Confessions, Health and Wellness

Flu Busting Soup!

Virus-Busting and Mind-Blowing

For about a hundred reasons, I’m a bit of a soup fiend, not the least of which is that it is cheap and easy and I can make enough to feed an army (my family), or myself for several weeks. I tend to be a soup-all-year-round kind of girl, quoting “hot soup on a hot day… something something something…” but obviously hot soup on a cold day is even better. A version of this crossed my newsfeed a few days ago and I had to laugh. Throw the words “flu-busting” on to anything and it is sure to be an Internet sensation.

I love creamy soups, but ever since we kicked milk out of our house, I am sad to admit that creamy soups no longer love me. This little magic virus cure hits the spot and doesn’t have even a drop of milk in it.

The truth is, it is just a blended vegetable soup with a distinctly Asian kick. I mean, if eating your veggies suddenly counts as flu-busting than I think we all know how far we’ve fallen as a society. Also, I say “Asian” because I’m not actually a foodie so I don’t want to claim the wrong Pacific Island with the blend of spices I added simply because they sounded good.

I could have just as soon labeled this “Leftovers Soup #7” because in the true spirit of me and soup, no shopping nor measuring was actually utilized in the crafting of what I have now called breakfast and lunch for going on four straight days.

Bonus: it can easily be vegan, if that’s your thing. Bonus two: you can definitely add some leftover meat if you have some to use up and it would probably still be yummy.

Here’s my not-so-scientific recipe:
  • 1 onion
  • a bunch of cut up carrots that I did not peel
  • an equal amount of cut up celery
  • a slightly less than equal amount of cut up cauliflower
  • more garlic than seemed necessary
  • a nub of ginger
  • 2 cans of chick peas without the liquid
  • enough chicken stock to cover the veggies
  • 1 can unsweetened coconut milk (the secret!)
  • salt, pepper, turmeric (flu busting!), cayenne, curry, and coriander to taste
  • a hearty dollop of green curry sauce at the end

First, sauté all the veggies until they are kind of soft and browned and mushed together in that aromatic way that your kids go, “Is something burning?” and you yell, “Get out of my kitchen!”

Next, add the chick peas and the chicken (or veggie) stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and cover. Go clean something. Or do a load of laundry. Or just forget about it because you can’t ruin mushy veggies.

When everything is sufficiently mush, blend it all in a blender or use an immersion blender if you are fancy. Adjust the liquid before blending for a consistency you like. I went on the thick side.

Finally, add your coconut milk and spices and stir. Taste, add some more spices, and stir some more. Top with a hearty dollop of green curry sauce, or sour cream might also be good, and a side of crusty sour dough (I know this is very un-Asian, but so yummy), and rest in the knowledge that you have successfully avoided another year of flu shots without guilt because this soup is obviously just as powerful, if not more, than modern medicine.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.

 

Confessions

How is Thanksgiving Less Than a Week Away??

Something about the sun shining on a Friday that always puts me in the mood to write. I’m not even sure how many people even follow this little blog anymore, or any blog, for that matter, because we’ve definitely become a society of 15 second computer attention spans.

But whatever. I’m updating. I need this.

I have a dry erase calendar on the door of my pantry that is color coded for the entire family. On Tuesday, I looked up and thought I had mistakenly written “Thanksgiving Break” a week too early, and began erasing.

It turns out Thanksgiving is not only early this year, but November is sprinting. I say this every year, the Christmas list getting longer and time getting shorter and Walmart putting up red and green stripes on their parking poles the day after Halloween. But for real, you guys. I’m treading water over here.

Fraudulent Credit Card Charges

We are currently juggling 6th grade basketball, running club, Thanksgiving, various holiday parties, and two birthdays before Christmas. (One birthday is semi-big and I’m totally dropping the ball, sorry honey, so glad you gifted yourself that fishing trip knowing how terrible I am at this).

But today, the sun peeked out for the first time all week, and somehow it feels like everything is going right itself in the next 8 weeks. Meanwhile, I’m also on problem solving mode, and I want to celebrate a few wins for my morning.

Win number one comes from a weird place, so bear with me. We have this one credit card we keep open for exactly three recurring charges: the YMCA, Netflix, and Amazon. That is it. The rewards are no longer worth using it all the time, but the hassle of changing these was worth keeping it open. That said, the only thing that changes from month to month fluctuates with our Amazon purchases, which are arguably minimal most months. The bill typically hovers around $150 and once in a while goes up to $250.

This month it was $700.

I apparently sponsored not one, but two Amtrak rides on Veteran’s Day, without my knowledge. Fine. But another charge that showed up was a recurring payment to a company called “Active.com” out of Texas. On my credit card it reads ACT* ACTIVE-NETWORK. Apparently, in a 5K registration from the Turkey Derby last year, we were auto-signed up for some bogus membership to this website that is $79.95 annually.

While John was busy disputing the Amtrak charges with our credit card (note, reasons we always and only use credit cards for everything ever) I was googling this company. I found a two year old comment on Facebook about a similar issue. Knowing what I do about crowd sourcing, I commented under that comment. No lie, within three minutes, a representative from the company was contacting ME and initiating a cancelation of my membership, with a refund.

Listen, for everything I hate about social media, days like this make me so happy to be alive in the year 2018. They really do. Anyway, here is the full response I got:

active.com credit card charges

John actually registered for this race, but I promise you, if it had been obvious that he was signing up for a “free trial membership” of anything, he would not have done it. I’m telling you, this is scammy and weird and I exercised all sorts of self-control with the man on the other side of FB Messenger because nobody wants to be that guy when you work for a shitty company who does stuff like this.

But still.

My One New Habit

Meanwhile, if you follow me on Instagram you’ve perhaps seen pictures of my lunch-prep for the school year. At the advice of a particularly organized friend, I bought 21 of these boxes back in August:

On Sundays, I line them up and fill them all with lunches for the week. (It is November and I’m hereby admitting we’re still doing pretty good at this – especially on the weeks where John makes the kids participate.) The boxes themselves are a good size, the price was definitely right, at under $1 a box, and they stack really nicely in the outside fridge.

My only complaint is that the lids crack kind of easily, especially when Kindergarten boys are the ones opening the box. Okay, so you know what I did. I had a little tutorial with all the kids on how to open and close the boxes so they don’t bust through all of them. We practiced. Every Wednesday at Lunch Bunch Avery says to the teacher on duty, “Be very careful with this box, my mom doesn’t want it to break.” They are all doing a good job of being careful with them.

That said, they are considered “one time use” boxes and several lids have cracked. I get it. I’m not complaining that my cheap boxes are breaking, but you know me, I’m not going to order an entire new set of boxes AND lids when all I need are some replacement lids. The environmentalist in me simply cannot do it. So I sent an email to the company, inquiring about how to JUST BUY LIDS. I mentioned in the email that “I’m actively trying to reduce my carbon footprint…”

You know they are just sending me an entire replacement set of the boxes and the lids, free of charge. Because who cares about the landfill? (Again, I’m not complaining. And I’m still endorsing the boxes because I still like them.)

In Other News

In other news, for as many times as my Kohl’s account has been unlocked for occasional online shopping, it has been re-hacked and locked again. No changes there. The girls are running a 5K in 2 weeks and I am running a half-marathon, and we are all praying it is not freezing raining that morning. My training has gone exactly as it always goes when it is cold outside.

John and I have taught three enrichment day lessons together at the kids new school (our quota for the year) and are still married. Another win.

And finally, I leave you on some book recommendations, because if nothing else, the sudden urge to write has come from a couple of audio books I’ve been plugging through recently. The first author I urge you to check out if you haven’t already is Nora Ephron. I cannot even say my views and her views align very often (she wrote very political-, social-, and feminist-charged stuff). But her voice! Her voice is so raw and so real and so wonderful that I am loving reading her. Listening to her. Both.

The other is my old friend David Sedaris and most specifically, his recently published “Diaries.” Most are far more dark than humorous, but again with the voice. I’m also plugging through Book 5 of the Outlander series which is more than 1400 pages so I should be wrapping that up around Easter. Of 2020.

If you are in a reading hole and looking for some inspiration, these were good to me. Would love to say I’m going to be checking in more regularly, but we all know how that goes.

nora ephron crazy salad & scribble scribble

david sedaris theft by finding diaries

 

Cute picture of Avery for no reason.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.

Parenting

Washington DC by Scooter

shared scooter rides to the lincoln memorial

I might not get around to posting about our entire short but packed weekend trip to Washington DC with all four kids. (I will try because it was actually fantastic in so many surprising ways.) What I want to talk about today, though, is the best last minute decision we made.

Touring the monuments via scooter. Yes. I said scooter.

If you live in a city that has not yet adopted the shared scooter trend, then you have not been subjected to downtown sidewalks virtually littered with these black and white, sometimes green, and sometimes pink, electric stand-up scooters. If you had been on the National Mall on Tuesday morning, however, and seen my entire family, doubled-up two-by-two, cruising around like freak tourists, you might have felt a pang of jealousy that this wasn’t you.

And rightly so, because it was exactly as fun as it looked. And because more than one person tried to ask us (as we whizzed by) where to get one, it seemed appropriate to write up a quick how-to on this whole thing.

The distance between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial is just under a mile. For an average adult, this is a brisk 15 minute walk. For a family with four kids, this is a nightmare. Even just walking the National Mall (with all the Smithsonian museums) is a hefty order for a 5 year old, who, by the way, handled it like a super hero.

No matter where you are in DC, you will have daily views of the giant pencil and maybe also Lincoln and Jefferson’s mansion-like monuments. Seeing them up close is pretty amazing, but John and I originally decided, not ultimately worth the work.

Until….

scootering to the lincoln memorial

There are a couple different scooter companies you will see represented in and around DC, evidenced simply by the scooters themselves next to buildings, lying on sidewalks, shoved in doorways, or discarded on random patches of grass. How do they work? Well, locate a scooter, snag it, unlock and pay for it with an app, and then when you are done, leave it for someone else.

Had we planned it a little better, we could have saved quite a bit of time and a little bit of money by figuring all this out in advance. So here is my gift to you.

Step One: Download the Shared Scooter Apps

There were a couple different brands of scooters that we saw most often around the city. My advice is to have the app for as many scooter companies as possible, because you never know what will be available near you. Here are the most common:

  1. LYFT – use this link for $5 in ride credit upon sign up. Enter the promo code LYFTSTER18 for another $5 toward two more rides.
  2. BIRD – Use promo code VKQRAEO for a free ride.
  3. LIME – Use this link to get $3 off your first ride.
  4. SKIP – No promo codes.

For my local readers, Lime is all over North Carolina, including Winston-Salem, Greensboro, the Triangle, and Charlotte. Bird is also available in downtown Winston.

Also, there are some rules. When you first sign up, many of these apps will require you to put in your driver’s license (by scanning the barcode on the back). I assume this is both to prove you are 18 years old and because these are technically “vehicles” which drive on the road and are subjected to traffic laws. I think the enforcement of these laws will depend on the city in which you use the scooter, but in DC, shared scooter savvy seemed very relaxed. They might also say you must wear a helmet, but again, look around. No one is really wearing helmets on them.

Step Two: Find a Scooter & Scan to Unlock

If you see a scooter lying on the ground, as long as no one has locked it (to reserve it while they run inside somewhere) you can just snag it. Otherwise, every single app has a scooter locator built in to help you find available scooters. If the locator shows a scooter is somewhere close to a building but you don’t see it, odds are, someone has brought it inside the building to save it without paying. If it is evening, they might also be getting paid to charge it.

Once you’ve got a scooter, the app is pretty easy to use. Just follow the directions on your screen to unlock it. To ride, kick off and use the right handle bar to get the motor going. The brakes are on the left handle bar. The mechanics are a little different on each scooter but all are equally simple. My 9 year old figured it out on her own. When you are finished riding, you hit “end your ride” and take a picture of the scooter.

Some Nuts and Bolts

COST: all scooters are pretty much $1 to unlock and then $0.15 a minute to ride. To break it down for cost benefit analysis, just think, you are renting the thing for $9 an hour. Totally worth it for touring the monuments with 4 kids and avoiding the metro, Ubers, or walking so much.

WARNING: One thing we learned is that the scooter apps will drain your phone battery pretty quickly. We avoided this by doing a hard shut down of the app once we had unlocked the scooter.

scooter by the capitol building

Our Shared Scooter Monument Tour

We ended up getting three scooters and doubling up on them, which was as adorable as it was illegal. We had to use two different brands of scooters in order to reserve three. I rode with Carter in the back of the line, John had Avery up at the front, and Eliott doubled with Isaiah in the middle. It was hilarious. Lots of pointing, laughing, smiles, and questions of “Where do we get those?”

Nothing less than the circus we usually are in public, and so much fun. Doubling up. Kids on scooters. Maybe not entirely allowed, but hard to know. Will leave these questions for another day.

It was a brisk but sunny morning, and I’m glad I made all the kids grab their jackets. We left from our hotel (the Homewood Suites by Hilton, on “M” street) and cruised down by the Capitol, out to the Washington Monument, all the way past the Holocaust Memorial, and out to the Lincoln Memorial. Also, though a break from walking, electric scootering is a bit of a surprising work out. We were all pretty tired when we got in the car to leave.

scooter DC, national mall, monuments, capitol, white house

As you can see on this map, it would have been nearly a 2 hour walk. Along the route, we had fantastic views of the Capitol and the Supreme Court, one amazing shot of the White House from a distance, and of course we rode through one part of the National Mall, with all the Smithsonian Museums, which we had walked the entire length of on our first day. One thing I will note is that I do not believe you are allowed to leave scooters on the National Mall. None can be found lying around there, and if you try to end your ride and lock your scooter on the Mall, it will say you are “outside the approved zone” and will charge you $25 extra.

This was our final morning in DC and we accomplished all of this before check-out. From start to finish it was a little more than a hour, and we spent about $10 per scooter. Maybe the best $30 we spent in DC all weekend. Seriously.

The shared-scooter craze is relatively new and many people have not jumped on it yet. If there is anything I can encourage you to do, it would be to plan part of your Washington DC sightseeing via scooter.

To get a more up close and personal experience of the ride itself, I, of course, took a couple videos. View them here. Quick note: I was riding with Carter who was panicking for most of the ride, just positive we were going to wreck or fall off. This, in and of itself, was half of my fun that morning. In the first video, when she discovered I was filming, she promptly grabbed the brake and brought us to an almost complete stop.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.

Confessions

Pre-Hurricane Florence Update

For all my out-of-town friends and family hearing about the imminent pummeling of North Carolina by Hurricane Florence and thinking, “North Carolina… doesn’t someone I know live there?” I thought I’d do a quick catch-all update. By the way, thank you for all the kind texts, FB messages, and general checking in. It means a lot that many of you are thinking about me, but also makes me wonder exactly what the hell they are saying on the news. (It has been a while since I’ve been able to watch the news. Like, years.)

To answer the most common question first: I live in Clemmons, just southwest of Winston-Salem, which is about an hour and a half northeast of Charlotte. (John works in a very tall tower in downtown Winston-Salem.) For all intents and purposes, we’re basically in the center of the state.

Map of North Carolina, Winston-Salem, Clemmons

To answer the second most common question: no, we are not evacuating. The prediction has been anywhere from 3″ to 14″ of rain and “possible flooding.” People around here are expecting the power to go out for up to 6 weeks, based on the bread and bottled water shelves in all our grocery stores right now. In the event that we must leave, we have a full tank of gas and a show-worthy room ready in Tennessee. (I didn’t actually ask, but I assume that’s totally okay, Mom.)

But just so you’re caught up, here’s a quick list of everything you might want to know, or maybe don’t care about, but whatever, I finally have ten minutes to jot it all down. If I don’t make it out alive, you can use this as a “What not to do in preparation for a category 4 hurricane when you are four and a half hour’s drive from the nearest beach.”

  1. We’ve gone low-carb in this house so stocking up on bread seems a little worthless. We already had 2.5 tubs of peanut butter. Today I found hot dogs at Harris Teeter which paid me $0.01 to take them home (a weird combo of BOGO + an extra $3 off sticker to sell them quick) so I “bought” 8 packs. Worst case scenario, we survive on Oscar Mayer weiners for at least a week, if we limit Isaiah to one and a half a day.
  2. We’re on city water so there isn’t a huge threat of losing water. Our water heater is on gas so there also isn’t a huge threat of cold baths. (I’d like to make this announcement to everyone still bum rushing the Clemmons Walmart. I know you are also on city water. Get a grip.)
  3. I completely destroyed our grill the week before school started when not once, but twice, I put meat out there and totally forgot about it and left the house. So we got a new grill for Labor Day and have enough propane to cook outside if necessary. I also successfully gave away the old grill to a complete stranger today because technically, the starter button and flames still work. Trip to the dump averted.
  4. In lieu of panic-stockpiling at the grocery store, I instead panic-cleaned my entire house and did all sorts of laundry. I figured if it gets bad enough, there’s a chance we’ll be on TV and I’d sort of want clean underwear in that case, which is totally weird, but also true.
  5. I’m going to spend tomorrow uprooting the last of my green tomatoes and praying over my not-yet-ripe-volunteer-squash. Perhaps something will make it out alive. I’m sort of wishing I’d planted rice, but since John doesn’t eat carbs anymore, we don’t really eat rice anymore. C’est la vie.
  6. Public school has already canceled classes for Thursday and Friday but our fantastic little private school is hunkering down until we at least see some lightening, which, at this point, isn’t supposed to start before Friday. I’m back in the land of loving my private school parental privileges and will take literally anything to make up for the lack of that school bus.
  7. I spent about an hour yesterday filling and freezing various containers of water. I don’t know why and I have no idea what it will accomplish, but the last time we were about to have a major snow storm I did the same thing and then nothing happened, so I’m just trusting the process.
  8. Finally, I have a whole bunch of cash, because I’m overdue on paying my kids’ allowance by at least three months and had planned to do it this week. I have successfully put it off again, however, by telling them if this storm hits we’re going to need cash and it would be silly to try to do IOU’s for all that. (Note, by “whole bunch” I mean like $18 in one’s and a couple fivers because my kids only get their age in allowance but we always have to do small bills and change because Dave Ramsay says teach them how to tithe 10% and save 10% and that boils down to nickels and quarters when you are less than 10 years old. If worse comes to worse, we’ll raid the “God” jar because it has been a while since we’ve actually emptied it at church. I think He’d be okay with an emergency loan-back.)
  9. The basement has been vacuumed and picked up in the most worst-of-all-cases-scenario that the entire family has to go camp out down there in the middle of the night. I even vacuumed the futon.

Alright. That was a lot. But really, that’s it. We’re mostly okay right now. And don’t be deceived by my tone. I’ve been in a low-grade anxiety attack for going on four days, but this has more to do with the fact that all my usual weekly tasks are now being bombarded by strangers who rarely, if ever, shop at 10am, and the extra traffic that comes with it. Also, I have no idea what is for dinner tomorrow, rain or no rain.

I love you all. Thanks for checking in.

hurricane florence check-in note

Garden

Lazy Gardening Video Journals

Suburban Guide to Lazy Gardening: a Video Journal
What’s Growing In My Garden

In previous summers, I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping up with semi-regular garden journal posts, complete with pictures, updates, and notes for improvement. Mostly these posts have been for myself as a way to sort of track and stay on top of this funny little side hobby of mine.

I’ve been the laziest this year. Lazy about tending the garden and lazier still about recording anything. I barely have any before photos to share at all. As nature would only have it, the thing is going completely bananas. I should admit that for the first time ever, I have not been as lazy about watering, but that means I’m remembering to do it two to three days a week instead of the usual one.

Like everything else in my life, I like the idea of tidiness when it comes to gardening. I always plan for things to go in neat little rows and to grow exactly in the space I’ve planned for them. This, of course, never happens. It is the one and only bit of raw chaos in my life that I somehow tend to embrace and it seems to finally be working for me.

Garden Harvest by the Numbers

As of today, July 7, 2018 (Happy Birthday, Carter!), which is still quite early, I have harvested the following (this is a rough count):

Zucchini: 50+
Grape Tomato: uncountable
Cucumber: 10
Hot Pepper: 2
Planted last Fall Onions: 6
Reg. Tomato: 5
Okra: 20-30

Today was unseasonably shady and cool so I decided to get out there and make a couple videos to show you what is growing, and exactly how big of a mess it all is. I’m still a bit of an amateur at the video thing, so skip this if you aren’t truly interested.

Vertical Gardening
Suburban Gardening SIP system
Before Photo: grape/cherry tomato and pepper in front, lavender in middle, trellis for cucumbers.

I’ve been interested in vertical gardening from the very beginning because it allows more to grow in a smaller space. This year I did to my cantaloupe what I’ve been doing with my cucumbers every year and it seems to be working.

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/B2AaSZfUL_Y”%5D

Compost Volunteers and the Overflow Bed

I added a new plot out in the area where I used to free range compost and subsequently grow hundreds of volunteer baby pumpkins every summer far too early for Halloween. I moved my okra to this spot this year and then filled the other half with random leftovers, including green peppers and an extra zucchini plant. The best part of this bed, however, is the amount of volunteers that have sprung up. So far we’ve identified one volunteer tomato and butternut squash. (I have never planted butternut squash so this is something that originally came from a grocery store. Talk about a side-hustle.)

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/_rKOpbSPOJE”%5D

Growing Tomatoes on Poles (Sort Of)
growing tomatoes in the shade using SIP system
Before Photo: tomato beds on side of house, just planted.

My current tomato beds were added last year and each of these boxes are SIP systems. As I mention in the video, this area gets the least amount of direct sunshine each day, which is, I assume, why the plants grow so tall. The jimmy-rigged creation to keep them somewhat tame is easily the most ghetto part of my entire garden. I never have a super high tomato yield, which is fine because who can eat that many tomatoes, but I also put very little effort into keeping them going.

Also, I used to kill my tomatoes nearly every summer from under-watering. With my SIP system in place, somewhat heavy mulching, and the lack of direct sunlight for all but three hours a day, and I can go entire weeks of forgetting these babies. They just seem to live and thrive.

[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/pth1I0Ok_tw”%5D

SIP System Gardening

If you are interested in my SIP Systems, which are sub-irrigation planters (some call them self-watering but this is misleading), you can see how we built them here. I could have sworn I did more posts about this but I cannot find anything right now. At any rate, the idea is that they are fully enclosed containers (we use plastic on the bottom) and the dirt sits on the top and sucks the water out of the reservoir at the bottom. I don’t fully understand it but it totally seems to work.

garden harvest
This is about what we’re getting every few days right now. Zucchini overload.

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.

 

Confessions

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Happy Father’s Day.

I hate these kinds of posts. The ones where I know I’m about to complain for a while. The ones where I will type for an hour then reread and delete the entire thing because I realize just how annoying I sound, even to myself. But I haven’t blogged in a while. Life has been rather un-blog worthy. And I kind of hate that, but there it is.

On the other hand, I do have a story.

Part One: The Trial

John came home late Friday night after spending the previous six nights in the oven known as Smithfield, North Carolina, for a trial. A trial that isn’t even quite over. This week culminates, hopefully, yet another very long and very difficult season in our marriage.

I sometimes joke that John and I have a connection like Elliott and E.T. You know the part where E.T. is at home crushing beer after beer in front of the TV and Elliott proceeds to fall out of his chair at school? Okay so not exactly like that. Because in this scenario, John is E.T. and I’m Elliott, but arguably if anyone is crushing beers in front of Sesame Street at 10:30am, it is probably me. I digress.

John took on a new and complicated case sometime last year. To spare you the super boring (and at this point irrelevant) details, it was one of those situations where his opposition was the evil character on every legal show who wins because “We’re going to bury him in paperwork.”

Bury indeed. On top of the paperwork work load, it seemed he could not catch a break anywhere, not from the judge, not from all the other work that was waiting for him at the office and Clemmons, and not even from me. Because I’m nothing if not the worst kind of supportive wife on planet Earth when it comes to my partner being in a position of need. This is not news.

Unlike TV land court, the real world does not hold nearly so many random loop holes that the good guy finds last minute and zings in for the win. I think it is safe to say that John has been preparing his clients all along for a loss in trial court. His ultimate goal was to either cushion the blow by lessoning the damages, or setting himself up for a win at the appellate level.

As a result, everything he did was critical. And for the last several months, my husband has been under the kind of stress and dare I say spiritual attack that rivaled his battle through last year’s election. Though he is above-average about leaving work at work when he comes home, let’s just say that more than once I’ve had an overwhelming urge to free all the frogs. In short, though I hear we give the appearance of having our shit together most of the time, we were both being buried alive in John’s anxiety and stress. And you know this means our kids have been feeling it too.

So, the first week of summer vacation, and Daddy is not just gone, but completely unavailable for the entire thing. Knowing this in advance, I geared up for easy meals, lazy pool time, adventures with friends, and a few fun surprises to give us something to look forward to.

And do you know what? The week was blissful. More than blissful. We stayed up late with good movies and good books. We slept in until 8 every morning and had more than one non-cereal breakfast. Eliott and Carter stepped up to be more helpful than they’ve possibly ever been in their lives. And while it wasn’t a week of zero fighting, the fact was, the bickering was minimal, the bounce-back rate on disobedience at an all time high, and even Avery wasn’t a thorn in everyone’s sides.

No lie, on Thursday just before dinner I stopped everyone and asked, “Are you guys being good because I’m being nice, or am I being nice because you are being good? I have to know. Because I just started this new herbal supplement for my hormones and I want to know if it is working.”

Eliott said, “I think it is a little bit of both, Mom, but don’t stop taking the pills even though they make you super gassy.”

Truth.

Part Two: A Missing Package

Despite riding the emotional high from this much needed kick-start to Summer break (and the cooler nighttime temps from sleeping alone) by Friday, I was tired. I admit I lost it, just a little bit, when I discovered that an Amazon package had been delivered to a neighbor by mistake, and said neighbor (who remains a stranger) had not bothered to return it to me four entire days later. In the absence of another adult to talk to, I took this rage out in the form of teachable moments, explaining to whatever kids would listen that this is the definition of inconsiderate and the reason we are raising them to be better than that.

Note: I did get the package back, thanks to the Internet, after I went on a parent-style witch hunt on our neighborhood website that was all too reminiscent of standing at the top of the basement steps hollering, “Who has mommy’s Scotch Tape?!”

Can I get some solidarity here?

Part Three: Facebook Marketplace

Friday evening, out of nowhere, a Facebook message pops up that someone wants to buy a stroller I put for sale almost two months ago, and she can meet this evening. I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with another stranger that day, but it turns out the woman was actually very nice. She handed me a wad of cash which I could see included several ones, and said, “You can count it if you want,” and I said, “Oh it’s fine I trust you.” (Not because I have a reason to trust her, but at this point, I just didn’t care.)

It wasn’t until I had been home for almost an hour that I finally un-wadded the money to find that she had actually over-paid me by $10. I know. It’s only $10. But the item I sold was only $35, and all I could think of was that if I had over-paid $10 on a used stroller it would have eaten me up inside, especially a stroller that is currently on sale brand new at Target for only $50. I texted her immediately and within ten minutes had the cash in a stamped envelope already in the mailbox with the flag up.

I cannot tell you the relief I felt in that moment. Like, all the wrong that had been done to me from the stupid missing Amazon package sort of washed away. Certainly all the wrong done to John over the last several months didn’t wash away, but somehow, I had this kind of inner peace that the world had just been righted again.

Can I tell you how much I live for these moments?

I always have. I’ve written before about my weird and possibly genetic sense of good luck. And it is true, things come up Milhouse around here more often than they should, but after such a lengthy season of trudging through the emotional mud, I was blindsided by the sense of universal balance that settled on me just from putting some change in the mail to a stranger.

John came home later that evening. We had a lot to catch up on, but mostly he needed an adult on which to unload his emotional baggage from the week, and I didn’t even remember to tell him what happened. His trial isn’t over, but even on Friday night, the outcome was far less bleak than originally planned for.

Father's Day Brunch
Part Four: A Free Lunch

Today is Father’s Day. I didn’t even have the kids make a card. I didn’t remember to say anything until we got to church where three older women were the first to bestow appropriate greetings on the man who had made everyone’s breakfast, made three beds, and oversaw all four kids getting out of the house dressed.

I’m a horrible wife.

Also, I hate going out to brunch on Sundays period, let alone holidays. Hate dealing with crowds, and kids, and kids eating in their church clothes. But somehow it just seemed like the only option today, and so we ended up at The Famous Toastery where we waited less than 20 minutes to get a table, and went ahead and treated ourselves to mimosas first thing, because its Father’s Day, and why not.

After two out of four kids ordered off the adult menu and we had made about sixteen different substitutions to get everyone’s food just right and then had one incorrect meal swapped out for the right thing and consumed all the lemons and all the napkins and falling forks.

I exaggerate. Honestly. Brunch was a downright delight. Our server was superwoman who won me over immediately when she said Isaiah looks like a young Ryan Reynolds. She would have won me over eventually when she handed over the iPad to Eliott to show her how to customize her breakfast burrito and then at the last minute figured out how to finagle like three changes to our orders that would ultimately save us another $3 in up-charges.

While I’m waiting for the bill I’m already mentally coming up with a total so I don’t have to sit there doing actual math at the table trying to figure out the tip. I was prepared for an $80 tab. Our server returns with three other employees and announces, “Well, Happy Father’s Day to you sir, because someone screwed something up and apparently gave your ticket to another table.” It takes a second to process this news because I’m thinking maybe she’s being ironic and about to tell us, “It is going to be another several minutes before we can get you out of here.”

Nope.

She was trying to tell us we would not be paying for our lunch.

John immediately started scrounging in my wallet for some cash to at least leave a tip, and I was gathering-children-to-wash-hands and giving-instructions-on-the-take-home boxes and don’t-forget-my-sweater and don’t-leave-that-on-the-floor mode that it wasn’t until we were leaving the parking lot when it hit me.

“I think this is because I sent a Facebook lady some change in the mail when she overpaid me for a stroller on Friday.”

And you know what? I really do.

Books

Let’s Talk about Books, Baby

Warning. Super nerdy post ahead. I have spent the last several days combing the annals of the Internet in the land of Children’s Literature, which has sent me into several rabbit holes of memories the way only books can do. I’ve spared you the walk down memory lane, but I did compile my annual summer reading list of kids books. And I’m totally game to share this list with you.

John and I used to be ridiculously committed to reading to Eliott and  Carter, every single night before bed. When I say “committed” I mean we never didn’t do it. I realize now that the single largest contributing factor to our zeal at the time was the fact that we did not own a TV. But I would also submit that because I was a working mom until Carter was a year old, we also lacked toys and time together. There was just something easy and sweet about snuggling up every night together with some books.

Current Reality

Fast forward a little less than a decade, subtract a salary-paying job, add a couple more kids, school, literacy, actual homework, activities, friends, sports, and the rest of life, and suddenly, the sweetness of book snuggles has been traded for the success of eating dinner together as a family. And by the time dinner is on the table, Netflix is looking a heck of a lot snugglier than a book and my actual eyes and mouth still working after a day spent with kids.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m still a huge reader and my kids are too. All four of them. I’m not lying nor exaggerating when I tell you that several times during an average week my kids are banished to the couch to read books and they actually do it. Even the youngest do it, and they don’t know how to read yet, which makes me think all hope is not lost. I’m mildly ashamed to admit that right now, we don’t read to our kids nearly as often as we could.

Twaddle

The truth is, there is a lot of noise out there when it comes to children’s literature. Like. An inordinate amount of noise. One early educator, Charlotte Mason, labeled such noise “twaddle” and for obvious reasons, I’m letting the word stick. If you are a mom and fancy yourself a reader, you know this. You also know that the TV perpetuates the biggest bulk of the crap out there. And of course that is the first thing my children want to grab when we are at the library. Spiderman easy readers (twaddle), My Little Pony & Barbie (twaddle), and, Disney anything. All of it twaddle.

But this isn’t just true for the little ones and the plethora of picture books out there. This is true for my elementary readers as well. Eliott has read the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid series at least three times and please don’t get me started on Judy Moody. Just for the record, I do not completely hate these books or others like them. Generally speaking, I’m pretty much game to let my kids read anything that interests them. Of all people I understand the meaning of reading for pleasure.

But this shouldn’t be the only thing my kids are consuming. And–and this is huge–these are not the kind of books I enjoy reading with them. Last summer we were visiting my parents in Tennessee and one of the kids grabbed my mother’s old copy of Winnie the Pooh and asked me to read it. It was fantastic. I mean, fantastic in that juicy way where you just know you are digesting something worth consuming. Even Isaiah, at four years old, giggled through the entire thing. I want more of this in my life, and the lives of my kids.

I daresay, we need more of this in our lives. But where to start?

Books Worth Reading

Next year, three out of our four kids will be attending a Charlotte Mason school. Because of this, I’ve recently reread For the Children’s Sake, a book I first read in a college education class. At its core, the Charlotte Mason approach is a classical education focusing on age-appropriate liberal arts with a heavy emphasis in literature. Among many of her educational theories with which I wholeheartedly agree, a driving principle is that children must read what she calls “living books.” These would be the opposite of twaddle.

I love it. And I’m all in.

So this summer, I’ve done my homework, and we are reading again. Together. As a family. Good books. Worthwhile books. I’ve scoured Goodreads, Barnes and Noble lists, and a plethora of homeschool blogs. I’ve compiled titles I remember, with others that showed up time and again, with others that I know nothing about. I actually started with all the Newbery winners from 2017 down through the dawn of the Newbery award, and I do believe any author on that list can be trusted to be worthwhile.

The Ultimate Summer Reading List for Kids

Essentially, this is a list of books that will pull us out of the cycle of so-so books. These are books every kid should read. Books that I read as a kid and loved. Chapter books and picture books. Classics and modern books.

checklist of books to read with your kids

Quick note: the list is extensive and I by no means plan to read every single one of these books aloud to my kids. For me, it is a guide. A goal? Maybe a challenge. But I also want to encourage my big kid readers to tackle many of these on their own.

Note two: many of these titles are the first of a series, others I listed as the common title for the series. I apologize there isn’t a lot of uniformity. I mostly went with what I know. Also, I am positive there are many many many great books that didn’t make the list. It is a work in progress. But I promise you, it is also too much to tackle in one summer.

You know I made a printable list with check boxes. And I’m sharing. No strings attached. As a thank you, I’d sure appreciate a comment below about some of the books you loved as a kid, or love reading now to your kids.

Enjoy!

Picture Books

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Newbery Award Winners

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Chapter Books, Series, Various Others

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Big Ass Checklist of Books to Read with Your Kids

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Confessions

If We Were Having Coffee

if we were having coffee right now

I am so ready for summer! I know it has been a while since I’ve done anything on the blog. Do you believe that I have written no less than seven drafts in the dry spell even though I’ve published basically nothing?

If we were having coffee right now there’s a lot that we could catch up on.

Health

If we were having coffee right now, first of all, I’d be drinking decaf. You know I went off it cold turkey about six months ago. Well, once an addict always an addict? Sometime around the new year, I went straight back to regular, and let me tell you, there was no withdrawal from the decaf and it was exactly as glorious as expected. Except that my sleep problems immediately returned. Also, things were happening digestively that just didn’t quite seem right.

The truth is, everything about the coffee ritual in the mornings (minus the actual brewing part because weirdly I’m terrible at it) is something that makes me look forward to waking up. Folgers got it so right! And arguably, the high from the caffeine was largely part of this, a detail I would not have admitted until I got rid of most of the caffeine and realized I wasn’t feeling quite as happy as I used to within a few sips. All that aside, I’m going strong with my decaf only, despite the madness of brewing two different pots in one kitchen.

I feel great. The digestive situation hasn’t been this good maybe ever. My eyes close within minutes of going to bed. And unless my two-hundred pound husband has suddenly taken to soft-stepping and leaving all cabinet doors open while he makes snacks for Sports Center (he hasn’t) I’m also no longer being bolted out of what crappy sleep I was in by every teeny tiny noise happening downstairs.

Accomplishments

If we were having coffee right now I’d tell you that I ran a half marathon about a month ago and am trying not to lose my endurance and stamina like I usually do immediately following a big race. But I’m also taking things slow, listening to my body better, and for the first time in my life, attempting to work out with better goals in mind. Goal 1: pain prevention. Goal 2: actual enjoyment. Goal 3: improving my speed. I’ve already signed up for the same race again next year, the Tobacco Road Marathon, because everything about it was exactly as enjoyable as the 2003 Motorola Marathon in Austin, TX. Something about well organized small races in cool cities.

We just said no to spring sports this year and I’m not sure I’ve fully realized the smartness of that decision, but every weekend has been fantastically wide open for making plans to do things we actually want to do. Much of it has been working in our own yard and garden, which means it was a record-breaking year for getting plants in early. One recent Saturday was devoted to cleaning up the yard of a dear friend who has needed help for quite some time at tackling a project that was simply too big for one person. I put out a very short-notice plea to a small group of cool people, and the help poured in. It turned out to be a fantastic day.

community yard work day

Kids

We have made some serious decisions about school next year and I’m pretty excited to say that three out of four kids will be attending Redeemer School in the Fall. It is a K-8 private school that I originally avoided because it is so small. However, after a few years at Calvary and a few years at Clemmons, somehow the size and environment seems to be just the right fit for us now. As a former educator and the grown up version of a kid who always loved school, I never dreamed of the challenges I’d face as a parent when it comes to educating my kids. Hell, isn’t getting rid of them for six or so hours a day the best part of stay-at-home motherhood?

I wish it were that simple.

And I wish I could say that making this decision has been a breeze. But you know me better than that. Decision making usually comes with a big fat slice of ongoing anxiety, the kind that has before resulted in significant losses of weight. I can’t say that I suffered myself into smaller sized jeans this time, but there were a few months there that I was in a fog of fear and apprehension. And I can’t say that I’m completely over it. Yes, the decision has been made, but looking forward to an entirely new routine and the usual amount of worry that comes with big changes still lingers.

I’m coping. I promise.

Meanwhile, we went to the beach, we’ve had Elementary Battle of the Books, are training for another Running Club 5K (as a family!), and are winding down to Preschool and 5th grade graduations end of an era ceremonies.

Totally Personal and Somewhat Spiritual

I’m currently reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and actually taking the writing tasks and time-commitment seriously. I even downloaded printable worksheets because you know how much I love an excuse to get out my 3-hole punch. It’s an old book and written from an openly spiritual but not necessarily Christian perspective. I realize there are those who would caution me to run, lest I should be tempted into something inadvertently pagan. I would simply say to these people, I’m enjoying the book. I’m enjoying the focus, the inward reflection, and even, for me, the decidedly God-centered spiritual aspect of it. (God: Jesus’ dad and the Creator of the Universe.)

Meanwhile, I also recently discovered Jesus Calling on audio book. If you ever considered meditation but don’t know where to start, I am simply throwing out there that this is an unexpectedly good stumble-upon. I’ve had the Headspace App on my phone for at least 2 years, and while I was really tapped in at first, I have admittedly lost interest. This one I downloaded on a whim, because it was available immediately from the public library on the Overdrive App.

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If you know me, you know I am not into daily devotionals. Can’t do them. Don’t like them. Stopped pretending about this and haven’t picked one up since the Purpose Driven Life craze first hit in college.

But this is different. First, I most often put it on while straightening my hair, a task that arguably takes more time than I’d like to admit and renders me incapable of doing anything else as it requires the use of both hands.

Though I don’t actually straighten my hair every day, I do it often enough that in less than a month, I had listened through this entire book and now am circling through it again. I’m not just listening to one a day. Instead, I just hit play and let the thing go. One afternoon I heard the entire months of April and May. And here’s the thing. It always takes me a little while to get into an audio book. The voice and cadence of the reader are important. But there is a decided mental shift that takes place as well, and when it hits, it is the same kind of calm that I assume people talk about when experiencing a runner’s high.

It is just an all-over sense of calm. Well? Consider that this book is scripture, re-written as though letters to us from Jesus himself, and you can see where it would and could be a form of meditation that is a little deeper than the Headspace App alone.

I’m simply saying, if you were thinking about it, you should try it.

I hope to be a little more checked in and active around here but as usual I make no promises. If you made it all the way through my wordiness today, thank you. I am perpetually fighting the media driven societal beast that says, “Enough already get to the point too long we’re bored!!” and often delete the wordy posts for fear that everyone (including me) now hates them. I think I see some sunshine. Let’s get after it, shall we?

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Confessions

Book Club Ladies: An Email I Just Wrote

Part One

Did I almost get into a collision with you at the Clemmons Library just now? Tell me it wasn’t you. I’m not sure I conducted myself with very much politeness.

If it wasn’t you, there’s a lady out there who has an EERILY similar face to yours.

Response

I’m laughing so hard right now!!! No it wasn’t me.

Part Two

Okay then I’ll tell you. Was parked kind of wonky to let my eight year old run something up to the drop box. A small black car goes *whizzing* by me from behind like a crazy person and I think to myself, “Somebody is going to die today in the parking lot of the public library.”

A minute or two later, I’m creeping out to round the corner to my right and while maybe not hugging the parked cars beside me, I’m definitely not sticking way out into the center or even crossing over into the left side of my “lane” area. As I approach the corner to make my right turn, your twin sister comes FLYING from the front half of the parking lot and isn’t actually looking up or out or anywhere. I can’t tell if she’s yelling at a kid in the backseat or looking at something on the empty passenger seat, but at that moment she’s very quickly cutting a super sharp turn and time sort of suspends while I (in slow motion thoughts) think, “She’s going to crunch the front corner of my mini van in like three seconds.”

I don’t even honk, which I’m usually TOO quick with. I just hit my brakes and mentally brace for impact.

She looks up at the last possible second, slams on her breaks (my mouth is agape but I’m otherwise devoid of usual expression, verbal or otherwise), and she has the audacity to waggle a finger at me, right and left style, like I’m taking too much of the lane.

I just yell at her through my window as if she can hear me and she is also a pea-brained child, “You are driving WAY TOO FAST, LADY!”

I creep around. Halfway home I have a panic because her face registers familiarity in that way. You know. *That way.* And I think, “Oh God, did I just scream at Heather in the parking lot of the public library? And what was she doing in Clemmons? And why the hell was she going so fast?”

So obviously I’m glad it wasn’t you. The sad thing is that it absolutely was someone else who goes to the Y at the same time as me and probably has a kid who is the same age as one of mine.

 

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