I got tickets to Glee Live!
I got tickets to Glee Live!
I got tickets to Glee Live!
I got tickets to Glee Live!
I got tickets to Glee Live!
I got tickets to Glee Live!
At first, I was too embarrassed to go, thinking I was going to be one of the few moms actually there, let alone of my age. Then I read an awesome fan report about the Philly show. The person talked about how all sorts of people where there, people of all ages, genders, clothing styles, etc. She gave me the courage to check for tickets.
I seriously had no expectations. The show I wanted was next week and tickets had gone on sale a long time ago. I thought for sure it would be sold out. It wasn't! And the seats I got? Pretty darned awesome. Not perfect, but not bad from what I've heard on tumbler and what I saw of the venue lay-out.
I'm taking my son with me of course. He's a gleek, but not as die-hard as me. Seems he's a bit embarrassed to go with mom, not that he has a choice. He plans on yelling out to the Warblers and Darren Criss, "My mom loves you!" LOL!
And to relate this to homeschooling, I'm counting it as Musicals, Music History, and Music Appreciation, and Classic/Awesome TV & Movies since Glee, naturally is a TV show.
If you go to Glee Live and see a homeschool mom flailing about like a little fangirl, come say "hi" 'cause that's probably me. LOL!
~Heidi
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Boarding School at Home, Part 3: How It's Supposed to Work & the Why
Why boarding-school-at-home? I already touched on many of the points in Part 1: the Catalyst, but it doesn't hurt to expand a little bit. I think the main reasons is that I need more order in our homeschool, more discipline in K's life, & more structure, which I guess is another way of saying order, in my life too. Discipline for K, obviously, being the main one.
By discipline, I don't mean beating the kid with a stick or having him answer with, "Yes, sir!" and "No, ma'am!" As I've said earlier, I need him to take me and schooling more seriously. Having a more structured environment where Mom is in control is a way of encouraging such a mindset, enforcing the rules & that school must take priority.
For those that don't know me, our homeschool has always been very loose & carefree. We're not unschoolers, but we're not school-at-homer's either. We school on the couch mostly, have no set schedule unless it's an activity day or have some place to be, laugh a lot, live in our pjs, try to school as many subjects as we can, but honestly, a lot has fallen to the way-side as we keep being forced into long breaks such as with the plumbing disaster & Thanksgiving. It's been this way for 7 years and while it has it's downsides, it'd been working up until K turned 13.
Again, K is an amazing kid. The best child you could ever hope for. He's the reason we stopped at one. We got the cool, crazy kid on the first try, the perfect fit for our family. But also again, the hormones have kicked in. We're nipping the attitude in the bud now before it becomes an even bigger problem. We've seen adults who grew up to be egotistical jerks because their parents let them run all over them & we don't want that for K. We want him to remain awesome. We also want to instill in him the personal discipline he'll need to make it in law or whatever profession ends up driving his heart.
Does that make sense?
So it's become a "the old way isn't working anymore, let's try the opposite" kind of thing. Hence, going from a very easy-going lifestyle to a boarding-school-at-home one.
How boarding-school-at-home is supposed to work. Emphasis on the supposed.
1. His room is a dorm room. As part of his grounding, it's not supposed to have any video games in it. Ditto for boarding-school-at-home. However, to be honest, there really is no other spot for them. So, games will be allowed in his room, but no game players.
In addition to removing "nearly everything he loves" from his room, I've also been helping him to give it a thorough dejunking, cleaning, rearranging, installing new organizers, even buying him new bedding & a new lamp. In essence, transforming it into a dorm room of sorts. His bureau is for undergarments & off-hours clothing. His closet, complete with two 6 pocket hanging organizers & hangers for ties & slacks, is where his uniforms are kept. There is no confusing which garments are for which times. (Trust me, he tried to get away with such early on, & stopped when it didn't work.)
We're not 100% done with the room, but a huge amount has been accomplished.
2. The uniform means it's time for school & gives me more parental control. The uniform stays on until schooling is done for the day. If he drags it out till 3 in the morning, then guess what? The tie stays on. Math is the subject he dawdles at the most. We're talking 2 hours to do a simple math lesson & nagging doesn't work. What is working is being in uniform. Doesn't work all the time of course, but for the most part, yeah, it's going according to plan. The kid is in uniform, I'm in uniform, and that means school is on.
Now people may call me an ass for this, & maybe I am, but the uniform is another way of showing that Mom is in control. She controls what he, the student, the sassy 13 yr old, is allowed to wear. The kid may have gotten a say in colors & some uniform pieces (he loves his gym uniform,) but there is no wearing of video game T-shirts or pjs during school time. I say when it's a shirt & tie day. I say when it's a polo shirt day. I say when it's a "I'm exhausted, you're sick, let's just have a pj day."
On a tangent note, the boarding school I looked into actually didn't have a uniform. They had a strict dress code, but no required uniforms. Personally, I figured if I was going to be paying that much in tution & fees, then there should be a frelling uniform rather than a "look at stores like Lands End as examples of what is acceptable" dress code.
3. Is there a schedule? Right now, no there's not. We've never been good with schedules. Before the plumbing disaster & grandpa's funeral, I did have a lovely color-coded chart full of subjects that needed to get done based on their color-coded priority. We still haven't worked back up to that yet. We still haven't worked up to a full subject load again either.
There's still those problems of K's room not being finished & all the areas damaged by water in the basement dejunked & repaired. We can't keep paying a $90 for a storage unit. We can't keep having water leaking in through a poorly boarded up window, nor carpet that had been soaked by the Christmas of Poo. So, I've given myself till the fall for such to happen. For his room to be done & for enough of the basement to be cleared out & repaired so that we haul back what we've had to place in storage. K's still has a lot of schooling, it's just not as much as he needs if he's going to graduate 2 years ahead of regular schoolers.
I guess you could say that the day runs like this right now: I wake up first, have my coffee, go online, get into my Teacher Mom uniform, do laundry (there is always laundry to be done,) and a few other things at the same time. Then I wake K up, let him have 1/2 hr to an hour to have his breakfast & get some free-reading in (he's currently obsessed with the Redwall series & just finished all the Percy Jackson books.) Then I tell him what the uniform of the day is, have him get dressed, and we start school. There's a few breaks, of course, but he schools until he's done & then is allowed into his jammies. If he were to get done before midnight, of course he'd be allowed in regular clothes, but that hasn't happened yet. And to be honest, he LOVES his gym uniform so much that he's maybe worn non-uniform clothing only once or twice since this all began.
I hope this made sense. I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out, so please feel free to ask away. Just no bashing. I don't say your way of parenting is bad, so don't say mine is. It's something new that I'm trying. It may not work. We may only need to keep this up for a year or just a few more months. However, it is working for us. Hub & I are seeing a difference in K's attitude. To each his own and for us, at this point in our lives, it's boarding-school-at-home.
~Heidi
By discipline, I don't mean beating the kid with a stick or having him answer with, "Yes, sir!" and "No, ma'am!" As I've said earlier, I need him to take me and schooling more seriously. Having a more structured environment where Mom is in control is a way of encouraging such a mindset, enforcing the rules & that school must take priority.
For those that don't know me, our homeschool has always been very loose & carefree. We're not unschoolers, but we're not school-at-homer's either. We school on the couch mostly, have no set schedule unless it's an activity day or have some place to be, laugh a lot, live in our pjs, try to school as many subjects as we can, but honestly, a lot has fallen to the way-side as we keep being forced into long breaks such as with the plumbing disaster & Thanksgiving. It's been this way for 7 years and while it has it's downsides, it'd been working up until K turned 13.
Again, K is an amazing kid. The best child you could ever hope for. He's the reason we stopped at one. We got the cool, crazy kid on the first try, the perfect fit for our family. But also again, the hormones have kicked in. We're nipping the attitude in the bud now before it becomes an even bigger problem. We've seen adults who grew up to be egotistical jerks because their parents let them run all over them & we don't want that for K. We want him to remain awesome. We also want to instill in him the personal discipline he'll need to make it in law or whatever profession ends up driving his heart.
Does that make sense?
So it's become a "the old way isn't working anymore, let's try the opposite" kind of thing. Hence, going from a very easy-going lifestyle to a boarding-school-at-home one.
How boarding-school-at-home is supposed to work. Emphasis on the supposed.
1. His room is a dorm room. As part of his grounding, it's not supposed to have any video games in it. Ditto for boarding-school-at-home. However, to be honest, there really is no other spot for them. So, games will be allowed in his room, but no game players.
In addition to removing "nearly everything he loves" from his room, I've also been helping him to give it a thorough dejunking, cleaning, rearranging, installing new organizers, even buying him new bedding & a new lamp. In essence, transforming it into a dorm room of sorts. His bureau is for undergarments & off-hours clothing. His closet, complete with two 6 pocket hanging organizers & hangers for ties & slacks, is where his uniforms are kept. There is no confusing which garments are for which times. (Trust me, he tried to get away with such early on, & stopped when it didn't work.)
We're not 100% done with the room, but a huge amount has been accomplished.
2. The uniform means it's time for school & gives me more parental control. The uniform stays on until schooling is done for the day. If he drags it out till 3 in the morning, then guess what? The tie stays on. Math is the subject he dawdles at the most. We're talking 2 hours to do a simple math lesson & nagging doesn't work. What is working is being in uniform. Doesn't work all the time of course, but for the most part, yeah, it's going according to plan. The kid is in uniform, I'm in uniform, and that means school is on.
Now people may call me an ass for this, & maybe I am, but the uniform is another way of showing that Mom is in control. She controls what he, the student, the sassy 13 yr old, is allowed to wear. The kid may have gotten a say in colors & some uniform pieces (he loves his gym uniform,) but there is no wearing of video game T-shirts or pjs during school time. I say when it's a shirt & tie day. I say when it's a polo shirt day. I say when it's a "I'm exhausted, you're sick, let's just have a pj day."
On a tangent note, the boarding school I looked into actually didn't have a uniform. They had a strict dress code, but no required uniforms. Personally, I figured if I was going to be paying that much in tution & fees, then there should be a frelling uniform rather than a "look at stores like Lands End as examples of what is acceptable" dress code.
3. Is there a schedule? Right now, no there's not. We've never been good with schedules. Before the plumbing disaster & grandpa's funeral, I did have a lovely color-coded chart full of subjects that needed to get done based on their color-coded priority. We still haven't worked back up to that yet. We still haven't worked up to a full subject load again either.
There's still those problems of K's room not being finished & all the areas damaged by water in the basement dejunked & repaired. We can't keep paying a $90 for a storage unit. We can't keep having water leaking in through a poorly boarded up window, nor carpet that had been soaked by the Christmas of Poo. So, I've given myself till the fall for such to happen. For his room to be done & for enough of the basement to be cleared out & repaired so that we haul back what we've had to place in storage. K's still has a lot of schooling, it's just not as much as he needs if he's going to graduate 2 years ahead of regular schoolers.
I guess you could say that the day runs like this right now: I wake up first, have my coffee, go online, get into my Teacher Mom uniform, do laundry (there is always laundry to be done,) and a few other things at the same time. Then I wake K up, let him have 1/2 hr to an hour to have his breakfast & get some free-reading in (he's currently obsessed with the Redwall series & just finished all the Percy Jackson books.) Then I tell him what the uniform of the day is, have him get dressed, and we start school. There's a few breaks, of course, but he schools until he's done & then is allowed into his jammies. If he were to get done before midnight, of course he'd be allowed in regular clothes, but that hasn't happened yet. And to be honest, he LOVES his gym uniform so much that he's maybe worn non-uniform clothing only once or twice since this all began.
I hope this made sense. I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out, so please feel free to ask away. Just no bashing. I don't say your way of parenting is bad, so don't say mine is. It's something new that I'm trying. It may not work. We may only need to keep this up for a year or just a few more months. However, it is working for us. Hub & I are seeing a difference in K's attitude. To each his own and for us, at this point in our lives, it's boarding-school-at-home.
~Heidi
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Updated! Boarding School at Home, Part 2: Uniform Pics, Description, & Evolution
Just some quick pics and graphics for now. There's the Summer Uniform Guide (Requirement,) K and I in said Summer uniform (yes, Teacher Mom gets one too,) and a Winter Uniform Guide where the teenager will be required to wear what I jokingly refer to as "the Full Dalton."Update: Here's a bit about the uniforms themselves & the progression of them.
Before I became completely obsessed with the idea of uniforms for boarding-school-at-home, I knew I wanted shirt & tie days as a punishment. In fact, I remember the PMS-clouded day when I went to Sears, Target, & Wal-mart on my own searching for short sleeved shirts & non-ugly ties. I was nice though, and picked up some cool, casual plaid summer shirts. Honestly, I could've come home with heavy Oxfords, but didn't. I also could have come home with some fugly shirts because trust me, the majority were.
And that's what it all started off as: shirt, tie, & whatever the hell you want to wear as bottoms. K hated those days. He still gets grumpy about them, but I think he's finally resigned himself to the fact that he's going to have to wear a shirt & tie at least a few days a week and that he'll be doing "the full Dalton" come cooler weather.
In order to figure out what could work as uniform pieces from his current wardrobe & to weed out too small clothes to give to a friend of ours, K & I went through every last scrap of clothing he owned. He ended up with Men's-sized shorts that were too big even though they'd fit him just a month prior, a few pairs of jeans (he hates jeans, but we'd bought him some anyway during the short shopping trip,) a few undergarments, a ton of socks, and a ton of gaming, homeschooling, & cool sayings T-shirts. Everything else was too big (I'd panicked during his Winter growth spurt & apparently started buying Men's size large) or too small.
Gasping at the cost of Land's End's clothes considering how much the basement Mural/Pantry Room remodel had just cost us and because the kid was in desperate need of shorts, we first went shopping locally. That's how K ended up with plaid shorts that you see in the Uniform Guide. Ditto for the polo shirt colors. Sears had them on sale for $9.99 which beats $25 Land's End shirts. Not that we won't be buying a ton of Land's End stuff. It's just when you need clothes NOW, you're going to take what you can get & what fits. And that's hard since K is in between Men's & boy's sizes. When we did place a small LE order, 1/2 had to go back as it was for being too small despite going by their sizing guide. And goodness forbid that Sears actually carry the larger Lands End uniform sizes. (They don't, we asked.)
Grammar tense change warning since I wrote this little bit before I wrote the above stuff: It's frelling hot & humid where we live during the summer, so there was no way I can bring myself to making the kid wear slacks during the summer. I have them listed in the uniform guide only as an option. He tends to be colder than hub and I.
Color Choices: Oh boy, has there been a debate about colors in our home! I also think Lands End is now refusing to send us any more fabric samples because the ones for the ties still hasn't come in. I knew I wanted navy blue. K likes blue. Hell, we all do. Navy blue pants are certainly easier to keep clean, the Hopsack blazer (the LE blazer you see pictured in the guide) only comes in navy, and damn if Kurt didn't look all sorts of adorable wearing the navy blue cardigan as part of his Dalton Academy uniform. (That's also why the cardigan is a must for K's uniform. He'll look just as adorable & damn it, I want one too. Okay? LOL!)
K also loves dark teal, medium/soft blues, and colors in between. So, I figure, what's the harm in adding those colors in if we find them? His bedroom is full of those colors as well. (Get the whole boarding-school-at-home vibe here?)
It's the accent color that's given us so much trouble. Hub hates green as he doesn't think it and blue go together & he has flashbacks from parochial school. K was rooting for red. (I threatened him then with a Dalton tie & he threatened back that it would be against the Geneva Convention. LOL!) I liked yellow and burgundy, but was voted down by both hub & K. Hub also hated red. I got K & hub to settle for green because even though the majority of Lands End uniform warmer tops have only evergreen (dark green) as a choice (aside from their other standard colors,) they have polos in a lighter shade.
The "official" boarding-school-at-home tie is in the shade/pattern "clear blue plaid." You can find it here: http://www.landsend.com/pp/PlaidNecktie~216976_-1.html?bcc=y&action=order_more&sku_0=::HNP&CM_MERCH=IDX_SchoolUniforms-_-Boys-_-BigKid-_-Accessories&origin=index
I liked this choice because it gives us the freedom to add different colors to the uniform in later years. (Yes, later years. I have a feeling we'll be doing uniforms clear through high school.) We have other blue patterned ties & those are fine to wear too. I just like the idea of having an "official" tie. :-)
The shoes for fall/winter are listed in a couple of colors because said color is dependent on what we can actually get later on. We know K will have outgrown his current shoes come fall & that will take him out of the kid sizes. He's already wearing Men's winter boots. The lace-ups are because he's spent nearly his entire life not having to tie his shoes & damn it, he's going to start.
Other parents will understand this. The style of shoes our kids have had are ones with bungee laces or no laces at all/slip-ons. I'm not the only parent with a kid who technically can tie his shoes, but honestly isn't very good at it because he's never had the need to become good at it. So, rather than end up with grown son who can't tie his own damn shoes, I'll be requiring lace-up, tieable shoes come the fall. The exception might be sneakers because LE currently has some really cool ones in blue. (They're pictured in the guide.)
The Oxford shirt color, French Blue, was chosen by K and I'm fine with it. It's a good choice as it will hide stains better. White is there as an option only because we always keep a white dress shirt around for funerals.
So why the more formal uniform come fall? There are a few reasons. I'll bullet point them.
- I just like the more formal look, the one I love to call "the full Dalton."
- K is always complaining that we keep the house too cold in both summer & winter. Neither hub nor I can tolerate the heat, yes, even in winter, and I'm honestly quite tired & pissed at having to nag the kid to put on a damn pull-over. So, now one will be required. He's cold? Well, he can wear a sweater or sweater vest under that blazer or cardigan. If it's a polo shirt day, he has this awesome looking Shawl-Collar Pullover as one of many other extra-layer warmth options: http://www.landsend.com/pp/BoysFleeceShawlCollarPulloverShirt~223091_1189.html?bcc=y&action=order_more&sku_0=::CLN&CM_MERCH=IDX_SchoolUniforms-_-Boys-_-BigKid-_-TopsShirtsSweaters
- I think a more formal uniform will reenforce the "school is to be taken seriously and so is mom" idea that I'm trying to install. I can't bring myself to require a blazer in summer. In the cooler months, there's no reason not to. He will get a couple of polo shirt days and of course no have to wear it & the shirt & tie for soccer & other athletics.
- As my friend Kel said, it won't be a situation of "Do as I say, not as I do." If the kid is in uniform at our boarding-school-at-home, then Teacher Mom should be too.
- I used to secretly mock people who said they make themselves & their kids "dress to the shoes" for homeschooling. But you know what? I really do find myself more productive with chores & more in the same schooling mindset as I want my son to be in. If I've got jeans & shoes on, I'm more likely to take out the garbage since I refuse to in my pj pants & slippers. I agree with Kel that snuggling on the couch in pjs to school your kids when they're younger is a wonderful way to homeschool. But K's a teenager now who will be soon going off to college & then law school. ...but back on topic...
- I think uniforms are cool, okay? I always wanted to go to boarding school to get away from my parents. And with that would come uniforms instead of having to...I save you from a rant about my childhood & 80's fashions. Basically, they're cool & why should I be left out? Teachers at private schools have a dress code. Now, for practical purposes (i.e. I'm taking out garbage, lugging laundry up & down narrow basement stairs all day, dejunking the house, all in-between lessons,) & the fact that right now we don't have the money to buy me more uniform pieces, I've allowed jeans to be an option for my uniform. I'll eventually get a long navy skirt, some slacks (since I can't find the ones I wore to grandpa's funeral,) matching Oxford shirts, hopefully a tie (I really want a tie!,) a cardigan (want this even more,) and long sleeve polo shirts that match K's. As you can see in the picture, I already have matching short sleeve polos & a pair of matching shorts. While I think it'd be kind of cool to have a plaid skirt that matches the tie, they don't make them in my size. Ditto on the belt.
I think that covers the basics of the boarding-school-at-home uniform. I'll talk more about how I want boarding-school-at-home to eventually run in my next entry. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a polite comment.
~Heidi
Boarding School at Home, Part 1: the Catalyst
It's 5:31 a.m. & I haven't gone to bed yet, so bear with me please. I swore I was going to type this all out by tonight or tomorrow, which is technically today, so I will.
It, the whole boarding-school-at-home thing, started out with a couple of catalysts. One really. K turned 13. It, the sass, the attitude, the testing-of-the-waters, the typical teenage hormones, actually came out a couple of weeks before his birthday. It wasn't too bad at first, and to be honest, most days, these months later, it's still not too bad. He's a great kid, truly a wonderful person. It's just...
The sass arrived. Grandpa died & a furious amount of making sure we all had funeral clothes that fit (something we actually keep prepared for considering the amount of funerals we end up having to attend,) and packing and making hotel arrangements (nearly every hotel was booked & then when we did book a place, they didn't have our reservation when we arrived,) renting a car, driving 14 hours straight to get to there, having to celebrate both your husband and son's birthdays on the same days as a family member's viewing and funeral...
Scrambling to look up the entrance requirements to Harvard & Princeton because your 13 yr old has decided he now wants to graduate at age 16. Freak out over the fact that you haven't done enough & now have to add a shit ton more courses to his school load in order to make it happen. Have your $600+ Amazon order stolen from your porch despite the fact that you homeschool in the living room, right near the front door & hear everything that goes on near said porch. (We think it got delivered to the wrong house, despite UPS saying otherwise.) Finding out from Amazon that 1/2 the stuff you ordered can't be reordered and what can will take 3-4 weeks to be delivered to you. You know, all that new stuff you needed for the high school level courses you suddenly find yourself teaching.
You're already really fsking tired of wasting every damn Saturday driving 40 minutes each way to Pokemon League where you have to wait for HOURS while your son plays (okay, so you have your laptop, but still...) And he doesn't like some of the kids there & visa versa, so whenever the mean kids are there you have to hear about it the whole drive back. Also, you never ever can sleep the night before you have to wake up early to be somewhere so you've got sleep deprivation induced stress on top of the other stress & boredom.
You make plans to spend the day with your bf who is also your son's Godmother. She kicks her husband, son's Godfather, out of their place so y'all can have a nice lady chat kind of evening. Why do you do this? So your husband can have The Talk with said 13 yr old son. You homeschool. It's up to the parent to teach sex ed. (BTW, that was also one of the books that got stolen from your porch & you had to wait on for a new copy.)
Well, son doesn't like this at all, despite the fact that he was told such would happen weeks in advance. He barricades himself in the bathroom for 8 hours & throws a shampoo bottle at husband to keep him from coming in. You find out about this hours later in a fsking text message.
You come home steaming mad. Normally, the push-over parent, you ground the kid 1 week for every hour he spent locked in the bathroom. You take away everything he loves. No video games, all but a few of his 100+ stuffed animals, no Pokemon cards, no TV except for a few shows & only when you say, etc. You start stripping his room bare.
In stripping his room bare and shoving everything into the basement, that's when you discover the latest plumbing disaster. Water, apparently, has been leaking from the main bathroom all over the Sewing/Junk Room in the basement. But you can't call the plumber yet. Why? Because your basement looks like a hoarder's house thanks to you being the one to keep all the dead relatives' stuff & using the basement to stash stuff away whenever you needed to quickly clean the upstairs/main living areas.
So you start dejunking like mad, rent a storage unit, lift tons of crap you shouldn't because of your sciatica & arthritis in your lower back, and...wait for it...discover in the process that the previous owners had boarded up a window with nothing but fsking paneling & it's caused water damage & mold to another part of the basement. Also, that flood you had from the Christmas of Poo? Yeah, you missed some spots & damaged items.
You finally make a big enough path for the plumber to get in to see the problem. He says it's just an intake leak (expensive of course, but not a drain problem.) Despite the leak being "fresh" water, it still makes the basement smell like poo and you worry about getting dysentery. Your husband had it last time, so it's your turn now.
The pipes get fixed, but your hell isn't over yet. The Junk/Sewing Room needs to not only be cleared out, but the soaked & smelling old carpet ripped up/cut up into pieces, shoved into garbage bags, and then hauled upstairs & outside. The walls & floor need to be washed & bleached down. Soggy ceiling panels need to be ripped out. The walls of mismatched dark paneling need to be painted, a new floor laid in, ceiling panels replaced, and large plastic storage shelving units set up so that the room can made functional instead of returning to a massive pile of "I don't know what to do with it" junk.
And what does your new 13 yr old do during this time of plumbing crisis where he doesn't even have to school nor help you much? He actually gives you attitude and sass. Because that's exactly what mom needs in her life.
So, what does a homeschool mom who's already grounded her kid for 8 weeks start thinking of as punishment? She looks into local boarding schools. I'm sure I'm not the only mom who's done this. In fact, I know I'm not. Turns out, boarding school, at least the one I truly considered, is $46,000 a year and that's not including a ton of extra fees. Yeah. That wasn't going to happen and to be honest, homeschooling works. It's what's best for the kid, sass or not.
So, you start thinking to yourself some more...and channeling a bit of Dalton Academy 'cause you just love Kurt & Blaine...why not do boarding school at home? You've already started stripping the teenager's room of everything. You know he needs more discipline both in his attitude and in taking school more seriously. So why not do it and throw in a uniform requirement as well?
Of course you also admit to yourself that maybe you're too much of a Gleek. Maybe it's a really crazy idea. So you tweet about it to your homeschool mom friends and they actually think it's a good idea. After a couple of weeks, you get brave enough to post about it on Facebook and your mom friends who aren't on Twitter also think it's a good idea. Hell, even your husband, who attended parochial school from K-12 and always thinks you're crazy, thinks it's a good idea.
So you start planning and thinking some more. The Land's End School Uniform catalog, both print and web versions, become your new best friends and stress reliever. (They still are.)
And that's where I'll leave off for now. The next entry will have details on the uniform and probably, maybe, hopefully, some deets about the rest of boarding-school-at-home as well. I've been typing for nearly an hour already, so just expect a few pics for now. If you made it through this entire entry, you have the patience of a saint or need to share whatever it is you're drinking or smoking. LOL!
Oh, and about The Talk? I ended up giving it to him. A few talks actually and they turned out really good. I was very open and honest, related things to the Glee characters, telling him how important what Burt said to Kurt was, that he should strive to have the kind of honest, friendship-built relationship like Kurt & Blaine have no matter if he's gay or straight or bi. He knows he can come to me about anything & was open to hearing me talk about things I was never taught in ps, had to learn on my own, and felt them important for him to know.
~Heidi
It, the whole boarding-school-at-home thing, started out with a couple of catalysts. One really. K turned 13. It, the sass, the attitude, the testing-of-the-waters, the typical teenage hormones, actually came out a couple of weeks before his birthday. It wasn't too bad at first, and to be honest, most days, these months later, it's still not too bad. He's a great kid, truly a wonderful person. It's just...
The sass arrived. Grandpa died & a furious amount of making sure we all had funeral clothes that fit (something we actually keep prepared for considering the amount of funerals we end up having to attend,) and packing and making hotel arrangements (nearly every hotel was booked & then when we did book a place, they didn't have our reservation when we arrived,) renting a car, driving 14 hours straight to get to there, having to celebrate both your husband and son's birthdays on the same days as a family member's viewing and funeral...
Scrambling to look up the entrance requirements to Harvard & Princeton because your 13 yr old has decided he now wants to graduate at age 16. Freak out over the fact that you haven't done enough & now have to add a shit ton more courses to his school load in order to make it happen. Have your $600+ Amazon order stolen from your porch despite the fact that you homeschool in the living room, right near the front door & hear everything that goes on near said porch. (We think it got delivered to the wrong house, despite UPS saying otherwise.) Finding out from Amazon that 1/2 the stuff you ordered can't be reordered and what can will take 3-4 weeks to be delivered to you. You know, all that new stuff you needed for the high school level courses you suddenly find yourself teaching.
You're already really fsking tired of wasting every damn Saturday driving 40 minutes each way to Pokemon League where you have to wait for HOURS while your son plays (okay, so you have your laptop, but still...) And he doesn't like some of the kids there & visa versa, so whenever the mean kids are there you have to hear about it the whole drive back. Also, you never ever can sleep the night before you have to wake up early to be somewhere so you've got sleep deprivation induced stress on top of the other stress & boredom.
You make plans to spend the day with your bf who is also your son's Godmother. She kicks her husband, son's Godfather, out of their place so y'all can have a nice lady chat kind of evening. Why do you do this? So your husband can have The Talk with said 13 yr old son. You homeschool. It's up to the parent to teach sex ed. (BTW, that was also one of the books that got stolen from your porch & you had to wait on for a new copy.)
Well, son doesn't like this at all, despite the fact that he was told such would happen weeks in advance. He barricades himself in the bathroom for 8 hours & throws a shampoo bottle at husband to keep him from coming in. You find out about this hours later in a fsking text message.
You come home steaming mad. Normally, the push-over parent, you ground the kid 1 week for every hour he spent locked in the bathroom. You take away everything he loves. No video games, all but a few of his 100+ stuffed animals, no Pokemon cards, no TV except for a few shows & only when you say, etc. You start stripping his room bare.
In stripping his room bare and shoving everything into the basement, that's when you discover the latest plumbing disaster. Water, apparently, has been leaking from the main bathroom all over the Sewing/Junk Room in the basement. But you can't call the plumber yet. Why? Because your basement looks like a hoarder's house thanks to you being the one to keep all the dead relatives' stuff & using the basement to stash stuff away whenever you needed to quickly clean the upstairs/main living areas.
So you start dejunking like mad, rent a storage unit, lift tons of crap you shouldn't because of your sciatica & arthritis in your lower back, and...wait for it...discover in the process that the previous owners had boarded up a window with nothing but fsking paneling & it's caused water damage & mold to another part of the basement. Also, that flood you had from the Christmas of Poo? Yeah, you missed some spots & damaged items.
You finally make a big enough path for the plumber to get in to see the problem. He says it's just an intake leak (expensive of course, but not a drain problem.) Despite the leak being "fresh" water, it still makes the basement smell like poo and you worry about getting dysentery. Your husband had it last time, so it's your turn now.
The pipes get fixed, but your hell isn't over yet. The Junk/Sewing Room needs to not only be cleared out, but the soaked & smelling old carpet ripped up/cut up into pieces, shoved into garbage bags, and then hauled upstairs & outside. The walls & floor need to be washed & bleached down. Soggy ceiling panels need to be ripped out. The walls of mismatched dark paneling need to be painted, a new floor laid in, ceiling panels replaced, and large plastic storage shelving units set up so that the room can made functional instead of returning to a massive pile of "I don't know what to do with it" junk.
And what does your new 13 yr old do during this time of plumbing crisis where he doesn't even have to school nor help you much? He actually gives you attitude and sass. Because that's exactly what mom needs in her life.
So, what does a homeschool mom who's already grounded her kid for 8 weeks start thinking of as punishment? She looks into local boarding schools. I'm sure I'm not the only mom who's done this. In fact, I know I'm not. Turns out, boarding school, at least the one I truly considered, is $46,000 a year and that's not including a ton of extra fees. Yeah. That wasn't going to happen and to be honest, homeschooling works. It's what's best for the kid, sass or not.
So, you start thinking to yourself some more...and channeling a bit of Dalton Academy 'cause you just love Kurt & Blaine...why not do boarding school at home? You've already started stripping the teenager's room of everything. You know he needs more discipline both in his attitude and in taking school more seriously. So why not do it and throw in a uniform requirement as well?
Of course you also admit to yourself that maybe you're too much of a Gleek. Maybe it's a really crazy idea. So you tweet about it to your homeschool mom friends and they actually think it's a good idea. After a couple of weeks, you get brave enough to post about it on Facebook and your mom friends who aren't on Twitter also think it's a good idea. Hell, even your husband, who attended parochial school from K-12 and always thinks you're crazy, thinks it's a good idea.
So you start planning and thinking some more. The Land's End School Uniform catalog, both print and web versions, become your new best friends and stress reliever. (They still are.)
And that's where I'll leave off for now. The next entry will have details on the uniform and probably, maybe, hopefully, some deets about the rest of boarding-school-at-home as well. I've been typing for nearly an hour already, so just expect a few pics for now. If you made it through this entire entry, you have the patience of a saint or need to share whatever it is you're drinking or smoking. LOL!
Oh, and about The Talk? I ended up giving it to him. A few talks actually and they turned out really good. I was very open and honest, related things to the Glee characters, telling him how important what Burt said to Kurt was, that he should strive to have the kind of honest, friendship-built relationship like Kurt & Blaine have no matter if he's gay or straight or bi. He knows he can come to me about anything & was open to hearing me talk about things I was never taught in ps, had to learn on my own, and felt them important for him to know.
~Heidi
Monday, June 6, 2011
I'm Finally Updating My Blog!
Sorry for the very long delay in updating this blog. So much has happened these past 8 months. Wow! Has it really been that long? Doesn't seem like it.
First reason for the delay: I was exhausted from cooking Thanksgiving for 100+ people. It's normally something that I enjoy doing for my husband's coworkers, our friends, & us. This year, I didn't want to do it. I was too tired from the months of complicated sewing of K's Halloween costume, among other things. But I let myself be talked into it. I even made extra to sell at Homeschool Market Day. (Which my homeschool mom & dad friends remembered when K & I brought stuff to sell a couple of weeks ago.)
Thanksgiving, as always, took over a month to recover from. I'm not sure if I've ever blogged about how much work it takes. We're talking 4-5 weeks of non-stop cooking, baking, shopping, & prep work. I have just one stove, a 1954 Kenmore in the tiny kitchen of my 85+ year old home. Its fold down, cast iron lids, are my only prep surface. After cooking/baking, everything has to be carefully wrapped & driven over to husband's 2nd job to be stored in one of the walk-in freezers. That's just the tip of the giant iceberg. I won't bore you with the rest unless you ask.
Second reason: Blaine Anderson came along to sweep Kurt Hummel off his feet on "Glee" in the episode "Never Been Kissed" and I turned from a fan of the show and Kurt into a die-hard Gleek and Klaine shipper. I'd sworn off fandom after the nasty, crude, flaming of non-Jameron shippers (i.e. folks like me who couldn't fathom John Connor with Cameron, a frelling Terminator!) during TSCC (Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles') all too brief run. (Thank you Fox for cancelling yet another great sci-fi show.)
I won't bore you with the details of my Gleekiness either. However, I will share the link to my tumbler account where I reblog a ton of Klaine, Kurt, Blaine, Darren Criss, & Chris Colfer stuff, post late-night insomnia-induced ramblings of how I incorporate "Glee" into homeschooling, and the occasional thing about my favorite sci-fi shows and trichotillomania. This is my tumbler page if you're interested. http://coffeeheidi.tumblr.com/
Third reason: My grandpa died at the age of 98. It wasn't an unexpected death, but it did require us to spend a week back home. The same week that my son turned 13, two days after my husband had his own birthday. Luckily, the only tickets to Broadway's "Wicked" that my husband could get us were in early Feb, so we were able to celebrate son's birthday in style. He'd been dying to see "Wicked" for years & had requested this as his present. We had AMAZING seats and the play/musical was beyond what we had ever imaged from the soundtrack (which of course we had memorized long beforehand.)
Fourth reason: Yet another major plumbing disaster. This one, while not as bad as the Christmas of Poo, certainty smelled like it & has required as much work. It took 2 months of my intense labor to repair the damage & I'm still not done with everything. I'll blog more about that later with pictures.
Fifth reason: This actually happened right before grandpa's funeral. K decided that he wants to graduate by age 16 and go to a top notch college with a good law school. So I went from teaching a 7th grader to figuring out how to cram in a ton of high school courses. I like subcategories & color-coding, so that totaled out to 27 different subjects. All of which, after geting on a roll, had to be put off due to the plumbing disaster.
Sixth reason: This one, I am definitely going to be blogging about next in it's own separate entry. My son turned 13 and a whole new level of attitude came with it. Yes, it's to be expected. No, I'm not about to put up with it. "Easy-going, push-over mom" is GONE. We now do boarding-school-at-home. Or rather, I'm still trying to implement the fullness of what I have planned. It's taken longer than I expected.
Seventh reason: Along with the basement plumbing disaster repairs/forced remodeling, I've taken to trying to dejunk the rest of the basement, kitchen, living room, K's bedroom, & mine & hub's bedroom, with the focus on the first 4. The plumbing disaster did have one good benefit: I now have a whole room for storing things in an organized manner. I'm hoping it stays that ways & doesn't revert back to the Junk Room it once was.
Eight reason: I finally got a Twitter account. No longer do I bore my many Facebook friends with rambles. Now I tweet about them. I can have all the verbal diarrhea I want, vent out my stresses, & don't have to worry about bothering my friends. Tweets are easier to ignore than FB posts. They're also entertaining to read & post while running errands.
And so that's my entry for now. I promise to try to get to more this week, if not today. I really want to talk about boarding-school-at-home, my new obsession and the bane of my son's existence.
Thanks for reading,
~Heidi
First reason for the delay: I was exhausted from cooking Thanksgiving for 100+ people. It's normally something that I enjoy doing for my husband's coworkers, our friends, & us. This year, I didn't want to do it. I was too tired from the months of complicated sewing of K's Halloween costume, among other things. But I let myself be talked into it. I even made extra to sell at Homeschool Market Day. (Which my homeschool mom & dad friends remembered when K & I brought stuff to sell a couple of weeks ago.)
Thanksgiving, as always, took over a month to recover from. I'm not sure if I've ever blogged about how much work it takes. We're talking 4-5 weeks of non-stop cooking, baking, shopping, & prep work. I have just one stove, a 1954 Kenmore in the tiny kitchen of my 85+ year old home. Its fold down, cast iron lids, are my only prep surface. After cooking/baking, everything has to be carefully wrapped & driven over to husband's 2nd job to be stored in one of the walk-in freezers. That's just the tip of the giant iceberg. I won't bore you with the rest unless you ask.
Second reason: Blaine Anderson came along to sweep Kurt Hummel off his feet on "Glee" in the episode "Never Been Kissed" and I turned from a fan of the show and Kurt into a die-hard Gleek and Klaine shipper. I'd sworn off fandom after the nasty, crude, flaming of non-Jameron shippers (i.e. folks like me who couldn't fathom John Connor with Cameron, a frelling Terminator!) during TSCC (Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles') all too brief run. (Thank you Fox for cancelling yet another great sci-fi show.)
I won't bore you with the details of my Gleekiness either. However, I will share the link to my tumbler account where I reblog a ton of Klaine, Kurt, Blaine, Darren Criss, & Chris Colfer stuff, post late-night insomnia-induced ramblings of how I incorporate "Glee" into homeschooling, and the occasional thing about my favorite sci-fi shows and trichotillomania. This is my tumbler page if you're interested. http://coffeeheidi.tumblr.com/
Third reason: My grandpa died at the age of 98. It wasn't an unexpected death, but it did require us to spend a week back home. The same week that my son turned 13, two days after my husband had his own birthday. Luckily, the only tickets to Broadway's "Wicked" that my husband could get us were in early Feb, so we were able to celebrate son's birthday in style. He'd been dying to see "Wicked" for years & had requested this as his present. We had AMAZING seats and the play/musical was beyond what we had ever imaged from the soundtrack (which of course we had memorized long beforehand.)
Fourth reason: Yet another major plumbing disaster. This one, while not as bad as the Christmas of Poo, certainty smelled like it & has required as much work. It took 2 months of my intense labor to repair the damage & I'm still not done with everything. I'll blog more about that later with pictures.
Fifth reason: This actually happened right before grandpa's funeral. K decided that he wants to graduate by age 16 and go to a top notch college with a good law school. So I went from teaching a 7th grader to figuring out how to cram in a ton of high school courses. I like subcategories & color-coding, so that totaled out to 27 different subjects. All of which, after geting on a roll, had to be put off due to the plumbing disaster.
Sixth reason: This one, I am definitely going to be blogging about next in it's own separate entry. My son turned 13 and a whole new level of attitude came with it. Yes, it's to be expected. No, I'm not about to put up with it. "Easy-going, push-over mom" is GONE. We now do boarding-school-at-home. Or rather, I'm still trying to implement the fullness of what I have planned. It's taken longer than I expected.
Seventh reason: Along with the basement plumbing disaster repairs/forced remodeling, I've taken to trying to dejunk the rest of the basement, kitchen, living room, K's bedroom, & mine & hub's bedroom, with the focus on the first 4. The plumbing disaster did have one good benefit: I now have a whole room for storing things in an organized manner. I'm hoping it stays that ways & doesn't revert back to the Junk Room it once was.
Eight reason: I finally got a Twitter account. No longer do I bore my many Facebook friends with rambles. Now I tweet about them. I can have all the verbal diarrhea I want, vent out my stresses, & don't have to worry about bothering my friends. Tweets are easier to ignore than FB posts. They're also entertaining to read & post while running errands.
And so that's my entry for now. I promise to try to get to more this week, if not today. I really want to talk about boarding-school-at-home, my new obsession and the bane of my son's existence.
Thanks for reading,
~Heidi
Sunday, November 14, 2010
A Sample of Thanksgiving Cooking
Maybe it's a brag, maybe it's just me wanting to share what a slow day of Thanksgiving Feast Cooking is like. (For a Baking Day, imagine roasting, then peeling, then pureeing, then turning 20 lbs of sweet potatoes into 14 pies and a catering tray of candied sweet potatoes.)
From Facebook posts today:
First post, "Grocery store run has been done. First cup of coffee and breakfast, almost done. Now I've got to get off my bum to make and bake the vanilla cake for the last chocolate mousse cake. Then it's time to bring out the giant stock pot, chop a ton of vegetables, & start making the chicken stock."
Next, "Mr. Gooble Wobble-Me-Up is in the oven and the giant pot of chicken stock is cooking on the stove top. Vanilla chocolate mousse cake was made and delivered to the theatre's freezer. Turkey #2 got transferred from the freezer to the fridge for defrosting. Hope to get 4-6 batches of Kiran's Crazy Cookies dough made tonight & put in fridge to chill.
Even with the air conditioners running full blast, the house is hot as hell. Damn oven, turkeys that take hours to roast, and stock that takes hours of simmering on the stove top. :-( "
A friend asks, "Do you have time in between all that to take a deep breath???? LOL"
I reply, "T., considering I'm answering your reply 44 minutes after you wrote it...'no.' LOL! 3 batches of cookie dough have been colored (orange, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, & original/dough,) the 25 lb bag of sugar taken out of car and poured into the *finally arrived* food grade bucket, discovered that I'm going to need to pick up another 25 lbs. pounds after the cookies LOL!, this week's shopping lists made, turkey's been basted, yelled at Faberware timer for yet again not working, husband came home & has been shown what's to eat & what needs doing tonight (very basic husband-only things,) put a bottle of hard cider in the fridge to chill for me, stock has been stirred, and more water filtered for said stock. And the night's not over yet."
Until next time, I remain the overheated,
~CoffeeHeidi
From Facebook posts today:
First post, "Grocery store run has been done. First cup of coffee and breakfast, almost done. Now I've got to get off my bum to make and bake the vanilla cake for the last chocolate mousse cake. Then it's time to bring out the giant stock pot, chop a ton of vegetables, & start making the chicken stock."
Next, "Mr. Gooble Wobble-Me-Up is in the oven and the giant pot of chicken stock is cooking on the stove top. Vanilla chocolate mousse cake was made and delivered to the theatre's freezer. Turkey #2 got transferred from the freezer to the fridge for defrosting. Hope to get 4-6 batches of Kiran's Crazy Cookies dough made tonight & put in fridge to chill.
Even with the air conditioners running full blast, the house is hot as hell. Damn oven, turkeys that take hours to roast, and stock that takes hours of simmering on the stove top. :-( "
A friend asks, "Do you have time in between all that to take a deep breath???? LOL"
I reply, "T., considering I'm answering your reply 44 minutes after you wrote it...'no.' LOL! 3 batches of cookie dough have been colored (orange, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, & original/dough,) the 25 lb bag of sugar taken out of car and poured into the *finally arrived* food grade bucket, discovered that I'm going to need to pick up another 25 lbs. pounds after the cookies LOL!, this week's shopping lists made, turkey's been basted, yelled at Faberware timer for yet again not working, husband came home & has been shown what's to eat & what needs doing tonight (very basic husband-only things,) put a bottle of hard cider in the fridge to chill for me, stock has been stirred, and more water filtered for said stock. And the night's not over yet."
Until next time, I remain the overheated,
~CoffeeHeidi
Busy couple of weeks
This will be brief...maybe. Unfortunately, there won't be pictures. Husband bought us a new camera, but he hasn't downloaded the pictures from it yet. (Currently we only have a cable for it, not a memory card.) I'm too busy to learn how.
Our last couple of weeks in brief:
Halloween: Went pumpkin picking at a local farm, visited Daddy's 2nd work and only a couple of houses including the amazing "Halloween House" down the street. They expect us every year and always have a special treat for Kiran. He didn't mind not trick-or-treating much because the costume is so hard to breathe and see in and he's not in it for the candy. He just likes showing off. :-P
Had AWESOME AWESOME time at Ubercon. Made lots of new friends, the staff absolutely adored Kiran, and his costume was a huge successes. Kiran described the con as Heaven. :-) I got to play the only video game I really loved, Qix, thanks to one of the staff who had built an arcade like set up and had a ton of old games, including Frogger. Very cool!
Homeschool Bake/Craft Sale went very well. We were swamped the minute we started setting up. LOL! Nearly all the bread was sold and folks asked us to bring more next week. Other big sellers for us: Kiran's Crazy Cookies, cupcake-sized pumpkin, apple, apple crumb, sweet potato pies, and whole pies of the same.
Local homeschool friends: We'll be bringing more Kiran's Crazy Cookies ($0.25 each) and both Herb and Multi-Grain bread ($2.00 each) this Thursday. Perfect for Thanksgiving and meals leading up to it!
Thanksgiving Feast 2010: nearly all the shopping is done except for last minute salad ingredients. The desserts are baked and happily sitting in a freezer. Two chickens have been roasted for the stuffing and their bones are sitting in a huge pot turning into stock as I type. The first of two 20 lb. turkeys is currently roasting. It's bones will be turned into stock tomorrow. Three cups of margarine are softening up in the massive mixing bowl waiting to be turned into delicious cookies.
Laundry is somehow being kept up to date despite 1-2 loads of dishes being run every day on top of handwashing others. The living room is a mess, but that's to be expected this time of year. It was cleaned shortly before Halloween, but can't truly be gotten to till after Thanksgiving.
Kiran is happily schooling himself despite this being our "summer break," coming up with more ways to save the world. He's going to be cleaning out the living room wardrobe tonight looking for coats to give the homeless children in NYC that he'd heard about on the news. We both continue to watch a lot of educational programming as is our wont, actively schooling or not. One of Kiran's "save the world" plans includes his theories on the Irish Potato Famine he'd seen a special about the other day. (I swear to you, I taught him this last year, but I guess it took a "repeat" for it to truly sink in.)
And that's it for now. Will try and post pictures and updates when I can.
~CoffeeHeidi, making bread by hand, never machine, and slaving over a 1950's stove 20 hours a day.
Our last couple of weeks in brief:
Halloween: Went pumpkin picking at a local farm, visited Daddy's 2nd work and only a couple of houses including the amazing "Halloween House" down the street. They expect us every year and always have a special treat for Kiran. He didn't mind not trick-or-treating much because the costume is so hard to breathe and see in and he's not in it for the candy. He just likes showing off. :-P
Had AWESOME AWESOME time at Ubercon. Made lots of new friends, the staff absolutely adored Kiran, and his costume was a huge successes. Kiran described the con as Heaven. :-) I got to play the only video game I really loved, Qix, thanks to one of the staff who had built an arcade like set up and had a ton of old games, including Frogger. Very cool!
Homeschool Bake/Craft Sale went very well. We were swamped the minute we started setting up. LOL! Nearly all the bread was sold and folks asked us to bring more next week. Other big sellers for us: Kiran's Crazy Cookies, cupcake-sized pumpkin, apple, apple crumb, sweet potato pies, and whole pies of the same.
Local homeschool friends: We'll be bringing more Kiran's Crazy Cookies ($0.25 each) and both Herb and Multi-Grain bread ($2.00 each) this Thursday. Perfect for Thanksgiving and meals leading up to it!
Thanksgiving Feast 2010: nearly all the shopping is done except for last minute salad ingredients. The desserts are baked and happily sitting in a freezer. Two chickens have been roasted for the stuffing and their bones are sitting in a huge pot turning into stock as I type. The first of two 20 lb. turkeys is currently roasting. It's bones will be turned into stock tomorrow. Three cups of margarine are softening up in the massive mixing bowl waiting to be turned into delicious cookies.
Laundry is somehow being kept up to date despite 1-2 loads of dishes being run every day on top of handwashing others. The living room is a mess, but that's to be expected this time of year. It was cleaned shortly before Halloween, but can't truly be gotten to till after Thanksgiving.
Kiran is happily schooling himself despite this being our "summer break," coming up with more ways to save the world. He's going to be cleaning out the living room wardrobe tonight looking for coats to give the homeless children in NYC that he'd heard about on the news. We both continue to watch a lot of educational programming as is our wont, actively schooling or not. One of Kiran's "save the world" plans includes his theories on the Irish Potato Famine he'd seen a special about the other day. (I swear to you, I taught him this last year, but I guess it took a "repeat" for it to truly sink in.)
And that's it for now. Will try and post pictures and updates when I can.
~CoffeeHeidi, making bread by hand, never machine, and slaving over a 1950's stove 20 hours a day.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Numbers!
I realized today while making up 4 enormous batches of pumpkin pie filling that saying I'm cooking & baking for 110+ and listing all the dishes doesn't mean much until you see the numbers. Most folks, according to my husband, bring only 1 pie to a gathering. To me, that's just not fair. Eight slices for 40-80 people?! How does that add up? So of course, I bring more. Here are the numbers in a, knowing me, rambling order that still won't make complete sense in the end.
...pausing because the oven timer dinged....
I'm back. Here are the numbers with a few explanations. I'm not complaining, just complaining, and feeling very exhausted though the day is still young.
Desserts
* Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie: 6 whole, 12 pocket (these alone took 15 lbs of apples to make)
* Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie: 1 whole, 21 pocket (this few because that's all 5 lbs of apples would make)
* Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie: 14 whole, 24 pocket (they took around 18 lbs of sweet potatoes that had to be roasted, peeled, & pureed to make)
* Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie: 7-10 whole, 12-24 pocket (depends on how many the current batches of batter make. Ideally, I only need 7 whole and 12 pocket)
* Tiny Treacle Tarts: 12+ pocket (however many 1 batch makes)
* Spruce Chocolate Mousse Cakes, all flavors: 5 whole
* Kiran's Super Happy Chocolate Cake: 1 whole which made 8 giant-sized slices
* Sugar-Free to Be Me Diabetic Cake: 1 whole, however many cupcakes 1 batch makes
* Lick Me Up! Pops: 1 batch each of orange & lemon
I Dream in Bed of Homemade Bread
* Aromatic Herb: 2 batches = 8 loaves, will probably add on another 4 loaves
* Macho Multi-grain: 2 batches = 8 loaves
* Wholesome White: 4 batches = 12 loaves + 1 batch's worth of rolls
Main and Side Dishes
* Terrific Turkeys, 18-20 lbs each: 4-5
* Happy Stuffing: 3 batches which will take 2 chickens, homemade stock from those chickens, 6 tubes of sausage meat, turkey drippings, and 2-3 multi-packs of stuffing mix to make
* Mucho Mashed Potatoes: 2 batches using up 2 gallon-sized containers of potato flakes and 2-3 quarts of homemade stock
* Vegan Pink Beans & Rice: 1 very large batch
* Kiran's Confetti Salad: 1 very large batch which is 2nd to only the stuffing in how much time it takes to prepare
* Candied Sweet Potatoes: 1 very large batch
* Crave-able Cranberry Sauce: 2 batches
Pies dinged again and so I must run. The "Sample Ladies" at Sam's Club (Hi, Lisa, Judy, and Lisa's-friend-that-I'm-totally-blanking-for-your-name-on!) are expecting us today. :-D
Till the next time I get a free moment, I remain the burned, bruised, cut, and flour covered,
~CoffeeHeidi, the "C" stands for "crazy" :-P
...pausing because the oven timer dinged....
I'm back. Here are the numbers with a few explanations. I'm not complaining, just complaining, and feeling very exhausted though the day is still young.
Desserts
* Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie: 6 whole, 12 pocket (these alone took 15 lbs of apples to make)
* Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie: 1 whole, 21 pocket (this few because that's all 5 lbs of apples would make)
* Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie: 14 whole, 24 pocket (they took around 18 lbs of sweet potatoes that had to be roasted, peeled, & pureed to make)
* Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie: 7-10 whole, 12-24 pocket (depends on how many the current batches of batter make. Ideally, I only need 7 whole and 12 pocket)
* Tiny Treacle Tarts: 12+ pocket (however many 1 batch makes)
* Spruce Chocolate Mousse Cakes, all flavors: 5 whole
* Kiran's Super Happy Chocolate Cake: 1 whole which made 8 giant-sized slices
* Sugar-Free to Be Me Diabetic Cake: 1 whole, however many cupcakes 1 batch makes
* Lick Me Up! Pops: 1 batch each of orange & lemon
I Dream in Bed of Homemade Bread
* Aromatic Herb: 2 batches = 8 loaves, will probably add on another 4 loaves
* Macho Multi-grain: 2 batches = 8 loaves
* Wholesome White: 4 batches = 12 loaves + 1 batch's worth of rolls
Main and Side Dishes
* Terrific Turkeys, 18-20 lbs each: 4-5
* Happy Stuffing: 3 batches which will take 2 chickens, homemade stock from those chickens, 6 tubes of sausage meat, turkey drippings, and 2-3 multi-packs of stuffing mix to make
* Mucho Mashed Potatoes: 2 batches using up 2 gallon-sized containers of potato flakes and 2-3 quarts of homemade stock
* Vegan Pink Beans & Rice: 1 very large batch
* Kiran's Confetti Salad: 1 very large batch which is 2nd to only the stuffing in how much time it takes to prepare
* Candied Sweet Potatoes: 1 very large batch
* Crave-able Cranberry Sauce: 2 batches
Pies dinged again and so I must run. The "Sample Ladies" at Sam's Club (Hi, Lisa, Judy, and Lisa's-friend-that-I'm-totally-blanking-for-your-name-on!) are expecting us today. :-D
Till the next time I get a free moment, I remain the burned, bruised, cut, and flour covered,
~CoffeeHeidi, the "C" stands for "crazy" :-P
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Thanksgiving Feast 2010 & Homeschool Bake Sale
It's begun. Thanksgiving Feast cooking and baking is in full swing. And being over achievers, Kiran and I are baking and cooking for the small bake & craft sale that will take place during homeschool soccer Thursday after next.
Only, Kiran and I never do anything small. It was his idea six years ago that we should cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the movie theatre staff where Daddy is a manager. That ranges from 60- 80+ people. Then Daddy (my husband of course) loves having "30 Days of Thanksgiving Dinner" lunches so that his coworkers at his first job can wonder what those delicious smells are in the middle of December. That, and I could cheat on him as long as I keep making my stuffing. LOL! Friends get food too, so tack on another 4-10 people. (Husband swears I'm a compulsive feader. :-D )
And this year, there's that small bake & craft fair at soccer. Like last time we participated, Kiran and I can't just bring one or two things. Oh no, we have to go overboard! It's part of our crazy nature. Why do one thing when you can do 20 or 30? What's 4 more sweet potato pies when you're already making 10? What's one more 20 lb. turkey when you're roasting 3 and last year you made 7?
So firstly, let me tell you, and my homeschool friends, what Kiran and I will be over bringing to the bake sale. And please note that we're not making money on this. What we're charging isn't near what it cost to make our goods. We do this because we love to share our love of food, the timing just happened to coincide with Thanksgiving Feast cooking & baking, and as always, because we're crazy. LOL!
Happy Kiran & Crazy Mommy's Delicious Delights
Perfect Pocket Pies: $0.50
Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie
Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
Oh My, That's Good Pie!, Whole: $6.00
Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie
Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
Tiny Treacle Tarts: $0.50
Silly Happy Slices: $1.25
Kiran's Super Happy Chocolate Cake
Let Me Have More! Pops: $0.25
Lick Your Lips Lemon Pops
Nothing Rhymes with Orange Pops
Sugar-Free To Be Me Cupcakes: $0.50
I Dream in Bed of Homemade Bread: $2.00
Aromatic Herb
Macho Multigrain
Wholesome White
Be Thanksgivingfull Plate: $5.00
Plans for this plate are to include: turkey, stuffing, Swedish meatballs, homemade roll
Veg Out Vegetarian Plate: $5.00
Plans for this plate are to include: vegan pink beans & rice, vegetarian stuffing, candied sweet potatoes without marshmallows, homemade roll.
Right now, because of the enormous amount of desserts and bread that I have to make and the fact that I'll be missing 3 days of baking time due to a gaming convention (Kiran's first,) I can't guarantee that we'll be bringing the Thanksgivingfull and Vegetarian Plates nor the Treacle Tarts. However, they should be available the week following the bake & craft sale.
Now onto the Thanksgiving Feast 2010 that the theatre staff, and my husband, will be getting!
* Terrific Turkey (two 20 pounders roasted & seasoned to juicy perfection)
* Happy Stuffing (it takes 3 days, 1 chicken, homemade stock, and ground sausage to make)
* Mucho Mashed Potatoes (flavored with homemade stock & turkey drippings)
* Vegan Pink Beans & Rice (a Puerto Rican favorite that's surprisingly meat-free)
* Kiran's Confetti Salad (a blend of greens, herbs, and any other aromatic that catches his fancy)
* Swedish Meatballs (simple to make, hard to stop eating)
* Candied Sweet Potatoes (better than your grandmother's)
* Wholesome & Hearty White Homemade Bread
* Chocolate Mousse Cakes: Chocolate Cake w/Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mousse and Vanilla Cake w/White Chocolate Mousse
* Sugar-Free To Be Me Diabetic Cake
* Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
* Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
* Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
* Crave-able Cranberry Sauce
* Condiments: gravy, whipped cream, butter
* Also supplied: napkins, tablecloths, plates, cutlery, serving wear, decorations, and us bringing the feast in festive homemade fall clothing.
And this is why Kiran and I are over-achievers, insane, and why I never get anything close to decent sleep during the month of November. In fact, I'm a bit behind. Normally I have 90% of my grocery shopping done by now. Kiran's Halloween costume ate into that time.
I'm off to slice up & wrap the Happy Cake and then maybe get some sleep.
Till next time,
~CoffeeHeidi, baker and cook of all things wonderful and delicious at Thanksgiving :-D
Only, Kiran and I never do anything small. It was his idea six years ago that we should cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the movie theatre staff where Daddy is a manager. That ranges from 60- 80+ people. Then Daddy (my husband of course) loves having "30 Days of Thanksgiving Dinner" lunches so that his coworkers at his first job can wonder what those delicious smells are in the middle of December. That, and I could cheat on him as long as I keep making my stuffing. LOL! Friends get food too, so tack on another 4-10 people. (Husband swears I'm a compulsive feader. :-D )
And this year, there's that small bake & craft fair at soccer. Like last time we participated, Kiran and I can't just bring one or two things. Oh no, we have to go overboard! It's part of our crazy nature. Why do one thing when you can do 20 or 30? What's 4 more sweet potato pies when you're already making 10? What's one more 20 lb. turkey when you're roasting 3 and last year you made 7?
So firstly, let me tell you, and my homeschool friends, what Kiran and I will be over bringing to the bake sale. And please note that we're not making money on this. What we're charging isn't near what it cost to make our goods. We do this because we love to share our love of food, the timing just happened to coincide with Thanksgiving Feast cooking & baking, and as always, because we're crazy. LOL!
Happy Kiran & Crazy Mommy's Delicious Delights
Perfect Pocket Pies: $0.50
Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie
Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
Oh My, That's Good Pie!, Whole: $6.00
Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
Sweet as My Mum Apple Crumb Pie
Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
Tiny Treacle Tarts: $0.50
Silly Happy Slices: $1.25
Kiran's Super Happy Chocolate Cake
Let Me Have More! Pops: $0.25
Lick Your Lips Lemon Pops
Nothing Rhymes with Orange Pops
Sugar-Free To Be Me Cupcakes: $0.50
I Dream in Bed of Homemade Bread: $2.00
Aromatic Herb
Macho Multigrain
Wholesome White
Be Thanksgivingfull Plate: $5.00
Plans for this plate are to include: turkey, stuffing, Swedish meatballs, homemade roll
Veg Out Vegetarian Plate: $5.00
Plans for this plate are to include: vegan pink beans & rice, vegetarian stuffing, candied sweet potatoes without marshmallows, homemade roll.
Right now, because of the enormous amount of desserts and bread that I have to make and the fact that I'll be missing 3 days of baking time due to a gaming convention (Kiran's first,) I can't guarantee that we'll be bringing the Thanksgivingfull and Vegetarian Plates nor the Treacle Tarts. However, they should be available the week following the bake & craft sale.
Now onto the Thanksgiving Feast 2010 that the theatre staff, and my husband, will be getting!
* Terrific Turkey (two 20 pounders roasted & seasoned to juicy perfection)
* Happy Stuffing (it takes 3 days, 1 chicken, homemade stock, and ground sausage to make)
* Mucho Mashed Potatoes (flavored with homemade stock & turkey drippings)
* Vegan Pink Beans & Rice (a Puerto Rican favorite that's surprisingly meat-free)
* Kiran's Confetti Salad (a blend of greens, herbs, and any other aromatic that catches his fancy)
* Swedish Meatballs (simple to make, hard to stop eating)
* Candied Sweet Potatoes (better than your grandmother's)
* Wholesome & Hearty White Homemade Bread
* Chocolate Mousse Cakes: Chocolate Cake w/Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mousse and Vanilla Cake w/White Chocolate Mousse
* Sugar-Free To Be Me Diabetic Cake
* Apple of Your Eye Tangy Pie
* Perfect as Me Squeal with Glee Pumpkin Pie
* Sweet Potato Doesn't Taste Like Tomato Pie
* Crave-able Cranberry Sauce
* Condiments: gravy, whipped cream, butter
* Also supplied: napkins, tablecloths, plates, cutlery, serving wear, decorations, and us bringing the feast in festive homemade fall clothing.
And this is why Kiran and I are over-achievers, insane, and why I never get anything close to decent sleep during the month of November. In fact, I'm a bit behind. Normally I have 90% of my grocery shopping done by now. Kiran's Halloween costume ate into that time.
I'm off to slice up & wrap the Happy Cake and then maybe get some sleep.
Till next time,
~CoffeeHeidi, baker and cook of all things wonderful and delicious at Thanksgiving :-D
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Ratchet & Clank Costume Pics
Here are a few pictures of Kiran's completed Ratchet costume and his favorite stuffed animal's (a puppy) Clank costume.
One of these days I'll get around to making a slide show of the making of the costume including details that you can't see in the full body, or even half body, shots.
Ratchet's weapon is being made. There's a lot of painting and gluing involved, so it's taking a while.
The costume took 3 months to make if you include me taking about a month's worth of breaks and delays off. After the first month of intense pattern making and sewing, I got really burned out. This month has been a mad dash hell run to the finish.
The costume was a lot more complicated than I'd originally thought. Or rather, I wanted to add the details that most wouldn't and so it was more complicated. The main body of the jumpsuit has all the layers as the character does. The side detailing is a combination of ribbon and layers of fabric that were attached to the jumpsuit. One is opened just enough to contain the battery pack of the suit's el wires. The leg detail was another separate piece made from layers of fabric and ribbon.
The head. OMGosh, the head! That took a TON of work. My intent was to do a full head mask rather than the "I can see your face" mask of past years. I wanted people to see Ratchet, not "look, it's a kid in a Ratchet mask." Of course, not everything turned out well despite 2 different noses. Despite my best efforts, the mouth did not align well, but once the boning that holds the 4 sets of cut & glued fake teeth in place, it was too late to change it. Plus, the quilting done in order to create the full cheekbones couldn't be cut into in order to center the mouth properly. The head Velcro's closed in the back with additional strips of Velcro around the neck in order to attach it to the jumpsuit, to keep it from coming out and achieving a smoother, more natural neck appearance.
The helmet was another multi-day construction with hours of hand sewing involved in order to attach the silver details and el wires. The battery pack is tucked away in the back and accessed by a silver, with Velcro attached, piece of fabric which resembles the detailing on the character's helmet. The front sides of the helmet are attached to the face with snaps.
Clank's costume. Yes, I know the hands and main body are too big, the joints and back detailing too small. However, I tried to make my best "essence of Clank" given that the stuffed animal's dimensions aren't those of an animated robot. I wasn't making a stuffed Clank. I was making a Clank costume for a stuffed dog with big paws and normal thickness limbs. There is Velcro attached to his back in order to attach him to the back of the Ratchet costume. However, spray painting Velcro silver makes it not want to stick so much. So for now, he'll have to be pinned on or simply held. I did try my best though!
That's it for tonight. I'll post pictures of Ratchet's weapon once it's done. And then it's off to entertain you with tales of Thanksgiving Feast 2010 cooking. There's a reason we school during the summer - we need the months of October and November (and often Sept.) for holiday cooking and sewing.
Till next time, I remain the exhausted,
~CoffeeHeidi
The costume was a lot more complicated than I'd originally thought. Or rather, I wanted to add the details that most wouldn't and so it was more complicated. The main body of the jumpsuit has all the layers as the character does. The side detailing is a combination of ribbon and layers of fabric that were attached to the jumpsuit. One is opened just enough to contain the battery pack of the suit's el wires. The leg detail was another separate piece made from layers of fabric and ribbon.
The head. OMGosh, the head! That took a TON of work. My intent was to do a full head mask rather than the "I can see your face" mask of past years. I wanted people to see Ratchet, not "look, it's a kid in a Ratchet mask." Of course, not everything turned out well despite 2 different noses. Despite my best efforts, the mouth did not align well, but once the boning that holds the 4 sets of cut & glued fake teeth in place, it was too late to change it. Plus, the quilting done in order to create the full cheekbones couldn't be cut into in order to center the mouth properly. The head Velcro's closed in the back with additional strips of Velcro around the neck in order to attach it to the jumpsuit, to keep it from coming out and achieving a smoother, more natural neck appearance.
The helmet was another multi-day construction with hours of hand sewing involved in order to attach the silver details and el wires. The battery pack is tucked away in the back and accessed by a silver, with Velcro attached, piece of fabric which resembles the detailing on the character's helmet. The front sides of the helmet are attached to the face with snaps.
Clank's costume. Yes, I know the hands and main body are too big, the joints and back detailing too small. However, I tried to make my best "essence of Clank" given that the stuffed animal's dimensions aren't those of an animated robot. I wasn't making a stuffed Clank. I was making a Clank costume for a stuffed dog with big paws and normal thickness limbs. There is Velcro attached to his back in order to attach him to the back of the Ratchet costume. However, spray painting Velcro silver makes it not want to stick so much. So for now, he'll have to be pinned on or simply held. I did try my best though!
That's it for tonight. I'll post pictures of Ratchet's weapon once it's done. And then it's off to entertain you with tales of Thanksgiving Feast 2010 cooking. There's a reason we school during the summer - we need the months of October and November (and often Sept.) for holiday cooking and sewing.
Till next time, I remain the exhausted,
~CoffeeHeidi
Saturday, October 23, 2010
A "Learn from Heidi's Mistakes" Lesson
For those who have friended me on Facebook and have read my Wall posts recently, you can go ahead and skip this blog post. For all others, please read on and learn from my mistakes. There is nothing that I can't break or frell up in some manner. And so, I impart this new found wisdom upon you. :-)
Lessons Learned from Trying to Use Spray Foam in the Construction of a Costume Weapon
1. Spray foam will get everywhere
2. For this reason, believe the directions when they tell you to use it outside. Otherwise it'll end up all over your coffee table, where you eat your meals.
3. It keeps expanding long after you spray it down plumbing tubing
4. It's sticky as hell and impossible to wipe off with a damp paper towel.
5. Yet it's not sticky enough to hold a smaller pipe into place inside a larger one.
6. It will remove the spray paint it took you 3 days to carefully apply. :-(
7. Hours after the "Spray Foam Incident" you'll discover that you forgot to add a part to the handle and can't now that the foam has done it's disastrous work. You make plans to ditch the whole thing and start over tomorrow with another $30 spent ($100 already on the weapon) on replacement parts and foam-ish shelf liner to bridge the gap between the pipes & stuffed animal fiber filling to fill the space inside...none of which are as horridly messy as spray foam
8. Want to diet? Use spray foam indoors and even though you wore latex gloves and washed your hands each time you had to clean up the expanding crap, you'll "southernly exile in a violent manner" everything you ate that day. :-O
And that's it for now. I'll post on how the rest of the costume and remake of the weapon handle is going later. I'm off to the hardware store!
~CoffeeHeidi
"God won't let me live a normal life." ~Heidi, a lesson learned in her early 20's
Friday, October 15, 2010
Another Week Has Gone By
Can't believe it's been a week since I posted. Then again, maybe that's a good thing. LOL!
Not a lot has gone on, but we're making progress. K. had another great day at homeschool soccer. His new best friend, S. is adorable, funny, intelligent, loves video and card games, and is a delight to talk to. Loved chatting with her dad today too. Finally, K. has a friend in our general area (as opposed to many states away) that loves the same things he does.
Plus, and this is a HUGE plus, her family shares many of the same...values and beliefs are both the wrong words...basically, I don't have to pussy foot around being a Democrat, "liberal" non-church going Christian, who teaches evolution and thinks Harry Potter is awesome rather than the work of the devil. For those that don't homeschool, you have no idea what a huge relief that is!
Also on the homeschooling front, the latest Scribblenaughts video game came out this week and K's already beaten it. These games are a nice break from our regular spelling curriculum, though I did tire quickly of the 20,000 "Mom, how do you spell....?" Whipped out the dictionary eventually before it lead to "special coffee time." :-P
Finally, got back to work on his Ratchet costume. Presently, I'm working on the helmet which will light up the same as his costume. The shoulder armor is done though I still can't find the other tap light that needs attaching. His mask is completely done, Velcro attachments and all. Daddy Puppy's Clank costume needs back detailing work and a way to attach himself to the back of the Ratchet costume. Oh, and there's a dreaded weapon! Two weeks until Halloween and it's going to take till the last second to get that blasted thing done. I haven't even made a trip to the hardware and craft stores for parts yet. :-( Two and a half months I've been working and then procrastinating on this costume.
And for those of you wondering just what the heck is a Ratchet and Clank, I'll post a picture. Later on I'll add a sideshow of the making of the costumes. Ratchet and Clank are the lead characters in a series of video games by the same name. K. LOVES them! Ratchet has holographic armor, hence the need for K's costume to light up. Above, since apparently you can't post them below, are pictures of the characters.
That's all for tonight. Since I can't sleep, I'm off to sew.
~CoffeeHeidi
My life is crazy, but it's fun that way!
Friday, October 8, 2010
Thursday was Excellent!
For all of my incoherent, misspelled, wrong word-filled, sleep deprived ramblings of yesterday morning the day ended up being excellent!
Yes, I often, far too often, went on similar sleep deprived, caffeine-hyped ramblings each time I was asked even the simplest of questions. (I'm bad enough when I'm "normal" - this was FAR worse. LOL!) I was completely oblivious to the polite not-so-subtle clues the lovely receptionist at therapy was giving me such as repeatedly saying that I should wait in the waiting room and so kept sticking around rambling. I apologized later when I found out that law prevented her from mentioning the full names of patients in front of others - the ones standing near that needed her attention. OOPS! :-O As my husband has said of others, "someone seriously needed to hit him/her (me) with a clue-by-four." LOL!
Despite these few minor things, Kiran and I couldn't have had a better day. Okay, I'm sure he will swear up and down that he could have completely done without the flu shot. He's fine with blood draws and IVs, but immunization shots are torture to the poor kid. He can't, understandably, relax his muscles in order to make the shots less painful. His whole body and soul tenses up. Oh, the poor kid! But, they keep him out of the hospital, so he gets them. (He's had asthma since infancy & is very familiar with hospitals, doctors, nurses, techs, etc. And I'll stop this tangent here. LOL!)
Back to the excellent day. :-) We'd stopped doing soccer a couple of years ago for a few reasons. One, it kept interfering with bowling. Two, some, not all, of the parents were kind of cliquish to me. I wasn't in their co-op fully & so wasn't "one of them." Three, one mom that I used to think was nice, couldn't even muster a simple, "Sorry," when I explained that we had missed soccer one week because we had to visit my dad (5 states away) who was having brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. (It was either that, or it was when dad inevitably died from the cancer.) Instead, the mom snubbed with, "Yeah, you mentioned that already." Seriously?? Not even with my most dreaded enemies would I not give a brief condolence. It's not like dad had the flu or a mild melanoma. This was 100% terminal brain cancer, a disease that literally robbed him of his senses and personality. Four, there were a couple of bullies. Yes, even homeschoolers can be bullies. And my kid - half the time he'll sit there and wonder why I (who had no idea anything was happening because I couldn't hear it) wouldn't rush over to him. The other half, he'd...not fight like you see in movies or on the news...just perform his own acts of "you can't do that to other people" kind of justice. It's how he ended up getting hit in the back with a stick. According to him, some kids weren't letting other kids play with them. To Kiran, this was completely unjust and some things happened like he threw a rock and ...honestly, I don't remember everything and was never clear on the details except that he got hurt and wasn't without fault either. It was years ago and water under the bridge. All forgive, forget, & move on, nothing more to say. (Hope that came out right.)
So today, he, on his own, had decided to start up soccer again with the same group. WOW! Completely different! We were welcomed with open arms by moms who remembered us and moms (and dads) who had never met us before. Kiran was remembered as "the boy who got hit in the back with a stick" and "the kid who brought the great Playdough cookies" and I was "the mom who made that wonderful bread." Kiran made a new friend who loves all the video games, card games, and Bakugan that he does. She'd even made sure he was okay when he'd stopped for a rest in the middle of the soccer field. (Apparently moving off to side would be have been too much work...sigh...) How incredibly cool and kind is that? :-D Our day was absolutely made because of those interactions and we can't wait till next week. ((Hugs to any of the moms there that actually found their way here to read my crazy blog.))
Another thing that happened at soccer: At the end of play/lesson/session the coaches brought the kids together to tell them what a wonderful job they had done. My son loudly pipes up, "Except for me because I SUCK!" ROTFLMAO!!! He can't play soccer well and he honestly doesn't care. He's out to have fun and be with friends. That's all that matters. What a wonderful attitude to have. :-D
Wait, the one minor bad thing that happened at soccer: My face and neck got terribly sunburned. Apparently, even in October, when one dares to venture outside of their tree-shaded home, the sun shines full strength. Who knew? I know, I was just as shocked and flummoxed as you all are feeling right now. :/
Then we went to Sam's Club, rambled at the lovely, patient nurse who gave Kiran his shot. Despite his hatred of the whole processes, he still gave her a hug. We bought a 12 pack of double roll paper towels (the kind that donates money to breast cancer,) got pizza, gave up trying to find the car fluid that we needed, and headed home.
Then it was a rush to pack up the goodies for the incredible therapist and rush back, only to discover that I'd gotten the time wrong by 1/2 hr. There was no need for me to hurry quite so much. Not a biggy though. :-)
And then it was to the theatre to drop the cell phone off to husband and get cheap theatre food dinner (love the perks of a manager :-D), head home, and crash on the couch.
I'm up now because I slept sooooooo long and Kiran is a complete lump on the couch. I swear he doubled in weight for I doubt an elephant could move him. But all is good. It's not insomnia I have now. It's "I've slept well, I'm awake, so let me take care of computer stuff."
Oh, and if our therapist actually does find the time or medication in order to read this, the website that will allow you to watch "Castle" and other shows (such as the oh-so-wrong-in-all-the-good-ways "Raising Hope") is www.hulu.com. Don't forget to check out the episodes of "Firefly" as well. Even if you don't like science fiction, you'll get plenty of droolable Nathan Fillion. :-D
And so until next time where hopefully I'll post pictures and tales of Kiran Visits Game Stop in His Empoleon Costume and The Best Bacon Mayonnaise You Need to Stock Pile for the Zombie Apocalypse, I remain...
That crazy, rambling, insomniac, homeschool mom with the equally crazy son/most incredible child in the universe,
~CoffeeHeidi
"I've got a strange life here...it's different, but it is my own." ~John Crichton, Farscape
Yes, I often, far too often, went on similar sleep deprived, caffeine-hyped ramblings each time I was asked even the simplest of questions. (I'm bad enough when I'm "normal" - this was FAR worse. LOL!) I was completely oblivious to the polite not-so-subtle clues the lovely receptionist at therapy was giving me such as repeatedly saying that I should wait in the waiting room and so kept sticking around rambling. I apologized later when I found out that law prevented her from mentioning the full names of patients in front of others - the ones standing near that needed her attention. OOPS! :-O As my husband has said of others, "someone seriously needed to hit him/her (me) with a clue-by-four." LOL!
Despite these few minor things, Kiran and I couldn't have had a better day. Okay, I'm sure he will swear up and down that he could have completely done without the flu shot. He's fine with blood draws and IVs, but immunization shots are torture to the poor kid. He can't, understandably, relax his muscles in order to make the shots less painful. His whole body and soul tenses up. Oh, the poor kid! But, they keep him out of the hospital, so he gets them. (He's had asthma since infancy & is very familiar with hospitals, doctors, nurses, techs, etc. And I'll stop this tangent here. LOL!)
Back to the excellent day. :-) We'd stopped doing soccer a couple of years ago for a few reasons. One, it kept interfering with bowling. Two, some, not all, of the parents were kind of cliquish to me. I wasn't in their co-op fully & so wasn't "one of them." Three, one mom that I used to think was nice, couldn't even muster a simple, "Sorry," when I explained that we had missed soccer one week because we had to visit my dad (5 states away) who was having brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. (It was either that, or it was when dad inevitably died from the cancer.) Instead, the mom snubbed with, "Yeah, you mentioned that already." Seriously?? Not even with my most dreaded enemies would I not give a brief condolence. It's not like dad had the flu or a mild melanoma. This was 100% terminal brain cancer, a disease that literally robbed him of his senses and personality. Four, there were a couple of bullies. Yes, even homeschoolers can be bullies. And my kid - half the time he'll sit there and wonder why I (who had no idea anything was happening because I couldn't hear it) wouldn't rush over to him. The other half, he'd...not fight like you see in movies or on the news...just perform his own acts of "you can't do that to other people" kind of justice. It's how he ended up getting hit in the back with a stick. According to him, some kids weren't letting other kids play with them. To Kiran, this was completely unjust and some things happened like he threw a rock and ...honestly, I don't remember everything and was never clear on the details except that he got hurt and wasn't without fault either. It was years ago and water under the bridge. All forgive, forget, & move on, nothing more to say. (Hope that came out right.)
So today, he, on his own, had decided to start up soccer again with the same group. WOW! Completely different! We were welcomed with open arms by moms who remembered us and moms (and dads) who had never met us before. Kiran was remembered as "the boy who got hit in the back with a stick" and "the kid who brought the great Playdough cookies" and I was "the mom who made that wonderful bread." Kiran made a new friend who loves all the video games, card games, and Bakugan that he does. She'd even made sure he was okay when he'd stopped for a rest in the middle of the soccer field. (Apparently moving off to side would be have been too much work...sigh...) How incredibly cool and kind is that? :-D Our day was absolutely made because of those interactions and we can't wait till next week. ((Hugs to any of the moms there that actually found their way here to read my crazy blog.))
Another thing that happened at soccer: At the end of play/lesson/session the coaches brought the kids together to tell them what a wonderful job they had done. My son loudly pipes up, "Except for me because I SUCK!" ROTFLMAO!!! He can't play soccer well and he honestly doesn't care. He's out to have fun and be with friends. That's all that matters. What a wonderful attitude to have. :-D
Wait, the one minor bad thing that happened at soccer: My face and neck got terribly sunburned. Apparently, even in October, when one dares to venture outside of their tree-shaded home, the sun shines full strength. Who knew? I know, I was just as shocked and flummoxed as you all are feeling right now. :/
Then we went to Sam's Club, rambled at the lovely, patient nurse who gave Kiran his shot. Despite his hatred of the whole processes, he still gave her a hug. We bought a 12 pack of double roll paper towels (the kind that donates money to breast cancer,) got pizza, gave up trying to find the car fluid that we needed, and headed home.
Then it was a rush to pack up the goodies for the incredible therapist and rush back, only to discover that I'd gotten the time wrong by 1/2 hr. There was no need for me to hurry quite so much. Not a biggy though. :-)
And then it was to the theatre to drop the cell phone off to husband and get cheap theatre food dinner (love the perks of a manager :-D), head home, and crash on the couch.
I'm up now because I slept sooooooo long and Kiran is a complete lump on the couch. I swear he doubled in weight for I doubt an elephant could move him. But all is good. It's not insomnia I have now. It's "I've slept well, I'm awake, so let me take care of computer stuff."
Oh, and if our therapist actually does find the time or medication in order to read this, the website that will allow you to watch "Castle" and other shows (such as the oh-so-wrong-in-all-the-good-ways "Raising Hope") is www.hulu.com. Don't forget to check out the episodes of "Firefly" as well. Even if you don't like science fiction, you'll get plenty of droolable Nathan Fillion. :-D
And so until next time where hopefully I'll post pictures and tales of Kiran Visits Game Stop in His Empoleon Costume and The Best Bacon Mayonnaise You Need to Stock Pile for the Zombie Apocalypse, I remain...
That crazy, rambling, insomniac, homeschool mom with the equally crazy son/most incredible child in the universe,
~CoffeeHeidi
"I've got a strange life here...it's different, but it is my own." ~John Crichton, Farscape
Thursday, October 7, 2010
It's a Packed Day Today, but Do You Think I've Slept? Frell no!
>Edited to add Nouns. Get yours today!
This is how my week has been going:
Step 1. Try to fall asleep on the couch/my bed away from kicks-in-sleep-&-used-to-snore-like-a-freight-train husband, around 10-12 pm. (I even fell asleep during "Castle." Sob!!!) Often, Kiran falls asleep on the couch with me. Husband wanders to his room from the computer room between 1-3 a.m. In some fashion, he will manage to make enough noise (I'm a light sleeper) to wake me up. I try to fall back asleep, but eventually give up and stay awake till 6 or 8 a.m. At the least, I try to be productive in some way or another such as doing dishes, folding laundry, internet research, charging the cell phone, feeding the fish that have lived twice as long as normal, and/or winning that 835th game of Spider Solitaire. (I need to get my average higher than 33%! I just have to!)
Last night, "night" to those of you who slept, son needed me & I swore that I was going to get x, y, z, q, e, and 5 done. So I had General Foods International Coffee. That didn't work and I started falling asleep. But no, I wasn't allowed to quite get there. You know how kids can be? Yeah, well that's how mine was. Plus, I did have those Victory Scotch Eggs to make, laundry to put in the dryer, and the kid's hair to wash for literally, the 6th time in two days. (Who ever put word around that baby oil removes cradle cap should've also put around that the stuff is impossible to wash out and your kid will end up looking like Professor Snape's love child. For all you parents: Dawn dish detergent ended up working where 2 "deep cleaning" shampoos didn't.)
So anyway, half-asleep, I made COFFEE. That stuff I rarely have full strength anymore. That woke me up. I got the laundry done, finally nagged son to enough that he got off his bum to pack the knapsack, made the Scotch Eggs, wrapped up the Scotch Eggs, kept swearing that I needed to work on Kiran's Halloween costume but only did 5 minutes' worth, did some needed things with Cafe' World (anyone want to be my neighbor? I need just one more to get my coffee machine working,) and spent a ton of time fruitlessing searching for NJ preppers that didn't sound like complete nut-jobs. (Apparently "preppers" is the term used for folks who believe in storing supplies for emergencies,) I did find a couple of fairly useful blogs, but gave up trying to find a site that would tell me if water-cooler bottles leak less than gallon jugs of water which always do. A 55 gallon water barrel would hold most of our 2 week supply of water, but I fear our home's 85+ year old cement basement floor would crumble under 450+ pounds of concentrated weight.
I know, I said I wouldn't talk about emergency preparedness anymore, but 2 months from now last year was the beginning of 7 months of one emergency after another. So yeah, I'm taking stock of what we have, what we need, and finally getting enough of some very essential items like water, lamp oil, D batteries, and canned heat cells (more stable than sterno) along with stuff we were running low on anyway - laundry supplies namely. I swear, our family of 3 goes through more clothes than larger families.)
But back to the point. Here I have horrible coffee-induced insomnia and today/Thursday, is the busiest day of the week with the following happening:
1. Homeschool Soccer - We have to be there by 11:15 a.m., which means I have to start getting ready at 9 a.m. and we have to leave by 10:30 a.m., which will probably be delayed by breakfast at McDonald's drive thru. You know how kids are. "I'm not hungry" when getting ready means 5 minutes buckled into the car and suddenly they're starving and any snacks they packed aren't good enough. And when every day you have to make sure your kid takes in enough calories or else he'll stop growing again, you're going to stop for his 3 hashbrowns and 2 cartons of milk.
2. Flu Shot at Sam's Club - You tried going on Wednesday and were all prepared for it. Absolutely-terrified-of shots kid has his favorite stuffed animal, his new video game, his stress ball, and had taken pain killers. We get there. They're out of the children's shot, but more should be coming in on Thursday - your soccer day. So now he gets his shot after being worn out from soccer (and his own bout of insomnia because I forgot to tell him to take his melatonin) and will also be hungry, but of course, hungry for Sam's Club's pizza, not the bag of beef jerky and bottles of water and apple juice we packed.)
3. Therapy - This too was to happen on Wednesday, but got moved to Thursday. We LOVE the therapist. She works for a jr. high and got held up at work. Anyone who can put up with jr. high kids, raise 2 teenagers of her own, and still do private practice sessions in the evenings and weekends without going postal and who doesn't berate us for homeschooling (that's another long rant/story for another day about the psychologist at the children's eating disorder clinic) is a rare find indeed. It's not her fault she had to reschedule. (She did have a later appointment that day/night, but Kiran preferred Thursday instead.) Anyway, we always bring her homemade food (dinner or baked goods) or her favorite candy. Anyone who can put up with all that she does AND us, deserves a treat! LOL! Today she'll be getting a plate of cappuccino brownies and a Victory Scotch Egg. (Dinner, dessert, and caffeine - a complete and nutritious meal if ever there was one. :-D)
And that is why I'm currently ranting about this bout of insomnia. Seriously, did it have to be THIS night? The night before I've got a zillion things to do? I'm not like my husband. I can't go to sleep for an hour and wake up semi-refreshed. Either I'm out till I'm done or forced into wakefulness (doers beware of the wrath of a sleep deprived mommy.) Or I have no choice, like tonight, to stay awake for 20+ hours straight, jugging Java Monsters and repeatedly telling my kid, "Mommy's not mad at you, she's just tired. Can you please just stop talking about video games for a minute and go make me another cup of coffee? Oh, we're in the car? Right. Better concentrate on that driving then. Keep the radio on, I need it to keep my mind functioning." :-P
Other homeschool stuff? Uh....he's almost done reading Harry Potter #3, did spelling a couple of times, was nagged to do math multiple times yet never did, learned that only Dawn will wash out Baby Oil, socialized with the staff at Game Stop (remind me to post about that trip lol!,) as well as the staff at Sam's Club 3 days in a row. Oh yeah, and he also learned that the 6 12-packs of Angel Soft double-roll toilet paper we bought on sale at Target should last us 1/2 a year and we're hoping to store it under Daddy's bed (wasted space where he's always condemning MY innocent slippers to a horrid death of loss and loneliness.)
And now husband's awake, so I've got to read him what I'm typing. Much quicker than trying to explain why I didn't sleep last night. :-O
Till next time, I remain that Crazy Homeschool Mom,
~CoffeeHeidi
This is how my week has been going:
Step 1. Try to fall asleep on the couch/my bed away from kicks-in-sleep-&-used-to-snore-like-a-freight-train husband, around 10-12 pm. (I even fell asleep during "Castle." Sob!!!) Often, Kiran falls asleep on the couch with me. Husband wanders to his room from the computer room between 1-3 a.m. In some fashion, he will manage to make enough noise (I'm a light sleeper) to wake me up. I try to fall back asleep, but eventually give up and stay awake till 6 or 8 a.m. At the least, I try to be productive in some way or another such as doing dishes, folding laundry, internet research, charging the cell phone, feeding the fish that have lived twice as long as normal, and/or winning that 835th game of Spider Solitaire. (I need to get my average higher than 33%! I just have to!)
Last night, "night" to those of you who slept, son needed me & I swore that I was going to get x, y, z, q, e, and 5 done. So I had General Foods International Coffee. That didn't work and I started falling asleep. But no, I wasn't allowed to quite get there. You know how kids can be? Yeah, well that's how mine was. Plus, I did have those Victory Scotch Eggs to make, laundry to put in the dryer, and the kid's hair to wash for literally, the 6th time in two days. (Who ever put word around that baby oil removes cradle cap should've also put around that the stuff is impossible to wash out and your kid will end up looking like Professor Snape's love child. For all you parents: Dawn dish detergent ended up working where 2 "deep cleaning" shampoos didn't.)
So anyway, half-asleep, I made COFFEE. That stuff I rarely have full strength anymore. That woke me up. I got the laundry done, finally nagged son to enough that he got off his bum to pack the knapsack, made the Scotch Eggs, wrapped up the Scotch Eggs, kept swearing that I needed to work on Kiran's Halloween costume but only did 5 minutes' worth, did some needed things with Cafe' World (anyone want to be my neighbor? I need just one more to get my coffee machine working,) and spent a ton of time fruitlessing searching for NJ preppers that didn't sound like complete nut-jobs. (Apparently "preppers" is the term used for folks who believe in storing supplies for emergencies,) I did find a couple of fairly useful blogs, but gave up trying to find a site that would tell me if water-cooler bottles leak less than gallon jugs of water which always do. A 55 gallon water barrel would hold most of our 2 week supply of water, but I fear our home's 85+ year old cement basement floor would crumble under 450+ pounds of concentrated weight.
I know, I said I wouldn't talk about emergency preparedness anymore, but 2 months from now last year was the beginning of 7 months of one emergency after another. So yeah, I'm taking stock of what we have, what we need, and finally getting enough of some very essential items like water, lamp oil, D batteries, and canned heat cells (more stable than sterno) along with stuff we were running low on anyway - laundry supplies namely. I swear, our family of 3 goes through more clothes than larger families.)
But back to the point. Here I have horrible coffee-induced insomnia and today/Thursday, is the busiest day of the week with the following happening:
1. Homeschool Soccer - We have to be there by 11:15 a.m., which means I have to start getting ready at 9 a.m. and we have to leave by 10:30 a.m., which will probably be delayed by breakfast at McDonald's drive thru. You know how kids are. "I'm not hungry" when getting ready means 5 minutes buckled into the car and suddenly they're starving and any snacks they packed aren't good enough. And when every day you have to make sure your kid takes in enough calories or else he'll stop growing again, you're going to stop for his 3 hashbrowns and 2 cartons of milk.
2. Flu Shot at Sam's Club - You tried going on Wednesday and were all prepared for it. Absolutely-terrified-of shots kid has his favorite stuffed animal, his new video game, his stress ball, and had taken pain killers. We get there. They're out of the children's shot, but more should be coming in on Thursday - your soccer day. So now he gets his shot after being worn out from soccer (and his own bout of insomnia because I forgot to tell him to take his melatonin) and will also be hungry, but of course, hungry for Sam's Club's pizza, not the bag of beef jerky and bottles of water and apple juice we packed.)
3. Therapy - This too was to happen on Wednesday, but got moved to Thursday. We LOVE the therapist. She works for a jr. high and got held up at work. Anyone who can put up with jr. high kids, raise 2 teenagers of her own, and still do private practice sessions in the evenings and weekends without going postal and who doesn't berate us for homeschooling (that's another long rant/story for another day about the psychologist at the children's eating disorder clinic) is a rare find indeed. It's not her fault she had to reschedule. (She did have a later appointment that day/night, but Kiran preferred Thursday instead.) Anyway, we always bring her homemade food (dinner or baked goods) or her favorite candy. Anyone who can put up with all that she does AND us, deserves a treat! LOL! Today she'll be getting a plate of cappuccino brownies and a Victory Scotch Egg. (Dinner, dessert, and caffeine - a complete and nutritious meal if ever there was one. :-D)
And that is why I'm currently ranting about this bout of insomnia. Seriously, did it have to be THIS night? The night before I've got a zillion things to do? I'm not like my husband. I can't go to sleep for an hour and wake up semi-refreshed. Either I'm out till I'm done or forced into wakefulness (doers beware of the wrath of a sleep deprived mommy.) Or I have no choice, like tonight, to stay awake for 20+ hours straight, jugging Java Monsters and repeatedly telling my kid, "Mommy's not mad at you, she's just tired. Can you please just stop talking about video games for a minute and go make me another cup of coffee? Oh, we're in the car? Right. Better concentrate on that driving then. Keep the radio on, I need it to keep my mind functioning." :-P
Other homeschool stuff? Uh....he's almost done reading Harry Potter #3, did spelling a couple of times, was nagged to do math multiple times yet never did, learned that only Dawn will wash out Baby Oil, socialized with the staff at Game Stop (remind me to post about that trip lol!,) as well as the staff at Sam's Club 3 days in a row. Oh yeah, and he also learned that the 6 12-packs of Angel Soft double-roll toilet paper we bought on sale at Target should last us 1/2 a year and we're hoping to store it under Daddy's bed (wasted space where he's always condemning MY innocent slippers to a horrid death of loss and loneliness.)
And now husband's awake, so I've got to read him what I'm typing. Much quicker than trying to explain why I didn't sleep last night. :-O
Till next time, I remain that Crazy Homeschool Mom,
~CoffeeHeidi
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Another Night of Insomnia, but with Cool Links :-D
Yep, it's another night of insomnia, or rather, I got my second wind while perusing one of my favorite FB pages (they also have a website) and some folks had posted interesting links that I just had to go to. So, next thing you know, I'm wide awake and figure, what the hezmana, I might as well be productive and stay awake all night in order to make sure my husband wakes up for work on time. (His 2nd job is as a manager at a movie theatre. If he's not there to open on the Sundays he's schedule to, we're all SOL.)
So, I paused from on online pursuits, unloaded the dishwasher - which husband was supposed to do. For some reason I HATE HATE HATE to unload the thing, but will willingly stick my hands into a disgusting pile of dirty dishes. Actually, that part I get. Only I can load it right! LOL! I also, after washing my hands of course, made myself a cup of General Foods International Coffee. Sidetrack Time: I got sick for two months this summer, somehow lost my taste for my beloved instant coffee (no flames please, the Brits love it!,) and decided that since coffee is bad for my high blood pressure (frell, just remembered I forgot to take my meds, again :( ) started drinking the GFIC, which once used to be a treat because those little cans are expensive. (Tried making my own and it's just not as good.)
Back On Track Time: I also picked up some crap in the living room, namely the dishes I forgot to load in the dishwasher. (We're a proper modern family that eats either while on the computer in the library or at the coffee table in front of the TV. The kitchen table is where the sewing machine and other odds and ends are.) And I put away some leftovers, threw out others, and wrote up my shopping lists. (I'm out of olive oil and my son's out of bacon. We're both in a panic and so plan on making an emergency run to Sam's Club tomorrow. LOL!)
Then I went back to the computer, perused (Hal, I don't understand that input. Had to use spell checker a 2nd time for that word) some more and a little while later thought, "Hey, why I don't I share some awesome links with my whopping 5 followers and anyone else insane enough to read this blog?" Besides, there's that whole insomnia & wanting to stay awake for my husband and continued putting off cleaning the bathroom thing.
So, those cool links:
1. Still Tasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - http://www.stilltasty.com/
You can look up a ton of foods either by Search or Catagory, plus read some short Q & A's to common queries or facts they decide to throw your way. I discovered that many things I didn't have to throw out after their Expiration &/or Best Buy Date as long as they didn't smell or look funny. You know the whole "if the can is bloated or the food has become a colony of sentient life forms, toss if or die" type of common sense. I also learned that instant white rice can be stored indefinitely. Yes, I know it's nutritionally inferior to brown rice, but that's what we like when we actually eat rice that doesn't come in a Chinese take-out container. (I do own a rice steamer & use it occasionally for the "better stuff.")
I also learned the my annual purchase of multiple big cans of Hershey's baking cocoa will last indefinitely. (Okay, this has got to stop. Seriously! Words should be spelled like they sound and when I finally go crazy enough to live permanently in my alternate universe they frelling will! Speaking of which, I really need to add frell, frelling, hezmana, and dren to my computer's dictionary.)
2. Food Storage Made Easy - http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/about/
Two lovely women (sisters-in-law) who make preparing for emergencies easy and fun. They have a wealth of information, a blog, and a Facebook page which anyone is welcome to post on (as long as you're nice of course :-) Though their faith advocates a 1 year storage of supplies, they have guides for preparing your Go Bag/Emergency Bag/BOB (that thing we've already had to use twice this year,) and a 3 month supply (which is what we do, plus a little more.)
Yeah, I know, some will think these women, and my own family, are nutters. But, then you look at all the real life emergencies that happen all the time - fires, floods, gas leaks, power outages, storms that knock down trees, etc. The latter happened on our block earlier this year and we were without power for 3 days. Aside from realizing we needed more D batteries and a better hand crank radio, we were perfectly fine. Someone else we know though was in hell, even though both our families could easily drive to the next town and get supplies such as a freshly baked pizza.
Then there was the past Christmas which we call "The Christmas of Poo." Days before Christmas, our area experienced an "unofficial-but-it-sure-as-hell-felt-like-it" blizzard. Roads were closed, businesses shut down, the whole deal. And that's when our poorly-capped sewer line in the basement bathroom decided to become clogged with tree roots and back up into the basement. And of course, how did we find this out? Husband went downstairs to shave (goodness forbid our main bathroom have an outlet,) and went to turn on the light located some 2-3 feet inside the bathroom. Husband wondered why his feet were wet, turned on light, and there it was - many, many, many inches of water and floating "poo presents." You couldn't turn on a faucet or flush the toilet or rush the washing machine unless you wanted it all to pour out into the basement.
So, until we could actually get our plumber (who shakes his head every time at the crap-work that was done on our 85+ year old home) out, we had no water, no way to flush, a ton of literal shit and ruined stuff to clean up, and did I mention that husband got dysentery from the poo flood? Oh, you can't imagine how the main bathroom was smelling after a few days. :-(
Which all leads to the fact that had we had an alternate means of bodily waste disposal and kept up with our water storage, we would've been much better off. (We've since remedied that with the purchase of a Luggable Loo, an excellent product! that can be found on a link listed below.)
3. Emergency Essentials - http://beprepared.com/
A great place to buy many of your emergency supplies. Sign up for the their paper/mailed-to-you catalog. It's much easier to read. Still, their website also has a number of articles and good information on shelf lifes, storage, etc. They also have a blog, but I don't follow it. I do get their emails & "liked" them on FB so I can be notified of specials.
4. The Luggable Loo - This is the generic one we have from Emergency Essentials: http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_ch%20t115
This is the brand name one from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Products-Luggable-Portable-Gallon/dp/B000FIAPXO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286098886&sr=8-1
In essence, what you get is a delightful, useful, bucket with a toilet seat, and lid, that easily holds 2 boxes worth of Double Doodie Bags (if you take them out of the box and put them into gallon-sized Ziploc bags,) extra packets of Enzymes (EE carries them for 60 cents a bag,) handi-wipes, a container of kitty litter, and many rolls of toilet paper. I tried it out while camping and even after an "eventful meal release" you couldn't smell a thing.
EE and Amazon also now carry Double Doodie Bags that fit over a toilet seat. So at the very least, it's worth buying a box of these. Like I said before, we learned the hard way why these types of products are necessary. (For those thinking why we couldn't just bury it in the back yard, you don't know that our small back yard is covered in asphalt. See my other blog for details & pictures of The Asphalt Garden.)
5. Another product you technically could live without, but it'd be a shame to do so - BACON!!! Yes indeed, canned bacon. This stuff is AWESOME, real, honest-to-goodness, cooked, and delicious BACON!! The brand is Yoders, which makes a variety of canned meats. (Just look on the web.) EE sells their bacon here:
http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_FS%20B050_A_name_E_Yoders%27%20Canned%20Bacon
6. Boomd1791 - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=boomd1791#g/u
This guy is fun to watch as he talks about his food storage and other emergency preparedness. Check out his video on how to dehydrate water. :-D
7. MRE Info - http://www.mreinfo.com/
First off, let me tell you that the one MRE entree I tried, during our small tongue-in-cheek It's the End of the World as We Know It Taste Testing Party, SUCKED. As John Crichton once remarked to Rygel, "Salmonella! Was it getting delicate in your butt?" (or something very similar.) However, their peanut butter, wheat bread, jelly, and dessert cakes weren't bad at all. They have a great shelf life and can easily be stored in your Go Bag.
So if you want some info on MRE's and where to buy whole cases of suck, then MRE Info is a great place for...obviously...information about MREs. They tell you how to avoid the knockoffs such as the one company that actually includes short-lived little packets of saltine crackers that one gets in a diner with their bowl of soup, rather than the real MRE deal.
EE is the least expensive place I've found to buy the good stuff like the peanut butter, bread, etc. MRE Info though does list other sites for such things (places where you can buy whole boxes of them) along with cases of MRES. (EE also sells cases and individual complete meal kits.)
8. Backpacking Food Suppliers - multiple links below
We're not big on storing #10 cans seeing as how we're a family of 3, and 1 of those 3 has an eating disorder that limits his food choices (extreme picky eating - yes, it's a real medical condition.) However, we do store some backpacking meals as they offer variety and are actually pretty good. (IMO, Alpine Aire sucks, while Mountain House is the best, but your tastes may vary.)
9. Emergency Essentials: Freeze-Dried Mountain House food in Pouches for 1-2 people
http://beprepared.com/quickshoplist.asp_Q_c_E_70_A_name_E_Freeze%20Dried%20in%20Mountain%20House%20Pouches
10. Enertia Trail Foods - Good food, dehydrated so it does have a shorter shelf life, lots of vegetarian options, meals you won't find with other brands. They're also the makers of Coleman Foods
http://www.trailfoods.com/#/products/
11. Wilderness Dinning - lots of products for your backpacking and camping needs which also work well as emergency supplies and for the "Oh, frell, the camping trip with our friends is tomorrow?! I thought it was next week! Glad I had these meals on hand!"
http://www.wildernessdining.com/
12. Note: Walmart and many online & brick & mortar sporting good stores also carry Mountain House foods. The later often carry multiple brands.
13. Lastly, because of all the Farspeak I was using, I give you an awesome site for Farscape, Firefly, and other sci-fi favorite shows' avatars:
http://through-time-and-space.com/home.html
Till next time where I promise not to talk about emergency preparedness, but can't guarantee nixing the topic of insomnia. I remain, the crazy-in-a-good-way,
~CoffeeHeidi
"My life is different, but it is my own." ~John Crichton, Farscape
So, I paused from on online pursuits, unloaded the dishwasher - which husband was supposed to do. For some reason I HATE HATE HATE to unload the thing, but will willingly stick my hands into a disgusting pile of dirty dishes. Actually, that part I get. Only I can load it right! LOL! I also, after washing my hands of course, made myself a cup of General Foods International Coffee. Sidetrack Time: I got sick for two months this summer, somehow lost my taste for my beloved instant coffee (no flames please, the Brits love it!,) and decided that since coffee is bad for my high blood pressure (frell, just remembered I forgot to take my meds, again :( ) started drinking the GFIC, which once used to be a treat because those little cans are expensive. (Tried making my own and it's just not as good.)
Back On Track Time: I also picked up some crap in the living room, namely the dishes I forgot to load in the dishwasher. (We're a proper modern family that eats either while on the computer in the library or at the coffee table in front of the TV. The kitchen table is where the sewing machine and other odds and ends are.) And I put away some leftovers, threw out others, and wrote up my shopping lists. (I'm out of olive oil and my son's out of bacon. We're both in a panic and so plan on making an emergency run to Sam's Club tomorrow. LOL!)
Then I went back to the computer, perused (Hal, I don't understand that input. Had to use spell checker a 2nd time for that word) some more and a little while later thought, "Hey, why I don't I share some awesome links with my whopping 5 followers and anyone else insane enough to read this blog?" Besides, there's that whole insomnia & wanting to stay awake for my husband and continued putting off cleaning the bathroom thing.
So, those cool links:
1. Still Tasty: Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide - http://www.stilltasty.com/
You can look up a ton of foods either by Search or Catagory, plus read some short Q & A's to common queries or facts they decide to throw your way. I discovered that many things I didn't have to throw out after their Expiration &/or Best Buy Date as long as they didn't smell or look funny. You know the whole "if the can is bloated or the food has become a colony of sentient life forms, toss if or die" type of common sense. I also learned that instant white rice can be stored indefinitely. Yes, I know it's nutritionally inferior to brown rice, but that's what we like when we actually eat rice that doesn't come in a Chinese take-out container. (I do own a rice steamer & use it occasionally for the "better stuff.")
I also learned the my annual purchase of multiple big cans of Hershey's baking cocoa will last indefinitely. (Okay, this has got to stop. Seriously! Words should be spelled like they sound and when I finally go crazy enough to live permanently in my alternate universe they frelling will! Speaking of which, I really need to add frell, frelling, hezmana, and dren to my computer's dictionary.)
2. Food Storage Made Easy - http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/about/
Two lovely women (sisters-in-law) who make preparing for emergencies easy and fun. They have a wealth of information, a blog, and a Facebook page which anyone is welcome to post on (as long as you're nice of course :-) Though their faith advocates a 1 year storage of supplies, they have guides for preparing your Go Bag/Emergency Bag/BOB (that thing we've already had to use twice this year,) and a 3 month supply (which is what we do, plus a little more.)
Yeah, I know, some will think these women, and my own family, are nutters. But, then you look at all the real life emergencies that happen all the time - fires, floods, gas leaks, power outages, storms that knock down trees, etc. The latter happened on our block earlier this year and we were without power for 3 days. Aside from realizing we needed more D batteries and a better hand crank radio, we were perfectly fine. Someone else we know though was in hell, even though both our families could easily drive to the next town and get supplies such as a freshly baked pizza.
Then there was the past Christmas which we call "The Christmas of Poo." Days before Christmas, our area experienced an "unofficial-but-it-sure-as-hell-felt-like-it" blizzard. Roads were closed, businesses shut down, the whole deal. And that's when our poorly-capped sewer line in the basement bathroom decided to become clogged with tree roots and back up into the basement. And of course, how did we find this out? Husband went downstairs to shave (goodness forbid our main bathroom have an outlet,) and went to turn on the light located some 2-3 feet inside the bathroom. Husband wondered why his feet were wet, turned on light, and there it was - many, many, many inches of water and floating "poo presents." You couldn't turn on a faucet or flush the toilet or rush the washing machine unless you wanted it all to pour out into the basement.
So, until we could actually get our plumber (who shakes his head every time at the crap-work that was done on our 85+ year old home) out, we had no water, no way to flush, a ton of literal shit and ruined stuff to clean up, and did I mention that husband got dysentery from the poo flood? Oh, you can't imagine how the main bathroom was smelling after a few days. :-(
Which all leads to the fact that had we had an alternate means of bodily waste disposal and kept up with our water storage, we would've been much better off. (We've since remedied that with the purchase of a Luggable Loo, an excellent product! that can be found on a link listed below.)
3. Emergency Essentials - http://beprepared.com/
A great place to buy many of your emergency supplies. Sign up for the their paper/mailed-to-you catalog. It's much easier to read. Still, their website also has a number of articles and good information on shelf lifes, storage, etc. They also have a blog, but I don't follow it. I do get their emails & "liked" them on FB so I can be notified of specials.
4. The Luggable Loo - This is the generic one we have from Emergency Essentials: http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_ch%20t115
This is the brand name one from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Products-Luggable-Portable-Gallon/dp/B000FIAPXO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286098886&sr=8-1
In essence, what you get is a delightful, useful, bucket with a toilet seat, and lid, that easily holds 2 boxes worth of Double Doodie Bags (if you take them out of the box and put them into gallon-sized Ziploc bags,) extra packets of Enzymes (EE carries them for 60 cents a bag,) handi-wipes, a container of kitty litter, and many rolls of toilet paper. I tried it out while camping and even after an "eventful meal release" you couldn't smell a thing.
EE and Amazon also now carry Double Doodie Bags that fit over a toilet seat. So at the very least, it's worth buying a box of these. Like I said before, we learned the hard way why these types of products are necessary. (For those thinking why we couldn't just bury it in the back yard, you don't know that our small back yard is covered in asphalt. See my other blog for details & pictures of The Asphalt Garden.)
5. Another product you technically could live without, but it'd be a shame to do so - BACON!!! Yes indeed, canned bacon. This stuff is AWESOME, real, honest-to-goodness, cooked, and delicious BACON!! The brand is Yoders, which makes a variety of canned meats. (Just look on the web.) EE sells their bacon here:
http://beprepared.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_FS%20B050_A_name_E_Yoders%27%20Canned%20Bacon
6. Boomd1791 - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=boomd1791#g/u
This guy is fun to watch as he talks about his food storage and other emergency preparedness. Check out his video on how to dehydrate water. :-D
7. MRE Info - http://www.mreinfo.com/
First off, let me tell you that the one MRE entree I tried, during our small tongue-in-cheek It's the End of the World as We Know It Taste Testing Party, SUCKED. As John Crichton once remarked to Rygel, "Salmonella! Was it getting delicate in your butt?" (or something very similar.) However, their peanut butter, wheat bread, jelly, and dessert cakes weren't bad at all. They have a great shelf life and can easily be stored in your Go Bag.
So if you want some info on MRE's and where to buy whole cases of suck, then MRE Info is a great place for...obviously...information about MREs. They tell you how to avoid the knockoffs such as the one company that actually includes short-lived little packets of saltine crackers that one gets in a diner with their bowl of soup, rather than the real MRE deal.
EE is the least expensive place I've found to buy the good stuff like the peanut butter, bread, etc. MRE Info though does list other sites for such things (places where you can buy whole boxes of them) along with cases of MRES. (EE also sells cases and individual complete meal kits.)
8. Backpacking Food Suppliers - multiple links below
We're not big on storing #10 cans seeing as how we're a family of 3, and 1 of those 3 has an eating disorder that limits his food choices (extreme picky eating - yes, it's a real medical condition.) However, we do store some backpacking meals as they offer variety and are actually pretty good. (IMO, Alpine Aire sucks, while Mountain House is the best, but your tastes may vary.)
9. Emergency Essentials: Freeze-Dried Mountain House food in Pouches for 1-2 people
http://beprepared.com/quickshoplist.asp_Q_c_E_70_A_name_E_Freeze%20Dried%20in%20Mountain%20House%20Pouches
10. Enertia Trail Foods - Good food, dehydrated so it does have a shorter shelf life, lots of vegetarian options, meals you won't find with other brands. They're also the makers of Coleman Foods
http://www.trailfoods.com/#/products/
11. Wilderness Dinning - lots of products for your backpacking and camping needs which also work well as emergency supplies and for the "Oh, frell, the camping trip with our friends is tomorrow?! I thought it was next week! Glad I had these meals on hand!"
http://www.wildernessdining.com/
12. Note: Walmart and many online & brick & mortar sporting good stores also carry Mountain House foods. The later often carry multiple brands.
13. Lastly, because of all the Farspeak I was using, I give you an awesome site for Farscape, Firefly, and other sci-fi favorite shows' avatars:
http://through-time-and-space.com/home.html
Till next time where I promise not to talk about emergency preparedness, but can't guarantee nixing the topic of insomnia. I remain, the crazy-in-a-good-way,
~CoffeeHeidi
"My life is different, but it is my own." ~John Crichton, Farscape
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