Runaway October

Excuse the bad pictures.

Since mak­ing my small reversible purse, I real­ized that just toss­ing all of my many many cards into my purse was not work­ing. When I say many cards, I mean like 50. So I made this.

It should have been rel­a­tively sim­ple but I decided it needed a dif­fer­ent pat­tern inside and it needed two com­part­ments. I ended up rip­ping apart my first pro­to­type only to dis­cover that I had cut and sewn it right, I had just folded it wrong. Oops!

Tada!

I’ve been mean­ing to get some of these done for awhile, but real­ity always seems to slow me down.

Usu­ally I sit down to make a shop­ping list and draw a com­plete blank on what I’m mak­ing for the week. Or I write out the main dishes, only to for­get to shop for the side dishes. And hon­estly, our fridge is nor­mally such a hodge-podge of coupons, recipes and clip­pings that space was a com­mod­ity. I saw a cute lit­tle memo board in some dec­o­rat­ing mag­a­zine and it gave me the inspi­ra­tion to make my own magnets.

I used OpenOffice.Org Draw to cre­ate my own though Word­Press does not allow its file type. Here’s a PDF of blank ones. You should be able to copy them over to some­thing like Pow­er­Point or Microsoft Word and adjust them. If you use OpenOffice.Org email me for the orig­i­nal file.

I had orig­i­nally intended to make mag­nets for the week, and blank ones that I could use a dry erase marker on for the meals. Unfor­tu­nately the only type that Wal-Mart sold were a “matte” fin­ish — basi­cally plain paper — and they are cer­tainly not dry-erasable or some­thing to touch with wet/dirty fin­gers. Sta­ples was right down the shop­ping strip, but it was rain­ing and I had Rowan with me. Just have to make do, right? So I ended up print­ing mag­nets with most of our sta­ple meals on them and I’ll just use Pos­tIts for spe­cial or new dinners.

I think I’ve had true Chicken and Dumplings once before in my life. If I’m remem­ber­ing cor­rectly, I was young and well, at that age I could care less if my soup had dumplings in it.

A lot of peo­ple I know con­sider chicken and dumplings to be an ulti­mate com­fort food. I decided to give it a shot when I saw this recipe pop up on Smit­ten Kitchen. I’ve lately been on the hunt for recipes that were both fill­ing and rel­a­tively cheap. I also look for meal that are rel­a­tively sim­ple to make. While it meets the first two cri­te­ria, the third… not so much.

It is offi­cially a “week­end” meal. It basi­cally took me all day to make it, though it was done before 8pm when Lost came on. For some­one who can go through the whole recipe at once it wouldn’t be so bad, but between all the joys asso­ci­ated with two tod­dlers and a new­born I’m glad I started at 9am.

But it’s mouth­wa­ter­ing as can be.

Chicken and Dumplings with Leeks and Fresh Tar­ragon, from Smit­ten Kitchen.

Notes: Don’t use low-fat or fat-free milk in this recipe. Start the dumpling dough only when you’re ready to top the stew with the dumplings.

Stew

• 5 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs Read the rest of this entry »

Marie over at Trail Mix did a rewrite of the infa­mous “Good Wife’s Guide”. She did a great job mak­ing it more “home maker” friendly and up to date. Unfor­tu­nately, it just shows how far I am from hav­ing a per­fect house. So I thought I’d rewrite her rewrite, for enter­tai­ment purposes.

• Have din­ner ready. Plan ahead. Once-a-month cook­ing, and plan­ning your menus in advance can really help make this eas­ier. He’ll appre­ci­ate it, the kids will appre­ci­ate it, and you’ll have one less thing to worry about. Try to have his favorites as often as pos­si­ble and you’ll [have] him brag­ging you up to all of his friends.
  • Plan out menus ahead of time, mak­ing sure to include lots of scrump­tious choices. Buy mostly every­thing you need, for­get­ting only the impor­tant ingre­di­ents. For­get to defrost any­thing. Make excuses and whip together some Ham­burger Helper.
• Pre­pare your­self. Take 15 min­utes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. If your hus­band works in an office and you’re at home, be very aware that women who work with him dress ‘for the office’ with nice shoes, skirts, make-up, and nice hair. Make sure that what he comes home to looks just as good. (I got this advice from a pastor’s wife)
  • Try to shower weekly. Be very aware that women who work with him dress “for the office”. Let this effect your self-esteem and become con­vinced that you’ll always look like a water-buffalo for the rest of your life.
• Try to talk about some­thing more than Johnny’s potty at sup­per. Engage in intel­li­gent, inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion with him. Make sure he’s happy to be at home with you. Read inter­est­ing blogs and sites so that you have things to talk about.
  • Read blogs that inter­est you and stop your brain from dis­in­te­grat­ing. Try to share your inter­ests with your hus­band. Real­ize that he’s not lis­ten­ing and change the sub­ject back to him. Appear to under­stand when he talks about Dis­tri­b­u­tions, Emu­la­tions, and pack­age Updates.
• Clear away clut­ter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your hus­band arrives.
  • Try to make it to the front door when he gets home with­out trip­ping and send­ing the already scream­ing baby flying.
• Gather up school­books, toys, paper, etc and then run a dust cloth over the tables. The last thing any­one wants to see when they walk in the door is clut­ter, mess and dirt.
  • Shove every­thing in the closet or garage. He never goes into them anyway.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should pre­pare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your hus­band will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, cater­ing for his com­fort will give you immense per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion. (I’m not even touch­ing that. As sex­ist as that might sound, most peo­ple who choose to be at home full-time, as their cho­sen pro­fes­sion, really do gain per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion from mak­ing loved ones feel cared for.)
  • Find a YouTube of a burn­ing log fire and set it as your screen­saver. Maybe he’ll notice.
• Pre­pare the chil­dren. Take a few min­utes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if nec­es­sary, change their clothes. They are lit­tle trea­sures and he would like to see them play­ing the part.
  • Get chil­dren dressed for the first time that day. Diapers/underpants at least.
• Min­i­mize all noise. At the time of his arrival, elim­i­nate all noise of the washer, dryer or vac­uum. Try to encour­age the chil­dren to be quiet. Again, the last thing any­one wants is chaos when they enter the house. Extend this prin­ci­ple to times when any­one enters the house. (Gryphon says that he’s happy with hugs and kisses and then “Just let me catch my breath before supper.”)
  • Ask the kids to bring things to a dull roar. Pull ear buds out of your ears, you should be able to hear him speak now.
• Be happy to see him.
  • You really are happy to see another adult in KiddyWorld.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sin­cer­ity in your desire to please him. The truth is, a happy, con­tent hus­band, who knows that you’re com­mit­ted to his hap­pi­ness, is more likely to do the things you want.
  • A happy, con­tent hus­band means you’re over­stressed and doing the work of two peo­ple. This will cause you to be committed.
• Lis­ten to him. You may have a dozen impor­tant things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Trust me, there are women who would gladly let him vent about his day over a nice, quiet glass of wine, and they’ll pat his hand and sym­pa­thize about how you just don’t lis­ten. Don’t let that look like an appeal­ing option for him.
  • Don’t bother telling him those impor­tant things. He’ll just for­get and it’ll end up being your fault.
• Make the evening a pleas­ant time for fam­ily and then for each other. Recon­nect after being apart. If you have cer­tain rit­u­als at meal time, your chil­dren will remem­ber them and copy some­day. My mother always set the table prop­erly no mat­ter what we were eat­ing. Today I still love cloth nap­kins and tablecloths.
  • I can’t even touch this one. If it was easy to turn a choatic day into a peace­ful night I’d do it. Alas, chaos reigns supreme.
• Your goal: try to make your home a place of peace, order and tran­quil­ity where your hus­band can renew him­self in body and spirit.
  • Good Goal. Unat­tain­able, but good.
• Don’t greet him with com­plaints and prob­lems. There’s a time for that, but not when he first walks in the door.
  • The time for that is in your head. If you actu­ally voice your com­plaints and prob­lems they’ll get laughed off as jokes.
• Don’t com­plain if he’s late home for din­ner once in a while, but you’re a fool not to ques­tion if it hap­pens often.
  • You know that if you actu­ally get din­ner done and on time he’ll be late. With­out fail.
• Be a part­ner. Not a nag, not a door­mat, not his boss. Remem­ber that men view our friendly reminders as crit­i­cism, and they don’t usu­ally deal well with that. Boost him up, com­pli­ment him, make sure he knows that he’s your per­sonal hero, your knight in shin­ing armor, and the only man you want.
  • A part­ner­ship works both ways. Might as well be a door­mat or a nag because the only boost­ing you’ll get is from your bra and com­pli­ments come from your mom.
• A good wife knows her role in the mar­riage and fam­ily and how impor­tant she is to her hus­band and chil­dren. She knows her strengths and weak­nesses and works hard to always improve herself.
  • A good wife knows that she is impor­tant because were she to stop work­ing 24/7 the house would catch fire, the kids would starve and the hus­band would never be to work on time.

I would love to be the “good” wife. First I’d have to get mar­ried, then I’d need to hire a maid, nanny and cook. Those are my first two goals.

What do you think?

A quiz about the blog­ger and their blog­ging “habiti”. Found at Manic Girl but I know it didn’t start there…

1. Do you try to look hot when you go to the gro­cery store just in case some­one rec­og­nizes you from your blog? Uhh, yeah right. I try not to look like a total slob because I don’t want the store employ­ees to think I’m home­less or something.
2. Are the pho­tos you post Pho­to­shopped or oth­er­wise altered? Not typ­i­cally except for resized and whatnot.
3. Do you like it when creeps or dorks email you? If I liked it I prob­a­bly wouldn’t con­sider them creeps or dorks. But I rarely get emails, except from the island.
4. Do you lie in your blog? No, why would I?
5. Are you passive-aggressive in your blog? Peo­ple say I can be passive-aggressive in gen­eral, so maybe.
6. Do you ever threaten to quit writ­ing so peo­ple will tell you not to stop? Nope. I’m 25 and not Emo.
7. Are you in ther­apy? If not, should you be? If so, is it help­ing? Not in ther­apy, though my brain is turn­ing to mush from the lack of intel­lec­tual con­ver­sa­tion. Maybe I should go to ther­apy just to have some­one to chat with.
8. Do you delete mean com­ments? Do you fake nice ones? Never got­ten a mean com­ment. I hadn’t thought about fak­ing nice ones, but maybe that would inspire more com­ments in general.
9. If your read­ers knew you in per­son, would they like you more or like you less? I dunno. I hope that I por­tray myself as I am, so neither.
10. Do you have a job? Absolutely! Rais­ing and sell­ing children.
11. If some­one offered you a decent salary to blog full-time with­out restric­tions, would you do it? Absolutely! I think it would be fun.
12. Which blog­ger do you want to meet in real life? Deb from Smit­ten Kitchen or Juli­ette from Chick­pea Sewing Stu­dio. They both give me great inspiration.
13. Do you usu­ally act like you have more money or less money than you really have? In my blog? Well, I freely admit to being broke…
14. Does your fam­ily read your blog? Prob­a­bly the only peo­ple who do.
15. How old is your blog? 1.5 months.
16. Do you get more than 1000 page views per day? Do you care? I think a good day is about 15, and I’ve never bro­ken 100.
17. Do you have another secret blog in which you write about being depressed, slutty, or a liar? Nope.
18. Have you ever given another blog­ger money for his/her writ­ing? Nope.
19. Do you report the money you earn from your blog on your taxes? I can earn money with this thing?!
20. Is blog­ging nar­cis­sis­tic? I don’t think so. More cathar­tic than any­thing. Shar­ing is nice, and it gives me an excuse to list the things I like and sub­tly drop hints for Matt.
21. Do you feel guilty when you don’t post for a long time? YES! Hence why I post ran­dom memes some­times. Like today.
22. Do you like John Mayer? Who? Is he an Independent?
23. Do you have ene­mies? Probably.
24. Are you lonely? Kinda… lonely for adult com­pany and inter­ac­tion. My mom gets really tired of me bug­ging her when she’s home. Matt usu­ally hides from me because he knows I’ll ask him to hang out or help me with something.
25. Why bother? With what? Life? Because it’s the most ful­fill­ing thing I’ll ever do. Blog? Well, I like to share and pre­tend that peo­ple like to see what I do.