How-To's Day: The Christmas Cactus

I finally have a how-to for you this week! (and there was much rejoicing....)  For years, Mamasita has had a fascination with the Christmas Cactus.  It's a very pretty plant even when it's not blooming, but the flowers themselves are especially pretty.  Christmas cacti are a good fit for our family because they are relatively easy to care for and keep on blooming year after year.  They are pretty hardy in-door plants, but every once in a while we accidentally knock off one of it's little branches.  The cool thing about Christmas cacti, though, is that  a broken branch has the opportunity to become an entirely new plant.  If you take the broken piece right away and set it in some water, after a few days you'll start to see little roots:

When those roots start to look strong enough, you can plant the new shoot in its own pot.  To help retain water, we always put a few rocks at the bottom:

Once you finish planting the cactus in the soil, you should water it to help it get over the shock of replanting:

When your cactus get's big enough, it'll start blooming; first with little buds...

Then the buds will get bigger...

And bigger...

Until they burst into full bloom!

What the camera wasn't able to capture is the natural sparkle that these flowers have, but as you can see, Mamasita's Christmas cacti blossom in glorious pink and white.  Christmas cacti can bloom in other colors, too, but I've only ever seen this one.  If you decide to try it, let us know if you have any questions!
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Just like everybody else, we have a whole bunch of Thanksgiving and family madness to partake in this week, so there won't be any more posts until at least next Monday.  In the meantime, I thank God for anyone and everyone who reads this blog and I ask His blessing on every single one of you, with a special intention that all of you who are traveling have safe and uneventful passage on your way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Old Cartoons Vs. New Cartoons

Has anyone besides me noticed the severe drop in quality of kids cartoons these days?  When I was a kid, I watched stuff like Justice League, Veggie Tales, and Samurai Jack...  I even watched things that were outside of my decade and yet are totally immortal, such as The Animaniacs, the original animated Batman, Tom and Jerry, and Looney Tunes.  These were and are all good shows that I still enjoy very much, so it's really sad to me that the entire cartoon industry seems to have gone into a decline.

These days, cartoon shows consist of: characters whose very physical forms don't make any sense; pointless or nonexistent plots; vulgar jokes instead of anything that resembles real wit; and a tendency to be so fast-paced and obnoxious that kids are left with absolutely no time to think.  To me, that doesn't sound like it's in any way beneficial or even very entertaining.  In fact, there was a study done that shows that these types of cartoons can adversely affect a child's ability to focus.  You can read all about it here.  (Yes, she is ranting, officer, but what do you plan on doing about it?)

In a nutshell, somebody needs to tell the cartoon writers to slow down and use their brains a little more so that maybe the kids who sit through their shows will have brains by the end of it.  In the meantime, I will be consoling myself with Batman.  Ciao!

Happy Menoversary to Us!

I was honestly considering not posting today.  I couldn't think of anything to say, so why bother?  Then I realized that today is the first menoversary of this blog.  How exciting is that?

What do you mean "menoversary" isn't a word?  Sure it is, Urban Dictionary says so!  I'm sure that means it's a real word... * searches through unabridged dictionary *... Huh.  Guess not.  At least not for now.  That's the great thing about the English language: make up a word, get a lot of people to use it, and voila! you've added something to the American dialect, possibly even the dictionary.  I've lost rounds of Boggle to my brothers because they somehow combined random letters into things that I was dead certain weren't actual words, but then a quick search through the dictionary proved them right and me wrong.  Some of those words you definitely wouldn't use in a conversation and some of them specifically said they were "informal English" (can you say "bad English"?), but they were words nonetheless.  For instance, Ribbajack once came up with "neep", which you'd think is something like "the sound you make when you sit in something wet and cold", but in reality is the Scottish word for turnip.  Strange? Yes, but at least now you've expanded your vocabulary!

I'm something of a Grammar/Spelling Nazi and the wanton torture of the English language pains me, so to the end of keeping people enlightened, I have a little something for you:

Cranberry Sauce Revamped!

Ugh.  I missed How-To's Day again...  Yesterday was just one of those off days.  You know how it is: when you've got a headache most of the day, you can't seem to get anything done, and you zone out while watching Die Hard with the guys.  One of those days...

Thankfully, though, I'm back on an even(-ish) keel: I have coffee in hand and I'm good to go.

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Thanksgiving is only a couple weeks away, and I'm sure you're all working on your shopping and menu planning for that.  Just don't forget the cranberry sauce!

I'm not sure where this came from, but at some point in time somebody came up with the idea that cranberry mash was the perfect item to serve with Thanksgiving dinner, and it has inexplicably become an American tradition.  Now you can just open a can of cranberry sauce, plop it in a bowl and set it on the table without a second thought.

There are very few things that my family believes are acceptable to eat directly from the can, and cranberry sauce isn't one of them.  Instead, we make a cran-apple Jello mold that is utterly delicious and works well whether you have turkey or ham for your holiday meal.  I'd like to say that we came up with this idea ourselves, but that would be dishonest.  Mamasita found the recipe on a can of Musselman's applesauce I don't know how many years ago.  We've made it for as long as I can remember, and I honestly can't imagine Thanksgiving dinner (or Christmas, for that matter) without cran-apple Jello.  It's super easy and really popular with the kids; I highly recommend that you try it!  

Cran-Apple Mold

Ingredients:

2 packages (3 oz. each) cherry flavored gelatin

1 cup boiling water

1 can (16 oz.) whole cranberry sauce

1 3/4 cups apple sauce

Directions:

1. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water

2. Stir in cranberry sauce until melted.  Mix in apple sauce.  Pour into oiled 5-cup mold.  Chill until firm.

3. Flip mold onto a plate and enjoy!

Speaking of cranberries, that reminds me of something:

Happy Wednesday!

Highlight - Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Hi-ya, hi-ya, everyone!  How was your weekend?  Did you do anything fun and exciting?  I mostly spent my time puzzling my brains out over some logistical stuff and doing church activities.  I know, I know... I'm a wild and crazy person, but hey, I've got to have some fun :P  Seriously, though, I'm looking into starting an Etsy store so I can make some money off my craftiness; when that happens, I'll post a link so you can check it out.  I've also been commissioned by the 'rentals to post some things to sell on Craig's List.  None of this is really earth-shattering news, but I'm excited because I get to use my talents in computers and design to make some money!

Now, on to today's topic...

Over the weekend, we watched a documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed presented by Ben Stein.  In this film, Stein explores the current state of academic freedom by interviewing a number of scientists and journalists about their views regarding Intelligent Design (the idea that some higher power designed the universe) and the consequences these people have faced for expressing so much as an interest in studying the subject.

We highly recommend Expelled as it is very well done, and very thought provoking; it was a good source of discussion for our whole family.  It gives one an idea of what the upper levels of academia are struggling with in their search for the truth.  If you can find it at your library, you should pick it up; lacking that, Netflix is a good option.  We don't get Netflix Instant Watch anymore, but last I knew Expelled is available that way, too.  Check it out and then tell us what you think!

The Second Best Family Activity Ever

Obviously, the best family activity is prayer, but the runner-up is reading aloud. Once upon a time, reading aloud as a family was a common form of evening entertainment (before radio and TV, that is), but by no means is it obsolete.  I'm not just talking about reading aloud to little kids, which is awesome of course and very good for their mental development, but reading aloud to the whole family.  It keeps alive, or helps build, an appreciation for literature and a love of reading that can only serve to help a person in the long run.

Besides being "Good for ya!" reading aloud makes a great gap-filler when you have dead time between activities or extra time in the evening.  I am not suggesting, however, that you should substitute reading for TV: we certainly don't.  For us, it's more like pre-TV entertainment because we do like to watch a movie or show in the evening as well.  Typically, one of us will read while the others work on cleaning up the kitchen after dinner or while folding laundry.

We also enjoy listening to a story or three when we go on road trips, but it's usually easier on everyone to just get books on disc for that.  Attempting to read aloud in a car is much harder than it is at home.  You have to read loud enough for everyone to hear you over the road noise, which will wear your voice out pretty quickly; on top of keeping your place and avoiding motion sickness.  It's just generally not worth it, let the narrator handle it.

Some books make better read-alouds than others, but it's really up to your own particular taste and judgement.  Here are some of our favorites:

• Hank the Cowdog (on audio is best)
• The Boxcar Children series
• The Little House on the Prairie books
• The Hobbit
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy
• The Artemis Fowl series and other titles from Eoin Colfer
• The Phantom Tollbooth
• The Chronicles of Narnia
• The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series (these are for a more mature audience, not kids)
• The Redwall books
• Dracula (easily my all-time favorite book. Again not really for the kids mostly because of some scary content, adult content is not an issue with this one)

For us, reading books aloud is almost an art form.  From Da Godfather and audiobook narrators, I've learned to read aloud smoothly, with inflection, and even put on different voices for the characters; now Beena is learning to do the same.  Being able to put life into the words on the page, not just for yourself but for an audience, can make a story much more interesting and fun.  I think it helps with overall reading comprehension, too.

Let us know what some of your favorite read-alouds are!

Has It Really Been a Whole Week?

Yes, yes it has. Yikes.  And we missed How-To's Day... All I can say is I'm sorry.  This is a family project, but I'm really the only one who does the writing, so when I get busy, my extracurriculars suffer.  Here's the 60-second update on all things us:

• The dog has been diagnosed with a chronic eye problem known as pannus.  He'll be on special eye drops for the rest of his existence.  Wonderful.
• For Halloween, we participated/volunteered at a festival at our church.
• For All Saints Day (Nov. 1), we went to Mass.  It was also the last day of deer hunting season; unfortunately, we didn't get anything this time :(
• We spotted a mountain lion on our property.  We've heard of mountain lions in the area before, but actually seeing one is more than a little alarming.

We are currently snowed in following the first blizzard of the year, doing our best to stay warm.  I have received several suggestions that I write poetry about snow, but I'm not sure I have it in me today.  Instead, we have a few of Beena's original artworks to put on display.

Here we have Princess in Red.  Notice the gold petticoat under the gigantic, flowing skirt?  That's detail for ya!

Second, we have Family and Stone House.  Again, gorgeous detail and colors, but I guess I'm sort of biased :P

Finally, Peaceful Lawn.  This one is a pencil sketch, but just notice all the shading and dimension, especially in those rocks!

What did I tell you?  Beena is a wonderful artist, and she's only 11 years old!  She loves to draw.  She likes to practice on the whiteboard, but notebooks, drawing pads, and even scrap paper can be found all over our house covered in beautiful art.  Her creative muse is never idle!  Now to hire an agent...