I must be jinxed.

Last week our television quit. It suddenly went black right while I was watching. It still had sound, but no picture. Of course it is JUST out of warrantee. I've called the local repair place but haven't been able to speak to an actual person. Maybe the guy who runs it is busy making repairs? But no luck even on getting an estimate of how much it would cost to fix.

Then today, I had some errands to run in Lexington. It was a beautiful sunny, breezy day. Perfect weather. Scott had wanted to take the kids to his mom's house so we traded cars. His car doesn't have enough room for all four of them. He headed south, and I headed north in his car. I did all my shopping, then turned around to head home. And at one of the intersections his car stalled and died. And it would not start. Of course the traffic was flying up behind me and swerving at the last minute to avoid me and scaring me to death. Finally someone stopped to help me push it out of the road. There was no way I was going to try and push it out by myself since that would have meant standing beside the car to steer while pushing. The traffic was way too scary for that. I had my cell phone and called Scott. He was of course at his mom's house, hours away. But he called a friend who came to pick me up. Then he called a different friend who had a roll-back truck that could carry the dead car home. We still have no idea what's wrong with it. I hope it's cheap to fix, though. If not, we won't be able to afford it.

On the plus side, if I had to be stuck at the side of the road for an hour, it was at least a nice day to be outside.

Meal planning

Well, I've never been a big believer in meal planning. At least, not for our family. In the first place, our lives are very unscheduled. I try hard to keep things organized, but Scott doesn't work a nine to five job, and even when he did he always had a variety of other obligations that meant that I never knew exactly when he was going to be home at the end of the day. And even more difficult than that to overcome is my crazy 3rd-grade taste buds. I have the dietary cravings of an 8 year old. I want the same lunch every day (and HAD the same lunch every day for about 12 years or more), don't like veggies at all, can't stand my foods touching each other... It's nuts. I'm trying hard to expand my choices, and over the years I've been somewhat successful. But even so, I am insanely picky. Add to that that I have a four page list of foods I'm allergic to and you have a real problem with menu planning. So when I look at the monthly meal plans you see in magazines, they're always filled with things that I can't imagine ever wanting to eat.

Of course the problem is that I have a family and even if I can't stand a wide variety, they need it. Scott will eat anything. ANYTHING. 'Possums, skunk, groundhog, rattlesnake, alligator, buffalo, octopus... the list goes on. Whenever our kids were scared of monsters, we'd always reassure them that if a monster did show up, Daddy would put a pat of butter on it's head and swallow it whole. And they always accepted that as a reasonable solution to the problem. Problem solved. Daddy will eat the monster. He eats everything else, so why not?

The kids don't eat quite the same variety that Scott does. Who does? Yet they're much more open to new foods than I am. But whenever life gets hectic or I get sick (and I've been sick all week) somehow we end up having spagetti every night for dinner. It's the fall back food. Zero variety.

So last night I finally caved. I made a list of everything that I like to eat. Then I had Scott and the kids add anything else they could think of to it. I was surprised to realize that there is a lot more variety in our diets than I realized. The problem is not that we don't have any options. There were dozens of things on the list. The problem is that we don't keep the ingredients for those options on hand all the time, or we run out of time to shop or cook. Spagetti is fast. Dinner is ready in 15 minutes. But with a tiny bit of planning we can have other things ready nearly as fast.

So I typed our list onto a spread sheet and broke the foods down into the basic food groups (plus an extra list of casseroles and one course dinners), then printed it off. I also printed a blank monthly calendar and we've spent the past couple of evenings picking out dinner for each weeknight for the next month. Right now, I'm not bothering with breakfasts or lunches because usually that's just Quinn and I. The older three kids all eat at school and I never know if Scott will be home for lunch. Plus Scott is a great cook and more than able to whip himself up a better lunch than I can manage. I'm also not making any weekend plans because I never know if we'll even be home on the weekends. Our extended families both live in the same town about an hour and a half away. We never know which weekends we'll be visiting until the last minute so I feel like it's OK to wait on those plans until we have a little more info.

All in all, I'm happy with the progress. None of the meals are very fancy, and right now I'm happy if there's at least one veggie served and I'm not worrying about keeping it perfectly balanced with low saturated fats and whole grains and organic foods. Anything's got to be better than spagetti 4 nights in a row, right? For me, the goal is to just try to do a bit better than we have been. The rest will come in time.

My minions

Caly recently started calling Zoe her minion. I always thought of a minion as the follower to an evil leader, but when I looked it up for her, this is what I found:

minion  /ˈmɪnyən/ –noun

1. a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power.
2. a favored or highly regarded person.
3. a minor official.
4. dainty; elegant; trim; pretty.
5. a dependent
6. a darling

Word Origin & History

minion
1501, "a favorite; a darling; a low dependant; one who pleases rather than benefits" [Johnson], from M.Fr. mignon "a favorite, darling" (n.), also "dainty, pleasing, favorite" (adj.), from O.Fr. mignot, perhaps of Celt. origin (cf. O.Ir. min "tender, soft"), or from O.H.G. minnja, minna "love, memory." Used without disparaging overtones 16c.-17c.

What does this mean to me? Well... it looks like I can honestly claim to have minions. At least four of them, anyway. I've always wanted minions.

Happy Halloween!

We had such a lovely weekend. The weather didn't want to cooperate. It had rained all Saturday morning. But it cleared off in time for trick-or-treat. We had to have the kids wear some extra layers under their costumes, but it all worked out.

This was an exciting year for our kids. Zaven was away for the weekend with Upward Bound. They went to Columbus, Ohio for two days, to an amazing science museum, and to a live production of Young Frankenstein. Zaven was excited to see the musical because the movie is one of his favorites.

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed to Somerset to visit with relatives and trick-or-treat there. Scott's sister was visiting with her family, so Zoe was thrilled to be able to trick-or-treat with her cousin William, who is just a few years older than she is. It was also a treat for Caly because William's older sister Heather was there. Heather is 20 this year and she and Caly have just started to make a real connection. After they'd helped take the little ones trick-or-treating, we let the two girls walk downtown for some festivities going on there. Caly was really excited to be off on an adventure on Halloween. Because we so often trick-or-treat out of town, she doesn't get to wander with friends and she's missed that feeling of independence and playful mischief that so many of us associate with being a young teenager at Halloween.

Of course the biggest treat this year was Quinn's first fully-aware Halloween. He's dressed up every year but he didn't have any idea what it meant or that there was candy involved. This year he knew that people were doing unusual things and that he was wearing a costume, and he was able to say trick-or-treat and understood that doing so got him candy. He was in seventh heaven. He was not the least bit scared of all the costumes and decorations, and he loved the walking at night and going door to door. He was even patient about waiting until we'd gotten home to dip into his pumpkin basket of candy, and he only took a little prompting to say thank you at each house, although sometimes he said it in Chinese (a trick he learned from the TV show Ni-hao Kilan). At one point in the night he started shouting "Awesome!" after he got his candy. But the kicker was today. He came to give me a tight hug and then stopped to look in my eyes and told me, "I love." Then he hugged me again. "I love." Then he hugged me one more time for all he was worth, stopped and looked in my eyes, "I love Halloween."

Pumpkin shortage

Am I the only one who never heard about the nationwide pumpkin shortage this year? And am I the only one affected? Apparently. But despite the fact that the farm we normally buy from did not have pumpkins this year, we managed to still get a few. But because of having to hunt for a farm with pumpkins we got there much later in the day and by then the sky was overcast. Our pictures are mostly blurry. But the kids had fun and that's what counts, even if we don't have the photos to prove it.

I don't know if you can see it online, but way off in the top of this picture is a little blob. That's Zoe. When they got in the fields, they just took off running and there was no stopping them. Gotta love pumpkin farms!

They are all asleep.

Even Scott is asleep. I love the quiet of the house at night. I stay up late even when I'm tired because I just need the time of calm. I am not a morning person so by the time I get up and start moving and thinking clearly, the house is already loud and busy. But night is an easy time for me. I love the quiet, the air, the stars. I go and sometimes sit on the porch with the cats just to soak it in. And I can read. I hardly ever get to do it with the kids around.

I really have nothing interesting to say. Just that it's quiet and lovely here. I hope it is where you are as well.

Too, too much

Today has been too freaking busy. Zaven had the ACT. Caly and a friend went out with my mom. Zaven had an Upward Bound class after the ACT. Caly's friend came over to our house after they went out with my mom. Zoe and Quinn are both clingy because of getting over being sick. They are both also very loud. Not screaming and yelling loud. Just talking as if I'm mildly deaf. After them sitting in my lap and talking at that volume all day, I may become mildly deaf. Somehow it's 8 at night and we haven't had dinner or fed Caly's friend since she came. Caly just burned dinner. It's salvagable, but the house stinks now. Caly and her friend really want to have a sleepover. All the chores I asked Caly to do yesterday are still not done and I'm not willing to budge this time. Her friend can't spend the night. Today has already lasted too long. I want all the kids fed, the friend taken home, my kids in bed, and the house quiet and clean. Of course there's no chance of that last part. The place is a wreck. But I'm going to do my best to have the rest happen by 9.