veg4me

veg4furry

This week at my daughter's dance class the instructor asked the girls "What are you going to be for Halloween?"

Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses got 4 mentions, there were 3 future Little Mermaids and one blank stare. We hadn't gotten that far at our house.

"Oh shit" I thought. "Please don't let her say something offensive!". Girl characters aren't a favorite thing of hers.

Then I thought "Please don't let her name a costume that I can't make!"

If given the choice, I would rather hear her yell "Barbie is stupid!" versus hearing her respond "I want to be a dragon with blue scales and a long green tail that breathes fire!" I can't sew that well.

"I'm going to be a black cat!" she announced, full of confidence.

Huh? A black cat? Since when?

Well, it's sort of unimaginative, but I can handle it.

Tonight while my husband took the two kids out for ice cream I started working on the head. When they walked in the door with mouths full of ice cream I didn't hear them coming.

I was totally busted wearing part of my daughter's Halloween costume.

It's so warm and fuzzy I am seriously considering making a hat for myself.

What are you going to be for Halloween?!

veg4leftovers

Like most kids, I grew up in a household where you were expected to eat all of your food at dinner time.

"There's starving children in [insert your choice of country] who would give anything to have [insert an unappetizing meal] for dinner", my mother would say.

"Great! Let's ship this over to them immediately! What's the zip code in India?"

Not only did my mom expect you to be grateful for the meal, but as she prepared it she was already planning out what to do with the leftovers. Believe me, there's only so much you can do with kielbasa. We just didn't waste food in our house. My mom could stretch a pot of homemade pea soup for an entire month if she had to. She grew up with little money and learned to live frugally, if not grossly.

I can distinctly remember helping her prepare tacos one night when I was young. She handed me the block of Cheddar cheese and the cheese grater.

"Mom! This cheese is moldy- look! It's green and blue!"

In the blink of an eye my mom hacked away at the cheese until all of the mold was cut off and sitting in a fuzzy pile on the edge of the cutting board.

"Here ya go. It's fine now", she stated as she handed me back a much tinier, yet more unappetizing, piece of Cheddar.

The original Frugal Gourmet, my mother was. Waste not, want not. And you better want leftovers.

Now that I'm a mom, I find myself wasting a lot of food and therefore spending a lot more to feed my family. Last week I was sauteing vegetables and I had one quarter of a zucchini left over. I looked over my shoulder quickly to make sure no one was watching and opened the garbage can and threw it in. I could hear my mom inhale sharply from 750 miles away and shake her head in dismay.

"You could've shredded that zucchini and made a single mini muffin out of that!"

My husband is a food tight wad as well. He will eat and drink things that I can't even bring myself to mention. Just think "past expiration date- way past". He also cleans his plate at every meal, which should be an admirable trait, however he will eat himself into a stupor, just to avoid wasting food. The other night he scraped and dug at the bottom of a bowl of ice cream with his spoon so intently that he inadvertantly dug to China.

I leaned over his now empty bowl and shouted down to the wee, starving children of China "Sorry I threw out that zucchini the other night!"

Do you have enough leftovers to feed a small island nation or do you use everything?

veg4wmfw

Every so often I swing by and glance at Works-For-Me-Wednesdays and today as I was working on the computer, I thought I'd play along.

I have a four year old daughter who has loved to draw since she was old enough to hold a crayon. That said, I have amassed a large collection of drawings. However, I only own one refrigerator and I prefer it clutter free, so what the heck can I do with all those pictures she continues to hand me?

Scan them, of course!

After scanning them I stick them in a file that is categorized by the year. That way I can always access the wonderful drawings she completes, but my fridge door stays paper free!

Her school is having a book fair this week and they held a school wide coloring contest to kick off the event. Each grade level would have one winner chosen and that person was allowed to pick one free book from the book fair. Yesterday they announced the winners and she was the winner out of seven Kindergarten classes!

I'll have to make sure I scan a picture of her standing with her winning drawing AND her new book!

veg4farm

On the anniversary of 9/11 I hope we can pick up the pieces and sow the seeds of change. Submitted for Illustration Friday "Farm".

veg4safe

 

Illustration Friday "Safe".

Two weeks ago we had a run in with a shark in the ocean. This weekend Steve Irwin died in the ocean.

This is how my four and eight year old would like to enjoy the ocean from now on. Safe and sound, bobbing along out of harm's way. Never mind the fact that safes don't float and the minute it sinks to the ocean floor, no one is around to dial the correct combination for the lock. This kid invention is strictly in the prototype stage.

veg4run

Last week I mentioned our run-in with a shark on the last day of summer vacation.

This morning my 4 year old was scribbling away at her craft table. Minutes later she passed a sheet of paper to me. Looks like the last day of summer vaca 2006 won't be one she soon forgets.

I think she did an outstanding job of catching us at the nanosecond before I shrieked and ran with her and her brother to safety on the sand.

I know 4 year olds should be allowed some creative license, but I just need to say this- I don't swim in a skirt and her brother doesn't swim in whitey tighties. It's bad enough I take them swimming in a giant pool of potential death, but I don't swim in office attire.

I'd also like to thank her for noticing that I am indeed trying to grow out my bangs. I'd like to think it made me too ugly to eat.

veg4schooldays

Backpacks were bought during "End of Season" clearance last year. Clothes were purchased off the summer clearance rack while on vacation in New York this summer. Lunch boxes were grabbed at Marshall's two months ago because they were three dollars each.

Yet, today when I was double checking the supply of juice boxes in the pantry and confirming that we did in fact have a years supply of napkins, it really hit me.

I like to bargain shop.

No.

What I realized was- the kids go back to school tomorrow. My kids.

I've known it was coming. I've prepared for this moment. I've stockpiled enough glue sticks and pencils to see them through 8th grade, but now that they are both asleep on First Day of School Eve, I want to flip the calendar back to July.

In July my oldest wasn't about to enter 3rd grade and my youngest wasn't about to begin Kindergarten. Kindergarten! She's only 4! Give me back July. NOW.

As we drove to the beach early this morning I thought back on all the fun things we did this summer. We drove across country. We visited family. We saw old friends. We moved into a new house- with a trampoline! We stayed in our pajamas til dinnertime- more than once! We toured a battleship and got an aquarium membership. We rented kayaks. We visited the beach at least twice a week.

It was the kind of summer that brings a smile to your face. The type of memories that make me thankful to be a stay at home mom. The kind of mom that loves to be at the beach early enough in the morning so that she can say "Tomorrow at this time you'll be in school, but right now- you're at the beach and no one else is here!"

Let's face it. School is boring. Mommy is fun! At school you have to ask to use the bathroom. At the beach, you just squat! At school they have monitors on the playground to supervise your free time. At the beach the lifeguards aren't even on duty yet because it's so early! In fact, we're the only people in the ocean as far as I can see in either direction! Splash around! Be noisy! Flail around!

GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WATER THERE IS A SHARK BEHIND YOU.

I know that tomorrow when their new teachers ask them what they did this summer, they will forget all the educational enrichment, the family bonding time, the meals we've eaten together and the lackadaisical bedtimes.

"Our mom made us go to the beach early in the morning and she made us swim in the ocean when there were no lifeguards and a 5 foot shark came out of the water right next to us. We almost died because Mommy likes to get there before anyone steals the good seashells"

veg4portrait

He smells like rotten fish and stale doritoes half the time, but he was worth every penny.

veg4hometour

How long can a person use the excuse "We just moved in"?

In all honesty, with 7 moves in 9 years we are constantly in flux.

"What's that box doing there in the corner?" Um, it's either the photo albums we haven't unpacked yet or the dish towels that I just packed for our next move.

"Where do you keep your blender?" Let's see, I think it's under the island. Wait, no that was the house in California. I think I keep the blender above the stove in this house. Shit, do I even have a blender? Maybe the movers lost it.

Last night, six weeks into our latest move, I stumbled upon a Blog Photo Tour of Homes. I was supposed to be stripping wallpaper in the sunroom, but I decided to grab my camera and participate instead.  Since I had all of the old real estate listing photos, I decided to make this a Before and After photo tour.

Does eastern North Carolina look as boring as it feels?

FRONT OF HOUSE- I spent $300 at the nursery last week trying to liven up the front of the house. Plant nursery of course, since you don't see babies perched on my rooftop. Once I finished dumping the 12th bag of mulch into the planting beds, a stray white cat came up and crapped in between the flowers. Turns out I spent two weeks worth of grocery money on a giant litter box.

KITCHEN- The bottom picture is unpacking day. I will swear to you in a court of law that my kitchen only looks like this on unpacking day...and whenever I try to cook dinner. When we purchased the house we knew we were going to have to buy a fridge when we moved in. All the other appliances conveyed. I really wanted a fancy fridge, a NON WHITE fridge. Yet, all I needed was a cold box to store milk, juice boxes, apples, several varieties of cheese and a colder box on the other side to store ice cream and veggie burgers. So, I trotted off to Lowe's and bought a WHITE fridge. Within a week it was determined that our WHITE dishwasher was below par. Off to Lowe's I went to buy a WHITE dishwasher to match our new WHITE fridge. Last week I was preparing an upside down blueberry/plum cake and started the timer on the WHITE microwave. BEEP BEEP BEEP! 40 minutes. Start! I slid the cake into the oven and walked away.

Twenty five minutes later the kids were calling for me "Maaaa....something smells funny!"

"Don't make fun of my baking or I'll make you eat some!" I replied.

And then I smelled it too. The aroma of mishap that so often fills my house. Turns out that instead of pushing TIMER START, I just pushed START. ON AN EMPTY MICROWAVE. I microwaved a glass turntable tray into oblivion and left a scorched hole in the bottom of the microwave. Guess who will be going to Lowe's on payday to buy yet another WHITE appliance.I could've gotten away with a stainless steel fridge and white dishwasher/stove/microwave. I probably could've even pulled off a stainless steel dishwasher with a white fridge/stove and microwave, but I just don't know if I can swing a stainless steel microwave when I have a white fridge/stove/dishwasher.

I have also resorted to covering my counter tops with glass cutting boards. The real estate listing stated "New solid granite counter tops!" However, they are psuedo granite wannabe countertops that can't withstand heat of any kind. In fact, I am mildly surprised that the radioactive blast from the microwave didn't cause them to warp. I can't even stand near them when I have a fever for fear they might bubble.

DINING ROOM- Before shot on top. It was nice enough in that sort of "please don't eat spaghetti in the dining room" kind of way. The inexpensive brass...no, I won't call it a chandelier- wait, I know what to call it- a chandeLIAR... looked so tiny compared to our table, like it was shining down on us from another dimension, one where 40 watt bulbs are so bright they need to be covered by little shades. I bought the new fixture, but left the old curtains. I'm not sure why. They don't cover anything. The windows all look out onto the street, so until I perfect my table manners we won't be eating spaghetti in there either.

FAMILY ROOM/DEN/LIVING ROOM/TV ROOM-  Before picture on the bottom. We don't know what to call this room. The old owners probably referred to it as the "oddly matched chair room" and oddly enough we have a chair similar to one of theirs that we put in the same corner. Guess we could call it the Odd Room.

REST OF THE HOUSE NOT AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING UNTIL WE SELL THIS HOUSE IN TWO YEARS. IT SHOULD BE UNPACKED BY THEN!

veg4summer

I've been horrible about participating in Photo Friday. All of my creativity has been zapped from arranging furniture and emptying moving boxes. This week I managed to post a photo!