Tag Archives: it’s the economy

>Pantry (and refrigerator) raids with eggs

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>A while ago we raided the chicken. This week, we raid her eggs. We’re fortunate to have an acquaintance who raises chickens on a small farm and sells the eggs inexpensively. Husband comes home with a dozen whenever we need one or whenever this coworker has too many. The fresh organic eggs are delicious; they really do have a stronger flavor than the store-bought variety. And fresh? Sometimes we buy eggs the same day she gathers them. Deep sigh of contentment: these eggs are good.

Over easy, scrambled, omelets, Dutch Babies, French Toast, deviled eggs and more, all are good egg dishes. Those are almost too easy; how does the pantry raid fit in? I thought you’d never ask.

Taco-eggs. Scramble eggs, mix in leftover taco meat. Amigo likes his with hot sauce. I like mine with grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Coffee on the side, of course.

Hard-boiled eggs chopped and sprinkled over a salad. That’s for the humans, not for the rabbits in the family. I was tempted to hard boil a few of the farm eggs with green shells for Dr. Seuss Day at my school, but we’d used them for breakfast the day before. Now I can honestly say I’ve eaten green eggs and ham!

Fun with Omelets. Husband made omelets with thin-sliced andouille sausage, diced onions, green pepper, and grated cheddar for lunch on Saturday. I don’t know what else he added, though, because those were hot omelets! I’ve added leftover ham to an omelet, sandwich meat diced in small pieces, and all kinds of cheeses. They’re also good with chives, fried potatoes, and almost anything I can find in the fridge.

Then there are the options for adding an egg to an unrelated dish. Sometimes this adds to the taste, sometimes it stretches the meal to go a little farther. Meatloaf, superburgers, meatballs. Egg bread, biscuits, pancakes, pie crusts (whisk the egg white and spread it on top for a golden crust), dumplings; the list goes on and on.

Then there are the shells: compost them or crush and dry them to plant under the tomatoes to provide extra fertilizing power. You didn’t think I’d neglect that point, did you?

Add your ideas in the comments! I’d love to hear them.

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>Recession garden? Bring it on!

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>A few seasons back I waited too long to buy seeds. I didn’t get any pole beans, and my bush beans turned out to be both green and yellow. Surprise, Green Bay Packer colors! But seriously, I prefer stringless pole beans for ease of harvest and preparation.

Last summer compared my small backyard plot to the WWII era Victory gardens. Today’s news is full of a new term: Recession Gardens. Folks across the U.S.A. are figuring out what we backyard gardeners already knew: fresh home grown veggies are inexpensive and delicious, with less risk of contamination in the harvest or shipping process. But with the new found popularity of vegetable gardens comes a drawback: not a run on the bank as in the Great Depression, but a run on the seed companies!

I can’t get out to buy seeds right away. Despite the thick piles of snow still on the ground, I have Spring Conferences at school this week and next. I won’t have the time or energy to shop around. I could order online, but I’d really rather buy locally and stimulate my neighborhood economy. For what it’s worth, whenever I get it together, here comes the plan! Step one in any major shopping endeavour: make a list! So far, here’s what I own.


I think the beans are covered now: I have both pole and bush styles, green and yellow. Herbs are good: see the thyme, oregano, basil, dill, and more on the left. Only one package of spinach, and that’s about it. The black beans came from a plant I put in by mistake last year; I didn’t have my reading glasses on for the fine print. Oops! I like black beans in soups and chili, so I’m going to try them again. The painted rocks were a student gift a few years ago; I still love them.

Here’s the seed shopping list for now:
Peas, squash (zucchini, green), parsley, lettuces, a little more spinach.
Plants:
Tomatoes (cherry, Roma, and big juicy ones), peppers, broccoli.
Asparagus! I’ve done the research, and I think I’m ready.

The chives and green onions will come back, as will the rhubarb and the raspberries. It’s time to go back to the store and see if they still have a good supply next to the snow shovels, anti-freeze and ice melt!

Parent Bloggers Network is talking about green living this week. What can be greener than a backyard garden, complete with home-grown compost? They’re also featuring green cleaning supplies from the Nature’s Choice line by SC Johnson. Great idea, but I’d still rather play in the dirt, er, I’d rather weed the garden than clean my house.

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>It’s not easy being clean and green

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>Simple weekend pleasures.
A long shower, warm water, not needing to rush to get ready for school.
In winter, showers are usually short so as not to over dry my skin. Today I took my time, breathed in the humid air (good for my recently healed sinuses), washed and moisturized. Don’t worry, this is not a TMI (Too Much Information) type of post. I’m just reveling in the simple pleasure of being able to take my time.
I like to buy decent shampoos, salon products, but they cost more than the drugstore variety. This often balances out, however, with the quality. The EcoStore shampoo and conditioner in my shower are good quality, and therefore I only need to use a little. There are no fillers (their company goal is No Nasty Chemicals) so the small amount of shampoo I used was plenty to clean my hair.
Conditioner is a little harder. I have dry hair, and it’s winter. That’s not just any winter, but a harsh Wisconsin winter which equals dry, static-filled air and drier, static-filled hair. I ordered EcoStore’s vanilla shampoo and conditioner because they’re designated as being good for dry hair like mine.
I’ve been using Ecostore’s vanilla shampoo and conditioner for a week, and the results so far are good. The conditioner is light and rinses out easily, yet detangles and smooths my thin fly-away locks. Poetic enough for you? It’s all true.
Back to simple pleasures. A somewhat longer than usual shower, steaming up the mirrors, wasting water – I don’t do this often. A little body butter afterwards, and I felt like a whole new person. I’m not the grungy mama in her sweats doing laundry any more; I’m the clean, green mama ready to plan the garden.
If only the garden weren’t still covered by two feet of snow!

Ecostore sent me the small bottles of shampoo and conditioner to sample and review. The products are good quality and they shipped quickly; I’ll definitely buy more from their company. Good variety, reasonable prices, effective products, and environmentally sensitive? Works for me.

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>Over the ground lies a mantle of white…

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>…but I’m thinking and reading green.

Mother Nature Network has updated news stories and blog entries.

President Obama (I still love saying that phrase!) and Canadian Prime Minister Harper discuss clean energy options.

In NYC, vehicles can only idle for 60 seconds or less in a school zone. I wonder if this would fly in my smaller city? Is there a need for this type of law in a smaller area with much less traffic?

Peanut butter or spinach, food poisoning is serious. Can locavores be more certain of safe food supplies, or not?

Leah Ingram’s suddenly Frugal is not just a blog, but will be a book in the fall! I like her idea for DIY laundry detergent: I already have Borax in the house.

And finally, believe it or not, I spotted these items side by side on my way back to the pharmacy: snow shovels and seeds. (Poor quality either from cell phone camera or from my laughter as I attempted taking a picture in the middle of the store) The shovels were on clearance; buy now, folks, it’s your last chance!

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>Random blatherings in the trenches of teaching

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  • When more weeks are “the rough ones” and “weeks from hell” than good weeks, maybe it’s time to look at the big picture.
  • When the paperwork piles up and makes the everyday work too heavy, maybe it’s time to rethink the way of things.
  • When the headache starts on the way in to work Monday and diminishes after 5:00 on Fridays, it’s a sign that something is amiss.

Part of the stress was waiting for the local referendum, designed to help maintain the status quo. It didn’t pass. Now it’s time to cut, and there’s nothing “Extra” left to cut. My job is secure, but my workload will again increase.Astronomically, I might add. Or multiply, to be more accurate.

This year has been one of an unprecedented and unequaled workload. Class size was acceptable for my grade level at the mid-twenties, but students coming from SAGE classrooms (class size reduction) are used to sharing their teacher with fifteen students maximum. Teaching them the independent coping skills they need to survive in a regular-sized class is a challenge, and their parents rarely “get it” unless they have older children who went through the same transition already. Last year I felt like the kids started to get the hang of being fourth graders in January. This year? They’re still struggling.

My math class numbers close to 30. It would matter less if the kiddos were accustomed to standard class sizes, but they’re not (See SAGE class size, above). They’ve never had to wait long for attention from the teacher because their classes were half the size of this one. This year, kids with poor self-control are taking hours upon hours of my time, time I’d rather spend helping students who struggle academically.

That’s the story of the year. Self control, or the lack thereof, has driven my days. Kiddos who find misbehavior funny and encourage others to get in trouble. Parent who dress their children in t-shirts that announce “Funny how you think I’m listening” and other negative sentiments.

This economy is not one for switching careers or even jobs. But seriously, people, if the stress level continues, children will not get the education they need. And teachers, good ones, are just doing their best and finding it wanting.

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>Chicken Pantry raids!

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>Frugal living calls for getting the most out of what we already have on hand. Pantry raids, or creative use of leftovers, are not just a time saver; they’re good penny pinchers, too.

How many meals can you get out of a chicken? Not counting the eggs, of course. If you have a whole roaster, at least three meals, maybe four.

1. Rotisserie chicken!! My favorite trick: cut an orange in quarters. Stuff two in the chicken cavity, and drizzle the juice of the rest over the chicken to help keep it moist.

2. Soup or stew. It’s almost an obsession; I can’t throw out the chicken carcass without making soup stock first. I use a fork to pick all the edible meat from the carcass and add it to the freezer stash labeled “chix for soup.” Chicken stock, meat, and assorted vegetables, and the result is one good soup. Or stew, if you make it thicker and skip the noodles. I confess, my soups never seem to have a recipe. With a homemade stock and enough meat scraps and veggies, they always seem to turn out delicious.

3. Sandwiches! On a bun or on wheat bread, leftover chicken breast is delicious. Slice it thin and add a slice of Swiss cheese, and that’s one yummy brown bag lunch.

4. Parts. Legs, thighs, wings: if they don’t go in the soup, they make a great leftover, too. Veggies or a salad on the side, and that same chicken has once again made an appearance on the table.

Now on to the eggs. Nope, that’ll have to wait until another day.

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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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>Warm on the inside, water mains breaking on the outside

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>The outdoor thermometer reades -1.1. Yes, 1 degree and a tenth below zero, before wind chill. The heater is cranking out warm air, and I can feel it sucking my paycheck in with each degree of warmth it adds to the room. Mornings have been even colder. One of our oldest school building suffered a water main break in the bitter cold earlier this week.
My kitchen is drafty. My classroom is drafty. I dress in layers to work indoors!!
And….(drumroll, please) I eat oatmeal for breakfast.
The children I teach don’t always have a chance for a warm breakfast. Several depend on school breakfasts. While it’s nutritious and often delicious (I love the smell of cinnamon toast in the morning!), it’s not the same as warm cereal at the kitchen table.
As the temperature drops, I worry about kids being warm enough, too. Do they have gloves and mittens? Sweaters? Hats or hoods? In this weather, even the most die-hard Cool Teenagers will wear their warm layered clothing.
I work with some incredibly generous people. When a student needed shoes in October, she had several pair to choose from within hours. A family was displaced by fire, and typical of working poor, they had no insurance. A teacher contacted a friend with an unused set of bunk beds and put out an all-call for sheets. Less than a week after the fire, two young boys were no longer sleeping on the floor.
If you’re making resolutions or setting goals in these hard economic times, please make sharing part of your plan. Whether you’re buying an extra can of soup for the food pantry or dropping coins in a red kettle, people need you.

How did this all come from oatmeal, you ask? Parent Bloggers Network has teamed up with The Quaker Oats Company to spread the word about the Start with Substance campaign to donate up to one million bowls of oatmeal to those in need. Go to www.startwithsubstance.com for more information.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by The Quaker Oats Company. This is making me hungry; bring out the raisins and the cinnamon!

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>Packer Pride helps the hungry

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>Green Bay Packer fans are proud people. We spend our Sundays (and some Monday nights) wearing green and gold, sporting hats that resemble wedges of cheese, and simply cheering on our team. Win or lose, playoffs or no playoffs, we still identify ourselves with the guys doing the Lambeau Leap.
Green Bay Packer fans take pride in other contests, too. Campbell’s Soup’s Click for Cans is going on right now. Here’s how it works.
Click on “Vote Now” and then choose the contest that includes the desired team. Click on the appropriate helmet (yellow, with a big G), enter the code to prove you’re not a robot, and voila! You’ve voted.
Fans can vote once a day.
The highest scoring teams will receive donations of soup for local food pantries. I drive past the Salvation Army headquarters on my way to work, and the lines and crowds there have grown noticably. Our local food pantry is getting fewer donations even as the requests for assistance increase. My own school’s Adopt-a-Family program is serving fewer families while we’d rather be serving more.
I hope you’ll help the Packers once again win the Click for Cans. But most of all, bloggy friends and acquaintances, I hope you’ll take the time to make a difference. Soup can be a meal for a hungry family. Help those cans get where they’re needed.
For more details on the contest procedure, look here.

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>So the Grinch said

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>He didn’t stop Christmas from coming: it came!
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes, or bags.
He puzzled and puzzled ’til his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store?
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?
–How the Grinch stole Christmas, by Dr. Seuss

I’m giving some gifts from stores (brick & mortar and online), some from my kitchen, and some from creative secondhand shopping. I’ve taken to heart the thoughts of wrapping, though. I don’t like the waste or the cost of commercial wrapping paper, so this year I’m working on alternatives.

– The bags protecting the newspaper have been red lately. Tie at each end with curling ribbon or twist ties, and the package looks like a great big piece of candy!
– Seasonal grocery bags have simple but nice graphics; cut them out, add them to the fireplace motif wrapping.
– All this wrapping material will get recycled or thrown away. Don’t get attached to it. But who gets attached to wrapping paper anyway?
– There’s always Wordle.net!
– Martha doesn’t live here. Really. And it’s okay.

This goal was born of my environmental streak. The frugal piece is a byproduct of the green, but a valid one. I haven’t purchased wrapping paper, ribbons or tags, boxes or bags. It lets me focus our budget dollars on the gifts, the keepers, rather than the byproduct that ends up in the trash. And even with my lack of scrapbooking skills, I’m having fun thinking of new ways to make the wrapping look nice.

If Dr. Seuss wrote about gift wrap, he might suggest:

What if wrapping, itself, didn’t come from a store.
What if thoughful gift wrapping meant just a bit more?
Just reuse the boxes, the ribbons, the tags.
Make use of the packaging, boxes, and bags.
If you and your clan enjoy Christmas each year,
Be nice to your budget, the message is clear.

Parent Bloggers Network and FFDA are working together to find out how families are handling this holiday season, adapting financially and in other ways to make the season less overwhelming. FFDA is an organization that provides support and counseling year round, not just at Christmas.

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