Pavlov's Son

So, we have recently potty-trained our son. It wasn’t hard, but then again, nothing with our son has been very difficult. We’re going on three and the “terrible two’s” are the worst he has to offer, our life is a breeze.

Anyways, potty-training was easy; we just offered Zenden a cookie every time he used the potty. Since his only treats up to that point were dates and raisins, cookies actually were a treat. We got to the point where he was using the potty so much that we scaled back on the cookies and only gave them out if he pooped. Whenever he peed he got a piece of “ginger candy” which is just dehydrated ginger coated in sugar. For the longest time we were amazed that this kid could poop EVERY time he went to the bathroom. There’s nothing wrong with that, and even I’m overly “regular”, but geez this kid could poop!

He was doing so well that we figured that was it and we could stop with the cookies. It was all dates, raisins, and ginger candy from there on out. Everything was great, but Karen and I noticed that he wasn’t pooping every time he went to the bathroom. We weren’t worried, we just noticed a difference.
We’re not generally cookie or snack people but I recently got a wild hair up my ass and purchased some more cookies. To get rid of them I started giving them to Z when he went to the bathroom by himself. That was going great but he wasn’t using the bathroom by himself enough to go through the cookies as fast as I’d wanted. I started giving him cookies whenever he pooped again.

Guess what, we’re back to pooping EVERY time he uses the potty.

40

I think I really love being almost 40. I’ll be 40 in January in fact.
My whole life I’ve looked toward getting to be this old with a sense of fear. Now that it’s almost here, I really like it. It allows you to get away with stuff that I couldn’t when I was younger. My body for example, I can finally walk around without a shirt on. I will never have washboard abs, but who cares, I’m 40! That doesn’t mean I can let myself go again and become a fat slob, it just means I don’t have to worry about comparing myself to 25 year olds.

I love the wisdom being 40 carries with it. I finally feel I know what things I need to worry about, at least more so than when I was 30. 30 is when you officially become an adult, 40 is when you know how to act like an adult. So nya, nya, nya 30 year olds. Ooops.

I love waiting until recently to have a child. I was able to get all the partying and a lot of mistakes out of the way before bringing Z into the world. Because of this, I have more time to devote to raising him properly and better knowing what kinds of trouble he may get into (since I was still getting into trouble up until the day he came along).

40 means that Karen and I have been living together for 16 years. We’ve been officially married for 11, but I consider us married from the first day we moved in together.

There are plenty of other things I could say, but not now, for now I’m just happy to be at a point in my life where I AM happy.

p.s. Someone in my class told me she thought I was 30. THAT’S the best part about being 40 ;-)

Dollhouse

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That guy

As many of you know, I have been currently attending college since being laid-off last December. I vaguely remember attending from '88 to '90 but I got most of my GE stuff done so I must have been doing something. What I really don't remember is the amount of stupid people there are that go to college. Granted I'm speaking about community college, but it's still college!

In every one of my classes so far has been "that guy." The one who has nothing to add to the discussion and pretty much just likes to hear the sound of his or her own voice. They usually start by pretending to ask a question, but instead just start telling a story that goes nowhere and usually gives the professor no opportunity to stop them and go on with the lecture. Every time "that guy" opens their mouth you can hear the collective groan of everyone in the classroom.

What I want to know is where did "that guy" come from? I don't remember him back in high school or in my early days of college.

Gotta love peasant food

Let’s just get right down to business, no?

So Mon and Tues are my favorite days of the week because I get the mailers for Vons, Henrys, and Pancho Villa’s. What that means is that I go through everything and decide what’s on sale and make the menus for the week. What that also means is that I get the opportunity to make due with things that most people never eat.

This week was one of the more interesting weeks; I saw Tripas de Leche at Pancho’s for .99 cents a pound. Tripas? Milk tripe? I’ve had tripe but what the hell is tripas de leche? After a little research (yay Wikipedia), I found out they were the tube connecting the stomachs of cows that still haven’t been weaned off milk. An intestine. As you all know I’m down to try anything….twice. Thankfully, so is Karen. Zenden is frankly too young to know what he’s eating, and will hopefully have the same attitude about food as his parents as he gets older.
Anyway, back to the tripas…Here is the pic of me cleaning them. I just held open the end on ran water into it and out the other end.

After doing a couple I realized that they were braided together.

After cleaning, I threw them in a pot and simmered until tender.

While that was going on, I made a wonderful homemade tomato sauce

Here's another couple just for the gross out factor





After all that, chop and then combine with the tomato sauce




Simmer for a while and serve over white rice and top with parmesan cheese



Family eats and is happy!




Turns out it was awesome! Way better than expected. It was extremely tender and kinda milky tasting with extremely mild liver undertones. It was a winner and will definitely be made again.

Careful what you wish for...

Ok, so I’ve finally decided to create a blog. My reasons for doing so are varied, but anyone who knows me knows I have an opinion on just about everything. Not everyone agrees with me and that’s ok, I don’t expect you to. I don’t agree with all of you either. Just know that above all else, I respect your right to your opinion no matter what it is. All I ask is that you do the same. That said, be prepared to see things you don’t like, agree with, or think are just downright offensive. I am an equal opportunity offender. I have no sacred cows. If you can’t laugh at it, it’s probably not worth knowing or doing.

Being new to this, I’m not sure exactly how this will all pan out, but I’m hoping that this blog can be used partly as a forum for discussion. Feel free to comment on my posts, I enjoy challenges to my opinions. I feel it’s one way in which new things are learned. Also, I expect to use this as a place to document things in my life like the milestones of my sons development, things I make in the kitchen, and the “epic fails” I sometimes commit that make me (and I hope you) laugh.

Without further ado, I present…. Home is where the kitchen is.