The Genetics of Clean

I come from a family where women are immaculate housekeepers. Forever I thought all women of their generation were that way, but I've learned that some women really are normal.

I visited my aunt yesterday - she and my uncle moved here about a year ago and is raising her 6 year old grandson. Going into her house... well, it's kind of depressing. Only because, you see, my house is never going to look like that. HOW on earth do these women find the time to make every surface free of clutter, every floor sparkle, every bed wrinkle free? And why can't I figure it out too?

Do I not spend enough time cleaning? No, that can't be it. On an average day, I'm constantly walking around picking things up and putting them in their place. Is it because we don't have a big, fancy house to store all of our crap in? That might be part of it, but to me that's just a hint that we need to decrease the amount of crap. Is it because I'm the mother of two small children and we home school, which means there's never a break during the day like school kids give their mothers? Hmmm... I might be on to something there.

I love interior decorating. My living room is beautiful, full of lovely things and arranged in such a matter that is pleasing to the eye. Except that once the eye has passed over the littering of toys, books, blankets, balls of yarn, and miscellaneous shoes and socks, the eye no longer has any desire to even look at the "pretties". I can clean up all the "litter" and I swear to you, by the next morning it looks exactly the same. My aunt's house looks like it came right out of a home decor magazine - everything so perfect and neatly arranged, and you can even see the carpet for lack of "litter". It's fascinating to me, because I've never been able to accomplish any of that.

Some day - I hope - I'll accept the fact that my home is never going to look like a model of perfect decor. It's just not in the cards for me. And maybe I'll avoid going to the homes of the elder women in my family so as not to make myself feel so bad for my shortcomings. :o)

Taste of Home - the Anti-Healthy

My mom and I went to the Taste of Home Cooking School on Thursday night.

I'd love to tell you it was fantastic, inspirational, and informative.

Mostly though, it was frustrating and depressing. There were good points, little useful tips and hints, etc. so it wasn't a total waste. And I'll never pass up an opportunity to hang out with my mom, so it was worth the ten dollars spent.

But overall, it was a testament to all that home cooking has become in the last 50 years, since the years of the Industrial Revolution when our purpose became wrapped up in convenience and disposable everything.

Vegetables that you can purchase in the freezer section of the grocery store (probably grown in Guatemala or something) that are pre-cut, pre-washed, pre-packaged into a microwave safe package. Put the package into the microwave and when you take them out, they are perfectly steamed. Only two minutes' worth of work, and voila! Vegetables, microwaved to remove every possible nutrient the body could possibly glean from them, in plastic nonetheless, bringing every consumer that much closer to a cancer diagnosis.

Or there's the crock-pot liner. You can now purchase a (probably-cancer-inducing) plastic liner for your crock pot. Crock-pots are already the lazy mother's best friend (and I use mine frequently - no insult intended!) But to use a plastic liner? Now you don't even have to wash the contraption after it's done cooking your food. Then, you just toss that liner into the trash can where it will make it into the land fill, adding to the already disgusting amount of garbage our society produces. It's like killing two birds with one stone - you get to eat harmful chemicals leached into your food from the plastic, and then you get to add to the ever-growing pile of unnecessary household waste. Awesome!

And recipes aren't what they used to be. Many of the recipes call for things like "1 can of chili with beans" or "1 jar of spaghetti sauce" or, most commonly, "One package of frozen dinner roll/bread/biscuit dough.". It's assumed now that no one is going to take the time to actually make these foods. Our society would much rather purchase a can of something the company claims to be food, pressure cooked in a can along with a smattering of preservatives, MSG, and GMO's. If I'm looking for a recipe for a fancy breakfast pastry, I don't want to see "2 packages purchased frozen pastry sheets" in the list of ingredients.

And what bothers me most of all is that these Taste of Home people are sitting here evangelizing the greatness of all of these convenience foods and disposable products to thousands of women across the nation, playing on our addiction to consumerism and our genetic need for "more, bigger, better, newer". Women of today are brainwashed into thinking that "convenient" means "better" when in reality, we're becoming sicker and sicker and feeding the same crap to our husbands and children, causing mass epidemics of a whole host of illnesses that no one wants to take responsibility for.

And that ends my rant. Thanks for listening.
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Taking a 180 degree turn, I feel compelled to include this absolutely delicious recipe for a coffee cake from one of the free cooking magazines handed out from the show. You really should try it. It's easy, quick, and positively sinful.



Cinnamon Nut Coffee Cake

1.5 cups all purpose flour (or whole-wheat pastry flour)
1 cup sugar (or organic raw cane sugar)
2 tsp. baking powder (aluminum free is best)
1/4 tsp salt (I omitted this with success)
1/4 c. melter butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Topping:
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup packed brown sugar (I would bet date powder would work well here)
2 tbsp. all purpose flour (or the whole wheat stuff)
3 tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. melted butter

Oven: 375

Combine the dry ingredients for the batter. In a separate bowl whisk together the butter, eggs, milk and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Set that aside. Combine the topping ingredients.

Grease a 9x13 pan. Spread half of the batter across the bottom of the pan. (It's going to be spread really thin, which surprised me but turned out great.) Sprinkle half the topping on top of the batter. Carefully spread the remaining batter on top (that's what the directions say. That's a joke. There is no spreading that stuff. Better to drop teaspoonfuls of dough across the top of the first layer of topping - close together, but they don't have to be touching. Trust me.) Top with the rest of the topping.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or so. You'll be able to smell it when it's done. :o) Yield: 12 servings

I froze these separately in ziploc bags with success.

Pure, unadulterated intelligence... NOT

I was at Wal-Mart today, already feeling mighty irritated with society and consumerism on several levels by the time I made it to the check out lines.

There was a young lad checking me out, probably 19 or 20 years old. He seemed to have a hard time mustering the courage to actually speak, which poses a slight problem when you're supposed to be providing customer service. Anyway...

I paid with my debit card. Upon doing so, I requested cash back. I asked the kid, "Can I specify the denominations when I ask for cash back?" His reply? "What's a denomination?" "Can I tell you what bills I want?" He answered affirmatively.

When it came time to give me said cash back, he asked how I would like the forty dollars I requested. I asked for three tens, a five, and five ones.

And ya know what he said?

He said, "Okay. Does that add up to forty?"

For the love of the Almighty, how on earth do people like this actually get jobs?

Caps for Sale

Curlicues, shown in Christmas Brights.

All Tied Up, shown in Christmas Earthtones.
Can be tied in a bow for a girl, or knotted for a li'l boy.

Snowflake, also available in light blue.

I promise I won't fill my blog with shameless advertising. I'll make this quick.


Colors are interchangeable, either the earth-tones or the brights. I was also thinking some baby blue and white would be very winter-y if you're interested. All hats are made to order. Yarn is a good, high quality acrylic - acrylic is machine washable, which is why I chose that. It's soft and cozy to wear. All hats available in sizes infant, 12 months, 2-4T, and 4-6.

All hats are $20 postage paid, payable with check or PayPal. Approximately 1 week turnaround, depending on number of orders.

And now, back to your regular scheduled programming.

Why not?

I've never made stew before. I remember really, really not liking it as a kid, so I never bothered with it as an adult. (One of those great things about being a grown up, ya know?) Well, that was all fine and well until my husband killed two elk and a deer and we now have something like 30 pounds of cubed stew meat in the freezer. So I made stew. And ya know what? It was darn good.

(Also be sure to note the fancy new bowl - I got new dishes!)

And, for no reason other than because I felt like it and thought it would be fun, I made leaf-shaped biscuits. Which made the children think they were far more tasty than regular round biscuits.

Because taking pictures of your dinner is completely normal, right?

The Chiro Office

After two visits to the chiropractor last week, I feel mostly normal again. That's always nice.

The second visit came with it's own version of hilarity...

I had Chloe with me - Cora was home with her daddy. We walk into the chiro office, sign in, and sit down. She settles in with a couple of children's books, I just sat and waited. And overheard.

The lady who was back there was really enjoying herself. He'd crack something or another and she's do this high-pitched, girly giggle. "Ooooh hoo hoo hoo!" And lots of "Oh, oh, that feels so good!" or "Oh, that's so amazing!" (Followed by more giggling.) It kept going on for at least ten minutes. It was strange. I felt uncomfortable. I felt like I had walked in on something I wasn't intended to hear. I felt kind of... dirty.

And what might my poor daughter think as she sits there reading about Minnie Mouse? What does she think I go there for? Sheesh.

I just have to wonder... does Dr. Chiropractor enjoy himself nearly as much as some of the patients? Hmm.

It's that time again

With Halloween (and therefore, costume sewing) over for the year, it's time to settle in and start Making Stuff.

On my list of Stuff to Make:

*Doll and Barbie clothes for the girls
*Dress up clothes for the girls
*A fleece blanket and matching doll blanket
*Baby slings (all four of those will be for Christmas)
*This really cute apple garland
*A couple of new aprons
*Perhaps a Christmas quilt... except that after the farm quilt, I swore I'd never make another one....
*Christmas hats for the girls, some to sell, and something funky for me using my great-grandma's buttons

My list just might never end.

First things first, though. After the crazy busy week we had last week, I need to get this house in order. There is about 50 pounds of raw elk meat in my refrigerator still (we ran out of freezer space) so I need to run that to my mom's freezer, run errands, get back on track with school (we took the week off), catch up on laundry, and clean. It's gonna be a long day, but I'm so glad to have my routine back.

More Halloween pictures

After we took the girls trick or treating, we dropped them off with my parents and went out for some grown up Halloween fun. ;o)



I made all of the costumes - great fun! Halloween is the only time of year I get to do creative sewing like that, so I enjoyed it. We all had a great time.

Happy Halloween!

He did it again....

Because really, one elk in a season isn't enough... right?

He shot this big boy on Sunday evening (once again leaving me worried, not calling until after midnight because he had to quarter it out and that takes a long time when you're by yourself.) We didn't have my dad's help like we did with the cow back in August so it took us two days to butcher it all.

It seemed like a lot more meat than last time, but I figured it was because it was just the two of us... until we weighed it. 185 pounds total. He was flippin' enormous.

The biggest difference is in burger meat - 30 pounds from the cow, 92 from this bull. And you have to add pork fat to the meat when you grind it, so we'll end up with about 120 pounds of ground. Seriously, who can eat 120 pounds of ground elk?

When he shot his cow we bought a chest freezer to store it in. There are some garden veggies in there too, but not many. We managed to fit a little more than half of the bull in there. My fridge is full of raw meat, the kitchen freezer is full and there's still another 10 or 15 pounds out on the front porch in a cooler.
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Not to mention the fact that we actually have to grind all this hamburger meat before it can be used as hamburger. Right now it's just hunks of tough muscles, scraps, and rib meat. That'll be a days long job if I end up doing it alone. I'd employ the help of my husband on his next days off, but... ahem... he'll be hunting again.

I'm not complaining. I feel doubly blessed. I'm just overwhelmed. This is so much meat!