Month: September 2009

of how many loads of laundry I do in a week. I feel like I need to catch up before I start my tally, but I’m never actually caught up. Hmm. . . I guess I have to start somewhere.

So here’s the start of the count (Josh folded 4 baskets last night — not counting those). I washed one last night, another is washing right now and I have 2 more waiting to go in. I’m going to get logjammed though, because I’m almost out of laundry detergent. I have to remember to go buy some tomorrow on the way home from soccer. I can visualize at least 2 more loads upstairs in the boys rooms (between the clothes actually in the dirty clothes bin and strewn around on the floor) and I probably have at least one load of towels. I don’t wash sheets nearly as often as I should, but that would be another load. The washing isn’t bad. It’s the folding and putting away that I hate. Especially the putting away part.

Take the above paragraph and lather, rinse and repeat. That would be my week.

the more I’m glad I’m not one of them! I just finished Laura Ingalls’ oops, I mean Melissa Gilbert’s autobiography Prairie Tale, and wouldn’t trade places with her for a million dollars. She was adopted at birth and never got past that feeling of being unwanted. Poor girl. Her adoptive father (who she has a sneaking suspicion was her birth father and her adoption was to cover up an affair — she can’t get a straight story from her mom) died when she was 10, soon after starting on Little House on the Prairie. So she saw Pa as her surrogate dad, but he abandoned her when he cheated on his wife and took a new wife. Because her family was friends with his wife and kids, when he left them, he left her.

Her teenage years were filled with her feeling uncomfortable in her own skin. She was terrified of having to play the Laura who fell in love with Almanzo because she was 15 and he was a MAN and he totally freaked her out. She saw him as Chester the Molester and every time there was a kissing scene in the script she begged them to change it to just a hug. Puts a whole new spin on the Almanzo and Laura romance, doesn’t it? BTW, Mary was cold and unfriendly and Nellie was awesome. Oh, and Willie was Laura’s adopted brother in real life — who knew?

Since her mom was REALLY overprotective she grew up slowly, but when she broke free she went from relationship to relationship and was attracted to guys who cheated on her and then kept going back to them. She thinks that because Michael Landon drank and chain smoked all day the smell of booze and cigarettes imprinted on her psyche and she was attracted to “daddy figures” who smelled like him.

I was surprised to read how she continued to work after Little House. I knew she was in a few TV movies, but I didn’t realize how many. And like many other child stars, she headed down the road of drug experimentation and alcoholism. She quit the drugs after a short while, but the alcohol had a hold on her for a long time. She has currently been sober about 4 years (she’s 44 now) and is mom to 4 boys — 2 by birth and 2 stepsons.

I’m glad I’m me, not her.

Every Tuesday the boys and I volunteer at the church’s clothes closet — really a trailer that is packed floor to ceiling with clothes. We’ve been doing it for about 2 months now and it’s fun to see how the boys have different gifts as we serve together. For example, Carter loves to help people find clothes; he gets right in there and pulls things off the shelves that he thinks they will like. Calvin likes to run “big kid” errands like fetching keys and delivering the men’s clothes to a different area of the church. He also wanted to run the labeler (to label the different shelves of clothes), but I figured out his spelling needs more work after he printed off this label:
boyz sox. Last week when she was visiting, Caleb told Auntie Ginger what his job is: “I just play.” That’s about right.

So today we were working and a mom and young son came in who spoke no English. I thought I might be able to draw on my Spanish skills from 3 years of High School Spanish, but not so much. I was trying to ask the little boy how old he was and I got as far as “Cuanto . . . cuesta?” Which I immediately remembered meant “How much does it cost?” And I couldn’t remember that what I really wanted to say was “Cuanto anos tiene?” until after I was on my way home. Pretty swift recall, huh? Unfortunately, that’s about how fast I am with my Arabic too. If I could have a 15 minute time-out in between sentences, I could communicate pretty well.

After that fail I was afraid to attempt any further Spanish speaking so I just started holding up clothes and asking “yes?” That seemed to work for both of us.

Last month, on the 23rd of August, Josh and I celebrated our 12th anniversary. We decided to go for a picnic on the beach with wine, cheese . . . and the kids.

We toasted

found dead crabs

and drank a lot.

I had some leftover sourdough bread, lots of tomatoes that needed to be eaten, but weren’t good enough for a salad (texture wise) and a huge bunch of basil came in our organic veggie box last night. I didn’t want to do pasta since we ate pasta with sauce last night . . .

I took a serano chile and chopped it up and added it to a hot pan with a little grapeseed oil (I like using grapeseed for cooking because it has a higher smoking point than olive oil). Then I chopped up about 15 roma tomatoes and added them to the hot pan. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Let them cook down for a few minutes, stirring as needed. Whip out my hand blender and give it a few pulses. It breaks down some of the tomato skins while still leaving a chunky sauce. Chop 2 fistfulls of basil and toss in pan.

Meanwhile prep sourdough by rubbing with garlic (slice clove in 1/2, rub cut side across the bread). After all the bread is coated, toss that garlic in the sauce.
Pop bread in the oven at 350 for a few minutes to toast (you could use a toaster, we don’t own one). When the bread is crisp, spoon the thickened sauce onto the bread, top with sliced mozzarella and put back in the oven for 5-7 minutes.

ETA: So with the making the sauce from scratch, it’s not that fast, but it’s something I had to do anyway and then I turned the results into lunch.

Pizza bread!