where have I been?

in the kitchen of course!!!

This summer has been a strange one. I have felt crazy busy with life, but I haven't done as much canning and freezing as I did last summer. Maybe it was just working and not having many days of being home that made it feel so crazy.

The past 2 weekends I think I have made up for lost time, though. Last weekend, I did a TON of tomatoes, some green beans and a bushel of corn. This weekend I froze another 4 bushels of corn. I think we have enough for the year, now. Between cut off the cob corn and corn on the cob, there is enough frozen to have some every other week for a year. And since I will only have to go from the end of September till the middle or so of July, I should be OK. LOL It will taste so good this winter to have corn on the cob.

This fall marks a new era for me. We have 4 kids in school ALL DAY and 2 kids home ALL DAY. There are no middle of the day trips to pick anyone up from preschool or kindergarten. Of course, Kelli is absolutely dying to go to preschool. She is really ready, too, it's just a matter of paying th tuition right now. Besides, I kind of enjoy hanging out with her as the big girl. I should say that most days I enjoy it. There are some days I could sell her to the gypsies without a second thought.

It's also a new phase in that Jack E is almost 2 and has apparently secured his place as "baby of the family". Hard to believe that but it seems to be the case. He is at my favorite age right now. I just love this toddler thing. And he is soooo easy going. If only he would speak in sentences of more than 2 words. He makes his wishes known...even if it does take a while for mama to figure it out.

Well, this is more than I have blogged here all summer! LOL I will really try to do better about that. In all of my spare time-HA!

Jack E's words

I saw a blurb about this last night on the news. Good thing my Jack E doesn't watch these or he might not say ANY words!

iron chef

you know that show on food network where they have a mystery ingredient and have to come with as many ways to use it as possible?

I think the mystery ingredient should be ZUCCHINI!!! And nothing exotic...just regular stuff that we all have on hand and the kids will eat.

Bet that would be a popular episode with vegetable gardeners everywhere!!!

totally thought I was chocolate!

You Are a Lemon Cake

Strong, sexy, and overpowering. You know who you are, and you're not afraid to show the world your fabulous self. You're confident, charming, and extremely popular.

What Kind of Cake Are You?

fat dreams, fat pictures and a crappy realization

First, I had a dream last night where I saw myself naked (like I don't see myself naked every day?!) and I was shocked to realize how overweight I still was. In my dream I remember thinking, I thought I looked good? I am still crazy fat!!! Guess my subconscious still thinks of me as a fattie and not a hottie.

Second, here are a couple of pictures for me to see how far I really HAVE come. The first picture is when I was about 6 months pregnant with Jack. I'm asking Kelli (who is always naked) if she would like to put on her swim suit to get into the pool. The second pic is of me and the kids shopping last Christmas. I got a BIG OL' BUTT!!! I had been on WW a couple of weeks and had lost maybe 5 pounds by then.




And today I realized that my driver's license has my weight listed as 180, which was a total lie at the time. Problem is, I weigh a LOT less than that now. And my stupid license doesn't expire till 2012. Stupid Colorado and their stupid 10 year driver's license!!! :P

potty time

Is it pathetic that I fantasize about going potty without an audience and without hearing my name being called from the recesses of my house?

Don't answer that...

we've been robbed

Yes, seriously, we were robbed. But before you start freaking out (mom!), realize that if you are not me or D the story is probably humorous to you.

Last night when I went to bed (10:30) I left the garage door open for D who was at work on his motorcycle. I knew he would be home any time and would want to put his bike in the garage. It turned out that he didn't get home until like 11:20. When I got up this morning, I looked in the garage fridge and realized it looked REALLY empty. I went on my walk thinking about it and checked again when I got home.

Yep, at least 2 6-packs of beer, 2 6-packs of Mike's Hard Lemonade and a few loose bottles/cans of beer all GONE. Now I know my kids can be a little ornery and curious, but if they drank that much, WE WOULD KNOW!!!

I'm sure there were some teens having a GOOD time last night somewhere!

It does answer another question for us though. Last weekend D and I were looking for one of those hard lemonades. I drink one every couple of weeks, and it just sounded really good on Saturday night. D said he had taken them out of the fridge and set them on the shelf right there...why could I not find them now? We looked and looked. It was really irritating to think that we had misplaced the 5 left of the 6-pack. We had some regular ones, but I really wanted the Light ones (only 2 WW points!). I guess now we know that we don't need to keep looking for those missing bottles!

So, I called the police. Do you file a report for stolen beer or not? It's up to us. I told him we'd think about it. And I'm sure the guy I talked to had a great laugh after I hung up.

I told you it was funny. If you aren't me.

i'm a dork!!!

This afternoon I changed from my long-sleeved shirt to a t-shirt. Then I cleaned up the kitchen and took Clay to his drum lesson. When we got in the car afterwards, I realized that MY SHIRT WAS ON INSIDE OUT!!!

Not the end of the dork story!

On the way home, we stopped at Rite Aid. I had to go pee-pee as soon as we got there. Then Clay and I wandered around while I waited for prescriptions to be filled. We were there about 30 minutes. When we got into the car again, I realized my shirt was STILL INSIDE OUT!!! Did I turn it right side out when I went potty?

NOOOoooooOOOOOooooooo!!!

I'm a dork!

spiritual things and Sarah Groves

I know I am not the most spiritual person by a long shot. Honestly, I really enjoy just hanging out on Sunday mornings and probably wouldn't complain if we decided to stay home from church all but a handful of Sunday's each year. I'm not really sure where my Bible is or when I read something more thought provoking than People magazine.

Then again, I tend to think of most of my day as serving and giving and nurturing and not really for me at all. So I guess that does make me pretty spiritual.

I was walking and listening to Sarah Groves this morning. Specifically I was listening to "When It Was Over" from her "Add to the Beauty" CD. It's such a different portrayal of love and life to me. And something that really resonates with me. The chorus is so simple:

"Oh love wash over a multitude of things
Love wash over a multitude of things
Love wash over a multitude of things
Make us whole"

The love we have in our lives...the love we offer to others...it has the power to make us whole again. There are so many days when I feel so terribly broken and cracked and torn up. I see the world we all share and am so saddened by how we can treat others or our surroundings. I think it's really hard for me, too, to see how we think so very highly of ourselves.

How can I, a white woman, living in the 21st century with electricity, running water and abundant technology, a healthy body, a home in the suburbs, enough money to never be naked or go without food, six beautiful children, a husband of great character, the list could go on and on and on. What right do I have to ask God to bless me further, even to bless my food? Haven't I been given far and above what I really need?

But I digress...

Back to Sarah Groves...the second verse of the song always really hits me and makes me feel a little embarrassed even when I am by myself.

"When it was over and they could talk about it
They were sitting on the couch
She said what on earth made you stay here
When you finally figured out what I was all about
He said I always knew you'd do the right thing
Even though it might take some time
She said, Yeah, I felt that and that's probably what saved my life"

D and I have been married for almost 15 years. Though the past few years have been hard in one sense, they have been really beautiful in another sense. There is that incredible intimacy that comes when someone "finally figures out what I am all about". It's humbling to know that he really does know all my inadequacies and weaknesses and even failures. He has seen me be totally unworthy of his love, devotion or respect. And yet we are still married and pretty happily so, too.

It's that love that encourages me to keep moving toward something "more". I'm not sure what it is, but I do know that with what I have been shown, it's OK for me to give more of myself, to stretch myself, to let "my way" slide a little more in order for someone else to thrive. I'm not sure this is making the sense that it does to me in the morning while I walk.

I know I come home ready to face life and stress and laundry and more cries for attention and more arguing and less of mama.

The song ends this way:

"There is a love that never fails
There is a healing that always prevails
There is a hope that whispers a vow
A promise to stay while we're working it out
So come with your love and wash over us"

did you see me at target today?

I was the woman on her hands and knees putting all the capris back on the rack while her 3 year old daughter looked on with that strange "I wonder how that happened" look.

Then a few minutes later I was the woman who screamed "NO!!!" in absolute terror as the same 3 year old picked up an entire display stack of t-shirts with an ornery glint in her eye. Disaster was averted that time.

So did you see me? Or better yet, did you hear the total pandemonium in my local Target store while I spent an hour there this morning with all 6 of my children?!

artichokes

My kids are weird. I know that and I've made my peace with it, but sometimes I am just struck again by how "not normal" they are.

Tonight for dinner D steamed 4 big artichokes. Kelli and Jack, really all 6 of the kids, LOVED them. At first I thought Kelli was just enjoying something to dip in melted butter and mayo. Then she was eating the leaves plain! And she and Jack both had a ton of the hearts.

We've all heard of kids who have to have a special meal prepared for them. They will only eat a certain brand of chicken nugget every night for dinner. Those are not MY children! Last summer it was just funny to see that Jack adored eggplant. He would eat anything with eggplant in it. We had great fresh organic eggplants from our CSA...and Jack and I ate a TON of them!

I really do love having kids who eat what we eat. I just am sometimes surprised by the diversity of their palates.

already april?!

I can't believe that it's almost Easter! Spring Break was great here. True to Colorado we started out in the 70's and then had snow later in the week. In fact, we're getting a little spit of snow right now!

I just wanted to post a pic of what happens when a distracted mama hands a cup of yogurt to her non-spoon using toddler. I really meant to feed it to him, but then someone else needed something and someone needed something else. You get the idea! At least he was in his high chair and not on the couch!!!

about me

got this idea from Penny and her last post

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

my name

Emma is really baffled by my name. Why is my name NOelle if it actually has TWO L's in it? Shouldn't my name be TWOelle?

Only Emma, I tell you!!!

new word...

...well, actually, Jack E's been saying it for a while now, but it's getting clearer now. Tonight after Kelli's bath I was helping her get dressed. She was standing there in her Dora panties, and Jack E just kept pointing and saying, "diego, diego, diego".

His vocabualry so far? Ma, Dada, THAT, maow, wf, shz, and now Diego. What are this kid's priorities anyway?

where does she get this stuff?

This afternoon Emma had a garage sale. She went to her room and found a few random toys and 4 shirts that "is just the stuff she hates". She set the little white table by the end of the garage with a blanket thrown over it. She made little notes that said how much she wanted for her stuff, too.

No takers!!! Can you believe it? I guess no one was looking for a garage sale at 3:20 on a Monday afternoon.

Poor Emma...

melancholy

I didn't post much this week because I was just feeling really melancholy. I don't know if it was because of the big snow that hit on Wednesday. Or maybe it was work...caring for your own babies when they are sick is one thing. Going to work and caring for someone else's sick babies is even harder. The girls love me and know me and trust me, so I guess I felt the drain of their first colds, too. I'm sure it was good for their mama to get a break from wiping noses and whining girls. She was getting sick, too, so she even just took a nap one day while I rocked a sick baby.

I don't know if those are really the reasons I felt so melancholy this week or not, though. It's strange. I left my home town for college over 18 years ago. I was home in the summers then after 2 years transferred to a college in CA, met my husband and have been away pretty much for 15 years now. I wouldn't want to move back there at all, but this week I just felt "homesick".

Maybe it's the fact that one of my grandmother's just had surgery a few weeks ago. She is fine now, but she is in her 80's. Her time left here on earth is not unlimited. I have such fun memories of her house and my cousins and always tons of food.

Then I talked to my mom this week a lot about her mother, my other grandmother. She is creeping up on her 85th birthday. She has alzheimer's and is just not doing well these days. She used to have the cantankerous aspect of the disease. It was almost funny that my grandma cussed like a sailor and was in trouble for hitting at her nursing home. Now she has taken on the other side of the disease. She's sweet again, but doesn't remember much about the past 5 years or other aspects of her life, either.

I have such great memories of that grandma. I spent a lot of time at her house as a kid. It seemed like I was with her every weekend for a good chunk of my life. She was one of the hardest working women I ever knew. Of course I was only around after she was semi-retired and all but one of her kids was out of the house. But it seems her apartment was always immaculate. There were never piles of laundry laying around. And never a dust bunny!

She always had time for her friends. I remember going for walks to see her friends in the other apartments. She just liked to check in with them every few days.

She always had a hard time getting me up for church on Sunday mornings. I would be asleep on the sleeper sofa in the living room and she would threaten me with a cold wet washcloth nearly every week. Then we had to pick everything up and get the apartment looking all nice and tidy before we could leave for church. Why? Because you never know if you will be inviting someone home for lunch with you.

My grandma was not much of a cook. We ate a lot of boiled potatoes at her house. That seemed to be her starch of choice...not mashed, not scalloped, not au gratin, just boiled. You can mash them yourself on your plate that way and add butter and salt, too! I do remember making a lot of strawberry jello at her house. There were often bananas in it.

The best thing about weekends at grandma's house was the chocolate cake. She had a metal 9x13 pan with a slide on lid. She always made a chocolate cake in that pan on Saturday afternoons. The cake was from a mix, the frosting was from a can, but she would grease (with crisco) and flour the pan so it seemed to be the greatest chocolate cake I had ever eaten. And we had to save it for Sunday dinner. No bites on Saturday night! The other thing grandma always had was white bread and Skippy creamy peanut butter. YUMMY! That was my favorite thing to eat there, and it didn't matter what time of day it was, I always had to have some of that at grandma's.

She called cereal "breakfast food" and I always thought that was just weird!

I keep using the past tense...and I don't mean anything by that other than this is my childhood I am talking about. This is what I remember about her while I was growing up. I haven't lived in that place for more than 15 years. So that season of my life is very much in the past no matter what condition my grandmother is in. It makes me sad to think that all of this change has happened while I have been in California and Colorado living my life and raising my own children. But I guess some of that is natural, right? It's natural that the granddaughter would now be a woman raising her own children. I think I am just sad that I have done it at such a distance from my grandmothers.

One of the things I always wanted grandma to do was show me all her scars. Her belly looked like a treasure map with all those scars from all her surgeries. Pretty creepy and intriguing to a little girl!

weight blog

I'm thinking of starting another blog where I just talk about my WW stuff. I read a few blogs where others share their daily food journals. I'm thinking I might want to do that. And then have a place to share recipes that I try, too. I read this blog every day and she is talking about having an area where others could do their own daily blog. I may wait for that. We'll see.

new goal

I reset my Weight Watchers ultimate goal. I was too worried about trying to maintain a weight that was too low for me. I did update my ticker today. I've lost more than 20 pounds so far and I got my cool little 10% goal keychain.

I have a ton to do today and am seriously lacking in motivation. At least I don't have to wash any sheets today, though!

tired cravings

I'd forgotten how disrupted sleep makes me crave carbs. Yesterday afternoon and last night I was so tired from Sunday night's disrupted sleep. I just wanted to eat all afternoon...and it didn't matter what. Good news is that I didn't cave into that too much...other than a rice crispy treat. But I did account for that in my daily intake.

Last night I was lying on the couch thinking of eating chocolate ice cream. But I realized I really wasn't that hungry...and since I have my weigh in on Tuesdays I wanted to not pig out last night. I went to bed, well, actually I fell asleep on the couch without overindulging. That felt good to know that I fought the cravings.

It also made me realize it's no wonder that having 3 kids in 3 years and constantly being sooooo tired helped to keep me technically obese. Then having another baby and working and moving and having 2 more babies and working and working overnights. No wonder it's just easier to drown my exhaustion in cheeseburgers and ice cream. But I feel better being leaner and not eating junk just because I'm tired. Just interesting to me that the link between my decade of diapers...that is now over 11 years of diapers...was such a good excuse to overeat all the time.