The Bad Side of being So Connected

The husband and I cashed in on our annual Christmas gift from my parents and hit the campground while they stayed home and watched our 2 kids!  It was wonderful, but we came to a 21st Century realization:  We are overly in touch because of being so connected.  Cell phones, smart phones, Skype, remote video surveillance and on and on have taken the human presence part out of interacting.

The husband takes the golf cart for a quick run to the real bath house to take care of business.  It is a very short ride, but while on his ride, he sees something funny, takes a picture and sends it to me back at the camper.  I comment back and we talk via text while he is in the crapper.  He gets back and we have nothing to talk about.  Hum.....this seems to happen a lot anymore.  The kids do something funny while he is at work and I send him a picture or call him.  When he gets home, he already knows about our day and we do not have a lot of new stuff to share at dinner.  He does the same during his day.

While we were gone, we punched up on the smart phone our outdoor cameras and watched the kids riding bikes and playing in the driveway.   WHY?!?!?  We knew they were in good hands!  When I was little, my parents left me at a neighbor's and went to Hawaii while I had strep throat and NEVER EVEN called!!   I still love them and do not feel too scarred by the whole issue!

Kids today are so connected with each other and society.  My kids will never understand the embarrassment of having to talk on the land line phone in the upstairs hall or having me answer the phone when a friend of theirs calls.  They will never remember a day of not having a cell phone in the car.  They will never experience having to walk home from school because they missed their bus and their Mom cannot be reached because she is outside weeding the garden.  (Trust me, it was not a short walk from school to our house.  It wasn't up hill in both directions, but it was long enough to teach me a lesson.)

So, what is the solution?  I do not have a fool proof one, but we are going to try to reduce the number of times we talk a day and try to save the good and funny stuff for family time at the dinner table.  We are not going to provide a cell phone with a data plan to our kids (or at least hold out as long as possible).

Natural vs. Store Bought

I have been going along with the husband and his challenge.  We cheated 2 times last week and twice in one day, today.  Work life made cheating on Monday a given with providing dinner from Chick-fil-A for our drivers.  Friday was the girl's birthday and lunch with friends was fitting.  Today, we lunched with friends again and went out for a nice dinner as a family.  On the way home, we stopped at Trader Joe's for some groceries.  While I was putting them away, I had a moment of "AWE"!  Since starting his challenge, I have been baking our own bread.  I saved a couple of buns that were left in the bread drawer when we returned home from vacation.  Today, the tiny end of a loaf of homemade French bread was green!  It was about a week old.

On the left are the almost 2 mo. old rolls.  On the right, my homemade bread.

A close up:

So, what is in my bread?  Organic flour (a mix of white whole wheat and whole wheat), yeast, salt, water, olive oil and semolina flour (a dusting on the bottom to keep it from sticking while baking).  

Here is the ingredient list on the store bread:

Enriched, dough conditioners that are a lot of glycerides, monocalcium phosphate, datem......What the hell is all that stuff?!?  My husband is convinced it is what gives little girls boobs at 10 yrs old and is one of the reasons he wanted to change some things in our life.  Well, here is where I call in Google and Wikipedia!

  DATEM (diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono- and diglycerides) is an emulsifier primarily used in baking. It is used to strengthen the dough by building a strong gluten network.

Calcium dihydrogen phosphate is also used in the food industry as a leavening agent to cause baked goods to rise. Because it is acidic, when combined with an alkali ingredient, commonly sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or potassium bicarbonate, it reacts to produce carbon dioxide and asalt. Outward pressure of the carbon dioxide gas causes the rising effect. When combined in a ready-made baking powder, the acid and alkali ingredients are included in the right proportions such that they will exactly neutralize each other and not significantly affect the overall pH of the product.  **Note, if you look this up, it is also used as a fertilizer.  Great!

A monoglyceride, more correctly known as a monoacylglycerol, is a glyceride consisting of one fatty acid chain covalently bonded to a glycerol moleculethrough an ester linkage.^[1]

Monoacylglycerol can be broadly divided into two groups; 1-monoacylglycerols and 2-monoacylglycerols, depending on the position of the ester bond on the glycerol moiety.

Monoacylglycerols can be formed by both industrial chemical and biological processes. They are formed biochemically via release of a fatty acid fromdiacylglycerol by diacylglycerol lipase. Monoacylglycerols are broken down by monoacylglycerol lipase.

Mono- and diglycerides are commonly added to commercial food products in small quantities. They act as emulsifiers, helping to mix ingredients such as oil and water that would not otherwise blend well.^[2]

The commercial source may be either animal (cow- or hog-derived) or vegetable, and they may be synthetically made as well. They are often found in bakery products, beverages, ice cream, chewing gum, shortening, whipped toppings, margarine, and confections.^{[citation needed]} When used in bakery products, monoglycerides improve loaf volume, and create a smooth, soft crumb.

I guess my moment of awe and realization that my time invested in the kitchen might be worth something will make me continue on the path of better eating.  We will still enjoy special treats from time to time, but try to stick with good old homemade as much as possible!

Some words of advice for job seekers....

It is a tough market out there! If you are looking for a job and are going to apply or send resumes through ads placed on a site such as craigslist, do yourself a favor and read the following:

-Make sure your name on your email account or even the email address itself has a little class!!  I automatically hit the trash button when I read things like:

Looneyhustla
G
captainjacker
Kaveman Love
ILL SON
The Vic Man

-Sending one piss poor email is enough, but to send that thing 5 times is just going to make me need more wine!

-If you stay someplace, I could care less!!  If you live somewhere, I see a little more stability in your life.

-Grammar is a pet peeve of mine and a lot of other employers.  Proof read your shit before you send it!  No,  you are not coming to work for a publishing house as an editor, but at least act like you care!!!

-If you include a phone number, make sure it is correct, that maybe your voicemail is actually activated, and that your mailbox is not full.  I won't call back!

-If it is obvious you are replying for EVERY ad placed, I hit delete!  Read the ad before you reply!

-If the ad says, "Available to start immediately." and you are called and cannot interview until next month and cannot start until the end of the semester, you have just wasted my time and I HATE having my time wasted!

-If your resume includes a category of Braggin Rights.....DELETE that section, because I just deleted your reply!

-If a job lists an area of a metropolitan city and you live no where within a 40 mile radius, why apply?  Are you really going to make it to work on time daily?

OK....I am going to go back to reviewing my emails and hitting the trash button!

The Challenge and the Journey

So, on our return from vacation, my husband challenged me to cook with just straight natural in the rawest form ingredients.  (OK....he really said he didn't think I could) .  I love to cook and think I am pretty good at it, but to say I couldn't do something in the kitchen....GASP!!  Well, if you know me, I do not take challenges lightly!  Told him I would give it a go and we would take it further than that and give up all the yuckies (i.e. fast food, Mama Rita night at the Amigos, and processed foods).  

So, that was several weeks ago and we are adjusting.  I am so glad I have my new kitchen, because there is a lot involved in not buying from the middle of the store!  It has been great, though, because the kids are really into helping with the cooking now.  As for other parts of the challenge, we have not stopped at our favorite chicken place for breakfast or lunch since well before the last week in July.  We have only cheated once and bought lunchables for the kids.  (They love those things and it is so easy to rip that bad boy open and there is lunch without any Mommy work.)

What is a dinner these days around here with no yuckies?  It really isn't bad!!  Here is a sample:

Tonight's dinner was  homemade pierogi, piroghi or pierogie (depending on where you are from and how Polish your heritage is).  Some people have probably never heard of or enjoyed a pierogi before, but being a Pittsburgh, PA native.....I LOVE them!  There was a restaurant down the road from my old work facility in McKees Rocks that only served pierogies!!!  Yep, we ordered from Pierogies Plus weekly back in the day!! http://pierogiesplus.com/

I didn't just make regular pierogies tonight though!  Instead, I included my obsession in there and made Potato, Cabot cheddar, bacon and onion pierogies!!  They were awesome (if I can say that about my own cooking)!!

 Here is everything prepped (minus the dough which was chilling the the fridge).  Red potatoes on to boil, onion cooking with a tiny bit of olive oil, bacon cooked and crumbled, and cheese grated.  

Everything was mashed by hand to make this:

 This is where I get the kids involved!  They both took turns rolling out the dough, which was made from whole wheat flour, an egg from our own chickens, organic butter and organic sour cream.

Then, their job was to cut out the circles.  I used the sandwich sealer I got from Pampered Chef several years ago.  It worked perfectly!

I stuffed them and then they sealed them with the sandwich sealer.  Here they are ready to be cooked!

The final product with a little sour cream and a nice tomato salad!

Random Friday Thoughts

So, I am sitting here on hold with an insurance company over a stupid Mexican that cannot drive and hit one of our work trucks.  While sitting here, I thought I would make use of my time and browse the web.  Here are some random thoughts that came to me while browsing:

~ If you list shit on a facebook garage sale page, make it nice and worth the effort it took me to scroll past your garbage.  12 shirts at $3 each and each individually pictured is a waste of effort!  Also, if your shit is going to cost someone more in gas than it would for them just to pick it up at Wal-Mart when they are there, it probably is not going to sell, so quit bumping that crap to the top!

~If I advertise something as free on a facebook garage sale page, meet me when and where it is convenient for ME.  You are getting the shit for FREE!!  If I give you something for free, don't think I am an idiot and turn around and try to SELL it without asking!  Oh yeah....you think I didn't see all those dresses I gave you listed? If you are poor, ask for money, but don't yank my chain to steal it from me.  Someone who actually wanted and would have used the dresses could have had them instead of your greedy trying to make a $ ass!

~If you are going to try to sell your nasty lingerie on an on-line garage sale, why would you do it with your name attached?  Use craigslist or ebay and try to remain in the shadows!  I know there are people out there with weird and crazy fetishes, but you are going to have to meet them to deliver the goods.  I am half tempted to say I will buy and arrange to meet just so I can tell you in person that it is fucked up to sell that stuff so openly!

~If your mattress is ripped, make them take it when you buy a new one.  I doubt you are going to sell it!

~If your GA Dawgs flip-flops are so used that the G is missing from one of them, THROW THEM AWAY!  I gave shit away with lots of life left in it....those do not have any life left!

Lessons from My 2 Weeks of Camping

For two weeks, the kids and I checked out and headed with the camper to Horseshoe Trails in Mountain Lakes Resort outside of Cleveland, GA.  The kitchen in our house was being redone and the husband and I decided it would be easier if we were not there for the process.

I am not used to the single parent aspect and trust me when I say, 3 & 4 are not the easiest ages, but we had so much fun!  The husband came up for 2 weekends, but other than that, it was just the 3 of us.  Of course, there is lots to do here and that helped, but we didn't always need to do to enjoy!  That is one of the realizations I re-realize every time we leave home.  We hardly watched TV.  The kids only brought one bag of toys each, that they picked out on their own before we left.  We had our bikes as well.  So what do you do for 2 weeks if you have cramped living quarters, minimal toys, and no planned activities?

You bond!  You enjoy!  You play!

We hiked.  We biked.  We walked.  We ate outside.  We caught bugs.  We played with sticks.  We did art outside.  We found treasures.  We used our imagination.  We did lots of swimming.  We fished.  We visited the horses.  We played in the creek.  We stomped in mud puddles.  We sang songs.  We played games.

We are heading home tomorrow and even as I sit outside under the awning in the rain writing about our time away, the kids are out playing and having a grand time with a stick and jump rope.   I do want to return to a normal house, a real shower, a toilet that is real, and doors on my bedroom. BUT, I also want to try to keep the focus I so easily loose when we return from our trips.  Camping and VT are a simple life with no need to get caught up in anything besides what matters most.....Growing my family through love and fun.

Sick of it!

I am tired of picking-up!  I have been picking-up behind kids, husband, and animals for years now.  My kids are now 4 & 3 and I am DONE!

We are enacting a new House Rule!  If it is not cleaned up before bed, it is MINE!  I will take the toy (no matter what it is) and give it to a kid that will take care of it while my kids watch!  Toys are not appreciated around here and if they think that they are a given, they are 100% WRONG!  My kids act very ungrateful and I am going to fix this!

I know that some parents would view this as harsh, but I am here to parent my kids and this is one step towards Trucker Turned Momma's sanity.  Last night, the kids were instructed to clean up.  Things were thrown in a corner and left.  Items taken outside the family room were left.  I went in to get ready for bed and there were 4 trucks on the floor of the bathroom.  Guess someone had to take them in when he went potty.  Take them in, take them out.....Just like at the campground!!   We might not have any toys left by the end of summer, but I bet they will appreciate the ones they get at Christmas that much more!