts to maintain a presence around the clock every day. Dallas has never been a "feel free to use our bathrooms" town, so two hours is pretty standard fare with the getting to and getting home adding to bathroom-free time.

No. 2 is coming this weekend,

2011-12-01T11:59:00.001-06:00

so I figured it's about time I posted the pics from No. 2's October visit. Jetblue has been having some airline flight sales that were just too cheap to ignore.

I broke my camera the night I took the above pics and just this week got a replacement working. I'm thinking that before No. 2 arrives on Saturday I'll post some pics from Occupy Dallas. I support Occupy as much as I support breastfeeding in public, but I don't tend to post much on my politics (outside of the sidebar).

FINALLY blogging again ... I THINK.

2011-11-29T11:27:00.003-06:00

Since having Astrid three times/week for several hours my time has become more limited. There's the time spent before she comes looking around to see if I've left anything dangerous,poisonous,breakable and of sentimental value, or (depending on my energy level) too much work if she got into it. Because I don't have to do the laundry, cleaning, etc. like moms do, I didn't do childproofing beyond plugging the electrical outlets. I'm always with her (except when I'm not).

She'll be 2 years old at the beginning of February and is already long past the "put everything into the mouth" stage. She also seems to understand and heed things like, "This is the only cabinet you can go into." The others are off-limits (due to aforementioned dangerous, poisonous, etc.).

There's the time spent researching and preparing materials for activities and the time spent cleaning up after activities. THIS one was particularly messy and Who Knew food coloring stained skin and nails?

There's the time spent day-dreaming about how I can help her "become all that she can be", the time spent reading reviews on books and materials important to childhood, the time spent ordering them, unpacking them, listening to Em complain, "What did you buy NOW?". Have I mentioned that No. 1 will be having her No. 2 in May of 2012?

Happy Birthday, No. 2!

2011-08-24T15:10:00.003-05:00

It's the big THREE OH, folks.

As my dad used to say, "It's getting harder and harder to maintain my 39 status."

Anyway, happiest to ya, darlin', as you go to your voice lesson and work at Frankie's.

Baking With Young Children, AKA It's Okay To Eat the Dough.

2011-08-04T10:40:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, Astrid and I made cookies from one of those packaged cookie mixes. We'll get around to "from scratch" eventually, but I wanted her first experience to be fast and easy. She's had the Paula Deen Child's Baking Kit for a while now and loves to "play" stir, mix, etc. She's 17 months old now.

No. 1 doesn't garden or bake, so Astrid's experiences in these things come on my watch, which is still M-W-F from (roughly) 11-2. Her swimming experience is mostly while she's here, too, simply because our housing development has a pool, but No. 1 joins us for that. She's quite good at swimming now with the exception of remembering to keep her mouth shut, as she loves to laugh at the fun of it all.

I got all the baking stuff laid out before she came, set out an egg and a stick of butter to warm up, and pulled over to the island the two stools that typically stand at the counter between the kitchen and living room. I removed their "hats" to provide more friction.

We had fun. She was very interested in the process, using her Paula Deen utensils to beat the egg and mix the butter, egg and batter. Of course everything got tasted individually first and she finished up the mixing with her hands (which I do myself on occasion).

She's one of those bakers who likes to eat the dough as much as the cookies. I was a little worried about that (as well as the raw egg), but it turns out that both are myths unless the egg is "bad", which we'd probably notice.

Since it's WAY too hot to bake, I used the convection oven's bake feature and small pans. I was afraid to let Astrid near the hot pans, so laid out the cookies on cooling racks where she could test each for proper temperature by giving them a lick.

Gardener in Training.

2011-05-08T13:20:00.002-05:00

Planting petunia seeds in window boxes.

Step 1: Wash the window boxes. Astrid LOVES any activity that involves washing (or water).

She got them "squeaky" clean.

Step 2: Add soil.

Step 3: Add seeds.

Step 4: Water.

Garden 2011 has begun.

2011-04-02T17:54:00.003-05:00

Actually, I'm hoping to complete it tomorrow morning.

Local stores didn't get seed starter in time to do peppers and tomatoes this year, so I chose to order transplants from Seed Savers Exchange.

I ordered 12 tomatoes and 6 peppers. My very first planting this morning was a Mexico Midget tomato ... which BROKE while transplanting. Quite the send-off to the day. I left the plant in the ground and left room for it to continue to grow as though garden fairies would bless my intent.

I ordered 6 tomatoes I thought I wanted and ordered a surprise 6 as well. Oddly enough, I didn't get any duplicates ... meaning I broke my ONLY Mexico Midget. For peppers, I ordered a surprise 6, too.
I have one raised bed this year and space around the fences for gardening purposes. I hired Ken to help me clean up last year's mess and dig in the raised bed. Em helped me amend the soil along the fences.

I bought some heirloom seeds which included round carrots, long red carrots, patty-pan squash, AKA early white bush scallop squash and a few other things. The garden will only have patty-pan squash this year in the squash family. I'm just not into the squash bug problems and these things don't seem to suffer from them.

Spent some $$ on red tomato towers from Gardener's Supply Company and also bought some red recycled rubber edging for everything so Em doesn't have to trim and can just mow the grass in the yard. These things should last as long as I last.

STILL using some seeds that Diane sent me through the years, too. Thanks, Diane!

Pictures will be coming in future gardening posts. I have high hopes for this year.

End of Astrid's First Year. BIRTHDAY!

2011-02-06T07:23:00.002-06:00

Astrid's 1st year birthday was held here yesterday. Fortunately, it was the ONE day where milder weather allowed folks to get around easily outside. We'd had ice storms followed by snow the past week. We're even scheduled to have more snow today and even more this week. This is NOT normal weather for Texas. Her birthday is tomorrow, but Em says her birthday will always be Superbowl Day (as it was when she was born).

She started off by showing Grandpa Blue "her" room.

No. 1 was looking exceptionally cute, I thought.

She helped open the birthday gifts while daddy took pictures. The popper was my gift to Astrid. Em made it clear that it was to go home with her, but that was the plan all along.

We had lunch before dessert and most everyone wore silly hats. As expected, Astrid didn't like the feel of the hat.

Ba Ba Blue (her other grandmother) made a lovely centerpiece that was also fun to play with.

Took me two days to get the cupcakes right (never trust a recipe!), but they came out tasty and even pretty good looking after some research. With healthier eating/less sugar in mind, I made whole wheat carrot cupcakes with a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. Ba Ba Blue brought ice cream which Astrid thought much too cold to eat. She thought the cupcake was fun, though, and even good enough to eat.

We did a little reading of one of the new books, but there was SO MUCH TO DO and so little time.

Grandpa Blue helped out with new puzzles and other toys.

She's a lucky girl with two sets of grandparents who love her and regularly spend time with her.

Never thought I was the type, but I'm really enjoying this gig as Mormor.

Fall comes to North Texas.

2010-12-16T15:56:00.003-06:00

I sometimes forget while reading the blogs of northern friends, who months ago showed pictures of kids playing in fallen leaves, that winter takes longer to get to North Texas.

Yesterday was 72 degrees outside and Astrid enjoyed playing in the fallen leaves. Having sprained my ankle early last month, I hadn't even noticed the leaves changing color. Children have a way of directing our attention to the important stuff in life.

Meet Birke Baehr.

2010-12-05T09:28:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Cooking.

2010-11-22T09:14:00.002-06:00

I'm FINALLY (TODAY) getting lists made and reviewing recipes I want to use Thursday. We're having dinner at our house this year and I suppose the guest list is about 17.

For Astrid's sake, I ordered a turkey and prime rib from Whole Food that haven't been given any antibiotics or hormones in their lives. I'm hoping to use the leftovers to freeze some turkey and beef for her.

There are SO many considerations. *I* prefer one thing, the kids prefer another, Astrid can't have TOO MANY variations on a theme yet, and that's part of the reason why I always make enough food for 200 people. Each dish may only feed 6 or 8, but I make enough of them to feed more than I'll have.

I have to stop myself (MAYBE) from making a brussel sprout dish that just looked SO appealing and I know my kids love brussel sprouts. We're already having a huge salad, carrots, green beans, broccoli loaf, and a creamed corn dish and sweet potato dish provided by Dave's mom, so I don't NEED another veggie dish, but (then again) I remember one Thanksgiving where Em's brother said, "but I don't like any of those".

Em gets mad at me every time: "You make too much; we'll have leftovers through the next year!" Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Not too interested in posting of late.

2010-11-09T15:28:00.002-06:00

My vermiposting experiment absolutely SUCKED. Turns out that the worms need to be covered from sun and/or rain and we don't have any outside coverage. So, they stayed in the house (along with their fruit-fly groupies) until cooler weather came and I could move them out to the garage (which only stays reasonably cool during the winter). By summer of next year, I need to figure out a way to keep them outside covered from the sun and rain. I need a vermiposter HUT.

STILL trying to control the fruit flies in the house! I have traps EVERYWHERE.

Em got the raised garden bed I ordered put together except for digging holes to place the "feet" in the ground.

Thanksgiving is at my house this year, so I'm trying to get that plan done (to the exclusion of others). Today, I ordered an organic turkey and roast. I make babyfood for Astrid and it's all organic; I don't think new people should be eating things containing hormones or antibiotics. So, whatever the guests invited don't eat will be cut up and frozen for Astrid.

Sorry to say that my son won't be coming for Thanksgiving this year. It'll be just Em's family and my two daughters with their families. I really don't know what happened to my son, but he's been unwilling to have his picture posted online for many years now, and has recently just grown apart from his entire family. I love him and wish him well, but it's pretty hard to take the dismissal. A cousin of mine has a brother with whom he hasn't communicated in over 30 years; he doesn't even know if he's alive or not. I hope my son's not moving in that direction because *I* still want to see him even if no one else does, but my grandfather used to hide in the basement when company came, so it's not like there aren't genetic precedents.
Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving if I don't get back here to post before then.

10-10-10 and Three-Fifty (350)

2010-10-11T07:29:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was the day of action for 350. I'd thought about what to do on this day for about a year and when the day came I did NOTHING ... unless stirring and spraying my vermiposter counts. I'm still worried about the 2010 midterm elections, so called people a) to ask if they could volunteer and b) ask if they would PLEASE vote.

Here are some results from people who actually did something: 350 on 10-10-10.

I also took two naps during the day yesterday. My resistance is down and I seem to have been chasing off a cold.

What did you do for 350 day this year?

Don't forget to vote in the midterm elections. Avoid the rush and vote early.

2010-10-09T08:54:00.001-05:00

Vermiposting.

2010-09-25T18:03:00.004-05:00

Vermiposting.

Getting a move on the backyard in little baby steps. First step was to decide how I wanted to compost and I chose this method and ordered a system that hasn't arrived yet. Once it arrives, I'll take some of the kitchen waste we've been saving along with paper and brown garden waste to "start" the rotting process. The worms come a week after the vermiposter has arrived.

I ordered a smallish system because I have a smallish family and will post more details after it arrives. It'll be put in a shady part of the yard.

I look forward to showing Astrid the worms.

Making Your Own Baby Food.

2010-09-09T09:30:00.001-05:00

When my kids were little, I thought formula was poison and was even concerned about commercial baby food. The same scares you hear about now were happening then:

Commercial Baby Food Scares.

When Astrid turned six months old, I started making baby food for her. The rice cereal was more work than it was worth. All I had to do on my end was turn the rice into more of a flour consistency, but No. 1 then had to boil while whisking the flour and it turned out pretty gummy anyway. Commercial baby cereals are dehydrated, so no boiling is necessary. You can buy whole grain, organic baby cereal. Astrid is currently on a mix of Wheat, Spelt, and Barley with no ill effects. Just squirt breast milk in with a Tablespoon of cereal in a little bowl and stir.

Banana and avocado couldn't be frozen, but were simply mashed or mashed with a little distilled water added. The first vegetable I made for freezing was sweet potatoes from my garden last year mixed with sugarless apple sauce. My sweet potatoes never grew to be very sweet. Her second dish was organic baby carrots mixed with sugarless apple sauce. Then, pears and plums from the grocery store. Then, a bag of frozen peas. This week, I got small sweet potatoes, huge peaches, and zucchini from the local Farmer's Market.

Boiling sweet potatoes from Farmer's Market after peeling and slicing:

Puree.

Once food is pureed, put in ice-cube tray. One cube = 1 tablespoon (or a little more if you want). I used trays with lids so could only make the cubes as high as the lid would hit.

If cooking more than one food at a time, you may want to label them. Peaches look a lot like sweet potatoes once pureed. Correct spelling is not important.

I let them freeze a day or two and then empty them into freezer containers to give to No. 1. [I used freezer bags] Make sure you get as much air out of the container as possible or they'll get freezer burn. At mealtimes, she can simply nuke a cube (or a cube of each she has in mind for the meal). Heat another way if you're opposed to microwaving.

If you make baby food, how do YOU do it?

More on 2010 Election.

2010-09-06T13:05:00.002-05:00

Parts II and III published at Deanie's Blue Inkblots. Scroll down to read Part II first and then scroll up to read Part III.

2010 Election Is Approaching.

2010-08-18T04:58:00.002-05:00

While Em's been off work until the fall season we're trying to squeeze in some little vacations along with some longer-term changes around the house. Astrid still comes three times/week (when we're not off somewhere) and she's growing up before my eyes. Six months old already! She'll be crawling and walking before I know it!

I haven't had the time or interest to blog lately, but this article caught my eye this morning and reminded me that elections will be coming soon and it's time for me to put on my political hat and get out there with my peeps to knock on doors and make phone calls.

Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 Garden Planning.

2010-07-21T08:23:00.002-05:00

Just starting to get to the point where I'm doing a serious think into what I want in future backyard gardening. When your garden flops like mine did this year, it gives ya lots of time to think. Last year was my first BIG year and I planted too much for one person to tend. This year, I wanted to include some flowers amongst the veggies, introduced the perennial day lillies from my northern friends and bought two hibiscus bushes from Home Depot this week when they went on sale 2/$10 with a coupon from their garden club.

Em and I discussed for days where to plant the hibiscus and the only thing he offered was ... "I don't want them interfering with my job" ... [which is cutting the lawn.] That meant that they were to be planted along the fence garden ... which will eventually be weeded and (I've just now decided planted completely with perennials and then lined with weed cloth and covered with an attractive mulch.)

Annual flowers and vegetables will next year be set in two 4x9 raised beds where currently I'd tried to grow them in the ground on two sides of the yard. I'll save my pennies and buy the two raised beds from a gardening center (already made to just be put together by sliding something over the ends. They sell stuff a fool can put together and while their stuff LOOKS expensive, when one needs to hire someone to build something like this it could WAY surpass their cost. I might even buy a few of their bags for growing various types of potatoes. Grass is growing into the two 4x9 gardens we have currently. I still throw compost in them and Em mows it.

So, this fall, I'll move the raspberry bush from the side of the house to the back right corner of the yard because currently Em has to mow around it and I don't look to the side of the house anyway, so the thing was getting ignored. I'll probably also move the backyard blueberry bush over near the hibiscus because they have similar soil needs and it isn't getting enough sun where it is currently, even though it's in the backyard along the fence. MY lemon balm will be trimmed and moved as well. In fact, I might put it where the blueberry bush was because it's growing way too well where it is and I don't use much lemon balm.

Not sure whether I'll do anything formal about compost with this new plan. Truth is: Just two of us don't make enough compost to feed even one 4x9 garden. I might get a small attractive composter to set on the patio for everything except g-diapers. I'll throw those into the grass and let Em mow them. Still thinking it all through. Any ideas?

Mistakes we make in caretaking ... Post 1.

2010-07-08T04:57:00.001-05:00

I've always felt that the goal of a human caretaker is to encourage independence while providing a safe, loving environment in which this independence can flourish. Sometimes it's difficult to encourage independence (thinking back to when my mom got old and counted on me). Looking back on the early childhood years of my three children, No. 2 (the "sandwiched" child) got the least attention from me and this lack of attention basically forced her to become independent earlier. No. 3 was the new baby, kicking her out of that slot after just a little more than a year, and No. 1 was still trying to adjust (at age 4) to two siblings now taking the time once reserved for her alone.

We all have our own ideas on how to caretake and for that reason do it differently. My kids had numerous caretakers through the years and I'm sure they all did it differently. It never occurred to me to "blame" a behavior on a caretaker.

Lately, I've noticed that Astrid has been having tantrums and they always seem to occur after she's spent time with Dave's folks caretaking. Dave's folks like to hold her ... all the time and walk with her ... all the time. So, Em said that he was going to take Astrid for a walk outside (in his arms) yesterday. He said, "It seems to calm her." At one point I asked if he was ready to take her for a walk and he said, "When she's fussy." So, when she got fussy he came and got her and took her for a walk and she calmed down and when he sat down with her after the walk she got fussy again because the walk ended.

Mistake: Rewarding fussiness.

Better Approach: Not sure ... open to ideas. Typically, I put her in the swing when she throws a fit because I think she needs a nap AKA mental reorg, but if it's close to time for No. 1 to pick her up, I hate to get a reorg started that won't be able to complete. Since she obviously enjoys a walk with Em, it makes sense to include it in the routine when he's home versus reserving it for fussy periods.

Getting Ready for Montessori Home-Schooling Post 1.

2010-07-05T02:51:00.000-05:00

Astrid is almost 5 months old now and today I spent $5 at the Thrift Store acquiring some items to use for size/color sorting lessons. I'm hoping that if I spread out the purchases I'll not feel the monetary pinch and be ready for when the time comes. I think I can set up my office to double as a "school" setting for her using existing shelving until she's old enough to need a small chair & desk. There's a certain discipline that goes along with Montessori which includes quiet removal of each learning tool to a work area and replacement of learning tool when done which I want to reinforce when the time comes. That sounds ultra restrictive to me, so, in the beginning, it would be only for a few minutes and the only time that Astrid will be in my office. Her play area is in the living room.

Here's what I bought today:

On the left is what might be an egg-holder, although why it would only be for 8 eggs when the classic denomination is a dozen might leave one to think that it's actually something for holding paints (which was my thought when buying it, as well as thinking ahead to the array of 2 x 4 = 8.

To the right of the "egg-holder" are two cups that were bigger than the others in the set and will be used later for other purposes. To the far right is what might be a picture frame for three square photos? It has three squares recessed almost half an inch into which are placed: 1 red cup, 2 white cups and 3 blue cups. I'm thinking that if I check Target tomorrow (which was in the plan anyway) I might be able to get some ridiculously cheap odds/ends of red/white/blue things to reinforce both the number and color lessons.

At the bottom are sea-shells laid out in order of size, to be used both in size sorting and science lessons.

Cries from the Gulf (by Lea Morris).

2010-06-19T10:17:00.001-05:00

Dry Humps 2010 Report.

2010-06-14T03:09:00.003-05:00

As shown somewhere on the sidebar, this past weekend was Crunchy Chicken's Dry Humps 2010 challenge. I had no intention of engaging in this challenge until the weekend came, Em had gone off to work and I found myself with no excuse not to. I find it pretty easy to do these challenges when no one is involved except me.

The only interesting thing (for me) was using water over again for cooking. For instance, I made potato salad Saturday, boiling potatoes in water and then reusing that water to boil the eggs. Also boiled brats, but got fresh water for that. Had it not been for the challenge, I wouldn't have thought to reuse the water. It's always easy to just not flush the toilet when I'm the only one here, and who bathes or showers anymore? :-)

I noticed one trade-off and it always seems like there's a trade-off SOMEWHERE. I used a paper towel to avoid using water and a dishrag to clean off areas after cooking.

Once Em came home, I'm sure he flushed the toilet because he can't stand to see a toilet unflushed. That was about the extent of his five-gallon day.

Sunday, I baked baby back ribs. No water necessary for that and leftover potato salad, so no water at all for cooking. When Em came home from work I'm sure he flushed the toilet again and he always washes the dishes after supper.

Since the whole point of these challenges is to make us conscious of what we do unconsciously, I can say there was success on this front. Today I'll be showering AND doing a small load of laundry, but the challenge is over, right?

Swimming Granddaughter 4 months old.

2010-06-13T09:43:00.009-05:00

We share a pool with other members of our Housing Association and I bought Swim Ways float with canopy so Astrid (now 4 months old) could enjoy the water.

The first time in the pool, we had her laid back, but this week (second time) we tried her laying forward. She enjoyed that more because she could see everything better, but both experiences were quite a bit to take in. I thought she might get over-stimulated and scream her complaint, but she seemed to enjoy the experiences and give more subtle signals when she'd had enough.

Worried about the Texas sun on her fragile skin, the canopied float was a good idea (particularly for babies who don't enjoy wearing hats). No. 1 took her out of the float this time (so we got her hat on her bald head) and let her get a taste of the water more upfront and personal.

Our housing association doesn't put chlorine in the water; they salt it instead. I guess that's cheaper, so keeps our dues down.

She particularly enjoyed standing on a ledge at the edge of the pool, just like she enjoys standing EVERYWHERE.

Looks like I'm gonna need a video camera to capture the action. I had the feeling that (if left to her own devices) she would have held her breath and dived down. No. 1 was unwilling to risk the consequences of an experiment on that thought.

Werner Herzog narrating the sad journey of the plastic bag.

2010-06-10T07:05:00.001-05:00

If you homeschool, please share how you do it.

2010-06-06T10:33:00.002-05:00

I really wanted to homeschool my three kids, but their father had a bunch of reasons for why I shouldn't (including how my profession was very lucrative at the time). No. 1 is considering homeschooling Astrid and I asked her if I could help if she did. I'm retired now, so there's no excuse for me NOT doing it, even if No. 1 took a part-time job and I did it while she worked and she did it when she didn't work. So, I ordered a book by Linda Dobson entitled "The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child (Your complete Guide to Getting Off to the Right Start)". I've been reading it this morning and probably can't even put into words all the questions I already have, but thought if I asked some of you how YOU do it I might be able to form some intelligent questions.

Seems like it's just a normal progression from providing an infant the opportunity to explore the wonders of life while making a conscious effort to expand on the opportunities as the child grows older, but some families follow a pre-set curriculum, as well.

How do YOU do it, and why do you think the way you do it is preferable to other ways? Do you get together with other homeschoolers and share routinely? Does your state have reporting requirements that you must follow?

Paul McCarthy at the White House.

2010-06-05T11:55:00.004-05:00

I think he was one of the most talented song-writers ever to live, so I'm glad to see he was honored by the US.

I also don't agree with the folks who think that Obama should be ALL gulf oil spill ALL the time.

Planning For The End of Oil.

2010-05-26T08:10:00.002-05:00

I know some eco-bloggers who concentrate on getting ready for life after oil's been depleted. I'm not one of them, which is why I have on my list of other places of interest Peak Oil Debunked and Wrong Tomorrow because the people doing these predictions typically don't have experience in the fields they're discussing.

Here's a few minutes by Richard Sears on Planning for the end of oil.

Not my year for gardening.

2010-05-25T14:10:00.003-05:00

I'm starting to treat it as the gamble that some farmers know it is. I had about a .02% germination rate on EVERYTHING. I was successful only in growing mold. Now, I have hundreds of pots sitting around with NOTHING growing in them.

When we go to casinos to play slot machines, we give each machine only three tries at giving us more money than we put into it before we move on to the next machine. What's the sense in beating a dead horse? So, gardening is my dead horse this summer and I'm tired of beating it already. Hot weather has already set in and my next chance is fall.

I don't even have the interest to go outside and pull weeds ... for what? Even the beans I planted only have two plants starting. It's like the yard has been cursed! In addition, there's some kind of insect that crawls all over me when I go out there. Not fireants (at least not MOST of the time). Might be fleas; don't know.

So, I've ordered a pool float for Astrid and intend to spend my summer doing exercisey fun stuff with her and No. 1., reading more, relaxing more. Garden vegetables are always cheap at the store during the summer and I refuse to waste any more time or money on this failure. So, take that, garden!

My berry bushes are starting to fruit, so I guess THAT's one positive this year. Sugar ants are crawling around them as soon as they get sweet, though, so if I pick them I get ants crawling all over my hands. Meh.

Another way to cut back on meat without going vegetarian.

2010-05-19T00:30:00.002-05:00

Home-made sun-screen and Bon Ami.

2010-05-15T15:28:00.002-05:00

The experiments with replacing portions of ground beef with cooked, mashed, brown lentils and cooked bulgur were totally successful. Em didn't notice any change in taste at all either in hamburger patties or his beloved hamburger helper. I should mention, however, that I season pretty much everything these days with Montreal Steak Seasoning. There was a sale at Kroger one day and I got about 8 of these. I use it on pretty much everything because it's got pretty much everything in it. I sprinkle it on vegetables, too!

My dandruff is back ... with a vengeance, so I'm gonna need to go through the whole routine I went through before to get it to go away again. PITA, but at least I'm getting a feel for how long I can go between "treatments" to keep my scalp healthy.

So, here we go with today's topic:

Like most envirowackos, I'm interested in ways to make non-toxic products that actually work like the toxic ones. I haven't yet tested these two, but now that I have a teensy granddaughter, I've been thinking about the impact of the world around her. To take her outside for any length of time, she's gonna need some sun screen. She's a pale-face like her dad.

Sun Screen:

How to Make Organic Sunblock

I've never purchased products like Bon Ami. Em takes a more gentle approach to everything in life, so HE has, but I'm more the "shotgun it" type, not wanting to take any more time on cleaning than is truly necessary to get the job done and get away from it. If I make something, though, I have an investment in it so I'm more inclined to use it and make it work. We've got baking soda all over the place, for instance, because it's SO helpful in keeping our kitchen stain-free. Em had some problems with digestion for a while that seems to have been resolved with daily yo-chs (a combination of yogurt, cottage cheese and frozen berries). Berries love to stain anything in which they come in contact, so it's baking soda to the rescue.

Non-toxic cleaners:

How to make non toxic cleaners

Finishing up with a pic of the world's cutest baby (in MY opinion, of course):

My Husband's love for hamburger helper.

2010-05-06T18:10:00.001-05:00

We went grocery shopping yesterday for the first time in over a month. It had been much longer than that since we'd had any hamburger or tuna or chicken helper on hand and Em loves to make it when it's his turn to cook.

Yesterday, our local Kroger finally had a sale that corresponded with coupons on HH that also corresponded with a sale on Angus chuck.

Thing is, since we've not had hamburger helper, I've been mixing bulgur in with ground meat dishes to both try and get us to eat less meat and add healthier foods to our diet, and Em has LOVED the substitutes ... so I'm hoping he loves the substitutes here.

I bought 6 pounds of ground chuck, to which I'll add 1 lb (dried) brown lentils (cooked and smashed) plus one cup of dry bulgur (cooked and mixed with the lentils). I'm hoping to end up with 10-12 (roughly 1-lb) piles of meat & stuff.

I think he chose 10 HH and 2 tuna helpers, but my lower back went out this week and I really didn't pay too close attention, anxiously awaiting the end of the grocery experience so I could sit down. Point is: I think 10 would be enough.

Lots more work involved over just separating and wrapping the meat for freezing, I learned. First, the lentils needed to be cooked and an attempt made at mashing them.

Then, the bulgur needed to be cooked and added to the lentils.

Separating and wrapping the meat is always a chore in itself and one that is never measured on the meniscus. As Rachael Ray is fond of saying, "I eyeball it." Here's the 1st half of meat mixed with 1st half of non-meat mix (eyeballed).

Close-up, you can see that the mix definitely doesn't resemble 100% meat.

After I finished wrapping the 2nd half of that, I went on to wrap 4 boneless primes that Em and I will share.

I know some folks eat less/no meat all the time, but this is the first year I've been actively engaged in cutting back on our consumption of animal products. Will we give up meat altogether eventually? I kinda doubt it. We've spent over 60 years eating animals, starting before they were given hormones and antibiotics. Will I feed Astrid the kind of meat we've bought for years? No way!

Still have 40oz of bacon to cut and package. I freeze 4 pieces of bacon separately. That can wait until tomorrow, however. As I said in the beginning, I've had problems with my back this past week and today's the first day of fluidity, so I want to spend some time hooping.

Garbage - the Movie.

2010-05-03T17:27:00.002-05:00

The First Tuesday Social Action Film Festival at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff will be showing Garbage tomorrow night. We won't be going to see it. Even though I hate to pass up an opportunity to get even more envirowacko than I already am, we're going to Winstar tomorrow and we're always way, way too tired to do anything on Winstar evenings because we go in the middle of the night and wear ourselves out walking ... which is why we're going because I did something to my lower back taking a nap this week and I need to walk it out.

Also, I really think I need to tone down this envirowackiness of mine. You can get carried away. We went to the Fort Worth Museum a week or so ago to see Sharks (which sucked as a movie), but on our way to the Omni we passed a display of plastic stuff made into a display. It was designed to bring public attention to the pacific and atlantic plastic garbage patches, but I told the woman that I probably shouldn't see it because I'm envirowacko enough as it is.

For instance, I'm thinking ahead to Astrid eating something besides breast milk and after watching Food, Inc., I don't want her to eat anything but organically grown food, and the decision isn't mine to make, not to mention that No. 1 may not be in a position to afford such a proposition.

Livestreaming Earth Day Climate Rally in Washington, D.C.

2010-04-25T15:32:00.003-05:00

HERE.

For watching afterwards, HERE

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22, 2010. How about we all use less?

2010-04-20T19:05:00.003-05:00

h/t to Beth at Fake Plastic Fish AGAIN! :-)

Plastic garbage patches all over the oceans.

2010-04-17T06:56:00.002-05:00

I'm sure you've all heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Well, there's another one in the Atlantic Ocean. These might not be the only two, either.

The problem is that plastics were designed to last forever but then used to make products designed to be thrown away. Much of the plastic trash we generate on land flows into our oceans through storm drains and watersheds. It falls from garbage and container trucks, spills out of trashcans, or is tossed carelessly.

At sea, floating plastics are swept up into slowly moving currents. These currents are called gyres. Most of the research on plastic trash circulating in oceanic gyres has focused on the North Pacific, but there are 5 major oceanic gyres worldwide, with several smaller gyres in Alaska and Antarctica. Marine researchers don’t yet know the extent to which plastic pollution exists in the world’s oceans.

We've GOT to stop using plastics!

This is my contribution to National Environmental Education Week.

Trying on smiles ... two months old.

2010-04-11T12:39:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was another adventure in babysitting here. Some things worked and some things didn't.

The Graco Bumper Jumper that I thought I'd pressed down HARD on fell apart when I put Astrid in it. I THINK I've fixed that problem this morning and just about did a hand-stand in it to test it. Of course she got scared and I got embarrassed.

After that, I had to build up my trust in her mind. She feels most secure if you hold her head and her behind. I think that's why she likes Em's human swing. Her head is cradled in one of his hands while her butt is cradled in the other.

Dave and No. 1 brought a swing over with her, but she didn't like to be tied into the restraints of it and placed a little too high she felt insecure and placed a little too low she could fall out of it, so it took a while to find a comfortable level for her to take in the surroundings.

I'll order some rechargeable batteries and a charger that accommodates C cells, as the swing was left here for future use, but currently requires manual labor. My foot couldn't do it and my back started to complain leaning over, so the batteries and charger will provide musical entertainment for her and osteopathic aid for me.

Outside of those two fails, we had a good day, I think. It was a BUSY day (at least for me). She liked to fall asleep after eating in the burping position on my chest, but any attempt to remove her from my chest awakened her.

We did have some fun socializing on the floor, though. Getting social was new since I last sat for her. She's now responding to social interactions with parroting sounds and smiles.

You're funny, Mormor!

THAT was just SILLY!

What do you think about THIS smile?

Em got home from work and provided the human swing while I ate supper. When his arms tired of swinging she uttered a complaint and he swung her again. This process was repeated until I finished my food and No. 1 and Dave came to the door.

Not sure Em's going to continue with the Race Track job. The employees had to buy their own shirts this year (which he thought petty) and it just doesn't seem the fun it once was.

Wet paper towel garden seed germination update.

2010-04-08T18:58:00.002-05:00

Today I noticed the first sprout in the wet paper towel germination experiment. It was a Better Boy Hybrid. I put the sprout in a pot with starter soil, setting it on the master bathroom windowsill with the Tommy Toe Heirloom and two super-small pieces of sweet potato.

Some of the paper towel pieces had dried out, so I sprayed a little water onto those and put them back atop the Uverse box (which provides heat for them). So, that was 6 days until germination using the wet paper towel method for that particular seed. The other Better Boy seeds in that packet have also sprouted slightly, but the one I took out had a sprout 1.5" long.

Not gonna have as large a garden this year. We're a small family, so if we only have two tomato plants and two sweet potato plants we'll have enough. We still have sweet potatoes in the freezer from last year. More would be NICE, but I want to trim things this year and maybe introduce a little decorative landscaping that requires little maintenance in the back yard.

In other news, Em went back to work today. He had an eye appointment this morning before work and everything seems fine after the second cataract surgery. He's to come back for a final check in 3 weeks. So far, it doesn't look like he'll need glasses unless he really wants to read in our dimly lit bathroom.

I'm looking forward to caring for Astrid this weekend while Dave and No. 1 attend the Renaissance Fair with friends. I bought a Graco bumper jumper and No. 1 will bring over a swing and buggy just in case I need more ammunition in a fuss-bucket situation. Em will be at work, so there won't be a human swing for her.

National Environmental Education Week.

2010-04-07T12:33:00.003-05:00

Next week is National Environmental Education Week.

Seems like every time I turn around there's a week/month dedicated to something or other, but here's one I actually care about. I wouldn't have known about it had I not seen the challenge at Farmer's Daughter, so many thanks to the woman who teaches Environmental Science but is currently on maternity leave. Now that I'm a first-time grandmother, I have more than one thing in common with her.

Gardening in just one hour/week.

2010-04-03T08:51:00.003-05:00

These folks are WAY more experienced than I. I think No. 2 could do it, though.

h/t Simple, Green, Frugal Co-Op

Seed Germination Problems.

2010-04-02T15:09:00.003-05:00

I started tomato and pepper seeds this year at the beginning of March. I could have started them earlier, but had other things to do. Here it is four weeks later and the only thing I have to show for it all is ONE Tommy Toes start.

This year, I used a combination of seed starter (which I'll never use again - It resembles rabbit feed insofar as it's pellet-like ... to absorb moisture, I assume) and sphagnum. The seed starter was too heavy and large, not to mention that it held enough moisture to mold on occasion.

Lacking a greenhouse, basement, or any other setup, I did pretty much what I did last year with that Burpee seed-starting number (most of which fell apart over the summer). I planted the seeds in biodegradable pots (mostly peat because I found a great deal on them), watered them, and covered them with little plastic sandwich bags for humidity. On warm days, I put them outside, bringing them inside in the evening as the evenings turned cool. There was a lot of back/forth involved, including taking off the sandwich bags if it looked like there was too much moisture, etc. My kitchen table was always a mess with various stages of pots.

Today, I took three of the peat pots apart to see what was happening within.

The answer was, basically, NOTHING. There was NO sign of sprouting, and not even any sign of a seed!

Since we're going to be busy with other things the next few days, I decided to spend some time today starting new seeds using the hippy method that some learned during the 60s to more quickly sprout marijuana seeds. <--I don't, personally, know anything about that, but my next-door neighbor mentioned it one day.

Basically, seeds are put between two damp pieces of soft paper (like paper towel), put in a plastic baggie and put somewhere warm, but not necessarily sunny.

Takes a lot less room and zero work while the seeds germinate. AFTER germination, they can be transferred to the pots and set in increasingly bright light.

Fortunately, peppers and tomatoes are the ONLY two garden items I germinate first. Everything else grows quite well seeding outdoors. I wouldn't even be surprised if some tomatoes and peppers will volunteer from last year's crop.

How's your garden doing?

TED: Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity.

2010-04-01T15:40:00.002-05:00

Funny how grandmotherhood "reactivates" interest in some things.

Happy Birthday, No. 1!

2010-03-29T05:05:00.001-05:00

First day of Spring and it snowed last night ... in North Texas.

2010-03-21T14:21:00.002-05:00

So much for keeping the seeds outside to catch the sun.

Decided today that I'm going to experiment with not shaving this summer. The hair under my arms is now long enough that it doesn't itch at all and (as usual) I haven't shaved my legs all winter. It's a test of freedom more than anything else, I think. It's not like Em cares at all, so it's a question of whether I can maintain confidence through my daughters chiding me.

I think it was 26 or so years ago that we camped at a Coast Guard campground on the East coast. The kids were small, playing in the dirt of the campground. My husband was a CG reserve and this was the annual two-week duty training. A young, female CGer stopped by our campsite to show us a newspaper with our son's picture on the front page. He'd met a goat at the Bluebird Farm and the paper's photographer took one of those human-interest photos. She stayed for a while and discussed how she'd decided to stop shaving. I didn't have the self-confidence when I was young, but I'm willing to experiment with how I feel "going European" in this, my 63rd year. Could dispense with extraneous plastic and save money.

2010 garden seed starting and garden progress ... March 2010.

2010-03-19T13:15:00.002-05:00

I started so many tomato and pepper seeds this year that you'd think I had a farm.

I am SO tired of starting seeds!

Done now, and sitting outside.

Peppers: 1. jalapeno Ixtapa ( have 3 from Diane - 3 planted 03/10/10) 2. hot salsa (home-saved from my 2009 garden) - 3 planted 03/08/10 3. chiltepin - (home-saved from my 2009 garden) planted 3 seeds 03/11/10 4. Sweet pepper kaleidoscope mix - planted 3 seeds 03/08/10 5. Romanian Rainbow Sweet Pepper - planted 3 seeds 03/06/10 6. Peter Pepper - planted 3 seeds 03/11/10 7. Hungarian Black Hot Pepper - planted 3 seeds 03/13/10 8. Serrano - planted 3 seeds 03/13/10 9. Sweet Pepper Kaleidoscope 3 seeds 03/16/10 10. Hungarian Yellow Wax 3 seeds 03/17/10 11. Gourmet Sweet Pepper 3 seeds 03/17/10 12. NuMex Big Jim Hot 3 seeds 03/19/10 Tomatoes: 1. Tomatillo - planted 3 seeds 03/06/10 2. Beefsteak (Walgreens seed) - planted 3 03-12-10 3. Large Red Cherry (Walgreens seed) - planted 3 03-12-10 4. Black Prince (Diane 2005 seed) - planted 3 03-14-10 5. San Marzano (Diane) - planted 3 03-14-10 6. Taxi (Diane) - planted 3 03-14-10 7. Stupice (Diane) - planted 3 03-14-10 8. Opalka (Diane) - 3 03-16-10 9. Mortgage Lifter (Diane) - 3 03-16-10 10. Porter (Diane) 3 03-14-10 11. Tommy Toes(Diane) 3 03-16-10 12. Tiny Tim (Diane) 3 03-16-10 13. Stupice (Diane) 3 03-14-10 14. Mirabell (Diane) 3 03-16-10 15. Banana Legs (Diane) 3 03-17-10 16. Hillbilly (Diane) 3 03-17-10 17. Aztec (Diane) 3 03-17-10 18. Reisentraub (Diane) 3 03-17-10 19. Super Sioux (Diane) 3 03-17-10 20. Cherokee Chocolate (Diane) 3 03-17-10 21. Costaluto Genovese (Diane) 3 3-17-10 22. Brandywine (Diane) 3 3-17-10 23. Taos (Diane) 3 - 3-18-10 24. Peacevine (Diane) 3- 3-18-10 25. Snow White (Diane) 3 3-18-10

One would think I had a farm based on all the attempts, but I'll be happy if 10 survive the process. Thanks to Diane for most of the seeds (even if they don't have her name in the credits).

The garden is starting to come to life for the 2010 year. Here are some asparagus w Day Lillies at left. Thanks again to my friends, Bob and Judy, in Illinois for the Day Lillies.

As usual, one peach tree starts blooming well while the other pretty much stands still. They alternate years.

Kale is still doing well from the 2009 garden

Last year's strawberries sent out runners which are now starting to bloom near more cilantro.

While it looks like Spring is springing and official Spring is Sunday, we're scheduled for another freeze tomorrow.

Em felt good after eating a yogurt/cottage cheese mix every day for several days. Felt so good he got cocky and quit eating it, so I stopped making it. Now, his stomach is bothering him again. I'm not one to nag, but the handwriting's on the wall. If he asks me, I'll make it again.

Cataract Surgery - What to Expect.

2010-03-16T12:48:00.001-05:00

Em's in the middle of getting cataract surgery. That means that he's had the surgery on one eye, but not on the other eye. That means that he can see pretty well out of one eye WITH his glasses and pretty well out of one eye WITHOUT his glasses, but he can't see out of both eyes either way. We'd thought that replacing one lens with clear glass would help in the interim before he gets his other eye done, but it doesn't ... because his correction is monocular. His left eye is corrected to be his reading eye and his right eye is corrected to be his distance eye and he's trained his eyes for years to work independent of each other. He had the surgery on his left eye (his reading eye), so he can read perfectly without glasses. He could read perfectly without glasses before the surgery, too, if he got the material within 2" of his eyes, so no BIG change there.

It seems that if you live long enough, pretty much everyone eventually gets cataracts. It's nice to know what to expect. Em was very, very scared. First, the thought of someone sticking a knife in his eye wasn't comforting. Secondly, he heard his doctor talk of possible complications in a louder voice than he heard how safe the procedure is. He found no reason to believe that he'd be one of the 999 of 1,000. Third, he was told that the procedure would be performed under local anesthetic and he thought that meant he'd be aware that they were sticking a knife in his eye. I assure you he wasn't aware of much that day. They gave him some GOOD drugs and while he could walk and talk, the day of surgery is pretty much a missed day in his life.

Surgeries for each eye are spaced out with two weeks inbetween IF there are no complications. The eye doctor gave him some pills and drops to use before surgery and 3 types of drops to use 4 times/day after surgery (for two weeks). In addition to the drops, he's scheduled with two doctor visits ... one the first day after surgery and (if everything looks okay) another a week and a day after surgery. While it's out-patient surgery, it's treated as "SURGERY!". He had to get his regular doctor's approval for the surgery, which his doctor only gave after a complete physical exam complete with chest X-ray and EKG. After surgery, he's advised not to do anything much in the way of physical activity. He can't lift anything 25 lbs or more, can't lean over, can't rub his eye, can't allow water to get in his eye [no showering facing the shower], no hot-tub (smile), etc. To ensure that he doesn't rub his eye, he has to wear a patch whenever he sleeps.

This Thursday we go back to see if he screwed up his eye lifting or bending. It's hard to stop yourself if you feel okay and you're accustomed to doing things like tying your own shoes.

If that eye is okay, he'll go through the same procedure next week on the other eye. THEN, after the two week period is over, he should be in a position to know if he'll need to wear glasses in addition to the lens implant (to correct his astigmatism) or if he'll be able to see good enough without them. Some people see well enough for a while and then get corrective glasses later.

Fortunately, Astrid doesn't weigh 25 lbs yet, so Em was able to swing her our first day of baby-sitting her. She's a good baby, but we enjoyed holding her even when she didn't demand it.

More dietary experiments; this time we cut back on food AND try to eat the evening meal earlier.

2010-03-02T13:42:00.002-06:00

Em and I both have been having some stomach problems lately which we felt were associated with eating too late and having too heavy a meal.

So, he threw down the gauntlet this week. Starting yesterday, we'll try to eat lighter and earlier in the evening so we can sleep with no problems.

A few days earlier, I'd made up some Cajun Trinity. Froze two quart bags of that, which will work out well for these dietary experiments.

Last night (first night) we had :

Cauliflower, asparagus tips, mushrooms and tomatoes tossed in at the end ... served with 4 frozen Armour meatballs that got nuked for 3 minutes.

Doesn't look like much, but that's the point.

Tonight, we're going to have something similar with different vegetables using quinoa as our protein source. Gonna also add some of that trinity I froze earlier in the week.

Good week to start reading Omnivore's Dillemma. I'd previously been concerned that Em might hate me if I took away his meat. Now, he seems to be saying, "I want to eat lighter meals; I'm looking for an alternative."

I'm thinking we'll try this "cutting back" approach to it all and see how that works before making a rash decision on dietary changes.

More Jamie Oliver (because ABC will have a special with him soon).

2010-02-27T11:04:00.003-06:00

I'd already posted Jamie's presentation at TED, but it seems he's to have a series premier on ABC March 26.

Here's a sneak preview:

I wonder how many US adults could answer his questions.

h/t Crunchy Chicken.

Freezing Kale.

2010-02-25T10:51:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we visited No. 1 and Astrid, so picked up some produce at Fiesta, which is near her house. Fiesta produce is always fresher looking than other groceries and most foods aren't in packages, so I can bring home just what I need with no packaging to discard. The girl who bagged our groceries was obviously sick, so I put everything I bought in a sink full of water with a little bleach, rinsed it off and let it sit on the counter to dry. Also still on the counter was that bowl of kale I'd picked before the snowstorm that never came, so today I'm committed to doing something with all this food.

This morning I tackled the kale. I'd read yesterday instructions on freezing it at Not Martha. It looked straightforward enough, so I got out all the things I'd need and went to it.

Some people cut and some people rip, and I cut some and ripped some. I didn't save the stems for anything, although some people eat them. Some people eat broccoli stems, too, but we're not hungry enough for that yet, either. They feed the dirt in my gardens just like asparagus stems.

First step after cutting is the blanch. Some people don't blanch, but I'm new at this, so I did.

Following Not Martha's instructions, I took each batch of kale from the salad spinner to the towel.

Once all the kale is processed and on the towel, the towel gets rolled tight and squeezed to remove as much moisture as possible. My largest bowl was the perfect amount to fit on the towel after processing.

The kale is then transferred to a baking sheet (covered with parchment so there's no sticking) and put into a freezer for 30 minutes.

We got 3 quart freezer bags of kale from this batch. Each bag will be more than enough for the two of us at one meal. Takes the guesswork out of it for me, as the kale is already cooked down from the blanch.

Copycat White Castle Cheeseburgers, among other things.

2010-02-23T11:53:00.002-06:00

No. 1 and Dave came for supper Sunday night with Astrid. I cooked up a pork loin I'd had in the freezer since 2007 - [Em and I defrosted, reinventoried and reorganized both the garage freezer and refrigerator freezer last Saturday.] I used THIS RECIPE with changes based on reviews and we really enjoyed the meal. Em and I had leftovers yesterday. Here's "Poppy" with Astrid from that evening. No. 1 had an absessed tooth and looked like she had a tennis ball in one side of her mouth, so we didn't take photos of her or Dave; details below.

Spent a fair amount of time cooking yesterday. Made a stovetop pea-soup for starters. No. 1 had a molar that my dentist had "fixed" which absessed so badly that she had to have the tooth pulled yesterday. I can't save her tooth from the dentist I recommended (who I'm not going to use again, either), but I could make her some soup to eat while that side of her mouth heals.

We'll drop it by today or tomorrow. It's currently snowing, so I'm not sure we'll venture out today, but anticipation of snow encouraged me to cut a big bunch of kale yesterday.

I didn't cut all of it, but more than I could fit into the largest bowl I have.

Maybe it was because No. 1 and Dave ate some White Castle Cheeseburgers for lunch that Em had bought when they stopped by earlier in the day Sunday, but when Super-bowl bites came to my attention, I wanted to give it a try, so took out a pound of lean angus chuck to defrost in the morning. Having read that King's Hawaiian Savory Butter rolls worked really well for buns on the "sliders", we bought a package of 12 on our morning shopping trip.

We only needed 1/2 lb of chuck for 12 sliders, so I found a recipe for a spicy meatloaf that would accommodate the second half of ground beef plus the 1/2 lb sausage leftover from last week's pizza.

The meatloaf was really easy to make. Usually, I throw all kinds of veggies into it, but I had other things on my mind, so made it as stated, wherever it was. We haven't tasted it yet; that's for tonight's supper. We had some leftovers from that pork meal for supper last night.

Most interesting of the meals made, IMO, was the White Castle Cheeseburger copycats.

I used the method of one reviewer and first laid out the 1/2 lb beef chuck mixed with 1/4 pkg of Lipton onion soup mix, a handful of shredded cheese [I think I used a Mexican blend, but I don't think it makes a difference] into a 6x8" rectangle.

This rectangle was cut into 2" pieces with a pizza cutter and placed into a 9x13 glass baking dish which went into a 350 degree oven for 17 minutes.

While they were baking, I sliced open the Hawaiian rolls, took three slices of Kroger American cheese and cut them into 4 parts each. Cut myself slicing the rolls, and used the pizza cutter to cut the cheese. My aim wasn't very good in either task.

Once the patties had cooked, I took a paper towel [gasp!] and wiped out excess oil from the glass pan [not much from lean Angus chuck] and put the completed buns into the same pan, covering it with tin-foil before putting back into the oven for another 13 minutes.

Last step was to let them cool for a few minutes, wrap two into a paper towel for nuking after freezing (just like the real version) and putting into a freezer bag. 12 fit nicely into one gallon bag. We had to taste one first, so this batch only has 10. "Close enough!", we both said. Next step will be to duplicate the taste of King's Hawaiian Savory Butter Rolls.

Dealing with food waste; when life throws you carrots, make carrot-raisin salad and carrot-cake.

2010-02-20T18:33:00.002-06:00

This month has been designated by the Crunchy Chicken the month of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge. Notice the badge on the sidebar?

I always have the best intentions of incorporating more fresh fruits and vegetables into our diet, buy them on sale, and then ... mostly what happens is that Em cooks supper several days in a row and I forget all about the food I'd bought that's been sitting in the refrigerator for ... well, for example, No. 2 flew down to attend No. 1's wedding shower in April of 2009 (last Spring) and I bought some spinach/artichoke dip for her to eat while here. She's a vegetarian and I wanted to be sure to have something besides peanut butter/jelly sandwiches in case she got hungry ... except she preferred peanut butter/jelly sandwiches to that dip and we just got around to eating it this week. No kidding.

I found a ball of homemade pizza dough on the freezer door and a container of that hot pork sausage that Em likes on his pizza. I didn't have any bell peppers or onions, though, and I like my pizza to have SOME vegetables. We had a 2-lb bag of carrots that I think I was gonna use for the baby shower last month, but Dave's mom made so many food dishes that whatever carrot dish I was gonna make got changed into something else that filled the few gaps left ... so I asked Em if he'd like carrots on his pizza. His face contorted into what I took to be a "NO!", so I thought, "Well, that dip has spinach and artichokes in it at least" and spread it onto the pizza dough. Worst thing that could happen was food poisoning, right?

Em had made spaghetti (with no veggies) the night before, and there was some sauce with ground beef left, so I put that on next.

Rest was pretty standard fresh ingredients and the pizza was quite good although it stuck to the pan a bit (which had more to do with not enough oil on the pan than old ingredients).

We both woke up the next morning feeling fine, so NO food poisoning! Makes me wonder if that dip was actually a food or more like a twinkie.

So, Diane was blogging about making a carrot cake and I thought, "I wonder if they use any carrots?" and it turned out they did and Em likes carrot cake (oh happy day), so I looked around for some recipes that didn't involve 12 cups of sugar, and found some capable of being tweaked to lesser amounts without losing the taste or using artificial sweeteners. I had a plan for the carrots.

The next day, Em said, "So, you want to get rid of those carrots?" Thinking he'd found a new public dumpster, I said, "I want to USE the carrots." He said that his very favorite salad is carrot-raisin if I could find a recipe for that on the web. With Google as my friend, I was able to make

and

from

and Em liked BOTH very much.

Tomorrow I see what I can do with apples and cantaloupe on their last legs.

Punk Gardening Tips (or how to make biodegradable pots for zero dollars).

2010-02-18T15:55:00.002-06:00

The video from which I got this idea made smaller pots using half a roll, but either way seems like a good idea to me.

I'm sending some of my friends/family up north a few starts this year, the weather here is 63 today, and I found myself starting to make some of these "pots" today. Em is SO grateful! I think I've told you how he just can't stand how I save things for no apparent reason and ... empty toilet paper rolls???

The half rolls get cut about 1/2" on 4 sides and don't quite hold the square shape of those in the video, but I was going for them to keep their round shape anyway. I'm NOT handy, so my pots came out looking like they were cut from the hands of a non-handy person with some even requiring a tad of tape to cover the hole from my inability disorder, but the whole point is to make quick, cheap, makeshift, biodegradable pots, so they made the cut.

I lined the shipping box with bubble-wrap to keep the box from getting wet when I water the starts that I put in the little makeshift pots. What? You don't have a closet full of boxes and bubble-wrap? Em would be so proud of you.

Saving pop-tops for No. 2's Theatre class, too.

They're good for extra credit. Not sure when they need to be sent, but I'm hoping it's soon, because between the toilet paper rolls and the pop-tops being saved, Em's fairly sure I'll be on one of those TV reality shows soon.

That difference in color on the TP rolls in the final product is the difference between cottonelle (which always seemed to have coupons) and Angel Soft (now my preferred TP even over Charmin). We don't use recycled TP ... YET.

Thrifttown has 30% off sale for Presidents Day and new grandmother goes WILD!

2010-02-15T15:46:00.004-06:00

Remember this little girl?

Today, I spent $37 on stuff for her (and ME) at Thrifttown.

The place totally rules, IMO. Went abolutely CRAZY over the cuteness of it all. Em said that was "normal" grandmother. I'm not totally convinced, yet wouldn't be able to point to one item that could go back if asked.

Buy USED!

Obesity makes US unhealthiest country in world.

2010-02-12T13:56:00.001-06:00

We need to teach our children to eat healthier, but how can we if we don't know how to eat ourselves?

North Texas Snow Storm breaking records AGAIN!

2010-02-11T18:21:00.002-06:00

It's been snowing for 14 hours straight ... that heavy, wet stuff. Gonna freeze overnight, so roads will be hazardous tomorrow. We don't have things like snow shovels or snow boots. We don't even wear coats but maybe 3 times/year. This much snow is a BIG deal here ... almost right up there with first grandchild.

I left my camera at No. 1's this week, but you can see a bunch of photos here.

Introducing Astrid Piper Blue.

2010-02-08T06:23:00.004-06:00

Born February 7, 2010 6:22 pm. 6 lbs, 10 oz. 20 inches long.

Peach fuzz blonde hair, blue eyes; cute as a button.

Looks like we could have a new baby later today.

2010-02-07T05:46:00.002-06:00

No. 1 called at like 3:30am. Her contractions were getting closer together and they were waiting until they got even closer to go to the hospital.

They went to the hospital, but her dilation hadn't progressed beyond 2cm, so I think they'll be sending them home again. Papa Blue will let me know what to do when he knows what to do. Right now he's thinking I can relieve him long enough for him to get a nap. Maybe it's time for a boggle game with the preggo.

No. 1 had her baby shower over the weekend.

2010-01-18T09:22:00.005-06:00

Her mom-in-law made a double-layer sheet cake in the theme chosen.

Primary colors:

That diaper "cake" was made by the host's mom-in-law.

She REALLY got a haul!

Games were played, food was eaten, friends who hadn't seen each other in a while chatted for hours. The host did a wonderful job and everyone left at the end cleaned up my house, put food away, etc. Another great bunch.

Tired, folks plopped on the couch. No. 1 is the huge frog-like creature.

Almost forgot to include pics of what Diane made. Here's the ribbon blankey and sensory block. Those of you who sew, cook, garden or are crafty will enjoy joining Modern Roots. They're currently having a nice giveaway as indicated on the sidebar.

The girl Who Silenced The World for Five Minutes.

2010-01-17T12:29:00.000-06:00

Cloth Shopping Bags.

2010-01-10T08:55:00.003-06:00

We don't have an Ikea store near us here in Texas, but every time I visit No. 2 we go to Ikea for lunch and a look, even if we buy nothing.

For a few years in a row, Ikea offered cloth shopping bags for a ridiculous price of something like $1.34 each. I bought a few on my first trip, liked them and bought more on each trip thereafter. They were SO cheap that I could gift them to encourage others to stop using plastic bags. I gifted to No. 1, No. 2 and her roommate, Jen Z.

Before my last trip to see No. 2 and No. 3, I washed my Ikea bags in the washing machine WITH my gym shoes. They fell apart. I was on my way to visit No. 2, though, so I thought I'd just purchase more. We did our Ikea lunch and look, but there were no cloth bags to be found. A friendly store clerk said that the cloth bags were a limited-time item. Desperate, I bought 5 of the Ikea store bags for $.59/each. Em absolutely HATES them, as do grocery store check-out people. They're wider than they are tall, bulky as all get out, but made of something that looks like weaved plastic reinforced by stitching.

The first time we used them was for a canned goods sale. I told the checkout clerk to put all the cans in one of these bags. Then, Em tried to pick up the bag. Heh. "Woman, ..?"

Next time we used them for a big meat buy. Meat was what messed up our cloth bags to the point where I felt like they needed to be washed. We decided they're great for meat buys because they can simply be wiped after the meat's been removed from them, but we really preferred the cloth bags with the long handles for anything else.

Knowing Diane is handy at sewing, I hired her to fix the bags. I trusted her judgment completely on how to fix them from her scrap fabric stash, but she outdid my expectations completely.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that the bag repair would result in sturdier AND more attractive bags while still retaining their original size/shape.

You can see a photo here, and if you click on "cloth shopping bags" below the photo, you can see what she started with.

She showed me some pics of some things I asked her to make for our new granddaughter, but No. 1 reads this blog so I'll wait until after the shower to post them.

Pie from sweet potatoes frozen in paper lunch bags.

2010-01-08T17:42:00.003-06:00

You might remember my experiments with freezing squash in brown paper lunch bags. Yesterday, Em found a bag in the kitchen freezer that said, "Sweet Potatoes for Pie - 10/09/09" and took it out to defrost. He was ready for his sweet potato pie.

Neither of us feel well yet after he caught the cold/cough in Northern Nevada at the end of last month and shared it with me, but he went to the store and bought two frozen pie shells and was determined to make this pie. That was yesterday. He asked me to find him a recipe for it and I had that ready this morning right out in the open for him to read along with a stick of butter and the bag of sweet potatoes that we'd put in the frig overnight, but he fell asleep instead. So, I asked if he'd like ME to make the pie for him and he said, "I'd LOVE for you to make the pie; I only seem to have enough steam to walk to the couch and lie down."

My plan was to begin a tradition of Frugal Friday meals starting with some tuna/quinoa patties mentioned at What's Cooking?, so I went outside and scrounged up an onion or two and some cilantro for that one. After I made the pie, though, *I* only had enough steam to walk to the couch, so we're having frozen pizza tonight and Frugal Friday will be tomorrow night. That explanation was to explain why the ingredient photo for the pie includes onions and cilantro.

The equivalent of two sweet potatoes were put in 3 layers of brown paper bag. After defrosting, I was able to save all 3 bags; they weren't wet at all! Of course, I had to scoop them out of Em's hands before he threw them away.

The batter still had some lumps because I hadn't fully cooked through the sweet potatoes as indicated in the recipe I sorta used (with changes based on reviews). They were simply the sweet potatoes "processed" and then defrosted.

We both helped lick the bowl from the batter and we're gonna LOVE it.

350 Movement; We're Not Done Yet.

2010-01-08T09:34:00.000-06:00

Baby Shower here on the 16th, but no babies allowed.

2010-01-07T12:19:00.003-06:00

How hypocritical is THAT?

The woman originally slotted to have the baby shower for No. 1 got the flu right before the shower, so that was canceled. Turns out that she also lives 2 hours drive away from all the other people coming to the shower, so I volunteered my house for the event. She didn't take me up on that offer. I think she got pissed off, actually, as she still hasn't responded to the shower invitation being hosted by another friend who lives in a small apartment and agreed to host the shower here.

Several people (including ME) had gifts sent to the address of the first shower and the status of those gifts is unclear.

Today, I noticed that one of the attendees said that if she can't find a sitter she'll be bringing her THREE kids. Um ... I hadn't anticipated KIDS and don't have a childproofed house where kids could roam unattended while I serve appetizers and mini cream puffs to the moms. AND, we're picky people! We insist guests take their shoes off before walking past the foyer. We insist that smokers smoke outside and don't try and sneak out and in in your stocking feet because the whole point of not wearing shoes indoors is to not drag in the outside stuff.

So, I'm frustrated today ... not JUST because of this, of course. I'm ALSO frustrated because we've been feeling crummy for the past week. Em's got the cough that won't go away and our energy-level has reached ZIP most days. I also don't have enough chairs for all the people, don't want people eating on the new couch and loveseat, don't know how to diplomatically suggest that kids aren't welcome ... at a party to welcome a new kid.

Might be time for a nap.

It's tough to not use it when you have it right there!

2010-01-05T17:51:00.002-06:00

I'm talking about water ... HOT water.

It's winter (even in North Texas) and believe it or not indoor temps of 72 have us wearing sweaters over sweatshirts. It's an interesting phenomenon to observe and I remember when we first moved here from Chicago (some 15 years ago). We were both smokers then and we'd go outside to smoke at work wearing no coats or anything and the temp felt comfortable to us while the Texans were shivering and complaining about the cold.

I bought the switches for the showers so I could turn the water off in the shower while I soap up, and I use them. Thing is: sometimes after soaping up and turning the water back on the water is cooler than it was when I turned it off. It FEELS downright COLD, so I tend to finish my hairwash/shower without turning the water off again.

Fortunately (for the world) I don't shower/hairwash every day. In fact, I feel less guilty for NOT showering more often now. Let there be human stink in the world!

No Impact Man - the book.

2010-01-05T15:19:00.002-06:00

I'm almost done reading this, so it'll be soon time to pass it on to the next reader as I continue the "chain book read" as Em calls it.

If you're interested, leave a comment so saying. I've really been enjoying it even tho I pretty much followed everything he did via his blog for that year.

To receive the book you must commit to reading it and mailing it on to the next reader in a timely fashion.

Christmas Morning 2009 - RECORD snow storm hit North Texas.

2009-12-25T08:02:00.002-06:00

THREE (3) inches came down yesterday and (oddly enough) STUCK. Some places more North got as much as SIX (6) inches.

Some children and animals saw snow for the first time. Churches canceled their Christmas Eve offerings.

Of course, there were car accidents all over the place ... because we have no idea how to drive in snow.

Em and I stayed home.

Today will be sunny, so that's the end of THAT.

Fallen leaves make good soil ... and sweet potatoes grow after the tops look dead.

2009-12-22T15:53:00.002-06:00

Tepid day here in North Texas. I think the high was close to 70 degrees.

We took the opportunity to rake the leaves in the front and redistribute them to the gardens out back. During this redistribution effort, I found out that our sweet potato beds had a bunch more sweet potatoes to process.

Em helped gather leaves.

I helped put them into the garden beds.

But, then, I started feeling around under the sweet potato beds and there were several more to process.

We got not three (as shown), but FIVE in the end.

Next nice day here we'll plant more stuff, but today was really good.

Not baking holiday sweets this year.

2009-12-20T17:42:00.002-06:00

While not Christian, I've always enjoyed the taste of the Christmas cookies my mom cooked when I was a child. Sometimes I even threaten to bake them, package them and send them to others who appreciate them. I'm not even threatening this year. I like to eat them, but I don't need the calories.

I never really did like making them (unless, of course, all my children helped while we listened to Norwegian Christmas songs); I only liked eating them. This year, I'm taking my extra pounds seriously and cutting off the sweets BEFORE they make the situation worse.

Em isn't being offered a vote in this matter. He's still waiting for a sweet potato pie and I don't think we need that, either. Tough love on the fatness this year, because we need it.

Not Done Yet.

2009-12-19T14:27:00.002-06:00

Copenhagen talks haven't amounted to anything worth discussing.

Details are here.

In other news, I've made some modifications to the comment area due to spammers. Gonna try and turn the CAPTCHA into a negative CAPTCHA (where the human enters NOTHING and the computer must respond), but I couldn't get it working in the time I had available today.

North Texas Gardening - winter is 6 days away officially.

2009-12-15T15:28:00.003-06:00

While in Chicago for Thanksgiving, Judy gave me some Day Lilies and Egyptian Walking Onions from her yard. The flowers of Day Lilies are edible and I wanted to be able to add them to garden salads next Spring. I refused to buy some simply because anyone who has them must thin them regularly. I don't know what color they are; never bothered to ask because I don't care. They sat forgotten, tightly packed in plastic bags until we had weather nice enough for me to want to go outside and plant them. Em feared our cold weather would kill them. :-)

I planted the Day Lilies at the edge of the asparagus patch. The entire East fence garden patch up to the beginning of the North fence garden patch is now perennial with this addition.

The Day Lilies butt up against the lettuce patch, which is getting really weedy while neglected due to weather, other activities, and just plain laziness.

Volunteers from Spring's lettuce are being left to grow in the grass. Em won't mow again until Summer of 2010 begins.

The hard freeze didn't affect the asparagus

but it did a number on the sweet potatoes

and
the rubber tree may not survive.

I'll be leaving both in place until Spring as an experiment to see if they'll resprout or not.

Broccoli and regular onion starts are doing fine, as is parsley. Fruit bushes (the few that lived from the 25 I bought last Spring did much better once I stopped weeding around them.

Kale still has a few meals left in it, and strawberries, mints, cilantro are all doing well amongst small weeds and fall refuge.

There will be a few more nice days this week (although not getting up to 70), so I'm hoping to get out and plant some turnips and onion seeds. I didn't "plant" the walking onion seeds, but more tossed them in the North fence garden with the other onions. One good rain will "plant" them, or I'll give them a little push this week when I get out there again.

Last step will be to gather some of the leaves from the front yard and mix them up in the back gardens, both as mulch and soil amendments.

350 Vigil Weekend and the NEXQs4A Party Party.

2009-12-13T09:32:00.003-06:00

350 Vigil Weekend was just one in a list of reasons for a party this weekend.

Not EVERYONE at the party is currently a 350 Facebook Fan only because some hadn't known of it.

Em got sick right as the party ended and was sick all day yesterday. He feels a LITTLE bit better today, but I think I've convinced him to avoid intermingling with fellow sports fans as he might have something contagious.

Hard Frost in North Texas last night.

2009-12-05T15:13:00.003-06:00

I COULD have and probably SHOULD have thrown some row covers over parts of the garden, but I didn't. I guess I felt it hard to believe that a hard freeze would already come this early. Of course, that's all the freezing for the week, but the damage was done to plants like basil and tomatoes. Lettuce, kale, broccoli, onions are still fine. Didn't even bother checking the sweet potatoes because they've looked pretty damn sad ever since I pulled out those elephant-man-heads.

I left some tomatoes to finish ripening while I went to Illinois and came home to hear that they rotted while I was gone, so I may not bother trying to get these to ripen before trying out some Fried Green Tomato recipes.

I'm trying to limit our meat/fish/fowl portions to 4 oz while loading up on fruits and veggies. More than half of what look like spuds in this photo are really baked apple chunks. Sneaky, eh? :-)

Of course, that means that instead of eating half a package of store-bought veggies we eat a whole package, but it's a start.

Processing sweet potatoes and salsa.

2009-12-03T00:41:00.004-06:00

It snowed here this morning in North Texas. It was short-lived and the sun was out soon enough, so I went out and picked tomatoes, cilantro, green onion for salsa making. I'd already spent the morning processing that horrible-looking elephant-man- head sweet potato and the more normal-looking sidekick that have been sitting on my kitchen table curing for a while now. Last time I processed a pair of these I got enough for 12 meals. This time, I only got enough for eight meals due to lots of insect damage on one side.

The elephant-man-heads need to be cut to fit into my biggest pot (which isn't as big as some might have), so it boils without skin on at least one side. It's also a bitch to cut for boiling. Next season I'll keep a better eye on sweet potato growth. Remind me, okay?

So, I got home from Illinois late last night and ... there were no tomatoes sitting on newspaper on the kitchen table, so I asked Em what happened to them and he said, "They rotted." These were the tomatoes destined for salsa as soon as we found some cilantro (which the local stores didn't have currently). My mind went through all the "I should have refrigerated them" thoughts, and even a quick tour of the uglier thoughts. Put on a winter coat and went outside to see if we had any more. We did, and even had maybe enough cilantro.

First thing on my agenda for tomorrow. Would have processed them today, but I took a nap and didn't wake up until 10:30pm. Yeah ... that vacation wore me out. Just in case I can't get to it right away, though, I put it all in the frig.

I wonder which is worse ... letting good food rot or using a plastic bag and a refrigerator.

Went to Illinois for Thanksgiving.

2009-12-02T15:13:00.003-06:00

Had supper with my oldest friends. Heard someone say recently that It's preferred to suggest "friends I've known a long time", but either works for me.

We had two evenings of Thanksgiving, but this is the one we preferred:

I was there, too.

Spent rest of my trip to Illinois enjoying my son and daughter. My son's camera-shy, and I suppose when it got to my daughter I was feelin' as though she didn't want her pic taken, either. Bob and Judy prolly didn't want their pics taken, either, but it WAS ... well ... day AFTER Thanksgiving/

Cloth Diapering might want to change its name to non-disposable diapering when it comes to pocket diapers.

2009-11-21T17:56:00.004-06:00

No. 1's baby shower is coming up soon after I return from Thanksgiving in Illinois, so I finally got around to ordering some diapers that will be sent straight to the home of the person hosting the shower.

My personal opinion is that every mom (in the world) should be able to use disposable diapers until after the meconium stool with no environmental concerns because there's a fair amount of yuk involved with that one. Kudos to the moms in a position to just let that fall into the garden you're working in, but I don't think No. 1 will be in that position in February, even here in North Texas or even if she were the type to garden.

I got the "sampler" from Nicki's Diaper. Nicki is apparently a mom who decided to make a business of encouraging other moms to cloth diaper. I'll probably be ordering a few of the diapers Casey used (from the Canadians), but right now I needed to order something to have sent to the house where the baby shower will be held because I'll forget all about it while I'm in Illinois.

No. 1 knew I was going to do this; the only surprise might be the colors I chose. Looking at them again, though, I couldn't help but think again about how the entire pocket diaper thing is simply what some European countries have been doing since at least 1980. We are SO backwards as a nation on some things!

Freezing Yams (from the store).

2009-11-20T20:16:00.003-06:00

I recently posted about how to freeze sweet potatoes picked from the garden, but today I realized that even if you don't have a garden produce goes on sale seasonally and Thanksgiving in the US is one of those times for yams.

There's a difference between yams and sweet potatoes, and I'll let you discern the differences, but (to us) they both taste good.

The folks at Coupon Mom told me today that yams were on sale at Kroger for $.19/lb. "Holy majoly, we need some at that price!", I said and put it on the short list of things to get from Kroger when Em went to get his hair cut at a place new (to him) next to Kroger. The newspaper ad had them more like $.33/lb, but that's still a bargain if you can use them.

From eight yams (total cost $1.92):

Boiled and sliced the same way I do the sweet potatoes from the garden:

Seven meals worth.

That's less than $.28/meal for us (family of only two).

AFTER I put the 7th in the freezer bag, I realized that this would be good for tonight's dinner with fresh broccoli and frozen tilapia. The bag will be washed and reused.

Fall Gardening in North Texas.

2009-11-13T14:09:00.002-06:00

Em's been helping me in the garden lately. I can't describe how much that means to me. Not only is he taking half the stress off my back physically, but it's just a lot more fun to have someone to talk to while working in the garden.

The goal is to spend one hour per day out there getting the summer weeds (grasses) dug out and the winter garden planted, but we don't always feel like it. Today was the first time out there in over a week. Em dug with the spade and I came along behind him fertilizing and planting.

When his back started to complain, Em noticed some peppers that were store-size. He didn't want to pick them, so I did when my back started to complain, breaking off a branch on a salsa pepper plant (accidently).

Lots of chiltepins out there, but I haven't yet found a hot sauce recipe, so I'm leaving them for now. Picked a bunch of kale today, though, which are soaking for tonight's dinner of salsa salmon and kale.

It's delightful afternoon gardening weather, AND fireants seem to only come out in hot weather. There were none when I did the Spring planting and there are none now. Three cheers for that!

Pregnancy of No. 1 ... as the body changes.

2009-11-05T10:27:00.004-06:00

I was of the opinion that ALL the "belly shots" should be taken next to a friend's giraffe, but I only got two. They don't get bigger if you click on them, so don't bother.

This one came between the two, but stripes always make us look bigger, don't they?

Jump to this week:

She's due first week of February.

There will be no Halloween here this year. [sigh]

2009-10-30T13:07:00.002-05:00

Halloween has been canceled here this year for the first time. I hate that this happened, but I've grown tired of some things.

I've grown tired of buying commercially packaged (in plastic) candies, which cost more every year as they shrink in size, sold in an additional plastic bag to hold the 15-20. I've grown tired of 100 kids coming into my neighborhood on one night/year to get the shrunk-in-size, commercially packaged (in plastic) candy. Only five kids (max) live on my block.

So, I thought to make cookies this year and package them in paper sleeves for trick/treaters. Then, I read that most mothers would throw them away for fear of poisoning, razor blades, or unicorn spittle as a recipe ingredient (They're ALL urban legends!)

I don't want to be the "Get off my lawn!" grinch, but I also don't want to waste 10 eggs making cookies that will get thrown away or support the industries that shrink their candy while increasing plastic packaging each year, or support kids from other neighborhoods taking advantage.

So, that's where it is on Halloween Eve, 2009. Em will be at work tomorrow night, and I'll retire to a room at the rear of the house to watch a movie or two. I, now, feel, officially like an old lady ... in my new loveseat recliner.

Be safe, trick-or-treaters.

Homemade Crispy French Fries and Tortilla Chips.

2009-10-27T11:10:00.006-05:00

'twas Em's turn to cook yesterday, so I took out catfish because I love what he does with it. His typical MO, however, is to serve the catfish with mashed potatoes and creamed corn (from a can). We're getting majorly low on canned vegetables because we just haven't seen any sales on them for $.50 or less in like a year and we can get frozen veggies for less than current canned prices.

I was also thinking about how we used to buy catfish takeout when we lived in North Arlington and how that little hole-in-the-wall catfish place got deleted [maybe] due to the new mammoth Cowboy Stadium being built near there. Anyway, I was jonesing for some catfish with french fries and coleslaw like we used to get there. Our car is in the shop, but I noticed we still had some cabbage in the frig and a few russet potatoes in the pantry, so I asked Em if he'd mind me making a few different sides. He thought it a great idea, even asking if I wanted him to deep-fry the catfish. I love his pan-fried catfish and figured I'd use the fry-daddy for the french fries, so I told him to do what he's always done.

We absolutely LOVED the results. It was a meal slurped down in record time, giving me a real understanding of why people enjoy fast food so much. Deep-fried is NOT the healthiest, but, boy it packs a wallop of flavor.

I made the coleslaw early in the day so it could refrigerate for a long time. At that time, I also peeled the potatoes (three small-to-medium) and cut them into fry shapes. Then, so they wouldn't turn brown, I put them in a covered bowl of ice-water in the frig, where they sat until supper time (seven hours later). I also let a bag of frozen store-bought corn tortillas sit on the counter to defrost long enough to pry off maybe 8 tortillas for tortilla chip frying. Em's a major fan of tortilla chips.

Because Em's part of the meal took only 15 minutes and mine longer, I got going in the kitchen about an hour before we wanted to eat. I used this recipe as a base, and set out the cut fries to dry while I made the dipping sauce for them.

Used generic seasoned salt instead of paprika, onion and garlic powder instead of their salted versions, and needed quite a bit more water than the recipe stated for the recipe when cut down to 2 portions. Also, I added beer to the dip because I'd opened a beer to drink while making these things and because one of the reviewers suggested it.

Took the advise of some reviewers and did a double-fry. On my first fry, I put in plain potatoes with torn tortilla pieces for 2 minutes. That's all the time needed for tortilla chips. Laying out the potatoes and tortilla chips on yet more paper towels, I continued to do this until all potatoes had gotten the 2-minute first fry. I didn't notice the plain potatoes trying to stick together. Em was off playing Solitaire on the PC, so I brought him some warm tortilla chips to try as soon as I had some and he gave a thumbs up. I made a few more batches of tortilla chips while dipping the potatoes for their final fry. I also set the convection oven to 200 degrees to keep the french fries warm. Second dipped fry was four minutes and I stirred the fry-daddy a lot to keep the fries from sticking. There were two batches of dipped fries for the fries shown. There were a few more in the bowl in this picture, so we got 3 servings from the 3 smallish potatoes and *I* get to eat the leftovers today.

LUNCH UPDATE: These fries do NOT stay crispy through nuking. Still tasty, though.

Forgot to take a pic of the final meal, but did get one of the tortilla chips.

The fries came out as golden as the chips, were crunchy on the outside and almost liquid on the inside. At first bite I wanted to say, "They're not DONE!", but they started out HARD, NOT liquid, and tasted DIVINE".

I sprinkled salt on both the french fries and chips after cooking and before eating, so not only were these foods unhealthy due to being deep-fried, but unhealthy due to added salt. In addition, the process was pretty messy and used quite a bit of paper toweling to suck up excess oil. /just sayin'. Still, once or twice/year ...

THREE-FIFTY [350]. The time is NOW.

2009-10-24T12:07:00.003-05:00

All over the world, people have been making their voices heard fighting climate change.

Their photos are on Flicker.

I'm unable to attend or hold a 350 event today due to other commitments, but I've signed the pledge at 350.org. Check it out; get involved.

Piano Stairs and the lesson of "If it's FUN, people will do it."

2009-10-22T16:52:00.001-05:00

Make a Delicious Difference.

2009-10-19T16:07:00.001-05:00

Hat tip to my longtime friend, Judy, in Chicago.

Freezing Sweet Potatoes.

2009-10-16T18:45:00.004-05:00

Today was the first day in a long time without rain or totally cloudy skies, so I started the day by washing clothes to hang outside.

The two gigantic sweet potatoes that I mentioned on September 3rd have been curing, and it was time to do something with them today. I chose to freeze them because we're going to have a gazillion of others soon. That was a multi-step procedure.

There are several ways, but I chose to boil, slice, freeze. To fit in my largest pot, I had to do some cutting to the elephant man's head. I was able to boil the other one, but chose to freeze it in two separate containers, as my intent was to freeze the equivalent of one sweet potato in each container. After boiling, the skin was removed (to the compost pile) and the sweet potato sliced into what one sweet potato might resemble sliced. THEN, the slices were tossed into a large bowl of water to which lemon juice had been added (think 1/4 c lemon juice to one quart water). This was to preserve color.

I used the same lemony water for every batch. The first time I noticed slices rising to the top, I assumed they were "woody" and tossed them on the compost pile.
Towards the end of the day, MOST rose to the top, so I no longer discarded floaters.

The lemony slices were set on paper towels to drain before freezing.

Made more crockpot granola today also. I took the recipe I'd used to make oven-baked granola (before I learned about the crockpot recipes) and just used the crockpot for it. Six cups of rolled oats plus all the other stuff I added at random just because I thought they'd taste good fit into a 9" high cannister.

The very last batch I put into three-thick paper lunch bags and labeled it "TWO sweet potatoes ... for pie." Em desperately wants me to make sweet potato pie, but I look at our middles and think, "We don't need pie." I'll make it sometime this winter whether we get our middles down or not.

I moan a lot about how the yard's out of control, but some areas are pretty perfect:

Tossing in a picture of Em simply because I can. It's part of a program to get him to smile for pictures.

Blog Action Day - Supporting the environment without spending a dime.

2009-10-15T10:23:00.000-05:00

Today is the day that bloggers concerned about climate change have been asked to write about climate change in some way. The Blog Action Day sponsors offered tips and more tips to break through any writer's block. They also gave us plenty of lead time, despite which I'm writing this at the last minute.

In my first mention of Blog Action Day, on October 1, I mentioned how we are saving money and the environment by getting our electricity from 100% wind. For us, because we live in North Texas, that's a possibility. It may not be where you live, but there might be other ways that you can save money and save the environment at the same time. Since the economy is in the crapper worldwide, I decided to include just a few ways to spend NOTHING and help the environment at the same time.

Use your library instead of spending money and wasting resources on something you might only use once. They’ve got books, CDs, DVDs, magazines and newspapers lined up for you to borrow for free. If there’s something you want that they haven’t got, ask a librarian - they can get it in for you from other libraries, or put it on a purchases list.

On your way to collect your library "purchases", do all the errands you can in that part of town. If you're driving, drive INTENTIONALLY; make each trip as petrol-effective as possible.

Find ways to support environmental causes that don't cost you anything. For instance, for every E-card you send through Care2, you preserve one square foot of rainforest.

If you know of other ways to spend NOTHING and help the environment at the same time or know more organizations that provide you a service for no charge while supporting the environment, please include the information in the comments.

President Obama Awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

2009-10-09T12:44:00.007-05:00

Not too many folks have listened to the representative of the Nobel Committee, apparently, because I see talk all over the internets of "but, he hasn't DONE anything", and "Hope isn't enough!". These folks didn't notice, like my cousin, Jim, who wrote me last year to say that "my guy is NUTZ with all his talk of nuclear nonproliferation." Jim, (just like the Nobel Committee) knew how to check out Obama's website.

Congratulations, Mr. President and good luck to you.

Accepting ...

The day after, inquiring minds want to know WHY Obama was selected. Nobel Representative explains:

Maybe I really HATE gardening.

2009-10-04T14:14:00.005-05:00

I really enjoyed starting the gardens this year (in March). The weather was cool, Ken had rototilled the plots for me, and I could spend just 15 minutes/day pulling out the grasses that really wanted to grow EVERYWHERE. I wasn't even bothered by fire ants. I don't know where they went, but I didn't see ONE.

By No. 1's wedding (end of May), my turnip patch was full of grasses AND fireants which prevented me from removing the grasses without consequence. The peach trees had fruited by then, but the peaches didn't smell like peaches this year, so I didn't even bother to protect them from the birds.

Heavy rain followed by mosquitoes and HOT, HOT weather seemed to team up to prevent me from making any progress in removing the grasses that insisted on growing everywhere in the gardens. The fire ants seemed to multiply until it seemed like any/every attempt to remove the grasses resulted in 25-30 fire ant bites. Then, I got chicken pox, lip fungus, and 25-30 more fire ant bites just trying to pull stuff back so Em could mow around the beds. I don't call that fun.

Squash borers destroyed the zucchini, summer squash, and spaghetti squash, mealybugs infested the heirloom tomato plants as well as watermelon, cantelope, and cucumber that survived the squash borers. Fungus attacked the green beans, opposums have been eating the melons, and now some kind of wasp is boring holes in the ground where I'd planned on planting fall turnips.

Yesterday afternoon, two tween girls came to our door asking if we needed any help with yard work. They had a lawn mower, they said. I told them that I didn't need mowing, but that I had considerable weeds (actually grasses) to be pulled in my gardens out back. They lasted 40 minutes on slow and sloppy, but gave me the impetus to do some of it myself now that cool weather is back. I lasted fifteen minutes on deep and thorough. Then, last night monsoon rains returned (to stay the week). By the time the gardens stop being slushy, the mosquitoes will be thick and the fire ants EVERYWHERE again.

Certainly can't say I saved any money gardening this year. Soil amendments alone WAY exceeded the cost of vegetables in season. Sense of satisfaction was negligible, as well. Early on I had the glow, but nature just had a way of putting me in my place.

At the beginning of the season, I watched the following video on Square Foot Gardening and thought, "That looks too sterile for me. Stuff isn't even grown in dirt!" Right about now: I can't find ONE fault with a garden that produced lots for the family, didn't require any weeding, and didn't involve insect bites.

I support the public option in health insurance reform.

2009-10-03T11:25:00.003-05:00

If you do, as well, take a few minutes to tell Congressman Boehner, who says he's never met an American who did.

http://www.dccc.org/page/s/BoehnerA

Just replace my info with yours and click send.

Blog Action Day - October 15, 2009.

2009-10-01T20:41:00.005-05:00

I've put this on the sidebar, but I'll put it here, as well.

Topic this year is Climate Change, and I'd forgotten (as is my way) to mention that we hit the end of our 6 month contract with Gexa on September 19. Remember back when I posted this?:

[begin quote of article]:

SaveOnGreenEnergy.com offers
100% renewable power
February 12, 2009

SaveOnEnergy.com launched SaveOnGreenEnergy.com to market 100% renewable power, it said yesterday. The new site will mimic the firm's established site where some green power plans were already available but CEO Brent Moore told us yesterday that it makes more sense to market such deals separately.

Consumers that want green power search for it and thus are likely to be drawn to a site with only those products.

"We strongly believe in renewable energy efficiency and feel SaveOnGreenEnergy.com will be extremely well received by customers looking for the best in green and environmentally-aware products," said Moore.

The new site launched yesterday with the firm starting an advertising blitz through the internet and more traditional mediums.

Moore isn't sure if it will achieve the same volume as SaveOnEnergy.com -- that now has commercial offers in 20 states -- but he believes the green site will be a success.

SaveOnGreenEnergy.com is starting in Texas where the parent firm has its roots and hopes to follow the original site on its path to other markets.

The eventual goal is to run in every state with deregulated power and natural gas markets, said Moore.

Firms with residential offers on the site include Green Mountain Energy, Gexa, TXU Energy, First Choice and Bounce Energy.

The commercial retailers are the same as those on the firm's original site: TXU, Reliant, Mid American, Cirro Energy, Glacial Energy, Liberty Power, Star Tex and Gateway.

Customers wanting 100% green power options usually pay a premium for them but Moore sees that changing. His firm hopes competition spurred by the website will help drive prices down as the firms offering green plans realize they can win more volume through the website if they do, he added. Moore saw that happen on the firm's main website.
[end quote of article]

Six months ago, we went with Gexa and got a rate of .125/kwh, lower than that offered by our (at the time) electricity provider, TXU, AND received 100% renewable power, as well. We recently signed with Gexa for 12 months at .105/kwh. Rates for wind keep going down as more folks get on board, and even Em (who had reservations six months ago) agrees that Gexa has served us well the past six months.

I just can't imagine excuses any more for NOT going with clean energy when offered clean alternatives that are LESS expensive than the polluting ones ... even in Texas.

So, mark your calendar for October 15th and start thinking about your contribution to a discussion on climate change.

Corn Tortilla Quiche and Carrot Cake Cookies.

2009-10-01T19:35:00.002-05:00

I'm subscribed to Allrecipes.com's Daily Dish Email newsletter. I'm also subscribed to their Healthy Bites and even their Slow Cooker Email newsletters (both of which are delivered weekly). I get a few other cooking-related newsletters, as well. Sometimes all it takes is an idea to jump-start a kitchen experience and these folks offer me two things I like: 1) the ability to reduce/increase number of portions with all ingredient amounts modified to fit, and 2) the ability to read reviews of people who've tried the recipe and/or modified it to fit either what they had on hand or what they thought they'd like better. Then, like everyone else, I modify to fit what I have on hand or what I think we'd like better.

Last week Em and I grocery shopped and one of the items on sale (with a coupon, as well) was flour tortillas. Em didn't think we needed to buy them because we have tortillas in the freezer, but I told him we have corn tortillas and I wanted easy access to flour tortillas, too. I haven't made corn tortillas from scratch yet, but I have made flour tortillas. As much as I like the homemade ones more than the cheap on sale with a coupon ones, I appreciate the convenience factor.

Today's daily recipe was Corn Tortilla Quiche. I thought about those corn tortillas in the freezer and took them out to defrost just long enough to pry 6 or 7 of them off the stack, returning the rest to the freezer.

As usual, I read a bunch of reviews and did my thing, which was to use about half a pound of hot (spicy) pork sausage, about 3/4 c frozen spinach (the last of a package), 3/4 c (the last of a package) frozen shoestring french fries (diced), half can of rotel (drained), cool whip instead of cream, only 1 cup cheese (all sharp cheddar), 1 T of cottage cheese (all I had) with the rest of the 1/2 cup sour cream. I'm not a fan of corn tortillas [That's Em's favorite], but I really enjoyed the taste of this quiche. We ate half of it for Em's before-work meal. Something to think about if you need a recipe that cleans out the frig.

Just because we were talking about it when No. 1 came over to go for a walk on Tuesday, I made two dozen cake-mix cookies this afternoon, as well(using expired cake mixes). I added a tsp of baking powder and a tsp of baking soda to the mix in case it needed more lift, but otherwise stuck to Mary Hunt's cake mix cookies recommends. My balls were more like 2" than one, so I baked them for 15 minutes, and used parchment paper because every time I read "on ungreased pan", I know they're gonna stick and you can see that they did.

Tasted pretty good. I chose a carrot cake mix, used vanilla for the extract, and put powdered sugar on them just like Mary suggested. Made 2 dozen large cookies which tasted much like my grandmother's gingerbread cookies. Next time I think I'll try frosting them.

Pocket Diapers.

2009-09-27T18:45:00.003-05:00

No. 1 is expecting a girl in February and I'm finding myself thinking about things I'd not previously thought about ... like diapers.

From an environmentalist point of view, and maybe even a cheapskating point of view, it seems to me that pocket diapers fit the bill.

Drybees offer pockets for purportedly cheaper than some others, but lots of options exist, ranging from fleece to hemp to bamboo.

BumGenius was the first brand I'd read about, and they seem to be the most popular amongst reviewers.

The principle of an attractive outer pant with a disposable inner "pad" was already commonplace in Norway when No. 1 was 14 months old. *I* was caught a little off-guard, though, as I didn't have an outer pant to accommodate the pads my family offered. Simple enough to buy one.

I'm really trying not to influence No. 1 in any of the decisions that come with motherhood, so whatever she decides to do/use will be fine with me. [gulp]

Great Online CookBook.

2009-09-27T09:52:00.003-05:00

Em forwarded an Email from someone he'd worked with that had absolutely the best array of crockpot recipes one could imagine. I traced it back to a sublink of a group that's (for the most) broken up now, but agreed to keep the cookbook online indefinitely.

I've added the link to the sidebar and will add it here, as well.

Check out the Crock Pottery section. AWESOME! What CAN'T be made in a crockpot?

Home Baked Bread.

2009-09-25T17:05:00.003-05:00

We just got home yesterday from another trip to Nevada. This trip was to West Wendover. I blogged about our last West Wendover trip here, and this week's trip was pretty much a complete repeat of that one. We had lots of fun, it was really cheap, and had trouble in the Love Field parking lot. THIS time, we couldn't find our car.

Before we left, I'd been jonesing for some homemade bread, but Em didn't want me to make it until we got back. So, today we did the same thing we always do when I make bread starting with me asking him where he stored the grain mill. I've been baking bread for several years, but I've never been able to get high bread. I think one reason is that my bread pans are 5" wide instead of 4" wide. The bread spreads out sideways. Another reason is that I ALWAYS make wheat bread because we just don't like the gummy white stuff.

Diane made some really pretty loaves recently and sent me the recipe which I modified to use half freshly ground hard white wheat flour and half unbleached white store-bought stuff. I just tasted the end piece with butter. It was sturdy, but the next piece in really resembled Wonder Bread in consistency. I think you can get away with half hard white wheat flour without anyone noticing, Diane. I'll let ya know how the half hard red wheat turns out.

That was the last of my hard white wheat berries, so I ordered more today, along with a few new bread pans. I put tinfoil inside the one pan today because the surface finish is chipping off.

If you want to try the recipe for Wonderbread:

Diane's Beautiful Looking Bread

2 cups warm water 1/3 c sugar 2 T yeast 1.5 t salt 1/4 c oil 6 c flour

Dissolve sugar in water. Stir in yeast. Proof till foamy. *
Mix salt and oil into yeast.
Mix in flour 1 C at a time.
Knead 10 minutes. [Both Diane and I use our Kitchen Aid mixers to knead]
Cover and allow to rise until doubled (30-45 minutes)
Turn out onto a floured surface and knead out the air. Divide in half, roll into loaves with seam on bottom. Put in oiled or nonstick pans and squish the dough into the corners of the pans. Let rise 30 minutes or so, until over pan tops. Bake 30 minutes @ 350. Butter tops once done.

* On the chance that the bulk yeast I keep in the freezer (2 years old now) was responsible for my wheat loaves not getting very high, I bought a 3-pak at the local grocery. I had one pack of that left, but it expired last month. I tried it anyway (as is my way), but it didn't proof. My bulk yeast proofed beautifully.

I'm going to experiment more with the basic recipe, adding more wheat flour, using hard red wheat, using honey instead of sugar, adding gluten, dough enhancer, buttermilk, potato flakes, etc.