live from sublurbia

Though I’d be hard-pressed to figure out what “good” would be in this case.

I seem to have a strange power: killing off decent Mexican/Spanish restaurants. All I have to do is show up and like the food. That’s all it takes. Within a couple of months, the menu has gone bland to cater to the blander tastes of my neighbors, or they decide changing the grease in the kitchen is a very bad idea and vow to never change it again.

Or worse, they shut down completely. One was a short drive from the house, closer towards our downtown area. A decent variety on the menu, salsa that had more than bell peppers and vinegar, and live music some nights.

Another was an even shorter drive; tucked in the back corner of a strip mall down the street, it was flanked by a couple of diners that specialized in such varied tastes as wiener schnitzel and Thai cuisine. We’d ducked in there one day that we had off (the kids didn’t) and found the food filling and fresh, reminiscent of our “southwest” trip a few years back. I decided it was worth telling friends and family about, but on our next excursion there was a small sign on the door indicating the restaurant had closed. A month later, the sign is a bit weather-worn, but shows no sign of coming down to open again anytime soon.

So tonight I’m making it myself. Using my favorite quick way of cooking up the corn tortillas (6 to a cookie sheet, spritzed with cooking oil, and baked in the oven 5 min @350), we’re having plain tacos tonight. But with the dearth of authentic restaurants in a 15 mile radius, I’m going to have to crack the lid on the grill and roast my own chiles for a batch of salsa. There’s the buzzer. Time to pull the tortillas and toss the spanish rice I crocked up yesterday in to warm up as the oven cools.

Anyone else with this strange power? Are you a killer of healthy plants? Buyer of doomed product lines (I so miss Dulce M & Ms)?

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Welcome Spring and Summer - and to the Spring Bloggy Giveaway Carnival, organized by Don’t Try It. Many thanks to them for hosting this Carnival.

As promised last week, my giveaway is the grocery store bag I blinged up in last week’s T.O.A.S.T. (Think of a Something Thursday). The winner will be chosen from comments placed by users on this post (I’ll find a random number chooser online) and will receive one free shopping bag, shipping included (no wine, sorry).

Just comment on this post; let us know how you found the site, link us a favorite post at my site or yours or someone else’s … just say hi. I’m feeling spunky enough to try conquering international shipping, so we’ll throw caution and postal codes to the wind.

Good luck and happy Carnival!

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by! I’ll close comments on Friday night, midnight (by the post stamp on your comment). One entry per person please!

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I made sure I greeted the the Working Girl first: a little brown and white whippet, about waist high on Wolfie. I was ready in the way I’d told Wolfie to approach dogs: hand palm down and limp, wrist out. She sniffed it, and moved on to Wolfie. Wolfie started a bit (we’re working on that - that’s what got me bitten - someone else starting as the dog sniffed me) and when the dog sniffed him and moved on, he was fine. He even walked around a bit, watching the Working Dog on her rounds, fascinated.

Actually, we meet lots of nice dogs, all the time. The last time I was bitten, well, I was following the rules, and the dog, when spooked, bit me (prior to spooking he was sniffing my wrist).

But Wolfie is a bit scared of dogs. We’re working on it. Cats are getting better; he’ll pet them and they’ll accept it, everyone goes their own way. This working dog is a sweety, though, and just right for him, so we’ll visit her when we’re in the area.

Some of our family, friends, and neighbors have pets, mostly dogs. We’ve been using the pups as object lessons on how to “talk to dogs” and work with them: Let them smell you and get to know you, then you guys go your own ways. Some dogs love being loved, though, and are quite loveable, but are a little Too Much for him yet.

But like hair cuts and swimming lessons, we’re Getting There.

Little steps. Little steps.

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_{Author’s Note: I wrote this out a long time ago, before I came up with the original TOAST (Think of a Something Thursday) format. We’ve come a long way, baybee!}

TOAST: Think of a Something Thursday

Long before I acquired my stable of shopping bags, and when I bothered to remember, I’d tell a store clerk trying to bag one or two items: “No thank you”. A habit borne of managing to accumulate too much junk (which I still do, adventure-girl/packrat that I am) but a habit that also fit in nicely with the Reduce part of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

When I was a kid, the grocery stores in my area were dominated by paper sacks. And that was it for a long time. They were great, useful - book covers, art papers, shipping paper, patterns, “canvas”. When plastic bags started coming around along with the advent of “bag your own” stores in my neck of the woods, the bags were your typical two handled affair seen today. Us kids adapted and used them to make simple box kites. Tie a string, find a gust of wind, and go. No sticks, no tails, no tape and paper and glue … But no sharks teeth or dragons, either. Nothing to paint or enhance. I think after one or two gos we were done and bored.

I started out my latest foray into self-bagging and non-plastic bagging like I do most things. In fits and spurts. (The hub asked me the other day how long my to-do list was. I asked in return, “which volume?”.) But I rounded up a sampling of totes I had anyway (I prefer simple totes instead of most diaper bags) along with the inexpensive reusable bags I mentioned the other day.

Surely there was one perfect bag to hold my ‘fancy’ cheeses, wines, crusty loafs of bread, and swirly pops for the kids, right? Be it a quick trip for a parents-only dinner or the restocking of the hurricane pantry, just grab a cloth bag and go, yes? No, not so much. Continue Reading »

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Sometimes I buy things and I don’t know why. It might be tied to my early reading of plucky-girl-adventure stories, where a hatpin or other random cool thing saved the day. I think I love saving the day and hope somewhere deep inside the plucky-girl-adventure stories will happen to me.

I’m sure there are at least three things within my line of sight that I don’t get as much use out of as I’d hoped. Kind of an impulse thing that I’m working on; but one part of my mind always whispers about the possibilities. Sometimes I’ll buy an item, though, and actually use it years later. This is one of those times. Behold the awesomeness that is (click the jump to see more):

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Mare noted that she picked up a small foldable bag that fits in the glove box. I’ve got those in my eclectic collection; they make great diaper bags for the daily tote to and from school. Diapers go in the bag to school, are dropped off, and the bag is shoved in her cubby bucket without taking a lot of space. It even crams back into its own clip-on bag if I get the notion to stuff things in things (or need a diversion of “magic” for the little ones). I got these (I have two) at Claire’s during a buy X get Y sale.
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Standing in line at a lunch counter the other day, I stopped the cashier from bagging my lunch box. “Going green, eh?” asked the guy in front of me. I just nodded and smiled; on the one hand I’m kinda green, on the other hand, I just drove 3 miles to pick up a plate of chicken, beans, and rice I could have crocked up myself if I’d planned the week a little better. But that better planned week would have meant my next stop wasn’t the grocery store, either.

Last winter, I popped into a women’s fashion store to pick up a glittery little shawl to spruce up an older little black dress for the company holiday party. When I asked the cashier to not bag it, and put the shawl in a cloth shopping bag I’d brought with me, her eyes got wide and she warned me that people might think I was shoplifting. I reminded her that I had the receipt and that I was sure I’d be fine.

My local JCPennys stores started selling lovely large cloth bags for $1.49 (now 79¢). After raiding the clearance racks for bargains , I added a bag to the top of the pile. The cashier scanned it in, folded it up, and put it in a plastic bag. “Um,” I interrupted as she started to scan my other purchases. “Could you just put the clothes in the shopping bag I just bought? Please?”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to do that,” she responded.

“Well, that’s what they’re for,” I replied.

She checked with her supervisor, who gave her the go ahead, but it was clear she thought I was completely nuts.

Two years after I bought my first 99¢ cloth bag at an Albertsons store in Southern California, they’re finally everywhere. Before the cheap, convenient bags became widely available, I toted around various random cloth bags, usually give-aways from conferences or picked up at garage sales and thrift stores. They bewildered and annoyed the baggers and clerks, but in general, people are starting to come around.

My friend Mare recently asked for opinions on cloth bags, so here’s my reusable round-up. Continue Reading »

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I’ve probably still got little scars on my skull from an incident involving the top bunk bed, a deck of cards, and a quick if bloody lesson in gravity. I try not to make up for it with my kids by swaddling them in cotton wool or making them sleep in helmets, but I can’t help cringe to find the kid asleep on the floor in the morning, on the other side of the room from the bed we put her down in.

Wolfie wasn’t that bad. The only time he fell out of bed he was sick with an ear infection and loopy on cough meds. And “bed” was a mattress on the floor, so he only fell a good nine inches, if that.

But Helvi is a rolling machine. The foot board, head board, and wall keep her from rolling too far most ways, but she keeps rolling off that last side and down to the next mattress in sequence (a cheap mom’s trundle ;)). One night I distinctly heard a “thump” as some part of her anatomy whacked against the side board of the bed. I made plans to get a bed rail the next day, but I found three stores with empty shelves before giving up. Must be something going around.

I ended up with a padded side rail using a folded towel instead. She still can whack it on the way down, but she’ll have a softer ride.

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Most of them are still in the nebulous phase, so here’s one from Helvi’s infant days that never really got finished up. Just a snapshot in time as we move away from the diaper and baby time of our lives for now.

Things could be better if I had time … Isn’t that everyone’s mantra?

Labor saving devices. Time saving devices. But what you you want to save time for?

Someone once asked Dad: “But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?”
“For work, if you love that best,” said Dad. “For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure.” He looked over the top of his pince-nez. “For mumblety-peg, if that’s where your heart lies.”

_{Source: Cheaper By the Dozen}

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And here I’ve only run one! Just my luck. :)

Anyway, here’s an oldie but a goodie … Sticky Notes to Defeat the Mean Potties.

I have one answer for her. Post-it^tm notes. I always lose mine, but a headband or diaper cover works, too.

I occasionally am caught off-guard in an auto-flush bathroom without my little helpful squares; usually I’ll have something else (cloth wipe, cloth changing pad, other soon-to-be-washed garment) to work in its stead.

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