Five on Friday: Reminders for Self for Successful Meal Planning

Okay, come on now, self, you're not the worst meal planner (You're not the worst! You're the okayest! You've got this!) At least you try?

For real though . . . as long as you remember these key pointers, you can do it.

1. One word: Leftovers.

2. Two words: Rotisserie. Chicken.

3. Three words: Fend. For. Yourselves.

4. Four words: Make. What. They. Like.

Making a big pot of chili to eat for several days sounds like a good idea until one kid says she doesn't like chili and the other says his stomach can't handle it. You know what they like: chicken noodle soup (use that rotisserie chicken carcass up!), pot pie, quiche. Just do yourself a favor and make those.

5. Five words: Cook. And. Prep. On. Sundays.

Remember, self--finding time for
something like this on a Sunday, means
you all eat better all week long.

Five on Friday: Life Hacks for Completely Unsuccessful Meal Planning

Take it from me, the world's okayest meal planner:

1. Plan seven dinners. End up with leftovers and impromptu invitations from friends. 

2. Don't plan seven dinners. Kids will devour everything (leaving no leftovers) and nobody likes you this week. 

3. Dutifully ignore all your early-in-the-week grand ideas for fancy side dishes, making the planning moot and leaving you with vegetables you wonder why you purchased.

4. Assume you'll have time and energy after a full day of work, an appointment and a sports game to cook dinner. 

5. Make every meal a big production instead of remembering the convenience and joys of canned soup, sandwiches, frozen pizza or breakfast for dinner. 

Stay tuned next time when I attempt to remind myself of some actually helpful hints for making sure my family eats at least two real meals a week.

Five on Friday: Aw, They Still Need Me

Just when it seemed like my kids didn't need me that much anymore:

1. Mom, can you make me an appointment for the __________ (fill in medical specialist)?

2. Ugh, Mom, this is such an ingredient house! 

In our home, unlike in that linked article, the resident children would rather go hungry than actually assemble ingredients into something edible, which means they sit around complaining and eating dry cereal while the food sits around and goes bad. 

So Mom's been food cutting, prepping, assembling a little more than usual (grab-and-go chef salad for lunch, anyone?) A truly magical thing happens--the food gets eaten.

3. Mom, I don't have any ________ (fill in article of clothing) that fits. 

4. Mom, did you sign me up for ________ (fill in one of a million freaking summer sports-related camps, travel and activities)?

 

5. And of course . . . if I weren't here, they wouldn't know what to do when they ran out of room in the dishwasher's utensil basket!

I guess they do still need me! Sniff.

Five on Friday: Should I Pack My Kids' Lunches?

Daily internal debate:

*What's my first favorite? Bickering, of course!

Five on Friday: 2.5 Days in and Killing It

Well, friends, I set some goals for myself for once the children got back to school. They were almost like resolutions for the new (school) year. We've been at it for an entire two and a half days now and I gotta say, I'm sort of killing it!

Let's see, I had resolved to:

1. Get back into my near-daily exercise habit:

Check!

2. Do things like pick the throw pillows off the floor,  put them back on the couch, and then not have to do it again ten minutes later:

Eleven minutes and counting . . . 

3. Make dinner at 10:00 am:

Yup!

4. Not listen to a single Olivia Rodrigo song for at least eight hours:

Achieved but the weird thing is two nights when I had insomnia this song decided to haunt my brain. That's what I get for going cold turkey I guess.

5. Getting back to supposedly writing my memoir. 

Okay, I haven't done this yet. I needed a few days to catch up on some other stuff (I've gotten the van inspected and made calls and filled out forms and made appointments and and and . . . !!!) 

I'd try to protest, "Well at least I got some writing done!" meaning this list but that's a cop out because I have been writing my Five on Friday lists all along and this one is basically just recycling last week's list. 

But I have really good intentions for next week now that I got so many of those dumb calls and things done, so I'll only give myself a sideways thumb on this one. Don't want to discourage me or anything,  especially since I just realized they have another day off next week and we still won't be back to five full days yet . . .

Five on Friday: Meet the New Boss . . . A Note to My Younger Three Children on Some Recent Policy Changes

 Too bad you millennials (are you younger kids even millennials or some new generation name?) probably don't even know this song to fill in the next half of that lyric with " . . . same as the old boss."

We may have inaugurated a new President for the nation but around here, I'm still the boss. The only changes here is that the constituents have changed (with the two alleged adults off to college). But that means it's a new chapter for our family and almost feels like a new term for me, if you will.

You may have noticed some recent policy changes! Even though each one seems to be even more wildly unpopular than the next, I am (not) sorry to say they are here to stay. These include:

1. Failure to complete daily list of chores without a legitimate excuse will result in swift and immediate personal electronic removal for as long as I see fit.

2. Because #1 happened the other day, it made me realize how nice afternoons can be. Thereby I do decree that we will be having frequent screen-free afternoons. (Wow, this one is not going to go over well at all!)

3. I (apparently) cannot reiterate this enough: school is your top priority. I know it's not the same. But we've been doing this virtual/hybrid thing for a year now and there are really no excuses for multiple missed assignments anymore. You have all the agendas and tools. You have two parents that are available to assist you. We need you to put in a little more effort now. If this means I have to sit down and watch you do every single assignment so be it. And believe me, this will hurt me way more than it hurts you.

4. You will continue to help choose meals for the upcoming week. We will be easing into our next phase of "Mom cannot freaking think of and make all of the meals for all of these people day in and day out for years upon end" alleviation plan which means you will each be helping to actually prepare the meals you pick. Or sometimes the meals I pick. Hey, I'm the boss after all.

5. The "oh my GOD MOM WHY DO WE HAVE TO" family book club has officially kicked off! Please be sure to read up to chapter three of History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote by tomorrow night. I've got a cold can of soda for one child to have all to themselves for writing a Kahoot! quiz for the rest of the family. Prizes will be awarded to participants. 

Five on Friday: Adaptation

I had some scattered ideas for this week’s list but couldn’t find the theme at first. I thought about it some more and realized they are all in one way or another representative of how we are adapting to ongoing lockdown.

 

As we approach the seven-month mark, I am sure I’m not the only one that looks back to our earliest days without thinking “that’s cute how optimistic and productive we all were.” It was so new—we halted everything. Then time passed and there was still seemingly no end in sight, but we began to relive life . . . to adapt. And now, at this point, the adaptations have not only arisen but also evolved. 

 

Some of the items on this week's list are just observations on how life has changed while others  are plans for things that seemed impossible before. All are COVID adaptations for our family, seven months in:

 

1. I've learned to check my email first thing in the morning.  One of my kids is actually getting in to the school building on an every-other-week half-day hybrid schedule (and is going to the school grounds every weekday for soccer practice). 

 

I need to answer the emailed COVID questionnaire for him every weekday morning.  Even though I always wake up before everyone else and sit around with my coffee and social media for awhile, I apparently wasn't always remembering to check my email. Now I do.

 

2. Bittersweet conversation I overheard:

Son who turned 12 in early March: "Hey, I never got my do-over birthday (party)!"

Older & wiser sister:  "Hate to tell you, Buddy, you're probably not getting your *next* birthday either. 

 

3. My husband for the past two months: "So have you thought about how you might be able to hold the MLK Day of Service in January?" 

I hadn't. The thought filled me with dread. But all of a sudden I'm starting to think of possibilities. I took the plunge in reaching out to some other organizers to talk about how we can make it happen. It still seems hard, but doable.

 

4.  After repeated delays in getting our High School Senior’s yearbook (first because of COVID then some sort of typo/s that were so bad they couldn’t bear to hand the books out? We’re dying to know what it was!), it has finally arrived. He actually doesn’t care about it, didn’t even want it but I said I was going to buy it regardless.

Anyway, he has one signature in it. From his sister.

It's funny because neither of them is going anywhere.

5. And perhaps the biggest adaptation of all: I've begun prepping or even packing the kids' lunches even though they are all home all day and are all completely capable. I did say I was here to help them the best I could. Furthermore, I am sick to death of coming home from work in the late afternoon three days a week to discover that nobody ate a proper lunch and would like to do so just as I am deciding what to make for dinner. 

 

So I'm telling the "you're enabling them" voice in my head to shut up. I have begun doing things like making ten little containers of homemade macaroni and cheese and making sandwiches while I sip my morning coffee . . . but only after I complete the online COVID questionnaire. 

 

 

 

Five on Friday: Weenie Roast Questions

This week I've been creating a lot, sewing cloth masks with cute little drawstring storage bags, socially distanced gifts and celebration plans for my parents' anniversary and, of course,  so, so, so much food.

Sometimes it feels like creativity begets creativity and I think that's the only way to explain how I came up with what feels like it *might* be a brilliant idea. How to fight boredom, create fun family together time, get the kids' creative juices flowing and get myself a night of free entertainment? 

SOLUTION: 

FAMILY WEENIE ROAST BY THE POND!

Featuring roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and the promise for earned extra s'mores for performances (song, dance, comedy routine, etc)

As each kid noticed the invitation, they each had questions:

1. The weenie roast is on Saturday from 5 to 2??? (Not sure what she thinks that @6pm means)

2.  Is it just going to be us? Or is someone else coming? (Dude. Really?)

3.  Does one joke count as a comedy routine? NO? Five minutes? What about three minutes? Is three minutes close enough to five minutes?

4. How many s'mores do we get if we don't perform? How many extra ones can we earn?

5. Since it's a roast, can we "roast" someone? (Which led to me asking and then answering my own question: "Could you do it without making someone cry? Probably not, so no.")

Stay tuned for the results of our first Family Weenie Roast and Variety Show!

Five on Friday: These Kids & Their Weird Eating Habits

One time my Mom was going to watch my kids for a few days and wanted to know what they all liked to eat . . . now you know where I get my amazing sense of humor from. Good one, Mom!

Of course they were younger and pickier then, but there is still very little that all five would agree on for a meal. They've also hung onto a few interesting eating habits like:

1. G, at 17 years of age, maintains that he only likes cheese if it's melted.

2. This little gal really wants to gross out her siblings by insisting that she likes food that they all find disgusting . . . but after a bite or two she realizes that she doesn't really like it either.

♪ Last Christmas, she wanted sardines but they're still in the pantry if you know what I mean ♪

3. E says he hates peanut butter and sometimes tries to claim he is actually allergic to peanut butter . . . eats the power balls and Elvis muffins I make and also occasionally enjoys candy that has peanut butter in it.

4. B is a college freshman and is always having lunches that look like this:

So typical, it's almost embarrassing.

5.  So this is a brand new one and maybe the weirdest. Yesterday Z was making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There was no more strawberry jelly in the fridge so I told him to look in the cabinet where he did find a jar. I then apparently made a terrible mistake by asking, "Do you need help opening that jam?"

"JAM? I'm not eating this. I only like jelly."

Then, even though:

a. Jam and jelly are essentially the same thing

b. "Jam" is just the word that came out of my mouth and was not indicative of what was actually in the jar

c. The label itself did not say "jam" OR "jelly" but "fruit spread"

. . . my child put the peanut butter away and made himself a ham and salami sandwich instead.

Five on Friday: Adapting Traditions Part 2: Gingerbread 2019

At the end of November, I wrote a post about our changing family's need to adapt some of our holiday traditions now that our oldest daughter is away at college, the rest of the family is super busy, both parents are spread too thin and the boys here are pretty apathetic about maintaining them. My dilemma has been that my youngest daughter is still very interested in these traditions and she deserves to have them.

Interestingly, when I looked back, I realized this has been a struggle even before my daughter went to college! I had forgotten that in 2017 I had written a post about which traditions to save, skimp or skip on that year. The last entry says that we will never skip our favorite holiday party with friends where we smash our sometimes over-the-top annual gingerbread creation.

Well in 2019 that was exactly what we had to skip . . . even though I started reaching out to all of the friends in mid-November, there was not a single date that worked for everyone. I proposed an alternative to my family: since we couldn't have them all here at once,  we'd be sure to make plans with each one of them over the holiday. Additionally, instead of them coming here to help us smash our giant gingerbread, we'd bring the gingerbread to each of them. (Also I gave the friends a date for the 2020 party to put on their calendars NOW.)

It took a little while to get to visit all of our friends, especially with the weather ruining some of our initial plans. But now that they've all been gifted with their own little gingerbread houses, I can share the pictures with you:

1. The original, made together while our oldest was home for Thanksgiving. Our home is on the right, a building on her campus is on the left:

 

 Our family's real-life rainbow directional pole (top) was recreated with the last names of our friends that we were gifting gingerbread too (bottom)

We hosted Christmas Day for my side of the family this year and the kids got to smash and eat these with their cousins.

Now for the individual houses of our friends:

2.  This is the only one that had any sort of real personalization for our dear friends who have named their home "The Hive" and might be a little obsessed with Volvos:

 

3. Next comes this one that helps to prove my point that we should stop calling them "gingerbread" houses and just call them candy houses . . . 

4. Exhibit B:

5. Last but not least, this one that was decorated by our oh-so-witty and irreverent oldest son, with the wrong date on it and a person that wasn't supposed to look like the President but sort of does anyway:

Did I mention that the houses we gave to our friends were also sort of piñatas? As if there wasn't enough candy on the outside, we surprised our friends by filling them with candy on the inside:

If you'd like our family's recipe and tips, see my article on the Farmers' Almanac website.

Five on Friday: Home Cooking

Funny how for all these years I’ve been saying, “you guys are sure going to miss my cooking when you go to college” since my daughter will be returning to school on Sunday completely loaded up with home cooked food to take with her.

I love that her school gives a week off for Thanksgiving as she was missing home a little bit. We had so much fun together . . . and also  I cooked and cooked so I can send her back with a bunch of homemade food to fill her tiny freezer and “pantry” (also known as a milk crate standing on its side) with:

1.    Coconut Pecan granola

2.   Personal pizzas

3.   Tomato sauce--figured since I made some for the pizza, she might want some for pasta later

4.   Slices of chicken pot pie (shh, the other kids don't realize that & might try to steal it)

5.   Alphabet soup

Just realized there are a few more things too . . . food is love and I sure do love my girl. Hope she feels that with every bite.

Five on Friday: Last of the Epic Road Trip Posts: Eating on the Road

I hope you consider me less of "that person who can't stop talking about her vacation" and more of "that awesome Mom who is providing a service to other families" (as well as "that woman who has no other ideas for a post this morning")

How do I keep my family of seven fed on the road? We have a few guidelines that might not work for everyone, like we generally don't let them eat in the van and we don't do fast food. We do frequently eat lunch on the side of the road and sometimes what constitutes a meal is pretty weird:

Keeping everyone full, happy and relatively healthy while on the road can be a challenge. We definitely eat out frequently, it is vacation after all, but there's no way we're going to purchase breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner every single day. So here are a few tips that have helped for us:

1. We pack the seltzer maker. I know this sounds a little crazy because when my husband announced, "We have the van and lots of space now, I'm packing the seltzer maker!," I thought he was a little crazy. 

However, we're a family that drinks a lot of water and all enjoy seltzer. We also hate spending money on water when we can just refill our bottles at sinks and water fountains. The only problem is that even if the water is potable, it might not be palatable. We've found when you "zizz up" weird-tasting water it becomes bearable.

2. A second modern supply that we traveled with for the first time this year: an electric cooler. Not having to deal with buying ice, keeping food dry, etc., was a total game changer for me. If you're traveling for more than a week, I highly recommend buying or borrowing one.

3. We frequently use tortillas. Bread is nice but too easily squished. Tortillas are so much easier to pack and make nice wraps. The best part though is that they almost always come in resealable bags that  can be used to pack sandwiches or cut up fruits or veggies in!

4. Speaking of cutting up foods . . . I keep the cutting board and knife (I've got a nice one  that has a carrying case/sharpener) much handier than the other kitchen supplies. I won't frequently need a can opener, for example, so that can stay in the big bin o'camping kitchen supplies . . . but a knife and cutting board are kept in the more easily accessed snack and food bin.

 

5. We hit the prepared foods at supermarket delis. Eating out is expensive and unhealthy but cooking every night isn't exactly a vacation for the family chef. Every meal can't be gas station snacks and apple slices, so what's a Mom to do? 

Head to the supermarket! They have so many options now that they haven't always had before . . . my favorite this past trip was buying some grilled chicken breasts to make a sandwich with (I was getting sick of cold cuts) or to throw on top of a salad (from a bag, of course, I was on vacation after all). 

Hope these tips can help someone considering a family road trip. Next week we will (most likely) be back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

Five on Friday: Rainbow Bread Pointers

Every March we bake a few loaves of rainbow bread because we love seeing how long the bright colors take to go through our digestive systems rainbows and impressing the other kids in the cafeteria.

Having done this for a number of years, I've come up with some dos and don'ts for successful rainbow bread production to share with you:

1. Get over your fear of yeast bread. If I can do it, I swear you can too. I don't even follow the instructions that closely and it still comes out great.

2. If you want really vibrant color: get some gel food coloring. It's about 100,000 times better than the  liquid stuff from the supermarket.

3. After the dough rises the first time, divide it into seven bowls for the different colors. Be  generous with the gel. This is not the time to use Grandma's antique bread bowl. Most of the color will wash right out but . . . use caution. Most of my wooden spoons are sporting new dye jobs this week.

4. Grab some kids to knead the color in. All that slime making makes them excellent at getting the color consistently incorporated into the dough. Also they don't generally don't care if they get color all over their hands. Use rubber gloves if you, unlike most children, don't want to have food color all over your hands for a week.

Looking at this picture makes me feel like maybe I should have had a hair net on, too, to complete the look.

5. Use a rolling pin to roll out each color, being generous with additional flour (to help with the dough not sticking and to create a little bit of a barrier between the counter and the food coloring). I usually roll the red first and then after the orange is rolled out, I place it on top of the red roll them again together. Repeat with each color and then create loaves, place in greased pans to rise again and bake as directed.

Sometimes we switch it up and start with purple and end with red

Even if you miscalculate how much dough to put in the small pans, the results are still magical. And sort of trippy.

Five on Friday: BALLS OF POWER

For this week’s Five on Friday, I’m going to do something totally new: a recipe along with some facts (some helpful, some quirky) about a favorite snack around here, especially in the summer. 

1. THE NAME: Power Balls. We are in the stage where everything “balls” is uproariously funny but for some reason it hasn’t occurred to them to laugh at this yet. I think they’re too used to hearing it, so they don’t hear the “balls” in the name. Like how my friend when he was younger had no idea there were carrots in Carrot Cake. I imagine this bliss will be short-lived, though, and we’ll need a new name soon. I'm thinking "Balls of Power" to up the ante on hysterics around here.

2. WHY THEY ARE GREAT, PART ONE: They have a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips in them so the kids think they are a special dessert-like treat. But every other single ingredient is something good for them so WHO WINS NOW, KIDS? Oh right. You do. Again. You're welcome.

3. WHY THEY ARE GREAT PART TWO: They pack a protein punch, which isn't always easy for me to get into my kids when we're on the go and one of them "likes cheese but only melted" and fun things like that.

4. BUT THE BEST THING ABOUT THEM: Let’s say you packed ten power balls for an outing so each kid gets two. But then you realize you’d like a little snack and they look so yummy but if you eat one someone else wont’ have the same as everyone else and that's not faaaaaaiiiir. Not a problem with these soft little guys! Just pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch a little bit from each one and make your own little snack. The ones you pinched from can be rolled back into shape and the children will be none the wiser. MWAH HA HA HA HA!! Mom wins this one, kids!

5. THE RECIPE: Yes, they’re made with peanut butter. No, I have never tried using another kind of nut butter but I imagine it could also work. Yes, I always double this (and every) recipe. Yes, I have a tip for rolling them: wet your hands when it gets too sticky. Yes, I have a tip for packaging them: put them right into snack containers filled with the number of children you usually dole snacks out to times two. Place in fridge, grab one on the way out the door. Et Voila.

Modified from a recipe found on http://www.pbs.org

1 c oats

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup chia seeds (which are expensive so I usually use a cheaper yet still good for you flax-chia seed mix and then frequently toss in a little wheat germ for fun)

1. Put all of the ingredients in the food processor and blend until well mixed 

(also possible with bowl and spoon)

2. With clean, wet hands, roll into 1.5 inch balls 

(you may need to wash/wet your hands again half way through)

3. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Keep in fridge for up to a week if they last that long.

 

Five on Friday: Advent Calendar of Good Deeds Version 2016

I had been feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of creating another Advent Calendar of Good Deeds but after putting some thought into it, realized I could still pull it off but maybe just a little differently this year (read about it here). I shared every day's deed on Instagram but didn't talk about it all that much.

What worked? What didn't? What were the biggest hits?

1. The including "family fun time" days was a great new addition. It took the pressure off of me to make sure we had time or supplies for a good deed that day and ensured that during a super-busy month we spent time together.

2. Including traditions we did anyway (Make a hand print tree and a card holder for example) also worked. Sort of felt like a cop-out, they're not really good deeds after all, but once again they encouraged family togetherness and really helped place value on these traditions that we've created for ourselves.

3. Something we've been doing for years is wrapping presents at a local residential hospital for adults with neurological disabilities. I never expected my children to love this as much as they do. I'm not sure if it's the access to all the tape and ribbon they want or the snack they get at the end but I'm going to pretend it's the satisfaction of knowing they did a good deed.

4. Make a holiday craft or recipe from another culture or country: we didn't really do this one. I got some books from the library but that was the extent of what I had time for. Next year I either need to scrap this one or prepare better.

5. The ones that required no work from Mommy (compliment a friend, help a teacher, etc) might be my favorites and not just because they're easiest for me. I love these ones because they remind my kids that every single day they have a chance to do something nice for someone else. Every day isn't always going to be a "Color A Smile" day but it can always be a "Do or say something nice to someone who hasn't always been nice to you" day.

Five On Friday: Tips for Having Kids Pack Their Own Lunches

1. Pack the night before so the morning goes more smoothly. I like to do it when the kitchen is still dirty from making dinner. I'll walk one or two kids at a time through the packing process.

2. Packing the night before poses a few problems though: certain sandwiches tend to get soggy overnight. But if you--for example, lightly spread the peanut butter or cream cheese on BOTH slices of bread and then add a little jelly in the middle, you can avoid the sogginess. What about hot meals? We actually do those a lot (leftovers, soup, macaroni and cheese) so I have the kids leave their thermos on the counter and pack everything else they need the night before (spoon or fork, water bottle, napkin, side dishes).

3. Have pre-cut fruits and veggies ready for them. I found my kids kept going for the snack sized apple sauce packages as their fruit which I didn't really want them to do every day. I'd rather save those (more expensive/wasteful) snacks for when there was no fresh fruit left in the house. I realized they weren’t choosing the applesauce because they like it better, they were choosing it because they are lazy. If I do the cutting, they take the fresh stuff.

4. What about pre-cut apples turning brown (and becoming unappetizing)? Two solutions that work for us: either sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on the cut slices to mask the browning or throw in an orange slice (or few drops of orange juice) so the orange's acidity can counteract the effects of oxidizing.

5. Throw them a bone once in awhile...my kids have packed lunch every night for the first ten days of school. They're tired. I'm proud of them. Happy Friday,  kids. First one to complain about what I packed for them gets no more lunch-packing breaks.