Going for it—Training to become a trainer—OR NOT

I've been reading Diary of a Mad Housewife and just watched Kramer vs Kramer the other day, both prompted by my reading of The Mommy Myth, and I must admit I was struck by the seeming lack of options for women and the way men seemed to hold women back as little as 20 years ago (Kramer) and of course over 40 years ago (Diary). I have not felt any such limitations in my own life, and in fact, felt I was only limited by my own frivolousness and lack of direction and maybe a lack of being implanted with intense ambitiousness from parents who were curious and creative post-hippies.

Anyway, now as I've pondered options for my future employment, daydreaming about part-time office gigs, shuffling schedules with my husband, perhaps continuing to build my business—or come up with a new business, one of my ideas was to get certified as a personal trainer and see if that, coupled with my current line of communications consulting, might be a good fit in terms of a flexible schedule for being home in the mornings before school and in the afternoons after school. (Since the wacky school hours simply do not accommodate a typical 8 hour day plus commute, I'd have to use before and/or after-school care.) I've had an interest in it on and off for a while and have been super-athletic and average at different times in my life so I know both sides. Friends say they think I'd do well. I know I can talk to people. Why not?

In the past when I'd talked of going to graduate school or pursuing some other line of work, my husband was not entirely receptive. He, understandably, questioned the cost-benefit of the whole deal (not to mention I wasn't exactly sure what it was I'd get the degree in), and also, quite realistically, wondered when I would really have time to pursue school while also doing my consulting (now) or working for someone else (later) and caring for a child. He also wasn't that receptive of my personal trainer idea at first.

But recently, when discussing scenarios for our child's entrée into school—kindergarten, first grade—he said that trying out the training for a year might be a good idea, since I wasn't going to go back to any kind of full-time office job anyway til she was through with her first year of school (kindergarten) and into first grade, you know, to give her a chance to first get acclimated to full-day school before having any before or after-care tacked onto the day.

So, I am going to go for it. I really need something new to focus on so I can force myself to pull away from all the parenting/issues commentary obsession and dig into something more profitable and productive. For this, I also need to dig into books I've had on my shelf for a while that I've been neglecting, on web design and development subjects (Wordpress, Drupal) so I can bolster my existing business acumen, as well. I know I won't be able to tear myself away completely from the social commentary, but maybe I can try to do this on a weekly or bi-weekly basis only.

"No gifts, please!" & Thoughts on "the end of gender"

In the past, we've always noted "No gifts, please!" on invitations to our kid's parties. Most of our friends had, too. In the past, we'd stuck to our (somewhat) crunchy birth class friends, the kids were just babies, and it was just all a little simpler. Now, with the girl in preschool and our circle expanding to people with values maybe a little different from our own, we experimented with leaving that off the invites for the fourth birthday party. Most of the parties we'd gone to, of children from her preschool class and friends of friends from the neighborhood and such had done the gift thing. Many even had the "let's sit around and watch the child open the gifts" portion of the party, too. I worried my kid would wonder why other kids got presents at their parties and she didn't. She even mentioned her friends bringing presents, cutely and excitedly, in a totally age-appropriately-greedy little way, but not overly so.

So, her four guests brought presents. Mostly cute, small little things. One brought a game we already had that we were able to re-gift (with the recipient knowing the story) to another child. One brought a ladybug growing kit. One brought a dolly. And one brought...a Disney Princess Kitchen set. It was a kind and generous gift that I think retails for $79.99 or something (yikes!) but the mom is a really savvy bargain shopper and she assured me she got a deal. Still, when it was presented I got the sense that I was supposed to be super dazzled and I also worried a little about what the other guests might think.

I also was a little freaked out because we don't really "do" Disney here and certainly not the princesses. I mean, we have some cheesy thrift store play jewelry with their silly little princess heads on them from the mother-in-law, but these are largely ignored and the princess aspect not really noticed. I don't have anything major against the Disney princesses, other than that they are garish and cheesy looking and think I'd be OK with them, in moderation, if my kid showed any interest, but, she doesn't. Coincidentally, the one who brought the kitchen set is one who gave me, two years in a row, razors (among other toiletry items) for Christmas and left me wondering whether she did not notice that I don't shave (legs, pits, at all) or if she was trying to send me some kind of message that I should! I wondered the same thing about the kitchen set. Did she not notice we didn't have any Disney stuff and whenever she talked about going to Disney, I just smiled politely and nodded and indicated no interest in going, at all? Did she think we were too poor for Disney and she was doing me a favor? I don't know, maybe she was just getting what she thought was a nice gift for my kid. And it was, mostly, but I was a little worried about having it in my house, even in the play area. I mean, it was just so...tacky. So I was happy to discover when I was putting the crazy plastic thing together that it did not come with the stickers of the princesses and their silly little faces already on it, and, I could choose to leave them off! Brilliant! I could also choose to not put in the batteries so we wouldn't have to hear the thing recite "princess phrases" (whatever those are). I can live with a pink stove and sink unit...with hot pink turrets and bejeweled handles. Princess characters on appliances I cannot live with, though.



All this might make me sound kind of like an angry anti-feminine person or battler of gender differences, but I assure you, I am not. Here, too, I "walk the line" because I understand, to some extent, problems with gender bias and with pigeonholing people, but at the same time I don't like to overdo the gender neutrality thing. I think gender neutrality is actually not achievable (or desirable) in reality. Males and females are different. We should obviously have equal rights for those basic things like owning property, voting, running for office, access to education. Girls should in no way be inhibited from doing what they want to do (nor should boys, naturally), but that doesn't mean we have to go to bizarre lengths to erase any reference to gender, as they are doing at one school in Sweden.

What bothers me alot about this is that, in my view, erasing the pronouns and denying one's gender, they are actually reinforcing the power of gender stereotypes. I was led, by the Feministing.com article referenced in the previous paragraph to a site explaining the term "genderqueer" and was saddened. It said:

The term "genderqueer" began to be commonly used at the turn of the twenty-first century by youth who feel that their gender identities and/or gender expressions do not correspond to the gender assigned to them at birth, but who do not want to transition to the "opposite" gender...

It explained that sometimes these folks refuse to attach a a label at all to their gender identity because they feel that no word can capture the complexities they face with regard to gender. I can respect their feelings, but, what all this tells me is that what needs to change is the attaching of certain colors, accouterments, attributes, etc. to just males or just females and kill the idea that people are one way all the time. I mean, aren't we beyond that now? I think a girl can be a girl, can have long, pretty hair and want to wear mascara but also kick ass on the soccer field and not like to cook or not want to have babies. A girl can also want to shave her head, wear no makeup and combat boots but enjoy knitting and want to have ten babies. A boy can have long hair and wear makeup and want to be a stay-at-home-dad, or have long hair and wear makeup and be a linebacker...you get my drift. People should be able to do what they want and be who they want to be, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. But, do we have to erase gender to do that? Can't we just expand on what it means to be a male or female?

If I had a little boy I'd be just as inclined to let him play with a pink kitchen set someone gave us as a gift, but would have been just as disinclined to go out and buy a Disney princess one myself! As far as gifts, I think I may return to the "your presence is your present" policy for year five. By then, I think the girl will be old enough to understand the concept of having so much already and not needing more.

The Mommy Myth

I read speed read The Mommy Myth by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels over the weekend. I have to say, it really gave me a better understanding of where I think many posters online are coming from when they get so defensive about daycare, their wanting to work, their feeling pressured and guilted and generally disgruntled about life for moms in America. Reading the book certainly underscores my own sense of not being like other people, though, because I don't really feel the way they do. I wonder, too, how many real-life women actually living in the world feel this way because I haven't met any in person. Maybe these are just not things that the people I know talk about? Maybe they're afraid to talk daycare and social change with me because they see that I stay at home right now and think I think a certain way and I'd judge them? I mean, a good number of women must feel this way, based on comments I read online. It's really hard to know, but, let's give it to the authors and assume they do.

Douglas and Michaels in the introduction say their main point is: "Media imagery that seems to natural, that seems to embody some common sense, while some blaming mothers, or all mothers, for children and a nation gone wrong needs to have its veneer of supposed truth ripped away." I can see this, I myself have applied the "so many kids have been sent to day care since the 80s, that's why X is like X..." and I know, of course, there's more to it. I certainly don't want to align myself with those figures that The Mommy Myth authors are up against, either—the Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Nixon, Schlafly, moral majority tribe (now would be expanding to Palin, et al, and wait, they even complain about Bill Clinton not doing anything about their child care, Dukakis, neither!) At the same time, I don't buy what the authors are ultimately selling—which appears to be big government funded daycare for everyone.

They say about how lots of mothers aren't buying into the retro momism (as they call it) although "it works to make them feel very guilty and stressed." The authors go on to say "they want and need their own paychecks, they want and need adult interaction during the day, they want and need their own independence, and they believe—and rightly so—that women who work outside the home can be and are very good mothers to their kids. Other mothers don't want or need these things for the time being, or ever, and really would rather stay home. The question is why one reactionary, normative ideology, so out of sync with millions of women's lives seems to be getting the upper hand."

And I ask, what upper hand? Over 50% of children under 5 are now in day care, so, where's the upper hand of the other side? Women are doing it. They're doing what they want (or, those who may not want to are forced to do what they don't want because of the unbalanced economy). The thing is, they want someone else to pay for it. They sort of seem like they want to help poor, working women get quality care, but to me, they come of more sounding like they want their own daycare to be cheaper and better (really? any grown up knows the vast majority of the time you can't have both) and they think it's the government's job to make it so. They write "...the problem with the new momism is that is insists that there is one and only one way the children of America will get what they need: if mom provides it. If dad 'pitches in,' well, that's just an extra bonus. The government? Forget it." It is on this matter that I am so torn. (And since when is financially supporting one's family, as many dads do, considered merely "pitching in"?)

I want to be a good progressive, I want to help people who need help and I am not one of those greedy "don't raise my taxes for social programs" kind of people. But, I really, really don't think that little babies should be cared for in large, institutional settings and by people other than their mamas (or, a distant but acceptable second, a dad or grandma or truly loving relative). I know some circumstances make it necessary for this to happen, but ideally, that baby needs to be cradled and near that mama's breast for the vast majority of its day and night when it is under a year old—less and less as it grows, naturally. (But, I have to observe, here we are looking at women who actually gave page space, and credence—if not complete buy in —to the concept of artificial wombs.) I just don't think setting up some kind of government care that makes it normal for babies to be warehoused like this is in the best interest of humanity. Just so women can work and feel independent? There are others ways. Fix the economy. Educate women about the reality of life with a baby, birth control and the work-life balance they are going to need to make sure they can create for themselves. Don't just throw money at setting up day care centers. Pay for a year of maternity leave. Subsidize another 6 months (for the first two children only, please!). Make it the cultural norm that women workers take time off and don't give them shit for it.

I guess this would necessarily create the situation commonly now referred to as "mommy tracking." The authors, and many women, are critical of what I think is a decent idea, and what businesswoman Felice Schwartz proposed in the late 80s. "Companies should allow 'career-and-family' women to drop out of the fast track while their children are young so they could spend more time with their children. they could return to the fast track later." What, I ask, is wrong with that? Seems like a perfect solution? (Schwartz got skewered and changed her position.)

I know the "cities on the hill," those places known as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and other European countries in varying flavors, have childcare programs that are government funded, but, they also have generally different cultures there than here. It's unfortunate because I appreciate and align more with these aspects European cultures, described in a Salon interview with Douglas, where she observes, "They have made a choice as a culture that's very different than the choices we've made as a society. Their choice has been work is work and family is family—and family matters. So everybody leaves work between 4 and 5 o'clock. Everybody. Dads, moms. They go home and spend time with their families." That said, what's wrong with "mommy tracking" everybody, then—men and women—at different points in their lives? Part of my problem with the hard driving feminists (and others) who would have children in daycare from six weeks on is that they raise the bar and crack the whip and drive the rat race to an even more unsustainable pace. How about everybody (men and women) just take it down a notch and be human? I think it's a good idea. But, apparently it is not enough for the women who "want it all."

So, what is "it all"? The authors repeatedly go back to the call for government funded (but locally ran, that part is certainly more palatable) day care centers. Repeatedly. All the content about media messaging, pressure on moms to be perfect, parenting styles, psychological and medical advice messing with people, I can agree with most of what they say, other than that I have not felt affected by it because I guess I am a bit of a social outlier (?) I even like alot of the early feminist lore and the action behind the lore about women fighting for equal pay, women progressing beyond days where they couldn't hold their own credit cards, have their names on a mortgage deed, things like that that we take for granted today. Those are all very important and reading the book renewed my respect for alot of what feminists did back then. But, what of all the weirdness? Again, the artificial womb comes to mind. The underlying current of wanting and desperately needing to escape from one's own children because they're so vexing and tyrannical. (OK, we all need a break from kid stuff sometimes, but not enough to take it into social institution territory—have a cup of tea or a glass of wine and throw them outside for an hour or put them in front of a DVD if you have to. There, you're renewed!)

So, with the repeated call for large-scale, institutional day care, they reference World War II era day care centers created by the government in cooperation with the defense industry to encourage women to go to work as they were much needed during war time. This bit of history is fascinating to me and I definitely want to know more. There are several, kind of random, patchwork links to be found in a cursory web search that shed a little light on the centers: a site that is critical in general of daycare, a personal history-buff/scholar site, the Kaiser Permanente site, the Oregon Historical Society site. The Mommy Myth authors talk about how great the centers were, how they were high quality, not bad for the children, but good (?). Apparently these, still, only took children who were at least 18 months old. The authors wrote of how there were laundries, infirmaries if the children were sick, staffed with skilled nurses, oh, and there were hot ready-made dinners to take home at the end of the day. All this while mom spent the day working in a factory (to support a war). Yay! Where do I sign up?

Seriously, though, it's a boon, perhaps, for people who really need the money, for those whose husbands were at war, and I don't mean to slam honest factory work. But, the authors are proclaiming these shipyard centers to be the cat's meow and it just doesn't resonate with me. If a kid is sick, other than the care of a doctor if it's serious, what they need is some down time, in the comfort of their own home, with the person who cares more about them than anyone else in the world. The workplace needs to understand this, understand the hands on value of mom to her children, not say, hey, we've got you covered, you come on to work the line, nurse Jones over here will take great care of your sick child. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but...And the idea of an institutionally-prepared dinner at the end of the day. Again, thanks, but no thanks. I'd rather make my own homecooked meal. We all know what kind of meals governments and institutions pull together. They're just not very good.

What's more, what makes them think that people want to have their lives reduced to dropping their kids off in the morning, working all day, picking up a box of dinner, going home, sleeping and doing it all over again. It all seems to be to be very much in service of work and treating humans as cogs in the wheels of production. It's OK if a company wants to do that for employees because maybe it's good for their business and any thinking person should have the expectation that businesses view their employees somewhat as human capital. For the government to view their people as human capital, though, is something else. I'm not comfortable with the whole worker-commerce model being the be all and end all of everything. That women in their capacity as mothers (and of course their children) create a chink in this worker-commerce model is cool, for one thing, and important to society, lest we all just become worker drones at various rungs on the ladder to nowhere.

Another example of daycare provided to women workers is that of the WearGuard company. Their daycare sounds all well and good and fine, but, that's a private company providing a benefit to its employees. That doesn't really bolster the case for government-funded daycare. (I would add that the shipyard daycares, too, were funded largely by the companies and only subsidized by the government, and the whole war connection as impetus there is obvious.)

My final analysis of The Mommy Myth is that while it was, in many ways, a thought-provoking and enjoyable read (I like the authors' wry, sort of sarcastic humor, even when I don't agree with how they're using it), the dogged focus on government-funded daycare and general lack of respect (and refusal to face what is just the plain reality of the biology) of motherhood is not something I'm on board with.

The birthday party & "Mommy Myths" come to life

"You can go be a CEO, and a good one, but if you're not making a themed birthday party, you're not a good mother..." —Letty Cottin Pogrebin, quoted in The Mommy Myth











Ha! Well, with that metric, I am a great mother (my lack of CEO status notwithstanding)! Last week today we had my kid's fourth birthday party with a butterfly theme and a great time was had by all—even me, although it left me kind of exhausted. In fact, I keep thinking today is going to be such a great and relaxing Saturday compared to last week, in which I was kind of running around shopping, cleaning (inside the house and out), preparing food and activities (starting a day or two before, actually.) Since I am a scrappy bohemian type with (mostly) down-to-earth friends, I took the "I did it myself, therefore it is quaint and lovely regardless of the quality or perfection" route. This always works for me. If other people think poorly of me or my productions for it, they certainly don't show it. And, I guess this is a real-life illustration of what I am already finding problematic about The Mommy Myth book I quote from above—one can be a hands on, in-the-trenches, seemingly Martha Stewarty, crafty mom, but not really be, because I am, but I'm not. I do the stuff, but I do it to my own ability, patience level and financial capacity and to me, it's the doing (alongside your child) not necessarily the perfection of the result that counts. The Mommy Myth authors, though, seem to have too big a chip on their shoulder to just give it a try (or not and just own that they don't want to)—but more on that in another post. First, about the party...

My daughter and I made our own invitations for the party. We (I) made our own food and cake and games. Some highlights: pin the body on the butterfly, butterfly shaped grilled cheese sandwiches, make your own goodie bags where we laid out art supplies with which the girls could stuff treats from a butterfly piñata, and a pretty butterfly cake. For the parents, I had a spinach, gorgonzola, walnut and cranberry salad and some baguette, fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil stacks. We kept the invitees to girls in her preschool class and a couple other girls. With a few that couldn't make it, we ended up with the perfect number, 5 girls, including mine. Very manageable. But, they are four years old after all, and some girls are noisier and pushier than others.




















It ended up with 2 noisy, pushy ones and 2 mellow ones, then mine, who is decidedly on the mellow side. For some reason the noisy, pushy ones really wore me out. They ventured into the kitchen and asked for food that just happened to be in my house and was not set out or designated for the party. They asked for food before it's ready when there was already plenty of food out. They inserted themselves into my adult conversations with other parents, loudly and relentlessly. They had to be held back from getting the first grab at the piñata ribbon or blowing out the candles on the cake (I mean, we are gracious and polite to our guests, but it is my kids's birthday celebration after all.) I was totally nice, though and smiled through it all, gave them the food they wanted and all that. Anyway, it all left me feeling super tired and wondering if it was worth it.

For a day or two before and the morning of, I had to tell my kid, no, I can't do A, B or C with you right now because I am doing X, Y or Z, for your birthday party...you know, with all your friends. As the lovely, good-natured child she is, she accepted it, but I still felt a little bad. A little. The morning I was decorating (hanging 24 little cardboard butterflies from the deck gazebo thingy for a game, that also served as decoration) she watched and said "Thank you for all your hard work for my party, mommy! The decorations looks great!" She really said this. LOVE. So, I guess it was worth it.



It's funny that I should come across the quote I opened my post with on this very day that I set out to read The Mommy Myth, a book I'd previously heard of, but which I now became interested in again after it was mentioned in one of the Motherlode comments in a recent online discussion. I've just made it through the introduction and it's already exhausting—but interesting! So, there'll be a future post on that soon.

Not feeling "Torn" about my life choices

I read the first book in the New York Times "Motherlode" parenting blog's new book club. I'm glad I read Torn, and, as another commenter said on the site, more for the essays I didn't relate to. I already know about my life, and I learn a lot from being allowed into those of other people.

I enjoy this stuff—little sociological sketches. Personally, I'm not "torn" because I'm lucky enough to work part time from home while my kid is little and plan on mapping out my own schedule of ramping up the more she is in school. Although, now that we've made it through the baby years, I would be comfortable with her in care, if we needed to. There was really nothing to decide for me, my gut wouldn't let me put a baby in daycare and we could afford not to. What is the most "tearing", I think, are those who don't want to have their little ones in childcare but have to because they need the money.

As one might expect, the discussion over on Motherlode got pretty intense, treading into "Mommy War" territory with myself as a participant. The blog post for discussion had thoughts of readers who, to me, seemed a little dramatic and defensive. They felt that it was somehow insulting that it's even suggested that women are "torn" between home and work. "Of course I work." Some said. I think that may even be a title of one of the essays in Torn. At the end of the day, though, it's just a book of other people's experiences, none really that I felt super resonated with me, but many of which I found interesting.

I found the overall message (disappointingly to me, an old-fashioned girl) very, very pro-work for mothers, even of small children. But I really liked the essays that took a critical look at daycare and that highlighted some of the pleasures and benefits of staying home—"Muthering Heights" and "Harvard to Homemaker" come to mind.

In the Motherlode comments, much was made about so many people not having a choice in the matter of whether they would work or not, even with small children, and then there was the ensuing analysis of lifestyle choices, the proud "but I like to work" comments, all what anyone who reads parenting and mommy blogs would expect.

The question of "choice" brought to mind another book I recently read. I consider myself progressive in some areas and friendly to the interests of working people, but I read The Flipside of Feminism by Suzanne Venker and Phyllis Schlafly anyway. While I didn't find the book to be particularly well-written and the tone was, at times, catty, they offered some good ideas, among which are that young women might do well to plan for motherhood.

We're told we can "do it all" and we should go after our interests, go to college, etc. BUT young women might want to consider the reality of what working in different professions might mean and make informed choices based on the possibility that they might want to have children someday and they might be "torn" (as I think they should) about leaving infants in daycare. Young women should also choose partners who can support them, if having children and raising them in the 0-3 years themselves is important. You can't live on "love" and you can't eat love or pay the mortgage with just "love." Young women should be mindful of their spending habits and those of their boyfriends/potential husbands when they are single and dating. Why not start saving for that house and building a safety net just as soon as your student loans are paid (and try not to accrue much, if any loan debt). All these considerations would make it much easier for those women who want to stay home with young children to do so. My husband and I don't have particularly high paying jobs for the area in which we live, but, bless his heart, he was always planning to buy a house, get married and have a family and so he was saving for this before we even met and had his loans paid. As soon as we got serious, he set me straight to do the same. Of course, not all choices are right for all people, but I do think that young women (late highschool, early college) are not led to think through the whole picture of what their lives might hold. A couple days later, a writer's letter to Motherlode's Lisa Belkin described a scenario where she was doing just that, preparing in the way she felt was right for the distinct possibility of future motherhood.

One commenter on Motherlode wrote of how she found intellectual stimulation in parenting. (The complaint of many being that staying home with small children is positively mind-numbing). This was met with some cackling that this could not possibly true and that this woman is making much more of the day-to-day reality of parenting than it really is. My thought was, since so many are keen on the "not judging" ( we hear this alot when we observe that we don't think daycare is a great place for babies) I don't think we should judge what different people find intellectually stimulating. Actually, I think its best when people are able to find intellectual stimulation where they are, wherever they are. I thought it was cool that the woman found this place for herself and observed that if more people had bigger minds they'd find this, too.

Toward the end of the arguments, I felt I, again, shared some eye-opening exchanges about motherhood and working and how women feel about it all. Reading heartfelt comments from people about their tough choice certainly is softening. Even hearing from career women about how much they love their children and how they feel their bond with their child is as good as mine is softening (I don't know that I believe it, but that fact that they want to believe it is touching.) I still feel very firm about my belief that, if at all possible, kids 0-3 don't really belong in long-term childcare. Of course, I understand the reality of life for many people today. It's frustrating. What I really don't want to be is a mean, guilt-mongering, holier-than-though person. In another Motherlode discussion where daycare came up, I tried to make clear that my anti-daycare stance isn't anti working people, it's anti the system that has daycare as a solution to problems of not being able to manage a household on one income, or single mothers, or dads out of work. It's anti- policy and social concepts that have led us to a place where two incomes are needed just to survive (gee, thanks, feminism!) and where there are fewer social/family community connections (and yes, government assistance to some lesser degree) that offer relief to folks on hard times. My anti-daycare view is not anti-individual, anti-working families or anything like that. Still, that so many upper middle class feminists blithely act like its no problem to put babies in daycare because their careers are more important, and then criticize those who "opt out" is troubling— and angering.

The anger dawned on me as I was finishing up Torn tonight and I came across the Katy Read essay I previously blogged about, on the regrets of a stay-at-home mother (all financial). In it she invokes Linda Hirschman, Leslie Bennetts and the like, and, I was reminded why I get so angry. I mean, work if you want and have someone else look after your baby all day, but don't act like I am doing something wrong (or foolish or bad or against some "sisterhood") because that's not something I could stomach.

Family Food Friday—my delicious, hodge-podge week

So, I am participating in the "Family Food Friday" that TFB initiated on her blog.

This was a busy and crazy (somewhat) week because we had my daughter's birthday party on Saturday last week, Fathers Day on Sunday, which included a ball game and night out for pizza—both of which left me kind of wiped out. Then the real birthday during the week where we ate out and went to a local ska show in a park. The meal plan was sort of a jumble of partying, but many recipes were made, so I am just going to list the ones that were homemade without specific dates as these span back from last Friday (June 17) through now, rather than a Monday through Sunday thing. This, though, is actually a decent snapshot of how most weeks go as far as dinners and such, even when things aren't feeling busy—I kind of do a blend of complicated and easy and let my tastes and cravings drive what I make. We are big beer lovers so I've included the beers we enjoyed with each dish, where applicable.

• Pad Thai (beer pairing: Ommegang Hennepin)
  
• BBQ Quorn Tacos (beer pairing: Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA)
  
• Veggie Burgers (beer pairing: Troegs Nugget Nectar)
• Salmon Caesar Salad with Garden Veggie Side (beer pairing: Sloeber Strong Pale Ale)
• Fresh Veggie Wraps (beer pairing: Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA)
• Quinoa Salad with Cherries and Pecans (beer pairing: it was lunch! I didn't drink! ok, that doesn't always stop me...)

For the Pad Thai, I have a basic recipe that I used to "teach" me how to make it, and now I just kind of throw it together how I want, riffing on the recipe. We don't eat meat (but we do eat seafood) so instead of the chicken, I loaded it up with tofu and veggies. Sometimes I'll use shrimp. I had alot of fun going to a local, huge international foods market to get the real rice noodles and other crazy things like black fungus (still don't know what I'll use this in yet, but I read it's in alot of Asian dishes, and now I've got it), tamarind (I added some tamarind juice to my Pad Thai) and galangal (I steeped the noodled in galangal water).



The BBQ Quorn Tacos is one of my "original" recipes, but with a forced twist. I usually make tempeh tacos (tempeh can be bought at the store, but is made by natural culturing and fermenting that binds soybeans or grains into a cake form, similar to a very firm vegetarian burger patty). Whole Foods was out of tempeh so I bought Quorn instead (which is like a vegetarian faux chicken). So, it's simple but so tasty...you just slice a red onion and a red pepper and saute them in a hot pan in some olive oil. You cook the onion first til it starts to brown and carmelize (maybe add a dash of salt) then once that's going, you throw in the peppers, getting them tender but not overcooking. Then you throw in the diced Quorn (or sliced tempe). Cook it a few minutes til the Quorn (which is cooked right from frozen but does not technically require "cooking" like real meat, same with tempe) softens and gets some cooked color from the pan. Stir in some BBQ sauce and maybe dashes of garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, sweet smoked paprika (this is my favorite seasoning these days), depending on your taste and the BBQ sauce you use. Then, you just put that mixture with some shredded cheddar cheese into tortillas and enjoy. I am big on just sautéing up things I like and putting them in tortillas! We're big on leftovers around here and my husband insists on them being available for him to take as lunch to work to save money.



Veggie Burgers are just veggie burgers. Warm them up in a pan and go. But, I am picky, so I will do things like toast the buns, spraying them with olive oil and sprinkling some garlic salt on them. We'll add sautéed mushrooms and onions to the burgers, maybe some sliced avocado, and of course, melted cheese. Trader Joe's makes a really good garlic aioli mustard that we put on our veggie burgers. Bake up some oven fries, add a side salad and you've got your meal.

Salmon Caesar Salad is another easy go-to meal for me. Just pan sear or bake some salmon filets and top the classic romaine salad with it. I am a big fan of Whole Foods and their caesar dressing (in the produce section, chilled) is very good. Normally, I hate store-bought or packaged dressing and I make my own vinaigrette all the time, but this one I like, especially since making caesar dressing is a little more involved than whipping up a vinaigrette. The Garden Veggie Side was just some extras I harvested from our little garden. I had some carrots and leeks so I braised them with apple cider vinegar, finished the cooking under a quick broil with butter and parmesan, then lemon squeeze, salt, pepper.



Speaking of Whole Foods, the next thing on the list, Fresh Veggie Wraps, I learned about from a kids event at our local store. Not that it's something you need to "learn" exactly, I mean, it's a veggie wrap, pretty simple. But, sometimes you just need a fresh look at ingredients, or to be reminded, hey, this is out there, put it together with that. So, that's what we did. They had out for the children diced veggies in rainbow colors—red peppers, carrots, corn, shelled edamame, shredded purple cabbage—you can choose the veggies your family likes best. Smear some hummus on a large lavash (or tortilla, but I like the big size of the lavash to really get everything wrapped up) and then layer in the veggies with some mixed salad greens and wrap it up. We took these to the Fathers Day baseball game.



The Quinoa Salad with Cherries and Pecans I learned of from a Facebook friend and made back on Memorial Day. It was yummy so I decided to make it again and take it to lunch with a friend last week. Here's the recipe for that.

Back again!

OK, I am super busy now, but I just can't keep away from the blogging. I need it as an escape valve! I am going to try and "play nice" if I post on other blogs, you know, keep it real, state my opinion but try not to be offensive. I stand by what I think about maids and all that jazz, but I guess I don't need to be like a mad dog with a bone when arguing my point. I closed my Twitter account even after getting a whole host of followers after "The Help" debacle. I thought I wouldn't want to blog again. But I do. So, here goes! I will try to loop around and update on my Compassion project, and, I have to give the post-mortem on my kid's birthday party last weekend. But for now, just wanted to note what got me wanting to get back blogging, and, it was, the good feeling I got from actually being nice in my comments (and I genuinely felt nice). For example, I think The Feminist Breeder's meal planning and sharing project is really cool (but, do I want to commit to this? I don't know...I will try). And, her post about taking her baby to the movies, I thought, was really cool, fun and sweet. Totally something I would have done!

My only concern is that I have to do real work-work and I have to give my kid appropriate attention. In fact, right now I am being called to help with a drawing, so...TO BE CONTINUED!