It's Easter candy season! And since I'm on a big DIY junk food binge, I'm making a list of the things I want to try:
Pies (or just eat this stuff as pudding):
Chocolate marshmallow pie
Peanutbutter marshmallow pie
Nutella marshmallow pie
Or swirled pie with more than one flavor of marshmallow cream filling...
Homemade marshmallows
Chocolate bunnies (this is where the whole Easter Candy tradition started--cheaper to make than buy chocolate bunnies, and a whole lot more fun)
Candy fillings for chocolates:
peanut butter
marshmallow
peanut butter and marshmallows
orange cream
nutella cream
vanilla cream
caramel
coconut cream
mint cream
caramel and marshmallows
dulce de leche (since I made some by accident)
graham crackers
graham crackers and marshmallows
graham crackers, marshmallows, and peanut butter
graham crackers, marshmallows, and caramel
cherry
cherry with vanilla cream
cherry cream?
chocolate cream
And what Tim proposed: No bake cookies made from graham crackers, caramel balls, marshmallows, and chocolate
And I'm trying to figure out an easy and quick way to coat the candies with chocolate. It's always a pain to do them one at a time on a fork. I probably should just give in and buy some molds. Then I could make some goopier fillings, too.
I also need to remember to buy some milk chocolate chips. They're more expensive, but often the semi-sweet chips are too strong of a dark chocolate flavor for the fillings (like for caramel).
Given that I've been going overboard with treats lately, I likely will try all of these. But I'm trying to convince myself to work in SMALL batches. Like divide one batch of filling into four different flavors instead of making four batches of filling.
I'm excited, though, because I finally made a perfect batch of sweetened condensed milk, and I remembered to buy a bunch of powdered sugar, so I have plenty to make into fillings for my chocolates!
Friday, March 20, 2015
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Home Made Sweetened Condensed Milk
So I had a kind of pie-making binge weekend, and in the process I ran out of sweetened condensed milk, since I made two batches of homemade caramel (in the microwave! It's SO easy--just mix it up, microwave until it's thick stirring every 3 minutes. Way easier than stovetop. But I digress) last week, and then two pies that had sweetened condensed milk in them, and I just plumb ran out. Unlike tomato sauce, it's not something I usually keep dozens of cans on hand.
But a friend of mine had mentioned that a mutual friend makes her own sweetened condensed milk, so I thought I'd see if I could make some myself, since I really wanted a key lime pie and the main ingredients are lime juice (I had that, weirdly) and sweetened condensed milk (sc milk, combined with any acid, turns into a gel, which is why it is the foundation of many pies, including my favorite: cherry cream) and I had no car. (Also, I realized that easter candy season is upon us, and my cream candy filling recipe is based on sweetened condensed milk).
I emailed my friend for her recipe and found my mom's old homemade sweetened condensed milk recipe (on the back of her caramel recipe, of course). I looked some up online and found a thousand variations. My friend's recipe is:
Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 c. hot tap water
2 c. sugar
4 c. dry milk powder
1/4 c. melted margarine
Put hot water into the blender. Add the sugar, dry milk powder and melted margarine. Put the lid on the blender whirl it around for a full minute. The mixture will be kind of thin, but will thicken up after standing for about an hour. Store in frig or freeze. Makes about 4 cups = 3 cans condensed milk.
So I tried making powdered-milk-based sweetened condensed milk. It worked! Unfortunately, I could still taste the powdered milk flavor, even through the lime flavor in the pie, and I'm not a fan of powdered milk flavor, to put it mildly.
So then I remembered that I had seen a lot of recipes where you actually condense the milk on the stove as I had been prowling around the web looking for powdered milk based recipes. But milk is expensive. So I spent an hour doing a little math and calculated the cost of making sweetened condensed milk using two other recipes I found vs just buying a can.
Buying a can of sweetened condensed milk at WalMart in Longmont costs $1.68 a can, or $1.34 a cup (1 can is about 1 1/4 cups even though it's 14 oz--it's oz weight, not oz volume in a sweetened condensed milk can, and, unlike with tomato sauce, they aren't equal). And they're often out, so you might have to buy it somewhere else in town where it costs significantly more.
The easiest looking recipe I found, which I haven't tried yet, is to take a can of evaporated milk, stir in 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and heat it until the sugar is dissolved and it's "thickened" (whatever that means. I hate finding that word in recipes--HOW THICK does that mean, thickened? Drives me nuts.) This recipe costs $0.63 per cup because evaporated milk is that much cheaper than sweetened condensed, and sugar is cheap, too.
And the more complicated recipe that I liked was written up by a Malaysian lady. Of course I researched dozens of recipes and concluded that most were plagiarized from one original (although I couldn't tell which was the original)--and this on supposedly professional recipe sites. Embarrassing. Do they think they're the only site people look at and nobody will notice?
So of course I took a conglomerate of different recipes and tried it. I mixed up sugar and milk in the crock pot and cooked it until it had reduced by half, and it was still pretty thin but people on blogs and in comments had assured me it would thicken as it cooled, and it did but it was still kind of thin. But they all said it was thinner but worked fine in candy recipes and stuff. I also stirred in butter, like some recipes suggested, and that just floated to the top and solidified there as the milk cooled, so that was a fail. And I stirred in vanilla, which made a delicious flavor but not the pure sweetened condensed milk flavor I was looking for.
So we made rainbow fudge with it. Aside from the fact that it was far too sweet to be edible, the stuff never did set up. It was just as runny as could be. Obviously the too-thin sweetened condensed milk was not sufficient.
Back to the drawing board. I googled. I read comments on recipes that said stuff like "Mine didn't set up so I tried this...." And I made another batch in the crock pot.
Cooked it on high instead of low until it reduced by half. Cooking it on low (the first time round) took 16 hours to reduce by half. On high it only ("only") took 12. (You have to do it with the lid off or it doesn't reduce, by the way). But it was still far too thin. So I added baking soda, like some commenters swore worked. No good. Still too thin. Extra sugar did nothing. Frustrated, I poured the stuff out of the crock pot into a sauce pan and boiled the heck out of it.
While I was doing that, I realized something. Altitude. The recipe was written for Malaysia, on sea level. I'm at nearly 6000 feet. Boiling sugar at this altitude never works the same because the boiling temperature is different, so I have to make candy by the cold water test rather than by a candy thermometer temperature or it doesn't work.
I boiled it until I thought it was thick enough, and then put it in jars and refrigerated it over night. Success! Except I'd cooked it too long this time and had just hit the line between sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche. SUPER delicious. Slightly overcooked. I made it into a key lime pie anyway. I really wanted one that didn't taste like powdered milk!
Anyway, that all got me thinking--of course I should look up dulce de leche recipes and see if they were any better than sweetened condensed milk recipes. Because sc milk is just undercooked dulce de leche. The ingredients are the same. And that was really, really helpful.
For one, the dulce de leche recipes reminded me what I knew and forgot--the thickness of the finished product is not based on cooking time but on cooking temperature when you're dealing with sugar, which is why a sea-level recipe won't work at high altitude in the crock pot to thicken, only to reduce.
So here's what worked up here in Colorado.
Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe (DIY)
6 cups of whole milk (I hear skim milk doesn't work, but cream does--that would be amazing, but not cheaper)
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda (totally optional--it browns if it you're into that kind of thing)
Stir all ingredients together in the crock pot and cook on high with the lid off until the mixture has reduced by half--about 12 hours. (I checked this with a skewer. I dipped it straight into the liquid when I started and then drew a line around the skewer at the liquid line. Then I measured with a ruler and drew another line around the skewer exactly half way down. When the liquid reached the lower line, it had reduced enough.) Pour the condensed liquid into a large sauce pan (use a really really big one, like a soup pot, because it climbs). Boiled it on medium and then low until it thickened enough. (You can test it by putting a little in a spoon and setting the spoon on an ice cube--when it cools to the right thickness, you've cooked it long enough.) I did NOT stir the whole time--after I turned it to low, I stirred just every 5 minutes or so to let the steam out. If you want dulce de leche, cook it until it's light brown and thicker. Pour it into glass jars, cover, and refrigerate. If it looks like there are hardened bits in it, pour it through a strainer into the jars.
This recipe cost only $0.43 per cup. And it made a little over 2 cans worth (about 2.5 - 3 cups). So it's definitely cheaper, and not very hard.
I'm not completely satisfied yet, of course. I need to try:
--cooking it on the stove the whole time (I hear it works but that it can require you to strain the milk at the end), for 2-4 hours total
--cooking it in a pan in the oven. I read you can use that to make dulce de leche, so I'm wondering if you can do sc milk that way, too
--boiling the milk and sugar together first and THEN putting it in the crock pot with the lid off, so the crock pot can maintain the higher temperature (it never did actually get to boiling when I started it cold, on low or on high)
--using the caramel method (microwaving it). It works for white sauce and caramel, so maybe sweetened condensed milk, too? Probably would have to reduce the milk first, though, on the stove or in the crock pot.
--trying it without the baking soda. Most recipes don't use it, and I suspect it's extra. Dulce de leche recipes say it's just to help it brown.
I liked using the crock pot because it was so gentle--it didn't burn or scald or otherwise ruin the milk. Nothing grainy or lumpy or needing straining. But it also didn't thicken it. Combining that with the stovetop worked fine.
Those might all fail, but at least I know now how to make both sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche without a can.
(With a can, the best dulce de leche ever is made by boiling the can, unopened, for 2-4 hours. But you have to keep water over the can or it can explode. Tim exploded a can once doing this, so it really is not a myth.)
But a friend of mine had mentioned that a mutual friend makes her own sweetened condensed milk, so I thought I'd see if I could make some myself, since I really wanted a key lime pie and the main ingredients are lime juice (I had that, weirdly) and sweetened condensed milk (sc milk, combined with any acid, turns into a gel, which is why it is the foundation of many pies, including my favorite: cherry cream) and I had no car. (Also, I realized that easter candy season is upon us, and my cream candy filling recipe is based on sweetened condensed milk).
I emailed my friend for her recipe and found my mom's old homemade sweetened condensed milk recipe (on the back of her caramel recipe, of course). I looked some up online and found a thousand variations. My friend's recipe is:
Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 c. hot tap water
2 c. sugar
4 c. dry milk powder
1/4 c. melted margarine
Put hot water into the blender. Add the sugar, dry milk powder and melted margarine. Put the lid on the blender whirl it around for a full minute. The mixture will be kind of thin, but will thicken up after standing for about an hour. Store in frig or freeze. Makes about 4 cups = 3 cans condensed milk.
So I tried making powdered-milk-based sweetened condensed milk. It worked! Unfortunately, I could still taste the powdered milk flavor, even through the lime flavor in the pie, and I'm not a fan of powdered milk flavor, to put it mildly.
So then I remembered that I had seen a lot of recipes where you actually condense the milk on the stove as I had been prowling around the web looking for powdered milk based recipes. But milk is expensive. So I spent an hour doing a little math and calculated the cost of making sweetened condensed milk using two other recipes I found vs just buying a can.
Buying a can of sweetened condensed milk at WalMart in Longmont costs $1.68 a can, or $1.34 a cup (1 can is about 1 1/4 cups even though it's 14 oz--it's oz weight, not oz volume in a sweetened condensed milk can, and, unlike with tomato sauce, they aren't equal). And they're often out, so you might have to buy it somewhere else in town where it costs significantly more.
The easiest looking recipe I found, which I haven't tried yet, is to take a can of evaporated milk, stir in 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and heat it until the sugar is dissolved and it's "thickened" (whatever that means. I hate finding that word in recipes--HOW THICK does that mean, thickened? Drives me nuts.) This recipe costs $0.63 per cup because evaporated milk is that much cheaper than sweetened condensed, and sugar is cheap, too.
And the more complicated recipe that I liked was written up by a Malaysian lady. Of course I researched dozens of recipes and concluded that most were plagiarized from one original (although I couldn't tell which was the original)--and this on supposedly professional recipe sites. Embarrassing. Do they think they're the only site people look at and nobody will notice?
So of course I took a conglomerate of different recipes and tried it. I mixed up sugar and milk in the crock pot and cooked it until it had reduced by half, and it was still pretty thin but people on blogs and in comments had assured me it would thicken as it cooled, and it did but it was still kind of thin. But they all said it was thinner but worked fine in candy recipes and stuff. I also stirred in butter, like some recipes suggested, and that just floated to the top and solidified there as the milk cooled, so that was a fail. And I stirred in vanilla, which made a delicious flavor but not the pure sweetened condensed milk flavor I was looking for.
So we made rainbow fudge with it. Aside from the fact that it was far too sweet to be edible, the stuff never did set up. It was just as runny as could be. Obviously the too-thin sweetened condensed milk was not sufficient.
Back to the drawing board. I googled. I read comments on recipes that said stuff like "Mine didn't set up so I tried this...." And I made another batch in the crock pot.
Cooked it on high instead of low until it reduced by half. Cooking it on low (the first time round) took 16 hours to reduce by half. On high it only ("only") took 12. (You have to do it with the lid off or it doesn't reduce, by the way). But it was still far too thin. So I added baking soda, like some commenters swore worked. No good. Still too thin. Extra sugar did nothing. Frustrated, I poured the stuff out of the crock pot into a sauce pan and boiled the heck out of it.
While I was doing that, I realized something. Altitude. The recipe was written for Malaysia, on sea level. I'm at nearly 6000 feet. Boiling sugar at this altitude never works the same because the boiling temperature is different, so I have to make candy by the cold water test rather than by a candy thermometer temperature or it doesn't work.
I boiled it until I thought it was thick enough, and then put it in jars and refrigerated it over night. Success! Except I'd cooked it too long this time and had just hit the line between sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche. SUPER delicious. Slightly overcooked. I made it into a key lime pie anyway. I really wanted one that didn't taste like powdered milk!
Anyway, that all got me thinking--of course I should look up dulce de leche recipes and see if they were any better than sweetened condensed milk recipes. Because sc milk is just undercooked dulce de leche. The ingredients are the same. And that was really, really helpful.
For one, the dulce de leche recipes reminded me what I knew and forgot--the thickness of the finished product is not based on cooking time but on cooking temperature when you're dealing with sugar, which is why a sea-level recipe won't work at high altitude in the crock pot to thicken, only to reduce.
So here's what worked up here in Colorado.
Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe (DIY)
6 cups of whole milk (I hear skim milk doesn't work, but cream does--that would be amazing, but not cheaper)
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda (totally optional--it browns if it you're into that kind of thing)
Stir all ingredients together in the crock pot and cook on high with the lid off until the mixture has reduced by half--about 12 hours. (I checked this with a skewer. I dipped it straight into the liquid when I started and then drew a line around the skewer at the liquid line. Then I measured with a ruler and drew another line around the skewer exactly half way down. When the liquid reached the lower line, it had reduced enough.) Pour the condensed liquid into a large sauce pan (use a really really big one, like a soup pot, because it climbs). Boiled it on medium and then low until it thickened enough. (You can test it by putting a little in a spoon and setting the spoon on an ice cube--when it cools to the right thickness, you've cooked it long enough.) I did NOT stir the whole time--after I turned it to low, I stirred just every 5 minutes or so to let the steam out. If you want dulce de leche, cook it until it's light brown and thicker. Pour it into glass jars, cover, and refrigerate. If it looks like there are hardened bits in it, pour it through a strainer into the jars.
This recipe cost only $0.43 per cup. And it made a little over 2 cans worth (about 2.5 - 3 cups). So it's definitely cheaper, and not very hard.
I'm not completely satisfied yet, of course. I need to try:
--cooking it on the stove the whole time (I hear it works but that it can require you to strain the milk at the end), for 2-4 hours total
--cooking it in a pan in the oven. I read you can use that to make dulce de leche, so I'm wondering if you can do sc milk that way, too
--boiling the milk and sugar together first and THEN putting it in the crock pot with the lid off, so the crock pot can maintain the higher temperature (it never did actually get to boiling when I started it cold, on low or on high)
--using the caramel method (microwaving it). It works for white sauce and caramel, so maybe sweetened condensed milk, too? Probably would have to reduce the milk first, though, on the stove or in the crock pot.
--trying it without the baking soda. Most recipes don't use it, and I suspect it's extra. Dulce de leche recipes say it's just to help it brown.
I liked using the crock pot because it was so gentle--it didn't burn or scald or otherwise ruin the milk. Nothing grainy or lumpy or needing straining. But it also didn't thicken it. Combining that with the stovetop worked fine.
Those might all fail, but at least I know now how to make both sweetened condensed milk and dulce de leche without a can.
(With a can, the best dulce de leche ever is made by boiling the can, unopened, for 2-4 hours. But you have to keep water over the can or it can explode. Tim exploded a can once doing this, so it really is not a myth.)
Just asked Jack if he wanted some pie. He said no.
Baby came 2 months ago, and now I have energy like I haven't in a year. It's lovely. I tend to go overboard on things as a result.
Last Saturday was Super Pi day (3/14/15--the first digits of the mathematical number pi). We couldn't go to our friends' pie party to celebrate because it was also St. Patrick's Day Weekend, which is a super busy time for Irish bands and the band Tim sings with, Delilah's Revenge, had the day booked full and they needed our van to drive themselves and their gear around. (And our other two cars are broken. Of course.)
So we decided to have a pie party at home.
And I kind of got carried away.
I only own 4 pie pans, one of which I really need to send to Aunt Donella since my kids destroyed one of her pie pans. But that's a tangent. Only own 4 pie pans, so I could only make 4 pies. So I started poking around online to see if it's possible to make chocolate pie crusts (it is). And then I found myself wandering around a website called Mr. Food, which had a lot of good recipes that were easy.
And we ended up with four pies: Marshmallow Cream (based on this recipe but highly modified), Peanut butter cream, cranberry cream (only we left the pineapple out), and key lime. Then Monday we found strawberries on sale, so we made strawberry cream cobbler, which was really good. And then Tuesday we made rainbow fudge (didn't set up and was far, far too sweet, looked tie dyed by the time we were done, and was very beautiful) and another marshmallow pie because some people didn't get any from the first one.
They were all good, but the marshmallow pie was my own modification of a recipe and it held so much promise! So today we made a mandarin marshmallow pie, and I remembered having pineapple cream that was made with marshmallows, so I found that recipe and we're going to try that, too.
See, I get carried away!
But I did want to share the marshmallow pie recipe because it was so yummy and so versatile and not written down anywhere else.
Marshmallow Pie
24 large marshmallows (2 1/2 cups of mini)
1/2 c milk
1/3 c ice cream (any flavor--this will flavor the pie)
8 oz tub of whipped topping or 2 c whipped cream
Graham cracker or chocolate cookie pie crust
Heat the marshmallows and milk on medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows melt completely. Set aside and let it cool for 15 minutes. Stir in the ice cream until it's melted completely. Fold in the whipped cream. Put the mixture in the pie crust and freeze for 2 hours or until set up.
This was super yummy, if you like marshmallows. It would taste fantastic with anything that tastes good with marshmallows stirred in or drizzled on top (chocolate syrup, chopped peanut butter cups, fruit, etc). The finished product tastes like marshmallows flavored like whatever ice cream you put in.
So from there we made a Mandarin Marshmallow pie.
The recipe:
24 large marshmallows or 2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 c milk
1/3 c liquid from a can of mandarin oranges or orange juice
1 small can or 1 cup mandarin orange slices (canned)
8 oz or 2 c whipped topping or whipped cream
Graham cracker pie crust
As with the plain marshmallow pie recipe, melt the marshmallows with the milk over medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows are completely melted. Remove from heat and let it cool 15 minutes. Stir in juice from mandarin orange can or orange juice. Fold in whipped topping/cream and then fold in orange segments. Pour into crust and freeze 2 hours or until set.
So now my brain is buzzing....chocolate marshmallow pie, snickers marshmallow pie, coconut marshmallow pie, etc.
So tonight when it was time to taste the mandarin orange marshmallow pie, I asked Jack, "Do you want some pie?"
He said, "No. Fish."
So I ate pie. And he ate fish.
Might have gone overboard with the pie, I suppose.
Last Saturday was Super Pi day (3/14/15--the first digits of the mathematical number pi). We couldn't go to our friends' pie party to celebrate because it was also St. Patrick's Day Weekend, which is a super busy time for Irish bands and the band Tim sings with, Delilah's Revenge, had the day booked full and they needed our van to drive themselves and their gear around. (And our other two cars are broken. Of course.)
So we decided to have a pie party at home.
And I kind of got carried away.
I only own 4 pie pans, one of which I really need to send to Aunt Donella since my kids destroyed one of her pie pans. But that's a tangent. Only own 4 pie pans, so I could only make 4 pies. So I started poking around online to see if it's possible to make chocolate pie crusts (it is). And then I found myself wandering around a website called Mr. Food, which had a lot of good recipes that were easy.
And we ended up with four pies: Marshmallow Cream (based on this recipe but highly modified), Peanut butter cream, cranberry cream (only we left the pineapple out), and key lime. Then Monday we found strawberries on sale, so we made strawberry cream cobbler, which was really good. And then Tuesday we made rainbow fudge (didn't set up and was far, far too sweet, looked tie dyed by the time we were done, and was very beautiful) and another marshmallow pie because some people didn't get any from the first one.
They were all good, but the marshmallow pie was my own modification of a recipe and it held so much promise! So today we made a mandarin marshmallow pie, and I remembered having pineapple cream that was made with marshmallows, so I found that recipe and we're going to try that, too.
See, I get carried away!
But I did want to share the marshmallow pie recipe because it was so yummy and so versatile and not written down anywhere else.
Marshmallow Pie
24 large marshmallows (2 1/2 cups of mini)
1/2 c milk
1/3 c ice cream (any flavor--this will flavor the pie)
8 oz tub of whipped topping or 2 c whipped cream
Graham cracker or chocolate cookie pie crust
Heat the marshmallows and milk on medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows melt completely. Set aside and let it cool for 15 minutes. Stir in the ice cream until it's melted completely. Fold in the whipped cream. Put the mixture in the pie crust and freeze for 2 hours or until set up.
This was super yummy, if you like marshmallows. It would taste fantastic with anything that tastes good with marshmallows stirred in or drizzled on top (chocolate syrup, chopped peanut butter cups, fruit, etc). The finished product tastes like marshmallows flavored like whatever ice cream you put in.
So from there we made a Mandarin Marshmallow pie.
The recipe:
24 large marshmallows or 2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 c milk
1/3 c liquid from a can of mandarin oranges or orange juice
1 small can or 1 cup mandarin orange slices (canned)
8 oz or 2 c whipped topping or whipped cream
Graham cracker pie crust
As with the plain marshmallow pie recipe, melt the marshmallows with the milk over medium heat, stirring constantly until the marshmallows are completely melted. Remove from heat and let it cool 15 minutes. Stir in juice from mandarin orange can or orange juice. Fold in whipped topping/cream and then fold in orange segments. Pour into crust and freeze 2 hours or until set.
So now my brain is buzzing....chocolate marshmallow pie, snickers marshmallow pie, coconut marshmallow pie, etc.
So tonight when it was time to taste the mandarin orange marshmallow pie, I asked Jack, "Do you want some pie?"
He said, "No. Fish."
So I ate pie. And he ate fish.
Might have gone overboard with the pie, I suppose.
Monday, March 09, 2015
Did I just read that?
Really really sad story about a kid who committed suicide. But the parents said this about it: ""He is a good kid and has no substance abuse or other issues," they posted. "This is the first time he has ever done anything like this.""
Granted, the parents probably posted that on facebook when it was a search-and-rescue operation and didn't know their son had killed himself. But the news reporter who put the article together put the quote after a paragraph about how devastated the parents are that their son killed himself.
And that makes it a funny quote. Because how many times can you do something like that?
(Still, it's a really tragic story. Just poorly written.)
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Did I just read that?
"Woman dies after collision with street poll"
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33748322&nid=148&title=woman-dies-after-collision-with-street-poll&s_cid=queue-1
Seriously--you have to be careful around the guy wandering the street with the clipboard and microphone. Those street polls are dangerous to run into.
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Did I just read that?
This whole article had me laughing--not so many mistakes (although there is one) but the phrasing just put a comedic spin on things.
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33741923&nid=148&title=2-hospitalized-after-churchyard-crash-vehicle-fire&fm=home_page&s_cid=topstory
Lines that made me laugh:
"According to police, the car left the road for the lawn of an LDS meetinghouse. It went through two fences and hit a tree before coming to rest alongside the church. "The tree slowed it down quite a bit," said Unified police detective Ken Hansen. "Had it not hit the tree, it probably would have gone inside the church where there was a funeral going on." Hansen said the car's abrupt stop lit the bushes and shrubs next to the church on fire. The greenery, in turn, lit the car, endangering both passengers. A man attending the funeral soon extinguished the flames with a church fire extinguisher."
I don't know what it was about that passage that cracked me up...but just imagine it! Like a keystone cops episode.
And then this error: "Police are investigating potential impairments, including speed."
Speed is an impairment? I guess maybe that's the problem you have when you've got ADHD.
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=33741923&nid=148&title=2-hospitalized-after-churchyard-crash-vehicle-fire&fm=home_page&s_cid=topstory
Lines that made me laugh:
"According to police, the car left the road for the lawn of an LDS meetinghouse. It went through two fences and hit a tree before coming to rest alongside the church. "The tree slowed it down quite a bit," said Unified police detective Ken Hansen. "Had it not hit the tree, it probably would have gone inside the church where there was a funeral going on." Hansen said the car's abrupt stop lit the bushes and shrubs next to the church on fire. The greenery, in turn, lit the car, endangering both passengers. A man attending the funeral soon extinguished the flames with a church fire extinguisher."
I don't know what it was about that passage that cracked me up...but just imagine it! Like a keystone cops episode.
And then this error: "Police are investigating potential impairments, including speed."
Speed is an impairment? I guess maybe that's the problem you have when you've got ADHD.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Funny Kids
For 9 months I was too sick for makeup. And for the last 7 weeks I've been too sleep-deprived for makeup. But today I felt good, so I put makeup on. Jack just looked at me, looked again, and then said, "Why dirt on eyes, Mom?" He tried to wipe it off, and then said, "You have a goopy on eyes, Mom." :)
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Energy-making home
Anda and I have spent a lot of time over the years dreaming up ways people could harness "people energy" to make electricity for their homes.
Things we've thought of:
Mini solar panels that charge just one lightbulb, mounted around the house on the outside or on the roof. The technology exists, but it's used for shoplights and for camping bulbs (or lights used in rural third-world areas). I'd like to make some can lights that mount into an outside wall near the roof line, with the solar panel on the outside of the wall. I'd put a line of them all across the living room wall and use them in addition to regular lights. You'd have to wire them to a light switch, but that shouldn't be too hard since those camping lights and shed lights have switches. Each bulb would have a battery that charged through the day and lighted the bulb at night--the bulbs aren't particularly bright, but a bunch of them would be fine.
Windmill
Moving water. Lots of water moves into, around, and out of the house. There should be a way to harness that moving water energy on a micro scale to produce power. Like, Anda said, why not a little generator that makes a bit of electricity when the toilet flushes and fills (on the clean water end, of course). Or on the water main--they already have a meter there. Why not make the meter also a mini generator/battery charging kit?
Walking around. Anda says why not pressure plates under flooring and on stairs to use the impact energy to convert to useful power for the house? They're doing this under a road in the Netherlands. Why not on a micro scale in your house?
There is a lot of thermal energy in houses. Why not put in a passive attic fan--the kind that vents heat out in the summer (these are all over in Las Vegas)--and capture the energy of the heat rising out of the attic?
Also, recycling heat. We are constantly venting heat off things--back of the fridge, back of the air conditioner, off the processors in computers. We wondered why we don't find a way to capture that heat (especially since it's the form of moving air a lot of times) to "repay" the cost of venting it (running the fans that get it off the machines).
None of these would make a lot of power. Nothing worth any money commercially. But the idea we have is that each house might be able to collect enough little sources of power to make their own energy, at least in part, supplemented by the power company. So the power company powers your fridge and computer, but you charge your phone and run all your lights from energy you make yourself.
Most of these are not possible for us to make ourselves, so we just keep dreaming. But if I ever buy a new house or have money for remodeling, I'm totally going to make the can lights that are wired to mini solar panels outside. That will be so easy.
Things we've thought of:
Mini solar panels that charge just one lightbulb, mounted around the house on the outside or on the roof. The technology exists, but it's used for shoplights and for camping bulbs (or lights used in rural third-world areas). I'd like to make some can lights that mount into an outside wall near the roof line, with the solar panel on the outside of the wall. I'd put a line of them all across the living room wall and use them in addition to regular lights. You'd have to wire them to a light switch, but that shouldn't be too hard since those camping lights and shed lights have switches. Each bulb would have a battery that charged through the day and lighted the bulb at night--the bulbs aren't particularly bright, but a bunch of them would be fine.
Windmill
Moving water. Lots of water moves into, around, and out of the house. There should be a way to harness that moving water energy on a micro scale to produce power. Like, Anda said, why not a little generator that makes a bit of electricity when the toilet flushes and fills (on the clean water end, of course). Or on the water main--they already have a meter there. Why not make the meter also a mini generator/battery charging kit?
Walking around. Anda says why not pressure plates under flooring and on stairs to use the impact energy to convert to useful power for the house? They're doing this under a road in the Netherlands. Why not on a micro scale in your house?
There is a lot of thermal energy in houses. Why not put in a passive attic fan--the kind that vents heat out in the summer (these are all over in Las Vegas)--and capture the energy of the heat rising out of the attic?
Also, recycling heat. We are constantly venting heat off things--back of the fridge, back of the air conditioner, off the processors in computers. We wondered why we don't find a way to capture that heat (especially since it's the form of moving air a lot of times) to "repay" the cost of venting it (running the fans that get it off the machines).
None of these would make a lot of power. Nothing worth any money commercially. But the idea we have is that each house might be able to collect enough little sources of power to make their own energy, at least in part, supplemented by the power company. So the power company powers your fridge and computer, but you charge your phone and run all your lights from energy you make yourself.
Most of these are not possible for us to make ourselves, so we just keep dreaming. But if I ever buy a new house or have money for remodeling, I'm totally going to make the can lights that are wired to mini solar panels outside. That will be so easy.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Did I just read that?
"The technology could later be used to repair spinal chords, improve epilepsy, and diabetes." http://www.rawscience.tv/nanobots-fight-cancer-first-human-clinical-trial-in-2015/
I'm not sure what "to diabetes" means...
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Funny kids
The kids asked me to start recording funny kids things again here.
So a couple from today:
Nathanael categorically refused to eat the cupcake he decorated for his Kindergarten class party. He said the teacher said he should decorate it, but since she didn't mention eating it, he didn't have explicit permission and therefore should not eat it. He made me email the teacher to ask if it was okay.
For this next one to make any sense at all, you have to know that all my boys have their molars crowned. All their molars. And their front teeth pulled. And it usually happens before they are 3 years old because they are born with corrupt baby teeth, so they don't remember getting the teeth pulled or crowned--from their perspective, the teeth have always been silver.
Okay, so today Elijah peeked into Emmeline's mouth when she was "talking" to Tim (oh, so so cute to see her, at 5 weeks old, trying to have a conversation with her daddy). Anyway, Elijah rushed over to me all excited and said, "Mom! Emmeline is getting teeth already!" I said, "She is?" He replied, "Yes! When she opened her mouth, I saw silver!"
:)
I guess the teeth just come in that way...
Now that I think about it, that would be less trouble if they came in crowned already.
So a couple from today:
Nathanael categorically refused to eat the cupcake he decorated for his Kindergarten class party. He said the teacher said he should decorate it, but since she didn't mention eating it, he didn't have explicit permission and therefore should not eat it. He made me email the teacher to ask if it was okay.
For this next one to make any sense at all, you have to know that all my boys have their molars crowned. All their molars. And their front teeth pulled. And it usually happens before they are 3 years old because they are born with corrupt baby teeth, so they don't remember getting the teeth pulled or crowned--from their perspective, the teeth have always been silver.
Okay, so today Elijah peeked into Emmeline's mouth when she was "talking" to Tim (oh, so so cute to see her, at 5 weeks old, trying to have a conversation with her daddy). Anyway, Elijah rushed over to me all excited and said, "Mom! Emmeline is getting teeth already!" I said, "She is?" He replied, "Yes! When she opened her mouth, I saw silver!"
:)
I guess the teeth just come in that way...
Now that I think about it, that would be less trouble if they came in crowned already.
Sunday, February 08, 2015
Did I just read that?
"President Obama asks to end violence against women at Grammys" http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/02/08/president-obama-asks-to-end-violence-against-women-at-grammys/
The women attending the Grammys have traditionally been subject to violence, and the president is opposed....
Saturday, February 07, 2015
Seeing a picture
The other day, a friend posted a picture on facebook that her 2-year-old daughter had created. It was a pretty picture, of a rainbow of lines drawn on lined paper.
I looked at it and thought, "Wow. That little girl is a scientist! See how she saw the pattern on the page (lines) and then recreated it, changing the variables (the color of the lines) to see what would happen. That's amazing."
Her mother posted, along with the picture, a comment about how her daughter is clearly an artist, having created something so beautiful at such a young age.
It was the same picture and the same little girl, but our interpretations of what was going on in her mind, and the long-term results of that way of thinking, were profoundly different. And probably equally right. Or wrong. Obviously we can't guess what a little girl is going to become based on one picture (although her mom has a much better grasp on that than I do!).
It made me wonder, though, how much of what our children become is influenced by how we, from the outside, interpret them and their actions. Actually, that's kind of scary. What if she was born to be an artist, and I looked at the picture and saw the mind of a scientist at work and therefore provided her with science tools and toys, science camps, science magazines....all in good intentions of giving her what she might love most. What if my interpretations of my own kids actually holds them back from developing into what and who they are?
Yikes.
Being a parent is scary. There are a million billion ways to do it wrong and mess it up.
Good thing kids keep giving us feedback, so that we can adjust course when we screw up or misread something. Good thing kids don't have to be just one thing or another. Good thing it's not my job to make them into that one thing (whatever it is), to mold them or create them or determine who and what they should be. Good thing I'm not the boss of their lives or futures, not the determiner of their souls.
Good thing most kids turn out just fine despite us parents and our mistakes. Hopefully they forgive me some day when they realize all the ways I did it wrong (because they will, at some point, realize). My intentions are good. They really are.
I looked at it and thought, "Wow. That little girl is a scientist! See how she saw the pattern on the page (lines) and then recreated it, changing the variables (the color of the lines) to see what would happen. That's amazing."
Her mother posted, along with the picture, a comment about how her daughter is clearly an artist, having created something so beautiful at such a young age.
It was the same picture and the same little girl, but our interpretations of what was going on in her mind, and the long-term results of that way of thinking, were profoundly different. And probably equally right. Or wrong. Obviously we can't guess what a little girl is going to become based on one picture (although her mom has a much better grasp on that than I do!).
It made me wonder, though, how much of what our children become is influenced by how we, from the outside, interpret them and their actions. Actually, that's kind of scary. What if she was born to be an artist, and I looked at the picture and saw the mind of a scientist at work and therefore provided her with science tools and toys, science camps, science magazines....all in good intentions of giving her what she might love most. What if my interpretations of my own kids actually holds them back from developing into what and who they are?
Yikes.
Being a parent is scary. There are a million billion ways to do it wrong and mess it up.
Good thing kids keep giving us feedback, so that we can adjust course when we screw up or misread something. Good thing kids don't have to be just one thing or another. Good thing it's not my job to make them into that one thing (whatever it is), to mold them or create them or determine who and what they should be. Good thing I'm not the boss of their lives or futures, not the determiner of their souls.
Good thing most kids turn out just fine despite us parents and our mistakes. Hopefully they forgive me some day when they realize all the ways I did it wrong (because they will, at some point, realize). My intentions are good. They really are.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Books the kids recommend
My kids are avid readers. I'm always asking them, "What books do you recommend again?" as people email or post on forums asking for books for kids.
So here is my kids' list of favorite books. We skew toward fantasy, light sci-fi, and nonfiction around here. Please add your favorite middle grade and YA books in the comments!
The kids' favorite books and authors:
What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World, by Henry Clark (this is one of my all-time favorite books, too)
Anything by Diana Wynne Jones
Anything and everything by Brandon Sanderson
"The Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Mayer
"The Castle Corona"
The Artemis Fowl Series, by Eoin Colfer
The Underland Chronicles Series, by Suzanne Collins
Warriors Series, by Erin Hunter
Wings of Fire Series, by Tui Sutherland
Keeper of the Lost Cities Series, by Shannon Messenger
Rick Riordan Books (all of his)
Dr. Seuss Books
Calvin and Hobbes books (all of them), by Bill Waterson
The Maze Runner, by James Dashner (this one is very dark and the rest of the series is morally ambiguous, so I would preview this as a parent before you give it to your kids)
The City of Ember Series, by Jean DuPrau
The Magic Treehouse Series
The Ender Series, by Orson Scott Card
The Pokemon Manga (and games)
Geronimo Stilton series, by Geronimo Stilton
Dragonbreath series, by Ursula Vernon
The 39 Clues series (authors vary)
Shark Wars, by E. J. Altbacker
The Ever Afters, by Shelby Bach
Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker
The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
The NERDS series, by Michael Buckley
How to Train Your Dragon Series, by Cressida Cowell
The Space Station Rat books, by Michael J. Daley
Jean Craighead George's books
The Dragon Slippers Trilogy, by Jessica Day George
The Tuesdays at the Castle series, by Jessica Day George
Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
Actually ANYTHING by Brandon Mull
Mouse Guard Series (graphic novels), by David Petersen
The Silverwing Trilogy, by Kenneth Oppel
Darkwing, by Kenneth Oppel
Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker
What Makes Flamingos Pink, by Bill McLain
The 'Bet You Can' and 'Bet You Can't' science series
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (Astrid Lindgren)
Poison (Bridget Zinn)
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)
The Princess Bride (William Goldman)
The Last Unicorn (Peter S Beagle)
The Ordinary Princess (M.M. Kaye)
The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)
The Dark is Rising series (Susan Cooper)
The Jungle Book (Lisa Church)
Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)
The Tale of Desperaux (Kate DiCamillo)
Half Magic (Edward Eager)
The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams)
The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Emmuska Orczy)
Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)
Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier)
Shadow Spinner (Susan Fletcher)
Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage)
The Earth Dwellers, Adventures in the Land of Ants (nonfiction,Erich Hoyt)
The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren)
The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)
My Hundred Children (Lena Kuchler-Silberman)
Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Uglies series (Scott Westerfield)
Seventh Son series (Orson Scott Card)
My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George)
The Graveyard Book and Coraline (Neil Gaiman)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
Finn the Wolfhound (Alec John Dawson)
The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson)
The Great Brain (John D. Fitzgerald)
Howliday Inn & Bunnicula (James Howe)
The Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White)
The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnford)
Heidi (Johanna Spyri)
Where the Red Fern Grows
White Stallion of Lipizza (Marguerite Henry)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott)
The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie
(George MacDonald)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series (Douglas Adams)
An Them There Were None (Agatha Christie)
Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien
My Sparkling Misfortune and My Royal Pain Quest (absolutely hilarious!)
Which Witch by Eva Ibbotson
White Fang
Cinder (The second book in the series, Scarlet, might not be considered clean because of the kissing scene, but the first book is fabulous)
The Time Machine
The Wizard of Oz
Treasure Island
Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery
The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor (inspired by Alice's Adventures in wonderland)
The Sisters Grimm series
The Key of Kilenya series by Andrea Pearson
The Beyonders series
So here is my kids' list of favorite books. We skew toward fantasy, light sci-fi, and nonfiction around here. Please add your favorite middle grade and YA books in the comments!
The kids' favorite books and authors:
What We Found in the Sofa and How it Saved the World, by Henry Clark (this is one of my all-time favorite books, too)
Anything by Diana Wynne Jones
Anything and everything by Brandon Sanderson
"The Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Mayer
"The Castle Corona"
The Artemis Fowl Series, by Eoin Colfer
The Underland Chronicles Series, by Suzanne Collins
Warriors Series, by Erin Hunter
Wings of Fire Series, by Tui Sutherland
Keeper of the Lost Cities Series, by Shannon Messenger
Rick Riordan Books (all of his)
Dr. Seuss Books
Calvin and Hobbes books (all of them), by Bill Waterson
The Maze Runner, by James Dashner (this one is very dark and the rest of the series is morally ambiguous, so I would preview this as a parent before you give it to your kids)
The City of Ember Series, by Jean DuPrau
The Magic Treehouse Series
The Ender Series, by Orson Scott Card
The Pokemon Manga (and games)
Geronimo Stilton series, by Geronimo Stilton
Dragonbreath series, by Ursula Vernon
The 39 Clues series (authors vary)
Shark Wars, by E. J. Altbacker
The Ever Afters, by Shelby Bach
Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker
The Spiderwick Chronicles, by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
How to Train Your Dragon Series, by Cressida Cowell
The Space Station Rat books, by Michael J. Daley
Jean Craighead George's books
The Dragon Slippers Trilogy, by Jessica Day George
The Tuesdays at the Castle series, by Jessica Day George
The Dinotopia books, by James Gurney
Redwall series, by Brian Jaqcues
The Dragon Keepers Series, by Kate Klimo
Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist by R. L. LaFevers
Guardians of Ga’Hoole, by Kathryn Lasky
Wolves of the Beyond, by Kathryn Lasky
Redwall series, by Brian Jaqcues
The Dragon Keepers Series, by Kate Klimo
Nathaniel Fludd, Beastologist by R. L. LaFevers
Guardians of Ga’Hoole, by Kathryn Lasky
Wolves of the Beyond, by Kathryn Lasky
Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull
Actually ANYTHING by Brandon Mull
Mouse Guard Series (graphic novels), by David Petersen
The Silverwing Trilogy, by Kenneth Oppel
Darkwing, by Kenneth Oppel
Tales of the Frog Princess, by E. D. Baker
Alcatraz vs The Evil Librarians Series, by Brandon Sanderson
Walls Within Walls, by Maureen Sherry
Escape from Mister Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein
Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City, by Kirsten Miller
The Animorphs Series, by K. A. Applegate (these start out really sweet and the 50-book series ends up kind of morally ambiguous and dark, so read spoilers before you give it to your kids)
Harry Potter Series, by J.K. Rowling
The Narnia Series, by C.S. Lewis
Beverly Cleary books
Hardy Boys books
Little House on the Prairie Series (believe it or not, this is a favorite of 4-6 yo boys, too)
Sherlock Holmes stories, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson
The Book of Mormon
The Big Bad Book of Botany, by Michael Largo
Deadly Outbreaks, by Alexandra Levitt
Nazi Hunters, by Neil Bascomb
Garfield books, by Jim Davis
Tales of the Cryptids, by Kelly Milner Halls
Blender for Dummies, by Jason van Gumster
Software Synthesizers (but this has a language alert!), by Jim Aiken
Captain Underpants books, by Dav Pilkey
Ripley's Believe it or Not books
That's Weird, by Kendall Haven
What Makes Flamingos Pink, by Bill McLain
Bill Pete books
Spirit Animals Series, by Brandon Mull and various other authors
Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula, by Andi Watson
Books recommended to my kids by others (many of my favorite books are on this list):
The Hero and the Crown (by Robyn McKinley) --kids tried it and found it slow starting but "pretty good"
Spirit Animals Series, by Brandon Mull and various other authors
Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula, by Andi Watson
Rapunzel's Revenge--graphic novel (Shannon Hale)
Books recommended to my kids by others (many of my favorite books are on this list):
The Hero and the Crown (by Robyn McKinley) --kids tried it and found it slow starting but "pretty good"
The Blue Sword (by Robyn McKinley)
The 'Bet You Can' and 'Bet You Can't' science series
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (Astrid Lindgren)
Poison (Bridget Zinn)
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E.L. Konigsburg)
Stargirl (Jerry Spinelli)
The Princess Bride (William Goldman)
The Last Unicorn (Peter S Beagle)
The Ordinary Princess (M.M. Kaye)
The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)
The Dark is Rising series (Susan Cooper)
The Jungle Book (Lisa Church)
Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
Peter Pan (J.M. Barrie)
The Tale of Desperaux (Kate DiCamillo)
Half Magic (Edward Eager)
The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams)
The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Emmuska Orczy)
Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren)
Inkheart (Cornelia Funke)
Wildwood Dancing (Juliet Marillier)
Shadow Spinner (Susan Fletcher)
Isaac Asimov (Fantastic Voyage)
The Earth Dwellers, Adventures in the Land of Ants (nonfiction,Erich Hoyt)
The Brothers Lionheart (Astrid Lindgren)
The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom)
My Hundred Children (Lena Kuchler-Silberman)
Farmer Giles of Ham (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Uglies series (Scott Westerfield)
Seventh Son series (Orson Scott Card)
My Side of the Mountain (Jean Craighead George)
The Graveyard Book and Coraline (Neil Gaiman)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
Finn the Wolfhound (Alec John Dawson)
The Secret of Platform 13 (Eva Ibbotson)
The Great Brain (John D. Fitzgerald)
Howliday Inn & Bunnicula (James Howe)
The Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White)
The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnford)
Heidi (Johanna Spyri)
Where the Red Fern Grows
White Stallion of Lipizza (Marguerite Henry)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott)
The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
Understood Betsy (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie
(George MacDonald)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series (Douglas Adams)
An Them There Were None (Agatha Christie)
All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot
Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien
My Sparkling Misfortune and My Royal Pain Quest (absolutely hilarious!)
Which Witch by Eva Ibbotson
White Fang
Cinder (The second book in the series, Scarlet, might not be considered clean because of the kissing scene, but the first book is fabulous)
The Time Machine
The Wizard of Oz
Treasure Island
Emily of New Moon series by L.M. Montgomery
The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor (inspired by Alice's Adventures in wonderland)
Queen Zixi of Ix by L. Frank Baum.
Books by Heather Choate
The original 1923 Bambi, A Life in the Woods (Felix Salten, translated to English in 1928 by Whittaker Chambers)
Taran Wanderer series (Lloyd Alexander)
Books by Heather Choate
The original 1923 Bambi, A Life in the Woods (Felix Salten, translated to English in 1928 by Whittaker Chambers)
Taran Wanderer series (Lloyd Alexander)
Black Stallion series (Walter Farley)
Leviathan series (Scott Westerfeld)
Earthsea trilogy (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Pit Dragon Trilogy (Jane Yolen)
A Little Princess (Francis H. Burnet)
Dragon Drums trilogy (Anne McCaffrey)
A Wrinkle in Time (Madeline L'Engle)
Peter and the Starcatchers
Peter and the Starcatchers
Hatchet
Holes
Island of the Blue Dolphins (I loved this when I was a wee one).
The Water Fight Professional
The Water Fight Professional
The Sisters Grimm series
The Key of Kilenya series by Andrea Pearson
The Beyonders series
Ranger's Apprentice
Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck
The Alliance
Cryptic Hunters series
The Emerald Atlas Series
Lemony Snicket's books
The Westing Game
The Alliance
Cryptic Hunters series
The Emerald Atlas Series
Lemony Snicket's books
The Westing Game
The Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright (starts with The Four Story Mistake.)
The Trolley Car Family
Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.....has a few words that I didn't know, as it was written in 1919.....But GREAT book!
Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune.....has a few words that I didn't know, as it was written in 1919.....But GREAT book!
Friday, January 16, 2015
Did I just read that?
"Musician Dies Between Sets at Lakeview Bar" (http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Musician-Dies-Between-Sets-at-Lakeview-Bar-288339721.html?_osource=outbrain_recirc=obinsite)
What I want to know is how did he manage to do the second set?
What I want to know is how did he manage to do the second set?
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Jack turns on the cute
Jack has always been exceptionally cute. Last night took the cake, though.
Tim was holding Emmeline on our bed so I could get ready to sleep, and Jack climbed up and sat beside him. Tim was doing the universal baby bounce-and-sway to keep Emmeline content (you know the one--same one you find yourself doing to that bag of flour while you're waiting in line at the grocery store when the newborn is a month old).
When I came into the bedroom, Tim said, "Look at Jack." I glanced over and Jack was drinking his milk and doing the same bounce-and-sway that Tim was doing.
SO cute.
A little later, Jack looked at me and said, "Daddy Dance." and started doing the little swaying bounce again. "Daddy dance with Embaline."
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Jack, 2, teacher Emmeline the important things
Jack is pretty excited about his new little sister.
Today, he found his first chance to teach her the important lessons of life. I was changing her diaper--messy--and he saw her flailing her arms around. "Oh! Oh! Don't touch poop!" he said earnestly to her. "Yucky! Oh! Don't touch poop!"
Important lessons from one diaper-clad child to another.
Today, he found his first chance to teach her the important lessons of life. I was changing her diaper--messy--and he saw her flailing her arms around. "Oh! Oh! Don't touch poop!" he said earnestly to her. "Yucky! Oh! Don't touch poop!"
Important lessons from one diaper-clad child to another.
Baby 8 Came!
Finally got baby #8 here, and we're all so glad.
It was super fast.
At 5:40 am, I woke up because Jack said something beside me in bed. I noticed I was having tiny contractions and thought I should time them.
At 6:00 am, I realized the contractions were 3-7 minutes apart and thought maybe I should get up.
At 6:15 I realized I had to get up because I had started bleeding.
At 6:30 I woke up Tim. I got Jack distracted, Tim showered, I collected the stuff we needed and asked Anda to get up and watch Jack (as we had planned).
At 7:00 am, we walked into the hospital and I was very, very uncomfortable.
It just so happened that it was shift change time right then, so I had two teams of nurses at my disposal. As a result, they got everything done double quick, and by 7:30 am I was comfortable with an epidural/spinal combo (best kind--numbs the belly and not much else!). Phew. So glad that worked out fast fast fast. Too bad the labor moved so fast that within half an hour I was uncomfortable with contractions that were so strong I could feel them through the epidural--but at least the edge was off. I can't imagine surviving those without the epidural. Yikes!
At 8:21 am, Emmeline was born. That fast. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, just like Caleb did.
We had a little laugh that our 8th baby came at 8:21 am on the 8th weighing 8 lb 2 oz. Lotsa 8s!
She was gorgeous. I was relieved. Nurses all came and went and said she was so healthy...soo healthy they didn't even really NEED the doctor to look at her, everyone knew he would sign it all off.
By 9:30 am, Tim was back home with the other kids, feeding and diapering them and telling them the baby came and then having a nap. Now that I write that, it seems kind of unheard of that we'd leave to have a baby and 2 1/2 hours later, Daddy was back home with the other kids because we were totally, totally done and ready to nap.
8 hours later, after Tim had napped (he'd been up all the night before suspecting I was in labor and waiting for me to get up and tell him that, so he'd slept about an hour when I woke him up) and I had napped (childbirth, even the good times, is exhausting) and Emmeline had napped, the kids showed up to visit us at the hospital. I was so happy to see them.
The kids doted on Emmeline and loved her and held her and talked to her and sat on the hospital bed (endlessly fascinating) and pushed the buttons on the bed (I wasn't so happy about that).
Just as they were getting ready to leave, we put the baby down and someone said, "What's wrong with Emmeline?" I turned and saw she was choking on spit up--clear, thick liquid was coming out her mouth and both nostrils. I sat her up and suctioned her out and she started turning blue and was still choking, so I called the nurse, who rushed in and tried everything I had just tried and then ran her out the door, shouting, "Open the door to the nursery!" Just so happened that our own baby nurse was standing at the door to the nursery and got it open quickly, and the whole rest of the family just stood there in shock in my room.
When we had arrived at the hospital, we got the last room available--almost directly across from the nursery--and then hiccups kept them leaving us in there even though we were supposed to move to a different room much farther from the nursery. I now consider those hiccups to be miracles. Every single second when your baby isn't breathing is a terrifying eternity. Trust me. It's horrible. So the fact that a nurse was at the door of the nursery, that we were directly across from the nurses station and the nursery, that a nurse was available to step in instantly when we needed help (often they just can't come that fast)...all of it was a miraculous combination of circumstances that saved our baby.
To distract the kids, we turned on cartoon and Tim went to check on the baby. The nurses did their jobs well, and Emmeline was fine. They had to use some special suction equipment and essentially vacuum her breathing passages, throat, stomach...and then she needed some pressurized oxygen and a whole bunch of wires and sensors and we all agreed she should stay in the nursery for a while. Reassured that all was well, Tim took the kids home.
I had multiple nurses pop in over the next hour and say, "Good job working fast." "Good thing you were alert to that." "Nice work moving so quickly, Momma!" I wanted to say the same thing to them. Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew that perfectly healthy, gorgeous baby had been a real risk of brain damage or death.
She was barely pink again 2 hours later when it happened again! I was in my room, but the Nurse Practitioner said it took them by surprise because Emmeline was absolutely silent, and had the alarms not gone off, the nurses wouldn't have noticed even that she was choking. They saved her life again, and a couple hours later baby was ready to nurse but so sleepy from all the trauma.
So we all agreed she should stay in the nursery overnight because what if that happened while I was sleeping? She made nary a peep and would have died.
Overnight, though, she improved and soon could spit up and spit it out without choking. They got all the mucous and gunk out. Apparently slow birthing processes squeeze all that junk out of the baby's airways, and quick births like we had get them swallowing even more gunk and not squeezing any of it out. Most of my other kids who had quick births just vomited it all up and it was okay, but Emmeline's gunk was too thick, and she tries to swallow it instead of spitting it, so she was in serious danger.
She was good enough by today, though, that she got to come home with us. Didn't have to stay the extra day we anticipated (thank goodness!), and we all have watched her take care of spit appropriately.
But it was very scary for me.
And, even though I longed for a home birth for my last baby or two, I am so glad we went to the hospital for this one. Even if we'd had a qualified, properly equipped midwife for the birth at home, we still would have lost this baby because the issues showed up 8 hours later, after baby had been so perfectly, gorgeously healthy that no midwife would still have been around with pressurized oxygen and vacuums for airways. Even if she had survived, the time it would have taken for an ambulance to get here would have probably left her brain damaged.
So now I understand why all the nurses I know say, "Just have your baby at the hospital. You never know what will happen."
As much as I craved the peace and serenity of a good home birth, and as much as I despise the trauma and hurry and stress and needles and being subject to everyone else's systems and lack of privacy and discomfort of the hospital way of giving birth....
I can't deny it saved my baby's life.
It's worth it.
It was super fast.
At 5:40 am, I woke up because Jack said something beside me in bed. I noticed I was having tiny contractions and thought I should time them.
At 6:00 am, I realized the contractions were 3-7 minutes apart and thought maybe I should get up.
At 6:15 I realized I had to get up because I had started bleeding.
At 6:30 I woke up Tim. I got Jack distracted, Tim showered, I collected the stuff we needed and asked Anda to get up and watch Jack (as we had planned).
At 7:00 am, we walked into the hospital and I was very, very uncomfortable.
It just so happened that it was shift change time right then, so I had two teams of nurses at my disposal. As a result, they got everything done double quick, and by 7:30 am I was comfortable with an epidural/spinal combo (best kind--numbs the belly and not much else!). Phew. So glad that worked out fast fast fast. Too bad the labor moved so fast that within half an hour I was uncomfortable with contractions that were so strong I could feel them through the epidural--but at least the edge was off. I can't imagine surviving those without the epidural. Yikes!
At 8:21 am, Emmeline was born. That fast. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, just like Caleb did.
We had a little laugh that our 8th baby came at 8:21 am on the 8th weighing 8 lb 2 oz. Lotsa 8s!
She was gorgeous. I was relieved. Nurses all came and went and said she was so healthy...soo healthy they didn't even really NEED the doctor to look at her, everyone knew he would sign it all off.
By 9:30 am, Tim was back home with the other kids, feeding and diapering them and telling them the baby came and then having a nap. Now that I write that, it seems kind of unheard of that we'd leave to have a baby and 2 1/2 hours later, Daddy was back home with the other kids because we were totally, totally done and ready to nap.
8 hours later, after Tim had napped (he'd been up all the night before suspecting I was in labor and waiting for me to get up and tell him that, so he'd slept about an hour when I woke him up) and I had napped (childbirth, even the good times, is exhausting) and Emmeline had napped, the kids showed up to visit us at the hospital. I was so happy to see them.
The kids doted on Emmeline and loved her and held her and talked to her and sat on the hospital bed (endlessly fascinating) and pushed the buttons on the bed (I wasn't so happy about that).
Just as they were getting ready to leave, we put the baby down and someone said, "What's wrong with Emmeline?" I turned and saw she was choking on spit up--clear, thick liquid was coming out her mouth and both nostrils. I sat her up and suctioned her out and she started turning blue and was still choking, so I called the nurse, who rushed in and tried everything I had just tried and then ran her out the door, shouting, "Open the door to the nursery!" Just so happened that our own baby nurse was standing at the door to the nursery and got it open quickly, and the whole rest of the family just stood there in shock in my room.
When we had arrived at the hospital, we got the last room available--almost directly across from the nursery--and then hiccups kept them leaving us in there even though we were supposed to move to a different room much farther from the nursery. I now consider those hiccups to be miracles. Every single second when your baby isn't breathing is a terrifying eternity. Trust me. It's horrible. So the fact that a nurse was at the door of the nursery, that we were directly across from the nurses station and the nursery, that a nurse was available to step in instantly when we needed help (often they just can't come that fast)...all of it was a miraculous combination of circumstances that saved our baby.
To distract the kids, we turned on cartoon and Tim went to check on the baby. The nurses did their jobs well, and Emmeline was fine. They had to use some special suction equipment and essentially vacuum her breathing passages, throat, stomach...and then she needed some pressurized oxygen and a whole bunch of wires and sensors and we all agreed she should stay in the nursery for a while. Reassured that all was well, Tim took the kids home.
I had multiple nurses pop in over the next hour and say, "Good job working fast." "Good thing you were alert to that." "Nice work moving so quickly, Momma!" I wanted to say the same thing to them. Nobody said it out loud, but we all knew that perfectly healthy, gorgeous baby had been a real risk of brain damage or death.
She was barely pink again 2 hours later when it happened again! I was in my room, but the Nurse Practitioner said it took them by surprise because Emmeline was absolutely silent, and had the alarms not gone off, the nurses wouldn't have noticed even that she was choking. They saved her life again, and a couple hours later baby was ready to nurse but so sleepy from all the trauma.
So we all agreed she should stay in the nursery overnight because what if that happened while I was sleeping? She made nary a peep and would have died.
Overnight, though, she improved and soon could spit up and spit it out without choking. They got all the mucous and gunk out. Apparently slow birthing processes squeeze all that junk out of the baby's airways, and quick births like we had get them swallowing even more gunk and not squeezing any of it out. Most of my other kids who had quick births just vomited it all up and it was okay, but Emmeline's gunk was too thick, and she tries to swallow it instead of spitting it, so she was in serious danger.
She was good enough by today, though, that she got to come home with us. Didn't have to stay the extra day we anticipated (thank goodness!), and we all have watched her take care of spit appropriately.
But it was very scary for me.
And, even though I longed for a home birth for my last baby or two, I am so glad we went to the hospital for this one. Even if we'd had a qualified, properly equipped midwife for the birth at home, we still would have lost this baby because the issues showed up 8 hours later, after baby had been so perfectly, gorgeously healthy that no midwife would still have been around with pressurized oxygen and vacuums for airways. Even if she had survived, the time it would have taken for an ambulance to get here would have probably left her brain damaged.
So now I understand why all the nurses I know say, "Just have your baby at the hospital. You never know what will happen."
As much as I craved the peace and serenity of a good home birth, and as much as I despise the trauma and hurry and stress and needles and being subject to everyone else's systems and lack of privacy and discomfort of the hospital way of giving birth....
I can't deny it saved my baby's life.
It's worth it.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Thinking about police in the US
How can you not think about the police in the US right now? It's all over the big cities and the news.
I keep feeling like people are missing asking the right questions, though.
I would love to see two questions addressed thoroughly:
1. Why don't people follow police officer's instructions? (I have yet to hear a story that didn't involve someone refusing to follow officers' instructions as the catalyst.) This is not, in my mind, a rhetorical question. I really want to know--what is going on in people's minds that makes it seem like it is a better idea NOT to obey?
and
2. Why are the cops apparently overreacting? (or are they?)
I guess the third question that should be asked is 3. What do we want our society to look like and how do police fit into that?
Of course, each question leads to many, many more...
Like Are the cops scared for their lives all the time? Why?
And Are people so afraid of what cops will do that they can't fathom obeying them? Why?
And Where is the line between understanding that criminals are human beings (and so treating them with dignity and respect as humans) and letting them get away with crime rather than enforcing the law (which might hurt their feelings or interfere with their activities)?
In the 1980s, people were so horrified at the criminality of big cities that they insisted that the police fix it. And they did--by working hard to enforce the "little laws" (ie not urinating in public, no graffiti, not selling unpackaged cigarettes), which cut down on breaking of the "big laws" (ie murder, rape, carjackings). But lately it seems like people are coming down on the side of allowing people to break the "little laws" rather than....hurting their feelings?....without any sense that any amount of lawlessness leads to massive amounts of lawlessness really, really fast. While there are many cases of the police using force where someone actually didn't break any laws (except for not obeying instructions from a police officer), there are many more cases where the person involved was breaking a "little law" and then resisted the police officers. And ended up dead. And yes, that does seem excessive, to end up dead for some misdemeanor offense, but does that mean we don't allow officers to enforce the "little laws" for fear they will do something wrong themselves?
I end up with lots of other questions that aren't be addressed, like is the militarization of police a cause or an effect? If we disarm the cops but don't disarm the robbers (because really, how do you disarm the robbers? They are functioning outside the law as it is, so more laws won't help.), where does that leave the average citizen?
Also, I keep finding myself asking, "If you, as a member of a group (religious, cultural, racial, whatever) see members of your group doing heinous things (jihad, being thugs, running drugs), and you DON'T come out publicly to condemn that, how can you insist that you don't own part of the reputation the group gets from the idiots and criminals?" Reputations are rarely created whole-cloth and imposed on people. They are usually earned by someone (and then sometimes unfairly applied to others). But if the Muslims don't want to carry the reputation as terrorists, and the inner-city minorities as criminals, and the hispanics as drug cartel members, shouldn't they be actively fighting those "members of their group" (even just those perceived as members of their groups)--or at least speaking out against them?
I keep feeling like people are missing asking the right questions, though.
I would love to see two questions addressed thoroughly:
1. Why don't people follow police officer's instructions? (I have yet to hear a story that didn't involve someone refusing to follow officers' instructions as the catalyst.) This is not, in my mind, a rhetorical question. I really want to know--what is going on in people's minds that makes it seem like it is a better idea NOT to obey?
and
2. Why are the cops apparently overreacting? (or are they?)
I guess the third question that should be asked is 3. What do we want our society to look like and how do police fit into that?
Of course, each question leads to many, many more...
Like Are the cops scared for their lives all the time? Why?
And Are people so afraid of what cops will do that they can't fathom obeying them? Why?
And Where is the line between understanding that criminals are human beings (and so treating them with dignity and respect as humans) and letting them get away with crime rather than enforcing the law (which might hurt their feelings or interfere with their activities)?
In the 1980s, people were so horrified at the criminality of big cities that they insisted that the police fix it. And they did--by working hard to enforce the "little laws" (ie not urinating in public, no graffiti, not selling unpackaged cigarettes), which cut down on breaking of the "big laws" (ie murder, rape, carjackings). But lately it seems like people are coming down on the side of allowing people to break the "little laws" rather than....hurting their feelings?....without any sense that any amount of lawlessness leads to massive amounts of lawlessness really, really fast. While there are many cases of the police using force where someone actually didn't break any laws (except for not obeying instructions from a police officer), there are many more cases where the person involved was breaking a "little law" and then resisted the police officers. And ended up dead. And yes, that does seem excessive, to end up dead for some misdemeanor offense, but does that mean we don't allow officers to enforce the "little laws" for fear they will do something wrong themselves?
I end up with lots of other questions that aren't be addressed, like is the militarization of police a cause or an effect? If we disarm the cops but don't disarm the robbers (because really, how do you disarm the robbers? They are functioning outside the law as it is, so more laws won't help.), where does that leave the average citizen?
Also, I keep finding myself asking, "If you, as a member of a group (religious, cultural, racial, whatever) see members of your group doing heinous things (jihad, being thugs, running drugs), and you DON'T come out publicly to condemn that, how can you insist that you don't own part of the reputation the group gets from the idiots and criminals?" Reputations are rarely created whole-cloth and imposed on people. They are usually earned by someone (and then sometimes unfairly applied to others). But if the Muslims don't want to carry the reputation as terrorists, and the inner-city minorities as criminals, and the hispanics as drug cartel members, shouldn't they be actively fighting those "members of their group" (even just those perceived as members of their groups)--or at least speaking out against them?
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Did I just read that?
"Crash tests with human dummies have confirmed the material efficiently absorbs energy and protects passengers from “secondary impacts”—i.e., slamming into the wall or a seat back when the train lurches unexpectedly. " http://www.wired.com/2014/12/aluminum-foam-trains/
I guess you'd have to be a dummy to volunteer for crash tests. Human dummies abound. Some animals are dummies, too.
I guess you'd have to be a dummy to volunteer for crash tests. Human dummies abound. Some animals are dummies, too.
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