Test for email blogging

Please ignore this post, I am just testing out a feature I just discovered.

Camera Man

I was trying to take some pictures of the loot I sent to Becky for Amelia. When SOMEONE noticed some letters.

"Hey, what letter that?"

"That's an A"

"A ovah heah too."

And then he took my camera.

And took a picture of my boobs.

Which reminds me of my first camera and the picture I took of my first grade teacher. I got a great picture of her from the neck down.

Beware

When Clint's friends have babies, I let him pick out the fabric from which I make stuff.

You are liable to end up with skulls.





Even if it's a girl.

I did try to girly it up a bit with the heart stitching. And they are awfully cute girl skulls with heart eyes and bows in their...non hair.

Landon calls them head bones if it makes it less creepy to you.

UPDATE: I tried my Girl Scout Cookie experiment yesterday. Beacuse the Oreo recipe called for the bag that's a little over a lb to 1 block of cream cheese, I ratioed it by weight and it turned out ok. 1 sleeve of thin mints to 2 oz of cream cheese. And 1 sleeve of peanut butter sandwiches to 2 oz of cream cheese. Each sleeve makes about 12 balls. The thin mints ones weren't as great as I thought they were going to be, the peanut butter ones turned out pretty good, pretty much just like peanut butter balls. If I didn't have access to the GS cookies, I'd have used Nutter Butter and they would have been just as good I think.

And they danced

A few weeks ago, my cousin was in town and so we all descended apon my grandmother's apartment.

Landon and Zoey decided that dancing in Great-Grandma's kitchen was probably the best thing ever, secondly only to jumping in and out of the kitchen.

It's not like I'm a crazy food hippie or anything

I swear. But yesterday I clicked over on a certain ad that freaked me out.





The ad was for cloned milk. As in, milk from cloned cows. And I just died a little bit inside. And in case you think I'm kidding...I'm not.





Apparently the FDA has approved the use of cloned animals for meat and milk. Which. Fine. Weird, but fine. I don't really see the benefit of it, because it's going to cost more to produce AND you have to convince people that it's not creepy. Uh, I'm not going to be able to jump on a bandwagon of people thinking that cloned milk is somehow better for you.





Meanwhile the rest of the world is trying to get away from "the weird." Even regular milk from Wal-Mart for example even says that it doesn't have the growth hormones in it. Not that the hormones were actually an issue to begin with. The hormone debacle didn't bother me.





The cloning thing does. It's not like there's a shortage of cows.





Oh and one more thing. On the clony cow website, in their FAQ:

I would say, actually there are some ethical issues about cloning and while they may or may not apply to your cows, they certainly do exist.

Just one more thing I'll probably never make again

not because they aren't tasty and super yummlicious. But because good Lord, that's too much damn work, even if they are super cute.

Cake balls a la Bakerella.

I'll probably make cake balls again one day, but I'll just be dipping whole balls in the candy coating and not doing the bottom part.

Actually I make something with a bag of oreos and cream cheese that's very similar, and I was just thinking as I sit here and stare at the 60 or so boxes of girl scout cookies that I currently have in my office - I could totally make a minty truffle by using the thin mints and cream cheese instead of oreos. Or a peanut butter one with the peanut butter sandwich (do-si-dos) ones.

Whose toy is that?

When we picked out this toy, we didn't realize just how far the track went, or how far the cars went past the end of the track. Nor did we take into account that we don't really have a door with that kind of distance of carpet beyond it.

And I don't think Clinton realized it would mean having someone sit on his head for an hour straight either.

We settled on putting it in his room, where the cars launch off the end of the ramp and we hung one of his quilts in the window sill to cushion the blow to the walls.

It's a strange world, my friend.

So, about a week ago I was driving home from work when I spotted this guy.

Maybe you can't really tell, but he's wearing a bee keepers headdress - net - suit - thingy.

And my initial reaction was "OH MY GOD THERE ARE KILLER BEES OUT HERE! WHERE ARE THEY? WHERE ARE THEY?!?!?!"

I instinctively made sure all my windows were rolled up and my doors were locked - you never know what skills those things have, they might be able to open my door.

I actually looked around for them, under the overpass, to see if they were swarming in a store in the shopping strip.

It wasn't until I was considering full fledged panic when I noticed the guy wasn't moving much. Or at all. Nor did he have shoes one. And holy crap, they tricked me with a mannequin.

On Beyond Bovine #15, #16, and #17 – Tomatillos, Red Onion, and Lime

Oh, I bet you know where this is going, right? With those ingredients? I made tomatillo salsa.

So, to begin, despite what some people might think (like a cashier at a regular grocery store), tomatillos are not just green tomatoes. They’re completely different.

They have these husky outer leafy things that you start by peeling off. And the insides are different too.



As for the red onion, well, you've all met a red onion before.



I don't have the recipe with me today, but I'll try to wing it. On a baking sheet (we wrapped ours in aluminum foil for easy clean up) I placed 12 quartered tomatillos, 1 large roughly chopped red onion, and 3 jalapeños (the recipe said 1-2, and also didn't mention whether to seed them or not - so I seeded 2 and then decided to add 1 with seeds - probably could have done without one of the unseeded ones or half the seeds of the third or something). And 3 cloves of garlic. Drizzled with olive oil and salted.

(Picture is pre-jalapeños and also I forgot the garlic and had to roast it separately while I waited for the main stuff to cool.)

I put it in the the oven at some temperature for some amount of time...I know I'm totally giving you a great recipe here. And it looked like this:


We scooped and poured everything into the blender.



At this point we added some heavy cream, some honey, some salt as needed for taste.

And squeezed in the juice of 1 lime.

I poured half into a container, and then we added 1 cup of sour cream to the rest - giving 2 very good but slightly different sauces.



Clinton and I both agreed that the jalapeño choices we made were not great - the one without the sour cream is much hotter than your average green sauce. But they're both very good.

Bonus, I used the hotter not sour cream sauce to make guacamole and it was awesome (mashed avocado + salsa of your choice = quick guacamole).

His Grandpas are going to be so proud

Clinton did a quick tune up on my car last weekend, new plugs and a belt. Landon, of course wanted to help. So I set him up with a nut driver and 3 screws halfway screwed into a piece of wood. [Full disclosure: I screwed them all the way in and then half way back out, so he could either screw them back in or out and it would be just as easy.] He worked on that for quite a while, and he did actually manage to free 2 of the three screws.

Working hard, or hardly working

Yesterday I had a meeting 8 am to 3 pm (it was supposed to last until 5, but thank god they let me go early.) I did get a lunch break because I had already set up a drag-up lunch with a friend whose last day is Thursday - I told them when they scheduled this meeting that I already had a lunch meeting and would have to leave. If I hadn't, I might have poked my own eye out just for an excuse to get out of the room - they had brought lunch in, so there would have been no escaping. I thought I got out of it for today, but apparently not, I have just been informed that it was pushed back to 8:30 instead of 8.

Landon had his first day of transition to the next classroom yesterday. This week he's spending an hour each morning in the room next door, next week he'll spend the bulk of the day over there (something like 9-4) and then on the 30th he'll start going there full time. It's nice that they do that. He's also not alone, there are three boys in his class with October birthdays, and they're all transitioning together. Which is nice. Plus he'll know most of the kids in the next class over, since they were all in his current class at some point during his stay.

He seemed to do well with it. I happened to be on a 5 minute break when they opened the door and let him in the room, and he walked right over and picked out a book to read.

And now blogger won't let me put a picture on this post, so the whole point of posting quickly and not getting calls from various people about why I didn't post any new pictures is ruined.

Airplane

A week or so ago we had dinner with Clinton's mother at his aunt Brenda's house.

Between the 2 sixteen year old girls and Brenda herself, we discovered, what people need when they have a toddler is not another baby, but another adult or teenager to entertain the toddler.

Our first anatomy lesson

Landon: Mommy hab a penis?

Me: No Mommy doesn’t have a penis.

Landon: [Grabs his crotch] Me hab a penis?

Me: Yes, you have a penis, it’s what makes you a boy.

Landon: Daddy hab a penis?

Clinton: Yes, Daddy has a penis.

Landon: Oh. [Pause] Mommy no hab penis?

Me: No, mommy has a vagina.

Landon: A gyna?

Me: Yes

Landon: NO GYNA!! NO GYNA!!

Planting

Ice Cream Truck Club

Ideally, you're hangin out in the house and you hear "The Entertainer" playing away outside. It's far enough away that you have time to find some money, but close enough that you don't really have time to put on your shoes, so it's easier to just pull your socks off.



You're going to need some cash.

Make sure it's real money, they don't want those counterfeits on the Ice Cream Truck.

You pick out your preferred ice cream, you might say you want "chockit." So your mom asks for a fudgesicle and then she gets herself a teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Your mom might casually mention that it's your first ice cream truck experience, at which point the driver says, well, put him up on the counter and take a picture. But you're not so sure about that, what if they drive off with you! Never once thinking about all the ice cream you'd have at your disposal. I guess staying with mom trumps going with ice cream. Good instinct kid, hold on to that.

Luckily, grandpa is there to save you from the torture of sitting on the ledge. You head back into the house to eat your ice cream, and as you are walking in, your mom might open up your fudgesicle and her teenage mutant ninja turtle and you may be over come with jealousy and STEAL her ice cream from her. Because it's more colorful or something. Or maybe you're mean.

And then you just keep taunting her and taunting her.

And no, you can't ALSO have the fudgesicle.

On Beyond Bovine #13 - Fresh Coconut

Guess how you don't open a fresh coconut?

You do NOT open a coconut by whacking it with the blade of your favorite chef's knife. Just because they do it in the movies like that, doesn't mean you are capable. Or maybe it's because your machete isn't readily available. Maybe you left it in the back 40 after, uh, clearing some brush? I dunno, just don't do it, because then you'll be able to see the ding in the blade of your knife and you will want to leave a dinged blade shaped impression on the person who said to do it and that your knife would be fine. Not that anyone I know is in that exact predicament. Ahem.

So, on to the how to. You're going to need a hammer, a towel, a nail or awl, and a cup.
See the 3 little dots? They are in bowling pin hole formation.

Drive your nail or awl through each of the three dots to make holes. The website may claim that's enough, I have to wonder how freaking big their nails were, maybe they used railroad ties. We also had to poke a hole on the other side to let air out.

Drain the water from the coconut completely into the cup.

This is the part where the person who read the website should fill you in on stuff like "they said you might want to be on the floor or outside, because you have to hit it really hard." Before they try to dismantle your countertop. Wrap the coconut in the towel and take the towel outside. Bang it with a hammer.
The inner white meat and the brown thin skin that comes with it is entirely edible. Although, when grating, you may want to take the brown stuff off, because it will look funky.

Clinton: [Takes a small piece and pops it in his mouth, chews for a moment] It’s like a tasteless carrot.

Me: I'm pretty sure that's why they sell sweetened coconut in the store.

Clinton: [ Now chewing for 15 seconds] Ok, now it's getting papery; it doesn't take long to start tasting like dried crap.

Me: It didn't have much flavor, the juice seemed to have the most flavor. Maybe if we dipped it in sugar? Like sweetened coconut might be. I don't have confectioners' but I think we could try regular sugar.

Clinton: [dunks a chunk of coconut in a bowl of sugar, and places it in his mouth] [GAG, HACK, WHEEZE] That was worse! Too sweet.

Me: [Tried the same thing] Ehh, not that bad.

I continued cleaning up the coconut pieces and sent Clinton to figure out how to make sweetened grated coconut from the internet. He came back with a recipe that was basically, add some sugar to the liquid and once you grate it, pour it over the grated coconut, then allow to dry.

He added the sugar and asked me if it was enough. I tasted it, I don't know.

Landon showed up about this time to find out what we were doing.

He tasted the sweetened coconut juice. "Mmmmm, dat's good."

We grated the coconut.

And spread it, poured the sweetened juice over it and let him taste it. "Uhhh, me no like it."

I don't think we added quite enough sugar, I tasted the final product and it didn't have the sweetness that I normally get from the packaged coconut. I gathered it up after a while and froze it. I don't use a lot of coconut, but we'll see.

Baseball

Mock a Pissa

Landon watched an episode of the insufferable Caillou early last week some time. In which Baldy (as we so lovingly refer to him in our house) made pizza with his friends.

Caillou got mad that his friends didn’t like mushrooms and were making their pizzas different from his. Because he’s weird and doesn’t get that other people feel pretty strongly about mushrooms. Although, maybe he was onto something because the same kid who didn't want to put mushrooms on his pizza because he "didn't like them," totally traded a piece of his pizza for a piece of Caillou's.

He was outraged that they might put less sauce or more sauce, or less cheese or more cheese, or carrots and broccoli on their pizzas. Thereby "ruinning" their pizzas. Total disgust with them for not conforming to his pizza liking standards.

Landon has been bothering me for a week to “mock a pissa.” So when we went down to LJ on Saturday I got my parents to indulge him. And he made his very own pizza.

He didn't spread the dough, but he did spread the sauce.

He prefers cheese only, thank you.

And lots of it.

And it came out pretty nice.

But someone, doesn't really like to be photographed with their mouth full.