mathmom's blog

Talking with Amanda the other day, she said to me, "I think leadership is overrated.  I'm planning on being a follower instead."  Thinking of followers succumbing to peer pressure and doing dangerous things, sort of like lemmings going over the cliff, I managed to ask noncommittally, "Oh, really?" So she explained.  If there are too many leaders each trying to go in a different direction, you get chaos.  What she was going to do was to find a leader who made the most sense, and follow that person and help him or her be more successful.  If there came another leader who was better, she would move to following that person. It is definitely true that there are more people (for example) working at a company than being CEO, and so it makes sense to prepare to follow people you believe in and follow them well.  It is definitely true that at her elementary school where everyone believes him or herself to be a leader, there is a lot of chaos.  I did not tell her the

I am tired of picking the couch cushions up off the floor.  It seems as though they are ALWAYS there.  I never actually see anyone throwing them on the floor, I just move them from the floor to the couch and they end up back, mysteriously, on the floor. Today I mentioned that fact to Amanda and Luke, and asked, "How are the couch cushions always on the floor?" Amanda: "It's as though they are attracted to the floor, somehow." Luke: "It's called gravity." Right. =)

When I was in college or grad school, I actively rejected repeating myself.  When the cashier at the coffee shop knew my order, I got something different.  I sat at different places in the library, moved to different study locations, had different things for lunch, walked different ways home. As I got older, though, time seemed to start moving faster.  When the kids came along, they really needed things to be the same every day or their lives would be uncomfortable (for them and for me!).  And we moved from doing the same things every day (nap schedule, dinner schedule, bed schedule) to the same things every week (piano, soccer, orchestra) and now the same things every year (Apple Festival, Christmas trip, sign up for spring soccer, plan school for next year).  And the years keep flying by. Part of me worries that the reason things are speeding up is that I am doing everything the same so that one week is a repeat of the previous week.  On the other hand, I think that I really do n

A long time ago in a town not so far away, Michael and I got our first waffle iron.  As I recall it was a wedding present from our friend Jon, or maybe a Christmas present.  But, since it was a piece of equipment like our fondue pot (from a cousin) and a sandwich maker (no idea) it mostly languished in the appliance garage above the refrigerator. Later on we occasionally made waffles the old fashioned way from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook: milk, flour, beaten egg whites, milk, 1/2 cup oil.  They were good, but a pain (getting out the mixer to beat the egg whites? cleaning the waffle iron?).  We made them enough so that the first waffle iron fell apart and we bought another one (a Belgian style one, which was OK, but I preferred the square one). Fast forward a few years.  We have always had "breakfast for dinner," in fact, we did it so regularly that one time one of my kids told me, "Did you know that some people have PANCAKES for BREAKFAST?!?"  When Ama

Luke got a new library card last week.  I'm not really sure what he needs it for: it's not like he ever goes to the library without me and my card.  Even if he did, he doesn't carry a wallet or even have pockets most days, so he doesn't have anywhere to put his library card.  Even if he did use his library card, he has no way to look at what his library books are and renew them online. But when he got his card he picked it up in both hands, holding it gingerly, and his eyes glowed.  He was clearly thrilled.  Makes me glad we have libraries around, still.

Yesterday I was feeling a little down and overwhelmed.  I was talking about the silly things I worry about at dinner and I mentioned one of them: "What if I ruin my children?" Without missing a beat, Eleanor jumped in with, "Too late, mom." Well, I guess I can cross that off my list of things to worry about.  Isn't it good that we have children to cheer us up? (In case anyone is curious, Eleanor wins the "Most Likely to be a Stand Up Comic" award in our family.  Although, come to think of it, the competition isn't very stiff...)

For many and various reasons I do all our laundry in one day. The biggest problem with this is that you get almost finished with the laundry... And then take off your dirty clothes and put them in the hamper. This adds to the sense of futility that makes laundry a chore. Michael and I occasionally joke about "laundry nirvana," the state when all the laundry is done and put away in the same day it was started. One day we had made good progress and were on our way to achieving laundry nirvana. Eleanor offered to draw a commemorative cartoon showing me in the lotus position, levitating amidst piles of folded laundry. We had a good laugh, and then Luke asked, "would you actually float?" I looked at Michael and he said eerily, "no one knows." I added, "it's never actually happened. Laundry nirvana might actually lead to the end of the world. Anything could happen." This led to a discussion of "The 9 billion names of God," and other apo

It is strawberry season here, which means we are required to make at least one pie a week. (I'm sure I read that in the NC residents manual somewhere.) Eleanor has been learning how to make the pies, which is a relief. Yesterday we had guests over, which means that we made two pies. Which, if you watch Vi Hart, means we made tau.  ( See here .)   Here is my recipe for pie crust, based on the better homes and gardens cookbook and the cooks illustrated recipe. 1 1/3 cup flour 1/2 cup butter (or earth balance buttery stick) 1/2 tsp. salt Water and ice Mix the flour and salt thoroughly. Cut in the butter. Add 4 tsp. ice water and toss with two forks.  Get the mixture into a ball-you might need to add a little more water. (You can refrigerate the dough wrapped in plastic for hours or a few days. You could even freeze it.) Roll the dough out. When you put it into the pan, flute the edges so they overhang the edge of the pan, or the crust will shrink in the pan.

The other day Michael and I were explaining something to Amanda about how things used to be when we grew up.  We may have been talking about the reason I still call books that someone reads aloud "books on tape" or "books on CD," even though the books are now collections of electrons on my phone. Eleanor looked at Amanda and piped up in a crotchety, wavery voice, "When I was your age..."  I expected her to continue with something like, "I walked 5 miles uphill to school. In the snow. Both ways!"  Or, "We liked it!  Because we didn't know any better!"  Or, "When I was a boy, TV was called books!" These are some responses Michael and I use while talking about "the good old days." But Eleanor continued, "When I was your age, I was ten!" It is possible that you had to be there.  I still find it funny.

Last week (actually a few months ago now, but who's counting), after our first big snowstorm, Luke was instrumental in getting the driveway clean.  This was a good thing, since it was covered in about 2 inches of sleet and ice.  I went out and worked for half an hour to clear one track from where he left off to the street, so that after refreezing we might have enough traction to get out of the driveway.  Then I cleared the 1.5 foot pole in front of Michael's garage door so he could go to work the next day in his non-SUV car. It was a lot of work. Then we had another snowstorm. At some point during the day Luke was going a little stir crazy, and I was so busy I knew I wouldn't have time to clear the driveway, so I sent him out to do it. Thinking of the hard work we had put in a few weeks before, I offered him $5, but only if he did a really good job and got the driveway all the way clean. I know it's below the minimum wage, but I figured Luke would be learning somethin

The other day, during one of the seemingly endless snowstorms of the past few weeks, I needed to make something for dinner.  I really only have a few things I make for dinner over and over, and we had either made all of them recently or I didn't have the ingredients (and I wasn't about to go into the storm to get them).  I had a frozen pork tenderloin, but even though my dad would shovel a path to the grill in the winter I really didn't want to grill it.  My usual rub of thyme, sage and salt didn't sound good to me.  Plus the meat was still frozen and I wanted to cut it smaller to speed up cooking. I was trying to remember things that my kids liked to eat when they were younger when I remembered gyros and how much Amanda used to like the meat.  I couldn't make gyros, but I found a recipe for souvlaki which consisted of marinating the meat in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and thyme. We made it and when I put a bit in my mouth the juices and the crispness brought

When we moved down to the South, one of our favorite topics during the winter was how wimpy Southerners were.  "They only predicted snow, and they closed school!"  "It's only an inch of snow, and they can't drive!"  "Don't they know that you are supposed to plow while it's still snowing, not wait until you have 6 inches?"  Oh, those crazy Southerners.  We were also implying that they gave up easily, were unintelligent and didn't plan well.  They could learn a lot from us Northerners. We've been down here for over 20 years, and while I am not a Southerner, I have tried to overcome my attitude problem.  Sure, there are some things that Southerners could learn about dealing with snow from Northerners.  They have actually learned many of these things.  A prediction of snow doesn't close school here nearly so often, for example.  The other week it actually snowed and melted without school being closed.  But the South faces many cha

I have learned a few things over the years about dealing with allergies---not that I'm an expert, especially about really severe allergies, or about non "top 7" allergies.  Also, I haven't dealt with soy or wheat allergies lately, although I remember a few things.  I may add to this as I remember more. General Principles The general principle with allergies is to cook things from traditions which don't involve your allergy.  So to avoid dairy, cook Mexican food (cheese as a topping) or Asian food, or Greek food, not Italian or French food. Don't try to make food do what it is not good at.  Making a chewy bread without gluten is foolish.  However, making a flaky pie crust or biscuit makes sense.    Substitutes My favorite substitute is Earth Balance buttery sticks.  They do make soy free versions which I assume are also good.  Almond milk is delicious, although some people (Amanda) can't have it because of the nuts.  There are a lot of other milk

Three notes: Luke is making black and blue Swedish hearts for Valentine's day, which actually offers some insight into his personality.  He wanted to make finger knitting for all his friends, but we convinced him to make chalk instead ( Get Crafty Crafty ). We think we will have to label the chalk, since some might think it is some sort of candy, and I'm pretty sure that plaster of paris and tempra paint are not edible. Eleanor manged to disable Firefox by making the background and the type almost the same color (black).  This was a surprisingly difficult problem to solve---we tried to change it in settings, but the background and the type were almost the same color...  I am yet again glad that Michael knows how to read configuration files.  I'm also pretty impressed that Eleanor figured out a way to disable her computer in such a complete way using such simple methods. Amanda had been reading Tui Sutherland's series which started with "Wings of Fire".  S

For a few weeks, Amanda has been asking for her loft bed to be lowered.  We had lowered Eleanor's a month or two ago, and I think Amanda liked the look.  Although I'm still not sure what she will do with all the stuff that was under her bed, we agreed that she should have a lower bed when we were able to find the time to take the long legs off. In the meantime, Luke had been looking enviously at Amanda's loft bed and declared that he wanted a loft bed too.  Since his bed was a (very heavy) trundle with a bookcase headboard, putting it up on stilts seemed unlikely. But then Eleanor said that she wanted Luke's bed, which she had used for a time when she was younger (and had decorated with some stickers which are still attached). Thus began the great bed swap---Eleanor got Luke's trundle, Luke got Amanda's loft, and Amanda got Eleanor's low bed.  Rooms had to be cleaned, both so that we could take apart the beds and so that we could install the new ones. 

I have been thinking about discipline lately.  My father-in-law mentioned that my brother-in-law was a very disciplined person.  I don't recall his wasting any time, ever, although he may have.  But mostly he spent his time working on things that were important to him, and accomplished a lot. On the other side of the equation, he told the story of someone he knew who had been very undisciplined about treating his diabetes.  The diabetic was chewed out by his doctor. In my life, I feel like I don't have very much discipline.  I'm constantly getting distracted by trivialities, or time wasters, and much of the time I can't make progress on some of the things I want to do.  This is unsatisfying, and I'd like to figure out how to change it. I think discipline comes in two parts.  First, you must figure out what is important, and then, you need to make a system to actually do the important things.  Sometimes what is important becomes critical and obvious: make these

We were talking about the importance of toothbrushing the other day, and Eleanor came up with a new theory.  She said that teeth really wanted to leave your mouth, but you kept them in your mouth by brushing them every day---that made the gums stick to them more effectively. To which I replied, that is why they call it tooth paste , after all.

Must people don't keep their New Year's resolution. This year, mine is to write a letter a week. The good thing about this resolution is that even if I only keep it for a month, that is 4 more letters than I would have written otherwise. The other good thing is that even if I fall off the wagon for a week or a month, I can always get back on. We will see how it goes. I am planning on writing on Monday mornings. However, my biggest problem with writing letters is not the writing, or even putting them in an envelope, but finding the address putting s stamp on them and pouring them in the mail. I have piles of Christmas cards from years past with names but no addresses or stamps. But I think this is important, so I will try to do better. Maybe the kids will help. Eleanor says that her resolution is not to make any resolutions. Unfortunately, she's already broken it... I love my family :-)

So, for New Year's Eve we decided that the kids needed to go skiing. Michael's cousin had some discount tickets to Welch's Village in MN, so we decided to head on over there. They had fireworks at 7, and our relatives had season passes so would come down just for a few hours.  We would ski in the afternoon, eat dinner, watch the fireworks, and leave. But with one thing and another, we didn't manage to leave the house until 12:50.  We got to the ski place after 2, and our cousin didn't get there until almost 3.  We tried to get skis and by the time we had everything all ready it was almost 4.  Oh well.  I left Michael to be in charge of feeding the kids (we had brought a dinner for Amanda) and went off with the "girls." My mother-in-law and sister-in-law and I went to a nearby county park with three pairs of snowshoes in our trunk, but we decided not to use them.  We went for a lovely 1 mile hike by the Cannon river, then went for dinner in a Chinese re