Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Yes, I missed on Monday, but it’s been a rough few days; there has been vomit, and my schedule has been nutty, and I’ve been keeping on track to read The Book of Mormon again before the end of the year, like President Nelson challenged us to do.  What’s more, I’m going to take the next week off, both for family time and for maybe-if-we-all-get-enough-sleep-we-can-feel-better time.  I wish you a lovely week (it’s not hard in October, right?).  See you on the 25th!

Oh, I love “The Princess Bride!”  Anyway.

1.  There was vomit last night–from my youngest.
2. I spent the first half of the day not enjoying at all the little food I ate.
3. I spent MOST of the day dealing with clothes–summer clothes vs. winter clothes, too-small clothes vs. too-big clothes vs just-right clothes, and every conceivable combination thereof.
4. I am poopered.

On that note, goodnight all!

I might have preferred to bow out of this book review tonight–I’m working on cleaning out my bedroom, and I’m firmly in the ‘you have to make a bigger mess before you can make it smaller’ stage–but I told my 9-year-old that I’d finished Kristy’s Big Day (The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix #6), and if I were to then withhold it because I didn’t want to take the time to review it tonight, well–it doesn’t bear thinking of.  She can yell and stomp with the best of them when she’s mad, but she was born with ginormous blue eyes that plead masterfully, and when they get sad?  Well, her sad eyes are a weapon the likes of which most of the world has never seen.

Anyway.  For my own safety AND the health of my decluttering project, I shall simply say that the sixth of the BSC graphic novels was every bit as good as the first five.  (I must be used to Gale Galligan’s art by now, since I barely noticed the difference between this one and the first four installments, done by Raina Telgemeier.)  The story was engaging, I laughed in all the right places, and the ending was satisfying.  Keep on keeping on with this series, folks!  (And now the book goes back to my 9-year-old, who started reading it 10 minutes before bedtime.  Trust me, she’ll want it FIRST thing in the morning!)

To turn on the heat?  Or not to turn on the heat?  This is the question…

…Then, my friends, you make that the title and move on, because ain’t nobody got time for that.  (Those dishes, sadly, aren’t going to be doing themselves anytime soon.)  I just finished listening to Laura Marx Fitzgerald’s The Gallery, which I checked out for my daughter because she loves art AND mysteries.  (She and I both also really enjoyed Fitzgerald’s other middle grade novel, Under the Egg.)  Sadly, listening to it might not have been ideal–the accents fluctuated, and I think I would have preferred my own conception of Martha’s voice–but with so many books and not enough lifetimes to read them all, sometimes needs must.

I did end up liking it more than I thought I was going to for the first third of the book, which was happy.  I was expecting something similar in style to Under the Egg, and this wasn’t so much; it was a bit more of an overall mystery, whereas Egg was a bit more of a coming-of-age-with-a-mysterious-problem-to-solve-as-the-catalyst.  1920s New York also has its own kind of feel as a setting, and that played in.  By the end, though, I was thoroughly caught up in the what’s-going-to-happen?? mindset, and so on to my oldest it will go.  What she’s going to think of Martha, a Catholic school suspendee turned maid under her housekeeper mother, is anybody’s guess.  As for the newspaper magnate and his crazy (or is she?) wife, well–we’ll just have to see.

Bottom line?  If you’re interested in art, mysteries, or New York on the edge of the Great Depression, pick this one up.  If not, well–it’s up to you.

I admit, I’m patting myself on the back for how much I liked this recipe.  I’ve been trying out more crockpot recipes lately, because evenings are feeling busy now that the kiddos are back in school.  When I saw this Slow-Cooker Chicken Curry, I was attracted to the easiness of it but wary of how it was going to taste; my last few recipe tries in the curry department have ended with me wondering how so many spices and extra steps manage to equal such one-noted flavor.  Since I like a taste of sweetness in my curry, I decided that using peach mango salsa (I buy it at Costco occasionally) would be worth trying–and it totally was.  There was a bit of sweet, a bit of heat, and a hint of creamy from the cream cheese, making it the best curry I’ve tried in quite a while.  (Tried making, that is.  I can’t remember the last time I went to a restaurant where curry was even an option.)  And so easy!  I tossed the onion in a pan with a bit of oil for a couple of minutes and added the curry powder to it before mixing it with the salsa and pouring it over the chicken, because why not do what you can to boost flavor?  My son gave it thumbs middle to up, and my hubby also liked it better than he’s liked any curry in a while, so I’m calling that a win.  (My girls ranged from ‘not my preferred flavor profile’ to ‘spicy’ to ‘grumpy three-year-old who gives unreliable feedback.’)  If you’re looking for easy, tasty, and a bit different from the usual fare, here’s your next dinner idea.  Enjoy!

I come from serious gardeners on both sides, believe it or not.  Both of my grandfathers had garden land that was probably bigger than my current lot size, house and all.  My mother LOVES to garden, and both of my siblings are into it as well.

And then there’s me.

Gardening isn’t the only gene that got used up before I came along, but it may be the most practical one.  I’m a fan of eating from the garden, of course, but I stink at proactively planning it, planting it, and sustaining it.  I want to be good at it, yes, but I don’t want to actually put in the work.  I’m not proud of this, you understand, but I’ve accepted it about myself.  (I still try, of course, because GARDEN TOMATOES, but my efforts fall far short of what they could be.)

What does this have to do with baseball, you ask?  Simple.  While I find watching a baseball game to be a dull prospect in the extreme–sorry, Zach!–I’m perfectly happy reading fiction about it, and it’s the same with gardening.  Abbi Waxman’s The Garden of Small Beginnings had me hooked from the beginning, and the gardening tips were every bit as engaging as the rest of it.  Lili’s grief was compelling and real, and yet the book had me laughing more than anything else; Waxman’s snarky, spot-on comments about life and parenthood were priceless.  I cared about the cast of characters, too, although there were perhaps more similarities among them than there was meant to be.  I’ve always loved stories about pulling through the hard patches of life, and this book had that in spades.  If it weren’t for the language I’d be shoving it into the hands of every parent I met, because it really was that funny-yet-thoughtful, but the number of F-words and the several instances of higher-level religious profanity made me wince.  This was likely worse because it was an audiobook, but still.  I know that a disturbing number of people in this word do drop the F-word with a frightening casualness, but I don’t like hearing it.  Couldn’t we all be a little more creative in our vocabulary choices?

Anyway.  If you can deal with the language, this is a take on parenting, grief, and growth (all kinds, including vegetable!) that got me from the beginning.  I just wish I’d stuck with the advanced print copy I won, instead of grabbing the audio so that I could listen while I exercised and did housework.

Tonight a good friend and I got together for a movie night, since her hubby was out of town.  She helped me take grapes off the vine in preparation for jam while we laughed over “Operation Petticoat,” which is one of my favorite old movies ever.  I could quote funny lines from it until the cows came home, so all I’m going to say is–Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, and a pink submarine.  If you haven’t seen it, you’re seriously missing out!

I finished Margarita Engle’s Forest World last night, and let me tell you what–there are some random, unusual-looking species in this world.  Not that I didn’t know that in theory, of course, but the concept of ‘Lazarus species’ is central to the plot, and every time another such species was mentioned, I couldn’t resist googling it to see what it looked like.  (I now know that the Lord Howe Island stick insect is also known as the tree lobster–and I’ve seen pictures!)  This made the book a slower read than it would have been otherwise, but it added enough to the overall experience that it didn’t bother me a bit.

Unlike many of Engle’s books, Forest World is fiction–the story of a family divided between Cuba and the United States but united in a fascination with wildlife.  Since relations between the US and Cuba have finally improved, Edver ends up leaving Miami to spend the summer with his father; there he discovers a sister he didn’t know he had and a world almost unbelievably alien to his own.  (NO INTERNET!)  As he and his sister try to reconcile their different experiences and opportunities (and lack thereof), they end up getting more up close and personal with the world of wildlife smuggling and poaching than they ever could have imagined.  The end result is a tribute to the challenges and rewards of family–and wildlife preservation.  (It’s not as didactic as it sounds, I promise–it’s also a tribute to the kind of ingenuity in the face of scarcity that results in homemade handcuffs).  If you or your child is interested in nature, wildlife, Cuba, or poetic-but-accessible verse novels, give this one a try.

When I put chicken in to marinate on Saturday night (for grilling on Sunday), there were three pieces in the bag that were still too frozen to deal with.  I stuck them in a Zip-loc and stuck that in the fridge, and when Tuesday afternoon came around, I settled down with Pinterest to make those three (small) chicken breasts into a meal plan.

Enter this Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole.

I knew from the outset that I needed to lighten it up a bit, because GENETICALLY HIGH CHOLESTEROL.  (It stinks.)  I was already skimping on the meat, since I only had so much thawed and I wasn’t going to trouble myself to grab more; next on the chopping block was the 16 oz of sour cream.  I decided that I could probably stand to cut that down in the first place, and to substitute plain yogurt for some of it besides.  (Baked with seasonings, it doesn’t make that much of a difference.)  I ended up using about a cup of plain yogurt and maybe half a cup of sour cream, which worked just fine.  I also used this Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup recipe from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, because it’s a slurry that uses no butter.  (I made it with half whole wheat flour, too.)  The casserole itself still had a stick of melted butter–lovely, lovely butter!–and a decent amount of cheese, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been,  you know?  My house was QUITE divided, with my older girls giving it thumbs down and my littles telling me “two thumbs up!”  The former didn’t shock me–the oldest has never loved that flavor profile, and my second is my pickiest eater–but the level of enthusiasm from the others surprised me.  I enjoyed it as well, although it’s a bit different from my usual fare, but next time I won’t skimp on the chicken.  (There will likely be a next time, though).  If you find yourself needing to turn some stray chicken breasts into dinner for 6, give it a try!