cherry limeade

Errr...

Cherry Vodka Slushes is their real name.  

Cherry Limeades is what they're called when you're on #2.

3/4 of a can of frozen limeade concentrate

2 liter of 7up

2 1/4 c. cherry vodka

a hearty dash of vanilla

a hearty-er dash of grenadine

Mix it all together.  Pour yourself a glass and put the rest in the fridge.  

If you're feeling friendly, pour your neighbor a glass too (you're welcome, Tiff).

Here's the secret...

Go to Sonic and buy a big bag of their ice for only 99 cents.  Serve it over that ice.

Mmmmmmm-mmmmmm-mmmmmmm.

Old women and soul journals and geese and tired me

The women's retreat last weekend was great.  Despite there being no men around, we had a really good time.  My favorite part was our soul journaling workshop.  No wait, it was going to other dorm rooms late at night in my pjs to eat junkfood and read People magazines.  No wait, here's my favorite - interacting with the multi-generations of women.  My new favorite people are age 82.  They are so wise and fun and inspiring and creative and simply beautiful.  Phyllis is my favorite favorite favorite.

Worship leading and workshop leading went well.  I'm really tired.  

So let's let these pictures tell the story of the workshop...

I think about 40 women walked away with their very own unique soul journal.  

I hope they find it as life-giving as I have.  I really do.

They wandered by.  We invited them in, but they weren't interested.  Baby geese outside the window.  That's what I call a retreat.

Sweet sweet Carol.  She came down and told me that she had gone to the prayer room upstairs, and since she knew I would be too preoccupied to go there myself, she made me a prayer stick - a color for every member of our family.  And she prayed for us each while she made it.  By name.  And we just met!!  It could be that maybe its that gigantically obvious that we need prayer?!  Or it could be that she's just that kind.  Or it could be both.

Ryan showed the kids a great time this weekend - the zoo, baby sheep at his parents' house, the icecream truck, skipping showers before bed - and even had lunch on the table stove when I got home.

Now the Buzz is sick.  Disgustingness is exploding from all orfaces  every hour or so.  Poor little man!  And poor us.  I think we need to be quarantined.  Just can't seem to get well around here.  Does that mean I have to step down from my high horse about how "eating well and getting fresh air keep my kids super healthy and we never get sick"?    I think we've moved well beyond that.  Just a quarantine will do.

Ok.  Like I said.  Tired.  And filled with gratitude for the women I met this weekend.

Toll House Marble Squares

Happy almost Friday.  Almost.  You can do it.

This is Mom's stand-by recipe for the last 30 years.  She got it from Grandma, and I think she got it off a chocolate chip bag.  Remember that Friends episode where Phoebe was in search of her grandmother's amazing cookie recipe, thinking it was crazy impossible to make something so delicious, only to find the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag?  (That's for you, Liza!)  Well, you can call me Phoebe.  These are that good.

They are like making a batch of cookies in 5 minutes flat.  They taste like a cookie, they look like a cookie, they feel like a cookie.  But they take you 1/7 the amount of time.

3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar (I started using the dark brown kind recently.  Never going back to light.)
2 tsp. vanilla (be generous here)
1 c. margarine or shortening
2 eggs
2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
(add nuts if you want)

To make this the absolutely bomb-diggity, make half of your chips be semi-sweet, and the other half butterscotch!

Sift together the flour, soda, and salt and set aside.  Blend together the remaining ingredients, except the chocolate chips.  Blend with the sifted flour mixture.  Add 9 oz. of the chocolate/butterscotch chips.  Spread in a greased 9x13 inch pan.  Sprinkle the remaining chips on top.  Put in the oven at 375 degrees.  After 3 minutes, run a knife through it all to swirl the chocolate.  Bake for 18ish minutes longer. 

You should share them with your children.  Otherwise, they may talk to you like this:

This is exactly what she was doing while I was taking the picture of them!  Hurry up and share!!!!

5K

Eva and I walked the Emma Creek Classic 5K last weekend.  

Here's the highlights for Eva:

her friend Camryn came from KC to do it with her

getting a race number.  We traded because 880 was way cooler than 840.

wearing earbuds and borrowing her dad's ipod for the last mile

her teachers cheering her on at the finish

a can of pepsi at the finish line (I know!  Not provided by me, I promise.)

Here's the highlights for me:

Dawn coming from KC to walk it with me

getting a tan while I walked

watching Eva accomplish something hard like this

joining 1300 other women in a walk through town

Some of the brave band of 1st graders.  This is pre-race.  You can tell by the huge smiles.  

They had no idea what they were in for.

But look, she was still smiling post-race.  And she says she's doing it again next year!

Not normal journals

Normal is just so overrated.

Women in Conversation is a retreat for this area of the U.S. put on by Mennonite Women USA.  I'll be worship leading at it this weekend, as well as leading a couple of workshops on Soul Journaling.  Hoping to aid in women celebrating their own God-given uniqueness.  Here's the description from the website:

In this workshop, Tonya will explore ways to bring the activities of our soul....our thoughts, prayers, ideas, lists, responses, collections....into a functional bound book.  An avid writer, she desires for all women to find ways to creatively express themselves in print.  Don't let the idea of "journaling" scare you - this is not your typical diary-writing exercise.  You'll be encouraged to create a space where you can begin to view even the most basic writings, such as grocery lists and recipe collections, as an expression of your internal experience of the Holy.  Nearly all of the workshop time will be spent in setting up your own Soul Journals.

Here's the kind of journals I'm referring to...made out of composition books and found things like wrappers, calendars, cards, lists, receipts, etc.  NOTHING like a scrapbook.  A functional collection of our "soul work".   I carry mine everywhere.  Its my brain and my dreams and my lists and my rantings all wrapped up in a not so tidy book.

So...if you have any scraps of paper, ribbon, stickers, stamps, wrappers, construction paper, etc. sitting in a closet and begging to be let out...and you're willing to donate it to this cause...pretty please let me know in the next few days.  The women at the retreat will put it to great use, I promise.  And your closet will thank me!

a fox problem

We have a problem.
A fox problem.

It all started last summer when Miranda and Barack and Obrama became a pile of feathers while we slept.  One night they were there and the next morning they were gone.  And we were so sad.

That's when we found out there was a fox lurking about.  Rude awakening, I would say.

It turns out that Hesston has a "town fox".  Everyone - meaning anyone who has lived here for 20ish years - refer to it as that.  When I bring it up, they casually say "Oh yes, that's just the town fox.  It lives ________________."  And then they fill in the blank with where they believe this "town fox" lives.  Well, joke is on us, Hesston, because the town fox seems to live in about 7 different locations.  Meaning, I believe, that it should be plural.  There are "town foxes".  Or fox.  Or foxi.  Or whatever.  Just lots of foxes around here.

They hadn't pestered us since a year ago when they took our last three chickens.  Until recently when I was going to church at about 7 am on a Sunday morning.  When I pulled out of the garage I saw a streak of gray racing into our garage with a streak of brown not far behind.  I know you're not supposed to curse on Sundays, but there was something along the lines of "Oh shit, Tybalt is going to be breakfast!"  I laid on the horn and jumped out of the car and started screaming to Ryan.  He came bolting out of the house, and...this is the part where a guy shows his true man colors...when you scream bloody murder and he runs out of the house in his boxers and straight into the face of danger....he ran right into the garage and chased that fox right out.  Tybalt, don't ever doubt our love for you.

So we've been on the lookout for these foxi ever since.  Afraid that they will eat our cat or our children.

Tiff discovered last week that "the town fox" was nesting under her shed next door to us.  The city guys came and set a live trap.  This is one foxy lady because she's been tripping the trap, eating the food, and still remaining free to roam the town.  Its quite disconcerting for me because police pull up in front of our house every day and I have a mini panic attack while I do a head-count of the family and then breathe into a bag while I realize that the cop is just there to check the trap.

Ok.  Here's the problem part.

Tonight, Tiff saw baby foxes run across the lawn.  This is a problem for multiple reasons....#1 of course being that this seals the deal that we do indeed have "town foxi".  Its officially plural.  Problem #2 is this...the mama in me is sick sick sick about this live trap.  We can't separate the mama and babies!!  They aren't even weaned yet.  What happens when a baby gets stuck in there tonight and can't eat?!  Oh that poor mama.  And that poor poor baby.  Can't we just wait a week or two or twenty to catch them?

I don't want them to eat my cat.  I don't want them to pester my children.  I do not want pet foxi.  But I do not want to see a mama and her babies separated, no matter what creature they are.

So Ryan told me how to spring the trap.  So Tiff, if its sprung again tomorrow morning, it might have been the fox and it might have been me.  Let's just say it was the fox.

And in the meantime, Mother Nature, please please pretty please somehow move that mama and her babies far far far away.  Into the country where they belong.  Pretty please?

picmonkey

I found this new site called picmonkey.com.  You can edit your photos there....for feeereeeee

(that's me singing it).

It magically makes me a rockstar with my new camera.  

Look what I did with it when I was busy procrastinating...

This first picture is my favorite because it looks like it was taken back when I was the one sitting on his lap being read to...

(sharpen, clarify, crop, and vintage)

(clarify, cool the colors, and soften)

(just plain fix everything)

(focus, sharpen, crop, clarify, sepia)

So, friends, you could invest in photography classes.  Or you could go to picmonkey.  You pick.

The Parent Trap

When Kristie and I were in 5th grade, we had lots of slumber parties.  Fortunate for me, because I was extreeeeeeeemly bossy and took life verrrrrrry seriously and had one friend.  Kristie.  We watched Parent Trap at least twice every time.

"Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah, why don't you and I combine?  Let's get together, yeah, yeah, yeah, we can have a swingin' time"  

Remember!?  Oh I loved that movie.  So much.  Now I can read lots into it - wishing I had more friends, a fun camp experience, the drama of bringing parents back together.  But really it was probably simply that I was deprived of TV and movies and its just plain a great one.

So since the sonogram tech said we were having a girl almost 8 years ago, I've been SO looking forward to watching it with my girlie.

Every parent has their "crazy".  Mine is TV.  We don't watch it.  Oonnnnce in awhile we watch football on a Sunday afternoon, and we switch it to the weather channel for commercials.  The kids get to watch a little PBS.  Once in awhile.  Its my crazy.  So letting her watch a whole movie, and one rated PG at that, was really something.


We watched the new Disney version - when Lindsay Lohan was 10 years old.  SO fun.  Its strange though, to watch it through the eyes of a parent instead of a kid.  I actually paused the movie once, turned to Eva, and launched into a rendition of "That lady isn't nice.  She might be pretty, but she's treating people so horribly.  See what happens when people are selfish...."  Eva looked at me like I put my mom-pants on backwards and lost my mind.  I stopped mid-sentence and with a "Nevermind," and pushed play.  Der.

The Chachi-Band asked if we could go find Lindsay Lohan's house and they could be friends.  Um.  (insert crazy rant of "see what tv watching can do to a young mind?!! here)

But what a great night.  She watched it two more times the next day.  If she would've asked to watch it a third time, I would've said yes.


And a good night all around, because the boys watched tractor clips on the internet for 2 hours.  (How is that possible?!)

Cincinnati Chili

My sincere apologies for not yet posting this recipe.  

Fast, cheap, easy, handy, crowd-pleaser, and TASTY.

When I had lasik eye surgery and was on the drive home - celebrating going from legally blind to now reading road signs in under 2 hours - Mom asked what I wanted her to have ready at home for supper.  I said Cincinnati Chili.

When I recently got over the stomach flu and wondered what to make to ease back into this normal-eating-routine, I said Cincinnati Chili.  Yes, chili.

When we have friends over who don't mind missing the meat, I make Cincinnati Chili.

When the cupboards are nearly bare, I make Cincinnati Chili.

When my kids have been living on candy and vitamins for two days because of holidays and grandparents that spoil them, I need something I know they'll gobble down and walk away nourished.  I make Cincinnati Chili.

You should make Cincinnati Chili too.

1 small onion, chopped

1 celery rib, chopped

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 c. beef broth

can of diced tomatoes, undrained

can of red or pink beans (pinto, kidney, whatever), drained and rinsed

1 Tbsp. tomato paste

1 Tbsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

dash of sugar (to remove bitterness of tomatoes)

12 oz. box of whole wheat spaghetti

Saute the onion and celery in the olive oil until tender.  Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer while you make the spaghetti.  Serve it topped with shredded cheese, sour cream, and diced green onion.  

Really.  Just make it.  You're welcome.

family pictures

Oh, the dreaded family photo shoot.

Really really dreaded it.

But Picture Pete had us in and out in under 15 minutes.  

There was bribing, 

there was tickling, 

there was "pretty please smile"ing, 

there was "oh what a big boy you are"ing,

and there may even have been a mama sprinting through the dandelion field just to coax out a smile.

River insisted on sitting in Sage's rocking chair.  That was the worst it got.  

The rest was all fun and games.

All in all, quite pleased I am.

Enjoy...

Favorite Things #4

It's high time for another Favorite Things.  

Money does not buy happiness.  

Money does buy some pretty great stuff.

Having the money I need to buy some treats makes room 

in my innerds for other things to make me happy too.

Don't you think?

So here we go...

In no particular order, things that make me oh so happy.....

When I've been extra well-behaved, one of these big patties 

finds its way onto the checkout counter.

The ultimate "I'm such a hard worker" treat.

I thought dry shampoo was just for people who didn't like to take showers.  

Not so.  I like to take showers and I like dry shampoo.  Very much.

We hug trees, so I never ever planned to use aerosol hairspray.  

Plans have changed.  I will never ever go back to squirt bottles for hair spray.

Sticker charts for the kids.

They're cursed, I guess, with teacher parents.  But getting to say "you get a star!" to reward good behavior has been taking us SO SO FAR in getting great attitudes out of the two Bigs for the last two months.  When the chart is full, they get a reward (Thank you Target $1 section).  Really, let's just make an addition here...

TARGET $1 SECTION

Need I say more?

Wind chimes.

These have been on 4 different porches because they were a wedding gift.  

The music of my spring.

Survivor.  

The TV show.  I want Troyzan to win this season.

Eva loves it too.  Maybe even more than I do - if that's possible.  

So buffs are now a part of our regular wardrobe.  Around home, that is.

Ryan needs to go on that show because he would win us a million dollars.  He would lay low, win in challenges, make a great shelter, and eat anything.

Baby leg warmers.

I'll still be putting them on her when she's 4, just because I can't help myself.

My new scarves.  

Scarves are my security blanket. 

What am I going to do this summer without them and my puffy vests?!

Getting lots of miles out of these two scarves before the 90 degree heat hits.

The Little Caesar's Pizza Ad Boy

You Newton people know who I'm talking about.  There's a total wackadoo guy that dances outside Little Caesar's every day.  He's supposed to be there to get our attention so we buy the pizza.  I'm not buying that gross pizza, but he sure does have my full attention.  We stopped at the video place next door last night and there were 4 cars full of people, watching him open mouthed in wonder, no longer caring about getting out to get a movie.  He wears earbuds and rocks out silently to whatever songs are playing, using the Little Caesar's cardboard sign as his air guitar.  

He is awesome.  Dancing so badly.  So uninhibited.  So alive.  He is my favorite.

in print

Something fantastic is going on with these bushes.

They are far more than just your typical 

Line-the-driveway-cover-the-side-of-the-house Bushes.

They bloom notes.  I found about 10 different notes.  Rumor has that a certain Miss Evelyn Rain assisted a bit with the growing process.  Very fun surprise when I was outside getting the garden hose.  

I love it that she adds print to everything.  Not just her journals and notes, but random things like the plants and the side of the house and the backs of her dolls and even her toothbrush.  That she's choosing to express herself, just for the sake of expressing herself, and doing it in print...oh my happy heart.

This one is my favorite:

May she always "like me".

buds

making a mo-hawk

 I always wished I had a brother.  I still do.  I hope they are always this good of friends.  I tell him that she's his little sister and he has to protect her and look out for her.  Sometimes he does.  Sometimes he sits on her instead.  But she still laughs the hardest for him, and she still quits crying the quickest for him, and he still shares his trucks only with her.

piano

The big news is that we got a piano.

As you can see, reviews are mixed...

(that's crying, not singing!)

SJ suggested that we have 4 to 5 pm be "piano playing time" and the rest of the time its off-limits.  I'm warming to the idea quite quickly.  Ryan's a big fan because he doesn't get home until 5.  Today I actually did the math to figure out if River is 3 or 4 years old.  Did it twice.  So what's a little piano pounding going to hurt?  My sanity is already nearly gone.  No harm done.

But despite all the pounding and tears, I'm happy we have it.  It makes this even more of a home.

Eggs

I have stomach flu.  So does Eva.  Gross.  That's all I'm going to say about it.  Its just gross.
And I'm also going to say that being a mama and being sick sick sick sucks suck sucks.

We dyed eggs about every-other day the past few weeks.
There were glitter eggs, spongepaint eggs, tye-dye eggs, neon eggs, and just plain dyed eggs.

There were a few good old fashioned egg hunts thrown in there too...

Its clear that we're on borrowed time with Eva's exuberance over things like Santa and egg hunting.  It makes me live up and breathe in her excitement even more.

Dividing up the loot.  Now I understand why my parents always hid REAL eggs.  

You don't have to fill them with anything.
And then there don't have to be discussions about "what is fair" afterwards.

 But I think the most fun were the confetti eggs. We emptied out the yolks, then dyed the eggs, then filled them with confetti, then patched them up with tissue paper, and then - the best part - smashed them on each other.  I had confetti in my hair for at least 2 days.
Let the good times roll.

If you're like me and have about 3 dozen hard-boiled eggs left in your fridge, make this salad:

Celery Seed Dressing Salad

And bonus, spinach is on sale in these parts right now.  Substitute it for the mixed greens.