Ahhh, Meat.

Humans are omnivores. My family definitely leans on the carnivore side of omnivore. We like meat.


I've been enjoying hitting up the bbq out back this summer. Each year I seem to get more adventurous in my cooking, and I am really enjoying the results (and so are our digestive tracts). I know that this year has seen me take a leap or two, and I do attribute that to having purchased most of an animal instead of the usual cut at a time. It has put some items in my chilly box that I normally would not get, thus stretching my cooking repertoire. It has been fun learning to wait.


and wait some more.










Check the meat.




Wait. Baste it. Wait.








Check it one last time, and......

ENJOY!

(Country style ribs, rubbed, smoked and sauced)

I'm not one to follow a recipe. I'll look them up to get ideas, mesh a few together and see what happens. Tweak the next time if needed. So you can see why slow cooking some meat over a fire and some hunks of wood would appeal to me. Not only does it hearken back to the primitive and carnal nature of man, but it is also an art form. There is no exact a+b+c leads to d,e and f. Let the meat rest, season it, build and maintain the fire, check at the right moments, guess, feel. That's cooking.


Where the fun comes in is the kids asking what kind of animal I just put on their plate. No, silly, not because it is in such an unrecognizable form on the plate, but because they are curious and still learning. Usually an answer of pig, cow or chicken suffices, but occasionally we will get into the more exact cut. Our answer will prompt an affirmative response from the kids; I believe that they would eat anything that I have pulled off of the grill.


So, now that we have established the joy of cooking and the kids' curiosity and response, here is a tale from the summer.


Steph is at the State Fair with the kids. This usually involves going over two different days to see the various exhibits for the kids and also tour the animal showings. So as they are walking through the barns and passing some prize winning swine, Ian looks up and exclaims, "I like pig!". I'm sure the farmer thought this cute kid likes the animal and is sharing this with his mother. Reality: he's hungry.


Pork chop, anyone?

In the minority for teachable moments

So this past week was homecoming at school, 


(Sidebar: I take care of the A/V needs at Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis.  Part of my duties involve instructing the Video Production classes there.)

and, as I am sure it is with most schools, we had different themes each day to dress up to.  Some of the usual stuff, Hero Day (which I went as the esteemed MacGyver, theme song and all), Country Club day (which I took literally and wore my boots and cowboy hat).

The day that proved most interesting to me was fake an injury day.  Now here you would expect the usual, kids on crutches, in splints and riding around in wheelchairs.  There were band-aids, bandages, and too much mascara for a black eye.


But I'm not into the simple stuff.  I teach Video Production, which involves special effects.  I wanted something realistic.  Gory.  Gooey.  Bloody.

So I convinced my class to gather the resources and prior to school that day, we had a good old fashioned blood making party.  After which, we smeared it all over each other.  I think it looked pretty good.  I really enjoyed the kid who had the bloody hand print on their neck.  The stuff worked out pretty good; it kept a good sheen to it, was about the right color, and even oozed like coagulating blood.


I soon discovered the drama teacher was sharing the same thoughts as me.  Not only can I have some fun today using some of my talents, but I can use it to teach the kids something about the craft.  On this day of fun and revelry, I shall teach my students something slightly gory and grade them on it!


Yeah, so while most teachers are probably slightly put off because of lack of focus on the students' part, I'm finding something out of the ordinary to teach them.  Yay for an atypical learning environment.


Sorry, no pics.

It's how we browse

The inner nerd will come out in us from time to time (it's why we watch Big Bang Theory on CBS). So, for this round:


Internet browser of choice (for desktops, mobile is a different story):


IE
Chrome
Firefox
Safari


There is an ongoing debate in this house.  What's yours?

Bored or not bored

To quote my wife, 


"My simple question of, "Honey, can you help me open the shed door?" (it shifted on the foundation a bit more after the latest storms) has turn into him putting a jack under it, lifting it up on its foundation and re-hanging the doors this evening.
Me thinks Jason has been a bit short on DIY projects around here in the past couple of weeks!"

Yeah, so what.  I recognize that I am this way.  Give me something to do, and once I'm all in, it's on like Donkey Kong.  I frustrate myself with this, because I recognize that I will put the blinders on and not really catch everything else going on around me.  Next thing you know, it's a few hours later and I am supposed to be giving the kids a bath (in reference to above quote).  I love getting into projects and having them to do; I enjoy the sense of accomplishment and having fixed/created with my own two hands.  The flip side is that I dislike having shut out everything else because I am so focused on getting the task done.

The doors work, but don't quite swing the way that I want them to.  I'm sure that there is a joke in there somewhere.

I write this as the rain drizzles down outside, where most, if not all, of my projects reside.  Placing me under a pseudo house arrest.  For now.

The swirling gene pool

So I want to know where in the recessive gene pool the cheerleader gene was hiding.  We have always known that Caroline had it in her, but with tonight's junior cheerleader time at the football game, this fact has pretty much been cemented.  Don't get me wrong, it was cute watching her run around with 83 other elementary age young ladies.  Yet, she takes it seriously.  As in she has been practicing for the past few days.  And talking about it non stop.  And went to bed still saying the cheers.

Meanwhile Lydia just sat down with some friends and hung out.  Ian wouldn't leave my side, and due to having a loud mouth Dad, he was able to score an adult XL t shirt and a mini football.  And by loud mouth, I mean shouting all of the cheers with the varsity squad and rooting the home team on to victory. 

So, yeah, I will understand where the musical interest would come from.  I get the creative artsy side.  I get the mischievous nature.  I get the dedication and passion.

...BUT WHERE ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH did I get a cheerleader from?

I'm on a roll!!!

Ok, so for the person demanding an update, I'm making it a trifecta evening.

It was a beautiful sunny evening, the kids were playing, and I with camera in hand...

Enjoy.

If you're looking for the tea pot...

...it's not here.

A lesson that I learned in school:  Cite your sources, and cite them correctly.

A big shout out to my girl Katie Jane over at http://goodetimegirls.blogspot.com/ (whom I have never met before in my life) for driving traffic my way through an incorrect link for a tea pot cake.

So, thanks for the random referral.  For those of you randomites that have dropped by, feel free to drop by again.  Who knows what else will happen?






...and I guess that since we are referencing random blogs, I'll leave you with one from Jen over at http://thebloggess.com/

"...a hug is like a strangle that you haven't finished yet."

'I say yep!'

So, we all have experiences with the silly/funny/crazy things that kids say.  Nothing new here.  But what I love is how the kids develop their personality, and even though they move on linguistically, somethings just stick.  Like my #2 child and the way that she says chocolate.  It comes out more like schloclate.  Still says it that way.  A part of me never wants that to change.  And #1, with her 'Spanish', which really is just babble talk, but it is just fun how she goes around the house speaking a foreign language in her head (quite convincingly, since Lydia follows along with it).  While I know that having Spanish class this year will increase her vocabulary, I know that I will miss the babbling gibberish.

So now #3 is getting quite the vocabulary.  Which I know that he always has had, but now that his body is catching up to his brain, he is becoming the cutest little bug.  Wait, that wasn't real manly of me. 

Try again:  He is becoming quite the dapper fellow. (best I could do under pressure).  In the midst of clarity coming to his words and sentences flowing from his mouth (much to his mother, his therapist, and my elation), he is adding the final hard sound/syllable to words.  And he likes it.  The way it feels, sounds, comes across...

So we have him saying nope instead of no, and he seems to prefer yep to yes.  We know that he can say the proper words, but when the question was asked of him if he could say yes, his response, clear and to the point was, "I say yep!".

Enough said, if you ask me.