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Another Year Has Gone By
May 31, 2012 by Jennie
Our laser printer has been muddying everything up, so I had to have my card prints made at Kinkos (errr, FedEx Office). Oh, well — it’s fairly inexpensive, they offer cardstock, and it was super easy to upload and order online. Here’s how it turned out:
Of course all of this helps distract from the fact that I have a THIRD GRADER now.
*sniff*
Category Arts & Crafts | Tags: | No Comments
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Teacher, Teacher
May 25, 2012 by Jennie
End-of-year gifts for teachers can be a little tricky, it’s true. Fortunately this year I’ve been richer than usual in the way of ideas coming home, and knew a Starbucks card would be an ideal option. In the interest of not entirely phoning it in, I decided to throw together a little card to go with it. If your school year has yet to end, too, and you need an easy gift idea, you’re free to use it, too:
(click for PDF)Just print on heavy paper, cut carefully to the appropriate dimensions around each panel, and affix the first outside and the second inside a colored blank greeting card. Add coffee gift card, and voila! instant appreciation gift. We’re also including a sleeve of Biscoff cookies for a little extra oomph.
Category Arts & Crafts | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Nothing New Under the Sun
February 2, 2012 by Jennie
I made old fashioned oatmeal for the boys this morning (bananas for Oliver, bananas, pecan, raisins, cranberries for Daniel, and butter, milk, cinnamon, and brown sugar for both), and had just enough left over to fill the bottom of a small one-cup container. I popped it into the fridge, intending to enjoy it as a snack with some protein later. When later arrived, the oatmeal plopped whole, a patty, into my tiny waiting dish; it occurred to me that here, much like discs of polenta, was something else I could fry up in butter. And so I did.
Poking around the internet, this is not a new idea. Oh, well. The lingering buttered cinnamon smell will make up for the de-revelation.
Category Food | Tags: | No Comments
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Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut
January 25, 2012 by Jennie
Browsing the mega-schmancy new Whole Foods in north Santa Rosa, I found bags of grainless cereal. It sounded intriguing, delicious, and something that could be DIY’ed much, much more cheaply, and in a flash to boot. The mornings are the absolute worst time of day for me to eat more than a handful of grams of carbs, so cereal is right off the menu. Unless it’s a meh low-carb high-protein version, such as Special K Protein Plus. Meh. Well, regardless of the two years of retraining, I still love cereal, and miss it (you’re still in my heart, Quaker Oatmeal Squares). So, off to the Pinterest machine! Where, after reviewing a few recipes that didn’t quite fit the bill, I found this one. I figured that with just a little bit of tweaking, it would be delicious. And it is:
This is fantastic on its own, but would be delicious over Greek yogurt or low carb ice cream. Maybe I’ll even mix it with my
cardboardlow-carb cereals to kick those up a notch.So here’s my version. I added coconut flakes and used sliced raw almonds to give it more of a “cereal-y” mouth feel, and flax seeds just because I like them and they’re so nutritious. And I used agave instead of honey, which has a lower glycemic index. I nixed the cashews because, while I like to eat them salted as a snack, I didn’t think they’d mesh well here, and the pepitas, because I forgot them while at TJ’s. I went with half almond extract just for kicks. Next time I’m going to add some homemade cinnamon extract.
Grainless Granola
1/2 c unsweetened coconut flakes
1/4 c flax seeds
1 c sliced raw almonds
3/4 c raw walnuts
3/4 c raw pecan pieces
3/4 c raw sunflower seeds
3 T coconut oil, melted
2 T agave nectar
1 T vanilla extract
1 T almond extractPreheat oven to 300. Run the walnuts and pecans through a food processor, pulsing a few times (enough to break down the bigger chunks). Mix all ingredients well. Spread thinly and evenly on a large cookie sheet and bake for twenty minutes, stirring once or twice, or until just golden brown. Cool well and store. Or devour warm, doused in cream, like I did.
Category Food | Tags: | No Comments
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Set Fire to the Rain
October 3, 2011 by Jennie
Rain! Real, honest-to-goodness precipitation!
It’s dark and cozy in the house, and, as always when it’s like this, I’m drawn to the kitchen. There are lingering smells of milk bread for the boys, breakfast links (lunch!), baked chicken breasts for later, and of course a pumpkin candle. Now I’m hunkered down in the dimness with the internet and a pot of that delicious pumpkin spice coffee.
Category Life | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Maybe I’m A-maze-d
October 1, 2011 by Jennie
Not everyone appreciates my insistence on comparing the Giant Corn Maze to the third Triwizard Tournament challenge.
D: This thing should have a center. Some kind of goal.
J: Yeah! Like a Triwizard Cup.
D: No, NOT like that.
J: Oh, it would be a PORTKEY.
D: No, it would NOT.
J: And you would get transported to the beginning.
D: No, you would lose your Pottermore account.Category Books, Life, Media | Tags: | No Comments
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It’s the End of the World As We Know It
September 29, 2011 by Jennie
Is it just me? Does this Christmas ornament seem not quite right? I may be in the minority, as it appears to be sold out.
It seems like a lot of gravitas for a beacon of celebration to bear. Are the “glittering accents,” wee snow-dusted trees, and jaunty font supposed to compensate?
Category Stuff | Tags: | 1 Comment
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Whatchoo talkin’ bout?
September 26, 2011 by Jennie
Pretty sure some weeding is in order. Unless I’m completely off base and there are local 5-to-12-year-olds who happen to think Gary Coleman, Marie Osmond, and other 1982 celebrities are, like, totally awesome. If I’m right, the library could just sell it for $189.99 and buy fifteen more copies of Captain Underpants.
Category Books, Media | Tags: | No Comments
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Talk Talk
September 20, 2011 by Jennie
Four more weeks, and I’ll be shed of my homework pile. And then the site should start to look more spiffy. Let’s hope, anyhow. I’ve had no design epiphany yet, and I was rather sentimentally attached to the old one, which doesn’t help.
Thanks to Google Reader Bundles, I easily plopped down a page of links. So that’s new. Not necessarily up-to-date — I think many may be dead — but I culled out the ones I knew to be defunct off the top of my head.
I’ve noticed a couple searches for specific projects, like the Altoids Advent Calendar. In the interest of my sanity (among, erm, other things), I won’t be carrying my entire archives forward publicly. But I do plan on reinstating some of the more useful posts on a separate part of the site.
Category Blogkeeping | Tags: | 2 Comments
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Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
September 19, 2011 by Jennie
Vivienne shared a seemingly magical tip about a ridiculously easy clean for gas stove grates: a very small amount of ammonia, a big zipper bag, and time. That’s it! And I can attest that it works (though I should admit I was so excited by the “before and after” photos, that I didn’t read the instructions quite thoroughly, and used a lot more ammonia than I needed to. See, this is why I suck at potions on Pottermore…). Some of our grates were nearly black when we moved in; after scrubbing my arm off with Barkeeper’s Friend, I called it quits and kept an uneasy truce. But a few nights with a dishpan of stinky bag on the counter, and you’d swear they were all new, even the worst high-use ones. So pretty and shiny…
Category Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments