You know, the one advantage to being sick for seven weeks (I counted) is that I tend to get a lot of work done on my websites. Yesterday I spent the day working on my big Gymboree News (GNGC) site conversion that I’ve been putting off since…. February. Today I spent the day working on my Fainting Couch (TFC) upgrade I’ve been putting off since…. July.

The TFC one I think I got all done. Even better, I got the automation done so I don’t really have to do much with it for a couple months when the autoresponder messages run out. Then I’ll have to add some new ones, but my friend Jenni is putting them together so I don’t have to actually do the hard work on it. Hehe.

This morning I woke up wanting fruit for breakfast, which is odd because I’ve been eating things like bacon, eggs, and toast; sausage biscuit with egg; and chicken fried steak with biscuits for breakfast every day for weeks. See a pattern there? So I made a Tanya-style bianco, which is basically a bunch of different kinds of fruit chopped up and thrown all together in a bowl with maybe some whipped cream or granola on top. Usually quite delicious!

Today I ate mine and then got ambitious and went upstairs to go beat the garbage out of Anika’s bedroom. When I have morning sickness and the radioactive house starts bothering me, usually that means I’m feeling better. I don’t care what it looks like when I’m sick. So anyway, I went upstairs to clean and about halfway through realized that I was pooped and not feeling so hot.

Of course, leaving a child’s bedroom half clean is not a good idea because they will smell it within five seconds and immediate redistribute whatever you’ve cleaned away into a more or less uniform layer of junk reaching the far corners of the carpet. So I held myself together and finished the room. Then I went and threw up my breakfast. Hurray! After that I took a shower, made second breakfast (I’m practicing to be a hobbit) of bacon, eggs, and toast (which did not get bounced), and called my Mother for some sympathy. It worked well.

And now, just because I’m in a food mood (probably because all my favorite things currently are making me sick due to morning sickness), here is one of my very favorite recipes. The flavor from the chicken and sausage all seeps into the rice and yuuuuuummmmy. This makes a great meal for groups and family gatherings. When we went camping this summer, I made a double batch and fed 18 people (who all wanted the recipe). With the meat and a starch, it’s basically Portuguese comfort food, perfect for fall and winter.

PORTUGESE CHICKEN AND RICE WITH CHOURICO

¼ c. Olive oil
3 lbs. chicken seasoned with salt and pepper to taste (seasoning salt works nicely)
1 lb. Portuguese chorico or Polish kielbasa cut into 1 inch pieces
1 large yellow onion sliced
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into thin strips
3 cloves minced garlic
2 c. California long grain rice
1 T. paprika
2 t. kosher salt (substitute with a bit less regular salt)
1 t. black pepper
½ c. white wine
1 16 oz. can whole plum tomatoes with juice (can use whole regular tomatoes, just slice them up a bit)
3 c. chicken stock (preferably home made, but the canned liquid kind will work)
6 bay leaves
¼ c. Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, chopped (regular parsley seems to work fine too)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed, oven-proof pot over medium high heat and brown seasoned chicken pieces on all sides, about 6-8 minutes. Set chicken aside. Add sausage, onion, peppers, and garlic to pot and cook for 5 minutes. Add uncooked rice and stir, making sure to incorporate rice with sausage and veggies, and cook for 2-3 minutes. Return chicken to pot, stir in paprika, salt, pepper, and wine, and reduce for 2-3 more minutes.

3. Add tomatoes, chicken stock and bay leaves and bring mixture to a gentle simmer. Cover with a lid or foil and place in oven for 30 minutes. To serve, garnish with chopped parsley. Serves 6.

This makes enough rice for much more than six, so if you throw in a few extra chicken pieces you’ll have at least enough for eight.

Rachel

What is our family doing right now at this very moment??

Anika: Singing Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” on the karaoke machine in the garage.

Faith: Wandering around house with empty bowl of ice cream and a cookie (no doubt depositing drips of ice cream wherever she goes as well).

Georgie: Claims he hasn’t been getting enough sleep and is therefore going to bed early tonight. By this he seems to mean that he is going to start listening to his book on tape before eight o’ clock instead of after (and the fact that he listens way too late at night is why he probably doesn’t get enough sleep).

Kyra: Sitting on the bathroom counter “brushing her teeth,” which in Kyra’s world is loosely translated as smearing pink toothpaste all over her fingers and staring at it for awhile before realizing it’s sticky and wiping it off on the bathroom mirror.

Trinity: Actually brushing her teeth. In a Tyrannosaurus Rex costume. ‘Cause how else would you do it?

Husband: Asking me what is wrong with these people.

Me: Laughing and enjoying my crazy family while no one is actually yelling at each other.

Happy Sunday!

Rachel

Yes, I realize the book came out three months ago. So many people were writing and talking about it then though that I didn’t want to get lost in the shuffle when I can so much more effectively bore you when I have the floor to myself…. See that makes it sound like I had an actual reason to wait three months to finally do my review.

***HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS***

Ahhh, Harry, how I will miss you. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows marks the end of J.K. Rowling’s stupendous seven-volume series following young wizard Harry from the time he discovers at age eleven that he’s not a normal boy to age seventeen when he has to bring down the most powerfully evil wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, or die trying.

Yes, to those who haven’t read the series (all four of you), I’m sure it sounds like seven books of teenage children playing with wands. However, although this is the backdrop of the series, it is absolutely not the point of the series. Saying you don’t want to read it on those grounds would be like saying you don’t want to talk to your friend because they moved to Wyoming and you don’t like oil wells.

Harry Potter is about learning to stand up for what is right regardless of cost, dealing with victory, dealing with death, the dangers and futility of appeasing evildoers (especially important!), how to decide which things are really important ~ in short, it’s about maturing.

Now, I know that many Christians have objected to this series on the basis that they think it promotes witchcraft. I don’t know anyone who has actually read the series who would agree with this. The magic presented in the book is clearly not any more real in our world than the magic done by highly paid illusionists on the Las Vegas strip. Pity though, because I would very much like to be able to use the “scourgefy” charm to clean my house.

Again, the wizarding world of Harry Potter is an allegory for our own. It just happens to involve wizards instead of talking lions. What are comparable between Harry’s world and our own are the characters. They are smart, brave, funny, opportunistic, cowardly, self-sacrificing, and all the other things that real people are.

Through the course of the series, much speculation has been made as to J.K. Rowling’s religious affiliation. After the series ended, she said that she hadn’t wanted to say before because it would have given to big of a clue as to how the series would end. It seems that she is a Christian herself!

Given the thematic undertones of the series up until Book 7, this should not be too surprising to Christians; however, Book 7 is extremely Christian in nature.

***Okay, spoilers ahead so don’t read past here if you haven’t read the book yet***

The first clue should have been the title of the book itself, “The Deathly Hallows.” Harry spends much of the book prowling around England looking for the soul-splitting horcruxes that Lord Voldemort has created to prevent his own death, and which must be destroyed before Voldemort can be killed.

Harry becomes aware of a set of three objects called the “Deathly Hallows,” which when all possessed by the same owner, allow the owner to conquer death. Hoping that this will keep Harry alive during his prophesied-before-hand final confrontation with Voldemort, Harry keeps an eye out for these items as well.

As the book progresses, Harry slowly loses everything important to him including his best friend and his wand. He visits his parents’ grave to discover a Bible verse on the tombstone, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” This chapter contains the first overtly Christian references in the entire series.

Thinking this sounds like a dark wizard’s idea (Voldemort had spent his whole life trying to outwit death), Harry initially reacts with horror. Clearly the Dursleys who raised him weren’t much for church. Hermione, however, explains to Harry what the verse means, and Harry ponders.

The final chapters of the book bring Harry to his goal. As he learns that he is Voldemort’s final horcrux, accidentally housing a sliver of Voldemort’s soul that was imparted when Voldemort tried to kill him sixteen years earlier, Harry realizes that he must die if Voldemort is to be stopped.

The remainder of the book is a wonderful allegory of Christ’s sacrifice for us and the life and protection that brings those who are saved in addition to being a satisfying end to an engrossing series.

As a final note, I do like the titling of the book, “The Deathly Hallows.” “Hallow” means “to make holy or sacred” (like hallowed ground) so the point of having all three Hallows isn’t to escape death but to sanctify it, which is precisely what Harry does by sacrificing himself for everyone else. Extremely Christian theme complete with moderately obscure Christian language so as not to make it too obvious. Very nice in its subtlety!

I may possibly be feeling slightly better. The last few days I have felt less like the slug from planet Slugonia and mildly more human-ish. Hurray! I did throw up first thing this morning, but that was from brushing my teeth (very common in pregnant women; toothbrush hits the back of your mouth and that’s it).

On the other hand, two weeks ago I felt a little better for a few days in a row, got all excited, and then BAM! last week I felt terrible again for the entire week. It was sooooo depressing, so I’m trying not to get too excited about this. From my past history, this is a bit early for me to start feeling better. George is home tomorrow and the rest of the week, so tonight I’m going to go off my home-brew nausea meds. That will give me a definitive answer.

When I was pregnant with Faith, the meds worked much better than they have this time around. I felt well enough that I quit taking them before the time when I’m usually done being sick just to see if I still needed them. Two days later I was in full yuck mode and promptly went back on the meds.

I’m starting to poof out more than a little bit in the stomachular area (no I’m not illiterate; I just made that up). My friends and family (the ones who have actually seen me) are now asking me regularly if I could be off on my due dates or if I could be carrying twins. I keep telling them that I tend to start showing about five minutes after conception usually (look! an egg and a sperm got together. Quick, quick, make room!!), which is a bit obnoxious particularly when our church is somehow full of tall women who don’t seem to show until they’re five or six months along. By that time I look like I may possibly be carrying some sort of small marine mammal or maybe a moose. Argh!

Anyway, now I’m all paranoid that I could be off on my dates or carrying twins. I mentioned this to my husband last night, who rolled his eyes and told me I look just the same to him as I usually do at this point and that I always ask this question. That made me feel better. That’s what I thought anyway, just had a small flip-out. I’m cool; I’m collected; I’m calm. As long as no one can laser into my brain and tell that I’m actually a spaz, life will be dandy (plus doesn’t laser + brain = lobotomy? That should probably be avoided if possible). Of course, printing that fact here is probably not the way to keep it a secret…. Just don’t tell, okay?

Hubby’s birthday was Saturday (he’s 36 now. Hahahahaha! I’m only 32. Neener neener neener.), and I felt bad that he’s been cooped up for six weeks with a crabby wife, so I used some of my emergency super-meds stash and we went out for a bit in the afternoon. We saw 3:10 to Yuma, which was excellent, and had dinner at Claim Jumper, which we’d never been to before. It was expensive, delicious, and the food was worth every penny (plus the servings were on the massive side, so hey ~ leftovers!). George got all kinds of neat camera stuff for his birthday and seemed generally pleased with how the day turned out.

I think that’s about it around here. The kids have been off at my friend Amy’s during the mornings four days a week (started last week and next week will be the last week), which has been a tremendous blessing. It’s a lot easier to sit on the couch and try not to barf when you don’t have five small howler monkeys screaming through the house shredding everything in sight.

School starts October 1st, and the older three will be out of the house for a bunch of the day then. The younger two are much quieter on their own. I’m sort of looking forward to hanging around with just those two. The older ones have so much more to do and say that they take up a lot of attention. The younger ones sort of bounce from room to room like trouble making pinballs, but both of them seem much less problem prone when the older kids aren’t around. I think they might like getting a bit more face time with Mom. Guess we’ll see how it goes.

Rachel

Well, since my maternity clothes seem to have mostly escaped, I’ve had to buy some more. I’m really crushed about this, as you can probably tell…. Anyway, I picked up this reeeeally cute set on eBay today and needed to share. Hehe.

I can’t wait until it comes in next week. Mwa ha ha ha ha ha. Now if I only felt well enough to actually wear it somewhere further away then my couch… That would be nice.

George’s birthday is tomorrow, so I’ve decided to use a little bit of my emergency drug stash (a.k.a. “Zofran”) to take him out to a matinée and dinner. Poor fellow’s been cooped up with la senora del crabbo for the last five weeks. He’s been a champ and deserves a break. I’m a bit worried about staying out late and melting on our date, so we’re going out early and then hopefully I can do the melting part when we get home. Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

Rachel

A couple weeks ago our church put on its annual Oktoberfest at the farm of one of our members. Since I was on the couch, which now bears a permanent impression of my bum, Hubby took all the kids to go hang out with friends, grandparents (who all go to our church), and various other assorted family members.

Last time we went to our friends’ farm, our family bug catcher Trinity caught two praying mantises, and since she didn’t have her bug box with her, they traveled home with us in a mason jar with holes punched in the lid. Apparently one was a girl and one was a boy because when we arrived home, we had one smug looking mantis sitting next to one decapitated mantis (females behead the males after mating with them).

Recalling that this farm was akin to bug heaven, Trinity wisely brought her bug box this time, intent on some serious insect hunting. Clearly the safari went well because she returned home with a dozen, perhaps a dozen and a half grasshoppers bouncing around in her box. It seems she recruited help this time from among the little gaggle of girls she regularly hangs around with. I’m not sure how she managed that…

They got home late, and Trinity proudly ran in to display her new bug friends to me and announced that she was going to sleep with them. Uh, no. The last bug she decided to sleep with was a giant cricket she caught with my mother (at least half of our bug stories seem to involve my mother somehow). That incident ended with the discovery of an empty bug box in the bedroom right before the little girls climbed into bed, which precipitated 45 minutes of panicked screaming until the bug was found and relocated to the back yard (the cricket had actually chewed through the plastic mesh on the bug box. Since then our boxes have all been hard plastic). This does not induce restful dreaming in small children.

Recalling, the difficulties involved with one bug sharing the bedroom, the thought of eighteen happy grasshoppers escaping into the wild of our second floor was rather harrowing. Plus, I had no intention of waking up to grasshoppers in my bed. The kids ended up releasing the bugs into the bushes of the backyard, where they visited the bugs for several days.

Yesterday, I opened my dish towel drawer to pull out an oven mitt, and a grasshopper jumped from the inside of the drawer to the top, where it paused to stare at me. Argh! Bugs do not belong in my dish towels! The kids were gone, so I got a glass and sent the grasshopper off to the back yard.

This morning I mentioned the incident to Trinity, and she immediately began asking me what it looked like.

“Was it brown with red back legs, because if so that was probably Mr. Hoppy that I caught at the park the other day.”

“Was it green with only one back leg? That was probably….”

Apparently she knows every bug on the block by very detailed description and has given them all names. She was quite disappointed that she wasn’t available to personally escort this one out to the bushes.

As for me, I would be content if Mr. Hoppy stayed out of my kitchen drawers.

Rachel

Tonight my wonderful children decided to put on a play. They do this occasionally, most often at Christmas time when they feel an urgent need to perform the Nutcracker every day for a month. Since they are now old enough to have figured out that this, alas, is nowhere near Christmas time, they needed a more summer-appropriate performance. When my son came this morning and asked if I had any ideas, I think my response resembled a troll grunt well enough that he decided perhaps figuring something out himself might be safer.

Later in the afternoon, he bounded in (I think he’s genetically incapable of walking) to tell me that they were going to do the story of Jesus but a little different. Hoping this wasn’t going to be completely sacrilegious, I bored holes through his skull with my eyes until he elaborated that there was only going to be one shepherd and things like that due to umm, casting problems (he and two sisters comprise the entire Shubin acting guild). Okay, that’s no big deal. Off he went to go rehearse. I didn’t point out to him that this was still a Christmas play.

Hubby arrived home, and after dinner it was time for the play. To mimic a barn floor, the children had covered the entire cement patio in dirt, which they had carefully swept around with a broom to make it even. Trinity had a little manger and dolly to complete her Mary theme, and Georgie was in the yard herding grasshoppers… or grass… or something.

Anika in her Belle costume (from Beauty and the Beast) jumped onto the trampoline to proclaim the good news (she was the angel) to Georgie, which served as the cue for him to run up to the deck and throw her the new costume for her wardrobe change (new costume was a karate uniform, which I’m sure the Gospel of Mark mentions Joseph wearing to intimidate the ninja warriors hired by Herod…). While Anika repositioned herself beside Mary, Georgie prepared his shepherd gift, a gift fit for the King.

In he gravely walked (after knocking on the invisible door) and knelt down on bended knee, opened the chest containing the priceless treasure, and in awe we all beheld…. the butter knife. At this part I started giggling uncontrollably (which the kids didn’t seem to appreciate) and couldn’t stop until about five minutes after the play finished. Actually, I’m still giggling a little bit.

Hubby, on the other hand, immediately began asking impertinent questions: “Is it a sword?”

“No, it’s a knife”

“Is it the dagger from Lord of the Rings?”

{Mommy giggles}

“No, it’s just a dagger”

“Is it the sword of Excalibur?”

{Mommy hides her face in a blanket so the kids won’t see the tears}

“NO, IT’S JUST A KNIFE!”

Then Georgie left to go get the second gift. And down on bended knee, he again presented Mary with the priceless treasure… hey, what is that? It was getting dark, and the gift looked like a circular object about two inches in diameter. We started guessing:

Me: Is it a rock?

Hubby: Is it a pirate medallion?

Me: Is it a police badge?

The kids never even bothered to answer, but I’m pretty sure it was a thunder egg slice that Trinity got for her birthday last year. I don’t think any of the kids could remember what it was called. 

And that was the end of the play. So now we know that the thing that baby Jesus wanted the most was neither gold, frankincense, myrrh, or a little boy with a drum to play an annoying song but rather was a butter knife. Maybe next year He’ll get a tea set!

Rachel