Say What?

This was for sale in a supermarket amongst the herbal teas.

I know it’s hard to see. It says “Gunpowder”

Really? Exactly what type of tea is Gunpowder?

No. I did not buy a box just to sample it, in case you were wondering.

Outsmarted

My daughter is a firecracker. She’s a whip. Just tonight, in fact, she and I had a half hour long show-down during church. I kindly asked her to please eat her cheese before she got down out of her chair and she refused. I removed her from the scene to have a little discipline. Then she threw tantrum after tantrum all the while refusing to agree to eat her cheese. The congregation sang hymns, the kids were released to Sunday School, there were prayers and a Bible reading and more prayers and more songs and all I could do was hope that she wasn’t extremely loud from the very back of the church and wonder if we’d be the last ones here still waiting for her to agree to eat her cheese. Anyway, I stood my ground. Thirty minutes later she finally said “Okay Mommy” almost loud enough for me to hear and that was good enough for me. So we headed back to our seats and she promptly ate her cheese and we snuggled for a minute. It was a battle of wills for sure, but if the girl thinks she can outlast the very one who gave her her stubbornness then she’s in for a surprise! I’m just sayin’. 

Anyway, that was another story. This post is about something different. In this story her Grandma and I just got plain outsmarted…

One day in March the kids were eating a quick meal of peanut butter sandwiches and chips for lunch at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. The chips were Doritos to be specific. We all know kids love Doritos and my children are no exception.

When the telltale orange film covered my girlie’s fingers and her sandwich remained untouched her Grandma and I insisted she eat some of her sandwich before she eat another chip. She immediately opened up her sandwich and placed the remaining chips inside on the peanut butter, closed it up and took a bite.

She figured out a way to technically follow the rules yet get what she wanted at the same time.

I didn’t know what to do. We had been outsmarted by a two year old and what to do about it?

We did nothing. Except laugh at her creativity and let her eat her sandwich in peace… peanut butter, Doritos and all.

This girl. I love her!

Tried and True Recipes: Pure Veg Spaghetti Sauce

This recipe is actually a Suzanne original! I made it up myself, thankyouverymuch.

This recipe makes a LOT of spaghetti sauce. Couldn’t tell you exactly how much. I freeze it in smaller amounts to use later on.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 kilo (around 2 lbs) each of onion, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes and eggplant.

Also, 1 can tomato paste and 1 packet of Spaghetti Sauce Mix (or skip the seasoning packet if you want to do all of your own seasoning).

A small helper is not necessary, but fun if you’ve got one sittin’ around.

The big job is preparing each of the vegetables.

Onions are peeled, diced and pureed (warning: might bring on tears).

Carrot are peeled and chopped.

Zucchini is scrubbed, chopped and pureed with some water to thin it out.

Tomatoes are blanched and cooled, peeled and quartered.

Eggplant is baked, peeled and pureed.

Dump it all into a big pot and simmer for awhile. Look at that rainbow of color and nutrients!

As it cooks, season it further with garlic powder, salt and Italian spices until it tastes just right to you.

Puree once more when the carrots are cooked soft (you’re going to either love your stick blender at this point in the day or you’re going to really wish you had one!)

And that’s it. Pure vegetable spaghetti sauce with great flavor, a nice hearty thickness and incredibly healthy too!

Baby Steps for Projects

I’ve had quite a few projects on my mind these days. Repairs around the house. Decorations. Improvements. Organizing. And just some fun things I’ve waited until we were ‘settled’ again to do.

The thing is I have two small kids. And frankly that fact can make the idea of completing projects a bit more daunting.

But I've made it work! My secret, which really isn’t a secret at all is baby steps.

I mean teeny tiny itsy bitsy pieces of a project at a time.

Lemme show ya.

When we first brought H back to Africa at sweet and tiny 5 weeks old, this was his  nursery. We lived in a different house at the time. I had made this bunting for his room and hung it for decoration. I loved it.

When we switched houses I used it again in the room that both the kiddos share. However several years later I now wanted to update it a bit and add some brighter more fun prints into the mix.

So that was my project. Nine new flags to add to the bunting I already had and then hang it all up for the first time since returning back.

Here is where the baby steps came in.

The important thing to note about the baby steps is that each of these steps was accomplished at a completely separate time. The bulk of the project could have been accomplished in a few hours if one could devote herself entirely to the project. But I couldn’t do that… I never had enough time to do it all beginning to end. But I sure did have several minutes here and there throughout my days and that is all I needed to get this done. I actually did this over a course of probably a week or more.

1. Prewash fabric and dry.

2. Get out ironing board and iron. (A tiny step for sure, but necessary. And it got me one step closer and that always feels good.)

3. Iron fabric.

4. Dig out old bunting to use for a pattern.

5. Iron old bunting. (This probably took the longest of all the steps, and my boy assisted me on this one by handing me flags on one side and stacking them neatly on the other.)

6. Cut 9 new flags.

7. Iron seams down on new flags.

8. Cut 9 new sets of ribbon for hanging.

9. Replace sticky hooks on the wall in the kids room. (Switching gears to preparing the room for the bunting cause once I had sewn them I knew I wouldn’t want to wait to hang them up.)

10. Purchase string in the market.

11. Hang string on the wall through the sticky hooks that had already set for a day.

12. Get out sewing machine and thread it with the correct thread. (Another tiny, but necessary step in the right direction. And how fun to have it all ready and waiting for me when the time came too…)

13. Sew flags! Now, you might say this was the actual project. But see how much had to be done in preparation?! I actually could sew each flag in two minutes flat. It was so quick. But a lot had to happen ahead of time before I could sit down and actually DO IT!

14. Hang flags!

15. Stand back and admire!!! (Okay, so this was the only step that I actually did immediately after the prior one! Ha!)

So rewarding, eh?!

When projects are broken down, they seem so much more achievable. I have applied this rule to so many areas of life lately. If I am feeling overwhelmed about what I have to cook in a day’s time I even think about that in steps. Choosing recipes would be the first. Then I’d go do something else. Then I’d go back later when I had a minute and set out all the ingredients I would need when the time came to cook. And later when the time came to start cooking I would feel like I already was prepared and had a good start and it wouldn’t seem so overwhelming to me anymore cause I had already taken a couple steps in the right direction.

Am I the only one out there who likes to operate like this?! Planning and preparation bring me such joy. And I get so much more done in my days when I think about what little steps I can take to begin accomplishing tasks that seem large and looming.

Now… what shall I start next?!…

Roomtime

I have instituted ‘Room time’ with my kids at various points in their lives. When we returned home and finally had some sort of routine several weeks ago, I knew I wanted room time to be a regular part of my boy’s routine when his lil’ sister takes a nap in the afternoon.

The first day I set the timer for 30 minutes. He did play in his room by himself (that’s what room time is), but not without poking his head out a lot and whining about when he could be done.

A day or two later he played happily without asking me how much longer he needed to play in his room.

‘

And a day or two after that when I put Sweet N down for a nap I didn’t have to ask him to go play in his room, I didn’t have to set the timer and he never asked to be done.

He just happily played in his room by himself without being told.

Kids loves routine. Kids love boundaries. I believe it.

I’m not saying it goes like this every day. But the fact that it goes like this some days is victory enough for me!

Also, toddlers love afternoon naps on the floor in the one room with an air conditioner.

Quote of the Day

The other day on the way home from somewhere I had to run into a small grocery store and the fam waited for me outside in the car. I shopped as fast as I could but I probably took 10-15 minutes. As I returned to the car, my boy remarked:

“Mom, Dad told me you were messing up his patience.”

Ha! Kids are so honest. Watch what you say around my boy… he just might repeat it!

A Trip to the Store

A good early morning at home with my kiddos slowly deteriorated to the ‘challenging’ rating. Maybe as the heat rose my children’s (mostly my son’s) desire to disobey rose also? Maybe this is a common correlation? It could be. I shall conduct further research. Anyway, I decided to push through the circumstances that begged me to stay home, park them in front of Dora the Explorer, drown my frustrations in iced coffee under my air conditioner while I watch the clock tick towards naptime and instead take the kids on a walk to the store to pick up a few things we needed.

And now I have three things to note about this trip.

1. Upon arrival to the store I let my kids browse the toy section. They know we don’t buy toys there, but they like to look and it kills a few minutes so I’m down with that.  While they looked around I noticed the store owner cover himself in a cloud of spray deodorant the next aisle over. Then he proceeded to close the can and put it back on the shelf. What?! I was not impressed and if I ever in my life wanted to buy spray deodorant, I would not give him my business.

Anyway, this little funny observation proved to be the silver lining of the trip. Well, that, and the fact that I picked up two kilos of frozen strawberries for only $5.

2. As we exited the store, I picked up my daughter and our groceries and then proceeded to fall down the stairs. All the men (no women around) who watched it all happen just stared at us. Not one person moved a muscle to offer the mother and child who just fallen down the stairs any assistance. Ugh.

3. Then, on the walk back home, a wild street dog bared his teeth and got within six inches of my daughters face. She screamed, tripped and then fell  down in the street. The dog then followed us the rest of the way home.

Oh my.

Just a little trip to the store.