Audrey had her first tennis practice Saturday. I was informed that 'he (the coach) said he was gonna work us like dogs - and he DID'! I was not present but Mr. Stone said it was quite a scene and Audrey went limp about 20 minutes in but managed to persevere through the intense and unrelenting 81 degree Kentucky heat. At break time Brad said one little girl forgot to bring a water bottle and came unglued shouting 'I've never sweated before!'
(Brad assures me it wasn't Audrey but I am not sure I believe him.)
Anyhow, Audrey learned how to swing a racquet properly and evidently did hit one pro-caliber shot that had everyone gaping. I guess the coach is learning about Audrey's 'blunt affect' the hard way. (Audrey has this habit of just staring at you when you tell her something. It's unnerving quite frankly, especially if you aren't used to it.) Apparently the coach was trying to hit balls with Audrey and asked if she was ready. She just stood there, racquet hanging limply at her side, staring blankly at him. He asked again if she was ready and after a long pause she blinked and finally responded, 'yes'. As there was no change in her posture or racquet position to indicate readiness you can understand his confusion and reluctance to just fire off a ball at this girl who looks for all the world like she won't see it coming. Thank goodness he had the presence of mind to just go on and hit it and not wait for her to look like she was focused. He'd be waiting a long time.
On the cooking front Lilly and I made ice cream this weekend. She had to separate the eggs for the recipe so that was a new skill to acquire. For the record, it turns out its tons easier to just have them dump the yolk into their hands and let it drain through their fingers than to try to get them to separate it using the halves of the shell. Lesson learned. Only one egg casualty out of 7 so I was impressed. The recipe was a honey vanilla ice cream and it really turned out great. Just need to impress upon her that you just can't turn on a pan and decide to go use the bathroom - fundamental rule of cooking, that as it turns out, is not instinctively understood.
Here's the recipe if you are curious. I used vanilla extract and half and half instead of cream.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Honey-Vanilla-Ice-Cream/Detail.aspx
Okay, so am I the last one in the world to see this Extreme Couponing show? It's like hoarding, but with extreme organization and three-ring binders! I watched three shows back-to-back last night. Yes, this is how Mr. Stone and I spend a Saturday night - tucked in bed watching TLC freak shows. It was FANTASTIC!! I saw a man purchase 1000 tubes of toothpaste, some other lady buy 112 bottles of Advil PM and another gal buy 40 CASES of Gatorade! In case you haven't seen this - their whole deal is to create a 'stockpile' of products in their home. We are talking full-on convenience store stocked shelves type of affair. One gal had 200 packs of cat treats - no cat - and another gal had like 150 packs of diapers and SHE HAD NO CHILDREN. I cannot express how fabulous it is!
So today I decided I was going to try. I cut coupons out of the Sunday paper and went to CVS and Walgreens and purchased $116 worth of stuff for $54. I have a stockpile of 4 12-packs of Coke products and 16 rolls of paper towels. Gonna have Mr. Stone build me some shelves in the basement. Bring on the crazy...!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
School is just about out for summer...
and I am trying to figure out how to keep us all busy and sane in the ensuing months. Usually I send the girls to a day camp but with money tight these days I'm in the unenviable position of being chief wrangler and entertainer for the summer.
For those who don't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell you'd be reading this if you didn't - I have two girls: Audrey (The Monkey), age 9 and Lillian (The Poker) age 11. I have to confess that it has often worried me that perhaps my children have special talents that they'll never discover because I never exposed them to it. What if Audrey is a naturally gifted bagpipes player, or Lilly is super good at Austrailian Rules Football, or that weird hockey game Indian people play with sticks? We'll never know will we? I won't say this kept me up at night but I will admit it was something to mentally knock around at 3am while I was lying in bed worrying about other stuff. It's okay. I was up anyhow - what's one more thing...?
That's why when Audrey started talking about karate I felt awful. She's been begging for karate classes for two years now, but around here practice is 3x a week and folks, that's just not happening. So when she switched her focus to tennis with it's one-practice-and-one-game-per-week schedule, I was delighted. Well, let's be clear - I was happy for her and Mr. Stone, because this will be his territory. Tennis and I parted ways in the August 1990 'we'll-go-inside-after-we-volly-it-ten-times-without-missing' incident. If you are curious about the details, Mr. Stone will be more than happy to recount the tale. I, however, do not speak of it.
Audrey is thrilled about the prospect of tennis. I suspect that her excitement, much like her interest in karate, has more to do with the costume than the activity per se. I also suspect that her 6 degree temperature comfort zone (between 69-75 degrees) and lack of overall coordination and fitness are going to cause her some problems on the court this summer. Time will tell. What I do know is she looks damn cute in a tennis skirt.
So The Monkey has her summer activity all mapped out, but Lillian has yet to find her niche. She claims tennis will be 'bad for her knees'. Truth is her arthritis would probably be fine, she's just old enough to realize that it's gonna be hot and they're gonna make her run around in it. Thank you. No.
So last night she said she had a plan for what she'd like to do this summer.
Lilly: 'Mommy can you teach me to cook some stuff. Like more than just scrambled eggs?'
Huh. Not a terrible idea. Maybe I can convince her she wants to start doing the laundry...
Anyway, I told her that was a fantastic idea and that since there were about 8 weeks of summer that she should make a list of things she wants to learn to make and we'd take one per week. I realized too late that I think she really just wants to take a cake decorating class. Her first items were essentially cake decorating skills, of which I have none, so we had to refocus. (Brianna I may be sending her your way for lessons!) However, soon the ideas started popping and this is what she came up with (spelling is not our forte')
I'm not a scrapbooker or a journaler by nature. I rationalize that its the self-indulgent nature of the activities that offends me, but mostly I'm simply too lazy and disorganized for such an activity. My children are going to have to recreate their childhoods largely with the twenty or so out-of-focus photos I remembered to print and whatever snippets of stories that my addled brain can retain to recount to them in later years.
So when this cooking thing came up I figured this might be a chance for me to actually document a few things for them. Which explains why I am writing this silly blog. My plan is to share the recipe and what happens when you let an 11 year-old loose in your kitchen. I might even take pictures. I said might. I'm really bad about that. We'll see. Anyhow, if you can't read the list (and I rearranged the order a bit) this is what we have on tap:
Week 1: Ice Cream
Week 2: Meatballs
Week 3: Strawberry Salad (with chicken, feta and carmalized walnuts)
Week 4: Fondue
Week 5: Lasagna
Week 6: Naan
Week 7: Butter Chicken
Week 8: Sugar flowers/cake decorating stuff
I'll keep you posted on how it goes. If anyone has a super good ice cream recipe please feel free to let me know. I have one but I'm not wedded to it. Lilly's favorite flavor is oreo cookie so I think we'll just make vanilla unless someone has something awesome and wangy.
For those who don't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell you'd be reading this if you didn't - I have two girls: Audrey (The Monkey), age 9 and Lillian (The Poker) age 11. I have to confess that it has often worried me that perhaps my children have special talents that they'll never discover because I never exposed them to it. What if Audrey is a naturally gifted bagpipes player, or Lilly is super good at Austrailian Rules Football, or that weird hockey game Indian people play with sticks? We'll never know will we? I won't say this kept me up at night but I will admit it was something to mentally knock around at 3am while I was lying in bed worrying about other stuff. It's okay. I was up anyhow - what's one more thing...?
That's why when Audrey started talking about karate I felt awful. She's been begging for karate classes for two years now, but around here practice is 3x a week and folks, that's just not happening. So when she switched her focus to tennis with it's one-practice-and-one-game-per-week schedule, I was delighted. Well, let's be clear - I was happy for her and Mr. Stone, because this will be his territory. Tennis and I parted ways in the August 1990 'we'll-go-inside-after-we-volly-it-ten-times-without-missing' incident. If you are curious about the details, Mr. Stone will be more than happy to recount the tale. I, however, do not speak of it.
Audrey is thrilled about the prospect of tennis. I suspect that her excitement, much like her interest in karate, has more to do with the costume than the activity per se. I also suspect that her 6 degree temperature comfort zone (between 69-75 degrees) and lack of overall coordination and fitness are going to cause her some problems on the court this summer. Time will tell. What I do know is she looks damn cute in a tennis skirt.
So The Monkey has her summer activity all mapped out, but Lillian has yet to find her niche. She claims tennis will be 'bad for her knees'. Truth is her arthritis would probably be fine, she's just old enough to realize that it's gonna be hot and they're gonna make her run around in it. Thank you. No.
So last night she said she had a plan for what she'd like to do this summer.
Lilly: 'Mommy can you teach me to cook some stuff. Like more than just scrambled eggs?'
Huh. Not a terrible idea. Maybe I can convince her she wants to start doing the laundry...
Anyway, I told her that was a fantastic idea and that since there were about 8 weeks of summer that she should make a list of things she wants to learn to make and we'd take one per week. I realized too late that I think she really just wants to take a cake decorating class. Her first items were essentially cake decorating skills, of which I have none, so we had to refocus. (Brianna I may be sending her your way for lessons!) However, soon the ideas started popping and this is what she came up with (spelling is not our forte')
I'm not a scrapbooker or a journaler by nature. I rationalize that its the self-indulgent nature of the activities that offends me, but mostly I'm simply too lazy and disorganized for such an activity. My children are going to have to recreate their childhoods largely with the twenty or so out-of-focus photos I remembered to print and whatever snippets of stories that my addled brain can retain to recount to them in later years.
So when this cooking thing came up I figured this might be a chance for me to actually document a few things for them. Which explains why I am writing this silly blog. My plan is to share the recipe and what happens when you let an 11 year-old loose in your kitchen. I might even take pictures. I said might. I'm really bad about that. We'll see. Anyhow, if you can't read the list (and I rearranged the order a bit) this is what we have on tap:
Week 1: Ice Cream
Week 2: Meatballs
Week 3: Strawberry Salad (with chicken, feta and carmalized walnuts)
Week 4: Fondue
Week 5: Lasagna
Week 6: Naan
Week 7: Butter Chicken
Week 8: Sugar flowers/cake decorating stuff
I'll keep you posted on how it goes. If anyone has a super good ice cream recipe please feel free to let me know. I have one but I'm not wedded to it. Lilly's favorite flavor is oreo cookie so I think we'll just make vanilla unless someone has something awesome and wangy.
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