Harvesting Tulips

I have an iphone 3G that is a couple of years old. When I first got it, I did not have a child and bought a simple clear snap-on case. The trouble was that I usually drive with my phone in my lap (so that if it rings I can answer it easily without having to dig in my purse while driving) and occasionally I would get out of my car and it would fall and hit the pavement, resulting in the case popping off and open. Once my child started getting bigger, I started thinking about stories I had heard friends tell of how their child had dropped their phone in the toilet or chewed on it until it had residual water damage. I decided maybe I needed a better case, so I got an Otterbox. These are pretty pricy at the apple store or the cell phone store. Even the kiosks in the mall that are probably knockoffs are pretty expensive. But I found it on amazon for somewhere near $25. (The one pictured is for the iPhone 4s so it is a little different than mine which is for the older phone.)

Pros:

-Cute color!

-Comes with a belt clip, which I don’t use, but I see how it could be beneficial.

-It has a screen protector.

-It is well protected when dropped.

Cons:

-It can’t fit on a dock without taking off the case, which is two parts.

-The screen occasionally has a little bit of smudge on it, due to the screen sticking to the cover. I read something online about baby powder to fix it, but I haven’t tried it.

My Otterbox has held up really well and I highly recommend them to people who have children or just think their phone gets a lot of wear and tear.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

1. I am starting my 1000 gifts list again. It feels like a lot when you are on 15. I have started at least twice before, but those lists are in other places. I would copy down my first few, but I just got a new journal to start them in and so that would be a pain.

2. An exerpt from utmost.org: “Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed “that they may be one just as We are one”-with nothing in between (John 17:22). Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don’t pretend to be open with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself?” I need to work on guarding it and not letting it wane. It is easy to just say, oh I will do my quiet time later, but later never comes. Or feel like skipping one day will be okay. But for me that means it is hard to remember the next day. And where do I draw my life from? My husband? My child? Shopping? Eating a good meal? None of these are okay.

3. Matthew 13:58 says “⁵⁸ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” Sometimes people ask or talk about why we don’t see miracles nowadays like they did in Bible times. Maybe this is why. He doesn’t do them here because we don’t have faith that he will.

4. I am trying to pre-plan blogging topics on google calendar. Maybe this will help me actually write more! Comments will probably also make me write more, hint, hint!

5. Are you on goodreads? If so, tell me your username so I can see what you read.

6. Today I had the extremes. An awful meal from a fast food place and an excellent meal that I had made at home. It was a good reminder of the way it should be. I feel like it wasn’t that long ago that I used to really crave and always think fast food/restaurant food was better. That made it hard to cook at home, when I was thinking a certain thing would be really good. Today was a nice reminder that the things I can create easily at home, for less money, and with much greater health benefits, really does suit my tastebuds better anyway. (It was a chicken strip dinner from Sonic. They DO NOT HAVE my favorite thing there anymore, the crispy chicken sandwich. It is now a chicken STRIP sandwich. Yuck! What is the point of that, they will just fall off the sandwich?! And the tots were soggy and the gravy was not mixed well. Such a disappointment!) (The good meal was homemade beef stew, cornbread, and sweet tea!)

7. Pigtails are cute.

Find more “7 Quick Takes” here.

Who likes a good book review? I have really been in a reading kick lately every since I discovered Goodreads as a way to store my list of books I would like to read, and especially since I discovered the awesomeness that is the hold request system at my library! So I thought I would share some of my thoughts about some of the good ones I have read lately.

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Paula Bernstein

This book was so interesting! These girls were adopted out of an agency into two separate families and the families weren’t told that their child was a twin. It is only when, as adults, they both search for info about their birth mothers as an adult, they find out. This book is full of interesting facts about twins in general and especially cases involving twins who grew up separately to have uncanny similarities in their lives. It is written from both of the ladies perspectives, so you get to see what they are thinking as they go through this process. I really enjoyed this book and read it quickly.

My rating: four and a half out of five stars.

A few years ago a dear childhood friend was coming over for dinner to our new home. When we were growing up and she would be over, she always loved it when my mom made chicken and dumplings. So I thought, in honor of her coming to my home for dinner I would make chicken and dumplings for the first time. I had helped/watched my mom do it lots, but I had never done it myself. The recipe (which I think originally came from a great aunt that always made it) called for a whole chicken. Well I had never cooked a whole chicken before but for the sake of authentic flavor, I bought one and boiled it. But when it came time to do something with it, I had no idea! I called my mom, “What do I do with it now?!”

I think this is a sentiment many of my generation probably feel, seeing as how most of our chicken comes in the form of a nugget or breast. If we are being adventurous, a thigh or drumstick. But rarely whole. So my mom gave some pointers and I managed to get enough meat off to call it a day and went on to the next part of the dumpling process. It turned out okay but the next time I made dumplings, I just bought breast with rib meat and didn’t mess with the whole carcass!

A while back, I came upon this recipe that tells how to cook a whole chicken in a crock pot. I thought it sounded good since I had heard that it was the cheapest way to buy chicken. And I liked the idea that it could be used for several meals. So I put it on my meal plan, and as luck would have it, Walmart had a “fancy” chicken on sale. (By “fancy” I mean, hormone-free, cage-free, antibiotic-free, yada yada yada…whatever else the fancy organic chickens have on their label.)

Basically the recipe says you cut up one onion and put in the bottom of the crock pot. Then you blend up some spices, all of which were basic enough that I already had them. You rub the spice in and on the chicken. (Kinda gross. It said you could put it under the skin, which I tried, but had a hard time finding an opening. And I don’t love touching it.)  The grossest part was when it said to take the giblet out. I did manage to find that and take it out with some tongs. Yuck! What is that?! Then you put the bird in the pot and turn it on high for five hours.

When it was done, I got a knife and carving fork, planning to lift the bird out. The recipe said that it would falling off the bone, and I underestimated that it would be just that! It fell all to pieces! So basically I just used the tongs to lift out all the meat. I left the bones in there.

Later after eating dinner, I followed this basic idea to turn it into homemade chicken stock. I used some of the stock to make a chicken taco soup the next day and froze the rest of it. They say homemade stock is so healthy, especially compared to canned chicken broth, so I can’t wait to use the rest of it.

All in all, this process was really easy and I feel like it yielded some healthy food for my family so I would definitely do it again. C said he thought some of the meat was a little dry, and as I had it in the pot, the breast meat was sticking up out of the liquid , so next time I am going to put it breast side down and see if it helps with that. I would recommend trying this!

A few weeks ago I was cleaning the tray to the high chair for the millionth time and had some thoughts about. I wish it had this…and I wish it did that…and I am glad it does this… Then I had an idea…I should do reviews of things we own on my blog! So here is the first one in what I hope is a weekly series.

Our high chair is a Chicco Double Pad Polly High Chair. (Click the photo if you want a link to more details on amazon.)

Now, I got mine off craigslist so it was not brand new and is an older year model, I think ours is called Discovery whereas this one is Adventure. But basically the same thing.

Pros:

• Two trays for the top, so that if one is dirty, you can use the other. These snap off and can be washed separately.
• VERY adjustable! Height, recline…many things adjust on this chair so it is easy to get it the way you want it. I enjoyed the recline feature when E was littler and doing her first foods and not so great at sitting up.
• Rolls easily
• Vinyl seat cover that wipes off. According to the reviews, the cloth covers that are on some certain colors are not good because they are harder to clean.
• I like the neutral color.
• We just leave the whole tray part on and get her in and out through that without using the straps. Some people in the online review complained about having to take the tray off while holding your child, but I say don’t do that, just slide the tray and take the kid out of the top.

Cons:

• The trays are so big that they won’t fit in the dishwasher. This was the feature I was grumbling about when I thought of doing this review in the first place. Also they are kind of awkward in my normal sized sink. Not a big deal if you have a deep sink or no dividing part in your sink.
• If you have the high chair on a low setting, the legs spread out wide and take up a lot of room.
• The seat covers have a lot of crevices and seams that food gets into. Especially crumbly foods, like say…egg yolk! A hard plastic seat would be easier to just wipe out.
• The hub says that he thinks the tray is hard to get off sometimes and the brakes sometimes get accidentally set.

My rating: four out of five stars

I don’t know if this happens to you or not, but several times through out the day I find myself thinking of something that would be great to blog about but I only remember it for like 2.1 seconds. So it never makes it. And as I was just perusing some blogs, it occurred to me that I usually read other people’s blogs before trying to write my own post, and then I just have their words in my head and it kind of blocks the creativity of me writing on my own. I think this is the general gist of some of my thoughts:

There have been several moments lately where I am SO glad to be E’s mommy and to have the privilege to stay home with her. When well rested and fed, she is such a happy girl! She loves to giggle and she is a clown. She does things to make you laugh. She wants you to tickle her so she will laugh. She has such a happy and expressive face. Her ringlets of blonde hair are beautiful. She is full of energy, walking and running and sitting and moving, emptying and filling and talking.

She likes to help me by putting clothes in or out of the dryer. The other day she was sitting in her high chair in the kitchen and she pointed to the laundry room and says “I Mommy”. Which I took to mean “I want to go in the laundry room and help mommy with the clothes.” So I asked her if she wanted to do that and she said vigorously while nodding “un-huh!”

She loves to be outside. Today we ate lunch outside. She had so much fun looking at the trees, spying a squirrel, hearing doggies bark, meowing at our kitty in the window, eating the topping off her pizza. Then she roamed around in the yard for a while. I bought her some black rubber boots this morning so that she could do whatever outside here or at her grandparents house and I wouldn’t worry that her cute sparkly pink tennis shoes would be getting too dirty. She loves them, as she loves all boots. She calls them “butts”. Like in the movie Nemo where the fish mispronounces boat as butt and says “I’m gonna go touch the butt!”

So, I know, yesterday’s post was random compared to the serious posts of the previous days! Let’s just say that it relates to the new year’s goal of eating better. And on that note…

Here are a few sites that have good resources for eating healthy:

$5 dinner mom’s index of recipes

100 days of real food blog

e-mealz

What tips do you have for eating healthier?