Thank you to everyone who came out and donated
to the Mid-South Food Bank and thanks to Memphis Memorial Park Funeral
Home and the Memphis Farmers Market for giving us a space and time to
host the our food drive. Because of you all, we have had a very
successful food drive, collecting 15+ large boxes of food and personal
items and $200 in cash donations for those in need. Because of your generosity, the Mid-South Food Bank will be able to make 741 meals for people who otherwise would have gone without. Thank you,
thank you, thank you!!!!!
I love every season for about 5 minutes before I start finding things to hate. It's like this, I LOVE Autumn: cooler air, changing leaves, Halloween, my son's birthday, Thanksgiving, fires, boots, s'mores, hot tea, fall crops, and pumpkin flavored EVERYTHING. On the other hand, Autumn means: cold, wet weather and fall allergy season. So on the cold, wet days that I spend sneezing and wheezing, I try to whip up something warm and tasty and yes, usually pumpkin flavored. We spent a little time the other day making jack-o-lanterns. I ended up with about 3 lbs of cooked, pureed pumpkin to make stuff with. So today I decided to make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins. I found a few recipes to use for inspiration and then gave them a little tweaking (you all know that I cannot leave a recipe alone, even on the first try). So for your palate's pleasure, here is my version of Autumnal happiness:
2 cups pumpkin, cooked and pureed (or 1 can of pure pumpkin)
1 1/4 cups oil
8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup of confectioner's sugar
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon of melted butter
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cream cheese and confectioner's sugar in set in the refrigerator while you're making the muffin mix. Mix melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and add chopped pecans. In a large mixing bowl, add all dry ingredients and stir until mixed. Add eggs, oil, and pumpkin and mix until combined. Put liners in a muffin tin and fill them 3/4 full with muffin mix. Using a teaspoon, add a small dollop of cream cheese mixture onto the center of each. Top with a small handful of pecans. Cook for 20-25 minutes. (Mine took 23 minutes)
I've been talking about hunger, poverty, and solutions on Facebook all week and many of you have asked me what's with all the Food Drive talk. Well, here it is:
September
is National Hunger Action Month. If you know me, you know I can get way up there on the soap box about this topic. If not, don't say I didn't warn you... I want you to know that I actually researched these statistics; they have not been pulled out of thin air to pull on your heart and purse strings. 48.8 million Americans live in
food insecure households: 32.6 million adults and 16.2 million children.
That works out to 15% of all households, 10% of seniors, and 20% of
children in the U.S. struggling with hunger. The Memphis area ranks #1
in hunger in the US; 26% of people in our area miss at least one meal daily due to poverty. Most of these families are considered working poor. TN minimum hourly wage remains at $7.25; and tipped employees are only paid $2.13 an hour, which hasn't changed since my waiting tables days over a decade ago. The price of groceries has risen 3-4%
this year alone. This adds up to a lot of families (families we know) struggling; making the hard decisions about which bills will and will not get paid. How does one decide whether a roof or food is more important?
This issue hits close to home for me. I saw the heartache
it caused my mother to constantly worry about where our next meal was
coming from, how we were going to keep the lights on. I see how both of my disabled parents still struggle monthly to make ends even come close to meeting and have to depend on the generosity of food pantries because disability checks and food stamps are not enough to feed a person for a full month even for people that do shop smartly. I see hunger politely raiding my sidewalk community garden
regularly. I see mentally and physically handicapped homeless people begging while many of us turn our eyes away. I've seen kids in the classroom not be able to focus and routinely fall asleep due to lack of nutrition. These are my experiences with the heartbreak of hunger. What are some of yours? Do you divert your eyes? I know, when I don't have anything to offer, I still do it.
So, what can we do about hunger? I don't have "the" solution, but I do have some suggestions that while may not solve the problem, can help alleviate some of the pain. The easiest thing you can do is donate canned goods to food pantries. If you picked up one extra can of food for donation on every grocery trip, you could make roughly 52 donations a year with negligible damage to your pocketbook. You can volunteer even just one day a year at a food bank (It could be a great family experience). You can organize a food drive at your place of work (You only need a box with a sign for can collection and to send out an email). If you like gardening, build a small seasonal
sidewalk garden and invite people from your community to take what they
need or spend some time helping with community food gardens (In Memphis, many of the elementary schools have started gardens and take parent volunteers readily).
The Mid-South Food Bank (http://www.midsouthfoodbank.org/) takes donations in the form of non-perishable foods, personal care-items, and money. They have an extensive and easy to participate in volunteer program. And, if you are inclined to host a food drive, they make it SUPER EASY to do. You just have to go to their website and fill out a form and email it, done. They will even bring you the boxes for food collection and then come pick it all up when the drive is over. Many churches, perhaps even yours takes up alms in addition to tithing one Sunday a month for the purpose of feeding the needy. They often have their own food pantries which take donations and often could use your voluntary help. First Congo in the Cooper-Young neighborhood, IONA (http://iona.gutensite.com/), and Catholic Charities of Memphis (catholiccharitiesusa.org) all have great programs for helping the hungry.
My sister and I have setup a Food Drive through the Mid-South Food Bank. If you would like to contribute, you can drop off items at Memphis Memorial Park Funeral Home at 5668 Poplar Ave Memphis, TN 38119 (Poplar Ave. at the NW corner of I-240); Pugh's Flowers at 5645 Poplar Ave, 1622 Union Ave, or 2435 Whitten Rd.; if you know where either of us live, you can drop off at our homes; or if
you go to the Memphis Farmers' Market downtown, you can drop off there on October
13, 2012. We are taking donations from this point through mid-October. The items that they are in need of most are canned meats including: tuna, stews, chicken and dumplings, chili, Spam, and soups; peanut butter; canned fruits; canned veggies; canned fruit juice; any non-perishable item; disposable products including: paper towels, plates, napkins, cups, and plastic utensils; toilet paper; personal care items: toothpaste, shampoo, soap, and deodorant; laundry and dish detergents; and other household cleaning products.
Thanks for reading and feel free to contact me for help with anything in this post.
We have been working on brain expansion with the kid. As usual, I've been experimenting on the firstborn (technically the only one, but really who's counting). Over the last couple of weeks we've done a unit on transportation and another on colors & shapes. I'll be the first to tell you that the transportation theme should have been reserved for hubby's week off, because other than the visit to the Fire Museum and trolley ride, I was BORED. I have no interest in vehicles; I am quite girly in this way. On the other hand, the little turkey LOVED it. Color and Shape Week went off without a hitch. It was the easiest week we've done to this point as it was a direct learning setup as opposed to learning specifics along side a fun theme. I was pleasantly surprised that (A) still enjoyed all the work/play and didn't seem to notice anything missing. Now I know I can have an occasional lazily planned plan-b, in the instance I feel like being a lazy parent. Hey, hey, hey, don't judge... we all get lazy from time to time. So here they are in all their glory: The Lessons. You're welcome.
Small children learn best through play and hands-on activities and this stay at home mama enjoys the teaching process more if it doesn't turn my home into a hot mess. Here at Camp Edweirdsville, I plan theme-based weeks to explore lots of ideas through organized play. Having a theme unifies our day-to-day learning, gives us an opportunity to explore one topic thoroughly while learning new ideas and tasks daily, and helps me stay somewhat organized and keep the toy clutter low. It's not as structured as it sounds. Our routine, if you can even apply that term to it, is LOOSE. I try to spend 1-3 hours a day 4-5 days a week doing structured activities and those hours aren't necessarily all at one time. My plans are often switched around to work with the weather or utilize free days at local museums. Some activities on the plans get skipped or moved to a future plan (I leave them on the original plan in case I want to revisit this theme and rework it for reuse as he gets older). I have found that (A) does his best focusing just after breakfast and again about 30 minutes after nap-time, so I try to use those time-spans to our advantage and tackle learning opportunities then. Once he has lost interest in an activity, we move on to a different project or take a break. My key to coming up with tons of amazing activity ideas is Pintrest; this site is FULL of teachers and their shared ideas. We've been working on this for several weeks now so I'm about to bombard you all with a load of learning fun. I'll be sharing my plans, photos, and the positives and negatives about the projects we try.
Swamp Bath with snakes, lizards, an alligator, logs, and green-tinted shaving cream = one SUPER happy little one.
Collecting bugs.
The Swamp Lesson - What Worked, What Didn't
Things that worked well:
1. Watching the swamp videos
2. The Swamp Bath - discovering that alligators look like logs while floating in a river and then SNAP they eat their prey with a BIG chomp was hilarious to the kid.
3. Going to the zoo. This is always a plus for A.
4. Pretending to be swamp animals: Alligator, Frog, Lizard, Turtle, Snake, Egret, Flamingo, Beaver Otter
5. Bug collecting in a mason jar. We used bug images and hid them all over the house and yard. A went around collecting them in the jar.
Things that didn't work out:
1. Swamp in a pan = horrific mess. Do this in the tub.
2. Building a beaver dam. This became a game of how far can I shove this stick down into the mud and didn't move beyond that. Tried twice, was fun and educational about mud and sinking, but didn't achieve the intended goal. That's OK, we stilled learned new things and occupied our time doing something fun.
3. Lichterman Nature Center's swamp area was closed and we didn't get to do the last portion of our lesson. Lesson for mama = call ahead. We enjoyed our walk around the trails and got to see their not-so-live animal collection which worked well with the plan.
The Ocean Lesson - The Good, The Bad
Good:
1. Ocean in a Bottle - Abe the Babe loved making it. Now, it is being used as a less boring time-out/settle down time timer. I sit him in his chair and tell him to watch it until everything settles to the bottom and he can either get up at that point or shake and watch it again. It's a nice disruption from bad behavior and it teaches him to find ways to calm down. Sometimes this works and sometimes not, he's just now hitting the tantrum stage, so he has to test out all of those limits. It's cheap and easy to make so it's worth the try.
2. Aquarium Collage - I pre-cut ocean shapes and helped A paste and stick them on blue construction paper. He showed his collage off to everyone, very proud of his work.
3. Shark Mouth - Paper plate turned Jaws with a few snips of the scissors. A loves all things scary.
4. Computer Ocean Games - These were fun.
Bad:
1.Paper Plate & Tissue Paper Jellyfish - Tissue paper is too fragile for toddlers. We ended up with tissue paper confetti instead of a jellyfish.
3 weeks later... I still have a T-rex baby at least 50% of the time.
Outdoor Dino Projects - Pre-kid hands. We had A's friends over and had so much fun I didn't have time to get action photos.
Dinosaur Eggs made from flour, salt, coffee grounds, sand, and water with tiny dinosaurs tucked inside.
Archeological Dig (psst... there are turtle bones in there.)
Play-dough dinosaur imprint fossil station.
The Dinosaur Lesson: Positives and Negatives
Positives:
1. http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/scienceforkids/dinosaurs/index.htm - THIS SITE IS AWESOME!
2. Museum visit to check out dinosaur bones. The kids enjoyed seeing the size of these things. Lots of "Wow"'s all around.
3. Comparing sizes: big, medium, small
4. Carnivore vs. Herbivore: A still tries to eat my arm off to show me he's a carnivore. Really pretending to be any dinosaur at all stomping, chomping, crawling, flying, etc. Super fun.
5. Dinosaur Eggs - I've yet to come across a kid that didn't like cracking an egg to find a baby dinosaur.
6. Archeological Dig - We've kept this activity on the table outside. He asks to go dig for bones all the time.
7. Dinosaur fossil imprints - nothing like play-dough.
Negatives:
1. I extended this lesson by a week because we enjoyed so much but an extra week was too long. This should have been maxed out at 10 days.
Well, I didn't blog for 3 months... but I did accomplish other things in the interim. I did a lot of baking. And, I took a cake decorating class. Since I already knew how to whip up delicious cakes and frostings, I thought I should try my hand at decorating my confections. It turns out that I can now make my cakes either beautiful or delicious. I learned that I DO NOT like typical decorative 'buttercream' frosting. It's a combination of horrible for you processed shortenings, powdered sugar, and artificial flavorings. In Erica language: GROSS. So basically I can now make a cake that looks pretty and will hold up to warm temperatures, but tastes like every other store bought cake. OR, I can bake a cake that tastes heavenly, is made with real ingredients, looks pretty, and melts above room temperature. With that said, here are some pictures of delicious cakes and decorated cakes.
Dark Chocolate Cake with an Orange Curd Center & Dark Chocolate Ganache Frosting, topped with Dark Chocolate dipped Candied Orange Peels - and yes every bit of this is from scratch and might seriously be the most decedent wonderful thing I have ever tasted.
Detail of candied orange peels - not exactly pretty, but oh my they are delicious!
Homemade Strawberry Shortcakes with a Honey Scented Whipped Cream
Pre-class Cake Balls
1st try at making 'buttercream' roses
My 2nd shot at 'buttercream' florals was definitely more attractive
I was happy with the look of this cake.
Flower Basket Cake in all it's glory
Blackberry, Lemon, Ricotta Muffins - Post-class and maybe not as perfect looking as frosted cakes, but I might be in love with this recipe.
