Bored Jars

I just typed up a list of things for a bored jar for the kids.  Now, when they come to me bored, I can direct them to the bored jar.  I looked around online and on Pinterest (mainly on Pinterest, it's made me lazy) for ideas to put in the jar.  What's with all the moms who included stuff like "bake a cake for a friend" and other, highly involved mom activities.  My bored jar is stuff to direct the kids away from me.  I'm not the one who is bored.  I don't need to drop everything I'm doing to help bake a cake because my kids are bored.  I suppose maybe those moms have older kids.  I could *probably* set Princess Sparkley loose with some sort of mix and not have it turn out horribly.  Except she won't break an egg.  And she can't put things in and out of the oven.  So... still, mom-involved.

 

Some of the activities in the jar are fun.  Some are not fun.  After I typed up "clean a toilet," PS, who had been reading over my shoulder ran off and had a frantic, whispered conversation with Buddy on the stairs.  Maybe they'll never tell me they are bored again for fear they'll get stuck cleaning a toilet.  And for that, the bored jar will have been worth it.

The Greatest Sugar Cookie: Cookie 13

I suppose this sugar cookie isn't really in the running since it's a chocolate cut-out cookie.  But I feel like I should at least mention it.

Last time I made the Darth Vader cookies, I just dyed the dough black.  Eating a black cookie is a little gross (except to Little Guy).  This time I made a chocolate cookie following this recipe.

I didn't love them unfrosted.  They were a little too... unsweetened chocolate tasting to me.  I spread some vanilla frosting from a tub on one of the cookies and that was a huge improvement for me, sweetened it up.  Sort of like frosting on a chocolate flavored graham cracker.

Plus, I really hate baking cookies that you can't tell if they are done by their color.  These cookies baked for their alloted time, came out of the oven and went back to looking unbaked, so I stuck them back in for a few more minutes, probably over baking them. 

The Greatest Sugar Cookie: Cookie 12

I think what started my obsession with sugar cookies was a trip to Utah when I was a kid, and a gas station that sold these individually wrapped, enormous Granny B pink sugar cookies.  I was old enough that I was a bit disturbed to read the nutritional label and discover that each cookie had a ridiculously high level of grams of fat.  I still devoured them.  Yum!  Since then, the Lofthouse or Lofthouse-style cookie than can be found at any store, decorated for any holiday, has been my substitute for Granny B's.  But after making all these sugar cookies in my search for the greatest one, I'm not really sure the thick, crumbly cookies like this are my favorite or not.  They're good, don't get me wrong.  But maybe not my preferred sugar cookie.

That being said, I found a recipe on Pinterest for Loft-house style cookies so I made a batch for our homeschool Valentine's Day party. (And, while looking up Granny B, I've found some copycat recipes as well.  My search is never ending!)

They were okay.  Not fabulous.  Not bad.  Jed described them of having a dense, cake-like consistency.  The kids enjoyed them, but I don't think they'd turn down a frosted sugar cookie no matter what.  The homeschool party loved them (two moms requested the recipe).  They are definitely thicker and fluffier than any of the other cookies I've tried.  And they definitely tasted better on day two at the party, all frosted up, than they did right after I made them.  If you like thick, fluffier sugar cookies, this might be your recipe.  I'm starting to think that everyone is going to love a different cookie, so this search might only benefit me.

Here's Little Guy at the party with his cookie all frosted up.

The Greatest Sugar Cookie: Cookie 11

I know, I know. You probably thought I'd given up on this search.  But I keep finding different recipes and I figure I might as well try them.  I made these for Little Guy's Doggy party as a dog bone, never got around to frosting them and only took a pathetic picture of one cookie.  BUT... I planned ahead and knew I had to take a treat to church the next day, so I only made one sheet of dog bone shaped cookies and the rest I made cute and little, frosted up and sprinkled for the women at church.

These were delicious.  I sort of feel like part of their deliciousness was that we ate them the next day, so they had time to moisten up, or something.  If that makes sense.  And, I just used a tub of frosting from the store so no crazy frosting fiasco (frosting is not my specialty). Jed and the kids agreed that these were DE-licious!

The recipe is actually from a friend from our Kansas ward, Mandy, and her blog is private.  Hopefully she doesn't mind if I share the recipe here:

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
2 1/2 - 3 cups flour

Directions:
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Mix well. Add baking powder and salt. Gradually add flour. The dough should be a little sticky. Flour a surface and roll out dough to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick, adding flour as needed so it doesn't stick to the surface or your rolling pin. Cut into desired shapes. Bake 350 for 8 to 10 minutes. Do not over bake. Frost as desired.

Our 2012 Valentines

Little Guy's Valentine is the Darth Vader cookie. We used this chocolate roll-out cookie recipe (review coming soon) and Buddy's Star Wars cookie cutters.  I stole the phrase "Come to the dark side, we have cookies" from a vinyl lettered sign a friend of my sister-in-law gave to her.  I've been trying to come up with an excuse for my own such sign, but we (kids aside) aren't really that into Star Wars.  Then again, neither is my sister-in-law.  I forgot to make the kids each write their names (except for Buddy), so I had Little Guy draw on a red light saber.

Buddy loved this Swedish Fish Valentine idea, but since we homeschool, and our Valentine's Day party is with other homeschoolers, the "same school" phrase was a stretch.  My Facebook friends came through for me though with a handful of suggestions:

Of all the fish in the sea, you're the one for me.
Hope your Valentine's day goes swimmingly.
You've o-fish-olly stole me heart.
No need to fish for compliments this Valentine's Day, you ROCK!
I'm sweed-en you!
What a catch!
You're Fintastic!
You've got me Hooked!
Best Fishes for a great Valentine's Day!
A Swede treat for you!
I got you a fish for Valentine's Day. And it doesn't even stink!
Fishing for compliments? Here is one - you do swimmingly.
Row on over to sea me some time.
This isn't your typical fishy valentine.
Halibut you be mine valentine? Jed came up with a Napoleon Dynamite reference "I caught you a delicious bass" and wanted to include a little drawing of Napoleon. Buddy adamantly refused.

Princess Sparkley's Valentine was supposed to look more like this, but she wanted the phrase "I've got my eye on you!" and our party grew to 40+ kids so she didn't want to write that out 40+ times.  We typed it, then we got lazy about gluing the white paper onto nice, colorful cardstock.  She fancied them up by drawing monsters or animals on some of the eyeballs and added a lollipop on back.

Valentine's Meals

A friend recently mentioned in passing that they have a red dinner for Valentine's Day.  I usually make us a Valentine dessert, but nothing meal wise other than maybe heart shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast (which I only did once, but I'm sure PS considers a tradition). 

Last year's treat was the heart box of cupcakes that looked like chocolate candies from here.

This year, I'm going to make these, but with this homemade Oreo recipe and pink tinted frosting.

But I'm still stumped on a meal.  When I Googled "Valentine's Day recipes" the suggestions are all romantic meals for two that involved lobster, clam or oyster.  Gross.  (I'm not a big seafood eater.)  So I'm still stuck.  I could do red foods, or heart-shaped pancakes, or heart shaped pepperoni on pizza.  I don't know though.  Any suggestions?

Little Guy turns 28 (in dog years)! A party.

For Buddy's 6th birthday, we had a dog-themed party.  We basically copied that party and just changed things up a little.

The invitation.  I used a similar invitation idea for Buddy's 4th birthday party. Each bone had party information on it.

The guests arrived (4 guests since he turned 4).  They decorated their good bags, made 

doggy headbands and collars. 

We read the board book, Doggies, by Sandra Boynton to decide what dog bark was going to be ours and practiced making all the dog sounds.

Then we had Doggy Obedience School where the "dogs" learned to sit, lay, speak, roll over, shake and fetch.  They were rewarded with a doggy treat (Scooby snack).

In action at Doggy Obedience School.

We read the book Dog's Colorful Day.  And my sweet husband drew Dog for me.

Our library story time in Kansas did this story and stuck colorful felt circles on a flannel board.  I thought it would be more fun to stick them on Dog.

I told the little kids they could put the dots in the right spots, or just wherever.  After the party, Princess Sparkley rearranged the spots so they were all in the right spot.

We had a little extra time, so we also read Dog's Noisy Day and the kids had to make all the animal sounds.  It was fun.

We also played Doggy, Doggy, whose got your bone?  Sorry, no pictures of that.
And then, since this was supposed to be a Chocolate Lab party, not just a dog party, we had Chocolate Lab cupcakes.

And the goodie bags:

Before going home, the kids got to adopt a dog.  For Buddy's party, I found some Beanie Babies on Ebay, I didn't have time to wait for shipping so these little pups are just from Dollar Tree.

And, it turns out I didn't have any lollipop sticks, so the kids just got peanut butter paw prints.

And frosting the cupcakes took FOREVER, so the doggy bone sugar cookies they got in their goodie bags never got frosted.

They also got Chex Puppy Chow (aka Muddy Buddies), some doggy stickers and a bouncy ball along with their adopted dog.

Little Guy got some great presents.  Legos, which he LOVES!!!  Buddy has already helped him build them all.  He got a super cute dog book called Chowder and a dog puzzle.  And one mom got a Webkinz Lil' Kinz Bulldog (since named Grem) and put it in a little felt bed and made it a collar and a blanket and included a little silicone bowl and a bag of "dog food" which were just chewy Lemonheads.  Super creative.  If we ever do a dog party again (although twice should probably be my limit) that's the sort of gift bag thing I'd like to send the kids home with.

Little Guy turns 4!

Little Guy has been a good sport about some birthday disappointments.  The older kids talked him in to pizza bubble for dinner.  I put it on the table and he was almost in tears because he apparently had no idea what pizza bubble was and expected something more pizza-like.  Then I gave him the option of all the desserts out there.  He picked cookies.  I gave him all the cookie options, he picked sugar.  Today, while helping me make the cookies he announced to the kids, "Mom and I are making sugar cookies even though there is no sugar on top of them!"

Shooting Technology in the Eye

Here's something to blog about... technology.  I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Our cell phones are currently several years old.  Our contract lapsed and we could renew and get new phones and everything would be great, right?  Wrong.  We're simple people.  While it would be nice to access the internet with something I carry in my pocket, I don't need to.  And I sort of don't want to.  I'm already a little annoyed at myself and my family by how much time we spend on the internet just because of laptops and wireless internet.  I don't need that in my pocket or purse, distracting me everywhere I go. 

That being said, there are no "free phone" options (or even any phone options that I can find) available that don't require I also pay X amount each month for a data plan.  I don't want a data plan.  I just want a new phone.  I want to make phone calls, send and receive texts, take pictures, and listen to music.  That's it.  When we talked to the T-Mobile kiosk at the mall a few months ago, they guy actually laughed at our phones because they require we push the number 2 three times in order to text the letter C.  But it works for us.  We're a low technology people.  Argh!

And now we can't listen to music on our phones because our music service was bought out by another music service and it is no longer compatible with our phones.  It doesn't appear to be compatible with any phones that aren't web friendly.

Argh.

Updating without updating

"We don't update our blogs

We are trainwrecks." -Weezer's "Trainwrecks"

This is how I feel.  But seriously, whenever I've had a semi-coherent idea for a blog post lately, I've been in no position to blog or jot down a note.  By the time I'm back to a computer, it doesn't seem worth the effort to blog about anymore.

 I'll try to fix my brain.  Until then, this is what I've been up to:

Books read so far this year:

How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr

Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord

Mr. Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt

One Day by David Nicholls

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

 

 

TV shows watched:

Bones

30 Rock

Napolon Dynamite (cartoon)

The Simpsons

Up All Night

Revenge

Movies seen:

None.  I keep meaning to get The Help from Redbox and I keep forgetting.

Back to the Movies

For those readers who remember this post, listing the five movies I saw in the movie theater between 2005 and later 2010, you'll be shocked to see the list of movies I saw in the theater JUST THIS YEAR.

1. Tangled
2. Hop
3. Cars 2
4. Hugo
5. The Adventures of Tintin
6. The Muppets

They were all kids movies... but still enjoyable.

School Weather

The kids and I have been working on a constellation project for school and today we broadened that out a bit to discuss the rotation of the earth and seasons.  Looking around online, I found a website that had a lesson set up which included comparing a northern hemisphere city's winter months to those same months in a southern hemisphere city.  The cities this particular website selected were San Francisco, CA and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  At first it didn't strike me as a completely meaningless comparison... at least as far as trying to teach the extremes to elementary aged children.  Then we looked at their average temperature graphs at Weather.com.

Rio de Janeiro's monthly temperature averages.

San Francisco's monthly temperature averages.

I realize these are different.  Slightly.  But both of these climates are SO mildly weathered compared to what I wanted to see.  It would only have been worse had it been Los Angeles compared to Rio, since L.A. in the winter is not quite as cold as San Francisco.  What I wanted to see was extremes, like this:

Melbourne, Austrailia.  This isn't even as extreme as I wanted to see but Weather.com didn't have graphs for most of the South American cities that I looked at.

Lawrence, KS.  I wanted to southern hemisphere extreme opposite of this.

I realize, this isn't very interesting to most/all of you.  It is what's been on my mind today, and like I said a few days ago, I have nothing else to blog about right now, so this is what you get.

Nothing to Say

I can't think of a thing to blog about.  I haven't come up with an official list of resolutions.  I didn't ever blog my list last year and I fear that may be why I failed so miserably on accomplishing much this past year.  I had nothing to be accountable to.  So... coming soon, my resolutions for 2012. 

I could type up a menu because we've been trying some new recipes around here.  And trying to eat healthier snacks, but it takes so much work to link to all the recipes, etc.  And I'm feeling lazy today.

We gave the kids two weeks and two days off of school for Christmas/New Year's break.  Usually we'd give them the entire month so their schedule matches up with Jed's college schedule, but we got a LATE start this year, and I thought two weeks was normal.  Until we were at my sister-in-law's for New Year's and found out their kids had school the next day, the Monday after New Year's.  The entire week I'd planned on giving my kids off.  I figured normal schools would at least have Monday off.  Nope.  Not always.  So we got back to school... not this Monday, that was a get organized, go to the library, grocery shop, first snow of the season day, but Tuesday. 

Well, now I sound like one of those Facebook posts I hate... the monthly letter update as a status update.  So I'm stopping.  I'll be back with something to say... someday.

Girl Scout Cookies!

For anyone who happens to be local and hasn't seen my Facebook post about it yet, Princess Sparkley is selling Girl Scout cookies.  Orders are due January 20th.  Cookies are $4/box this year.  You pay us when we deliver the cookies to you (around February 8th).  Here are this year's cookies: http://littlebrowniebakers.com/cookies/

If you are interested in buying any (and local), send us your email address and we'll send you the link.  Thanks!

And everyone, tell me which is your favorite Girl Scout cookie!  Mine are Tagalongs....mmmmm.

2011 Reading Goals

I did it!  This has been my best year so far for number of books and number of pages read.  100 books.  32,379 pages.  Both numbers far surpass any other year total.  I didn't reach this goal.  And I probably read 85% young adult books, but I should probably just accept that that's how my reading list looks every year.  :)


You can see all the books I read this year here: http://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/26010

Reading Goal

Goodreads asked people to set reading goals for 2011.  I decided on 75 books, a number I'd never reached but to which I had come fairly close. I far surpassed that goal, as well as my individual goal of pages read (I'm over 30,000 pages which is about 7,000 pages more than I've ever managed in a year before).  And I'm at 97 books.  97!  I should go for 100, right?  The kids and I are finishing up Peter and Starcatchers with only about 26 pages to go.  That's 98.  Then I'll read them this quick chapter book (we've read the other two in the series in the past).  99. Here's my problem, book 100.  I'm reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog and it's killing me.  K-I-L-L-I-N-G M-E.  The premise is nice, but I seriously feel like this book is WAY above my reading level.  I keep wishing I was reading it on the Kindle where it's easy to look up the definitions of words I don't understand.  Plus, the book is set in France and was translated from French so there are a lot of French words.  I took Spanish in high school and college.  Add that the two main characters are supposedly brilliant thinkers and I'm lost.  I get the plot, and so far that's pretty boring.  But I have to finish!  One hundred books is in my sight...

Anticipation

We open family presents on Christmas Eve.  All week month the kids have been debating back and forth which present they will open first.  Princess Sparkley bargains with Buddy, "I'll open your present first if you open mine first."  Etc.  In the middle of all of this, the 3 year old simplifies it for us all, "I'm opening all of my presents first." 

Menu before Christmas menu

I'm trying out some recipes I found on Pinterest this week:

Tuesday: South of the Border Sandwiches

Wednesday: Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes

Thursday: Mexican Chicken Casserole

Love the idea...

I love the idea of this beautiful layered cake from Bakingdom.com, but I don't have the patience or talent to pull off something this beautiful and ... awesome.  Very cool though.

Christmasy Menus

     My family started the Christmas tradition of eating tamales on Christmas Eve several years ago.  Something to do with living in southern California and the heavy Hispanic influence there.  I think my mom started considering it sometime when I was in high school when she noticed that our favorite local Mexican food restaurant started taking tamale orders in November.  She signed up.  Then later, my brother-in-law decided he'd learn to make tamales and has taken over the tradition ever since.  Jed and I sort of broke free from this tradition when we were living in California, as well as my entire family, and his parents.  We decided to adopt the tradition of eating out at a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve so that our little family had family time rather than always having to be at someone else's house doing something else for the holidays.  We still do that today, but I love tamales.  So tamales have become our Christmas Eve Eve meal.
     I like the idea of making my own tamales, but that scares me a little.  And I like the idea of tracking down some awesome Mexican restaurant in town that would sell me tamales, but I haven't done that either.  Usually I just buy frozen tamales and fancy them up with chili, cheese, sour cream and salsa. 

     On Christmas Eve, like I said, we go out for Chinese food.  This year I've been toying around with the idea of making our own Chinese food.  I'm still undecided.  But I've come up with an extensive menu for if I do stay home (and if I had an army to feed).  The problem is that going out, you are able to order four or five main dishes and I'm not sure that's something I'd be capable of pulling off at home on my own.  Especially when there are only five of us to eat it all.

    Here's my idea for a menu to feed a crowd homemade Chinese food:
Crab Rangoon dip
Potstickers
Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken
Orange Chicken (or this recipe that I've tried before)
Pioneer Woman's Spring Rolls (but chicken, not turkey)
PF Chang's Mongolian Beef
Fried Rice (minus the chicken)
Egg Rolls (I'd probably just buy them frozen, but maybe try the linked to recipe...)

But that all seems like a ton of work... maybe we should just go out.  :)  Besides, there are only five of us, the above menu would feed us for half a week!


And onto Christmas day's menu:
Christmas Breakfast: regular breakfast, followed by one hour of 9AM church.

Christmas Brunch/Lunch: after church we'll opening presents, then we'll have our real breakfast at lunchtime.
Aebleskivers
Scrambled eggs
Sausage
maybe Hash Browns
OJ

Christmas Dinner:
Ham
Cheese Potato Casserole (aka Funeral Potatoes)
Magleby's rolls
Sweet Potato Casserole (my recipe has different proportions, but is very similar to this one)
Cornbread Stuffing (but my recipe calls for sour cream rather than plain yogurt)
Sparkling Apple Cider or Sparkling Grape Juice
Green Beans (or maybe just steamed green beans or steamed broccoli)

Still kind of a lot of food for five of us... but then there will be lots of leftovers too!

Christmas Dessert:undecided... I'll let you know.

Merry Christmas!

"I'm Bored."

Today was one of those days.  Our school days have slowed down a bit getting ready for Christmas break, so once school is out of the way for the day, Princess Sparkley pesters me every five minutes with declarations of boredom and questions of what can she do.  I have very clear memories of doing the same thing to my mom when I was little.  I even realized how annoying I was when I did it, I just couldn't think of a thing to do.  And half the time I didn't even want to do what she suggested.  Today, after her third declaration of boredom where my response was for her to unload the dishwasher (her daily chore) she finally did it.  I even let her use glitter glue and scrapbook today, which are usually right up there with painting and Play-doh in the likelyhood that I'll allow it to happen.  I desperately need to make one of these.  An "I'm Bored Jar."  Maybe one for me as well because I was a little bored today too.

Menu

I haven't posted a menu in awhile and lately, we've been all about menus... so here's what's on for this week:

Monday: Pasta Alfredo
     And I'm cheating and using a jar of alfredo sauce over radiatore noodles and freshly shredded Parmesan and going vegetarian with just broccoli.  This is Princess Sparkley's FAVORITE meal!
  Dessert: Grinch Cookies (I made these last week following the recipe, today I'm going to try a regular cookie recipe (not the sugar cookie mix in this recipe) and mint it up.


Tuesday: Ham and Cheese Spiral

Wednesday: Chicken and Rice Stir-fry
   This is one of my dad's go to meals.  I'm going to assume it's from a healthy cookbook, because that's how he is, but I'm not sure.  We ate it a lot growing up.

Thursday: Hawaiian Chicken

Friday: Nachos (or bean burrito filling)

Saturday: Black Bean Chili Over Rice
     A roommate in college gave me this recipe and for some reason, I really really like it.  Maybe because it makes me feel like I'm eating sort of healthy. 

Sunday: Chicken and Tortilla Chowder

Monday: Best Grilled Cheese and tomato soup (minus the tortellini so we can dip our sandwiches in it)
  Dessert: Jed is in charge of our Family Home Evening treat, so probably these.

Stockings

I realized this morning that I never posted (on this blog) a picture of this Pinterest project my friend and I did so we had a spot to hang our stockings.

I love how ours turned out.  Thanks, Emma!

Almost Famous

The other day I did a Google search for "Ruby Redfort book" since Princess Sparkley has been waiting (sometimes patiently, sometimes impatiently) for its release for over a year now.  Ruby Redfort is the series that Clarice Bean reads in Lauren Child's (from Charlie and Lola fame) Clarice Bean books.  And now, Child has FINALLY written the first book in the new Ruby Redfort series.  But it doesn't come out in the US until March.  Still, PS is thrilled that at some point it will be available to her.  And I was a little excited that when you search "Ruby Redfort book," it brings up five images and numbers three and four are from my blog.  Number four is even handmade by yours truly!  It's like I'm famous!  Sort of. 

Christmas Countdown

I like countdowns and decided that this year our family needed a countdown that was doing fun stuff together throughout December.  I looked around on Pinterest and using   this and this, came up with our new countdown.

 I spent under $5 on this. The board was from Lowe's for $3 something. The clothespins were a dollar (I think) from Walmart. I borrowed the red paint, owned the green paint and used scrapbook paper, fabric, and Modge Podge to make the white, red Ho Ho Ho, and light green clothespins. The Santa clothespin for the 25 is a magnet I've owned forever but the magnet is too weak to hold anything up. The snowmen on each end are ornaments but we own A LOT of ornaments, so I cut a strip of the red fabric and made a new scarf for one of them and hot glued them on.  The numbers are from here and here.  This year I just let the kids color them.  Next year, I'll get them printed all pretty.

And here's what we're going to do each day (not in order).  Click to view larger.

Laura's Creamed Corn

I'm posting this mainly for selfish reasons. I'm worried that I'm going to lose it. The Laura that this recipe is named after is my cousin's wife. Every Thanksgiving growing up, she'd make this creamed corn for our families to enjoy when all of us got together to celebrate. Yum!

Ingredients:
2 20oz. bags frozen corn
8 oz. whipping cream
8 oz. whole milk
6 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
pinch of white pepper
2 TBSP melted butter
2 TBSP flour

Directions:
Combine all ingredients (except last two) in pan and bring to boil. Simmer 5 minutes. Mix well. Blend butter with four and add to corn. Mix well and remove from heat.

My notes: This actually takes longer than I expect it to because the corn always freezes the cream and milk. So... take that into account when planning how early to make this part. I've also doubled it and had it turn out fine. It just takes longer and requires a bigger pot.

Weezer

I stumbled upon this video on Pinterest the other day.  (Yes, Pinterest, crazy.  I know.)  It's possible that I've already linked to it on here because it's one of my favorite Weezer videos.





So then I started watching all the Weezer videos on Youtube.  I really like this one too:




And this one:



Really... all of them, but I'll stop now with these three.

Flashbacks

When reading a book that needs flashbacks, which type do you prefer?

a) Flashbacks entered into the normal layout of the book like all of a sudden the narrator is remembering something.

b) Alternating chapters

c) Alternating parts (ie: Part 1 is present, Part 2 is a flashback, Part 3 is present, etc.)

d) Some other method my feeble brain cannot even imagine right now.

Break-Ups

I would probably get a better response to this if I posted it on Facebook*, but I'm a little unsure that I want to announce to everyone I know that I'm writing something that could someday amount to a novel.  So, I'm asking you guys. 
I need to know break-up stories.  But, specifically, I want break-up stories where the people ended up getting back together.  I want to know why the dumper broke up with the other person.  I'm assuming that because they end up back together, the dumper still had feelings for the dumpee, but I guess that assumption could be wrong.

If you want to respond but not on this thread, email me at: nanceisthewritingfish at gmail dot com

*I could get away with asking this question about prom on Facebook because no one had to know I was writing anything.  Feel free to answer it as well if you didn't already on Facebook.

Survery of proms: Do most proms involve a dinner? I know mine did. But other formal dances had you go out for dinner on your own and just show up for the dance.

The general concensus was that you went out to eat on your own, but it varied by school.  My prom fed us.  I remember the food sounding fancy, but I don't think it was actually especially great.

What Gets Me Excited

Jed is writing a paper about the 2003 gubernatorial recall election in California in which I got to vote for action movie star, Arnold  Schwarzenegger.  I'm actually a prime example of what his paper is thinking about... I didn't want Arnold for governor, but I thought he'd have a better chance of winning than McClintock.  Anyway, none of this is what gets me excited.  Had you fooled, didn't I?  At the end of the semester his professor is having the students present their papers.  In a normal size class, this would be about 15 minutes per person.  But this class only has four students, so instead of letting them go home early, he's having them each present for 40 minutes.  Jokingly I told Jed he should open with food, a sort of mini reception for 15 minutes and then go into his presentation. I volunteered to make treats.  Then I got SUPER excited (here's the part that got me excited!) because I have California-shaped cookie cutters (as evidenced here) and he's agreed to let me make California-shaped cookies for his presentation.  I'm so excited!  I'm a weirdo, I get that.  But I still think it's going to be pretty cool.  Along the lines of this. He really is so nice to humor my craziness.  Thanks, Jed.

Update: His presentation was this week... here are the cookies:

Fall Leaves

Find my old Thanksgiving posts here.

We don't have any trees in our backyard, but all of our neighbors have huge trees that hang into our yard, meaning we still got a ton of leaves falling onto our lawn.  Jed and the boys went out back yesterday to rake.  When I came out to see how it was going, this is what I found.  Later in the day, the boys and I went out front to rake.  It ended up just Little Guy and I and I told him my secret.  That was the first time in my life that I can ever remember raking up fall leaves.  I grew up on 2 acres of avocado trees in California, so I've raked up avocado leaves.  But it's different than battling an ongoing season that will continually drop every leaf on the tree until there are no more leaves to fall. For instance, we looked out the back window this morning and saw that the lawn is partially covered in leaves again. And everytime I new leaf fell (as we were watching), Jed said, "Ah!"

Unpacking

Unpacking... still?  You ask.  Yes.  We moved over two months ago and there are still small piles of junk (in my room) that need sorting through.  And there are two piles of boxes in the downstairs.  One pile is 2 1/2 boxes of Jed and my stuff that I'm just not sure where to put it.  Random stuff that has no place.  The other pile of boxes down there is a mixture of toys, kid artwork, and junk gathered up from their rooms.  As I've been unpacking, when I've come across junk or other items I'm not sure what to do with, I've been throwing them into these junk boxes.  Today, we're tackling the kid junk boxes and let me tell you, my kids produce a ridiculous amount of paper trash.  I went through it and trashed about two thirds.  Then Jed went through my trash pile and saved some.  But we're talking forests worth of their stories and artwork.  Forests.

Words

While typing, spell check informed me that "hideable" isn't a word.  I thought, "that should totally be a word.  What else do you call something that can be... oh, hidden."

NaNoWriMo

I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month right now.  I always have ideas for stories and Jed challenged me (possibly last year as a New Year's Resolution) to complete one of my story ideas, so I thought I'd work on one of my most promising ideas that is possibly ten years in the making.  Anyway, in working on this, I found myself spending a bunch of time online today researching tattoos.  I don't have any tattoos.  I have no plans to ever get a tattoo, but there are some cool tattoos out there.  A few years ago Jed asked me what type of tattoo I'd get if I ever got a tattoo and I answered him immediately.  I think I shocked him a little.  Not only did I have an answer for him, I had it for him without pause.  (For those of you who are curious, I would get a tattoo of this Charles Rennie Mackintosh rose.  For those of you who know me, you might recognize it because I own a version of this necklace.) 

Sitting around in college chatting with friends and roommates about what our vices would be if we weren't LDS, I could never come up with a definite thing.  One friend was convinced she'd be a chain smoker.  I always figured I'd probably be a drunk based on a childhood of sipping apple juice out of champagne flutes.  But now, now I realize I'd probably be covered in thousands of dollars worth of tattoos. 

And what does all of this have to do with National Novel Writing Month.  Nothing and everything.  But mainly, it's a great form of procrastination.  Both the researching of tattoos and the blogging about said research and obsession.

P.S.  What tattoo would/will/did you get?  And/Or, what would be your vice?

My Kind of Gingerbread House

found here

PMS

Sorry, guys, if there are any of you out there that happen upon this post.  I made the title straightforward so you can consider yourself warned.

I've never given much stock to PMS.  Mainly, I took offense and immediately disliked any person, male or female, who blamed anything on it.  Males because it's just offensive and I'm partially a feminist.  Females because it seemed like blaming something because you're female.  And like I said, I'm part feminist.

I'm not sure I've blogged this before, but I know I've thought it hundreds of times.  I think everyone needs counseling, pschiatric help, a therapist, perhaps a life coach, whatever you want to call it.  We all have problems and we all need help.  I started wondering recently if the times when I feel the most like I myself could benefit from some sort of therapy coincide when I am also experiencing PMS.  If any of my calendar keeping episodes of the past had ever worked out, I'd consider keeping track.  But I tried to keep track of headaches and if they were associated with what I'd eaten or done, among other things.  The longest this lasts is half a day.  So, it doesn't look promising that I'll ever figure this out.
But... I do wish I could go back in time and monitor crazy things I've done in my life or super insecure moments of not only my adolescence, but my adulthood, and see if I was PMSing then as well.  For instance, there was a time in 10th grade when Jed and I were in a fight (he and I had "gone out" but weren't currently) when he said something along the lines of, "if you want me to leave you alone, I will" and I said something like, "yeah, whatever" and we didn't speak for a year.  I for sure don't know what that was all about, or why I wanted him out of my life for a year.  But I know a year later I was desperate to get him back.  Looking back, I'd very much like to blame that on PMS.

Happy Halloween!

A day late, but our weekend plans got messed up by snow on Saturday (in Pittsburgh, PA where we were supposed to be trick or treating at the zoo) so the kids didn't put their costumes on until actual Halloween day.

They had a Star Wars theme going: Clone Trooper - Commander Cody, Padme and Darth Vader.

Goals Shmoals

It's a good thing I didn't actually post my New Year's Resolutions for this year because with just over two months left in the year, it's going pathetically.  I was supposed to finish three Blurb books this year of our family blog (2010, 2006 and 2005).  I'm in February of 2010. I have however far surpassed even my expectations for number of books read and pages read (I'm at 84 books and 27,291 pages and counting).  I don't even remember my other goals (I did write them down somewhere, just not on the blog).  I believe running was involved.  That fizzled and died with my month long summer trip to California and Utah.  Then life went back to "normal" and normal was unpacking a new place, homeschooling the kids, etc.  So... I guess I should resolve to be better next year and make the most of these next two months.  Wish me luck.

Egg Molds

I'm both intrigued and a little creeped out by these hard boiled egg molds.  Buddy might get a pack in his stocking.

buy them here, there are other shapes too
Seen on Pinterest via here

Halloweens Past

I was remembering all the costumes my kids have had over the years, amazed at how many Halloweens they each have under the belts and since their costumes are much cooler than the punk rocker I was for several Halloweens in a row in the late 1980s, I figured I'd document my thought process here.

2002
Princess Sparkley was a SWEET PEA.
w/ cousins.  Camarillo, CA*

2003
We'll say she was a PEA-HEN, but techinically, only the Peacocks have the fancy colors and feathers.
Somis, CA

2004
CINDERELLA
Camarillo, CA

2004
Buddy's first Halloween as a FISH

2005
LADY BUG and DINOSAUR/DRAGON
Lawrence, KS

2006
BUTTERFLY**
Lawrence, KS

2006
RED SOX BASEBALL PLAYER***
Lawrence, KS

2007
CANDY CORN and UPS MAN
Lawrence, KS

2008
BUMBLE BEE, MOUSE IN CHEESE and MAIL MAN
Lawrence, KS

2009
FIREMAN, DINOSAUR/DRAGON and WITCH
northern Virginia

2002
PIPPI LONGSTOCKING
northern Virginia

2010
ARMY MAN

2010
COOKIE MONSTER and Jed makes an appearance as GIANT COOKIE
****

What will 2011 bring?

I'll give you a hint, the kids have a theme going on.

*Yes, the year labeled on the picture is wrong.  I don't know why.
This was pre-digital camera for us, so this is all I have on the computer.
**This is the year PS started throwing up just as we got her costume on to go trick-or-treating so I don't have any great pictures of her... she hadn't felt well all day.
***Buddy refused to dress up this year.  Then we picked this costume and he ended up sleeping in it some days because he refused to take it off.  He just barely outgrew it last year and still wore it all the time until I hid it away.
****How are there so many years that I didn't get not only a good picture of the kids together in their costumes, but not even one picture.