I intentionally ate mushrooms

02/27/2017 Nichole 1 Comment

Rockford’s parents have been joining us for dinner on Sunday evenings pretty much every Sunday night for nearly a decade. Rockford’s sister recently moved to town, though, so now we’re going to her house for dinner every other weekend. She and her fiancé are excellent cooks, and it was delightful to finish off a very busy weekend with homemade chicken marsala made elsewhere by other people. I even ate the mushrooms, which is a good indication that it was delicious. After dinner most of us trekked back over to our house for dessert and the Oscars. I didn’t put nearly as much work into dessert — eclairs and a triple-berry tart, thank you Trader Joe’s — as they put into dinner, but we still enjoyed it.

We also mostly enjoyed the Oscars. Jimmy Kimmel needs to lay off the Making Fun of People’s Names bit, though, and that ending was a doozy. I’m glad “Moonlight” won, but I feel bad that they didn’t get the full experience. I didn’t think “La La Land” deserved to win at all, but I also feel very bad for the folks who worked on it to literally have the statues taken out of their hands on stage. What a weird, awkward way to cap off the evening.

Anyway and apropos of nothing other than it’s Monday and we talk about food on Mondays: here’s what we’ll be eating for dinner this week.

Monday: Breakfast for dinner: I have a meeting this evening, and Rockford has promised the kids pancakes and eggs and veggie sausages. Overachiever.

Tuesday: Blackened Chicken with Avocado Cream Sauce: I’m pretty sure I found this one on Pinterest. I love “blackened” seasoning and avocados. Hopefully I love them together.

Wednesday: Spaghetti and meatballs: Wednesdays are pretty busy for us, so I’m going to have to make the meatballs early in the day to make this happen. We’ll see how that goes.

Thursday: Probably out: I have another meeting on Thursday. Rockford and the kids might meet me for dinner afterward, or they might have something delicious waiting when I get home.

Friday: Pizza: It might be nice enough weather for grilled pizza this week. But it might be a long enough week for ordering out or frozen pizza.

Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.

Homeschool

We’ve entered a new era in homeschooling

02/24/2017 Nichole 1 Comment

It’s been a good long while since I wrote a This Week In Homeschooling post, and that’s because this semester the kids have more outsourced work than ever before. We joined a new co-op that’s much more academically focused than the one we’ve been doing for years. We’re still doing math, history, spelling and some science at home, and between the new co-op and the classes Poppy was already taking downtown a good bit of our school time at home is dedicated to doing homework.

Here are a few highlights from the week:

Monday

The kids had their final Odyssey of the Mind meeting before the regional competition. I think they’re both kind of relieved that they’re nearing the finish line. We listened to our “Story of the World” chapter on the way to and from the meeting. We learned about Pedro II, who was the second and last emperor of Brazil and seems like a pretty good leader.

Tuesday

Poppy’s OM team came over for a few hours to practice some spontaneous problems and run through their script a few more times.

Wednesday

Poppy went off to her classes downtown while a sickly Pete convalesced in his room all day.

Thursday

Thursday is New Co-op Day. Poppy’s literature class is reading “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she learned a little about Elvis in History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and she discussed India in world geography (which I’m teaching). Pete’s reading “The Boxcar Children” for literature, and he played soccer in Sports & Games, learned about Venus in astronomy and took apart a computer tower in his technology class.

Friday

Poppy had a piano lesson earlier today, and Pete had a session with his spelling tutor. We learned about The Pantanal via a very short history project, and the kids did some homework. And then we ended the school day early because it’s beautiful outside and they wanted to go enjoy it.

We used one of those origami fortune-teller gizmos to learn about animals that live in The Pantanal.

Want to peek into some other homeschoolers’ lives? Check out the weekly roundup at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

menu plan Monday

Seriously, though, when’s the last time our menu plan was complicated?

02/13/2017 Nichole

Three-quarters of our household has been sick for at least one day since Thursday, and not all with the same illness. So it was kind of a weird weekend. I was out of commission for most of it. I’m still coughing and congested, but it’s getting a little better. This week’s menu plan is ultra-simple, though, just in case.

Monday: Honey-Teriyaki Chicken: I’m using a Blue Dragon sauce packet with chicken, carrots and red pepper.

Tuesday: Sweet potato gnocchi: This one caught my eye on a list of Things You Need to Try at Trader Joe’s. I’m going to serve it with a salad.

Wednesday: Sandwiches: Most likely a choice of ham or grilled cheese. Or maybe chicken salad. I haven’t decided yet.

Thursday: Tacos: This is Pete’s pick almost every week.

Friday: Pizza: It’s Pizza and a Movie night! And it’s my turn to pick the movie! I’ve been on a nice run of ’80s movies — “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “ET” were my last two picks. What should we watch this week?

Hungry for more? Check out the Menu Plan Monday linkup at OrgJunkie.