Nope

I was going to blog.

But instead I'm going to go watch The Bourne Ultimatum with Li.

(And try to convince him to give me a foot massage.)

And speaking of movies...

Have you seen Inception yet?

Firecrackers

I made these for Pack Meeting last night.

I thought they turned out pretty cute. 

Until we smashed one pan on top of the other trying to get them in the freezer.

And they tasted pretty good too.

I think I'll make the filling again but omit the cool whip and dip fruit in it.

As for pack meeting...

Li was super excited to dress up like Uncle Sam.

And Carter spent the whole night trying to body slam another small child.

The best distractions we found were 

candy and letting him see pictures of himself.

He's so vain.

I took a couple of pictures on vacation.

Carter and his dad driving to San Diego. 

Isn't everyone cuter when they are asleep?

#6

Go to IKEA. Check.

I might have been overheard saying,

"I need to either get out of this store or get a job."

Seriously, some lady with her arms full of purchases heard me saying that to Li and started laughing her head off.

I'm interested in moving into the showroom.

Sleepy

We are finally home from vacation.

And then I drove my sister and husband back to the airport.

 And now I'm I feeling like...

image credit

I need a vacation!!

Pictures are worth lots of words

Today is Friday at the Beach House.

And that means this....

Three cheers for family pictures....

keeping the babies happy,

getting everyone to look at the camera at the same time,

trying to look presentable after a week of not caring one bit,

you know the drill.

At least we get a free shirt. :)

Sausage Casserole

If you want to join in the whole "eat your food slower" thing, here is a good recipe to try.

It's good for two reasons...

1 because it's good, as in, I think you'll like it.

2 because it's spicy, so you'll naturally want to eat it a little slower.

Oh and 3 it's easy!

Sausage Casserole

(from my grandma)

1 lb. spicy sausage (Or not spicy if you prefer, but then you'll have to work harder to eat slowly.)

1/4 onion (chopped)

green pepper (chopped)

celery (chopped)

(I never thought I'd be sharing a recipe that didn't have exact measurements, but really just put in however much you want, if I can do it, ANYONE can!)

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 soup can water

1 cup uncooked rice

Brown the sausage.  Add everything else.  Mix. Put it in a casserole dish.

Bake @ 350 for 45 minutes covered

and then 15 more minutes uncovered.

 Want to see a picture?

Sorry, I doubled it and it was still gone before I thought to get a picture.

But I used lots of colors of peppers and it was actually quite pretty.

Sorry you missed it.

Hello? It's for you.

I love this telephone table redo from 

Andie who is apparently obsessed with shoes, and also very talented.

Again, where do people find these things?

I've never seen a telephone table in real life, only on blogs.

Anyway, what I REALLY love in this picture is the 

mostly empty frame.

I think I'll have to find me a starfish on the beach so I can copycat.

One year old swimming

Carter LOVES the water.

I think he is part fish.

I've watched about a million youtube videos of little kids swimming and think it would be adorable if Carter picked it up too.

 

I really like this tutorial on teaching kids to swim.

Be Kind. Please Slow Down.

Lately I've been treating my body like junk.

Eating junk.

Not stretching.

Staying up too late.

Etc.

I feel gross.

At our family reunion in San Diego 

the name of the game seems to be

"Eat as much as you can as fast as you can."

It's very fun to play, 

but makes my body sad.

This year I vow to take Leo's advice 

and eat slower.

Have you ever heard of The Slow Food Manifesto?

It's rad.

A revolution is coming.

Wanna join with me?

Some more miles

Lately our marathon training has been looking like this...

(The Subway.)

 (I love my iBert!)

(I don't think you can tell from the picture but these are size 14.  They're huge!)

photo credit
(Not really McDonald's, but we did run there to get a RedBox.)

We've been hiking, biking, swimming and playing.
There have been a few short, miserable runs to break in Li's new shoes.

And the plan is to run 12 tomorrow in San Diego.

Yup.  In San Diego. :)

Rapunzel

I finally decided what to do with my hair.

I told Li I was going to grow it out.

Then it turned into summertime....

And I'm in and out of the pool,

and even lazier about doing my hair than before.

(If that is even possible.)

And so today I did this....

 

And I'm very happy with my choice.

my bag

When I lived in Brasil

l would always see people carrying these bags on their way to 

the market.

There were only a few things I 

HAD to buy before I left.

A bag of my own was definitely on the list.

I imagined I'd find a cool market when I got back to the states.

 

Well...

I didn't.

And so my bag was used for lots of other things.

  

Then, a few months ago everyone in town was talking about 

Bountiful Baskets.

It's not a market, it's a food co-op.

 

But every week I get to fill up my bag with yummy

fruits and veggies.

So every week I get to reminisce about my time in Brasil,

and pretend I really am a brasileira.

  Oh and eat yummy food!

Bountiful Baskets currently has sites in 

AZ, UT, ID, NV, TX, WA, WY

If that includes you, you should check it out.

 

Someone who knows something: My mom on VCR tapes

I found this paper the other day

and thought it might come in handy for someone, someday.

Okay, so maybe I just thought it was funny.

And maybe, just maybe, there's no one out there who knows anything.

But I don't think so.

So if you are 

someone

and you know something...

let me know

and you can write about it on my blog!

To the moms

In other parenting news...

my small child has been having a lot of fun trying out his vocal chords lately.

He thinks it is fun to put different sounds together.

His most recent favorite?

ahh + sss.

Ooops.

do what you can

Do you ever feel like you are waiting for life to begin?

I hope I'm not the only one.

This article called Your Mission in Life is Now
 really resonated with me.

It's about how we all have 

unique gifts

unique challenges

&

unique needs we can respond to.

I think that's cool.

I recently heard something that Theodore Roosevelt said,

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

It's become my mantra.

Stop.

Li and I were hanging out together.

(Read: he was playing Call of Duty and I was sitting next to him hitting "next blog" over and over again.)

I stumbled upon a few that are pretty cool.

One of my favorites is SoBe Organized.

I especially liked a post called What Do You Dislike Doing?

It's all about how we shouldn't waste our lives doing stuff we don't like to do.

I tried it out...

I don't usually like to get stuff ready for Webelos.

But everything is doable with Jill's chocolate cake!

(recipe to follow)

(I did NOT eat ALL of that.)

Dance party anyone?

I just became a fan of iTunes on facebook.

I did it to get the 15 free songs.

Then I logged in to iTunes and discovered $25.45 of store credit I'd forgotten about.

Bonus!!

And then I looked through my iPhoto pictures and found these...

So...

bonus for you.

Someone who knows something: Daniel on Preventative Car Maintenance Part 2

Last week Daniel gave us Part 1 How to maintain your car in your driveway.  This week he is back with even more!!  Part 2 will treat us to Free Advice and Common Misconceptions.

Free Advice #1: Empower yourself with knowledge. Check your tires to know if you should listen when the car shop tells you to buy some. Know how often your transmission needs to be flushed before you go into a car place. Ask to see a filter before someone changes it, that way you can decide.


Free advice #2: Buy a Japanese car.  If you have a car from the list on the left, you’ll probably have a spotless driveway for 150,000 miles

Excellent reliable vehicles                Slightly less excellent, not quite as reliable vehicles
Toyota/Lexus/Scion                                               
Honda/Acura                                    Ford/Lincoln/Mercury
Mazda                                              Cadillac/Northstar
Nissan/Infiniti                                  Dodge/Chrysler
Subaru                                              Jeep
Chevy

I know you American car fans hate me. Before you write me livid emails teeming with malice, let me explain. I am admittedly over-generalizing. These are merely unbiased observations of the 25ish cars that come through Grease Monkey every day. Most Ford’s that come in have bad radiator caps. A majority of Cadillac/Northstars have burned 2 quarts of oil in 3,000 miles. Generally Dodge’s (caravan and neons especially) have electrical problems after 100,000 miles. Almost all Jeeps leak oil, trans, and differential fluid after 45,000 miles.
    In my time at Grease Monkey I have changed the differential fluid in one (1) Japanese car. They don’t break, they don’t have weird electrical issues. Most Hondas won’t leak oil ever, even after 200,000 miles. Toyota and Nissan trucks last forever. Granted, the way people drive vehicles makes a big difference. Please remember I was only stereotyping based on what I see everyday. I have no car allegiance.


Free advice #3: If you buy a truck or large SUV, realize that they cost more on the lot, they cost more at the gas pump, and they will take more oil to lubricate their big manly engines. If you play in the mountains in 4-wheel drive, you need to replace differential fluids that other cars don’t have. Trucks just cost a lot of money, so prepare yourself before you buy one. There is no way around it.


Free advice #4: If the shop down the road offers a safety inspection for $2, it is possible they will lie to you that something is broken and you HAVE to pay $75 TODAY to fix it. Tire places are notorious for this. Like most things in life, you get what you pay for.


Free advice #5: You just spent $25,000 on a vehicle. 25,000. Three (3) zeros. Maybe it was only 12,000. Still five (5) digits. Why not treat it like the most precious thing you ever got in debt over? Don’t hammer your brakes. Don’t blow out your speakers. Come to a complete stop when going between reverse and drive. When things break budget so you can fix them. You are happy to pay $7 for a hamburger combo, why not be happy to pay 13.99 for a new air filter and keep your new $12,000 baby running smoothly.



Misconceptions

1. *Conventional oil. Muscle car maniacs will tell you to use Valvoline or die. Some say Castrol, some say Penzoil, some say Mobil 1. Grease Monkey uses Phillips 66. Jiffy Lube uses Quaker State. Conventional oils are like shoes you buy at Payless or Walmart, they are cheap to make, and they do the job. Here in capitalist America oil manufacturers and everyone else makes the cheapest quickest products possible in  large amounts--they are all the same until you get to high-end specialty products.
   
2.    You can drive 4,000-4,500 ish miles on conventional oil (unless your car burns oil) if they aren’t in harsh conditions. I know your windshield sticker says 3,000 miles, that is good too. Don’t feel like a bad person if you go 1,000 over the mileage.
3.    Oil lube shops are a lot like grocery stores. The prices are what they are. If you notice, there are a whole bunch of 22 year olds making minimum wage because OIL LUBES ARE NOT LUCRATIVE PLACES TO WORK. You might think they are trying to rip you off and sell you what you don’t need--it’s possible. For the most part they show you what is wrong with your car and are trying to save you from 3,000 dollar purchases by offering 200 or 50 dollar purchases.                                                                                                         Would you ever think of asking the Young lady at Smith’s to knock .50 cents off your milk? If you tell the cashier at Footlocker you “forgot your coupon, could you just apply it anyway?” they would give a hardy laugh and say no. Oil lube shops shouldn’t be any different. Why should we knock 10$ off? You pay 4,000 dollars for a computer that will be outdated in 18 months. 35$ to keep your car running smooth is a smart idea.
4.    When oil lube shops offer you synthetic oil, it is actually a better deal. It is better for your engine. You can drive 6-8,000 miles on it, instead of just 3,000. It’s like paying for two oil changes up front--except you only have to read awkward car or golf magazines once while you wait.




So, there it is. I know everybody has different opinions about car care, and here are some of mine.

Poetry in motion, well, not really

How cool is this table from sticks and bricks?

Really, REALLY cool, right?!

10 Miles

Remember how I said I'd rather go to the lake in the morning instead of run?

Well, we finally made it to the lake.

Last summer I was recovering from a C-section and thusly a "sissy-pants."

This summer I was determined not to be....

In the process I lost a contact lens, blackened my eye and my arm, and severely limited the range of motion in my neck.

I was feeling the effects this morning when our course went around the lake.

I couldn't decide which would be worse,

getting back in the water

or running up the GINORMOUS hill to get back home.

In the end, I didn't really have an option,

and so I ran.

When I got back in to town, I think I was expecting banners and a newspaper headline that read something like, 

"Local couple wakes up at 5:30 in the morning and runs 10 miles."

 I guess, really, it's not that big a deal.

But, I felt like I was changing the world.

H2O

Here's hoping your weekend plans involve large bodies of water.

And speaking of diapers...have you seen these?

Math

Li and I got married.

And we were happy together.

(You know, most of the time and stuff.)

Then we had baby Carter.

Now we're even happier.

Let's do the math...

1+1=good

1+1+1=better

Now let's apply it to food.  

chocolate+peanut butter=divine

(But you already knew that.)

chocolate+peanut butter+ice cream=even better 

(Who knew it was possible?)

So let's give a big hand to...

(I know the picture is sort of ugly, but you can be glad it's not a picture of me stuffing my face with it.)