Along Came a Fighter...Who Sat Down Beside Her

Princess Alexa Patrick Michelle-Ann Tschida (Lexi)

Meet the newest member of the Tschida family. Her name is Princess Alexa Patrick Michelle-Ann Tschida informally known as Lexi. That name is a mastery in the fine art of parental compromise.  All dogs deserve such regal names. No mere Spot or Spike for us, NEVAH!

Yesterday was a fun day. We drove 3 1/2 hours to Yakima to meet the owner of the Rising Phoenix Mastiff Rescue. That's right, I said MASTIFF. Lexi is a 8-10 week old mastiff. She has had a rough life, as I understand it her old owners tried to breed her parents and after a litter of 18 (!!) puppies the owners were upset that they couldn't get thousands and thousands of dollars for the pups. So these pillars of humanity put all the puppies into an outside shed to die. All but 2 did. Lexi survived starvation, worms, flees and then a bout of parvo. All in a measly 10 weeks of life. She was rescued by the wonderful people at Rising Phoenix, a no kill large dog rescue.

If you are looking for a cause to support check them out by clicking here. They've taken in over 700 dogs from all over the pac n/w, west and Canada. I was humbled to meet such an effective advocate for abused animals.

Fortunately we were in the market for a big honking dog. She's already 19 inches tall at her shoulders and probably somewhere around 40 lbs, at least. But she fits right in! I just wish she'd stop pooping on the floor.

Lexi and Ian watching Tom and Jerry

Isabella Christina Tschida

Samuelle L Dogenstein-Tschida

The Pinkeye Express Polishes Silver

An evil wind blew into out house on the breath of the “year of the Dragon”. Evidentially the advent of the Chinese New Year brought a festival of bad juju on my house. We all are just falling apart. Hubs is sick, kids were sick then sick again. Ian is now rounding out the third illness, pinkeye. Or as it’s known around here, “I know it itches sweet boy but If-you-TOUCH- THAT-EYE-AGAIN-AND-SPREAD-THAT-NASTINESS-THROUGH-THE HOUSE-I’LL-CHOP-OFF-THAT-FINGER-AND-FEED-IT-TO-THE-FISHIES!” Perhaps that’s a tad dramatic but pinkeye is just SO gross. It like, totally, creeps me out, dude.

The kicker of all the illness is that Ian has been out of school forever. It has only been the better part of three weeks but all routines have been ruined and a deep abiding boredom has set in. At first I was too sick to care, but I am returning to humanity and the kid needed something to do. Let’s break out the household science and kill two birds with one stone. I knew that there was some way to polish silver easily with stuff around the house, I just couldn’t remember how.

Off to Google I went. Seriously, how did we survive without Google? Unfortunately that brought me a bunch of ads and youtube videos of Italian mommas scrubbing away on the silver. Ahem, ef that; one of my 10 commandments is thou shall not scrub whilst recuperating.  I also found some info about people using aluminum foil and hot water to polish, but it did not seem super effective.

Such Googling fun! I finally came to a more scientific site http://scifun.chem.wisc.edu/homeexpts/tarnish.html that explained the science of it and gave a better recipe. Holy Coolness Batman!

3 Ag₂S   +   2 Al   --->  6 Ag   +   Al₂S₃

Silver sulfide + aluminum ---> silver + aluminum sulfide

To quote Ian, “the smelly water with the stuff in it changes the chemical competition of the dirtiness.” I guess he caught the gist of what I was saying.

Here’s how I doctored up the recipe.

1 big old bowl

1 sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil (10”x10”-ish)

½ cup of baking soda (heaping-ish)

1 glug (maybe a Tbs.) of lemon juice

Boiling water (from my super-wham-o-dine kettle)

Step 1- dump all that stuff into the bowl.

Step 2- put the silver into the bowl and let sit for a minute. Turn the silver as often as necessary to immerse all parts.

 

While it’s working there is a funny smell released (educated guess, sulfur dioxide)

Step 3- Remove and wipe off baking soda residue.

Now with relatively clean silver you can stop here, but my silver was languishing for ages and had a few spots left on it.

Step 4- put some toothpaste on any tough spots and rub for like 2 seconds.

Step 5- rinse and dry

Before and after. Just to note, the whole process took maybe 20 minutes.

It's like magic, only better, because it's science!

Here’s an easy to read version of the whole 9...

1 big old bowl
1 sheet of heavy duty aluminum foil (10”x10”-ish)
½ cup of baking soda (heaping-ish)
1 glug (maybe a Tbs.) of lemon juice
Boiling water (from my super-wham-o-dine kettle) I used 2 Liters.
Step 1- dump all that stuff into the bowl.
Step 2- put the silver into the bowl and let sit for a minute. Turn the silver as often as necessary to immerse all parts. While it’s working there is a funny smell released (educated guess, sulfur dioxide)
Step 3- Remove and wipe off baking soda residue.
Now with relatively clean silver you can stop here, but my silver was languishing for ages and had a few spots left on it.
Step 4- put some toothpaste on any tough spots and rub for like 2 seconds or 'till it's gone.
Step 5- rinse and dry

Adventures in Applesauce

My kids are sick. Jenna is coming ‘round the bend and should be ready for school tomorrow but Ian and Kara are toast. Kara’s got strep and Ian has a stomach bug…

When I went all the way to Spokane to go grocery shopping there was a man selling apples on the side of the road in the snow. I bought organic pink ladies for $.61 a pound.YUM! I ended up buying 13 pounds. That’s a lot of apples. With my sick kids I decided to make scratch applesauce.

I googled and googled and came up with this recipe from globalgourmet.com for applesauce: With the peels on! Not Cored! How easy!  Alas, it did not work out so well.

Apple Sauce

Yield 2 qts
Preparation Time :1:00

 Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 6 lb apples quartered
• 1/2 each lemon
• 1 dash cinnamon—to taste
• 3/4 cup sugar—to taste

Preparation

1.     In a large heavy pot that has a cover, put the water. Add the quartered apples, unpeeled and uncored. Add the lemon juice if the apples are bland.

2.     On a high flame, cook covered until the apples are soft. Remove cover and let some water cook away,

3.     Using a Foley food mill, or a colander, press the cooked apples through to separate the purée from the skins and seeds.

4.     Heat the purée, and season with cinnamon and sugar as needed.

If you like chunky applesauce, cook the peels and cores and purée them, and add to the cooked chunks. Never throw away the peels and cores as they supply pectin to give the cold sauce a good consistency.

The cooking process went okay, that is, until I realized that I had too much in the pot. So I transferred some into a smaller pot.

And then I realized I have no earthly idea what a ricer is and I don’t own one, so I started mushing it through a colander. WHAT A PITA!

ACK! The other pot! The adage if you smell it burning it’s already burnt is totally true.

Then I remembered that the skins are where all the vitamins are housed; better throw some of those in…Oh yeah and the recipe said to leave the cores in for texture. My texture was a mess. I threw the whole nine yards into the food processer. What an unholy mess!

 

This is the end result.

 No. Really this was the end result...

Totally worth the 3 hour effort, right???  Actually it tasted fine, but a little grainy. Kara's known for her dramatic responses. I figure I'll use it in recipes as a substitution for some of the oil.

Except...I was reading an article on yahoo about foods that are poisonous to dogs and apple seeds are (sorry Moe). Evidentially they contain hydrogen cyanide. You know, the poison that kills people without a trace. You'd have to eat 4-8 ounces to kill you (thank you answers.yahoo) but they are really only dangerous at that amount if they are crushed, like in a food processor. Good to know AFTER I threw the cores back into the applesauce. If you try this recipe I recommend #1 having a ricer and #2 just coring the stupid apples.

 ...Or buy it from Costco, it's cheap and good and I even think it's organic.

Live from Wilbur, WA...almost

Today’s blog comes to you live from the middle of a glucose tolerance test. Half an hour ago I polished off the orangey sugar water. I feel so yucky right now I can hardly type. I can hardly see for that matter.  I’ll finish this up in a few hours.

I started this post two days ago. On the way back into the doctor’s office, in the waiting room, as a matter of fact, I had a heart episode. Stabbing pains in the left side of my chest, every time I tried to talk or breathe it felt like my left boob was being electrocuted. That’s right; I had a heart episode, in my left boob. Seriously I was torn between riotous pain and uproarious humor that my heart was busting itself and it was manifesting with electrical shocks specifically to my left (empty) milk jug.

Fortunately, I was in the doctor’s office and after a few minutes the pain went away.  They were able to do an EKG on the spot and it’s nothing too serious. Talk about feeling like a fool. I went from hollering and flailing about to apologizing right and left for my melodrama. I haven’t quite overcome the apologizing for things out of my control bit yet. To make a long story short I went back for a followup today and found out that I have a wonky electrical pattern.  And yes, to wait and see if it happens again.

So here I am, sitting on my ticking time bomb (insert eye roll). The truth is that freaked the hell out of me.  And I don’t know what to do about it.   I’ve been to see the doctor so many times in the last 2 weeks and all my tests come back slightly off, but not so bad that there is a fix. I feel like a hypochondriac.

The kicker of this all is in my new teeny tiny town there is no hiding from the things that embarrass me. The doctor lives in the house down the street and the nurse’s kid is one year above Jenna’s.  I get to walk around town bumping into people who know all about my spastic boob and melodramatic response.

As I write this I realize it’s just another step in owning me, my body, my opinions; it’s all rolling together.  If I am scared then I have to get to the point where I am not, regardless of how embarrassed I am that I am asking for more idiotic tests from the doctor.  I’ve always read that the 30’s are the sexual peak for women. Is that because our 30’s are when we really get to know ourselves and accept who and what we are?  I wonder...

On Open-Ended Apology

I took a real hit on a personal level with last week’s blog. A lot of people really disagreed with what I had to say. I’ve been playing it on a loop in my head all week; whether or not I truly believe what I wrote and what the heck just happened.

I thought that by choosing my words very, very carefully I could avoid offending anyone and clearly get my point across. I failed. Miserably. Whether or not I feel like I wrote what’s true to my heart is another post, if ever. I set out to say one thing and managed to completely lose the point of the whole blog. I’ll try never to do that again.

Writing these posts is hard. Words are powerful weapons to play with.  I want (almost desperately) to be a good writer. I have spent so much time and energy apologizing for who I am and what I believe. That needs to stop. Countess sentences I have started with “I’m sorry but, maybe, well” and “this might be stupid” and other assorted disclaimers.  Writing is holding me accountable for my own opinions.

I don’t want to live the rest of my life apologizing for forming opinions that may or may not coincide with yours. I would like my friends to remain my friends even if I disagree with them. You know what? I don’t agree with everything my friends say and I love them regardless.

As for last week I’m sorry…but I’m just not sorry I wrote it. I AM sorry I did not explain myself more clearly. If it happens again please call me on it. I’m a grown up, I can take it.

The Blame Game

When I sat down to blog this morning I was all set to write some funny anecdote about Jenna “frowing” up. Seriously she’s eight and genuinely thinks it’s called frowing up. I couldn't bear to correct her; it was a beautiful glimpse of the little girl she still is.

I started perusing the internet and well, procrastinating, and came upon an article placing the blame for teenage obesity on moms, specifically improper toddler/mom bonding.  The author vehemently wondered why all the blame is placed on moms, and not the impact of fathers. You can read it here http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/study-blames-moms-fat-kids-dads-off-scot-155700268.html.

At first glance I agreed with her. Then I thought about it a little more. Dads are important, I am not discounting that by any stretch, but who is ultimately responsible for the health and wellbeing of our children? I believe that moms are.

As a mom I happily embrace the blame for screwing up my own children. I don’t want to. I certainly don’t mean to, but should it happen, ultimately it would be my fault. I signed up for this responsibility when I got pregnant. Regardless of the ethics of abortion, only a woman can decide if she’s going to carry a baby to term. Short of locking her in a closet with bound hands and feet, if a woman REALLY doesn’t want to become a parent she will find a way not to be pregnant. To the inner-workings of my logic that makes the ultimate (existing as an underlying reality, when all other things are disregarded) responsibility for the baby a mothers responsibility. It follows that we mothers should take the blame.

I am half afraid to say this next part…By shifting the blame for screwing up our children we are disregarding a fundamental part of being a mother, the mothering part. In this day and age where women try to do it all we are weaseling out of the responsibility of mothering. I loathe admitting it but I don’t believe that I could be an excellent worker and an excellent parent. Honestly I don’t think anyone can. By trying to do it all we have an excuse to shift the responsibility (blame) for our children onto other sources, be it dads, the school, whatever.  Mothering SUCKS, sometimes a lot; it is undervalued and often scoffed at. But as women it’s a job only we can do.

Perhaps as women it’s time to take ownership of the blame. We can embrace it, draw strength from it. I can use the blame as a reminder that I need to be a better mother, that when I feel like slacking as a parent there is a clear and definite consequence for my failing. I love my kids enough to accept the blame for how my parenting affects them.

Cell Phone Endorsements!

So I was driving home yesterday and got pulled over for talking on the phone while driving. I didn’t get a ticket but it was one of the oddest traffic stops I’ve had. (The oddest being when I was 40,000 months pregnant with Jenna and telling the officer I was speeding cause I had to pee. When he looked at me like I was nuts I explained to him the biological basis for my appeal in graphic detail. I didn’t get a ticket and I think I revirginized a cop.)  

Back to 2011, the officer pulls me over. I’m rocking the dirt road crusted minivan, wearing Chad’s sweatshirt, no makeup and one of those oh –so-sexy glued to my head ponytail (the diametric opposite of the bump it, mind you). I was in full mom mode regalia. Anyway, the cop saunters up to the window and gives me the eye (ladies you know the “eye”). REALLY? Was he really expecting me to flirt my way out of this ticket? I haven’t done that in years, literally.  I obliged with a cheerful smile and some eyelash batting. I felt like a fool but I got out of the ticket.  

This all culminates in my musing about driving whilst on a cell phone. I’m certain I’m a better driver talking on the phone now then I was at 16 in general.  I think there should be a cell phone endorsement for drivers’ licenses. You turn 30 you go to DMV and you take a road test while talking to your friend about the color of her hair or asking your husband to pick up eggs. It would wind up being a social experiment regarding the multitasking abilities of women. I wonder how many cell phone crashes are caused by men vs woman. Oh statistics!

Seriously though, this is a fabulous idea! It could bring in revenue for beleaguered state budgets and create an elite class of multi-taskers. What do you think?