But stuff has been going on, and I don't want to forget about them before I finally have a chance to write about them. I also want to prove to you all that we're not dead.
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Mr. Pickles and I went to see Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center this week. To a 1:30 show. On a Wednesday. All the weekends were booked solid by the time we started looking at tickets. A dear friend in our baby sitting co-op bent over backwards to watch all our kids so we could go. The last time we saw Les Miz was before we were married -- Mr. Pickles took me to see it in DC and I was so impressed that he was willing to spend so much money on me! The show was great -- the singing was A-MAZ-ING -- the staging was fairly simple but interesting -- the final scene was heart-wrenching and inspiring... and the sound was L.O.U.D. I think everyone was miked, and they had the speakers set to "bleeding ears." It was like watching a movie at the loud theater, only louder. Our ears were ringing afterwards. But we had awesome seats! Orchestra level at the Kennedy Center is the way to go. That's a tip, kids; write it down.
It was fun getting all dressed up in the middle of the day. But then we had to pick the kids up and bring them home and change out of our lovely raiment to feed them... back to the humdrum. After Mr. Pickles makes his first million I'm going to get season tickets. :) (Sigh, I miss student prices for Pittsburgh shows!)
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My second-worst fears as a housewife have been realized: it seems that Mr.Pickles has a sensitivity to wheat. (The worst fear is that we'll have lice. Or bedbugs. They're equally terrifying.) Whenever he eats white flour, it makes him feel ill. It's such a staple in my meal planning that I've been hard pressed to find alternatives for him. I have to say, though, that it hasn't been as involved as I thought it would. He pretty much takes care of his own breakfast and lunch each day (yes, I know, I am a neglectful wife). And for dinner I've been making things with the wheat component separate. For example tonight we had chicken and broccoli in white sauce over pasta -- but for Mr. Pickles I made rice (it was supposed to be rice pasta but the grocery delivery man forgot a bag on the truck, thanks a lot, PeaPod). Last night it was fried sausage & potatoes (no wheat at all), and the night before it was chili with cornbread on the side. Tomorrow we'll have bean soup with rolls on the side. The only meals I won't be able to make are things like pot pies, a couple casserole dishes with biscuit dough baked on top (unless I separate a serving of the filling before adding the dough, which I have also done), or baked pasta. So it's not the end of my career of cooking with simplicity. But man, that gluten free stuff is going to break the bank.
All is not lost, however -- it turns out that he is only really sensitive to white flour. Whole wheat doesn't seem to bother him. I'll need to try to experiment with that white-wheat flour to see if I can make bread that doesn't weigh as much as a brick.
Oh, and he might have a parasite. Fun times!
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In other food and budget-breaking news, we're already spending more on groceries b/c we're trying to eat real food type things and avoid stuff like high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and nitrites. It's not until you start reading labels that you realize how pervasive those things are. Real food is hard to find, especially convenience foods. However! There is a good side -- we have found some really delicious things this way. We found a brand of root beer that uses sugar instead of corn syrup, and oh, my, it's worth the $1 a bottle! It tastes like real live actual Root Beer -- you know, like homemade soda made out of real sassafras and brewed in your best friend's basement, or something equally awesome. And the only ice cream we've been able to find is, I think, Dreyers -- again, it tastes like Real Food. This is the reason we try to make our own bread, and yogurt, and jam. For one thing, you know exactly what you're putting into it. And for another, once you've tasted homemade it's so hard to go back to store bought -- it just tastes fake after you've had the real thing.
The next step we're contemplating is getting a freezer chest so we can buy a half a hog, or a quarter of beef, or some other obscene amount of real meat from healthy animals that actually get to see the sun and walk on real ground and eat real food themselves. There are several nearby organic farms out here -- a lot of our friends will split the costs for large amounts of meat, butter, eggs, and the like. I'd even like to buy a share in a cow so we could get fresh milk, much to the horror of my mother. But I've tasted some at friends' houses, and my oh my, it is SO good. I'm just happy we're in a place now financially that we can consider all this. Yes, it is harder trying to stick to a budget this way -- I have to sacrifice a lot of convenience foods and make more things from scratch to save money (although we can't seem to wean ourselves off of crackers for the kids -- there are some things I'm willing to let slide). It takes time, but all in all the gain in health and flavor makes it worth it. I think the smell of the house when I'm making bread is worth a million times the inconvenience!
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We've been shopping for new carpet for the basement. I will be so happy when we get that living space back again. I didn't realize just how much I had come to depend on it until I tried doing school all on one level. It's so hard -- I can't do any reading with the girls unless at least one of the boys is asleep. Otherwise the boys spend all their time running around and yelling at each other, because they don't have anything else to do (and it's fun). They just get bored living in one room. But when we were doing schoolwork in the basement, they had shelves of toys to keep them busy, and if one of the girls was getting distracted by them I could send her upstairs to the dining table for a few minutes to complete her assignment. I'm hoping our days will run more smoothly when we have all our living spaces put back to rights.
Aside from providing a fully functional basement, the new carpet itself isn't too exciting -- it's pretty similar to what we had before. What IS exciting is that we decided to go ahead and get new flooring in the dining room AND kitchen too! I KNOW! We are just crazy party animals here. We had been talking about
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Finally, costume season hath arrived! The last couple days I've been sewing up a storm because, me being me, I waited until the last possible second to start working on the kids' costumes. (Really. I figured out -- subconsciously actually -- how much time I would need to sew the things I needed to sew, and started working on them when I knew I absolutely couldn't wait another minute or they wouldn't get done in time.) Once again, I made the kids pick two-fers -- the costume they wanted had to work for both trick or treating and our homeschool group's All Saints party. Katie got around that by using last year's costume, with a couple amendments, to represent a new saint this year. And Daniel is big enough that he could use Jojo's from last year. But still, four children times two occasions means eight separate ensembles with accessories to think about, plan, and purchase! Fortunately I still love all that stuff -- I just wish I had occasion to dress up too! (Kids get all the fun. *pout*) I'll save all the rest of the details for another post, when I have more pictures.
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So, you see? Not dead. Just handling life with lots of people, a few minor emergencies, and not quite enough energy to stay on top of everything!
