What I've Been Doing This Week

I spent the last week covered in glitter. 

Why?

Because I was in charge (again) of decorating the pumpkin for Eli's class for the annual pumpkin decorating fundraiser at the elementary school. Remember the PEACOCK? The theme of this school year is "Exploring Our Future" so I was trying to tie that into the pumpkin somehow.

This is what I came up.

It's a big, sparkly sun with "The Future" on the front and all the kids in Eli's class are the "flowers" wearing big sunglasses underneath. There's a sign (it's hiding) that reads: We're exploring our future, and it is bright!" I'm hoping that makes the whole thing make a little more sense. It's covered in glitter so it's got that going for it!

I took it up to school yesterday so the kids could enjoy it the rest of the day before it heads down to the cafeteria. They were impressed, I think. It's kind of hard to tell with 3rd graders who are beginning to be "too cool" to show much emotion. 

At this point, I don't even care. I'm just happy it's out of my house. :) 

I think that's the sign of a good project. You work and work and work on it until you are just plain sick of the whole thing! If it is, then this was an a-MAZ-ing project. 

My Funny Phoebe

Four-and-five-year-olds are really funny. And they're not even trying. Recently, Phoebe has been keeping the folks around the Taj McCall in stitches. I thought I'd share of few of these episodes to brighten your Thursday.

While wandering around Target the other day:

Phoebe: Mom, when will I be a mom?

Me: Not right now. You're not old enough.

Phoebe: I know... I'm not even 16!

Me: You had better be 30 when you're a mom.

While praying this morning before school, and it was raining:

Phoebe: Dear God, Please help us have a good day and ambush us with rain so we don't have to go to school.

I didn't have the heart to tell her that they don't cancel school for rain in West Texas, even if we were "ambushed" by rain.

Two things you need to know about this story. 1) Amarillo often smells like cows. And not in a good way. 2) Phoebe often flips out about five minutes from our house because she has to go to the bathroom. 

Me: It's smells really bad tonight.

Phoebe: I have to go to the bathroom bad! So bad I tooted!

Me: We're almost home. Maybe that's not the cows I smell...maybe that's you.

Phoebe: My toots don't smell like that.

Me: And what do your toots smell like?

Phoebe: My toots smell like rainbows.

She's a funny, funny girl. 

What's Cooking Wednesday: Lemon Zucchini Pound Cake

I do *love* a good pound cake. You'll probably see quite a few on What's Cooking Wednesday because they are so yummy and easy to make.

This recipe came from one of those check-out stand pamphlets. Betty Crocker, I think. I'm a sucker for those publications and end up buying way too many/ I do a purge every once in a while; ripping out the one or two recipes I want to keep and chunking the rest. This one made the cut six months or so ago when I did it last. I like to pretend it's healthy since it has zucchini in it.  

Lemon Zucchini Pound Cake

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened (And for the love of all that is good and holy, please use real butter!)

2 cups powdered sugar (Foodies call this confectioners sugar, but I'm old-fashioned so powdered sugar it is!)

4 eggs

2/3 cup milk

2 teaspoons lemon zest

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 cup grated zucchini, squeezed to drain

Lemon Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1 tablespoon half-and-half

1 teaspoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup bundt cake pan. In medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with a spoon. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter  with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in powdered sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Beat on low speed 1 minute. Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and zucchini. Pour into bundt pan. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes in pan. Remove to a serving platter. Cool completely (about 1 1/2 hours). For the glaze: In a saucepan, heat all glaze ingredients just to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly; remove from heat. Let stand 30 minutes until slightly thickened. Drizzle over cake. 

Despite some initial hesitation from some of our 16-year-old boys, the Huddle students thought this was pretty good. The last few pieces were great for breakfast the next morning! :)

And what about that way cool, vintage-y, red cake carrier seen in the above photo?

It was a birthday gift to myself last year from World Market. I saw it the week after my birthday and fell in love. There was a green one, too, but red speaks to my soul so I brought it home. 

Red is Best!

The Important Thing About Eli

While up at the kids' school last week, I found a project Eli had done on the hallway wall. 

So I whipped out my camera and took a photo. Isn't that what all the cool moms are doing?

It's a little blurry because I had my NIFTY FIFTY lens on my camera because I had been taking portraits of the kids for a class project and it takes nice indoor photos. I have no idea why, but it does. However, since it doesn't have any kind of zoom, I took this photo from across the hall by holding it up over my head. I can pretty much guarantee you there was nothing cool in that!

The assignment (apparently) was to write about the most important thing about them. I thought it was a rare glimpse into what these sweet kiddos think. And aren't you loving that Eli drew himself wearing a Phillies hat and Phillies shirt?!

This was Eli's:

"The important thing about Eli is he's athletic. I'm very speedy, able to climb fast, and jump high." 

I especially like the drawing of the sneakers at the bottom...and the fact that Eli didn't write any more than was absolutely necessary. Some children had filled the whole page with details, but not Eli. He's more a "just the facts, ma'am" kind of guy. 

While I am so thankful that he has something he thinks he's good at. (Sometimes he thinks he's a little "too good", but that's another post for another day.) But it makes me want to take his pointy, little chin in my hand, lean  in real close, and tell him that being good at something is not the most important thing about Eli.

I want to tell him that the most important thing about Eli is that he is a child of God. That he has a Father who loves him more than he can even begin to imagine. 

I want to tell him that the most important thing about Eli is that he belongs to our family.  He may drive us batty and push us to the very brink of sanity, but we love him fiercely, and in our family, he will always have a place.

I want to tell him that the most important thing about Eli is that he chooses to love. While I wouldn't say he goes out of his way to include people, but whatever he's doing is open to whomever wants to do it with him. And he's fine with doing it by himself, but if someone wants to do whatever he's doing, he's happy to include them.

But right now his focus is on "being athletic". To brag on him a bit, he did catch an amazing pop fly, and hit a home run and a triple in the same game on Saturday. Sunday's game wasn't so spectacular, but I guess we all have good days and bad days. 

Maybe the most important thing about Eli is that he's Eli. 

The Tri-State Fair

We surprised our kids the other night and took them to the TRI-STATE FAIR. (Every once in a while we're cool parents.) We even skipped baseball practice to take advantage of the $10 admission ticket that included a wristband (no need for tokens and unlimited rides!). 

They were totally surprised!

We even had plans to meet up with some friends.

I didn't want to lug around my big camera so I relied on my iPhone. It's not my go-to photo taking device, but I was willing to give it a try. I also used Instagram to edit them. Not sure how I really feel about the whole process, but I got some photos so I guess that's all that matters.

Phoebe is a ride-rider. She loves the big, twisty rides...even several she was too small to ride. :( That's how we ended up on the ferris wheel. My fear of heights was really wanting to grab her up and hold her tight in my lap, but I took a photo instead.

We split up at one point so Phoebe could ride even more rides. Brad took her over to the "little kid" area while Missy (the mom of those other kids) stayed with bigger kids. My phone was going dead so we're a little heavy on Phoebe Photos.

And, of course, when you go to the fair, you have to eat fair food! Here's Adley chowing down on a turkey leg. We actually ate dinner before we left the house and our family split a funnel cake. I wanted some of those big, curly tators, but there just wasn't room after our funnel cake.

There's always next year...

What's Cooking Wednesday: Coffeehouse Cookie Bars

I've been making a dessert on Wednesday for Wednesday night Huddles during the school year for about 8 years now. 

That's a lot of baking for a self-proclaimed non-baker. 

My success (if you'd like to call it that) comes from the fact that I'm pretty good at finding easy-peasy recipes that are super-delicious. And it occurred to me that maybe other non-bakers might like to share in my awesome, easy-bake finds so I'm starting a new series here on Moments with the McCalls..."What's Cooking Wednesdays"!

You might be wondering why I'm not doing this on my recipe blog, Eating At The Taj McCall (which you can find HERE).  I debated back and forth, and for now, since I'm having a hard time with the writer's block it'll give me another post each week and Eating At The Taj McCall is my "fast" blog. The blog where I just whip out a recipe without a photo and with a family rating. There will be no rating here. I might mention how the dessert was received, but I'm not taking ratings. I don't think my sensitive baker's heart can handle it. :)

I made these bars last week for the first Huddle. I always make the bars on the first Huddle of the year. I can't remember if I've posted them here or not, but they're good enough to share again.  That's another thing, I'm going to be posting the recipe a week after I've made them. That way I can get it posted early on Wednesday and I'll know how everyone like them. This particular recipe is from a PAMPERED CHEF cookbook I bought soon after I got married.  It's an oldie, but a goodie.

Coffeehouse Cookie Bars:

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups, packed, brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

1 bag (11.5 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 (1.5-2 oz.) favorite chocolate candy bar, chopped (I use Snickers because they are my favorite, but you can really use any candy bar. Once or twice I've made it with Rollos because someone was allergic to peanuts.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Mix well and set aside. In a mixer, blend butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in 1 1/3 cup of the chocolate chips and 1 1/3 cups of the pecans. Spread mixture* into a large bar pan. Press the remaining chocolate chips, pecans, and the candy bars lightly into the top of the batter. Bake for 20-23 minutes or until golden brown. (Be sure to not overcook these. Sometimes it's hard to tell because the center doesn't really change color, but, trust me, these get really dry if overcooked!) Cool completely in pan and cut into bars. You could probably also make these into cookies, but I'm lazy, and bars are easier. 

So there you go, my very first "What's Cooking Wednesday!" post! I'm off to bake this week's dessert (Lemon Zucchini Pound Cake) and find my house since I lost it yesterday amongst the hustle and bustle of "market day" (aka: The Day I Run Errands) and a surprise trip to the Tri-State Fair. 

* I'm volunteering up at the science lab at the kids' school on Thursday afternoons. I learned last week that a mixture is something where two or more things are combined, but the elements mixed can be separated. A solution is where two or more things are combined, but they cannot be separated. Technically, a batter should be called a "solution", but it didn't sound right in the recipe so I used the word "mixture". You just never really stop learning! Then again, maybe recipes are exempt from scientific language even though all baking is really science. 

** It's two for one on the recipes today! I've added a new RECIPE to Eating At The Taj McCall!

Operation: Take Back The Front Yard Part II

Soooo, remember when we pretended last weekend we were pioneers taking back the prairie?  (You can catch up on that post HERE.)

We're on Week Two and I still haven't come up with a more clever name.

We didn't get as much accomplished this weekend as we did last weekend. Or at least it didn't feel like it since I wasn't as crucial to the process, anyway. Oh, I still worked, but only for a bit attacking these weeds with Eli. 

 

This is kind of "our" spot. It's the part of our land that a tractor or lawn mower can't get to. It doesn't seem like a very much until you're swinging a pick ax and pulling out the prickly tumbleweeds and sunflowers with your hands.

Sometimes it seems like we're never ever gonna finish. Ever. But I keep telling myself that working 30 minutes a day, everyday is going to yield some kind of evidence pretty soon.

At least I hope so before I lose my helper!  And he sure is handy with a pick ax!

Brad was alot more productive, at least as far as visible change is concerned.

 He and Phoebe used the tractor to uproot the really big weeds and then mow down most of the shrubbery. It took an entire afternoon so don't be thinking he got off easy.

Phoebe probably did, but there's only so much whining I can take before I send her off to "help" her dad. :)

Next weekend we're attacking more weeds and uprooting the stubborn yucca plants we poisoned last weekend. All of this makes me seriously doubt the sanity of West Texas' early settlers. 

Friday Night Lights

It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not a sports fan. 

At all.

I don't follow sports. I don't watch sports. To me, it's just like outer space; it's out there, but it doesn't actually affect my life at all so I could care less about it. My eyes kind of glaze over when the conversation turns to football or baseball or golf or basketball or hockey or anything else that might be featured on ESPN. 

But high school football is a whole other ball game.  (You like what I did there?) There's just something about a Texas high school football game...the smaller the school the better. There's an energy and a pageantry there that is crisp and amazing under those Friday night lights. It's part nostalgia and part excitement and part drama and part innocence all rolled up into one loud, three hour football game. In a world that is becoming more and more homogenized and mainstream, the Texas Friday Night Football Game is a unique and true glimpse of Texas at its best. 

Oh sure, other states have Friday Night High School Football, but Texas does is best. If you've never been, then pardner, it's high time. 

We loaded up Friday night and headed out to our small school's game. We met some friends and even the kids were swept up in the magic. 

There's no photos of Eli because at our football games, any boy between 7-12 is under the stands playing football with all the other boys. The few times he did manage to snag a snack from the concession stand, he sat with a friend's family instead of us. So I had to make due with photos of my other little cuties. 

And I'm totally claiming Ellie as "mine". 

I should probably also disclose that while I do *love* a high school football game, I didn't actually watch the game much. First, I have no idea of the rules of football beyond getting a touchdown is good so I'm never really sure what's going on in the game. Second, people watching is much more fun. And third, I was embroidering 17 kindergarten names on the class quilt I volunteered to make that is due October 1st (you know there will be another post on that later!). 

Friday Night Lights: There's just no better way to spend a Friday night in Texas. 

Never Underestimate The Power of a Hissy Fit

Today I threw a little hissy fit.

Let me give you a little background. Eli takes Vyvanse every day for his ADD. It's a highly controlled substance so I have to have a written prescription from the doctor every thirty days to refill it which requires a call to the doctor and a swing by to sign and pick it up. Then I have to take it to get it filled, which I used to do at a close Walgreen's while I was grocery shopping. Still a little inconvenient, but do-able. Then our pharmaceutical insurance changed it's policy. Any prescription filled more than three consecutive months is considered a "maintenance" drug and has to be filled at the Maxor pharmacy...in downtown Amarillo. Thirty minutes from my house.

I realize that there are those readers out there who live in Big Cities and thirty minutes in the car doesn't seem like a big deal and are thinking I should just put my big girl panties on and get over it. But I don't live in a Big City. I choose to give up La Madeline, Super Target, Panera, and Anthropologie in order to not have to drive 30 minutes for my errands. That was the first issue. I keep thinking I'm going to meet Brad for lunch down there one day because at least it would give me the excuse to try some of the cool restaurants down there we never go to because they are so out of the way, but so far, I've been too busy to make that happen.

While I was waiting, downtown, for them to fill the prescription, I was informed that it would take longer because they were having to get an over-ride because any "maintenance" prescription has to be filled with a 90-day supply. I only get two overrides a year and I've already used them because his medication is highly controlled and the doctor can't/won't write a prescription for more than 30 days so it was going to take even longer.

Anyone see the problem here?

It's a controlled substance that requires a written prescription (as opposed to a called-in prescription) which already requires me to go pick it up and take it to the pharmacy. Because of The Policy, it's also considered a maintenance drug which means I have to fill it at a specific pharmacy thirty minutes from my house in an area that neither Brad or I ever go. Also because of the The Policy, I'm supposed to get it filled for 90-days, but because of it's controlled substance nature, I can't get a prescription for more than 30 days.  Oh. My. Word.

So because I was tired and had a headache and had more to do than time to do it in, I threw a little hissy fit.  I didn't lose my temper and scream obscenities or anything, but I was short and my frustration was evident to the front desk worker un-lucky enough to be the one to explain the stupid bureaucratic policies to me.

A short time later, an actual pharmacist delivered the meds and told me that she was able to get a longer over-ride so we didn't have to do this every month. Apparently my little hissy fit paid off.

I had mixed feelings about the whole thing as I left. On the one hand, I'm mad at myself for getting so irritated and letting those feelings get me what I needed. I make an effort to not get frustrated in times like this. I try to be kind to everyone, to use humor and a smile to diffuse a situation and still get the result I need. I try to remember that in most cases, the person that I'm dealing with has no control over the policy or the rule or way things work and it's not their fault things are going badly. They don't deserve my anger or frustration because they have no way to change things. My best strategy (if you want to call it that) is to be kind and make everyone's day better.

On the other hand, I wonder if I'd still be sitting at the downtown pharmacy every month for 40 minutes if I hadn't gotten a little frustrated and the issue hadn't been taken to someone with more authority.

I'll never know because in this situation, the die has already been cast. But it makes me wonder about all the other frustrating situations I'll find myself in. Do the ends, in fact, justify the means? Or should we always, no matter what, be kind and polite and maybe a bit of a doormat? I'm fairly certain I already know the answer and that I made the wrong choice this morning. That by expecting things to run smoothly and expecting my time to be worth more than another person's I was probably in the wrong.

What do you think?



** Check out the new recipe at EATING AT THE TAJ MCCALL!

Projects

I do love a good project. 

In college, I was always better at putting together a project than taking any test. I think it's because projects get your creative juices flowing instead of just spitting out memorized information and the time spent putting one together is so much more enjoyable than studying. Anybody else like this?

You can imagine how excited I get when my children bring home project assignments. Remember THIS? Well, Phoebe brought home her first "project" last week. She needed to make a poster that told her class all about her. 

Naturally I broke out the glitter and the glue and the photos and we got to work. What project can't be made better with a little glitter?

She and Eli brainstormed the things she wanted to tell her class and then I found photos to go with them. While Eli and Brad headed off to baseball practice, the glue and glitter started flying. It was pretty fun...despite that one moment where she told me it was her project and she wanted to do it her way. Sigh. She just doesn't get it, does she? :) 

But she was all smiles when she headed off to school this morning. I was not considering all the glitter that now lives all over my house. Seriously. It looks like a fairy got hit by the glitter truck in my kitchen. 

** New recipes for PHILLY CHEESESTEAK SLOPPY JOES, CHEESY STUFFED SHELLS, ASIAN FLANK STEAK SKEWERS, BAKED ASIAN CHICKEN WINGS, and CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI CASSEROLE are up over at EATING WITH THE TAJ MCCALLS! Finally!

Ten On Ten: September 2012

Ten on Ten:

Taking a photo at ten after the hour for ten consecutive hours and trying to capture the beauty among the everyday-ness of our lives.

It was a little harder this month. I was home, by myself, playing catch-up from a crazy weekend. While peaceful and productive, I found it hard to find beauty without some human interaction. But I managed, and while it's not my most inspirational set of Ten on Ten, they have a nice "homeyness" to them. :)

Go HERE for other Ten on Ten photographers...and I use that term loosely since I'm including myself in that group. :)

Operation: Take Back The "Front Yard"

I had a couple other alternate titles for this blog post.

"Please Don't Call CPS"

 and

"Why I'm (Secretly) Proud Of My Kids"

I'm pretty sure I've already used the first one at some point (and why do I keep doing things to my children that might warrant a call to CPS) and the second didn't accurately describe the crazy idea we've embarked on this month. So I stuck with "Operation: Take Back The "Front Yard". 

We live on the prairie. Really. We have neighbors and all that, but mostly we live on the prairie. The wild, West Texas prairie. Where I'm pretty convinced that God never intended people to live. I'll tell you why in a moment. I need to give you a little history first.

We moved into our house almost four years ago after building our house outside of Amarillo. When building, we did not have a landscape plan...and we probably should have considering our "front yard" is full of mesquite trees, tumbleweeds, and yucca plants. All of which were designed to withstand the crazy West Texas wind, drought conditions, and extreme temps. Sounds lovely, right? Anyway, the front half of our lot has been sadly neglected the last four years and I've spent the last six months nagging convincing Brad that we needed to do something about it. He finally caved and we deemed September Take Back The "Front Yard" month. 

I'm putting quotation marks around "Front Yard" because it isn't technically our front yard. The front yard is from the house to the retaining wall. The "Front Yard" is from the retaining wall to the road. I haven't come up with a catchy term yet for this part of our property, but I'm working on it.

I took some "before" photos, but I'd like to post them when we finally finish with the "after" photos. You can get an idea of what it looks like HERE. Our plan this weekend was to cut down all the lower mesquite branches and shrubs to clear a path to the mesquite trunks and yucca plants that we were going to spray with a solution of one part REMEDY to three parts diesel. I'm telling you, these West Texas plants are hard to get rid of! 

We started Saturday morning. Brad used the chainsaw and Eli and I removed them cut branches by dragging them to the back of the truck. Phoebe didn't join us till later because she slept in. 

It was some serious work.

Saturday ended with us heading to town to dump the branches at the chipping site and a run to Lowe's for more 2 cycle oil. Don't ask me what that is because I don't know. I just know that Brad couldn't use the chainsaw anymore without it. 

Sunday was more of the same. Brad cut down branches and we loaded them up into a borrowed flat-bed. Once Brad finished, he helped load branches, too.

This was hard, hot work for three and half hours. There were a few meltdowns.

But mostly just a lot of hard work.

And no, she didn't keep this smile up the entire time. She did a lot of crying and a lot of wailing that she hated our front yard and why did we ever move to this house. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were horrible parents, but we really did need their help and I think it's something we need to do together.

I took a photo of one of the mesquite branches so you can see how prickly and mean these suckers are! Some of the thorns were a good two inches long! And sharp! Eli and I both suffered bad mesquite thorn stabs right through our work gloves and straight through our fingers. Mine is still swollen and bruised today. This is why I'm certain no one was meant to live in West Texas. God put these here as a deterrent and we are stupid enough to try to deal with them.

It was back breaking work.

But these kids were troopers. They worked like turks...even though there was a lot of crying and complaining. I was so proud of them when we finished. Despite the meltdowns, they worked. We'll work on attitude next weekend when we clear the tumbleweed brush Brad is going to mow down with a tractor.

I thought I'd include a photo of the flatbed trailer we filled. Brad had to stomp it down several times so it would all fit. It was a lot of mesquite...and we left a lot of the dead wood on the ground. So if anyone needs any free firewood, let me know and you can come get it out of our front yard!

And I'm not kidding!

Then it was another trip to the chipping site and reward trip to Sonic for really big ice cream treats.

My kids work cheap, apparently. We all wound up sore and sunburned and tired, but with a sense of achievement and a little more connected with our family.

At least I did. Brad and the kids are probably just irritated and worn out.