Working it Out

We've been pretty uninspired about housework around here lately, so I thought we might need a new system to get us on track. Over the years, Bella and I have tried quite a few different chore systems to try to take the work out of work and make it fun. Some have been more successful than others, but each one has been entertaining in its own way - so I thought it might be a good idea to post a few of the family systems/books/resources we've tried, in case a few of you might like to give them a try too.

The first one we fell in love with was Handipoints. This website used to allow you to make chore lists for each child - and not just chores, but a lot of other good activities too, from homework enrichment activities, to exercise ideas, to general good behavior. Each came with an associated number of points. Points could be spent on activities that kids selected from another area of the website, things ranging from "Play a Game" to "Invite a friend roller-skating" - the fun activities were almost as useful as the chore lists. Another kind of points could also be spent in a virtual playland like Moshi Monsters or Webkinz, on a cat figure that decorated her house or played games. So much fun. Sadly, the website did an update in September, and I don't know about the rest of the world, but the Janicki family at least cannot get this website to work to save our lives. We're still crossing our fingers and hoping it comes back.

The second fun chore idea we've tried is called Chore Wars. This one allows you to choose a D&D style character. When you do a chore, your character gets experience points, which will be familiar to you if you've ever played old school D&D or Final Fantasy. Different chores also give you experience in different things (for instance, "washing dishes" takes both constitution and dexterity - don't want to drop the dishes, looking at old food may take a strong stomach ;) ). After so many experience points, your character levels up, and her stats change according to the tasks you've been performing. You also have a random chance of either meeting a monster or finding a dropped item. For instance, washing dishes gives you between 1 and 30 gold pieces, a 20% chance of treasure (such as a spoon - which in our house, can be redeemed for the opportunity to choose the next supper), and may lead to an encounter with a water elemental - which is a fake battle in static cartoon form. Your character hits, then they hit, etc., until one or the other of you is vanquished - no points there, but still fun!

Today's selection, an iPhone app, is a little like both systems put together. You Rule Chores is an app that allows players to choose a cartoon superhero, complete with a special power, such as "power over time and space" or kung fu prowess. After so many chores, your character will level up, giving them additional powers which you can see by touching them with your finger. For instance, Bella's kung fu girl can now catch a butterfly with chopsticks. Each chore counts towards this leveling, and also gives you between 1 and 5 coins. Coins can be saved up for rewards such as computer time or a trip to the ice cream store. I think the defaul reward settings are eminently reasonable, which is nice, as I don't really like to tweak much. For instance, "watch a movie at home - must start by 7 p.m." will cost 10 coins, which Bella could earn by cleaning her room 3 times, doing her homework for 3 days, or, if she was really, really feeling lazy, by brushing her teeth 10 days in a row. The graphics and sounds are nice, and it's fun to use. Currently, it's priced at $3.99 on the app store. It may be worth checking out!



If you have any fun ways around your house to pretend you're not doing chores, I'd love to hear them!

The Sweet Life?

Today we are getting ready around here for a trip to the endocrinologist, so I thought I'd blog about something more serious than usual: diabetes. As I mentioned briefly at the start of this blog, my daughter has type 1 diabetes. This came as a shock to me when we found out. While my grandmother did develop type 2 diabetes at the end of her life, after seemingly existing on a diet of air and Whitman's Sampler chocolates for several years as far as I, the occasionally visiting teenage granddaughter, could see, no one in our family has ever had a more clearly hereditary form of diabetes, and in fact, when they told me that Bella had it, I was not 100 percent sure what it was, though I was sure that the nurses had lost their minds when they told me that I would be walking out of the hospital with a bag of syringes and something called insulin in a week, left to our own devices - me giving her shots and counting something called "carbohydrates". Me, whose interest in food previously was purely gourmet. Me, who averts her eyes whenever they show scenes on Grey's Anatomy that actually have to deal with treating patients. Somehow, if I'd thought about it at all, I'd always thought that people with serious health issues were treated by visiting nurses. Definitely not left in the hands of novice parents, shown some rudimentary steps by jovial doctors who assure you that "you'll get the hang of it".

The first time I tried to test my own blood sugar to show Bella how painless it is, I hopped around the room saying "Ow!" and cradling my hand for ten minutes. It was all I could do not to cry. It's a good thing one of us is tough. I am no stranger to pain myself. I had open heart surgery when I was four to correct a congenital defect. But they had the decency to put me to sleep first.

Somehow we've come through it, Bella and I. I've educated myself, read all the right books, marched in the Walk to Cure Diabetes, met up with other parents of type 1 kids at Central Ohio Diabetes Association events. And yet...I wonder at what point you start to feel like you're doing it right. When do you feel capable and why is there no clear cut plan? When do you stop feeling angry that your daughter has to count carbohydrates and worry about chronic illness, when you did all the right things - breastfeeding, and avoiding caffeine and alcohol and hair dye. I once, in a fit of pregnancy panic, even called the manufacturers of a lotion after learning that it contained Vitamin A, which apparently pregnant women aren't supposed to use in a concentrated form. Why didn't all that vigilance pay off? If it didn't pay off then, what's to say the most careful treatment regiment will pay off now? Most of the time, we deal with our old 'new' lifestyle pretty well these days, but still sometimes, I worry.

The Best of 2011

Today's list post takes a page from Entertainment Weekly, or any number of other magazines and newspapers at this time of the year, as we announce our annual Best of awards. Being a completely biased publication, this blog will now submit, in snappy numerical format, my favorite (and therefore, the best, of course!) books, movies and music of 2011. If the Mayans are right and the world ends next year, I guess that makes these submissions the best of all time, since there won't be a 2012 list. But I think there will be one.

Drumroll please...

Books (Perhaps Not All From This Year, But Books I Read This Year)

1. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
2. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets by Peter Menzel
4. Feed and Deadline by Mira Grant (2 books, but one amazing series)
5. One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire
6. IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq
7. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
8. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
9. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
10. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Movies and TV

1. Dollhouse
2. American Horror Story
3. Glee
4. An Education
5. Firefly
6. Army Wives
7. Never Let Me Go (a double category winner :) )
8. Fringe
9. Clare and Francis
10. Black Swan

Music (or, This Year's Soundtrack)

1. Owl City
2. Lady Gaga
3. Glee music
4. Harry Connick Jr - "Stardust"
5. Fastball - "The Way"
6. Music from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
7. Jack Johnson
8. The Pogues
9. "What You Don't Know" by Jonatha Brooke
10. "Adventures of Isabel" by Natalie Merchant

Games

1. The Sims Medieval
2. Who Would Win?
3. Pandemic
4. Smallville
5. Top Ten: The Bill of Rights
6. Words with Friends
7. Fluxx
8. Mad Scientist University
9. The Sims 2 (still a better game mechanic than Sims 3)
10. Kung Fu Fighting

Descriptions of said winners are, perhaps, yet to come. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your best of lists, readers!

What Alice Forgot

What would your ten-years-ago self say about your life if she stepped into it this morning? Would you like the way you've been conducting your life? Has it turned out the way you had planned? Is the person you are now the person you wanted to be? These are the questions that Alice grapples with after she wakes up on the floor of a gym one morning with a head injury, unexpectedly 39 and divorcing, with three children, instead of 29 and pregnant with their first child, as she remembers being yesterday.

There were some page-turning questions that kept me up into the wee hours of the morning - will Alice reconcile with her husband? Will she get her memory back? Who is this Gina that she keeps hazily remembering, and wouldn't she have been better forgotten? Liane Moriarty is a hell of a writer. Watching her reconnect with her sister, and her husband, and her life, makes you want to phone all the people you care about and share your own good memories - makes you think about the choices you've made, and the things you've kept and lost along the way.

Everyone should read this book immediately.

Yay me?

Feeling a little iffy about my housecleaning prowess after this conversation with my daughter:

Bella walks into bedroom, which looks like a tornado hit it after yesterday's fruitless quest for lost computer games to install on new laptop.

Bella: Whoah!

Me: I know, I still need to clean this room after yesterday!

Bella: No, not that - the nightstand. It's really clean! (pointing at the nightstand I have managed to clean off this morning).

Apparently, huge mess is normal. But I have made one thing impeccably clean. Go me?

Haven't We Been Here Before?

Yesterday, my family and I went to see a movie that was frankly, silly. I hadn't really wanted to see it, but I love going to the movies, and every time I think, "Wow! Won't this be a terrible movie?" I remember what a good time I've had watching terrible movies in the past, like Starship Troopers or the movie with the hamster secret agents. Sometimes it's as much about the theater experience as it is the movie itself. So, a Christmas outing seemed like a fine idea.

But as I was sitting in the movie - The Darkest Hour, which, for those of you who missed the preview, is about invisible aliens made of electricity who overtake Russia and kill instantly by blasting people unlucky enough to touch them to smithereens - as I was watching this, I started to think of how much this set reminded me of another set, which leads me to today's topic: movies that share sets. I thought this would be the kind of thing that is easy to look up online, because the internet is filled with both trivia lovers and movie buffs. Sadly, it is not. There are a few websites who have been here before, among them this one. I've also learned of a few specific examples. Did you know that the Desperate Housewives live in the same neighborhood as Samantha from Bewitched? Or that Back to the Future and To Kill a Mockingbird shared the same town? The most blatant example I can personally think of is a BBC crossover moment. When I watched the old BBC version of Ballet Shoes (a cute movie about three orphaned girls who excel in the arts, based on a book by Noel Streatfeild), I was surprised to see that the girls apparently lived in Jean and Lionel's house, from As Time Goes By. Their living room had been rearranged, but it made for an eerily familiar effect, especially when they went up the stairs. It's hard to change stairs.

Unfortunately, I could find absolutely no indication that the movie I saw yesterday shared a set. Apparently, most of it was shot on location in Russia. But I still think this topic is ripe for a website. Well, readers? Do you have any other good examples of this phenomenon?

Happy Chanukkah! (with recipe)

So, I think today is the third day of Chanukah, if I'm counting correctly. On the first day of Chanukah, my brother Jack came home from school and said, "Did you know it's Chanukah today? Let's make latkes."

And I said, "Holidays that involve cooking? I'm always up for those!"

So we made vegan latkes, the recipe I will now give to you, so that you too can enjoy buttery (or fake buttery, as the case may be) potato goodness in your home.
We also, with Bella, explored the history of Chanukah. Up til now, my Chanukah information has come from this source. In our quest to learn a little more about the holiday, we came up with two good sources (particularly for kids under 10) - Sesame Street's very cute, quick explanation and a new app: Chai on Chanukah.

Chai on Chanukah not only explains the history of the holiday in an interactive storybook, but also includes a virtual dreidel game, a virtual menorah to light, and a funny (but also fairly stereotypical) present-opening game. Might be something to check out, if you're looking for a fun new Chanukah app for your kids.

And now:

Vegan Latkes

3 potatoes
1 tsp. egg replacer
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
2 tb. margarine or vegan butter substitute
vegetable oil

1. Peel and grate potatoes to measure 4 cups. Put in colander to drain and press gently on top with paper towels to get rid of excess water.

2. Mix egg replacer, flour, onion, salt, pepper and baking powder in large bowl, then mix with potatoes. Put margarine in skillet and melt, then add vegetable oil to cover the skillet with a thin layer of oil. Set heat to medium high.

3. Make balls of potato mixture and then shape into pancake shapes before gently placing in hot skillet. Flatten out with spatula, but gently. Cook each side until golden brown and thoroughly cooked. Turn the heat down if it seems like they're getting browned too fast.

4. Serve warm, with applesauce and (vegan) sour cream.

10 Again

Ten Things I Love About the Holidays

1. Food, of course! Yay food! Christmas cookies, Christmas pudding, and all seasonal things like mince pies, or roast goose, buche de noel and peppermint bark.

2. Maybe peppermint bark deserves a special mention all its own. Yum, yum, yum.



You can buy it from here.

3. Carols and Christmas songs like this one, this one, and this one.

4. Ok, I admit it, I love getting presents. Especially if they are books, video games, or something for the kitchen.

5. I love giving them too.

6. The feeling of camaraderie everybody seems to get around December, as if they've suddenly realized that goodwill towards men includes everyone, and not just the people they like.

7. Christmas specials on tv. My absolute favorite is "The Night Before Christmas" with the mice, but this may be an opinion shared by no one but me.

8. Seeing our stockings hung by the chimney with care, and the house looking all decorated and Christmas-y.

9. Tracking Santa on NORAD's Santa Tracker with my daughter on Christmas eve. We also enjoy hanging out at this website around Christmas-time.

10. Seeing the myriad of fun new ways that others celebrate the holidays, and incorporating their traditions into our own family traditions.

How about you? What are your favorite holiday traditions?

Clearing up the confusion

Random Spanish

A few interesting things I learned about Spanish today, while subbing:

1. The word for fur you wear "piel" is not the same as fur on an animal "pelo".

2. Pez means fish.

3. Zorro means fox. Cause he's sneaky like one, right?

4. Poner means 'to put down', making the phrase 'You got poned!' Spanglish for 'you were put down!'

Cool stuff. :)

4-star vegan cuisine at our house tonight

An exceptional recipe (which just so happens to be both incredibly fast and easy) was cooked at our house tonight (not by me), and since the chef has graciously agreed to share his recipe, I thought I'd pass it on to you! You can also substitute whatever fresh or frozen vegetables you have available in your fridge or garden, in roughly equal amounts.

What's-in-the-Fridge? Vegan Stir-Fry

Serves 3. Takes approximately 15-20 minutes.

1 cup rice
1/2 lb extra firm tofu
2 tb peanut oil or canola oil
1/4 cup of sliced onion
1 tb. minced garlic
5-6 sliced radishes
1 whole carrot, julienned (cut into little matchstick-sized pieces)
1/2 cup frozen mukimame or edamame
1/2 cup of Nestle Asian style sauce or other spicy peanut sauce
Romaine lettuce leaves

1. Cook rice, according to package directions.
2. While rice is cooking, press tofu between several layers of paper towels. Put something heavy on top of it, like a large book, to press the excess water out. Leave this for about 2 minutes.
3. Cut tofu into medallions about 1/2" thick and 1 1/2" long.
4. Fry in a wok or frying pan with oil on medium-high heat til golden brown on both sides, about 4 minutes per side.
5. Add onion, garlic, radishes, carrots and mukimame, tossing constantly, til vegetables become crisp-tender.
6. Stir in sauce and turn heat to medium low (3 on an electric stove). Stir in drained rice.
7. Serve with romaine lettuce leaves.

Let me know if you try it!

Is giftedness a gift?

Here's an interesting article I found online today about the so-called 'curse of the gifted child' - why stellar students sometimes (maybe even often) grow up to be unfocused adults who lack confidence in their own abilities. http://www.utne.com/The-Sweet-Pursuit/When-Smart-Kids-Grow-Up.aspx

The article posits that if, as a child, academic success comes easily, it is hard to deal with it when things don't come as easily, as you view your abilities as innate - either you know a subject, or you don't; you are good at something, or you're not.

What do you think? As a formerly 'gifted' child, this resonated with me. It also perhaps seems (and I'm not saying this is a good way to be, just perhaps something that falls in line with the article) that there is a discouragement in adult life borne of an inherent sense of unfairness when the rate of return for your efforts becomes so much smaller. A sense of 'everything I had to do to be successful was so easy and self-explanatory then. Why is the path to success so much harder to follow now?'

Do you think we set kids up for failure by enrolling them in gifted programs and celebrating their academic success? If this article is accurate, what do you think can be done to deal with this issue?

Cat-egorically funny

Lacking time for a real post tonight, I thought I'd direct you to this website instead. One of its funny cartoons made my day this morning! If you've had a kitten, some of the cartoons may be all too familiar. http://www.simonscat.com/

Nibble, nibble, little mousekin

These gingerbread house sections were made by my ESL childcare kids today - one of our most fun projects ever! Check out the one with the fishpond! I think Erik could grow up to be a chef. He had his mise en place down too, everything very neatly arranged and ready to start. I have such a great group of kids. And that sugar extravaganza didn't make them hyper at all...if you believe that, there's a bridge I'd like to sell you. :)

The Christmas fun continues

Today's cooking endeavour was this plate of cupcakes, rounded out with some gingerbread cookies, for my uncle Leonard's book signing. Today, an important lesson was learned about baking, and that is - if you cannot find your muffin pan, propping all of the cupcake wrappers up in a sheet cake pan and then filling them with batter is not an acceptable substitute. Unless you want your cupcakes to turn into a sheet cake that looks like the surface of the moon. You have been forewarned. Fortunately, cutting the overgrown cupcakes into small squares and putting them back into fresh cupcake papers made decent-ish petit fours, so the day was saved.

Book signing, you ask? Why yes! My uncle, Leonard Urban, just happens to be an author as well, so excuse me while I take the next paragraph or so for some shameless family promotion.

The Millennium Conquest, Leonard's fourth book, is a semi-autobiographical story about a couple who, dealing with a recurring dream peopled by great historical figures, grapple with questions about the inequality and injustice in the world, and their place in it - what they can do, on a personal level, to help alleviate human suffering and make the world a better place.

This book would make an excellent Christmas gift for someone on your list who thinks about these issues. Proceeds from the book will benefit the Sister Mary Alice Murphy Center for Hope, a homeless resource center in Fort Collins, Colorado. Millennium Conquest is available for $14.95 from Ancient Echoes Publishing in Fort Collins. Leonard is also the author of Look What They've Done to My Church, Requiem for a City Church, and Sighs from the Desert.

Lastly, the pipe cleaner candy cane below was made by my daughter - a fun and easy Christmas craft you or your kids may want to try:

Christmas Cookie Goodness

One of the things you realize when you make a cookie recipe that yields 6 dozen is that nobody needs 6 dozen cookies. It's too many to roll out. It's too many to decorate. And it's way too many to eat. Nevertheless, we have gingerbread cookies around here tonight. Boy, do we. And this is what they look like (decorating provided by Bella):

Ten on Thursday

10 Things You Want, But Wouldn't Buy for Yourself (at least not right now)

1. A really nice, fast computer with good graphics. Not that I wouldn't buy it for myself, but at the moment, it's a little out of my league. Does it count as three things if I also wish it would run Quark and Photoshop?

2. A printer for the computer I want, but am not buying.

3. An X-Box 360, PS3 or Wii. I love to play games. (Thing 3.5, many new games for said game player)

4. Just one of Bella's American Girl dolls to have every last accessory you can buy. Both because it would make her happy, and because my secret nine-year-old self would be thrilled. Oops, now I guess it's not so secret anymore.

5. A refrigerator that keeps track of what's inside, suggests recipes, and also tells you the weather. Because they exist. And that is awesome.

http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/apps-on-your-fridge

6. A horse. Where would I keep it? Nevertheless, I've still not entirely gotten over wanting one.

7. $100 shopping spree at The Tattered Cover, in Denver. Three stories of bookstore, one of amazingly good restaurant with a view overlooking the city. One of my favorite places ever.

8. A solar phone charger you don't have to plug in. Very convenient.

9. An ice cube tray that makes tiny Han Solos in carbonite. Don't believe that such a thing exists? Check this out: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/e845/?cpg=ogpla&source=google_pla&gclid=CPzT34Pb4awCFckZQgodzio2og



10. A tartlet pan. On second thought, I could very well buy a tartlet pan. Tiny mincemeat pies would be fun for Christmas. But I have no immediate plans to buy one, so it still counts!

Well, readers? What 10 things do you wish Santa would bring you?