Hot Cross Buns

I foresee a new Lenten tradition at our house!
They were SO good! Here's the recipe.

Quick Takes Friday: In Like A Lamb

Joining Jen at Conversion Diary for Quick Takes Friday!

~ 1 ~
Whoa! Long time no blog! I must admit that I've been spending most of my free time (and then some, unfortunately) for the past couple of weeks Facebooking and obsessively following current events at our state capitol. It's like that expression about watching a car accident; I just can't look away. It's pretty wild down there, with news unfolding daily. Democracy--and lots of other crazy stuff--in action, I tell you. Tonight they've convinced all the round-the-clock hobos to sleep somewhere other than the capitol building, which is nice because apparently it is quite in need of a good cleaning in there.

~ 2 ~
You know, sometimes I think I can get just the tiniest glimpse of what it must have been like to live in our country in the mid-nineteenth century. I'm no civil-war historian, but I understand that neighbors and family members came out on opposing sides of the states' rights and slavery issues that divided the country, and even ended up shooting at each other as the war progressed.

To me, living in the early 21st century feels a bit like this. Sometimes in the past few years, my friends and neighbors' political views have really shocked me. I find it helpful to remind myself that none of this political stuff matters, really, in the big scheme of things. And by "big scheme of things," I mean eternity. Our individual souls matter. All the other stuff...not so much.

~ 3 ~
So another distraction from blogging recently has been The Hunger Games. When I heard the book's premise, I was curious, but not all that excited about it--sounded way too dark. It's dark, for sure, but OMG, it was so good! Now I'm on the waiting list to get Book 2 and 3 from the library (instead of click-click ordering them from Amazon and getting them by this weekend). Waiting is a great sacrifice, that's for sure! In fact, I'm not totally sure that I won't break down and click-click download the kindle-for-pc version of Book 2 tonight, and stay up all night reading it.

Anyone want to share their thoughts on the book, and whether it's appropriate for middle-schoolers? You may know that when it comes to my kids and media of all kinds, including books, I lean towards caution. I figure I can't go wrong with saving things (e.g., Harry Potter, Star Wars, what-have-you) for later, whereas I can go quite wrong with introducing things too early. (Example: 5-year-old JPD thinking Battlestar Galactica was real--yikes!!) Also, there are more great books than anyone can read in a lifetime, so there's no point in wasting time on non-great books. But I'm looking forward to talking about the Hunger Games with WWD! I told him not until high school; do you think I'm being too uptight?

~ 4 ~
So...in like a lamb...we've been having great weather this week. So I guess that means that we'll have huge snowstorms at the end of the month? We'll see, I suppose...either way, I'm so glad March is finally here! What a nice winter, and it went by so quickly this year.

~ 5 ~
After a few slow weeks due to winter colds (mine and MPDs), I'm back to a respectable workout schedule. It's a long road back to fitness after a few years of slacking, I tell you! Stay tuned for those "before-and-after" pictures...

~ 6 ~
We made an early Mardi Gras dinner last weekend...New Orleans Jambalaya. SO yummy! Here's the recipe if you want to check it out. Happy Mardi Gras!

~ 7 ~
Which means, of course, that Lent is finally here! I'm so excited for it this year; Lent has been so amazing the past couple of years that I'm really expecting great things. I'm giving up Facebook (whew!), desserts, sleeping in...we'll see which of those actually sticks. In any case, it's going to be great.

I think I like how much Easter has been jumping around--this year is really late--because it makes things just a bit different each year. In 2008, MPD's birthday on March 15 was just a few days before Easter, which was so perfect. (I've always wanted an Easter baby!) This year, Easter is over a month later, which makes a big difference in our Wisconsin spring weather! The girls will actually be able to wear summery dresses at Easter, which is unusual. (Attn Texas readers: Not that summery!). And after Easter, it will be almost summer. And that's all good, right?

Now go see Jen for everyone else's great Quick Takes posts!

A Case for Good Nutrition

Yesterday MPD and I had a delightful day visiting Jamie and company. But...here is what I ate and drank during the day:

- 1 large iced tea upon waking
- 2 large iced coffees with cream and Splenda, on the road trip to Jamie's
- 1 piece delicious chocolate velvet cake, made by Chef Jamie
- 1 serving Thai peanut chicken, Chef Jamie again
- 1 sinfully delicious Trader Joe's dark chocolate bar (yes, all of it)
- 1 large McDonald's Diet Coke to go w/the chocolate bar, on my way home

By the time I got back to pick WWD up at school by 3:15, My. Head. Hurt. So. Bad. I just wanted to stick my whole head in a cooler of ice. Seriously--I haven't had this bad of a headache in recent memory. Maybe it was even a migraine. I was just wasted for the whole evening--I started drinking lots of water, took a Tylenol, and ate a salad with the kids' dinner. A few hours later when I collapsed into bed, the headache was finally going away.

Do I need any more evidence that too much sugar and caffeine is bad for me? Not to mention the aspartame in that Diet Coke--and yes, for the most part, I'm still abstaining from that particular poison. It's clear, obvious cause and effect...eating bad stuff=feeling bad. Simple, right?

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Bill was re-living his bartender days the night before, and I had 1-2-3 tasty cocktails and stayed up late. Might that have had something to do with my splitting headache? Nah.

Goodbye Old Friend

I'll miss you.




Yes, it's true. Of course, I've quit before--for pregnancies, for Lent--but this time, I MEAN IT. I hope!

This summer I've been drinking a lot of Diet Coke. Since I normally drink a lot of Diet Coke, let me assure you that this summer I've been drinking A. LOT. OF. DIET. COKE. As in, I don't really wanna talk about how much.

And you know what? I feel like crap. I feel like crap so much that I've been to the doctor. My head hurts, I'm exhausted, I'm crabby, my blood pressure is inching up again, my back hurts, blah blah blah...

Lately I've been doing a little experiment to go along with a no-carb diet I'm sorta into these days...I substitute iced coffee, iced tea, or (what a concept) water for my Diet Coke at different times of the day. I do use Splenda if I feel like it, but absolutely no aspartame. And guess what--Diet Coke is making me sick. Typically I'll have a giant iced coffee out the door in the morning, then water until I'm on my way home from the pool, then iced tea. I feel fine with all of that. Then I get home and if I grab a Diet Coke--caffeine or no, it doesn't matter--BAM! Headache and sleepy. I've tried this experiment enough days now, with enough variables, that I'm sure of what's going on.

So yesterday I Googled "Diet Coke is making me sick" and "Aspartame is making me sick." And..yep, it's true; the stuff is totally poisonous. Go ahead and Google it yourself--what are you waiting for, a link? :)

You'll find lots of nasty, serious stuff--including all my symptoms, of course--and apparently aspartame has also been linked to MS and lupus-like symptoms along with a litany of other unpleasant side effects. Diet Coke contains as much as 50aspartame, and the rest of its ingredient list--featuring such delicacies as phosphoric acid and that gross artificial coloring--isn't much better! My favorite thing about aspartame, though, is that it breaks down into formaldehyde. In fact, if you don't keep your soda chilled, it will do so before you even drink the stuff--formaldehyde on the rocks, anyone?

(Of course, the FDA is completely unhelpful on this one, as they're no doubt completely bribed by Monsanto, the company that manufactures aspartame. It's always those eeeevil corporations, darn them! And guess who was the CEO of Searle, the company that originally invented aspartame before being acquired by Monsanto...Donald Rumsfeld, of course! It always comes back to the eeeevil Republicans, I tell you!)

Ahem. So anyway, today was my Day 1 without Diet Coke. I'm far from alone in this addiction--while you're Googling, check out "Diet Coke Addiction." You'll find posts like "Day 347 without Diet Coke." (I promise I won't be posting about Diet Coke for that long!) I do believe this is a real, serious thing, and that someday my kids will view my soda habit the way I view my parents' former nicotine addiction. So please pray for me; I do need to be around for my kids and, I'm hoping, grandchildren. And no--I don't think the formaldehyde will be much help in preserving me for them.

And you know what? I feel much better today already!

Solving World Hunger

"If the best current knowledge were employed, enough food to feed the our billion people could be grown in the southern half of Sudan! It is only the Western bias, the idea spread throughout the world that one must eat white grain and drink soda pop to be "civilized," that is responsible for the suffering of the millions of starving people in the world. It is a myth that there is not enough to go around, that there is no way the Earth can support its exploding population. The truth is that most of the world's food resources are controlled by a handful of greedy men, who deny people the right to grow food for themselves but try to sell them Western-produced junk instead. [Some experts] estimate that if all the arable land on earth were used properly and sowed with foods for human consumption, the Earth could support 60 billion people--almost fifteen times our current population! But it is true that there is no way we can feed the world population on Whoppers and Cheez-Wiz, let along nourish it."

~ Paul Stitt Fighting the Food Giants via Nourishing Traditions

Please pass the Honey Nut Cheerios???

"In 1960, researchers at Ann Arbor University performed an interesting experiment on laboratory rats. Eighteen rats were divided into three groups. One group received cornflakes and water; a second group was given the cardboard box that the cornflakes came in and water; and the control group received rat chow and water. The rats in the control group remained in good health throughout the experiment. The rats receiving the box became lethargic and eventually died of malnutrition. But the rats receiving the cornflakes and water died before the rats who were given the box--the last cornflake rat died on the day the first box rat died.
"Before death the cornflake rats developed schizophrenic behavior, threw fits, bit each other and finally went into convulsions. Autopsy revealed dysfunction of the pancreas, liver and kidneys and degeneration of the nerves in the spine--all signs of 'insulin shock.'
"The startling conclusion of this study is that there is more nourishment in the box that cold breakfast cereals come in than in the cereals themselves. Loren Zanier, designer of the experiment, actually proposed the protocol as a joke. But the results are far from funny. They were never published and similar studies have not been repeated. If consumers knew the truth about breakfast cereals, vast fortunes would be jeopardized."

~ Sally W. Fallon, in Nourishing Traditions

Inspiration: Leftovers!

You guys have all probably been doing this forever, but tonight we had the best dinner! I had a bunch of leftover white rice (planned-over, actually, from last night) and a bunch of random assorted leftover vegetables in our refrigerator from meals past. Tonight I threw it all in the wok with a chopped onion simmered in sesame oil (any oil would work, of course) and a chopped up chicken breast. I also added garlic salt, a little stir-fry sauce that we had in the frig (soy sauce or broth or anything would work fine too), and when it was all cooked, I cracked an egg on top and flipped it around until the egg was cooked and mixed in.

Voila! Seven-Ingredient Fried Rice! It used up every single random leftover I had! Everyone loved it--and they never would have wanted all those leftover vegetables if they were just nekkid. :)

Spring Sweets

We've been doing some sweet spring break baking. Check it out!

Those St. Patrick's cupcakes I promised you:

The Easter basket cake:

Here's a closer look at that cake (messy, but it looked far better than it tasted!!):

Don't you wish you were us? :)

Zucchini Wonderland

Here are two good zucchini recipes that I used for JPD's monster zucchini:  Rich Squash Casserole (in the crock pot!) and Summertime Zucchini Soup.  And here is what I learned while making them:  For the soup, they're not kidding about a little garlic going a long way.  And watch the pepper--I put too much in ours.  I served it over noodles--yummy, MPD and I thought. 

The second thing is when working with a ginormous squash such as this one, the teeny tiny, hardly noticeable seeds that zucchini usually have, become giant and hard--closely resembling pumpkin seeds.  So do scrape them out first.  You might also consider skinning a giant zucchini, because the skin is much tougher on a papa bear zucchini too.

Quick Takes Friday

~ 1 ~

Yesterday, I french-braided MRD's hair!!  I have always been really lame at doing hair.  My hair is--well, a whole lot of nothing, and for my whole life it has been my nemesis. :)  I love french braids, but I have never had the patience to do them.  And yesterday I just did it!  It really turned out pretty good too!  Talk about a small success! :)

~ 2 ~

Last week I went to the doctor because I have been feeling quite bad lately.  Tired, headache all the time, random parts hurting, did I mention tired?  I was so thinking that she was going to laugh and say "Welcome to middle age, honey!"  But it turned out that my blood pressure was incredibly high--higher than ever, even during my pregnancies. 

The doctor told me to cut down on sodium, cut out caffeine, and take a walk daily.  (Oh yeah, I remember exercise...)  Not a huge crash diet, not an intense workout regime--just walk every day and cut out the venti lattes.  Imagine that.  And you know what?  I have, and I feel great already. 

~ 3 ~

MPD is really starting to talk!  Our sweet little guy says ma ma (of course), da (of course, again), more, all done, bye bye, uh-oh (he loves that one!), ball, milk (sort of), hot, and other words that I can't think of right now.  We have also been baby signing just a tiny bit with him--I've always wanted to do this with my babies, but he's the first one for whom I really stuck with it--and he can sign "more" and "all done."  It is so cute!  Also, of course, he understands just about everything we say, it seems.  I love this sweet age, and he is also getting quite feisty and strong-willed, which means he fits right in around here of course!

He also LOVES doggies, and whenever he sees one, he barks at them.  It is such a crack-up! 

~ 4 ~

Alert the media:  This week I made a dinner that every single member of my family loved and asked for second (or more) helpings.  It is hard to please 100% of the crowd at any given meal around here!  It was my mom's old recipe for King Ranch Chicken, which I served with rice and fruit.  When I was growing up, we always loved it too (except I remember it was always a bit too spicy, but I used mild instead of spicy tomatoes, so it wasn't.).  Of course, I had to only have a small taste, now that I'm limiting my sodium. :)

~ 5 ~

Yesterday, both older boys got buzz cuts.  WWD always gets one--the shorter the better for that guy--but it was JPD's first real buzz.  He closed his eyes for the front to get cut, then when he opened them and saw himself, he said "I look just like W!!"  So cute.

~ 6 ~

WWD's summer basketball finished up this week.  I must say that we are so proud of him!  He has worked hard and really built his ball-handling, shooting, and overall game skills so much.  He even scored, like, over 20 points per game in the last few games!  The coach and some of the other parents even mentioned to Bill at the last game how good WWD is looking on the court.  Sssssh--I can't let him read this or he'll never have any humility! :)  Bill tells him to be like Larry Byrd--no showboating, all business on the court.

~ 7 ~

Did you know that it is Natural Family Planning Awareness Week?  Check it out!  There's also an NFP link on my sidebar-----------------> I have only recently really learned what NFP is all about, and I must say that I find it downright amazing!  Who knew that you actually can pinpoint when you are ovulating--so there is no need to pump your body full of loads of hormones, or use artificial methods to distort the true meaning of marital love?  :)  And it works for getting pregnant as well as for not getting pregnant!  As you might have guessed, I am hardly an NFP expert, since I've never actually used it, but I think it is really cool, and I think everyone should know about it.  A little sex education that could do us some good, I say!

Pickin' Peas (Strawberries too!) and Trimmin' Trees

This afternoon our CSA farm hosted a pea pick, so the kids and I went out to pick (and eat!) bunches of sugar snap peas.  Yummy!  Today was gorgeous, as you can see, as was the valley farm field.  Everyone really got into the picking, and we also got to scavenge through the adjacent strawberry field to bring home bunches of end-of-season berries.

   

Meanwhile, back on the home front, Bill stayed home to give our trees a much-needed haircut.  The pile of pruned branches out front from his afternoon's work is taller than I am.  However, a wayward branch knocked him off the ladder at one point and he got  a concussion from his head hitting the ground--hard.  He and I made a quick trip to the E.R. this evening for a catscan, which thankfully showed that everything is okay.

While searching for the patron saint of head injuries (Blessed John Licci, 1400s), I came across this fun website that lists all the patron saints of absolutely anything you can imagine.