Overdue

You know, you would think that having longstrider's parents here all week would be conducive to much more frequent blogging since they cheerfully watched K most of the week while I frantically tried to crawl out from under the ever-snowballing avalanche of work. But instead, I kept doing crazy things with my free time like being social with actual people, face-to-face and sharing the same physical space. And even leaving the house sometimes. I know! What will those kooky kids think of next?

So, um, hi! I think at this point it's going to be a given that posting is going to be spotty for the next couple weeks, as the facts that it's three weeks until Halloween and I make costumes for a living collide in a giant pileup of overwork. Added to the fun is that fact that I don't have K in nearly as many hours of daycare _or_ an out-of-work husband at home to help out like I did last year. This should be fun.

Anyway, the in-laws are gone now and we're all sad. But life goes on, and while I have the time, here are a few updates on the momentous happenings in our lives:

longstrider: Took the test to be promoted to supervisor level at work recently. He passed, which means he's now eligible to interview for one of the 15 open supervisor positions available. This will be very very nice if he gets one of them because it will be a hefty raise. We're not sure what his actual chances are, but apparently they want people in these positions by the end of the month so we won't have to wait long for an answer.

Me: I'm starting work on the 12th. I haven't received any actual paperwork yet to make it official, but my boss wants me to come in for training anyway. And I've decided that even though this job isn't going to pay as much money as Ebay, I'm going to quit Ebay after Halloween (well, I might keep my hand in by making a set number of masks every week, but it will be far fewer than I'm making now). This business may be making money, but it's also costing us money and in all sorts of intangible ways. For one thing, I don't cook nearly as often as I should because I use all of my free time and naptime working. So the times I might be using to start dinner (or exercise, or do housework, or work on craft projects or start the great American novel) is spent working. And when it's not, I'm so tired and frazzled from working that I can't find the energy to do other things. I work all evening, every evening, which prevents me from doing more with longstrider than sitting on the couch in front of the tv together. I've been realizing for a while that I need a job where my work and my home life have very clear boundaries, so now that I have the opportunity to get that, I'm going to take it.

Realistically, I know I'm not going to magically become the perfect parent, spouse and housekeeper if I do this. But I know that in January before I started selling again, I was much better about this stuff, so it will help.

K: We hadn't intended to bring out the potty until the excitement of houseguests had come and gone. But longstrider found her in the basement last Saturday pointing at the potty, so he brought it up and she willingly sat on it. Since then, she hasn't shown a lot of interest in sitting on it (except the time that she put it on top of the futon mattress her grandparents were sleeping on, which they understandably objected to). But she clearly gets the idea of what it's for - when she woke up from her nap a couple days ago, she came out diaperless with her hands covered in poo. When I went into to her room to survey the carnage, I discovered, after gingerly poking through her bedcovers for the poopy diaper and not finding it, that she had put it in her potty. Clearly, if she thinks the order of operations is to poop in the diaper, _then_ put it in the potty, we have some work to do. But at least she knows what it's for.

(And for the morbidly curious, as far as I can tell, she just took off her poopy diaper and then came to find us, which means that the cleanup was pretty small. longstrider's mother took her off to the bathroom and all I really had to do was clean out the potty and the doorknob. We definitely lucked out, since toddlers are notorious for poop artwork. Thank goodness for Clorox wipes and having extra adults around is all I can say)

For my own reference: the recipe for Wednesday's casserole

Adapted from this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen.

This was supposed to be a stuffed peppers recipe with couscous. Only I didn't have couscous so I substituted brown rice. And I have a philosophy when it comes to certain things called "Life's too short." In this case it goes, "Life's too short to shovel filling into a vegetable when you can just chop it all up and shove it in a casserole dish instead and have it taste the same." Also, I was busy and wanted the shortest cooking method. I also added parmesan cheese because 1), a topping of cheese or bread crumbs or the like help prevent the top of a casserole from drying out and getting overbrowned and 2), there are very few dishes that can't be improved with more cheese. So here's the brown rice, chop-eveything-up-and-stick-it-in-a-casserole version of couscous and feta stuffed peppers.

Cooking oil for the frying pan
1 3/4 cups fat-free chicken or vegetable broth
3/4 cup uncooked brown rice
3 bell peppers, mixed colors (one of those three-packs of yellow, red and orange would be ideal), chopped into roughly one-inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped onion
6 oz zucchini, quartered lengthwise then sliced across thinly
6 oz yellow squash, quartered lengthwise then sliced across thinly (I wound up using two medium yellow squash and one medium zucchini and it was the perfect amount)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt (I forgot to add this, and with the saltiness of the feta we never missed it)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
15 oz canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed
4 oz crumbled feta cheese (about 1 cup)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
parmesan cheese, shredded

Put the broth and rice in a rice cooker about half an hour before you plan to do the rest of your cooking. Preheat the oven to 350. Sautee the sqash, peppers, onion and oregano until cooked (I like to add a tablespoon or two of water after the pan is heated up to create steam to help the cooking go faster). Combine cooked vegetables with the cooked rice, chickpeas, tomatoes, tomato paste and feta cheese in a two quart casserole and sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top to taste. Put in the oven for 20 minutes or so (I did 15 and it didn't seem like it got quite hot enough, so I would go for 20-25 next time).