mom style – Page 2 – hellsfunnybelle

8 life hacks every teen MUST know

January 20, 2015January 20, 2015 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, the girl with the inner purple hair

Everyone knows that there are secret life hacks that can make their lives easier.

As parents, we know all the little tips and tricks learned over years of housework. There are just some things that make life all the much more livable.

But, spend few minutes living with any teen and you’ll realize, if it comes out of a parent’s mouth, it can’t be true, it has to be on the Internet for that.

So, here it is, the top 8 life hacks every teen must know – on the internet no less!

1 – Clean hair dye IMG_20150119_183101 from a white bathroom sink using just bleach and an old rag! Pour bleach on stained area, wipe down with old rag and cover stain with bleach a second time. Let stand for 5 minutes, or more depending on the darkness of stain. Wash off bleach with water and rag. BONUS HACK: Use a white rag and allow the bleach to clean stains out of the rag as well.

2 – Writing assignments and their due dates on a calendar, the day they are assigned, prevents forgetting them until the last minute or missing them entirely. Result? Less stress and better days!

3 – Use a relatively new invention – the trash can – to store all of your old candy wrappers and empty soda bottles. When full, carry trash receptacle to the garbage can outside to dispose of all of your garbage in one trip! You’ll be able to tell when the can is full when pieces of garbage start falling out of it. Being ahead of the game and taking the garbage out before being asked can save you from being interrupted during a great run of Call of Duty by Mom yelling to get to your chores.

4 – Folding your laundry and putting it away immediately after it is finished in the dryer helps to prevent the need for ironing clothes as well as keeps your mom from yelling at you that you look like a street urchin or homeless man. As an added bonus, this saves countless hours of looking through your clothes for what to wear that day, or confusing clean clothes with dirty clothes, requiring you to wash all of them over again.

IMG_20150119_183644 5 – Shave minutes off chore time by simply putting dishes IN THE DISHWASHER instead of in the sink five feet to the side of it. This is an even more effective hack instead of leaving dishes in your room.

6 – Rub a toothpaste tube along the side of the sink and bathroom countertops from the bottom of the tube up, in order to move all of the toothpaste up into the useable part of the tube. Hint: This only works if you remember to put the cap back on.

7 – If you smell the cat litter box when you come in the back door of the house, chances are, it’s time to change it. Doing something simple like this can save up to 20 minutes of nagging per WEEK!

8 – Using Kleenex or toilet paper to blow your nose, instead of picking it and wiping it on your gaming chair or your jeans will not only save time cleaning your chair, but also help to make you look like less of a loser in your friends and families eyes – they do see you do it, you know.

9 – When it’s your turn to clean the bathroom, make sure you take a long hot shower first. Then, after drying off with your towel, use the moist towel to clean loosened dirt on the countertops and sink. Wet towel with a little water from the now clean sink, and use the towel to “mop” the floor. After you get dressed, throw away the garbage and clean out the toilet and you’re done!

With just a little planning and a few extra steps, you’ll be on your way to a calmer, more grown-up way of life. In many ways,

And now, it’s on the internet, so it HAS to be true…

Tasting memories

January 5, 2015January 5, 2015 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, the girl with the inner purple hair

Since Friday, I’ve been thinking about the premiere of Downton Abbey.

As Masterpiece Theater classic television goes, it is the best of high period drama. It is also one of my guilty indulgences.

When I watch it, I sometimes think of what it would be like to be Elizabeth McGovern’s character and live out my days leisurely with servants to do all of the things I scream at my kids to do. I imagine dressing for a dinner that someone else cooks, on dishes I’ll never have to wash and going to sleep in a bed I’ll never have to make or wash the sheets of.

Of course, that’s all just a dream.

But it doesn’t stop me from wanting to bring a little English culture to our home. As a lifelong slight anglophile, I have admired English culture since I was first introduced to it through Camelot and Robin Hood.

When I was graduated from high school, my mother took me to England, Scotland and Wales. It was a dream come true. We traveled to London, where she took some classes while I walked through the streets of the town, looking at the sites. After going out on a date with one of the servers from the restaurant of our hotel, Mom and I traveled to Scotland, through the Dales and into the British and Welch countryside.

As we traveled, our plan was simple – eat the hotel’s continental breakfast (hard “toast”, one croissant, jam, butter and tea), then have high tea instead of lunch because it was cheaper. Took a while to figure out that biscuits were crackers. When we were in bed and breakfasts, we’d eat their rather sumptuous breakfasts (which shocked the heck out of me because it was the first time anyone had ever served me baked beans and tomato slices along side bacon, eggs and toast), have high tea and then go for a light supper. That was a rasher of bacon was the meaty bit of a bacon slice and the streaky was the fatty bit.

And yes, it really is true that when you’re a stranger in a small town, walking into a pub will result in everyone stopping in the middle of their conversations and looking at you, which doesn’t even stop when you order what ever it is they are serving for supper.

Today, as I was waiting for the return of Downton Abbey’s fifth season, those memories came flooding back to me; Mom and I walking through churches built before America was even discovered, watching the changing of the guard, hitting Edinburgh and touring the castle just as 40,000 David Bowie fans stormed the city, many of whom serenaded us under our hotel window after the concert was over at 1 a.m.

I loved the castles. I loved the history. I loved the smell of the Scottish heather perfume that I bought there.

I hated the food though.

Steak and kidney pie? Bleck. Bubble and Squeak? Basically leftover potatoes and cabbage and Brussels sprouts with beef and gravy. Right. And let’s not even get started on Haggis, black pudding or jellied eel…

Still, the memories of all those afternoons spent with my mom over tea and scones with clotted cream and jam made we want to relive some of my real memories before I embarked on my fantasy memories later tonight.

I decided to make Welsh rarebit, or Welsh rabbit, depending on how you decide you want to pronounce it.

The American version of Welsh rarebit is basically, a cheesy bechamel sauce on toast. But the English version is more of a cheese and beer paste that is spread on buttered toast and broiled for a late Sunday “what do make when the pantry is empty” supper.

Of course, I had to make my own version. Just a little here, and a substitution there, and next thing you know, Bob’s your uncle and all that.

First, I started with three slices of honey wheat bread, spread with butter and toasted lightly in the broiler. At the same time, I fried up about six slices of bacon. Once those were done, I put them both to the side and started on the cheese sauce.

Most British recipes call for dry mustard and stout. I don’t have either. I had Dijon and Thomas Creek’s Red Ale. So that’s what I used. Combining about a tablespoon of ale and a tablespoon of Dijon mustard in a small saucepan, I whisked them together until they were smooth. Then I added another two tablespoons of ale, a tablespoon of butter, about a teaspoon of Worcestershire, some paprika and a dash of red pepper. Then I heated those until the butter melted, stirring frequently.

Once the mixture came to a boil, I added half a cup of shredded Colby jack cheese, half a cup of shredded cheddar and about a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and whisked them all together until the cheeses melted and the mixture was smooth. You’ll see that this turns into a nice sauce that just coats the fork or whisk that you are using.

To this, I added one egg yolk. I pierced the egg yolk with a fork and added to a warm, but not hot, cheese mixture. So that the egg yolk doesn’t scramble in the heated mix, I whisked it really quickly until it began to thicken. You’ll see that the mixture begins to pull away from the sides of the pan and starts to form more of a paste like consistency.

At this point, I started to assemble the sandwich. I sliced a tomato into three slim slices and put them on a paper towel to dry out a bit. On a cookie sheet, I put each piece of toast and topped each piece with a tomato slice. I topped that with two pieces of bacon, cut in half. From there, I spooned the cheese mixture on top of the sandwich until it covered the bacon, tomato and bread. After sprinkling the completed sandwich with parsley, I put the cookie sheet into the broiler and broiled the sandwich until it was bubbling and browning a little.

In all, the sandwich took about 15 minutes to make. It was a great easy lunch to make for a grey and raining afternoon.

But more than that, it helped me reconnect with my Mom. And with my kids. Little Mason thought it was pretty good, but Max wasn’t impressed. It wasn’t tea at a little shop in the middle of Oxford, but it was my way of introducing them to the culture I love. Max is already reading the five-book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (yeah, that’s correct) and I’ve made them watch Raymond Briggs illustrated cartoons and Tin Tin since before it was cool to do that.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to take the to England or Ireland or Scotland, but for now I’m sure they’ll indulge their old Mom on a few of the finer points of English cooking… at least the palatable ones.

Eight ways you know the holiday honeymoon is over

December 29, 2014January 5, 2015 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair

I’m pretty sure I am all Christmas’d out.

Seriously.

As I sit here on my couch on a rainy 60 degree Sunday, some of my friends are celebrating their fourth and fifth family holiday today. Heck, some of them have had more than eight holiday celebrations in the course of the last month.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas as much as the next person… probably more than some in fact. I love the secrets, the smells, the sights… even the sappy Christmas specials where the evil shopkeeper realizes there is more to the season than commercialism and peace returns to Happyville and little Timmy gets his dog back.

Yeah, I know, I’m a bit sentimental, but life can’t be all sarcasm, moonshine and zombies now, can it?

So, after countless batches of Christmas candy, a seemingly endless stream of holiday engagements and a month-long marathon of shopping or making gifts, I think I’m done for a while.

How can I tell? The signs are all around us… Here’s the top 8 ways to tell you’re done with Christmas.

Your credit card is no longer smoldering and your mailbox is busting at the seams with with bills.
The desire for rich foods like turkey with all the fixings, crown roast of pork and prime rib has been replaced by an urgent need for salad, soup and sandwiches or a plain baked potato.
No one in the house wants to eat any of the goodies you’ve painstakingly made over the past month. Christmas cookies and peanut butter fudge go uneaten, while jelly beans and Doritos disappear by the handful.
The sight of Christmas trees and the not-so-green-anymore greenery around the house brings less feelings of nostalgia and holiday spirit and more thoughts of kindling and the growing concern over how long into Spring you’ll still be sweeping up pine needles.
The pangs of guilt over things you didn’t get accomplished – including not knitting your grand niece and nephew matching glove and hat sets because you ran out of time and not mailing out handmade Christmas cards because you forgot they were in your glove compartment – have dissipated and been replaced by nagging thoughts of “I should probably still try to do that sometime before Valentine’s Day.”
You’d rather watch “Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators” on Syfy than suffer through yet another showing of “Elf,” “Shrek the Halls,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” or “A Christmas Story.”
The long list of holiday engagements has been replaced by long afternoon naps and curling up with a good book for hours on end.
As temperatures here in South Carolina reach up into the 50s, planning holiday travel schedules is replaced with an urgent desire to plant a garden.

So, let’s take a few minutes and say goodbye to 2014’s holiday season. It’s been one to put in the record books… well, the keepsake books anyway, if indeed we keep any of those. And remember, there’s just 363 shopping days left to find the perfect gifts for Christmas 2015.

All I want for Christmas is a horror movie death

November 12, 2014November 12, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in the girl with the inner purple hair

Every year my sons and dear husband ask me what I want for Christmas.

And every year, my answer is the same in my best June Cleaver voice…

“Oh, honey, you don’t have to get me anything. I already have everything I want. I have you all.”

Of course, in reality, we all know that if I didn’t get anything for Christmas, there would be many tears, many days of silent resentment and a lot of pink socks for the rest of the year.

It’s just that I have a hard time asking my family to spend some of our limited holiday budget on me when I know that it could go to them instead.

Motherhood martyrdom at its best.

And the truth of it is that I don’t want to tell them what to buy or how much to spend. I want them to somehow telepathically figure out what it is that would make me happy.

This, of course, from three guys who didn’t notice that I was wearing two different socks this weekend.

I’m not talking like a navy blue sock and a black sock. I’m talking one over the knee green leprechaun sock, complete with belt buckle print, and the other a sock that looked like a Chuck Taylor high-top canvas sneaker.

Yeah, I know… I was tired and didn’t feel like going through all of the laundry piled up on my chair in the bedroom. So sue me. My feet were cold.

Anyway, it occurs to me that I’m expecting miracles from three men who only notice whether or not I’m happy or sad, and react accordingly.

My youngest son, Max, looks at me when I’m happy and dancing in the kitchen in my mismatched sock feet and wonders why he must suffer through the torture of being born into such a weird family and leaves the room.

My oldest son, Mason, sees me in a bad mood (that can come about because of anything from an errant email to a bad day at work), comes up, puts his chin on the top of my head, hugs me and… leaves the room.

I’m sensing a trend here.

They don’t know why I feel the way I do, and most times they don’t ask. They just leave.

Or ask for money.

Anyway, here I am faced with putting down a list of what I want for Christmas.

In the past, without asking for anything, I’ve gotten some really great things – some really beautiful teapots for my collection, some antique salt and pepper shakers for my collection and some enamel boxes for my collection. I’ve gotten a wine opener, hand-painted wine glasses, a Pyrex baking dish and some wonderful bamboo cutting boards.

I’ve never been one of the moms who gets presents they don’t like. I love the “Queen Mom” coffee cup one of my sons gave me one year (still use it) and the rhinestone angel necklace I got another year (still in my jewelry box). When they look at me with that expectant half-worried look on their faces about whether or not I actually WILL like it, it makes me like it all that much more.

I mean, it’s worked out really well for me to not say anything. I still end up really happy.

It’s not like there’s any “carbon action, dual barrel, Red Ryder BB gun” for Moms out there.

This year, the requests have come early. Like, starting in Labor Day, when the Christmas decorations came out in stores, they wanted to know what I wanted Santa to bring me.

And since they told me that they’re sick of buying salt and pepper shakers, cooking equipment, tea pots and painted wine glasses, I guess I need to help them out a bit.

So… here goes… my Christmas list.

Max: What I really want is a replacement for my skillet. I don’t want a set of teflon coated skillets from Target or Kmart, I want an exact duplicate of the one that I have. I bought the one I have at our grocery store. It’s about $20 and they are located near the candy aisle – which would be a great place to pick up one of those Lindt chocolate reindeer sets that I’ve always wanted to find in my stocking… not in replacement of anything, but in addition to… just saying.

Little Mason: Now that you’re a working man, and clearly have better taste in clothing than I do, what I would really like is something from your store that you think I would look good in… age appropriate please (I’m not 14… but I’m not 124 either… think 34) … And no “cougar” t-shirts, no matter how funny you think that might be. And remember our shopping motto “use discounts and shop from clearance.”

Big Mason: Now truth be told, I really feel guilty about asking you for anything. Just this last weekend you bought me two antique salt and pepper sets (one was a mini Schlitz beer bottle set – SWEET! – and the other antique silver cowboy boots – SUPER SWEET! wait, am I gushing a bit? yeah… deal with it) and then you went and got me 52 bottles of wine in a raffle at the Furball for the Anderson County Humane Society. I’ve literally got my wine advent calendar set and still have bottles left over for the rest of the year.

So, what do I ask you for? I don’t know. I really don’t know…. can I get back to you on that? Slippers are good… a nice robe? Matching socks?

Really, what can you give me that you haven’t already given me seven fold before?

Mom: I want some really nice Christmas towels for the bathroom and the kitchen. I think the ones I have are more than 300 years old, and more than likely, ones that I’ve stolen from your house over the years. I’d just like to have a set that I can bring out the day after Thanksgiving and enjoy the rest of the year. Last year, you sent me to the Erma Bombeck Humor Writer’s Workshop, so you’re off the hook for anything big for years since you crossed something off my bucket list.

I guess, speaking of bucket lists, what I really want is something that would let me cross another one of those things off of it. What I really, really want … what I think this year is my Red Ryder BB Gun this year, is to have someone fund an indiegogo.com campaign for “The Campground” (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roman-jossart-s-the-campground-varsin-s-vengeance) in my name so I can be killed off in a horror movie, with my friend Harry McCane doing the make up to make me look good and dead.

I realize that watching me being killed may, in fact, be the Christmas dream of a few people out there, but think about it… buy this and we’re both happy!

Mason, my dear husband, always says “Why can’t you want anything normal for Christmas?”

And I kind of agree… I probably should like normal things like normal people.

But … in the partially altered words of Lina Lamont “I ain’t normal people… I’m Liz Carey!”

But in a pinch, I’m pretty sure chocolate and wine would suffice.

I’m ready for Christmas

November 4, 2014November 5, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair

It’s been a rough week.

My hip hurts. And even though the doctors say it’s arthritis, I’m way too young to hear that come out of any professional’s mouth.

One of my cats died Sunday morning. But he was 417 years old, so it was time.

My house is not the kind of clean I would like it to be, but we’ll blame that on the aforementioned hip, and ignore the fact that I tend to have piles of clean laundry in my bedroom always.

My shoes are strewn about my bedroom in the pattern of a mad woman looking for golden slippers in the bottom of a stack of casual canvas boots, but that, too, is somewhat normal.

I’ve had to say “Good-bye” to someone who hated me with the class and debonair air that would have made my Dad proud, and “Hello” to someone who doesn’t know me with a restrained giddiness. Neither of these things is easy for me.

jobs-pic My kid got a job, but his grades are wanting and after a round of going toe-to-toe with one of his teachers for her inane rules, I can’t seem to get him to realize that doing well at school and adhering to those stupid rules is more important than skateboarding.

My other kid can’t understand why I’m not jumping at the bit to chauffeur him off to Hickory, NC to see his online girlfriend and leave him there alone with her for a couple of hours. Did I mention that Hickory is “only” five hours away? Did I mention he’s only 14?

I’ve wrapped up one fund-raising event, but am settling in the realization that I still have several more to go, and the illusion of having a break between them is a pipe dream.

I’m a little homesick for Cincinnati, my friends there and its never-ending buffet of arts and culture, all the while ignoring, of course, its crappy football team, crazy politics and pollution.

There’s a part of me that wants to cross off everything on my “to do” list and replace it with “stay in pajamas, retire to bed and pull covers over head.”

There is an end in sight though.

Christmas is coming.

It’s only four days after Halloween and Christmas is upon us.

Since Saturday, November 1 by my calendar, I’ve received more than 12 holiday emails from retailers, avoided no less than six holiday specials on Lifetime and listened to zero holiday tunes on a local radio station, even though they are now playing them non-stop.

Usually, this is where I go into a holiday rant about giving me a break and allowing me to revel in one holiday before we go into another. Mostly, I think this is based on the guilt of not having even so much as looked at a single purchase in that “Oh, this would make a great present for someone” mindset or having knit a single stitch for that “oh so perfect handmade present.”

Usually, I get upset about the idea of Christmas decorations going up in stores on October 30 and how we ought to at least get through the Day of the Dead and Veterans Day before we start thinking about Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas. Usually, I’m already bemoaning what disasters will befall us THIS Thanksgiving day (and there are disasters) even without the sister-in-law from Hell in the house, and railing against how oppressive the Christmas holidays are.

But this year, it’s different.

This year, I think I need a little Christmas cheer. Maybe not 54 days of it, but still…

This year, I think I’m ready to start putting up lights and bringing out the Santas early.

Halloween-decorations In September, we put out the Halloween decorations in the yard. The inflatable “Pop Goes the Evil” maniacal clown Jack-in-the-Box with it’s creepy music has been playing in my yard and in my psyche for a month alongside the inflatable black cat, the inflatable overgrown spider and the inflatable “Witch meets Pumpkin.” Zombie corpses dot our graveyard front yard and a new skeleton dog has joined the troop. Tombstones line the top of my tea pot cabinet and Jack o’Lanterns loom from every surface of our living room, bathroom and kitchen. Wicked witches and ghostly pictures hang where we see them every day.

And I didn’t even get all the Halloween decorations out.

But now, I’m ready to put them away. I think I kind of want some joy.

I want to replace our black glittered roses in the bathroom with holly and evergreens. I want to see Santa and the promise of a happy Christmas morning instead of macabre faces and grimacing skeletons. I want to hold a season in childlike wonder instead of feigned fear.

Maybe I am getting old.

I miss the days when our kids looked forward to advent calendars filled with candy and presents under the tree and trips to the mall Santa who only mildly wreaked of cigarette smoke and bourbon. I miss the days when they counted down the “sleeps” ’til Christmas like the days ’til summer vacation.

I miss the days of my kitchen smelling of cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg and sugar cookies instead of barbeque and pumpkin spice.

I miss the days of happy embraces and red noses and long lingering hugs on the front steps, instead of the creepy movies on TV designed to scare the bejesus out of us.

That’s not to say we don’t have those feelings and expectations of happy anymore despite the season, but I want the most perfect of them now.

I want to feel that happy giddiness that comes with the expectation of a joyous morning and the coma-induced aftermath of present opening and unexpected surprises. I have plans for a few of those awe-inspiring surprises in store for the people who mean so much to me. I want to see them now. I want to linger on their expressions when they rip away the wrapping paper.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving. I love the feeling of having the people I care about close to me and eating with me the food that I’ve cooked. I love lounging on the couch and watching parades and football while the world’s most perfect turkey cooks in the oven. I love the lazy happiness that comes after a great party of mismatched dishes and more food than a family and friends could ever possibly eat.

Heck, I even like the bliss of a perfect Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, complete with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

But I think this year, after all the hardships and all the stress and all the turmoil, I need to just be happy for a while. Maybe even 54 days worth. Fridgi-Xmas-Photo-Presents-Open-1

There’s a carefree attitude that comes with Christmas that brings out the happy in those who let it infect them. And they tend to spread it amongst their friends and companions.

It’s the ebola of holidays.

So, for once, I’m ready to forego the whining and moaning about “One holiday at a time, please.” I’m ready to give up my pretense that I want to have breaks between my holidays and actually enjoy creating a warm, comforting environment. I’m ready to stop pretending that I don’t like it and I’m not looking forward to it. I’m ready to start seeing circles in the “Toys R Us” catalogue and turned down pages of “Wireless.” I’m ready to know that what I do over the next 54 days will bring some joy to someone.

I need some happy.

It’s been a really tough week.

Dear women’s magazines, I give up

September 10, 2014September 10, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair

Okay, women’s magazines, you win.

I give up.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to stop reading you, I’m just not going to succumb to your particular brand of torture anymore.

I’ve read women’s magazines since I was a little girl. I drooled over recipes and wondered what it would be like, as a teenager, to have the freedom to make “Pan-seared Duck with orange confit and a bed of microgreens.”

I’ll admit it, I’ve been a foodie since I was knee high to a Kitchen Aid, but now… I just don’t think I can take this anymore.

You’ve all just gone over the top.

Like any good foodie mom, I read your “How to make a gourmet dinner for your family in less than 30 minutes” and I want to be able to do that.

Making a dinner for my family that would please the palate of Gordon Ramsey in half an hour using only 15 simple ingredients? So doable, I thought.

Gone are the days of salmon patties with buttered egg noodles and corn. Tomorrow, it’s Korean beef lettuce wraps with soba noodles and edamame. I can do this!, I thought.

But now, you’re just being silly. Now, you’re putting in your magazines things no kid who isn’t starving or on a forced diet would eat.

It’s just that, recently, reality has hit me.

I don’t care what your cooks do in your kitchen, no matter how hard I try, there’s no way I’m making a three course dinner for four in less than an hour. I know, I know, you’ve got all those timing things outlined in your directions, but honestly, how you do all that chopping when you’ve got to help with homework and clean the house is beyond me.

And another thing, do you think you could start printing recipes that use ingredients I might actually have in my kitchen?

One recently included mashed parsnips. mashed-parsnips

Parsnips?

Really?

Who the hell buys parnsips on a regular basis?

I’d like to make gourmet meals, really I would.

But I think if I were to serve pomegranate, watercress and roasted macadamia nut salad my guys would look at me like I had stepped off of the pages of Bourgious Kitchen and straight into the world of la-la land.

And as much as I’d like to make a panko and peanut crusted chicken breast with orzo and a side of pan roasted broccolini, I’ve only got stove top stuffing mix, a can of cream of mushroom soup and some french-style green beans in my pantry.

I can’t go out spending $40 on one dish that my family will say “Eh. It was okay” to, when I’ve got another 13 dishes to make and only $300 to spend, over the next two weeks – and that includes money for pizza night!

A quick look at some of my cookbooks proves my point. In the Betty Crocker Family Dinners in a Hurry cookbook, circa 1969 (yes, I’m well aware that some of my cookbooks are just as old as I am – almost), there’s a recipe for Broiled Round Steak with Mustard Butter and Herbed Tomatoes that lists 8 ingredients for the main and side combined – and that’s INCLUDING the round steak! – that takes less than 20 minutes to make and serves 6.

In Southern Living’s May 2014 edition, the recipe for Flank Steak and Cucumber Salad lists 16 ingredients, including Asian chili paste (“such as Huy Fong” it says) and English cucumbers (in my head, I swear I was thinking “I say, are you a regular cucumber, or do you come from across the pond, dear chap?”).

Sixteen ingredients. For a salad. That takes nearly an hour to prepare. And serves 4.

Are you kidding me?

When the boys were younger, I was an industrious chef.

I’d make Halloween dinners that looked like witches’ fingers with ghostly shaped mashed potatoes. I made weekday dinners of tuna melts that looked like little boats with American cheese slice sails. I made decorated cupcakes for school birthday parties.

(Just a note – when you make cupcakes in ice cream cones decorated to look like.. well, ice cream cones… uhm, there’s no way you can ever get over the look in your kids’ school friends’ faces when they realize it’s not, in reality, ice cream.)

But today, … uhm… not so much.

Tonight when I went into the kitchen, I had no idea what I was making until I found a freezer bag of the poultry variety, a box of long grain and wild rice mix, some potato chips, shredded cheese and a can of mushroom soup.

Thank God, for cream of mushroom soup.

Throw that together with sauteed onions, pimentos and frozen peas, and viola! Casserole surprise!

Still took an hour though. And that’s not counting the time spent pondering what the hell am I supposed to make tonight.

But it was affordable. I would say I probably spent $7-$10 on the whole meal, and that’s including the meat substance – whatever it was.

And they ate it! They actually ate it and said “Not bad, Mom.”

Running to the store to buy the ingredients of the aforementioned flank steak and I would have easily gone through $40, and that’s not including Huy Fong (whatever the hell that is, and depending entirely on whether my small town Southern grocery store would have actually had anything remotely resembling it).

It’s just too much.

If I’m honest, I just don’t have the time for that crap. Heck, I don’t even know where I would find pomegranates in my hometown.

I’m all about good cooking and living with nice things, but enough is enough. I’m not ever going to host a party where my friends are going to turn up their noses at my cornbread salad, or homemade guacamole. I like all your stuff, but, damn, it’s just too over the top anymore. Can’t you just print normal recipes?

I want my family to be happy, but not at the cost of spending beyond my means. And I’m not alone. Making a gourmet dinner for my family at the cost of their college funds? Not likely.

You all go ahead and make your spinach infused fish fillets with cous cous and sauteed Italian eggplant.

I’ll be the one making fried chicken in my cast-iron skillet and smiling when my kids actually eat it.

Course, that does cut down on the money I save in eating leftovers though…

Back to drool shopping

August 19, 2014August 20, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair

It occurs to me that high school is the denouement of back-to-school shopping.

Or maybe it is the eye of the storm between kindergarten and college.

It’s hard to tell.

Mostly, because it’s so boring.

This year, back-to-school shopping for my high school students has been less than fun.

When my boys and I went shopping a few weeks afo – with obligatory stops at Hot Topic, American Eagle and Aeropostale – the reaction ranged from “Yeah, it’s cool, I guess” to “Mom! Stop! You’re touching me in public! Have we not discussed this?”

And no matter where we go, it’s all the same stuff.

I’ve bought enough jeans to clothe the entire male population of Bolivia.

Half of these jeans look as if they have been worn BY the male population of Bolivia every day for all 378 days of the World Cup. The other half looks as if they have been dipped in the vat of dye that changed forever the color of the Joker’s hair.

Everything else is black. Or blue. To match, one can only assume, my kids’ moods.

Where are the dress shirts and the kicky sweaters that got pulled out for the first day of school and on picture day?

No where, that’s where.

Which, of course, is also where their underwear is. Every time I ask if they need new ones, they mumble and shrug, leaving me to believe that all the good underwear I bought them last year has been traded to the Bolivians for pairs that show more wear and tear. Ditto their socks.

Come to think of it, maybe the Bolivians are to blame for our recent spoon shortage as well.

Gone are the long discussions where my sons and I anxiously decided between Iron Man or Bakugan for the perfect backpack personality for the new school year. Gone are the smells of a brand new Trapper Keeper, or the never before opened box of 64 Crayola crayons – complete with silver, gold and bronze. Gone are the walks down the aisles of Kmart, buying matching Granimals and Underoos.

Now, instead, I buy notebooks, dry erase markers, loose-leaf graph paper and 3-ring binders.

Bleah.

I used to look forward to back-to-school shopping as a kid.

The new backpacks, the new lunch boxes, the loose leaf paper and crisp sharpened pencils – it’s like you get to go crazy at Office Depot! And the clothes! Oh, my GOD, don’t get me started.

When I was a little girl, each August meant two new pairs of jeans, one dressy outfit, a new pair of Nikes, at least three or four new shirts, and a smattering of really cool skirts that would spend more time on my closet floor than on my hips, but that came straight out of the pages of Seventeen, so I knew I would look good whenever I got around to wearing them.

God, I loved those go go boots... is it okay for a middle aged woman to wear short skirts, sweater vests and go go boots still? — God, I loved those go go boots… is it okay for a middle aged woman to wear short skirts, sweater vests and go go boots still?

One year, I got a red plaid school lunch box with matching Thermos, that matched two of my new outfits in red and black. I even had red, shiny go go boots to go with them, which was WAY cooler than the year before’s purple corduroys and purple turtleneck body suit that SO did not match my Jonathan Livingston Seagull lunch box.

“Thanks, Mom! I love them!” I said, flinging my arms around my mother’s neck.

It really was much easier to please me back then.

In years past, I even looked forward to buying all the things my kids would need to be stellar students.

One year, their back-to-school supply list included, along with the regular paper, pens and pencils – one ZipLock gallon freezer bag, one box of Kleenex, one bottle of anti-bacterial liquid and one bag of candy. The boys used to get a kick out of picking out their candy, their favorite colored folders and their new pencils with their almost sharp enough to be deadly tips.

Not anymore.

This year’s list included: one artist’s sketch pad, one Pearl eraser (pink), two TI-83 calculators (cost $140 per), four packs of index cards (that I can guarantee you will never be used), post-it note pads and a different 3-ring binder for every subject.

Not one mention of a Trapper Keeper anywhere!

And when I ask my sons if they like the new stuff we’ve picked out, their responses range from “Eh.” to “I guess so.”

Joy.

This past week, I bought what we needed in terms of pens, and pencils, and paper. Whatever.

Seriously, how much paper do teachers think that two teenagers are going to go through in a school year? I’ve bought enough paper to keep my office in business for half a year, and we’ve got seven people in there! I’ve bought enough blue and black pens to write “I will not chew gum in school” for my junior high school teacher Ms. Ford seven BILLION times – which coincidentally, is roughly double what I wrote for her when I was actually in her class.

I know that in two years, it will get better. My oldest will tromp off to college and there will be new college-themed clothes, the microwave and the mini fridge to buy – along with the matching bedroom set and the bathroom towels. And I know most of this he will use and then inevitably throw on the floor, only to bring home to me to clean and get rid of the “funky smell.”

It’s just not fair. It’s like this let down after years of detailed lists and character stuff that forever reminded me that they were kids.

Where’s the fun in buying warehouse store quantities of office supplies? Where’s the challenge? Where’s the creativity?

Maybe it’s the fact that they are in high school. Maybe it’s the fact that they’re not “kids” anymore. Maybe it’s just another fact of being a mom to boys. But there’s no getting over the fact that it’s boring.

I blame the Bolivians.

2014 (c) Copyright Liz Carey

9 things I’d like to tell high school graduates

May 30, 2014May 30, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, the girl with the inner purple hair, work life

Since no one has invited me to speak at their high school graduation (yes, Ohio and Wisconsin, I’m looking at you – there’s still time!), I figured I would take it upon myself to let high school graduates know what I think.

You're almost on your way! — You’re almost on your way!

Personally, I’m pretty sure this is the safest way to do things, since sometimes, not even _I_ know what will come out of my mouth.

When I graduated from high school, more than 30 years ago, I felt I knew it all. Graduation comes with a feeling of excitement that parallels the feeling of being out on your own, almost – at least for many of you – and being away from the prying eyes of mom, dad, the nosy neighbor who always snitches on you and any younger siblings or cousins you may have.

You, as you sit there in that chair, are not imagining doing dishes, or getting up at unGodly hours of the morning to make your way to class/work/daycare. You are imagining a life where no one will tell you no.

I know this, because I was in your shoes once.

And that unbridled enthusiasm is a good thing. Really it is. It is what has propelled you through your high school years, and will propel you through your salad years. And for many of you, your Ramen noodle years.

But there are a few things you should know as you go out into the big blue world.

1) High school never ends. Remember how you used to talk to your friends during lunch? And you’d say “Oh. My. God… (please say this with me in your best surfer girl voice) I canNOT believe she is going out with HIM! What WAS she thinking?” and “Dude, he totes gets away with everything! It’s like the crap washes right off of him and lands on someone else.” Uhm, yeah… that never ends. Grown ups still do that, and we call it office politics and gossip. It never ever ends.

No one wants to visit you and your dirty bathroom.

2) Learn how to clean a bathroom. This will become really, really important when you live alone and date. Same goes for learning how to master at least three really great recipes. I suggest Shrimp Scampi, Beef Tournedos and Chicken Marsala. Trust me on this.

3) Stop taking selfies. Seriously. We’ve all seen enough of you. Maybe you could, I don’t know, take pictures of the rest of the world. There’s some pretty cool stuff out there that may be a little more interesting than you, as hard as that is to believe, and you might want to remember it.

4) Read. I don’t care whether it’s books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks or auto manuals, just read. It is, by far the most important thing you have learned to do, and will continue to be the most important thing you will do in the future.

5) Learn to be by yourself. Because you will be. And it’s good to figure out how to not have someone else entertain you. It will come in handy during the rough times. Trust me on this as well.

6) No one lives like they do in TV and the movies. No one gets 2-bedroom rent controlled apartments with great views on a physicist’s salary. People have jobs that they go to for upwards of 8 hours a day, five days a week, with paychecks that do not afford them the luxury of a daily cup of coffee at Starbucks unless they either go without dinner, or rack up debt equal to that of Bolivia’s. You are not going to leave college and land a $100,000 a year job managing a tech company. You will likely make $25,000 a year and struggle until you either a) get promoted; b) get married or c) die. And it’s okay. Because millions of people do it every year and are happy. Really. Happy. And if you’re not happy in your job, find a new one. If you enjoy what you do, you will reap more than just monetary benefits. Nothing sucks more than dreading to go to work. Nothing. But if you love what you do, you’ll never feel like you’ve worked at all.

7) No one owes you anything… not a job, not an education, not a happily ever after. You have to work for those things. Generations of your family have come before you to make it possible for you to have so much. Don’t blow it. You have just enjoyed an 18-year vacation. Go out and earn that.

8) There’s no trophy for ninth place. In fact, there’s no trophy for second place. As a member of the trophy generation, we know that you all have been given trophies for just showing up. Real life doesn’t work like that. Honestly, there’s no prize for anything other than first place. Strive always, for winning. And if you don’t win, try again. And again. And again. In fact, never stop trying to be the best even if no one ever rewards you for it. There is a prize for that too. It’s called pride.

9) Have fun. This is your place and time. These next few years will be some of the best of your life. One day, you will look back on these past four years, that have meant so much to you now, and you will think “What did I ever think was so fun about that?” At least, I hope you will. I hope that with every age and every stage of your life, the next one just becomes better than the last. High school, growing up, becoming an adult – it’s hard. But it gets better.

Life really is like an oyster bed… you pick one and eventually it opens up. It may be nothing more than an oyster – in which case, with a little hot sauce and lemon juice, you’ve got a helluva snack. But sometimes, it’ll have a pearl. You’ve got to keep trying until you find those pearls. Find a long string of them. To you, they will mean the world, because you worked for them, and you earned them. The easy ones – the one’s that open up quickly – those aren’t any good. They’ll make you sick. But the ones you have to work for? Those are the best ones and the ones you’ll remember.

Soup beans and cornbread

May 28, 2014September 10, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life

Last Sunday was soup beans and cornbread night in our house.

Great Northern beans almost the way Dad made them... just need a little ketchup now... — Great Northern beans almost the way Dad made them… just need a little ketchup now…

It was 60s out in May in the South, so it was soup weather. And what good is soup without cornbread, right?

There was a time when I wasn’t exactly proud of telling anyone that we regularly ate soup beans.

I mean it is a reminder of my family’s poor upbringing. It’s rural Kentucky food. It’s mountain food. It’s not the food that anyone is going to put on the menu at a fine dining restaurant, but everyone has seen on the menu at Cracker Barrel.

Mine are nothing like what you get at Cracker Barrel… tonight it was pintos and salt pork with peppercorns. Throw it all in the pot with an onion and let it cook for hours and you’ve got a huge bowl of flavorful protein. Yum.

Sometimes, we have navy beans or great northern beans with left over ham. That’s my special favorite because it reminds me of my Mom’s house.

Sometimes, we have 15-bean soup, which comes with its own ham flavored seasoning pack, so you don’t have to add, you know, … meat. It’s the soup equivalent of Coors Lite – a little bit of flavor without any substance of any kind.

When I was a kid, it seemed like every time we went to my grandmother’s house to visit, we had soup beans and cornbread.

I hated it.

In fact, I dreaded it.

The smell is unique and has a smoky sweetness with a sort of bacony aroma.

And every time I smelled it, I groaned.

But, it made sense. My grandparents weren’t rich, and soup beans were the best choice for them when the house went from two to six. Cheap and easy to make, it was a way to extend a meal to feed a crowd, no matter how many showed up.

But I hated it. It wasn’t bad. I mean, it’s tasty, but I wanted pizza or hamburgers, or fried chicken even. For a spoiled doctor’s daughter, soup beans were NOT the dinner one looked forward to.

Of course, my mom loved it. It was her mother’s cooking, after all. She loved going back to the comfort of her childhood.

I grew up hours away from my grandmother in Central Kentucky, but still my mom made Kentucky favorites. Summers were spent eating cottage cheese and tomatoes fresh out of the garden with a little dollop of mayonnaise on top. We had corn pudding for Thanksgiving dinner. Derby time always meant Derby pie.

And soup beans were a rarity, but a still on the menu

I couldn’t stand them. I just let my mom eat them.

It was like when our family went to Florida. Everywhere we stopped to eat, someone was handing us grits. The further south we got the more plates of grits piled up on the table. Actually, they all ringed my mother’s plate, as we all passed them to her and let her eat them. It’s honestly a miracle that woman didn’t blow up like a hot air balloon that summer.

It was like when our family went to Florida. Everywhere we stopped to eat, someone was handing us grits. The further south we got the more plates of grits piled up on the table. Actually, they all ringed my mother’s plate, as we all passed them to her and let her eat them. It’s honestly a miracle that woman didn’t blow up like a hot air balloon that summer.

At the time, I was starting to cook. I was 11 or so, and I discovered that I really enjoyed cooking, especially cooking for others. I made quiche because I thought it was cool. I made barbequed hot dogs on noodles when my mom went back to school. My aunt taught me to make pies using gooseberries that had been in the freezer since the day I was born. I learned how to make Mom’s chicken and dumplings and beef stew.

Of course I also wanted to expand my knowledge. I devoured cookbooks like some people do peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. I learned about French cooking and the specialties of New England, and the differences between Northern Italian and Southern Italian cuisine.

I all but turned up my nose at the Kentucky food I had grown up on.

One day, I was reading a cookbook and found a recipe for Senate bean soup. I was thrilled. If it had the word “Senate” in it, it had to be special didn’t it?

look familiar? yeah... you'll find recipes for Senate bean soup in Bon Appetit, but soup beans and cornbread? Not so much... — look familiar? yeah… you’ll find recipes for Senate bean soup in Bon Appetit, but soup beans and cornbread? Not so much…

This was going to be my culinary adventure into Northern cooking, I thought. Why, they even had cans of it by some famous chef in the grocery store! It had to be excellent when made from scratch, right?

Imagine my surprise when I looked at the ingredients… beans, ham, water. It was fricking navy bean soup! Only with a few potatoes added.

Yep... sorry folks, polenta is Italian grits. Seriously. You can do this at home... — Yep… sorry folks, polenta is Italian grits. Seriously. You can do this at home…

Disgruntled at being tricked, I decided to only cook recipes from Europe from then on. I learned how to make shrimp scampi, paella and pate. By the time I had worked my way up to Italian polenta, I was a dutiful Europhile foodie … right up until I realized that polenta was basically fried grits.

All of the food I had hated during my childhood was loved by others. They just had different names!

Now in fact, a bowl of soup beans and cornbread is probably one of the most ordered side dishes in the South, right up there with macaroni and cheese, sausage gravy and biscuits and rice and gravy.

I’m telling you – don’t turn your nose up on rice and gravy until you try it…

But it wasn’t until after I graduated from college that soup beans and cornbread became my go-to comfort food.

Always on Sunday afternoons, when it was cool and rainy out, soup beans became this way for me to be home, without actually going home. It became the way to connect with my past, and rethink my future.

It’s the smell, I think. Its earthiness and richness grounds me. I can put them on the stove; take a nap and fall asleep dreaming of my old Kentucky home.

In our house, we eat soup beans differently – the way my dad did.

Traditionally, with soup beans, you eat them with raw onions broken up in the bowl and cornbread on the side. Since my husband can’t stand soup, he crumbles the cornbread right into the soup beans to make some sort of stew like substance.

My dad, however, ate them differently. You take the soup beans; you add ketchup and a forkful of sweet pickle relish. Why? I have no idea. Then again, my Dad perfected the fried bologna sandwich and was the first person to ever make yellow tomato ketchup.

I’m not sure that says anything about Dad, but I do know that’s the only way I will eat soup beans, regardless of the weird looks I get from waitresses in virtually ever restaurant I’ve ever eaten it in.

I know there are regional favorites that I’m sure some people identify with like I do bean soup. Maybe Mainers are like that when they eat New England clam chowder, or a lobster roll. Maybe Southwesternites are all happy when they eat Tex Mex. Maybe even Chicago-ites wax nostalgic when they eat a slice of pizza.

But none of them know what it’s like to eat a bowl of soup beans and be taken back to their grandmother’s house – with its heat vent in the middle of the hall, the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee in the air, and millions of memories lingering in the walls, the rooms and the furniture.

This past weekend, I made the guys French toast, bacon and grits. My kids rolled their eyes at the lumpy white mush. I’m hoping one day, they’ll look at a bowl of grits and think of their old Mom. Or at least take me on vacation and load me up with all their unwanted bowls of grits.

And maybe, one day, they’ll make a pot of soup beans and cornbread and smile.

As long as they eat it with ketchup and relish, I’m okay with that.

Mommy Snearest

May 13, 2014May 28, 2014 by lizcarey2014, posted in parent life, southern life, the girl with the inner purple hair, Uncategorized

There are days when I find myself trying to measure up to the idea of the perfect mom.

You know the ones… they’re online – on Twitter and on Facebook – always talking about their perfect lives and their perfect families and their perfect days at home, working around the house.

They’re the ones that are all matchy-matchy, from their bows in their hair to their designer shoes. And while they talk about their problems, they actually don’t have any because their kids are actually perfect, as are their husbands, their dogs and their houses.

While there are days I wish I could live like them, the fact of the matter is I will never live like them.

In the first place, I have to work for a living. In the second place, I’m about as far from perfect as you can get. And in the third place, I just wasn’t brought up that way.

Don’t get me wrong; my mom brought me up right. If it weren’t for my mother, I would still be dressing in nothing but jeans and t-shirts… okay, I still do that on the weekends, but that doesn’t count. I mean, if it weren’t for my mother, I would not be making a conscious effort to have my underwear match my outfits… kinda like that clean underwear mama mantra on steroids.

It’s just that she also brought me up to be myself and to love who I was instead of always trying to live someone else’s life.

So, that kind of mom isn’t really my way of life.

They are the moms who drive their BMWs to the local organic farm to purchase local fresh produce for their gourmet meals, made possible by the fact that they have all the time in the world to drive to the organic farm and come home and cook a gourmet meal.

I am the mom who roars up to the farmers’ market in her Jeep, in a tie-dye t-shirt and matching sunglasses, with INXS blaring out the windows and grabs the closest box of strawberries to save a few minutes before roaring home to throw something together for dinner.

They are the moms who “salon” to have all manner of their body hair teased, tweezed, tweaked or otherwise tamed.

I am the mom who calls her kid from the back porch and asks them to bring her a razor, because she missed some hairs while she was in the shower.

True story. Just happened.

They’re the moms whose housekeeper takes care of all of the problems in the house while they “work” on their “mommy blog” next to the pool.

I am the mom who writes at night after my second glass of wine and sweeping the kitchen floor for the seventh time since I got home from work.

And while they are the moms whose children were in their perfectly spotless rooms before Mother’s Day making them gifts to celebrate their motherliness – like knitting them a coffeemaker to replace their broken one, or creating art out of tooth picks and dryer lint that would most certainly be hanging in the Louvre if it weren’t on her walls, I am the mom whose kids borrowed my credit card last weekend to buy my Mother’s Day present and argued for the better part of an hour over whose was better.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge those moms their perfect lives, and I’m sure they are happy.

There’s just always that niggling little voice in the back of my head that reminds me I am not one of them. And that for some reason, I should strive to be one of them.

But I can’t live like that.

I’m not home baking cookies; I’m at work. I’m not president of the PTA – I did that once. It wasn’t pretty. I’m don’t have dinner ready by the time they and their father get home from their important things. I slap together the occasional casserole when I have my own important things to do.

And more than that, I’m not perfect. I have curves. I haven’t had the same hair color six months in a row since I was 29. I have a wardrobe that consists primarily of jeans, stretch pants and business attire in red, black, white and tan. I’m a workaholic. I live in flip-flops and bare feet whenever I can from April until November. I can be a little crazy.

Stop rolling your eyes and saying “a little?”

I’m not the ideal mom to others, I suppose, but my kids and husband think I’m pretty okay, even when I dance in the grocery store aisle or sing off key.

I guess all that’s important is that I’m the ideal mom to them.

I can live with that.

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