Yellow Wallpaper

A few weeks ago I had a moment of insight after reading a blog post about self-care. The author described learning to take of herself after having a moment with a needy child, and realizing that she was good at taking care of her children by feeding them nutritious foods, helping them get enough sleep, and so on. I've read a lot about "taking care of yourself" and I thought I was doing that, but after reading the article I think that I really haven't been. I've always been the kind of mom who really worries about the physical needs of her children--I try to feed them good food, buy them comfortable clothes they like, limit their screen time, and enforce appropriate bedtimes. And yet, as soon as they aren't home or are in bed, I stay up late, use the computer too much, and eat way too much unhealthy food. Because I'm an adult.  Well, if too little sleep and too much sugar are bad for my kids, why do I do that to myself? Why hadn't I thought of this be...

Here in Utah it is peach season. Everyone I know is eating peaches, canning peaches, blogging about peaches, talking about peaches on Facebook, and so on. My little peach tree in the backyard has unfortunately not gotten much bigger in the last three summers and still only produces five fruits at a time (they were pretty tasty). I love fresh peaches, but I also really love home-canned (bottled?) peaches in the winter. Two years ago I did a bunch of canning but I didn't do any last year and my pantry is looking sparse. I optimistically thought that I could can a batch or two fairly easily. I was a bit wrong. I first thought of doing the canning last Saturday. However, that plan was hampered by the fact that the peaches needed to be purchased a few days in advance and running errands on weeknights is tricky for me. I also needed time on Saturday to mow the lawn, do shopping, clean the house, and run a few other errands that don't get done during the week. So last Saturday I pur...

We had a church party on Friday night and then went trick-or-treating last night, so my kids certainly got plenty of Halloween this year. But since today was the actual holiday I wanted to do something a little special for them. I found a bunch of cute recipes and we had some 'spooky food' that was actually pretty healthy (except the hot dogs--once in a while can't hurt, right?). The kids loved the meal and generally ate most of it without a complaint. We had potato ghosts , hot dog mummies , fruity jack-o-lanterns , and witch fingers . I think this is going to be a new tradition in our house.

Last week we got some purple potatoes in our produce box. Would you be freaked out by them? What do you think would be neat to cook with purple potatoes? Is it worth buying a salad spinner? We've been getting a lot of lettuce and greens in our produce box, but I always feel bad using up so many paper towels to dry them. I've also tried regular towels, but that's pretty annoying too. I'm excited to write a paper for my American Literature class because I'm looking at translations of two different books that are written in a sort of hybrid-"Spanglish" style. I think it will be interesting to look at what happens when you translate them to Spanish. However, after looking at this book today, I realized that one of the more interesting changes is the profanity (it's a great book, but definitely heavy on the swears). Would you feel weird writing a paper on swear words? It's not like I'm going to be saying them out loud, but for some reason I feel w...

I've been reading a lot lately about ways to save the earth like using your car less often, buying local food, recycling, and all that "crunchy granola" stuff. I'm a big fan of it, but the truth is that I usually end up being lazy and driving my car to the supermarket to get some food that's been shipped halfway around the world. Since moving here, however, we've been working hard to make some lifestyle changes that I hope will benefit the environment. The main reason we've been doing them is because we're poor, but I hope the good karma from earth-friendly living will help us out in the long run. First of all, we've started drying our clothes on a clothesline instead of in the dryer. The weather here is hot and sunny, and we have to pay one dollar per load of laundry, so the choice was simple. Plus we have a little patio on the back of our apartment that's just right for clothes drying. I'm still trying to decide if I want to pay for dryi...

I have noticed during my time on the internet that blogging about being a mom tends to swing back and forth between two extremes. Either we work hard to reassure ourselves that we are alright as we are, that we are doing plenty for our children, and that it's perfectly fine to be "lazy". The other extreme is the ideal of perfection--that moms should work hard to provide decorated homes, nutritious meals, cute clothes, inspired teaching, and a variety of other things for their kids. I have pretty much always fallen on the "lazy mom" side, and have even caught myself feeling judgemental of those who expend extra effort on their children. I think where I'm at right now is trying to find some balance somewhere in the middle. Kids like the little things; they like stuff like fun invitations to parties, cakes shaped like buses, and nicely wrapped gifts. Doing things for others is a way to show that you care about them. I think the problem comes in when we do thi...

Despite the fact that I grew up with a mother who was dedicated to serving us wholesome food, I still am not a huge fan of vegetables. Well, I can be, but they're not high on my list of things I daydream about. I'd much rather read a dessert cookbook than one about veggies. I will admit that I often eat vegetables more out of a sense of obligation to nutrition than for pure love of their taste. Lately we've been trying to increase our veggie intake, and one of the things that's helped is signing up for a company that delivers a bin of assorted organic produce to our home every other week (you can do it weekly, but we don't have that much money for food). Not only is the food fresh, but we get a variety of things that I wouldn't ordinarily buy in the store. Just this last week we've enjoyed kale, fingerling potatoes, spring salad greens, beets, cauliflower, and asparagus--plus I still have two artichokes waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. I...

I feel like I've been posting a lot about food and grocery shopping, but cooking is a passion of mine so I'm going to keep talking about it. As I've mentioned before, we've gone mostly vegetarian lately. I'd like to find a local, healthy meat source, but when we do we'll probably just eat meat a few times a month. Maybe just for Sunday dinners. We still have a bag of frozen chicken from Costco in the freezer that we're trying to use up right now, but I think we only have one meal left. I think that cutting out meat has been one way to keep our grocery bill low. We also don't buy chips, soda, lunch meat, or very many processed foods (canned soup, Hamburger Helper, bakery items, frozen foods, etc) at all. Most of the time my shopping list includes produce, bread, and dairy products like yogurt, cheese, and milk. I also go to Costco occasionally (like every six months or so) to stock up on things. I've found that I can often buy things on sale for cheap...