Me in Place

Isn’t this lightbulb cool? It is from the 60’s. Did I actually have to clarify that? You people from the 60’s are so rad.

So, it’s another Thursday. And I think today I’m just going to call for lame cheers for all. So one is coming your way. I need a Lame Cheer for actually ordering a tadpole. Yep. We ordered him and he came yesterday and I’m still afraid to look and see if he survived the night. I ordered him about four months ago. Of course he comes the week of birthday and Thanksgiving. As though I’m going to pay a lot of attention to him while frantically cleaning the house. His name is Teddy.

What’s the weirdest/most unique animal you had growing up?

Happy Birthday to my 9 year old. Daddy calls you my “mini-me.” I call you my “conscience.” Thanks for everything you are and are becoming! You’re a ton of fun and I know if I ever forget the rules, you’ll be there to remind me.

We had a great day today (celebrating her day a day early) - going on an “Amazing Race” adventure - with clues leading her to: Starbucks (well, you have to get Mom and Dad some caffeine if we’re going to really race!), the 26th floor of the Sears Tower to find a friend with a clue, the Adler Planetarium, getting her ears pierced and ending with yummy Giordano’s pizza. (That girl ate three pieces!)

My dad died three years ago on the 18th and my daughter’s birthday is on the 19th. It’s a strange jump from one extreme to another: death to life. And it makes me want to strive to be an even better parent. No, we can’t protect them from the smallest pain of getting ears’ pierced or the bigger pain of dealing with death. But we can give them a hope and a foundation of faith that will carry them through the storm.(Listen to the words of this beautiful song saying it so much better than I could!)

These are A Few of My Favorite Things This Week. (I have a very short attention span - these things will change soon!):
1. Great Christmas album by Harry Connick Jr- probably my favorite of his now. Say what you want about his hair; that boy can play.

2. This book! Terrific! Tells you basics of cooking with great pictures to follow.

3. A new Costco opened up north of us. I met my sis-in-law there on Saturday and we bought enough chicken stock to last us until 2015. I’ve also never had a funnier time at Costco. I can’t even explain…I think Moms just relax when they get a little time to shop without kids!

4. Tetris is now on Facebook! Looks like my crafting handmade gifts for Christmas plans have changed. Friend me there and come play a game. How do I say this humbly? I ROCK at Tetris. (Jeff, you ROCK at it too.) (The song playing is from Tetris. It gets in your head. Forever.)

5. The Amazing Race is down to four teams. I am rooting for Ken and Tina, what about you? And we’re planning an Amazing Race for our daughter who will be turning nine this week. I’m having tons of fun coming up with Detours and Road Blocks. But, shh!, don’t tell her about it!

6. This makes me chuckle: We had a fun dinner on Election Day and I pulled out the old Jell-O USA mold. The state of Texas broke off from the rest of the States and refused to join the rest of the mold.

7. Blogs I read daily:

Seth Godin (marketing)

Money Saving Mom (coupons/sales/deals)

The Nester

What are YOUR favorite things this week?

Hey, it’s week 2 of Flashback Friday! Today’s post is a little something I like to call Didn’t Make the Christmas Card. You know, you get the kids all dressed up and cute-d out and sit them in front of the tree and let Mr MIP have a try at getting The Shot. Here are the ones I was tempted to send out… but didn’t (so as not to embarrass the grandparents).

Christmas ‘03. Two girls: ages 4 and 2. (SuperBoy on his way.)

Christmas ‘04. Two girls: ages 5 and 3 and one SuperBoy aged 10 months.

The girls’ expressions here are so…something.

Try again:

Same year - take two. This is a posed shot, believe it or not. The kids all would do these faces when we said “Sad….” But imagine if we sent this out! “Oh, those poor children!”

And “Happy!”

Skip ahead to Christmas ‘07.

This one sure was tempting to use… but we went with the traditional “Here’s our three kids, look how much they love each other.” So dull and boring. (Wink).

UPDATE: Mom added some pictures of her own. Check them out HERE.

A request came pouring into Me In Place regarding pizza dough. So, here’s how we make our pizza dough around here:

There are two ingredients for easy, delicious pizza dough. First, get out that breadmaker that you haven’t used since you opened it at the wedding. Actually, I got my original breadmaker for a Christmas present and used it so much I killed it. So, this is my second and I got it from Craigslist for $25. (Have you ever used Craigslist? Did you like it?)

Second, buy a good brand of flour. In my opinion, you have to use a better made flour when making recipes where flour is a main ingredient and focus, i.e. bread, muffins, pizza dough. My favorite brand is King Arthur Flour. When I bought this on Monday, it was $4.29 at Woodman’s, as compared to $2.30ish for the other generic brands. So, almost $2 more. But, in my opinion, you can totally tell the difference. But what do I know? I also believe in the power of taking Airborne and I believe Karen Carpenter’s music is beautiful.

I’ll give the recipe now. The dough cycle on my machine is 1 hour, three minutes. Then we removed it from the breadmaker and put it in a bowl and let it sit there for a couple more hours. When we were ready, this dough made enough for three little pizzas for the kids and two mediumish pizzas for the adults.Sorry I didn’t get any pictures of that; we were starving by dinnertime and frankly, I burnt the bottoms of the crust this time. Oops.

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

1 cup water

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp sugar

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp active dry yeast

Place the ingredients in the order listed into the bread pan (in the machine, of course). Select the dough setting and start.(you could also substitute half wheat flour, half regular if you wanted.)

Let it rest for at least 15 minutes (or more). Then form into your pizzas and bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes.

Before placing the dough onto the pans, make sure you put down some cornmeal or something on the pans so it doesn’t stick. Cornmeal is the typical ingredient for this.

Now - my question for you… do you have a different dough that you like better? Send me the recipe! Or, what are your favorite toppings? I’d love to experiment with other kinds of pizzas, but so far we’ve just stuck with the basic cheese or pepperoni.

One more idea: All pizza ingredients freeze really well. So if you get all inspired to get out that bread machine and go to town making multiple batches of dough, here’s what you can do:

- Buy a huge bag of cheese (I get a colby jack shredded mix) and divide it up between little Ziploc bags.

-Buy a big ol’ bag of pepperoni or whatever you’re going to top your pizza with and divide that between little Ziploc bags.
-Divide the sauce into little baggies.
-Take a larger quart or gallon sized Ziploc and put enough dough in there for your pizzas. Place the other three smaller baggies of sauce,cheese and pepperoni and write something clever like, “Pizza Kit!” on the outside and place it in your freezer. The night before you want to make pizza, pull out the bag and let it defrost in the fridge. Your dinner is practically done! But, don’t do as I did once and let it defrost and forget about it because the dough will be so happy, it will grow right out of his Ziploc bag and into your fridge.

This is for my sis-in-law, Cindy. I wanted to show her that I’m ready for Thanksgiving and I can’t wait to make her peppermint mocha for her. Look at the size of that bottle of syrup. It overwhelms Master Shifu.

Speaking of Master Shifu: Kung Fu Panda was released on Sunday and I had to (just HAD to) buy it for SuperBoy. He smiles this cute smile everytime Master Tigress comes onscreen. And he wore his Kung Fu Panda shirt two days in a row before I confiscated it to wash it. And this is him at the end of the second time through it - he fell asleep right in front of the tv:

If you have a humbug spirit, just leave now. If you’re ready to talk Christmas music, pull up a chair and let me make you a peppermint mocha.

I need to know… no, I NEED to know what your favorite Christmas songs are! I also need to know the artist of those songs so I can put them on my iPod.

Speaking of lame cheers:

Yes, that’s right… my cheerleading picture from my senior year at Baptist Prison Camp. I’m sorry… Baptist High School. I liked that we got to sit for our pictures, because it hid how long those skirts were. Seriously, we’re talking right above the knee.

And cheering for a Baptist Prison Camp? Let us count the ways it was lame:
There were about 45 people in the high school - so it was like one long youth group event all day, every day. And out of 45 people about 44 of us were on the basketball team or cheerleaders.You didn’t have to have talent.

The outfits? Wool sweaters and extra long skirts kept us holy. And really terribly sweaty. Ever tried working out in a wool sweater? Ick!!

And then there were the cheers. I remember being told our cheers had to be kind and not rub it in when we were winning. You’re in a competition where you can’t glory in the fact that you’re winning??

“Go Cougars, Go Cougars,
Play real tough,
But not real rough,
Let them score a few!”

“We’re the Cougars, the mighty mighty Cougars.
And we just want to make sure that if you died tonight you know where you’d spend eternity?”

But back to that no talent thing? Yeah, the winnings were few and far between. It’s good practice for being a Cubs fan.

Good times, good times. Prison Camp makes you thankful for your freedom (a.k.a. “Grace.”) And develops you into one good Lame Cheer Buddy.

Monday morning! We made it! You’re the man! You’re the WOman! It’s not AmerICan’t! It’s AmerICAN! Get up! Get moving! You can do it!

Ever have one of those weeks where you felt the world was a bit… wobbly?And you couldn’t quite get your footing?  And you wanted to say time out! Wait! Let me try that again!

Argh. That was my whole week. But Sunday night arrived. I love Sunday nights! The week is done. I plan out my next week. I get to watch The Amazing Race (my favorite show). And I just completed the Chicago Trib’s crossword from the Sunday paper without help. And I need your applause for that. And that’s what being Lame Cheer Buddies is all about.

See, my friend and I came up with this a couple of years ago. There are days where the only thing you managed was to do one load of laundry. And, really, who wants to hear you complaining about the fact that you did one load of laundry? That’s why you need a Lame Cheer Buddy! It’s for those moments when you realize it’s really lame for you to expect any congratulations or affirmation for accomplishing something simple, but, yet, you really need that applause. So, just know that from now on, Me In Place is your place for Lame Cheers. Go ahead… share something lame you need a cheer for! It’s Monday morning! We all need some applause!

Mr MIP was interviewed on Midday Connection today. Go HERE for the link to the podcast. He is not the lady who wrote the book about being organized, and he is not the other lady with red lipstick. And he’s not the man who is leading HCJB now. He is the cute guitar player one. Oh, he’s gonna be mad I said that.

They have a link to buy his cd; which is totally smart of them, because if there is anything you need in this life, it is Mr MIP’s music. It would be a Great Christmas Gift for everyone in your life who needs some beautiful music to soothe their souls.

Click HERE to go to his site where you can buy his music. You help yourself by getting your Christmas shopping done, and you help me feed these monsters: