First of all, I love garlic.  It’s one of my favorite foods, and it goes into just about every dish I make – usually with more than the recipe calls for.  One thing you won’t see me doing is using jarred garlic.  It sits in some brine generally, and it goes rancid way too fast.  And it just doesn’t taste the same.  No, I use fresh garlic, which is far cheaper, too.  If I show you how easy it is to use fresh garlic, will you promise to get rid of your jarred stuff?

It doesn’t even require that you buy anything.  Specialty tools that do only one thing?  I’m generally with Alton Brown on this one.  I have very few gadgets (and I have a LOT of gadgets) that provide only one service.  All the specialty garlic peelers fall into that category for me.  You spent how much on an item that purports to remove the skin from garlic quickly and easily?  It’s totally not necessary.  Using the same knife you will to chop your garlic later, you can do it faster and easier – and cheaper than with any other tool you buy.

Plus, it was fun.  Go watch again.  This is such a great way to get your aggression out, too!

After debating a number of options, we narrowed down our choices to ones that we could easily make dairy free, which left out truffles and some of the puddings she really wanted to make.  Given that it’s really turning into summer (although Thursday – high of 57 degrees), I didn’t want anything heavy or too rich.  I also leaned away from cookies so that we could spend less time on the baking since we had some other tasks we wanted to accomplish together.

Finally, we decided on lemon bars.  But after tasting the lemon bars we’d made, Little Miss announced that they weren’t lemon bars at all but instead baked lemonade.  I loved that description, so I’m keeping the name for my lemon bars.  She was proud to help, so she definitely deserves some credit in the naming.

Baked Lemonade (aka Lemon Bars)

Ingredients:
2 1/4 c flour, split
1/2 c powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
3/4 t salt
12 T butter (or coconut oil in my case)
6 eggs
1 generous c lemon juice
2 1/2 c sugar

Directions:
Bake the crust first.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Grease the sides only of a 9×11 baking dish.

Combine the flour, salt, and 1/2 c powdered sugar in a bowl.  Once it is well mixed, add the butter, cut into chunks.  Make sure the butter is cold, as you want to form dry lumps like streusel, not have it melt and turn into a true dough.  Beat on low until you have pea size chunks.

Pour into your baking dish.  Spread it out into an even layer with your fingers, then gently press the crust to form a smooth surface.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the crust is lightly golden.  If you’re using coconut oil, beware that it doesn’t change color quite the same way it will if you use butter.  Let it cool fully to room temperature while you make the filling.

Bring your oven to 325 degrees for the second bake.

Add your eggs to the bowl, and begin to beat.  Once they are incorporated, slowly begin to add the sugar so that it is absorbed as it’s being added.  This will help create a lighter filling.  Once it’s smooth, go ahead and stir in the lemon juice, again adding it slowly while you mix on a lower speed.  Add the last 3/4 c of flour and use a spatula to stir until it is just incorporated.

Pour atop your fully cooled crust.  Personally, when I have a liquid filling like this, I prefer to have my baking dish sitting on the rack in my oven with the rack pulled out and pour it into the crust there so I don’t have to carry it and potentially spill it.

Bake for 40 minutes until the filling has just started to set at the edges.  Check this by gently shaking the pan as it sits in the oven.  If it jiggles, but there’s no liquid visible, it’s starting to set.  If it’s fairly solid, it’s completely set and take it out.  Turn your oven off at that point and leave it in for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven once the filling has fully set.  Let it cool to room temperature, then place it in the fridge for 2-3 hours before cutting.  Once it’s chilled, dust it with powdered sugar.

This will store in the fridge for 3-5 days.  Be sure to keep it covered so that it doesn’t dry out.

So we’ve all heard the mantra that it takes 28 days to set a habit, right?  (You have heard that, haven’t you?)  With Shaklee, I’m well past that initial 28 day period – I’m in the midst of month three of working with Shaklee to shed some pounds.  And I have.  I’ve shared my progress with you, but I’ve also been stuck.  The scale hasn’t moved in the right direction in a meaningful way in a long time – or so it feels.

I’ve see-sawed up and down two pounds for weeks and weeks and weeks now.  And it’s killing me inside just a little bit.  If I’m doing it right, why  is my body not doing what it is supposed to do?  Am I doing it wrong?  Is it not working?  Am I missing something?  Is it just me and I’m meant to be this way and I should give up?

No, no annnnnnd no.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that big changes take time.  You don’t see the results immediately, and that’s ok.  Stick with it.  Persevere.  It’s worth it.

Or… as my high school cheerleading days would say, “Don’t you ever get down, don’t you ever give up, charge up!”

I know you can’t compare kids.  Every child is different and blah blah blah.  But as parents we still do, not because we want to compare good/bad better/worse and so forth but because our only measuring stick of what is “normal” is our other children.  I’m guilty of it all the time, and I know I’m not alone.

But my children are so different.  They have such different personalities and strengths and interests.  I witnessed it the past two days when we went through their rooms and evaluated every single non-clothing item to see if it is a keep or a go.

Mister Man would get involved in what he was looking at and forget the cleaning or the next item or why we were in his room.  He simply focused on the moment, and the rest of the world disappeared.  When evaluating items, for the most part he was sure whether he’d outgrown it or not and if it was too babyish, it was gone.  The small “junk” items (oh birthday goodie bags, how I hate you) were more of a challenge, but I finally hit the jackpot when I started asking him how long it would take him to forget about an item.  There was a large pile of items exiting his room, calmly and methodically.

Little Miss was more of a challenge.  Her room is simply covered and filled with two things.  Her main obsession is Puffles and Puffle-related items she’s created from a disco palace to Halloween costumes to picture frames and more.  She’s a tad bit over the moon for her Puffles, but she plays with them and their accoutrements daily.  And then we have the stuffed animals.  Last night she couldn’t fall asleep because she had all her stuffed animals on her full size bed and couldn’t find anywhere to sleep.  The pile was three feet high.  Many are ones she never plays with, so we spent time going through those trying to weed down the pack.  After awhile of trying to find ones that can go away, I looked at her.  Little Miss, are you trying not to cry? I asked, noticing her pinched expression and glassy eyes.  That was all it took to burst into tears.

She has such a hard time letting go of anything that once upon a time meant anything to her.  I tried to explain that certain stuffed animals like Snowy who was her first best friend will always stick around.  I pointed to the Bugs Bunny she had sitting in her room that was mine from when I was about two years old for an example.  I reminded her that I wasn’t forcing her to get rid of any she said she wanted to keep and that she was making the choice.  But the hysterical tears continued, so we took a break.  When we made it back upstairs to finish going through her room, I noticed that many of the animals that had been in the  go pile were once again atop her bed.  But the tears at least stopped.

And that’s just one example.  I was thinking about it later this afternoon and realized that I don’t know what she wants to be when she grows up.  Mister Man has stated very clearly since he was four years old that he wants to be a paleontologist.  He knows more about dinosaurs that I ever did – or cared to.  And almost six years later, he has yet to waver in his determination, although he is also now considering being a Lego Master Builder and has been for the past couple years.  He’s pretty sure he can somehow do both.

Regardless, he decided on a career early.  Even in preschool, he told us he wanted to be a special needs math preschool teacher.  He’s always had a goal, regardless of what direction he’s heading.  Little Miss is far more of a fly by the seat of your pants girl, and I’d never heard her talk about what she wants to be.  So I asked her.

And she looked at me blankly. I don’t know, she finally declared.  That’s ok, I reassured her.  You have plenty of years to figure it out.  Is there anything where you’ve ever heard about a job and thought “Wow! That’s cool.  That’s what I want to do someday!” or even just really liked it?  She shook her head.

After gently poking and prodding a little to make sure I wasn’t missing anything but doing my best not to make her freak out that she didn’t have a career goal in mind at the age of seven, I realized that this is just another aspect of how Little Miss truly is different from her brother.  She’s just flying through life and will figure things out later.

Knowing both of them, they’ll be successful at whatever they end up choosing.  They know themselves well, and they have very determined personalities with a lot of strengths that will serve them well.  But yet they are so different in so many ways.  And someday, when I proudly receive a call from one child updating me on the life of the first ever paleontologist Lego Master Builder and another sharing her exploits doing goodness knows what, I won’t be surprised.

What did you want to be when you were little?

This month’s book for From Left to Write was A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.

Little Miss had her First Communion two weeks ago.  As the good mom I am, I have her write out her own (thorough) thank you cards for each gift she receives.  Of course, we ran out of thank you cards after the second thank you note because I forgot to check our stock.  This is where Minted makes it easy.  I know about them for a variety of reasons, since they sell all sorts of stationary from wedding invitations to party decor (for those of us who are less crafty than our ambitions) to my personal favorite, kid stationary.

While I admit that I will frequently use electronic means to send some types of invitations, electronic thank you notes are vertoben.  In my mind, if someone has gone through enough trouble to help you celebrate a milestone, choose an appropriate gift, and get it to you, the least you can do is hand write and mail a thank you note that thanks the person not just for the gift but for thinking of you and helping you celebrate, in addition to showing your appreciation for the gift.

The wee ones aren’t always thrilled to write the thank you notes – who is? – but they understand its importance, and I think it teaches them a good life lesson, too.  I’ve found that if they like the design of the thank you note, they’re more likely to write them without complaining and will fill up all the room there is blank on the card.

Minted offers many different varieties of kid stationary to use as thank you notes so that the designs can fit just about any personality.  There are ones personalized with names, though I tend to like the ones that don’t include a name so that both Mister Man and Little Miss can use the same stationary as needed.  The same goes for traditionally “boy” versus “girl” designs.  There are plenty of both, though I prefer to go slightly more gender neutral, much as Little Miss would be just fine with a completely “boy” design.  Different cards have different costs, but they range from $2.33 each for 15 cards ($1.52 for 65 or more) to $2.60 each for 15 cards ($1.68 for 65 or more), before you add on options.

For the greenie in me, I love that there are options that use 100% recycled paper to make the cards.  There are also options for most cards to change the shape from square corners to rounded corners to scalloped edges and more.  These options add an expense to the cards, but there are some options on Minted to make these truly personalized to your taste.

As you go through the design process, you are able to quickly and easily choose what options work best for you, as well as see the added cost for various options.  These range from changing the color scheme of the card (free) to adding a photo or color/pattern to the back of the card.  The envelope itself even has plenty of options for color of the actual envelope to adding a return address automatically to the envelope in various formats.

For many card options, you can also choose to use the free Minted Address Assistant to address your envelopes for you, saving you time and energy.  This option is currently available only for birth announcements, save the date cards, wedding invitations, holiday cards, and party invitations, but it’s a great service for those of us (me!) who are pressed for time.  Every year when I order my holiday cards, they inevitably sit around the house for days before I manage to get my cards all addressed.  I love it!

One of the coolest parts about Minted is that designs are truly unique.  They don’t come from stock art or in-house artists.  Instead, Minted solicits submissions as part of their minted design challege.  Designers submit their creations, and the Minted community votes on them to decide which options will become a part of the store.  I think it’s a great way to support those who want to become professional designers as a way to get their foot wet in that world and show that they have what it takes.  It isn’t solely to save costs on a designer.  Those whose designs win earn 6-8% of the card revenues.  They can also win cash prizes and potentially be commissioned to create Minted originals.

There’s plenty to like about Minted.  In fact, I just discovered their journals.  For $16 per journal, you can create a journal on premium white paper that has a customized front cover design and front cover.  There are some amazing options out there.  With the wee ones getting older and so many of their friends having too much “stuff,” this is a perfect gift in my mind.  Given the amount of creative writing the wee ones are now doing, too, you can bet that these will be showing up in their stockings this year, too!  The fact that Little Miss likes regular lined paper and Mister Man prefers graph paper is perfect, since I have those two options plus unlined paper for every journal.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Little Miss is having her birthday party in a few weeks, and I have some party decorations to decide on.

Top 10 Reasons Why An iPhone Is Not A DJ

10. You want people to dance, right?  Unless your friends and relatives are all extras on So You Think You Can Dance, you’ll have  a relatively empty dance floor.  The DJ is the one who gets people out there and moving, excited about the dancing.  And, yes, he leads those ubiquitous line dances that everyone claims to hate yet still somehow get people up there moving every time.

9. Welcome first the first time!  Mr. and Mrs. X!  Wedding parties are traditionally announced to some sort of fun music as they come in at some point during the cocktail hour.  No DJ?  Well, who’s going to do that for you?  In this case, my husband was drafted.  And yes, he had a microphone, but there were other issues.

8. Venues aren’t set up for iPhones.  Venues don’t have a sound system you can simply plug your iPhone into and have it work over their speakers.  Because people don’t do that.  DJs have the whole gig, which makes it audible (sometimes too much so!), but the bride and groom never mentioned their plans to the venue, and they never tested the iPhone as DJ concept.  The only solution – figured out during the reception – was to plug in a microphone that the venue had and place the mic as close to the iPhone as possible.  Needless to say, barely anyone could hear the music.

7. iPhone run on batteries.  And when the battery gives out, there goes your DJ.  Because yay you found a mic to set near the iPhone, but the mic isn’t near an outlet, and your cord isn’t long enough so you can’t plug it in.  Oops.

6. You aren’t a playlist expert.  So great, you created a playlist of your favorite songs.  But what order do you put them in?  How do you mix up the fast and the slow?  What if everyone is loving the slow songs and when the fast music comes on, they abandon the dance floor?  It’s not easy to adjust your play list on the fly to play what people are responding to the way a good DJ can and will do.

5. Speaking of playlists, what about those Father/Daughter and other special dances?  You are still going to do the first dance and the other special dances during the reception at  some point, right?  Who did you pick for the awkward task of stopping the music at some point during the reception, finding the right song, and starting it up when you want those dances to happen?  Trust me, something will go wrong here.  Plus, the DJ transitions one song into the next so that there’s no pause or break or silence that gives people a chance to think about leaving the dance floor.

4. That song just isn’t one you dance to.  So you love that song.  It’s one of your favorites.  But oops, it doesn’t really work with those awkward pauses and beat changes.  And the rhythm is weird.  But you put it on your playlist because you don’t think of these things and didn’t know.  That’s another thing a good DJ does.  He knows what songs do and don’t work for dancing and weddings and will help you craft a good playlist.

3. Hey, can you play…. Your playlist is set.  And it’s limited to the songs you own, which aren’t cheap to buy anyway.  Half the fun at weddings is the songs people request (and yes, you set a blacklist of songs or artists that the DJ will not play) and seeing the reaction of people to them.  It gets people talking and having fun and more involved in the wedding and dancing.  And isn’t that what you want?

2. What was that noise?  Yes, I heard that repeatedly that night.  Generally, it was in reference to clapping.  Because the bride and groom had several songs during the meal, and some even during the dancing portion, that were acoustic versions of songs.  You know, where there’s mostly singing and it’s quieter than normal and then it trails off into clapping at the end.  Sometimes for 10-20 seconds.  It made me giggle, but it really confused a lot of people.

And the number one reason why an iPhone isn’t a DJ for a wedding?

Bring!  Bring!  Bring!  When you get a phone call – or a text an email notification – your phone lets the whole reception know.  It stops the music for a few seconds, makes the noise, then restarts the music.  I’m pretty sure that isn’t the mood you’re going for at your fancy wedding.

And no.  I couldn’t make any of this up if I tried.  So please… don’t save your money here.  I saved a ton of money on my wedding but went for it in places the guests wouldn’t notice.  I made my own centerpieces that were simple but elegant.  I didn’t buy many flowers because who remembers the decorations anyway.  We made a CD for our favor that was all our special dances and the first 10 songs we played at the reception for each person.  I have friends who still listen to that CD today, and it was far cheaper and easier to make those than other favors that people throw away or forget quickly.  I spent as little as possible to get a dress I really liked.

But the food and the venue and the DJ?  Those I didn’t skimp on, though it’s fine if the food is mediocre – just don’t let it be bad.  Oh, and definitely not the open bar (in fact, we spent $3 extra per person to get the premium liquors in our open bar). Besides, you know you can negotiate prices with your vendors, right?  Never take the first offer, especially if it’s for an iPhone as your DJ.

Thanks to Alissa from Clever Compass who asks  this week’s #VlogMom question:

Just because I have a “few” years to go doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about graduation and what it means.  For me, the biggest idea in my head around graduation is that the kids have accomplished something huge.  They made it on to the next stage in life.  And that next stage in life can be hard and brutal.

I was lucky in that I got a job as a management consultant out of college.  I had a signing bonus.  And my first paycheck was larger than what my mom had ever received in her life.  But even so, when I created my first budget to figure out how much I could spend on thing, I was shocked.  Life outside the bubble of my parents’ protection was not pretty.

But it’s doable.  I did it, and there are so many others who have and did and can and will, too.  

Would you believe I never had a baby shower?  My friend who was “going” to throw it just… never quite got around to it but had spread the word that she was going to, so no one else did.  Let’s just say I’m making sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else I know.  I love baby showers, but the last time I threw one, I hand made every invitation and shower favor.  Never again.  There’s a much easier way that looks so elegant and personal that I’ll never go back.  Thank you, Tiny Prints.

I’ve used Tiny Prints before, and I love their quality and breadth of selection.  They are always unique, and the fact that they tend to have designs in collections of items so I can keep my theme going is a huge plus for me.  So this summer, I have two babies coming into my life. My sister-in-law is due with her first, and my best friend is also due.

You know that means I’m going to have to help them do some shopping for Tiny Prints birth announcements, right?  They didn’t have these kinds of things so easily available when the wee ones were born, and I have to admit that I’m jealous.  So I live vicariously through my friends and relatives and “help” them find what they love with Tiny Prints, a premium online stationary brand.

Because that whole ease of use thing for the birth announcements?  It’s possible in my post partum haze, I simply decided I didn’t have enough mental or physical energy to send them out.  The thought of actually trying to make something and then stuff the envelopes and address them and get them into the mail system with a baby who would not let me set him down for a second or he’d scream bloody murder pretty much did me in.  And I wish now that I did have birth announcements, though I don’t know how I would have gotten them out.

Good news?  Tiny Prints makes it easy to get your cards and invitations and announcements mailed.  They have their own mailing service where you don’t even have to touch the cards before they’re sent.  It’s brilliant, right?  You can either import contacts from your address book or an Excel sheet – and I have all my addresses in an Excel sheet to make for an easy mail merge.  Then you choose to have the cards mailed, pay for postage and printing, and you’re done.  That is a service I definitely would have taken advantage of, and one I have recommended to several new mom friends who are as harried as I once was.

Tiny Prints has it covered.  They has beautiful trend-forward designs that really allow you to show your personality and uniqueness, as well as that of your baby – or babies!  You can choose different sizes and colors and paper types with everything from classic, simple designs to those with a more contemporary feel and everything in between.

And in addition to the unique baby shower invitations and unique baby announcements, Tiny Prints has matching address labels, thank you cards, and gift cards so that you can tie it all together.  You can easily see what matching items are available for each card design by clicking into it and seeing what is listed on that screen.  How perfect and fun would it be to have the shower invitations match the baby announcements that match the address labels and thank you cards?  That’s enough to make any new mom look like she’s got it together, right?

So no, it isn’t a surprise to me that Tiny Prints is the place where I’m turning when I start planning my baby showers.  Because this is what I’m sending out next time.  So.  Cute.

Learn more about what Tiny Prints has available and join the Tiny Prints #TinyPrintsBaby Pinning Party™ with @ResourcefulMom on May 20 ^th at 8 PM ET. RSVP here.

In the meantime, I’m giving away $50 to spend on a Tiny Prints order to a lucky reader!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I remembered this on Monday.  And on Tuesday.  By Wednesday, I’d forgotten and gone to be early.  Thursday morning,  I woke up with an email reminder.  Tell me I’m not the only one who’s been in this situation.

That’s ok though.  We have flowers in our yard that we can snip.  I headed outside with the wee ones and scissors.

Unfortunately the deer had eaten our tulips.  I headed over to the lilac bushes, because it’s possible that I may have needed to cut some before.  This year, the weather in Chicago has not cooperated.  There were no lilacs blooming.  It’s the week of Mother’s Day, and the lilacs still haven’t bloomed.  Uh-oh.

I took a deep breath and kept walking.  No roses.  But then I spotted them.  There were some really cool looking yellow flowers growing under the deck.  I smiled and headed towards them.

I walked over and snipped off a branch with several of the yellow flowers and handed one to Little Miss and another branch to Mister Man.  We walked around to the front of the house and headed inside.  And suddenly, I took a closer look at those flowers.  And more importantly, at the leaves.

Oh.  My.  Word.  Suddenly my sleep-addled brain noticed that there were mitten shaped leaves in groups of three.  Did I just cut poison ivy growing rampant under my deck?  My fingers began to itch in sympathy.  See, I’ve never actually had poison ivy before.  So I don’t truly, fully recognize it.  And I was convinced that I had accidentally cut off poison ivy and was going to give it to the teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week.  I had the wee ones run and wash their hands and arms with soap really well while I turned to Dr. Google to see if poison ivy flowered.

It’s never good when Google finishes your search before you’ve typed it all in.  I sighed, certain that I’d cut poison ivy.  I began to scan the images for flowers that looked like what I’d cut then scanning the articles that accompanied them.  Every poison ivy “yellow flower” looked more like a berry to me.  And the bus was coming, so I had to make a decision.

I finally took a photo of the flowers and texted it to a friend who is good with plants, begging her to reassure me that I was not trying to infect our teachers with poison ivy.  And I waited for her to respond.  And waited.  And I kept searching, finally convincing myself that I think this is jewel wood, not poison ivy.

The wee ones hopped on the bus, with the flowers.  And I still hadn’t gotten a text back from my friend confirming that my… shall we call it research? had been accurate.

So teachers, if you felt a little itchy last Thursday, I deeply apologize.  I’m about 95% sure that wasn’t poison ivy I sent in for your bouquet.  I promise I’m signing up for a gardening class soon.

And thus, my mango Greek frozen yogurt was born.

It is super quick, just a few ingredients, and oh so tasty.  To me, this is what summer tastes like.  If only summer would actually arrive in Chicago and stick around.

Mango Greek Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients:
1 1/2 c plain Greek yogurt (yes, you can use regular if you want, but it had this incredible tang to it because of the Greek yogurt)
2 mangoes, peeled and lightly chopped
1/2 c sugar
1 T lemon juice

Directions:
Prepare your ice cream maker, which for me means putting my churning tub into the freezer the day before.

Peel your mangoes, and cut them away from the seed.  Chop them into large chunks, just enough that they’ll fit in your blender.

Add the mango, yogurt, sugar, and lemon juice to your blender.  Start low then turn up the speed until it’s completely purified and lightened in color.

Place the frozen yogurt base into the fridge to let it chill for a few hours.

Pour the base through a sieve and into your ice cream maker once it has chilled to around 40 degrees.  This ensures that any of the pulp from the mango doesn’t make it into your frozen yogurt and give you a funky texture later.

Turn on your ice cream maker.  Watch for it to start to set up, which should take less than 10 minutes.  Turn off your ice cream maker and scrape the frozen yogurt into a storage container.

Enjoy it soft serve fresh from the ice cream maker, or go ahead and freeze it and enjoy it later.  If you freeze it, let it soften at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes so it’s easier to scoop.  This will also help bring out the flavors, as you can’t taste as much when it’s frozen solid.