Just What Was He Thinking?

I originally shared this story on another blog that I used to write, entitled "A Mom's View".  This post is a TRUE story - you can't make this stuff up - That I published on July 11, 2011.  Enjoy this blast from the past!




I found a fabulous book at the library two weeks ago.  Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs.


We loved the book!  The kids have cooked many recipes out of here.  Each one is more awesome than the last.  I've tried a couple of new things I've never tried before: spring rolls and tabouleh.  I was thinking that I might buy this book and add it to our collection.

But then, son #2 got in a silly mood.  (He is 16, so don't give him too much latitude, he should know better.)   Do you see that big red circle on the top right corner of the book?  Here's a picture of that circle close up and personal.  Make certain that you read the words closely:

Do you see where this is going yet?  He stuck the book in the oven.  At the time, the oven was off.  He forgot about it.  I unwittingly came along a couple of days later and turned the oven on to preheat.








A few minutes into the pre-heat cycle, I smelled something hideous coming from the oven.  Snatched the oven door open, and pulled the steaming hot book out of the oven. 

The interior of the book separated from the cover.  The glue on the binding just melted away.  The stitches on the side of the book are intact. The pages are still intact, though.

But take a look at the back cover.  Do you see how the plastic cover on the book has melted and is peeling off like your skin after a bad sunburn?  The entire cover is suffering from that kind of damage.

 Do you see that barcode?  It did the shrinky dink thing.  I had thought I'd be able to just pull the barcode off, and attach it to a new book and return it without ever having to admit to the library staff that the kid had actually "cooked the book".

I guess I AM buying a copy of the book after all....

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Random Pictures

Sunrise!

The gorgeous therapy dog visiting Mom in the hospital.  He makes his rounds every Wednesday!  Happy dog, he loves making others happy!

For Halloween? I dressed up as the crazy cat lady - complete with catnip mice pinned to my cat shirt!  This is my basket of kitties (and cat books) that I had at the reference desk with me!

A cow jeep in the parking lot at our polling location on voting day!

Now THIS is a purse!  Check out all of that glitter!!!  

Time on my Hands

Mom has been in the hospital for the last 6 weeks.  She's been in the ICU, the CCU, the surgical floor, and the regular floor.

I've spent a lot of time with her, but for much of that time, she's been sound asleep.

So, what have I been doing to help pass the time?

I've been a Girl Scout leader for years.  My girls are Seniors in High School this year.  Over the years, we, the parents, have been taking pictures of events that we have attended and uploading them to an online share site.  I had this great thought about a year ago.  Why not make scrapbooks for the girls to give to them when we have our end of scouting celebration in May of next year? 


I debated making this particular gem digitally, but I have a lot of memorabilia from the years that I wanted to put into their albums.  The only way to easily do that is to scrap the album "old school" style.

So, I've been ordering the prints from the share site over the past year.  I found a great deal on albums at my local chain craft store, and I began scrapping when the opportunity presented itself.

When Mom's hospital journey began, I really began putting time into those albums.  When I was home, I would sit on the floor, spread my mess all over, and do the cutting and the pasting.  I found the actual creative work to be cathartic.  It helped me deal with my anxieties over the fact that I can't be in two places at once. Honestly, let's face it - the rest of my world is spinning out of control, and this is one thing I can control.  I'm pretty sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with this chain of events.

This is the mess of scrap book stuff all over the floor!

I also added blank papers to the pages in the albums to go back and journal later.

Keep in mind - these are very simple albums.  The most cropping I did of the photos was with a slicer to cut out extra "fluff" that didn't belong so that I could fit more pictures on a page.  Think rectangles and squares.  There are no fancy shapes in these albums.  I had started this project over a year ago, but I honestly hadn't made a lot of progress on this in the last few months.  Within the first two weeks of Mom's admission, I finished the picture part of the albums.  (I do only have 5 girls in my troop, so don't be too impressed with this.  I don't think I would have undertaken a project like this for more than 5 girls.)

When I finished the albums, I put them all in a crate in the back of my van, along with some acid free pens.  When I arrived at the hospital, I would pull out one of the albums, and the pens.  When Mom was sleeping, I'd pull the pages out of their protective sleeves and journal on the blank squares.

A completed journaling box.

The nice thing about having that paper scrapbook with me is that I was able to work quietly and not disturb Mom while she slept.  When she was awake, I was able to share the pictures with her.  Actually, it's been a pretty big help in keeping her interested and engaged in the midst of all of the health issues and the chaos and uncertainty of the hospital.

High School English

I have been pondering high school English recently.

We live in one of the best school systems in the state.  We consistently rank in the top high schools in the nation.  And yet....

I was looking at my daughter's high school English books that she has read over the course of the past 4 years.  This year, she is a Senior, and she is taking her English classes at the Community College, so I'm not counting this year's English classes.  They are college level classes, and the reading she is doing is not a part of the high school curriculum.

These are the books she has read over the first three years of high school:

1984, by George Orwell.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by
The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard
Glass Houses, by Jeanette Walls
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell

3 years of High School English.  And this is her reading list. 

I am a proud product of the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools.  4 years of English instruction at the hands of the most intense English program ever.  At that time, we didn't have GT classes.  No Honors classes.  We had one AP English class, and you had to test into it.  There were 24 open spots in that class, with one massive English test standing in between you and the AP class.  I did not qualify for one of those spots.  (Yes, I am still bitter about that.)

We had one level of English classes.  Remember, no Honors, no GT, no Basic level or Academic classes.  Everyone was expected to read the same books over the course of their four years of high school.  I had my doubts that we all read the same books until I went off to college, and met people from tiny little towns in the Southern Corner of Virginia who had read the same books we had, and some of them had better insights into those books than we'd had.

What books did we read?

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The Great Gatsby by William Faulkner
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

The Odyssey by Homer
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriett Beecher Stowe
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski
The Raven, The Tell Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcom X
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes

There were more.  I remember reading, analyzing, and writing over and over again.  We saw several of the plays performed on stage.  We'd compare authors, time periods, and genres. I remember searching for foreshadowing, imagery, by heavens I remember analyzing the heck out of every single thing we read.  I don't know it we can say that I ever successfully learned to how to read and write, but I can turn out something that needs to be written in a very timely manner. 

I remember cursing my 11th grade English teacher at the time because  of the quantity of essays we had to write for that man.   I can't tell you how often I have thanked him for that since then.  At the time, I hated every minute of it.  Now, I am eternally grateful for the skills that he gave me that have served me throughout my life.

Take another look at that list of books that my child has read in the course of her high school career. 
Seven books.  SEVEN!!!  And how many of those would count as classic literature?

Take a look at my list.  Keep in mind, that's just what I recall off the top of my head.  There was more.  So much more.  When the reading lists came out at the end of the school year, we all got as much of a jump as we possibly could on the readings before school started.

I'm concerned.  I am beginning to think that we, as a society are beginning to lose some common ground and devaluing our education that has been the pride of our nation since it's founding.  A free education, guaranteed, that provides a common set of values and knowledge that will give us all a commonality with which to communicate with each other.  The ability to read a written work, analyze what is written, and search for deeper meaning.  Hmm... I think I've used those skills over and over again since high school.  Are our children being taught to analyze, to think critically about what they read, and to relate what they are reading to our current society and relate how this is relevant to us now, and what these insights say about us, as a society?  Have they been taught to think about how our world has changed, for better or worse since then, and what they can do to bring about change?

(An aside here... at the Community College this fall, she has already read 5 novels since September.  There are 2 more on the list that they are expected to read before the end of the semester, plus a free choice book for the final analysis essay.  Sad thing is, that's college level work now.  Back in our day, that was expected of high school students.)

There's a problem here... a symbol of deeper problem that is disturbing me on a very basic level.  I wish I knew what to do about this.

Investment Cooking

Have you heard of this?  Some people call it Investment Cooking, others call it Freezer Cooking, others call it Once a Month Cooking.

Whatever you call it, the premise is the same. You invest some time & materials in cooking or preparing a large quantity of food at once. You stick it in your freezer, and when you are pressed for time, you can pull something out of the freezer and pop it in the oven or slow cooker and have a quick and easy dinner on the table with minimal effort on your part.

Over the past month, we've been through every extra casserole and every frozen dinner I had in my freezer.  Over the past couple of days, I've been working on some serious investment cooking for my freezer.

Last week, I went through my recipes for freezer cooking and casseroles. I put together a shopping list of items needed. Saturday I went grocery shopping. Sunday, I engaged in the chopping and slicing and dicing.

Monday after work, I picked up 40 pounds of chicken. That's right - 40 pounds.  Everything was in one box, and it was divided into 10 pound quantities.

Once I got home, I had to move fast.

10 pounds went into the slow cooker for 8 hours. This chicken is destined to be shredded and then packed into 2 cup quantities and put into the freezer to be tossed into recipes or salads at a later date.

I love my slow cooker!

The second 10 pounds, I froze in vacuum sealed packages - each package contained 1 chicken breast, and was frozen raw so that I can toss it into recipes at a later date.

Vacuum sealed and ready to freeze.

The last 20 pounds, I divided into slow cooker freezer meals.  Terriyaki Chicken, Cilantro Lime Chicken and Lemon Chicken were tossed into gallon size zipper bags. This is where all of Sundays' prep came in. The carrots, onions, bell peppers, etc. were already sliced.   It was a simple matter to measure and toss ingredients into the bags.  I'm not going to post the recipes here.  You can do a quick Google search for any of these recipes and come back with hundreds of recipes.

Terriyaki Chicken kits, ready to go in the freezer.

Since I was working with raw chicken, time was of the essence.  I did not want to leave the chicken out and have some sort of fearsome bacteria move into the chicken, but I also didn't have enough space in my refrigerator to hold this much chicken.

8 hours later, the chicken in the slow cooker was finished. It was after 9:00 when I finished, and I was tired. I put the chicken into a large 13 x 9 inch pan that has a lid.  It was here that I discovered a nifty little trick - chicken, still hot from the cooker shredded effortlessly with a wooden spoon. I'd like to tell you it was some great insight that lead me to this discovery.  But no.  I was attempting to shove the last of the chicken into the pan so that the lid would fit when I discovered how nicely that chicken fell apart under the spoon.  I added several cups of the chicken broth from the slow cooker to the tray of chicken. My hope was to keep the chicken moist until I have time to deal with it.

I crammed the lid on the chicken, stuffed it into the fridge and went to bed. When I got home from work today, I set 2 cups of shredded chicken aside for tonight's dinner.  I made that into pulled BBQ chicken.

The rest of the chicken, I measured out into 2 cup portions in freezer bags and froze them for later. I'm looking at more pulled chicken, chicken tacos, and chicken for soup and casseroles.

So, I now have 10 portions of cooked chicken. 10 portions of frozen raw chicken, and 10 frozen slow cooker meals.

One evenings worth of work, and I have some serious peace of mind.

A worthwhile investment of my time.

Election Day

No matter whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, get out and do your duty and VOTE!!!

Our country is the most unique experiment in the history of the world.

We are a democracy.  Every election cycle, the people have the opportunity to get out and vote. You can stay with the status quo, or you can vote for change.  This unique experiment in Democracy has been going strong for over 225 years now.

But, unless if you get yourself over to the polls, you can not vote.

And if you don't vote, then you have NO right to complain about the current state of affairs in Washington or in your home state.

Please, if you didn't already get out and vote during Early Voting, get yourself over to the polls tomorrow and exercise your Constitutional right.

Source:  http://paronline.com/political-advocacy/local/voting-stickers/

My Resolutions and Accomplishments

Accomplishments:
We started up the wood stove this week.  We have electric heat, and we try and hold off as long as possible on turning on the heater.  This week, we fired up the wood stove.  All of those branches that came down over the winter last year are helping to keep our house cozy this fall!

Mom has been doing better, and the doctors are beginning to talk about releasing her to Rehab soon.  Hooray!  It's a step forward!

The farm stands in the area are closing down for the season over the next couple of weeks.  I've found some absolutely fantastic deals on produce at the stands.  I am working on a peck of bell peppers I picked up this morning for $10.   First I wash them, then slice them, then I freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet and store them in a large, gallon size freezer bag during the winter.

I'm even working on boxing up the multitude of items I have pulled out of the basement over the last few months.  The White Elephant Sale at church is coming up soon, and I am determined to have a hefty load of stuff to donate to the sale!

Resolutions:
Back at the beginning of the year, I set a list of resolutions that I wanted to accomplish over the course of this year.  Since it's the beginning of a new month, it's time to check in and see how I'm doing on them!

1) 365 Grateful.
This is a project where you write or take pictures of things you are thankful for.  I have kept a gratitude journal, but with the arrival of fall and the autumn leaves, I have switched to more pictures.  I've been posting them on both Instagram and Flickr.  I don't post every day, but I do post something every few days.  I LOVE fall!

 2) Lose 10 pounds.
I've lost a total of 22 pounds.  I was thrilled to see I could lose more than 10!  I now have this crazy goal of losing 3 more pounds before the end of the year so that I can say I've lost 25 pounds this year.  That's an awesome goal!

3) Run
I believe my motto has become "Only if something is chasing me."  Between the death of my son's friend at the end of September, and the horrendous health scare we've had with my Mom this month, I really have not gotten out at all.  When I'm in the hospital, I do walk up and down the stairs.  I keep telling myself the food in the hospital is better than most things, but I really don't think it is....  I did get out this morning with hubby.  We were going to walk around the lake, but it is cold and rainy, so we compromised and found a mall to go walk in.

4) Get Out of Debt
Working on this.  I set up a fantastic spread sheet over this past week that I posted about .  I am hoping to track down the last of the little money suckers so that we can get the mortgage and other little bills paid off.  We also have a Honda Civic with 200,000 miles on it.  I'd really like to get a new car soon - and put down a significant chunk of it in cash - so we're not financing any part of a loan.

5) Finish Cleaning Out the Basement
BWah-Ha-Ha.  I should just bring a dumpster in and dump it all.  A lot of stuff is headed out to the White Elephant Sale later this month.

6) Finish Oldest Child's Quilt
 I've spent most of the last month in Virginia, at the hospital with Mom, or driving back and forth between here and Virginia.  No progress has been made on this thing.  I don't think this is going to end up being a Christmas present this year. 

7) Spend More Time With My Family
 I've spent a lot of time with my family.  Not with my children, but with my Mom, my sister, her kids, and some of Mom's sisters and brothers.  What an unexpected and wonderful gift it's been to spend so much time with people I rarely get to spend a lot of time with!   Got to treasure that. Mom is 83 - and her siblings are anywhere from 65-98.  Who knows when we'll all get together again?


8) Finish the Book I Keep Saying I'm Going to Write!
 The book itself is written.  I've edited it.  Right now, I'm in the process of attempting to format it for self-publishing.  The problem is that I've included charts and tables, and I'm not certain how they'll translate.  Gotta spend a little more time working on this.  I have some gorgeous full color pictures I've added to the book, but I'm pretty sure that nobody wants to buy an overpriced book for a small handful of color pictures.  I'm just going to have to deal with black and white.

9) Finish the Hallway Bathroom

 This is a recurring theme.  I really want to get this fixed, and I really want to pay cash for it.  This is part of why I'm working on the spreadsheet and finding the money suckers.  I need to root them out so that I can get the money set aside to fix that bathroom! 

10) Get Back into my Music
Done and done.  Singing in the church choir, weekly.  Love practice and love singing.  Both husband and I are singing in the choir.  It's where we met, so it's a little nostalgic to be doing it again.

I'm making some serious progress on this list.  I've only got two months left to go before the end of the year.  I am beginning to think I'm not going to find the cash for the hallway bathroom before the end of the year, and I'm not going to get the basement cleaned out before the end of the year.  We'll see.  If I'm not making multiple trips down to Virginia every two days, and every weekend, I might see some progress made on the cleaning!