Who needs building plans?

The chicken coop plans that I spent a good hour on, carefully drawing and measuring, have been scrapped. The early dark (thanks, time change) and the rainy cold weather have been a big deterrent in getting the coop built this last week. But I had a backup plan, and by the looks of it, it should have been our plan in the first place.

This is the kids' clubhouse:

(This picture was taken last winter, no actual snow around here yet. The apparent tilt is the result of the camera-operator - likely me.)

When the clubhouse was new, it was a place for reading, a lookout, an advantage spot in a water gun fight, and a place to keep the toy kitchen and all the bazillions of dishes and plastic food. In the last year, it's become an ignored and empty waste of space. The kids still climb up in there, but now it's just to sit and chat for a few minutes, or stop off on the way further up the tree.

So really the only thing making the difference between a clubhouse and a chicken coop are a door and some insulating. I'll post more pictures of those, the fence, etc. as we go.

Food and income...

A good while back, there was a big buzz around the messageboards I was frequenting and all over the internet about the Food Stamp Challenge. Even members of Congress have taken on the challenge, painstakingly planning and shopping for meals that will fit into their "food stamp budget". I've seen this done two ways; basing your monthly shopping on the maximum allowable food stamp benefit per household ($698/month for my family of 5), or a baseline $21 per family member per week (about $420/month for my family). Way back when we were on welfare and food stamps, our monthly food stamp benefit was about $540.

I was never quite sure if the idea was to shine a light on how very little the poor folks have to eat on, to make those in higher income brackets feel humbled and thankful, or to simply make people feel better about themselves. Whatever the reason, for most people, meeting the monthly food stamp goal seemed to be damn near to impossible. I am honestly extremely confused by the difficulty. We got food stamps for a little over three months, and had so much leftover money on our food stamp card that we used it for another two months after we stopped receiving benefits. I can't even imagine how long we could have gone on the maximum allowable amount. My normal grocery store budget per week is about $100 - and this is counting the extras you get at the grocery store, like shampoo and toilet paper. Sometimes I go a couple of dollars over, but well within the $21/week guidelines. If I didn't count the non-food items, our average monthly food expense is about $350.

I've seen and heard people complain while doing the food stamp challenge, that they had to stop buying the fun foods - prepackaged snacks, chips, soda, etc. When we were on food stamps, we always had those things. People mention giving up "good meat" and switching to low quality hamburger and pork. When we were on food stamps, we ate a few steaks and good quality roasts, and on Vic's birthday we even got a live lobster (!!!). I had to eventually just stop visiting the messageboards and other forums where people discussed this challenge, because I seriously wanted to ask, "What the fuck are you people eating?? Caviar??" To their credit, there were several people who were starting to figure out it wasn't so hard to live on that amount of money for food, but they still seemed to be missing the point.

Sometime last week I was discussing this with a friend, and I mentioned that I felt the Upper Middle and above to just be clueless about food and expenses in poorer households. "Of course they are," she said, "They're getting the wrong picture. They're only hearing about the maximum benefit." The maximum allowable food stamp benefit is based on absolutely NO income, and figuring in things like medical expenses caused by disability. The more money you earn, the less your food stamp benefit. According to this chart, the maximum monthly income for a family of 5 to qualify for ANY benefit is $2687, and that's only with other expenses figured in. Even then, you might only qualify for $40 per month in food stamps. In order to qualify for a food stamp benefit large enough to pay for all your food, even when you're super-thrifty, you'd have to have a much smaller income. The income requirements are a little higher for medical benefits, but only for the children in the home - the adults can apparently do without.

And that's the heart of the problem. Those on welfare and the maximum food stamp benefit are not really struggling. With no income, you can qualify for all kinds of things: housing assistance, food stamps, medical coverage, child care expenses, transportation, even education and job placement services. But the more money you make, the less help you qualify for. "The REAL challenge," said my friend, "Would be to see if they could live on just enough income not to qualify for anything. That's where the majority of 'poor' people are. They HAVE jobs and child care and housing, and can barely afford to eat. That's the working poor."

What if your total family income was just over the required amount to qualify for aid? What if you.. I dunno.. homeschooled or something (or were a single mother whose loser ex won't pay child support, or whatever), and had only one working parent in your 5-person household? What if you had to live on $2600 a month (gross, not net), with no disabilities or other deductions - too much to qualify for food stamps, housing assistance, or medical insurance? Could you pay your rent or mortgage? Property taxes or homeowners insurance? Could you buy health insurance for your entire family? Car insurance (required in most states), and/or a car payment? Clothing for your growing children? School expenses? Child care costs for the single parent? Put gas in your car to get to work, and eat lunch while you were there? Keep your lights and heat on? What about all the conveniences you're used to, like cell phones and internet access? And don't forget the unplanned expenses, like replacing a broken washing machine or a car repair, maybe a parking ticket or two. Could you eat on what was left? If something must be cut out in order to afford food, which necessity is the least necessary, or would make the most difference when it's eliminated? Do some quick figuring of monthly expenses for the average household, and you'll start getting a clearer picture of poverty than any $21 per week food budget could give you. Then it begins to make sense why there are so many people in this country without health insurance - the *possibility* of getting sick is much less than the *inevitability* of hunger.

For more information on struggling families and food benefits:
One Dollar Diet Project
Feeding America
St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance

On cutting your budget and managing less income:
Miserly Moms
Living on Less
The Dollar Stretcher

Love and Hate...

You know how when you have a ferret (a beautiful ferret named Daisy, because we didn't like Sally), and you let her out to explore in the morning, and she climbs the couch and over the bookshelves and across the table to the plants to dig and throw dirt all over the place, and then you have to give her a bath where she completely freaks out, and then after you've fought the terrified creature through towel-drying, while you're draining and washing the fur out of the tub, she's back in the livingroom in the plant again? I hate that.

But that part where you're frustrated because you've bathed the ferret (Daisy, not Sally) twice, and found out that she can climb the gate you put up in the kitchen doorway and get into the dreaded under-the-sink, and she's spilled the bathroom garbage can, and you found a stash of sticky twizzlers that she's stolen and piled up in your bedroom doorway for your bare feet to step on, and you say to the ferret, "You are so naughty!".. and then your five year old says, "Mama, she's not naughty. She's a ferret. It's her nature. That's what makes her special." Well that part, I really love.

And you know how you finally get a day at the salon, when you haven't had your hair done in an honest-to-goodness salon in forever -like, years- and you find this trendy awesome place, and the hairdresser is super nice and instinctively knows exactly what will look good on you and fit your personality, and you leave looking like a supermodel? I SO love that.

Then, after spending money on expensive shampoo and something called "hair wax" at the salon and buying some more hair stuff here and there until you're afraid if you confess how much money went into your hair your husband may divorce you, you find out you can't recreate that supermodel look at home. And that blows.

And you know how Mother Nature seems to be holding a serious grudge and dumps rain on you for weeks and weeks, with a few sunny days scattered in between just long enough to clean up the yard from the last destructive storm, and you can't even burn the ever-growing brush pile because it Won't Stop Fucking Raining?? And how you're up half the night because the tornado sirens in every nearby town are roaring away, and you sit listening to the boring news guy for hours in case you need to wake everyone and hide in an "interior room without windows".. for like three nights in a row? I really, really hate that.

But then the storms stop - or actually just fade and fade until they're gone - and everything is completely still, and the flowers in the yard hang their heads with the weight of the water, and lights from the city look pink and gray in the sky, and the only sound you hear is the drip drip dripping of water from some nearby tree, and the smell of the rainwater on the thick green trees and summer flowers is just intoxicating. And then you start thinking the Deep Thoughts about rebirth and cycles of nature and human potential and the wonders of the universe and just how utterly beautiful the whole world is. I think that's about one of the best things ever.

Keeping busy in the winter...

The winter months are perfect for projects. Sure, you can go outside, but the time spent out there is significantly less, and the stuff you can do out there is pretty limited. Walks, building snow structures and sledding. And all of them are cold. I've been busily organizing things. The dreaded pan cupboard. The bookshelves. Tax records (ha!). Dresser drawers. When I'm not organizing like a crank addict with OCD, I knit and sew, read and cook. I'm busy.

The kids, however, are going insane. Up until last week or so, they were filling their days with arguments, inappropriate indoor behavior (water balloons, slingshots and roller-skating, to name a few), and slowly driving me insane with tattling. But something happened last week, when they suddenly realized they could be doing projects. Useful projects, like knitted potholders and decorated candles. Decorative projects like wall hangings and cross-stitch. A literally endless supply of projects to keep a person busy for an endless number of winters.

First, Cadence decided she'd draw pictures of all the planets to put up on her bedroom walls. She started with Saturn because, "It's the coolest planet. Besides Earth I mean." She asked how many moons Saturn has, and Vic told her Saturn has more than sixty. Here's how it turned out:

By my count, there's only 59 in this picture, but close enough I think.

Next, I showed them how to make what my Girl Scout leader called a God's Eye. Riley surprised me by catching on to the technique very quickly:Chad is experimenting with different wrapping arrangements, but hasn't been satisfied enough with anything to allow me to photograph it.

Then, they all made Dream Catchers. After a few failed attempts using regular sticks from the yard, Chad thought of using grape vine, which we happen to have an abundance of, since after the vine has been cut, torn up by the roots and even burnt repeatedly, just Will Not Die. Throw in some beads and chicken feathers, and you've got yourself a pretty awesome dream catcher to hang over the bed:Riley's (She's four, you know).

Cadence's.

And Chad's. He helped the girls with theirs, but was sure that his was the most elaborate. He later complained that the star was not geometrically perfect, but it must have been good enough to hang over his bed.

As I type, they are all three in Chad's room cutting apart a dowel and making an exercise area in the rat cage. They're happily working together, and I've had an entire afternoon for my own projects and time-wasters. I'm starting to like winter.

Everything Wants to Be Loved...

"...Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?" --The Color Purple


I was thinking today about other's opinions. We all pretend like they don't matter, but to almost everyone, to a varied extent, they do.


When I first discovered internet messageboards, it was like finding the Holy Grail or the Lost Temple of Hercules. It was better than websites, and better than email. You can interact with several others, to whatever degree of intimate details you're comfortable with, and come and go as you please. Unlike websites, you can always comment when you want to. Unlike email, you don't have to wait for days or weeks (or forever) for a response. Blogs followed, which were equally fantastic things. Read people's thoughts; leave comments readily. Awesome.


I felt a sense of friendship that I'd long forgotten. My old high school friends have taken their lives in drastically different directions than me, and we are no longer close. I hadn't made any new friends for a thousand reasons, mostly because I was too busy being a mom and going through the motions of my regular life. Suddenly I had an opportunity, through websites like MatchingMoms and homeschool groups, to actually meet and make friends with others based on common interests - How easy!


Except it wasn't easy. Every homeschool activity with a group I've been invited to, I've been somehow unable to get to. Our car was broken down. Or we had no gas. Or we had no money. Or something. People begin to get the idea I'm purposely avoiding them. I've started several potential friendships that just abruptly stopped. MatchingMoms brought me together with several moms who exchanged only a few emails before ending contact altogether. Messageboards have shown me several people with personalities (as far as one can tell, anyway) that I adored, and who were receptive to written and email exchanges at first. Then, again, abruptly ended. I don't even know why it happens. It just stops. I send another email or letter. Nothing.


I'm seriously wondering what the hell I'm doing to drive people off. What did I say? What did I talk about that may have turned them off? Am I not smart enough? Educated enough? Earthy enough? Am I too pushy or abrasive? Too young? Too old? Too .. what? I started trying to present myself in a more friend-friendly way. But through all my attempts I'm not even sure what that means. Maybe I'm just not outwardly friendly. Not that I'm aggressive or anything, I'm just not a smiling, bubbly, overflowing with friendliness kind of person. And I hate pretending to be. This is why I'm not a waitress.


It's a natural human reaction to get defensive when your feelings are hurt. This is because we care what people think. I'm likely to say, "To hell with them. If I'm somehow not good enough for them, good riddance. I didn't want to be in their pompous little Good Enough Club anyway." Except I do want to be in their club. I do want to be good enough. I get angry so I don't have to feel bad. I'd really like to be able to be completely apathetic about their lack of interest. I don't want to be jealous every time I read someone's posts about having coffee with the friend they made on the internet or about the latest playgroup they attended. I'd like to believe when I "meet" potential friends, we just "didn't click" and leave it at that. But I wonder. And worry. Because I care what people think.


Everyone just wants to be loved. We want to be seen as intelligent, wonderful people. We want to have friends who adore us as much as we adore them. We leave our childhood to go have children of our own, becoming the providers of love for our children. Sometimes leaving behind the reception of love from others. That's why internet messageboards and blogs are so popular. We sing and dance, and blog, just wanting to be loved.

Stephen King, the brain-altering writer...

I have a love/hate relationship with Stephen King novels. He's one of my favorite authors, but sometimes his stories irritate me with their silliness. A hand of God descending from the clouds to wipe out Super Evil Guy? Really? I hated 'Salem's Lot. Vampires, Catholic priests and crosses. Gimme a break. Yet I read it all. Why? Because the way he writes speaks to me. He's not trying to flower up his novels with "sophisticated" vocabulary, he's just writing the damn story. I respect an author that can include a sex scene without using the words "member" or "honeypot." Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series pissed me off with the detailed sex scenes every other page until eventually I just started skipping my way through the books. In King novels, people have sex, then they move on with the story. Characters swear and urinate and speak with thick accents and aren't afraid to toss in a racial slur or two. It's real, and not just some rosy-colored version of real.

I am now reading the seventh and final book in the Dark Tower series. Honestly, the fifth book left me so annoyed I didn't know if I wanted to finish. But I have some kind of read-them-all-in-order book OCD, and if I didn't read the others it would bother me that I hadn't. The sixth was even more annoying. Recycling old characters. Stephen King as a messenger of God, controlling the universe with his keyboard. What a bunch of self-righteous crap. Oh I get it, sure. How do we know our lives are "real"? How do we know there aren't forces beyond our conscious mind doing things we may not even realize? And the references to King Arthur (Mordred, the evil son spawned to kill his father) are clear enough. I'm picking up what he's throwing down. It still annoyed me. And I still kept reading. And to be fair, despite the occasional annoyance caused by too much thinking on my part, I really am enjoying this series.

Now, halfway through the final book, I find myself doing something weird. The characters in The Dark Tower series have unusual mannerisms and phrases that are randomly slipping into my thoughts. I can't tell you how many times I've typed "if it does ya" on this very blog before deleting and changing it to "if you like" or "if you prefer." Maybe you'd say it was because I've been reading so much of it, and maybe you'd say true. But I think it's more than that. I've read lots of books and never picked up phrases like that. I think these particular phrases just feel right. Normal, if you kennit. I think it felt so right and normal to Stephen King that it just may have been one of the reasons to expand on the main character Roland in the fourth book Wizard and Glass by spending the whole novel in a town where everyone talked this way. If that was one of the reasons, I certainly don't blame him.

My friends used to joke that they could always tell when I'd been visiting with relatives from Minnesota because I was pronouncing all my O's funny, but spending time in the south never left me with a drawl. Around my Northern family though, I was comfortable and the accent and "don'tchaknow" just felt normal. I didn't feel like a weirdo talking that way. I'm telling you this because if the phrase, "if it does ya" happens to slip into my posts, it's because I've been brainwashed by the normalcy and comfort of Stephen King. And it doesn't make me feel like a weirdo at all.

Get your exercise when you can...

My exercise routine for today-

Fill one 2 and 1/2 gallon bucket with warm water. Add whatever cleaner you use to mop (if applicable). Allow your kids to wrestle in the kitchen until the entire bucket gets dumped on your kitchen floor.

Spend the next 15 minutes soaking up as much as possible with a sponge mop. Be sure your mop handle is long enough that you don't have to bend over too much and strain your back. This is an excellent cardio/upper body workout.

Grab a clean(ish) bath towel. Toss it on the kitchen floor. Stand on the towel with feet shoulder-length apart. Without lifting your feet, scoot around the kitchen floor, pushing the towel over every part until the floor is dry. This should take about 10 more minutes, and makes for great leg exercise.

If your whole body isn't burning by now, move on to the next exercise:

Get a cat, preferably one that's scared of strangers and still mellow enough that he's not likely to scratch or bite the kids no matter what they do. Invite strange people over and let the kids torture him until he develops a stress-related shedding problem and takes to hiding under the bed.(Boxer, my beautiful but neurotic apricot-point)

Move the bed out and vacuum the same spot of carpet for 15 minutes. Give up on your vacuum and get the broom. Pull broom over carpet in short brisk strokes for about 20 minutes until all the cat hair is out of the carpet.

Repeat monthly for biceps of steel.

Stay tuned for more great home exercise ideas. I'm going to have a Tylenol and a nap.

The Great Black Hunter...

This is Stevie, aka the Great Black Hunter. The GBH. She doesn't look too dangerous eh?

What you don't know is that lounging in this picture on my cozy fluffy blankets, with her half-asleep and contented eyes, is a wild animal. The GBH is no pet. She's assimilated well into our daily routine, doing the things cats tend to do. She sleeps. She eats. She poops. You know, all those cat things. But make no mistake. She's only a tenant in this house.

Back about eight years ago by my guess, a friend brought me a box of kittens she'd found in a barn while checking on her horse. Several adult female cats had been killed around the farm by some wild animal or tomcat and my friend was pretty sure these kittens were orphaned. She was on her way out of town and asked if I could hold onto them until the morning when they could be dropped off at the shelter. The lady at the shelter told me they weren't "taking any more kittens," and couldn't I just keep them? This particular shelter is famous for trying to convince you to keep the animal(s) you found rather than take it to them.

The kittens were only 3 or 4 weeks old, their eyes barely open, at the time. Cat food was not an option. So I bottle fed them. Stevie was the runt, she was sickly and scrawny and refused to take the bottle. I literally force-fed that cat with a syringe. I guess sometimes small kittens cannot urinate until their mother washes them with her tongue, and while the other kittens were doing ok, Stevie couldn't "go" without my help. I washed her with a warm washcloth every hour for the first week until she caught up with her littermates. All in all, I forced her to live, despite her intentions.

We gave the other kittens to relatives or friends, but Stevie stayed with us. It soon became apparent that she was no housecat. Her first few trips outside brought numerous dead rodents to our doorstep. She wouldn't come when you called her. She would bolt away from you if you approached. If you were sitting down, she might find her way into your lap and rub all over you and lick your hands and face, but try to pick her up and you might lose an eye. She had a litter of kittens of her own before we even knew she was in heat (we later had her spayed), and she actually taught her kittens to hunt. She'd bring a mouse or shrew she caught in the yard, still alive, and drop it in front of the kittens. Craziest thing I ever saw from a housecat. But then, she's no housecat. Now she's an expert hunter. When a bird found itself stuck in our fireplace and then our house, the GBH was after it, bouncing off the back of the couch and then the wall before grabbing the bird right out of the air. Le Matrix a la Feline. If there is ever a mouse brave enough to enter my home, all you have to say is, "Stevie, it's a mouse!" and she's after it in a flash. The word "mouse" is the only word she readily responds to.

Last spring, we were alerted when the mother rabbits left their babies to fend for themselves, because the GBH killed and dismembered several on my carpet. Once again, it's Baby Rabbit Season. I rescued a baby from the GBH this afternoon. This time I took it across the road and down the hill before letting it go, since last time she just kept catching them again. Boy I hope that baby rabbit finds a better home over there, because if it comes back here, it's done for.

"Come closer, sweet and furry little bunny rabbit. You can trust me. Oh yes. You can trust me."

My seed order is in...

I just finished ordering seeds from High Mowing Seed Company. I'm excited about trying a new tomato this year and very much looking forward to the awesome lettuce I've become used to through the summer. This is the third year I've ordered from them, and have always been quite satisfied with the number of viable plants and the quality of the produce.

Well, that's not entirely true. Last year I ordered corn and was pissed when the plants only grew about 5ft tall, with about 1-1/2 inch stalks. We had a wonderfully sunny summer, which corn loves. I'd fertilized and adjusted soil pH in my terribly acidic yard. I watered every other day. We got plenty of corn, an average of 2 ears per stalk, and it tasted wonderful, but I was positive it would have been so much better if it had grown properly. When I visited their website to order my seeds this time, I intended to get a different type of corn and read each description carefully.

Turns out I'm just too used to Iowa. Most of the corn we grow here is feed corn for animals or "factory" corn for things like cornmeal, oil, syrup, etc. I was unaware that the corn I got last year was only supposed to get 5ft tall, not 6-7 like the corn around here on a good year. Not all corn grows like Jack's beanstalk and gets a whopping 3 inches thick. Who knew? So I went ahead and ordered the same stuff as last year. It did have great flavor after all.

Chad is a soil hound too, but this time he's getting his plants from Four Seasons Nursery. I'm trying to talk him out of about half his list, since they're trees or bushes and we just don't have the yard space. He's planning on getting a dwarf blueberry bush, supposedly able to live in a pot. I'm really really hoping that's true. I'm not a fan of peppers or onions (or lots of other icky crunchy vegetable-y things), so I only grow boring predictable stuff. This year I'm planting the corn of course, and slicing tomatoes, leaf lettuce, pie pumpkins and basil. I actually have tons of dried basil from two years ago, but I love the smell of flowering basil. It's a wonderful, thick smell but hangs only near the plant, so it doesn't overpower the whole yard. I plant it all along the border of my porch and along the side of the house. I also ordered some flowers for the front yard. Anyone else have a garden? What are you growing this year?

Digital cameras...

I mentioned before that I'm planning to buy a digital camera. I had one picked out, but now I'm starting to wonder if I should be more careful in my choosing. Does it matter how many megapixels it has? Is price just a matter of brand or does it reflect quality? Are there brands I should avoid for some reason? If my new computer is an HP, and the photo software I have is HP, should I get an HP camera too? This is becoming a bigger decision that I would have liked.

I really just want a stupid camera. Is there anything that fits just what I'm looking for?

-I'm not planning to submit anything to National Geographic. I just want to take pictures of my regular life.
-I don't want to email pictures the size of Canada to all my family members (Hello, family members and friends? Do you know how annoying it is to have to scroll down and over just to view pictures of your cat?), but I also don't want the picture quality to entirely suck.
-I don't want to hold the button down for 10 seconds before the camera takes the picture, and some sort of motion-correcting capabilities would be nice.
-I don't need to take thousands of pictures before I empty the memory, but it would be nice if I could take more than 50.
-I don't want to spend more money that I have to, but I also don't want something that will break by the third time I use it.
-I'd rather avoid a camera that requires a bunch of attachments to get the pictures from the camera to the computer, or anywhere else.

Any ideas?

Wildlife in our yard...

If I had that digital camera I'm jonesing for, it would be a lot easier to share pictures of our little world. For now, I'm stuck with scanning pics with my crappy printer/scanner. Bear with me on the photo quality, but I wanted to share our outdoor pets with you.

A few months ago, we spent every morning cleaning garbage up in our front yard because neighborhood animals got into our trash can. Since we couldn't get out right away to buy a garbage can with a lid, we decided to bribe them away from the can with readily available food. We placed a large plastic bowl outside the back door and started filling it with food items we'd normally throw away. Pizza crusts, melon rinds, egg shells, stale bread and crackers, etc. Not only were we helping out some animals that would normally be hard-up for food this time of year, but there was no longer food in our garbage can to tempt them into ripping into the bags. It's all in the bowl.

It took only two nights before the animals found it, and started making a nightly trek to our back door. It's a sliding glass double-door, so we get a fantastic view of the animals when they visit. Vic started putting a bowl of water out for them too. Within a week, we had a pair of opossums and a pair of raccoons visiting nightly. As is traditional for children, mine named our new "pets." The opossums are Hammer and Bob. We have no pictures of either, and they've recently stopped visiting since it's been so cold.

This is the larger raccoon, Scruff (with a nice reflection from the back door glass):



This is the smaller raccoon, Skittish:



Scruff posing for the camera:



This morning we had a new visitor, a squirrel that's missing a large amount of fur on his back. He will henceforth be known as Baldy the Squirrel. Baldy has altered many of my beliefs on squirrel diets by happily munching on rice and french fries. I'm looking forward to this summer and what new animals might find their way into my back yard.

New blog in my blogroll...

Following a lead from COD, I found Two Know It Alls blog.

They're homeschoolers, atheists, and libertarian.

I can already tell they're brilliant.

Dump it in the crockpot...

I love my crockpot. There are lots of folks who think it's cheating to dump stuff in a slow cooker, leave it until evening and call it a home-cooked meal. I figure if I cooked it in my kitchen, it's a home-cooked meal. I'm not too proud to use break and bake cookies. I've used the breadmaker to kneed dough for cinnamon rolls. And the crockpot is my best friend some days.

Tonight we're having chicken-chili tacos. The recipe was just called "Chicken Chili," but my family doesn't go for chili in a bowl. In my house, chili is for topping a burrito or a hot dog. Anyway, here's the recipe:

3-4 large chicken breasts (we use the frozen-in-a-bag kind), cut up into small pieces
2 cans diced tomatoes DRAINED
1 large can or about 2 cups cooked pinto beans
1 packet taco seasoning
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup each of chopped onion, sliced black olives, and green peppers (in my version I use onion powder and omit the rest)
2 Tbs tapioca (dry, from a box)

Dump into crockpot. Stir. Cook 4 hours on low setting. Scoop into flour tortillas, sprinkle with cheese, wrap it all up. Eat.

If you really are looking for chili, you can use petite diced tomatoes instead and add without draining. Super easy. My kind of meal.

Nothing to see here, move along...

Just in case anyone subscribes to my blog, I thought it best to warn you I've been making some changes. I just figured out the labels on blogger beta, and since I had nothing better to do at the moment, I've been going back and adding labels to all my old posts. The new labels will be a huge help to those of you interested in what we're doing for schoolwork but don't care about my measly little life. Or for those of you interested in my goofy obsessions but not our homeschooling. Whatever trips your trigger. However, I just discovered this will list every single post as new on bloglines. I realize suffering through my blog posts is hard enough without having to rehash my mindless blabberings for the last year or so. In any case, disregard all the "new" posts, as they aren't new at all.

I've been avoiding you...

I've been avoiding this blog for a couple of weeks. I do have good reasons. Mostly because I am participating in a winter secret pal gift swap over at TDJ and haven't wanted to give away any info that might link a gift, card or email to me. Then tonight I just remembered that I couldn't really say anything that would effect whether I'm discovered or not. Either she'll figure out it's me or she won't. So I have returned to blog my meaningless ramblings.

This last week or two, I have had so much fun picking gifts for my secret pal. I've spent well over the $15 minimum, but still feel like I don't have quite enough stuff to send to her. I hope she's happy with the few things I've chosen, but if you think it's hard buying for someone in your family, it's even harder buying for someone you don't know at all. I'm just not creative enough to envision someone's personality and choose The Perfect Gift for them, so am sticking to things that she said she likes. I'm sure she'll like it, but I really wanted her to be overjoyed.

And I am waiting with uncontainable impatience for my own gift box to arrive. It's just like being a kid again, not knowing what you're going to get but knowing for sure it's going to be special. I can't even remember the last time I was given a real gift. My mom buys me Christmas and birthday presents, but usually it's something I've been bitching about not having for months, or something completely practical like a jacket or something. When Vic and I exchange gifts, it's usually something practical, and almost always something that really benefits both of us. Even when he bought me the sewing machine, it was still with a promise that he would have mended shirts, soft new bathrobes and lounge pants tailored to fit perfectly. The box I have coming now is filled with things picked specifically for me, based on what someone thinks I will like. Just because. Just for me. Oh I just can't wait!

Template hunt...

I've been on a mission for a while now to replace my blog template. I don't have anything like photoshop to create my own. So I'm stuck with templates someone else created and paint. Ugh. Most templates I find are whole sets that have some aspects I like and some I don't. There are a lot of free templates out there for movie buffs and pc gamers. Lots of cartoony templates that have as much detail as a Microsoft webding. Gobs and gobs of flowery templates that remind me of my grandma's house.

I do know some html; more than the average computer-illiterate person but not nearly as much as an average teenager. There are a lot of computer terms that I don't understand, but I'm not as likely as some to become so intimidated by terminology that I won't even attempt to mess with it. Most of the html I know I learned from close examination and playing around. All that being said, I'm a bit reluctant to mess with the current template too much. I don't like the boxes. I don't like the margins. I'm scared to change them without finding a template that at least sort of matches what I'm looking for so I can get an idea of how to change it.

A few years ago I created a memorial website for my son on Yahoo's PageBuilder, but became so wrapped up in finding new graphics and constantly making changes that I had to leave off for a while. Like a few years or something. Ok, I completely abandoned the project for the risk of going insane. That and I'd prepared this really long story of my son's birth and death, only to have it plagerized on someone else's page. (How low do you have to be, joshsmommy, to steal my very personal words which I spent hours composing and crying over?) I'd love to make a new one with the knowledge I've gained since then, but I'm afraid I might repeat the maniacal web-searching and downloading that pulled me away from it last time.

Well anyway, I guess I will keep hunting through free template pages and really stupid graphics created by 13 year olds until I find one that suits me. Or at least comes close to suiting me. If anyone knows of some great websites for this, please let me know. (Please keep in mind that contrary to some people's claims, a page with 4 templates that are all exactly the same but with different backgrounds does not count as a "great website.")

...Beuller?...

I'm here. I'm still alive. I wonder how many people still check this blog, if anyone. I would not be surprised if the few people who were reading my sorry little blog have long abandoned me. I would have, if I were them. I just have no patience for slow posters.

For anyone who may still be periodically checking, or for those who may be new to my little miserable corner of the internet, I will update our situation.

We qualified for FIP, aka welfare money, a crappy $540/month. This will pay my utilities, but nothing else. We are getting $520/month food stamps, which is a tremendous help. I was concerned about losing my car, since the monthly alottment doesn't cover my car payment. It also doesn't cover my property taxes, due next month, or my internet access (can you believe that?!? They expect me to live without internet!). Fortunately, Vic found some work with a local remodelling guy for cash. Off the books. Illegal? Absulutely. Serious abuse of the system? Damn straight. But we can keep our car, which makes it possible for Vic to get a real, on the books job - or a job of any kind for that matter - once our dental work is all done. I don't lose my house because of a tax sale, and may even be able to pay the back taxes by the time we're done with this nightmare.

We had our first dental appointment on Wednesday. The dentist says dentures are a silly idea as long as we keep our 6 month checkups, and plans to fill or cap all our bad teeth. We're planning a root canal on my front tooth, which I'm sure isn't that bad, but I've never had one before so I'm a bit nervous. I wonder how silly the idea of dentures would be if I told the dentist the reality - that we may not be able to make our regular checkups unless we have some drastic change in income / insurance by then. Either way, by the middle of September, I should be all fixed up, Vic can start looking for a real job, and we can move on with our lives.

I can elaborate more on these subjects, as well as everything else that's been going on around here, in the next few days. I feel so much better now that things are starting to go more smoothly around here. I can't even tell you how relieved I am that Vic is working instead of rumbling around the house driving me crazy!

Out of the closet...

I've decided to reveal my not-too-hidden identity, and those of my family. So without further ado, let me introduce us.

I'm Heather, which you probably already know. I enjoy expensive meals and long walks on the beach. Actually I'm kind of boring. I like to sew, which I'm just learning how to do, and crochet, which I'm really pretty good at. I'm impassioned about a bunch of things, and have been known to blabber on about them here.

My manly lug of a husband is Vic. We've been married for 10 years. He's into engines and is currently rebuilding a 1980 Honda Goldwing, hopefully in time for him to actually ride it this summer. Vic is my complete opposite in most areas but despite this fact is still a pretty smart guy.

My son Chad is 10. He's very high-energy and incredibly smart, although he has a tendency to question his own abilities and become overly judgemental of his skills. He is very vocal, chatting your ear off every second you give him the chance, and often asking questions that are difficult to answer. He also has a tendency to lean towards odd in most cases. This is the child put on the earth to teach me patience. He has caused me to redefine what "weird" even is, often deciding that those that seem strange are really just misunderstood. He is a wonderful and fun kid.

My daughter Cadence is 6. She's currently dealing with a battle between Tomboy and Girly Girl. She loves butterflies, flowers, lacy dresses and everything pretty. She also loves climbing trees and digging in the dirt. I think once she figures out where she wants to fit in there, she'll be a wonderfully balanced young lady. Cadence has a naturally passive personality, which makes her middle child status even more profound when she is so easily overlooked. I think we're doing a pretty good job making her feel special, but she still has to remind us sometimes when something is "NOT FAIR!" She's a beautiful girl with a quick smile, and everyone that knows her, loves her.

My youngest daughter Riley is 3. She's recently discovered that she is not, as previously thought, the center of the universe, and I'm telling ya, she's pissed about it. She's got a fantastic vocabulary and a full grasp of language, so her complaints are clear to everyone who cares to hear them. Riley is the comic relief in my life. Most kids her age are really funny anyway, but she's topped my other two in hysterical comments and events. Riley's birth was the event that made me reconsider my parenting style and way of life. In a way, I'm a better parent and an overall better person because of her.

So that's it. That's my family. I'm looking forward to sharing a little more freely now. Boy am I glad to get that all off my chest!

What to call the children?...

On the internet I mean. I am seriously tiring of referring to my kids as "my son," "my oldest daughter," and "my youngest daughter." A lot of people use just one letter to identify their kids, but since my oldest two have the same initials, that's not gonna work for me. Some people have silly made-up names for their kids, which was a pretty tempting idea for me until I remembered how difficult it was to give them real names in the first place. If this name is something they will be called from here on out, until who knows when.. well, that's a lot of pressure. What if I hate it later?

Anonymity is really not that important to me. I'm not really worried about stalkers. My fear of using real names and pictures stems from something else entirely. I know lots of people with internet access that I would rather not find this blog, or at least realize it's actually me who writes it. Evil people I may run into in the grocery store or at a family event. Demons, even.

Anyone else have thoughts on this? (All two of you faithful readers lol) I'm about ready to say screw the enemies and just use their real names anyway.

Let's have a little talk about marriage...

I married my husband 11 days after my 19th birthday, which was also 10 days after our first child was born. My husband had just completed Marine Corps boot camp. We stayed his entire leave with my parents. You can imagine how my wedding night went with these little facts. When I got married, I was only thinking of how much I loved my husband and how I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Our wedding was in a church with a minister, but I couldn't have cared less if it was in a ditch and we were pronounced by a passing hobo. I invited family because I wanted them to share this important decision with me. Most importantly, I wanted us to be legally bound. I didn't care about the declaration of our love and commitment before God, because religion is not important to me. I did care about the declaration of our love and commitment to each other. I cared about the ceremony and ritual of joining - emotionally, financially, and legally.

Lately, I'm overwhelmed by the number of - we'll just say people - who insist on legal declaration of marriage as a joining of man and woman. There is lots of discussion about same-sex marriage as "violating the sanctity of marriage," which is why it's so important to state man and woman. In the state constitution. I understand the importance of putting some specifics on who should get married, especially if they aren't already in the state constitutions. If my state constitution doesn't say a man can't marry a goat, I'm concerned. There are rules about children, right? Isn't marrying an animal abusive too? But human and human should be as specific as we get when it comes to people being married.

Sanctity: n. pl. sanc·ti·ties: Something considered sacred

Sacred: adj. : Dedicated to or set apart for the worship of a deity.

I'm guessing we're a little fuzzy on what separating church and state really means?

If you think marriage is a holy and god-endorsed union, more power to you. But on the books, in a legal sense? Do any of these Ch-- ahem, people - have reasons to ammend state constituion that don't include their religious beliefs? People, marriage is important to everyone who is, or wants to be, married. Marriage is only sacred to you. Your marriage and recognition before God is not at all threatened by others not following your rules. Why do you even care?