Bananas and Chocolate Ganache

Yesterday my Dear Husband, 5 Squirts, and I drove two hours to a small town of cute shops, a lake, and a pontoon boat rental. Today I made banana cupcakes with a dark chocolate ganache frosting. The two are connected but like the stars in a consellation the story is not apparent until the lines are drawn.

Dot one - Our mini van seats 8 people except the back belt was cut through six months ago. Long story for another day. There are 7 people in our family. The seat without a belt is the comfy one in the back which means someone has to use the middle back seat, designed for a thin stick midget who likes to sit next to a carseat with a little squirt who likes to poke you.

Dot two - Yesterday, being the sweet mom I am,  volunteered to sit in the dreaded middle back seat for the entire two hours.

Dot three - I never knew that sitting in the back makes you carsick, especially while reading to a little squirt.

Dot four - Days at a quaint little town with a lake are fun, especially when two hours of it are spent on a boat getting wet. Having one set of clothes and no swimsuit does not make for a fun car ride home.

Dot five -  Baby squirt likes to scream for two hours in car rides home when it is way past bedtime and you forgot their nighttime bottle.

Dot six - Our church starts at 9am and when you have squirts who spent the previous day in the lake it means getting up at 7am to bathe them regardless of when you got home.

Dot seven - Our sleep deprived baby squirt will scream for 3 hours of church if not given adequate sleep.

Dot eight - Tired mommies with screaming children deserately need banana cupcakes with chocolate ganache frosting to keep their sanity.

For your days like this I highly recommend the following recipe!!!

Cupcake - (by Wanda Thole from allrecipes.com)
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup ripe bananas (between 2 and 3)
1/4 cup buttermilk (I substituted 1/4 c. milk and 1/2 tsp vinegar)
2 cups flour (with cupcakes I recommend sifting and measuring if your crazy like I am)
1 teaspoon baking powder (Umm, I just realized I forgot this and didn't realize it - still tasted great!)
3/4 teaspoon baking soda (Having mis-read I used 1 tsp of baking soda)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, bananas, and buttermilk. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to banana mixure. Spoon into paper lined muffin tins cups two-thirds full.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 min.

Ganache - (Alton Brown's recipe)
In a food processor add 8 ounces dark chocolate (I used Hersheys) or bittersweet chocolate. Put 8 ounces of heavy whipping cream in microwave for 1 minute. Slowly add cream to chocolate and pulse until creamy. Lick spoon. Either immediately dip cooled cupcake tops in ganache or put ganache in fridge for one hour, rewhip, and frost.

Diet, Diet, Diet

Diet, abstinence from food, wieght reduction plan, nutrition therapy, eating sparingly, counting calories, slimming down, tightening your belt, watching what you eat.

Oh, it goes by many names. The dreaded months before summer when the heat rises and the shorts come out. The cute highly doctored models on the magazine covers taunt us to look better and we fall victim yet again to the urges fostered in us from almost infancy. We must be skinny. We must be toned. We must be super energetic despite our 1500 calorie diets. We can look like the men and women who have thousands to blow on trainers, chefs, and surgery!

Actually I'm not one for fad dieting. At least not the kind were I have to buy pills or special foods. Alright, enough justification. I do fall prey to the dieting whims. The super high fiber, only juice, no carbs, calorie counting kind of diets that I think might somehow magically change my knees into something I will be proud of. (Note to self, once you are past 30 no knees are cute). I am also kind of hoping to get the perfect flat stomach and non jiggly arms. I  lose a few pounds and then celebrate with a weekend of ice cream and oreos.

Dang. Those 5 pounds just came back.

Truth be told I just enjoy food too much to really stick to these diets. I know many women who have the willpower and I know myself well enough to know I am not one of them. But I do feel better when I get in the regular exercise, lots of water, and a few more veggies. So this year I am doing it different.

I will only eat one small bowl of frito pie. I will skip the sour cream and reduce the number of chips.
I will buy reduced fat feta cheese for my salad tonight and increase the veggies I add.
I will only eat one cookie instead of five.
If I don't feel up for a high intensity workout I will get on the treadmill with a book or TV show tonight and walk.
I will play on the playground with my kids instead of watching them from the bench.
When I get the munchies I will grab a glass of water and then see how I feel.
If I have still have the munchies I will go ahead and make the Dr. Oz green juice drink that I actually kind of like the flavor of.

So far it seems to be working. I don't feel deprived. My sugar crashes at 2 pm are not severe. When I get the urge I do increase the fiber in a meal or have a all juiced meal without going overboard. I am not losing 5 pounds in 7 days but I have lost 1 1/2 in the last week and I figure this is a way of life I might actually be able to keep up. Who knows, by NEXT summer I might actually reach my weight loss goal!

Baby Steps Baby

Baby steps baby. That is the famous line of my husband. I tend to set huge goals and then feel a little overwhelmed and defeated when they don't get done in my unrealistic timeframe. This week I wanted the whole house cleaned, organized, and deep scrubbed by Friday when I will be hosting a get together for a few homeschool families. I started by going through every drawer of my five children, you know, in case someone opens a drawer. That done I moved on to deep scrubbing a bathroom, followed by a thorough cleaning out of my closet. Today was the midweek meltdown.
I'm a failure.
I have no energy.
I can't do it.
I am a bad mother because I am ignoring my kids and not actively engaging them in lessons.

Baby steps baby.
1. Re-evaluate goals
2. Write down what you want to get done in order of importance
3. Pat yourself on the back that you have actually accomplished what you have
4. Eat some chocolate

Will my house be imaculate by Friday? No. I will however be happy with what I have gotten done and stop worrying about what I haven't.

There. I feel better.

Incapacitated

I have often watched a movie or TV show where a person hits another in the back of the head with a heavy object and the victim drops to the floor. I suspected that dramatization was highly used since I could not imagine a single hit could incapacitate, knock out, or really make a person see stars. Falling from a high ladder might do it. Getting hit with a wrecking ball, sure! But a single good wack? I was skeptical.
Today I was making the top bunk of my daughter's bed. The ceiling fan was on. The ceiling fan is never on. One good wack folks and I was incapacitated, nearly knocked out, seeing stars.
Moral of the story? Sometimes the things you see on TV might actually be true.

A Jane Austen Kind of Day

Last post I wrote about my insecurity over my children's clothing. This is not a long time insecurity or a deep set one. It came about due to an innocent comment by a friend. It did get me thinking though that summer is upon us and it would be a good time to turn on the BBC version of Jane Austen (if I would have had a boy I would have named him Colin) and go through all the winter and summer clothes. It was while thus sifting that I discovered a pair of pants my 6 year old has been wearing recently. They are hot pink. They look like pajama pants. They are a size 3.

Hmmm, maybe the insecurities are founded.

Homeschool, Complexes, and Hair

I homeschool. Did I mention that? Am I crazy? Yeah, a little. It started with my husband. He was homeschooled.....sort of. He wanted to give it a try. I however associated homeschooling with granola and unshaven legs. Funny thing - I like granola and often go unshaven - most days I'm lucky if I get a shower. I didn't know much about homeschooling when my oldest hit kindergarden but I figured I couldn't screw up that grade too bad. Then we just kinda kept going. Everytime we move I check out the schools and try to move us into a good school area. As every September approaches I wonder if I should go ahead and put them in. I usually come close and then decide we will do one more year. The truth is that I love having them home. I love the trips we take at random times. I love sitting next to my daughter as she overcomes her dyslexia and finally gets those words that have baffled her for so long. I love art projects in the afternoon and baking soda volcanoes. My college degree was headed toward education when kids came along and changed the plans.

I have complexes though. Every gal has them. I'm pretty sure most guys have them as well. Gals worry that we are not skinny enough, that we are too skinny, that we are not smart enough, not organized, are too emotional, are starting to get eye wrinkles......
Then there are the deeper fears.
For me these include damaging my kids permanetly and beyond repair.

One of my 'complexes' is that my kids will come across as the stereotypical homeschooled kid. You know the stigma - we wear only clothes made by hand (which would be awful since I can't sew) and only read books written before the 1900s.

So we listen to Taylor Swift and know how to safely navigate the internet. We socialize often with lots of different groups and go get to know the neighbor kids.

Then one day a dear friend asked if we had a lot of hand me down clothes. Totally innocent query but the complexes started kicking in. Do my kids look like those homeschooled kids that never get their hair done and only wear old clothes from the 1980's?????
This arises from the fact that my kids DO wear a lot of hand me downs. Hey, there are five of them - stuff gets passed down. So the next time we had somewhere to go I made sure to sneakily double check appearances (I don't want to openly give my kids my complexes!) Shoes fit, correct size clothes were on the correct size kids, clolors matched and we were set. Later I walked into the building were my husband was meeting us, confident that even with all these kids we looked put together.

It was then that I noticed I had forgotten to brush out my 4 year olds hair.

Hey, you can't win them all.

My Own Reality Show

I have a confession. Sometimes I pretend that I am a movie star. Reese Witherspoon maybe. It's when I go to the grocery store with kids hanging off my arms and a pair of jeans with holes that are 'oh so not chic'. No make-up, hair in a ponytail, debit card buried in a bag with diapers, cheerios, and old receipts. This is when I enter my own little fantasy world. I am super famous and totally cute. The paparrazi is just around the corner waiting for me to do something that will make dicey headlines. Do I give them what they want? Oh no, not this gal. I patiently help my dear children put the bread back they pulled off the shelf. I stay focused. I even smile at the cashier and make small talk with the woman behind me. Tomorrow the headlines will read how sweet I am. How down to earth and focused.

Back straight, head up, and confident she was as she navigated the cold cuts aisle....

A little shallow? Maybe. It gets me through the store though and it's kinda fun.

Other days I involve my kids. Yesterday I was about to snap. The house was bombed. Seriously. Nucleur explosion. I was actually in the bathroom when I heard a woman's voice in my living room. I dashed out to find the former owner of my home walking from the living room and into my kitchen. We bought the house six months ago from an elegant older woman who was downsizing. She had come by once before to make sure we 'got settled' and tell us not to scratch the hard wood floors.  When she owned the home it had three thousand dollar rugs and antique chairs. She had driven by and seen that we had not raked the leaves in the front yard. She wanted to let me know that if we didn't rake the grass would die. The front door was unlocked so she had come in. The look on her face was priceless. Thing is, we don't own expensive things. It's not so much the price (well, part of it is) as much as the fact that my youngest draws on things. We also tend to have 'those' days. The ones where every dish has been used but not washed. The kids have been playing dress up and the clothes are everywhere. Those clothes are mixed with the three loads that have been dumped on the coach.

The apologies for the state of my home were profuse. I was embarresed. I was mortified. I was a little indignent.

Enter Reality TV. Old owner leaves and I turn to my kids. They know the look. They slowly back away and pick up the ice pop that has been dripping on the Walmart rug.
Cue the British accent.
We are a reality TV show of proper people who follow protocol. We have just entered a home that is atrocious!! We pinch our noses while picking up the perilous laundry and depositing it into the basket. We bemoan the lives of the family who lives here and surely do not know about impropriety! We wash dishes while humming Mary Poppins and twirl while vacuuming the rug. Camera crews are following the dialogue as we explain how people simply cannot live this way!

There are moments in my life, however brief, when I actually do have it together. For the other 364 days of the year I always have reality TV and the paparazzi.

Hi

Hey there. I am average. No, seriously, I looked it up once. I am the average height and average weight of a gal in her mid thirties. I do have five kids. Five girls to be exact. With each pregnancy my shoe size has gotten bigger. I guess that makes me the average gal with big feet. But that's about all. I do not play a musical instrument. I do not excel at sports. I am friendly, polite, and take a shower on a regular basis. That about fills my distiguishable characteristics.

I have a secret though. I'm happy. I really am. I forget that a lot though. It seems that every time I call a relative they are doing something extraordinary. Every time I get on pinterest I find that I am the only one not sewing or doing professional photography, or travelling to the far corners of the earth. A check up on facebook tells that I am the only person on the planet not running a marathon today. It's not just the Internet though. Almost my whole life I have felt like the afterthought, the quota filler, the equalizer. So I made a choice. Today I am going to change. Today I am going to do what I want and be who I want to be. Time to shut off the voices. I am  a thirty something mother of five who feels quite entitled to have an early mid life crisis. I may not always win the Miss Congeniality award but perhaps I will find myself.  Today I have decided to start a new me.