Behold the Green Goblins!

The Green Goblins are a quick n’ easy recipe with Mexican avocados (AKA the Hass variety) that you can serve at all your Fall Festival-slash-Harvest -slash-Halloween-slash-whatever other politically correctly name exists-parties. Of course, when it comes to avocados, you’re probably thinking April through June, cool dip for a hot day, but hey, guess what — you can get avocados all year long, and when you have a food that is naturally green and gooey, how could you possibly pass up using it in a Halloween dish?

Ingredients:

4 Hass avocados
Juice from 1 lemon
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
2 teaspoons finely chopped green onion
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 turns on a black pepper mill

Box of Sesame crackers or Triscuits (Triscuits are in the picture because, ahem, I got carried away taste testing the sesame crackers)
1 can of sliced black olives
1 bag of julienne carrot strips
1 bag of shredded red cabbage
1/2 cup ground pumpkin seed (optional)

How to Make:

Mix the avocados, lemon juice, cilantro, green onion, salt, nutmeg, and black pepper all together. You can put it in a food processor or mash it with good old fashioned elbow grease. If you’re cooking with children, you can put all the ingredients in a Ziploc bag and let them mash it up.

Lay out the crackers and snip the end off the Ziploc to pipe out the mashed avocado, or use a watermelon baller to scoop it onto the crackers.

Place two olive slices for eyes, and then poke the carrot strips into the middle. Use a piece of shredded cabbage for the mouth.

Once you have a full platter, sprinkle with ground pumpkin seed (I made mine by popping a handful of roasted seeds in my Magic Bullet for 10 seconds).

You’re done! Eat!

You can make up your own avocado recipe and enter the Spookamole contest, as well as check out other Fall-themed avocado recipes at the Avocados from Mexico website.

***

I wrote this review while participating in a Spookamole blog tour by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Avocados from Mexico and received avocado items to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

I don’t know about you, but I used to read YM magazine when I was a young miss/young and modern/what have you and it was my ultimate nightmare that I would experience an incident that could make it into their embarrassing moments column that involved the arrival of that time of the month at what can only be described as “not supposed to be that time of the month.”

Then, I did experience one of those allegedly ultimate embarrassing high school moments where my period arrived in the middle of class and when I got up from my desk, I realized it. Fortunately, nobody noticed but me, which just goes to show that the red avenger is NOT always out to get you. (On another note, I did make it into the embarrassing moments column of YM, but that story involved Halloween, a man dressed up as a very realistic scarecrow, and an inappropriate gesture).

Most of my readers are mothers, and many of you probably recognize this time of the month as the reason you don’t do anything one week a month. Why? Because it’s heavy, it’s painful, you cramp a lot, you’re irritable, you’re bloated… etc. etc. The list goes on. In fact, according Healthy Women, 68% of women feel like their periods control them.

NOT COOL.

I don’t know about you, but I say we take back control of our lives. Healthy Women found that 75% of women with uncomfortable periods don’t even mention it to their OB/GYN, but than oftentimes, when they did, they found treatment options more comfortable than spending a portion of time every month wishing that an axe was handy.

If you’re part of that 75%, you might head on over to Healthy Women and see what they’ve got to tell you. You’ll be loading up on Vitamin B in no time.

Some additional links that might be of use:

Healthy Women Q&A One

Healthy Women Q&A Two

***
By the way, I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Ferring Pharmaceuticals and received a promotional item to facilitate my review. But you should seriously check them out.

The orange and black Monarch Butterflies are the only ones of its species to migrate south in the winter. In an effort to understand these travel patterns, enthusiasts track their migration via tagging. Call me crazy, but I had no idea it was possible to put a sticker on a butterfly’s wing without hurting it, and that said miniscule sticker could contain an organization’s name and phone number. When the butterflies reach their final destination, there are people who find the insects, check for tags, and call the number to let state where the butterfly landed, allowing trackers to log how far the butterfly migrated.

To this process, I ask: aren’t you depending just a wee bit much on good faith that the butterflies you manage to find and tag make it to their final destination and get found by someone who knows how to read the tag?

While the tracking process is not without its variables, the tagging process is both subtle and amazing. An elderly lady with a netted safari hat and withered hands took one butterfly after the other out of a cage, put a sticker on its wings, and released it. I’m confident that had I attempted such a feat, I would have killed the butterfly, or at least broken its wing, which leads to the same ill-timed end. After being tagged, the butterflies soared above our heads, landing here or there on a shoulder or hand, and the landed-upon students would stand so still you could check off an IEP goal in focus and attention. Just as suddenly, to a chorus of squeals and camera clicks, the butterfly would take flight again, seeking solitude amongst the out-of-reach banana leaves and not-yet-ripened mangoes.

Afterwards, I spent the rest of the day on rides, but even as the spinning garlic ride made me want to revisit my lunch, I kept thinking about the trackers’ efforts. These people go to the trouble and expense to find, tag, and release as many butterflies as they can, and maybe, they’ll hear back on their efforts. Are teachers so different? We take our students, inspire them as best we can, and release them… to home, to high school, to life. And maybe, we’ll hear about them down the road, hear that they’re doing all right. We act on good faith too, tracking our beautiful and mysterious students as they flit about through life. May we all be so lucky as to get that call.

Me: I’m going to the movies tonight.

The Boy: What are you going to see?

Me: Eclipse.

The Boy: Oh, I heard that wasn’t any good.

Me: Where did you hear that?

The Boy: Uh, I heard myself say it, just now?

**

Who needs research-based evidence?

We were invited to attend a local church service and obliged. It was nice. Very tight-knit community and the room was cozy. The music was less than thrillsville, but hey, they’re trying.

I stopped by the kids room to retrieve my young ones and the teacher said, “Oh! It’s already over! I was just about to give them a second snack.” She and I made chit chat for another few minutes and then we headed home.

In the car, I turned around for a moment and spotted Little No Limit, crying. We’re talking those huge crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks, lips turned in a big frown, sniffles. I immediately asked her what’s wrong, and she starts murmuring…

“Jesus… I want Jesus… Jesus.”

And immediately, my thoughts went to that church we’d just attended. What had they done??? Had they brainwashed her? Had they scared her? Had they put the fear of God into her — what?????

And Husband casts me a sideways glance and slowly says, “You want… Jesus?”

And she snorts and shouts, with all the indignation a 5-year-old can muster, “No! Not Jesus! Cheez-Its!”

Yes, Cheez-Its. The very snack the teacher was about to serve, had the service not come to such a quick end. She’s got her priorities, that one.

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.

***

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.

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 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

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. 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.”