Category: Uncategorized

Just kidding. These are some of my least favorite things, and they’ve all played a part in irritating me today.

Am I the only person who can’t stand it when advice or tips are called “hacks”? It should mean something quick, clever, and easy. Instead, it’s usually either a stupid and wasteful way to do something differently for no reason, or it’s just a description of the proper way to do something. Pinterest is full of these so-called “hacks,” and I get irrationally angry every time I see one.

You know what else is the worst? Doctors who insist upon being ass-hats. I got a call from a doctor today who actually yelled at me because our pharmacy was out of hydrocodone (a common pain medication). “HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN?!” Like, yeah, I wasn’t pleased about it either, but shit happens. It’s impossible to predict how much we’ll go through, and we don’t get shipments on holidays and weekends. I could kind of understand the anger if we were the only pharmacy open, but there are more than a dozen other pharmacies in town. And then, he has the nerve to get mad at me for refusing to break the law and magically send the prescription to another pharmacy so that he wouldn’t have to re-send it himself (god forbid).

And the last one (for today) is recipes that aren’t really recipes. If I search for a recipe to make a cake, there better not be “cake mix” in the ingredient list. Just…no. If I wanted to bake cake from a box, I wouldn’t be searching for a recipe.

I lied about that being the last one. Also, couches and carpets that smell like pee. Every time I think I’ve gotten rid of it, the smell comes back. This humidity is really bringing it up to the surface. So that’s fun.

But here’s the good news – tomorrow is another day, and I’m going to make it a good one. Probably. No promises.

She may only be 4, but she’s determined. The past few times when we went shopping, there were things she wanted to buy that I didn’t. Believe me when I say that this child has enough unicorns. I’ve told her that she can buy whatever she wants with her own money, and that I’ll happily pay her if she wants to start doing chores. After copious lamenting about how “that’ll take so long to make all that money 😫😭,” today it finally took root.

One of the first things she said to me this morning was “Mom, I’m ready for chores. What jobs can I do to get those coins?” We made a little coin jar with a mason jar and some paper, and away she went. This child spent most of the morning cleaning up toys, making her bed, throwing things out, folding and putting away laundry, and cleaning windows (well…she’s not ready for windows, but she tried).

I thought for sure that she’d just whine about how she wasn’t earning money fast enough (1-25 cents depending on the chore), but she was a trooper and was very excited to count all the pieces of garbage she found throughout the house for a penny each. No complaining, just “Yes, ma’am. I’m on it!” (Honestly, I have no idea why she calls me ma’am, but I kind of love it).

We spent a lot of time talking about what she could do with her newfound wealth, and she (to my surprise) decided that she would like to save it all until she has enough money to buy something really nice. I told her that was a very grown up way of thinking, and she said “That’s why I’m 4, because I’m so smart! I save my coins, and I’m going to be a grownup just like you pretty soon!”

Not too soon, baby girl. Stay little.

Remember my all time favorite bread recipe? If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a go. If you have a stand mixer, it’s only about 15 minutes of hands-on time.

Because this recipe makes two loaves and I only have one bread pan (I like to pretend I’m a minimalist), I usually freeze half of the dough after the first rise. Just pop it in a gallon freezer bag and freeze it until you’re ready to use it. I’ve found that the yeast is happiest if you freeze it for no more than a week or two, but I’ve also forgotten about it and baked it after almost two months and it still made good bread (the cranky yeast made it more of an English muffin texture inside, but it made excellent toast).

In a previous post, I shared a recipe for some awesome caramel cinnamon rolls using the other half of your bread dough, and today I’m going to share with you my recipe for a seriously delicious alternative – sweet almond bread.

It starts with the dough. Either make it at the same time as your sandwich bread, or use your frozen dough. It’s best to thaw the dough in the fridge overnight, but you can also set it out on the counter and it’s usually ready to bake in the afternoon.

This recipe uses the thinly sliced almonds as opposed to slivered almonds, because the lighter slices allow the bread to rise higher. I also like to use raw sugar in this recipe because it has a higher molasses content than regular white sugar, which means it has an actual flavor rather than just being sweet. It also has much larger grains than brown sugar, so it’ll stay in place and won’t melt into a big puddle in the bottom of your bread pan.

Sweet Almond Bread

1/2 of the dough from sandwich bread recipe

1/2 cup sliced almonds

1/4 cup raw sugar (may also be called demerara or turbinado sugar)

Thaw dough overnight in the fridge if it has been frozen. Flour your counter top and rolling pin to prevent sticking. Roll into a rough rectangle/oval around 1/4″ thick and about as wide as your bread pan.

Sprinkle evenly with your sugar and almonds. Press it into the dough a bit to stop it from moving around during the next step.

Roll it up. If the dough is stuck to your counter, use a spatula or bench scraper to stop it from tearing. When it’s all rolled up, pinch the edges and ends shut to stop it from leaking and making a sugary mess. Seriously. Pinch it like you’re mad at it. (The following picture is before I pinched it)

Put it in a greased 9″ x 5″ bread tin, and let it rise until it’s risen about an inch over the top of the pan. This typically takes about an hour if your dough is room temperature, but may take 2-3 hours if your dough is very cold.

Preheat the oven to 375 and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the base sounds hollow when you tip it out of the pan and tap on it. Let it cool on a wire rack before cutting into it. Eat it with what some people *cough* Aaron *cough* might call too much butter.

Easy peasy, and oh so good.

For those of you who don’t live in a place with seasons (shout out to my sister down in Tennessee), you might not be familiar with the food item called rhubarb. Even if you live in a place where it grows, you might no know what it is if you don’t grow it yourself, as it’s not something you can find in most grocery stores. While I love it and grew up on it, I’ll be the first to tell you it’s…strange, to say the least.

Rhubarb is a vegetable that is used like a fruit. It looks like celery, though it can range in color from pale green to ruby red. Raw, it tastes like the most sour thing you’ve ever put in your mouth. Remember those War Head candies that were all the rage 15-20 years ago? The makers probably didn’t intend it, but those things are a dead ringer for raw rhubarb. When cooked, it tastes like a sweet tart. It’s like a mix between a raspberry and a cherry, with a little tartness. Oh, and the leaves are poisonous. Don’t eat those.

When I was a kid, we would go in the back yard with our pocket knives and a bowl of sugar. Dipping it in sugar cuts back on the sourness, and we ate it like candy (though it was still ridiculously sour – I’m not sure why kids are drawn to candy that makes their mouths hurt, but it was delicious).

So what do you do with it? It makes a delicious sauce for ice cream, complements strawberries perfectly in jam or pie, and makes some mighty good muffins. But my hands down all time favorite recipe is a family recipe that we, for some reason unknown to the culinary world, call “rhubarb meringue.” There might not be anything resembling meringue in this dessert, but it’s amazing and you need to try it ASAP.

Rhubarb Meringue

For the crust:
1 c flour
5 tbsp powdered sugar (a scant 1/3 cup)
1/2 c cold butter

For the filling:
3 eggs
2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 c chopped rhubarb

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grab your 9 x 13 baking pan.

Dump the dry ingredients for your crust into a food processor. Cut your butter into chunks, and add them to the food processor. Pulse it all together a few times until the butter is broken down into pea-sized pieces. The whole thing should be a little crumbly. If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a pastry blender, a couple of forks, or even your hands if you work quickly (we don’t want the butter to melt). Dump the mixture into your pan, and pat it flat with your hands.

Blind bake your crust for 15 minutes(ish). It doesn’t need to be golden brown, but it shouldn’t be white.

While the crust is baking, whisk together all the ingredients for your filling except the rhubarb. It should look almost like a thick pancake batter. Using a spatula, fold in your rhubarb. Make sure every piece gets coated by the batter.

When your crust is out of the oven, pour the rhubarb mixture on top of the hot crust. Spread it out, checking for limes your child might have thrown in when you weren’t looking, and pop it back in the oven for 45 minutes.

While it’s in the oven, something magical will happen that I simply can’t explain. This weird mess of sugar, eggs, flour, and a sour vegetable will turn into a crispy, fluffy, sweet, tart, delicious dessert. Enjoy it. I recommend covering any leftovers with a towel rather than plastic or foil, as the top gets soggy (still good, but not AS good). And no, I have no idea how long it will keep for, because I can eat this whole pan myself in 2 days. It’s that good.

Allow me to set the scene:

We were at Barnes and Noble, browsing the children’s section. Madeline found the story telling stage. She’s a firm believer in “the world is a stage,” but this is a literal stage. This is happening.

She immediately recognized that her moment to shine had come. This is what she’s been preparing for. It’s time to find an audience.

“Mom! Dad! Come watch me! It’s a stage! You gotta come watch me do my stage! I’m gonna do my show!”

Mom and Dad arrived, and were shown to their seats. But there’s a problem – the audience is too small. She sees another adult in a nearby aisle. She’s off…

“Hey! Take my hand! You’ve gotta come here! Follow me!”

She found an employee, stocking shelves. Thinking this small girl needs help, the employee came with her to the stage.

“I need you to sit right there, and watch me be on the stage!”

“Oh, you know, I’d love to watch you, but I have to put all these books away.”

“You have to put them ALL away?!”

“Yeah, I do.”

“But if you’re done, THEN you can watch me be on the stage?”

“I think you’ll be gone before I’m done.”

“But when the books are put away, then you can come watch me.”

Please note that this last sentence is a statement, not a question.

Madeline spent the next …I don’t know…15 minutes or so helping this woman stock the shelves in an effort to speed things up. I tried to rescue the employee, but she said it was fine. I think Madeline was honestly helping, so that’s cool I guess.

When it was time to go, Aaron told Madeline that she should get paid for all that work she did.

And this is why I’ve taken you all on this journey…

MADELINE WENT BACK TO FIND THE EMPLOYEE (super nice woman) AND SAID, AND I QUOTE (to the best of my memory):

“Can I get 5 dollars? Cause I gotta get that money from putting away those books.”

WE ALL LOST IT.

I think that employee was close to crying from laughing.

Madeline says some funny things, but this took the cake.

(This picture has nothing to do with anything, but she was coincidentally wearing the same shirt today, and also she wants a hamster)

Today I’m going to take a bit of a departure from what I normally write about. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it somewhere, but my “real” job (the one that “makes that money,” as Madeline puts it) is in pharmacy. I’ve worked as a pharmacist for…gosh…9 years now? And I’ve worked in the pharmacy under various roles for going on 15 years. During that time, I’ve come to understand just how awful our healthcare system really is. I don’t want to get all political here, so I’m going to focus on one area that’s often overlooked, and where pharmacists play a pivotal role: syringes.

Syringes aren’t used nearly as often now as they were when I started in this profession, but enough people still use them (either regularly or just in emergencies) that it’s still an issue. Most people use them to inject insulin from vials (insulin pens are becoming much more popular due to ease of use, which is why we’re seeing a decline in syringe sales), but they’re also used to inject other medications (vitamin B12, testosterone, and progesterone are the most common ones I see). Pet owners also use them more than you’d think – there are a lot of diabetic cats out there. They’re also, unfortunately, used by some to inject illegal drugs.

Here in Wisconsin, syringes are allowed to be sold without a prescription. However, this state falls into a weird “legal because it’s not illegal” zone. There are some states in which you need a prescription to get them, and some states have an actual law stating that no prescription is required. Wisconsin does not mention syringe sales in its laws or statutes, meaning that each pharmacy is allowed to make their own rules about who they will sell them to.

So here’s my problem with this situation – discrimination is rampant, and I don’t understand why. Some pharmacists and/or pharmacies have taken it upon themselves to question the ever-living-snot out of anyone requesting syringes who doesn’t look like they’re somebody’s cookie-baking grandma. “What are you going to use these for? What type of insulin do you use? How many units are you injecting? Where do you get your insulin? How did you run out? Why don’t you have a prescription? What’s your usual pharmacy? Why aren’t you getting these there?” Answering the questions “correctly” is no guarantee that a pharmacist will allow syringes to be sold if they get a bad feeling about the person or think they seem shady. Sometimes, a pharmacist just looks at a person and says “we don’t do that” without even going through the motions of asking further questions. Maybe you’ll get lucky and a person will realize you’re asking too many questions and decide to walk away without pressing the issue. By their logic, asking these questions helps to deter users of illegal drugs from buying syringes. Then we can all laugh about how they “scared away the druggie.” 

This. Is. Stupid.

I’ll say it again for those in the back.

IT’S STUPID, POINTLESS, HARMFUL, NEGLIGENT, AND A WASTE OF EVERYONE’S TIME AND ENERGY.

To see why I say that, let’s do a little thought experiment. When deciding the best course of action, I find it helpful to ask “What’s the best case scenario?” “What’s the worst case scenario?”

What’s the best case scenario if you refuse to sell someone syringes? A drug user doesn’t get syringes. Does this mean that they won’t use drugs? Of course not. No “druggie” in the history of the world has ever said “Well, no clean syringes for me, I guess I’ll just skip the drugs today.” I guarantee you that any heroin user (or whatever the kids are injecting these days) who can’t get a clean needle is going to go out and find a dirty needle. Heck, you can walk into the bathroom at any hospital, clinic, and even sometimes the local library, and find a goody box filled with used needles if you’re so inclined to break open the sharps container on the wall. Share them with your friends, steal them from your grandpa, whatever. It’s harder to find the drugs than the syringes, and lord knows the drugs are easier to find now than ever before. At most, you’ve created a minor inconvenience. 

So what happens when needles are shared between users? HIV/AIDS, HepC, HepB, along with the risk of local infections at the injection site. “So what? Who cares if they give themselves AIDS? That’s what you get from doing drugs.” While I don’t disagree that people should “just say no” to doing drugs, I also recognize that when people contract these blood-borne diseases they wind up costing all of us, the whole healthcare system, a crap ton of money. That’s right – WE pay for their office visits, their treatment, their ER visits, all of it. So even if you don’t care about them as people who deserve their best chance at getting clean and becoming a contributing member to society, you should still care that you’re paying for their healthcare if the worst should happen. 

So that’s the best scenario. What’s the worst case scenario to denying the sale of syringes? Someone with diabetes can’t inject their insulin. 

So now I ask, is it really worth the power trip you get from saying “No needles for you!”? They’re either trying to be a somewhat responsible drug user, or they’re trying to stay alive. Give them the damn syringes.

You guys have seen this one, right? Does everyone relate to it on the same level I do? Because these children are running circles around me (I mean that literally – they are running around me like I’m a freaking maypole) and I’m going a little crazy.

I’m pretty sure that someone just shouted “There’s poop on the walls!” but I’m 95% sure it’s imaginary, because they’re all about pretending right now. Just the other day, Madeline called 911 because she was pretending the house was on fire. Whoever decided that you don’t need to unlock a phone to call 911 wasn’t thinking about all the hypothetical pretend emergencies my child can think of. Now I can’t put down my phone.

Also, they are now pretending to be construction dogs. I finally convinced them to go upstairs to play, but now all I hear is barking and the pounding of hammers on all the solid surfaces they can reach.

Only 2 more hours until bedtime.

Madeline is at the age where she needs a reason for everything. She’s always asking “What does _____ mean?” It doesn’t matter if she already knows the answer, she just asks to see if you’ll give an alternate explanation or definition.

Because she’s so interested in knowing the whos and whats about everything, she’s pretty sure you’re interested too. Every other conversation I have with her involves a lengthy monologue about the relationships between the different members of our family – “I’m your daughter. And Emmett is your son! Because he’s my brother. And Dad is his father, because he’s my father too! And I’m Dad’s daughter! And you’re Emmett’s mom, ’cause you’re my mom too! And I’m a sister, ’cause Em is my brother!” She also wants everyone to know about all the things she can do because she’s 4 now – “I can button and zip up my pants now. I can even get my shirt on. I can do everything now! That’s why I’m 4!”

She’s really into jokes now, too. Except her idea of a joke is just a random statement – “Hey, do you want to hear a funny joke? Did you know that elephants don’t wear shoes? Isn’t that so silly?”

Here she is, pondering the mysteries of the universe after being informed that Easter is in two weeks. Not even kidding, this was the conversation – “What does two weeks mean? Is it like tomorrow? When does two weeks end? Is that like dinner time? What comes after dinner? What comes after tomorrow? What does Easter mean? Does the Easter bunny like eggs? Why does he leave eggs? And why do we want to find the eggs? Did you know there’s just eggs in the eggs we colored the other day? ‘Cause there was no candy inside them. That’s for the Easter bunny. Do you want to hear a really funny joke now? The Easter bunny lives in the forest with the other bunnies. And it’s a forest, ’cause that’s why I’m four! Isn’t that funny! Forest and four are both the same sound, ’cause I’M FOUR! That’s just so silly. But what does forest mean? It’s like all the trees. And what day is today? Is it Sunday? What day comes after Sunday? And what comes after Monday? And what comes after Tuesday? Did you know my hair is so crazy? Why is it crazy?”

Please send help.

Allow me to set the scene. Madeline and I are driving home from her swim class. We’re playing “the color game” (I spy). Suddenly, she stops playing and gets real quiet. Then I hear her whisper, in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard…

“Mom, what do you do when your heart is broke?”
(and if that doesn’t just make your heart hurt then I don’t know what will)
“Baby, why are you asking about that? Is your heart broken?”
“I think it is, because a broken heart happens when the people you love go away and you don’t know when you’ll see them again. And I miss my dad and Emmett and it feels like my heart broke.”

Well, good golly miss Molly, what do you even say to that?!?

After assuring her that it’s ok to be sad and to miss people, but we’d see them both again this afternoon, she proceeded to ask some more questions like:

“What do you do when you’re sad?”
and
“What can you do when you’re worried? Like how I’m worried that it will be so long before I see them again?”

We had a long talk about how we all get sad sometimes, and how you can miss someone but still have fun without them. We decided to do something fun today so we can tell Dad and Emmett all about it when they get home. And then we stopped for candy, because…come on.

She may be little, but she’s got some big feelings.

I’m all about lists. There’s something very satisfying about having a list and crossing things off. I tell Madeline it’s called “the plan.” She’s always asking me “What’s the plan, Mom?” and then we list off the day’s activities – Step 1: We get dressed. Step 2: We eat breakfast. She’s a real fan of “the plan.”

I have a small notebook (ok, several small notebooks scattered throughout the house) where I write down my various lists. Lists for today, lists for the week, lists for the month. I have a list of things I want to make but haven’t gotten around to yet. That list keeps growing, and not much is getting crossed off. I’m ok with that, because it means I never have a reason to be bored. Or, if I am bored, it’s my own fault. However, Aaron can attest to the fact that I’m a pacer. When I don’t know what I want to do, I just pace through the house, mulling over my options. It’s not wandering – it’s a fast, determined, somewhat nervous, indecisive walk. Is this productive? No. Is it helpful for coming to a decision? Not particularly. But sometimes, when I want to do something but I don’t know what that something is, it’s kind of satisfying to pace the house and contemplate all the things I could be doing.

I imagine this is what the lions and tigers in the zoo must feel like. Someday I’m going to wear a path into the tile floor.