The day after Halloween, known as All Saints Day, or as The Candypocalypse in my circle of friends, has long been a day of dread for the parents of the students of the Slam Dunk School of Everything. Today, parents have a choice: let the candy flow freely, or ration out the candy over the next few weeks or months. As for me, I choose to let the candy flow freely and here is my reasoning...
My daughter is hyperactive, the diagnosis is ADHD, although I am convinced that medicating her personality out of existence is not the answer to a diagnosis that way too many children have gotten. Here is a blog post about it that I appreciate. For Coral, candy is a stimulus that brings out the hyperactive monster in her. She turns into a screaming, emotional child who cannot control herself. One piece of candy will do this to her, although chocolate is worse than non-chocolate. So the question I have to ask myself is, should I deal with a monster everyday for the next few weeks, or one or two days this week? I choose the latter. She's going to be a monster regardless of how many pieces of candy she gets, so I am going to let her be a monster today and maybe tomorrow and then the candy will be gone and I will have my normal child again.
Candypocalypse: here we come!
Friday, November 1, 2013
Monday, October 21, 2013
The Winters' Family Lexicon part 1
When you are playing Sudoku and you have to guess, only to discover that your guess was wrong, you have come to a Conclision.
If you get upset enough that tears spill over you are Crydag.
There are no bounds to the ensmallingness of our evilitude. We really are that petty.
The space along the stairway where you empty your pockets or place your keys that is the floor of the upper room is the flelf.
When an item is taken by one of my children, it is either Coralized or Bubbified.
If you get upset enough that tears spill over you are Crydag.
There are no bounds to the ensmallingness of our evilitude. We really are that petty.
The space along the stairway where you empty your pockets or place your keys that is the floor of the upper room is the flelf.
When an item is taken by one of my children, it is either Coralized or Bubbified.
Are you sick? Do you feel like you need to crawl in bed and stay there for the rest of the day? You are feeling punificent. When Leif is teething, his punificence knows no limit.
When can never get an opinion from my dad, he only has a Puninion.
When the kids are in my path, I say, "Goobie" instead of "excuse me" because that's how my daughter pronounced it when she started to talk.
We do not put up with Baditudes in our family. Gooditudes are expected.
When we are grateful we say Nacknooey, because that's what Leif says.
The Slam Dunk School of Cooking
One of the many gifts my parents gave me was good taste. In food, that is. My parents both spent time teaching us (all four of their children) how to cook. The truth is, the girls learned the ways of the stove and the boys learned the ways of the grill (though my sister is a competent cook in both, I am a little intimidated by the grill). My brothers are not exactly chefs, but they can make steak like pros.
The one thing that my mother taught me was how to taste food. She taught me how to decide what spices go well together and what spices go well in dishes that I make. Our spice cabinet has never been an organized one, it was always crammed full of a variety of spices and by crammed I mean this:
As you can see: not organized at all. However, the disorganization has been a useful tool for teaching. I could spend ten minutes searching for the spice I wanted, and all the while learning what other spices were in there, and how they were typically used, because I was a label reader and not afraid of experimenting with something that sounded and smelled like it might fit in the dish I was making.
All that, of course, happened when I was older. When I was a child of about 4, my mother taught me how to make pancakes. It was my first cooking lesson. I still remember the heat off the griddle, and the weight of the spatula in my hand. I remember standing on the chair so I could reach the griddle on the counter. I remember that my sister was on another chair, right next to me. We were learning together. It was family time. I remember watching those pancake bubbles like a hawk and deciding to turn over the pancake as soon as the last bubble popped. I also remember the wave of disappointment when the first pancake I turned was burnt! It was mom's first true lesson in cooking: the first pancake is either burnt or underdone.
Later, my mother taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce. To this day, I can whip that up like a pro, but I've learned a few things of my own and the recipe has evolved since I became it's perpetrator in my house. After I had pancakes and spaghetti down, along with a few other recipes my dad contributed (namely, Gloop-Slorp), I decided to strike out on my own in an adventure in cooking. The first leg of my journey encapsulates the quintessence of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking.
I was 13 and I wanted Fettuccine Alfredo. I didn't know how to make it and I didn't have a recipe for it, but I did have a jar of Alfredo sauce. I read the directions and followed them to the letter. The first part instructed the cook to heat up the sauce in a sauce pan to boiling. I did that. The next part was to boil the fettuccine for a certain amount of minutes until tender. The instructions didn't say anything about a pot of boiling water, so I dumped the fettuccine into the pot of boiling sauce.
It became apparent pretty quickly that I had done something wrong. The fettuccine was not cooking right and the sauce was just getting thicker and thicker, so being a student of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking, I decided to improvise. I dumped a bunch of milk in the sauce pan! But I realized that the spices would be diluted, so I thought about it and decided that Italian blend seasoning would be appropriate and I shook a bunch of that in the sauce pan. I let it boil and cook until it was apparent that it could not get any better, but it definitely could get worse. I turned off the burner and stepped outside, where my father and brothers were working. I had decided I wouldn't even attempt to eat what I had made, but I didn't want to rob anyone else of the opportunity, so I yelled at them, "SUPPER'S RUINED!!!" And they ate it!
During my teens, pasta and I had a love-hate relationship. I loved it, but it hated to be cooked by me. Until one day, it decided to change it's tactics on me and took over the speech center of my brain. It was Christmas morning and the presents were opened and the gift to the family was a waffle maker! By this time, I had become the evening meal cook, so my dad turned to me and the conversation went like this:
"Jen! How do you make waffles?"
Thinking pancakes, I said, "Spaghetti!"
My dad looks baffled and asks again, "Jen? How do you make wafffles?"
I was still thinking pancakes, but pasta was taking over and I said, "Spaghetti!"
My father didn't give up on me, and I didn't give up on myself and eventually I got the word, "pancakes" out of my mouth. The ensuing disaster is another paradigm of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking: when in doubt, fake it. Pancake batter is too thin for successful waffles, but the basics are similar,so after a few attempts, we finally got a batter that worked for waffles. We made it up, tweaking the recipe for pancake batter until we got what we wanted. That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking is all about: make it up until you get it right.
Since the alfredo debacle, I haven't used recipes except as a tool for ideas. If I want pumpkin bread, I will find a recipe and use it as a guide, but I never follow recipes to the letter any more. A few days ago, I wanted stroganoff, I don't have a recipe, but I do have a basic understanding of what it should taste like, so I made it up. I sauteed the vegetables and meat I wanted, boiled up some farfalle and used sour cream as a sauce base. It was delicious and my kids ate up, but there were no recipes involved.
The most useful skill the Slam Dunk School of Cooking has given me is the ability to improvise in the kitchen. I don't usually have a meal planned when I start cooking. Often I will grab whatever meat I happen to have on hand, and toss it in a skillet. I will go to the freezer for some vegetable inspiration to go with the meat in the skillet, and the meal tends to come together from there. My most recent meal happened this way: I had some thawed boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I diced them and tossed them in a skillet with olive oil. I went the the freezer and put a back of broccoli and a bag of peas in the microwave to steam. There was some leftover green beans from lunch that I tossed in the skillet with a spoonful of garlic. I went to the fridge, saw what was the left of the sour cream from the stroganoff the other day and decided to finish it off. I added the peas and broccoli to the skillet, the sour cream, some salt and a Tastefully Simple mix, Dried Tomato and Garlic Pesto. I served it over fettuccine and my kids loved it, so did I. The meal came together as I started cooking, I improvised, using what I had to create a meal that we would enjoy.That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking as given me: good taste and the ability to improvise in the kitchen.
The one thing that my mother taught me was how to taste food. She taught me how to decide what spices go well together and what spices go well in dishes that I make. Our spice cabinet has never been an organized one, it was always crammed full of a variety of spices and by crammed I mean this:
As you can see: not organized at all. However, the disorganization has been a useful tool for teaching. I could spend ten minutes searching for the spice I wanted, and all the while learning what other spices were in there, and how they were typically used, because I was a label reader and not afraid of experimenting with something that sounded and smelled like it might fit in the dish I was making.
All that, of course, happened when I was older. When I was a child of about 4, my mother taught me how to make pancakes. It was my first cooking lesson. I still remember the heat off the griddle, and the weight of the spatula in my hand. I remember standing on the chair so I could reach the griddle on the counter. I remember that my sister was on another chair, right next to me. We were learning together. It was family time. I remember watching those pancake bubbles like a hawk and deciding to turn over the pancake as soon as the last bubble popped. I also remember the wave of disappointment when the first pancake I turned was burnt! It was mom's first true lesson in cooking: the first pancake is either burnt or underdone.
Later, my mother taught me how to make her spaghetti sauce. To this day, I can whip that up like a pro, but I've learned a few things of my own and the recipe has evolved since I became it's perpetrator in my house. After I had pancakes and spaghetti down, along with a few other recipes my dad contributed (namely, Gloop-Slorp), I decided to strike out on my own in an adventure in cooking. The first leg of my journey encapsulates the quintessence of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking.
I was 13 and I wanted Fettuccine Alfredo. I didn't know how to make it and I didn't have a recipe for it, but I did have a jar of Alfredo sauce. I read the directions and followed them to the letter. The first part instructed the cook to heat up the sauce in a sauce pan to boiling. I did that. The next part was to boil the fettuccine for a certain amount of minutes until tender. The instructions didn't say anything about a pot of boiling water, so I dumped the fettuccine into the pot of boiling sauce.
It became apparent pretty quickly that I had done something wrong. The fettuccine was not cooking right and the sauce was just getting thicker and thicker, so being a student of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking, I decided to improvise. I dumped a bunch of milk in the sauce pan! But I realized that the spices would be diluted, so I thought about it and decided that Italian blend seasoning would be appropriate and I shook a bunch of that in the sauce pan. I let it boil and cook until it was apparent that it could not get any better, but it definitely could get worse. I turned off the burner and stepped outside, where my father and brothers were working. I had decided I wouldn't even attempt to eat what I had made, but I didn't want to rob anyone else of the opportunity, so I yelled at them, "SUPPER'S RUINED!!!" And they ate it!
During my teens, pasta and I had a love-hate relationship. I loved it, but it hated to be cooked by me. Until one day, it decided to change it's tactics on me and took over the speech center of my brain. It was Christmas morning and the presents were opened and the gift to the family was a waffle maker! By this time, I had become the evening meal cook, so my dad turned to me and the conversation went like this:
"Jen! How do you make waffles?"
Thinking pancakes, I said, "Spaghetti!"
My dad looks baffled and asks again, "Jen? How do you make wafffles?"
I was still thinking pancakes, but pasta was taking over and I said, "Spaghetti!"
My father didn't give up on me, and I didn't give up on myself and eventually I got the word, "pancakes" out of my mouth. The ensuing disaster is another paradigm of the Slam Dunk School of Cooking: when in doubt, fake it. Pancake batter is too thin for successful waffles, but the basics are similar,so after a few attempts, we finally got a batter that worked for waffles. We made it up, tweaking the recipe for pancake batter until we got what we wanted. That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking is all about: make it up until you get it right.
Since the alfredo debacle, I haven't used recipes except as a tool for ideas. If I want pumpkin bread, I will find a recipe and use it as a guide, but I never follow recipes to the letter any more. A few days ago, I wanted stroganoff, I don't have a recipe, but I do have a basic understanding of what it should taste like, so I made it up. I sauteed the vegetables and meat I wanted, boiled up some farfalle and used sour cream as a sauce base. It was delicious and my kids ate up, but there were no recipes involved.
The most useful skill the Slam Dunk School of Cooking has given me is the ability to improvise in the kitchen. I don't usually have a meal planned when I start cooking. Often I will grab whatever meat I happen to have on hand, and toss it in a skillet. I will go to the freezer for some vegetable inspiration to go with the meat in the skillet, and the meal tends to come together from there. My most recent meal happened this way: I had some thawed boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I diced them and tossed them in a skillet with olive oil. I went the the freezer and put a back of broccoli and a bag of peas in the microwave to steam. There was some leftover green beans from lunch that I tossed in the skillet with a spoonful of garlic. I went to the fridge, saw what was the left of the sour cream from the stroganoff the other day and decided to finish it off. I added the peas and broccoli to the skillet, the sour cream, some salt and a Tastefully Simple mix, Dried Tomato and Garlic Pesto. I served it over fettuccine and my kids loved it, so did I. The meal came together as I started cooking, I improvised, using what I had to create a meal that we would enjoy.That is what the Slam Dunk School of Cooking as given me: good taste and the ability to improvise in the kitchen.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Slam Dunk DIY
I've never had the money to pay for mechanics. They are expensive and a lot are not trustworthy. As a result, I have either had to rely on my dad, my brother, or my own wits. In a turn of life's ironic sense of humor, I recently married a mechanic. So when my van's air conditioner stopping working suddenly, I called my husband (who is in Albuquerque, NM) and explained the situation. He decided that I was capable of fixing it myself with some instruction from him.
After two YouTube videos, I set to work replacing the a/c relay, checking and replacing the fuses and then, replacing the vacuum tubing. Here is a picture of the owner's manual of where the fuse box is located:
I looked and looked, searching for that fuse box to no avail! I had a professional look for it, he said it didn't exist. I gave up for a few days until I could get my dad there to see if he could find it. When my dad got under there, it took him thirty seconds to find it. It wasn't anywhere close to where the picture was pointing. It was next to and behind the brake pedal!! Someone just shoot me. I saw the thing and didn't even register it could have been the fuse box.
Having replaced that blown fuse, I took apart the center console. It was a trial of strength and treachery. Could I figure out how to get to the bolts in the back without breaking anything or doing more work than necessary? Did I have the right tools for the job and if not, could I finagle something to work?
I did. I got the console off, and replaced the vacuum tubing with a little help from my dad to run the tube from the front of the engine to the back. We tested the fix, and my a/c is back to perfect running order. I put it all back together and voila!! It's done.
This is why I have been and will continue to be a student of the Slam Dunk school of everything: because I WIN.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Slam Dunk Theory of Chaos: Why I am thankful for forks
I grew up in a house full of messies. I have two brothers and a sister and she was the only exception in our family of six. She is a clean freak sometimes, but at least she doesn't take out her obsession on the rest of us. When we go visit, she stays out of the guest rooms and spends her visiting time wiping down the countertops or vacuuming.
That's after two days of being sick.
On my own, I'm relatively neat, easily keeping up with the housework of one. That's why I know I am capable of living in a clean house. Keeping up with the cleanliness of the house with two is more difficult, but a task I could manage. I don't like cleaning up after other people, but I can do it as long as the other person reciprocates. After Coral was born, my ability to keep up with the chores began to decline. Thus my theory of chaos began to evolve:
One child is capable of a single child's amount of chaos. I'll denote that with X, so 1= X. Two children together are capable of X and their combined X as well, 2= 3X + 3X = 6X. Three children together are capable of their own X, the combined X of a pair of children twice and the combined X of all three of them twice, 3= 12X + 12X + 12X = 36X. Four children is the level of chaos I grew up in: 4 = 156X.
Here's a pictograph of it:
Or, if you like,
I'll get the floor swept and mopped and all back to clean, but it never ends with kids. Two days of sick and I'm looking at two days of clean up!
In an effort to keep my sanity, I've decided that my house does not need to be super clean like my sister's, just clean enough that my husband can get around in his wheelchair. My shelving is cluttered, but I know where everything is, my drawers aren't full of neatly folded clothes, but they're in there, and my sink often has dirty dishes in it, but I try to keep that under control too. My problem with dishes is that my dishwasher has to take sick days (like the last two) and can't wash dishes while I'm teaching or showering or sleeping or basically anything I do that isn't dishes. The other thing about that is I despise washing the dishes. It's another never ending job that has to be done at least three times a day if I am to keep up. In an effort to fix my attitude about dishes, I've begun to meditate on thankfulness while washing. For every lousy fork and skinny glass I need a special tool to clean, I thank God. I make it a point to say in my head, "I'm thankful for this fork. I've gotten many good years of use out of it and without it and others like it, I'd be eating with my hands."
It's a useful tool for me because it fosters thankfulness in myself and helps me to teach my children to be thankful too. Basically, my chaos leads to my thankfulness and hopefully a lifetime of thankfulness in my children too.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
The Slam Dunk Take on Courage
I'm sitting on my son's toddler bed, keeping him company as he wades through the last few minutes of his waking hours into the calm solitude of sleep. Today has been a good day for us. He's been fighting a sinus infection due to allergies and has not been the most gracious of bubbies. However, today he's managed to keep a relatively good mood on the surface. I know he's miserable, but he's been brave today.
His courage is inspiring. He's been inspiring me and his sister since he was a brand new infant. He basically cried for the first three months of his life because he was digestively miserable and altogether too big for the package in which he found himself. At three months I bought him a walker and my dad modified it to fit his short legs. Within a week he was terrorizing his sister on wheels. He rode that thing into the ground-- buy the time he began walking at ten months the wheels were flat! When he began walking, it wasn't good enough for him-- he needed to walk with a big stick! He's been pushing himself and the limits of his packaging all his life. Today he pushed himself to be a better playmate even though he feels awful.
My own courage does not come naturally to me. I am inherently an introvert and people often exhaust me. It takes a lot of energy for me to be a good friend, mother, wife, daughter... I just have to work it. I have, too! I spent the better part of my 20's working past my introversion and making friends. I'm so glad I did because now, ten years later, I still have some of those amazing friends. I also have two children who often teach me as I am teaching them, and a wonderful husband who says he loves me more, not because he loves me more than I love him, but because he loves me more than anyone else on the planet.
It's taken me years of hard emotional work and building up my courage to get here today, yet my work isn't completed. My son's natural courage is a reminder to me that everyday I have to keep my own courage up and I need to push myself to be better than I am. How else will I keep up with him?
Slam Dunk's Painted Lady Butterflies
So this is new. I never thought of myself as a blogger, but having contemplated the idea for a while, I've decided to use this outlet to get the need to write and the need to emote out of my system.
I'm a new homeschool teacher! My daughter just started Kindergarten! We've been studying the life cycle of butterflies the last few weeks and today our painted lady butterflies from Insect Lore hatched from their Chrysalides! We actually managed to watch the last of the five hatch. The others came out over night, but the last hatched during school. My daughter was enthralled, of course. So was I, for that matter. We'll release the butterflies in a few days, but until then, we will be happily drawing pictures and making a Kindergarten science journal full of drawings and photos of the last few weeks.
I'm a new homeschool teacher! My daughter just started Kindergarten! We've been studying the life cycle of butterflies the last few weeks and today our painted lady butterflies from Insect Lore hatched from their Chrysalides! We actually managed to watch the last of the five hatch. The others came out over night, but the last hatched during school. My daughter was enthralled, of course. So was I, for that matter. We'll release the butterflies in a few days, but until then, we will be happily drawing pictures and making a Kindergarten science journal full of drawings and photos of the last few weeks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)