One Minute Muffin Recipe

     I haven’t been taking the best care of myself the past few weeks. I’m on a deadline for a new cookbook and the dirty little secret of cookbook writers is that while you’re recipe testing you eat really, really well, but when you’re actually writing? You eat lots of fast food and consume litters of chocolate bunnies.

I guess I should clarify that by saying that You means Me. I’m sure there are some better disciplined people who would never eat a chocolate bunny.

I seem to not be that person.

Anyway, I’ve begun to emerge from my sugar coma and have fallen in love with the One Minute Muffin. It’s not a crockpot recipe.

Instead, it’s healthy, inexpensive (after you buy the flax meal), packed with fiber, and low-carb. My kids will tolerate them, but aren’t falling over themselves to eat one. They still prefer chocolate to One Minute Muffins. They also still have ridiculously high metabolisms…

The Ingredients:

1/4 cup flax meal

1 egg

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon (not pictured, sometimes I use pumpkin pie seasoning)

1 1/2 teaspoons sweetener, I use honey

1 tablespoon fresh or frozen blueberries (or smashed banana, shredded apple, etc)

hearty coffee mug sprayed with cooking oil

microwave

The Directions:

 Put the first 6 ingredients in a large glass measuring cup or bowl, and whisk to combine. No need to melt the butter or get it to dissolve–if it’s still in a clump, it’s okay. Mostly try to get the baking powder evenly dispersed. Now stir in the blueberries or whatever fruit you’re using. Pour into a greased coffee mug and microwave on high for 1 minute.  Let it sit for a bit, then pour onto a plate; or you can just eat it out of the mug with a spoon. The butter will have melted and made a tiny bit of a “sauce” with the melted blueberries. YUM.

The Verdict:

This is a pretty customizable recipe; feel free to swap out the honey with splenda, agave, brown sugar, etc. There isn’t a drop of flour, making this a naturally gluten free muffin, and if you use non dairy butter it could certainly be dairy-free and I’m imagining an egg-replacer would work okay. If you change up the ingredients and it works, let me know!

It tastes good. Not oh-my-gosh-this-is-the-best-muffin-ever, but actually pretty good considering it’s made completely out of flax meal and has just a tiny bit of sweetener. You can certainly junk it up by adding lots of sugar and more oil, but it’s really actually pretty good just like this. I like that the flax has so much fiber and the egg has a nice shot of protein so if I eat this along with my morning coffee I’m pretty sustained until lunch time.

have a great day, and enjoy your muffin!

 

A Review of Kiwi Crate Art Projects for Kids

 

Spring Break and Summer Vacation are sneaking up on me. We’ve got Spring Break the week leading into Easter, and then have another day off to recover from the holiday. That’s 6 days of me being home with all three kids that I’ve got to figure out how to fill so I’m not subjected to days upon days of Netflixed episodes of The Wizards of Waverly Place or (#someonepleasehelpme) Caillou.
[side bar: did you know there was an I Hate Caillou page on Café Mom? Hysterical.]

Anyhow, when BlogHer asked if I’d test out the subscription-based Kiwi Crate art box, I said #yespleaseandthankyou right away.
[another side bar: I had this as a work-from-home business idea back in 2003. I was going to call them Preschool Packets and make up worksheets and art projects and sell them online, and on Ebay. I think I have a domain name or two that I'm still paying for...]

My idea was complete amateur hour compared to the Kiwi Crates. This is a very well designed and executed product. I initially thought the art boxes were kind of pricey at $19.95 each, but once I saw what they entailed, I changed my mind.

The “crate” is a thick cardboard box–the kind a really expensive pair of shoes comes in-and the kind that my kids COVET for all of their collections (more often than not the “collection” is gum wrappers, or Popsicle sticks, or soda can tabs. #Icantevenexplainhowmuchthisannoysme) and the art supplies are wrapped in tissue paper.

The presentation worked on my kids–they were instantly excited and could hardly wait to dig in.

Our box contained three art projects: a stained glass mosaic, a color-your-own spinning top, and a canvas art bag that was colored by wetting tissue paper squares with a water dropper. Totally cool. The box also contained two bluntish Fiskars kid scissors, markers, and 3-D glasses.

We invited our neighbors over, and pulled out some construction paper and stickers to keep the babies busy. I had 2 seven-year-olds, a ten-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 2-year-old all sharing the supplies from this box (along with the aforementioned stickers and paper for the little guys).

The kids worked straight for about an hour, and really enjoyed themselves. The markers were small and were a bit dried out; so I replaced them with our own Crayola washables.

All the kids occupied themselves long enough for my friend Jen and me to make and enjoy two cups of coffee. And gossip conversation.

That is so worth $19.95.

Also, we have enough leftover for a few more collage projects, and the kids are enjoying the canvas art bags (good quality; the baby put in a bunch of pointy rocks and dragged it around outside) and the Fiskars scissors will last a life time.

If I wanted to buy everything at Michael’s and put this together myself I’d spend more than the $20 and would have to prep everything–not something I’m honestly going to do.

I really like this as a gift idea. I’m going to see if I can get the grandparents on board and get an annual subscription for the kids for Christmas this year. I think the kids will get a kick out of opening a new box with a new activity/project each month and the anticipation of awaiting a new arrival. They really like mail as it is.

In the mean time, I’m going to sign up to get us through the summer months. We’re laying low again-I hate paying for lots of activities, and I really like having the kids home with me, even if they argue and bicker more than I’d like them to. (socialization! in action!)

And the projects are cool. My tweenager (#notmymostfavoriteterm) was all into the art supplies, and I can definitely see her and her friends working on these types of art activities together out in the yard.

Before they head off to middle school next year.

Which isn’t okay with me.

I wonder if Kiwi Crate has some sort of time machine project where I can have the kids on “pause” for a while?

Pinterest and Feelings of Inadequacy

I admit it. I got sucked into the Pinterest bubble. I find this site *fascinating.* I’m fascinated by how quickly it’s grown, what a monumental force it is in driving web traffic, and how it’s such a colossal waste of time.

fascinating. utterly fascinating.

I must admit, though, that there is definitely a feeling of anxiety and insecurity when it comes to Pinterest. It’s easy to feel that if you aren’t already engaging in the site you’ve missed the boat (not true), or if you are on the site that you aren’t doing it “right.” Again, not true.

I did a little work for BlogHer this week. I spoke on a social media and how it effects women’s commerce panel, and wrote a little fluff piece on how Pinterest is a big traffic driver and shouldn’t be ignored. I still feel that way–this site should not be ignored.

I stayed away for quite a while (I joined last month at the encouragement from an IRL friend) because I was scared to get sucked into yet another THING. I’m kind of tired of having to “check just one more thing” before logging off the computer.

And then I started tracking my google analytics and realized that this THING was driving a crapload (technical term) of traffic my way. Pinterest is now my #2 traffic driver to the slow cooker site (after google) – I easily get thousands of hits a day from it. This isn’t someTHING to ignore.

(embarrassing disclosure: I’m not a typical BlogHer member. I’m a very late adopter to technical things. My slowcooker url is still on blogspot, I don’t have a facebook account, I was late to join twitter, and I don’t own a smart phone).

That said: If you aren’t on Pinterest yet, I’m going to boldly suggest that you poke around a bit, and create an account—even if you’re just doing so to claim your name. To see what from your site has been “pinned,” type the following into your browser bar:

http://pinterest.com/source/yoursiteurl.com/

It’s important to see what has already been pinned so you can then maybe re-link or refresh these particular articles, and to see what type of writing is currently the most appealing and most likely to be shared.

I wrote those words on Wednesday. Today is Friday. I still stand by them, but I have one caveat: be careful. If you are the type of person who gets intimidated easily by women sharing all the (perceived) wonderfulness of their lives, tread carefully.

Don’t follow as many people as you can; follow your friends (maybe even your in-real-life friends, not your blogging friends). Don’t believe that just because so-and-so repinned a photo of a “fabulous mudroom” her mudroom actually looks like that. Don’t assume that EVERYONE is doing art projects with their kids every hour of every day. Don’t get sucked into wanting to throw away all of your clothes to buy all new ones. Don’t make the mistake of judging a person’s bank account because they repinned a pair of $450 boots. They probably didn’t click through to see what the boots cost.

at least I hope that’s the case. otherwise my own boots feel terribly unworthy.

Pinterest is women-driven. And although most people (men) would think that men are the competitive sex, I’m going to suggest it’s actually women. Women want to do everything well all the time. Or at least we want to make it look that way. The fact that Pinterest is actually a vision board is quite telling. This isn’t real. This is a fantasy. Take a deep breath and remember that you are already good enough. You don’t need to have rockhard abs while whipping up 37 different varieties of cheesecake in order to feel good about yourself.

just be you.

further reading:

56 Ways to Market Your Business on Pinterest on CopyBlogger

Stop Being a Pinterest Sexist on Clever Girls

How I Grew a 1000 Visitor a Day Source of Traffic to 3000 Visits a Day on ProBlogger

You Need Pinterest. I’ll Bet You a Bubble Bath on BlogHer

What are your thoughts on Pinterest? Important? A Waste of Time? Just another social media THING? (my pinterest page is here, pinterest/stephanieodea)

Easy Way to Clean Silver Jewelry

 

I’m not that much of a girly girl, but am realizing that I can get away with wearing the same plain shirt and jeans quite often if I switch up my jewelry. Recently, my friend Jennifer’s (yes, I realize ALL my friends are named Jennifer..) mom started selling jewelry, which means I’ve started to buy more pieces.

I love my new jewelry, but find that real silver tarnishes much too quick for my liking, and I stop wearing it completely after a few months. After a bit of googling, I discovered the quickest and easiest way to wash it all at once to remove the tarnish: a salt water bath with aluminum foil. The hot water and salt loosens the dirt and grime, while the aluminum foil attracts the tarnish (for the super-geeky, this is an ion exchange), and it then wipes away from the jewelry (or silver pieces) easily with a soft towel.

This wiki post intrigued me, but it was the testimonials from this message board that won me over.

I would not use this method to clean jewelry with precious stones. All the stones I dropped in the solution were made from glass.

The Ingredients.

tarnished silver jewelry, silver pieces (flatware, etc) (I also threw in a hammered copper pendant, which cleaned beautifully)

aluminum foil

1 tablespoon table salt

hot water

glass container or jar

 

The Directions.

Fill a glass jar or container with hot water, and stir in a tablespoon of table salt. Make sure the salt has dissolved completely, and throw in a few (I did three) 1-inch aluminum foil strips. Add jewelry. Let soak for a few hours, stirring every so often to remove dirt (the water will get brownish in color).

Dry jewelry completely with a soft towel and store in a silver cloth or tarnish-free tissue paper to keep this from happening over and over and over and over and over again. Sigh.

 

The Verdict.

This worked much better than I expected it to– the dirt and tarnish just wiped away with the towel. I found some of my really badly tarnished chains needed to soak longer, but they still were ready to go in a few hours. I only wish I was gutsy enough to tie the crockpot in with this one…

Write On / Wipe Off Chore Charts

 

It’s 2012. I’ve spent the last four years of my life on the internet, and I love how I continue to learn new things. I developed a slight addiction to Pinterest over the holiday break (what? it was only supposed to last a week and I stretched it into a month? shhh. don’t tell anyone.) and learned that you can make ANYTHING into a white board with a cheap dollar store picture frame and a dry erase marker.

I think I’m in love.

The above frames were made in about 37 minutes. It took me a while to figure out the actual dimensions of the frame– 8 x 10 means that if you’re using a power point presentation you should size your project for 6.6 x 9.

You’re Welcome!

 

Another Thing to Note:  the glass at the dollar store breaks really, really easily. I broke the glass on each of these frames, and ended up going out into the shed to find old pictures to steal the glass (one might of been from Adam and his college friends. oops.). I’d maybe find cheapish frames at Kohl’s or Target that match instead.

 

My kids don’t seem to care that I’ve written a housekeeping journal/planner, or have developed a clever acronym for decluttering. They also don’t care that I get thank you notes every day in my email box which continues to perplex my #butIhelpotherpeoplewhydoesntmyownfamilylisten crazy brain.

it’s okay. I’ve come to terms with it.

Anyhow, I wrapped these chore charts up and handed them to my 7 and 10-year-old daughters (their names are on the charts, but I’ve covered them with tape because I’ve promised Adam I won’t exploit the kids on the internet) as New Year’s presents.

My 10 year old rolled her eyes, but my 7-year-old was uber excited and got to work checking things off her list immediately. If you’re looking for a guideline for age-appropriate chores, this list is a good one. Our picture frame chore charts have now been in action for exactly one week, and so far so good.

How was your New Year’s? Any big ideas for 2012? Did you make a vision board?

it’ll be a good year. I promise.

 

guest post: Why Working From Home Isn’t Just a Pipe Dream

And They All Look Just The Same

 

November 2nd, 2011. I know. I can’t believe it, either.

Things have been quiet on this blog for quite a while—-I keep thinking of things to write about, but then Life happens and the thought/urge/will disappears.

A few years ago I would have been annoyed at myself, but these days I’m just kind of rolling with it. It feels good to be free.

Did you enjoy your Halloween? I did. There are many more children in our neighborhood now, and I really got a kick out of seeing new little (sticky) faces running up and down the street as they compared bounty and reported on the “good houses.”

While I followed the baby make her way up and down the stairs (the big kids were up ahead with their friends) it really struck me how even in a friendly neighborhood where you think you know everybody, you don’t. I don’t. I surprised myself at how very little I know about the guy with the white truck who always takes the garbage cans out early in the afternoon instead of waiting for the last minute, and how I never knew where the fast-walking mom with the expensive Bob stroller lives. I didn’t know the mail lady lived only three streets away. I didn’t know that the older gentleman who stops almost daily to chat about roses (they came with the house — I know nothing about roses) lived in the green house with the peeled paint that I drive by 6 or 7 times a day. And I didn’t know he had a cat; now I have something else to talk to him about.

How can I live in a tight-knit community and not really know anyone? I know natural disasters are supposed to bring neighbors together— surely I can’t wait for that to happen.

No. I can’t.

but I can walk a little slower and stop and chat when I’m on the way to the library. I can leave the house a few minutes earlier to go get the kids and pick new people in the school yard to talk to. I can return conversation in the checkout line instead of trying to get all my gossip-reading in as quick as possible.

I can get to know the person, the real person, behind the picket fence. Or the stroller. Or the library bag. Or the shopping cart. Or the truck with the offensive bumper sticker (well, maybe not that guy).

So that’s my plan for November. To try to connect— to be a better listener. Every house I hurry by on my way to somewhere else has a real person, or a real family, with a real story, and I can’t keep pretending that I (or my own family, my own problems) am the only one that matters.

 

 

 

 

Winning the Game of Life. (wait, is this all just a game?)

This is the exact game box that’s collecting dust on the closet shelves in the family room at my parents’ house.

I haven’t played with it in over twenty years.

because it takes too long.

… insert metaphorical psycho babble…

When things are going well, does that mean that you are #winning (thank you Charlie Sheen!) the Game of Life?

Does that mean that others are losing?

if you are sick, or hurt, or hungry, or worried, or disorganized, or scared, or poor, does that mean you are #losing?

Does that mean that your situation was just the luck of the draw, or that you must simply play the hand you’re dealt?

that can’t be the case. it just can’t be.

No one has all the answers on how to play this game. No one can anticipate all the wildcards and roadblocks Life brings. The only thing that seems to work, is to pull out the directions, smooth out the creases and recommit to staying on course.

 

 

 

 

Going on a Vision Quest

We recently got back from a roadtrip to Oregon, where we spent (not enough) time at Crater Lake National Park.

If Crater Lake isn’t on your “we really ought to go there” list, I urge you to write it in. I’m a sucker for National Parks. I like being out in nature, but I like the we’re absolutely and perfectly safe feel the National Parks provide with their paved roads, clearly marked signs, trimmed vegetation, readily available flush toilets, and stocked soap dispensers.

I was startled by the  blueness of this lake— it was as if someone had dumped in a vat of crayola paint— the blue didn’t look natural, and yet it was. After watching the video in the visitor’s center, I learned that for many many years Americans didn’t believe this lake existed— they thought it was a myth. I also learned that Native Americans would have annual pilgrimages to the lake for Vision Quests. They believed that they would discover the answer to all of life’s questions by looking deep into the blue water.

I did not have a epiphany while staring into the water. Instead, I was busy keeping the baby from climbing the safety walls and the big kids from trying to touch the ground squirrels (oh my. they were just too cute).

but I felt different. I was acutely aware that I was in a naturally made location that had been this way for hundreds and hundreds of years. I loved that I was able to see the lake with fresh eyes the way the Native Americans or the original pioneers must have (which is difficult in this day and age, since we have Google Earth!).

I loved being in the moment, pausing, and realizing that my two older kids will remember this trip. They’ll remember driving the 30-mile perimeter, and rolling their eyes every time Daddy pulled over to take “just one more picture.” They’ll remember how their mean old mom banned the Nintendo DS for the day. They’ll remember sitting in the squeaky chairs while watching the long and boring movie, and I’ll remember marveling at how well-behaved they were during the long and boring movie.

They’ll definitely remember the ice cream bar. Ice cream is always remembered.

Everyone’s Vision Quest, or life’s purpose is different, and I’d venture to guess it changes pretty often– depending on your age, your choices, and probably the seasons. The revelation comes when you have this startling deep down feeling that you are doing exactly what it is you are *supposed* to be doing.

and again, this is different for every person. It could be being the best darn teacher, or bank teller, or caregiver, or amusement park ride operator ever. It could be any  number of things—- IT is relative.  But when you’ve found the IT, you’ll know it.

and it will take your breath away.

Back to School, back to work

Photo inventory:

1 basket of clean laundry, unfolded and dumped on the living room floor

1 basket of clean laundry, folded and left on couch

2 “used” baby socks

2 brand-new shoes still bungee corded together

1 too-expensive rolling backpack

45 whole crayons; 3 broken

1 broken blue bead necklace (hanging from the couch cushion)

3 empty Target bags

and when I swivel away from the living space to look at the table:

Photo Inventory:

1 new lunchbox that is supposed to be used FOR SCHOOL ONLY

2 new BPA-free water bottles

1 water bottle ‘cozy’ that came with the lunchbox (completely unnecessary)

random leftover lunch stuff: sliced turkey meat, cut up apples, tortilla chips & hummus

1 abandoned laptop and 3 notebooks

1 very cheeky 19-month-old baby (helping herself to hummus)

106 new gray hairs

I mistakenly thought I could get some work done while the children played peacefully inside or frolicked in delight outside (isn’t that what children are supposed to do? Frolick?) . Yeah. I know.

delusional.

But you know what? This is real life. Not a glossy magazine. Stuff happens. Mistakes happen.

Life happens.

and it’s okay.

Give yourself a hug—- you’re doing a fantastic job. Already.

 

School begins for us on September 6th. I loved having everybody home with me for the summer, but I’m done.  How are things going with you?

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