mathmom's blog

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 bro...

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 ...

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. ...