Out of the rut, into a single bag of groceries. Cannonball.

I'm know this blog may be nothing new and mind-blowing, but recently, I've been putting much more thought into the meals I prepare for my family and my trips to the grocery store and I thought I would share some of what I've been doing. Of course, I've been trying to make healthier choices, but I'm also trying to save money and time and come home with everything I need to make meals for the week so I don't have to keep stopping by the store on the way home everyday.  My husband and I, both foodies, are really bad grocery impulse buyers. It is not unheard of for either of us to go to the store for milk, just milk, and return with a trunk full of food.  We both enjoy trying new recipes, ones that often need unique (usually equals expensive) ingredients that we use for that one meal and then the ingredients disappear into the back of cabinets and refrigerator drawers, never to be used again. This is wasteful on many levels. As part of trying to be healthier, less wasteful, and save money, we started thinking about ways to better plan and make meals.

Also, as busy folks are apt to do, we fall into dinner ruts. My husband and I will make the exact same kid-friendly meals over and over and over until even my 4 year old, usually thriving on routine, sighs, "Oh...this again." These kid-friendly meals (although we parents hate to admit it) are usually more fast than the healthiest choice, and although perfectly fine some of the time, shouldn't necessarily be in such a constant rotation. So my other goal is to expand our meal plan, while also getting more bang for my buck.

To kick off this new idea, I saw this article in Eating Well magazine and decide to follow the suggested meals exactly as the article said. The idea is for five dinners, with ingredients that fit into one bag, and costs around $50 or less. Indeed, with some of the ingredients already in my kitchen, I was able to buy the rest at under $50 dollars and carry it home in one reusable bag. I was impressed by how fast and easy these meals were and how delicious. Everyone in the family loved them.

I won't go into the recipe details because I would suggest you check out the article itself, but I will share a few quick thoughts about how each dish went over at my house.

We started with the Spring Pizza, which I had actually made before and my husband and I loved. My kids, however, balked at my tainting of the traditional, so they ate plain cheese versions of this with asparagus on the side (which I had to tell them were trees and they were giraffes just to get them to nibble at it). I also didn't have the traditional pizza crust on hand and didn't make my own, I used a flat bread. We love this pizza and I've made it a couple more times since.

The curry scallops and cilantro rice was also pretty good. The main problem with this dish was chef error. I am not very good at cooking seafood, despite watching years of Top Chef, and I overcooked the scallops. I could almost feel Tom Colicchio and Padma burning holes through my face with their glares of disapproval. The cilantro rice was a hit all the way around the table.

Next came Cincinnati Chili, I lived in Cincinnati for over a decade, so what I did to change this recipe is a cardinal sin. I confess. I did it, not only did I add beans, but I substituted the ground beef. Don't cry, Cincinnati friends. Usually I try to serve red meats only once or twice a month, and eat vegetarian a few days per week, so I used the vegetarian ground-meat substitute crumbles instead. It still satisfied the constant craving I have for Skyline and my kids still gobbled it up with oyster crackers. If you aren't too concerned about calories, don't forget the mountain of cheddar cheese on top.

The Pork and Snap Pea Lo Mein was the favorite dish, grown-up and kid-approved. The flavor was really good and something I hadn't tried making at home before, I don't know why because it was easy and quick. I also threw in the asparagus that we had leftover from pizza night. My husband took the leftovers to work for lunch and said he thought it tasted even better the next day.

And last, the Rice, Cheddar, and Spinach Pie. This reminded me of a quiche, but with rice as the base instead of custard. This was extremely easy and took only minutes to prepare. Everyone liked it, even my kids, despite the green stuff, which they picked out. We ate it as our main meal, but it would also be a great side or to take to a carry-in. There was a little bit of a crispness to the bottom and side and a comforting flavor. I'll be making this again as a comfort food on a cold, snowy day.

  At the same time, I'm trying to lower my grocery bill to keep within a certain budget and plan weekly meals before I go to the store so I am buying only what I need. I especially liked this idea of getting five meals out of one bag of groceries because having multiple meals over many days using the same ingredients obviously saves money. So not only am I going to directly follow this example from Eating Well, but I'm also going to continue trying to plan my weekly dinners based on the meals sharing many of the same ingredients and avoid having tons of ingredients around for a meal I made weeks ago slowly going bad and being forgotten in the bottom of the fridge and cabinets. Because that happens often and is wasteful on many levels. And gross. I'm trying to plan my meals, make the list of what I need, and only buy what is on the list while I'm at the store.

I am also trying to use bases and fillers for meals that keep well and can be used for many different types of dishes. For example, I keep brown rice, lentils, whole grain pastas, and Japanese noodles always on hand. These can be added to soups to make it go farther and be more filling. Also just adding vegetables and/or a protein with a sauce or spices can make a quick meal when you are pressed for time and ideas.

Just this past summer, my husband and I have even more of an effort to grow our own food. We planted our largest garden yet and are using a small cold-frame to keep greens growing even into the winter. We have our children help us and even have their own small plots. Surprisingly, they will often eat what they gather and wash from the garden, even though if I put it in front of them, they would say, "Yuck!" This spring we will begin to raise some chickens to have a constant supply of fresh eggs.

These are just a few things I've been trying and I would love more ideas or things that have worked for your family. So feel free to share in the comments!

Also I've had these pages bookmarked as I've been looking for more ideas and recipes:

This 7-Day Budget-Friendly Menu Plan and Shopping List
Skinnytaste  - website with fabulous recipes and meal ideas
USDA: eating healthy on a budget tips and links
Budget-friendly Healthy Meals from the Food Network

My Problem with Punctuation

....or "No, I don't know how to use a semicolon. There, I said it."

This is embarrassing, but I don't see how I can continue this blog without addressing the issue. So let's just get it out there, the elephant in the room, because if you have been reading any of my stuff here or on Facebook, you have probably noticed that I have a punctuation problem. I don't always know where or how to use it so I either leave it out altogether or just stick random commas wherever I think they may go. That I purposely try to arrange my sentences to avoid having to even use punctuation. When I know there should be something, but I really don't know what it should be, I start to panic, sweat, worry, and ultimately just leave it out or try to make what I think is an obvious typo. So you think my finger just slipped, of course, I would have used the correct punctuation, but alas, really I didn't know. Why didn't you just look it up, you ask? Because my problem with punctuation isn't just a general ignorance and sloppiness, it is a genuine anxiety, perhaps even creeping into phobia. When the rules and exceptions swim before my eyes, I get woozy and confused. I question and second-guess myself. I get anxious about getting the reader to understand. About the balance between getting my point across and not muddying up the waters.

Let me begin by clarifying that I have dabbled in writing my entire life. Even as recently (*cough*) as my early 20's, I thought I might end up just being a writer. I've had good feedback from teachers, professors, and professionals about the word part, but they have always, from high school up through college and even in professional writing, have commented on my "sloppy" attention to punctuation detail. They always praised my way with words and assumed that the punctuation mistakes were because of an off day or just typing too fast. In reality, folks, when it comes to punctuation, I really have no idea what the hell I am doing. I've always been confused and forgetful about the rules. Always spent more time figuring out how to get around punctuation rather than figure out how to use it.

It isn't that I didn't have ample opportunity to learn. I took more than the required English and Grammar courses in college. I even helped other people with their writing and punctuation in my campus' Writing Center. There, when I didn't know what to do, I just used the ole' teaching method of having them look it up on their own, so you know, they could see and learn for themselves and not have me, you know, just tell them. I have books and reference materials. There are websites galore. I read and read good writing all the time. And yet, I am still bewildered by semicolons and colons. Most of the time I'm not certain where a comma should go or not go. And don't even know what to call a dash or if it even counts.

And I know some of my friends are quite bothered by this punctuation problem. They find it distracting and think I should know better. I should represent better. Because my problem is really part of a bigger problem, in an age of computer language, abbreviations, texting, 140 characters or less, posts, blogs, speed, multi-platform expression and communication, everyone is getting sloppy. Punctuation is now an option in most places we are typing or writing words. We don't proofread in these tiny squares on the screen, we simply type, send, and on to the next. Part of me loves that my punctuation problem is more acceptable now and part of me finds it very sad.

So as part of my ongoing quest to be in my best health and my best self by age 40, I'm also going make an effort to take on my punctuation problem. I want to be a better writer by not being afraid to take on the semicolon, the colon, the over/underused comma, and whatever other various dots and dashes I've been avoiding. I know this is a very minor details to our lives, but perhaps it is important in some way to us not letting the speed and briefness of modern life take our written communication and language down to just three capital letters with an explanation mark. Perhaps it is important to keep some of the intricately built sentences that can make reading a simple idea or description dance through your head and stay there. I'm going to pull out some of my books and reference materials and try to make sense of parenthetical expressions and coordinating conjunctions. Perhaps even bring myself to use a semicolon. Someday.

So, my old nemesis, we meet again. I believe we have unfinished business, you and I.

There is always someone cooler than you....

.....and that is becoming my 4 year old kid. Sure, every generation passes their parents by, and with this techno-fast, 24-7 information world, it appears to be happening faster and faster. Or perhaps it only seems that way as I become older and slower. I just can't keep up anymore. And just as I begin to lose my grasp on pop culture, my 4 year old son has decided to enter it.

 Let me skip back a couple decades and say that I've always been a pop culture nerd. Entertainment Weekly was my Bible. The independent movie theater and indie rock venue were my churches. I was a girl people called up for trivia nights around town because I was a walking Wikipedia of pop culture information. "Who directed that movie?" "What year was that song released?" "Who is that hot actor dating?" I knew that stuff. I wore the irreverent t-shirts and Converse tennis shoes. I was on the Ain't It Cool News message boards.  I kinda thought my life would be like Friends, or if I was really lucky, Sex and the City. I went out on Saturday night to wherever everyone else was going to be, then packed up with hipster nerds and made ironic commentary on politics, science, and E! News. Now I won't say all that was necessarily cool, but I mean, what is cool? I don't know, but I was young and in the now. When things "happened," I already knew about it.

Fast forward to almost eight years ago when I got married. A few years later, I had a kid. A few years after that I had another. And as everyone knows, but seem to have trouble putting into words to really explain, everything changed. As with everyone, some things have to give. Those little people take up a lot of space. I still read Entertainment Weekly, but I just don't get out to movies and music shows anymore. I seem to exist a year behind on all technology (I don't have a tablet yet). I turn on the radio or Pandora and I don't know who half the musicians are and some of it is just starting to all sound the same. If I get to go out, I just want to go someplace quiet and clean where an adult can sit down and have a decent conversation. I don't know who the hot actor is this week and I don't care who he is dating.

And that brings me back to my 4 year old kid. In the car on the way to school the other day, a song came on I didn't really know and when I went to flip the station over to NPR, my kid exclaimed, "MOM!" (I'm Mom already, not Mommy) "Mom! I like that song!" "Oh, sorry. I didn't know that song." A huge sigh from the back. "Mom, that is the Trees (Neon Trees). That is music for kids like me, NOT for Moms." Couple that conversation with his recent foray into rap (Kanye West and Jay-Z, the clean versions) and the fact that he can get on the laptop and navigate the Internet by himself, and I have myself a teenager on my hands. Only my kid is 4. He is suddenly interested in knowing who the people are on TV shows, who is singing that song, and where he can go on the Internet to ask the Jet Propulsion Laboratory questions about the Mars Curiosity Rover. He is suddenly young and in the now. When things "happen," he knows about it. 

As most modern parents, I'm not sure about all of this techno-fast, 24-7. I'm not sure about my kid passing me by at age 4. When it is time for his first tablet or smart phone, how will I know it is really the right time? I know I can't keep up with the world right now and I'm hoping that my kid can't either. And if I try to slow him down, is that for for him or is that for me? What if I just can't keep up with him? What if I just don't know what is going on in the world of my own kid?

So for now, I have solace in that fact that later that same day, my kid got super-excited about a frog up on our front porch and giggled and clapped his hands like, well, a little kid. And when he falls and skins his knees, he comes crying to me to be rocked on my lap. And he still just wants to cuddle in bed with a picture book in the evenings. And although he knows what songs "the kids" are listening to these days, he still needs me to tie his shoes. And he hasn't started commenting on my uncool outfits. Yet. I suppose that will start at age 5.

The Real Housewives of the Shire

Updated September 14, 2013.

I used to blog back in the day on MySpace (I tragically date myself here, wait, was that only 5 or 6 years ago?) and I once wrote a well-received entry on the dude I married.

 At the time, he was obsessed with an impending apocalypse that involved peak oil and his creation of a “life boat,”which is a small group of people with complimenting survival skills agreeing to ride out apocalyptic events together on an “island,” an undisclosed, remote wilderness location.

Of which I was informed I would not be privy to until I could prove my worth with some sort of skill beyond movie trivia. But I digress, and the dude I married has left that obsession behind after a few years, a few kids, and a move out into the country to our own “island.”

Now he has a new obsession. 

Although he has not stated it outright, I’m pretty certain he is trying to slowly turn himself into an actual Hobbit. I think any dude approaching age 40 starts to become more Hobbit-like in appearance anyway. There is the increasing roundness, increasing stockiness, and increasing hairiness. The dude I married is actually embracing the Hobbit lifestyle as only someone who reads The Lord of the Rings every year can truly master. 

He has always had a love of nature and a green thumb. First in an urban backyard, then in an even more urban community garden, and now sprawled over 5 rural acres. He has always read about organic and native gardening, restoration of native prairie and woodlands, and heirloom vegetables. Now that we live out in the country, where no one cares what your yard looks like, the plants are growing increasingly closer and taller. We are surrounded by a meadow of wild flowers covering a few acres with twisting mowed paths dotted with benches of reclaimed logs and branches from our own trees. I have no doubt he intends this forest and gardens to completely envelop the house at some point. He spends every evening walking and talking to his rows of sapling trees and tending to his gardens.

 In true Hobbit fashion, he shuns shoes during this evening ritual. He will go barefoot or at most wear sandals everywhere and anywhere he can get away with it. He has also always been a good cook. He loves a jolly dinner party with courses he has prepared and flowing wines or local brews. On lazy weekend days, I will actually hear him say the words, “hmmmm….I think it is time for second breakfast. Elevensies, anyone?” with all inflection of normalcy. 

Then, this past year, he took up knitting. It started as a desire to find an occupation during his train commutes doing something calming and constructive. It has become more than a hobby. He checks his knitting the way other people check their smartphones, any moment there is a pause in a conversation, any moment the kids are playing quietly, and anywhere we have to sit and wait for anything. He sneaks off to knit in quiet corners of the house. The boys look Hobbit and Elfish themselves in their multitude of brightly-colored pointed hats and Scandinavian sweaters. He recently discovered plans online to built actual small Hobbit houses. I discovered him just yesterday sketching plans for creating a Hobbiton in our back meadow.

He hates technology of any kind, finds it for the most part awkward and silly. He doesn't want your messages or likes. If he knows you, he wants to share food and talk to you. He doesn’t care about celebrities or sport heroes or cars.  He doesn’t bother himself much with schedules or money. He enjoys the company of plants and books more than most people. 

So I’m married to a Hobbit. 

And although I poke a slight bit of fun at him here and sometimes get exasperated at the way he floats through life, doesn’t everyone who reads The Lord of the Rings want to live for a time in the Shire? Toddle about gardens and wagon-worn paths. Drink large frothy drinks and sing merry songs. Feel the soft dirt and tickling green grass under your feet. Not bother yourself with what is going on out there in the larger world.

 I do. I envy the dude I married for escaping into that world so easily while I find myself pulled back by to-do lists and worry. I suppose I am lucky to get even small escapes into the Shire. Here on our own little "lifeboat" he has created from a crazy, busy, loud world where Hobbits don't really belong.

“Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people….for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth….They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skillful with tools. ….though they are inclined to be fat and do not hurry unnecessarily, they are nonetheless nimble and deft in their movements. They possessed from the first the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when large folk whom they do not wish to meet come blundering by; and this art they have developed until to Men it may seem magical. But Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind, and their elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races. “

 From the Prologue (Concerning Hobbits) of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings, 1954