Monthly Archives: January 2009

>What else can go wrong? No, don’t answer that.

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>I haven’t cooked all week, except for oatmeal, and that really doesn’t count. When I’m feeling sick, I know I have to feed the family, but I’m so tired I just want to collapse on the couch and nap instead of making meals. Our menu has looked something like this:
Monday – frozen pizza (with apple rhubarb crumble cake for dessert)
Tuesday – tuna casserole
Wednesday – Pizza Hut delivery
Thursday – toasted cheese with baked beans and canned fruit on the side
Friday – brats (under the broiler, the grill is buried in snow), a can of soup, and yogurt.

Breakfast was a little easier. Amigo isn’t fussy, for a teen. I threw oatmeal or toast at him each day and sent him off to school with a pocketful of cough drops so he wouldn’t feel left out of the cold (virus). Lunch? Leftover chicken soup on Monday and Tuesday, after the morning nap. The rest of the week, I tossed a PBJ and an orange in my lunch bag to eat at my desk while I caught up on plans and my gradebook.

In keeping with my neo-frugal outlook, I’ve made my own coffee many days and filled my mug from the office pot on others. I haven’t visited my favorite beverage kiosks once during the month of January. Oh, no, did I hear they’re closing stores? And it’s my fault for not providing stimulus? Never mind.

Friday, I thought I’d treat myself to a hazelnut at Jo to Go. Then I realized the temperature was a balmy 1 degree above zero. That matters, you see, because my minivan doesn’t like the cold weather. I can’t open the driver’s side window if the thermometer reads lower than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Already a little down, I made myself a small batch of coffee while I was getting Amigo out the door. Then I realized I’d left my favorite insulated mug at school, and I felt mildly depressed. I filled my backup mug (of course I have a backup insulated travel mug, doesn’t everybody?) and headed out to school.

I sat down at my desk, checked email and reveled in the fact that there wasn’t much, and then started attacking the mess on my desk, when my neighbor teacher came in with a mocha latte from Starbucks! I burst out in a smile for the first time that morning, thanked her, and then told her about my forgotten mug which was still lost. She remembered seeing it in the library next to the computer printer. w00t! I zoomed down the hall to ask the library media specialist, and sure enough – there it was! Oh, the day was looking up now.

So for a short while, my desk sported three coffee cups. Yes, it did. Three.

And the day, although hopeful, did not improve. I remember muttering under my breath (to the same media specialist who’d found my mug earlier in the day) something about the desire to invent the Ritalin Salt Lick.
She didn’t let me hide under her desk, but she did laugh out loud and chase my kids into line so I could take them back to class. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: if I have a rough day, I don’t want to have it anywhere else.

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>In the headlines, for better or for worse.

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>It happened. The man who put the Goober in Gubernatorial got his just desserts. (I stole that punch line from Public Radio. Blame me for repeating it, not for creating it.)

Multiple risk factors, anyone? The mother of the California octuplets may already have…six kids.

Arizona Cardinals’ Nation? It doesn’t have a ring to it – yet. People don’t sign up their newborns for tickets at birth, do they? Oh, wait – when the retire and give up on tickets, Packer fans move to Arizona! That’s it!

I may have to carefully plan the mailing of my paperbackswap books if the Post Office cuts down its service days.

Grammar police are still active! Does the leader of the free world dare to split an infinitive?

I think I’ll set my newspaper aside and read a book until the Super Bowl commercials start. Sing it with me…”Feelin’ Kind of Sunday!”

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>random thoughts on a sick day

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>Closed captioning can be fun. The errors in the live captioning can be entertaining.

Constant coughing is painful. Really painful. My chest aches. My ribs ache. My tummy muscles, weak as they are, ache.

An hour of CNN is a long time. Must change channels to avoid growing paranoia. I saw the report on Home Depot cutting jobs and panicked about La Petite’s summer position. Emailed her, turns out the local vendors are okay; they’re not laying off, just not hiring new.

Being out of school is a blessing and a curse. I’m not struggling to teach while I cough, but I am worrying about how my class is behaving and how much I’ll have to reteach on Wed.

Plugged up ears, sinuses, and the works lead to pressure and headaches. Leaving hearing aids out is a mixed shot; relieves pressure a little, but makes the world an auditory blur.

Vaporizer is still kicking out steam. Is that why I slept better this morning? Maybe I’ll move it into my bedroom tonight.

Can you believe Ellen Degeneres is 51? She looks so good!

Books for La Petite ordered from Amazon. I’m sad that my local bookstore didn’t have them; I really like to buy locally whenever I can.

Last night was almost comical. Husband took the time to turn on his new surround sound system for a favorite show, then fell asleep, snoring loudly on the couch. I was coughing in my nearby rocking chair, trying not to laugh because it made me cough more. Too funny.

I’m recovering, slowly but surely. Still need rest, still need fluids. I’ll pack a big water bottle in my lunch and cough drops in my schoolbag.

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>Farm cookies!

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>This recipe reminds me of Ranger Cookies. In my lovely home state of Wisconsin, we don’t have rangers, but we have lots of farms! We also have rabbits that look like cows, but that’s another post entirely.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs or 1/2 cup egg substitute
a teaspoon vanilla
2 cups uncooked quick oats
2 cups cornflakes
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 375 dgees F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking poowder, baking soda, and salt. Mix well; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter for 30 seconds. Add sugars; beat until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour mixture; beat until well combined. Stir in oats, cornflakes, and nuts (dough will be stiff). Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls on ungreased cookie sheets; flatten slightly with a fork or the bottom of a glass. Bake at 375 degrees F for 8 – 10 minutes, or until done. Makes about 4 dozen.

I didn’t have cornflakes, so I used what I had in the cupboard: Smart Start cereal. It worked very well. I baked these on a cold, cold day when we were all housebound, and they hit the spot with a cup of hot cocoa – or coffee, of course.

Recipe from 80th Anniversary We Energies Cookie Book.

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>How can I be Green when the ground is White?

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>The compost bin is snowed in, the garden is covered with a mantle of white, and my rosemary plant didn’t survive the move indoors for the winter. What’s an environmentally conscious mom to do?

The thyme plant is flourishing. We add thyme to almost every soup and stew and casserole. If only I could grow time as well….
The basil plant is alive, but not doing as well. If I can nurture it through the winter it might thrive on the deck in spring.
I still make bread in my breadmaker, incorporating local honey from the farm market.
The rhubarb in the freezer is good with the apples from the music department fruit sale.
Speaking of the fruit sale, the oranges are good in my daily lunches and the grapefruits on weekends. The rinds, though. What to do with the orange peels? In spring/summer, I would compost these.
I have a lot of oranges. Even eating one a day isn’t enough to finish the entire case some years. Should I buy a juicer? Is it worth the money? In my tiny kitchen, would it be worth the space?
The tomatoes – oh, the tomatoes! I still have tomato soup and tomato sauce in the freezer. The last batch picked before the killer frost ripened oh-so-slowly on the kitchen counter. Honestly, we ate “fresh” tomatoes until Christmas.
The reduce, re-use, recycle philosophy lasts year round. Thrift stores are great places to donate and to shop. This is both frugal and green.
Then there’s the BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag, what did you think I meant?!) philosophy. As the trend spreads, some of the reusable bags get cuter and stronger.
Cloth napkins are working well for the family. I wash them with the regular laundry each weekend. We still have the package of paper napkins we bought in November.
Amigo continues to get audio books from Paperbackswap.com. He loves searching the titles and choosing for himself. I love the price tag (free; I just pay postage when I send one out).
Time magazines go to La Petite when we’re done. Working Mother and any others around the house go to the drawer at school destined for cutouts.

Maybe I’m doing alright on this green philosophy. I do enjoy winter, but I’m looking forward to spring, too.

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>Ah, my generous family, they shared their cold germs.

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>Top ten things to do with a stuffy head, drippy nose, and achy body on a winter weekend

10. Keep tissue box handy at all times.

9. Eat grapefruit for breakfast.

8. Drink lots of liquids (coffee du jour: Harry & David’s Roasted Chestnut).

7. Fill and plug in vaporizer.

6. Tuck in under blanket.

5. Drink more liquids (cranberry grapefruit juice).

4. Take extra vitamin C and Airborne.

3. Plan cold-fighting supper: chicken soup in crockpot.

2. Read blogs while drinking more liquids (orange spice tea).

1. Take a nap. And another nap.

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>Little things worry me.

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>La Petite has been coughing a little deeper and a little worse each day. Today she had a slight fever. What if she’s getting bronchitis again? The health center on campus probably won’t be open until classes start three days from now.

Amigo also has a stuffy nose and cough. He’s complaining that one ear is plugged up now, but doesn’t hurt – yet. I sense an ear infection coming.

Husband has a week of vacation days coming up so he can deal with Amigo’s odd schedule during the high school’s final exam week. Husband’s parents have assumed that he’s available all week to do chores and run errands for them. The sandwich generation rears its ugly head yet again.

Several meetings are on the calendar at my school next week, and only a few look to be really useful. Most are more likely to be necessary evils: the kind I need to attend to create a paper trail, but won’t have a direct impact on helping kids.

La Petite’s medicine refill came in the mail 1 1/2 hour after she left. She put off getting it refilled until the last minute. I’ll mail it to her, but geez. A few days earlier would have made a big difference.

Amigo was oppositional and outspoken and obnoxious this morning. Feeling under the weather? Upset that his sister was leaving? Coming down from his birthday celebration? Resisting returning to routine after two days off from school? Who knows? Could be all of the above.

Husband’s workload is increasing as his employer joins the trend of budget cuts and layoffs. No one is immune. My “raise” is eaten up by increasing premiums. I should feel grateful to be working, but it’s difficult to find motivation as the workload grows.

My hearing aid battery just died. I’ll go get a new one, and then I’ll see if I can schedule a new appt. for cleaning and service. Sigh…another item on the calendar.

Speaking of cleaning and service, my minivan doesn’t like the bitter cold we’ve had lately. The driver’s side window doesn’t go down when it’s below 10 degrees F., so I can’t indulge in simple pleasures like drive-up ATMs or drive-through coffees. More important, though, is the fact that this window mechanism needs repair. We’re putting it off until spring when cash flow is a little more fluid.

No wonder I’m feeling a little bit down. By themselves, each one of these items would be a light weight, easily hefted and handled. Add them together, however, and the weight of the world is on my shoulders.

Or maybe it’s just PMS. Pass the chocolate!

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>The usual three ring circus

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>Juggling. Juggling work, family, home. Juggling the needs of aging parents and needy kids. Juggling tennis balls that become eggs that become watermelons. Juggling several large fruits with one hand while holding a cup of coffee in the other…okay, back to the topic.
Is family life really about keeping all the balls in the air and keeping them moving, or is a more accurate metaphor that of a tightrope walker? Balancing on that thin wire, holding a number of props weighing us down…let’s see how this can look.
On my school/work shoulders, progress reports and an upcoming IEP. Added to that weight was a directive to move “my things” out of my old classroom. The boxes they thought were mine, however, were actually old curriculum materials. I threw several away, hoped they weren’t valuable, and labelled the rest for storage. Then, and only then, I returned to my desk and my gradebook.
On the other hand, or the other shoulder, Husband had the week off during Amigo’s final exams which helped with the odd schedule that always accompanies finals. I could stay after school for an extra hour because I didn’t have to rush home to take the kiddo to an appointment.

Rather than go on and on about the uneven balance of work and home and outside events outside my control, I’ll just call on a skill many mothers possess. I’ll climb on that tightrope, look straight ahead, find a focal point, and breathe. In, out, in, out. Then a deep cleansing breath, and I’m there, on the other platform, still holding all of my burdens, but at least able to hang onto something for support.
That’s what it’s all about; support. The safety net below our tightrope is real and necessary. I think my next task is making sure that net is in good repair.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by BOCA. I can’t write about juggling without thinking about my grad school friend, Deb, who found herself competing for attention with a very real juggler.

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>Happy birthday, turn off your alarm clock, school is closed!

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>It was a pantry raid that could have made even the host of Suddenly Frugal proud. Weather had something to do with it, too. It was bitter cold; the kind of day when the thermometer appears broken because it can’t handle double digit degrees below zero. Schools were closed, and we were housebound for the second day in a row.

Amigo thought this was great because it was his birthday and he got a bonus opportunity to sleep in due to the unexpected day off from school. I really, really didn’t want to go out of the house, though, with the weather so cold even icicles weren’t forming. Unfortunately, the vaporizer wasn’t working and we needed a birthday cake, so an errand run was in the works. Our favorite bakery is half a block from Walgreen’s, so it would have been a quick one if I had to go.

Instead, I utilized the fourth R: repair. I cleaned the vaporizer, added a pinch of baking soda, and it worked again. Yippee! One errand eliminated.

Next, I dug through the pantry and found a yellow cake mix. Yes! I could bake his birthday cake without ever leaving the house. Wait a minute…frosting…I had a full can of white frosting and a chocolate package only about a third full. Yellow cake really works better with chocolate, not white, so (you guessed it) I mixed a little white with the chocolate to make a light chocolate frosting to top the yellow cake. I made a small amount of powdered sugar frosting with a few dark chocolate kisses melted in it, and asked La Petite to drizzle it artistically on top. We add a few candles and basic cake decorations (from the cupboard), and Amigo’s birthday cake looked good enough to serve to the Grandmas and Grandpas.

We still left the house to take the family out for a birthday dinner combined with a bye-bye back to school dinner for La Petite. Somehow, leaving by choice wasn’t quite as freezing as the errands might have been.

Seventeen: wow. Where did the years go?

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>Recipe for an Historic Inauguration

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Take one republic, preheated by
Wars
Poverty and
Health care crises.
Blend worries, industry failures, job losses
Top with slashed budgets and crashing morale.
Mix dedicated candidates with
Intelligence
Experience
and Passion.
Nurture from deep grass roots
Seek hope, change, and motivation.
Beat at high speeds until competition peaks.
Organize. Volunteer. Vote.

Set aside to cool.
Season with Knowledge
Insight
Plans and Ideas
Fold in global perspective,
Authentic world view.
Ship by train to nation’s capital.
Set atop quality cabinet.

Serve with courage and inspiration.

photo credit: La Petite, at a rally last June

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