Archive - May, 2009

Review: Making Life Better

And yet another MomCentral.com related post.  (Please bear with me.  And tomorrow, maybe a real-non-compensated post will appear!)

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Have you heard of this website?  MakingLifeBetter.com is all about . . . making your life better.   You can information about beauty & style, home & family, vitality & wellness . . . and tips and news and offers.  (And more!)

But I want to focus on the food & recipes information you can find there, because if you are like me (oh, I sure hope you are spared that particular agony!), you are always in dire need of help, inspiration and a dose of encouragement when it comes to feeding your family.  And Jennifer Bushman, the Kitchen Coach, is just the one to provide said things.  (Watch her here, on You-Tube.)  Check out all the recipes and tips for making dinnertime not just a necessary evil, but fun for you and your kids (and whomever else you happen to be responsible for feeding).

Here:  Budget Recipes!  (Don’t say I never gave you anything.)

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(This website is owned by Unilever, the makers of delicious products like Breyer’s Ice Cream and Hellman’s Mayonnaise and many, many others.)

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Now, go have an excellent weekend.  And make your life better!

Review: Mamapedia

And now, time for a MomCentral.com related post!

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Do you ever have a burning question you can’t quite bring yourself to ask anyone in real life?  But, say, you really need to know something about bedwetting or growing a mom-mustache against your will or about . . . well, just about anything.

Any Given Sunday release That’s where Mamapedia.com comes in.

From the Mamapedia.com site:

“Questions and parenting go hand in hand. From the moment you discover you’re pregnant and wonder “what should I be eating?” to the day your child packs for college and asks “how much spending money will I need?” you’re constantly in need of advice. And there’s no one better to get it from than the ultimate experts: other moms.

This, in a nutshell, is why Mamapedia exists.

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Mamapedia is your lifeline to millions of moms who’ve shared their real-world wisdom through local Mamasource online communities over the past two years. We compiled their answers, organized them by stage, and made them instantly searchable. We invite you to bookmark Mamapedia to find answers in a pinch, and to join your local Mamasource community so you can share what you’ve learned on your journey. And don’t miss Mamapedia’s ever-expanding range of topics, including household, money, health, relationships, and many other things that moms are talking about.”

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So, go.  Check it out.  Tell me what you think.  I think I might just use this site to answer the age-old question:  Where are all the spoons?  Did they run away with the socks?

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Books

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Last summer, I read East of Eden (by Steinbeck) for the first time.  I read most of it while sitting at the pool, half-watching my kids swim.  When I think of last summer, I think of that glorious book.

The summer before, I read Soldier of the Great War Definitely, Maybe ipod The Barefoot Contessa movies (by Helprin).  What a fantastic story that was.  I even copied down some quotes from it.

This summer, I started my second reading of The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver).  I read it a long time ago, but remember how much I loved it.  I am so looking forward to reading it again.

What are you reading this summer?  I wish I could spend most of my days reading, but instead, I fit reading into the very small margins of my life.

Against the Ropes movie download Also.  Can anyone tell me who left a banana peel in my living room?

That is all.

Impact Pt II

What I did this weekend, a Report by Melodee

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On Friday night, my twin teenagers slept over at someone’s house.  They didn’t return home until Saturday night. I cleaned their room while they were gone, but not until Saturday morning.  (Hint:  DISGUSTING.)

Saturday morning, my husband took our two youngest to an indoor play area.  It was a two-for-one deal, hooray.  While they were gone, I intended to clean for an hour, then head off  to the library to write.  However, one thing led to another and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned for what felt like a million years, but was only three hours.

By 2:00 p.m. I was in my regular spot at the library, writing my faux novel.  I decided by 5 p.m. that I am delusional and what was I thinking?  Also, why am I doing this again?  I struggled to put 800 words on paper, bringing my grand total pretty close to 18,000 words, which is nearly a quarter of the way to completion.  I haven’t looked at it since, but I will resume work this week, plowing toward the finish line.  The whole point of this exercise is to do it.  To write a novel.  To finish a novel.  Whatever happens after that is not my immediate concern.  I really need a girlfriend to sit down with to discuss the behavior of the people in my novel.  I think I need to talk it out.

Saturday night I did absolutely nothing, other than cringe while watching UFC (fighting) with my husband while reading a magazine.

Sunday we went to church, then to Dick’s Drive-In afterward.  When we got home, I took the two younger kids to the pool (which opened the day before) and they jumped right in and passed the swim test.  Grace spent much of her two hours jumping off the diving board and chatting with the lifeguards.  One even let her sit in the tall lifeguard chair during adult swim and then let her blow the whistle when it was Kid Swim again.

When we returned home I cleaned off the kitchen counter.  I found a basket full of Christmas cards.  I saved some and threw the rest away.  I sorted through a stack of papers and threw away coupons that expired in March.  I cleaned out two purses.  All this took an hour and is proof that I ought to be fired from household management.

And then it was time to go to a movie with my husband.  We saw “Star Trek” which was quite entertaining.  I liked it quite a lot.  It was made all the more entertaining by the three soldiers sitting in front of us who got such a kick out of it.

This morning, then, I roused everyone and had us all en route to Wild Waves by 9:30 a.m.  We have season’s passes.  The idea is to arrive as the park opens to claim a spot for the day.  That’s exactly what we did.  We had our four kids plus two extras.   Although I sprayed us all with SPF 50 sunscreen, we are all a little pink from our five hours of fun in the sun.  (My fun involved sitting on the lounge chair reading an Elizabeth Berg novel and despairing over my own novel.)

Back home by 4:00 p.m. and then my husband took four kids (three ours, one friend) to the “Night of the Museum” movie.  In their absence, I cleaned out our big freezer.  Unfortunately I had to discard two turkeys of unknown age.  I hate it when I waste food.  Really.  Hate.  But what can you do?  We bought an eighth of a cow (organic, natural beef) and it’s going in that freezer next weekend. It will keep all my husband’s leftover Jenny Craig food company.

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I also vacuumed and cleaned random spots off the carpet.  Although I could not remove the GUM?  GUM?  Who drops chewed gum in the living room and doesn’t pick it up?  Or report it to the proper authorities?  Seriously.

While defrosting the freezer (it’s really bad–it’s still thawing), I went outside and sprayed Round-Up on the stray weeds.  And I noticed how badly our back ivy-covered fence is leaning and wondered how much those neighbors back there hate us and remembered how mad I was when the contractor pulled that fence out of its socket and what a poor job he did fixing it–he just shoved it back up, instead of making sure the end fit into the socket–and I wondered how in the world we are ever going to get that fence down so it can be replaced because the ivy is as thick as small tree trunks and is woven right through the chain link fence.  It’s a mess.

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Also?  My boys like to use sticks to shatter plastic things into bits and if they don’t stop it I’m sending them all off to an orphanage.

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Also, whoever keeps breaking popsicle sticks and tossing them around the house is on my Knock It Off List.  KNOCK IT OFF.

And now, back to the freezer.

And back to real life tomorrow.

Hope you all had lovely weekends.

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Book Review: Finding Home (A Parable of Kingdom Life)

A couple years back, I met Brad Huebert, the author of this book, at a writer’s conference.  I immediately stuck my foot in my mouth by dissing biblical fiction . . . and then I said, “Uh, what do you write?”  He said, “Biblical fiction.”

Well, excuse me while I have my toes surgical removed from my esophagus.  I just hate it when that happens.

The gracious and kind Brad sent me his book to review the other day.  Finding Home: A Parable of Kingdom Life is, well, a parable that tells the story of Ivan, a man seeking to find God’s kingdom.  He gets derailed in the “Old City,” a place burdened with rules and lists and obligations before finally finding freedom in the “New City.”

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(Here’s a more coherent description of the story, from the site where you can buy it:

Laws of Attraction

When we struggle to get closer to God and experience his fullness, the typical prescription is a truckload of spiritual activity that leaves us discouraged and empty. Author Brad Huebert has been down that bitter, dead-end path and back again. In Finding Home, Huebert dissolves the veil between faith and sight to help you embrace the power and majesty of God’s kingdom.

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Through Ivan’s journey, experience how to leave the Old City behind and live out the blessings of the kingdom through childlike acceptance of the truth. Like Christ’s parables, Huebert’s tale simply illustrates how the Kingdom of God is already within and among us.

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Finding Home is a story you’ll want to pick up over and over; it is replete with unforgettably delectable images to savor with each read. It invites you to rethink your old assumptions about faith and kingdom life. Which path will you choose?

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What I really love about this story is that it gives you a glimpse into the man, Brad Huebert, a pastor in Canada who is passionate about his relationship with God and his relationship with his family.  He writes a really terrific blog called Presence.  Voice.  Touch. You should check it out.
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This is a pretty quick book to read, but it gives you food for thought that lasts long after you turn the last page.

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You can read more reviews here, on the Amazon site.

Frosted Flakes: Plant a Seed (time to vote)

Hey, lucky you!  Another informational post . . . about a worthy cause.

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Mom Central teamed up with Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes back in January to let our community know about its Earn Your Stripes (EYS) field renovation program that aimed to renovate neighborhood sports fields across the U.S. Since that time, thousands of fields were nominated some with as many as 700,000 supporters! Those fields have now been narrowed down to 100 finalists and your vote will help determine the winning fields.

The semifinalist fields were chosen based on the feasibility of the field makeover, the location and age of the field, how often it gets used, how many events take place, what teams use it, the number of other athletic fields in the community, the demand, condition, and the impact a field renovation would have on the community.

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From May 1st through the 31st, you can vote for your favorite semifinalist field at www.frostedflakes.com. Do you have a field in your area that got nominated or do you like one with a particularly compelling story?  Those who nominated these fields described the conditions as having inadequate grass, equipment, uneven playing surfaces and other problems.  These renovations will help to build community and provide better places for kids to stay active and play.

I posted about this back in January . . . and now it’s time to vote. Red Letters trailer This is a great way to help a community and kids.

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in exchange for compensation.)

Picking up where we left off

Any Given Sunday dvd And just like that, no fever.  My 6-year old woke up ready for action, only there was no kindergarten today since it’s a half day.  (They go on alternate half-days since everyday is a half-day for her.)  I was not so ready for action, so after taking the neighborhood boy to school, I went back to bed.  Going back to bed makes me feel slothful and lazy.  But eight hours of sleep?  Kind of important, if you ask me.

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When I woke up, my day began in a hurry-hurry-rush-rush fashion.  I kind of hate it.  I started working at 1 p.m., finished at 5 p.m., had her at the T-ball field by 5:50 p.m., finished watching T-ball at 7 p.m., stopped by the grocery store on the way home and returned home with five minutes left until my last shift of the day.  I finished working at midnight, wrote a few blog posts (apologies for them, but I do so like Amazon gift cards) and read a few blogs (Annie, Sarah, Linda

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and Jodie

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) and now it’s shamefully late.  Ridiculously late.  So late that I will waste my morning by sleeping in again tomorrow.

And the cycle continues.

But the weekend is coming.  And I’m taking Monday off.

In my next life, I am not going to complain about being too busy when I’m in high school and college and in those years before I have kids.  Seriously.  I had no idea what busy meant until now.

3M Filtrete: Have you changed your filters lately?

This is another one of those handy-dandy posts where I talk about a product because MomCentral.com asked me to (for some compensation).

Species download But you know what?  It’s a great reminder for me because I haven’t cleaned the air filters in my heat pump for . . . uh, a long time.  Did you know you’re supposed to change them every three months?  The guy that works on my system tried to convince me to change the filters every month.  (But I’m a loser and I don’t.)

And after reading about 3M Filtrete Home Filtration products, I think I’ll look for them next time I shop.   Now, while you’re over there at that site, you can join the free Clean Air Club, which gets you all kinds of information, plus entry into the Bamboo Sweepstakes.  Seriously, free.  What are you waiting for?

Once you read this about Indoor Air Quality Tooth dvd , you will put “Change Air Filters” on your to-do list.  I know I will.

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And you’re saying, “but why Filtrete instead of fiberglass Hiding Out video ?”  Click the link and find out exactly why.  I’m convinced!

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So, go clean your filters.  Buy some Filtrete filters.  But make sure you get some clean air in your house, stat!

Sick, sick, sick

Donkey Xote dvd When I picked up my daughter from kindergarten at 11:47 a.m., she clutched her head and said, “I don’t feel good.”  She went straight up to her bed after school–a sure sign of doom–and stayed up there a few hours, finally coming downstairs with flushed cheeks to report that she still didn’t feel good. They she crawled onto the couch where she huddled under a blanket for a few more hours, insisting that she felt FINE and that she wanted to go to McDonalds and could she please call her friend JUSTIN because she was ready to PLAY.

She felt a little feverish.  Little known fact:  I don’t own a thermometer.  I trust my hands to tell me the severity of a fever.  Plus, I believe that fevers are a sign the body is fighting off infection, so I don’t panic.  She felt a little warm, but–as I said on my Twitter account–she was not oinking, so I figured she doesn’t have the Swine Flu.

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Just call me Dr. Mel.  Just don’t call me past midnight.  Or on weekends.  I’m too busy not cleaning my house and not

ironing pants to talk right now.

(Anybody besides me dying to get on a plane and go somewhere, anywhere?  Why am I the only person who is stuck at home for endless weeks and months?)

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Sunday, when the sun shone

Husbands and Lovers full We skipped church yesterday to sleep in.  I felt a pang of loss at missing church, not because I’m being graded on church attendance, but because I do hate to miss Mark Driscoll’s preaching.  (And, yes, I could listen to it online, but I know I will never find time to do so.)  But half of us have a half-hearted cold and our twins had a “sleep”-over.  So, we slept in.

Later in the day, we rounded up everyone, including an extra teenager, and drove twenty minutes to Wild Waves, our local waterpark/amusement park.  The waterpark won’t open until next weekend, but this weekend was an opportunity to get our permanent season pass i.d. cards.  While we were there, we set the teenagers free and took the littler kids on rides.

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The elusive sun shone on us all day yesterday, reminding me that the gloom does not last forever.  The first two weeks of May were our wettest and coldest in history and seriously, felt like Groundhog’s Day, February 2 itself, repeating over and over.  Cold, gloomy, rainy, cold, damp, cloudy.

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And wouldn’t you know it . . . the rain has returned.  Looking outside at the sky gives no clues to the season.  It could be November.  Please, Weather, have pity on us!

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Since our youngest child is now six and a half, I notice a big difference in the difficulty-level of family outings.  When she was younger, we’d had to tailor everything to her appetite, energy and likelihood to throw a fit.  Now she goes along with the program mostly, adjusting to most disappointment with calm acceptance.  We can reason with her.  She can steer herself now, whereas before she was at the whim of her emotion, likely to go off course or capsize anytime, anywhere.

THX 1138 the movie Wouldn’t it be ironic if we had a baby now?  It would!  And although that would please her no end, that’s not going to happen.  Maybe a puppy.  Or a rat.  But no babies.  I’m getting old.  But hey, not as old as that 66-year old woman who is pregnant.  Did you hear about her?

When I am sixty-six, my daughter will be 28.  I’m going to leave the child-bearing to her.  But not for a long, long, long time.

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