Kidlet-Made Bentos!

The kids REALLY wanted Bentos today, for another stay-at-home picnic... I was really not feeling up to it, but the oldest agreed to make them, AND to wash out the Bento boxes afterwards, so I let her try it out. I made a few suggestions, and I cooked the omelettes (in the microwave), but she orchestrated the rest. Her little sisters helped quite a bit, as well.
I'm not sure why the picture came out so blurry, though .


Cheese omelettes, Club crackers, cheddar cheese sticks, carrots with dip, grape kabobs, strawberries, cherries, Laughing Cow cheese cubes, and Girl Scout cookies for dessert! I think they did a really awesome job . DD9's comment when she was done was "Wow, that's a lot harder than it looks!"

Bentos for the Man (breakfast and lunch)

DH said something, half-joking, about doing a "breakfast bento", so he doesn't have to go down to the Nature's Table in the lobby and have over-priced stuff in the morning. (Yes, he COULD eat before he goes, but he's not usually hungry first thing in the morning, and if he tries to eat then, his tummy complains.)
I said, "Ooo! I can do that!" So, here we have both!

Breakfast is in the tan box in the lower part of the picture. Microwave poached egg, got a little overdone, but not too bad... live and learn! Small sauce bottle with syrup in it, and mini pancakes that I cooked up last time we had pancakes for breakfast, and froze. Strawberries in the bottom tier. His dessert of piroulline cookies is in the lid. (That would be for after lunch, just being creative with space.)
In the square Lock and Lock container, we have leftover enchiladas. Small round Lock and Lock has some chopped, roasted green chilis. In the black box, we've got red grapes, baby carrots, dipping sauce, and a Laughing Cow cheese wedge. The lid holds Club Crackers.

Shaped Eggs

This is a common thing in Bento lunches that I've seen.... a hard-boiled egg, shaped in a mold. Neat trick, I must say. You have to peel the egg and put it in the mold while the egg is still hot, which is kinda tricky. It's not as painful as one might think, however.

The trick is to crack the egg, then run it under cold water for just a few seconds. This gets cold water between the egg and the shell, making it MUCH easier to peel, and also cools down the egg and the shell just enough to peel it without burning your fingers, but not enough so that it won't mold properly.
All in all, a successful experiment, I think. The bunny one exploded during the boiling process, but I decided to try to use it, anyway.... mangled mutant bunny, we called it. DH said he'd be proud to take a mangled mutant bunny to work in his lunch, since mangled and mutant is definitely not "cute" (or should I say "kawaii"?)

Kidlets' Bentos (and mine)

Another "picnic in the living room".
Top tier : Japanese-esque omelette, with soy sauce and sugar, adapted from a recipe I found... er... somewhere... cooked in the microwave. Club Crackers, Laughing Cow cheese cube, carrots, small sauce container of 3-cheese Ranch dip for the carrots.
Bottom tier : Red grape and cheese cube kabobs, cherries, granola bar pieces.
Lid : Koala Cookies, creme-filled... two each of 3 different flavours. SO cute, very yummy, and only 99 cents a box! I found them in the "international" section of the Publix cookie aisle.

I have about the same stuff as they do, I just have Piroulline cookies instead of the cute little Koala ones. Yum!

Hubby's Bento

Bottom Tier (right side) : baby carrots, 3-cheese Ranch, Laughing Cow cheese wedge, cherries.
Top Tier : ginger marinated Shrimp, small bottle of soy sauce, brown rice.
Smaller Lid : Piroulline cookies. (These ended up being a little too wide for the smaller lid, so they went into the larger lid after the picture was taken.)
Larger Lid : Club Crackers. (Since the cookies had to go in here, he had a few less Club Crackers back in the smaller lid instead.)

It's making me hungry!

Lunch Bentos for home picnic

It's been pouring all day, and the kids really wanted to have an indoor picnic. I hadn't had a chance to make a Bento for DD9 yet, she had been at her grandparents house all last week. So they got a big beach towel out to spread on the floor in the living room, and we packed Bento lunches for all!

Top Tiers, the kids have carrots, 3-cheese ranch, and red grapes. I have more carrots, and hummus to dip.
Bottom Tiers, we all have peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. The kids have goldfish, I have cashew trail mix from Archer Farms.
In the lids, we all have Voortman's wafer cookies. Mine are vanilla, the kids have 1 strawberry and 1 peanut butter flavour.

Bento 15 July 2008

Left side (which is the top tier), we have 2 skewers of red grapes, with a few more grapes underneath... a whole grain wrap with ham, chicken, salami, and cheddar cheese, and some baran (green plastic grass) as a separator. Next is the bottom tier, we have a Laughing cow cheese wedge, baby carrots with 3-cheese ranch dipping sauce, and some cashew trail mix from Archer Farms. Larger lid has Oreos, smaller lid has Club crackers. Side car with potato salad.
I need to get some edible green stuff that he'll like, for variety of colour if nothing else...

Bento Pet from On a Bento Frenzy is holding a bento contest for "regular" bento packers (as in, not the uber-cute ones), so I may enter, if I get enough posts up here by the contest end. I would LOVE the prize, so much Pooh stuff my daughter would go NUTs.... lol.

Another Bento

Left side (which is the top tier) is carrots, 3-cheese ranch for dipping, a Laughing Cow cheese wedge, and some dried pineapple flavoured like Mango. (Yeah, that made me go , too... but it's yummy, I promise!) Right side (bottom tier) is whole wheat cheese ravioli, a little container of fresh grated Parmesan, the T/W mini S&P shaker, and some tomato-Alfredo sauce for the pasta. Club crackers in one lid, Oreos in the other.

Bentos for the Kids

The kids were so impressed with DH's bento, that they've been begging me to make them Bentos, even when we're not going anywhere. I didn't take pictures of the first few of theirs, either. On the 11th, we went to IPEZ and met one of Emily's classmates there. IPEZ has their party rooms open during their "Mommy and Me" playtimes, so you can bring snacks and lunches and such to eat there. So, I packed Bento!


The top tiers are trail mix, and leftover pizza cut into small wedges. The bottom tiers are carrots, little containers of 3-cheese ranch for dipping, a Laughing Cow cheese square, and red grapes. There were cinnamon graham crackers in the lid.


This one's MINE... lol. Top tier is leftover brown rice, ginger-marinated shrimp, and a little sauce bottle of soy sauce. Bottom tier is watermelon, with a couple of picks to look cute
This plain lunch box is actually smaller in capacity than the cute ones I got for the kids, so I have a side-car with green salad, carrots, and 3-cheese Ranch dressing.
(You can click on the pictures for a larger view.)

Bento-Mania!

Several months ago, I stumbled across Laptop Lunch boxes. They are really neat, but a bit out of my budget, especially since I would need 5 of the complete packs. They call themselves "Bentoware for everywhere", and I wondered "now what the heck is a bento?". So, I did some Googling and some reading and some more researching, and discovered that apparently almost everyone in the world knew what Bento was but me
In brief, it is a Japanese tradition of packing lunches, mostly intended to be eaten at room temperature. There are 3 distinct types of bento, but if I try to give the Japanese names I'm sure I will butcher them. There are Bentos that focus on health-food, there are "regular" bentos, and then there are the super-cute Character bentos. My favourite site so far is Lunch In a Box. Biggie is a Mom who used to live in Japan. She lives in CA now, and has a preschooler that she packs bento lunches for. She has TONS of information, tips and tricks for making things speedier, recipes, reviews of specific products, even a "shopping guide" using Google maps. Truly an awesome site.
My favourite site to shop is Ichiban Kan, my only problem is they sell out of stuff too fast

So, I ordered some basic bento stuff, and I started packing bentos for DH to take to work. (It took awhile for me to find a reasonably-priced "men's" bento box, but Ichiban Kan came through, and last time I looked they were still in stock!)

I didn't take pictures of the first few that I packed, but here's one that DH took a picture of with his phone. This one is from 10 July 2008. (Although, he ended up going out to lunch to Tijuana Flats that day, so the Bento got eaten on 11 July )

On the left side (which is the bottom tier of the lunch box), we have baby carrots, a Babybel Gouda cheese round, a little blue container of 3-cheese ranch dip for the carrots, a Laughing Cow cheese wedge, some Club crackers, and a Tupperware mini S&P shaker. On the right (the top tier), we have 2 mini quiches (ham and broccoli), and some red grapes.
Not in the picture are the oreo cookies that were placed in the lid

Somedays, I wonder how they remember to breathe...

In this instance, the "they" I am referring to is the "Religious Right". Conservatives, generally Republicans, crusading to "save our children" from all that is evil in the world.
The scary thing is, I actually AM one. I am extremely conservative in most of my political views (a few notable exceptions exist, but that's a different topic.), I am a Christian, and I am a registered Republican. I think Ann Coulter is wonderful ;)

Then I see things like this, and this... and I am in a quandary. Either they cannot read, in which case, how in the dickens do they manage to mash the right keys to write this drivel? Or, they are just stupid... which I would hope is not the case, but there is something just NOT right here.
For those too lazy to go read all the articles (hi, Pneuma! =P), it's people up in arms about the game Mass Effect, and the fact that your character can get involved in a romantic relationship that ends in sex.
They are claiming that 1) the game is marketed to minors, and 2) the romantic scene is actually explicitly showing sex, like an X-rated movie.
Point 1... well, no. It's not. They never provide any evidence for WHY they say it's marketed to minors. In fact, in one article they even state, in a separate paragraph, that the game is labeled "M" for Mature. I guess they figure that because it's a "game" it automatically has to be safe to hand it to their 6 year old. There are an awful lot of adult gamers in the world, and we'd like to play something a little more sophisticated than Mario Brothers occasionally. That's why there is a rating system to begin with. If I, as an adult, choose to go and play an M-rated game, that is my choice, and my responsibility. My kids do not get that choice. I choose what games they play, and anything with an "M" for Mature on it is not only not on their list, it won't even get played by adults in the house while they're home and awake. That's my job as a parent. It's not BioWare's job to make sure that everything they produce is good for my kids. They produce what they want to produce, the ESRB labels it as accurately as they can, and that's where they're responsibility ends and mine begins. I research the games, read review sites, and actually READ the packaging, including the ESRB rating, to decide if it A) comes into my house in the first place and B) gets to be viewed and/or played by my children. If these people actually think that an M-rated game is "marketed to minors", I shudder to think what they let their own kids watch, play, and do.

2) If THAT is what they think explicit sex is, how in the world do they manage to reproduce? I've watched clips of the scene. It is for certain too mature for most kids to watch (hence it's "M" rating, duh...), but it is in no way explicit. You see a kiss, a bare tush... there might be a fleeting glimpse of breast, but it's hard too tell because the whole scene is so dark. The cinematography moves very quickly, shifting camera angles constantly, so all you get is an impression of what's going on. Now we, being adults who engage in sex of our own, know quite well what the implications are. My kids would be much more likely to giggle loudly about seeing a "naked tushy" than anything else, if I let them see it in the first place, which obviously I'm not.

It is a scary, scary thing that these people think "M for Mature" means "marketed to minors". We learned a long time ago that being animated does not make it a kids' show (thank you, Anime and the Simpsons). Now we need to wake up to the fact that just because something is a game, doesn't mean it's for children to play.

More Episcopal Church comments

I've seen a lot of the folks comparing themselves to Martin Luther. I've been trying to find ways to be descriptive without using labels or going to far with the "us and them" mentality, but these are the folks who think it's perfectly okay not to believe in the creed, even if you're a bishop... the ones who doubt the authority of scripture and don't believe in the divinity of Christ. (Now, I do want to make this clear here... I have friends who are of different faiths, and in some cases no official faith at all, and I have no issue with the fact that they don't believe the Bible or believe in Jesus. The sole reason I have a problem with it in this instance is that these are leaders in what is supposed to be a Christian church.)
I've done a lot of thinking and praying about this Martin Luther analogy for the past few days. My husband was raised Lutheran, and attended a Lutheran college, and has done extensive research on Martin Luther. I've discussed a lot of this with him, as well.
Now, these leaders of the church, the Presiding Bishop and a lot of other Bishops, and I'm not even sure who all else, are the ones who have been steering the Episcopal Church USA further into heresy. The other Bishops (the conservative ones, for those who must insist on labels) have been observing this, and have tried in many ways, over many years, to bring them back into compliance with Scripture. They have tried to re-form the church, to bring it back to the original constitution under which it was formed, which is based very strongly in Scripture. Martin Luther watched the Catholic church become more and more corrupted, and tried to bring them back... he wasn't the one dragging them astray.
Those of you who have been trying to use this argument to defend your actions need to do a bit more studying and praying. You are the ones with the political and economic power here. You are NOT acting in the place of Martin Luther. You are The Church.

I wonder if the Windsor Report would have gotten a better reception if it had been nailed to a church door?

Scandalon

I've had some songs rattling around in my head recently, and I decided to inflict them on my readers, few though you may be

So today's episode is Scandalon by Michael Card.
Verse 1 :
The seers and the prophets had foretold it long ago
That the long awaited one would make men stumble
But they were looking for a king to conquer and to kill
Who'd have ever thought He'd be so meek and humble

Chorus :
He will be the truth that will offend them one and all
A stone that makes men stumble
And a rock that makes them fall
Many will be broken so that He can make them whole
And many will be crushed and lose their own soul

Verse 2 :
Along the path of life there lies a stubborn Scandalon
And all who come this way must be offended
To some He is a barrier, To others He's the way
For all should know the scandal of believing

This verse is the one I wanted to talk about first. In many ways, it is truly a scandal to be a believer. We are labeled intolerant, closed-minded, even homophobic, by people who don't even know us. Now I do realize that there are a vocal few who really are that way, and they give the rest of us a bad name. BUT, how is considering all of us like them any better than how they stereotype "liberals" or "gays" or any other group?

Verse 3 :
It seems today the Scandalon offends no one at all
The image we present can be stepped over
Could it be that we are like the others long ago
Will we ever learn that all who come must stumble

Some people today (probably a lot... probably a whole lot more than will admit it... perhaps even ALL of us, to some degree) want to mold God into their own personal idea of Deity, instead of taking him as he is. They want to warp His Word, pretend things are acceptable to Him that really aren't, and make themselves feel "Holy" for the sins they are committing. They want to make God unoffensive to everyone. In the name of "tolerance" they water down the message and the gift. The image they present doesn't even have to be stepped over, it just melds into the road. Some of us already know we have to stumble... we realize we are all sinners, and we don't hold up our sin as a good thing.

I think the book of Revelation makes a good case for the second coming to be much less meek than the first. Then He will come as a King who conquers and kills. He will separate the sheep from the goats. He won't be quite so step-over-able then.

The Episcopal Church

Okay, I can almost... almost, mind you... understand the desire of the certain Bishops to reform where they are, rather than just do the honest thing and LEAVE a church they don't agree with to form their own where they can set all the rules the way they want them. Almost. Even though it's not just a matter of a few secondary rules, it's the actual CREED they don't agree with... basic, fundamental tenets of the church that they cannot even verbalize, much less say they believe. They are sworn to uphold these same tenets. They affirm in front of witnesses, and SIGN their name in front of witnesses, to defend these tenets. And yet, it's not dishonest and a breach of contract for them to deny them?

Beyond all this, for the rest of us who DO believe the creed and the tenets of the church and the Holy Scriptures, who are trying to leave the church (as a last resort, because they won't uphold the Scriptures and they won't leave to form a church where they don't have to), are being threatened, sued, convicted in "Episcopal Court" of all kinds of trumped up heinous charges. I have heard it compared to the Spanish Inquisition, though I sincerely can't see how something like that could happen in this day and age, especially in America. I absolutely cannot comprehend why they want to FORCE us to stay, when they so firmly believe we are intolerant and closed-minded and who knows what else.

If you and an acquaintance completely disagreed about something, and neither of you could possibly budge on your opinions, and they tried to walk away from the relationship... would you try to FORCE them to stay? Why would anyone want that?

I'll likely have more on this later, but right now I feel I'm too upset to be particularly coherent. If you managed to get to the end of it and don't think I'm making any sense, please feel free to ask for clarification, and I shall do my best to oblige.

Backtracking..

I've added a couple of older posts, that were originally posted on my livejournal page. Having multiple blogs is confusing me, I think o.O
Anyway, if you scroll down to July of '06, you'll see the two new old posts =P

And here's today's lovely tidbit of karma! :D

So, if you read those two blogs, you know what lovely bunch of folks I used to see at my doctor's office. I say used to, because we have now gotten settled into the new doctor's office that my kids' pediatrician recommended, and they are FANTASTIC. A little bit of a wait time sometimes, but nothing too horrid, and they are SO nice and helpful that it pretty much negates that.
Anyway... my husband had an appointment this morning, and the lady he saw asked "Didn't you guys come from Dr. Dube's office? Have you seen the news? They're under this huge investigation, one of their PA's was arrested for practicing medicine without a license".....

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*ahem* Sorry.

Link to the news article I found online
I'll think I'll be snickering all morning, at least =P

Hubby found and linked another article about the fiasco, too.
This one was the day after the other article

Welcome to the nuthouse, Dearest!

My husband finally fell into the blogging craze ;)
Check out his Moments of Clarity!

*hugs*
Welcome in, darling :)

*sigh* Meds are expensive, yippee...

So this morning, there is a message from my doctor's office manager, telling me only to "call her back". I do, and get her voice mail... an hour and a half later, she still hasn't called back, so my husband calls. After 3 calls in, and insisting that no, he cannot "hold", he finally gets to "someone" who says that they "no longer do prior auths". At all. In fact, they want to change my meds, now that we've found something that works. Um.... why didn't they mention med changing when I was there on Wed? Why, if they want to change them, did Randy write a new scrip for what I'm already on? DH gets frustrated, pissed off, gives up on moronic office staff, and goes straight for the insurance company to file a formal complaint. Meanwhile, I'm emailing our kids' pediatrician, who is absolutely awesome, to see who he recommends for a family practitioner, because we can't deal with this situation anymore. DH gets the address for sending in a formal complaint, and the woman from UHC that he's dealing with is really helpful, which is great. It doesn't fix anything immediately, mind you, but it's a nice change from the useless morons at the doctor's office. She faxes some form to the doctor's office, which they are supposed to fill out and return, which means my meds will be covered about 24 hours after they send it back.... IF they bother to fill it out at all. I went to the pharmacy and bought 1 weeks worth of pills without benefit of insurance coverage ($35, for 7 pills... yay.), so hopefully we can get it straightened out before I run out again. I just couldn't swing the $150 it would have been for the whole 27 pills, even with the likelihood of reimbursement from the insurance company.
The pediatrician wrote back with a recommendation, and he takes our insurance, and they even answered their phone on the FIRST ring (with an actual person!!).... but they're not accepting new patients until September. They did say that if it was urgent, they could fit me in... so I'm going to call tomorrow and see what they can do.
I dunno if it's the fact that I didn't have my meds Saturday or this morning, or the stress of the whole mess, or some combination, but I just want to curl up into a ball, hide, and sleep for about 2 months :/

ARGH! Doctors! And Insurance Companies! They all suck.

Well, okay, probably not ALL of them. At least, I hope not all of them, because I need to switch doctors and I'd like to find a non-sucky one to switch to. I've been on an anti-depressant for a little over 2 years. (Well, I've been on several different ones, for much longer than that, total... but this particular one has worked the best, by far.) It has nasty side effects if you stop taking it cold turkey. I still have 3 refills left on my prescription, so Tuesday I took it to my pharmacy to get a refill. I had 1 pill left, for Wednesday morning, but the pharmacy only takes about 10 minutes for a refill. (I know, I shouldn't have cut it that close, but we were out of town for the weekend.) I got a phone call Tuesday afternoon that my insurance company had suddenly decided I needed "prior authorization" from my doctor's office in order to cover my prescription, even though there were still refills left. The pharmacist had faxed my doctor's office, who replied that since I hadn't been seen since September, I would have to come in to the office for them to authorize it. So, grumbling and gritting my teeth, I call the dr and get an appointment for Wednesday afternoon. I see the PA, who is completely useless, but all I needed was an authorization, which I figured was pretty simple. (He wanted to put me on cholesterol meds while I was there, when my cholesterol is 30 points LOWER than it was last time they tested it, but that's a separate rant.) He wrote out a new prescription. I took it to the pharmacy, and they said..... no, that won't help, they have to CALL the insurance company to tell them it's authorized, a new prescription won't cut it. ARGH! So the pharmacist calls the dr's office, leaves a message, and gives me 3 tablets to get me through til they can fill the prescription. I hadn't heard anything, so this morning I called the pharmacy to make sure it was ready so we could go get it.... and the doctor has not even called the insurance company yet!!! The pharmacist says there's absolutely nothing she can do until the dr calls the insurance company.
I call the dr's office myself, go through a maze of phone menus, and discover they have NO after hours answering service, the ONLY thing you can do after hours is leave VOICEMAIL! (This is the main reason I'm going to switch doctors now, that's just completely ridiculous.) I left a scathing voicemail in their "General Delivery" mailbox with the doctor's name on it, but somehow I doubt it will do any good.
So, I tried calling the insurance company to see what else they can do, if anything, since I have only 1 pill left. I went through 2 menus, gave my account info so they could look up the records, went through 3 more menus, and was THEN told "Sorry, we're closed, call back during regular business hours." WHY couldn't you have told me that 4 menus ago??

I'm beyond livid, but I'm stuck til Monday, so I'm saving the one pill I have to take tomorrow (I've missed a single day before with no noticeable effect.)

At least venting on here seems to be somewhat therapeutic. Thanks for reading, if you got this far without your eyes bleeding. ;)

Enough of being a pansy

Not that pansies are not beautiful flowers, they are. I mean it more in the sense of not being a chicken. Actually, I'm not sure chicken is quite right, either. It's more that I feel uncomfortable in certain places, and unsure of myself, and so I don't go there. I stay away from places that I care about, away from friends that I miss deeply, because I'm walking on eggshells and feeling awkward. So, today I decided I don't want to do that anymore. I've started, slowly, to go back to places I used to visit, make idle chit-chat where it seems appropriate... trying to ease back into things. We'll see how it goes.

I really really miss interacting with these friends. Some have changed since I've known them. Not that I expect things to stay the same all the time, mind you... but some of these changes have been extreme. Now they're not all BAD, either... 1 friend has been through SO much, and it's not over yet, but she's away from a really bad situation, and she's keeping her son safe and happy, and her strength is just totally amazing. Another friend... it's really odd, I'm not sure what happened. A few months ago, if you had asked me to list the top 10 rational, level-headed people I knew, she would have been one of them, no question. Then, she somehow seemed to stop being able to see both sides of a situation. That used to be something she had a particular strength for... but now people that she used to consider friends, are capable of horrible things, without even attempting to see their side of it. It's very strange.

The last change is the one that pains me the most. She's been through a hell of a lot, too, and is still in the middle of some of it. She's very sweet, and generous, and usually fiercely loyal to her friends. She's always had some anxiety issues, and with good reason... but in the past few months, they've grown and... I dunno, blossomed I suppose. Now she's paranoid, even about close friends, and she lashes out, even at people who care very deeply for her. Some have given up entirely :( Some of us haven't given up, and still hope she'll come back to us someday...

Wow, I've been neglecting this...

So... I did mention in an earlier post that I'm a horrible procrastinator, right? I know, I am FAR overdue for an update on here. All of you who have left comments... you are all wonderful, and I appreciate the comments very much :)

I'm sure if anyone's actually been keeping up with this, the question in everyone's mind is what happened next... and amazingly enough, he didn't fit the profile for counseling not working. We stayed separated for a little while, but not very long. We both went to some counseling, we did a LOT of talking, a lot of crying, and a huge, HUGE amount of praying. He's home now, and things are SO much better, it's hard to believe. It's not perfect, of course... nothing ever is.... but I'm not scared to talk to him anymore, not afraid to disagree or be upset with him.

The kids are all doing well, growing like weeds, of course. The oldest is in kindergarten this year, and LOVES it... she loves being a big kid and riding the bus to school (I try not to think about it too much, so I don't panic! lol) The middle one is in preschool 5 days a week, and now the littlest one goes 3 days a week as well. They are two peas in a pod... sometimes I think they might as well have been twins, for how they act. Debra HATES it when Emily gets to go to school without her. When they are together, they are never out of each other's sight. They have a language all their own. (Though they also both have amazing vocabularies in English, too! Have you ever heard a 2 year old say "cookie catastrophe"? It's somethin else, I tell ya...)

So for all of you who have been wondering, I apologize for the lack of updates. For those that were praying and sending your good thoughts our way, I greatly GREATLY appreciate it.

**hugs to everyone**