Friday Foto Finish Fiesta...at the Beach

Have a great weekend, everyone. Thanks for the reading suggestions for the beach. My POPrs Giveaway is open through tomorrow, and everyone's a winner! The countdown begins today with a Friday Foto Finish Fiesta!

In honor of Candid Carrie, here are some favorite beach shots!

College Girl & Soccer Boy

College Boy & The Wild One, way back when

Uncle Lynn & Soccer Boy

One more thing. All of you nice bloggy buddies who recommended a beach read for my upcoming vacation, be sure to send your contact info...including a phone contact...to veggiemom@poprs.com . I want to get your prizes out to you ASAP! And don't forget to let me know what you think of POPrs when you've tried 'em!

See You in September!

This is Aunt Julie, guest writing for Veggie Mom today, so she can have a day off. I wanted to take this moment, and this medium, to brag about her girls, College Girl and the Wild One, a little.

I have known them since they were tiny, (naturally, since I am "Aunt Julie" and all) and just wanted to say what lovely young women they have matured into! Uncle Lynn and I could not be more proud. Their cousins are too, thought they won't admit it!

College Girl recently graduated with honors from Lawrence University, with a degree in History. In the fall, she will be off to the University of Wisconsin Madison to study law.

The Wild One is studying photography at Lawrence, and just completed her freshman year.

UW-Madison is Moker, their Dad's, alma mater. And also that of Uncle Lynn, who got his law degree from there, when tuition was about $1.50.

As part of Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, thought I'd share some photos, taken by Veggie Mom's sister, Miss Jo. I also want to wish the girls a safe and happy summer!

A Birthday Quilt to Remember

As The Wild One's birthday approaches, I've started thinking again about Aunt Julie and her marvelous quilts.

Julie Eliz stitched this one for TWO when she was a baby. The pattern is called Basket of Lillies. The POPrs Family came to visit for Christmas, and this was The Wild One's first Christmas gift from her Auntie Julie, the Quilting Queen.

This beautiful creation usually hangs on a dowell rod on the wall behind our bed. Today it's draped over Baba's Bench. I wouldn't leave it outside in this quaint setting for long, though. Too many of our feathered friends frequent the adjoining bird bath!

We Need to Clean Up Our Act

Our dishwasher has been out of commission for a week. So, we've gone back to the good old-fashioned method~washing dishes by hand.

I hadn't really realized how dependent we were on the modern miracle of KitchenAid until the dishes started stacking up in the sink. And getting on my last nerve.

Yes, the family knows how to do dishes by hand. We frequently employ the sink, the faucet and the good ol' drying rack after special occasions, when we have too many dishes to load. But with four people coming and going at all hours of the day and night this summer, and no one specifically assigned to "dish duty," things have become a tad chaotic.

I'll wash the breakfast dishes. Then College Girl might come through with a coffee cup and put it in the sink. And when the stack becomes less-than-manageable, The Wild One and Moker start leaving dishes all over the place.

Yes, I'm going a littel nuts here. And I'm really afraid that our friends the ants might come back for a visit before we get the dishwasher problem resolved.

I'm the first to admit that my kids are lazy. But when I drafted the girls to help with the dishes last night after dinner, it was as if I were speaking Russian to them, and asking them to paint a stack of nesting dolls.

My Mom always had the kids form an assembly line: one for washing, one for drying, one for putting away. And after a little bit of "who's on first, what's on second?" last night, we were humming like the well-oiled machine I remember from my childhood.

Until Moker came through and put his ice cream bowl in the sink. Without even rinsing it out.

Men.

SWS: She's the Hissy Fit Queen!

Just one thing to do this morning, and that's jump right into Six-Word Saturday:

She's definitely the Hissy Fit Queen!

Yes, this is a shot of The Wild One, at the lovely age of two. The child who used to bang her head against the wall.

This is one of my favorite portraits of TWO during her Hissy Fit Phase. I can never figure out if that's the face of an angel or a demon.

Thankfully, she's learned to use her words. But we recall some monumental storm clouds that rolled through our household in years gone by.

Cate at Show My Face hosts Six-Word Saturday every week. Please come along and join in the fun!

So, angel or demon? Which do you prefer?

Fx4: We're in the Army, Now!

OK, I confess. I don't have the most consistent parenting style. That's why I was surprised to take this quiz and find out that I apparently fall under the category of "Sgt. Strict."

Of course, it never helped that I had two little girls with such different personalities. College Girl was compliant; I could put her down on the living room rug in front of Sesame Street, and she'd be good for a couple of hours. Well, I never did that, but I imagined it, several times.

The Wild One, natch, lived up to her nickname. In addition to constant attention, she demanded to be fed when she demanded to be fed. Let me share a little soap-opera drama with you.

Picture this: SAHM, with 2-year-old and 5-year-old underfoot, gets an offer she can't refuse. An old friend has enough Frequent Flyer miles to take two people~that would include moi~to the Cayman Islands for a loooooooooonnnnngg weekend.

The only catch? Moker would be flying solo during our Girls' Weekend Away.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call at the hotel.

"What's wrong with The Wild One?"

"Gosh, I don't know. I'm in a hotel thousands of miles away. Is she still breathing?"

"Of course she's still breathing. But she's also hopping up and down in the kitchen and banging her head against the wall."

"What time is it there?"

"About 5:30."

"She's hungry, silly guy."

"Hungry?"

"Yeah. They eat early, remember? Did you forget dinner?"

"You mean if I feed her this will stop?"

"Yup."

"Thank God."

Well, she was only two. And she hadn't quite learned to use all her words yet. Playing along with Candid Carrie, and her Friday Foto Finish Fiesta. Have a wonderful weekend!

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet...

The title of this post is from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." I've been in a gardening mood for a couple of months now, and came upon this shot in the POPrs Family Archives. It actually was snapped by The Wild One in San Francisco a couple of years ago.

The colors, the contrast and the framing show hints of the artiste in my little girl, don't you think? But I have no idea what kind of flowers these are. Anyone have any guesses?

Here's the rest of the "rose" speech, spoken by Juliet, as she reflects on the love of someone from the House of Montague.

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Getting to the Meat of the Problem

I have to say I love me a good piece of meat. I've always been a steak girl. And, yes, I know it's sinfully bad for me, but I don't think I can help myself.

Three-quarters of our family, in fact, not only favors red meat, but likes it done up rare. An old expression comes to mind: "I'll have mine rare~Just wipe its but & run it by the fire."

Last year, the Veggie Family tried to be good. The Wild One read Skinny Bitch over Winter Break, and all of the sudden the Veggies were going Quasi-Vegetarian.

The mantra of SB's authors?

"If you can't take one more day of self-loathing, you're ready to hear the truth: You cannot keep shoveling the same crap into your mouth every day and expect to lose weight."

They pinpoint red meat as the culprit in many of our diet disasters. So, at the first of the year we vamoosed cow from our diet.

I had a whole new repertoire in the kitchen. Quiche Lorraine replaced Ribeye. Curry stood in for flank steak. We still did kabobs, but they featured chicken instead of sirloin.

Moker started to make cracks at the dinner table. Things like, "I just wish I could eat a meal that required a knife every so often." But even the Big Guy got with the program, eventually.

Have to say I'm pretty proud of the Veggie Family. We lasted close to four months. Then TWO, who had orchestrated the whole charade, decided that she, too had had enough.

She broke her fast one sunny late-April afternoon, with a post-school steak burrito. And then we celebrated with burgers on the grill that night.

It was a challenge while it lasted. And, no, I didn't lose weight. Not an ounce!

Mad Skills for the Grills!

Meet Mad Dog and Merrill, who call themselves "Grillologists," and hail from New London, WI. They host a local Saturday Morning grilling show on radio, and hire out to cater gatherings ranging from backyard picnics to college sorority get-togethers.

How do I know so much about these hysterical-and quite talented-guys? Well, Aunt Julie and Uncle Lynn have been fans from Day One. And that prompted The Wild One to hire them to cook for a Larry U. sorority fest Saturday night.

"I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven," is the way TWO describes her first taste of Mad Dog and Merrill's fare. "I'm gonna have a hard time going back to the dorm cafeteria!"

The day before their Larry U. debut, the Grillologists made this appearance on Good Morning, Wisconsin. They cooked a Beer Butt Chicken. Wonder if these guys have tried POPrs yet? We'll check that out and get back to ya!

Weekly Winners: Shell We Dance?

Nikon COOLPIX 4600

Welcome to Weekly Winners, brought to you by Lotus over at Sarcastic Mom. I'd like to share the beach with you today.

No, I don't live by the ocean, but I collect pieces of it and bring them back to my land-locked home. Here's a collection of whelks in various stages of "maturity," which grace one shelf of an old, beat-up, spray-painted, Salvation Army bookshelf that The Wild One fixed up for me on our back porch.

If I had a panoramic lens, I could shoot the whole shelf up close in one sitting. It's pretty neat. Or at least I think so!

Here's the inside of a turtle shell My Peeps found when they were wee ones. I don't know much about turtles, but doesn't that look like a backbone going up the middle?

I'm a fan of coral, but only if I don't step on it at the beach. I've got three different kinds here, and couldn't for the life of me tell you their names. I only know that the one on the far left is pretty sharp, the middle one no so much, and the one on the right is smooth as a skipping stone.

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean."

~Actor Christopher Reeve~

Weekly Winners: Star Wars & a Canon Rebel XTi

Welcome to Weekly Winners, hosted by Sarcastic Mom. After venturing out into this venue with my sad little 4-megapixel camera, I decided to showcase a couple of shots by The Wild One. She's a College Kid, and she's majoring in Studio Art with an emphasis in photography. She took these on a visit to Washington, DC's, American History Museum. There's apparently an exhibit there that's All Star Wars, All The Time.

R2-D2 never looked so good, huh?

C-3PO doesn't look a day over 30, does he? Actually, he's 32.

Shot with a Canon Rebel XTi Digital SLR, 10 megapixels ~ 2007

Weekly Winners: It's a Dog's Life, Right?

Time for another edition of Weekly Winners, brought to you by Sarcastic Mom.

During my latest Road Trip to see my peeps, Aunt Julie and I took the doggies to the Kaukauna, WI, Dog Park .

The thing about Moses and Rowdy is they like to go in the water, no matter how cold it is. Here's Moses shaking off. That's Rowdy's butt on the right...got his nose in something, for sure!

Although this shot doesn't show it, Rowdy went pretty far out. There was a family of ducks across the pond, and we were hoping he didn't notice...




Moses got tired of the cold water after a while and decided that being dry on land was preferable...


...while Rowdy found a friend to play with. I really like the colors and the composition of this one.

Once again, I snapped these shots using a Nikon CoolPix 4600, 4.0 Megapixels, 3x Zoom. Next week, I'll try to showcase some shots by my daughter, "The Artiste."

No, She Didn't!

Actually, yes, she did.

The Wild One had an...errrrrrr...episode in the bathroom the other day. She really had to go. She rushed down the hall to the dorm's communal john. She acquired an empty stall, scooted on in there, and ripped down her jeans.

Ker-plop!

Yup. Cellie, lodged in her back pocket, went right in the drink. Fortunately, before she'd done her business, so TWO had the good sense to fish the phone out. Then she let fly.

So, whaddayado with a drenched cell phone? Google registers more than 3.2 million hits, many of them giving advice on that very topic. We checked the first 20 or so, and it was a no-go. I prefer blingaling's warning about potential disaster. The photo above comes from his post, which says, in part:

"People have gotten their arms stuck trying to fetch their cell phones from a flushing toilet. Is it really worth that much to you?"

Nope. Don't think so. Rather just make my daughter pay the damages.

Aunt Julie's Kitchen: Santa Fe Quiche

This recipe is so delish, even the persnickity Wild One enjoys it. I was getting tired of the same-old-same-old, so went Googling for a quiche recipe. I was having one of those Retro Mondays, and just felt like getting my egg on.

Well, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, I had five different quiche recipes in front of me. I took a little of this from one, a smidgen of that from another, and before I knew it, I had a dynamite dish that (almost literally) will blow your socks off!

Santa Fe Quiche: Veggie Mom Version

8 eggs, beaten

8 ounces shredded monterrey jack cheese

12 oz. to 1 lb. chorizo sausage, browned/drained

1/2 cup skim milk

1 cup browned hash browns; frozen OreIdas will do!

1 tbs. chili powder

2 Anaheim chile peppers, roasted and cut into strips

1 Pillsbury pie crust (or, you can make your own!)

Directions: Combine the eggs, cheese, chorizo and milk. Mix together. Then brown the hash browns in the chorizo grease, adding the chili powder for a zesty flavor. Add the hash browns to the other ingredients, then pour into a pre-made pie crust (or you can make your own!) that is lining a deep-dish pie plate. Take the chile peppers out of the oven and slice them vertically, making sure to remove all seeds (they're hot!). Decorate the top of your quiche with the peppers, as shown in the photo above. Bake for one hour at 350 degrees F. Serve with a salad, and you're good to go. Enjoy!

Everyday Italian with Giada and The Wild One

The Wild One loves to cook. She bakes, she zooms up homemade guacamole, and she sure does love her pasta. One of my favorite Mother's Days in recent years involved TWO putting together an Everyday Italian dish that she learned from her friend, Giada De Laurentiis.

OK, Giada isn't really a family friend. She's more of a Boob Tube Buddy. Even in between classes, TWO loves to catch snippets of The Food Network, and her favorite is Everyday Italian.

In this video, Giada prepares Simple Tomato Sauce. This red sauce serves as a staple in many of Giada's ~ and TWO's ~ recipes. The key, of course, is in the simplicity. One thing, though, I don't really understand: How can Giada cook without messing up her fashionable outfits? As my Nana used to say: One must always wear an apron in the kitchen!

Empty Nest? Not!

Have you any idea how many children it takes to turn off one light in the kitchen? Three. It takes one to say, "What light?" 

and two more to say, "I didn't turn it on."

~Erma Bombeck~

Veggie Mom, reporting on location with College Girl and The Wild One. No Empty Nest Syndrome here the past couple of days. I'm taking a few days off to Commune with My College Kidz, and they've shown me a thing or two.

Most of my recent college education involves the cost of groceries ("More Ramen Noodles, please!") and the location of the nearest mall.

I love 'em, I really do! I guess I just wish I didn't feel like a Human ATM Machine all the time!

Doing the Chicken Dance with Candid Carrie

Daddy is a Badger ~ that would be a grad of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Big Sis is considering becoming a Badger in her post-grad life. So it's only natural that The Wild One taught the Badger Band how to do the Chicken Dance at a UW football game so many moons ago.

Playing along with Candid Carrie today. She's the First-Rate Founder of the Friday Foto Finish Fiesta!

Why You Should Eat Your Veggies!

In honor of "friendship Month," Mary Beth over at Blogmania is featuring bloggers that have developed enduring friendships through blogging. And guess who she featured first? I hate to brag, but listen to what MB said about me:

"You can feel her energy in her writing, which is quite an accomplishment. I can only imagine how spunky she is in person. From what I have seen, she is devoted to her friends and family, to promoting Pop'rs and to living life to its fullest."

Why thankyouverymuch, Mary Beth! Here's the full interview with Veggie Mom, if you're interested. And the photo above? Taken last summer, when we could get all 10 of us together at the beach!

Tell us a little about yourself, your family, etc......
Well, there are 10 members of the “extended” Pop’rs Family. First off, there’s Uncle Lynn, my BIL, the creator of the incredibly good-for-you, wonderfully fun Pop’rs…the whole reason I’m online, urging everyone to Eat Your Veggies! Uncle Lynn is married to Aunt Julie, whose bailiwick is yummy food, homemade quilts, family photos, gardening and, of course, the dogs, Moses and Rowdy. Aunt Julie is also my hubby Moker’s Little Sis. Uncle Lynn and Aunt Julie have four boys: Big Bear, Shark Boy, College Boy and Soccer Boy. On my side of the family, there’s me, Veggie Mom, who’s married to Moker, Aunt Julie’s Big Brother. We have two girls: College Girl and The Wild One.

Besides blogging, what are some of your hobbies?
Let’s see…I love to read, garden, go for long walks…I’m a fairly decent cook, and a pretty good writer, so I’d include those in my interests, too. But as far as being crafty? That’s Aunt Julie’s side of the family! Except for coaxing day lilies out of the soil every spring, I’m just not that handy!

How did you get started blogging?
Well, Uncle Lynn wanted to get the word out this new seasoning he developed at his plant in Northeastern Wisconsin. He thought it would be fun to blog about Pop’rs, and asked me what I thought about the idea. Several of my friends have started blogs, so I naturally was pretty enthusiastic. On June 16th of last year I finally got my feet wet! It took me a while to find Veggie Mom’s “voice,” but the rest, as they say, is history!

What do you like best about blogging?
I consider Eat Your Veggies! to be a forum not just for Pop’rs and the Pop’rs Family, but for my visitors as well. I love sharing my everyday thoughts and dreams. Plus, as a blogger I have a built-in “sounding board” in the blogging community. I love the freedom that the Internet brings. I can be sitting here in my dusty basement, and communicate with others halfway around the world! I also enjoy meeting new friends and making common connections. And I get a lot of encouragement and advice, which is nice!

You have such a strong network of online friends. Which bloggers have you created an especially strong bond with?
I’m close with several blogging buddies. Susie, from Susie’s Homemade is one of my faves…she and her wonderful husband, Jeff, just redesigned my blog, which is awesome! I also have a strong affinity for Karla at Zander and Me, and The Lovely Mannequin, at Fractured Toy. Mannequin’s friends, Frankie and Cupid, are the best…plus they’re featured in my new redesign as well. Check out the Polaroid in the upper left-hand corner that’s labeled “Pop’rs Pals”!

Do you share any common threads with your fellow blogging friends?
We all love sharing stories about friends, family, work and food. Especially food! And every time Uncle Lynn hosts a Great New Pop’rs Giveaway, I seem to make even more bloggy buds. Wonder why that is?

Any fun vacation plans in 2009?
The Pop’rs Family vacations every summer at North Carolina’s Outer Banks. We’ve been going there for years, and consider this lovely strip of sand more of a sanctuary than a vacation spot. Last year we were able to get all 10 of us there at once, which was a very special treat! Other than our annual beach getaway, though, I’ve been saving my sheckels…with two kids in college, I can’t afford a fancy vay-cay right now!

Bleacher Booty?

Veggie Mom and Eat Your Veggies! are on the road this weekend in Iowa for the Midwest Conference Swimming Championships at Grinnell College.

Larry U. is making a great showing this year, but the parentals of team members are suffering from paralysis of the derrière...also known as Bleacher Booty. Yes, College Girl and The Wild One are working hard, but Mom wonders if there are any benefits to precariously perching up to seven hours a day on crowded carpeted blocks, hovering over a chlorinated sauna.

Ah, the woes of a Swimming Mom. But we're having oodles of fun, too. Plus, it's great to see My Girls!

The team eats pasta twice a day to keep fueled for the competition. So do the parents, but they're not doing much but sitting around. Hmmmmm...probably need to get back in the pool myself when I get home!

Fx4: Invasion of the College Students!

Now, don't get me wrong~I love both of my girls. They're just not cut from the same mold as, say, Martha Stewart.

After spending Christmas Break with my two, I'm beginning to think both their rooms look like pilots for Extreme Home Makeover. Perhaps we could start a new show...Invasion of the College Students?

Playing along, of course, with Candid Carrie and her Friday Foto Finish Fiesta. FYI, College Girl's room is on the left, The Wild One's on the right. TWO's room is bigger, so I guess she rates a higher score on the Mess-o-Meter?