Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 31, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste

I had a couple of slices of bread mold this week before we got to them. This loaf came out of the freezer with a soggy top which I guess means that it was predestined to mold sooner or later. Fortunately, this was later so that the whole loaf didn't go bad.

This Week's True Food Confessions

It was a good week with all of our meals eaten at home. Let's see, what did we have? Last weekend, Wally introduced us to the whole wheat gnocchi he found at Aldi's and is now quite fond of. The leftover sauce from the gnocchi meal turned into Poor Man's Lasagne in another one. That is when I took a slice of bread (different that the one you see above), a slice of cheese, and then covered those with marinara sauce. Zap for a minute and it's done. And for Ward who wanted a bigger serving, I made a double-decker. Super Easy and pretty tasty. We also had fish, pizza, steak, a spinach quiche and assorted vegetables.

However, the standout of the week was the mac and cheese made in the slow cooker. I was first introduced to this idea by Lois at Living Simply Free. She does it quite often and doesn't measure her ingredients any more. I sort of did the same thing. I read several recipes and then just used what I had on hand. It was very easy and turned out great. We will definitely be doing this again.

I'm not sure why the week was so successful, but leftovers are playing a large roll in everything.
Until next time...

P.S. I forgot to mention that we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast one morning. A friend made the yeast dough for us and I completed the task. Boy, were they a treat. Thanks, friend.

Our Thinker's Courage

Theo was an interesting child. He was always thinking and seemed to be several steps ahead of most people especially his parents. He loved to read. But most of all, he loved to think. To analyze. To take ideas to their logical conclusion. To learn. To think.

But so you don't get the wrong idea, he was also a very active child. Hyperkinetic was the word one doctor used for him. He loved to experiment. That might mean cracking a dozen eggs on the floor at age two to see how they would blend with a pot of chili or filling his room with an entire spider web of yarn. That might also mean taking his toys apart to see how they worked but never putting them back together. Why bother, he told me many years later. He had already seen what was inside and didn't need to know anymore. And he never slept. Most people agreed. He was amazing and also a handful. Most people would have rather heard stories about him than try to keep up with him.

As I said, Theo was an interesting child. Everyone, parents, grandparents,and teachers had great plans for him. He would go to college, get at least a doctorate degree and come up with some great invention or business. The sky was the limit.

So he started college. He changed majors a few times and settled on Financial Economics. That was a topic far from my interests, but he and Ward would have great debates on the merits of different economic policies on the financial health of the world. Some classes interested him and some didn't. So college went along and had it's ups and downs. However, everyone still agreed that he was a great thinker. That was why we were shocked when he came to us in his final year of college and said that he was dropping out to become a clock and watch maker.

We had the typical parental reaction. A what? What are you thinking? Just finish the degree and then you can do something else. I was thinking about the plans everyone secretly had for him. Our thinker wants to work with his hands? Maybe Wally who was always tinkering and building things, but not Theo who rarely built things. But our thinker had thought it through. This was not a whim. For a while, he hadn't liked college or his major and when he started to interview for jobs, he knew that was it. He would not be happy in his field.

So our thinker thought about what kind of job he wanted. What kind of working conditions he desired. How much money he wanted to make and what kind of lifestyle he wanted to live. Then he researched to find a job that would satisfy those needs that there would always be a demand for. And he came up with clock and watch repair. He told us about his plans the day before he had an interview at the clock school. He started a week later and has never looked back. This all happened a year ago and he has totally embraced his new profession and is happier than he's ever been.

So I could say a lot of things here about following your passion or marching to the beat of your own drummer. But mostly I want to say that I admire my son for the courage he had to change the course of his life despite the unknowns. I also admire him for listening to what he really wanted and needed and not to what others wanted for him. Those are things I don't do easily. I hope that I can remember Theo's example then and again and make my life fit better who I really am.

Is change hard for you or are you excited when you try something different?

A Second Look--January 28, 2014

We continue to have cold winter weather (and yes, I do need the "cold" modifier for "winter". It's colder than normal this year.) but the critters are still out and about. The juncos provided entertainment around the bird feeder with large numbers of them hopping and flitting around on the ground and in the air. For variety, a few other birds like cardinals, titmouses, wrens, and nuthatches frequented the feeders also. And to break things up, a squirrel dashed by then and again.

I hadn't been to the "lower forty" for a couple of weeks, so I bundled up and took a walk around to see what I could see. The ground was covered with crunchy snow that wasn't too deep anymore. The crunch of the snow was almost as satisfying as the crunch of the fall leaves. And to be honest, I didn't see too much because I didn't spend much time looking. I spent more time paying attention to the cold and the wind than I did other things. However, there was a standout among everything else--deer tracks. They were everywhere. I know we have deer in the area, but I didn't realize how much they traverse every part of the yard until I saw their tracks.

Some things I saw this week during my Second Look.

Although we haven't had much snow this last week, we haven't had much sunshine either.

The deer tracks pretty much crisscrossed the entire backyard.

The cows were closer together than normal. I assume to keep warm.

Dark-eyed Junco

Female Cardinal and Junco

Tufted Titmouse

Female Downy Woodpecker

Visionary Arts

Do you ever have one of those times when you just want to get out of the house and do something different? Ward and I had one of those days this weekend. We needed a change of scenery, so on a whim, we visited the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore, MD. We had visited this museum a couple of times before and it is a favorite of ours.

Before my first visit, I didn't really understand what visionary art was. At first glance, it looked a little like folk art. But on second glance, was it something far different. Folk art is passed down from person to person, but visionary art comes totally from within the artist. It is more about the process of making the piece than about the finished product, and it comes from an emotional level. The artist usually has no formal training and often comes to creating their art later in life. At this point they have lived enough that they are less concerned about what people think and more concerned about their creation.

Whatever it is, I like it. The artists ranged from people who spent their life in mental institutions to a plantation child. There were paintings, sculptures, and mechanical pieces. Much of it was whimsical and some of it was disturbing.  As you can tell, it is really hard to categorize.

 The interesting thing for me on this trip was how I came alive in the OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) room. The artists in this room worked with very small detailed pieces (large match stick sculptures or lots of tiny dots). There was also a lot of symmetry in their pieces. I knew that I liked detail and symmetry, but I didn't realize how much. Ward's favorite part were the wooden moving toys. And much as we don't want to admit it, we both enjoy the section on flatulence.

A visit to the Visionary Arts Museum always gives me a new outlook on life. I look at things with a new found appreciation for their creation. And I always think that I want to create a visionary art room in my house. Everything has a story, I want to tell some of mine. Who knows? Maybe someday I will do just that.

Unfortunately, as with most museums, we couldn't take any pictures inside. I did snap a few on the outside while bracing against the cold wind. You can see a few of them below.

Thankful Sunday--January 26, 2014

I am thankful for warmer temperatures.

After several days of single digit temperatures along with snow and ice, we warmed up to freezing yesterday.  With the record breaking cold temperatures we have been having along with most of the rest of the US, this was a welcome change. For this I am thankful.

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. (Thanks to Jo from Simply Being Mum for sponsoring FWF this week.)

This Week's Food Waste

Hamburger, carrots, bread

Between being called out of town unexpectedly and then being sick, I gave the refrigerator a good clean out. Unfortunately, several things went bad in my absence. After this clean out, so far, we've been able to keep up. I hope this continues, but things are still a little crazy here.

This Week's True Food Confessions

The True Food Confession this week is that cooking at home hasn't been a priority. When push comes to shove, which it has around here recently, cooking goes far down on the list of what's important. However, even with that, we did manage to fix a few things that provided us with good leftovers to have other times. We fixed a spinach pie, pasta salad, and sloppy joes. These were supplemented with green salads, cottage cheese, and frozen bean burritos. We also had sandwiches from Subway and a family meal out at a deli. We have good ingredients in the house for more cooking and ideas that I want to try. Maybe this next week I will get to some of them. I hope so.

Winter Fun--Do try this at home.

Here in the East, we have had a day of snow with more falling. Many businesses have been closed as well as all of the schools. While I was looking for gloves to wear for the shoveling, I remembered a science project Theo did when he was ten.

It was one he thought up on his own and it was just right for a boy his age. His question was, "Which gloves will stay dry for the longest time while playing in the snow?" He conducted his experiment by gathering up all of the gloves in the house and making snowballs with them until his hands got wet. He used gloves made from seven different materials. The worst pair got wet after 16 snowballs and the best pair got wet after 90+ snowballs. (He stopped counting after 90.) See if you can guess which pair performed the best and which pair performed the worst.

He had gloves made from:

Deerskin
Deerskin with knit lining
Polar fleece with no lining
Polar fleece with polyester lining
Acrylic gray knit
Acrylic brown knit
Acrylic knit with leather grip

He thought the leather gloves would perform the best, but they turned out to get wet the fastest. The acrylic knit gloves did the best even though they were thinner than the polar fleece. The polar fleece were about half-way in-between the leather and acrylic knit gloves.

Now while this experiment and its results were interesting, that was not the best part according to Theo. The best part was the snowball fight he had at the end with his brother. I do encourage you to try this at home.

Today...

Today, I'm going to eat some fudge.

At Christmas time I made fudge and put the leftovers into the freezer. Today, I am going to retrieve it and have a special treat. It's good to indulge yourself then and again. Sometimes I forget that.

Thankful Sunday--January 19, 2014

I am thankful for the calmness of my cats.

When things get hectic, there's nothing like a purring cat on your lap to slow everything down. I am thankful that I have four of them so there is always one available for a little calmness when I need it.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 17, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste and True Food Confessions

This past week I was unexpectedly called out of town to be with my mother in the hospital. Consequently, eating and food waste from my refrigerator were off my radar. But yet, food played very much into my week. As is often the case, it was a bonding element among those of us who were spending many long hours in a difficult situation.

Image from food.com

In the beginning of our stay, my sister and I soon got to recognize familiar faces and nodded in recognition. Next, as we were taking a few minutes in the lounge, we had brief discussions about the weather. However, the conversation soon evolved into something that everyone was interested in and something that took our minds off more serious matters--the cafeteria and its food.


Most everyone wanted to know how to get there. Directions were not as easy as they could have been because two of the elevators were broken. This caused lots of silly jokes like how you had to start calling the elevator for lunch as soon as you finished breakfast. Next item for discussion was what was on the menu for the day and what everyone had tried. Roast beef and hot dogs were favorites. (Familiar comfort food played a lot into these choices.)

And the hotdogs bring me to one of the better parts of this difficult experience--getting to meet Hotdog Man. We first met Hotdog Man when he asked where the cafeteria was. This was later followed with a discussion of what he had for lunch which was a hotdog in a square bun. He was none too fond of of this square bun and debating the pros and cons of square vs. round buns led us to more personal discussions. He was 78 and was at the hospital with his wife who had fallen and broken her back. He had seven kids and lots of grandkids. He used to be a coal miner and a truck driver among other things and had a botched hernia operation. We smiled every time we saw each other and chatted like we were old friends. Despite our friendliness, we never got to know Hotdog Man's real name. It's funny how we were so close in many ways, but real names didn't seem necessary. I already miss his smile and have been pondering a question, "If we called him Hotdog Man, I wonder what he called us?"

Life Happens

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." 

This saying was never so true as it has been for me recently. During the last couple of weeks, I have made two trips to the emergency room with two different family members. One was close by and one was several hours away. Subsequently, there was also a lot of time spent in a hospital. Both people are making forward progress, but it will be a long slow road. 

These events have brought a lot of things into focus, the most important being how lucky I am to have supportive family and friends. Also, it reminded me how very grateful I am for the people who have chosen the medical profession as their calling. It is not a job I could do. God Bless all of you.

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 10, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. (Thanks to Jo from Simply Being Mum for sponsoring FWF this week.)

This Week's Food Waste

None

We saved an orange this week that was just starting to get a bad place in it. Otherwise things looked pretty good.

This Week's True Food Confessions

I think because we were still reeling from an overabundance of Christmas chocolate, we were motivated to eat reasonably well at home this week. The main features were a roasted chicken and potatoes. To go with the first night of the roasted chicken, we had roasted potatoes and cauliflower. The cauliflower was delicious but the potatoes did not roast so well. We used potatoes I had frozen by the blanching method and the texture was not very good. From the next batch of frozen potatoes, I will try simple boiling and mashing. They should turn out better that way. 

Another night we had baked potatoes from Idaho potatoes that need to be cooked. They were topped with chopped chicken, cheese, and sour cream. Yet another night we had chicken sandwiches and chicken burritos topped with various things including hummus, lettuce, and pepper jack cheese. And guess what, we also had baked potatoes and chicken legs with steamed carrots and apple slices another time. I think that about does it for the chicken and potato combos. I have had many green salads with cottage cheese and believe it or not, among all of the chicken dinners, we had time for one night of fish and and a couple of meals of chili which Miss Landers brought to us. 

A banner week for us, and surprisingly, I didn't feel overwhelmed by putting it all together. I have great skills for planning and cooking, but I don't have the enthusiasm or always have the ability to overcome certain emotional blocks to getting it done. However, one week at a time. Hope next week works as well.

A Second Look--Jan. 8, 2014

It's been a few weeks since I have been to the "back forty" or the lower part of the yard, so I decided it was a time to take a look. I don't want to get out of the habit of taking Second Looks around my yard through all parts of the year. There really is something very refreshing about seeing the changes that take place.

We have had rain, snow, ice, and subzero temperatures over the last week or so. Despite the bad weather, the critters have still been out and about. We spotted a pileated woodpecker this week as well as our old faithfuls of the red-bellied and downy woodpeckers. The deer are ever present and the squirrels are occasionally scurrying about. It seems as if bone season could be starting again like it did last winter. I found a groundhog skull, but it was too cold to do much looking for others.

Here are a few things I saw this week during my Second Look.

Even though we have had a lot of cold weather and snow, a few pansy blossoms are still hanging on. The snow had just melted from around this one.

The skies have been mostly dark this week, but a little sun still managed to peak through the clouds and light up this tree.

Woodpeckers--Pileated on the left, Red-bellied on the top and Downy on the bottom.

Part of a skull--a groundhog, I think.

No snow this day, so a good day for grazing.

We usually only see one or two cardinals, but this week we saw a flock of them pass through.

This squirrel had just had a treat from a suet cake.

We hadn't seen doves for a few months, but we also saw a flock of them this week.

The skies weren't always cloudy. We had a clear night this night.

Data Collecters Wanted

or Dog Owners Needed

I know there are many of you out there who are as interested as I am in experimenting and collecting data for scientific purposes. You may remember my ill-fated egg frying experiments, my potato chip size to bag comparisons, and the M &M taste test that is still getting off the ground. Well, I've heard about a new study that I would love to try to replicate if I only had a dog. But alas, I only have cats. So I'm hoping that some of you with dogs will collect data and report back so we can hear if your results agree with the findings of the study.

Miss Lander's dog that I may have to borrow.

The study I am referring to came out in the December 2013 journal of Frontiers in Zoology. It stated that for two years, German and Czech researchers watched a group of 70 dogs of various breeds poop* 1893 times and pee** 5589 times. What they discovered from their observations was that when there was a calm magnetic field (no sunspot flareups, etc.), the dogs preferred to poop with their body aligned in a north-south direction. At this point, the researchers don't know why, but they're pretty excited because this is the first time that they have actually seen that the earth's magnetic field affects a mammal other than for navigation.

Now if you're going try to do this experiment to be published in a peer-reviewed journal or for a grade in school, there are several things you should take into consideration like the daily activity of the magnetic field and whether or not your dog is on a leash.*** And to make your results meaningful, you should use circular statistics to norm this activity with your observations. But just for fun, you can just get a GPS/compass (or use the sun and moss on trees) to figure out which way is north and start paying attention when you're walking your dogs.

So who's going to start collecting data? Or have some of you already observed something like this in your dog's behavior already? I may have to borrow a dog. :)

*in the biology world known as defecate

**in the biology world known as urinate
***dogs on a leash didn't exhibit the N-S alignment

A little more:

Although I read a couple of news releases and the provisional abstract of the article in Frontiers in Zoology, the complete article was not yet available online. So I was left with many unanswered questions like:

Where'd they get the dogs and did they depend on owner reporting or was there carefully measured, unbiased observation?

What happened when the dogs peed? Any directional preference?

What was the actual statistical confidence in their numbers?

Was there any correlation in size of dog to the amount of magnetic field disturbance it took before it affected the pooping behavior?

Who thought this one up?

Thankful Sunday--January 5, 2013

I am thankful for my stainless steel mixing bowls.

We got a stainless steel set of mixing bowls for a wedding gift many years ago. They are still as good as new, and we use them daily. I was thankful for them when I got them, and I am even more thankful for them now.

Do you have something simple like my mixing bowls that is invaluable to you in the kitchen?

Boys vs. Girls--grocery store carts

Before I had kids, I thought that each child was an individual, and didn't believe much in gender stereotypes in children. Little boys ran and jumped a lot because that's the kind of games they were taught. Little girls played with dolls because that was the kind of toys they were given. I thought that if all kids, regardless of gender, were exposed to the same things, they would have the same tendencies. Then I spent some time in the real world of kids and figured out that I was wrong. Possibly there were some differences between boys and girls. From time to time, I'm going to share some of my experiences that led me to this conclusion. However, so as to not bias you, I'm going to let you guess, who are the boys in the stories and who are the girls. 


Grocery Shopping

Recently, I observed two different scenes of mothers in the grocery store with young children riding in the front of a cart. 

The first one had a child in the seat who said they wanted out, and then they simply wiggled out of the cart and onto the floor. The child proceeded to hop around happily. 

The second encounter involved a child yelling, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck." The mother said, "You're not stuck. You're strapped in." The child looked upset, but didn't get out of the cart.

Who do you think was the boy and who do you think was the girl?

___________________________________________________________________________________

The boy was the one who got out of the cart and the girl was the one who stayed in. You can draw you own conclusions about whether gender or individual personalities was the bigger influence on the behavior of these two kids.

No Spend/Low Spend/Fiscal Fast

"A penny saved, is a penny earned."

Those of you who are out there in the frugal blog world are probably very familiar with these terms and have maybe participated in them at one time or another. And for those of you who aren't hanging out in the frugal blog world, these terms mean just what they sound like--ways to take short term or long term breaks from spending money to further savings goals.

This month I'm going to participate with Carla at 1/2 Dozen Daily in her month long No-Low Spend Challenge in January. During this time, Carla challenges you to figure out your necessities (such as rent, utilities, and basic food) and not to buy anything else. I'm looking forward to seeing where this challenge leads my family. Even though we look at the numbers and were doing OK, I'm still uncomfortable with some of our spending. Any extra money we realize in the end from this challenge will go to an elderly charity I'm fond of.

First my goals and personal rules for the challenge. We hope to cut out any extra spending of non essentials. For us, this will mostly mean watching our food budget and entertainment. It might also mean something like I've been needing some new jeans for a while, but I won't buy them this month. However, I will make an exception if I see a really good price on something that we have been thinking about buying for a while. Also, as deference to my family, I will not be posting many actual budget numbers. However, for those of you who do this, I find the details very interesting and often inspiring.

So how are we doing out-of-the gate on this challenge? My husband is on-board and my son who is away at college wants to participate also. However, I keep getting new ideas of how we should implement the plan, and I need to learn to control this. Every time I come up with a new rule, they say it's stricter than before and that's not what they agreed to. I sometimes tend to get carried away with things. :)

What about our actual spending? Have we been able to keep our goals for the first three days? Well not exactly, but we all know that flexibility is required in some circumstances. It's a long story, but the last couple of days, we have had to be out of the house for long hours without a lot of prep. This has resulted in a drive through meal, that under normal circumstances, wouldn't be allowed. In the meantime, if you want to join-in in your own no-spend month, we'd be glad to have you.