1. Kid 1 has been going to a seriously awesome conference over the past 3 days at BYU for high school theatre kids, and she is in drama-queen heaven. In fact, I haven’t seen her much at all, and certainly not in daylight, and I’m missing her, because this is kinda what it’s going to be like when she moves out which day is very far away but steadily coming closer.

2. 10 days without sugar and white flour, and only one cheat. Yay, me! (And thanks to Kid 2 for sharing that shake with me.)

3. Did I mention that I’m in NUNSENSE in March? The musical comedy starring 5 nuns? Where they have to raise money to bury the last 4 nuns that died on that terrible day when Sister Julia, Child of God, poisoned everyone with her vichyssoise? And did I mention that I’m playing Sister Hubert, the novice leader? That’s it. The 38-year-old white Mormon mom of 4 is playing the Black Nun. Sell it, Sister!

4. Famous people are milling around our little town in the Frozen Mountaintops because of the Sundance Film Festival. And I stay inside altogether too often to run much of a risk of bumping into anyone.

5. Husband’s film project that I told you about a few weeks ago is going strong. Yesterday Mr. Vai Sikahema wrote an excellent article for the online Deseret News, and people are getting excited about jumping on board. Also, I want Mr. Vai Sikahema to move into our house. I grow fonder of him by the hour. What a gentle, lovely man. Also, a darn fine writer, which I’m not sure you can say for Every Single former NFL player.

6. I loved John Green’s The Fault in our Stars and read it all up in one day. I dream of the day when I’ll be so clever in sentence construction. Also, I may have a tiny fangirl crush. Is that even possible if I’m WAY older than he is? Can you still call it Fangirl?

7. I got a pulse-reader app for my phone, to help Kid 3 with her science fair project (yes, I still hate the science fair). It told me, on the day I first tried it, that my resting pulse rate was 53. Pretty normal. Then, the next day, because it’s fun, I measured again, still resting. 113. 113? 113. Huh. How science-y is that?

I have a few disclaimers, first.

1. I am a cooker. So, I can cook things. From ingredients. Which, you know, is cheaper (by a lot) than the alternative.

2. My Kids are big. They don’t need hourly snacks. They’re gone all day at school. They can wait till dinner. Like that.

3. I am a firm believer in the Food Storage. I have shelves of food, and I know how to use it. (Did that sound like a threat? It wasn’t meant to. More like a back-up to my #1, above.)

4. Moderation. That’s a ticket for us. We try to not overdo any one thing. A bit of meat, a bunch of vegetables, some rice or pasta, and maybe a whole lot of smoothies. But have you seen the replacement for the food guide pyramid? It’s a plate. Of food. Sort of.

Sorry, Kid 4. That so doesn’t resemble your dinner of choice (a huge steak, some sauteed mushrooms, and a pile of fried potatoes). But it’s not that far off from what we usually eat. So, you know, it’s spread around.

So, here is my meal plan for the week. Starting today. Ready?

Wednesday Breakfast: Waffles and Blueberry Syrup

Need to buy: Nothing. All on hand.

Waffles: I keep a mix in the freezer, but I had to refill it this morning. Here’s what’s in it.

7 cups wheat flour
2 and 1/4 cups cornmeal
3 cups “quick oats”
1/2 cup baking powder
2 teaspoons salt

Mix all that together and put in a gallon-sized ziplock. Write this on the label part: “Waffle Mix — 2 cups mix, 2 cups milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup oil.” That feeds my family of 6 waffles for breakfast, occasionally with a bit leftover for birdies.

The blueberry syrup recipe is HERE, and I had all those ingredients on hand this morning, too. If I didn’t have oranges, I could have used lemon juice or pineapple juice or probably something else. But I have oranges. So that’s what we (they) had for breakfast.

Wednesday Lunch: Kids and Husband packed sandwiches last night, I’ll have some manner of Green Smoothie, hopefully way tastier than the seriously yucky concoction that was my breakfast. *Shudder*.

After School Snack: Crackers (leftovers from New Year’s Eve) and cheese (always on hand, bought when ON SALE, don’t you know).

Wednesday Dinner: Cheese and Onion Enchiladas (Red) and Corn/Black Bean Salad

Enchiladas: All ingredients on hand. Here’s the Great Big Secret Recipe.

2 Large onions, chopped
1 or 2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (2 for us. We LOVE cheese)
1 can (14 ounce-ish) red enchilada sauce
12 corn tortillas

Simmer the onions in a lidded pan with about 3 tablespoons of water until soft. Pour enchilada sauce into a small pie plate or something. Spray a medium casserole dish (I like the round one for this) with pan spray. Dip a tortilla in the enchilada sauce, both sides. Put it in the sprayed dish. Do it again, and again, so you have 3 now-red tortillas in the bottom of the pan. Scoop in 1/3 of the onions and sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese. Repeat layers. Pour any remaining sauce over the top. Put a lid or some foil on it and heat until it’s hot. The onions are already cooked, so you can do it fast. Even in the microwave, if you’re into that.

Salad:

(I need to buy cilantro, because I used too much in last night’s salad.)

1 can (14 ounce-ish) black beans
1 cup frozen corn (I like the Costco kind)
1 tomato, chopped
2 Tablespoons red onion, diced
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
2 Tablespoons Italian or Vinegar-based salad dressing (I like that Brianna’s one with the artichoke on the front. Very peppery and delicious)

Stir it up. Inhale. Can use avocado to make it perfect, but I’m on a budget. Tell you what. I will buy an avocado if it’s less than a dollar.

(So, to get up to speed, today’s meals will cost me about $1.30 including the possible avocado, because I stored everything else.) After dinner, Kids will clean up, thank me, and, smiling, start making tomorrow’s lunches. Which will include a protein, a veg, a fruit, and a treat. For which everything is in the fridge and pantry.)

Want to hear tomorrow? All-righty.

Breakfast: Smoothie and Scrambled Eggs

Smoothies are our favorites. My Kids much prefer them orange, pink, or purple to green. Whatever. I can do that.

One Good Smoothie (feeds 6)

1 can pineapple (the 20-ounce size)
6-8 ounces vanilla yogurt (I’m a huge fan of the Mountain High – it feels like food)
1 cup frozen strawberries
1 can peaches (the 14-ounce size)
2 peeled oranges
(Then I splash in some rice milk, because I like it better than the cow kind.)

Blend it all up. Serve with straws, because everything tastes better when you drink it from a straw.

I don’t really need to tell you how to scramble eggs, right? Right?

Lunches were packed last night, remember?

After school snack shall be popcorn. Usually reserved for Sundays, because I tend to WAY overdo it, but I’m willing to celebrate. I’m a pushover that way.

Dinner is Aunt Abbi’s Tomato-Basil soup, food storage style, which means I have everything on hand (hers is classier than mine, using cream and stuff but either way, it tastes awful darn good):

1 onion, diced
3 cups chicken broth (made from water and bullion)
4 cans crushed tomatoes (the 14-ounce size, or use a big can if you have one)
1 can evaporated milk
1 cup basil pesto (I have some fresh-ish stuff from Costco in my fridge, and I have some bottled stuff in my pantry. Obviously, I’m going to use the fresh. Because… well, I am.)

Boil the onions in the broth till soft. Add tomatoes. Simmer for however long you have. 20 minutes? That’ll do. When you’re ready to eat, add evaporated milk and pesto, heat through and serve. It’s really good. We all like it, even Husband the Non-Soup Man.

Then I’ll probably make some bread to go with it, because who doesn’t like homemade bread with their soup? I have all the ingredients on hand to make all manner of wonderful breads, but that’s another post entirely.

So, Thursday’s meals cost a total of ($0) –nothing. I have it all on the shelves. Yea, me! Here’s what else I can make without going to the store:

Pizza, Chicken Scaloppine, Tacos, Tuna Sandwich Pitas, Sloppy Joes, Potato Salad, Egg Salad Sandwiches [ick], Fried Rice, Granola, Chicken Parmesan, French Toast, or Spagetti. Plus all manner of breads, cookies, pastries, and, always, popcorn.

So, Friday? Breakfast is German Pancakes and Orange Juice. Lunches? Made. Dinner? Pizzas. Two. One cheese, one cheese and pepperoni. That leaves enough leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch. Also a big fat green salad for which I think I have plenty on hand.

Saturday? Usually my day off. Cold cereal and an apple or toast. This week is different, because we’re having a party. I’ll tell you about it soon. Lunch is leftover pizza, remember? And fried rice and perhaps frozen potstickers for dinner. All on hand.

Sunday? I’ll beg Husband to grill his famous Dad-burgers. I’ll need to buy meat for that. I’ll do some baked “fries” and a bunch of veg-ish toppings for the burgers (tomatoes, grilled onion, lettuce, mushrooms) and I’ll need to buy the mushrooms.

So the list for today: Cilantro. Avocado, if it’s a good price. Hamburger meat. Mushrooms. (Plus Party Food, but I’m not taking that from the normal grocery budget.) And that will take us through Sunday. For something like $16. So I’ll add on some fruits for school lunches and snacking purposes, and smile to myself. $30 easy.

(Grocery-shopping/budgeting disclaimer: I know it’s not an easy thing. I do. And the simple secret is this: Shop the perimeter. Go to produce, meat, dairy and then go home. I am lucky to live in a town that believes in Case Lot Sales, which is the time I buy almost everything I may need that lives on inside-the-maze grocery shelves, like canned veg and beans, tuna, flour/sugar and canned fruit [for smoothies]. I make a menu. I make a list of what I need. I go to the store and I buy ONLY WHAT’S ON THE LIST. <– that’s the hard part. And that’s me, taking back the budget.)

Okay. Sorry. I got carried away.

But it IS, in fact, the sort-of-beginning of a new year, the Kids are back at school, the Fat Loss Program is two weeks underway, the halls are bare of vinyl-pine needles, and we don’t have a lick of snow on the ground. In fact, the average afternoon temps from the last week hover right around 50 degrees. So, what I’m telling you is, Spring is Coming.

Oh, wait. That’s not what I’m telling you.

It’s the New Year. That’s what I’m telling you. And new things are good things.

Also, I am a terrible resolution-keeper. I think some of you knew that. But this year, I decided not to wait for January to set goals which I probably could not keep. So I started in December, and so far, so good.

Pound a week. Check. (Only through April. Not forever. Neither of us needs to worry.)

Speak and behave more kindly to my Kids (and other people, but somehow that’s just naturally easier, because I am wicked or something). Check.

Remember how to Get Over It. Check-ish.

Write. Wellllll… Um. It will come. I’ve been on vacation, remember? Vacation from my PROBLEMS.

Also, I’m Taking Back the Budget. I’ve always been a pretty good budgeter, but lately, I’ve been lazy with the grocery budget in particular. So, starting today, the weekly Wilhite grocery budget is $60. Plus a once-a-month trip to Costco, coming in under $150. Look at me go, putting it all in writing and stuff.

—

So, what’s new with you?

Not really.

But I have been writing. And critiquing (which is more fun than it sounds, and takes much, much time). And teaching. And doing some fun service-y things. All of which leaves little time for reading. Having said that, here’s what I managed to finish, and also love:

* COSMIC by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Middle-grade adventure fabulosity. Oh, I loved this so much. In fact, it should make another appearance on my next Books Read post, because I started reading it to the Kids last night. The voice was PERFECT and must be read with British accent. Listen to this: “I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. This time I was going to skill up before leveling up. In World of Warcraft you can have weapon skills, gathering skills or trade skills. You can have mining skills too, but they’re a bit rubbish and you have to buy a pickaxe. If I was going on a quest disguised as Florida’s dad, I would need dad skills.” Or this: “…he’d been trying all the time — that’s what dads do. I had to look out for the children, like Dad looked out for me and his dad had for him, right back through time. Dadliness was out there among the stars, a force like gravity, and I was part of it.” An excellent story of Dadliness. Like really good ice cream for the soul.

* SOLOMON SNOW AND THE SILVER SPOON by Kaye Umansky. Oh, joyful Dickens bug. I love when really handy writers catch it. This is a great orphan-seeks-his-fortune story, told with tongue firmly in cheek. Solomon has a companion on his journey, a novelist with an unfortunate nose. Her name is Prudence, naturally.

“I’m sorry about all this, Prudence,” said Solly. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be at the publishers getting paid right now.”
“Well, not right now. Right now, it’s after midnight.”
“You know what I mean. All that work.”
“That’s all right,” said Prudence. “It’s not your fault. I’ll write it again — that’s all.”

* FISH by Gregory Mone. Such a fun, bucaneer-ish pirate story. I kind of can’t get enough of a great story that  – okay, I know who the bad guy is by chapter 2, and I simply don’t care, I just want to see the good guy overcome him. Cute, cute, cute.

* A(NOTHER) WHOLE NOTHER STORY by Dr. Cuthbert Soup. More adventures of the smart, polite, and relatively odor-free Cheeseman family. The second we finished this one (out loud, natch) we hopped on line to find the release date of the next book. It wasn’t listed. So we wrote an email to Dr. Soup himself. He wrote back the next morning. And told us we’d have to wait until next spring. We shall try. We adore him now, by the way, because his email was just exactly what we expected from the president of the National Center for Unsolicited Advice. Good, solid words of wisdom like this: “The pen is mightier than the sword, though both can ruin a good shirt.”

* THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK by… St. Mark. Right. From the Bible. If you need a recommendation to read the Bible, contact me right away. We’ll speak privately.

No-school Mondays

Fabric Softener

The Harlem Globetrotters

Making lists

Wilkie Collins

Vacuum lines in the carpet

Chex Mix

Jessica Day George

Surprise phone calls

New shoes

Reprives

Red Robin onion rings

Snuggles

Sunflower bread

Other people’s babies

Cotton socks

My new rosemary plant

Cripps Pink apples

Menu planning

Afternoon sunshine

Coming to grips with my lack of Hipster vibe

Functioning dishwasher

Cute boy haircuts

Husband

Reading out loud

Family photos

As soon as you get off the phone with your parents, telling them how perfectly fine everything is, thank you, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get the phone call from the school.

The texture of wheat berries is, strangely, not as vomitous as the texture of cooked oatmeal.

The words “background check” might cause some people to be seized with fear, but it just makes me tired to think I’ll have to come up with years’ worth of home addresses.

When it’s many degrees below freezing, even smart children need to be reminded to wear coats to school. Also socks.

James Earl Jones might be my model for God. Not necessarily in anything except physical attributes. I’m just saying. If God were to talk to me out loud, I’d like Him to sound like JEJ. And then smile at me with His whole face, just like that.

500 words at a time makes a little book in a little while. (Or a bigger book in a longer while.)

It would have been a good idea to learn to play the piano many years ago, when I had all my brain cells.

People are generally really nice. But I somehow still manage to pick out / find /discover the other kind. Call it a gift.

Moving more and eating less is a really good way to feel healthy.

—

that is all

—

]]> http://www.beccawilhite.com/blog/2011/01/27/did-you-know-2/feed/ 3 http://www.beccawilhite.com/blog/2011/01/07/things-that-get-in-the-way-of-writing-a-short-list/ http://www.beccawilhite.com/blog/2011/01/07/things-that-get-in-the-way-of-writing-a-short-list/#comments Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:25:19 +0000 becca http://www.beccawilhite.com/blog/?p=844 1. Reading. Books. Blogs. Emails. More blogs. Kids’ book reports. Mail. Junk mail. Advertisements. Old letters. Magazine articles.

2. Sleeping. I’m actually a much more productive writer in my dreams. Bummer.

3. Sadness. Some small but difficult things have happened over the past three months (which we’ll talk about later), and I have found it hard to be clever on the page. Things come out rather heavy and jolty, which is SO wrong for me.

4. Parenting. This is a laughable excuse since all 4 Kids are in school all day. But since school re-started, I’ve done a load of PTA-related school-Momming. And it gets in the way. So it goes on the list. I fully recognize those of you who do way, way, WAY more hands-on Momming during daylight hours and still manage to be writers. (A, I’m looking at you…)

5. Cooking. I’m on a healthy-food kick right now, so “cooking” isn’t even all that accurate – I’m eating more raw veg and fruit than a spider monkey. (I don’t know if that is actually true. I am not planning to do the research required to find out.) But I’m studying about food. And learning many fine things. Also baking some truly gorgeous brown breads (that have the bonus quality of tasting PERFECT.)

6. Fear. What am I afraid of? Oh, please. The answer is a post of its own. A very long one.

7. Stickiness. Do your writing projects get sticky parts? (Sticky Parts would be an excellent band name.) What do you do about those sticky parts? When I get stuck, I take a step backward (out of the stickiness, if I’m lucky) and decide: is this project worth the effort it will take to blast past this? If it is, I push. I sometimes find alternatives and work through several of them. I sometimes ask for help. But do you know that sometimes the project is not right? And that the stuck-ness is bigger than the project in the first place? And then I put it away. With a title or a note or something, so I could find it again someday, when I’m a much better writer with more cool brain-tools to do the project right. Or sometimes I just forget it.

8. Laziness. Ditto last sentence of above.

9. Small Annoyances. There is a dog somewhere outside my house (because Heaven forbid there EVER be a dog inside my house) that has been barking ALL DAY. Also all evening yesterday. People: It is cold. High temp of 20 today. Take Rover inside where he will be warm and I will not have to listen to his complaints. It’s totally stopping me from writing the great American novel. Thanks a lot.

10. Excuses. Do you live in a world where blog posts count as writing? Sometimes I do. And, you know, it IS writing. See these? These here are what we call WORDS. I wrote them. With my fingers on the keyboard. The words came out of my mind. (Out of my mind. Let’s just focus on that for a second, mKay? Fine. Enough.) Did you get out of the writing mojo over Christmas vacation? I totally did. Do you have any doubt that I can find an excuse for any non-writerly behaviours? Put that doubt to rest. I’m on it.

1. Fifteen dollars worth of new books.

2. Fifteen days of snowshoeing activity.

3. Fifteen extra minutes in the hot, hot shower.

4. Fifteen dollars worth of produce.

5. Fifteen minutes of YouTube silliness (how ’bout Literal Video?)

6. Fifteen agent queries. (Yikes.)

7. Fifteen minutes of back-scratch – I’m sure I could talk at least one Kid into helping me out with this one.

8. Fifteen letters. Hand-written, enveloped, stamped, and sent (why is this such a luxury?).

9. Fifteen dollars worth of hair product.

10. Fifteen borrowed library books.

11. Fifteen phone calls to the long-lost.

12. Fifteen girlie movies (not THAT kind) added to the Netflix queue.

13. Fifteen minutes of Wilhite Dance Party (the last one was brought to you by ABBA).

14. Fifteen dollars worth of new, soft, cotton socks.

15. Fifteen minutes of after-dinner games.

GOOD OMENS by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Armageddon and British humor – very funny, perfect style. A little language. 1 instance of Big language. Snort. Snicker. Re-read.)

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER by Barbara Robinson (After we finished A CHRISTMAS CAROL, I read this one out loud with the Kids – again. Love it still. But as a writer, I think I woud have begun the book at the end of chapter 2, the part where our nameless narrator tells us that the wicked Herdman kids are all going to hell. Funny, and hook-ish.)

MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins (I know, finally, right? My Kid 2 disagrees, but I feel like this was a great wrap up to a series I wondered how I’d even manage to read. But I’m glad I did. All the way to the end.)

THE LOST HERO by Rick Riordan (Are you a Percy fan? Yes? Read this. Are you not? Read it anyway. Riordan’s voice is perfect – voices, really. He’s a Writer. Loved it. Bring on Book 2.)

FLAWED DOGS by Berkeley Breathed (This was one of Kid 4′s Christmas books. Good. Maybe not so much a little kids’ book, but Kid 4 liked it a lot. Even to the point of a few glisteny spots in his eyes at the end. It would have been hard for him to understand all the words (even the flatulence humor is a little… dense) but a fun read-aloud.)

I’m not really that good at blogging every day.

Or exercising every day.

Or meeting those writing goals I’m so fond of making.

Or avoiding butter.

Reading books slowly.

Writing thank you cards.

Waiting 24 hours before spending the paycheck (on frivolities like food and heat).

Staying up past 10 p.m.

Grinning and bearing it.

Being patient.

Staying at the speed limit on the freeway. (In neighborhoods, I rule the 23 mph.)

Changing my own car’s oil.

You know what? I could go on all day about the Good Things I don’t do well. But here’s the thing about that. I am very, very good at beating myself up (emotionally – I’m not coordinated enough to do anything quite as physical as beating myself up for real). But I can make a plan, a goal, of you prefer, to find and revel in the long list of Good Things I’m good at. I can wallow in it for a minute. Then I can just figure one small Good Thing that needs work (at a time), and I can work on it. I can give that one thing my focus for a time, until I’m better at it.

This works. I’m telling you. I could give examples (loads of them) of Good Things I’ve been really, really bad at, and have tried to improve by tiny increments. Now I’m less bad at those Good Things. And that feels good.

So how about we skip all this talk about those Good Things I don’t do. You can guess the rest. But maybe I don’t want to know all the ways you figure I need to improve (at least not just now). I’ve got a thing I’m working on. And when that Good Thing becomes a habit, I’ll pick the next one.

So, for today’s gratitude: I’m seriously grateful for Incremental Improvement.