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Meet Paul: Your Monthly Male

Hey, friends! So, it kind of hurts my brain to say this, but I’m working on a mild site revamp. I’m going to be adding some new pictures, writing some new material, and generally just making things better. Now, I don’t know if you guys have noticed this, but there is a serious lack of testosterone around here. I’m sure the men out there who read this would appreciate some material from their side of the fence.
On that note, I’d like you to meet Paul (not my Paul; this is a different Paul) N. He’s a (gasp) Dude Blogger and he’s going to be providing some much-needed male perspective around here. This month, his topic is Mom Blogging. Is he a fan? Is he annoyed by it? Read on, friends, read on!

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. I love moms. I think they’re pretty great. In fact, I have one of my very own! Well, actually I share her with seven siblings, four in-laws, four grandchildren and my sometimes-childish father, but who’s counting? (Yeah, she’s kind of a big deal….)
As I have grown older, I have appreciated my mother, and mothers everywhere, more and more as I become aware of all the things that she has done for me, all the crap I put her through, and all the minutiae and tedium that mothers deal with on an hourly basis. Where have I discovered this new eye-opening perspective? MomBlogs, of course!
Why yes, I DO frequently trawl the internet for blogs about child-rearing, why do you ask? Ok, I don’t actually do that, but I read Lauren’s blog and my sister also has a successfulblog dedicated to wife/motherhood, cooking, and Catholicism (You’re welcome, Theresa). Through these two outlets, I have gained insight into a darker side of parenting that I didn’t even know existed.
Let’s tell it like it is, though. Is there anything more self-serving than a blog about motherhood? Now, I truly don’t mean this in a negative way, but honestly, to which demographic does this e-genre cater? I can only think of one…Welders don’t care about the merits of cloth vs. disposable diapers. Travel agents don’t worry about the easiest way to get a three-year-old to brush her teeth.
But isn’t that the beauty of blogs in the first place? You find that thing that’s important to you, that you have thoughts and opinions about, that you can share with other like-minded people, and you put it all on the internet for review, validation, or rebuttal. I know that’s what I do with my blog – have a thought, rant about it for a while, pretend that other people care about what I have to say, and hope somebody reads it and agrees.
I will say this, though: if there is one topic that transcends geography, profession, and economic status, it is parenthood. No matter what a person does for a living or where they are, there is always potential for a little bundle of joy to come and make them care about what brand of baby food is best, whether they wanted to or not. And when that time comes, where will they turn for all this insight that they never knew they needed? Ok, fine, they would go to their pediatrician, and then to Dr. Spock, but after that, they would turn to the matrio-blogsophere for conversation on the very things that have their head spinning at home.
And yes, I know there is much more to these blogs than debate on whether to lay an infant on his back or stomach. There is much more to these women than “just” taking care of their children. Regardless, the best part of any parenting blog isn’t the theories and philosophies of child-rearing. It isn’t the musings about life in general from the mothers. ItDEFINITELY isn’t all those recipes that I’m never going to use. It’s all the great stories about the hilarious little things that children do.
I am not a parent, so the best I can do is live vicariously through my nieces and nephew, and when I can’t see them, the MomBlogs can certainly provide a good chuckle, or a nice eye-roll, or even a “…sure am glad I don’t have to deal with THAT…”
…So keep writing for yourselves and for your fellow moms, ladies….and every once in a while curious passers-by like me will stop in for a quick read and a quick dose of perspective.

Anyone out there have a different opinion? Do you agree? Have any thoughts to add?

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I’m THIS excited!

Hey guys! I’ve got a couple ofAWESOME announcements! Yesterday, Crystal at Money Saving Mom featured a guest post from yours truly! You’ll have to check it out, leave a comment, and go buy yourself a dish of ice cream

Also…Do me a favor and look up. Well, I mean look towards the top of this post… Do you see those pretty little buttons? Now you can subscribe to my blog via RSS and check out my Twitter page! You should probably do both of those things, and follow my tweets while you’re at it.

Once you do those things, you should probably take yourself out for ice cream again. Or maybe frozen yogurt. Either way, you’ve got a kick-butt excuse to do so.

Have an awesome day!

(Photo Credit: http://bollywood-jannat.blogspot.com/2008/10/happy-animals-images-and-video.html)

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A Day to Tip Your Hat

Today is my Grandpa Anderberg’s birthday.

Right now, he’s probably chewing tobacco, swearing, and using a horse as a golf cart as he plays 9 holes in the sky.

I just thought today would be a good day to tell you guys about him.

Grandpa’s first name is Harlan, and he loved golf, cribbage, horses, and putting salt on anything he decided to put in his mouth. He also loved the living crap out of his family.

One time, Alli (my sister) and I decided to hide all of his cans of chew. We giggled quietly as we watched him move around the house, trying to keep his cool, and asking my Grandma if she knew where they were. After a little while, Alli and I realized that it didn’t look like Grandpa thought our little game was funny. In fact, the only time I’d seen him more pissed was when we (along with my cousins, Jessie and Lacey) managed to lock everyone (including us) out of their bathroom.

Finally, we retrieved the little cans from their hiding places and turned on our cutest, sweetest faces as we presented them to him.

Did Grandpa yell at us? Definitely not. Did he look serious when he told us not to do it again? Absolutely. In fact, I believe he took us outside to play Croquet after it was all over.
That’s what was so awesome about Grandpa; he was a big, tough, cowboy who could do just about anything…but we knew that under his hat and boots, he was just a big, fluffy, grandkid-loving bunny.

And we all miss him like crazy.

I’m not going to stretch this one out… I just thought the Blogosphere would be a better place having known a little bit about my Grandpa on his birthday.

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CSA Summer: Produce EVERYWHERE!

Okay. Confession time…again.

I am slightly overwhelmed. It’s like someone planted a garden in our fridge awhile back, and what was quietly growing in there suddenly EXPLODED.

Need some juice? A piece of cheese, maybe? Okay, sure…but only if you can find it amidst the green bags FILLED WITHVEGETABLES.

Am I complaining? Absolutely not. Am I overwhelmed? Again, yeah. Totally.

I had all these big plans of regular, weekly CSA updates, complete with a bajillion photos and great how-to information. That, obviously, is not the case. I’ll admit, this last weekend was pretty full… Not a whole lot of opportunities to do any real cooking…but that’s a flimsy excuse at best.

“So, Lauren,” you ask, “did you guys purchase too large of a share?”

I’ve been thinking about that one, and I say we still made the right decision. So what’s the problem, then? Let me tell you: we have been LAZY. It’s a whole lot easier to throw something together that is easy and familiar than to figure out what the heck to do withChard. Now, if we were continuing to think creatively, and rely more heavily on our CSAproduce, rather than try to fit it in to existing meals, we’d probably be saving about $60 dollars on groceries every two weeks.

So it’s time to re-group. Last night, we meal-planned. I always start this and then crap out (eerily similar to my exercise habits) about three weeks in. Hopefully we can keep this up. This time, though, I’m planning a little differently.
Instead of saying, “On Thursday we shall eat Pesto Pizza. SO IT IS WRITTEN!”, I’ve got ‘meal options,’ that way, if we don’t feel like eating Pesto Pizza on Thursday, we don’t have to…and my OCD doesn’t punch me in the face for screwing up our schedule. I may write day-of-the-week suggestions, based on the age of the produce involved, but they’re not set in stone.

All that being said, we did manage to have a CSA-inspired dinner with our friends. For privacy’s sake, I’ve decided to call them B-Town and J-Sauce. Now, these two are vegetarians…and before you leave immediately for reading the V-word, let me defend myself. Since vegetarian recipes don’t use meat, they are forced to rely on creative ingredients, herbs, and spices. All this means is that you get a much more strategic and flavorful dish. Any carnivore can throw meat in one of the recipes and revel in the flavorful glory of the vegetarian’s resourcefulness.

Aaaaaaanyway, for starters, we had some sauteed Kohlrabi to munch on. We dipped it in tahini and spicy peanut sauce. I’d never had Kohlrabi before, and it was surprisingly good! It was crunchy and tasted like a cross between a turnip and a water chestnut.

For the main meal, we had an awesome salad using Red Fire Lettuce from our CSA, cucumbers, apples, dried cherries, and a yummy balsamic vinaigrette that J-Sauce whipped up. We had sauteed turnips and turnip greens with cashews and raisins, and then we had a variation of Paul’s and my specialty: Spanakopita. This is a Greek Spinach pie, and Paul and I have gotten pretty good at whipping up a big batch of them. This time, however, we made them with Chard, Turnip Greens, and Kale…and they were totally delicious.

Did you notice the pints of beer surrounding the meal? As it turns out, B-Town is a beer enthusiast, and always has a couple home-brews on tap. Here are some descriptions of the beers, straight from the Brewer himself:

“The beers: Belgian Pale Ale, a copper ale with supple, nuanced malt flavors paired with fruity yeast notes. It is nicely balanced with a slightly sweet opening and a clean finish.
Black IPA: Hops! An IPA brewed with roasted malts. The color is black but the roast character is very subdued and blends into a supple malt undertone. The beer is dominated by a citrus/hop character and a grapefruit aroma.”

Sounds tasty, huh? I’m no beer expert, but I had the Belgian Pale Ale and found it to be yummy and refreshing.

Overall, it was a pretty delicious meal. It was nice to eat dinner with people who are a little more acclimated to the CSA way of life than we are. Hopefully we can learn from them and next week you’ll get to read a post that involves a much better utilized round of produce!