Be Berry Berry Quiet...

We're doing a "letter of the week" over here by popular demand.
This week is the letter B.

We went out today and I told the kids that we could only pick things that began with the letter B
SO at GW, they found a pencil Box, a pair of Boots, a mug with a picture of Bats on it and a Book about animals.



The 70s "LOVE" mug was a special purchase for 0.69 because after I read the bottom of it, I had to have it!!



(I also caved on this little number because they were having a good time on it....tomorrow we'll need to get a Battery and charger for it so it's still a B AND, it was only a Buck!!)


L also fond some tiny hair clips that we're calling Barrettes for today..Her and C were both sporting them today.

We had Bananas and Brown rice cereal for breakfast.
For lunch, they had Bread with cashew Butter on it and celery dipped in Baba Gonoush.

Tomorrow we'll be taking the Bus to the grocery store and buying some B things.
We're also going to do a "b sound box"
based on this book by Jane Belk Moncure.

honey

So in the past 2 days, I received a phone call from both of my sisters--not unusual--I talk to both of them regularly...
My one sister, I'll call her "T", called to tell me couple of things.
Number one that there was an article on home birth on the front page of the local paper where they are. (That didn't paint home birthers as a bunch of fringe lunatics)
And also to tell me that she met a guy at a bar and he not only had the same birthday as me but he was also a vegan!
She then went on to tell me about the whole discussion she had with the vegans there about what is (drinking) vegan and what is not (smoking) vegan.

She told me all of this while burning food and using profanity (including the F word) at my parents' house.

Saturday, before I talked to "T", my other sister called.
We'll call her "P" (for Princess).
She had been having a discussion with her co workers about vegan ism and someone had said about honey not being vegan.
She wondered why because she loves honey.
I told her that bees die in the production of honey. Well, she didn't know that! Nor did she know that there are bee parts in honey...I guess you learn something new everyday.

When she called, I was out so I came home to look up some references for her and got a lot of information about "what is and isn't vegan"


This one from The Smoking Vegan blog is a little provocative...
(You don't need to read that one mom, the gist is that "smoking is not vegan supposedly but they don't care".....)

Here's an interesting FAQ on general vegan nutrition

Here's the best explanation on the honey issue I have found

Here's a quick debate on the Honey issue


So this ended up as a reading assignment but it was easier than trying to explain it all in my own words when others have already done it so well!

And maybe my sisters will figure out how to use the comment application and actually give some feedback on this post I wrote for them.

French Bread Pizzazz

We have been, for a while now, having pizza every friday. It uses up the extra vegetables before our next morning basket pick up and is a fun way to end the week.

We've tried different combinations of crusts and toppings; whole wheat dough, pie dough, tortillas, and other flat breads.

This week, I got a loaf of Rosemary bread from Fresh N Easy
thought about slicing it length wise but instead sliced it into pieces
I used some tomato sauce left over from pasta, spiced it up with added oregano, basil and olive oil.

For the toppings, I used mushroom and broccoli beneath a mixture of thyme, nutritional yeast, and ground parsley. Yummy!



Anything that my daughter will eat, I consider a success.

Dear IHOP

Dear IHOP executive,
I am writing to inform you of a serious issue with one of your stores, the IHOP in Fort Stockton, TX. We were returning from a vacation with family in Austin and driving back to our home in Phoenix when we stopped at an IHOP for dinner on Sunday 6/22/2008. We arrived at about 8:30 PM and were seated. We ordered a lemonade for our 4 year old and a water for our 20 month old. My husband and I both ordered coffee. After we ordered our food, the wait began. I had to ask another server other than our own for coffee, it was lukewarm at best. I had to track down someone interested in their job enough to hand me a few creamers. 35 minutes later, When our food arrived, this is what we received:
My husband received the migas meal with pancakes. Apparently, they were out of tortillas and pancakes are what they substitute with? We were not told this until later.
My vegetarian son received the kids silver dollar pancakes with bacon on his plate instead of the hash browns we had ordered for him.
I received my 3 pancakes and eggs but not my hash browns.
My daughter received the create a face pancake with no yogurt which we were told, 25 minutes later, that they were out of.
We received the two extra orders of hash browns that were forgotten after we had finished all of our other items.
When we were presented the check, we were charged for 2 kids drinks (one was water)
2 orders of hash browns (one was a substitution), my 3 eggs and 3 pancakes meal was charged as separate orders, increasing the price of them, and we were charged for potatoes that were brought to my daughter that we never ordered.

I brought all of the discrepancies on the bill to the attention of the person who brought our bill. (I hadn't seen our waitress in some time.)
She took the bill and came back 17 minutes later, saying, "We fixed it." and set it down and quickly, almost tripping, walked away. I looked at the bill and they had taken off the cost of one of the hash browns, corrected the charge of my meal, and taken off one of the kid sized drinks.
In place of the other kids drink, they had charged us for a juice instead?!
I went to the register while the rest of my family left the restaurant. When I asked the woman who had brought my check to me about the juice charge, her response was, "Well, she had a juice so it should have been charged more for that. Actually we even charged her for a small juice when we could have charged her for a large. That's all we can do for you." She then walked away. What!? By now, I was inches away from really exploding. I decided to just pay and leave. After the cashier rang up my order, I handed her the money to pay for it and she handed me back the paper portion of my change and said, "I don't have any change." I said, "What? So you're just not going to give me all of my change?" Her response to me was, "All I have left is nickles and I am not giving you those." Rather than round up to the next dollar, she just decided that it was okay to short the customer instead.
As I was leaving the restaurant, which was a 24hr establishment, one of the employees "working" put up a closed sign and locked the door. She actually refused to let someone in who had just gone out to their car for something and left their family inside!
I do not want a refund or a free meal out of this, just wanted to make you aware and let you know that I now do not have any desire to east in one of your restaurants ever again.

Sincerely yours,
Me

If I had any idea where on earth to send the above letter, it would be in the mail. I am off to secure email addys. If anyone has any idea or contact that I need, let me know...

Numa Numa

It has been 2 years since this gem hit the airwaves:




An I STILL LOVE it!!!

ENJOY!

Since 1976..

We have had the same bathroom.



We haven't lived here but 15 of those years though.
Our master bath was so bad that we had to lift the shower doors to slide them and turn the shower head just right so it would not spray out of the shower.
I stopped cleaning the corrosion from the door bottoms months ago.



We had cemented in tile that was like a checker board.
There were 3 different colors of paint behind the potty.
The FINAL straw (of many final straws..)
was the last of the two sinks ceased to be functional..

So now, we had a long marble vanity that was being used as a bookshelf/dresser/table sort of thing.



We contacted this really cool and super nice dude, Paul, (who is also a licensed contractor) and got to work.

They built me a new tiled shower



and tiled the floors and painted the whole bathroom (Pecan Sandy--same as our bedroom).



They also put in new faucets and painted the vanity (Cottage White).



I am so happy to relax in the new shower after a long hot day...
What have I learned?
HAND HELD SHOWERS ROCK!!
All your bits get fully cleaned!





**disclaimer: this post is mainly for my family. I am hoping that my lovely travertine shower will beckon them here to visit soon....

PB & J

I was doing the whole healthy PB on celery snack and L wanted a PB and J sandwich so I slatehred some almond butter and homemade fig jelly (from Eddie's wife Mija) on there and they both gobbled them down! They were pretty tasty!

Coming soon....
better photos of the finished remodel..

"But, don't you miss pizza?"

Well, NO.
Tonight we enjoyed a great vegan pizza!


The crust we picked up from Fresh and Easy. It's their whole wheat pizza crust. The kids helped me roll it out and then we covered it with a jar tomato sauce and added olive oil and fresh herbs (basil, oregano and parsley) I chopped up an eggplant and half an onion and had the kids scatter them on the top. (Just on half because L doesn't like anything on her pizza...)



On top of that we drizzled "Cheezy Sauce", a recipe from my Veganomicon
It had nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, vegetable broth, wheat flour, salt and pepper.
It also called for thyme but I was sadly out of it.
I sprinkled a little dried basil on top and off to the oven it went for 12 minutes at 450.



It was scrunptious. L ate all of hers. Maybe it had somehting to do with her plate choice though.



Oh, yeah, that's a vegan Parmesan topping that we bought at the store a while back. L likes it sometimes.

Back on the Sauce

I just finished a 10 day cleanse and I feel AWESOME!
Now I am back on my morning juices.
Started today with the following:

• 2 cups watermelon
• 2 pieces of honeydew
• 1 peach
• 1 plum

Yum good! Just a simple fruity blend to get me juicing again..Both kids enjoyed it also..

ABC

Saw this on a group I belong to, thought it was interesting

A♥ AGE:: 39
B♥ BIRTHDAY:: February 24th
C♥ CANDY OR CAKE:: Cake
D♥ DESSERT YOU LOVE:: vegan Ice cream
E♥ EASIEST PERSON TO TALK TO:: my sister(s)
F♥ FAVORITE SONG: Anything by Allison Krause
G♥ GOLD OR SILVER:: silver
H♥ HABIT:: biting nails and
I♥ INSTRUMENTS YOU PLAY:: MP3 Player
J♥ JOB TITLE:: too many to list
K♥ KIDS:: Leidelbug 4/21/04; C Moss 10/29/06
L♥LOVE OR LUST::Love
M♥ MARRIED ,SINGLE OR TAKEN:: Married (and taken ;)
N♥ NEXT TO YOU:: Tea, liquid glue, sewing machine,
O♥ ONE WISH:: balance
P♥ PERSON YOU CALLED LAST:: sister and Karen BF
Q♥QUOTES:: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
R♥ REASONS TO SMILE:: the things kids say
S♥ STORYBOOK FROM CHILDHOOD:: The monster at the end of the book
T♥ TURNS YOU ON:: A good daddy
U♥ UNIQUE TALENT:: Goodwilling
V♥ VEGETABLE:: avocado
W♥ WOKE UP AT WHAT TIME:: 5:45am
X♥ X-RAYS YOU'VE HAD:: back
Y♥ YOUR FAVORITE COLOR:: green or blue, depends on my mood (used to always be yellow)
Z♥ ZODIAC SIGN:: Pisces

Tea Party

We have been doing a massive bathroom remodel at our house so we have been staying away most days. (there will be more on that later..)
We have been scheduling activities and one day spent the whole day at a friends house (trashing her floors because she's having THEM re modeled today!)
The kids were pretty much just running amok, dressing up, building with Legos and shooting off rockets.
They at one point decided to have a little tea party on the living room carpet and had real tea and everything!
First they made banana almond butter frozen sandwiches together (with only minor arguing and/or shoving on the step stool)



LOVE Karen's paint colors!!

And then later they enjoyed them with tea and fresh berries...








TODAY: Ikea! Yeah, the land of enchantment!