Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I was looking for a way to use some leftover cooked quinoa the other day when I came across these Chocolate Chip Quinoa Muffins; since I had the ingredients and it looked simple enough, I decided that they could be breakfast.  And while several of my kiddos went with thumbs middle, I don’t really care, because I’m definitely going to be making these again.  They were incredibly filling–huzzah, quinoa!–with a moist, chocolate-studded appeal (okay, I may have at least one-and-a-halved the mini chocolate chips).  I used regular yogurt, because it’s what I generally have, and regular brown sugar and whole wheat flour, because ditto!  I’m always incredibly generous with vanilla–thankfully, the price of Mexican vanilla makes that possible still–and that was that.  If you want a filling, relatively healthy muffin that tastes amazing warm with a slather of salty butter, this is the recipe for you.  If you don’t…why not?

Did you know that female telephone operators were vital to America’s success in WWI?  Did you know that female telephone operators had anything to DO with WWI, let alone served as uniformed members of the Signal Corps in France?  And did you further know that AFTER the war, they were denied any military or veteran’s benefits until the CARTER ADMINISTRATION?

Yes, that’s the Jimmy Carter who was president when I was born.  And yes, I did say WWI–as in the Great War, the War to End All Wars, the war that ended in November of 1918.  And YES, that’s a 60 year gap.

I didn’t know anything about the Signal Corps either–not until I listened to The Hello Girls, Elizabeth Cobbs’ fascinating history of these women and their even more fascinating historical context.  I’ll admit, the context is given in so much detail that I doubted its relevance at first, but by the end of the book, it enriched the story immeasurably.  The fight for women’s suffrage raged all during WWI–looking back, I find myself irritated with Mr. Bennett for not spending more (some??) time on it when we were learning about Woodrow Wilson and his Fourteen Points in 11th grade–and the service of the Signal Corps women weighed significantly into the argument that women couldn’t vote because they couldn’t fulfill one of the basic duties of citizenship, being unable to fight to defend their country in time of war.  (How that made taxation without representation okay for the female half of the population baffles me, but there I go, expecting anything to do with women not being able to vote to make sense.  Besides, the conditions under which a woman could legally own anything upon which to be taxed is an entirely different [although equally absurd!] issue.)  Cobbs taught me things I didn’t know about the suffrage movement, things I didn’t know about WWI (either from history classes or from reading Rilla of Ingleside over and over as a girl), and things I certainly didn’t know about the years afterward.  This is a vital piece of American history that gives an impressively balanced look at the differing viewpoints involved, and it’s compellingly told.  Read it!  Listen to it!  Heck, BUY it!  If you have any feeling in you for history at all, you’ll be glad you did.

I can’t remember how Starring Jules (As Herself) appeared on my radar, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Jules’s style reminds me of a cross between Lola Levine and Clementine, but her jingle-singing personality is uniquely her own.  The main plot here is partly less relatable than most (how many kids get to audition for a commercial?) and partly not (just about every kid in the world has had to taste something they can’t stand), but the subplot of friend struggles is universal.  The illustrations are fun, the book’s design is distinctive (blue and yellow cover with red-edged pages), and the story has plenty of heart.  This one is totally worth your time!

(By the way, I also finished the 4th ‘Franny K. Stein, Mad Scientist’ book–The Fran That Time Forgot.  It was just as enjoyable as the first three!)

I’m sure my devoted readers (!) will notice the conspicuous absence of an Amazon link below this book review.  I decided to forgo it this time because Eloise Lownsbery’s Out of the Flame–a Newbery Honor book from 1932–is not just out of print, it’s OUT OF PRINT.  As in, I had to put the complete title plus author’s last name into Amazon to find it, and copies started at $249.  (No, I did not forget a decimal.)  I sort of assumed that you’d all pass on that.

This is NOT how I’d planned on spending this week of the summer, folks.  My oldest was feeling sick by last Thursday night or Friday morning–fever shivers and her-bedroom’s-in-the-basement-where-the-AC-blasts-on-her-wet-hair shivers are difficult to distinguish from each other–and after a fever of more than 103 on Friday night, I took her in on Saturday to receive a diagnosis of the Coxsackievirus, which causes hand, foot, and mouth disease.

Ugh.

So.  Her fever is gone and her throat pain has faded, but her rash is still visible.  My youngest spiked a fever on Sunday night, throwing up once Monday morning to boot, and now my 5-year-old is in the throes of the same.  (He’s thrown up twice thus far.  He didn’t tell us about the first time until several hours afterwards–and it was in his bed, on the TOP BUNK.)  My 8-year-old is still apparently well, but one has to wonder.  Double ugh!

By the way, I am sorry about missing on Sunday night, but my nephew and his wife came up for dinner, and after they left I went to check on the bunnies before I exercised only to find that their hutch was wide open and they weren’t in it.  Talk about an adrenaline rush, together with all the baggage of losing pets to tragedy when I was little; I’m attached to those bunnies myself, but my children adore them, and I was terrified on their behalf.  I went out with a flashlight and managed to locate Marshmallow, at which point I enlisted my hubby, who managed to track down Peter.

Whew.

Anyway.  The bunnies are safe, but we are (yet again!) not going anywhere today.  Life has its ups and downs, right?

Stay well, folks.  Signing off.

So…my oldest appears to have a temperature of 103-plus, AND she says she feels streppy.  Which would make her contagious for tomorrow night’s early Father’s Day celebration with my in-laws.  Ugh.  I’m going to bed, folks–and then to the pediatrician in the morning!

1.  I bought a bag of Pecan Pie M&Ms months ago–because I must try all the things–and found it recently.  They’re actually pretty good.
2. We had plans with 3 different friends today–at different times–and all three had to cancel.  What are the chances of that?
3.  If the bunnies weren’t still new and the mornings weren’t still temperate, that would have gone a lot worse.
4.  I learned today that Britain lost twice as many soldiers in WWI as they did in WWII.  France suffered six times as many deaths.  One half of British men between 18-28 were killed or maimed.  (This would be why, in 10th grade, Mr. Bowes told us that Great Britain basically lost an entire generation of young men–because hey, those stats likely don’t include shell shock OR deaths from the influenza pandemic.)
5.  On a lighter note, I also learned that Cher Ami, the most famous messenger pigeon of WWI (NOT to be confused with the extinct passenger pigeon), was blinded in one eye and had one leg shot off during his final flight.  He was so loved that the doctors MADE HIM A WOODEN LEG.  And if you can’t conjure up that mental image yourself, you can see him stuffed–wooden leg and all–in the National Museum of American History.
6.  Apparently telling my middles that “it’s basically a taco salad” is not enough information for them to make a decision about what sort of eating utensil they want.
7.  Both of my littles woke up scared–at opposite ends of the night–which means it’s time for me to shower and GO TO BED.  Goodnight all!

Soooo…we left for Idaho to visit family on June 1st and got back on the 9th–with bunnies.

Yes, you saw correctly.  My brother’s bunnies had more bunnies, so now my sister and I have bunnies.  (This is apparently how families work.)  I have to say, ours are pretty adorable…they’ve been christened Peter and Marshmallow, and the kids are in love.

I’d like to say that I finished a book while in Idaho, but not so much, no…and we had sandwiches for dinner tonight, because I was concentrating on scaling Mt. Laundry.  (Load #7 is currently in the dryer.)  Perhaps I’ll manage a review next time?

In the meantime, I have yet to practice the piano and Mt. Laundry is smaller but still very much a presence on my bed.  Goodnight all!

I finished listening to David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood on the elliptical today, and I have to say–I was completely fascinated.  How did I not learn anything about this in school (at least, that I remember)?  Over 2,200 lives lost because of human negligence in one of the greatest catastrophes in U.S. history, and I knew next to nothing about it.  Thanks to McCullough, though, that is no longer the case.  He painstakingly sets the stage and takes us through the action in a scholarly but beautifully readable way, with both poignant and comic details used to good effect throughout.  (Yes, I’m a fan of McCullough.)  This is a piece of history worth reading for anyone.

Odd fact:  today is the 129th anniversary of the event.  Talk about timing!

Oh, and before I forget, this will be my last post until June 11th; I’m taking some time off for family (yay, family!).  Happy start of summer!

Okay, I missed Sunday, but we had quite a sudden change of plans and packed up to go to my in-laws’ in a considerable hurry; we got home after 9 last night, and oh, the tired children!  The littles were up far later–as far as bedtimes go–than my big girls, but then, my big girls’ alarm was still set at their regular school time, so guess who woke up at 6:50 this morning?  Given that they had a cousin sleepover on Sunday night and a past-bedtime night the next day, this was truly a domestic tragedy.  All four of my kiddos were grouchy today, then, although the older ones managed better.  Moreover, my hubby and I stayed up too late playing games on Sunday, so we’re more tired than usual as well.  Not the ideal combination!

Anyway.  I’m actually officially tired enough to leave you without a review tonight, which means that it’s time to say goodbye and take myself off to the shower and to bed.  Sleep well, folks!