Dinner Fail, Cookie Win

October 6th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Short or Sweet - (3 Comments)

Dinner tonight was a total flop. I don’t want to talk about it.

Okay, fine – I’ll talk about it. Let’s just say it involved the crock pot and a bag of frozen spinach, among other ingredients. Frozen spinach is the only ingredient worth noting as I’m fairly confident that’s what made tonight’s meal… an experience.

Anyway, the whole reason I was using the crock pot was because I was once again assisting this afternoon in a homeschool class the girls are in. I thought it would make the day a lot easier to have dinner hot and ready when we got home – so the crock pot was dragged out, and yeah. I already told you how that story ended.

I See Blue Circles

September 28th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (2 Comments)

My kids love frozen blueberries.

Frozen Blueberries

Both of them. Even the little one.

They snack on them straight from the freezer and then force me to look at their blue stained lips for about three hours until the color wears off, or until I can’t take it anymore and pin them to the ground for a spit bath with my saliva wetted thumb.

I haven’t bought frozen blueberries for a few months now because of the overabundance of summer fruit we were getting from the CSA share. They asked me to buy frozen blueberries, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy FROZEN fruit with three pounds of fresh peaches in the fridge.

Zucchini Oatmeal Breakfast Cakes

September 26th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (9 Comments)

I seem to be on a pancake kick recently – but ’tis the season for warm breakfasts after all! Let’s roll with it.

After I spied a small zucchini hanging out in the fridge this morning and feeling very much in the mood for something substantial after an early morning bike ride, I decide to whip up some zucchini pancakes today. Zucchini is awesome for it’s ability to taste like nothing in baked goods, while quite generously giving you a serving of vegetables at the same time.

Zucchini Pancake Ingredients

September 15, 2011 started out a lot like September 15, 2006.

Everyone asleep.  Everyone but me.

Waking up Zak and telling him it was time to go.

Getting dressed and moving around with hushed voices, get ready to leave the house in the wee hours of the morning.

The cat meowing and meowing and meowing as I tried to make my way to the door.

Except this year it was 5:55 AM, not 1:45 AM.  And this year we weren’t headed to the hospital, I was headed to the grocery store.  (The cat was still meowing and meowing and meowing though.)

Homeschool Lessons for All

September 13th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Fitness - (1 Comments)

Now that Maxine can ride her bike, Homeschool Phys Ed class is officially in session.

Riding Buds The Claw Over My Shoulder Ready to Ride

Is this really Phys Ed? Or is this just a morning run in disguise?

Whatever you want to call it, a bunch of lessons were learned on our group outing this morning – lessons for both young and old.

A Lesson for Mom

When Maxine says “Whoa, whoa, whoa!!”, that means she’s about to come to a sudden and complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

This lead to the discovery that I run too closely behind Maxine.

Banana Whip Oats

August 21st, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (5 Comments)

I go through phases where I eat oats every day. And then there are times where the oatmeal canister gathers dust on its top. This week I’ve been back in that oat phase, and am apparently in a frozen banana phase too.

I discovered this concoction last week by accident, really – I can’t even tell you what possessed me to throw oats in the food processor when making banana whip. I just know that I did.

Banana Whip Oats

1 frozen banana (approx.)
1/2 c rolled oats
1 heaping Tbsp hemp seeds (optional, for protein)

Frozen Bananas Rolled Oats Hemp Seeds

The Squeakmobile

August 12th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Morning Craziness - (6 Comments)

I slept with my camera on the bedside table last night, ready to capture my daily wake up at the ass crack of dawn. 

(It came at 4:32 yesterday!)

When I heard the squeakmobile coming down the street this morning, it got all lights, camera, ACTION! up in here.  Now I can show you exactly what I’m talking about.

You can even hear the damn cat meowing at me at the end there.

I think the cat and the car are in cahoots to keep me awake.

CAN’T A GIRL GET SOME SLEEP AROUND HERE?

This is the story of how an SUV in need of new shocks inspired a sweet, frosty post-ride treat today.

Ready?

Every day at approximately 4:55 AM, the squeakiest newspaper delivery vehicle this side of the Mississippi river squeaks down my street. It makes two or three unbelievably squeaky stops at the houses directly across the street from our bedroom window and then moves on to squeak through and disturb the rest of the neighborhood.

Velocimom

June 4th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Parenting - (8 Comments)

Remember Banana Whip?

YAY!  Banana whip!

Well this would be Fruit Whip.  Banana Whip plus some frozen strawberries and blueberries too.

Fruit Whip

And remember that part in Jurassic Park where the scientist dude explains how the Velociraptors systematically test the electric fence by attacking it, trying to find its weaknesses?

Raptor

Well I am the Velociraptor and Maxine is my electric fence.

See, we’ve always loved Banana Whip as an awesomely delicious healthy snack, but of course “we” means everyone but Maxine.

1.  I failed to remember to charge my Garmin before bed last night, thus I ran today with my old school (now seemingly very little in comparison) digital watch that doesn’t tell me anything fun or exciting.

Little Watch

2.  My left arm felt amazingly light with no 3 lb garmin strapped to it.  So light in fact that it kept creeping up toward the sky and I had to hold it down with my other hand lest every person I ran past wonder if they were supposed to call on me to answer a question.