This Just Seems Silly

Read this recipe and tell me if you thought this was a little silly:

Homemade Fudge Pops
30 minutes + Freezing
from Lyssa Prasek c/o Simple and Delicious Magazine

"On hot summer days, these are my favorite frozen treats. They're healthy and economical, too!" ~ as described in the magazine

1/4 C butter cubed
1/2 C all purpose flour
4 C milk
1-1/3 packed brown sugar
1/3 C baking cocoa
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
20 Popsicle molds or disposable plastic cups (3 oz each) and Popsicle sticks

►In a large saucepan, melt butter over a medium heat. Stir in floud until smooth; gradually add milk. Stir in brown sugar, cocoa and salt. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for two minutes or until thickened.
►Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. Cool for 20 minutes stirring several times.
►Pour 1/4 cupfulls into popscicle molds or plastic cups; top molds with holders or insert popscicle sticks into cups. Freeze until firmYields 20 servings.

First of all.....healthy? Butter? Milk? Sugar?
Second of all....economical? Has this lady priced a gallon of milk lately? I'd also have to go out and purchase popsicle molds and sticks. The total price for me to make these 20 popsicles would be $20. And chances are , with my baking skills lately, they wouldn't even make it past the boiling stage. I can picture myself reduced to tears, lying in a heap on the kitchen floor, burnt pan in one hand with a lighter and flame torching up the Simple and Delicious magazine in the other.

Delicious maybe, but Simple it looks not. I'll forgo the pain and agony now while I suck on a Blue Bunny Fudgsicle.

Oh, Go to.......

Some of you may be wondering about that last paragraph in that last post. How do I know I'm going to the third level of hell? Because I took this very insightful quiz called the Dante's Inferno Test . Apparently it does freeze over because that's what's going on where I'm staying. See you in hell.

Molly's Latest iPod Misadventure

WARNING #1: Thinking about Apple , iTunes and iPods can send me into a rage of profanity....

It's been two years of a love/hate relationship with iPods - you may vaguely remember my experience with the little white portable music device right when we got it. Well, our computer decided to take a big greasy dump on Tuesday so I have been burning the midnight oil, not to mention my rods and cones, to get our computer back up and running to full capacity. The last thing on my list to do is figure out the least painful way of getting our music back onto the computer.

WARNING #2: For those of you who are/ were naive like me and thought that music is on the iPod, it should just transfer somehow back on to the computer after it crashes, we are wrong. If you haven't backed up your music files recently I suggest you do so....now!......seriously...stop reading this blog...back up your music.....but hurry up so I can finish my story

OK you're back....what a pain in the ass that was, which is why we never backed up our music, until now.So I've spent the entire morning reading the troubleshooting guides and message boards to try and find solutions to recover our music and podcasts - I have close to 800 songs on my iPod and Nate has about 300 - can you imagine us sitting and manually plugging in cds, not to mention all of the songs we've purchased from iTunes.

I finally came across some downloads and hoped they worked. I settled on Media Widget to try out their free trial to see if the program even worked. I install everything only to find out it will get you 10 songs off the iPod anything else I want I'm going to have to purchase the program. Is this a scam or what? 10 songs??? Does anyone have just 10 songs on their iPod? That may get me around the block but not a road trip to Montana.

$35.78 later we have iTunes restoration. The program worked! I can't believe Apple doesn't offer some sort of free program that does this for you. It just fries my ass! The crappy thing is we are completely helpless and let these corporate bastards give it to us in the ass without lube while they smoke their Cubans and laugh like the devil. Well, I hope they get banished to the 9th level of hell and I can have the last laugh high above them on my perch with my three headed monster friend and living the good life in the 3rd level of hell.

You Ever Have One of Those Days?

This was my day yesterday

• Woke up to a crappy running computer that has been acting up for a few months. I had this wonderful idea to run a system disk check before backing up any of our data. Can you guess what happened? Yep, the computer froze up ....three hours later talking to Nino the Dell Tech all-the-way-from Manila, Phillippines, we had to restore the computer to factory default settings. Yeah, we lost pretty much everything. I had the good sense to back up the Don's Plumbing folder last week though. Phew!
• Within seconds of hanging up the phone I recieved a call from the school - Annabelle had a bloody nose and was running a fever. She got sent home - with blood all over her brand new white sweater.
• Within minutes of her arrival Nate opens the mail with a love letter from our credit card company saying that we had failed to pay this months bill. What? I ran through our check register and sure enough the bill had been paid and the check cleared. Upon further inspection I realized I had accidently paid the other credit card the money. Cripes!
• Nate and I were both racing to the liquor cabinet to pour ourselves a stiff one when it hit us. We made a pact this weekend to give up beer and sugar for a week to give our guts a rest. Ack!

God has a sense of humor and we all lived through May 27, 2008. Things are looking up too. Tonight was my monthly Bunco gathering with the girls and I won......$37... just enough to cover the late fee on that credit card bill.... Yay!

Now you all have a correct day ahead, OK - Qouted from the guy from India I spoke with before I was handed over to Nino

When the lights go out.......

Friday night at 9 pm we had just settled in to watch a movie. Fifteen minutes into the film the TV flickered and went out, seconds later we heard groans from the girls in the office as they were playing with their Webkinz online. The electricty had gone out. We all sat there waiting for it to come back on as it usually does but 5 minutes later it was still out. Nate and I soon gathered all of our candle votives and tea lights and began to illuminate the house with the soft glow of candle light. It looked beautiful.

The electricity was out for a full 45 minutes nowadays that's like a record. When Nate and I were growing up in Montana we remember the electricity going out for hours if not days at a time and we always made do. Now it's such a major inconvenience to not be plugged in 24/7. We weren't too worried but did comment that we should get that emergency kit we've been meaning to put together for years now.

One thing we really enjoyed while the power was out was the peace and queit. We don't realize how much noise pollution all of our appliances make. It was wonderful to make like Laura Ingalls and spend some quiet time by the oil lamp playing card games with the family. It's times like this that makes me wish the power would go out more frequently.....if only I didn't have the food in the freezer or fridge to worry about spoiling.

Little Bird - a Poem for Josephine

Today Josie asked me to turn the water on for her to take a shower. I began to explain that it was time for her to learn to do things for herself. She started to throw a fit and I told her she needs to learn to fend for herself or else how will she get along in life if she has her parents do everything for her - I blame myself 100% for this. I am trying my best to correct it now before she really gets the entitlement mentality. So I then went on to explain that in nature you don't see animals living with their parents when they're in their 30's and baby birds have it especially hard because the mommy birds push them out of the nest and that's how they learn to fly ...... to which Josie retorted " but mom, then cats like Ella come along and eat the baby birds". There goes my beautiful analogy.

Little Bird - a Poem for Josephine by her mother, Molly Spain

It's time for you to fly, Little Bird
Out of the nest you must go
For if you don't soon fly, Little Bird
How on earth will you ever grow?

I've coddled you long enough, Little Bird
In these loving wings of mine
Now you must venture out, Little Bird
And learn about life on your own time

As much as I want you always with me
Little Bird, it's only for the best
You have to fight to survive in this world
So Little Bird, I'm pushing you out of the nest

Leavenworth

We spent Mother's Day weekend in Leavenworth, WA to camp at the KOA and check out the annual Mai Fest - ivities. The Harder Family joined us in the fun this year.


Nate and Annabelle wait for the parade to start.


This was a rock in the meadow that the kids loved to play on.


We sent them on a mini treasure hunt. One of the items was a treasure chest that they had to dig into to find their treasure. this activity kept them busy for a little while.

The first camp out of the year was a fun and busy one. It seems we were always getting something for the kids, cleaning up and eating. Jenny and I felt we didn't get any good visiting time in as when it came time for the kids to go to bed we were so tired out that we weren't too far behind them.

Fuzzy Math

Earlier this week I went grocery shopping for our family of four. I bought enough groceries for a week that included breakfasts, lunches and dinners. The total cost: $89.23

Today we invited friends over for a BBQ lunch - just hamburgers, chips and cookies - how easy and inexpensive. I ran to the same store to get the menu items. Total cost: $61.07. What the? The beer alone was $22 of that. Nate thinks that if you go to the store to get beer you need to at least get the mega pack of cheap light beer and a 6 pack of some good microbrew. Whatever.....

It'll be a good lunch though.

Welcome to the Spain Family, Bonnie!

We gained a new sister. On May 1, 2008 Nick Spain - Nate's younger brother - married Bonnie Laird. The couple have decided to quell the inquests of the "When are you going to have kids?" questions immediately by having a little Spain-lette sometime this fall. Why not kill two birds with one stone?

We'll meet Bonnie for the first time next month when we lay another Spain to rest in Hamilton, MT. Nate's Grandma Eda Spain passed away this winter and requested that we all not travel in the snow. She must've been pshycic because she happened to die before all of the crazy weather really hit. God Bless her.

Anyway, we're excited to meet Bonnie. Judging from Leslie's famous candid shots she looks like she'll fit into this family just fine.

Congratualtions, you two!

Like a Fresh Summer Breeze

It's actually been nice enough to hang clothes out on the clothesline. When I mention this to friends a few of them have commented on what great stewards of the earth we are. I always have to chuckle because in all reality, once it gets hot enough, the air conditioner pretty much replaces the energy we consumed by running the dryer.

I think the real reason I wanted a clothesline was more for nostalgic reason. I remember fondly my mom always diligently putting up the laundry once the weather permitted her to do so. I would watch her as she hung each piece of laundry and meticulously pinned them up. She had a great system. Larger items would hang in the back while the shorter items - socks and underwear - would hang in the front for all the world to see.

My favorite part was when sheets would be hanging and my brother and I would run through them something, I'm sure, my mom cringed everytime we'd do that. She loved doing the laundry which is probably a big reason that laundry is the one chore I thoroughly enjoy myself.