breakfast

Lydia helped me make breakfast this morning:

whole wheat blueberry-berry pancakes

The second berry is for the raspberries and blackberries we pile on top of the pancakes with powdered sugar. The whole wheat is a fair trade for the sugar, right?

gardening

I've been waiting a long time to do some real gardening, and it feels great.

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We've got some

good looking tomatoes growing,

along with some

zucchini

and

peas. . .

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This basil will be delicious atop those tomatoes or on our homemade pizza.

I'm trying my hand again at propagating my own basil.

It didn't work so well last time. I tried growing some potted herbs back in February in New Jersey. I think that between being near the cold window and on top of the microwave, they didn't have much hope of survival.

Will you look at that though- I've got some seedlings this time!

(Thanks to this really cool book my friend, Starr, gave me called The Potted Herb) .

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Of course

I had to plant

a few

flowers

around the yard.

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I can't wait

to see

what happens

with this

lilac bush.

Have I mentioned how much I love being in a house with a yard?

So it begins

I suppose it was inevitable. Now that we have stairs, Garrett has discovered the wonderful fun of sliding down the banister. Although there is that post at the end...maybe it will be a short lived temptation.

boxes revisted

The movers came and cleared all our empty boxes last week, thank goodness. The day before they came, I looked out the window to find this in my backyard:

have you set up your google reader yet?

Am I the only one that feels like I'm neglecting my children and housework when I sit down and spend an undetermined amount of time reading blogs?

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Now, thanks to Nancy, I have this fantastic new system that saves me all kinds of time. When you set up a Google Reader, it checks and lists all the websites you tell it to, and highlights the ones that have new information posted to them. This way, I can easily catch up on all of you as you add new posts to your blogs, and not waste my time checking those of yours that don't update them regularly (and I mean that in the most loving way possible).

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Nancy has a great detailed explanation of how to set it up here, but here is my simplified version for those of us less tech savvy (at least what I remember about what I did to set mine up):

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You first have to set up a Google Reader, which is really easy. You just use the Google/Blogger account you already have, and if you don't have one, it's easy to set one up. Nancy also has a link on her blog to other readers if you don't want to use Google.

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With that set up, click on "Add Subscription" which is located on the left sidebar of the Google Reader page. Type in the website address of the website you want it to check for you. As far as I figure, you have to do this one at a time for each website you want it to check. Nancy explains how you can set it up from the actual website you are viewing, but I wasn't patient enough to figure that out. Refer to her instructions for that.

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I added Google Reader to my favorites and now I just check my google reader like I check my email and it tells me which websites have new posts. What a fantastic discovery! Thanks Nancy! Now, all the rest of you...go set up your own reader and enjoy your newly acquired free time.

good food is good food.

I, along with many others in cyber world, was inspired by NieNie's week long healthy lifestyle segment. After what amounts to essentially a full month of traveling, moving, traveling some more and consequently eating whatever was easy and available, I am feeling the effects, mind and body.

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So thanks NieNie, for the motivation to rededicate myself to a healthly lifestyle and providing my family with wholesome, healthy food.

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For your analysis, here is my report. Our menu for today included:

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Oatmeal topped with fresh blackberries and raspberries for breakfast (because your picture looked so good and I just had to try it. I don't have my version pictured here, as Lydia has started waking up at 6:00 each morning and I'm not coherent enough to pull the camera out for breakfast).

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A whole grain Sun-Dried Tomato wrap with turkey, baby spinach, avocado, tomatoes, and freshly grated parmesan cheese with a side of red grapes for lunch. For our snack: Roma tomatoes sliced and grilled in a smidge of olive oil, topped with mozarella cheese and fresh basil- a Glauser family favorite. (Seriously, they're so good. I'm sure there's a recipe somewhere, but I claim to have made it up and we make it all the time. We ought to name it...)

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Plus, whole wheat crackers with fat-free cream cheese and a salt-free seasoning blend to go with it.

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Oh, and the boys polished off a pound of strawberries for their snack.

Homemade whole wheat dinner rolls, Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Shells (made with fat-free ricotta cheese, of course) and a Spinach Salad for dinner.

So, aside from the turkey, and not being able to find whole wheat pasta shells, how'd I do NieNie?

follow up on our trash

I didn't mean to leave you all on such a cliffhanger...

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We left our garbage can out while we were in California last week and when we came home they were indeed empty. I don't know if they came on Monday like they said they would, or Thursday which is our regularly scheduled trash day, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they came at some random time like Tuesday at 3 in the morning.

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At any rate, they took our trash, and we're waiting on pins and needles to see what this Thursday morning brings for us!

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(You don't know what in the heck am I talking about? Here's the story.)

Wicked

We saw Wicked this week. Two years living a stone's throw from Broadway and we had to come all the way to LA to finally see it. It was worth the wait. Seriuosly, so good. We loved it.

Going to a show is such a fun date. We went to dinner, which we planned to have at Benihana but defaulted to a quick stop at Panda Express on the way as to not miss the show due to heavy traffic into LA, and still arrived at the theater in enough time to admire the stars as we walked along the Hollywood walk of fame holding hands.

And since we're on a bit of a Broadway Musical kick right now, this particular star was fitting for our evening (although we weren't seeing one of HIS shows, we're big fans):

boxes

The boys have had a grand time playing with all the boxes we've unpacked. We made a cool fort with windows and doors and everything. The fort kept growing each time we unloaded another box. I remember getting the biggest thrill out of doing the very same thing when I was little.

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Then when the fort lost it's excitement, they used the boxes to make towers and cardboard mountains to climb on. There certainly was enough of them! These picture were taken on day 3 of unpacking, so it's really only the beginning of the mess of boxes we really have.

a load of trash

Wednesday, May 23: Phone call to Waste Management.

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Matt: "Hi, we're moving into our house tomorrow and need to set up garbage collection."

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Company representative: "No problem. Trash day is Wednesday. Leave your garbage in bags on the curb and they'll pick it up Wednesday and leave you a garbage can. "

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Matt: "Great! That was easy. Thank you."

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Evening of Tuesday, May 29: Carry everything out to the curb for pickup and notice no one else has their garbage cans out.

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Wednesday, May 30: No garbage collection. We move all the stinky garbage bags back into the garage.

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Evening of Wednesday, May 30: Notice the neighbors' garbage cans out, figure they just told us the wrong day and move all our garbage bags back out to the curb.

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Morning of Thursday, May 31: Garbage truck comes. Garbage truck takes the neighbors' garbage. Garbage truck leaves. None of our garbage is picked up. No garbage cans left for us.

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A few minutes later: Phone call to Waste Management.

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Matt: "The garbage truck came but didn't pick up our garbage."

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Company representative: "Sorry about the inconvience, sir. We'll send a guy to pick it up."

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Matt: "Great, thanks."

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A little later in the morning of Thursday, May 31: A second garbage truck comes. Second garbage truck leaves. None of our garbage is picked up. No garbage cans left for us.

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Another few minutes later: Another phone call to Waste Management.

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Matt explains the situation.

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A different company reprsentative (the short version): "Trash day is Thursday. You can't leave all that garbage on the street, and they'll only pick up three trash bags. You have to wait until you have a garbage can delivered, then they can collect your garbage. We'll have someone bring you a garbage can today, and they can take whatever you can fit into the garbage can."

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Afternoon of Thursday, May 31: We hang up the phone and wait. Matt watches the window and runs out to the driveway as he sees a garbage truck drive by. He waves his arms frantically to flag them down, yet returns to the house defeated. This makes garbage truck number three that came in the same day and left without taking our garbage and without leaving us a garbage can.

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A little later in the afternoon of Thursday, May 31: Another phone call to Waste Management.

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Matt: "I just want to verify that we will, in fact, receive a garbage can at some point in time."

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Company representative: "Yep, they'll bring it today and collect the garbage in it tomorrow."

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Matt: "I was told they'd collect the garbage at the same time as delivery of the garbage can."

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Company representative: "No sir. The delivery truck doesn't have collection capabilities."

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Matt: "Okay, tomorrow then."

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Even later in the afternoon of Thursday, May 31: Delivery of garbage can. Hurray!

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Evening of Thursday, May 31: We cram as much as we can into the tiny garbage can, move it to the curb for our personally scheduled pick up and leave the other 2/3 of our garbage in the garage (until we figure out how we're going to dispose of it)

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Afternoon of Friday, June 1: We stand in the driveway and stare in amazement as a garbage truck comes by, backs up like it's going to pick up our full garbage can, and then switches gears and drives off. Our garbage can sits on the curb, still full and stinky.

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We look around for the hidden camera crew to jump out and tell us about the joke being played on us.

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A little later in the afternoon of Friday, June 1: Yet another phone call to waste managment.

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Matt again explains the perplexing situation.

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Company representative: "Everyone's gone home for the day. We'll send someone on Monday to pick that up."

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Sure you will.