Writing in the Corner

Farmer’s Market

Published on June 13, 2009 in Life in Louisiana. 4 Comments

My book club book for May/June was “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. The book got me interested in buying locally where I can. Here in the Gulf South, it’s easy to buy local shrimp and other seafood. Today I went to the farmer’s market in my town and picked up some local produce, too.

As a result, I’m not only going to have to plan the main dishes for our meals this week, but also the sides, so we can be sure to use up all the vegetables before everybody leaves for our June road trips. I bought six tomatoes, a pound of green beans, two crowns of broccoli, two GINORMOUS green peppers, six sweet banana peppers, two very large sweet potatoes, two pints of blueberries and about two cups of basil. Here are the menus that will use up all this food:

Dinner tonight: Basil Cream Chicken with Pasta, Country Green Beans (both recipes from allrecipes.com.

Sunday lunch: Pepper Quesadillas, tomato salad.
Sunday dinner: some sort of casserole, broccoli

Monday lunch: tuna and tomato salad, bread
Monday dinner: Pork ribs, sweet potato casserole, Country Green Beans (again) (green beans and sweet potatoes are used up at this point.

Tuesday: A shrimpy pasta thing; tomatoes and probably the basil are used up at this point

Wednesday: Pepper quesadillas for lunch again, green and banana peppers are used up at this point.

Thursday: another casserole thing, broccoli. Broccoli is used up at this point.

Whew! That was a lot of work just planning it. But we’ll have lots of green things to eat this week, and they’re all from within 100 miles of here.

What I Cooked Today

Published on June 7, 2009 in Miscellany. 2 Comments

Two and a half pounds of ground beef, with diced onion and garlic. I divided the final product into three equal portions and put them in the freezer.
Four dozen meatballs, divided into two equal portions and frozen.
Homemade egg noodles. I had a hankering. I mixed them up in the food processor in just seconds, then rolled the dough out, sliced into wide noodles, and dried for two hours. I cooked them in chicken broth (not homemade; I didn’t have any) and served them with
Fried chicken, cooked crispy with a cracker crumb crust.

I was going to make brownies but a nap interfered. Maybe tomorrow.

Take me out to the ballgame

Published on May 30, 2009 in Life in Louisiana and The Fam. 2 Comments

When DH and I were first dating, he lived in Detroit. We went to a lot of baseball games during that time. He is a big baseball fan, and having three brothers, I know a lot about the game. I’m not such a fan as he is (few people are) but I really enjoy going to see a game live.

This evening we’re off to see the local AAA PCL club, the New Orleans Zephyrs. I got BOGO tickets, third base line, 16th row. Game starts at 6:00, with a lot to do before we go, but here I am writing a blog post for the first time in ages instead of getting busy.

I thought he would miss living in a city with a Major League team, but it’s become so expensive (in spite of the recent price cuts) to see a Major League game that I don’t think he minds so much. AAA ball is still fun, and the prize giveaways and cheesy stuff only add to the fun.

Lessons in Capitalism

Published on May 13, 2009 in Miscellany and The Fam. 3 Comments

Friday is Entrepreneur Day at The Kid’s school. The fourth graders have booths where they sell goods or services. Some kids have games, others make and sell stuff. Some do face painting, others sell stickers or little toys. The Kid is selling slime; a non-Newtonian fluid, i.e. a fluid whose flow properties are not described by a single constant value of viscosity. Basically, it’s cool gooey stuff.

Production has been a team effort. Packaging, glue, and 20 Mule Team Borax compose the COGS. Marketing has been minimal, but the audience is captive and the product is fun and has sold well in the past. The Kid’s Slime is available in four vibrant colors. He is selling them for $1 each. Others are also selling Slime, but we are hopeful that The Kid’s super-size portions will drive sales.

The school takes 50% of revenue, not profit. After the school’s cut, the remaining revenue goes to the Kid. If we take out COGS, net profit is just $10, which is not a lot of money for a lot of work (and his support staff worked for free!) We discussed a higher price point, but The Kid says others are selling slime for cheaper (though the quantities are smaller) so he doesn’t want to mark it up too much.

I’m going to make sure to show him net profit so the lessons about making and selling stuff are not lost to Mom and Dad’s desire for him to enjoy the experience.

The Cat

Published on May 8, 2009 in The Fam. 2 Comments

Here is a picture of our new cat:

Cat

And here is another:

Cat

He is a very pleasant little fellow. He’s playful but not a spaz. We’ve had a lot of difficulty coming up with a name, because I’m so indecisive and because we haven’t been able to find one we all like really well. We seem to have settle on Sir Ralph Crumpets.

The Kitty Plan

Published on April 26, 2009 in The Fam. 5 Comments

We are going to get a cat. A kitten, I hope. Mark and I went to PetsMart to look at the cats available for adoption. They only had one kitten, and while we were rather inclined to take it, the volunteer sort of talked us out of it! She was a cute little gray tabby, but the volunteer said there are about 2-3 more litters at the shelter who will be available for adoption next Saturday. He suggested that we shouldn’t adopt the first cat we see, but wait to see who we fall in love with and who falls in love with us.

The volunteer was also really adamant that kittens are a LOT of work and we won’t get any sleep for weeks. That really wasn’t my experience with kittens when I was young, but maybe I’m just misremembering. I’m not really interested in having multiple cats. Just one is a big commitment for me, and I’m not a fan of commitment.

We’re going to need a litter pan and litter and bowls. We will probably get a couple of little toys. The PetSmart brochure recommends all kinds of cool Kitty aKoutrements, but I think we’ll wait and see what s/he actually wants. The adoption is about $75.00. Extra stuff will probably come to $50. If today was any indication, the hardest decision is going to be deciding which kitten to choose.

Facebook 30, Blog 0

Published on March 28, 2009 in MetaBlogging. 4 Comments

Since I’ve been doing Facebook, I don’t blog nearly as much. Many more people are “around” as Facebook friends, and any blog posts feed into my Facebook page as notes. This is fine for most people, but not so hot for people like my pal VegasJoe, who isn’t on Facebook that I’m aware of and misses me terribly when I don’t blog. Hi Joe! I’ll try to do better.

I’m also on a couple of mailing lists now where I do some of my writing, and much of it isn’t appropriate for my blog. But it still takes time.

Anyhow. We’re about to do Lights Out for Earth Hour. Tomorrow (honest!) I will post Vacation Story #3.

Vacation Stories #2

Published on March 3, 2009 in The Fam. 1 Comment

The first two days of our vacation were delightfully relaxed. Monday we slept in. We went shopping and bought DD and her fam a kitchen table, a bench and three chairs (I love sales.) The assured that we would have a place to sit if we all wanted to eat together. That afternoon/evening DH started putting things together, while Preschool Granddaughter helped. She was very diligent about keeping the little pieces sorted out and putting them where they belonged. Meanwhile, The Kid played Nintendo DS and played with his nephew and niece.

Tuesday we went out for lunch (Mexican) and bought stuff at a bakery.

When I go on vacation, I enjoy doing new things, but I also like to relax. I don’t feel the need to gogogo all the time. I like my downtime. The first two days were pretty relaxing for me. I enjoyed them.

Vacation Stories #1

Published on March 2, 2009 in The Fam. 4 Comments

Sunday, February 22nd, we had a 6:00 a.m. flight out of Gulfport. Gulfport is about a 45-50 minute drive when traffic conditions are good, which they usually are. I prefer to fly out of Gulfport when I can because the airport is smaller, everything is closer, and it’s 45 miles through the swamp instead of 45 miles through Metro New Orleans to Kenner.

A 6:00 a.m. start was a challenge. We were pretty much packed, but didn’t load the car the night before so we could load up the last couple of things in the morning. We got up at 3:30 a.m. and were out the door by 4:30 a.m., but we were really pushing it.

DH dropped us off at the entrance and I spent five minutes at the wrong counter (Delta vs. Continental). I got in the Continental line. There were only two check-in terminals, and one guy was taking a REALLY long time. By the time we got to the counter we were past the deadline for checking our luggage, but the ticketing agent was able to override the kiosk. One bag was overweight, but it had Mardi Gras beads in the outside pocket. We moved some of those the other bag, which brought the weight down to 49.4 lbs. Whew!

We got to the gate and almost immediately began boarding. The flight to Houston was uneventful. The flight to Portland was, too, although we were sitting in front of an exit row with seats that don’t recline, so after 4.5 hours I was really ready to get off that plane. We picked up the rental car, a Dodge Liberty SUV.

The next phase of our Sunday journey was the road trip. The Columbia River Gorge was absolutely beautiful. Next time we make a trip like this we will plan it out a little better so we can spend some time sightseeing along the way. As it was, we briefly noticed Multnomah Falls, (flickr pic) but it would have been nice to get a closer look. We did not take pictures.

We stopped in Hood River, where we had lunch with my friends Caroline, Catherine and Tom. I had a yummy chicken soup with dee-lish homemade tortillas at a Mexican joint in town. Flan for dessert. Mmmm, flan. Tom and Catherine treated! I had a wonderful time and it was great meeting these long time friends in Real Life for the first time.

The final leg of the trip was the drive from Hood River to Yakima. We drove east on I-84 through The Dalles. Calvin remarked that he didn’t know of any other place in the US that had a definite article as part of the name. Wikipedia explains it all. We crossed through the Cascades over Satus Pass. The Kid was exhausted by the time we got up into the mountains, and we couldn’t even interest him in looking at the snow.

By the time we got to our destination, the swinging hot spot of Yakima, Washington, we were absolutely exhausted. We had been traveling for 14 hours on only 4 hours of sleep. It was a huge relief to say hello to my daughter and her family, give everyone hugs, and head back to our hotel for some sleep.

Singing Papa Calvin

Published on February 25, 2009 in The Fam. 0 Comments

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter and I went to pick up my older granddaughter at pre-school. The new baby was sleeping, so we left her there with my DH. We returned within 15 minutes to find Papa Calvin holding her, singing “I’ve been working on the railroad,” while she stared and him and gnawed on her fist.

But she wasn’t crying.

It was adorable.