Today's Meals

I set up the new breakfast blog. I'm not sure when I'll get it up and running. I want to be able to post pictures to go along with it.

So, I'll want my kitchen to be clean. And, I'll need to be able to learn the technology to post. I'm so glad I have a techno-savvy 12 year old!

Today's breakfast is scones with butter and honey. I'll probably fry up an egg for myself, because I do better with more protein in the morning.

Lunch will be leftover meatloaf with egg noodles.

I try to not have pasta too often, but I think we're going to have it for supper, too. I have some leftover chicken with basil sauce and some egg whites leftover from making ice cream the other night. I think I'll add a whole egg and some cheese and make a kind of carbonara sauce over angel hair pasta.

Spelling Bee

Last night our homeschool group held a spelling bee. There were 10 children participating all together. 4 in the younger group, and 6 in the older group. Henry won for his group.

I was very proud of all 3 of my children because they behaved so well last night. And, it seemed like everyone had a nice time just hanging out afterwards.

Madeline said she was relieved because the words weren't nearly as difficult as she was expecting. She thought there'd be Japanese diseases or something. What, like sushihalitosis?

Anyway, it was a nice time. The new homeschool group is such a blessing.

About Dogs

Remember I said I had a love/hate relationship with my dogs. I'm not feeling the love right now.

The other day I had to carry a 30+ pound wet dog home from the neighbors, which is maybe 500 yards away. On a busy highway. I was not thrilled.

And PJ has been acting all Alpha lately. (He does seem pleased that Scooby has to be on a leash now.) Plus, he ate half a stick of butter off the counter yesterday. Again, I was not thrilled.

That Breakfast Blog

So, I've been thinking about the idea of the Cereal Addict's breakfast blog, and I think I might go for it. I'd have to see if I could come up with enough ideas. If I post a recipe twice a week for a year, that's over 100 recipes. I'd have to get pretty creative.

I'll have to do a little research.

The apple pizza turned out great, by the way.

Bread Baking

I'm making a batch of bread today. This is the recipe I've been using with great results:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/10/organic-soaked-homemade-bread-recipe-in.html

I got a Bosch maybe about a year and a half ago on ebay. I think it's over 15 years old, but it's still going strong. I'm able to make the 6 loaf batch. I'm going to use some of the dough to make an apple pizza for breakfast (dough, cream cheese, homemade apple pie filling, streusel topping). I haven't made one yet, but I'm guessing that the kids will like it. They were troopers yesterday about having porridge, so I wanted to give them a treat.

The dough is done mixing, so I better go tend to it.

I'm thinking of setting up a real blog - something like "A Cereal Addict's Journey to Better Breakfasts"

Monk

We don't have cable TV. It must have been about 7 years ago when the show Monk debuted ABC. They only showed a few episodes before it moved to cable, but I enjoyed it.

If I was writing a real blog, I would explain that Monk is about a former policeman with OCD who consults on murder investigations. I would maybe even provide a link, kind of like this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312172/. Except, if this were a real blog, I would link more professionally.

Dave gave me the Season One DVD's for Christmas. We watched them with the kids, and really enjoyed them. I've been wanting to get Season Two, but they cost a little more than I wanted to spend. Finally, I broke down and ordered them on Friday from an Amazon marketplace vendor. I'll have to leave some good feedback, because the price was good, shipping was incredibly fast, and it's in great shape.

Busted!

Okay, so I'm going through a phase where I spend most of the morning in my pajamas. I'll get up a little after 6:30 and get Dave's lunch packed. I don't want to take a shower right away after he leaves, because I really should go on the treadmill.
But I haven't been going on the treadmill.

So, I've just gotten into the habit of staying in my pj's until breakfast is done, the together school stuff is done, and I've had some time to read to Gracie. Then, the kids can work independently while I'm getting ready.

So, somedays it''s kind of late in the morning before I'm presentable. Maybe even close to noon. Which usually isn't a problem, because we don't have a whole lot of visitors out here.

Except for the mailman. Who's nice enough to honk the horn when he pulls in to drop off a package. Today, I was sitting by the computer going over some math with Madeline when he honked. The window over the computer overlooks the porch that the mailman walks up. I sent Henry to answer the door, and I sank down to the floor behind Madeline's chair so the mailman wouldn't see me. I'm so smooth.

Madeline thought it was pretty funny.

What can I say - my hair was quite comical.

Todays Meals

Today's breakfast will be french toast and either fruit or cottage cheese.

Lunch will be leftover pizza from yesterday. The kids had cheese and black olives. Dave & I had carmelized onion and beef. Yum yum yum.

Supper will be a black been soup with ham, corn & salsa that I'll be making in the crockpot today.

Breakfasts

This year, I decided that I am going to stop buying cereal during Lent.

My kids and husband love cereal. I like cereal. I'm lazy, and it's an easy breakfast and an easy snack.

But, I want my family to have something healthier for breakfast, so I've been making breakfast each day. It's been going pretty well.

I would love bacon & eggs every day, but the kids wouldn't. So far, the favorites are scones, cinnamon rolls, monkey bread and waffles. I'm going to make french toast today.

I should say that I generally don't get up in time to make Dave breakfast in the morning. I try to make sure that he has something leftover from our breakfasts. Some days he just has to settle for cereal.

A Date Last Night

The reason I didn't get to my lesson planning was that Dave & I had a date last night.
We went to see Marley & Me at the local second-run theater.

If I was really writing a blog, I'd bring up a couple of couple points:

I really hope the theater is able to stay in business. I know they had a terrific run with Twilight for the last 2 weeks. Paul, the guy who runs the theater, and his wife Amanda are super nice people. I love having the option of being able to go to a theater to see a movie, but not having to spend the exorbitant prices of regular theaters. It seems that a second-run theater should be the perfect business for a recession.

If you're going to take your baby to the movies with you, take them to the lobby when they start making noise, for crying out loud (pun intended). There was a young couple with a probably one-year-old baby that kept crying during the movie. They were always reluctant to take it out. You know, that movie is coming out on DVD in probably a few weeks. There are just times in your life when you need to watch movies at home.

If you like dogs and have a great relationship with your dog, you'll like Marley & Me. But, you might still like it, even if you don't like dogs. I'm so-so on dogs and have a love/hate relationship with our two, and I enjoyed the movie. I like Owen Wilson movies. I enjoy his quirky charm and sense of humor. Jennifer Aniston I can take or leave.

The story is mostly about the changes in the Wilson/Aniston marriage, and how their incredibly undisciplined dog is with them throughout. I wouldn't show it to the kids. There are a few adult situations. Plus, it might be difficult to watch for those with more sensitive natures.

Lesson Planning

I can't spend too much time fake blogging here. I didn't get to my lesson planning yesterday. I've found over the past few months, that my days go much better if I spend about 1/2 hour on Sunday planning through the kids' assignments for the week and writing them down.

I used to keep it in my head. I would have a general idea of what I wanted to get accomplished, and maybe write a few sticky notes. This is so much better. And, I think it's more fair to the kids. They can know going into the day/week what exactly is expected of them.

I wish I had done this sooner, but I can't change the past.

Anyway, I didn't get to the lesson plans yesterday, so I need to spend some time this morning on them.

Back on Track

So, the plan was to at least write something everyday. Well, that ended pretty quickly.

But, it's Monday. I can start fresh and try to write something each day. We'll see how it goes.

Castle

Dave and I watched the new show Castle on ABC last night. There was some nice chemistry between the 2 leads. It reminded me of Moonlighting, back in the day. It was fun to watch. I think I'll have to try to add this one to my regular viewing rotation.

Right now, I watch House, The Biggest Loser and The Office. I've been missing House lately. I hate the new time slot for it. But, we've been catching it on the internet 8 days after the original broadcast.

It's a good thing I'm not really writing a blog, because these posts aren't very zippy.

The Ham

The ham was quite tasty.

I made a glaze for it using some honey, molasses, butter, ginger, cinnamon and cloves. We also had some buttered egg noodles and zucchini sauteed with onion and peppers. For dessert, we had homemade peppermint ice cream with chocolate pieces.

The perfect meal to top off with Crazy Horses. (see previous post)

Musical Memory Lane

Last night, Dave discovered a great lost video on youtube. "Crazy Horses" by the Osmonds. If I were really writing a blog, I would recommend that you watch it. Especially if you are down and need a good laugh. It was fun showing our Jonas Brothers fan who was hot back in the day.

She asked who was bigger, The Osmonds or the Jonas Brothers. It's hard to compare the two. Back then, there were fewer options for entertainment, so I'm thinking maybe The Osmonds would have the edge.

Anyway, we digressed from The Osmonds to Donny Osmond (Puppy Love). And then, we had to watch Jimmy singing "Long-Haired Lover from Liverpool". That was painful. But, since we were in that era, I needed to see a little Bobby Sherman. So, now I've had "Julie, Julie, Julie, do you love me?" going through my head all day. And my head is giving me the most dramatic rendition possible.

TOSSING and TURNING and FREEZING and BURNING and CRYIN' all through the night. WHOA. WHOA.......

I Might Get Political Sometimes...

but for right now, I'm just going to talk about homeschooling.

See, I homeschool my kids. I'll have to come up with fake names for them for this fake blog. Another time.

There's this catalog that I absolutely love from Rainbow Resources (http://www.rainbowresource.com/index.php, when I actually start blogging, I'll have to figure out how to link decently) it's absolutely huge. It's from a family-run company, and they do a tremendous job reviewing their products. I want to buy everything in it. But I can't. That would be extremely irresponsible. Usually what I do after I get the catalog is take a highlighter and spend a couple weeks going through the catalog highlighting everything I might want.

Then, I wait a week or two, and cross off some things. I go through it a few more times, until I come up with what I really need and maybe a few fun things. I end up getting what we need, and I stay within my budget. What a concept.

Now suppose we had a family CRISIS. Suppose my kids tooks some standardized tests and they performed absolutely horribly on them (which wouldn't happen, because my kids really are quite bright - but just suppose). Suppose I needed to STIMULATE their learning as fast as possible. Suppose I decided to order every single thing from the Rainbow Resources catalog. Would this make my kids smarter? Would all of the stuff jump-start their learning?

Well, perhaps a bit. Maybe just having all of the stuff would make them a little smarter. (Although, one thing I've noticed is that the more toys my kids have, the less playing they actually do. I think they're too overwhelmed with toys, so they just stop playing. I think the same thing would happen with too much school stuff, although I can't be sure.)

One thing I am sure of. We would go into serious debt to pay for all of the stuff. It would take many, many years to pay it off. Our kids would have to sacrifice in a lot of other areas to pay for their mother's panic-stricken shopping spree. Just randomly buying whatever without worrying about paying for it would be placing a terrible burden on my kids.

Okay, I just needed to get that off my chest.

See, if I was actually blogging, someone might figure out that I really was being political here.

What would I write about....

It's a good thing I'm not really blogging. I have all of these great ideas when I'm away from the computer. Now, all I can think of is ham.

I'm making ham for supper. I pulled it out of the freezer. It's from a ham that Dave & I cured and smoked ourselves last month. It was on my list of new things to try this year. I'm also planning on rendering lard in the near future. Maybe I'll even take pictures for my fake blog.

I'm not so sure about the font after all.

-madhenmom

I'm Not Really Starting A Blog

I'm not really starting a blog. For some reason, that's too intimidating for me. At least right now. So, I'm just going to write stuff as if I was starting a blog. For the practice. That way, when I'm ready to actually start a blog, I'll be ready to go.

For now, I'm just pretending.

I think I'll use Lucida Grande font.

madhenmom