"Judah asserts his male autonomy in the face of female manipulativism": or, "It's even harder out here if you refuse to be a pimp"

Sofi, screaming: Aaaah! He's drinking out of my water bottle with his germy flu mouth!!! Stooooop!! Moo-ooom!

Judah: No!

Me: Judah, you must ask your sister nicely if you want to use her water bottle.

Judah: Sofi, puhyiy use you wadah boddle?

Sofi: Ewww, noooo, that's gross, you have GERMS!! Noooo!!!

Me: Judah say 'may I please use your water bottle deeear sister?' You have to charm her.

Judah: Puhyiy use you waddah boddle deee sister?

Me: How can you resist that, Sofi?

Sofi: You have to charm me Judah, you have to make me feel sorry for you...

me: Judah, say 'I love you, dear sister, may I please use your water bottle?'

Judah, thinking about it: Ummm. No.

My Way Better Than Oatmeal Recipe

I really hate oatmeal. Really. Hate. Oatmeal. So does J. In fact, we just pretty much didn't eat it ever until we had kids. But then, oatmeal just seems like one of those things you feed kids. Like pbjs. What kind of parent lets their kids grow up without pbj or oatmeal? I ask you.

So I began to fix oatmeal. And found it wasn't quite as bad as I had remembered, but still not my favorite. J still hated it. Then enter my mother, with all the new research on soaking your grains to get better nutrition and all that. So I started soaking my oatmeal over night. Definitely made it taste better. And then. Last week. My sister revealed to me a whole new world of oatmeal. An Oatmeal Nirvana, if you will. Oatmeal from Heaven. Here is that recipe--complete with some minor changes to make it my own:


Way Better than Oatmeal

Soak oatmeal overnight in enough liquid to cover. You can use 1) water with a tablespoon of vinegar, 2) whey, 3) yogurt, or 4) kefir (my personal favorite).

In the morning, heat up about 1/4 stick of butter in a large frying pan (cast iron works great) till sizzling. Add sloppy, soaked oatmeal. Smoosh it up around the pan till the bottom of the pan is covered and sprinkle with salt. Stir and flip occasionally, adding more butter when needed, until the oatmeal is cooked into small, crispy chunks. Basically, you want to treat it like scrambled eggs.

Serve hot, plain or with a trickle of maple syrup.

You will never think about oatmeal the same way again!

Oh brother, here we go again

I suppose I shouldn't get so negative so quickly, but after last winter, who can blame me? Judah appears to have the flu. Which is totally bogus, since he's the only one we decided-- after weeks of research, discussion and indecision-- to vaccinate! It just goes to show you... Although exactly what it goes to show, I have no idea.

A sick toddler is a sight to behold. His eyes are all droopy and bloodshot and he has this awful, hacking cough. For the moment he's fairly cheerful, though, reveling in the novelty of Daddy-home-from-work-early-to-play-"fight da ba-guys". He's also getting quite a kick out of the squeaky, cracked voice he's sporting at the moment. :D It's sooo pitiful and he knows I'll give him pretty much anything he wants when he asks me in that orphan-child-from-Africa tone of voice. What can I say? I'm a sucker.

I read a cool birth story today (part one, part two, part three) Birth stories are my drug of choice. When I'm down I go find some and they make me feel better :) I guess y'all recognize the name Dooce-- the original mommy-blogger. Having her speak up about natural childbirth is great. She's so articulate and poetic. I just loved her story! Have to give this one a language warning though, just in case it bothers some of you. Enjoy!

I'm off to enjoy some fresh pumpernickel bread.

All about Noah

For Lauren!

In case you were ever in any doubt as to why I married him...

...this morning J graced me with this email:

Linux Baby

Give it six months and Apple will come out with iRocker, available for $1.99 from your iPhone App store. It vibrates, it gently rocks, and it whispers soothingly that your baby is savvy and hip -- far cooler than those dowdy PC babies with their scotch taped pacifiers and unpleasant BO.

Two years after that, Microsoft will release Windows Napplication. Every fifteen minutes, Clippy will pop out and cheerfully offer, "It looks like you're trying to take a nap! Do you want some help?"

--J

The many faces of Sofi

PS. Now do you understand why we call her the drama queen??

Summer's Final Curtain Call

(and showing off Judah's new coat)



















Every year my roses, once delivered by cold nights from the scourge of bugs and drought, give a final burst of Fall Bloom.







I feel compelled to add (since I'm already tooting my own horn, here) that most of these shots are SOOC! Haven't I come a long way?????

A small change

Just wanted to let y'all know that, in the interest of making your lives easier, I've disable the word verification feature for commenting. This means that in addition to not needing a Google profile, you now no longer need to decipher and type in those weird, crooked and fuzzy letters.

See? It's so easy to comment you've got no excuse not to anymore!

I'm all about making your life easier, baby.

Brother, can you spare me a tip on how to make a few dimes?

Well, the lousy economy has finally hit us, personally. This semester I only have four students. I usually average around ten-- so a more-than-50% decrease there, over $4500 out of our yearly budget. Pretty rough. Seems like music lessons are one of the first expenses to get cut during hard times. It means that J has had to pick up a night class (teaching) at a local business college and we're cinching in our belts. Metaphorically speaking only, unfortunately :) My belt could use to cinch up a few notches, in a physical sense... but that's another post for another time.

Anyway. I've been racking my brain to try and think of ways to pull in a little extra "egg money" here and there. It's rough, since I'm homeschooling Sofi and on a fairly strict school schedule-- in addition to all her "extra curricular" activities. Normally I'd take on a little babysitting and that would cover the loss in students, but I simply don't have the time. At least, not to commit to a weekly babysitting job.

So I've decided that I'm going to try and pull together some stock of baby and toddler clothes (handmade) to sell. I also am finally going to get down to Ebay-ing all Sofi and Judah's old clothes. But after that, I'm slap out of ideas. I'd love to hear from y'all what creative ways you are adding a little egg money to your incomes. Got any hints to share? Any success stories? Anything you've always wanted to try?

I'm also, of course, doing everything I can to cut costs around the house. Hints in that area would be great, too! So far I've cut out extras like paper products (plates and paper towels) and fancy toiletries (using whatever's at Big Lots). I've gotten the selective shopping down to a science-- knowing exactly which store has which item at the lowest price. We're making our own bread and breakfast food (so no boxed cereals) and buying things in bulk whenever we can. I honestly don't know where else I can cut back... What's your favorite cost-cutting trick? What substitutes have you made to save? What have you discovered you can do without?

Share, share, share!! Especially share links-- yours, if you've written about something similar, or others that have inspired you.

I need some inspiration from mah Sistahs!

BFFs

Since before high school we've been the Four Lady Musketeers. We've been through everything together. Learning to drive, babysitting 9triplets, no less!) first big crushes, getting left out at dances, weird 80s outfits, costume dances, drama club, musicals, teenage angst, church breakups, courtships, marriages, babies, loss-- we've been together all the way. And I've got the pictures to prove it :)


(Omi, was that bow surgically implanted in your scalp? or was Super Glue involved in some way?)


(omg, look! i'm wearing a tablecloth!)




(nothing says friendship (and 1998) like matching pooh t-shirts) (but please note the cool vintage car providing all the cool I needed backintheday)




in retrospect, this picture is hysterical. look at Ben in the background, staring at the back of Susi's head... just imagine what he might have been thinking.... :)



...he must have been thinking about THIS!


you can read more about Hos' beautiful vintage wedding....

But we've been mostly maintaining that friendship through email, Facebook and our blogs in the last several years. So a few weekends ago we got together again, to go shopping...



eat pizza,



and take another photo to add to the archives.




We love you, Hos and Omi! Here's to another fifteen years!!