Losing the spark

I was feeling ambitious and oh, so virtuous when I logged on to sparkpeople.com.  For those who don't know what this is, it's a free website on which you enter your current weight information, weight loss goals, and a time frame in which to meet them.  The website then creates a "plan" for you to follow.  After purposefully ignoring my former goals (that are over two years old) and adjusting them to reflect my ambition to lose 10 lbs by the time Clayton comes home, I moved on to the "plan" part.  This includes both a meal plan and an exercise regime.  Knowing my limits, I bypassed the whole exercise bit and went on to the food.  Breakfast of an apple, a few crackers, and peanut butter...  Okay, what's for lunch?  Veggies and hummus...  That-that sounds...healthy...  I dutifully scrolled through the menus for the week creating a grocery list consisting of various fruits and vegetables with a few grains thrown in for variety.
"There," I sighed, sitting back with a productive air, "I feel thinner already."
Then I went into the kitchen, ate a donut, and made my real grocery list.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

The Face on the Milk Carton

I know I've been MIA lately!  I've just launched my very own website, www.pinkliongifts.com.  Although it looks pretty simple, it took a while to put together, hence the lack of blogs.  So, scurry on over and support me...financially...fo' reals, buy somethin'.  I'm kidding, sort of.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

50 packets of ketchup

An acquaintance on Facebook posted a status update about something he did with his son today.  This single dad created two treasure maps for his son.  The red one was easy, simple to follow, and quick to complete.  The blue one was difficult, more complicated to decipher, and took time to finish.  The red treasure consisted of a ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise mess while the blue treasure was soft, chunky, chocolate chip cookies and cold glasses of milk.  His lesson?  Most of the easy and exciting paths in life lead to junky rewards, while the ones that are more difficult lead to yummy rewards!


Sometimes people make me feel like a crappy parent, but in the best way possible.  I feel challenged to actually TEACH my daughter something.  Most days, my loftiest goal consists of nothing more than trying not to yell so much.  Granted, she's only three, but I can't help but feel the gauntlet has been thrown and it's time to impart some life lessons and to make the most of the time I spend with her.  My time with my kids needs to be spent focusing on THEM, not urging them to go play while I fart around on the internet.  (Yeah, I know that's what I'm doing right now, but they're asleep...)


The problem with all this good parenting mojo is that it comes to a screeching halt in the application phase.  The treasure map thing was brilliant, in fact, this guy needs to write a book.  I fully intend to steal that one, but come up with something fun, memorable, with a moral?  That's where I draw a blank.  I'd rather teach with rewards instead of punishments when possible, it's easier on both of us.


Until then,


AC 'n' Rory's Mom


Have you taught your kids lessons like this?  How?  Any ideas I can plagiarize like a delinquent high school student??

She works hard for the money

And that's just one drawer of ribbon emptied!

Tomorrow I am going to the Small Business Development Center to attend a seminar on...well, small business.  It's a requirement in order to see someone about getting everything set up so that I am an actual small business!  There's SO much to wade through, so I am pretty excited about having road map.

The unfortunate part of the deal is that, in our current house, I don't really have a space for all my supplies. Ultimately, I'd like to have a room or at least a corner of a room in which Clayton builds me some wall units for storage, a desk with workspace, etc.  Until then, however, I have to make do and I am rapidly outgrowing my available options!  The up side of that problem is that I have a lot of supplies.  That's good for business.

I'm trying to convince my mother-in-law to start making the carseat blankets, covers, and nursing covers in coordinating fabrics to sell alone or in sets.  We'll see if I can get her started on it!

Yesterday, AC and I went to the mall to find her some silver flats and black boots.  It was terrible, we hit up EVERY store that carries children's shoes to no avail.  If they did happen to have silver flats, there weren't any in her size and there were no black toddler boots at all...unless you count the Ugg-style Sketchers with sparkles and graphics all over them and those are NOT what I wanted.  I ended up finding some pewter Jessica Simpson flats at Dillards.  I didn't even know Jessica Simpson made children's shoes!  Needless to say, I found the same shoes in my size and got them too.

I better get off here and clean up.  Yeah, it's almost noon and we are still in our pajamas...  It's that kind of day.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

Rachael Ray is a Liar

I'm trying to cut down on the number of times per week that we go out to eat, I need to get back into the menu planning/cooking routine.  That being said, I have quite a few Rachael Ray cookbooks.  It's not that I find the paradox of her rat terrier-esque perky energy and 80-year-old-smoker-with-emphysema voice irresistible, I just like her food.  It's good.

On the menu for tonight: Skillet Tamale Pie from Rachael Ray, Just In Time pg. 290-1

Pretty simple, kinda like a Mexican shepherd's pie: meat mixture on the bottom, carb on the top.  First off, when I made the grocery shopping list, there were a few things in this recipe that I knew we wouldn't like.  It called for bell and jalapeno pepper.  I don't want jalapenos because I am a Northern gringo and don't find the idea of a raging inferno inside my mouth appealing.  I also don't like cooked bell peppers, I like them raw to eat in strips, but can't stand them warm and flaccid (insert your own joke here).  Instead, I bought a small can of mild green chiles to substitute and, thus, add flavor.  Secondly, she called for ground beef AND ground pork.  I couldn't find the freaking ground pork at the grocery store and seeing as it was particularly crowded, I figured we could x-nay the oinker and go all beef.  The carb on top of the meat mixture in this particular dish was polenta.  I have never knowledgeably eaten polenta, let alone made it, so I was a little intimidated by this.  I put "polenta" on my shopping list and wandered down the Mexican food aisle looking for a bag/box/jar of "polenta", not finding it, I was starting to wonder if it's really just cornmeal.  I whipped out my iPhone and Googled "What is polenta?" only after calling Mom to verify that I was right, but she, being a Northern gringo herself, wasn't sure.  It is, in fact, just cornmeal...really Rachael?  You had to put "2 cups polenta"??  What's wrong with calling a spade a spade, it's cornmeal.

Following the directions, I started the bacon, added meat, onion, and garlic.  No problem.  Now for the spices: cinnamon, cumin, salt, pepper, and...oh crap...I don't have any chili powder.  I did, however, have a bottle of "chili spices" for making chili.  After sniffing it and ensuring that, yes, it smells like it has cumin and chili powder in it, I just used that and added a little salt and pepper.  (This is the kind of cook I am, I am surprised anything at all turns out!)

Smelled good!

When choosing recipes for my menu and creating my grocery list, I have a bad habit of perusing the ingredient list of a menu and ignoring the instruction part.  I did that very thing when choosing this recipe that calls for an oven safe skillet.  Uh, I don't have one of those.  After putting the meal together, you're supposed to stick it under the broiler to set the polenta and melt the cheese.  Yeah, this is the point in the proceedings I realized this, don't even say it.  After some quick pondering, I decided to dig out my large casserole dish and just assemble the dish in it.  I mean, really, am I going to store the left-overs in the skillet?  No, it would've ended up in my casserole dish anyway.

*Deep breath*  This is the part I've been dreading.  The polenta.  The pressure is on.  Read through the directions and...wait a minute...it's CREAM OF WHEAT.  Fo' reals, it's the cornmeal version of cream of wheat.  Why are we calling it "polenta"??  It sounds SO pretentious (but it is fun to say, say it with me "polenta".  See?  Told ya...)  Her recipe said that it should take the polenta 5 minutes to thicken.  Not so, kimosabe.  I stood there for at least twice that long whisking myself into a carpal tunnel frenzy.  I don't think it was even as thick as it should have been at that point, but I was tired of whisking.

A little Sour cream and
cilantro for garnish.

Like I said, this recipe came from Rachael Ray, Just In Time which is a collection of recipes whose prep time varies; a departure from her standard 30 minute meals.  This particular meal was listed as a 15  minute meal.  Bullsh*t.  You are a low down dirty liar, Rachael Ray.  It took me a good 45 minutes to complete and I even cut out the whole seeding and chopping peppers bit.  Perhaps if I had a prep team that pre-measured everything into little Fiestaware ramekins, I'd be a little speedier too.  Not to mention my less than professional grade knife skills.  You won't see any crazy ninja-style chopping in my kitchen unless you like that certain je ne sais quoi that slivers of finger and copious amounts of blood add to a dish.  Regardless, I'd like to see the average stay-at-home mom who has to pause to wipe noses, replace pacifiers, root through a million baby spoons to find the measuring spoon, and search behind the juice boxes to find ingredients in the fridge whip this puppy out in 15 minutes.

All in all, it was a relatively simple recipe to make and tasted pretty good.  Made enough to feed an army, but I don't have a problem with left-overs and my in-laws definitely benefit as I sent them home with a Tupperware full.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

What are your favorite cookbooks?  Do you have a favorite celebrity chef?  Do you like them for their food or personality?

Whoomp, There It Is!

I know my last post was a little harried and desperate.  Well, I was harried and desperate!  Things have quieted down here marginally after AC passed her bug off to me and I got over it.

Last night, Rory had her first bowl of cereal!  She loved it and actually slept for 7 hours straight, something she hasn't done in a very long time.  Mommy enjoyed that very much.

We're super busy, but don't have a lot to share, so, I'll leave you with this little tidbit...

Who's up for running away??

Wednesday evening, my mother-in-law brought AC home after an evening at Nana's complaining that she just wouldn't eat.  That's somewhat typical of AC so I bathed her and put her to bed and thought nothing of it.  Bright and early Thursday (yesterday) morning, I had AC in the bathroom to start getting her ready for school when *blech* she pukes, multiple times into the toilet (thank God).  Although she wasn't running a temp and reported that she felt just fine, I decided to keep her home from school just in case.

Good thing I did, by 11:00 a.m. she had thrown up every bit of water and every crumb of cracker she had managed to eat.  She felt fine aside from having to remain sequestered on the area of the couch I had covered in towels.  Puke bucket in hand, we headed to the doctor to find out she simply has a stomach virus.  You know the one, the nasty little son of a you-know-what that inhabits every school room and communal plaything from here to eternity.  Armed with a list of approved foods, we went home and had a vomit-free evening.

The doctor had said that after 8 hrs of not puking, I could give her bland food.  She woke up in a fabulous mood and had bananas and yogurt for breakfast that stayed down.  Good.  She had insisted on mac and cheese, but I'm a breakfast traditionalist and refused to allow it (that's fodder for another post).  I aquiesced at lunch seeing as it had been over 24 hours since her last incident.  This, my friends, was my downfall.  I should have known by the two wardrobe changes we had already had due to the Hershey's squirts that the dastardly virus was still running amuck.  I was eating my lunch (Velveeta and corn chips...hey, I was tired and had cleaned up poop all morning, mkay?) and AC wasn't.  She told me her tummy hurt.  This was sign no. 2.  Sign no. 3 was a blaring billboard with lights and sirens:  "Mommy, I think I'm gunna puke."  I shot off the couch as fast as my legs could carry me (which wasn't very fast, ever try running on hardwood floors in wool socks?) to grab the puke bucket in time.  It was like a slow motion scene in a movie.  I rounded the corner and dove with the bucket seconds too late.  What was once my beautiful clean couch was now a slimy, pukey mess.  Fabulous.  To AC's credit, she froze where she was awaiting frazzled and screaming instructions.  I flung her off the couch in a spray of Powerade-blue, half-digested macaroni noodles and had her head to the bathroom to strip.  Oh. My. God.  It was one of those moments where I briefly, albeit seriously, entertained the thought of dragging the mess outside and burning it instead of attempting to clean it up.

Couch cleaned, hardwood wiped, carpet picked clean and scrubbed, AC yells at me that she has, again, had a diarrhea attack.  More poop.  Hooray.  No sooner do I get AC cleaned up and back on a vinyl covered cleaned couch, Rory wakes from her nap screaming with a poopy diaper.  MORE poop.  Now my house smells like cleaner, puke, baby poop, and diarrhea...wouldn't you know it, the doorbell rings.  *Insert looney bin laughing here*  Thank God it was only my father-in-law, he sat on the couch and talked to AC and held the baby while I finished cleaning up the bathroom and started laundry.  The baby wasn't having it though and SCREAMED the ENTIRE TIME.  

Ladies and gentlemen, this all happened before 2:00 in the afternoon!!!  We didn't get up until 10:00 a.m.!!!!!  I'll give you the quick version of the rest of the day: AC peed EVERYWHERE during her nap (more laundry and bodily fluids...I'm developing a tick), the baby will not stop screaming unless she is touching some part of Mommy's body, the chicken I had intended to eat for dinner wouldn't cook all the way through, the puke laundry has developed blue nasty fuzzballs all over it and won't come clean, and to top it all off, the garbage disposal is backing up into the other side of the sink and the landlady can't come fix it until TOMORROW MORNING.  I have a headache that I don't think even the trucker sized portion of wine I have will cure.  I want to go to a hotel and curl up on the sheets that I don't have to wash and cry.  Can you tell I don't even have the energy to be witty??

All I can say is, thank God this day is almost over.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

Paycheck signed: Memory Lane

In Canada, grade school students submit original works for something called "Young Authors".  Now, I don't know that it's a country-wide competition and, honestly, I don't even know who judges it or exactly how it works.  However, I, in grades 6-8, was involved in said competition at Prince Andrew Public School in LaSalle, Ontario, Canada.  My 8th grade year, I decided to come up with something simple; something short on wording and long on what I, a future recipient of a Bachelor of Fine Arts, though was the most fun part, the illustration.  It was then that Molly and Frederick were born.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school where I was bussed to a neighboring school with a few other students to take additional art classes.  Along comes an assignment that sounded very familiar, write and illustrate your own book.  Well, being one who believes in economy of effort (you might call it lazy, eh, potato, potato) I blew the dust off Molly and Frederick, gave them a polish, and churned out a new and improved version of the book that won me the title of Young Author in my 8th grade class.

A few months ago, I was cleaning out my art things in the shed and came across the high school version of Molly and Frederick.  I was pleasantly surprised at how cute and fun it was.  I brought it inside and slipped it into AC's bookshelf unbeknownst to her.  That night, I whipped it out and read it to her at bedtime.  I know she was only 2 at the time, but I still wanted her honest opinion.  She was a little ambivalent about it, so, I put it back on the shelf and forgot about it, really.

The other night she pulled it out at bedtime and said, "Read me this one, Mommy.  I like this book."  Surprised, I read it to her.  Apparently, she has been pulling it out and reading it herself for some time as she seemed pretty darned familiar with it.  She has been asking for it every night since.  This got me thinking, if she likes it so much, would other kids?  Could this idea, the fruit of a 13 year old's imagination, really be worthy of publication?  Like I said, it's a relatively simple concept with a lot of room for growth.  Could I actually MAKE MONEY off this thing???  Honestly, I'd love to.  Not because I'm have a burning desire to write children's books, but because it would be an awesome way for me, a stay at home mom, to help make money for my family.  The authors of Skippy John Jones and Charlie and Lola had to start somewhere too, right?  Now the only obstacle is figuring out how to get from a good idea to a finished product...  Any ideas?

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

Do you have any good ideas that could end up making you money?  Don't be too specific, they're YOUR ideas, keep them that way!

If you can't say something nice without applause...

As I was chopping produce to throw in the crock pot for dinner tonight, I found myself wondering where I would have been had I made different choices.  If I had decided not to go to college, for example, and to head to LA or NYC to pursue an acting career.  Where would I be?  Would I have made it big, ended up in a retail job somewhere, or still be plugging away on the small stage?  Would I have gotten married?  To whom?  I wonder if I would have met my husband, Clayton, anyway?

I suppose I start thinking that way when things take a turn for the mundane.  There really isn't much glory in scrubbing a toilet or wiping a runny nose.  It seems I am constantly picking up, cleaning up, or wiping down some mess, all with NO recognition.  Not that I need to publicly receive acknowledgements to the adulation and applause of the masses (although that would be nice), it wouldn't hurt to hear someone simply appreciate that my house is picked up, there are no dishes in the sink, dinner is made, etc.  I was GOING to say that if Clayton were home I might have that...then again, probably not.

Maybe the key to feeling as though I am appreciated is to appreciate others.  Go biblical and turn the focus from me and direct it outward.  Tell my friends what good moms they are, thank my husband for going to work and earning a paycheck, or pass along an unsolicited compliment.  Problem is, I'm always worried that people will perceive me as being insincere or as "buttering them up".  That's me turning the focus back onto myself.  Get over it, right?  Who knows, I might just make someone's day.

Until then,

AC 'n' Rory's Mom

Do you give compliments as freely as you'd like?  If not, what stops you?