Inquiring minds want to know

I have two quick questions for you today:

1. Do you think there is enough protein in a piece of cake to justify it as a snack after a session with the trainer? I'm going to say yes. But only because I already ate it.

2. Is anyone else as obsessed with Les Miserables as I am right now? After Annie's post, a frantic text from my brother about the 25th Anniversary concert on PBS, and a phone call from a sister-in-law in Idaho who gets better broadway right now than I do, I just can't get enough of it. I have it on constantly in the car, I am losing hours watching videos on You Tube, and I finally just gave up and ordered my own copy of the concert from Amazon. I love it. It still makes me cry, even after all these years.

It also makes me feel old. I remember when it first came out. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. Yikes.

And someday if when I get to heaven, I am going to demand that my voice sound JUST. LIKE. THIS.



That is all. Happy Wednesday.

How-To Tuesday: How to Make Chicken Noodle Soup

Alternate title: How to make your husband go absolutely weak in the knees.



What's that? Your husband's love language isn't homemade chicken noodle soup?

Well.

Make this, and it will be. I guarantee it. That sofa you've had your eye on? A girlfriend's trip to Paris? Make this soup for him, then casually drop into the conversation what you're wanting, and he will be powerless to resist you.

[Not that I'd know anything about that, ahem.]

This is an ancient family recipe, going back generations. It was a staple in the Husband's childhood home, and has become one in ours. It could not be any easier, and I feel it a sin if you waste your life on soup any less worthy.

Step one: Take a whole chicken and throw it in a large stock pot. We love to make this with leftover turkey at Thanksgiving the best. Second in line would be the pre-cooked chickens they sell at Sam's Club. But even just a regular, boring, everyday whole chicken will cook up nicely.

Add: A few whole carrots (unpeeled), a large onion (quartered, and with the skin left on), a few celery stocks (leaves still attached), a bay leaf, and some salt and pepper. I used a red onion here because it's what I had, but red, yellow, or white - any of them will work.

Pour in enough water to cover the chicken by a good inch or two. Then plop it on the stove and bring to a boil, lowering the heat and letting it simmer for a few hours at a soft boil.



During this part of the process, your house will smell divine. Your children will salivate. Text messaged photos sent to your husband's phone will result in meetings being canceled and him walking through the door MUCH earlier than normal. I'm telling you, this soup is like a magnet that pulls your loved ones home.

Once it's simmered, boiled, and married all the lovely flavors together, pour everything through a colander to a large bowl. Notice the splash and spillage of broth out the sides? Tragic is what that is.

(It's also wise to do this step in the sink. Unless you like the feel of hot boiling lava on your bare feet.)

I like to then re-strain my broth through a very fine colander or cheese cloth to remove any remnant chicken bits. Your broth will have a lovely yellow color and smell positively delicious. At this point, you could freeze your broth and save it for another day or even another cooking purpose. But since our hearts beat to the drum of chicken noodle soup, that is where we'll be headed.

If I can, I make the broth a day ahead and refrigerate it, bringing all that lovely fat to the surface. It makes it so easy to scrape it up and out - keeping your inner thighs free for other fatty treats. But with this batch I was in a hurry, and we wanted to eat right away, so I poured the broth into two containers and froze them both.

Splitting it like this made it so that the broth could cool/freeze faster, resulting in a lovely layer of fat just waiting to be removed.

Pour the now-fatless broth back into your stock pot and put it over medium heat on the stove. By this time, your chicken should be cooled enough to remove all the meat from the carcass. Probably the worst job in this whole process, but a necessary one. Discard the bones and vegetables once all the meat is removed.

Chop your chicken finely. Add it to your broth on the stove.

Recruit a minion or two with the promise of knife usage and you will find help abundant in the kitchen. Have the minion peel and chop 5-6 carrots. Or ten if you like. Whatever suits your fancy. Then add them to the pot.

Next comes the step that MUST NOT be skipped. Don't be tempted to throw a few handfuls of rice or (heaven help you) store-bought noodles. The whole point of this soup is the homemade noodles.

Take:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg. beaten
1/2 egg shell full of milk or cream

Mix all ingredients together, adding more flour or milk to make a pliable dough. Also? We typically double or triple this for a big batch of soup.

What can I say? Girlfriend likes herself some noodles. So do her peeps.

With a rolling pin, roll the dough flat and slice it into strips with a knife or pizza cutter. Don't be worried about getting them all even and perfect. Homemade noodles should be of every height, width, size, and breadth.

Just like people.

When your broth is at a medium boil, drop your noodles in, one at a time. Simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Then, ladle up a big bowl. If you are really awesome, serve some warm bread and butter on the side. Then sit back and watch your husband's face carefully. With the first bite, and its earthy, homemade goodness, you will see precisely just how much he loves you. He will be unable to hide it. You will be delighted.

Now it's your turn. What can you teach us today? Leave the link to your own how-to post in our Mr. Linky below. Then be sure to copy the html code (under the blue button on my sidebar) into your post. Sit back, and wait for the internet to bow at the throne that is your genius.

I'm waiting. Anyone?

Oh well. Next time.

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Easy-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

Not seeing the boy

He walks through the door, dropping his jacket and backpack in a large heap behind him. I trip over his shoes as I bend down to grab the wrapper from his after-school snack off the floor.

"Do you have any homework?" I ask, wearily.

He launches into a tirade of all the projects he is working on. I groan, knowing just how much time all those things will take.

Grabbing a paper towel, I wipe up the milk he has just spilled. I snap at him for his carelessness. Reaching for another towel, I stumble over his trumpet case.

In an instant, all the petty annoyance bubbles up and spills over. I chew him out for not practicing often enough, making threats about canceling his trumpet lessons. I move to the projects he has coming up, and remind him angrily that he better get them done before scouts. I grit my teeth and spew venom about the mess he has made on the counter.

I turn around to continue my rant, and notice his blue eyes fill with tears. He hangs his head and apologizes softly. He promises he will practice more. He reaches for his backpack to start on homework, as the tears spill over his lightly freckled cheeks.

Guilt and regret instantly turn my irrational rage into compassion.

I move across the room and take him into my arms. I apologize for snapping at him, and tell him that I love him. He sobs quietly, as he tells me how overwhelmed he is feeling today. How the projects at school seem insurmountable, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to find the time to get it all done.

I wonder then how I didn't notice the sagging shoulders and somber expression when he walked in the door.

How could I only see the mess and the shoes, and miss the boy completely?

I curse myself, wishing I could take it all back and start again. Today was a total mom fail. Doesn't matter that I am right. He does need to practice more. Those projects have to get done before he runs off to play. He should have been more careful with the milk.

But he's only a kid.

And he's my kid.

And today, instead of noticing that he needed to be picked up, I knocked him down. Instead of being that safe, warm place to come home to, I hit him with anger and annoyance the minute he walked through the door.

I need to remember when I'm tired and cranky, that I have no right to take it out on him. I need to look first, and yell later (or not at all). I need to be grateful that I have such a good kid. A kid who gets straight A's, is friends with everyone, and always tries to help those around him. I need to tell him how much I love him, and how proud I am of who he is.

Because at the end of the day, the trumpet, the milk, and the homework do not matter one bit. What matters is that he knows just how much his mama loves him.

a quick thanks

How awesome was our first ever How-To Tuesday?

It was so awesome. Seriously. Made my day.

You need to click through and read every post. (Except for my idiot brother who thought it would be funny to link back to me. Whatevs.) They were fantastic! I am so happy you all decided to play along. If you missed it this week, start thinking of ideas and join in next Tuesday. Really, anything will work. How to make cookies. How to get marker off a wall. How to successfully carry on a telephone conversation with children nearby. How to eat cookies and not get fat.

Anyone? Anyone have the answer to that one? I'll pay. Really, I will.

Anyway, heading out the door to run about nine billion errands today. Sheesh. The people around here seem to think that having food is important. Oh, the nerve...

How-To Tuesday: How to tailor a shirt

Welcome to the very first installment of what I hope will be a long series of highly informative, entertaining, or just plain silly posts on our How-To Tuesdays.

[I know it's Monday. I wanted to get it up early to give you all a chance to link up. And make sure I did Mr. Linky right.]

Today I am going to share with you a little secret that tailors everywhere do not want you to know: How to tailor your own shirt.

You see, last year, the Husband decided one morning that he wanted to get in shape. All he pretty much had to do was decide that and 20 pounds fell off his body.

I tried really hard not to hate him for it.

Being the frugal man that he is, he did not want to run out and buy all new shirts. We figured we could tailor the ones he wanted to keep, and buy some new ones, as well. So we researched how to do it, purchased a sewing machine, and made the greatest discovery ever. This is so easy, it's ridiculous.

Start with the shirt you want to take in. Put it on inside-out.

Pull the fabric to your desired fit, and start pinning. You need to pin both seams on the sides - going all the way up the length of the shirt.

In order to avoid any bunching, you need to make a continuous seam from the sides to the sleeves. If you are not taking in the sleeves at all, just sew up around the armpit and taper off until you meet the existing arm seam. If you are taking your sleeves in, keep pinning to the end of the sleeve.

Carefully remove the inside-out/newly pinned shirt from your model, being careful to not scratch his face with the pins.

Because when you do that? He doesn't like it. At all. And WILL complain loudly.

[Cough*wuss*cough.]

Then sew a straight line from the bottom of the shirt up to the sleeves, again, tapering off as necessary. Because he didn't want to take the sleeves in (you know, to accomodate those large, manly biceps), I simply tapered my seam until it met the existing arm seam.

Before cutting off the excess fabric, try the shirt on (right side out this time) to make sure it is a good fit. If you need to take it in a little more, you can. If you took it in too much, you can unpick the seams and start again.

Then carefully, OH SO CAREFULLY, cut off your excess fabric.

Be sure your shirt is not bunched up underneath, or you will cut a large hole in the shirt. And it might happen to be the expensive dress shirt that was your husband's favorite. The one he loved more than all the other shirts. And there will be no repairing it. And you will feel terribly guilty. And he will feel terribly sad.

Not that I'd know anything about that, ahem.

JUST. BE. CAREFUL.

And that's it! Takes less than 10 minutes to do, and saves you oodles of money at the tailor. Which then leaves more money for shoes. Yay!

It works great for women's shirts, too.

Especially if you happen to be smaller-waisted and larger-chested like me. In order to find shirts to fit me in the chest, they are often baggy and big at the waist. Drives me insane.

Enter the self-tailoring.

I bought this tank top at Ann Taylor Loft and fell in love with the ruffly flowers and beading. See? Look how adorable:

Only problem was, all they had left on the rack was a size L, which was too big for me. Rather than walking away from the store in despair, I bought it, knowing how easy it would be to tailor the shirt myself.

Here is the before:

Notice how baggy the fabric is at the waist (and chest). Not a good fit. Made me look larger than I actually am - something I avoid like the plague.

And here is the after:

So much better, right?

I do this now to any shirt that doesn't fit well. If I find something I love on the rack in a store, that maybe is too big in some spots, I buy it anyway, take it home, and fix it right up. Works like a charm.

Now it's your turn. What can you teach me how to do? Type the link to your post in our Mr. Linky here, grab a button from my sidebar, and play along. We all have something we can do. Let's share it.

All she needs now is juicy shorts and a tramp stamp

As I whined about mentioned last week, the Husband was gone on a six-day ski bender. Two states, countless runs down the mountains, and a couple of very sore legs later, he staggered in the door with a smile on his newly-scruffled face.

Once the children had let go of their manic death grip on his legs, he pulled out the souvenirs. Tee-shirts for everyone (myself included). The boys snatched theirs up and ran to try them on.

For us girls, he had two shirts - both the same size - and said that Hannah and I could decide between us which one we wanted.

[Pause for interjection: Obviously, I am not a child size 7, nor will I attempt to squeeze myself into one. The shirt for Hannah will be a little big. Just clarifying in case you had me confused with Kate Moss. Or Hugh Hefner's girlfriend(s). Now back to our story.]

Hannah, whose favorite color this week happens to be blue, took the blue one. Not really caring which one I got, I happily agreed.

And then I read the shirts.

Here is the black one (rejected by Hannah on the basis of color alone):

Aaaaand, the blue one. Her shirt of choice:

Seriously. I tried to tell her what a cute pajama shirt it will make, and her eyes welled up with tears. "Why? Why can't I wear it to school?"

Why, indeed.

I know she doesn't get it, but her teachers certainly will.

And once again, I have become THAT mother. Yay me.