Yearly Archives: 2010

Family matters

I would also like one million dollars

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Today is my stepbrother’s birthday (happy birthday, Wayne!), which means that my birthday is one month away. Rockford asked me awhile ago what I’d like; consider this my official response:
Nichole's birthday wishlist

  1. New boots. I especially like these. They’re Clarks, and they’re about $110 more than I usually spend on shoes. By which I mean: Don’t buy these, Rockford. But if you do, pretend like you got a terrific discount.
  2. A new iPod. My current iPod still plays music, but I can’t add to it or change anything already on it. This renders it not particularly iPod-ish.
  3. A Barnes & Noble gift card. I still haven’t actually purchased anything for my Nook, but I’d like to do so. And I would, too, if I had a gift card.
  4. A Scentsy home-scentification thing. And maybe some wonderful–smelling things to go in it.
  5. A new slow cooker. My old one turned into a crazyfast cooker, which is not the point of a slow cooker at all. Fall is upon us, and it’s time to stew some stews and roast some roasts. And the one I linked to there? It’s currently half price.
  6. A giant stack of chocolate. Preferably with toffee.

update!

Today is also Sally’s birthday! Clearly, I am a bad niece-in-law. Happy birthday, Sally!

Homeschool

Switching things up in the schoolhouse

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We started a few new things after coming back from our first break. Poppy is doing some memorization work, using this memorization system. She memorized “The Purple Cow” last week; home/schoolthis week’s poem was “Fly Away, Fly Away Over the Sea.” We also started doing lessons from “Character Building for Families,” which I’m hoping will help with some of the attitude issues with which we’ve been dealing. The first series of lessons is on obedience. There’s some Scripture memorization involved with the “Character Building” lessons, too, so we’re using the system for that and the poetry, too.

Most of our days looked pretty much the same this week: handwriting; “Character Building”; Spanish; a chapter of a read-aloud; reciting the memory work. On Tuesday we did a health lesson on the five senses, and on Wednesday we finished reading “My Father’s Dragon.”

We’ve also started Pizza Hut’s Book It program, and Poppy’s October challenge is to read “Mercy Watson: Princess in Disguise” out loud to me. I know that October didn’t start until yesterday, but she was really excited, so we started a little early. If she gets through it with a lot of the month left to spare, November’s reading challenge will be more … challenging.

On Friday we talked about Jackson Pollock and looked at a few of his paintings before heading outside with paints, brushes and canvas. Then Poppy, Pete, Rockford and I made our own Pollock-inspired painting in the driveway. Poppy picked out the colors, which were a little “Miami Vice” for my taste. But they’ll look great in her room!

Eating

A house divided by Little Debbie

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My husband’s first love is a curly-haired redhead with a fondness for sugar and straw hats. I know she’ll always hold a special place in his heart, too, because Little Debbie never fails to be there when he gets the snackies on the road. And I’m fine with that, because she’s much better at strategic snack placement than I am. She was also one of the sponsors of the conference I went to last weekend, and let me tell you: I was a popular lady when I came home bearing a bagful of Debbies. In it were several boxes of their “petite” cakes and one box of the limited-time-only Peppermint Swiss Rolls.*

Peppermint Swiss RollsType-A Mom Little Debbie Photo Booth, photo by Casey Mullins, caseymullins.met

In addition to loving snack cakes, Rockford is a peppermint guy. So I thought these would be a big homerun. Alas, he didn’t love them as much as I’d expected.

“Overall, I’d give it a B-plus,” he said. “It has the quality and texture of the classic Swiss Cake Roll with a pretty subtle mint flavor. It’s not too overpowering. For people who really want a strong mint flavor, this isn’t the most minty cake. This is a good option if you like a more subtle mint flavor. It’s a nice treat, but I wouldn’t necessarily go out of my way to buy them.”

I hadn’t planned to try them, because I’m not a big fan of peppermint. Once I heard that they weren’t all that strong, though, I decided to give one a try. (And for the record, there were only two left. So I guess “wouldn’t go out of my way to buy them” does not translate to “will not eat them once they’re in my house.”) Clearly, Rockford’s idea of “subtle” isn’t quite in line with mine. I was expecting a light hint of mint, but I found the peppermint flavor to be pretty pronounced. But not in a York Peppermint Patty kind of way, which is I find overly strong (and also gross). The Peppermint Swiss Roll tasted a lot like a Thin Mint in cake form. And friends? “It tasted like a Thin Mint” is just about the highest praise I can offer, snackwise. It’s a good thing Rockford had already eaten most of them.

The Petites

The Petites cakes are pretty small things, about five bites of cake for me. I think I’ve heard people say the first three bites of a food are the most enjoyable, so that works out pretty well. Rockford can down one in a single chomp, although I think that says more about him than it does about the cakes.

Red Velvet
I tried the red velvet cake over the weekend. And I may have tried a few more since then. I reallyreally like red velvet cake, and Little Debbie has made a tasty one. The cream cheese “flavored” frosting doesn’t taste fake, and the cake-to-frosting ratio is perfect. The cake itself is almost too dense, though. It took a sip or two of water to wash it down. Rockford didn’t think so highly of it. “This was the least cohesive of the three cakes,” he said. “The cake brought nothing to the equation; it was just a vehicle for the frosting.” (And what, may I ask, is wrong with that?)

Strawberry Cake
I don’t care for strawberry-flavored things, so I didn’t try the strawberry cake. But here’s what Rockford thought: “I am a sucker for a good fake strawberry flavor, something that tastes nothing like a real strawberry. To that end, these remind me of a cake version of a big glass of Nestle strawberry milk, which to me is a wonderful thing. The icing is a sugary whipped topping. It was pleasing, but the cake is better than the icing. My only complaint is that it was too small. I didn’t want a ladyfinger; I wanted a cake.”

Spice Cake
The spice cake has a really pleasant aroma straight out of the package, and it tastes like fall — warm and spicy and just plain nice. It has the same frosting as the red velvet cake, and it’s just as yummy here. The spice cake has a really nice texture, too; it doesn’t suffer from the red velvet’s density issue. I’m not wild about spice cake, but this is a good one. Rockford agreed with me this time around. “The spice cake’s frosting matched really well with the cake,” he said. “It was a good spice cake, too. It wasn’t overpowering.” Based on their success here, I’d love to see a carrot cake version of the Petites.

If we were to buy a box of Petites to share, it would probably be the spice cake. That seems to be the only one on which we agreed. I’d be willing to bet, though, that the strawberry cakes will be making some business trips with Rockford in the near future. The Peppermint Swiss Rolls will be available starting October 12, and if you’re quick you can grab a coupon for them on Little Debbie’s Facebook page every day from October 12 through the 22nd. I apologize in advance if I knock you over on my way to buy more of them.

*I’ve always called these “Swiss Cake Rolls,” but the box says “Swiss Rolls.” Did that change at some point?