Why buy when you can borrow?

I still remember learning the Dewey Decimal System in elementary school.  I started my research papers with a trip to the card catalog.  Like me, your local library has grown up a lot over the past few decades.  My family relies on the local library system for free entertainment.  In honor of National Library Week, April 12-18, 2015, I give you five little reasons to love your library.

1)      Maximize your access to the library system’s reach through its online catalog.  I can search for items I want to borrow and place them on hold.  When they become available in a few days or weeks they will ship to my local branch for pickup.  My choices are not limited to what I see on the shelves on any given day.

2)      Say goodbye to Redbox.  My library has new movies just after their release.  This is no different than waiting for something to come to Redbox.  It’s free and you can keep it for a week.  I can drop off what I borrowed at any branch in the city.

3)      Catch up on your favorite television series.  A rainy weekend calls for a TV marathon.   I am amazed at the variety of TV series box sets I can borrow from the library.  My kids like to bring home Pokémon and Scooby-Doo episodes for a treat.

4)      Name that tune.  I have a long commute, and I hate commercials on the radio.  My solution?  Check out CDs from the library.  I may be stuck in traffic, but I can pass the time pretending to be the next American Idol.

5)      Learn a new skill.   I dropped in for a social media marketing class.  My kids participated in a spring break spelling bee.  There is always something scheduled in the community room. 

If you haven’t been to the library recently, you will love all the fun and free things it has to offer.  It’s come a long way since the last time you toiled away on a bibliography.  Check it out!

Getting dressed

We go to great lengths to educate our children using Maria Montessori's methods.  We have waited in line on cold January mornings with newborn babies in tow to be at the front of the line on magnet school registration day.  At one point or another in the past 11 years I have toured every Montessori preschool within 30 miles of my house.  

Applying Montessori principles at home can be challenging.  You want the child to do it herself, so you struggle to hold back as she does it imperfectly.  You must watch calmly as she wipes up her spills.  In a perfect Montessori house, there would be low sinks and only small cups, but we live in a regular sized house with a plethora of Dickey's Big Yellow Cups.

One learns not to argue over clothing choices.  Does it sort of fit?  Is it reasonable for the weather?  Can the child put it on herself?  Is it NOT Easter Sunday?  Then pretty much anything goes around here.

And that, my friends, is the reason why Mackenzie wore a pink sweater, a purple penguin pajama top, Elmo underwear, mini green scrub pants, no socks, hand-me-down fire truck shoes, and a butterfly necklace to school today.  She chose those items, and I approved them.  She won't be on the cover of Dallas Child, but she left the house a happy girl.

The diet verdict

I love food.  Fast food and slow food.  Fancy restaurant food and street vendor food.  Elaborate Julia Child food and nuke it in the microwave food.  I was one of the pickiest eaters ever as a child (ask my mother), but I grew out of it.  (By the way, that's why you should not freak out if you have a picky eater.  By the time your kid is out of college, I promise he will eat more than chicken nuggets and string cheese.)  Now I love trying new foods, making new foods, cooking food for others.  

So, when the hubby said he wanted to go on a diet, I was a bit skeptical.  If he goes on a diet, I have to go on a diet, because it's not very wifely to devour pizza and hot fudge sundaes in front of someone eating lettuce.  However, he found not just a diet, but a whole meal plan, grocery list, and recipe booklet here and asked if I wanted to try it.  I liked the idea of whole foods and preparing more foods at home.  It was all spelled out - buy this, cook it on this day, use the leftovers in this dish the next day.  Some of the recipes looked pretty good.  We decided to do it, and today is the last day of the two week challenge.

Overall, we liked the meals.  We actually enjoyed replacing sugary sweets with fruit and almond butter.  We modified the plan a bit - we continued drinking coffee and rearranged the order in the second week - but otherwise stuck with the principles like no soda, no bread, no processed foods, no red meat.  I felt like we ate a lot of eggs, and that got a little old by the end, so I made extra smoothies instead of omelets.  We had to buy a LOT of greens in the first week - and that was just for the two of us - and that caused some refrigerator space issues.    

The verdict?  Despite one of the worst weeks of sleep ever due to a sick baby, I have had energy and did not even take a nap today when I could have.  I'm down ten pounds, and he's lost even more.  I would love to make a loaf of bread (and probably will sometime soon), but we're definitely going to continue eating this way.

Recent Suprunisms

Name that kid if you can...

1.  In 500 years, I will be viewed like DaVinci is now.
2.  Can somebody help me cut this "beef boogie on"?
3.  No flirting at the table!
4.  Nobody knows history like I do.
5.  I don't have any black pants and I need them for school this morning.
6.  I need more shoes because we're not in the 70s anymore.
7.  MOMMY MOMMY PONYTAIL PONYTAIL PONYTAIL MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY PONYTAIL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Answers: 1. Dodge; 2. Corda; 3. ALL of them; 4. Hank; 5. Dodge; 6. Dodge; and 7. Mac

Welcome year 2

A year ago when I started this blog I wrote about fooling my family into eating veal, black-eyed peas, and stewed tomatoes for good luck in the new year by calling it spaghetti and meat sauce.  Did we have good luck over the past year?  Did this family tradition help us out or was it just another meal with some of the food groups represented?

Looking back I am thankful for many blessings, luck, good fortune, or whatever you may want to call it.  Baby Wyatt (also known as Doc) arrived safely.  Maybe that sounds like it should be no big deal if you already have four kids, but ask anyone who has had a miscarriage or four and they will tell you that lines on a stick are no guarantee.

The big kids are doing well in school and Sunday School.  There were no trips to the ER, which I know is the place several of my friends spent the holidays.  The siblings all need to get along better and realize they are on the same team, but each day we have another opportunity to work on that.

Christopher and I carved out time for date nights, usually to try a restaurant and play food critic.  Among the highlights this year have been FT33, The Blind Butcher, Amberjax, and Kitchen LTO, all in Dallas.  I enjoyed our day trip to Waco where we ate at Schmaltz's.  We love using that kid-free (or fewer kid) time to collaborate on ideas for Mama's Pockets and Never Forget Foundation.

I returned to my day job and found that they didn't forget about me and there was still plenty of work to do, which is a good combination when you have a mortgage.  I have said it before, but it is truly a wonderful thing to be part of a company that not only allows but encourages me to balance work and family.

So, what's for dinner?  Spaghetti and meat sauce.

Focus

The long neglected blog returns!

I had a pretty good track record with the weekly blog concept until a couple of months ago when my focus shifted to other projects and obligations.  Each Wednesday passed and I fell asleep thinking if I had something really interesting to write about, I would take the ten minutes to do it.  The daily routine of work, meals, homework, cleanup, and bedtime sometimes lends itself to the mindset that each day is just like the last, and therefore not very newsworthy.  This year I took some clear steps to break that monotony – I just didn’t take time to write about it!

Most recently, I focused my creative energy on my hobby, Mama’s Pockets.  I am having so much fun choosing fabrics for baby slings and thinking about new products.  The time spent sewing requires concentration, but not to the detriment of the little kids, who play at my feet.  Corda picks through my remnants for her favorites and is learning to sew next to me.

I chose the name Mama’s Pockets because some of my earliest memories are of my mom wearing cardigan sweaters that had pockets.  All day long she could be found picking up the treasures that we left behind and sticking them in her pockets as a temporary home on their journey to their proper place.  Pennies, Legos, you name it.  In her pockets they would be safe.  Throughout the day I would reach in and see if she had anything good that I didn’t even know I had lost yet. 

I have friends who pick a word of the year at New Year’s instead of a resolution.  I have used the word focus a couple of times here and will use it as my motivation in 2015.  I will focus my spare time on strategic, manageable growth of Mama’s Pockets.  Here’s to endeavors that bring you joy!

Late night movie review

I am watching The Impossible, the Naomi Watts/Ewan McGregor film about a family's struggle to reunite with each other after being ripped apart by the Indian Ocean tsunami over Christmas vacation in 2004.  Let's just say I will not be sleeping tonight. It is reminding me a lot of James Franco's 127 Hours about the man in Utah who got his arm trapped under a boulder while hiking.  Both movies are so intense in depicting the agony.  You know how you yell at the athletes on TV when they fumble the ball or cheer them on when they catch an interception?  I'm sitting here barking at the characters in the movie when they make boneheaded decisions and rooting for them to make it out okay as if it is happening in real time before my eyes.  I would definitely recommend both of these movies....just not right before your next vacation!