Lesson Learned

Today my oldest son purchased a Nintendo DS.  (He’s 6)  This has been a long process for us.  He decided this past summer he wanted one.  We didn’t want to buy him one, so we told him to save his money for one.  We figured the chances are he’ll forget about it before he ever saves up enough to actually buy one.

Unfortunately, he asked his grandparents to forgo Christmas presents for him and give him cash.  That really increased his cash accumulation rate,and he started socking away his weekly allowance.  Eventually he got to have around $100 saved up.  It’s still not enough to buy a new one, but maybe a used one.

I was going to take him tonight to look around for one at the pawn shops or a used game place.  However, my wife’s friend said her son was going to throw his away so we negotiated to buy it for $30.  Our son was super excited when we told him this, and we did go out tonight and buy a couple of used games for it.  (Try as I might I couldn’t get him talked into getting a game Dad would like…)

I’m leery about this because I know we’ll have to keep a tight reins on his usage, so it could turn into a battle spot, but at the same time saving up his money to buy something is a valuable lesson.  (Especially forgoing Christmas presents to save up more money)  Learning to buy used instead of new is valuable.  As much as I could I had him talk to the sales person so he could get some experience talking about money, used vs new and different types of games, so he could get this experience now when it’s just video games.  He’s going to get plenty of valuable experience sharing this with his little brother.  All in all, it has a good chance to be a strong lesson for him, even if it is something that will probably be utterly worthless in a few years.

Now, maybe for a science experiment I can get him talked into figuring out how to charge it up with a potato or something so it might still be useful when I can’d afford electricity.

Pizza it is

At times I often ponder the strangest things. For the life of me I could not figure out why pizza was such a huge deal at birthday parties. Yeah, pizza is good (unless it’s the pizza from Chuckie Cheese) but why the hell do kids love it so much?

I think I’ve figured out the mystery. It’s the parents pushing the pizza, not the kids. The kids like it, but now that I’ve had to deal with birthday parties and cake and screaming kids I totally understand pushing pizza on them. It’s so easy and most the time you can have a different person make it. From what I can tell the kids would like just about anything because they are just so damn excited to be in the moment having a party. But the parents are way more calculating and conniving than that. Oh yeah. You parents know what I’m talking about.

Totally get it. Just though you might want some analysis on that.

Amazing what they can eat

Admit it, you thought I was going to talk about the chickens didn’t you? HA! Not this time. This time it’s kids. We eat veggie meals in our house maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Tonight we had nothing but veggies. I boiled some new potatoes (about the size of a large egg) and steamed some corn on the cob. I also served some canteloupe and tomatoes from the garden. The kids didn’t think this was enough for them so I also made them 1 slice of bread with PB&J on it.

And they ate it up. Amazing how many veggies kids can eat when they want to. My oldest had two bowlfuls of cantaloupe, 1 ear of sweet corn, his PB&J and 2 potatoes. The youngest had 2 ears of corn, a shitload of tomatoes, 2 potatoes, PB&J and 1 bowl of cantaloupe. I’d say they easily got 4 servings of veggies/fruit in just this meal.

In other news I had this conversation with my youngest when I was picking tomatoes, or trying to pick tomatoes.

Ethan: Ever wonder why there aren’t any tomatoes on the plant?

Dad: Well I figured there was a tomato monster eating them. Do you know what happened to them? (I know he’s been eating them)

Ethan: There is. I saw him. It was me. I’m a tomato monster. Grrr. (Then he grins) I sometimes eat the green ones but they don’t taste as good as the orange ones. Now I wait for them to get orange. (They’re Sungold tomatoes)

If you knew his grin you’d probably laugh about this. He looks like a Cheshire cat, only he’s got an ornery glint in his eyes.

10 years on and still going strong

Today is our 10 year wedding anniversary. It’s been an interesting 10 years.

We are both from small towns in southern Iowa, moved to Missouri to go to school, moved to the city (KC) after that, because there was no way in hell we were going back to Iowa. Bought a dog, bought a house. Got sick of the commute to work and bought a different house closer to work a year later. Bought more houses as I attempted to be a rental tycoon. Battled one bout of occular melanoma. Had a child. Decided to move back to Iowa (naturally). Sold some rental properties. Sold house, and lived apart for 4 months to get on with life in Iowa. Lived with in-laws for 10 months. Had another child. Bought more rental properties in Iowa. (Almost went bankrupt when they didn’t work out) Bought a fixer upper to live in, with a pool for the ex swimmer. Sold rental properties in Iowa. Worked opposing work shifts so that Mom could stay home with the children. Stopped that after a year. Made friends. Learned about Peak Oil. Made lots of changes really fast. Made more friends. Slowed down and started enjoying life a lot more. Became a “soccer family” as the older one started to play soccer. (much to his Uncle’s shagrin) Still talk about another child but probably won’t happen

Hmm, I think that’s about all there was. Learned a lot about life in the past 10 years. It’s been an interesting journey. Here’s looking forward to 50 more years. (no, that beer isn’t local but it was free!)

For Sale or Trade

Two small children, almost 4 and almost 6.

Generally fun, positive children. Enjoy Hot Wheels, Legos and Star Wars. Behave well around animals and other children.

Prone to fits at any time, usually including screaming. Especially at 7PM.

Love to ride bikes, talk loudly over parents, eat with mouth open and generally wiggle a lot.

Also like to play chess, but only by rules of their own design.

Smart kids with fantastic speaking skills, used with great frequency and above average spellers. Especially useful when parents are trying to spell things out around children.

Older child has a profound love of numbers, strawberries and root beer floats.

Younger child loves beans, strawberries and making shrieking noises.

Both children will eat as much fruit as humanly possible at any possible moment.

Willing to sell or trade for a useful motorized tractor like a Grillo or acreage with at least 20 acres and a running stream or pond already in place.

Must be moved as a pair. Little one can not function without his older brother.

Call 1-800-867-5309 or hit us on the web at www.parentingissomuchfunisn’tit.com.

Picture day

Sorry there have been no posts lately. I’ve been sick. I’ve finally got some energy, although I’m still going to bed early and napping after work. Hopefully soon I’ll be back in fighting form. Until then enjoy these pictures, with commentary!

A nice loaf with a neat design in the top. This is natural, no slicing before it baked!

SNOW DAY! (one of many this winter)

Two little guys playing chess. Neither really understands the strategy of chess, but they definitely know the rules! And they like to be up really early to play.

The things that can be done with LEGOs!

Here’s one little guy working on his “problem areas”. His mom is trying to get in swimsuit shape. I don’t know why, she looks just fine. I can understand the appeal though. I keep myself in tip swimsuit shape year round. Round is the best shape to elicit cheers when attempting cannonballs into the pool, so that’s what I shoot for. It’s something I come by naturally. It’s a gift.

Did someone say PETCO?

Almost time…

It’s almost time. Only one more day until the big day. Which is good, because I’ve spent to much time in the kitchen I think my kitchen utensils have become extensions of my hands.

I’m to bring the bread to Christmas dinner, but with my schedule I had to make it today. I hope they taste OK by Tuesday. I made rolls, which is my first attempt at that. I simply made my whole wheat bread recipe, then rolled little chunks into balls and put 4 in a muffin tin to make a clover leaf type of roll. I sampled one and they taste fine so that’s good.  Now I’ll have to get to work on the squash dish…

It’s my little lady’s birthday tomorrow, so we celebrated tonight since it will be hectic tomorrow night. Usually she has angel food cake, but tonight we had a pineapple upside down cake. My first attempt at that. (Certainly not local but at least homemade) It needed more pineapple, but otherwise it is pretty good.  You can make this with apples too, which I’ll try, but it didn’t look nearly as good as I knew the pineapple one would be.

We got a ton of snow last night, so there has been quite a bit of snow time the past few days. I wouldn’t be shocked if we had 8-10 inches. I know it was at least 6. I’ll get some pics up after I get a chance to resize them and get them looking OK.

As an interesting note, we moved our corn stove upstairs from the basement to heat our house more easily. This necessitated that we redo our clothesline situation, so now our family room looks like this.

The corn stove is straight in front of my wife (you can sorta see the very nicely laid tile floor under it, along with the dog bed which she was happy to have us move).  We have two retractable clotheslines that stretch across the room to hang clothes on. We’re still working out the kinks, but it appears that with two busy weekend days we can get all the clothes washed and hung up to dry. Put away is a different story, but we can at least dig them out of clothes baskets after they are clean.

Our house is kind of like a mullet in reverse.  It’s casual in the front but all business in the back!  Hope you all enjoy your holiday time doing whatever you do with whoever you do it with!

Monday roundup

Well it’s been almost two weeks since I last posted, but I’ve been doing things.

On the 16th we sent south to spend Thanksgiving with my folks in Arkansas.  It was nice to bring 4 Iowans down and bring up the state IQ considerably for our short visit.

We have insulation people coming to our house this week so I was busy getting things done around the house so they could do their thing without causing us too much pain.  Unfortunately our house is a crazy mess now cuz we’ve got boxes and things everywhere.  But, hopefully we’ll be more comfortable in the future.

I’ve got some things to talk about but I keep running out of time to write them up here.  Stay tuned though.  I’m trying to get to a place where I can write more but for some reason I keep running into more and more things I need to do around the house and they are preventing me from writing as much as I would like.

Soccer moms

As I mentioned recently my son has taken up soccer. While I’m at the “games” I partake in the art of observation frequently to look over other people and think about them. I do sometimes watch his games, but come on, it’s 5 year old playing soccer! It’s soccer!

Anyway, I can’t help but notice how many of the people there drive in a very nice minivan. A lot of them arrive in two cars (presumably because one came straight from work while one herded children and brought them to the event) . I can’t help but see how many of them are talking on the phone, seeming to work based on the animations of the conversations and the use of headset thingies.

I wonder how these people will cope with Peak Oil. We all know it’s coming. We know the world has already peaked. Hell, CNN ran an article on it recently, so it’s getting more mainstream. But when I see these people so wrapped up in their little worlds I wonder how they will deal with the fact that very soon their gasoline will be twice or more what it currently is per gallon. Or that their food prices will rise even more.  I wonder how they will cope when their identities, their work, is stripped away from them and they have to make human connections with people.

I look at them and seriously wonder how many of those moms (or dads) would be able to cook a meal from basic ingredients.  I even saw a kid at the store recently looking at packet of information on how to make mashed potatoes.  The packet was a packet full of spices so he could make buttered mashed potatoes!  Not even special flavored potatoes.  Luckily I was there to set him straight on how to do it without the $2 packet he was buying, but isn’t that concerning?  That a kid (he was probably 16 or 18) can know so little about how to cook that he can’t even make mashed potatoes?

How many would be able to grow something to eat? It makes me scared for them. During the Depression there were plenty of people in food lines, and even then the percentage of people on farms was way higher than it is now, and the people who lived in the city had worked on farms growing up, for the most part.  The people in the cities had the past knowledge of how to farm so they could produce their food if they had the space and inclination.  Today most people have only seen plants when their landscaper planted their lone front yard tree and a couple bushes. It’s kind of scary when we think about it.  We’re all responsible for this.  Not just some of us.  All of us.  Every single one of us can grow some food in our yards, but we are choosing not to.  Choosing to outsource this vital resource to China and Chile and New Zealand because we can get the product for 10 cents less a pound.

I’ve talked to my Memaw (grandmother in law) about the Depression since I’ve become Peak Oil aware, and the biggest impact she’s left on me from those times is that while her family wasn’t rich, by any means, during the Depression they were because they had food. Since they had a farm they had food. I wonder if that will be the same in the future. Will people have food? Will people have farms? Or land to farm? It’s less than 2% of our population today that currently live on a farm.  What will the other 98% of us do for our food?  If we can’t buy it what then?  I’m in the same boat you are.  I can’t an anyway meet the needs of my family from my given plot of land.  But I can certainly try to produce as much as I can.

Will you measure your worth in the future in how many potatoes you have in your cellar?  The friends you have?  The family you have?  The reputation of your handshake?  The respect you’ve earned by proving your worth to others?

Maybe we should.  Maybe that would be a better way to measure your worth than the latest Dow Industrial quote or home values.  Maybe that should happen now.

Weekly update

Wow, sorry it’s been so long.  I’m sure you were all eagerly checking back every single day trying to get the vital bit of information that I share from this site.

Anyway, we’ve been busy doing things, of course.  My brother and future sister in law were in town for a few days so we enjoyed having them here.  I was pleased to meet her (she’s a keeper) and I’m still not sure why she’s interested in my brother.  But, to each their own.  It’s kind of strange to have a visitor at our house this time of year compared to year’s past, because we focus so much energy on preserving foods for the winter, which others don’t do, so even when someone visits the food ripens and still have to be put up.  It’s kind of a strange break from the past when you have to basically ignore your visitors a little to do this work.

There was potentially cold weather last night (as cold as 32) so we went crazy picking tomatoes and beans just in case.  Looking today it doesn’t appear anything happened, but we ended up with 20 lbs of tomatoes which are still cooking down.  Last fall I purchased a spaghetti sauce packet off a clearance rack and it called for 20 lbs of tomatoes.  Perfect!  After running them through the food mill I put the sauce in my biggest pot, added the seasonings and put it in the oven at 350.  It smells divine but it’s still not as thick as I would like, so I’ll cook it down more tonight.

This is the first time I’ve actually made real sauce.  I’ve made the glut sauce.  I’ve made puree.  I’m canned whole tomatoes.  But until last night I hadn’t run the tomatoes through a food mill and then started to cook the sauce down.  Judging by how it smells, I now understand why people go through all the trouble of doing that.

We also made up our first batch of applesauce this past weekend (20 pints).  The house smells soooo good when apples are boiling down.  If I can find the time I’m going to do up some apple butter, but I don’t know if that will actually happen.  If I do you’ll hear about it here I’m sure.

My son started kidnergarten this fall, and we’ve reached a reasonable compromise regarding lunches.  He takes his lunch except once a week (if he finds a lunch he wants to eat).  The trouble for me is finding enough to pack into a cold lunch.  He seems to want a PB&J every day.  We try to limit the junk to 1 item per day, so he gets a cookie or chips or crackers but only 1 item per day (most times).  But then I fill out his lunch with other stuff but it’s hard to find things to add to it.  Especially if I want him to eat local foods but still eat things that don’t need to cook.  So far, he’s had a lot of carrots, canteloupe and melons.  Soon I’ll add apples to the mix (and maybe some dried ones too) along with raisins and craisins, which aren’t local.  It’s a tough challenge to get all this into his lunch, without offering him too much, and making it local too.  I’m failing in this regard right now.