How to have excellent & healthy hot chocolate with no wait.

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Mason jar for political correctness.

I have what is a pretty common situation. I really have a childish attachment to wrapping my hands around a toasty mug of steaming hot chocolate, but you see, my tastes have changed. AWAY from whatever that gritty crap in those foil envelopes is.

I make my own mix with Dagoba cocoa powder, sugar, milk, & vanilla. Dagoba seems pricey, but bear in mind that you’re paying for pure cocoa. Like tea leaves, this goes a long way. Those little envelopes of cocoa powder mix only seem cheap. When you make your own mix, you can make it healthy. Use a high quality cocoa, organic milk, less sugar.

OK HERE’S WHERE THE INSTANT PART HAPPENS. Use a vitamix (my baby) or any blender. Put in your milk, sugar, vanilla, cocoa. The problem with making your own mix is cocoa powder is notoriously hard to mix with a liquid. Mixing it all in a blender totally eliminates clumping. So blend your mix, then pour it into a mason jar. You do not have to pull out the ingredients any more.

That’s it. When you want some, give the jar a shake, pour some into a mug, & nuke. YOUR custom hot chocolate, no waiting.

School vacation bedtime. And no martyrs!

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When: tonight. Where: standing in the living room.  The players: mom, tired & in her fuzzy robe, has already taken out contacts & switched to glasses; boy, 11 years old now, gangly & long, bright-eyed from finishing the latest Wimpy Kid book, doesn’t look tired at all. Background players: husband, standing around listening to this diversion on the off chance he’ll be overcome with the need to comment; dog, passed out after playing with new food baffle toy. Extenuating circumstances: players are at the halfway point of the 2.5 week xmas school break.

The conflict: Mom says get ready for bed. Boy protests in classic upward inflected tone – “What?! I was going to play in my room! I said that!” Mom protests that him saying it doesn’t make it so. She points out that she & boy already stayed up past bedtime playing Munchkin, & then he read for a while, so he was already 2 activities past bedtime. He protests.

The middle part: Mom thinks. (Think, Mom, Think! Would you, could you…) Mom calls child to her. She explains the situation.

  • She can’t go to bed until boy goes to bed.
  • She is very tired & would love to go to bed.
  • She does not enjoy this business of having her own bedtime held hostage by boy.
  • She appreciates that this is vacation.

The solution: Mom says to boy, “I am going to get ready for bed. I am tired. If you want to stay up, I will tell you to brush your teeth, I will kiss you goodnight, & you will put your own self to bed. I will miss reading to you, but it is only for the break, because when school starts, you will not be pushing bedtime, will you?” (Imagine “will you” being said in a threatening tone, not exactly a question.) Boy child looks nervous, then confirms that dad will still be up. He agrees excitedly.

Epilogue: Mom ended up lounging on the sofa with laptop in. Boy child stayed up for quite a while & eventually went to bed. Mom, still awake, kissed him fondly goodnight, but there was no painful drama.

Conclusion: Hmm…..maybe just let go of the whole control thing when it comes to bedtimes, 11 year old boys, & vacations. What a concept.

Fast-To-Read Tip – how to fix your hot coffee/tea the night before.

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AWAKE to hot tea! This is a reachable goal!

Yeah. Northwest winter. When my alarm clock goes off, it is dark. Waaay dark. It’s just wrong….but ok let’s move on to today’s point which is: do not torment yourself any further by staggering numbly around the kitchen wishing your morning brain had the capacity to remember how to make tea. (So many steps! Rinse pot, warm pot, dig out the tea leaves, no not those, they are too bland, the other ones, remember to actually turn the eye on under the kettle.) And then you realize that yes, you have successfully made tea, but you forgot to wake the kid up.

Wouldn’t it be excellent to get up in the morning & just have your hot beverage?

You cannot find a better thermos than the Kleen Kanteen.

HERE’S HOW!

Step 1: purchase a Kleen Kanteen thermos. These are the best out there. I am a product geek. I know. Get 2 lids – one the kind that screws on & is spillproof, & also get the cafe lid, which is the kind that does spill, but you can sip from it with the lid still on. Seriously – fix it hot the night before, & it’ll steam when you open it in the a.m. Impressive.

Step 2: fix your bev the night before! Genuis, huh? Add sugar, cream, whatever, & put it in the thermos. Set it on the counter with the lid screwed on tight.

Step 3: stagger into kitchen in the nebulous light of dawn, unscrew lid, drink.

That’s it, kiddies. Simple. Easy. Brilliant. Anything we can do to survive until bedtime. Enjoy!

 

The New Nerf Military Army

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Ok. Who out there has a boy between the ages of, oh…say 7 & 13? They’ve got nerf guns, don’t they? And maybe the shotgun, & also maybe that thing that shoots disks. Because they are boys. And though your sweet child is compassionate & caring & wonders where the homeless peple will sleep tonight, he becomes a 4 foot tall, mango-gum scented killing  machine once he gets his paws on a Nerf gun.

That's what she said.

So check this out. I recently purchased the double sided-staff for my boy child. My enthusiasm level for this toy was low to nil. He quickly invoked the grandmother money clause. So this is a staff, right? You spin it with varying levels of dexterity around your body while making whooshing sound effects & not breaking any knick knacks. And – wait for the ultra cool part - you can separate it into two swords. Is that totally awesome or what! I’m told that is the exact correct way to tell it. And what do you do with a sword? You poke stuff. And swing it.

Skeptical thinking teaching moment

I encourage you to call your little beasties to your side, & together you can visit the Nerf web site. (click here.) The guys they use in their photo -, there are NO girls in the world of Nerf weaponry, & the guys are…like…marines in civvies. Check out the add for The Vortex. Right there on the home page. It’ll probably start playing by itself. The commercial shows a slowly assembling gang of twenty somethings, striding manfully thru a cityscape with their nerf guns dangling casually by their sides. These guys are seriously buff. The guy in the beginning of the commercial –  his well muscled pecs fill out his t-shirt way the heck better than I ever did in high school with actual breasts.

Points to discuss with your child:

  • Is it realistic to think that such old boys would really play with nerf guns? My own son loves his nerf gun collection most intensely, but even he was amazed at the silliness of thinking older teens would still use nerf guns. I think he figures he’ll be on to other things.
  • Don’t these dudes look military? What, no tie-dye? Not one ponytail? It’s a pretty disciplined looking group. Ask your kid how this makes him feel about the military?
  • How about the little pic in the bottom right, of some shaved head guy who looks like he could be in the gestapo as their extreme fight champion? What do we think about this look to advertise a toy gun that shoots foam darts so slow you can dodge?
  • Discuss that these gangs seem to be preparing to battle in the city. Is this realistic? The cops are completely militarized these days. Isn’t it much more likely that if they saw even one adult male striding about with a plastic gun, that they’d just shoot him?
  • Bring your child’s attention to the dramatic narration of the commercial. Point out the excitement at the end when they say they have “XLR technology for extreme distance.” Discuss how this sounds great, then ask him what he thinks it means.

Christian compassion & living god’s love – Michele Bachmann style.

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I know some christians feel persecuted by the atheist movement. Well dang people – you give us so much material! Michelle Bachmann – that sad, sad creature – simply cannot keep quiet about her love of god & how he really should be involved in every aspect of daily life. I am sure she prays for guidance on what brand of toilet paper to get. Now, all that would be fine, I mean hey if god is that interested in your shit then I guess you really are his favored creation. If she wants to give up personal responsibiltiy & let her imagination be her guide, that’s still fine. As long as she isn’t hurting anyone else. Kind of like what your mother told you when you were a small child & lacking in judgement & perspective. Feel free to draw a parallel there.

Here’s the thing tho- Ask any christian & they will insist most strongly that god is all about compassion, that he loves us, that he is all about good treatment of the less fortunate. Thing is – if you are going to bleat without ceasing about how it’s a great god who informs your every moral decision, to the extent that god is the source of your morals, then haven’t you rather painted yourself into a corner when your own morals are about as compassionate as those of a cage stuffed with lab rats 3 days after the food runs out?

Bachman recently answered a question on immigration, pertaining, it seems, specifically to Mexicans. (Wheep! Racial profiling alert!) She says she would work to make a law saying that a baby born here does NOT get U.S. citizenship if the parents are illegal, & further, she would do nothing to help those kids. Nothing encompasses a lot: health care, school, jobs, all of daily life. Further, & to sound even stoopider, (as if that were even possible at this point; I have a trained squirrel in my back yard who has more sense than this unfortunate example of hominid genes gone wrong) Bachmann told the audience that when her family arrived in the U.S. more 150 years ago, they received no benefits. Gee, really? Guess what you stupid cow, nobody got benefits back then. So don’t you dare act like you have some kind of hereditary bootstrap thing going on. Your ancestors didn’t nobly refuse benefits, there weren’t any benefits. You disembarked & either headed out west in the hope of scratching out a living from the dry prairies, or you headed to the northeast to work in a factory where, if you were alert & lucky, you’d manage to keep all your fingers away from the totally unsafe & unregulated machinery long enough to die of TB. And there was always whoring. Michele. Sweetie. How can you say such dumb things with such a straight face? I really don’t know what would be scarier- if you actually are simple & silly enough to believe what you say, or if you’re totally conniving & cunning & manipulative & saying all this as part of your own, personal rule-the-world sociopathic game plan.

Let’s review. Michele Bachmann follows god in all things. THIS MEANS: Michele Bachmann would want, & avidly work toward a country in which, as you walk down the street, you would see Mexican families on the street, begging for food. Based on the current appearance of the bum gauntlet I run at my local grocery store, I will take a wild guess they would be wearing tattered clothes, & also be thin & diseased. And she is saying she wants this. And remember point #1- she is following the path of the lord. (Oh lord…sigh….) So this is what christian compassion looks like. Isn’t this the opposite of the loaves & the fish? What about the widow & the orphan? And can they do yardwork? Bachmann comes across as incredibly selfish & egotistical. And when she enrobes her actions & words in the holiness of christianity, she absolutely succeeds in making every other christian out there seem suspect, simply because they all share the same book.

Christians – you want to know why people sneer at you & your god? Because your god is invisible, while your loudest voices seem vile & selfish. I get that many christians volunteer, give money to charity, etc, but people like Bachmann are highly visible, & when I hear “christian”, I think of her. And her cruel, heartless choices, designed to cause suffering in those less fortunate. Isn’t it interesting when christians define god’s will, it fits like a puzzle piece with what they themselves are wanting right at that moment? I find this to be an amazing coincidence.

Atheists are sometimes hassled by christions along the following lines: “how can you know what is right & wrong if you don’t have god in your life?” I’ll tell you, my little chickies, if some vocal atheist proposed that little children & babies be literally left out in the cold, you know they would be pointed at by christian fingers shaking with rightious indignation. Want to know something? I don’t have god in my life. Just like I don’t have the tooth fairy, or certain Norse gods I enjoyed reading of when I was a child. And even I get that, if we want to advance as humans, we don’t set it up that as we walk down the street, we are sanctioned & encouraged to avert our eyes from a whole bunch of brown people. Who, buy the way, pick the fruit & vegetables you eat. How come I get this & Michele Bachmann & her fans don’t? Oh….Right….it’s because my morals from what what I think is right, not from what gets me the most power.

 

See only one set of footsteps? God must have been busy with the laundry.

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Why is it that when I go online & do a search for, let’s say “sweet potato recipe,” the majority of the hits I get are on christian homemaking blogs? When did christian women become the gate keepers & arbiters of all things related to housekeeping? Did this happen about the same time that evangelicals & conservatives took over patriotism & the American flag?

I am working here to find words for exactly what it is that bothers me about this christian homemaker takeover situation. It’s hard for me to define, but I think what upsets me most is this ennobling of housewifery as the ultimate goal one should have in life. When I pre-treat this stains on my son’s pants, I am not doing  so for the glory of God. Nor am I doing so because a smooth running house makes my husband happy, & it my job as the woman to please him since is the master. My goal is much more basic – I just want clean clothes. Furthermore, every parent deals with the same boring, repetitive mundanities of life. You may have the most brilliantly sparkling job in the world, charming, delightful friends, & a bustling social life, but certain constants will always remain. You have to do the laundry. You need a process for staying on top of the crap in your basement or it’ll bury you. You better come up with something decent to put in your kids lunch box, something healthy & organic & über pc so the other moms get that you are the one setting the bar, yet tasty enough so the little beast will actually eat the damned stuff. And then you have to do it again. And again. Running a house requires much in the way of self discipline & organization, & that’s why so many of us are online sharing ideas on how to make this never-ending job easier. But when did immersing your female self in housekeeping become the christian version of hiking up the mountain to Buddha?

I just spent a little while browsing Christian homemaking blogs. (I don’t recommend it, it’s really annoying.) A lot of these moms are youngish, relatively hip, fairly attractive. Many of them share my interests: eating whole foods to reduce the chemicals in our lives, having less stuff & wasting less, learning about plants with an eye to drying herbs & canning fruit. Why am I so unsympathetic to these women with whom I have so much in common? (Except of course one could not use the “litter of rabbits” metaphor for my offspring output, which is all too appropriate for most of these women. Sigh…) I am unsympathetic because I perceive them as being disingenuous. I chose that word because I am sure they know they are lying. Putting forth the idea that any woman seeking happiness can surely & only find it by filling her life with housekeeping is silly & insulting. These women are moms. This makes it worse. They are shirking their responsibilities to raise well-rounded kids, & they are abusing the trust of parenting.

The dogma they put forth feels like a push back to feminism & a flashback to the Victorian era. the Victorians had a super weird viewpoint about women. Be it was very contradictory. They elevated them above men & said they were naturally more attuned to godly things & that’s what fitted them for their perfect role as homemakers. Their job was to create a godly world within the home, so the man, who had to go out into the crass world of business, could come home & cross the threshold of his house into a place of higher morals, cleaner air. And the Victorian mother was tasked with teaching her children about god & his heaven. The contradiction came in because – okay follow if you can – they said because the woman’s heart & spirit was so attuned to the heavenly plane, it made her emotional & a poor judge when it came to the world of business or law. So of course she should leave all that messy stuff to the men, specifically to her own husband. And that it would be cruel to even ask her to concern herself with worldly matters, since that would only dirty her clean soul. Yeah…Ok I’m not sure how that fits in with the oft-seen biblical interpretation of woman as the base & lustful temptress of man’s pure soul, but if you thought you’d find sense in religion, you’ve been dreadfully misguided.

Message to Christians – better keep up that homeschooling because I can tell you, the ONLY thing that will make your daughters swallow this garbage is if they never, ever taste the slightest morsel of anything more nourishing. You are dying, your ways are dying. And unless you treat your children like actual humans, instead of some demented cross between servants & brood mares, I predict you will spend your later years alone & bitter. Which some other belief system might just call karma.

Disturbing chips spotted in airport.

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Abusing our friend, Mr. Chemical.

Eeeeuwwww. Check it out – you can have fries AND a burger, looped back into a bag of potatoes. Surely this breaks some law of physics. Wait! What if you want ketchup on your burger? Buy bag one, dump out the crumbs, & apply them to chips in bag two. 

The part about “zero grams trans fat”…that’s the kind of thing I talk about to my son. I like him to think about what he reads on packages, not just accept it. “Like, duh! It’s full of salt!” Also, he just stopped by & said, “Burger King is disgusting in every way possible.” No. Kidding.

What’s the best bottle for school & the playa? We review.

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Looking to buy a reusable bottle? Seems like it should be simple. But then you start looking at the different tops, brands, you start to wonder what the best size is…because if it lasts as advertised, you won’t be able to justify throwing it out for years….So which is the best bottle? That’s the question, no doubt about it. Come & learn from my mistakes, grasshopper.

Spoiler alert – I love the Kleen Kanteen line. Allow me to explain.

Kleen Kanteen - 12 oz., 18 oz., 27 oz. The silver one is 9 years old. I swear. And that's with kid usage.

I found the Kleen Kanteen line 9 years ago. I was looking for a bottle my son could take to bed. I had a couple of Siggs but I found the various lids unsatisfying. I ended up getting the small silver 12 oz. bottle seen left. I liked that it would take an Avent sippy cup top, & that is what I used.

Time passed & I slowly added to my little cupboard. That’s happened mostly in the last 3 or so years, as my son has gotten older & more active.

We now have the white 18 oz. for his lunch, & the larger bottle is mine. The little bottle continues to be his bedtime drink, only now we use the sport top.

Sigg 13 oz. & 20 oz. Notice how banged up they get.

KLEEN KANTEEN IS SO MUCH BETTER! I cannot get over how much more I like the Kleen Kanteen over the Sigg. I cannot get ice cubes into the Sigg unless I crack them, which is a huge pain. To witness my swear-fest as I attempt to hammer ice cubes into the bottle with the back of the ice cream scoop is to develop a new appreciation for the wondrous expressiveness to be achieved when one mixes language with groans, screams, & gnashing of teeth. Again, I am annoyed & my time is wasted (hellooooo, there are Star Trek reruns to be watched) by having to hand wash them. That stupid, small opening again. It thwarts the dishwasher. The Kleen Kanteen, with its bigger opening, is fine on both counts.

View from the top. The Sigg is quite small.

WHAT SIZE? Size wise, I find the 27 oz. to be the most useful on a daily basis. That’s the yellow one. It’s ample water for an outing in the car. Bit heavy for a walk, tho, if I’m just attaching it to my belt. For that much liquid weight, you’d want to put it in a bag or pack. Which is not a problem!

In fact, you can't get an ice-cube into the dang thing. The Kleen Kanteen is easily loaded.

WHY ALL THE LIDS? Because the loop & flat lids are both totally leak proof. The sport lid, that’s the one with the nozzle so you can slurp out stuff without opening the bottle, that one will leak. They tell you that on the site. It’s got an air valve so if you’re really hoovering down the liquids, you don’t have to stop to let the bottle breathe or risk having your face sucked into the nozzle.

A word on Sigg lids – the most useful here, in the house of kid, was the…what is it called…ABT cap. It’s mostly leak proof. It has a cover to keep the nozzle free of fuzz from the car seat. You press it with your mouth to drink. That’s fine, but it comes into 3 parts for cleaning, & one of them is a delicate & easily lost metal ring, without which the rest of the lid it totally useless.

 

Sport Cap, Loop Lid, Stainless Loop Cap, ABT Top

Also I have had covers break off at the hinge after unfortunate fumbles on pavement. The Kleen Kanteen sport top, which would compare, is only the one part.

We have, for our Kleen Kanteens, 2 lids. The sport cap, which is great to carry around in the house, to use at your desk, while you’re doing yard work, & in the kid’s room – all because if you knock it over it won’t spill more than a couple of drops. The stainless loop cap is used for anytime I’m on the move. You can throw that in the backseat of the car & not even worry a minute that it’ll leak. They make 2 loop caps. One is plastic, the other has a stainless steel core. I like that, as it won’t react with anything in the bottle, & also what can leach from it into what I’m drinking? Nothing. Win, win.

Beastly, annoying Sigg lid breaks into THREE pieces, one a tiny metal ring.

 

 

 

 

 

Insulated amazingness for hot & cold drinks. Once I cleaned one 24 hours later & it STILL had ice.

 

 

INSULATED BOTTLES. Last year Kleen Kanteen started making an insulated bottle. I was a bit leery. There are  plenty of thermoses out there. Would this one be worth the bucks? ($23-28, depending on size.) Yes, yes, YES! Whoa Nellie! These will keep your bev of choice hot or cold for hours. These are the best insulated thermoses I’ve ever found. For those you can get a cafe top, which prevents sloshing in the car cup holder, but lets you sip your tea, or you can get 1 of 2  leak proof lids. One is flatter & cooler looking, if you are looking for that sort of thing, but otherwise there is no diff. And I will say the cafe lid is wonderfully designed & snaps into 2 parts for cleaning, both of which can go thru the dishwasher. Size wise, they come in 12, 16, & 20 oz. I have the latter two. After having them, I can’t think why anyone would get the 12 oz. size. Who drinks so little? That’s ONE cup of coffee. If you’re going to spend the money & carry the thing around, at least get the 16 oz., which I think is the most versatile. You should have seen me doing my pre-purchase research. What a geek! I’d make a cup of hot tea in my fave mug, then pour it into a clear pyrex cup to learn the oz. of my normal drink, & what 2 times that would be. In real-time I find the 16 oz. good for coffee & tea when I’m heading out of the house for a while, & the 20 oz. is excellent for ice tea, which I might share with my son in the back seat. You drink more of cold drinks so the capacity is really nice.

Kleen Kanteen insulated 20 oz., Kleen Kanteen regular 18 oz., Sigg regular 20 oz.

Only down side is the insulation takes up a heck of a lot of space. Look at this comparison, to the left, of 20 oz. bottles. You see what I mean. And if you back up the page, you’ll see it’s about the same size at the 27 oz. reg bottle. You have to determine if the mass is worth it to you. I did use the larger insulated at Burning Man last year. It didn’t hold as much as the 27, but we carried both. We’d be moseying with the speed of drugged slugs thru the heat of the day & then make our tongues ache with the sudden shock of ice & liquid. Perfect. And along those same lines, a thermos of some hot & steamy drink is very welcome on a late night when you can barely see the lights of center camp, there are no art cars in sight, & you are weary beyond words, cold & tired.

CLEANING. Sigg wants you to wash their bottles by hand. I assume to protect the finish. I believe I shared my feelings about that earlier. All the Klean Kanteen bottles can be washed in the dishwasher, including the thermos, which is unexpected. They say to handwash the leak proof lids, but I throw every piece in there & have had no problem.

DURABILITY. or…WILL I GET MY MONEY’S WORTH? Well, duh. Yes. Go back & reread the part where I said that little bottle is now 9 years old. Just don’t leave it on the roof of the car. The Siggs dent like crazy. I don’t know why but I don’t like it. The thermoses are also in heavy rotation &, as said, have been to the playa, which is the kind of place sure to put on some age & take off some value. No dents, no flaws of any kind. I’ve never replaced a lid. The painted models do lose paint. That’s how that goes. I sandblasted a drawing onto the yellow bottle, & also did that with a plain thermos I gifted. You can certainly sandblast, sticker, or in other ways decorate your thermos. Makes it harder to lose.

PRICE. The insulateds are $23, $26, & $28. The regular bottle in the sizes mentioned here is $15, $17, & $18, with the price varying slightly depending on cap choice. They also now have some limited edition bottles. They also have a water filter adapter for in the woods. Siggs are $22 for the 20 oz. size. Wait, I just did the math. That 9 year old bottle I have – that works out to $1.66/year. A YEAR.

DON’T TELL ME YOU CAN’T AFFORD A DECENT REUSABLE BOTTLE!! On more than one occasion someone has asked me about one of these & flinched when I said I paid about $25 for it. What the heck? When’s the last time you bought overpriced bottled water infused with the health giving qualities of sun-warmed plastic at some festival? How about the last time you caved to your whining kid & bought some sugary thing on ice while on a walk? Which he only drank half of anyway because it was so ick? Is your last cup of coffee in one of those little paper condoms still a fresh memory for you? And how much did you pay for that? Alright then.

Get a decent bottle.
Drink healthy.
Save money.
Save trash.

 

 

 

Southern Baptists – The Good News For Kids.

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Oh, I do wish I could post this video here! Unfortunately it’s attached to its own page so the best I can do is point you to it. Just click here & you will, hopefully, see an extremely low budget cartoon explaining sin to the younger set. I got it from the Southern Baptist convention site. I discovered that the cartoon leads to a whole page of kid-oriented games, all of equally low production value (no church discount for flash?) & with narration aimed at an audience already trained to just turn that pesky brain off.

And here’s something interesting. At the end of the cartoon, you have a choice of replaying, learning more, or quitting. The ‘quit’ button doesn’t work. How about that.

Watch this with your kids. And tell me how it goes. I’d love to hear. Bet you had a LOT of interesting conversations. Do your best to answer their confused questions about how if god loves them, why can’t they be with him, & how can people all be born with sin, especially since jesus died for your sins all those years ago. Really, if you haven’t grown up in this, it seems colossally stupid, & makes no sense at all. Welcome to religion.