Drops of Awesome

I wasn’t perfect in my goal this week not to multitask during meals. It’s amazing how HARD it is. The hardness of the goal to simply sit and eat meals with my family 3 times a day made me realize how much I need to keep working on it. Because really. If my life is as simple and balanced as I’d like it to be, that shouldn’t be difficult.

Along with these weekly goals, I’ve been drastically cutting back on my personal activities, giving up some good things that I really enjoy in order to have time to just breathe and live and be with my family. It’s been hard to let go of some of these pet projects but as each thing drops away, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, even when the thing I was doing was a really good thing. Being involved in too many good things makes it hard to enjoy any of them.

Dare to Simplify Week 3 — Fast Quick Speedy Meals of Quickness
This week write down a list of your favorite quick dinner meals to make in a pinch when you don’t have anything planned, you don’t have time to make what you had planned or you find that you’re missing one key ingredient from the recipe you wanted to make.

This should be a list of meals for which you generally have most of the ingredients available without a trip to the store. It can include things like waffles, scrambled eggs and refried beans on toast. (I made that last one up just now. Could you tell?) Then next week come back and share your ideas in the comments section.

I find that when I’m desperate for a quick meal, I can’t think of anything so I’d like to post this list of fast ideas inside my kitchen cupboard to look at when we’re in a rush.

Dan went with me to my spin class this morning. I tend to call it a “spinning class” but have come to realize that sounds like we’re making yarn or turning straw into gold when actually what we do is pedal a bike that doesn’t go anywhere while wiping sweat from our brows, moaning and congratulating ourselves on our growing awesomeness. I don’t think he particularly enjoyed himself but now he knows a bit more about what I’m doing and he called me an athlete at least 3 times so it was a good morning. The best 5am date we’ve ever had.

The house is still clean following a mad rush of cleanliness that preceded my hosting a PTA board meeting. I love the clean but am a bit sick of listening to my own nagging voice . (more on my struggle not to become a Spotless Wench at Parenting.com)

For the most part I don’t nag too loudly but the tone of nagging is almost as obnoxious as the tone of whining. So I’m going to try and change to a tone of gentle reminder and rely more heavily on the new chore chart.

I stole the card idea from Jessica and modified it to suit my style (or lack thereof) and the materials I already had on hand. For some reason I have an insane amount of denim in stock out in my garage. Oooo. Maybe I shouldn’t have let that slip. I don’t want to attract every strung-out denim junkie in town, low on their supply and jonesin’ for some jean fabric.

So I tried to make the cards look as much like my house as possible and Laylee was super impressed. Just because I DON’T color 24/7 doesn’t mean I CAN’T. I’m a woman of many hidden talents and also hidden markers that all still have their lids.


On days when I have specific chores I need the kids to do, I assign them but on more flexible days I let them assign their own. I find that they actually do more work and do it more cheerfully if they feel like they’re in control of what they’re doing. I like to give them the illusion of control as much as I can.

The denim pockets are tied onto an IKEA white board which I then screwed into the wall.

When the kids finish one of their chores, they flip the card over and when they’re all flipped over, they turn over the card with their name on it. The back says “ALL DONE” indicating that they are more than partially done. Kind of like “ALL NEW” episodes on NBC which are created without reusing any footage from previous episodes. Not even a bit. ALL NEW.

They vacuum with a mini stick vac or carpet sweeper. They wipe the dirt around, rather than actually cleaning anything. They “do laundry” by helping me sort the clothes and move piles from one spot to another. They feel very useful and they’re learning.

I find that they take my pictures very seriously. Magoo will now only pray like this.

And insists that everyone else follow suit and do it LIKE THE PICTURE! I was hesitant to make prayer a chore in the first place but decided it might be helpful to give them a little reminder. When I went to draw the hands, I found that intertwining fingers were beyond my capabilities. Now for Magoo it’s flat hands or he will have none of it.

I know he’s begun doing his chores when I hear him in the living room shouting up to the heavens, “I yank thee for my bed and my big ducks and my friend River and my sister!”

I’ll be saying a special prayer of “yanks” when we get to a point where their cleaning actually helps make my life easier. It can’t be long now.

There’s something about the word “salad” that my kids totally hate. I think it must be the “L” in the middle. “L”s are for losers. For a while I tricked them by calling it “leaves and sauce” and they would happily dip their leaves and munch away, one or two leaves per meal, leaving behind any other stuff that happened to stow away on the leaves, stuff like tomatoes and cukes. For a long time I thought they’d grow to love it but it’s been years and if anything they’ve grown more salaphobic.

Recently my friend Jill sent me a link to Cynthia Lair’s cooking blog, Cookus Interruptus. I was excited to check it out because Cynthia Lair is the author of my current favorite cook book, Feeding the Whole Family: Cooking with Whole Foods
. If you’re trying to make healthy food choices for your family, I beseech you to go out today and buy this book. It is a wealth of information and great recipes. It’s where I learned to cook all kinds of crazy grains and vegetables and a lot of normal ones too in new ways. She’s a teacher at Bastyr University and writes on a very down-to-earth level with a glossary of cooking terms and ingredients in the back of her book that explains what certain sauces and spices look like and where you’d typically find them in the grocery store. LOVE. IT.

But I love her new blog even more. Who knew that she was a great chef, teacher, writer and comedian?

Seriously the site is awesome. It’s an instructional cooking video blog with humor, great information and fabulous simple recipes. Dan and I have whiled away many minutes (the videos are short) watching Cynthia and her crazy improv comedian “family members” cook up delicious nutritious whole foods, even some of my favorite recipes from her book.

After watching one video about picky eaters, I became inspired to invent what I like to call Tiny Salad™. It involves dirtying every small bowl in the house but it’s worth it for the amount of vegetables it causes my kids to consume of their own free will and choice.

I fill each bowl with a different salad topping chopped very finely, grated carrots, tiny minced tomatoes, minced squash, minced cucumbers, finely shredded lettuce or spinach, minced apple chunks, whatever I have in the produce drawer. I put little bowls full of “sauce” on the table with spoons in each bowl and let the kids build their own salads. It’s okay. You can say it. It sounds like a glorified salad bar. But it’s not because there’s no sneeze glass, it’s arranged in a bunch, not a line and you can dish your plate while sitting down.

The kids love it and make really fun creative salads and — GET THIS — eat them!

Check out Cynthia’s blog. I know you’ll like it. Because everyone thinks and feels exactly like me. Because I am a right type of person with a great knowledgeable rightness about me.

Oh, and Beth recently wrote about something similar to Tiny Salad™ called “Fun Bites” but she doesn’t put a trademark symbol after the title so you probably don’t want to click over there and read about it.

I feel that if my mom were dead right now, her ghost would be cackling at me as I type this. She’s alive so she’ll have to wait until I hit “publish” to laugh at me from her computer room in Montana.

A note to my darling pork-loin-loving children,

I love you dearly but do not share that same level of affection with your personal effects, many of which are doomed to meet an untimely end very shortly.

What do you think happens to a piece of trash if you throw it on the floor instead of in the trash can? Do you think your coat will magically hang itself because that would be wicked cool but I have yet to find a brand of coat that will do that? You seem surprised and annoyed when I pull you away from your latest playtime activity to come downstairs and pick up your ever-loving blessed markers off the floor when I’ve told you ten times not to leave them there. Are you surprised that I noticed they were there, annoyed that I expect you to clean them or are you just surprised to find out that you still have markers when I most likely should have just tossed them after reminder number 6 and annoyed that you’re not tall enough to ride all the cool rides at Disneyland?

In conclusion and to sum up, there’s a place for pretty much everything. Wouldn’t it feel good to put everything in its place?

Love always,
Your Daring Growing-Older-With-Every-Plastic-Knight-She-Picks-Up Mom

I used to wonder what my mom’s problem was that she cared so much about me leaving ONE THING ON THE GROUND. I now know what her problem was. I know it intimately. It’s not the ONE THING. It’s the one thing FOUR MILLION TIMES each day. It’s the one thing IN THE ROOM I’VE JUST FINISHED CLEANING. It’s the one thing and ALL ITS FRIENDS AND OFFSPRING.

There may be a lot of one things ending up in a Puget Sound area landfill this week.

Lately Laylee’s been all about making goals. This Saturday she woke up with a whole diet and fitness regimen planned out. She would eat 2 bananas cut up with a knife, 2 apples sliced with the apple slicer and several glasses of water. She would then do back exercises in her exercise spot under the stairs and check her back to see how strong it was getting.

After completing her exercises, she told me that although she knows they are not “real” exercises, she’s pretty sure they worked because she got all sweaty. When I told her she’d better put her sweaty clothes in the hamper she said, “No. It’s okay. I just stuck them under my pillow to dry out so I can wear them again tomorrow.” I’m not sure if this action stemmed from a desire to save me work cleaning the clothes, a desire to save the planet by using less water and power or the fact that the outfit is pink and sassy and a gift from her grammy.

They’re in the wash even now. The wash that never ends. The wash that is sucking the life from my very soul. But I digress.

She told me that her entire Saturday fitness routine was to make her back strong like a real ballerina. She cannot WAIT to be a real ballerina and as she twitches and flails her way adorably through ballet class each week, she asks me if she’s ready for point shoes. Not yet honey. As long as the other moms are gasping and saying, “Oh MY!” each time it’s your turn to pirouette across the floor, you’re probably not ready, but I really really like you.

I’m glad she has a goal though and she is getting better.

Today my chest congestion was back so I skipped my workout and slept in late. As I headed down the stairs, I found Laylee waiting by the front door. She was all dressed down to her socks, shoes and jacket. She was wearing her backpack which she’d already loaded with her water, folder and a Laylee-esque snack.

“Wow,” I said, “You’re ready early.”

“I know. I made a goal last night not to get late slips anymore so I woke up really early and got all ready.” She squinched her face and gave me a double thumbs-up. Oh my word she’s such a KEENER! And do I love it? Yes I do.

I got myself and Magoo dressed, fed them breakfast (for which she took her backpack off) and went to grab my keys when she asked me, “Hey mom. Can I add something to my snack that I wanted to ask you about?”

“Sure.”

“I want a piece of pork tenderloin. It’s okay. I can just eat it cold from my bag.”

So her kindergarten snack today consisted of a bag of peanuts, a slab of cold pork and a tub full of dry cereal. She dressed herself. Her back is strong. I think I’ll keep her.

It was tough for me this week to listen to calm classical music or none at all. I really enjoy my heart-thumpin’ dance tunes. They get me going like auditory caffeine and I had a rough time cleaning the house and staying motivated without turning the place into a disco tech.

However I did notice more calm moments in the house and in the car and I was glad to have them. If it weren’t for this challenge, I may never have found out about what Laylee had learned in music class last week and the music had a calming effect on both of my kids.

The best part of the experiment came on Saturday when I drove to Gig Harbor and back to run a blogging workshop at a conference for moms. I was nervous that I’d fall asleep listening to classical music alone in the car for over 3 hours. But the weirdest thing happened. I decided instead to take Rebecca’s advice and drive in silence. It was amazing. I can’t remember the last time I’ve taken a long drive with nothing to listen to but my own thoughts. When I’m with the kids I use the music to occupy them and block them out and when I’m alone I enjoy choosing whatever music I want and rocking out. I was amazed at how many thoughts there were to think and I truly was not bored or drowsy the whole way there and back. I’ll definitely try to spend more time in silent thought as a result of this experiment but I’m also excited to meet back up with my good friend ABBA Gold.

How did it go for you guys? Any breakthroughs? Was it tough for anyone else?

Dare to Simplify Week 2 — Multitasking at Meal Times
I am a hopeless multi-tasker. It’s truly sick how many things I try to do at once. I never finish books, tasks or thoughts half the time because I’m trying to do 10 other things at once. It seems a little broad, complicated and unrealistic to set a goal to stop all multitasking this week. So what I’d like to start with is avoiding multi-tasking during mealtimes and this includes all meal times. Can you sit through 3 meals a day with your family without doing something else? I’m fine at dinner but at breakfast I sit the kids down with their food and run around doing 10 other things while they and I eat. Lunch isn’t much better.

Meals are a good time to relax, unwind and get closer with my family but I tend to think I’m too “busy” to actually do it. One week, 21 meals, sitting, eating, and talking like a civilized person who’s more interested in my family than in being productive. I’m gonna give it a try.