<p>Congrats Bears on having a successful trip to DMV. Like I said I had to do it twice with S so you get bonus points in successful parenting! Not a small thing this driving issue. In VA you can replace a lost license by reporting it online and they send you another in the mail so S has replaced his once. He has also lost his debit card at least twice. Last week he dropped it in the parking lot of dentist and how someone knew to take it to our dentist and not to the 6-8 other medical offices I do not know. </p>
<p>Launchee is supposed to be back tonight and takes over on the grandma front. She has a list of things to buy to take home so he will get a c hance to see what it takes to shop with an older person who still thinks prices should be what they were in the 1970’s. Good practice from when I am in my 80’s. To keep them occupied for the next few days I have stocked the refrigerator and asked her to teach him some home cooking. She isn’t a very creative or quick cook but she is great at telling maids how to prepare stuff so I told her to think of her grandson as a very ignorant household servant and get him trained. I hope it keeps her busy and I don’t have to cook when I get home from work. </p>
<p>Launchee gets to spend the next 2 weeks with her (and us) and then 2 weeks in Ecuador. I expect this is going to be a tough month for him.</p>
<p>Minneapolis has lots of fresh fruits and veggies, but no access for the homeless. Lots of danish and day old (and older) discarded vending machine foods, soup kitchens have soup, bread whatever is donated. Produce tends to go bad quicker than canned stuff.</p>
<p>so Garrison Keillor is exaggerating. wonder if ever any homeless in lake Woebegone.</p>
<p>fammom- D should be fine driving in ANY state with learner’s permit. I can’t remember where I read that, but I was wondering the same thing with D1 and D2.</p>
<p>D3 clipped someone’s mailbox tonight with the side view mirror. There were 3 adults in the car with her, all yelling something or other. H got us all to shut up so only he would be giving her directions. A good idea, but hard for me and my sister, who were in the back seat with our mouths zipped shut! The beginning is a very hard time! D3 thinks that everything that goes wrong is our fault and argues while she drives. And my sister is whispering to me in the back seat about “unfinished frontal lobes” and I’m hiding my eyes, but somehow, nothing too bad has happened. We were all at that stage once!</p>
<p>Hello everyone
Back to back to back company and trying to keep up on work and find out what varmint is eating my cucumber and squash leaves. Waiting for the heat wave today but we’ll still be in low 90s, watch out Bears, you’re going to be much hotter today.</p>
<p>Fammom, this one is particularly for you. My mother was always overwhelmed and lacking in patience. Her attitude was it was just easier and quicker for her to do “it” than show anyone else and when she did show you how to do anything it was with an edge of irritability that was very distracting. Sad to say, although I try to control it, this is a trait I have picked up albeit in much lesser degree.</p>
<p>Therefore I never knew how to cook a thing when I left home except for lemon meringue pies. And even after being out in an apartment I never made salads, it was stuffed peppers and tuna on toast with the sandwich here or there. So I go home for Thanksgiving or some such holiday and am told to wash the lettuce for dinner. Now I’m standing there debating, thinking, standing at the sink with big old head of iceberg lettuce in front of me. Finally I make my decision, grab the dishwashing soap and dribble it over the lettuce and proceed to wash.</p>
<p>My mother’s reaction was not pleasant, a mix of astonishment and anger that I’d ruined a head of lettuce. I will say this though, I never ever forgot that “washing” a head of lettuce was an expression and not to be done so literally.</p>
<p>My kid has a much more cooking skill than I ever did, partly because we’ve had ongoing cooking “lessons” although the first trip to school I believe the diet still consisted of yogurt, celery stalks dipped in blue cheese dressing, cereal, etc. But my kid does now make a mean batch of Tollhouse cookies which is a staple everyone should know how to produce.</p>
<p>Let us know how the cooking lessons with Grandma go. I’m sure it’s going to be entertaining, although if Grandma’s used to telling servants what to do she’s probably a lot more patient than my mother was. Bears congrats on the driving test, we have to go again to get that learner’s permit. But I must say I think I would have missed the questions that were answered wrong. Our test is so poorly written and I’m also wondering if we’re the only state that has a paragraph about driving at dusk when moose are out. Anyone from Minnesota or Alaska out there? Turns out they’re so tall that one’s eyeline falls right under their legs and their bodies aren’t obvious enough until you’ve hit them.</p>
<p>Ah yes, one more quick local story. Driving the child to work which is work/apprentice kind of thing but work nonetheless and giving good lessons in running your own very small company. It’s just my child the apprentice and the guy who’s got the shop at the back of his property.</p>
<p>At any rate we’re taking these postcard gorgeous country lanes that meander back and forth up to a little mountain. As a former resident of the “Rockies” these “mountains” are bit like hills to me although pretty. There’s actually a car in front of me which is very unusual, I often make this drive without seeing a single other vehicle. Suddenly bursting from a wooded hill on the right and leaping over the hood of the car in front of me was what I instinctively thought was a deer but on second look once the leap was successfully completed was a quarter horse straight out of central casting. He proceeded to do a perfect snort and shake of the head and trotted off to the old barn on the left.</p>
<p>The driver in front of me had to pull over for a few moments, it must have been pretty shocking to have such a large creature literally leap over the hood of your car. Meanwhile I stopped at about 8 houses trying to find out who this animal belonged to…only to find out that it was “the red house back up the road, their horses are always getting out.” I don’t know if I was more worried about the horse or the next driver who didn’t successfully avoid the bursting from the woods. I hear hitting a moose is actually pretty dangerous for drivers, much more so than deer, perhaps I’d better call the DMV and tel them to add horses to the moose paragraph.</p>
<p>Scary horse story. While working at a car dealership in Maine, we had a car towed in that had hit a moose. There was fur still inside the car, and the 2 people in the car only had minor injuries, altho to see that car, you’d wonder how anyone survived.</p>
<p>smarty (and multiple posts) lives!!
it have to be site specific. while we are waiting in the line, people are saying, in Richmond (VA?) had to be perfect score, in Philly, 10 questions but harder.
here NY, 14 out of 20 (two out of four road-sign questions) but from I remember, it was more of commonsense questions, like “what should you do after you had drinks?”
- drive
- not drive
- have a coffee then drive
OK, I am making this up but not that far off.
everyone drive same roads once they’d travel, the test should be at least same sort of rigor.
imagine SAT questions were controlled by states?
I guess it sort of do, by where the cut for NMSF is. but would minor colleges care and consider each state/school’s standards when they compare one kid to another? being in NYC system is like fighting with giant moose. gawd am I glad it’s over (is it? really??)</p>
<p>enjoy bleazy woody moosey granite and green mountain-ing dear.
I will be roasted. was bad yesterday. what you know, still better than Japanese heat wave that get worse during nights, called nettai-ya.= tropics nights.</p>
<p>redbug
I know car dealerships are fine business. just that when I hear the word, always pops up in my head is “Fargo” and that scary Paul Bunyan. brrrr</p>
<p>Actually it turns out that you can’t drive in any state with a learner’s permit from a different state.
For example,
District of Columbia :A learners permit issued by a jurisdiction other than the District of Columbia is “NOT” valid in the District of Columbia. We live just 4 miles away and so D had to let me drive while we went through DC but was allowed to drive in MD…it is a state by state thing. Arizona is like DC. So you do have to check.</p>
<p>So H breaks it to me last night that someone had called his brother in Puerto Rico who then assured the caller that we could put up some random visitor from Bolivia via Panama and Atlanta. Luckily D is at camp so I have a free bed! My H told my MIL to get teaching S to cook so that guest will have authentic Ecuadorean meal tonight. I plan to suddenly have a very late meeting at work and miss the fun. I am so stressed with work, entertaining MIL in evening with shopping, and getting ready for the-wedding-from-hell on Friday. At least there will be no moose or horses or deer leaping in our way as we drive to the Hoover dam…they will die of heat stroke before they can make it to the freeway.</p>
<p>Fammom: It must be fun for your S to go through the cooking lesson. He is such a nice boy to agree to help grandma! What dishes they did? :—)
D said she will cook tonight, I am excited and will report what she cooked tomorrow.</p>
<p>I was a big helper when I was in high school or college break time. my mom rely on me so much and expecting I get all ready before she came home whenever I was home. Looking back I feel I didn’t get the leisure time when I was little. This made me spoil my D a lot. Thinking she is alone in nyc without meal plan and have to “cook” for herself all the time there and I want to give her a break but feel fun to see what she can bring to the table tonight!</p>
<p>Well I’m in a rut and am looking for something different to make for dinner. So perhaps, if I don’t see details from baby FAMMoMs cooking lessons, I’ll have to look up some recipes for Ecuadorean food.<br>
Since I didn’t hear anything from my interview last week, I have to assume they gave the job to someone else. In some ways I’m disappointed in that, and in other ways, not.
My three girls are continuing their lazy slothful ways. I gave up on waiting for D1 to vacuum and did that yesterday (a good thorough move-all-the-furniture-door-to-door-wall-to-wall vacuuming that the house hasn’t seen since I went back to work last year). I guess I need to get the carpet cleaned though.
I have been purging the house of accumulated clutter. I finally cleared out our old ‘school room’ – a second kitchen that is part of the mother-in-law unit that we have downstairs – and D1 promptly set up her easel again and messed it all up. sigh. she has a still life set up, but she got out about five times as many items as she actually needed for the still life and they are scattered about. This is the way things go around here. I barely get one space cleared out before she spreads out and occupies it with something else.
Manga girl and D1 are vying for the title of jigsaw puzzle queen – so they have been watching movies and putting together X-thousand piece jigsaw puzzles for the last month. Can’t get them to weed or cook or do anything to contribute to cleaning this place up before their cousins and aunts and uncle arrive.<br>
On Saturday two furry friends will come to stay for a couple of weeks – so there will be four dogs instead of two underfoot – one is a six month old puppy – better wait on the carpet cleaning.
Aspie girl is just surly. She says she doesn’t ‘get’ the driving manual and doesnt want to go take the written test and doesn’t want to do the on-line quizzes. I pointed out to her that we are tired of driving her to the barn. I’m not even sure what she does with herself all day. She’s on the computer watching anime and she plays video games and she hides in her room until I roust her out.<br>
Since I had no luck getting my offspring to cooperate, DH is taking a vacation day tomorrow to be my ‘slave-for-a-day’. I might stand a chance of getting some things done IF he doesn’t get distracted.<br>
I’ve heard that moose are a big problem for drivers in moose states. We even had a moose a couple of years ago here in Westchester… wandered down from the Adirondacks, I guess. Lots of people mistook it for a strange horse. It ended up getting hit by a car on 684, close to where my kids go to school. Sometimes there are bears around too, but I haven’t heard of them being a road hazard. We did see quite a few moose when we camped in Nova Scotia – and the locals were terrified of them. We were stopped behind a line of traffic and a poor moose was corralled by the cars which were stopped in both directions. It was a curve around a mountain so the moose couldn’t go down (it was like a cliff on one side of the road and straight up on the other, so the moose had to skirt by the cars and didn’t want to – and the people didn’t want it to either – so people were trying to inch by the poor moose and the moose was going backwards and forwards just trying to figure out how to get out of the way). Eventually the moose made its way through the cars and off down the side of the mountain. But I remember the two ladies in the car in front of us were screaming and carrying on like it was the end of the world. To be fair, they were in a convertible sports car thing and we were in a gigantic fifteen passenger van – so we weren’t particularly scared of the moose. People were out of their cars and going back and forth trying to figure out how to get around the moose.
My kids have gone a a couple of hunts and hunter paces. The last one D1 went on, she showed up next to me and told me she’d lost the horse. Horrors! She got thrown and the horse took off. They found him several miles away at his old barn. Fortunately neither she, nor the horse, were damaged. When they go foxhunting, there are crews that stop the traffic on the roads when the hounds and horses are coming through – the hunt master has a radio and radios ahead to the road crew – but I’ve never been able to figure out how the huntmaster knows exactly where they are and how long it will be before they get to a road. I think the hounds have radio collars too.<br>
Ok gotta go fetch manga girl from her extended manga class with manga girlfriend (manga sleep over, go figure).</p>
<p>Hey Bears
I love Fox and the Hound too! I have yet to hear of them ever actually catching the fox (or coyote – I know they’ve sometimes chased coyotes). They mostly have a great time galloping over the countryside in the Fall chasing the hounds. It is a good change of pace to get out of the riding ring and not nearly as boring as a trail ride.</p>
<p>The hunter pace is a kind of a team race, about ten miles and fifty jumps, where you have to get closest to an ‘optimal’ time – which is not the fastest time through the course. You’re supposed to take into account conditions like footing and so forth and not run the horse into the ground. If you don’t like a jump, they let you go around it (some of the jumps are quite huge – like picnic tables (all set up for a picnic). Nobody wants kids or horses – or even grownups to get hurt. But every hunter pace I’ve gone to has had people who have ‘lost’ their horses – sometimes for quite a while.
[Welcome</a> to Locust Hill Farm | Events](<a href=“http://www.locusthillfarmllc.com/events.htm]Welcome”>http://www.locusthillfarmllc.com/events.htm)
[TCExtra.com</a> Goldens Bridge Hounds hunter pace starts fall riding season](<a href=“http://www.tcextra.com/news/publish/sports/Goldens_Bridge_Hounds_hunter_pace_starts_fall_riding_season/1008300.shtml]TCExtra.com”>http://www.tcextra.com/news/publish/sports/Goldens_Bridge_Hounds_hunter_pace_starts_fall_riding_season/1008300.shtml)</p>
<p>I love the stuff I learn from you guys…why would yankees be scared of moose? I never knew people lost horses during hunts! </p>
<p>G-mom…Ecuadorean food is pretty good for the gluten free because before the Europeans arrived not a lot of wheat goin’ on in the cooking. So my son and MIL made Locro last night with grandma (potato soup). [Locro</a> de papas recipe | Laylita’s recipes](<a href=“http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/01/08/locro-de-papa-creamy-potato-soup-with-cheese/]Locro”>Locro de papa or Ecuadorian potato soup - Laylita's Recipes). Tonight is Quinoa soup (also gluten free) <a href=“http://www.thecookingadventuresofchefpaz.com/2008/07/28/sopa-de-quinua-con-queso-quinoa-and-cheese-soup/[/url]”>http://www.thecookingadventuresofchefpaz.com/2008/07/28/sopa-de-quinua-con-queso-quinoa-and-cheese-soup/</a> (very similar to the potato soup) or sancocho (yuca and corn) soup [Sancocho</a> Quiteno - Ecuadorian Beef And Vegetable Soup Recipe - Food.com - 430632](<a href=“http://www.food.com/recipe/sancocho-quiteno-ecuadorian-beef-and-vegetable-soup-430632]Sancocho”>http://www.food.com/recipe/sancocho-quiteno-ecuadorian-beef-and-vegetable-soup-430632). </p>
<p>Very successful Locro and son is writing recipes in his sketch book and drawing pictures of ingredients/cooking tips. We had an unexpected (by me) guest because my husband had forgotten that his brother had told a friend from Bolivia that our house was their house. She kept MIL entertained and D is still at camp so enough beds so it was fine.</p>
<p>G-mom…the mess and the mess. I never feel like I can get it under control although it is generally my husband who is the one leaving papers strewn around the house. S limits it to the basement art area and his room. D usually has piles of clothes in her room but goes through a crazy clean up every few months. Papers and books seem to follow me from room to room. Sigh. Good luck and definitely wait until the puppy is gone before renting the carpet cleaner (I just did our attic and D’s room and it was very satisfying to see all that yucky water and have the clean carpets).</p>
<p>The soups look good – but it’s too hot for soup (for us). In the Fall and Winter I make homemade soup once a week, so I’ll save those recipes and try them then. Being gluten free, we are familiar with quinoa, but I’ve never seen it in a soup recipe. This is something that will be good for our support group newsletter.</p>
<p>H is staying home to be my slave-for-a-day… but is studiously ignoring ‘the list’. I guess it isn’t fair if I’m here on the computer and expecting him to hang new curtains etc, so I’d better go ‘supervise’, lol.</p>
<p>I did get a call from my ‘dream job’ company and they are offering me a temporary work-from-home position (no benefits) through Jan 31, 2012. I guess it would be a foot in the door and I should take it. The pay would be about the same as what I was making at my former job (I had been hoping for a bit of an increase, but in this economy, perhaps that is unrealistic). Besides, it beats unemployment. Working from home means we can continue putting off getting a third car for a while longer. Having a job, even if temporary, means I don’t have to feel too bad about doing a little bit of redecorating. Now to convince H that I need the trek desk and a treadmill, lol.<br>
[Treadmill</a> Desk from TrekDesk](<a href=“http://www.trekdesk.com/]Treadmill”>http://www.trekdesk.com/)</p>
<p>so are you suppose to walk or run on it while working?
is that humanly possible or I am just to clumsy or having wrong kind of job?
I have to freeze, pause entire bodily function and stare out the window to come up with right shape or angle, solution.
it might be good thou when I have to cut out twenty same patterns, claws or tentacles or something.
but then I need my foot on the pedal to sew.
anyone else?</p>
<p>Drae taught me this and it’s grrrreeeeat!! oh wait, you are tigger, not Tony the tiger.</p>
<p>boil corn one ear per perspon-sh
chop handful cilantro
cut ripen one avocado in bite size and douse with one or two fresh lime juice depends on juiciness.
shave off corn kernels with knife and mix with avocado and cilantro
salt and pepper to taste</p>
<p>she said corn should be grilled but it doesn’t have to.
I tried with raw corn, with pesto instead of cilantro, or bottled lemon juice instead of fresh lime when we didn’t have them, and still all good.
easy, filling, no gluten (yes?) only corn is no-no for acne. it’s under control now and corn is local, so very cheap and yummy. why not?
thanx mamabear.
did you move the dresser yet? I bet it’s in there my mommy sense says…</p>
<p>You are supposed to slowly walk. It is probably good for computer type work and paper work. A sewing machine would be trickier, lol. Maybe have the throttle for the sewing machine connected to the treadmill… flip a switch and walk and sew at the same time!</p>
<p>I just hate sitting at a desk all day, and no matter how much I promise myself I’m going to go to the gym (or even take a walk) it just doesn’t happen. There are standing desks, but I really get a lot of pain from standing in one place too long, but I’m okay if I walk and move. So that’s why I am so enamored by the trekdesk. Having trouble convincing H about it since the job that’s offered is only temporary…</p>
<p>The corn recipe sounds yummy! I think I will try this Chaulafan De Pollo recipe
[Chaulafan</a> De Pollo Or Ecuadorean Chicken Fried Rice Recipe - Food.com - 389474](<a href=“http://www.food.com/recipe/chaulafan-de-pollo-or-ecuadorean-chicken-fried-rice-389474]Chaulafan”>http://www.food.com/recipe/chaulafan-de-pollo-or-ecuadorean-chicken-fried-rice-389474)
but not sure how authentic it is. Nevermind that, the kids and H like arroz con pollo and fried rice, so how could I go wrong?</p>