Still working on the drawing board

Still going to the doctor and having tests. I've been trying to be faithful to eating non-fat since I got home from Branson. So far, I've lost about 12 pounds and I do generally feel better, but I still have episodes of stomach aches that put me in the bed for sometimes several hours at a time and finally falling to sleep is the only relief. I will be glad when all the tests are done and we can chart a course for the best direction to take. I've had about 3 trips to the grocery store where I read every label I could find trying to find some decent choices for nonfat foods. I've done some experimenting with new nonfat cooking tips, but am not ready to post any recipes yet. I'm still working on an enchilada alternative, I've been less than thrilled with nonfat cheese options. However, nonfat cottage cheese has become my favorite fall back food option when I can't figure out anything else. And to think I used to think it tasted awful! What helped change my mind was the almost 2 week period of time that I lived on chicken broth, green tea, and juice. After that, a lot of food choices I used to dislike started tasted a lot better than I remembered. 

Catching Up

Finally caught my breath and sat down long enough to do an update here. I had the opportunity to go to Branson  in early Oct., which I thought was just going to be a little 4 day hiatus from my life. While I was there, I got seriously ill. I had it narrowed down to a couple of things and started going to the doctor on my return. It turns out, I may have both problems that I suspected. I don't really want to go into all of it here, lets just say, I'm having a lot of digestive problems and finding something to eat is quite the challenge. Sometimes I eat the wrong things and then I'm in misery for hours. Needless to say, writing hasn't exactly been my thing lately. I have a surgery consultation lined up for early November. I have reconciled myself to the necessity for surgery and at this point, I just want to feel better. Meanwhile, I am trying to get back into my routines. So, hopefully, that will include doing more blogging.

I've decided to add a link to my blog, The Red Dirt Cowgirl Drives Again, where I blogged about my trip to Branson. Evidently I was having a good day the day I wrote that, because you'd hardly know from reading it that I got sick when I was at Branson. Although, I think the fact I wrote it shortly after I returned and I didn't know how long my misery was going to continue was probably a factor as well. We did have a lot of fun on the trip and managed to get a lot done, between my sick spells.
http://reddirtcowgirldrivesagain.blogspot.com/2011/10/on-road-againbranson-here-we-came.html

Sometimes it's all just a matter of different words

When I came up with this title, I had been thinking about a food experience I had with my grandsons during this past weekend. Since we were exhausting ourselves over the fair and parade, I was wanting an easy light supper before we went back to the fair on Saturday evening. When the boys asked for something to eat, I suggested Mexican Casserole, thinking the boys liked Mexican food because I specifically remembered eating at a couple of different Mexican restaurants with their parents and them. Both boys said, "No, I don't like Mexican food." I had to quickly choose something else and ended up with one of those perennial kid favorites, the can of Chicken and Noodle soup.  Although maybe not the healthiest of choices, they did eat 2 or 3 bowls each and I ended up having to open a 2nd can.  When I had talked to my mother after the parade, I told her I had a batch of leftover Mexican casserole I could bring for lunch the next day at her house.

I was wondering how I was going to get the boys to eat something they had already turned down once before. I decided to fall back on my sister Patricia's strategies I saw her use more than 20 years ago when her children were little. We were at my mother's and she was serving beef tongue. Yes, I know, that's a weird dish and maybe you don't like it either, but our family grew up on it and we consider it a long time family favorite. Patricia called her kids to the table and sat them down with the sliced tongue, along with the vegetables we were having. They asked what we were having, she said "meat". They began eating and after a bit asked again, "what kind of meat"? She looked at me and said, "it's beef, doesn't it taste good"? They agreed that it did and finished their meal without asking again.

We went to my mother's on Sunday after church. I whispered to my mother and my husband that we had to call our main dish "meat casserole" because the boys had told me they didn't like Mexican food. There were a couple of other things the boys said they didn't like either that we were having that day, but we told them they needed to at least try a bite. Each boy ended up loving the Mexican casserole, oops, Meat casserole, and ate 2 or 3 servings each. Plus, they ate some of the other stuff they said they didn't like.

So, the next time you are serving something you think the children may turn up their noses over, just be creative and try to think of another way to describe it and maybe this will work for you too.

Let's Go To The Fair

The quintessential Fort Cobb Fair institution, the Flying Jenny!

Fort Cobb Fair Concession Stand

My grandsons came for a visit last weekend. It was one of those monumental weekends that we did a lot and the boys probably went home worn out and ready for an early bedtime on Sunday night. I know for a fact they fell asleep in the car on the way to meeting their mom. It was the weekend of our local fair and the boys absolutely LOVE the fair, with good reason. Us locals happen to believe it's the best little fair in the world. It's one of those old fashioned home town fairs that a lot of places have done away with them, but the fair is alive and well in Fort Cobb, OK.  It's always held the weekend following Labor Day. So, ya'll come join us next September.

The basketball toss

The fair is actually 3 nights, but since the boys live an hour away, they have to miss the Thursday night of the fair because it would just be too hard on them and us to get them back for school on Friday morning. We still have booths manned by volunteers from the school, local businesses, the bank, and other people throughout the community. Plus, we own our own rides, which are quite reasonable to ride. Most of the rides are 2 tickets, a ticket is 50 cents. It's a good buy in this crazy economic environment we live in now.

Flying Jenny resting

Unfortunately, I failed to get pictures of the food and craft exhibits. Partly because I had a couple of other projects going on that interfered with my entering anything at the fair this time around and partly because the boys were so exited about the rides and games I forgot to walk over to the barn where they were exhibited.

Usually, I would just take pictures of my grand-kids at the fair. But, this year I took a wider variety of pictures because of a Facebook request for a group I'm a member of. And then I thought, what they hey, I need to use those pictures here too.

The Scat

I hope my pictures have given you some idea of what a small town fair is like.

Full Moon Over The Bingo Stand

Either my computer connection is tired and needs to rest from all this picture uploading  or blogger doesn't want us to enter more pictures than this at one time. Anyway, I can no longer get the picture upload function to cooperate. I think a lot of people would agree that this is a pretty good fair for a town of about 700 people. When my own children were little, I always dreaded having to drive by the fairgrounds after the fair was over for the year. They would be reminded of how much fun they had, it seemed like for months afterward they would always ask, "when is the fair coming back". Of course, being little and without a concept of time, they had a hard time understanding how long it would be.  The next step for me will be to try to attend the Oklahoma State Fair, which has started. At this point of my life, I just enjoy walking around the Crafts entries displays, which are pretty incredible, and getting something to eat that you can't eat anywhere else. I don't go to the midway, I don't go see any animals, I don't go to anything but the crafts. That can take a long time. Plus, sometimes I will go to the Made In Oklahoma building...if I have time. I think everyone should go to a fair. It's one of the old time cultures that we are keeping alive for the future.

Inspired To Survive: "PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS"

Just after writing a big old blog yesterday on Inspired to Survive about why I need to have 3 different blogs to organize my writing better, I find myself today using the BlogThis to migrate "Plays Well With Others" from Inspired to Kid in my Heart. It was the line, "we don't need any more Hitlers or Stalins" that did it for me. I thought, if that's not a FRCD/family relations & child development concept, I don't know what would be. So, here it is.

Inspired To Survive: "PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS":

'via Blog this'

Instagram Your Photos Without an iPhone | PCWorld

Check this out. Don't have an iPhone? Or like me, paid for 2 of them for kids - but don't have one for yourself? Evidently, the iPhone has access to the Instagram photo editing program that's a lot of fun. Alas, I choose to be a Blackberry user, which I pretty much love. This slide show talks about free photo filters that duplicate some of the types of filters available on Instagram.

Instagram Your Photos Without an iPhone | PCWorld:

'via Blog this'

Banning Children From Restaurants?

Tonight on Oklahoma City's Channel 4 TV, newscaster Kevin Ogle's The Rant, was about a trend of some restaurants banning children under age 6. I can see both sides of this story. Although I can understand why kids get on other people's nerves, we will be handicapping a whole generation of children from not understanding how to behave and become "more civilized" if we exclude them from certain experiences.  I am also reminded of a family I observed many times that ate out often at the same times we did. They had several children, who were not only extremely loud, but who also left behind some of the messiest table and floor areas I've ever seen eating out. Remember when John Belushi's character yelled "food fight"? This family left a similar environment. Except these children had been sitting with their oblivious parents. I think the restaurant would have been within their rights to ask them not to come back, but probably worried about the repercussions of such an action.  

Through the years, I have observed many children unprepared and ill equipped for being out in public. When you take a child into the store after their bedtime, you cannot expect good behaviour. Children need routines. Children need limits. 

Many times when I was working in Child Welfare, people told me they were afraid to discipline their children and make them mind. I always told them that Child Welfare was not saying they could not discipline their children, that all children need discipline, but their children shouldn't need medical treatment after the discipline. A lot of parents are using being afraid to discipline as a cop-out, instead of setting limits at a time when it is important in their child's development. Some parents fail to discipline because they are not disciplined themselves. It is difficult to do something you aren't doing for yourself. 

The first time I took my grandchildren to the movies, I knew it would be a challenge. They were quite young. Their parents tried to tell me they were too young to go. But, I knew if I taught them limits that it would get easier, and it has. I knew the pleasure of the movie experience was going to be worth the effort it would take. I have now taken them to a number of movies, and we have a movie routine. We have now even progressed to the level that they are able to delay having a special treat until after the movie when we go to Sonic. Before we go to the movie, we discuss our choices: will we get something to snack on at the movie or will we wait and have something special afterwards? I did this on purpose to help them begin to learn delayed pleasure and because children need to learn how to make choices. 

Is Violence Our New Trend In Children's Movies?

My grandchildren and I have a little movie ritual. Whenever the newest top kid movies come out, I try to have them come spend the night and we go to the movies. We always go to The Liberty theater at Carnegie, OK, which is the longest running movie theatre in Oklahoma. Would you believe it only recently went up to $4, from $3.50? The boys don't like the "Show Dog" hot dogs,so I can't use that as a supper menu that night.

This summer, we've been to see at least two: Cars 2 and the new Smurf's movie. While sitting in both movies, I remember thinking, "I can't believe this has so much violence for young children." On the way home from Cars 2, in an effort to pull some positive things out of the movie, I asked the boys what were some things we learned from the movie? Immediately, one of the boys said, "To not kill?" Granted we were talking about cars, but to children, those cars were personified as people. I moved the conversation to talking about being faithful to our true friends and being true to ourselves. But, I was troubled over the direction of the movie.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, we went to see the Smurfs. On the whole, it was a very cute movie and much more loveable than the cartoon of the 80's. I think perhaps because the computer animation has a depth not possible in regular cartoons. I loved the little village where the Smurfs lived and their little mushroom houses. I thought to myself, this will probably explode into numerous toys for sale this Christmas. I would have loved a little village like that to play with as a little girl. However, since of the scenes involving Gargamel, were over the top violent, it did reinforce the lesson that evil does not pay. But, I'm thinking Gargamel involved violence when my own kids were little and none of them turned out to be violent offenders, so maybe we're going to be ok. There was a positive message about being true to yourself, so the movie did have some positive points. 

While I was writing this, I decided to go on-line and see what the regular movie reviewers thought. Cars 2 came out pretty bad in the reviews, which surprised me. We thought it was way better than the original Cars. Only a couple of parent reviews mentioned the violence for either movie. Maybe I'm getting too old for this stuff, I don't know. I just think when we take violence for granted it doesn't lead to good things in the long run. But, I am a little reminded of many years ago during the first run of the Smurfs when one woman told me she didn't let her children watch the Smurfs because there was witchcraft in it. I told her, "yes, but the man that practices witchcraft never wins (Gargamel), so the children learn a lesson that witchcraft doesn't pay". I think it will probably "all come out in the wash", as they used to say when I was growing up.

C is for CRAFT!: DIY Shrinky Dink (from plastic container!) [TUTORIAL]

Here is a wonderful idea from C is for CRAFT on repurposing other plastics for Shrinky Dinks. Start looking for those number 6 level of plastics, which is what you need to do this. C is for CRAFT!: DIY Shrinky Dink (from plastic container!) [TUTORIAL]

Apostrophy Designs: The Tie-Dye Twist {Tutorial}

I wish I had discovered this post sooner for this easy take off on tie dye shirts for kids to make. However, there's always Saturdays with the grand-kids. Apostrophy Designs: The Tie-Dye Twist {Tutorial}  It uses Tumble Dye Tie Dye from any craft store. Check this blog out, it looks easy to do.