Meet the Elements- TMBG

I am always on the lookout for fun things to use in our daily homeschooling lives.  I have discovered that finding good science stuff is difficult.  So many of  my homeschooling purhcasing resources are very heavily Christian bent and science materials are touch and go.  Either they’re too complex or too simple or it just isn’t there.  So when I came across these They Might Be Giants videos, I did a secular homechoolers happy dance!

Enjoy!

Science is Real- TMBG

I could also title this “How writing a complete story in 25 words was just too damned hard so I gave up”. 

A couple weeks ago I posted about a Hint Fiction Contest and mentioned that I entered a Miniwords contest. I entered one fifty word story to Mini Words.  Since I’ve been asked by a couple of people, I thought I’d share it here.

The Decision
“I’m gonna rob a 7-Eleven” he said.
She stared at him, waiting for the punch line that didn’t come. Wiping a tear before it fell, she sat straighter and hoped she looked stronger, and bigger, than she felt. The empty refrigerator hummed.
“It’s okay, daddy. Just come home.”

And that’s it. Hope you enjoyed!

I’m a meat and potatoes kind of gal, and I’m proud to admit it. One of my favorite ways to make a potato is twice baked. MMMM… I rarely make them because we’ve cut way down on the dairy and these babies are chock full of dairy goodness. But having them so infrequently just makes them that much better. 

First, heat the oven up to 425 and toss your scrubbed potatoes in the oven. Ignore the heating element.  Just pretend, like I do, that my oven is a fabulous gas model.

If you have a hubby like mine, you’ll need to chop up a ton of bacon.  I think this is about 8 slices.  Yeah, for three potatoes.  But trust me, freshly cooked bacon nibbles are too much for a man to resist.  You’ll be glad you made a lot of bacon because half of it will be gone before you get to add it to the potatoes.

Cook it in batches so you don’t over crowd the pan.  Your second batch will be darker than the first, but it’ll all taste yummy!

When the bacon is done, lay it out.  I like to put mine in a cast iron skillet because the bacon grease seasons my pan for me.  I don’t lay the bacon on paper towels because it stays crispier if you don’t.

While your bacon is cooking, chop up some onion.  I ususally use yellow onion because it’s always on hand. 

Drain out most of the bacon fat from your pan and cook your onions (and some garlic) in the remaining fat.  It’ll be a beautiful color and it will smell absolutely heavenly.  I promise.  BB, who hates cooked onions, came in at this point, sinffing and asked “What’s cooking?  Smells good!”

Pull your baked potatoes from the oven and split them open to cool.  Be careful, they’ve been in a hot oven for an hour!

When they are cool enough to handle, but still hot, scoop out all the goodness and place in a bowl.  Don’t tear the skins, you’ll be using those as a cooking device.

Add the good stuff to the potatoes.  The good stuf is: sharp cheddar, bacon, onions, garlic, sour cream, butter, and milk.  Oh, and a little pepper.  Reserve some of the bacon and cheese for later use.

Use a handmixer to mix all the ingredients.  It’s not pretty.  Yet.

Carefully add the mixed gloop back to the skins.

Top the potatoes with the reserved bacon and cheddar.  Put the stuffed bakers back in the oven until the cheese is melted.

When the cheese is melty and bubbly (about ten minutes) your twice baked potatoes are ready.  Pair with a nice medium-rare rib-eye,  salad and a beer and you have a very comforting meal.  Hey, occasionally it’s okay to indulge!

Never heard of it, right?  Yeah, neither had I.  Until I happened upon a post on a mama’s writing forum where I lurk.  Hint fiction is a short story of 25 words or less.    At first I thought is was crazy.  Then nuts.  But after I thought about it for a while, it seemed like a lot of fun.  And that is how I came across this contest.

It is a hint fiction contest and I’m entering! I have already submitted one story to a Mini Words contest (which is a story of 50 words or less), and that was terrific, geek love of writing, fun. I think that the Hint Fiction will be just as fun, if not more, since I have half the word count. The bitch of it is that I can easily get caught up in an internal debate over which preposition to use, and it seems like writing a story of 25 words would only increase that feeling of spinning my tires in literary mud, but I do believe I can do this and it will be fun. Hell, I don’t even care if I win the contest and end up a published Hint Fiction author. I just want to know that I can do it. The contest is open until Aug 31, so I need to get cracking on my three submisisons. When I’m done with them, I’ll post them, along with my Miniwords entry, here. What I would really love, though, is to read your Hint Fiction and Mini Words Fiction. Enter the Hint Fiction contest and post your Hint Fiction entry as a response to this post.

I can’t wait to read your stories!

Have you ever seen those plate spinners?  You know, the guys who spin a bunch of plates really fast while doing flips and other acrobatics.

That’s where I am.   No, not at a circus watching plate spinners. I mean, that ‘s where I am in my life right now.  I feel like I have a hundred plates spinning on ten long sticks and if I take one wrong step they’ll all come crashing down on my head.

Its not necessarily a bad feeling.  Its kind of a rush because right now all the plates are up and the audience in my head is ooh-ing and aah-ing.  But I also hear a few individuals, way in the back row, whispering to thier buddies that they hope I trip and fall on my face.  Okay, those guys are mean assholes and I shouldn’t care what they say, but I do, and their comments make me just a little less sure of myself.

If you’re still with me you’re probably wondering what the deuce I’m babbling about.  If your not wondering then you’re probably in the midst of your own plate spinning act and I send you my warmest support and loudest cheers!

My life is a bit crazy at the moment.  Between homeschooling a kiddo who is quickly showing he’s smarter than me, two geriatric cats, a puppy in need of training, scheduling life as a one car family, regular daily chores like cooking and cleaning and shopping, and then my copywriting business on the side I feel like a plate spinner!  Everything needs my undivided attention at the exact same time and none of it can really wait very long.  Okay, the puppy is waiting.  I’ll take him for a run when I’m done with this post.

It is really neat to get paid for writing the words that other people can’t.  But its also really hard, too.  Most of the time I know nothing what so ever about the product or business I’m selling and that makes it tough.  Those snarky guys in the back row of the plate spinning show tell me that I’m whoring myself  by not trying to write the fiction I want to write.  They say that I’m a cheesy and hokey hack.  Someone call the usher and have those jerks removed!  I know that writing web copy is not whoring myself.  I know that its even pretty darned cool to be able to do it.  I know that I’m good at it and that writing copy does not black ball me from the really cool club of fiction if I choose to enter.  I also know that those guys will just be in the back of the Fiction Club laughing at me there, too. 

So my challenge is finding a way to get them to shut the hell up long enough for me to enjoy my own show. 

Any ideas?

About a year ago I made a post of some of my favorite things so I thought I might as well make a post about some of my least favorite things.

1. WebaneeseOkay, I just made that word up, but I think its suitable. You know, the people who type everything as though they are trying to chat really fast via IM. I guess it could also be Textanesse, too since it amounts to the same thing. An entire culture of people who have forgotten the beauty and diversity of the English language, and who end up writing crap like “OMG, B 4 I 4get to tell u, u need 2 be @ the DR. @ 2. U taking r car or the bus?” Seriously people (or should I say Srsly ppl), I think it takes longer to write this way than it does to just write it all out properly. And while I do sometimes write LOL or LMAO, that’s about as far as I can take it. Our language gives us so much opportunity to express the most subtle nuances of how we are feeling, and quite frankly I love that. Plus, I don’t want everyone to think I’m either a complete ninny or a twelve-year middle school girl.

2. Costco-ites Another term I made up for an annoying, irritating and oftentimes anger inspiring behavior.

3. Stomach aches that just won’t go away. I have had one of those for two days now, and it’s just so damned irritating! I can’t eat even though I’m hungry, I can’t enjoy my coffee, I can’t enjoy my day, and I can’t throw up. I swear I’d feel 100% better if I could just vomit. Yes, gross. Yes, too much information, but hey, it is a pet peeve.

4. Hubby or BB reading over my shoulder as I type.Thankfully neither one is doing it at the moment, but its a very regular occurance in our house. One that makes me want to type all sorts of little swear words. Of course since I’m a good mom, I don’t type swears my kid could read. But I think them.

5.Twitter.  This isn’t a pet peeve so much as it is something I just don’t get. I had a Twitter account for a while, but I got rid of it because I just don’t understand how anyone could care enough about the itty bitty minutiae of a person to follow their Tweets about needing to buy toilet paper or having a hangover. I do use Facebook, but I consider that very different. At least with Facebook there is the opportunity to post pictures or play games with friends. Twitter just seems so self absorbed and pointless. Maybe I’m just behind the times, but frankly, I don’t even update my Facebook status every day. The idea of coming up with a new Tweet multiple times daily is just too much stress for my life.

I started this post with the intention of making a list of 10 things that annoy me in some fashion or another, but in writing, as is often the case with me, I discovered something about myself I didn’t quite realize. I’m not irritated by a lot of things (though I’m sure Hubby would disagree). I guess its a good thing that I have a much longer list of things I like than things I don’t. I’ve always been one to see the glass as half-full with a refill on the way. I like it that way.

Keep on the Sunny Side

And I thought I had it rough!

Visa experienced a program glitch that temporarily charged a NY teen 23 quadrillion dollars for a train ticket.  This is what that number looks like: 23,000,000,000,000,000.  Of course it appeared with a little negative sign in front of it on the poor girl’s statement.

Holy crap!

A blueberry/apple pie. 

I did not use coconut oil for the crust, but good old fashioned butter.  I want to try the pie with coconut oil next time, though.  I just have to get over my intense fear of failure.

Pie is not my usual baking canvass of choice.  I find that the pie crust can be fickle, and it’s hard to work with becasue it tears.  Transferring it to the pie plate is a chore in itself, and I can’t roll out a nice circle to save my life (see my Tortillas post).  I tend to do much better with cake.  But we had a huge container of blueberries that were so delicious and just begging to be put in a pie.  BB wanted an apple pie, so we compromised by putting apples in the blueberry pie.  It changed the flavor entirely, and the apples turned purple, but it was very yummy.  It may not be county fair pretty, but fear of failure be damned!   I’m fairly certain that I didn’t fail on this one!

Oh, and  check out this cute song (which I sung to myself all day long) from the movie Waitress. 

The Pie Song- Quincy Coleman

Coconut oil!

How I love this stuff!  It smells good, it tastes good, it’s good for you, it cooks and browns very well, and it’s even good for helping you lose weight.  Coconut oil is even better than olive oil, which has always been one of my favorite oils.  But since starting to use coconut oil about a year ago, I hardly ever use my olive oil anymore.  There’s just nothing I can’t do with my coconut oil.

Okay I know that this sounds like a giant propaganda, hypnotized cult follower spiel, but really.  It’s just that great.

We recently made the switch to a (mostly) dairy free diet, and I was so heartbroken to lose the decadent taste of butter, and I was sure I’d never find another oil that could brown chicken as well as a pat of butter would.  But then, out of desperation, I reached for my itty bitty jar of coconut oil to fry an egg and some potatoes.  I thought my egg would be heavy and seriously lacking in richness, but I couldn’t have been further from the truth.  It was so rich and delicious.  My potatoes had never browned better.  I mean ever.  Perfectly browned, beautiful little potatoes.  I’ve discovered that I can replace coconut oil for every recipe I have that calls for butter or olive oil, and it out performs them every time.  It’s especially amazing in my bread machine recipe for wheat bread.

It is supposed to be great for helping you lose weight, it’s good as a massage oil, great as a skin conditioner (I’ve rubbed it on my desert dry hands) and it’s said to help keep your hair nice and healthy as well as to help heal damaged hair.  Okay, I’ve never actually used it on my hair because I’m afraid of having oily hair, but it seems to me that there really is nothing this stuff can’t do.  I mean, who ever heard that eating a spoonful of butter could help you lose weight? 

And now I must go pull my beautifully browned (because I rubbed the top in coconut oil) chicken (pre cooked in coconut oil so it’s brown and delicious), home-made from scratch potpie out of the oven.

Let’s eat!

Just a couple of hours away from our town is a little treasure of a place called Bandelier National Monument.  Pueblo ancients lived there as far back as 10,000 years ago.  10,000.  I don’t use the word “ancients” lightly.  This was the ancestrial home of current day pueblo people for thousands of years, and you can climb into cliff dwellings that are 700 years old.    You can see 800 year old petroglyphs (or rock carvings) on the mountain side and on the dwellings.  It’s an amazingly beautiful and spiritual place.  In fact, the current day Pueblo people believe Bandelier is still full of the spirits of their ancestors.  I believe them.

I took Hubby there back before he was Hubby.  It was there that I knew I was going to marry him. It was there that we got a sign that BB would be coming soon.  We took BB there when he was a toddler, and he was amazing, staring at the trees and listening to the wind as though he could hear the voices of children at play a thousand years ago.  No matter where life takes me, this place will always be special and chilling to me.

We went back this weekend, and it was still amazing.  Hot as all get out, but wonderful.  BB said “Mom, this place is amazing!  I want to come back again”.

This cliff dwelling, as far as I know, doesn’t have a name.  But the erosion above the dwelling looks just like an old Shawoman.  Creepy cool!

These are some really amazing ruins.  It’s estimated that this was a living community or village.  It’s circular and it was at one point, two to three stories high.  Apartments!

Here BB is in a cliff dwelling.

The three of us are just coming out of a dwelling.  A nice older couple for Pennsylvania took our picture.  Too bad I’m not a photoshop wizard like some people I know.  This could be a neat photo.

He was being so careful not to get wet.  Trust me, it didn’t last!

I have a lot more pics, but since I have to post them in a large format to show off the cool details, I’m going to stop here.  We are thinking about going back this weekend to hike to the waterfalls.  As magical as the dwellings are, it’s the woods and the waterfall that feel  somehow haunted in a good way to me.   And I can’t wait to see how BB will react to it.