JenPenM

Simple Needs

Jen — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:47:09 +0000

I have a question this morning…

What simple thing do you need today?

Not anything huge like a million dollars or a free new car or anything like that, but something relatively simple that would really make your day.

I need a pedicure, BADLY.

The last time I had one was a few days before Jesse was born, 5 1/2 months ago. I have done a good job of keeping my toenails from resembling talons, but my lower appendages really are looking atrocious. I’ll spare you the ugly details. I have no trouble giving myself regular manicures. I cannot justify spending good money on that because of how quickly a manicure would be ruined. The life of a stay-at-home mom to two little boys is not conducive to keeping a beautiful manicure for more than a day. Dishes, laundry, playing, cleaning agents, and all the typing I do would ruin a $40 manicure in less than a day. However, a pedicure would last me a good long while.

I don’t often splurge on things such as this. Like I said, the last one I had was shortly before Jesse was born because as any mama knows, it’s tough to reach your feet when you’re nearing the end of your pregnancy. Before that, I hadn’t had a pedicure since the day before my wedding, nine months before Jesse came along.

As soon as pay day gets here, I am taking $20 and heading to the nearest salon for an hour to let someone else work some magic to turn these hooves back into smooth, well-kept feet. It will make my day for the next six months or so.

What simple thing would help you out? Does it require a small investment, or is it a service that a friend could do for you?

Snack Genius

Jen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 16:16:13 +0000

Sometimes when you’re being weighed down by some heavy grown-up struggles, you really just need a giggle to lighten the load. Kids are the perfect medium to give you such spontaneous giggles.

Jeremy came in to the laundry room to find me and said “Mom, I need your help.”

I follow him into my kitchen and saw…

I asked Jeremy, “Why is my flour out of the pantry?”

He opened the door and showed me…

“I need a place for my stool.”

Before I could get the next question out of my mouth, he showed me why his stool needed to be in the pantry…

He needed the extra height to reach the M&Ms. Then Jeremy said to me (I swear this is as close to word-for-word as I can remember) “I wanted M&Ms, but remembered to ask you first. Mom, is it okay for me to get the M&Ms?”

How do you argue with a question like that when an almost-4 year old gets everything ready and could have easily sneaked some chocolate, but then confesses that he remembered to ask first. Sure, it was only 10 am, but I had to reward his good behavior with a small handful of M&Ms.

A little bit of chocolate before lunch is definitely a Finer Thing!

Congratulations to Amy on your new addition. I imagine your baby boy is just as gorgeous as your first three children. Hope to see pictures soon!

Getting There

Jen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:23:36 +0000

For the first time in a month, I am caught-up on a few levels…

1) Laundry. When we moved a month ago I had bushels of laundry that I had waited on from the old house because I was busy packing. Finally, the piles upon piles are no longer living in my bathroom. Who knew I had a floor in there?!

2) Dishes. Oh my goodness. For as much as I deeply love my new kitchen and really enjoy spending time in there cooking and baking for my family, I do not like doing dishes. Jason helps out a lot and I try to keep on top of it, but I can finally say that I now have a method which is keeping things under control.

3) My blog reader is EMPTY! I used to be able to stay caught-up on my favorite blogs by reading them through Google Reader on my iPod Touch during the 10-20 minute feeding sessions with Jesse several times a day. Lately he’s been so distractable that I can’t hold my iPod close enough to read. If I hold it within Jesse’s arm’s reach he will catch a glimpse of it and wave his arm around to grab at the shiny thing in my hand. This leads to him unlatching before his meal is finished, wanting to play, and then hungry again 30 minutes later. Not fun. I’ve been keeping tabs on a select few blogs but haven’t commented much. I have to say, though it was nice to have those little bits of time to read something other than Dr Seuss, it is even nicer now to have those bits of the day designated for quiet time. I ask everyone to be quiet and turn off the tv because any noise distracts my little guy. Jesse is so wonderfully social that he wants to be included in everything. In order to get him to nurse well I have to keep everything off and place my hand on the side of his face to cover his ear (which also makes him go to sleep).

I still have a few lingering boxes of miscellaneous things to go through, but I really feel completely unpacked. The stuff in the boxes is mostly just that – stuff. I’m thinking of joining (significantly late) the Declutter Challenge at Amy’s Finer Things. I’m convinced that if I haven’t needed any of it in a month or longer, then I really don’t need it at all. I was determined with this recent move that I would unpack gradually just the things we use instead of opening and emptying every box at once and ending up in a horrible cluttered mess. So far it’s working and I really can’t pinpoint what we’re missing. Jason took a big load of things to Good Will a couple weeks ago and now I’m feeling the itch to pull together a bunch more stuff to make the same journey.

In order to keep my mind off of my numerous messes this past month, I’ve been tinkering with my blog’s design. I am no professional and it still needs work, but I think it looks significantly better than the standard canned design that WordPress gives you to start with. The faces up top are really cute, but I am looking in to getting some nice family photos taken to send to family and I’d like to have our smiling faces on the landing page of my blog.

Another thing I’ve been meaning to do is get my photos organized. A lot of my posts here are “naked” – text without any pictures (like this post). I have loads of pictures, but there is no rhyme or rhythm to their disorganization since Jason and I consolidated to one computer. I need to fix that and start putting some up here.

Lastly, I will make a Household Notebook. I’ve seen lots of posts on several blogs, but FishMama’s posts especially intrigue me. I’ve been menu planning for a couple of years and I maintain a color-coded family calendar on the fridge, but there are many other bits of information involved in the running of my household that are kept up in my head. This doesn’t work for me anymore because I am becoming quite forgetful and when I travel with the boys to California and leave Jason and Uncle Frank here in Alabama, they are left hanging. I need to get myself in gear and make one of those books.

In other words, in some things I am finally caught-up but in other things I’m still getting there.

Chocolate Crescents

Jen — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:00:17 +0000

One word… YUM!

I volunteered to bring the bread to our Mother’s of Preschoolers brunch this morning. I couldn’t bring just a plain old sliced baguette or anything, but we’re feeding roughly 10-15 women (hopefully more someday!) so I need my assignment to be three things: simple, tasty, and inexpensive.

Crescent rolls are one of my favorite breads to pair with a meal, morning, noon, or night. Their buttery flakiness pairs perfectly with whatever you decide to serve them with. But I didn’t want to bring plain crescents. I went to the store and figured that a brilliant idea would hit me at some point.

Well, crescents were on a deep sale last week ($1.68 per roll!) and as I was checking out I noticed that Hershey’s chocolate bars were only 50¢ each! I tossed a few of those into my order and decided that my brilliant simple idea was nearly complete.

Once I got home I had the thought to dress them up just a bit more with a little egg wash and some chunky raw sugar.

Line ‘em up, plunk down a piece of chocolate onto each triangle, and roll ‘em up. So easy.

This step isn’t necessary, but it only takes a minute. Beat up an egg with a couple tablespoons of milk, brush some over the top of each roll, and sprinkle on a bit of sugar. I love Sugar in the Raw, it gives anything such sparkle because it doesn’t just melt into whatever you’re baking like granulated sugar does.

Bake them off as your package instructs. Mine said 11-13 minutes at 375°.

Don’t they look pretty? All golden brown and sparkly on top! You can’t see it now, but there’s a beautiful little melty nugget of chocolate waiting for you inside. Enjoy!

Lastly, how can you beat making 3 dozen dessert breads for just over $10? That’s just the sale prices too, if you are a couponer I bet you could make these for close to free!

Lynchburg Lemonade Tarts

Jen — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 17:12:00 +0000

Wowee! These little suckers certainly pack a punch!

As I mentioned previously, I had some grand plans to create some mojito tarts for a barbeque at my friend Melissia’s house yesterday. My plans were nearly foiled when I realized that amidst our $300 stock-up shopping trip to Sam’s Club (most of that will last us more than a month) I had forgotten to buy the rum and mint necessary to a mojito.

The only alcohol we possess is half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and a variety pack of Mike’s Hard malt beverages. What on earth can I do with that in the dessert realm? Lynchburg Lemonade!

I began with my lemon curd recipe and changed it as follows:

Zest and juice of 2 large lemons
One healthy shot of whiskey (2-3 tablespoons)
1 cup of sugar
4 eggs (room temperature is best, but cold will work)
1/2 cup of melted butter

Combine the zest and sugar. Whisk in the lemon juice and whiskey. Add the eggs and mix well. Slowly incorporate the melted butter, I like using my Kitchenaid with the whisk attachment or a food processor works well.

Cook the mixture over a double boiler until it’s thickened. When I make my usual lemon curd for pie, this takes about 5-10 minutes. Having the alcohol involved increases this time to about 20 minutes.

Allow the curd to cool at room temperature for 20-30 minutes and then move to the refrigerator until completely cooled through (should take a few hours). It should have a loose jelly-like consistency.

While the curd cools, make the tart cups.

1/2 cup softened butter
3 tablespoons softened cream cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups sifted flour
2 tablespoons whiskey (you can substitute vanilla or almond extract if you don’t want to use more alcohol)

Cream the butter, cream cheese, and sugar together. Stir in the whiskey and flour. Chill until firm (about an hour).

Roll the dough into 1/2″ balls (you should get about 36 of them) and press into a greased mini-muffin pan. Bake for 20 minutes until just turning golden brown. The curd recipe makes twice as much as required for the number of cups that you’ll make. You could double the pastry recipe or keep the extra curd in the fridge for up to three weeks.

Allow the cups to cool completely before filling with curd. Enjoy!

I was in a rush getting these out the door to the barbeque yesterday that I forgot to take a photo. Next time I’ll one for sure. They were a big hit at the party!

Breastfeeding Gurus

Jen — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 14:59:02 +0000

Yesterday I woke up with my left breast being swollen bigger than it’s ever been (bigger even than the week after birth and my milk came in *like whoa*). I latched on my boy and was surprised by some searing pain as he fed ravenously for the first time in 8 hours. When he let go I noticed a little white bump on my nipple and since he deflated the left side some I could feel a big hard painful lump in the underside. I mashed around softly and could feel that lump taking up at least a third of my breast and going all the way back to my chest wall. Commence 6 am freakout! I dealt with double mastitis early after Jeremy was born almost four years ago and I really particularly didn’t want to have to go through that again.

Anyway, Jesse went back to sleep as he always does after gorging himself on his early morning pre-breakfast. I began scouring the Breastfeeding sub-forum on Coastie Chicks to find some answers. It was so bad that I couldn’t even rest my left arm against my body. I had to hold it out to the side a little like a chicken wing. I couldn’t hold Jesse with my left arm (where I usually hold him, since I’m right handed) which was incredibly inconvenient.

Everything I was reading led me to believe it was a plugged duct and that the best thing to do would be to keep feeding him from that side as well as gentle massage and warm compresses before feeding. We did just that. For every time I fed him on the right I put him on the left side twice as often. He was getting frustrated after about five minutes on the left side and wouldn’t feed as long, assuming because the clog was keeping him from getting as much milk as usual from that breast. Since the lump was deep in the left underside, the football hold especially helped because his little chin was pointed toward the lump and basically massaged it as he fed. We don’t normally do it football style, we prefer cross-cradle, so Jesse was kind of confused when I set him up this way a few times throughout the day.

At one point in the early afternoon it got worse because half a days worth of milk was now added behind the clog and I was hurting pretty badly. I took a nice warm shower and rubbed the hell out of that side. The shiatsu masseuse I used to see had nothing on my mad skills yesterday. I was getting in deep, rubbing down to the ribcage!

During his after-dinner feeding around 7:00 I could tell that the lump had shrunk some. Thank goodness! I thought that if I slept lightly I’d be able to keep myself from rolling onto my left side and tomorrow we’d be able to work on it some more. Jesse woke up from his post-dinner cat nap and was starving, so I skipped his bath (which we normally do around then) and fed him from the left again. I can distinctly remember when I felt the clog clear. It was like a second let-down from just the one side (I usually let down on both sides at once no matter which I’m feeding from). Jesse unlatched and gave me this bewildered look, smiled, and I could see all of this extra-thick creamy milk in his mouth. He latched back on and went after that boob like I’d never seen. I was kind of taken aback. I’ve never been “motor-boated” by my son before, it was funny and a little weird. He stretched his neck toward me, mashed my breast with his free hand, and moved his little face back and forth.

When he was done he popped off and laid back on the boppy pillow with this fully satiated grin, milk dribbling from the side of his mouth, and huge round belly straining the snaps of his pajamas. Jason took him to his crib and I started feeling around – the lump was gone! The clog and the pain were both completely relieved! Jason was laughing at me because I was bouncing a little on the bed telling him over and over how “Oh my God, honey, it’s gone!”

Thank you everyone who contributes regularly to the breastfeeding threads on my beloved Coastie Chicks. Special shout-outs to Becca, Sue, Sarah, and Yogini (sorry, I do not know her real name). I figured that if the clog was still giving me issues after a day of working at it that I’d go back and post some questions of my own, but there is already such a wealth of knowledge there that all it took was reading through some existing threads to find the answers I needed. Those ladies are fabulous and wonderful and all the good adjectives that I cannot think of right now because I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude. If I could, I’d send them all some big huge bouquets of flowers: Love you!!

_____________

Even though I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting three of the four women I mentioned above, they are all near and dear to my heart because anytime a mom has a breastfeeding question they are always spot-on with their advice. Having knowledgeable people willing to help even though you’ve never met in real life is certainly a Finer Thing!

Gratituesday – Coastie Chicks

Jen — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:39:25 +0000

Today’s post is two things: a simple “thanks for being there” and a little plug for one of my favorite websites.

As I’ve mentioned before, my husband is in the Coast Guard. He’s an AMT2, which means he’s a second-class Aviation Maintenance Technician. Though it might sound like he’s basically a mechanic, he does many things. From getting dirty in the maintenance shop, to being the watch captain (shift supervisor), to hopping on one of the planes and going on a search-and-rescue mission down here in the Gulf of Mexico, to standing the occasional duty night where he sleeps at work instead of home just in case they need him.

I love my husband so very much and we as his family are willing to follow him anywhere that the Coast Guard decides to relocate him. However, following him means leaving behind friends and family and plunking ourselves down in a new city amongst a bunch of people we’ve never met. Jason can quickly acclimate to the new work scene because the Coast Guard does things almost exactly the same at every base. Families don’t have it as easy. Sure, there are wonderful spouses clubs which often times set up play groups and the bases sponsor family days and picnics throughout the year, but what do I do on a day-to-day basis when I can’t just call up my mom or best buddies to chat because they are many time zones away and for them it’s not even dawn yet?

For those times I have my Coastie Chicks.

Our PCS (permanent change of station) together last summer was the first time I had moved a significant distance from everyone I knew. I’ve always lived within 30 miles of my family and friends. We’re now about 2,700 miles and three time zones from them. I was excited for this adventure in the South, but nervous. I’ve never been very outgoing and wondered what I’d do for friends for me and friends for my children. Sure, I can relish in my newfound love of being a stay-at-home mom, but we can’t possibly remain inside and keeping to ourselves all the time! I figured I would eventually wander out and find some people to befriend. But then we’d just end up leaving them too when we PCS again in a few years.

Then Jason came home from work one day during his first week at work and told me about Coastie Chicks. Another new guy heard about this site from his wife (**Hi Tracy!**), passed the word on to Jason, who then passed it on to me. Wow, was I ever grateful! Patty Wilson (“Mama Chick” as we often call her) runs it; the base site is incredibly informative and there is a discussion forum where I have found lovely friends, neighbors, and an amazing wealth of BTDT (been there, done that) advice. I can go on there and find answers to any question I could possibly have about not only life as a Coast Guard spouse, but also information about any base we could be stationed at, neighborhoods, new rules, etcetera. One of my favorite sections is the Local Events area for our district. This is where we post goings-on and such. Last October I saw a posting there from a local spouse (**Hi Melissia!**) offering a bar-be-que at her house. I had never met most of the people attending and normally I wouldn’t go to a party with a bunch of folks I don’t know. But we went, and we had a great time. Since then I have befriended many more Coastie Chicks, our kids are friends, our spouses are friends, and we get together all the time.

Without my Coastie Chicks (both the website and the ladies who are members) I’d be quite lost in this new place. This past year has been absolutely wonderful when it could have been quite lonely. I love ya’ll and while I am sad about someday leaving the fantastic Chicks here in the Mobile area, I look forward to meeting so many more in all of the other cities we may move to in the future.

If you are a spouse of a Coastie or know someone who is, please pass this link on to them. The Coast Guard is the smallest of the American armed forces and we often get lost in the shuffle. Many CG bases no longer offer housing to families and you may not be lucky enough to find a neighborhood out in the city where many Coastie families live. Pop on over to Coastie Chicks and join the fun!

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Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Menu Plan: 8-9-10

Jen — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:26:03 +0000

This should be a great week and I’m looking forward to trying a few new recipes….

Monday – Balsamic Thyme Chicken with carrots and homemade Rice-a-Roni.

Tuesday – Homemade pizza.

Wednesday – Jamaican beef patties and fries.

Thursday – Lemon pepper chicken with garlic parmesan pasta.

Friday – Group barbeque at a friend’s house. My potato cheese casserole has been requested and I’m going to do some experimenting with my lemon curd recipe. My friend Jay and I had a delicious discussion on Facebook about the lime bars I made and he had the brilliant idea to turn them into mojito bars by adding a little rum. He beat me to the punch and made margarita bars yesterday, I think I’m going to go my own way and make some mojito tarts. Yum!

Saturday – Chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Sunday – Jeremy’s home!! We’re taking him out to one of his favorite places, which you can’t get in California, Waffle House!

_________________

As usual, I’m linking up to Menu Planning Monday over at Org Junkie’s place. I love going through all those links!

Learning to Customize

Jen — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:40:17 +0000

Little by little I’m learning how to customize my little ol’ blog here.

Aside from the writing I’ve done, I’m getting some things done on the back-end. So far I’ve successfully:

Changed my theme from Word Press Classic to Atahualpa (loving it, by the way).
Installed some very helpful plug-ins.
Changed a bunch of settings within my theme to make it look and function a little more to my liking.
Completely re-did my categories.
Learned to use FTP (what a headache!). :O
Implemented some advertisement spots (not that I’ve made any money from them yet).
Made a button to link to a website/forum that I love to pieces and spend FAR too much time on everyday.
I also played around with Picnik to make a simple header. I kinda like the cartoon faces, it’ll do for now until I get a really good family photo to use instead.

Go ahead and poke around for a bit. Let me know what you like or don’t like. Are there any features that I should start using? Any changes I should make? I’m open to constructive criticism.

Jesse’s Game

Jen — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:36:37 +0000

We’re playing a little game this week. It’s called “Starving Baby”. Usually Jesse will eat for a solid 10-15 minutes, unlatch, and we’ll pop him into his swing or highchair to hang out while I do stuff. Every now and then though, he’ll fall asleep but continue dream-feeding for a while. Normally I relish in the 30 minutes to an hour that it sometimes takes to feed my boy; sometimes I fall asleep too and we take a little nap together. Nice!

However, we just moved into a new house. About 75% of what we own is still in boxes throughout the house. I haven’t gotten to do much unpacking because my sweet little baby has decided that he is absolutely starving yet very sleepy. He is convinced that he is starving every hour or two and then falls asleep and dream-feeds each time I nurse him. Basically that means I’m sitting on my butt on my couch for half the day. Another quarter of the day is spent cooking and attempting to keep my half-boxed kitchen clean. And the last quarter of the day is spent sleeping and bathing and occasionally leaving the house.

Dear Jesse,

I really really love the special one-on-one time I get while feeding you, but we are tired of living out of boxes and the laundry pile is astronomical. Please go back to your quick feedings once in a while so that I can wash us some underwear, get rid of these boxes, and bake us some lemon bars. Thanks ever so much!!

Love,
Mama