Ferns unfurling in my back yard last spring

I skipped last weekend but that’s okay. Everyone was too busy having fun to think of reading a link up, right?

Lots of stuff going on here, all my kids are now back to school except my oldest who will be flying back to his father’s home this week. I’m working with my friend David Wright, aka Blogger Dad, on a redesign of I Hate My Message Board. After putting a lot of thought into it, I’ve decided to narrow the focus of this blog to just food related topics since those are by far my most popular posts. I will still be doing weekend link ups so that those who are interested in my other posts on various sites can easily find them.

HealthCompare Guide

Protect Your Financial Health With These Free Personal Finance E-Books

Whether you want to learn how to save money, explore ways to make more money or are looking for advice on how to invest, there is a free e-book out there waiting for you to download.

12 Reasons Why Libraries are the Ultimate Frugal Resource

Libraries have always been the frugal person’s best friend. These days, libraries offer much more than just books and the old stereotype of librarians as prim little old ladies making everyone shush has gone out the window.

5 Reasons Parents Should Put Themselves First

How many times have you put aside your own needs and desires to take care of your children first? Although our children’s health and safety are always paramount, there are times when it’s okay to devote your time and resources to doing things that make you happy, even if it means your children will have to come second.

MoneyNing

5 Reasons Why I Don’t Have a Deep Freezer

Of course, for many people a separate deep freezer makes a lot of sense and can save them both money and time. The real point is that it’s important to think about your own lifestyle and preferences before making an investment or lifestyle change based on common wisdom.

15 Ways to Earn Extra Money

Sometimes being frugal is not enough to meet your financial obligations and goals and you’ll have to look for ways to earn some extra cash. Whether you’re a stay at home parent looking to supplement your family’s income, looking to pay down debt or establish an emergency fund or saving for a special purchase, here are some ideas to help you make some extra money.

Guest Post

Why Optimists Prosper on Pick the Brain

Optimism is not pie in the sky thinking but rather a way of looking at the world with the knowledge that positive outcomes are a reality, that individuals can take actions to increase their own happiness and financial well being and that failing at something does not make you a failure.

Speaking of guest posts, I’ve joined Jon Morrow‘s Guest Blogging Apprenticeship program. Membership is closed for now but you can still learn a lot from the free material posted on guestblogging.com. If you’re a blogger, I urge you to check it out, even if you aren’t interested in guest blogging.

Other People

My friend Kathy Frederick of The Junk Drawer was quoted by the Wall Street Journal and other major news outlets about her video demonstrated how loud the new Sun Chips bags are. Congratulations Kathy and I hope this is the start of many great things for you.

Blogger Dad wrote a spectacularly feisty post F@#*! the PTC about their protests against the new show $#*! my Dad Says.

This is not a new post but it’s one I’ve always loved and it was reposted on IttyBiz this week: When You Feel Like a Raging Failure. You are not the only one who ever feels that way.

More next week!

Or, who says nature is perfect?

Deformed corn - is this how baby corn is made?

IMPORTANT! If you are here from Google having searched for information about your toe corns I am afraid I can’t help you but I do wish you a safe and speedy recovery! You too bunion and hammertoe sufferers! One day Google will figure out that I can’t help anyone, much less those suffering from valid afflictions and will remove me from their search results. Until then, it’s hardly my fault that deformed corns are a vegetable and a foot problem.

Anyway, this deformed corn kind of freaked me out. You know those shows on cable tv where people go around their entire life and one day find out totally by accident that they used to be twins but they ate their twin and now they have headaches because they’ve got their twin’s eyeball and toenails growing in their brain? This corn reminds me of that.

What will happen if corn evolves working arms?

Really, though, I’m a huge believer in Evolution. Huge fan. I think it’s just about the neatest thing ever. Just think, billions of years ago we just had some  primordial ooze and now look at us with our iPads and Tivos and ability to put anything in a can. It’s nothing short of breath-taking.

Until I really think about it and then I get a bit woozy. I’m just going to say it, anything to do with reproduction, sexual or otherwise, freaks me the heck out. Ever seen how slime mold grows?

I mean it’s pulsating. Pulsating!

I do have to admit that the mushrooms are kind of trippy though.

Now look at this.

THIS is happening in your body every day. Every single day. In your body. Whether you want it to or not. No wonder we feel so frazzled all the time!

And sometimes things mutate. Instructions go haywire. You accidentally absorb your own twin. And there isn’t much you can do about it except for eat a lot of antioxidants and pray.

Forget about trying to control your kids or your coworkers or the traffic, you can’t even control your cells!

So yeah, when I find some corn like this I have to wonder, what’s really going on here? Is this some tragic freak accident where we could have had three tasty ears of corn but instead just have one and two sad floppy ones that nobody wants to eat? Or are we watching evolution in action and this is the first step towards corn developing appendages and sentience and standing up and refusing to be the bad guys that everybody hates in our war against obesity?

I don’t know the answers. I don’t expect you to know the answers. I just think that maybe it’s time we started a dialogue about what’s going on with our vegetables. I for one would be happy if they took over and we could all become robots and I’d never have to sit alone in the dark thinking about my cells dividing again.

PS have noticed that the slime mold video has an ad for indoor hydroponic growing kits on it. What kind of sick freak would want to grow slime mold indoors?!?!

Or, mid August during a heat wave is the perfect time to just post my Google Analytics

If you really care to see this you could click to enlarge it

beef cheek smell

what color is your poop after c section and what color

addicted to japanese things

addicted to pooping in weird places

addicted to pork rinds

awesome things to be addicted to

asian drink sweat

babys poop color reference chart

benny mardones creepy

best egg substitute recommended by famous cooks

black itchy spot inside ear

black spots with holes inside your ear

can humans eat chicken bones?

color chart of healthy people poop

birds die dead memphis

haggis as a gift

haggis bagel sandwich

hate my frugal parents

have to eat the whole can of spam

how can i get aggravated prostitution off my record

i am a boring person, the person with me to the final separation is always

i eat canned chicken all day

pictures of weird looking chickens that have been cooked

papaya taste vomit genetic

panko fried hot dogs

my kefir has larva in it

my ass and perineum hurt so bad

porking ogre

songs about jheri curld

why i want to be a loser and a quitter

the “food industry wants you to believe” tracy

strange ear hole that itches sometimes, i was born with it

should i broth exgirlfriend man?

rice wheat chips like pork rinds

Congratulations! According to Google, this is the place to find it!

Or, celebrate with me for tomorrow is the first day of school

Picture of a house we didn't buy last year. Now you tell me, even if you weren't able to fix that water damage wouldn't you take the pom pom off the dang mask before you started showing the house?

For those curious, yeah I do just pick random photos from my albums for these link ups. Why not? Somebody has to look at them and it might as well be you.

I want to start this week’s round up by asking a small favor of all my readers that use Facebook. My children’s kindergarten and elementary school have gathering votes to potentially win $500,000 each. All you have to do is become a fan, and vote. You have 20 votes and can distribute them how you wish, five per school. You can do a search for schools so even if you don’t want to vote for my kids’ schools you can vote for a different one. There will be 20 winners and each winning school gets a half million dollars.

Am thinking about making some sort of incentive like I’ll eat something super grody if we hit certain milestones but would be humiliated if nobody cared enough to see me eat huilatache or pig uterus to click vote a few times. I mean, that’ the kind of thing that gets you laughed out of blogging conventions. So if you want me to do it, you better speak up and say so and let me know you’d spread the word far and wide.

Disclaimer: no matter how many votes we get I will NOT eat any sandwich consisting of a bagel and bean sprouts. Is not going to happen /inside joke for the old timers.

Anyway! To the links!

Stuff I wrote that was posted elsewhere:

Meal Planning: The key to tasty, healthy inexpensive eating

Still working on a fool proof way to implement this piece of good advice. Family of five boys is a very, very scary thing for your food bill!

If you don’t want to go to the store every day, make sure your children understand it’s not okay to waste or over-consume food. That said; make sure that you budget for reasonable amounts of healthy, inexpensive snacks.

Three reasons stay at home parents should consider working part time

The choice to have one parent stay at home with the child(ren) is a deeply personal, individual one that goes beyond finances. However, there are many reasons why it’s a good idea for stay at home moms and dads to seek part time work, even if there is no immediate need for income.

I was tickled pink that the above post was linked in the Consumerist and Time.com.

By the way, I am also helping with the Money Ning Facebook stream and would love if you liked us and participated in our lively discussions.

Stuff other people wrote this week:

Fans of IHMMB should enjoy Nibbles that Gave Me the Shivers (Or Sh*t I wouldn’t eat again). Highlights include guinea pig and sea horses. A few of the pictures might not be for the extremely squeamish so use your best judgment in clicking through.  It’s from a lovely blog called Uncornered Marketing that I found on The Daily Brainstorm.

To go a bit meta, I’d like to link to this post 80 How-To Sites Worth Bookmarking from Stepcase Lifehack. Technically it was written two years ago and not last week but it’s still most useful. Explore at your leisure right after you’ve read all my best posts.

“Mr. Dogg is Angry at the Prospect of Sharing His Alcoholic Beverage”: The Secretive Heroes of Wikipedia by Aaron Lefkove at The Awl was an interesting look at the people behind some of the most hilarious descriptions of rap videos on Wikipedia. Check out the comments for links to funny treatments of videos on other sites.

And I’ll play myself off with this video this week. I heard it in the car yesterday and just about sobbed my eyes out from laughing so hard. Then I felt really bad about myself but I think Biggie would understand. Am working on a plan to make friends with both Diddy and Elton John and Eminem so that when I pass I will have the most awesomely epic tribute song of all times. Am hoping Kanye, William Shatner and Charo will agree to a self-deprecating cameos. I’m worth it.

PS I know this was a long ass post so I will remind you to kindly let me know is you is or is you ain’t going to encourage me to engage in cockamamie stunt eating to get people to vote for my kid’s school.

Or fried rice wrapped up in an omelet just like my mom used to make

Om Rice topped with Sriracha and Ketchup

Cheap eats, like this omurice are my new passion. It reminds me of all the wonderfully frugal meals my mother would make for us back before my parent’s salary stretched to T-bone steaks. Since I began writing on personal finance for Money Ning and HealthCompare Guide, I’m even more committed to making the best food possible without spending an exorbitant amount.

As far as cheap eats go, it’s hard to beat fried rice wrapped in an omelet, otherwise known as omurice. Up until 10 minutes ago I would have sworn on Kurt Vonnegut’s grave that it was omie rhymes with homie rice, but when I looked it up to get a correct spelling and kept coming up with omurice I called my mother and she said she didn’t know where I got omie rice from because she always called it omurice.

This is not only an inexpensive dinner, but super easy to throw together. My mother used to keep bags of frozen salad shrimp and frozen mixed vegetables on hand. Unlike most recipes I’ve seen written down for fried rice that call for the rice to be cold, this one does just fine using freshly cooked, hot rice.We use medium grain calrose rice, such as Nishiki. It clumps together slightly and makes an appealingly sticky fried rice.

I make this dish a lot the day after we have roast pork, steak, roast beef to stretch the leftover meat into another full meal for us.

I’m so not going to give you a recipe for fried rice, because this is clean out the fridge food. This is just go wild and crazy and throw everything together food. This is you really can’t go wrong as long as you don’t dump a whole bottle of soy sauce into it food.

Pretty much I make a couple of omelets. One or two for the fried rice and one per person to serve. Set aside the prettiest ones for wrapping and chop up the others.

Next, I chop a small onion or half a medium one and when it is starting to soften I throw a cup or two of frozen vegetable medley in there. You could use fresh veggies, but the frozen ones are cheap, more or less as nutritious and dead easy.

When that’s just about done toss in a bit of chopped garlic and cook until fragrant. Add your protein. Today I used some chopped leftover pork and some thawed salad shrimp. We’ve been known to use cubed Spam or leftover steak or chicken or make it completely vegetarian.

Once that’s all hot, put it in a bowl and pour a tablespoon or so of oil into the pan and once that’s hot add your rice. Probably about 1 – 1.5 cups of cooked rice per serving would be good.

Toss that around a bit, add a bit of sesame oil break up the rice clumps and get every nice and hot.

Take that bowl of cooked veggies and meat and add a little bit of soy sauce. Better to add too little than too much, remember you can always add more. I use a mix of regular Kikoman soy sauce and ketjap manis. Add that to the rice and mix everything up until it’s evenly distributed and everything is hot and yummy. Add the chopped omelet and stir again.

Drape one of the omelets inside a small bowl. Pack full of rice. Tuck the edges up over the bottom and turn out onto a plate. Top with some ketchup, sriracha or both. Chow down. You could also just lay the omelet flat on a plate, put the rice inside and roll like a burrito or something. Whatever suits your fancy.

Do you have a favorite way to use leftovers?

Note: post contains affiliate links for the ingredients. You most likely could find everything you need at your grocery store but if you want or need to order from Amazon, I am not opposed to making money off of it. My Yan Yan habit is not cheap, you know.

Or, more stuff I bought just to see what was inside

Found at Ike’s, have no idea if mixing cheese and caramel popcorn is a “thing” or not.  All I know is I hate getting those big mixed cans of popcorn unless they are all sweet or all savory flavors because the smells mingle and the tastes transfer. So, I was intrigued at the idea of somebody on purpose mixing up cheese and caramel popcorn.

Yup, it’s all in there mixed up together!

And each flavor on its own was pretty bad. The cheese was artificial in the gross way like off brand macaroni and cheese and not in the good way like Kraft brand macaroni and cheese. The caramel might have been good but it was all dusted with icky artificial cheap cheese powder.

I thought perhaps it would be one of those miracle combinations where the sum was so much greater than the parts, but no it was triple as much icky in my mouth when I popped in one of each as it was when I sampled each on its own.

Perhaps this is one of those things you have to grow up with to enjoy? Like Miracle Whip or tiny baby pies!

It’s an itty bitty fancy pie! I’ve loved mini pecan pies ever since I was a small girl. We had this Mickey Mouse version of Gulliver’s travels and I always loved this illustration of Mickey all giant in Lilliput with teeny tiny everything including itsy bitsy food. Since then I’ve been fascinated with miniature food.

Especially if I can cut it into really small pieces and pretend like I’m a huge giant eating it! I only wish I had some of those tiny teacups left from my childhood so I could take teeny sips of tea between bites.

Although to tell the truth the pie was kind of lousy, even though it was fancy, but that’s okay because there wasn’t very much of it.

Do you like miniature food or are you more of a comically over-sized foods fan?

Or, we’re having some link up drift here

Caramelized banana blueberry bread

This is the last week of summer vacation for most of my kids and we’ve been busy getting everything in place for school. We’ll be making a big transition this year as I’ll only have one child with me three mornings and two afternoons a week and twice a week for 2.5 hours a day I’ll be completely alone.

All by myself.

What on earth am I going to do? Probably do a lot more baking, for starters. Like this caramelized banana blueberry bread. Instead of just mashing the bananas, I softened them into submission by slooooowly browning them in butter until they more or less melted into in intensely banana goo. Then I made banana bread in the usual way, but threw in a bunch of blueberries for good measure and some graham flour and ground flax seed because I care about good nutrition.

What I posted this week:

10 Signs That You Are a Cheapskate

Saving money and living a frugal, sustainable lifestyle are very worthy goals. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being thrifty, but if you’re crossing the line into cheapskate territory, it’s time to take a look at your relationship with money.

How to Buy Safe Second Hand Goods for Less

Buying second hand makes a lot of sense. It’s not only frugal, but it’s also good for the environment. However, it’s important that you make safety a priority when shopping for used items. It’s not a bargain if it’s putting you or your family at risk.

Three Reasons Stay at Home Parents Should Consider Working Part Time

The choice to have one parent stay at home with the child(ren) is a deeply personal, individual one that goes beyond finances. However, there are many reasons why it’s a good idea for stay at home moms and dads to seek part time work, even if there is no immediate need for income.

I Hate My Message Board Mentions!

Salon -  Convenience Foods for the End of the World

The Daily Beast – The Weirdest Food Trend Ever Photos in Gallery

Both also feature the Candwich. I’ve been promised some Candwich samples at the end of August, which is a great motivation for me to keep on living.

And More Big News

I’m really happy to announce that I Hate My Message Board is now a part of The Daily Brainstorm which is an awesome new blog aggregator. Some of the other bloggers involved include Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, Darren Rouse of Problogger, Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar and Gretchin Rubin of The Happiness Project. I was so honored and surprised to be invited to participate in this wonderful project.

You can follow the Daily Brainstorm on Twitter and Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, I Hate My Message Board Fan Page has passed 300 members, but I totally cheated to get there which will be the subject of a future post.

I seem to have run out of room to talk about anyone else, but you know, sometimes it’s got to be all about me.

And now I have a Punk Rock Girl earworm, so we’ll close on that note.

Or, happy Friday my party people

Just wanted to give everyone a chance to enter the Ritz Crackerfuls $100 giveaway. Entries close tomorrow, July 31 at 5 PM PST. The video is just because.

Have a great weekend everyone!

It’s the last two weeks before my kids go back to school and the good news is my services are very much in demand the whole world around but sadly, there is still only one of me, so I have that feeling that I’ve got 50 lbs pressing against my chest and so I thought okay, yeah, that’s a sign I need to go on and write about Dolly Parton.

There was a time when I thought Dolly Parton was impossibly cheesy. I fancied myself a very deep thinker with profound, complex emotions and there was no way that I could relate to somethingy so hokey and homey.

Then I grew up and blah, blah, blah life lessons, experiences, hard roads et cetera et cetera and now I think Dolly Parton is one of the most awesome people that have ever lived.

She has such a great sense of humor about herself but at the same time you can tell she takes pride in who she is and where she came from. Here’s some quotes I love:

I look just like the girls next door… if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!

She also has such a great attitude about work and life. Remember, she grew up one of 12 children, dirt poor in a one room shack in the Smoky Mountains and instead of turning her back on her community when she made it, she’s given back and invested in the area and people.

I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

Every month my kids get new books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. If you have kids in your life from birth to age 5, I highly suggest that you see if the program is available in your county (they also serve Canada and are expanding into the UK!). I am not sure if it works the same in all areas, but in my county there are no income restrictions and they encourage everyone to participate. Some of the books that we’ve been sent have been loved to tatters and they are so excited every time  a new one comes in the mail. Can you imagine how much this program must mean to kids that aren’t as fortunate and might otherwise have no books to call their own?

When I think about all Dolly Parton has achieved and how much she’s given back, it inspires me to do the best that I can do. She really is a hero. I wrote this today as much to remind myself of that as I did to share with you how wonderful I think Dolly Parton is.

Who is your hero? Or, if you don’t have a hero, what is your favorite Dolly Parton song?

PS I noticed that the Imagination Library Fan page is trying to reach 10K fans before school starts. Why not help them reach their goal?

Or argh, browser crash edition

Dried Crickets

I was almost completely finished with this post when Firefox went crash, boom, bam and so now I have to start all over. Only, I’m really tired, so this is the bare bones edition. If you want the explanation behind these pictures, go to the I Hate My Message Board Fan page.

My posts elsewhere:

How I will have an actively frugal weekend

12 things to keep in mind for back to school shopping

12 super cheap, super nutritious foods you should be eating

And to answer the question I know is on everyone’s mind, no I don’t know why they ask the girl that buys crap like canned chickens to write personal finance posts.

A post that touched my heart:

What makes the perfect dad by Stickyfingers

A post that inspired me to follow my instincts:

The benefits of losing control by Lateral Action

A post that made me laugh:

Mind your own business, Gmail!

Posts that made me wonder if I’d somehow made friends with the cast of Little House on the Prairie:

First Attempt at (Anti) Social Home Canning by Kim Woodbridge

Long nights, hot jars: why you should try home canning by Two hands and a Roadmap

Post where somebody will win $100 next Saturday:

My brave battle against workday boredom, a review of some tasty crackers and $100 giveaway by Me on This Blog please enter.

And to end on a high note, we have a new, most viewed ever post on this blog!

PS if you missed it, Microwavable Milkshakes was featured on the Consumerist. Also, I found the first edition in drafts but it’s too late now, that ship has sailed.