Find out why the best may be too good for me.
Showing posts with label housework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housework. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Camp fever
Is your child enrolled in a camp yet?
School was out before any of us realized it, and now we’re smack in the middle of summer break. Most moms, library-weary and waterlogged from the pool, are seeking something else to occupy their children, I mean, enrich their kids’ summer.
Around here, there is no shortage of camp choices. Fortunately, most camps are well organized and beneficial. The number of offerings is staggering. When I was a kid, your choices were overnight summer camp or YMCA day camp. In the ‘80s, specialized classes like computer camp hit the cultural radar.
Now there’s every kind of sports camp, dance camp, art workshops, space camp, horseback riding camp, chess camp, Spanish immersion camp, summer history camp at Travellers Rest, cooking camp at the Young Chef's Academy, drama camp, cheer camp and about a hundred others.
Locally, the FSSD Young Scholars program consistently gets rave reviews for its class selection and organization. Not every program, though, is done so well. Some are glorified babysitting for $150 per kid. Most are very expensive if you enroll multiple children, and classes can be canceled at the last minute because of low enrollment.
Other times camps are hit by random acts of government. When my twins were 8, I signed them up months in advance for zoo camp, which I assumed would be a weeklong wildlife experience from 9-3 every day.
Because Metro government cut funding to the program that spring, organizers were left without a school bus to take the kids from the round-up point at Croft Middle School to the zoo itself. A zoo board member donated a smaller van, which meant kids would visit the zoo every other day.
I didn’t expect my boys to be leading elephant rides, but with it being called ZOO camp, I did expect them to be at the zoo. It turned out to be much more of a classroom experience than they anticipated, with an emphasis on conservation. That being said, the boys had fun, and the counselors brought small animals from the zoo to the kids on the days they didn’t go.
I’m thinking of starting my own camp next year, though. For only $99 per child, I will conduct a “domesticities experience” where your kids can learn valuable life skills while having a ball cleaning my house. An after-hours session on cooking dinner will be available for an extra fee.
For those who prefer outdoor play, my husband will offer a weekly lawn-mowing and Weed-Eating camp for half the price.
Sign up early so your kid won’t be left out!
School was out before any of us realized it, and now we’re smack in the middle of summer break. Most moms, library-weary and waterlogged from the pool, are seeking something else to occupy their children, I mean, enrich their kids’ summer.
Around here, there is no shortage of camp choices. Fortunately, most camps are well organized and beneficial. The number of offerings is staggering. When I was a kid, your choices were overnight summer camp or YMCA day camp. In the ‘80s, specialized classes like computer camp hit the cultural radar.
Now there’s every kind of sports camp, dance camp, art workshops, space camp, horseback riding camp, chess camp, Spanish immersion camp, summer history camp at Travellers Rest, cooking camp at the Young Chef's Academy, drama camp, cheer camp and about a hundred others.
Locally, the FSSD Young Scholars program consistently gets rave reviews for its class selection and organization. Not every program, though, is done so well. Some are glorified babysitting for $150 per kid. Most are very expensive if you enroll multiple children, and classes can be canceled at the last minute because of low enrollment.
Other times camps are hit by random acts of government. When my twins were 8, I signed them up months in advance for zoo camp, which I assumed would be a weeklong wildlife experience from 9-3 every day.
Because Metro government cut funding to the program that spring, organizers were left without a school bus to take the kids from the round-up point at Croft Middle School to the zoo itself. A zoo board member donated a smaller van, which meant kids would visit the zoo every other day.
I didn’t expect my boys to be leading elephant rides, but with it being called ZOO camp, I did expect them to be at the zoo. It turned out to be much more of a classroom experience than they anticipated, with an emphasis on conservation. That being said, the boys had fun, and the counselors brought small animals from the zoo to the kids on the days they didn’t go.
I’m thinking of starting my own camp next year, though. For only $99 per child, I will conduct a “domesticities experience” where your kids can learn valuable life skills while having a ball cleaning my house. An after-hours session on cooking dinner will be available for an extra fee.
For those who prefer outdoor play, my husband will offer a weekly lawn-mowing and Weed-Eating camp for half the price.
Sign up early so your kid won’t be left out!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Five-Oh Plus Club
WHY OH WHY OH WHY do I go to Kroger on Senior Day? I mean no disrespect to senior citizens, of course, because on lots of days I feel like I already inhabit that demographic. I am just WAY too impatient to grocery shop with that many people who are not in as big a hurry as I am.
My goal when Krogering is to get in, get stuff, get out. If I forget and go on Wednesday, though, I have to build in an extra 10 or 15 minutes. After dodging the vans from the various assisted-living facilities nearby, I must kindly sidestep the big lady who's test-driving the motorized buggy as well as navigate the multitudes of slow-moving carts like I'm in a life-size version of Frogger.
Everything in Kroger is ten times harder for old folks, and it makes me sad. Some can't reach the stuff on the higher shelves. Many can't read the aisle signs, the price tags or the food labels. They can't get the plastic produce bags open. (Actually, I can't do this either.) If a senior couple goes together, the husband who's relegated to pushing the buggy and watching the purse usually looks pretty miserable. Then the lady stops to talk to a long-lost friend and forgets what she is doing on that aisle.
Once I realize what I've walked into, like today, I get over myself and offer assistance to whoever asks for it. But I also get a glimpse into the lives of some of them who can't do stuff I take for granted, like yell for a husband or an able-bodied child to open a stubborn jar for me.
Today, for instance, while I paused to choose from the perplexing varieties of chicken broth, I heard two ladies who apparently live alone discussing how difficult it is to open a can of soup with a screwdriver.
I wanted to run run RUN home. One lady giggled as if it were just another daily inconvenience, like changing the toilet paper roll, then asked me if I could reach the tomato soup for her. I should have offered to get her a can opener as well.
I'll tell you one thing. I'm well on my way to being one crabby old lady.
My goal when Krogering is to get in, get stuff, get out. If I forget and go on Wednesday, though, I have to build in an extra 10 or 15 minutes. After dodging the vans from the various assisted-living facilities nearby, I must kindly sidestep the big lady who's test-driving the motorized buggy as well as navigate the multitudes of slow-moving carts like I'm in a life-size version of Frogger.
Everything in Kroger is ten times harder for old folks, and it makes me sad. Some can't reach the stuff on the higher shelves. Many can't read the aisle signs, the price tags or the food labels. They can't get the plastic produce bags open. (Actually, I can't do this either.) If a senior couple goes together, the husband who's relegated to pushing the buggy and watching the purse usually looks pretty miserable. Then the lady stops to talk to a long-lost friend and forgets what she is doing on that aisle.
Once I realize what I've walked into, like today, I get over myself and offer assistance to whoever asks for it. But I also get a glimpse into the lives of some of them who can't do stuff I take for granted, like yell for a husband or an able-bodied child to open a stubborn jar for me.
Today, for instance, while I paused to choose from the perplexing varieties of chicken broth, I heard two ladies who apparently live alone discussing how difficult it is to open a can of soup with a screwdriver.
I wanted to run run RUN home. One lady giggled as if it were just another daily inconvenience, like changing the toilet paper roll, then asked me if I could reach the tomato soup for her. I should have offered to get her a can opener as well.
I'll tell you one thing. I'm well on my way to being one crabby old lady.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Why I hate the Cumberland Plateau
In today’s episode, we will analyze a growing geographic prejudice against the area known as “The Plateau.”
There is, in fact, a group called Haters of the Cumberland Plateau that largely consists of me and my three sons, though the 5-year-old is only an honorary member with no voting privileges.
We started the club because the Cumberland Plateau gets all our snow, and it’s just not fair. I can’t watch TV news while the twins are conscious because if they see one tiny snowflake on the five-day forecast, they think it’s time to get the “sleds” out.
Not real sleds, of course. We have those plastic disks that slide across the snow because we don’t get enough snow to really go sledding. It’s a shame, too, because Middle Tennessee has all these sweet hills.
Technology hasn’t helped us love The Plateau, either, since folks who live there are having too much fun sending digital photos of what should have been our snow to the Nashville TV weathercasters like some kind of high-tech ransom notes.
Then we end up with cold rain while The Plateau gets big, fluffy drifts, and I have to deal with questions like these before breakfast: Where is The Plateau? Why did they get all the snow? Can we move there? Why do we have to be so close to the equator? Can you check my math homework?
To paraphrase 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks’s comments about the Soviets, I am sick and tired of hearing about how much snow they’re gonna get on the Plateau. Their time is done. It’s our time!
The goal of the Plateau Haters is simple: It’s for the children. Our kids need a really decent snow, significant enough that their dad has no choice but to stay home from work. Bless their hearts; they’re so optimistic when the flurries start flying. At daybreak, they’re planning snowmen and snow angels and snowball fights and snow forts, even though the grass still peeks out because we only got “a dusting.”
Once when we got about a half-inch, Henry found a one-square-foot patch of ice in a dip on the driveway. The boys looked so pitifully happy taking turns, sliding around. “Look, Mom, we’re skating!”
I should be careful what I wish for, since I end up spending the rest of the day counting gloves and forging through the wet, muddy clothes cast off during those fleeting, snow-dusted hours. I can’t imagine the laundry that would be spawned by a foot of snow.
Maybe we only got a dusting last time, but it was ours. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!
Saturday, January 3, 2009
RIP cheese grits
So Christmas is gone already. I just packed it all up and my husband hauled it up to the attic. Even though I started buying some things in October, it still snuck up on me. But I was determined to complete some holiday rituals even after deadline. I didn't get to make cookie-press cookies until Dec. 27th, and we constructed our gingerbread house on New Year's Day. But we did it.
For future reference, remind me not to try to make ANYTHING that requires standing for hours trying to squeeze ever-hardening icing out of a plastic pastry bag when I've stayed up till the wee hours the night before. At my age, simply staying up late makes me feel hungover. Note to self: Never again.
Another thing I know I won't ever make again is cheese grits. I found out the hard way that Kraft has stopped making the garlic cheese roll that is essential to good cheese grits. The recipe I use is the one my grandmother used, out of Southern Sideboards, the most excellent cookbook published in 1978 by the Junior League of Jackson, Mississippi. I don't know why Blogger won't let me put these pictures in the middle of my post. Anyway, sorry about the microfilm look of the cookbook photo. I'm being lazy today. And I took the garlic cheese photo from a lady's blog whose name excapes me, but I'll find it. It's the only photo of the rare garlic cheese roll I could find.
The cookbook is so awesome because it notes who submitted each recipe the proper way, by her married name. My cheese grits recipe, actually called Cheese Grits Souffle, was submitted by Mrs. Louis E. Ridgway, Jr. and calls for one roll each of Kraft garlic cheese and Kraft Nippy cheese. Nippy cheese went by the wayside years ago, but both used to be staples in the refrigerated section between the real cheese and the canned biscuits (which my other grandmother calls "womp" biscuits because of the sound they make when you womp the can on the edge of the counter to open it.)
As a weird child, one of my favorite harbingers of Christmas was the sight of the little green-labeled roll of garlic cheese in the fridge.
Believe me, I am not the only one who's pissed about this. Southern ladies around the Internet are ranting on all kinds of online forums. Women in Pass Christian, Mississippi, in particular are up in arms.
With them on the job, Kraft should at least trot out the garlic cheese during the holidays, kind of like peppermint ice cream.
Friday, August 29, 2008
I need a vacation from my vacation
I’ve stopped reading women’s magazines, and I’m still here.
I became a better mom when I put down the parenting magazines and just played with my kids. And my brain has been calmer since I stopped caring what Glamour thinks about my career path.
Now, I should mention that I majored in magazines in college. My undergraduate major really was magazine editing and production, so it may give my boycott credibility to know that I once wanted to devote my life to making magazines.
Over the years, though, I’ve whittled down my list of “must-read” magazines because I got tired of hearing headlines in my head: “You need these 10 fashion must-haves for fall. Your butt will jiggle less if you do these exercises. Your family will worship you if you cook this stew tonight.”
These publications are full of unsolicited attempts to improve my life. The last straw? An article suggesting I put fresh sheets on the bed the day I leave for vacation so I still get that “hotel” feeling when I return home.
If you could see my house the day we leave for a vacation, you’d know why that sent me over the edge. Let’s just say that if firefighters had to break into our house while we were gone, they’d assume someone had ransacked it before setting it ablaze.
Regardless of how much planning goes into an out-of-town trip, there’s always a last-minute frenzy to get out the door, especially if you have children. And a frenzy usually leaves a mess.
Toddlers are the unknown in the trip preparation equation. The day you are to leave, your 2-year-old will wake up at 5:30 and demand more attention than usual because he can’t figure out what the suitcases are for.
You’ll find yourself pumping Goldfish crackers into your toddler like coins into a parking meter, buying time to pack your make-up bag so all of Destin won’t think you’re arriving after a lengthy hospital stay.
Instead of checking off the list of beach toys your older children wanted to bring, you end up offering things you’d never otherwise let the baby play with just to keep him occupied.
“Here, Ethan. Play with this butterfly hair clip. Look how pretty. Here, look at the newspaper. See Daddy’s calculator? Push all the pretty buttons. Wanna hold Mommy’s hair dryer?”
So forgive me, Good Housekeeping, if I don’t have time to run around pouring Pine Sol into all the toilets before I leave so it smells like a pine forest instead of a musty basement when we get back.
Besides, it wouldn’t be a homecoming unless we open the door after a week away and one of us says, “Whew, who forgot to take out the trash?”
Copyright 2005
I became a better mom when I put down the parenting magazines and just played with my kids. And my brain has been calmer since I stopped caring what Glamour thinks about my career path.
Now, I should mention that I majored in magazines in college. My undergraduate major really was magazine editing and production, so it may give my boycott credibility to know that I once wanted to devote my life to making magazines.
Over the years, though, I’ve whittled down my list of “must-read” magazines because I got tired of hearing headlines in my head: “You need these 10 fashion must-haves for fall. Your butt will jiggle less if you do these exercises. Your family will worship you if you cook this stew tonight.”
These publications are full of unsolicited attempts to improve my life. The last straw? An article suggesting I put fresh sheets on the bed the day I leave for vacation so I still get that “hotel” feeling when I return home.
If you could see my house the day we leave for a vacation, you’d know why that sent me over the edge. Let’s just say that if firefighters had to break into our house while we were gone, they’d assume someone had ransacked it before setting it ablaze.
Regardless of how much planning goes into an out-of-town trip, there’s always a last-minute frenzy to get out the door, especially if you have children. And a frenzy usually leaves a mess.
Toddlers are the unknown in the trip preparation equation. The day you are to leave, your 2-year-old will wake up at 5:30 and demand more attention than usual because he can’t figure out what the suitcases are for.
You’ll find yourself pumping Goldfish crackers into your toddler like coins into a parking meter, buying time to pack your make-up bag so all of Destin won’t think you’re arriving after a lengthy hospital stay.
Instead of checking off the list of beach toys your older children wanted to bring, you end up offering things you’d never otherwise let the baby play with just to keep him occupied.
“Here, Ethan. Play with this butterfly hair clip. Look how pretty. Here, look at the newspaper. See Daddy’s calculator? Push all the pretty buttons. Wanna hold Mommy’s hair dryer?”
So forgive me, Good Housekeeping, if I don’t have time to run around pouring Pine Sol into all the toilets before I leave so it smells like a pine forest instead of a musty basement when we get back.
Besides, it wouldn’t be a homecoming unless we open the door after a week away and one of us says, “Whew, who forgot to take out the trash?”
Copyright 2005
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