Evan Update

The doc's office just called, and Evan's blood work was just fine. His gait is cause for concern, so we do need to visit with a pediatric ortho.

I Really Think You Ought to Do This...

I'm listing a few things on KSL Classifieds today, and I found this included on the KSL site.

I know I shouldn't laugh at domestic disputes, but WOWSER! How did the reporters and police officer keep a straight face?!

Pimp My Blog / Ode to Our Monkeys

Pardon the dust...

That green stencil thing just wasn't cutting it for me. So, I played around with my layout a bit.

I like the title of my blog (Random Deliberate Cogitation), but I was thinking it sounded a bit pretentious. So that changed as well.

I found a quote by Winston Churchill (see the top of the side bar) that made me think, "Huh?". At the same time I was thinking, "How fitting is that?!" Can't tell you why, it just seems to work for me. So, since I refer to my boys as monkeys quite often, and our stuffed animal collection started out with a monkey, there you go.

George was purchased in Denver on a 3/$1 sale by Jon when Carson was not quite 2. George has been to Colorado (obviously), Florida, California, and New Mexico. He used to be the must have sleep item, but has earned a place of honor near Carson's bank and his books. George guards the alarm clock so that no one messes with the time that Carson sets when he thinks he'll get out of bed. Of course - if Carson sleeps through the alarm, it's also George who is the culprit.



George used to hide in the collar of Jon's shirt and would wave at Carson while he was in his carseat during those dreaded car rides. George could nod his head, "Yes" or shake his head, "No". He could play hide and seek, and was capable of making many tears disappear. Note that Evan has started collecting Star Wars figurines - as long as they are in a box. This was his most recent purchase so it's in the place of honor, too. Think I ought to tell him about the damage caused by sunlight? Sad thing is that most of his boxes get opened by one or the other of his brothers, so they don't last long anyway.

I love George!

Next came Ringo, who showed up in Evan's stocking one year for Christmas. Ringo is an orangatang, and Evan couldn't say that word at the time. There really was no guidance in trying to get Evan to choose that name, he must have been channeling his rock star very early and that's what popped out... I don't think the Beatles have made a playlist in our house to date.

I just went looking for all of the monkeys to do a group shot for you, but they're in hiding. Perhaps when Evan gets home (he's the keeper of the stuffeds), I'll be able to gather them.

Evan Screams Like a Girl

I took Evan to see the pediatrician today because his knees are bothering him every morning - AGAIN. This comes up intermittently, but the pain goes away, and so does the need to go see Doc Schmidt.

Anyway - today we got to be questioned by intern, Doug, before the doc came in the room. Evan has a habit of going all quiet - not so much shy, just some kind of "if I shrink into my chair and move my mouth while I breath, I will be left alone". Insert eyeroll here

Doug did a good job asking questions, he just did too much leading. I mean when a kid hurts sometimes you have to call him on it and make him show you where. Doug asked him on a scale of 0 to 10 (10 being when he broke his leg), how bad was this pain? Evan finally spoke up that it was ABOUT a 2. Remember the eye roll from the previous paragraph - well, insert an even bigger one here If this morning pain is only a 2 and he's griped this much, the mom-patience is defintely going to be tried!

Doc Schmidt comes in, talks to Evan a bit, has him run up and down the hall (because Evan runs kind of funny). Doc agreed with me about the funny running and went back in the room to write up our lab order. The purpose of the tests is to rule out the bad stuff - like arthritis.

We got to go have blood drawn and an xray taken of both lower legs. I'm really surprised that DCFS didn't come running down the hall during the blood draw.

Evan's name was called, and he walked on back like it was no big deal. He went to sit down in the chair and saw the needle cup thing and the 3 vials on the counter. He started to shake and sank to the floor while clutching the leg of the chair. I picked him up while he remained curled into a very tight ball. I sat him on my lap while I sat in the chair. The phlebotomist asked me to pin his legs between mine (I did an all right job, but I'm sure a couple of them got gut kicked at least once) and wrap my right arm over his. This just didn't work. We ended up calling 2 more helpers. That made 4 grown women trying to hold the kid down while they got the vials filled!

This boy has an amazing set of lungs when he chooses to use them. I just mentioned how quiet he was when he didn't really want the attention, but once he saw that a needle was involved, all the rules changed. I. Could. Not. Believe. The. Noise. This. Boy. Made. If I hadn't been pinned underneath him, I really think I would have walked away.

Anyway - xrays looked fine (no tumors or incorrectly healed bones - Ev broke his left tibia when he was 3 and his right tibia when he was 4). We'll hear back from the lab on Friday morning.

When it was all over and we were in the Yukon driving home, I had to call Jon and laugh about how out of control Evan had been. We put Jon on speaker so that he could ask some questions. The last one was, "So did it really hurt?" Evan's reply?

I DON'T KNOW - THEY SAID I WAS ALL DONE BEFORE I EVEN FELT THE POKE.

All Peachy

The boys and I did 9 more quarts of peaches yesterday.

The boys really got a kick out of peeling off the skins. Feels good to be all done - now I just need to work up the energy to carry them all downstairs.




Isn't this one beautiful?! Almost makes me want to pop the top and dig in.

On a Preservation Roll a Whole Month Earlier than Last Year.

It must be time to store up the nuts for the winter because I have got a serious hankering to do some food preservation...

Tuesday morning I walked 5 miles in Bingham Canyon with my friends Shelly, Sherry, and Heather. I should have known that was enough time on my feet, but I'd gotten myself all psyched to bottle peaches during the previous week. I bought a 28 pound box for $20 at the West Jordan farmer's market. I think this was a little high, but my other choice was $28 for 32 pounds. You do the math.

I only ate a couple of peaches in the prep process and found out from Jon that the boys had been grabbing them out of the garage while I'd left them out there to ripen. Well, I only got 13 quarts - not nearly enough to last my guys until next year, so after I was finished, I dashed back to the farmer's market (it's only there on Tuesday's from 3-7) and bought another box. Like I can psyche myself up for that again...

We had some with grilled cheese tonight for dinner (the boys are all about dipping the sandwiches in the juice), and all of them told me the peaches were too sweet. Dang. My FIL's peaches are always a little bit tart (sorry Dad), so I figured I'd use a light syrup (4 cups water/2 cups sugar according to my beloved JOY OF COOKING). Problem is that these peaches were so sweet anyway that even the light syrup is just || this much over the top.

Oh well. I've got another whole box to do. I'll taste those peaches first and adjust the syrup accordingly. I suppose I could make some peach jam like my lovely cousin, Miranda...

I just don't think I have enough freezer space for more jam. I did lots of batches of berry jams this year - 2 raspberry, 2 boysenberry, 1 blackberry, and 3 mixed berry using the leftovers and a bag of frozen berries from Costco. See last year's jam post in re JAM POOP and diverticulitis. Note that the date of that post was Oct 21 - I've still got a month to go...

The blackberry batch set so quickly and firmly that I almost couldn't get it into the jars. I had one batch of raspberry and one batch of boysenberry that didn't set. I called my mom (which seems to be the common trait in canning stories - having to call a relative) and asked her what I should do. She told me that my grandma would call the 1-800 number on the package.

So, after going back to the store to get more pectin (had to use Sure Jell [ok it was actually the store brand of Sure-Jell - "Can-Jell" $1.35/package to Sure-Jell's $2.63/package] because my local Smith's doesn't carry MCP) and some nifty freezer containers (have you seen these things? The 1 cup variety have a purple lid, and they are threaded on the inside of the jar so that you can easily stack the jars with a type of locking action - very swift). Where was I?

Oh yes. I got more pectin and more containers and called Sure-Jell. They told me that I needed to do a test jar - prepare the pectin, add 2 Tbsp sugar, and 1 Tbsp pectin to the jam, let it sit for another 24 hours, and then do the rest of the batch if that worked. Hah! If I'm going to go through all of that, why would I only do one jar - why not just do the entire batch? So, I dumped the raspberry jam into one bowl, and the boysenberry into another. I washed all of the containers, prepped the pectin (in 2 separate pans - 1 for each batch). Added 1 cup of sugar (that's 2 Tbsp per cup of jam, 8 cups of jam per batch, so 16 Tbsp or 1 cup - did the math for you that time 8^)) and added the pectin. The sugar dissolved beautifully, and I figured that we were on our way to set jam.

The raspberry set just fine. The boysenberry did not. At this point, I was not going to add more sugar to that fruit, so it looks like I ended up with a batch of boysenberry syrup.

I gave a jar of each to Mindy, Griff's daycare lady, and she gave me a bottle of peach-raspberry. She didn't even use pectin in hers. She had a recipe that used unflavored gelatin! What part of Idaho did she come from???

So - now I'm sitting here nursing the blisters on the back of my feet from Tuesday's walk, finally able to walk up and down the stairs without my hips screaming in agony, feeling the pressure of that other box of peaches, and mysteriously still wanting to do applesauce.

I found a source for macintosh apples in Logan, and I get to call on Monday to find out when they're ready.... Oh the anticipation.

Now if I could only figure out my Grandma Egan's chili recipe and bottle up some of that. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Yick - One of the Things That Happen Just Because I'm the Lone Female...

Jon took Carson and Evan dove hunting on Monday. He's always told me that if it rains really hard the day before the opener, then the opener isn't any good. So - why would he think it was hunky-dory to take my guys out at 4:00 in the morning after the downpour we had Sunday night? I don't get it - they are so excited that they can't hardly go to sleep the night before, Jon wakes up at 3 freaking thirty to make porridge (aka oatmeal or germade) and toast so that they can have full stomachs. They gladly get up to eat (I honestly heard nothing out of Evan when their alarm go off - this is not normal!), and they load up. Whatever.

They left, drove down to Delta, got 1 bird, and came home.

They'd taken Hilo (our 3 yr old chocolate lab) with them for his 1st hunt and left Kona (our 11 yr old black lab) home. They decided that Kona would like to pretend she'd gone hunting, so they wanted to keep the dove to throw around for Kona to retrieve in the back yard. She's old enough that this is about all she can handle - so it's all good. I didn't ever think to ask where they were keeping the bird.

So, last night I went out to the garage fridge to get a Diet Coke. At this point you're probably wondering whether you really want to keep reading, huh? Eh - go ahead. I dare ya.

There were two cases in there, so I just reached into the one that was sitting at an angle looking like it only had 1 or 2 cans in the bottom. Did I look in the tilted case? NO! Why would I do that? When they're in there like that, they're either empty or they have a couple cans. PROBLEM - it didn't have any cans, just a DEAD DOVE. Griff just stood there and laughed at me shrieking. He rattled off something about how everyone knew that was the box with the bird. I couldn't really hear him cause I had the skeevies so bad. Cured me of my Diet Coke habit for an evening.

Come to think of it, today I've only had one out of the inside fridge - that's where I keep my bottles...

There Goes My Baby...

Griff's preschool is 3 days/week from 12:30 - 3:00. He's going to a place down the street from daycare - and it's during daycare hours, so it shouldn't have even been a big deal. He was just so excited and seemed so grown up!

Last night he told me he had to stay in his own bed ALL NIGHT LONG because he's a big kid. He did it! I suppose we'll have to see how long that will last.

He woke up around 7:45 this morning, put on his clothes, brushed his teeth, asked for a bowl of cereal, ate it ALL (because you have to have a good breakfast to go to school), and then went to find a comb and gel for his hair. He got out his backpack, grabbed a sweatshirt, and went and stood in the driveway until Jon was ready to leave for work.

I got to wave goodbye from the garage while they drove down the street. As I walked in the house and thought about being all by myself (which has happened almost every day since Cars & Ev started school 2 weeks ago) I just started to cry.

It's all good though. Jon came home from work around 1:30. I got to spend the afternoon talking to him with no boys around!

I had the windows open all day, got my IKEA Klover lamp hung in my office, did 2 conference calls and some other work stuff, got most of my office organized, went grocery shopping, and took Griff to the library.

It really has been a good day. I think I'll go finish up dinner and snuggle G on the couch while we watch Ben 10 or something.