Karen

diary of a wimpy kid

April 3, 2010April 18, 2010 by Karen, posted in books, family, tweens

whenever there is a movie that gets my child to request (and then to actually read) the book that spawned it, i am happy. this month it happened in reverse; the movie of which i speak is “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. we are having my daughter’s 11th birthday party at Smitty’s (http://www.smittyscinema.com/) and this is the movie she chose, having read the “diary of a wimpy kid” and subsequent offerings in the series over the past couple of months (http://www.wimpykid.com/), long before she knew that there would be a movie coming out about it. she even has the movie poster hanging in her room, a gift from her brother. now, we seem to be surrounded by all things wimpy…and it’s all good.

have any of you adults seen a kids’ movie lately that made you laugh out loud? this one definitely will. some of the kids had seen the movie already, but even they were excited to see it again, and every one of them sat in their seats for the entire hour and 33 minutes, eyes on the screen.

spring ritual

April 2, 2010April 15, 2010 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, gardening, italian

my italian grandmother always said her birthday was on the first day of spring. actually, every so often she was right; her birthday was march 21st, and spring is usually on march 20th, but not always:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equinox). one sure sign that spring had come when i was little was The Making of the Dandelion Salad. my grandmother would send me out into the yard to gather dandelion leaves. this wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds. there were rules that must be followed:

1. leaves must be chosen from plants that had not yet flowered, otherwise they would be too bitter. 2. you had to look for plants that were far from the road, otherwise the exhaust from passing cars would poison them 3. leaves must be washed at least 3 times, because they were pretty dirty, what with actual dirt, plus who knew what manner of animal had befouled the leaves in some manner? 4. the salad must always have olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper for dressing. that’s it.

as i’m writing this, i realize one of the implicit gifts from this practice: nana always told me why i was being asked to do something a certain way. that was as important to me when i was 10 as it is to me now.

do you have any rituals from childhood that you remember? do you still practice any of them? who was an unsung hero in your childhood?

oh, the rain!

April 1, 2010 by Karen, posted in family

gather the animals! build the ark!~actually, we have to (re)build the retaining wall that collapsed last night, sending wildlife (mice, night crawlers, grubs as big as your head…) out into the night. also the one that held UP the back stairs, and the one that held BACK the water that had collected over the past several weeks of heavy rains that comprised the winter and first part of spring here this year, the water that immediately found its way into the basement, which is also my son’s room. you know, with the new furniture (to paraphrase billy costa from the “matty in the morning” radio show on 107.1 (http://www.kiss108.com/pages/Matty.html): nothing stops the water). after work, i had to put on my swimmies and go to Lowe’s to buy a wet vac then go home to help husband (re: try hard to stay out of his way) try to get ahead of the water that was coming through the basement wall and floor. at one point, he sent me to boil water and rip sheets…which i set off to do…finally! something i could do to be helpful! i was feeling pretty good until i recalled that this is the way that women traditionally got rid of their men during childbirth…give them some useless task to do to make them feel useful but the purpose of which was really just to get them out from underfoot until the baby was born! sigh. and to think i fell for this. ultimately i did feel a bit better when i realized that after i delivered (a wet vac, not a baby), my getting out of the way really WAS a big help.

any basement water horror stories out there?

potlucks

March 31, 2010 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

march is nutrition month, and this year we celebrated it at work by having a potluck. the general overall theme was healthy eating; the underlying challenge was to prepare and bring healthy foods that people wanted to eat, which left quite a wide range open for interpretation. we had the requisite fruit and veggie tray, and a box of clementines from the no-time-to-shopper…then we had the piece de resistance: vegetable casserole, which was a hands down favorite. this recipe can be found here: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1750,149169-249195,00.html

ahhh, and then there was the bread.

is there anything better than a potluck to improve morale in the workplace? if so, what??

cookie break!

March 31, 2010March 31, 2010 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, baking, recipes

and speaking of cookies…recently my coworker was walking around with a plate of her latest offering: homemade cookies. way to boost morale in the workplace! one of her favorite websites for recipes is www.kingarthurflour.com. i tried some of the recipes from this website and had great success with them (the blueberry muffins were a big hit with the kids…but that’s another story; today we are talking about cookies).

these are MY favorite cookies at the moment; either homemade (they sell a cookbook with the recipe) or you can go to the Beach Pea Bakery in Kittery and purchase one (or two or three!) already made: http://www.beachpeabaking.com/. if you go, check out the fougasse…

do you prefer to bake your own cookies or to have them handed to you?

marching into may

March 28, 2010 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health

i just took a walk, then negated the benefits of said walk by accepting and eating a homemade peanut butter oatmeal cookie when i got back to work. i took the walk because this year i signed up for March into May, a program designed to help you become more active. you set your own goals, then update them each week for 8 weeks. i consoled myself after the cookie-eating with the fact that i DID, at least, take the walk, which i probably wouldn’t have done if i wasn’t thinking about my MIM goal not yet being met for the week. (i probably would have eaten the cookie either way…one of the best bakers i know made it!).

if you decide to sign up for MIM (it’s free! and you can build in your own rewards (cookies!) for staying on track each week , or for whatever behaviors you choose to reward). here’s a tip from someone who has participated in MIM for several years (me!): for your goal: set the bar low; make it achievable, so it is motivating, not demotivating. 🙂

http://www.marchintomay.org/march-into-may.php

what do you think? is this worth doing? will it help you get out and do some exercise of some sort that you might not have done otherwise ?

do the thing you think you cannot

March 25, 2010March 25, 2010 by Karen, posted in family, no fear

when i was invited to go indoor rock climbing by a friend, my immediate (inward) response was “no freakin’ way!”, followed by a polite “no, thank you,” expressed outwardly. then, one of my favorite quotes came to mind: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”~ Eleanor Roosevelt. i kept thinking about this quote and began thinking about the rock wall and “do the thing you cannot do” became an edict. i went. i did the thing. it was awesome. only 2 really scary moments 1.looking down from the top of the first scaled wall (they don’t say “don’t look down!” for nothing) and 2. when it’s time to come down, you let go and push away from the wall, and …dangle for a moment. really.

the bottom line? it was a blast (notice word choice is consistent with my inner 12 year old).

http://www.merockgym.com

when you don’t know what you don’t know

March 23, 2010 by Karen, posted in family

i signed my daughter up for horseback riding lessons at a local barn. i don’t ride and am not very familiar with horses so although i was confused about a few things i saw happening there, i chalked it up to my own ignorance and just kept bringing her back… but i also kept a close eye on her while she rode. after a few weeks i became concerned when, for the second week in a row, an experience rider was thrown from her horse during a lesson. i grew even more concerned when the owner of the stable showed neither sympathy for the rider nor discernible worry about possible concussion and spinal cord damage to her disoriented, head injured student, and instead blamed the victim, calling it “rider error”, and apparently dismissing the incident from her mind. meanwhile, the student sat in a chair in the barn, coatless and shivering (whether from shock or the 20 degree temperatures could not be determined), unable to drive herself home.

in the spirit of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, here is a safety link: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00058

what would you have done if you witnessed a similar situation?

a spring miracle

March 22, 2010March 23, 2010 by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, gardening

i was amazed to see that my garden from LAST year has spinach and lettuce growing in it THIS year…how could this happen? first of all, both are supposedly annuals (http://www.learn2grow.com/plant-guides/vegetables/leafy-vegetables-lettuce-spinach/)…did they survive the winter? hallelujah! then i thought, sure, it’s growing, but is it edible? this not being medieval times, i had no assayer (food taster) to step up and take the fall for me. i glance over my shoulder at my chickens, nearly beside themselves with excitement, salivating at the sight of fresh greens…should i feed some to my least preferred chicken and watch for untoward effects? (would that be wrong??) in the end, i realized that i really only had 2 options: to throw it away or to risk it myself. guess which door i chose? all who said “door #2”, you are correct! and since i’m here to tell you about it, you may have already deduced the outcome…have any of you ever had your annual vegetables stick around through the winter and keep growing in the spring?

grieving my dead relatives, part 3

March 21, 2010April 15, 2010 by Karen, posted in good grief, italian

my paternal grandmother’s birthday is today. her name was originally ‘maria’, anglicized to ‘mary’ (as so many were so many others) when she arrived here from italy around 1924 (http://www.ellisisland.org/). she died at the age of 93, about 6 years ago. she had sort of reconciled herself to the reality of her cognitive decline, as evidenced by her selling her house and moving in with my brother’s family a couple of years prior. he made her a little apartment in the basement of his home, with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen area, and living room. that day, she got up in the early morning as she always did, made her cup of instant coffee in the microwave, sat down at her little kitchen table, and died. my brother heard her fall and ran down to help, but it was obvious that she was already well on her way to see God, so he just held her there on his lap on the floor until she passed. isn’t that the best way to die, while living your life?