Growing up, this was one of my favorite weekend breakfasts that my mom made. I recently started making it for my own family, and it's just as heavenly!
Apologies in advance to my gluten-free friends. If you ever decide to go on a gluteny goodness bender, let me know. I will make this for you. It will hurt so good!
Oven: 385
4 eggs
2 c milk
1/2 t salt
1 T sugar
1/2 vanilla
3/4 c butter
1 1/3 c flour
Set oven to 385, then place a 12x18 baking pan (with at least 1" sides) in the oven. Slice 1/2 c butter onto pan, leave in oven to melt while you mix the ingredients together.
Beat eggs, then slowly add milk, salt, sugar (I use demerara sugar, which gives a lovely rich taste and adds a little crunch to the top of the pancake) and vanilla. Slowly add in flour in 1/3 c increments, blending while you add. Lastly, melt the remaining 1/4 c butter and add into mixture while beating. Pour mixture into heated pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Cut into squares and serve hot with a drizzle of maple syrup and a dollop of whipped cream. Yum!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Don't cry for me, Naperville Costco
I know what you're thinking.
"Oh, look at that poor, sad woman. She's eating a HOT DOG for dinner, ALL ALONE!"
But I say to you, don't pity my perceived plight. I did, in fact, leave a hot, homecooked meal at home for this hot dog and I am indeed alone. But my oh my, what glorious solitude it is! Here, in the Costco food court, there is no husband injecting my brain with more worries for our future, our jobless future. Here there is no annoying (albeit precious) toddler screaming "Mahhhhhmmmmmmmm!!!!!!" until I read his mind and fetch him a book, a snack, a drink, a diaper or a cartoon.
Here there is just me and my huge hot dog and my diet coke. I enjoy it with relish.
"Oh, look at that poor, sad woman. She's eating a HOT DOG for dinner, ALL ALONE!"
But I say to you, don't pity my perceived plight. I did, in fact, leave a hot, homecooked meal at home for this hot dog and I am indeed alone. But my oh my, what glorious solitude it is! Here, in the Costco food court, there is no husband injecting my brain with more worries for our future, our jobless future. Here there is no annoying (albeit precious) toddler screaming "Mahhhhhmmmmmmmm!!!!!!" until I read his mind and fetch him a book, a snack, a drink, a diaper or a cartoon.
Here there is just me and my huge hot dog and my diet coke. I enjoy it with relish.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Empty and angry...
...is how I am feeling right now. My husband, who has spent the past 6 months waiting for the axe to drop, got his notice of termination today. He will stay on staff to transition his job (to whom? that's what I wanna know) until the end of March. He gets 3 weeks severance and his 4 weeks of accrued personal time off paid out, and then that's that. As of May 15, my family will no longer have any income unless one of us magically gets a job by then.
Mister is brilliant and dedicated. He would have worked 20 hours a day, 7 days a week (8 days on a good week!) if I hadn't nagged him to spend time with the family. He's been on this job for four years, and seen the company through from its inception to its current state. He's poured everything he has into that job. And they just took him out with the trash. Is there no loyalty in this world anymore?
While I'm thankful for the 3 weeks of severance pay, only 3 weeks is an insult compared to the work he has put into that job. I'm both curious and terrified to find out how much COBRA is going to cost us. I'm hopeful it's less than the $1,000 a month that my insulin will cost us out of pocket if we have no insurance. After I am done with this blog post, I think I'll call Comcast and cancel everything but our broadband. We'll live on Hulu and a (downgraded) Netflix subscription. Hooray for free streaming. Maybe I should cancel our YMCA membership too. But if I do that, where will I find my zen? Probably not on Hulu.
We'll most likely end up moving for his next job, and that's fine. I'm done living in this hellhole of snooty people who think they're better than others just because they live in Naperville. La-dee-da. Worst case scenario, we'll end up moving to the beach house. And there are worse things than living in a brand new 4 bedroom home on the ocean, right?
But still.
I hate uncertainty.
I hate feeling helpless.
I hate worrying about what I'm going to do when we're broke and I need milk for the baby.
I'm scared.
I'm so scared that my heart feels like it's shaking inside of my chest and I can barely breathe through the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. All the Bible verses trapped in my head, etched into my brain courtesy of years of Christian school and Bible college come rushing back to me but right now I am so hurt and upset that they. mean. nothing.
"Consider the sparrow"
"I know the plans I have for you"
"God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory"
"We walk by faith, not by sight"
The words swirl around, rattling inside my head and while I know them all and somewhere in the back of my heart, I vaguely believe that they're true...right now those promises feel so hollow. Oh me of so little faith. If I weren't so angry, I'd be embarrassed.
I'm angry. I'm very, very angry.
I'm angry at the old CEO who used the company as his own personal piggy bank and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy, taking with him a big, fat bonus check while he laughed all the way to the bank. I'm angry at his greed.
I'm angry at myself, for being a full time mother when I could be out earning a paycheck and then at least we'd have the security of a small second income to tide us over. Is it possible that somewhere, tucked deep inside a hidden corner of my heart, where I do not dare to look, that I am angry at my husband? I don't know. I don't think there's anything he could have done to prevent the inevitable. He's a victim of the situation.
I'm angry at the unfairness of it all. I'm angry that they couldn't have offered him a pay cut or reduction to part time or any other compromise.
I'm angry that they let him go, him the breadwinner with the wife and small child, and kept the single guy with the McMansion. The single guy who doesn't know how to do half of what Tim does, yet manages to make more money.
I'm angry at every raise and bonus that was promised to Tim, yet was never delivered.
I'm angry that I have this stupid chronic disease that makes my life so much more difficult and expensive.
I want to scream, I want to punch someone, I want to throw myself onto my bed and weep but I can't. I have to keep it together, and somehow I am supposed to levelheadedly mother my son when I have no levelheadedness at all.
Life should be more fair. I'm just sayin'. Good people should have good things happen to them, bad people should have bad things happen to them. I work hard to be a good wife and mom and sister and church member and friend. My husband works hard to be a good man and mate and father and employee and community member. We're good people. And *this* is our reward?
I'm angry that life is so unfair.
Mister is brilliant and dedicated. He would have worked 20 hours a day, 7 days a week (8 days on a good week!) if I hadn't nagged him to spend time with the family. He's been on this job for four years, and seen the company through from its inception to its current state. He's poured everything he has into that job. And they just took him out with the trash. Is there no loyalty in this world anymore?
While I'm thankful for the 3 weeks of severance pay, only 3 weeks is an insult compared to the work he has put into that job. I'm both curious and terrified to find out how much COBRA is going to cost us. I'm hopeful it's less than the $1,000 a month that my insulin will cost us out of pocket if we have no insurance. After I am done with this blog post, I think I'll call Comcast and cancel everything but our broadband. We'll live on Hulu and a (downgraded) Netflix subscription. Hooray for free streaming. Maybe I should cancel our YMCA membership too. But if I do that, where will I find my zen? Probably not on Hulu.
We'll most likely end up moving for his next job, and that's fine. I'm done living in this hellhole of snooty people who think they're better than others just because they live in Naperville. La-dee-da. Worst case scenario, we'll end up moving to the beach house. And there are worse things than living in a brand new 4 bedroom home on the ocean, right?
But still.
I hate uncertainty.
I hate feeling helpless.
I hate worrying about what I'm going to do when we're broke and I need milk for the baby.
I'm scared.
I'm so scared that my heart feels like it's shaking inside of my chest and I can barely breathe through the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. All the Bible verses trapped in my head, etched into my brain courtesy of years of Christian school and Bible college come rushing back to me but right now I am so hurt and upset that they. mean. nothing.
"Consider the sparrow"
"I know the plans I have for you"
"God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory"
"We walk by faith, not by sight"
The words swirl around, rattling inside my head and while I know them all and somewhere in the back of my heart, I vaguely believe that they're true...right now those promises feel so hollow. Oh me of so little faith. If I weren't so angry, I'd be embarrassed.
I'm angry. I'm very, very angry.
I'm angry at the old CEO who used the company as his own personal piggy bank and brought them to the brink of bankruptcy, taking with him a big, fat bonus check while he laughed all the way to the bank. I'm angry at his greed.
I'm angry at myself, for being a full time mother when I could be out earning a paycheck and then at least we'd have the security of a small second income to tide us over. Is it possible that somewhere, tucked deep inside a hidden corner of my heart, where I do not dare to look, that I am angry at my husband? I don't know. I don't think there's anything he could have done to prevent the inevitable. He's a victim of the situation.
I'm angry at the unfairness of it all. I'm angry that they couldn't have offered him a pay cut or reduction to part time or any other compromise.
I'm angry that they let him go, him the breadwinner with the wife and small child, and kept the single guy with the McMansion. The single guy who doesn't know how to do half of what Tim does, yet manages to make more money.
I'm angry at every raise and bonus that was promised to Tim, yet was never delivered.
I'm angry that I have this stupid chronic disease that makes my life so much more difficult and expensive.
I want to scream, I want to punch someone, I want to throw myself onto my bed and weep but I can't. I have to keep it together, and somehow I am supposed to levelheadedly mother my son when I have no levelheadedness at all.
Life should be more fair. I'm just sayin'. Good people should have good things happen to them, bad people should have bad things happen to them. I work hard to be a good wife and mom and sister and church member and friend. My husband works hard to be a good man and mate and father and employee and community member. We're good people. And *this* is our reward?
I'm angry that life is so unfair.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Give 'em a boost!
We love our cloth diapers, but most of what we have Moose has outgrown and I need to sell them off to upsize (if I can find diapers big enough for this giant child) and a little over a month ago there was a killer deal on Pampers that I just couldn't resist (they were paying me to take them out of the store!). I stocked up.
Moose still night (bottle) nurses, and as a result he has some giant overnight pees. I am loathe to wake everyone up, turn on the lights, and change him in the night but I didn't have a lot of choice if I didn't want to wake up in a sloppy, soaked bed. He even outpees a Huggies Overnight diaper. Overnight urination is his super power. If scientists find that the answer to global warming is large puddles of piss, my son can cure climate change in one night. Fo reals, yo.
Enter diaper doublers. These were a wonderful little invention. They were like sanitary napkins, the old school kind that your grandmother wore with a special little belt to keep it in place. But instead of using a belt, you just lay them inside of the diaper and two or three of them were enough to boost the absorbency just enough to get us through a long car ride or overnight.
They were wonderful. Until the Tyco corporation disassembled the equipment that makes Diaper Doublers.
I then started using a gDiaper insert, rolled into quarters, stuffed into the front of my son's diaper and then putting a second diaper on top of that. (When the diapers are free, who cares if you use two at a time?) That was unreliable, sometimes that leaked too. It was also pretty expensive. gDiaper refills aren't cheap!
And then....a stroke of genius hit in the hygiene aisle. I perused the Depends and Poise pads, wondering if they would work as a diaper doubler even though they have a plastic, waterproof bottom. I was seriously considering getting an Xacto knife and surgically removing the plastic waterproof layer to see if that would work, and wondering if that would make all the SAP jelly end up all over my son's huevos. And all of a sudden, there was a bright bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder, and the heavens open with a glorious golden light, the angels sang and I saw this: Depend Boost. WHAT????
Perhaps mothers everywhere have known about these booster pads forever, and if they have I am seriously going to rough up all of my Mama friends for not telling me about them! These things are a godsend! Just one in a regular diaper gives amazing absorbency. They're made for adult sized bladders so they soak up a ton! They are the size of a large maxi-pad, but without wings. They kind of flare out at the ends in an hourglass shape. They are designed to go into an adult undergarment to boost the absorbency, so there is no plastic underlayer to block wetness from flowing through to a layer underneath. There is also a sticky little peel off strip to keep it in place, a vast improvement over the shifty little diaper doublers I used to use. I can see these fitting into diapers size 3 and up.
I picked up a pack of 20 of them for about $5. I will be repurchasing these little wonders. I know they have super absorbent polymers in them, and I'm sure they're bleached with chlorine. But you know what? Washing the bedding every freaking morning sucks. The ozone layer is just going to have to take one for the team here.
Moose still night (bottle) nurses, and as a result he has some giant overnight pees. I am loathe to wake everyone up, turn on the lights, and change him in the night but I didn't have a lot of choice if I didn't want to wake up in a sloppy, soaked bed. He even outpees a Huggies Overnight diaper. Overnight urination is his super power. If scientists find that the answer to global warming is large puddles of piss, my son can cure climate change in one night. Fo reals, yo.
Enter diaper doublers. These were a wonderful little invention. They were like sanitary napkins, the old school kind that your grandmother wore with a special little belt to keep it in place. But instead of using a belt, you just lay them inside of the diaper and two or three of them were enough to boost the absorbency just enough to get us through a long car ride or overnight.
They were wonderful. Until the Tyco corporation disassembled the equipment that makes Diaper Doublers.
I then started using a gDiaper insert, rolled into quarters, stuffed into the front of my son's diaper and then putting a second diaper on top of that. (When the diapers are free, who cares if you use two at a time?) That was unreliable, sometimes that leaked too. It was also pretty expensive. gDiaper refills aren't cheap!
And then....a stroke of genius hit in the hygiene aisle. I perused the Depends and Poise pads, wondering if they would work as a diaper doubler even though they have a plastic, waterproof bottom. I was seriously considering getting an Xacto knife and surgically removing the plastic waterproof layer to see if that would work, and wondering if that would make all the SAP jelly end up all over my son's huevos. And all of a sudden, there was a bright bolt of lightning, a clap of thunder, and the heavens open with a glorious golden light, the angels sang and I saw this: Depend Boost. WHAT????
Perhaps mothers everywhere have known about these booster pads forever, and if they have I am seriously going to rough up all of my Mama friends for not telling me about them! These things are a godsend! Just one in a regular diaper gives amazing absorbency. They're made for adult sized bladders so they soak up a ton! They are the size of a large maxi-pad, but without wings. They kind of flare out at the ends in an hourglass shape. They are designed to go into an adult undergarment to boost the absorbency, so there is no plastic underlayer to block wetness from flowing through to a layer underneath. There is also a sticky little peel off strip to keep it in place, a vast improvement over the shifty little diaper doublers I used to use. I can see these fitting into diapers size 3 and up.
I picked up a pack of 20 of them for about $5. I will be repurchasing these little wonders. I know they have super absorbent polymers in them, and I'm sure they're bleached with chlorine. But you know what? Washing the bedding every freaking morning sucks. The ozone layer is just going to have to take one for the team here.
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