Monday, January 29, 2007

No food shall be left behind

Eggs,milk,meat,chocolate,coffee,these are all foods that bounce around in nutrition articles going from bad to good. Years ago, I was still a kid really, I decided that I would just eat what I liked, in moderation, and eat foods that hadn't been pulled too far from their natural state. In most cases our bodies tell us what foods aren't good for us anyway. For example, I have been eating too much sugar for the past few months and am feeling more tired and sluggish than usual. This is not to say that I don't read these articles. I'm a sucker for them, and believe that in most cases nutritionist are trying to improve our health. I just try to pick out the logical parts and apply them to my shopping habits. For instance, I have always preferred whole wheat so that is what I buy, but over the years I have started to look for whole grains in my bread, and buying organic, stone ground flour.
Forgive me for slipping sideways in the conversation for a moment, but this reminds me of a thought I had a few months ago. I was reading a book on the history of bread. The author mentioned that a few hundred years ago only nobility ate white bread because the extra processing cost money. Which suggests that diet may have had quite a bit to do with the phrase 'hearty peasant stock'. Presently whole grain bread cost twice what a loaf of white bread costs. Is there a reason for this price difference? Or is this a marketing tool that unintentionally sentences the poor to eating an unhealthy diet?
For several years meat and eggs were out and carbs were in, then for awhile carbs were out and meat and eggs were in. At one point in England during the middle ages fresh vegetables were out. Now most people agree that a balance is best. As I mentioned earlier my diet has not been balanced lately.
On Saturday mornings I have to be to work by seven. Not being a morning person I usually choose to sleep as long as I can and skip breakfast. This last Saturday though I woke up starving, but since I had already slept too long to eat at home I had to find something to take with me. On the counter was a loaf of bread that Anna* had given me the day before. Well, she actually gave me the dough and I had baked it into two loaves the day before. One of them I took to Miss Universe's house to eat with the lasagna she had made. Back to the one sitting on the counter. I sliced off four thin slices to toast and heated up a few spoonfuls of strawberry jam with a dab of butter stirred in. I spread the jam mixture onto the toast, through them in a sandwich bag, grabbed a bottle of water and walked to work. Unlike the Saturday before there was no snow landing on my face. It was cold out, around 15 degrees, but that is to be expected in January. Come to find out I you drove out in any direction for ten to fifteen miles you ran into a light snow, but we didn't get any at all. For that I was grateful. I'm not against snow, even if my official position is 'we need a break' I still get that child like excitement when I look out and see snow. Back on topic, about fifteen minutes before I was ready to come home Lee called me to ask what I was cooking for dinner.
The minute I walked in the door he let me know that since it was just the two of us I could cook something really good without too much trouble. I choked back the remark that he could do the same, and walked into the kitchen. I knew right away what I wanted and it was one of Lee's favorites. I slice four thick slices off of that same loaf of bread. I pulled out the very middle of each slice and place them in a skillet that had been greased with olive oil. I turned down the heat and dropped an egg into each of the holes. Then I sprinkled each egg with salt and pepper. I tore some deli sliced turkey into pieces then laid these pieces over the eggs. Drizzled some olive oil on the bread and flipped the whole concoction. I only let it cook for about a minute on this side and our meal was ready. I just looked up this dish to see what the official name is and it is either egg in a basket, egg in a hole, or Alabama eggs. Of course I don't cook it exactly like any of the recipes I read, but that is because I learned how by watching Moonstruck too many times and a few years of trial and error.
I didn't even cook supper that night. I let dh and the boys eat leftovers or cereal. The girls were spending the weekend with their dad. I made a chocolate cake for them to eat for dessert. Then I made a Gooey pumpkin cake for myself and ate it instead of supper. So let's see carbs, covered in sugar with a touch of fat for breakfast, carbs and protein for dinner, more carbs and sugar for supper. Not much of a balance or moderation going on there.

*I have mentioned Anna several of times just referring to her as a friend and decided I really should name her. She lives down the street from me and has two granddaughters around the same ages as Princess and Curly top who spend a lot of time at her house. We share a love of food and wine which in my opinion is what all of the best relationships should be built on.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Yesterday

At seven I woke up the kids then crawled back in bed. My mind kept going back to American Idol. I tried like hell to push the show out of my mind; since I couldn't, I decided to post about it and how exploitative it is. I haven't followed the show since the first season, but last year dh and the boys started watching the auditions only. As I walk by I always catch bits and pieces of whatever they are watching. Even from last season to this season the producers seem to be getting worse.
There is a knock on the door, Huggy Bear had arrived. I carried her back to my bed to cuddle. Through out the morning there is at least one other child in bed with us. All of them except Princess take a turn lying in my bed. Princess comes and sits in front of me so I can brush her hair. Over the years of having boys I have had to occasionally go into the bathroom and spike, brush forward, argue with a cowlick, even give a quick trim, but this daily brushing of the hair is new to me. I do like that it doesn't involve gel or water so I can stay in bed for it. I always thought I would be one of those get up get up and be helpful moms, I am not. For the first few school years I tried, but fighting nature was too hard. I am a go back to bed, yet still helpful mom. Lane said he needed $1.00 worth of pennies for pennies for patience. I cleaned out all of my dumping spots and came up with them before we left.
We loaded up the van and I drove them to school. It is Thursday so Curly top doesn't have school. The three of us stay in the van and watched the rest of them trudge toward the doors. Princess looked back at us. I picked up my hand and do that wave you only give people you are endeared to. That is the hand steady only the fingers bending wave. Before she could see it a red pick-up pulled in between us. The man who was looking at me is one of those skeevy married men that still think all women want him, yet I wonder how his wife stands him. He smiled. I realized I was still waving.
Curly top was hungry. She wanted grilled cheese. While I was making her the sandwich she finds a tub of yogurt. Not a conventional breakfast, but it worked. Huggy bear fell asleep. I turned on cartoons to babysit Curly top and ran for a much needed shower. Before I got in the phone rang. Miss Universe asked if I wanted to be mother of the year. I would settle for mother of the day I tell her. Her daughter, Mon, is supposed to take snacks to Girl Scouts after school. The reason I have Huggy Bear is that she is on her way home from a night shift at the hospital and I was keeping her so she can sleep. I convinced her that I really don't mind making the snacks and continued on my way to the shower. I was tempted to go with chocolate chip cookies for the snacks. They are my basic go to since I usually have all of the ingredients and with super sized cookie sheets they can be made quickly. Images of sheet cake drizzled with chocolate sauce and sprinkled with powdered sugar wouldn't quit popping in my head though so I decided on that instead. After my shower I decide to come here and post. Once on the computer I make the mistake of reading other blogs first. Then I couldn't remember what I was going to post about. It didn't matter though because I quickly got distracted by orboxb. Finally I passed level sixteen and decided I better not waste any more time on the computer, even though level seventeen looked fun. I logged off took two steps and returned. I had just remembered that I had a coupon for ten dollars on Ebay that expired the next day. I searched for teapots, wine, books, and chocolate before I decided I better check to see how to use it. I don't know how I got it mixed up in my head but the coupon was for Eastbay.
I have spent two days not doing housework and it was looking pretty bad in here. In the laundry room I started to wash a load of socks. Huggy bear wakes up and lets me know quickly that she will only be happy if she is on my hip. She and Curly top join me in the laundry room with their help the work goes much slower, but I was in no hurry. Curly top found the socks handed them to Huggybear who ran to me to be lifted up to put them in the washer. It didn't take long before my back was killing me. I couldn't complain though since it was likely to be the only exercise I got all day. The other good point was that I didn't have to laugh at myself when I noticed I was staring into the washer. On other days I will walk by the washer and I guess stop to check, I really don't know what I'm checking, and a couple of minutes later realize I have just been staring at the clothes going round. This time I had a reason to be standing by an open washer. And yes we did a whole load of just socks, and I don't have a small washer either it is the big fuck-off* size.
Finally that was done so we moved on to dishes. Curly top helped me load, but H.b. decided she would rather run off and try to sneak back in occasionally to steal silverware.
It was a ballgame night so I decided to try and make something for supper that could be left on the stove in a come in go fashion. There were the tips of chicken wings in the freezer waiting to be a soup. They were left over from the last two times Lee had made hot wings. So I decided on a vegetable stew. I had a bag of carrots and celery that needed to be used. I had been considering finely dicing them up and soaking them in vinegar and oil like I do cucumbers and tomatoes, but they weren't that fresh so a stew would be better for them. I started the soup then we took a break to watch As Time Goes By.
It was one of the early episodes and as we were watching it I thought it was odd how much my mom resembles Judi Dench. Just as I finished this thought C.t. said, "She looks like Grandma." Both are nice looking mature ladies, I hope those genes were passed on. Then I realized that if I was going to pass off vegetable soup as a meal to my family they would expect some hearty bread. It was too late start kneaded bread so as soon as the show was over I started herb method bread. I didn't have the dill or savory the recipe called for so I went with garlic and oregano.
For lunch I gave the girls left over tacos and I noticed something funny about H.b.. She took one bite of her tortilla and pushed it to the side. She ate all of the meat and cheese just not the tortilla. "You are the funniest little Mexican I have ever seen." Her paternal grandmother cooks the best Mexican food I have ever tasted and here was her granddaughter turning up her nose at a tortilla.
I looked at the clock and realized I had pissed around so long I was cutting it close on time. I hurried and made a sheet cake and chocolate sauce. I don't have a sifter so I filled my tea strainer with sugar and hit it with a fork over the cake to give it the right look. Made a quick pitcher of Kool-aid and was off to drop of the snacks and pick up my kids.
I don't know what possess me to think we needed 12 quarts of soup, but that is how much I made. I invited Miss Universe and her family to stop by and grab some on their way to the game. We left before they did, but I left the door open so they could come in and help themselves.
Later that evening I was sitting on the couch reading Lost in a Good book, (it is in the Thursday next series and I love it) While the rest of the family was flipping channels. I noticed that almost every channel was talking about how exploitative American Idol was becoming. I was glad I didn't get around to posting about it that morning.

*I can tell I've been watching to much Eddie Izzard when I start using fuck-off as an adjective.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Random thoughts

Thursday I had a long list of things that needed to be done in my house. After watching the weather though I decided they all could wait. The temperature was supposed to drop dramatically from the 65 degrees we were enjoying down into the single digits and stay there for several days. I packed a picnic lunch for Curly Top to haul in the back of her pickup, Huggy bear rode shotgun and I ran to keep up. We headed for the playground. No, my room didn't get cleaned, the dusting wasn't done, and I just started working on my curtains yesterday, but we had so much fun. It really has been to cold for us to spend much time outside at all since then, so that was time well spent. I also needed to do a little work at the office that day, so less than an hour after we returned home we decided to walk up there. It is only a few blocks away, but by the time we got there I regretted not driving. The temperature had already dropped and the wind was picking up. When we left the office to head home Huggy bear wanted down to walk. Right away she tripped and fell into mud puddle. She looked so pathetic on her hands and knees in the puddle crying. Her clothes were soaked so I carried her home wrapped in my coat. The walk seemed much longer than it usually does.

Here I have been talking about recycling and not running out and buying everything new, but really I have been bordering hypocrisy. For some reason living room curtains have been some kind of major decision for me. We have lived here for years and I have not been able to commit to any curtains long enough to buy them. I mentioned that I went shopping last month and bought material for them. I had the money in my hands to buy a set I liked, but just could not justify spending that much money on them. So I bought material, that I really do love. It has sat and waited for me to decided exactly what I wanted to do with it. Yesterday I finally started making them, but mentioned I was in no hurry because I hadn't bought rods yet. I had pulled a couple of dowels out of my closet that had been there for so long that I can't remember exactly what they used to be used for. I figured they would work temporarily. I didn't have any hardware to hang the rods from though so I still would have to wait for a trip to the store before I could hang them. Dh asked me why I didn't just use the brackets I already had up there. Well, for one reason two of them had been relocated to a bedroom. The other reason was just that I had my mind so set on buying this stuff I hadn't considered using what I had. I looked at the brackets that were hooked to the wall. When we first moved in I made some temporary curtains that I really didn't like. These were the brackets I had made for them, which I did like at the time. The curtains had been took down to clean years ago and I never did put them back up. The brackets I had made out of rings from canning jars With bits of extra fabric hot glued on them, and they didn't look bad. They just weren't what I had planned to buy. I had pictured dark wood rods hanging on dark wood brackets. The finished project would look more elegant than homey. Then I shook myself and laughed. Here I had everything I needed to hang the curtains today, without spending another dime, and I was trying to find reasons to shop. It only took me five minutes to make two more brackets and the final cost was twenty dollars a window. The sacrifice of a little elegance was well worth it. Had I gone the other route and purchased the curtains and hardware it would have cost me over a hundred dollars a window.

Friday was grocery shopping day. I left my house at around 9:30 a.m. and did my shopping. Dh and I ate lunch before I dropped him off at the truck repair place. (I know there is a word for that place, but it has slipped my mind, which seems to be sieve shaped) I did a bit more shopping. (really I was exchanging a Christmas gift that I broke, but didn't feel bad returning it because it came without an instruction manual, I think it had already been returned once, and in the coarse of learning how to use it the motor quit.) I was still forty minutes away from home when I remembered that I didn't turn off the fire under the tea kettle this morning. I called Dh, he was only a couple of miles ahead of me so that didn't help much. I called my sister, Miss universe, I really didn't want to call her because she had Huggy Bear and Curly Top and I didn't want her to get them out in the cold. It was nine degrees outside with a wind chill of -5. She did get them out though. No damage was done except for the kettle which had went from white to brown, and now my family gets to make jokes about me not being able to use the stove when nobody else is home to supervise me.

On that same drive home I realized I felt very tired. I had been getting plenty of sleep, so that wasn't why. It felt more like an emotional tired than a physical tired anyway. What I needed was a night of laying around in my room drinking tea and watching a movie. I decided to do that very thing that night. Not fifteen minutes after I was back in town a friend invited me over for her grand kids birthday party. Well I couldn't very well say no with the girls behind cheering about a party, so my plans changed. A half an hour before the party my friend called and said her grand kids weren't coming because of the weather. There were still people coming over though so we were still invited over to hang out. I agreed that we would still go, but warned the girls that we weren't staying for very long. It soon became apparent that I had misdiagnosed myself. I wasn't suffering from to much company, but not enough. I just haven't really had time to hang out with Friends and laugh much lately. We stayed until almost midnight when the girls decided they were ready for bed and begged to be brought home. I had so much energy the next day after work I invited that same friend over and my sister and her family over to play cards. I put on a large pot of gumbo and we ate, laughed, and played all afternoon. That night the girls and I climbed into my bed and watched Chronicles of Narnia while drinking tea. Life is a balance of blessed solitude and cheerful noise when those get out of balance the mood suffers.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Unconventional living

Through links on blogs I stumbled on to http://guide2homelessness.blogspot.com/. It is funny how life works. One day something crosses your mind then over the next few days it is everywhere. This happens with a new word. I hear it once, look it up, then suddenly it seems like I read it or hear it everywhere. Another example is that the other day I was talking about the pull the Northwest has over me. The next day I picked up Heidi to read to my nieces. In the front was a forward by Eloise Mcgraw. She talks about living in the plains while longing for Oregon. It seems to suggests some sort of a public consciousness. Anyway, I stumbled on to this blog and read for quite some time because it answered some questions I've been having lately. I was leaving Wichita quickly a few weeks ago so that I could make it home before the ice storm hit. As I was leaving town I sent up a quick prayer for all of the homeless people in the area. After thinking about it for a while I realized I just don't understand enough about the lifestyle. Ideally the best experience would be to take a month to live without a home. As a woman though I know I would not feel safe enough to try it without a man as an escort. Since I know no men who would try this with me I tossed the idea out, for now.
When I started reading this site I thought "this is what I have been looking for without knowing it." I had found a place to learn about homelessness. I had a lot to learn since I had never been homeless. As I continued to read I realized I was going to have to qualify that last remark with 'as an adult'. I had never really given the circumstances of my childhood any analyzing thought, since to a child everything is normal. Large portions of my childhood were spent homeless, we never called it that though. We called it moving. Many summers we loaded everything we owned into the back of a pickup or the trunk of a car. We kids were thrown up on top and off we drove. The pickups were the best. Blankets were piled at the very front of the bed and we would sit in a row looking at the scenery as we drove through mountains. There is a kind of freedom in that my children will never know. Sometimes we drove to my grandmothers house in Oregon where we stayed until my parents figured out where we were going. Sometimes they left us there while they drove to another state to find a job and house. Other times we just drove from town to town looking for a place to settle. One summer we spent living on a pond around Battle Mountain, Nevada. We, two adults and six children, lived in a camp trailer. My dad worked for a farmer who I am guessing owned the land. The three of us older children had the job of hauling water twice a day. Other than that one job we were free to swim and hike all day long. I can't speak for my siblings but I remember that as one of the best parts of my childhood.
It was much better than the weeks we spent living in a camper in the parking lot of a Winnemucca truck stop/casino. The gnats were horrible that year. I remember talking to one of the waitresses about the gnat problem while we washed our hair in the bathroom sinks. Everybody had swollen bites all over them. The worst part was how hot it was.. One oscillating fan ran all night. My older brother and I slept in the top bed that lays over the cab of the pickup. We would hang a foot and a hand over the edge trying to feel a little bit of the moving air.
As an adult I have worked hard to give my children a "normal" childhood. So far I have succeeded in my goal of one school from kindergarten to graduation. I would not trade most of my childhood for any other. It has given me skills and experiences that I could not have gained any other way. The one thing I missed though was roots. I remember the feeling of loneliness I felt at high school graduation. Most of my class had went all the way through school together. Some of the parents gathered all of the ones who had started school together for a photo. Their day was emotional. They were saying goodbye to lifelong Friends. For me it was my last day of school, no more, no less.
The more disillusioned I get with "normal" though the more I see how a parent could give roots while still living as vagabonds. The parents would have to be confident in the choices they were making. My parents wanted normal; they kept striving for it and failing. They did not have the emotional/social skills to settle down and give up normal, but they also did not have the confidence to live as we did. As the years wore on they became angry with themselves and others. They gave up at trying to be good parents. My father turned to alcoholism and my mother to depression. It would make a difference in how you think of yourself and in turn how you treat others when you are making the choice to live unconventionally rather than just feeling that you could not make it.
Our society is set up in such a way that only some can succeed. Anybody who doesn't fall into the parameters has to struggle to exist. Tragically most of the people who do fall into the parameters are stifled. People were made to create, to build, to use their hands and minds together to make their life rich. Commuting, boring jobs, set hours that don't adjust with the seasons stifle us. I am very lucky to live without these confines for now. I do have the confines th school year places on us though. It was suggested as a good thing to lengthen the school year last month at the board meeting. Inwardly I groaned. Our summer vacation is short enough now. I had children because I wanted to spend time with them, not so I could have perfectly educated little robots. Of course some parents may not be as lucky as I am, but my children are the three most fun, interesting people I know.

Monday, January 08, 2007

The English Patient ruined my day

Last week we temporarily renamed HuggyBear to Emmers the Grouch. She was cutting four teeth and had a head cold. On Thursday one of her eyes started running and was swollen. By Sunday I had pink eye also. My eyes never did get as bad as hers since I was watching for the signs and caught it quickly. Since it was a weekend I was just borrowing her eye drops until I could get a prescription today. This morning before I called my doctor I looked up home remedies. The most gentle looking one was chamomile tea bags. Since I don't have any straight chamomile tea I used the one remedy I did have on hand, salt water. It has worked better than the eye drops so far, but it did sting a little. Salt is amazing really. You can use a salt crystal as deodorant. When I first got my bellybutton pierced I used salt to clean it. I rinse with it for sores in my mouth. Not to mention cooking. Could that be why we have oceans full of the stuff.

I stayed up too late last night because The English Patient was on t.v.. I knew better than to start it at 12:30 a.m. but I did anyway. If Curly Top takes a nap today I may join her. I was going to go back to bed this morning after I dropped the kids off at school, but the universe seemed to be against me. The heater is not working at the junior/high school today so Jason called me and asked me to bring blankets and coats. Then dh's aunt called because she had not been able to reach her sister, Dh's mom, and was worried about her. After calling around for her I gave up on the idea and did some laundry. Now I am not getting anything done around here. By nature I am a night person. I can stay up all night and sleep until ten and be perfectly happy. Over the years I have noticed that I do get more done though if I get up by eight in the morning. So that is what I have been trying to do. Not today though, today I'm being very lazy.

One thing I have always been insistent on was that I would not have a television in my room. I hate falling to sleep with one on. I like it dark and quiet while I'm sleeping. Dh on the other hand likes background noise. I have often thought it would be nice if kids could watch movies or play games in another room whenever there was football, or races on, but it wasn't worth the trade off of having somebody flipping through channels while I'm trying to sleep. Yesterday Dh bought a used set that was high definition and larger than the one we have. I couldn't complain too much since he got it for a really good price instead of running out and buying a new one. Where were we going to put the old one though. One thing I always kept in mind about televisions and teenagers was that if they had one in their room they may never come out and spend time with me. Lucky for me I didn't have to voice my opinion on this one. None of the boys wanted the old set in their room either. So it ended up in mine. There will definitely be no cable hooked up to it though; Just movies or games, when I am awake. I hope I can stay firm on this one.

Friday, January 05, 2007

How old am I?

Snow really reminds me of how childlike most of us still are. A few days ago I was riding through town with a friend. We drove passed a field of snow with no prints in it. We both stared at it and she said "Man I want to stop and run through that right now." I had been thinking the same thing. We did not stop. We drove on a discussed why we had wanted to run through the snow. For her it was the desire to be the first person to run through it, to have her solitary footsteps claiming the field for herself. Me, I knew the snow was a few days old and the weather had stayed cold, freezing at night. Every step would bring a very satisfying crunch. For just a second my foot would be held on top of the ice, then as my full weight was shifted onto that foot it would break through with a crunch then sink into the snow. What fun. The next day was Wednesday. I drive the Awana bus, really just a 15 passenger van, for one of our churches. I was the first person to drive the van in weeks so as I crossed the parking lot it was my solitary footsteps crunching through the snow. I started the van then walked behind it shovel some snow out of the way. I literally jumped up and down when I noticed that along the whole back of the van was a solid sheet of ice about half and inch thick. Along the bottom edge was a weak spot for my fingers to work under. I peeled every bit of the ice off in big chunks then jumped on them until they were nothing more than tiny shards of ice. All of that crunching was payment enough for the rest of the evening trying to keep that large thing on the road. Not to mention the two times I got stuck trying to pull away from the curb. In the deep slush there was no traction. The first time I had all of the kids in with me. They were really quiet as I worked my way away from the curb, sliding sideways every once in a while. When we were back on the road driving away one little boy said 'I thought we were going to die.' The second time I was alone and there was no getting it out. I had to get a pull.
Yesterday I was wearing a really old cardigan. It was a christmas present the year I was pregnant with Lee. That means the thing is fourteen years old. The thing is full of holes, but I can't find one I like as well. I was also wearing some very worn slippers. Shuffling around the house I probably looked eighty years old. I was doing laundry and as I tossed in a load I actually said 'there the unmentionables are done.' Now I have never called anything an unmentionable in my life. Actually in my family everything is mentionable. That is one of our charms. One day I'm ten, the next I'm eighty. I seem to be in a chronological warp.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Electricity

We tried living in the country eleven years ago. I hated it, and we were only three miles out of town. I know several people who grew up in the country and have moved into town and they dream of moving back. They miss the peace and quiet of living in the country. Now this is a town of 400 people; it can't be that loud.
I imagine where you grow up has a lot to do with the preference. We moved all over the western part of the the U.S. during my childhood. My mom's family lives in Dallas Or. so it was a kind of base for us. We lived there for my childhood's most stable five years. Somedays I feel the Northwest pulling at me. Mybe it is time time to take the kids to Oregon for a visit. Over the years and states there were a few times we lived on farms, or in cities but for the most part it was small towns for us.
One summer we lived in a really small town in Nevada. It was a small mining town called Round Mountain, if I remember it right. We weren't there long enough to leave much of an impression on my eight year old brain, but I remember enjoying that summer. We had a spot in the trees that we could hide and imagine ourselves in a fort. One day we sat in there enjoying the cool air and eating too many cherries. To this day I can't eat more than one or two cherries at a time. That was one really long night.
I am rambling again. I was simply going to mention that I preferred living in town because; one, we were only out of electricity for a couple of days; and two, when our power does go out we still have water. I was talking to some freinds last night who live several miles out of town and are still without electricity and may be out for another week.
My neighbor is an elderly woman with a lifeline monitor. Sunday morning lifeline called us and asked if we would go check on her. I had not been out of my house much since the snow started. Saturday morning I had walked to work, but while what was pelting my face looked like snow, it was not. Jagged little pieces of ice sting in a way snow never could. We had to hop here fence since the gates were frozen to the ground by the layer of ice and blocked in by the snow. Lane went over a little later and shoveled her path and unblocked her gates for here. Inside her house was nice and warm, unusual because most of us were without heat. She told us that when she had her new heater installed last year she refused to have a blower installed. She did not want to be without heat during power outages. This has gotten me rethinking a few things.
I plan to put my new house on all electricity and not even run a natural gas line. The main reason for this is that I have always been afraid of gas explosions. Lee is fourteen and an excellent cook, yet I still won't let him use the stove if I'm not home. I prefer cooking on gas stoves and the gas oven came in handy when our heater was broke. It never dropped below 60 degrees in here. I plan to have a wood stove in the new house though so this isn't a big problem. I would also like a convection oven, but even the gas ones won't work without electricity. I may need to think about not putting all of my energy eggs into one slightly unreliable basket. I have thought about maybe getting off of the grid someday, but that is a long way off.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Super hero explanation and more.

Because of my dreadful lameness I am posting twice instead of risking breaking the the code by adding to that last post. Find out which superhero you are. http://www.thesuperheroquiz.com/ I can't say I have given much thought as to which superhero I am most like, but I always secretly thought I would be Wonder Woman. Batman and Spiderman are my favorites, but not because I would like to be them, I'd like to date them. Ok, now I may be crossing the line on how much time should be spent thinking about fictional men.

School resumed today and I only had to work for a couple of hours this morning. When I walked back into my house I said outloud "It is good to be home, and alone." My family has been over several days to hang out for the holidays. It has been enjoyable, but now I am ready for some quiet and a turn on the computer. With seven people living here sharing the same computer I lose my turn often. This has been made worse because of the power outages.

This year I have spent time without electricity and time without water and I've got to say I missed the water more. Of course I have a gas stove and hot water heater so we were warm and didn't miss any hot meals like some people did. Before this storm hit I talked to my brother on the phone. He lives in Tuscon. I have got to say there is nobody more derogatory to the people who choose to live here in rural America than people who moved straight out of high school. We were on the tail end end of the first storm that hit Denver. We already had a few inches of snow from a local storm that came the day before, but still did not have any major problems. My brother told me his wife kept telling him he needed to call and check on us. He told her we were country and would just do things like burn our trash indoors for heat.
We do not actully burn our trash, we have it picked up and piled in a land fill like everyone else thank you very much. Other than that he was right. As a rule I keep enough food for two weeks on hand. When you live 45 minutes from the store you learn to keep your pantry stocked. As soon as the rain started we made a trip out for bread, milk, and sparkling wine for new years. Other than that we were set. Our roads are still sheets of ice covered in packed snow, but at least they are paved. In the early nineties we had a a foot of snow and only the two main streets in town were paved. I don't know how many times I lost my shoes in the deep mud the snow left as it melted. Ruts a foot deep were common. Once I was even ran over by a power wheel pickup. The boys were driving and the lost control when they hit a rather slick spot. There I was face first in the road trying not to suck in too much mud as I laughed at them trying to pull it off of me.

Now as proof that I am raising a house full of smartasses I offer up the following conversation.

Me: Hey, didn't I ask you to unload the dishwasher?

Jason: Yeah, I'm going to do it while your at the library.

Me: I'm not leaving for another twenty minutes. I'm going to reload it before I go.

Jason: (in an astonished voice) You can load the dishwasher in twenty minutes?

Me: Uhh... yeah.

Jason: Wow, just think how fast you could unload it.

I'm Supergirl

Your results:
You are Supergirl
Supergirl
78%
Superman
75%
Batman
65%
Green Lantern
65%
Wonder Woman
63%
Robin
60%
Iron Man
60%
Spider-Man
55%
The Flash
55%
Catwoman
55%
Hulk
45%
Lean, muscular and feminine.
Honest and a defender of the innocent.