All Rileyed Up

Mom Central had an opportunity to do some salsa sampling, and what else could I say besides, “Olé!”

Husband and I sampled three large bottles of the Mild Salsa Mexicana, Medium Salsa Verde and Hot Salsa Taquera. After sampling the salsas, Husband said to me, “Have you written your review of the salsa yet? Because it should just say, ‘Yes.’” If you knew Husband, you would know what a serious compliment this is. Much like our Italian friend who adamantly opposes jarred spaghetti sauce, Husband rejects jarred salsa. But not this one. Oh no. Rosarita was very very kind to him. In fact, I’m a little jealous of her now.

The Mild Salsa Mexicana can basically be used in everything, and I do mean everything. We ate most of it with chips because we’re the kind of people who like a glass of salsa with a dash of chip on top. I did have a little bit left over that I added to a batch of black beans I was cooking.

The Hot Salsa Taquera I cooked into a quinoa dish that could also be done with rice: cook 1 cup quinoa or rice, add a cup and a half of cooked black beans, a cup of whole kernel corn, and this bottle of salsa and you have yourself a feast fit for a salsa-eating kung fu fighting master (I’m not actually sure what that means but I thought it sounded good, because, you know, it takes a lot of energy to do kung fu).

FYI, Rosarita salsa is available at Walmart, because everything is available at Walmart, as well as select grocery stores. You can always visit their website for additional information.

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I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Rosarita and received a *sweet* set of samples to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.

I visited the elephant seal vista point, located about 3-4 miles north of the Hearst Castle entrance off US 1. This was my first visit to see the elephant seals, and certainly not the last.

Ahahaaaaaaaaha! We come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow!

This little pup screamed at its mama several times, and she responded by continuing to sleep and occasionally flipping more beach sand onto her back. Well done, mama.

These graceful seals are not playing — they’re fighting. And from the sounds of it, I would not want to be in the middle of that fight.

So I says, “What do you take me for, a sea lion!?! Hahahahaha!”
–That’s nice, dear. We’ve all heard it before…

Oh my gosh, I think I see a human, guys! Look! There it is!

Has anyone seen my Snuggie?

The Transformers cake, crafted painstakingly by yours truly, via fondant, courtesy of Little No Limit’s Gourmet Girl’s Easy Bake cake decorating set

The whole shebangabang, cupcakes, tableclothes, napkins & plates, ALL Transformers ALL the time!
(psst — the wine in the back of the photo? all mine…)

And the smile of thanks makes it all worth it

Happy New Year to everyone! I’m looking forward to 2010, as 2009 was a very long year for me. I considered writing some sappy reflection on the past year, but lucky for all of us, I didn’t have the time. Instead, please enjoy my reflections on the year, courtesy of words that ought to be banned.

shovel-ready, as in “In 2009, I never once heard this term. I guess nothing in California is shovel-ready.”

unfriended, as in “If you unfriended me in 2009, I wouldn’t know because I don’t care enough to check. But in 2010, you better watch it — I’ll stalk you if you dare unfriend me.”

stimulus, as in “If you added together all the times the word stimulus was uttered negatively by Glenn Beck and positively by Rachel Maddow in 2009, who would win? (And more importantly, what would they win?)”

Obamacare and Obamanomics, as in “See above.”

sexting, as in “In 2009, I learned that sexting is only a pleasurable experience when it involves high profile celebrities that you can blackmail, sue, or at the very least, publicly humiliate.”

tweeting, retweeting and tweetaholics, as in “I still haven’t gotten the hang of Twitter.”

bromance, as in “Hey, what’s wrong with bromance?”

teachable moment, as in “2009 was one big teachable moment for me, or as the phrase was previously known, life.”

chillax, as in “Dude, chillax, all I said was sexting would be cool if it involved a public figure. You don’t need to turn this into some teachable moment and unfriend me and all that.”

transparently and toxic assets, as in “I don’t know how anyone takes the word assets seriously anyway. Combining it with toxic was transparently someone’s lead-in to the world’s biggest butt joke.”

too big to fail, as in “Nothing is too big to fail. Not even someone’s toxic assets.”

app, as in “I wish they had an app to friend me with a public figure whom I could involve with a little sexting and then blackmail for money. Hopefully, he would later view the experience as a teachable moment.”

in these economic times, as in “For those of you disappointed in ths post, all I can say is that in these economic times, I have to work with the material given.”

Onward, 2010!

We go to Chili’s. We get a balloon. Little No Limit is overjoyed. As we walk to the car, she accidentally lets go. Oh, the tears. “My ballooooooooooonnnnn…” So long, balloon, and thanks for all the laughs.

We go to Chili’s. We get a balloon. We tie it to her! She names the balloon Bernie. We go to Target. The tie comes undone while we are walking around and the balloon is just too high to even jump up and get. I’d have to climb a shelf, and I just don’t think they’re sturdy enough for me to do that. Oh, the tears. “My ballooooooooooonnnnn…” echoes through the toy aisle. So long, balloon, and thanks for all the laughs.

We go to Chili’s. We get a balloon. We tie it to her, double knots! She names the balloon Bernie. We go to Target. She happily introduces “Bernie” to the toys in the toy aisle. One of the toys apparently doesn’t like Bernie. POP! Oh, the tears. “Beeeerrrrrnnnniiieeee…” So long, balloon, and thanks for all the laughs.

We go to Chili’s. We get a balloon. We tie it to her, double knots! We don’t go to Target! We go to OSH because I had promised the kids a new plant because their Venus Flytraps died. They chose cactus plants. Did I just admit to buying a cactus when she had a balloon? Yes, I did. I suppose I deserved what happened next… Oh, the tears. “The cactus killed my balloooooooonnnn…” So long, balloon, and thanks for all the laughs.

Why do I continue to get the balloon? It’s like Dubya said,

“Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

Green Works – It Works

I recently sampled Clorox Green works laundry detergent and spray on stain remover on behalf of MomCentral. It smells delightful and cleans everything I throw at it, including but not limited to, mud, grass, spaghetti sauce, markers, hard candy bits, a mushed piece of something that may or may have not been on the foor, something green that may or may not have come out of someone’s nose, all variety of juices, and oh, whatever else exists in this world that has color. Can you tell I have children in the house?

Here is my latest tale of laundry woe:

Yesterday at school, the children put on a dance performance. School ended at 3pm, then they were going to have a pizza and fruit punch party and play around until the actual performance, which took place at 6pm.

The requested outfits of all students were a white shirt and blue jeans.

So, to be clear: white shirt and blue jeans AND pizza party and red fruit punch.

The teachers were wise enough to add to the notice – do not send your child to school DRESSED for the show, just put the white shirt in their backpack.

The Boy and Little No Limit were among the lucky few (and by few, I mean half), who had spots of red fruit punch and other such stains on their clothes, which made me very happy that I packed their brand new white shirts in their backpacks. I specify they were brand new because the only kinds of white clothing we own are brand new. White doesn’t last very long in our house.

So we got them dressed up in their dazzling white shirts, they did they dance thing (sooooo cute, but my Flip decided to freeze up so I couldn’t tape it. Soooooo lame).

After the dance, the kids were rewarded with a piece of chocolate cake.

And now, I have no brand new white shirts.

Ah, children. They should spend their allowance buying stock in Green Works.

***

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Clorox Green Works and received a bottle of Green Works Natural Detergent and Stain Remover to facilitate my review and a $20 thank-you gift certificate.

Husband and I took the kids to see Fantastic Mr. Fox and let’s just go ahead and get it out of the way: it was fantastic. It really was. I knew from the get-go I was going to love the movie, but Husband wasn’t as confident in the movie’s ability to deliver. I felt really triumphant when we left the theatre and he said it was one of the best movies he’d seen in a while. Admittedly, Fantastic Mr. Fox didn’t have much competition. The last three movies we went to the theatre for were movies you’d expect parents of a 5 and 6 year old to have seen: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (absurd but I laughed), Planet 41 (I stayed at home while Husband took one for the team), and Where the Wild Things Are (the great sound and beautiful scenery were not enough to make up for watching the magic of a beautiful kids tale die a slow, slow death).

Why adults will like Fantastic Mr. Fox:

Deadpan humor. If you like humor where half the amusement comes from the fact that the lines were said with a straight face, then you will like Fantastic Mr. Fox. With Wes Anderson at the helm, George Clooney in the lead, and Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Bill Murray in supporting roles, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a veritable smorgasbord of deadpan comedians. All I can say is, bandit hat.

Nostalgic. We all grew up watching Rankin Bass films from the wonderful Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to the creepy one where Santa joins the immortals, and I continue to watch them every Christmas, and sometimes Halloween (Mad Monster Party, anyone?). For all the love I have for Pixar, stop action animation has its place. It’s time it made a comeback.

Timeless. You’ll be able to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox ten years from now and it will still be as funny then as it is now. Unlike the beginning half of Eddie Murphy’s Delirious, you won’t be saying to yourself, “Wow, you can tell this came out in the early 80s.”

Why kids will like it:

Exciting and new. This is likely the first time any of our kids will see a stop-action animated film on the big screen. How cool is that?
For love of the fur. They’re animals! What kids don’t like animals? And these animals are taking on the man! With laced blueberries, flaming pinecones, and a mini motorcycle for two! Huzzah!

A history of classics. Fantastic Mr. Fox was written by Roald Dahl, one of my favorite authors, the man whose dark imagination brought us Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda. Is the movie different from the book? Sure. But it is a reasonable adaptation? Yes. And since this movie is based on a book, now you have another reason to entice your kids to go to the library and read something new. They can read this book and go on to read the rest of Roald Dahl’s works.

So there you have it. My completely subjective, give-it-all-the-love-I-have review of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Go see it. And enjoy. And if you don’t like, sorry about your sense of humor.

I’m taking a class right now on literacy instruction and the last discussion question requested we write a song/make up a poem/create a collage that indicated what we’d learned about literacy and some of our thoughts on it. I wrote new lyrics to the tune of It’s the End of the World as We Know It by REM because let’s face it, no one ever knew the lyrics to that song anyways (except “Leonard Bernstein!”). I included the video for you to press play so you could follow the lyrics along with the song (plus, it IS a good song…)

“The Whole World’s A Good Book, Let’s All Read It”

Reading, it starts with the parents, kids, and time for storylines
Twenty minutes every day.
Then the kids come to school, listen to their teacher
Who meets the kids’ needs, individual and group needs,
Checking on their phonics, spell this, rhyme that,
Also check on fluency, reading words, sight words,
On to work on comprehension where it helps to know
that having any background knowledge means so much.
If that isn’t coming in a hurry don’t get worried, you can build - it - up.
Team by team the readers read aloud and discuss.
Look at them analyze!
Fine, then,
Uh oh, student’s slow,
regulation for the group, this we’ll do:
modify! modify!
School serves the kids’ needs,
Wanting to see them succeed
Tell me ‘bout the teacher and the students they did right — right.

It’s academic, episodic, teach, read, read, teach,
feeling… pretty… bright.

The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
Now start page one.

All o’clocks – reading hour, time to increase reading power!
Your turn, their turn, now let’s check what students learned.
Teaching by modeling and scaffolding, writing time.
Don’t forget to escalate when you take the tests from State!
Teach them science, social studies
Background, background,
Don’t be in a rush, rush.
Uh oh, this means wait time – give them time, question them and steer clear!
A student needs, a student needs, a student needs your faith!
Offer them solutions, offer them alternatives for them to read!

The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
We’re half way through.

(repeat)

If you asked me what I thought of literacy I would say,
Reach them while they’re young,
Expand knowledge,
Always keep an open mind, kids are kids, you’ll need patience.
Draw them in with real life connections, boom!

It’s academic, episodic, teach, read, write — right? Right.

The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
The whole world’s a good book, let’s all read it.
We’ve reached the end.

Four months ago…
I moved to a completely new area.
I got a job in a completely new field.
I went back to school for a completely new degree.

Four months ago…
I had a big transition.
Well, I had three big transitions.
And I had a family going through similar transitions.

Four months ago…
I had things I no longer have now.
I didn’t have things I do have now.

Four months ago…
everything was unclear, and I didn’t like it.

That was four months ago.

Now…

Now is different.
It’s a time for meeting other people’s needs.
And I have met so many people whose lives are so different from mine in ways I never considered.

Now, many things from four months ago are much clearer to me. And better.
Things weren’t so bad after all.
Now, I feel very lucky.

And tomorrow?

Well, to quote another drama queen,

Tomorrow is another day!

Yesterday, The Boy was off his feet most of the day because he pulled his quadricep running down a hill too fast in his cowboy boots. That’s something for you to know as the rest of the post continues.

Today, Husband began installation of a new floor. In an effort to make the install go as easily as possible, I took the kids into town. I brought my computer and homework and figured we would go to the library. It was promising to be a fun and relaxing trip to the library until we learned that it was closed. About then, Little No Limit broke into a spontaneous nosebleed and became concerned she was going to die (it didn’t help that The Boy told her if she lost all her blood she would die – way to go on reading those books about the human body to him). I tried a coffee shop next. Also closed. I recalled hearing about another coffee shop with WiFi. I found it! Beautiful! Alas, my computer wouldn’t connect to their WiFi. Problems with the access key. Coffee4u? Apparently not.

When leaving the second coffee shop, some old man harassed my son (“What’s a big boy like you letting his mom carry him for?”) and I restrained myself from saying something rude (because he can’t f*cking walk, a**hole!) not only because the kids are into repeating me these days (not to mention drawing about my actions at school) but also because all my excess energy was going into lugging The Boy. He’s not exactly small anymore, you know?

We went shopping, walked outside a little. The heat was bad and the kids got hungry. In retrospect, I should have played my cards differently. I would not have gotten them the shots of wheat grass and pomegranate smoothies that I thought would be a cool healthy treat. Then Little No Limit busted out with another nosebleed (I know these multiple nosebleeds sound bad, but I was a maniac nosebleeder when I was her age, and look how normal I became) and I decided we better get out of the heat. Off we went to Trader Joe’s because it was nearby and I needed a few things from there.

Again, in retrospect, I might have played my cards differently.

Trader Joe’s was an easy experience until we got in line to buy our goods:
“Mmm,” Little No Limit says to me. “Mmmm.”
“What’s going on? Why aren’t you talking?”
She opens her mouth so that I can see that she has thrown up pomegranate smoothie in her mouth and is about to let it all out. I grab the only thing I have to catch it, my reusable Trader Joe’s bag… Did you know those things are watertight?

I had to throw that lovely, red, watertight bag away. I wanted to save it, but didn’t have the time to clean it out in the Trader Joe’s bathroom because I was concerned that Little No Limit could either throw up, burst into a nosebleed, or do both any second, and I wanted to get out of the store as quickly as possible. I also didn’t want to drive home with the throw-up bag in my car because it would just get all sticky and smelly and ew… no more thoughts on that… So I got her all cleaned up and advised the manager of the couple of droplets that hit the floor and then got back in line to buy my goods. At which point, The Boy covered his mouth in an attempt to prevent throw up from spewing everywhere. I rushed to the front of the line and asked the cashier for a bag “because my son is throwing up.” I may as well have spoken Greek.

While I realize it’s rude to burst through to the front of a grocery line and also not too common, I felt that time was of the essence. The cashier kind of stared at me, like she had no clue who this random woman was who’d wrecked the space-time continuum of the Trader Joe’s grocery line. Rather than be my usual self and engage in an overly wordy unnecessary conversation, I said “Look!” and pointed at The Boy, who promptly threw up on the floor… Did you know that pomegranate smoothie vomit is really red and kind of matches the Trader Joe’s red reusable bag?

A lot of things happened quickly after that:
*The cashier woman at that point handed me a bag which I managed to get back in time to catch the second onslaught of The Boy’s business, but it he’d already gotten a fair amount on himself and the floor.
*I returned to the manager and told him my kid had thrown up and pointed it out so that he realized I wasn’t repeating myself but actually informing him of a second throw up incident.
*I then returned to the bathroom carrying The Boy who couldn’t walk because of his pulled muscle which meant I got his vomit from his shirt all over my shirt as well.
*The Trader Joe’s bathroom was out of paper towels by this time because of a certain other vomiting experience and I cleaned up The Boy with toilet seat liners. Which I do NOT recommend.
*And then I went home.

It is hours later. Everyone is clean and asleep and feeling well and the Trader Joe’s experience is but an amusing memory. The only thing I have left to say is that my back hurts. HURTS. It’s been a long time since I carried a child around all day. And he never used to weigh 50 pounds.

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On another note, don’t forget I have a giveaway on the video in my sidebar to the right. If you win, you get your choice of a brand new GE stainless steel appliance.