Thursday, June 21, 2007

Food to pack to go away for three glorious days and two fabulous nights

Here's my list for our trip to Cousin Henry's bar mitzvah in NJ:

SCD things that everyone can eat:
--eggplant parm
--panfriend artichokes
--hard boiled eggs
--israeli salad
--tomato and cheese salad (dice tomato and cheddar cheese. Top with dried basil, olive oil and sal and pepper)
--cheddar cheese "crackers" (see one of my earliest posts, if so desired)
--mini mushroom quiches made in muffin tins (this is supposed to make it "lunch like" and possible to eat in the car. Yeah, right....
--grape juice
--fruit, carrots, salad
--apple crisp (apples, butter, noey, ginger and cinnamon)
--cheeses

SCD things with nuts (i.e. not for PB, Ilana or me [b/c I'm nursing a child who could also have a nut allergy]):
--peanut butter muffins
--Lara bars
--mandel bread made with almond flour and honey
--plain peanut butter, esp. for on apples or straight-up, mixed with honey

Non-SCD things (i.e. not for Chana):
--breakfast bars from Trader Joe's
--matza

Umm, can I just say, " WE'RE GONNA STARVE!!!!!!!"

Off to continue cooking.....

Monday, June 18, 2007

Monday (during which I lose our pets....)

As I was feeding Fred and George, our parakeets, I had the decidely less-than-brilliant idea to take their cage outside to dump the shmutz at the bottom of the cage. There is a slideout tray I clean several times a week, but the tray below that doesn't get done much, and it really needed it.

I went out on the porch, took the top cage part off and put it down on the porch, thus, I thought, keeping Fred and George in the cage. They were so happy out in the beautiful weather--chirping up a storm....

PB came out and asked if we could let them out for a little bit. I was leaning over the edge of the porch cleaning the cage bottom as I explained that they weren't cut out for "outside" life, and we must leave them in the cage. Then she asked why the door to the cage was open....

I turned around, saw that she was right, and tried to shut the door. I was so close I didn't even need to move my feet to reach the cage, but just as I leaned over, Fred and George literally flew the coop.

"Come back!" I yelled. "All is forgiven". "Come back, Amelia Bedelia". "Nooooo! Fred! George! Please come back!!!!!!!" Nothing worked.

They did look beautiful, flying down Vista St, heading for Boston. Or maybe someplace warmer.

We left the newly-cleaned cage outside with the door open (the door which doesn't stay shut well when off the base of the cage. Wish I had remembered that this morning), and extra food, water and treats nearby, just in case they're still local and want to come home. Sniff....When the kids went biking around the pond later, we looked for them in vain.

I just walked past the cage covering and thought, "I should put them to bed. It's really late", before I remembered. I can't believe I'm having a grief reaction over birds (well, it's a *little* reaction, but still....).

Our plan now is to give Fred and George a few days to come home, and then get new parakeets next week, since we're going to Sam's nephew's bar mitzvah in NJ this weekend, and won't be able to lavish the attention a new pet will need.

Fred and George: thanks for being such great pets. I very much enjoyed hearing your beautiful chirping, and I loved the nice way you went to sleep each night (throw cloth over cage. walk away. no "I need to do Shema". no "I need a drink of water".....). Bon voyage. I wish you good birdie lives. And, should you so choose, remember that there will always be a home for you on Vista St.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

A.C. Moore (or maybe not)

What an odd evening! It started when I took Chana, PB and Ilana to the craft-supply store after we dropped Batsheva and Leah off at karate. There were a few things on sale I wanted to buy, especially t-shirts and transfer paper so that I could make us "4 Sisters Soaps" t-shirts. I found most of the things I was looking for, but none of the t-shirt supplies seemed to be on sale. Before checking out, I asked to see the sale circular, and was told that there wasn't one this week. I pulled my 40% off coupon out of my pocket and read the date on it. Valid! Then I noticed it was for A.C. Moore and we were in Michael's (still transferable, btw). This explains my grumbling about how I can "never find what's in the circular when I'm in this store". I guess I make this mistake rather a lot.

So we left Michael's with our purchases (sans t-shirt stuff) and I noticed it was 30 minutes past PB's bedtime, and 30 minutes before we needed to pick up the other girls at karate. Hmm....What to do....30 minutes wasn't enough time for me to get home, put PB to bed and get to karate on time for pickup (plus Chana hates being babysitter at night), so I suggested we go to A.C. Moore. The kids were happy to comply ("ooh, let's buy more goodies!").

I drove into a shopping strip mall and looked to where the store was. At least, where *I thought* the store was. The store that's really there is A.J. Wright (mild dyslexia regarding stores with two initials in them. Probably not a reimbursable condition from Blue Cross....)

I thought a minute and decided it must be in the THIRD mall that's within two miles of my house (have I mentioned I love my location? We live across the street from a beautiful 25-acre pond with tons of birds and wildlife, yet only two miles from every store you could want [as long as you can remember which one is where!).

We did, finally, find A.C. Moore and get t-shirt stuff. But I'm much too tired to try to actually do anything with what we purchased!

Friday, June 08, 2007

Redoing soaps. Again. And again....


We have an order for 50 gymnastics soaps for an end-of-year banquet. This is a double-pour soap. First we make a white, lightly-opaque layer, then finish the back of the soap with pink (the soap is of a gymnast on a balance beam).

On some molds (mostly the silicone ones), doing a double- or triple-pour is easy. The layers stick together beautifully and look great. This mold only comes in plastic, which I don't like to work with b/c it's very temperamental. So it's hard to get the layers to totally stick together, despite using soap-making tricks like spritzing each layer with alcohol before pouring the next one. With this mold, I have to pay attention and try to get the second pour when the first layer is not so hard they don't meld at all, but not so soft that the heat from the second layer causes a rupture in the first (that just happened to a set I made this morning, and it was an amusing soap--looked like the girl on the beam had fallen and gotten a HUGE boo-boo on her tush).

So, with this order, I have spent a fair bit of time ripping layers apart and remelting. My favorite redo happened b/c I found a feather from our two parakeets in an otherwise-perfect soap.

Which reminds me that I need to go pour the second layer....

One Year on the SC Diet



Look at that cutie! SO strong.

Able to resist birthday cake and cold cereal with milk.

Able to overcome urges for cookies and pasta.

Able to find the good in this difficult diet.

Able to make grain-free, sugar-free, mandel bread (with Uncle Frank's help) that tastes so good that *everyone* wants to eat it.

Able to make it through blood draws, medical procedures, general anesthesia, and hospitalization.

Able to make it through prednisone's totally nasty side-effects.

Able to keep up with karate through it all and be on track to be a black belt before her bat mitzvah.

Able to keep up with gymnastics prep team practice so that she's on track to join the official team in the Fall.

Able to be a great daughter, sister and friend.

Way to go, Chana. Enjoy your pierced ears! (And, no, you are not getting a laptop for staying on the diet for two years....)

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Motherwear

Last Wednesday, I got an email from Motherwear (the best company for nursing mom clothes) proclaiming their once-a-year tent sale on Friday and Saturday in Northampton, two hours from here. EEEK!

Rhona encouraged me to go (actually, it was more like shame--she told me SHE'D surely have gone if she "only" lived two hours away). I was undecided. Finally, after my sister offered to watch PB in the early morning until my mom could pick her up, I decided to DO IT!

In an act of supremely-un-"me"-like "togetherness", I got everyone up and out of our house and Chana, Ilana and I were on the road at 7 am! This entailed sending all the kids to bed mostly dressed (leggings on, skirt out on bed), packing lunch the night before, printing directions, etc, etc....

I am so glad I went. I had been bemoaning the really horrendous state of my wardrobe. Like how many of my nursing clothes were from when Batsheva and Chana were born (you can just imagine). While I don't need to look so fabulous during my day, I don't need to look like I need spare change either.

So the sale was just wonderful. They advertised that nothing was over $15, but I only bought a few things that were even $10. I got something like 4 short-sleeve shirts, 7 long-sleeve, 3 dressy and one sweater! Chana and I played "personal shopper" for Rhona, and I bought a lot of new-in-package basic long-sleeve t-shirts to give as baby gifts, too.

I even managed to take the kids to the library as well as light Shabbat candles on time! The only major OOOPSIE I had was forgetting to leave PB's car seat for my mom. I didn't even realize until we were 30 minutes away. DOH! Bless my mom, when SHE realized what had happened, she went to Target and, for less than $20, bought another booster seat. Whew! Way to go, Rho!

Some days, it really does all (mostly) come together :).,

Mazal tov!

To Janet and Mark on the birth of a baby boy on Sunday, 6/3.

Do you think people who tell you of their baby's birth have ANY idea of how happy they make a person? Does Janet know that now, 5 days later, I still get a big smile on my face thinking about their newly-expanded family?

Such a bracha....

Going for 100!

Wow! Busy month for the soap company! Between birthdays, babies and end-of-year gatherings, we have orders for over 100 soaps!

Can't write any more now. Gotta go make soap....

Batsheva's Play



"What shall we buy, what present shall we bring?" was her big line that we all keep walking around singing. The play was very cute and nicely done (aside from the oddness of watching three grades of girls perform a play that was exclusively about men [Kings David and Shaul]). The townspeople (of which Batsheva was one) got to wear skirts and copious amounts of green eye shadow.

A good time was had by all!

The Groovy Mobile :)