The bane of my existence

*Perhaps* I have mentioned it before, but I hate the whole-class snacks that are so common in preschool and Kindergarten. I don't mind that the kids have them, I just dread my turn to provide them. It has been easier since I settled on a standard snack--cheese bread. However, it's a bit of a challenge to have a fresh batch rady to go when the girls leave for school at 7:30 am.

Last night I assembled all the ingredients but didn't mix wet and dry. It was really easy when I got up to mix everything and get the dough ready. I didn't let it rise twice, only once in the pan. Here it is ready to go into the oven:
I used a little tub of garlic "butter" that came with a Papa John's pizza to spread over the top before I sprinkled on the cheese. It smelled divine as it baked. Here it is ready to be covered with a clean tea towel and go to school:

From the old dishwasher to . . .

Betcha thought I was going to say, " . . . to a new one!" Uh uh.



No, now we have a big hole where this one was. The new one was delivered today. Dh is fully capable of installing it. However, there was a crack on the side of the door that I didn't notice when it was delivered! So back it goes and we'll try again tomorrow. Luckily delivery (and redelivery . . . ) was included. I'll bet that dishwasher has been in more homes than just mine and Lowe's is just hoping someone will miss the crack and install it, then decide to just keep it rather than uninstall it and return it. I'm not impressed.

Anyway, I hope tonight was the last time to wash dishes by hand for awhile. The old dishwasher had a valve that stuck and didn't let enough water into the tub so everything came out with a heavy white film on it. It took about 10 days of handwashing before the dishes started to look good again. I'd really like to try getting that result from an AUTOMATIC dishwasher, not from the appendages at the ends of my arms.

The "A" family relay service

A decade ago I had a friend who could not talk. She could hear but couldn't talk. Because of this she used a relay service when she wanted to call me on the phone. She would type out her message to the relay person who would read it to me. I'd answer the relay person who would speak the message to her. If she had been hearing-impaired, she would have typed the message to my friend.

Well, we had to invent almost such a service tonight in our family. I have virtually lost my voice and my mother has poor hearing. I can't speak loud enough for her to hear me. The solution? I whisper the message to one of my daughters and she shouts it out to Grama. Works fine!

I'm wondering how my voice is going to be in the morning when I start calling my students. I may have a day of calling students at their intervals and begging off in my hoarse whisper. I hope it's better though. Luckily my other job involves listening only. Good for me.

From Medicinenet.com:

What are the symptoms of laryngitis?

Hoarseness and loss of voice is the primary symptom of laryngitis.

If the cause of laryngitis is infectious, patients most often will also present with symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection or cold. There may also be:

a dry cough,


sore throat,


fever,


swollen lymph nodes (lymph glands) in the neck,


perhaps pain with swallowing, and


a feeling of fullness in the throat or neck.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and yep.

My little garden will soon be ready to plant

I'm hoping to grow everything from seeds this year and avoid the cost of ready-to-plant veggies and fruits.

I planted using old pots, foam cups, and veggie six-packs and used one of two open bags of potting mix. No out of pocket except for most of the seeds.

So far I have:

cucumbers
pumpkins
cantaloupe
watermelon
cherry tomatoes

and

butternut squash

I wrote the butternut squash last because I'm so pleased about it. I cut open a squash for dinner and looked at all those delectable seeds just waiting to be planted. I took them right out and planted two cups. They came up quickly. I do wonder about hybridization, etc, but we'll just see what they produce.

Here are two shots of the same plants almost ready for planting:

Despite living in hot Arizona, the way my yard is situated, I don't have a lot of space to plant. This is my first year in this house and I think next year I'll tear out a bit of lawn for planting. But that's NEXT year.

Except for the tomatoes (they're small because I had to replant them), the seedlings go into the ground this week.

This post is linked to $5 Dinners.

Contraband!!

Yes, that's it. A Kinder Surprise egg. A friend tried to sneak some over the US-Canadian border and you can bet he was STOPPED. They're illegal in the US--a non-food item encased in food. Oh and a child could choke on the capsule, but there is a warning on the label as there is on all such items in the US. I hope the customs agents enjoyed them.

Late night baking

C wanted me to make a delicious cream cheese lemon pie like I made last week but I was missing one ingredient. I told her to find another recipe for a pie she'd like and I'd make it for her. Next thing I knew, she was making peanut butter cookies. She really got into it!
I'm a little nervous to sample the finished product. I've found seven year olds don't usually measure things exactly the same way I would.

:-)

ETA: I told you I was a little nervous about the finished product. I should have been. Instead of 1/2 tsp of baking soda, she put in 1/2 cup. LOL

Blubbering fool today

It started with an email from my LDS women's email list. A woman (Diana) told how she taught a lesson to the children yesterday about how Jesus Christ has felt every bad thing you have ever felt. She pulled a little three year old onto her lap and asked her if she had ever been sick. Yes. She told the child Christ had felt EXACTLY as she had. Diana repeated with an older child who had done something and felt guilty afterward. Christ felt EXACTLY as that child had. Then Diana had her adult son tell briefly about the death (suicide, although he didn't say that part) in February of his younger brother and Diana told how awful that was and how it hurt when that happened, and how Christ felt EXACTLY as she had. She said the children were touched as were the adult teachers, and before the end of the lesson all the adults were in tears. I was in tears just reading it when I read her explanation of how she suffered when her son died.

Just now I came out of the bedroom after showering and dressing and my three daughters were watching the video of ds's wedding in October 2008. That would be the marriage that ended in annulment in December 2009 by the wishes of his wife. I don't know exactly where the girls found the DVD, but I couldn't watch it, although it is a beautifully done video. Such promise and happiness. A marriage of families, not just the couple. So much potential and so little reason for the break up.

I hope today gets better.

A Money Buddy

I've been reading this blog for about a year and I like his ideas quite a lot. Trent posted an entry telling the advantages of having a Money Buddy:

I’ve long been an advocate of a “money buddy” – someone close to you who is going through a similar financial experience as you who can support you through the (sometimes) difficult challenges ahead while you also support them. Usually, a good money buddy can already be found in your social network – a sibling, a cousin, or a close friend who seems to be going through fairly similar financial troubles as you are.

There are a lot of benefits for finding a money buddy, both directly financial and psychological. Here are twelve potential benefits of a money buddy. Remember, you don’t have to use all of these – just select the ones that fit and work well for you and your buddy.

Relieve each other of a secret burden. Sometimes, financial problems can be a very secret burden, something you’re ashamed to tell others. When you have a money buddy, you have someone that you can tell about it, relieving all of that tension and built-up angst. That person is a willing ear and a shoulder to cry on.

Provide positive reinforcement of each other’s progress. A money buddy can serve as a cheerleader for every good move you make. It can be hard to make big changes in our spending, but when someone’s there motivating us and encouraging us to make the hard choices, those hard choices become a bit easier.

Share membership at a warehouse shopping club. You can split the cost of a warehouse shopping club with your money buddy, reducing the annual cost of a Sam’s Club, BJ’s, or Costco membership by half. You can also use your money buddy to split some of the multi-packs or jumbo packs sold at such stores.

“Eat out” at home together. A big part of the appeal of eating out is the social interaction. Replace a regular “eating out” night with a meal at home with your money buddy. You can either prepare the meal together as a team or alternate meal prep work.

Engage in new inexpensive hobbies together. It’s a lot easier to get involved with a new hobby if you’re doing it with someone else. Explore a new hobby with your money buddy, taking the time you spend on that hobby from something expensive that you used to do.

Search for enormous bargains in concert with each other. When you need a new freezer or a hot water heater or a car or any other significant purchase, shop together for it. Four eyes have a lot better chance of spying a big bargain than two eyes do.

Share larger items and possessions. Share a lawnmower. Share a snowblower. Share a trailer. These items can easily be used by both of you, particularly if you live fairly close together.

Give advice from fresh eyes. When you’ve reached a point of financial indecision (”Which debt do I pay off first?” “What bank should I use?”), a money buddy is a great source of a second set of eyeballs to look at the situation and make a great decision.

Carpool. If you work at the same place (or near each other), carpooling can save you both quite a bit of money. Even if you can only do it “sometimes,” each time you manage to do it, one of you is saving gas, maintenance costs, and wear on your vehicle.

Share frugality tips with someone who wants to hear them. Quite often, frugality tips can be a lot of fun when you discover them, but it can be even more fun to share them with someone who’s also figuring out new ways to live and save money.

Hold each other accountable for goals set. If you set a goal for yourself, share it with your buddy and remind each other of your goals regularly. Simply knowing that your buddy knows of your goal and is watching your progress towards it can be a great motivator.

Celebrate victories together. If you achieve one of those goals, you have someone already there that knows what hard choices you’ve made to achieve it and is ready to celebrate with you. There’s no one better to celebrate with at the top of thte mountain than someone who’s been there all the way through the journey.

As I read I realized I have a Money Buddy and didn't even know it. I've long been a frugal person, looking for great value (which isn't always the cheapest) in almost everything I do. One of my friends came upon hard times a year or two ago, thanks to the recession, and she became my money confidant because she had to make some big financial changes in her life and she knew I would understand. One of the mantras I've learned from another financial blog I read is "Be Weird." That means to do your own thing, buck the trend, DON'T keep up with the Joneses, and stop caring how everyone else is spending their money. Anyway, having a Money Buddy makes it easier to be weird (in that good way ;-) ).

Screaming and eating

Okay, it wasn't *I* who was screaming, thank goodness. Tonight was "McTeachers" night at McDonald's. Some of the teachers worked behind the counter, Ronald McDonald (a very talented one, I might add) visited and entertained the children, and the girls' school gets 15% of the sales between 6 and 8 tonight. Because there was a PlayPlace, naturally we sat in that room. It was unbelievably loud in there. I grew up in a household where one screamed only in case of a life or death emergency. Apparently, most of the children who play at McDonald's haven't grown up in that same environment.

I enjoyed a salad, dh a 1/4 lb. burger, and the three girls a Happy Meal apiece. We came home and gilded the lily with slices of homemade cream cheese lemon pie. Yum.

A slice . . . five days early

My friend in Australia wrote a blog entry about all the odds and ends she accomplished one day this week. She takes nice, sharp pictures of most things she writes about and included a picture of her "slice" (third picture down). Uh huh. We slice things with knives, we eat a slice of cake, but we don't "make a slice" here in the U S of A. That is unless we beg for the recipe.

L sent me a link to her friend's blog with a recipe for No Bake Muesli Bars featured. See?? BARS, not SLICE. Hehe.

I had a small luncheon to attend today and was asked to bring a dessert. I decided to make L's Slice because it looked easy and I had everything on hand for it.

It was really easy to make and was delicious. I cut up . . . um . . . "sliced" it into pieces and piled them prettily on a plate and covered them with plastic wrap. Then I went grocery shopping.

When I arrived at my friend's apartment I realized I'd need to bring in some things to hold in her freezer, so I called her from the parking lot. I don't know why, but instead of asking if she had room in her freezer, I said hello and asked if the luncheon were today. She pleasantly said, "No, we moved it to next Monday." Oh. Yeah. Now I remember that change. I said, "Great! See you Monday!"

I laughed at myself and drove home. I'll think of something else to whip up Monday. :-D