Filed under: Project 365, food, kids, sports | Tags: Christmas decorations, gas, Project 365, sushi, Wii injury
Day 7: Jan. 7, 2009
I always drag my feet when it comes to putting up the Christmas decorations. The house just seems naked after all the garland, lights, and decorations come down – it’s all kind of depressing. PHDD: Post-Holiday Decoration Disappointment. The corner by the bookcase looks empty, the mantle is bare, and the staircase isn’t nearly as much fun without the twinkle lights lighting the way. Plus, I have to box up homemade decorations like these that Travis brought home this year – a tissue paper snowman and string art tree. Until next year…
Day 8: Jan. 8, 2009
Unleaded at Costco: $1.51 a gallon. I filled up the tank for just under $30, and took a picture so I could show it to the kids in 20 years, and blather on about how back in my day, the gas was under $10 a gallon, and we actually had to push our carts through the aisles at Costco rather than zip around in our newfangled HoverRounds. I’m not sure what exactly I’ll be proving – that gas wasn’t always $12.49 a gallon (at least it wasn’t for a brief period in 2009), or that we used to put this expensive stuff called gasoline in our cars. I’m hoping it’s the latter.
Day 9: Jan 9, 2009
Our Girl Scout troop went to Young Chefs Academy to work on a cooking badge. And I didn’t have to plan a thing.
Day. 10: Jan 10, 2009
Abby had a friend spend the night, and none of us wanted pizza or leftovers, so we went to one of our favorite sushi places – Origami. That yummy looking roll in the middle is called the Bob Marley – salmon, avocado and jalepeno rolled up with fresh tuna and a spicy sauce on top. Seriously good. And they have those nifty low tables where you stick your legs into the little hole in the floor – the kids love that part. And by kids, I mean me.
Day 11: Jan 11, 2009
Charming*
*Not mine
Day 12: Jan 12, 2009
Travis got a little too enthusiastic playing the Wii on Friday, and slammed his thumb into the stool that holds up the sensor bar. Since I wasn’t home to rush him to the emergency room or call Life Flight (according to Neil), he didn’t see a doctor until Sunday. The doctor was only mildly horrified that we had waited 2 and a half days, and was also shocked that it wasn’t broken at the joint, since it was roughly twice as large as his other thumb, and black and blue. He thinks he saw a chip at the tip of the bone, but there’s nothing you can do for that anyway, so we wound up with a $300 splint.
Travis was pretty stoked that he would have the perfect excuse to give up writing for a while, but his teacher wasn’t having any of that, and told him to do his homework with his other hand. I didn’t think it was possible to dread homework anymore than I do now, but oh, how wrong I was…
Filed under: Project 365, food, kids, plants | Tags: cursive, kids, orchid, Project 365, roach
Project 365, still going strong on day 6. Not impressed, eh?
Day 4: Jan. 4, 2009
Today is our 12th anniversary. Neil is in Phoenix, watching the Longhorns play Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, and I spent my day vacuuming up Christmas tree needles, working on the mountain of clothes in the laundry room, buying earthworms for a science project and trying to coax them back to life, and cleaning up puke from Abigail (who mysteriously threw up right before the earthworm prodding began).
While we were at Walmart – my least favorite place in the entire world, but the only store that had (1) a plastic box for the earthworm habitat, (2) 3 flashlights for $1 each, (3) printer paper, (4) potting soil, (5) colored Sharpies, and (6) earthworms – I ran across this orchid. Orchids are my all-time favorite flower, mainly because they don’t go into a vase, they aren’t red roses, and I can keep them alive for longer than 2 weeks, although all bets are off after that point. This particular one had these cute little clusters of flowers, looked healthy, and was only $10 (probably because it was mass produced by 4 year-olds in China), so I bought it and said Happy Anniversary to me!
Day 5: Jan. 5, 2009
Santa left this way-too-lifelike roach (with pull-back rolling action!) in Travis’ stocking, and he has delighted in giving me the heebie jeebies by leaving it on the kitchen counter or in my bed. Today, he wanted to go out to eat for the sole purpose of freaking out the waiter, and I thought that sounded like a fine idea, especially since I haven’t bought groceries since before Christmas. We decided to go to Chili’s, and luckily our waiter was a total jokester himself, so he appreciated the basket of fries with a side of roach.
Day 6: Jan. 6, 2009
3rd grade is the year for cursive, and Travis, who has always been a bit challenged with fine-motor skills (maybe because he’s a lefty?), is less than amused with having to learn an entire new alphabet, especially after he just got the first one down. And to make matters worse, he didn’t get the alternate list (because they didn’t have school on Monday, so he didn’t take a pretest), so he has to practice spelling words that he already knows. Also, did I mention that he hates cursive? Because if I forgot, let me tell you right now – cursive is dumb and stupid and everyone should just write in print or learn how to type. I helped him with a few words, and Abby, in a rare display of sisterly love and patience, sat down with him and helped him with the rest (writing the words in cursive and then helping him practice, then write them on his spelling sheet). I’m sure this must have been in exchange for doing her chores for the next two weeks, or giving him all her money, or something along those lines.
Either way, he recovered nicely after that, and we had an enjoyable evening until they agreed to play Uno Attack, and Abby backed out at the last second (just to piss him off, I’m pretty sure). This was followed up by a spectacular show of grumpiness, where he stomped around the house, arms crossed and brows furrowed, until he finally plopped down on top of Moose’s kennel and farted really loudly. For some reason, this totally ruined the mad-as-hell aura, and Abby and I both burst out laughing.
Because without you, I wouldn’t be able to torment my kids with obligatory bluebonnet photos every year.
I usually resort to outright bribery to get decent pictures, and even then, it’s pretty iffy.
We skip school take a “mental health day” once a year, and I always time it for a pretty day in April, when the bluebonnets are at their peak. We do other fun stuff, but pictures are always part of the deal. If they don’t cooperate, they go back to school. I take my bribes very seriously.
This year’s mental health day happened to coincide with Travis coming down with strep (again), and an eye doctor appointment for Abby. Travis has been on the new antibiotics for 24 hours, so he’s feeling just fine, but he couldn’t go to school since he was running a fever yesterday. And since I was planning on picking Abby up early anyway, I decided to just keep them both home and have a little fun.
We went to Schlotzysky’s for lunch, where the kids debated who was more “talented” over their pizzas and lemonades.
Travis: I’m really good at baseball. You can’t even throw.
Abby: Well, at least I can tie my shoes.
Travis: And I have more AR (accelerated reader) points.
Abby: Soooo! I’m more “adulty.” (This is where I just about spit out my diet coke.)
After lunch, we went off in search of a bluebonnet patch, and then to see Horton Hears a Who. And before we headed to Abby’s eye appointment, we stopped to enjoy a cupcake or 3.
Abby immediately licked all of the icing off the top. That way, she contaminated the entire cupcake, successfully deterring any and all sharing. Not very “adulty,” if you ask me.
While Travis, appalled at Abby’s greediness, took a bite and offered me a taste. And then reveled in his favored child status for approximately 2 more minutes, until he farted loud enough to scare the grackles away.
Mmmmm….doesn’t that sound delish?? Yum-o! (Extra bonus points if you can figure out who I’m channeling.)
We don’t typically do much for April Fool’s day, so I figured that dessert for dinner would be totally unexpected. And if it looked like boring old dinner instead of a fun dessert – even better! I dug around for ideas on the internet, and found this recipe from Family Fun.
Basically, you pre-bake the pie crust and fill it with vanilla pudding. The “veggies” are Starburst candies, and the “potatoes” are chunks of bananas. It looks eerily like the real thing, especially since it’s cooked in it’s own litte pie tin.
The whole thing only took about 20 minutes to put together – and I was multitasking during part of that, making an actual meal for Neil and me, since I didn’t think he’d be too thrilled with pudding for dinner. The hardest part was shooing the kids out of the kitchen every 2 minutes. I finally told them to ride their bikes, shoved them out the door, and locked it behind them. That worked for about 3 minutes, until someone had to use the bathroom.
When I brought the pot pies to the table, they looked like this:
Abby immediately sighed and rolled her eyes and started huffing around the kitchen about how she HATES pot pie and chicken and pie crust. Oh, and veggies too. Grrrr…. Then she took a bite.
She dramatically stated that at LEAST she liked the crust. I told her I really thought she’d like the inside too. She poked around for a minute or so, then tested it, while asking what the chunks were. I told her “carrots, peas, and potatoes” right about the time she tasted the vanilla pudding – and she promptly spit the whole mouthful out!! Neil and I started cracking up, and she finally realized it was an April Fool’s dinner, and finished off the entire pie.
Travis isn’t nearly as picky, so he dug right in and figured it out immediately. They were both pretty thrilled that they got to eat dessert for dinner, and I didn’t have to hear a bunch of complaining about dinner. We might be having pudding pot pies more often! Think they’d notice if I sneaked some real veggies in there?
Neil and I had this totally serious, non-foolish dish from Cooking Light.
Chicken Orzo Salad with Goat Cheese
I used rotisserie chicken, since that was even easier (and tastier) than dealing with those pre-cooked chicken breasts. And I didn’t happen to have any “prechopped” red onions (does anyone???), so I had to chop some myself. Other than that, I pretty much followed the recipe.
It was good, but could have used a few cloves of garlic. And possibly a little more salt. That would elevate it to great / repeater status. Ok, the “repeater” part is unlikely, since there are approximately 3 recipes I repeat on a somewhat regular basis (like more than twice a year). But anyway, it could be a repeater, with a little help. It would also be tasty with feta instead of goat cheese, for all you goat cheese haters out there.
Oh, and by the way? You might want to check your zipper.
Friday night at our house only means one thing. Ok, two things. Here’s the first:
Because we’re so hi-class. See how it says 1 box = 4 bottles? I think Target must be lying.
And the 2nd thing?
What does it say about you when your pizza is classier than your wine?
We don’t do this exact pizza every Friday night – we like to change it up. I make a batch of pizza dough in the bread machine, and split it up 3 ways (not exactly equal – Neil and I share, and the kids make their own). Normally, we grill them outside on our Big Green Egg, but Neil was gone tonight, and I didn’t want to deal with running back and forth between a raging fire and the kitchen, so I just threw them in a 500 degree oven on top of the trusty pizza stone. I definitely prefer the grill – we can crank it up to about 650, and it really makes for an outstanding crackly, bubbly crust.
This one was brushed with truffle oil, and topped with crumbled bacon, goat cheese, and caramelized onions. I wanted to put some arugula on there, but forgot to buy it. I did have some leftover green onions, so I sprinkled those on just for a little color. And for something completely different, I added a few tiny dolllops of fig preserves on a slice. I wasn’t sure how that would turn out, but North makes a similar pizza that I LOVE, so I figured it was worth a shot. Ohhhhh…and was it ever delicious! I loved the unexpected sweetness paired with the salty bacon and goat cheese. It just doesn’t get much better than that.
The kids like to shape their own dough, and they usually come up with some interesting creations. Sadly, the dough designs don’t always translate well once the pizzas are cooked. Take, for example, Travis’ pizza from tonight:
You might be thinking – that’s a pretty tasty looking…um…fish? Well, it started out as a baseball trophy, including the little dude on top holding the ball. I know, it’s hard to see it now, but believe me – it looked just like that before I threw it in the oven.
