Home-Grown

One of the best things about being a mama is the opportunity to watch your child's personality unfold. To my great pleasure, JT is developing an impressive sense of humor. He can be funny in the way that eight year boys are funny (fart jokes, his inexplicable fondness for America's Funniest Home Videos) but there are also glimpses of a sense of humor much like my own: droll, sarcastic, verbally adroit. On top of that, he's mastered a pretty solid delivery, complete with a good sense of timing and facial expressions that reinforce his message. It makes a Mama proud.

A story from last week will illustrate what's going on. My school is in the process of organizing a blood drive and signs seeking donors are posted all over the school. Walking to the car the other day, JT asked me, "Are you going to donate blood?"

"No," I explained, "I'm not a very good blood donor."

"Why?" JT asked.

"Well, my veins are hard to find. And when the nurse squeezes your arm to get the veins to pop up, my blood pressure decreases. So by the time the nurse finally sticks the needle in my vein, my blood pressure has sunk so low that I don't bleed very quickly. It takes me a very long time to donate a pint of blood and sometimes, I pass out. So I can't donate at school."

He looked at me, cocked an eyebrow, and asked, "Can I say something sassy?"

"Yeeees, I guess so," I responded.

And here came the witty remark: "Well, Mama, you didn't have any problem bleeding that time you cut yourself in the shower. Maybe you should try that again."

It was funny and just the sort of smart-ass remark I would make given the opportunity. I believe this could best be characterized as a home-grown sense of humor.

Cupcake Cards

Though I liked Nichole's suggestion that I make some anti-Valentines, I have yet again gone to girlish creations for today's Thing. I've got some pink cupcake cards here. They could be Valentines? Or maybe a birthday card? Definitely not for JT, who would recoil in horror from such pinkness.

Food Friday

One of my challenges for my Thing-A-Day projects is to try some new things for my blog. In that spirit, today I'm trying out an occasional feature I've named Food Friday. In these postings, I'll feature a recipe and photos of the food and the food prep process. Most of these recipes will be either recipes of my own creation or recipes that feature a particular cooking method that I utilize. First up: grilled quesadillas.

Quesadillas are an amazingly easy food to prepare and this method rewards the cook with plenty of eating joy for some very easy efforts. It's more Tex-Mex than authentic Mexican for those of you who keep track of such things. I consider it California comfort food.

1 package large-size flour tortillas (fresher is better)
3-4 cups grated cheese ---- I use a combination of Colby cheddar and Monterey Jack
1 green pepper, sliced into thin slices
1 yellow onion, sliced into thin slices; separate the rings
fresh chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder (more if you like spicy food)
1 teaspoon onion salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix the spices in a small bowl. Chop the onion and pepper and then combine in a bowl; mix the spices in so that the veggies are covered.

Sauté the peppers for 2-3 minutes at medium heat. I use my cast-iron grill pan so that clean-up is easier, but you can use a non-stick of your own. Remove the warm vegetables back to a bowl. Set your veggies and grated cheese by the stove. On a medium heat grill pan, place a flour tortilla and let it heat for 1 minute. Flip the tortilla and heat the other side for 1 minute. Then place a small handful of grated cheese on one half of the tortilla; add ¼ cup of onions & pepper mixture, and a few sprigs of cilantro.
Then fold the tortilla over. Cook on one side for 2-3 minutes and then flip to cook on the other for 2-3 minutes. You want to leave grill marks on the tortilla and melt the cheese so adjust the heat and time accordingly.
Keep cooking quesadillas until you've exhausted your supply of tortillas, cheese and peppers & onions.

Now it's time to eat up. I usually serve these with salsa, refried beans, and some additional chopped cilantro. You can add a red or yellow pepper to the mix or use a red onion instead of yellow. You could add chopped tomatoes to the inside of your quesadilla. You can experiment with cheese as well (queso fresco is good if that's available to you). In short: the world is your tortilla. Enjoy!

Posey Valentines

It's February and that means Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I made some posey Valentines on pink card stock yesterday. The card stock is something I keep on hand; the embelishments are from an etsy shop that I frequent. The cards are very girly...this is not a Valentine that JT would enjoy. I'll put together a tough, manly Valentine for a boy some other time.

Well Behaved Snow

Last week, in his comment on my Snow Day entry, my friend Jason, who lives with his family in the snowy wilds of northern Wisconsin, commented that New Jersey snow looked like it was the sort of pleasant snow that would melt when instructed to do so.

The comment made me smile because Jason is right. Generally, snow in New Jersey doesn't stick around and leave long-term snowy misery in its wake. It is, in fact, quite pleasant. We had that sort of snow yesterday --- big, beautiful snowflakes that fell gently and steadily and collected in the trees on greenery without making the roads too miserable. Driving through the woods on the way home it was simply lovely to look at the softly falling snow.

When JT and I arrived home from school I went outside and took pictures of our well-behaved Jersey snow as it fell on some of my favorite back yard plants and trees. And those photos are today's creative thing.
The photo of the tree on the left is a dogwood in snow. Below the dogwood is a photo of my grape vine. It's nearly 70 years old, that vine, and it looks so pristine in the snow. Finally, you see snow on one of my hydrangea bushes. I especially like the way the snow collected in the upper reaches of the branches, looking just a little like the big hydrangeas that will bloom come the summer, when the snow is long gone.

Tuesday Treats

I made cookies last night and this morning I wrapped up some to be surprise treats for a few friends at my school. They are snickerdoodles, which I know to be a favorite of my friend Jaxter.
I'll sneak these pretty packages into mailboxes before school starts this morning. I feel all clever.

Lucy the Cat

My cat Lucy, the smaller of the pair, is also the most particular. When it comes to imperious looks, Lucy is the author of the instruction manual. She has an expressive meow, one that most often is used to impatiently instruct us: feed me NOW; scratch my back HERE.

Lucy likes her world to be just ever so, an impulse I can certainly understand. And she is a true artist when it comes to enjoying the warmth of the dining room radiator on a cold winter morning. When I relax, I want it to feel like this.

Hostas: February 1st

Despite the bright morning sun, the backyard has an icy stillness in the winter. When the weather is warm, we are outside nearly every day and the garden feels alive. It's part of our daily lives. Each day brings a new blossom, more grass, and growth on the shrubs. JT and I are there to enjoy all of it. But in the winter, the colors fade and the yard is quiet. Days and weeks pass with no human presence in the yard.
It's been quite cold here in the last month and though we've had some snow, much of it has turned icy. When there is snow, the backyard is JT's field of play. But the icy cold receives no boy for imaginary games.
The hosta bed this morning looks the same as last month. The wood pile at one end is dried and cured; ready for our first spring fire. In the next month, I will trim back the dried remains of the hosta blooms and do my best to remove the stump of an unwanted tree that stubbornly grows in the bed (that seems to be an annual project for me). And once the cold begins to ease and we enjoy some warmer days, I will eagerly visit the bed every few days to look for green shoots.
But not this month; in February the yard remains at quiet rest.

Creativity

At a school assembly on Friday, JT learned about making sounds and music from homemade instruments. The boy was obviously inspired and he chattered about it the whole way home. Within 30 minutes of walking in the door, he had fashioned himself a homemade guitar from a shoebox, a wrapping paper roll, and some rubber bands.

This is one of the things that I admire most about JT: his vast imagination and willingness to explore creating things. I do my best to foster that spirit and it's clear that his teachers do as well. To me, that's an essential part of education: to enrich his intellect and his sprit; to look after the whole child. JT came home yesterday excited to talk about the sounds music makes, the uses of leftover materials in our home(his "guitar" is made of recycled goods) and the new homemade instruments he would create for himself.

Starting tomorrow and for the month of February, I will participate in Thing-a-Day, a web project designed to get people to create something every day. As part of the project, I will blog every day. That's not really a new thing for me, though I intend to re-double my efforts at being creative, and so in the next month I hope to start some new blog features, to continue some old ones, and to generally channel the spirit of my creative boy.

Lilly Ledbetter

Yesterday, at a White House signing ceremony for the law that bears her name, Lilly Ledbetter looked proud. She should be.

After nearly 20 years of work at Goodyear Tire and Rubber in Alabama, Ledbetter discovered that her male co-workers were being paid more than she earned. They did the same job she did, but the men made more money, in some cases 40% more than Ledbetter was earning. It was a classic case of discrimination and Ledbetter filed a lawsuit which asked Goodyear to make amends. In keeping with federal law of the day, the courts eventually awarded Ledbetter $300,000 in damages, plus back pay for the last two years of discrimination. That's as much as one can receive for an equal-pay lawsuit. It includes no back-pay for missed pension contributions or Social Security benefits. But Ledbetter was happy. Justice had been served.

Until Goodyear appealed the case (and the chutzpah of that is just astonishing). Their argument? The statute of limitations on Ledbetter's claim ran out 18 months after the discrimination began. Of course, Lilly Ledbetter didn't discover the discrimination until 19 years into her employment at Goodyear and so she, and her lawyers, confidently argued that such an interpretation of the statute was unreasonable. The law had never been interpreted that way before. But in 2007, with two Bush appointees on the bench, the Supreme Court made a sharp departure from the previous understanding of the law. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court sided with Goodyear. Lilly Ledbetter was told that she should have filed her case 19 years ago, when Goodyear first began to violate the equal pay for equal work laws.

Never mind that Ledbetter didn't know back then that she was being treated unjustly. According to the Court, Ledbetter didn't have a claim.

The Democratic majority in Congress immediately took action to make the equal pay statue crystal clear. The new provision provided that the statute of limitation starts ticking anew each time an employee receives a paycheck in which there is an equal pay disparity. Congress didn't change the amount of money an employee could receive (that remains capped at $300,000 and two years worth of back pay....no matter how long the discrimination continued). The bill passed in the House but was defeated in the Senate by a Republican filibuster.

This month the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act came before Congress again. This time, it was passed by the House and Senate. And yesterday, President Obama made it the first bill he signed into law. Lilly Ledbetter was there to see it happen.

Nina Totenberg of NPR tells more of the story ----- a 5 minute listen that is well-worth your time. But let me conclude by saying this is just why I voted for President Obama, who seems to have a very keen understanding of the phrase, "and justice for all."