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Comfort Food Saturday: For Jennie and Mikey

This week one of our own, Jennifer Perillo, a phenomenal food blogger, lost her husband, Mikey, to a sudden heart attack. He leaves behind Jennie, his soul mate, and their two young daughters.  I cannot even begin to imagine what Jennie and her girls are going through right now.  The Twitter-verse quickly became abuzz with requests of "What can we do?" Jennie answered with this heartbreakingly beautiful post.  At the end, she asks that, as a tribute to her husband and family, we all join together and bake Mikey's favorite dessert--a creamy peanut butter pie.  Bloggers all over the place joined together on Friday to bake a pie in honor of this man most of us never had the pleasure of meeting.  We can't do peanut butter around here (Dean has a sensitivity), but we took the sentiment to heart and baked our favorite dessert--tea cakes.  Standing over our favorite mixing bowl, my hands next to my son's tiny fingers in the dough, I said a prayer of comfort for Jennie and her family and a tearful prayer of thanks for all I have.  Please, if you want to leave a comment, click the link above and leave it for Jennie. She could use all the love we can send her way right now.

 
 
Click on this post at Food 52 to see the outpouring of love.

Rockin' The Baby

Shell over at Things I Can't Say is hosting a fun link-up called Rockin' The Baby.  I went through my photos and selected a few of my favorites from Dean's baby days to share with all of you.

Here we see Dean in an adorable hat made especially for him by my friend Angelina:

 
Don't you wish you could sleep like that?

Or this?

 
How 'bout that hat?  Marcus insisted that Dean wear a hat at all times when we brought him home from the hospital. Sure it was January, but our apartment was about 400 degrees, hence the short-sleeved onesie.  This hat earned him the nickname "Gangsta Dean."

Speaking of Marcus, he just glanced over and asked why I'd chosen 2 pictures of Dean sleeping, since, honestly, these may be the only moments Dean slept somewhere other than on one of us during his first 4 months of life. Touche', Marcus Lane, touche'.

Here's one of him in an adorable onesie that reads "Everyone's Favorite."

 
Tiny muffin.

And finally, what very well may be the all-time greatest baby picture ever taken:

 
CHUBBEH!  On the left is my nephew, Adam, who was about 16 months at the time; on the right is Dean, 4 months.  Everyone in our family has framed copies of this shot, and we lovingly call them the Buddah Babies.

Got any cute pictures of your babies?  Link up at Shell's blog!

 

 

On Our Table

I've shared my menu plans here before, but this week seems like a booming success of planning awesomeness, so I thought I'd let you know what we're eating up in here!  I generally do the bulk of my grocery shopping at Publix. They have great Buy-1-Get-1-Free deals, almost always including things I really need, like apple juice or pasta.  They also double coupons up to 50cents and have the best produce in town.  Their meat prices, however are H I G H, so I do my meat shopping at our smaller "local" stores, the Piggly Wiggly and Lucky's Foodland.  For less than $20 at the Pig, I bought a huge family pack of chicken breasts, a big pack of thick-cut pork chops and a 1.6 pound package of ground beef.  Combined with the rest of the stuff we bought at Publix (which included some non-food items, like parchment paper and Drano, plus some "Stock-up" items like salad dressing and soy sauce), we spent less than $100 at the grocery store this week.

Here's our menu plan:

Sunday:  Grilled teriyaki pork chops with rice and grilled asparagus.

Monday:  Grilled chicken Caesar salads (We are seeing a pattern with the grilled-ness, yes?)

Tuesday:  Pork fried rice (2 grilled (!) pork chops with veggies like bean sprouts, carrots, peas and leeks)  **I did the math (!) and this meal cost us $2.02 per serving.

Wednesday:  Grilled chicken breasts with baked potatoes and kale.

Thursday: Lasagna because MAN are we gonna be sick of pork and chicken! Also garlic bread. Possibly grilled.

Dean and I are heading to my mom and dad's for the weekend and Marcus has a crazy bunch of work commitments Friday through Sunday, so our grill will be neglected for a few days.

 

What are you eating this week?

 

Gratitude

First of all, OMG, I'm posting on two consecutive days! Over the shock? Fantastic.

Molly had a great post today about finding happiness. It reminded me of something I've done over the years, on and off, called a Gratitude Journal.  There have been times in my life when I've sworn by gratitude journals and I've even been known to give them as gifts.  Whenever I'm having trouble seeing the silver lining on a particular set of clouds, I buy myself a blank journal and start writing down five things each day that I'm grateful for right at that moment.  They can be big things like my health, my family, my job, or small things like seeing a pretty flower in the park, filling up at the cheapest gas station in town or eating a Hershey's Special Dark.  Coffee also frequently appears on my lists.  I prefer to write my entries at the end of the day so that I go to bed with a smile on my face. I find that no matter how crummy my day has been, I can always find five things to be grateful for an that those things have the power to change my perspective drastically.

Today I'm thankful for:
1.  My friend Tanya. We had lunch then went shopping this afternoon. We also had frozen yogurt. I like Tanya a lot.

2.  A 2-show day at a job I love doing a play I enjoy watching over and over again.

3.  My grey pants. My mercy, they are comfy.

4.  Inside jokes.  They are just such fun sometimes.

5.  Blog comments on yesterday's post. I've missed you lovely people.

What are you grateful for today?

A new year

2010 was a great year.  I watched my son grow and change in ways that have blown my mind. I went back to work outside the walls of academia and settled into myself, proving I COULD be both a mom and a stage manager.  I've watched my husband work and  fish and smile and enjoy being a dad and it's made our marriage stronger.  Together, we made the sensible yet difficult decision not to expand our family and took care of things in a permanent way.  I almost lost my mom, and now I thank God every day for the "almost" part.  I cooked and baked and listened and laughed. I found a great new home online, an amazingly fun creative outlet, where I'm surrounded by some great, like-minded foodies.  I traveled "home" to NYC. I met so many friends who had previously just lived in images online. I finally lost the baby weight.

Most importantly, after three years of craziness, including a pregnancy, a child, some health issues, a major relocation and professional redefinition, I found myself again  in 2010.  I'm so ready to take 2011 by the horns. I can't wait to see what's in store for my little family.

Here's my top To Do's for 2011:

• Learn  to make killer guacamole
• Bake a Buzz and Woody cake for Dean's third birthday
• Come to grips with the fact that OMG my baby is THREE (but not til next Wednesday)
• Visit friends and/or host them in my home
• Go on more dates with my husband
• Meet more blog friends
• Nurture all my friendships
• Take a trip with my parents
• Spend one week eating nothing but fresh foods
• Quit drinking Coke Zero I totally changed my mind about that one. Already.
• Teach someone how to do something. (I'm not picky)
• Get my engagement ring repaired so I can wear it again
• Have a completely clean house, even if it's only for a day. Ok, an hour. (Baby steps, you know.)

What are  your goals for the new year?

Happy 2011, friends!

 

 

 

Oh what a tangled interweb we weave

Every once in a while I take a moment to say a very sincere thanks to God that the internet was not really all that useful while I was in school.  Sure, I had email in college, but I maybe checked it once per semester. I'm not sure anyone really knew my email address, mostly because it was sooooo long.  Seriously. It was something like [email protected].  giveusyourfirstbornandwewillgiveyouyourmail.com.

(I am more amused than you can possibly image by the fact that I just had to manually remove an automatic hyperlink from that monstrosity!)

Anywho, I remember enough about what my teenaged and young adult-aged self was like to know this:  I would have been a disaster on the internet.  Sure, it would have made research for school a lot easier, though I wouldn't give up my mad encyclopedia-using skillz for anything, but the social side of it would have kicked my butt.  I would have been one of those people who "said too much" in her status updates.  And don't even get me started on Twitter.  I'm pretty sure I would have put my entire heart, soul and mind out there and it would more than likely have resulted in some comments that broke my heart and spirit and caused me to become a hermit.

Fortunately, by the time I started using the internet on a daily basis, I was in my mid-20's and holding down my first real job.  Also fortunate is the fact that as a stage manager, I generate a ton of electronic and paper communication, much of which is sensitive in nature, so everything I say is very calculated.  Tone is extremely hard to convey in writing sometimes, so word choice is uber-important.  This little lesson has saved me much anguish in this day and age of constant status updates, microblogging and the like.  Before I hit post, I always read and re-read what I've written, taking into consideration who might see it and what conclusions they might draw from it. 

One thing Marcus and I try to drive home to our students and young proteges is the fact that something as innocent as a status update or tweet can play a big role in your life and career.  One of the first things I do when I get a new cast list or find out the name of a new assistant is google them or, at the very least, search them on Facebook.  (I would be shocked if they didn't do the same to me.)  While you're in college, it may seem fun to post crazy pictures of all your Friday night antics. Those of you who are my Facebook friends may have scrolled through my photos and seen lots of pictures of me dressed like a cow for a Halloween party in college or dancing the night away in high school.  And I think that's fine. It shows a bit of my personality and those pictures are not anything I'm ashamed of.  Know what I un-tagged?  Pictures of me attending a white trash party while working summer stock.  Now those, my friends, were some fabulous pictures, and I'll admit that it hurt a part of me to remove them. However, potential employers, particularly those of the academic variety, do not need to see my four-months-pregnant self dressed in a red terrycloth jumpsuit, bra straps a-flyin', sporting a hat that says, "Dixie Darlin."  Some things are better left inside old-fashioned photo albums that can be closed and locked away in a closet.

One of the biggest pitfalls for young folks today is tweeting about work.  Something crazy may be going on that you just NEED to get out. But is Twitter really the best place to air your dirty laundry?  What if the person you're talking about (especially if it's your supervisor) happens upon that tweet?  Would it then be worth the 5 minutes of satisfaction and possible replies you got from saying it online in the first place?  Instant gratification from things like Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging are HUGELY important to this generation of young adults and that's something I have to remain aware of as an educator. I'm also an awfully big fan of that whole Freedom of Speech thing. However, I cringe every time I see a tweet that says something like, "God, I hate my job. Only 3 hours left in this horrible place.  Can't this skanky woman pour her OWN coffee?"  Could you not just THINK that to yourself, rather than putting it out there for the entire world, a world which includes the skanky woman asking you for coffee?

I really have no idea what made  me feel like I needed to hop up on the ol' soapbox about this today, but it's something I find both fascinating and slightly dangerous.  I think steps need to be taken, maybe as early as middle school, to educate kids about using social media in a smart way.  I absolutely plan to talk about all these things with Dean when he starts using the internet in 25 years. (25 because I think he should be internet savvy a few years before he starts dating, you see.)

What are your thoughts?  Are you more on the "It's my Twitter and I'll say what I want to" kind of person or are you all about calculating what you say like me?

Countdown to BlogHer10: Packing

Yes, I realize I don't leave for 23 days, but I'm already thinking through what to pack for BlogHer '10.  My mom and dad were here this weekend and I showed my mom what I was thinking of wearing. She's never been to NYC or BlogHer, but she thought my choices were good. (Thanks, Mom.)  I've read some great guides and posts about what others wear and I think the best advice I've read has been to dress in something that's comfortable yet professional.  It is a conference, after all.  I'll be networking all weekend, granted for myself and my own little site here, but I still want to convey a professional attitude.  So I've decided to dress as I would for the first day of rehearsal for a new show.  I'll wear things that are practical, yet stylish, comfortable, yet show my personality.

The biggest challenge for me is going to be the fact that I'm not staying at the convention hotel, but rather with a friend in my old neighborhood in Queens.  I don't mind the commute and I certainly don't mind all the cash I'm saving by not having a hotel room.  That said, I'll have to plan for outfits I can change into in the bathroom or maybe the Serenity Suite. (Unless a blog friend offers me use of her room to change, or I could always call up a friend in Manhattan and drop by their apartment, I suppose.)  Either way, I need my stuff to be portable and easy to care for, especially since I more than likely won't have access to an iron in the middle of the day.  I'm bringing Dean's small rolling suitcase, which should be compact enough not to kill me on the subway, but big enough to hold my laptop, camera, makeup and a change of clothes.

My packing list is starting to shape up. Here are my thoughts about what to bring:

• Laptop with all its accouterments.
• Camera--I'm going to try to talk Marcus into letting me bring his Olympus camera because it's 1000000 times nicer than my point-and-shoot.  I not only want to take pictures of the conference, but of my IRL friends and favorite places in the city. Plus, there are some awesome breakout sessions about photography for your blog, so I'd like to have the camera with me so I can fiddle with it while learning new tricks!
• Cute dress for parties that will go with the shoes I wear to the conference that day.
• Regular AND travel makeup bags.  The regular one will be what I use in the morning, then I'll bring my travel-sized one with me for touch-ups throughout the day. (Yes, I'm that vain.)
• Priority Mail flat-rate box.  I'll use this to mail my swag home to myself!
• Snacks.  I keep hearing how hungry you get (and I believe it!), so I'm packing my favorite trail mix: almonds, craisins and M & Ms.  If you sit next to me, I'll share with you.
• Business cards.  I'm ordering mine from Vistaprint.com.
• Clothes:  khaki pants, jeans, a couple of dresses, blouses/t-shirts, pj's, yoga pants (not for BlogHer), super-comfy (but cute) shoes, sunglasses, rain slicker, rain boots if they fit into the bag, shorts or capris for Sunday and Monday.

Fortunately, I spent several years navigating the subway with everything from luggage to giant binders for work to a baby stroller, so I know what I can and can't handle on the train. I'm putting cab fare in my budget for at least Saturday night, since I'll be coming home late from CheeseburgHer and hopefully toting lots of cool swag.

If you're going or have gone to BlogHer in the past, what did you pack that was a life-saver?  Anything you wish you'd packed, but didn't?  Be sure to let me know if you're going this year--I want to meet you!

Round Here

I'm always fascinated by blog posts that tell how people REALLY live. I like to hear other people's menu plans, cleaning tips, family schedules and the like.  A lot of times, I'll get a great idea or two, or at least see that YES! there are other people out there like me! Or different from me, which is really what makes life interesting, right?  So in the interest of keeping it real, allow me to give you a little peek into some seemingly ordinary parts of my household.  Then you share something with me in the comments section so I don't feel like a weirdo, ok?  Great!

*I use generic dish washing detergent, usually Up and Up brand. (Target)  I tried every single product Cascade manufactures, both with and without rinse agent, and it left my dishes so gunky that I often had to run another cycle just to get the detergent off.  One day I had a coupon for the Target brand, so I figured why not? I guess I can afford to lose a couple of bucks if I hate it.  I do not hate it.  It is lemony fresh and rinses off very well.  This is all because we have a genuinely crappy dishwasher.  It broke about a month after we moved into the house, then miraculously resurrected itself 4 months later.  But it still leaves spots on my glasses.  Boo.

*I am a complete and utter toilet paper snob.  So is my husband. I even turned a roommate into a TP snob once upon a time.  My preferred brand is Quilted Northern, but Charmin Basic is also acceptable.  I will use Cottonelle only if it is on major sale and I have a coupon or if I can't find my first and second choice.

*We make coffee at least twice a day and Marcus has started drinking decaf at night. This means I have started drinking decaf at night. In fact, we even have a separate little container of decaf, complete with its own special scoop.  I used to think decaf was for wimps and senior citizens, but now I kind of get it.

*I once won a year's worth of free Dreft Detergent.  I know, you hate me now.  So I guess this is a bad time to mention they also gave me a year's worth of Huggies, huh?  It's true.  File under "One of the Top Ten Blessings I've Ever Received."  Anywho, since I spent over a year not paying for Dreft, I now get annoyed when I do have to pay for it.  I've tried other baby detergents, but they don't smell like Dreft.  And, let's be honest, Dean's skin could erupt in angry eczema patches with the slightest change in products, so why tempt fate and switch at this point? But, oh, how I wish I had some more of those FREE coupons.  Every time we're almost out of Dreft, I sit with my sale papers, seeing who can save me the most pennies. And I NEVER have even a 50 cents off coupon, so I'm paying full price.  It makes me sad.

*I don't wash my hair every day. If I do, it gets oily on top and dry on the bottom.  I have to blow-dry or else I have a frizzy mess to contend with, and we can't have that.

*I absolutely could not live without my Dust Buster handi-vac.  Mine's a wet/dry variety, perfect for sucking up Cheerios that Dean leaves trailing behind him as he passes through the house, or soggy coffee grounds when Marcus misses the trash can when he's throwing out the coffee filter. (I can't really get mad at him for this because it means he's making the coffee.) 

*I do menu plans, but only for dinner.  This inevitably leads to Dean being in charge of choosing what we have for lunch, which means we eat a lot of cheese tortellini, peas and fruit.

*Between the two of us, Marcus and I own about 13 pairs of tweezers, but we only use 2 of them.  He has a very pointy pair that's like 20 years old and I have a pair that lights up.  These are very important when you have a house full of unibrows.

*I'm the only one allowed to fold towels in our family because no one else does it right.

*I'm pretty sure Dean just ate an apple seed. Do you think a tree will grow out of his ear?  That would be sort of cool.

*We like to drink OJ from wine glasses.

*There is not a single wall clock in our house. This is due to my utter hatred of ticking.  Ticking clocks cause a gag reflex in me similar to the one that happens if I try to swallow oatmeal.

*We subscribe tothe Birmingham newspaper on Sundays and Wednesday only, mostly for the coupons and the food section.

*We bought a new truck (well, new to us) yesterady, OMGGGaaaah. More on that later.

Ok, tell me some quirks of your household!

GIVEAWAY from CSN stores

I hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing Mother's Day weekend.  I come to you this week with an amazing opportunity.  The good folks at CSN Stores have made me a Preferred Blogger and offered to host a fantastic giveaway for my readers!  New to CSN? They are the host of over 200 sites selling everything from computer desks to baby furniture, cookware to shoes to luggage to BBQ grills...pretty much anything you need!  Last year, I held a giveaway hosted by CSN's site cookware.com and Amanda won an awesome mandolin slicer. This year, they're offering me $60 to spend as I see fit.  Know what I'm going to do? I'm going to spend $30, write a review of the product I buy, then give YOU the other $30!  Their sites have so many great items that $30 will go a long way.  I have my eye on this toy box for my two-year-old.

GIVEAWAY:

Want to win your very own $30 gift certificate to spend any way you see fit at any of CSN's 200 + sites?  Here's what you need to do to enter:

(*Mandatory) Visit CSN Stores and tell me in the comments section how you'd spend your $30. 

FOR BONUS ENTRIES:

• Sign up for CSN deal alerts and leave a comment telling me you've done so!
• Follow me on Twitter. (or let me know if you already do)
• Tweet this giveaway.
• Subscribe to my blog.

A winner will be chosen on Monday, May 17, 2010.  Don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity! Many thanks to CSN Stores for making this giveaway happen!

Disclaimer:  CSN Stores provided $60 in gift certificates to me  free of charge in exchange for this post and a review post, featuring my opinion, of the product I purchase.

Whoa, we're halfway there

NaNaBloPop is halfway done! (That's Jenspeak for NaBloPoMo or National Blog Posting Month.)  Turns out I'm glad I decided to give it another go this year. One thing I've learned this year has been not to put too much pressure on myself as far as blog posting goes.  If I've got something to say, I say it, whether it's approximately the length of a book of the Old Testament or just a paragraph.  After BlogHer this summer, a lot of people did a lot of re-evaluating where their blogs were concerned.  Ads came down, giveaways decreased, product reviews came to a screeching halt and a lot of people went back to bare bones blogging.  My blog has always been just that. Sure, I've done an occasional giveaway and I'm certainly not above plugging my other writing gig over at Foodie Mama, but mostly, this place is for me.  I chronicle my life here and I share things with all of you.  My entries often lead to fantastic email banter between some of us.  The internet community is what keeps me writing.

The NaBloPoMo site offers themes for each month except November.  I have to admit, there have been months where I've thought "Hey! Maybe this is the month I'll give it a go!" only to receive the theme in my inbox and change my mind. It's usually something like "Giving" or "Growing."  I'm sure I could crank out a week or so worth of posts on those, but I fear they would bore me after a few days.  I wish they'd do a month where the theme was food.  I'm pretty sure I could nail that one.  Or "Stupid Stuff I Do On A Weekly Basis."  I could fill two months worth of entries.  "Stuff I've Dropped" would be another good one. My mom could do several guest posts that month.  Or what about "Guess What Type of Food Debris Is On My Toddler's Face" month?  That would be all picture posts, of course.  Dude, they should hire ME to think up the themes.

Got any NaNaBloPop theme suggestions?