Remember the blog project I did in 2010 with three other women? Well, Froggie decided to resurrect it with me and we each got to invite another friend to join us. She invited a mutual friend (someone I met through her) and I invited a friend whose blog I really enjoy reading. So now it's Froggie, Mom of Many, Moma Rock and Merrylandgirl. Hope you enjoy the topics that we'll be exploring!
This week, Mom of Many picked the topic: What are your goals for next month?
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
With the holidays going on, things have been rather hectic. However, it's nice to put goals into perspective sometimes. I really can't concentrate on much until the holidays are done for good, but I've put together a list of some things I'd like to get accomplished over the next month.
1. Read and review books I've promised scheduled reviews for at my book blog. Also read the book for the book club meeting at the end of the month.
2. Clean and organize in the house. I may not get to all the rooms, but I'd like to get to at least two. I need to go through clutter and my closet could use a major overhaul!
3. Start my entry for this magazine contest that ends in early December.
4. Get ahead of the game on book blog posts so I'm not rushing last minute all the time.
5. Catch up more on The Big Bang Theory.
6. Actually put away laundry. (Makes sense that this goal would be on a laundry list.)
7. Go costume shopping at the thrift store. They have cute Halloween costumes at really low prices and the kids use them for dress-up.
8. Work more with the pie crust recipe so it's perfected in time for Thanksgiving (my BFF needs to send it to me though).
9. Get on top of miscellaneous work items that have taken a back seat due to all the other stuff going on.
10. Enjoy autumn. Now that the weather is getting nicer and the leaves are going to change, I don't want to be stuck indoors all the time.
I'm sure there are plenty of more items for this list, but I just don't have time to think of them!
Friday, September 28, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
I cook by the book
Remember the blog project I did in 2010 with three other women? Well, Froggie decided to resurrect it with me and we each got to invite another friend to join us. She invited a mutual friend (someone I met through her) and I invited a friend whose blog I really enjoy reading. So now it's Froggie, Mom of Many, Moma Rock and Merrylandgirl. Hope you enjoy the topics that we'll be exploring!
This week, I picked the topic: Cooking
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
It all started in the summer of 1988. I took a summer school class at my junior high to learn how to cook. It was a nice introduction to when I'd take cooking in home ec during the school year. People were encouraged to bring in recipes and we'd try those out in class, along with some our teacher gave us. I absolutely loved it (the cooking aspect, not so much the social part, as I hated junior high for that reason already). I would come home every day just itching to cook something. A lot of the focus was on baking, so I was making muffins, cookies, cinnamon rolls, etc. Someone brought in a nacho dip recipe. It wasn't my thing, but it was easy and I made it for our annual block party. It was completely devoured and is still a favorite of my mom's.
As a kid, my mom would let me help with baking, but it usually meant cutting shapes into dough (and then eating the raw dough leftover scraps) and sprinkling colored sugar crystals on top. After taking this cooking class, I was in the kitchen all the time, making all sorts of dessert items. There even was a point where my mom would let me use the stove to make mac and cheese.
When I was in high school, I would bake dessert items for our speech team tournaments. I learned a recipe for how to turn Funfetti cake mix into cookies. One of my friends on the speech team loved them so much that I baked a huge Funfetti cookie for his birthday. Most of my non-mac-and-cheese cooking involved baked goods. I did eventually make a chicken and potatoes dinner for my family. I was so nervous over how it would turn out, but my mom told me not to obsess. Thankfully, it was as good as when she made it.
Fast forward to college...since I lived in the dorms, I didn't get an opportunity to cook much. However, that changed during second semester of freshman year, when I got a job in the dining center...making eggs for hungry college students. At first, I was taught to make omelets, but that didn't go over so well, so I was assigned to fry up eggs in whichever style they wanted. I also had to fry bacon. I didn't eat eggs or bacon, so at least the process didn't make me hungry. The following year, I would help make pizzas in the kitchen, which became a mindless task. Aside from those experiences, I just served food, so I didn't cook again in college until I started working for a woman with disabilities. I had to make dinner for her on the nights I was working, so I learned how to cook chicken and other items in a skillet. It was pretty basic. The following year, I got an apartment off campus, but reverted back to the mac and cheese or spaghetti, when I wasn't eating in the dining centers (because it was a pain to go off campus for lunch). Occasionally, I'd make french toast for breakfast on a weekend and once even made matzo ball soup (from a box though). I also did plenty of baking, which got me started on a tradition of making chocolate chip cookies for Oscars night.
When I moved out of my parents' house in March of 2000, I realized I couldn't live off carbs forever. I started learning how to make meat dishes. I had a Foreman grill and would make hamburgers on it. (At the time, I wasn't keeping Kosher and added cheese on top.) I also made a chicken dish the first time I hosted my parents for a dinner there. I feel like my time there was a blur and don't even know what else I cooked up to the point of meeting my husband. And after that time, he did most of the cooking when we were together. The first time I made a meal for him, I managed to shatter a salad bowl (after we finished the salad, thankfully). I'm glad he liked my cooking and I didn't scare him off, but I usually leave the meat cooking to him. I do the side dishes and desserts.....and matzo balls, of course!
Nowadays, I'm still mainly into baking. I like making food items that require sticking to a recipe. My husband experiments and a lot of good items have come from this method. I just know that if I strayed from a recipe book and tried to experiment with baking, it would be a giant disaster. Baking requires specific measurements and making sure all the items requested go into the dish. If you leave out an item, it can be a major fail. I always tell myself that I'll stop using mixes and bake more from scratch. I made a blueberry cake from scratch this summer and that came out good. My challah is always made from scratch and lots of elbow grease, now that I knead it by hand. The ultimate challenge is coming up though...my best friend is going to teach me to bake a pie from scratch. I usually use frozen pie shells that are already made, but she has encouraged me to go out and buy a pastry cutter so the dough will be nice and flaky. We're also going to use real fruit instead of the canned stuff. Wish me luck!
P.S. I now make mac and cheese from scratch (as in with real cheese) every so often. So good!
This week, I picked the topic: Cooking
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
It all started in the summer of 1988. I took a summer school class at my junior high to learn how to cook. It was a nice introduction to when I'd take cooking in home ec during the school year. People were encouraged to bring in recipes and we'd try those out in class, along with some our teacher gave us. I absolutely loved it (the cooking aspect, not so much the social part, as I hated junior high for that reason already). I would come home every day just itching to cook something. A lot of the focus was on baking, so I was making muffins, cookies, cinnamon rolls, etc. Someone brought in a nacho dip recipe. It wasn't my thing, but it was easy and I made it for our annual block party. It was completely devoured and is still a favorite of my mom's.
As a kid, my mom would let me help with baking, but it usually meant cutting shapes into dough (and then eating the raw dough leftover scraps) and sprinkling colored sugar crystals on top. After taking this cooking class, I was in the kitchen all the time, making all sorts of dessert items. There even was a point where my mom would let me use the stove to make mac and cheese.
When I was in high school, I would bake dessert items for our speech team tournaments. I learned a recipe for how to turn Funfetti cake mix into cookies. One of my friends on the speech team loved them so much that I baked a huge Funfetti cookie for his birthday. Most of my non-mac-and-cheese cooking involved baked goods. I did eventually make a chicken and potatoes dinner for my family. I was so nervous over how it would turn out, but my mom told me not to obsess. Thankfully, it was as good as when she made it.
Fast forward to college...since I lived in the dorms, I didn't get an opportunity to cook much. However, that changed during second semester of freshman year, when I got a job in the dining center...making eggs for hungry college students. At first, I was taught to make omelets, but that didn't go over so well, so I was assigned to fry up eggs in whichever style they wanted. I also had to fry bacon. I didn't eat eggs or bacon, so at least the process didn't make me hungry. The following year, I would help make pizzas in the kitchen, which became a mindless task. Aside from those experiences, I just served food, so I didn't cook again in college until I started working for a woman with disabilities. I had to make dinner for her on the nights I was working, so I learned how to cook chicken and other items in a skillet. It was pretty basic. The following year, I got an apartment off campus, but reverted back to the mac and cheese or spaghetti, when I wasn't eating in the dining centers (because it was a pain to go off campus for lunch). Occasionally, I'd make french toast for breakfast on a weekend and once even made matzo ball soup (from a box though). I also did plenty of baking, which got me started on a tradition of making chocolate chip cookies for Oscars night.
When I moved out of my parents' house in March of 2000, I realized I couldn't live off carbs forever. I started learning how to make meat dishes. I had a Foreman grill and would make hamburgers on it. (At the time, I wasn't keeping Kosher and added cheese on top.) I also made a chicken dish the first time I hosted my parents for a dinner there. I feel like my time there was a blur and don't even know what else I cooked up to the point of meeting my husband. And after that time, he did most of the cooking when we were together. The first time I made a meal for him, I managed to shatter a salad bowl (after we finished the salad, thankfully). I'm glad he liked my cooking and I didn't scare him off, but I usually leave the meat cooking to him. I do the side dishes and desserts.....and matzo balls, of course!
Nowadays, I'm still mainly into baking. I like making food items that require sticking to a recipe. My husband experiments and a lot of good items have come from this method. I just know that if I strayed from a recipe book and tried to experiment with baking, it would be a giant disaster. Baking requires specific measurements and making sure all the items requested go into the dish. If you leave out an item, it can be a major fail. I always tell myself that I'll stop using mixes and bake more from scratch. I made a blueberry cake from scratch this summer and that came out good. My challah is always made from scratch and lots of elbow grease, now that I knead it by hand. The ultimate challenge is coming up though...my best friend is going to teach me to bake a pie from scratch. I usually use frozen pie shells that are already made, but she has encouraged me to go out and buy a pastry cutter so the dough will be nice and flaky. We're also going to use real fruit instead of the canned stuff. Wish me luck!
P.S. I now make mac and cheese from scratch (as in with real cheese) every so often. So good!
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| Cheesecakes I made from scratch for Shavuot 2012 |
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| Kneading challah dough with my older son, 2010 |
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| The finished product |
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Hitting close to home
Remember the blog project I did in 2010 with three other women? Well, Froggie decided to resurrect it with me and we each got to invite another friend to join us. She invited a mutual friend (someone I met through her) and I invited a friend whose blog I really enjoy reading. So now it's Froggie, Mom of Many, Moma Rock and Merrylandgirl. Hope you enjoy the topics that we'll be exploring!
This week, Moma Rock picked the topic: What are your thoughts on this article?
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
If you haven't read the article in the topic section, it's basically about Canada's top medical journal calling for a nationwide ban on spanking, citing it is bad for childrens' mental health.
While I understand where they're coming from, I want to know how such a ban is implemented and the measures they will take to make sure it is enforced. Will there be video monitors in every room of every home containing a child? Or will all children have sensors implanted in their bottoms so that they go off when smacked? Relying on word-of-mouth isn't always effective. Some children might feel too embarrassed, ashamed or scared to say anything at all, worrying about the overall effects it could have on their family if they told. Other kids might be mad because their parents didn't let them go out partying and lie about being spanked to get revenge. I just can't really hold much faith in a law that tries to prevent what goes on in one's private residence. It's not like driving drunk, where you have a chance of getting caught.
Then there's the factor of what brought on the spanking. Did the child deliberately do something bad enough to potentially warrant it, such as starting a mini-house fire, running out in traffic, severely injuring a sibling, etc? Or was the parent having a bad day and one innocent request from the child set them off? And if it's a non-witnessed event and becomes "he said, she said," who's to know the truth of what brought it on?
While I understand the implications for a child's mental health, maybe authorities should be focusing more on actual child abuse situations vs. discipline. There are parents that just hit their kids for the sake of hitting them, or do even worse, such as not feeding their children or stubbing cigarettes on their skin. Then there are loving parents who become so upset over a child doing something dangerous that their immediate reaction is to spank, even though they feel horrible about having done so.
I think this ban (or law, as I like to call it) has a lot of gray area that needs to be explored and tight parameters that need to be set before it can really have the effect it wants to. At the end of the article, it talks about extending the ban to the United States. If that were the case, Canada would really need to prove it was working before trying to send it our way. I don't think many people would buy into it otherwise, no matter how much previous research was behind it.
This week, Moma Rock picked the topic: What are your thoughts on this article?
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
If you haven't read the article in the topic section, it's basically about Canada's top medical journal calling for a nationwide ban on spanking, citing it is bad for childrens' mental health.
While I understand where they're coming from, I want to know how such a ban is implemented and the measures they will take to make sure it is enforced. Will there be video monitors in every room of every home containing a child? Or will all children have sensors implanted in their bottoms so that they go off when smacked? Relying on word-of-mouth isn't always effective. Some children might feel too embarrassed, ashamed or scared to say anything at all, worrying about the overall effects it could have on their family if they told. Other kids might be mad because their parents didn't let them go out partying and lie about being spanked to get revenge. I just can't really hold much faith in a law that tries to prevent what goes on in one's private residence. It's not like driving drunk, where you have a chance of getting caught.
Then there's the factor of what brought on the spanking. Did the child deliberately do something bad enough to potentially warrant it, such as starting a mini-house fire, running out in traffic, severely injuring a sibling, etc? Or was the parent having a bad day and one innocent request from the child set them off? And if it's a non-witnessed event and becomes "he said, she said," who's to know the truth of what brought it on?
While I understand the implications for a child's mental health, maybe authorities should be focusing more on actual child abuse situations vs. discipline. There are parents that just hit their kids for the sake of hitting them, or do even worse, such as not feeding their children or stubbing cigarettes on their skin. Then there are loving parents who become so upset over a child doing something dangerous that their immediate reaction is to spank, even though they feel horrible about having done so.
I think this ban (or law, as I like to call it) has a lot of gray area that needs to be explored and tight parameters that need to be set before it can really have the effect it wants to. At the end of the article, it talks about extending the ban to the United States. If that were the case, Canada would really need to prove it was working before trying to send it our way. I don't think many people would buy into it otherwise, no matter how much previous research was behind it.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Taking a pregnant pause
Remember the blog project I did in 2010 with three other women? Well, Froggie decided to resurrect it with me and we each got to invite another friend to join us. She invited a mutual friend (someone I met through her) and I invited a friend whose blog I really enjoy reading. So now it's Froggie, Mom of Many, Moma Rock and Merrylandgirl. Hope you enjoy the topics that we'll be exploring!
This week, Froggie picked the topic: Louisiana charter school changing pregnancy policy.
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
I don't have much to say on the policy itself, other than that it's incredibly obnoxious to expect female students to take a pregnancy test in order to go to school. Everyone has a right to an education. If they were consistently disruptive to other students or posed a threat to anyone at the school (or even the entire building), I could see that being another story. I'm not saying that I support teens getting pregnant, but it shouldn't keep them from getting an education so they can at least get a job and be able to provide a good life for their child, should they choose to raise them on their own. And even if a student was found to be pregnant, they don't ask guys to take a DNA test to see if they're the one who impregnated the girls in question (after the baby is born).
However, I think there should be a boot camp that all teenagers are mandated to go to before starting high school. It would involve them raising a toddler or young child for a month. They would not be given ANY instructions and would be lectured whenever they did something another person felt was wrong (kind of like how other parents lecture each other based on their own opinions). They would have to complete the following tasks:
1. Taking the child grocery shopping where there was temptation for the child in every aisle of the store. They'd have to say "no" to everything and effectively diffuse tantrums while the threat of DCFS being called hung over their head.
2. Taking the child to a restaurant where the service is incredibly slow. They'd have to handle the child not liking anything and throwing it all on the floor and potentially breaking glasses and plates in the process.
3. Participating in a bedtime routine that doesn't account for the child getting up several times after they were tucked in, excuses being they want a drink, need to go to the bathroom, are scared of the dark, etc. They will also be woken up multiple times during the middle of the night. Losing sleep isn't only for parents of newborns.
4. Putting the child in a room with several other children and only one toy for all of them to share and having to break up several fights.
5. Taking a minimum two hour airplane or train trip while the child is screaming, kicking the seats in front of them, wanting to get up and walk all the time, asking for a snack every few minutes, asking "are we there yet," etc. Oh, and there will be a long wait before the trip even begins and you'll all be stuck on the mode of transportation during that time instead of being free to roam around the airport or train station.
6. The final activity when the month is over will be to watch an extremely gross and detailed birthing video, including the insertion of an epidural and removal of the placenta.
There are many more activities, but if this keeps teenagers from getting pregnant in the first place, it will be all worth it. I personally love being a mother, but there's a lot more to it than just the hugs, giggles, and hearing them say cute things. Being a teen mom (or dad) is not as glamorous as MTV makes it out to be. Sorry to break it to all you teenagers!
This week, Froggie picked the topic: Louisiana charter school changing pregnancy policy.
Before reading ahead, first see what everyone else had to say on this topic:
Froggie
Mom of Many
Moma Rock
I don't have much to say on the policy itself, other than that it's incredibly obnoxious to expect female students to take a pregnancy test in order to go to school. Everyone has a right to an education. If they were consistently disruptive to other students or posed a threat to anyone at the school (or even the entire building), I could see that being another story. I'm not saying that I support teens getting pregnant, but it shouldn't keep them from getting an education so they can at least get a job and be able to provide a good life for their child, should they choose to raise them on their own. And even if a student was found to be pregnant, they don't ask guys to take a DNA test to see if they're the one who impregnated the girls in question (after the baby is born).
However, I think there should be a boot camp that all teenagers are mandated to go to before starting high school. It would involve them raising a toddler or young child for a month. They would not be given ANY instructions and would be lectured whenever they did something another person felt was wrong (kind of like how other parents lecture each other based on their own opinions). They would have to complete the following tasks:
1. Taking the child grocery shopping where there was temptation for the child in every aisle of the store. They'd have to say "no" to everything and effectively diffuse tantrums while the threat of DCFS being called hung over their head.
2. Taking the child to a restaurant where the service is incredibly slow. They'd have to handle the child not liking anything and throwing it all on the floor and potentially breaking glasses and plates in the process.
3. Participating in a bedtime routine that doesn't account for the child getting up several times after they were tucked in, excuses being they want a drink, need to go to the bathroom, are scared of the dark, etc. They will also be woken up multiple times during the middle of the night. Losing sleep isn't only for parents of newborns.
4. Putting the child in a room with several other children and only one toy for all of them to share and having to break up several fights.
5. Taking a minimum two hour airplane or train trip while the child is screaming, kicking the seats in front of them, wanting to get up and walk all the time, asking for a snack every few minutes, asking "are we there yet," etc. Oh, and there will be a long wait before the trip even begins and you'll all be stuck on the mode of transportation during that time instead of being free to roam around the airport or train station.
6. The final activity when the month is over will be to watch an extremely gross and detailed birthing video, including the insertion of an epidural and removal of the placenta.
There are many more activities, but if this keeps teenagers from getting pregnant in the first place, it will be all worth it. I personally love being a mother, but there's a lot more to it than just the hugs, giggles, and hearing them say cute things. Being a teen mom (or dad) is not as glamorous as MTV makes it out to be. Sorry to break it to all you teenagers!
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| This is what a toddler having a tantrum looks like.... |
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