Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I was actually planning on having pancakes on Wednesday night–nice and easy, not much prep required, right?  Unfortunately, I had maple syrup on my leftover cornbread at breakfast, and try as I might, I couldn’t manage to get myself excited about breakfast for dinner.  For once.  If we weren’t having pancakes, however, then the next burning question was, of course–what were we having?

I opted to scan my Casserole board on Pinterest on a whim.  After all, I’ve always got cheese, and there was half a pound of bacon in the fridge that needed using.  Promising casserole material, right?

Exactly.  It didn’t take me too long to spot this Bacon Ranch Chicken Casserole, and the more I looked, the more I liked what I saw.  I had just enough bacon and I wouldn’t have to grate the cheese myself; the recipe was relatively simple; and pasta generally goes over nicely at my house.  Once thing about the recipe, however, struck me almost at once.  Why, why, WHY would you bake your chicken for 45 minutes in the oven when you have bacon grease available and you need it cut up anyway?  I can’t tell you why the blogger would, but I sure as heck didn’t.  I cut my raw chicken into bite-sized pieces, reserved a tablespoon or two of bacon grease after I removed the bacon, and bam!  Flavor-town.  Once the chicken was done, I added the garlic and butter, and from there I went ahead with her directions. The only substitution I made was for the Ranch dressing; I didn’t have any, but I did have the container of Ranch powder that Costco sells.  I measured the cup of milk into a 2-cup measuring cup and added 5/8 C plain yogurt and 1/8 C mayonnaise (I love displacing liquids!), plus a generous tablespoon of the Ranch powder.  It worked perfectly well, too.

(Okay, to be perfectly honest, I also used a pound of pasta instead of a 10-oz box.  (I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen a 10-oz box.)  It was laziness on my part, and I ended up ambivalent about the results.  I enjoyed it, and it made more that way, but it was a lot of pasta for the ideal level of sauciness.  I’d say 10-12 oz would probably yield the best results.)

Anyway.  My son loved it; his level of enthusiasm startled me.  My oldest and my hubby liked it fine, but my third (the one that hates Mexican food) couldn’t handle the slight kick from the green chilies.  (To be fair, they had more of a kick than they usually do, but no one else minded.)  I’m hoping the next time I make it we get a milder can–but rest assured, there will be a next time.

It’s become my personal FB tradition to post John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” on Veterans Day (just as I habitually suggest donating blood on September 11th).  As I was considering what to post here for the day, it occurred to me that I could share more than one of the war poems that move me.

In Flanders Fields (John McCrae)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

I’ve assumed for years that the fictional poem in L. M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside, “The Piper,” was inspired by this one.  It haunts, but it inspires.  The contrast between it and Wilfred Owen’s Dulce et Decorum Est–both poems written during WWI–is profound.

Dulce et Decorum Est (Wildred Owen)

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Okay, so I said that about the last one, too.  But this one is just as fabulous in a different way, and BOTH of my girls loved it, as did I–AND my mother.

Now, if you happen to have read Piggie Pie!, Zoom Broom is actually its sequel.  I have read Piggie Pie!, but here’s the thing–it’s been a while, and I really don’t remember it all that well, so I’m not going to say anything more about it in this particular post.  You certainly don’t need to have read it to enjoy Zoom Broom, because it has a bit of something for everyone.  Puns?  Check.  Amusing Alliteration (you see what I did there?)?  Check.  Hilarious literary allusions?  Check.  A ‘Who’s on First’ style comic exchange?  Check.  Sly humor throughout?  Check.

With that line-up, you really can’t lose.  You’ll fall in love with Gritch the Witch on the first page (as she’s eating her batscotti), sympathize with her coney cravings, relate to her transportation troubles, and revel in her retail experience.  (I want to be more specific, actually, but I hate to ruin the pleasure of enjoying the jokes as they unfold.)  Just trust me on this one–if three generations of our family loved this book this Halloween, your family is going to as well.  Order now, and you can stick it in your Halloween box before it gets put away!

(Cough.)  Not that mine is still sitting out or anything…

I considered blogging about something controversial tonight; it’s possible I still might in the future, but I can’t bring myself to go there right now.  My baby girl is cutting her two bottom teeth while battling an unpleasant cold and sporting chapped, eczema-y cheeks that make me wince whenever I look at them, which adds up to still not very much sleep for me.  Controversy is best tackled when reasonably well-rested.

And that, my friends, is why I’m eschewing it tonight (thanks to Mr. Lenihan, may he rest in peace) in favor of grammar, which is what Cece Bell’s I Yam a Donkey is about (more or less).  This cautionary tale features a grammatically-challenged donkey and a pedantic yam, whose obsessive focus on correct grammar proves myopic in the end.  (Now I just can’t help it.  And really, the yam does serve as a bellwether of sorts…)  The first Amazon review listed accuses Bell of continuing the joke for too long; I can appreciate where the reviewer is coming from, but I think the twist at the end begs for a long lead-in.  I laughed out loud at the unexpectedness of it and my girlies enjoyed it as well–which is, of course, the consummation devoutly to be wished for by any children’s author worth his or her salt. (Kudos to Mrs. Mumford for that one–may she also ever rest in peace.)

Fellow grammar sticklers–you really ought to buy this one.

It is my sad duty to report that today’s post options have not materialized.  Because TEETHING.

I do hope to be back on the 7th (then again, my kids have GUMS OF STEEL).  In the meantime, remember, remember the 5th of November.

Signing off.

Once upon a time, when my friend Andrea and I used to cook together, we tried this Taste of Home recipe for Pineapple Mallow Slaw.  Really, we were BOTH into it, so maybe it’s not as weird as my hubby probably thinks; it’s a (very) tangy salad with shredded cabbage, pineapple tidbits, Craisins, mini-marshmallows, and a mayonnaise-based (but still vinegar-y) dressing.  (I’m pretty sure we tried this in my coleslaw phase; I went through a bunch of slaw recipes from Taste of Home and then bought a cabbage or two and we tried the ones that sounded best.)

Now, before you bail at the idea of cabbage in a mayo-based dressing, let me assure you that I loathe KFC coleslaw.  (My dad loves it.)  The sweet mayo vibe creeps me out, and when I try it periodically, thinking surely this is better than I remember it being, I always conclude that NO.  No it isn’t.  I had all of these recipes from Taste of Home, however, and I decided that I couldn’t chuck them without experimenting with other styles of slaw, because there might be something good out there.  Enter–this recipe.  It’s tangy, it’s crunchy, it’s tart, it’s sweet–it’s lovely.  (It’s also, by the way, best made with 2/3 of the amount of dressing it calls for.  The cabbage provides plenty of liquid as it chills; it would be SWIMMING in the full amount.  Trust me on this.)  I found some other keepers as well, but it’s this one I finally made on Halloween because I WANTED it, dang it, and hey, I had to bring a salad to a friend’s son’s baptism anyway.

I ate all of the leftovers myself.

Normally we get out more decorations for Halloween.  I’m not exactly known for my immaculate housekeeping, of course, so what we do and how long it lasts varies from year to year, but there are generally decorations in multiple rooms; last year we even had an outside spiderweb, with spiders.

This year?  Ummm…

First of all, we lost the last week and a half of September and the first bit of October to vomit–lots of it–and other unpleasant bodily substances.  (At one point four of us were throwing up on the same night, and it’s only thanks to my sister’s wisdom and a box and a half of baking soda that our couch is usable again.)  By the time my oldest stopped having tummy aches off and on (it was one evil virus, let me tell you what), I was stressing about going out of town, because my parents went back to New England for a 50th wedding anniversary trip, and my sister masterminded a surprise that involved all three of their children showing up and joining them for a weekend.  (Props to my fabulous mother-in-law for taking my kiddos while my hubby worked.  The reveal was everything we could have hoped for–my mother cried.)  I stressed about packing for myself, I stressed about packing up my kiddos (it was fall break, meaning the cousins were also out of school, meaning that it was not going to go well to have my mother-in-law stay here instead), and I got up every night with a baby who seems to be teething like my oldest did.  (In case you were wondering, this is  NOT.  A.  GOOD.  THING.)  When I got back, my hubby had to have an emergency root canal, and then there was the unpacking…

Yeah.  Decorations mostly didn’t happen.  Somewhere along the way, however, I started grabbing Halloween books off the library displays with abandon, and so this became, instead, the Year of the Halloween Books.  (In case you’re wondering, at one point we had 197 library books checked out and in our house somewhere.)  It seemed like a workable alternative to some of our usual traditions, and overall it was a success; a few were duds, of course, but many were cute, and some were fabulous.

One of my favorites was also a huge hit with my oldest; girlie #2 was a little young, both in years and in temperament, to enjoy it this year.  Adam Rex’s book of poems about all sorts of Halloween monsters is delightfully named Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (And Other Stories You’re Sure to Like, Because They’re All About Monsters, And Some of Them are Also About Food.  You Like Food, Don’t You?  Well, All Right Then.)

Got that?

Seriously, these are some fabulous poems.  Frankenstein makes that sandwich with food the townspeople throw at him; the Phantom of the Opera can’t get “It’s a Small World After All” out of his head; Dracula has spinach in his teeth and everyone’s afraid to tell him; and Bigfoot is incensed at being called Yeti.  The illustrations only add to the craziness, making the book as a whole a delight for the middle- and latter-elementary crowd.  SIAS?  (Which stands for summary in a sentence, and comes from E. L. Konigsburg’s incredible Silent to the Bone, in case you’re wondering.)

Add this one to your Halloween collection.

So…sick baby.

Halloween weekend.

Third grade science fair project due this week.

Friend’s baptism.

Purchasing a car.

Two soup pots full of grapes en route to becoming freezer jam.

I need a nap.

Keeping the Sabbath day holy isn’t always easy, especially when you’re wrestling small children all day long.  One of the things I’ve tried that works, however, is setting aside a ‘Sunday book.’  I always read before bed, at least, and when I’m doing better at treating the Sabbath differently, I set aside whatever book I happen to be reading in favor of something–well, I suppose the term religious covers it, although it’s not quite what I’m looking for.  That’s how I read Gordon B. Hinkley’s biography (the previous prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), and that’s how I read It is Better to Look Up: Life Experiences from the Pulpit.  It’s a relatively short book of powerful and inspiring personal experiences that have been shared in various settings by various members of our church; it’s also beautifully illustrated.  I can’t remember if it was a gift or I purchased it for myself, but I’m glad to have it, both as a book and as a resource.

It’s well worth your time and money.

Okay, folks, here’s a parenting question for you.  My 9-year-old has a pair of cute black leggings that she’s been planning to wear with her Bumblebee costume to her school Halloween party, as well as with a Ladybug costume for Daddy’s work party and whichever costume she decides on for Halloween night. She wore them to school today after I assured her that I could wash them between now and then; despite my suggestion that it was a warm day and we were short on time, she ALSO wore them under her costume when she went to dance…where she then got hot and took them off.

There, presumably, they remain.  And she doesn’t have dance again until Monday.

Here’s the thing.  Since I suggested she not wear them–BECAUSE IT WAS GOING TO BE FAIRLY WARM, mind you–she just smiled sheepishly when I pointed out the problem.  She’s a smart girl–she knows it was all her.  (She didn’t even complain.)  She’s also a forgetful girl, and making a trip to fix a mistake she does make sort of frequently seems like a bailout.  On the other hand, those really were the perfect thing to wear under her costume…and it’s going to be chilly enough on Halloween night that now we have to come up with something else for her to wear instead.  Not to mention the fact that I have a sneaking desire to bail her out anyway–because she’s my sensible, responsible, helpful girlie, and it wouldn’t be that big of a deal for me to text her teacher and figure something out.

Thoughts?