Me: Too bad Jack's gotten to that stage where he likes to try to run to the road all the time.
Charlie: Yeah.
After some thought . . .
Charlie: If you and Grandma and Daddy and Cubby were all dead, and just Jack and I were alive, I would have to keep him from going into the road and getting runned over.
Me: Well, he's lucky to have so many people who can look out for him.
More thought . . .
Charlie: But what if I were dead too?
I had no answer to this.
A pause to ponder . . .
Charlie: Then I guess Jack would just go down to the road and get runned over and then the WHOLE FAMILY would be dead.
Right. Time to change the subject, Gloomy Gus.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
A Good Mop Is Hard To Find
I seem to be cursed with mops. This is unfortunate, seeing as how I have three small children that constantly spill things on the kitchen floor (along with their father and his near-constant coffee spilling . . .), leaving me with a kitchen floor that more or less ALWAYS needs mopping. I should do it every day. I don't.
Partially this is because I really don't like mopping, but also it's because I never seem to have a satisfactory mop. I prefer the sponge mops, because they're simple to use and light. A bought me one a few months ago. I mopped at least once a week because it was so easy and worked so well . . . until it didn't. There was this weird design flaw where the inside part kind of untwisted and the head fell off and there was no way to thread it back on because the screw part was on the inside.
I only know this because I asked A. to put it back together for me and he spent, no lie, 45 minutes messing around with the thing before I finally grabbed it and threw it in the trash. I wasn't even the one trying to fix it and it was making me mad.
Fail.
We had another sponge mop handle in the shop that just needed a replacement head. That mop was purchased at the grocery store. I went to the same grocery store and bought the same brand of mop head as the one we got before, the only kind of replacement head they had.
It didn't fit. OF COURSE IT DIDN'T. They probably change the design every few months or something so you have to buy a new mop.
Second fail.
This left me with a string mop the MiL had bought awhile ago. It had all these screw parts I couldn't figure out and it was so long that it didn't even fit into my bucket.
THIRD FAIL AND SCREW THIS.
I ended up on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor with the useless new replacement head because I couldn't return it and it works okay as an extra-long sponge. There was a lot of swearing.
But at least my kitchen floor is clean now. For about an hour.
Partially this is because I really don't like mopping, but also it's because I never seem to have a satisfactory mop. I prefer the sponge mops, because they're simple to use and light. A bought me one a few months ago. I mopped at least once a week because it was so easy and worked so well . . . until it didn't. There was this weird design flaw where the inside part kind of untwisted and the head fell off and there was no way to thread it back on because the screw part was on the inside.
I only know this because I asked A. to put it back together for me and he spent, no lie, 45 minutes messing around with the thing before I finally grabbed it and threw it in the trash. I wasn't even the one trying to fix it and it was making me mad.
Fail.
We had another sponge mop handle in the shop that just needed a replacement head. That mop was purchased at the grocery store. I went to the same grocery store and bought the same brand of mop head as the one we got before, the only kind of replacement head they had.
It didn't fit. OF COURSE IT DIDN'T. They probably change the design every few months or something so you have to buy a new mop.
Second fail.
This left me with a string mop the MiL had bought awhile ago. It had all these screw parts I couldn't figure out and it was so long that it didn't even fit into my bucket.
THIRD FAIL AND SCREW THIS.
I ended up on my hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor with the useless new replacement head because I couldn't return it and it works okay as an extra-long sponge. There was a lot of swearing.
But at least my kitchen floor is clean now. For about an hour.
Monday, April 18, 2016
What Happens When It Gets Hot
Well, I suppose 73 degrees is only "hot" if you live in a place accustomed to ice on interior house walls. But it felt hot to us.
Luckily, we know how to adapt.
Ditch the pants . . .
Add some shades. Good to go.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
The Domination of Pork
In case you ever find yourself in possession of a twenty-pound* shoulder roast from an old sow, you should know that it will take at least 22 hours in a 225-degree oven to get tender.
Yup. That long.
I know this because I cooked the World's Biggest Pork Roast yesterday. Or rather, I cooked it the night before AND yesterday. Good thing I started it before I went to bed on Tuesday night, thinking I would just take it out in the morning and have the rest of the day to pull it apart and do something with it for dinner.
HA. HAHAHA, said the World's Biggest Pork Roast.
When I pulled it out at 9 a.m., it was not tender. It wasn't done at noon. Or at 3 p.m. It was more or less done at 6 p.m. when it was actually time to eat, although I bet I could have left it in the oven for another six hours and it still wouldn't have been overcooked.
It was just so . . . big. Obviously.
I was so exhausted just wrestling the thing out of the plastic wrappings and into the pan that the only seasoning I managed to get on it was some salt. This ended up being a good thing, though, because in addition to being impressively large, it was also covered in an impressive layer of fat that rendered during the long, slow cooking. Thus, I got not only a large quantity of meat, but a respectable quantity of lard, too.
Bonus.
The amount of meat was not actually as staggering as the size and weight of the raw chunk o' flesh made it appear. The bone was huge, so by the time the fat was gone and I pulled out the bone--and we had all eaten our fill last night--the leftovers weren't an unmanageable amount.
The meat was really, really good. But seriously. That roast was SO BIG. A daunting prospect, indeed. I did get more than one meal out of it, though.
It's gonna be awhile before I can work up the energy to deal with the second shoulder, which is still taking up a large portion of freezer real estate. At least I know how long it will take to cook next time. FOREVER.
* I don't know for sure that it was actually twenty pounds, because my kitchen scale only goes to 11 pounds, but if it wasn't a full twenty pounds, it was pretty damn close. It was hard to lift in and out of the oven.
Yup. That long.
I know this because I cooked the World's Biggest Pork Roast yesterday. Or rather, I cooked it the night before AND yesterday. Good thing I started it before I went to bed on Tuesday night, thinking I would just take it out in the morning and have the rest of the day to pull it apart and do something with it for dinner.
HA. HAHAHA, said the World's Biggest Pork Roast.
When I pulled it out at 9 a.m., it was not tender. It wasn't done at noon. Or at 3 p.m. It was more or less done at 6 p.m. when it was actually time to eat, although I bet I could have left it in the oven for another six hours and it still wouldn't have been overcooked.
It was just so . . . big. Obviously.
I was so exhausted just wrestling the thing out of the plastic wrappings and into the pan that the only seasoning I managed to get on it was some salt. This ended up being a good thing, though, because in addition to being impressively large, it was also covered in an impressive layer of fat that rendered during the long, slow cooking. Thus, I got not only a large quantity of meat, but a respectable quantity of lard, too.
Bonus.
The amount of meat was not actually as staggering as the size and weight of the raw chunk o' flesh made it appear. The bone was huge, so by the time the fat was gone and I pulled out the bone--and we had all eaten our fill last night--the leftovers weren't an unmanageable amount.
The meat was really, really good. But seriously. That roast was SO BIG. A daunting prospect, indeed. I did get more than one meal out of it, though.
It's gonna be awhile before I can work up the energy to deal with the second shoulder, which is still taking up a large portion of freezer real estate. At least I know how long it will take to cook next time. FOREVER.
* I don't know for sure that it was actually twenty pounds, because my kitchen scale only goes to 11 pounds, but if it wasn't a full twenty pounds, it was pretty damn close. It was hard to lift in and out of the oven.
Monday, April 11, 2016
Random, Here We Come
Last week when I was making dinner and holding Jack at the same time, I used a fork to take a taste of what I was cooking and managed to stab myself in the corner of the mouth. Not one of my more coordinated moments, but I'll blame it on the toddler weighing down one side of me that put me off balance.
Anyway.
This is a terrible place for a little cut, because of course it never really scabs over and is just kind of there, forever. Well, not forever, but it's been like five days now and it still hurts. Plus, I can't really camouflage it, so it kind of looks like I have a cold sore or something. Pretty.
I went freezer diving this morning and decided I'd better haul out one of the ENORMOUS pork shoulder roasts that are sitting on top of everything else in the cellar freezer. The last pig we had slaughtered was a relatively old sow, and so the resulting roasts are huge. HUGE.
Anyway.
This is a terrible place for a little cut, because of course it never really scabs over and is just kind of there, forever. Well, not forever, but it's been like five days now and it still hurts. Plus, I can't really camouflage it, so it kind of looks like I have a cold sore or something. Pretty.
I went freezer diving this morning and decided I'd better haul out one of the ENORMOUS pork shoulder roasts that are sitting on top of everything else in the cellar freezer. The last pig we had slaughtered was a relatively old sow, and so the resulting roasts are huge. HUGE.
It barely fit in our biggest roasting pan.
I either have to have a party for about twenty people to eat all this at once, or freeze some of it. Probably gonna go with freezing. It would be kind of nice to have some pulled pork in the freezer for those wretched hot days of summer when the last thing I want to do is turn on any heat source for cooking. How long do you think it will take to cook a roast the size of Jack? Probably at least twelve hours, I'm guessing.
'Kay, I'd better go do some laundry. A. took Cubby and Charlie fishing yesterday for the first time this year, and of course Cubby fell in and returned with soaking wet clothes plastered in mud. No fish, though.
Peace out.
Friday, April 8, 2016
This Just Happened
Cubby and Charlie were in the living room watching the Disney version of Robin Hood. Jack was running around entertaining himself happily in the room with them. All quiet, and I was wasting time on the computer. (Friday, remember?)
And then Cubby runs in and says, "Mommy, why is Jack running around with no pants?"
Good question. Good thing Charlie had an answer: "I pulled them off because he kept trying to climb in my chair."
Right. Life with three little kids. You're looking at it.
And then Cubby runs in and says, "Mommy, why is Jack running around with no pants?"
Good question. Good thing Charlie had an answer: "I pulled them off because he kept trying to climb in my chair."
Right. Life with three little kids. You're looking at it.
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