Mystery Blog

Well I was sure I had taken some video reviews of a dinner a few nights back. I also got some video of the boy sleeping and then a picture of the dinner. Mysteriously they are all gone from the camera today when I finally get a minute to blog about them. Darn it. Well lets see what else do we have for you. The middle son is going for a play day on Saturday at his friends Vlad's house. Now you if you know anything about Japanese you will know that two of the english sounds that give Japanese fits are the "v" sound and the "l" sound. My wife is not particularily charmed with this particular friends name. However, we worked through this and I think things are fine now. Starting to get excited about coming down to the Vancouver games. And lets face it. If we are going to throw our tax dollars away on this party and mortgage our future for it we may as well enjoy it while its here.

On a different note, they sent out an e-mail today in my school district that they are going to close two rural elementary schools. Even though we already have a four day school week to cut costs we are still going to be in the whole next year due to lack of funding. I guess there just isn't any money in the budget for education.

I missed it.

Dang, I missed my blog anniversary. I think it is okay though. We had to drive to see the midwife today, everything is going great. Then we stopped for a visit at the friends where we stayed after the baby was born. Very nice. After a lightning fast dinner the wife had a baby shower and I didn't manage to escape after walking over the carrot cake she made. Then when we got home we had bath time, brush teeth, book time and bed time. Once that was done it was 11:00 at night. So the Mrs. and I sat down and watched The Wrestler. I enjoyed it. The wife wasn't so impressed. And now it is the 26th and I missed my Blog-versary.

Can you believe it has been 300 posts in the last year? I can't believe its been a year. I can't believe I have kept at it. I look and see that pizza is not the most made meal at our house but it is way up there. Yup lots of meals have been eaten but the blog has definitely shifted away from a strictly dinner blog and has become a nice record of our family's goings on.

I look forward to the next year and the oncoming fame and fortune. And remember. You were here at the beginning. Take care and talk to you tomorrow, although technically that is today now.

ps. We had pork stir fry for dinner. Nicely marinated because the wife was smarted enough to thaw it in the freezer over night.

Keep the good meals rolling.

As we finished up our dinner this evening the wife said to me, "you really enjoy making dinner don't you." I responded, "When I can use my thinking power to think about dinner instead of work it is a pleasure. However, when I am working I just don't have the power left at the end of the day to think about it or I am still thinking about work." Which is to say, I am loving taking care of dinner and making it to the best of my ability each night. It really is something that you can think about all day.
Tonight I made a marinated steak salad, mashed turnip and beans. I went on line to find steak marinade recipes and the advice seemed to be either soy sauce savory or lemon juice acidic. I put in a little bit of both. I also added vegetable oil, prepared mustard, mustard powder, garlic powder and honey. There may have been something else but I forget. I put the still frozen steaks in a Ziploc with the marinade and left it on top of the fridge for most of the day. I turned it a couple of times and once the steaks had thawed and I could separate them I moved them to the fridge. The turnips were boil and mash with some butter, salt and pepper. Kids loved it. The beans were right out of the can cooked in their own tomato sauce. I liked the accent they added to the meal. The Green salad was romaine lettuce, green onions, cucumber and tomato. I forgot to dress the salads before putting the sliced up steak on, but no one was overly put out.
The wife had made her healthy chocolate brownie yesterday so we had that with some hokey pokey ice-cream. Delish. Funny story. The ice cream was on sale, normally 8 dollars on for 4. So we got two. One was hokey pokey (toffee chocolate) and the son requested vanilla. At the check out stand we had an incident with some chips which I thought were over priced but you had to buy four to get the deal though there was no sign indicating this. Then the wife bought some feminine products which she thought were on sale and when the check out lady rung them back through they were indeed discounted we just hadn't seen the price as they went through due to the chip debacle. So at this point I am apologizing and just wanting to get out the door. Once outside the wife makes me check the receipt and I notice that the vanilla ice cream was charged at $8.19. So I head back in to the frozen foods and just as expected, the only ice cream of this brand that was not on sale was the french vanilla. I am sure it should have been on sale or at the very least should have been separated from all the other flavours (everyone of which was on sale) but after having the two ring through refund ring through agains I was in no mood to debate the relative merits of their pricing schemes seeing as the ice cream was priced correctly. I get back outside and relate the details to the wife. She thinks we should return the over priced ice cream. I don't and we walk home. So the son is an $8.00 ice cream man from now on. Although I can't complain. I managed to get a free four pack of red peppers the other day for noticing that they charged me twenty cents too much. Literally every time we shop there we find something that isn't properly priced in the system. The store's policy is that if you bring it to their attention you get one of the item for free. Every time I have found a mistake I get the item for free. The wife says that from the tens of times she has found a price mistake she has only gotten the item for free three or four times. Crazy. It makes me angry and sad at the same time. It is just much tougher to be a woman than a man. I wonder how many times harder it is when you are a minority.
Speaking of gender, here are the men of the house having some quality bonding time while the daughter is at a play day at her friends house. I took everyone (including the friend ) swimming this afternoon before making lunch. Definitely getting my shots in while I can.

Packed

That is the best way to describe today. Not that we went out anywhere or had anything special planned. It wasn't like that. It just seemed packed with importance. I will explain. Oh yeah and there is even a dinner picture.

Yesterday, I brought home some marking and planned to do that today while at home. Of course this meant the wife could get out for some errands and I could be here for the kids. Not emotionally but on an emergent parent in charge basis. As I explained it to the daughter there would be some playing in the morning. Then some lunch. Followed by some outside playing. Followed by a movie. Followed by dinner. Followed by brush teeth/book time/bed time. Well the kids playing inside this morning was great. Maybe it was the whole wheat pancakes but they were fully into playing together. I uploaded some cd's so that I could transfer them onto the daughters Ipod. After this I set her and her brother up in her room dancing and got down to work. Surprisingly this lasted for almost an hour. Then they started pestering me and lo and behold. It was lunch time. So I set up some lunch and then packed them outside to play. While the wife and I facilitated from inside they got up to this outside...

The dancing with drums came later. I felt like pretending to do a Chinese new year dragon type dance (do not want to offend anyone, it was just the whole cymbal type sound) with a washed and dried pot and lid I was putting away and everyone else wanted to get in on the act. I thought they did a marvelous job. Especially my son's high kicks right at the end.

After the festivities we sat down to watch The Bridge to Terabithia. Really cute kids movie until it cut my heart out and stomped it on the floor. The sadness was all done off screen so the kids didn't really pick it up. However, they were both sitting in my lap and my sobbing kind of shook them up. Literally. I can't quite recall having been that overcome by a movie. Ever. They watched it a second time right away because it is a good kids movie and I got the last of my marking done. Meanwhile, my starlet of a wife was whipping up some wicked gyoza for dinner.

Well I scarfed down a bunch of these home made honey's but the daughter has the new record as she just kept going back for more. I think she must have had more than 20. I mean she was unstoppable. We made her finish her rice, salad and miso soup (which was outstanding miso soup, I mean its always good but it was at that peak level tonight) so it wasn't like she was lacking anything. Just feeling the gyoza fever.

After dinner we did a quick home reading and then we read about swans before I sent the kids off to join their mom in the bath. At this point I headed back to school and was about to get to work when I noticed a colleague of mine was also burning the weekend candle. So I went in for a quick chat and an hour later I was emotionally limp after talking about things ranging from our fathers to the stresses of the job. During that conversation I tried to recall an idea I had come across recently and I couldn't clearly recall it or where I had found it. When the conversation ended I got back to work for an hour and then came back home. Then I realised, it was in the book I was reading last night just before bed. Another colleague had recommended it to me(gotta love having great colleagues), "Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot", by Jim Stockdale. The image I was searching for was that of Job, from the bible. The virtuous man to whom life is unfair. And there is no answer. The virtue is in the struggle, even though there may be no reward.

To me this seems like a Monumental idea. Life is not fair. (I by the way may be monumentally naive but the verdict isn't in yet) But that doesn't mean you should give up. One of the main beliefs I have is that I should be working toward making the world more fair. Redistribution of wealth, universal properly funded social programs like health care and education, inheritance tax. Sometimes the lack of inequity in the world makes me angry. That may just be the way the world is. However, it doesn't mean I have to stop trying to change it. But the anger doesn't help.

Something else that I touched on in the conversation with the first colleague was my pride. I mentioned that my pride in who I am may be a problem. Searching for recognition for the things I do, or have done, from the outside world may or may not come. But does it really matter. The virtue is in doing the things I can, to the best of my ability. And I am the only one who can really judge that. As the colleague put it, " you are just the same as everyone else, not worse, not better, just a person trying to live." I messed up his words but it was something like that. So for tomorrow, keep trying to change the world, lose the pride and false modesty, and don't sweat it if things don't seem fair. Life is supposed to be challenging. In the challenge lies the virtue.

What a day. And on a Sunday to boot.

Saying no can be good.

Someone should have told Sarah Palin this. I have been very much out of the media loop for the last 3 years so the fact that I didn't realise Sarah Palin was insane until yesterday isn't as bad as it seems. Okay, how the SNL crew talked her into that wickedly funny parody is beyond me. Does Palin really believe that any press is good press. Then I watched all those Katie Couric interviews. Brutal, brutal, brutal. I can see where Matt Damon would get steamed up enough to circulate that lambasting he gives her. In the womans defense she must have something going on up there but it sure doesn't show. I have to think that McCain was searching and searching and no one wanted the job and he called her up and she didn't think, "why is this guy calling me?" She had a big enough ego to think she was the best choice for Vice President, even though she seems to know nothing about foreign policy, economics, or how to answer a question posed by the press. She should have said No. I mean really. I hate to say this but she makes Dan Quayle look like a political genius. The scariest thing is that Damon is right. Should the Republicans win she has a 50/50 shot at running the country some time in the next four years. Strange days indeed, most peculiar mama.

Things back here at the ranch are still moving along well. The kidlets went to a birthday party today. Dad and kids made the cards and shopped the presents yesterday so I let mom go for the ride along today. Everyone seemed to have a good time. I mean who doesn't have a good time when you score a loot bag.
The wife made up some spring rolls for dinner. These are the heavy duty spring rolls. You eat one and you are fullish. You eat two and you are stuffed. I held myself up at one, seeing as I had had a pre-dinner snack. Not a good habit if you were wondering. The rolls were accompanied by a cucumber and bok choy salad and some miso soup. Now that fall is here the miso soup really hits the spot. After some late afternoon trampolining I was feeling a little chilled. The miso put it all to rights.

And once again we back around at Monday. Will this roller coaster never stop. I think we need like a 20 day week with a 7 day weekend. Think about it.

Fall Cookout

Just like every good cookout this one had sushi. I called up some friends yesterday morning and said something along the lines of lets have a wiener roast in our back yard tomorrow. And now today is tomorrow so we had a cook out. The wife decided to make salad and then late in the game decided to throw in some sushi. Gotta love it when she gets the feeling. Isn't she just lovely. I get luckier every day. Anyways, I was in charge of the fire and the smokies, the guests brought the smores ingredients and our neighbour next door dropped off some peanut butter chocolate drop cookies. Along with the beers I bought in the afternoon it was truly a feast. Unfortunately, neither the smores, the fire, the smokies, nor the cookies managed to make it into a picture before getting gobbled up. Hers is the sushi before it was sliced.
In other news the daughter lost her first tooth today. Now saying lost is probably putting it slightly incorrectly. Last night it was still quite firmly in place, I mean there was a good wiggle there but not much more. So she pushed it way back and got it half way there and spent the evening and night complaining about her sore tooth and agreeing that she should have listened to us. It turns out the possibility of getting money for the tooth from the tooth fairy was just to pressing. So this morning it was no longer sore and was hanging mostly off. So she got a tissue, a good grip and ripped it out. Sure hope the tooth fairy can find a loonie.
My final section tonight is because I am pissed off. It may end up having no point so read on at your own peril.

I read today that the American government is going to spend about a trillion dollars of taxpayers money to try and fix the financial mess that they are in. I heard a commentator maybe 3 months ago talking about a law that was introduced after the great depression. It meant that financial institutions couldn't invest in sketchy investments like the sub prime mortgages. Then in the nineties the law was repealed because it was seen as punishing the big institutions because they couldn't reap the benefits of investing in all these new investment schemes. And now the American economy is in the crapper and threatens to pull the rest of us down with it because people believed the market was all powerful. The same Free Market Capitolists who fought to get that law repealed so that the "market could take care of itself" now want a bail out so that they can get their market going again. I can't tell you how frustrated I am. I feel like I am taking crazy pills, to borrow someone elses words. Do people not see what is going on? Will people ever get over their desire to have more? Is greed just part of our nature? There are people out there who have made millions of dollars which now need to be paid out by the rest of us in taxes. Why aren't all the people who made money on the way up charged. It just seems so monumentally unfair that some can rape and pillage the market and leave the rest of us holding the bag. I have no idea what my piddly little mutual fund is valued at these days but I am sure I don't want to know. Of course this begs the questions, Should I even have a mutual fund. There has to be a better way.

On conclusion I don't think that was very coherent. But I am moving on. Tomorrow is another day.

Eating Late

So this was day two of the wife getting out and working. We ate leftovers for lunch, did dishes, jumped on the tramp and then spent some time on the free wood pile. Last night on the way to our friends house we passed a pile of wood in a trailer with a "free wood" sign. So we called and happened to be the first to call. This morning it was dropped off at the side of the drive way and after mom went to work it was one of the jobs. As I sawed up the branches that were too long to fit in the stove the kids played on the pile. The played on it, after I made it a little safer than the original humble jumble from tossing it off the trailer. Then I tried to split some of it using my splitting maul, no dice. So then I went to the splitting maul followed by the sledge hammer. A little more success but this is not going to be easy. The rounds are probably 2 and half feet across and that is a little more than I am used to. But free is free so I ain't complaining. After, I threw in the towel the kids kept playing and I went inside and continued reading "the ominvores dilemma" and read that well into the evening. It was about 7:30 when the daughter finally roused me from my enraptured state and talked me into making some curry with her. With the last of the daylight we went out and got some more peppers and tomatoes. Then we made a vegetarian curry. We did use canned brown and black beans but I think I can defer to the industrial food machine enough to used canned beans. And really I would have to work so much harder in the garden to be able to make enough food to keep us in canned goods all year. Although reading Mr Pollans book has me really thinking about becoming a sustainable farmer. It just sounds so cool. If only I had a thousand acres divided fifty fifty between forest and grasslands, 100 head of cattle, 200 head of pig, various barns and farming implements, and 3 grown children who were interested in sticking around and keeping the farm running. I would also like to have someone who is licensed to butcher animals, someone who can make good cheese out of raw milk, someone who can make tofu out of soy beans, someone who is mechanically inclined and a group of people who are interested in consuming all of my fare locally so that I don't have to worry about getting my produce sold. If only. Well who the heck knows, life takes some pretty strange twists. Heck I could even grow my own wheat and make 100 percent home made pizza. Gotta figure out how to make my own yeast and salt. Those could be problematic. Back to dinner. This is the son plowing through his bowl of curry and rice.
He had just woken up from a three hour nap. I thought the smile looked pretty realistic. That is it for tonight. Lovin the produce.

Incoming

Do you ever feel like if you could just stay in one place for like a week and not have something new pop up, or some issue (probably someone else's issue) arrive to mess up the list of things that should be done pretty soon that you could get organized. Its like your taxes. Every year your booklet arrives way before your t4s. You can't start doing your taxes until you have all the pieces but as soon as part of it arrives you start reminding yourself, get that done as soon as you can. And then you forget. Other stuff comes up. Then you see the tax envelope on your desk/in your cubby/on that shelf and you get that rush, shit is that due yet. And the cycle repeats. There is always something new. I am thinking about that tooth that is bugging me or the wasps nest that may or may not be growing daily in my attic but I can't take care of during the day because it is an involved process and I reacted really badly to my last sting and then I suddenly realise there is only a month left to plan for a sixth birthday party and most of the theme specific supplies cannot be sourced in town. As I settle down to get them online I realise I haven't booked that cabin for Christmas. I look up the e-mail address. I start composing and
think "Shit! are my taxes even done".

I want time out. I want to sit down and get everything that needs to be done or could be done right now done. I want to get back to even and then truly relax. I know it will never happen but it is my dream right now. So much shit to do, where to start. Right party supplies.