Home Sweet Home

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Home again, home again, jiggity jig jig...

Although apparently in some cultures that last jig is not just optional but offensive.

Not So Clever Me

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I had a brainwave before we left for this trip...I'd make all of Jr's food (and here's the brainwave), and freeze it flat in ziplocs so it could be packed efficiently.  I like efficient things.

The first part worked fine:

So I made apples, rutabaga, broccoli and cauliflower and blueberries, as well as the peas, corn, beets, parsnips and potatoes I made later.

The broccoli and cauliflower proved a little much for Jr's inner gastronome:

But otherwise things seemed to be going well.  All the ziplocs even fit into our smallest cooler.  Well, they had to.  The only other choice was to tape them to the side of our Very Small Car for the trip.

The thing about ziploc bags is, they're made out of pretty thin plastic.  And the thing about frozen pureed baby food is, its sharp.  So you can see where I'm going with this.

Fortunately, after his initial resistance, Jr is happy to eat apple-rutabaga-broccoli-cauliflower-pea-corn-beet-parsnip-potato-blueberry puree.  I think he even enjoys it.

Back to ice cube trays for me.

The Wednesday Bookshelf: Christmas Brat Edition

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For your viewing displeasure, and because I'm in Pennsylvania and not near my bookshelf:



He probably got Bear in Underwear, poor kid.

My Christmas Present...Or Bread, Bread, And More Bread

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So I got 200 Fast and Easy Artisan Breads: No-Knead, One Bowl for Christmas, and just finished reading Julie & Julia, which combination is going to spell disaster for my productivity. 

I've already mentioned my spectacular french bread fail, and seem to have gotten the hang of your regular loaf-type breads (I promise that Thanksgiving Dinner Bread recipe soon, because it's awesome, and you need to make it.  Or get someone to make it for you), but I cannot for the life of me make bread that has that crispy, flaky crust that I love way too much. 

So I'm hoping that sad-sack Julie Powell's 365 days of french cooking can inspire non sad-sack me to get this bread right.  Because I want to eat it. (Update: I did it, and the recipe for Cheap, Crusty French Bread in 15 Minutes is here.)

And I also want to stop paying extra money for bread I should be able to make myself.

I Miss My Computer

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I also miss Sesame Street, my own fridge, and my cookbooks.  And my tv remote (on which I can turn the volume down if it's obnoxious).

I REALLY miss my internet connection, since this one is so bad.  SO BAD, it really does deserve caps lock.  I've almost thrown up my hands and quit about a dozen times just tonight.  All right, I didn't want to throw up my hands, I wanted to throw the computer.  What's it to you?

I'm loving the fact that we could take Miss out on a train ride yesterday, even if it was bitter, bitter cold and windy.  I'm also loving the fact that we get to visit some of our dearest friends and their three lovely daughters today, because Miss always has a good time with the girls, and we always have a good time with their parents.

AND, Mr and Mrs are going out tonight with the same friends, without the kids...and without the girdle.

One more thing to love about being here for the holidays...it's Eagles country.  Even though the game was cancelled yesterday, we still feel like we're in our true football home.

On Not Being At Home

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So clearly we're not at home.  I always labour under the misconception that since adults outnumber kids when we visit Mr's family it'll be way easier to watch Miss and Jr.

And on a day like yesterday, when the adults outnumbered the kids three to one, you'd think it would be even easier to make sure that - as a random example - Miss isn't eating chocolate cake out of the garbage can.

Not so.

I am happy to report, however, that while it is next to impossible to use this wholly unreliable computer and excerable internet connection to write The Mrs, it is relatively easy to find things to do that Miss will enjoy.

She is currently watching Sesame Street.  How exotic.

Merry Christmas, And A Special Message From Mr

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Merry Christmas, everyone!  I sincerely wish that your morning will not start with bloody noses or fat lips, and that your day is calm, full of good things to eat and happy Misses and Jrs.

On a completely unrelated note, Mr used some of his recent free time to read every one of my posts, and wants me to let everyone know that the name "The Mrs" was his idea.  That is all.

One more thing, I didn't write this this morning.  I'm not that with it.  Bless Blogger and scheduled posts!

The List, And Why Jr Is A Lucky, Lucky Boy

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So we made it to Fennsylvania (says Miss).  Alive, and sane.

Alive, anyway.  Did I mention we have a VERY small car?  But Sesame Street for her and Terry Pratchett on the iPod for us got us through.  Jr?  He slept.  What a star.

Here's my packing list:

Do you see written anywhere on this list identification for my son?  Because I don't.  And so, slave to The List that I am, I didn't pack any.  Miss has a passport, but Jr only has his birth certificate and social insurance number, which would have been sufficient, had I brought them.

Bless that nice young man at the border - young, she says, like a sixty-two year old grandmother - who asked if it was our first time to the States.  Because clearly seasoned travellers do not leave everything but their son's health card at home.

We're here to see Mr's family - mine too, since I married him, I guess - and in the twenty hours or so that we've been here, Miss has already learned to jump on the bed, eat whipped topping from a can, and throw balls in the house.   I'll tell you what, though: she was tired at the end of today.  So tired she curled up at the end of the couch and practically begged to go to bed.  Best vacation ever.

Inklings Paperie

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A little shout-out to my dear friend Lindsay, whose fresh and elegant design sense has prompted her to start Inklings Paperie.  I've been the lucky recipient of some of her beautiful work.  Go look.

I mean it, right now.

Project Grocery: Christmas Edition

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You thought I forgot, didn't you?  Or if you did, project grocery is me trying to cheap out at the grocery store, still eat decent - if not outstandingly stellar - food, thus saving money and getting chez Mrs closer to having Mrs stay chez post April.

So far I've been under budget by $27.75 last week, and by $56.77 this week, see:

This trip I only needed four things: coffee, coffee filters, cat food and a roast that was on sale.  And we're traveling this week for Christmas with Mr's family in Pennsylvania and therefore do not need $63.23 worth of groceries.  So great job.

I did get some stuff to make more Jr food to bring along - rutabaga, anyone? - but that was the only legitimate impulse buy.

Shall we mark this one fail?

The Wednesday Bookshelf: Bear In Underwear Plus In The Night Kitchen

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Today's book: Bear In Underwear.  Let's file this one under "Cute, but inexplicable", shall we?  And let me warn you, there will be spoilers.  So don't let your two-year-old read this post.

Or while we're at it, the book...bear and his friends are hiding, bear gets hungry, bear finds a backpack in the woods and brings it home, bear's friends persuade him to open it, bear and his friends try on all the underwear they find in it, and everyone lives happily ever after.

This story is so disjointed that it's hard to summarize (although I clearly just did); however, one part does jump right out at me: they are trying on underwear they found in a bag in the forest.  If I wasn't philosophically opposed to exclamation points, there would be 250 pixels worth at the end of that sentence.

Do not pick this one up off of the shelf. Not even for the cute pictures (they are cute...I'd be tempted to make some of the characters out of felt as stuffed animals if the story weren't so stupid).

And, if I may be so bold, also don't pick up In the Night Kitchen (Caldecott Collection).  I can hear you right now, protesting:  But it's a Caldecott Honor Book!  But it's by the same guy who wrote Where The Wild Things Are!  But I loved that book when I was a kid! (By the way, those are your exclamation points, not mine, and Where The Wild Things Are was just as bad as this one.)

Sure, childhood nostalgia is an allowable influence of book selection.  But awards?  Not so much.  Maybe the Caldecott selection board is actually the children's book world version of the Razzies, ever think of that?

Kid goes to sleep, falls out of his bed - and clothes - into the night kitchen, where he almost gets baked in a pie by what appears to be three Oliver Hardys, escapes in a dough airplane, and pours milk from the milky way into the batter, ensuring morning cake for everyone before waking up back in his bed - and clothes?   Really? 

Almost as good as trying on underwear you found in a bag in the forest.

The Big Question

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Cat puke is gross.  You know it, and I know it.  I'm not sure Miss knows it.

Wet cat puke is worse than dry cat puke, which is why the tiny little bit on my dining room rug was being left to itself to quietly dry, unnoticed by anyone, until I judged it dry enough to clean up.

Believe me, I know this is disgusting.  I kind of apologize, but not really.

Here's where it gets (more) disturbing: before lunch, I returned to clean up said puke.  It wasn't there anymore.  It had clearly been rubbed off.

The question here is not whether Miss did it or not (I'm sure she did, even though I made sure to put a chair directly over it so she wouldn't notice).  The question is: with what?   She really likes to take out the contents of my napkin and placemat drawer and play with them.  She also enjoys taking the tea-towels off of the oven and using them in some I'm sure highly imaginative and yet utterly incomprehensible way.  There are little blankets in the toy box for her dolls.

Where am I going to find this cat puke?  I can't say I'm dying to find out.  But I'm sure I'll share it with you when I do.  Because suffering alone just isn't any fun.

Bloody Christmas

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So our Christmas started out with a bang.  Or a smack, really.  The sound of little Miss falling down the three steps into our bedroom and landing on her mouth.

Oh, golly.

But that certainly made the rest of the day seem pretty perfect, in comparison.  Not that it needed much comparison to make it so, really.  It's been quite a while since Mr and I had a morning utterly free from going or doing or cleaning or baking, where we could enjoy more than a half a cup of coffee before running out the door or starting the laundry.

And Miss got over the bloody mouth as mind-bogglingly quickly as two-year-olds do, which is a blessing.  She'll probably remember this more than the fat lip:

And although the oven mitts that I made didn't fit (clearly, I'm no seamstress), she was game to try them on, fortunately receiving better ones with another gift from my parents.

We luxuriated in not-doing-anything bliss, and then gradually roused ourselves for the three minute drive to visit with my side of the family for gifts and dinner.

All I can say about dinner is Roasted Squash with Blue Cheese and Toasted Pecans.  Go.  Eat it now.

We ended the day driving home in the dark, Miss chatting sleepily away to herself in her car seat about not biting trees, which I'm sure made perfect sense to her.

And although Christmas seems like it's over, there's still a whole other one to celebrate.  What could be better?

Christmas Prep, Mostly In Pictures

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I only have two anxiety dreams, and depending on the level and type of anxiety I'm experiencing, they alternate.  One is that I'm back at school and have been enrolled in a class that somehow I did not attend the entire year, and the final paper is due.  The other is that it's Christmas morning and I forgot to buy or make a present for someone I shouldn't have forgotten.

This is unlikely to happen this year.  You want evidence?  Exhibit A (remember these?):

They now look like this:

As in, finished.  Mr is putting the finishing touches on The Kitchen as I type.  Almost all of my baking is done (but my brother and mother read this, so I won't tell you what is baking right now).  My flour bin looks like this:

And I've refilled it four times...which if you want to do the math (and I do), means that I've used twenty-five kilos of flour this Christmas.  And that felt food I've been working on...well, that's more of a fail.  I've done this, which does not a kitchen fill:

But I take comfort in the fact that Miss is two.  And therefore will not realize that this is a small, pathetic amount of felt food (also, that the hot dog crouching malevolently in the back looks diseased).  And many friends who I've moaned about this failure to have told me that I can still make stuff and hide it in her kitchen for her to find on other, non-Christmas days, which will thrill her - if I do it.

So if I can get two batches of gingerbread cookies, some more Cinnamon Swirl Bread (still good; still capitalized), and my Christmas breakfast casserole done today, as well as attend a Christmas party tonight (which involves wearing a girdle.  You heard me.), then I'll be ready.

Oh yes, did I forget to mention that most of our Christmas is happening tomorrow?  Right.

Mrs: One...Miss: Zero (Or Lunchtime With A Toddler)

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Miss is aspiring to control all aspects of her little life...who doesn't, really?  It's just that in two-year-old land, it looks a little different than it does in thirty-two-year-old-land.

Example: yesterday's lunch time.  Keep in mind, she wants to eat.  She loves food (like her mother).  But to wrest control of this little patch of territory, she's going to act like she doesn't.

Miss (after three bites): I'm all done!

Mrs: A few more bites, please.

Miss: No! (takes another bite)  I'malldone!  (Not a mistake.  She really says it like that.)

Mrs: Okay.  I'll eat the rest of your sandwich so we don't waste it.  Plus, it's delicious.  (Recurring theme, as you may have noticed from the. first. post.)

Miss: No!  MY food!

Mrs: Okay, you eat it.

Miss: I'm all done.

Mrs: (takes a great big bite)

Miss: NOoooooo!  MY FOOD!  (takes back plate and finishes sandwich)

Miss:  We're sharing, right Mommy?

Mrs: (to herself) Awesome!  I outwitted a two year old, AND ate some of her lunch!  Best day ever!

The Ugly Kitchen

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My kitchen looks like this:

We had great plans to renovate the kitchen when we moved to this house.  For a few reasons - one of which is that renovations make my brain itch - it hasn't been done yet.  It is the ugliest kitchen in the world.  I know this, because I've performed exhaustive research.  YOU type "ugliest kitchen" into Google and see if I'm wrong.

And against all common sense, and while I'm still wholly against white-veined black linoleum as a flooring choice for any room, I've grown to love this ugly, weird kitchen.  Mostly because I love food, and that's where the food lives.

But there are other reasons, one of which I can illustrate with this picture:

This is from a much-loved book that lives in Miss' bedroom...because we read it every night.  Every.  Night.  We don't read all of it, and the part we read changes periodically.  Right now we're in a five month stretch of singing "Mulberry Bush" before bed, complete with key changes every verse.  Last night, for the first time and oh-so-seriously, Miss sang along with the whole song, and when we got to this page she stopped and said "just like Mommy does".

This is where we get back to the Ugly Kitchen...I love that poor, unfortunate room so much because of what happens there, and what my kids will remember feeling about it.  Recently it's been all about bread and cookies and special things like jam and apple butter, but usually it's just about regular-eating food (my favourite kind).

And while it's taken me a long time to stop throwing away integral parts of Mr's dinner preparations (Mr: "Where did that reserved stock go?"  Mrs: "I rinsed out the bowl already"  Mr: "I needed that"), we make a pretty good team in the cooking department.  More of the tag-team variety recently, what with Jr's skill at picking the exact moment when something needs to be constantly stirred or taken out of the oven to wake up from his nap and demand nursing, but it works.

And for your viewing pleasure, I'll leave you with my favourite result from "ugliest kitchen" on google:

The Wednesday Bookshelf

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Back to the library.  Well, not physically (yes, because of the mittens).  I've been thinking about how tough it is to find books that both Miss and I will like...there are some baaad kids books out there.  

Take, for example, Hip and Hop, Don't Stop!.  A turtle and a rabbit become friends through a rap-off.  Oh, so bad.  Please get it out of the library just to experience it's badness.  The link will take you to amazon.com through my affiliate account, but resist the temptation that my ringing endorsement gives you and DON'T buy it.

Also take some time to not buy A Garden of Whales.  I can't even convey my relief when I dropped this one back into the return box.  Anyone who knows me well could tell you that if a book has the tagline "a celebration of kinship for Earth's children", I'm not going to like it.

But now the book that goes a long way to redeem the entire genre (this one needs a picture).  HarperCollins even released a free download of the song to go with it, and I'm not usually into that kind of thing, but I'm super-fond of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes for a reason even more compelling than its get-down funkiness (you heard me): Miss will ALWAYS sing along with the song, which means that not only is there the cuteness of hearing her shout "Goodness no!" whenever I ask her "Did Pete cry?", but it really distracts her.  I mean, really.  As in, freaking-out-in-the-grocery-store to singing-along-with-Mommy girl in less than twenty seconds.

Not that any of my children ever freak out in the grocery store.

To Do...Ta-Dah!

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With the exception of a few things for family types, my often-mentioned Christmas baskets are done.

Done.

I need a moment to savour the feeling.

Okay.  Let me take you on a tour of fulfilled intentions - and more! - that would never have happened without the support of my dear son Jr, whose birth has enabled me to stay home (at least for now) and do all sorts of lovely homey things.

First, the assembling chaos:

Every basket has bread, of course; pumpkin spice, cinnamon swirl, honey oatmeal and thanksgiving dinner.  Then there are dilly beans, strawberry jam, and apple butter.

After the canned goods, some cookies: gingermen (I know.  But that's how Miss says it, and the rest of us are powerless to stop repeating it), and Mr's super-fantastic fresh chocolate chip cookies.

There's also boter koek - more on that some other time, since for reasons I'll get into it truly deserves a post all on its own - and The Best Shortbread In The World (even the articles need to be capitalized for this).

Let me spend some time loving on this shortbread.  It's the only thing in the basket not made by me or Mr, and it is pretty easily the best thing too.  It's made in a little tea shop here in town.  This is the chocolate-dipped espresso flavour, and the Christmas basket we made for ourselves contains only this.

Mr has delivered some already and I'm excited to get the rest of them out of my house give the rest away.  I've been working on this project off and on since July, when I made strawberry jam, and as you can imagine, my little freezer has been bursting.

 

 So my freezer and I are breathing a sigh of relief right now...

But pretty soon this gingerman won't be smiling anymore.

Project Grocery

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I did manage to get to the grocery store yesterday...despite neglecting to check behind the car before pulling out, and getting thoroughly stuck in the drift the snow plow left behind.  Fortunately our good friend Brian happened to be driving along and stopped by for an impromptu car pushing party.  

And - wonder of all novel wonders - I did our grocery shopping alone.  Alone!  Which explains why it took me 41 minutes, including the time it took to get out of the snow drift.  And since we're in the middle of what The Weather Network is calling a "Winter-like storm" (maybe they got sued for seasonal misrepresentation once?), I only went to one grocery store, instead of all two we have in town.

Somehow this all combined to create this:

And in case you're worried that we'll be eating Kraft Dinner all week, we're having roast chicken, squash soup, sausage sandwiches and an egg and sausage casserole for dinner, among other things.

Now I only have to do this 28 more times to make up for all the times we've been over budget since September...

Keeping My Promises To Bread

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I still feel like a bread amateur, even though I've been baking for quite a while now.  Weeks, in fact.  Well, more like years.  But I'm such an indifferent baker when it comes to rules and following all the right steps that my results are pretty inconsistent, although I do have a pretty sweet Kitchen-Aid.  Let's pause to admire it for a moment, shall we?

In retrospect baking a bunch of bread to go in our Christmas baskets seems a little strange.  The problem with making food type things for other people - aside from the very real chance that I'll poison them - is that if I test the product, I don't have it anymore.  Which is why I panicked a little when we cracked open one of those cinnamon swirl loaves that I keep going on about...and they are GOOD.  Oh lordy, they are good.  We've eaten two.  They are well tested, and now I need to make more.

So you'll understand the position I'm in: a week from today we're celebrating Christmas with my side of the family, three days later we're leaving for Pennsylvania to see Mr's side of the family, and the basket deadline is getting nerve-wrackingly nearer.  Must.  Bake.  Bread.

I think it's going well, though.  My pumpkin bread is out of the oven, and looks like this:

And the bread I'm most worried about, the one I decided to make up on the fly and call Thanksgiving Dinner Bread (fingers crossed, should taste like stuffing), is happily rising away this minute.  Except it only makes one loaf.  And how will I know how good it is until I test it?

I Promised You Bread...Part Two

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Second rise...looking good:

Just to keep up the suspense, though, there's still plenty of scope for disaster...

I Promised You Bread

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It doesn't know it yet, but this is going to be pumpkin bread...I hope.

It is entirely possible that this will be a spectacular failure.  It's an accident waiting to happen.  But you'll have a front row set, so at least it will be entertaining.

Stay tuned...

Rubbing Pennies Together

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We've got to get a little smarter with our budget if Mrs is going to get to stay home come April 27th, 2011.

Before we had Miss, my money-nerd self got serious about budgeting (which I always want to spell with two "t"s for some inexplicable reason).  My boss at the bank who I love - and who, incidentally, has occasionally stopped by The Mrs to drop a comment here or there - will tell you that me and budgets go together like garlic roast beef and horseradish.  Or something that you think goes together really really well. 

If I were to list some of my all-time favourite activities, budgeting and thinking about budgeting would likely show up multiple times each.  Right up there with being warm, eating Wendy's (more about that some other time), and listening to Miss talk.

So now that we've established my love of budgeting, here's where it goes wonky: I cannot for the life of me keep our grocery spending under control.  We used to work with cash for this kind of stuff...the money that we had for variable expenses that weren't bills we took out in cash every week.  But we stopped doing that for a few good reasons (it was hard to track in Quicken, for one thing), and now I can't get it together.

We have a budget of $120/week for groceries and other things found at grocery stores - like diapers, toothpaste, and cat food, to name a few - and since the first of September we've spent about $180 each week.  That's $780 over budget.

For those of you who may not know the whys and wherefores of budgeting, that's bad.  I won't do the math to annualize this, because I like my sanity.

And in the interests of preserving my sanity, and so I can stay at home when April rolls around, I'm going to work VERY hard to keep my groceries under (way under) budget.  So after our shop on Sunday when Mr and I take Jr and Miss to what she refers to as the cookie store, I'll report back, and hopefully shame myself into clawing this number back to something resembling it's fantasy-land budgeted-for counterpart.

Off My To-Do List

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I can now check "dis-assemble computer and re-assemble with the help of a toddler" off of my bucket list.  Whew!  What a relief!  I thought I'd never get to experience this, and now I have.

Highlights from the process (envision me sweating over the computer with a screwdriver, desperate to get the jammed CD out of the disk drive, motivated by panicky fear that I'll have to take it uptown to get it fixed, which involves putting on the mittens!):

• Miss standing right beside me on her kitchen stool, asking "What you doing" six hundred and thirty-two times
• The hard drive making an expensive-sounding noise as it fell sideways on the counter
• Miss holding her white bear (named White Bear, as a fascinating side note) up to me and saying "White Bear will fix it with a hammer"
• Me, seriously considering letting White Bear fix it with a hammer
• Miss naming the colours of all the wires that were showing..."I see green and white and red and orange..."

Despite the help, I managed it.  There was a lot of upside down shaking of the disk drive, which I don't think is the approved process, but that CD is out.  Success!  It's going to be a great day!

On a completely unrelated note, I can also strike "put two CDs into the disk drive at the same time without noticing" off my bucket list.

Poop And Discouragement

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Yesterday morning was a discouraging time chez Mrs.  There was lots of poop...

So when naptime rolled around, instead of sitting down at the computer like I normally would, I sat down on the couch and read.  A book.  Not a particularly good one, as it happens, with not a particularly good cup of coffee, but it was hot at least (the coffee, not the book).

I did not blog.  I did not work on my Christmas baskets.  I did not even think about updating QuickBooks - although that last was not much of a problem.


It was good for my state of mind.

And then in the late afternoon, I caught this moment on camera:

My naptime pursuit of sanity and her choice of afternoon occupation combined to make the end of yesterday not so bad after all.  I can even look back and remember accomplishing a few things - I actually started the mini oven-mitts I'm making for Miss, to go with the mini-kitchen Mr is making for her.

I'm hoping today won't start out the same way yesterday did, but if it ends the same I think I'll survive.

Library Time

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Now that winter has descended upon us with all its horrible-ness, I don't take Miss and Jr to the library as often as I used to.

Oh, yes, I'm all for pristine snow and bright blue skies and pink cheeks, but the extra two days it takes to get the kids into boots, hats, kevlar vests, mittens, straight-jackets and coats is almost more than I can bear.  The mittens alone!  HOW does Miss contrive to get her pinkie finger in the thumb hole?  I'm getting all hot and prickly just thinking about the wrestling match it requires to get that straightened out.

Back to the library.  Ahem.

The problem with books is that they take up too much space.  I'm a firm believer in the "less-is-more-to-clean" philosophy, so there are very few things that sit on things in my house.  I also don't like looking at clutter.  It makes me as antsy as mittens on a toddler.  So since we are the proud owners of a LOT of books, and the kids books in particular are hard to store in any way that doesn't look like a toddler stacked them up, even if she didn't, you'd think I'd resist bringing more into chez Mrs.

I don't.  I LOVE kids books.  Well, the funny ones.  And since there's no way on earth I'm going to buy and store all the kids books I think are funny, to the library we go.  I have a lot of fun trying to pick books that will make Mr laugh out loud in the middle of reading to Miss.

And the ones I like the best are ones that are funnier than Miss realizes (yet).  Like Giggle, Giggle, Quack*.  Seriously.  Or The Pigeon Wants a Puppy ("I changed my mind...I want a walrus"!)  And of course, the classic Walter, the Farting Dog.  The first time (and every subsequent time) I read that book I could barely get the words out.  Don't tell me that Glenn Murray or Mo Willems or Doreen Cronin's primary audience is kids, because I won't believe it.

So while I really want to go to the library today to find more books, I'm not going to.  Because it's COLD, and the mittens are taunting me.

*These links will take you to Amazon.com through my affiliate account.  Just so you know.

Beet Massacre

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I make my own baby food, mostly because I'm too cheap to spend 49 cents on one small jar when with the same 49 cents I can make the equivalent of 6 jars .  I mostly use The Baby's Table* because one of my friends lent it to me when Miss was just venturing out into the world of non-breastmilk food, I liked it, and they now have a copy of it in my library.  Like I said, cheap.  But the good, frugal kind of cheap, right?

My efforts today were directed toward carrots and beets, because I enjoy seeing root vegetables suffer.  Behold the carnage:

What's beet for "Oh, the humanity!"?

Also for your viewing pleasure, here's my thumb, post-beet murder:

*This will take you to Amazon.com through my affiliate account.  Just so you know.