Resolutions Checkup

Today was the first day of the new semester. Yes, I agree, Saturday is a weird day for the first day of class. My schedule this semester has class and clinic from Friday through Monday. I have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off, except I work at the school on Wednesday and I'm available for substitute teaching on Tuesday and Thursday. So, technically, I have NO days off this semester. It's feeling like a very long four months already.

 I was tallying up how well I am doing on my 2013 resolutions so far. Obviously, I'm not writing everyday on this blog, but I AM writing several times per week. Check.

I've fallen off the wagon once in my endeavor to be a more tolerant person. I came a little unglued when told that I had to re-fill out and resubmit ALL the documentation when I missed a deadline with a government agency even though none of my personal data had changed and the agency had ALL of my data already. But I'm TRYING to be less uptight and more relaxed when it comes to dealing with folks that do/think vastly differently than I. So I think continuing to become a more tolerant person counts. Check.

 Anticipating my boss's needs; yep, I'm still working on that.

Check. Juice every day; I've missed two days but have juiced all the other days. I've lost 7 pounds since Christmas because of the juicing (doing my happy dance!) So, check.

Create a more organized home...I'm still working on this one. I have made it a habit to "shine my sink" before going to bed. Just having a clean kitchen makes getting up so much easier. I've also been "swishing and wiping" my bathroom in the morning. Consequently, the bathroom is always clean. Nice. My major difficulty lies with paper clutter. I always seem to have piles of paper. I think it's because that really isn't a home for the stuff. So I continue to work on organizing. Check.

 Exercise for 15 minutes per day. This is my downfall. I haven't been consistent with this in any shape or form. I picked up a copy of "Dance Off the Inches: Sizzling Salsa" from the $5 bin at Walmart. It's fun but my knees are complaining (lots and lots). I think that rather than give in to my knees and give up dancing, I'll start taking collagen capsules and retaking glucosamine/chondroitin horse pills to strengthen and rebuild the balky knees. So, I haven't given up on exercising, I just have to recommit.

That's enough procrastinating...it's time to start on my homework.

Thoughts on Being a Mean Mother

Stormy weather at home

Yesterday Butterfly said I was a wonderful mother. Today she hates me. Teenagers are SUCH fun...

So WHY does she hate me today? She hates me because I told her she had to type her vocabulary words, definitions, and paragraph (using all the vocab words) in MLA format. I also made a list of all the homework that was due this week that needed to be worked on. She had a melt-down.

Butterfly is very good at attempting to divert the subject at hand (homework that has to be done) by throwing in all kinds of interesting mind streams (she wants to move back to Arizona, I don't care about her, her life is so difficult, why am I so mean, etc). I've gotten much better at ignoring the diversions and bringing the topic back to the homework that has to be done NOW but I find myself wondering if we've wandered too far from the animal kingdom by NOT devouring our young (I have my own interesting mind streams).

Fortunately, Butterfly's next door friend showed up to help with homework. Next door Friend is home-schooled, does very well academically and also loves helping Butterfly with her homework. How in the world did I luck out with such a fortuitous gift as her for a next door neighbor?

After showing the homework list to Butterfly's Friend, I went for a walk around the block with Friend's mother. By the time I got home Butterfly had completed one assignment and was finishing up the second. She was also in a much better mood.

I fed both girls chicken noodle soup and French bread from last night and then they went back to work.

Health project: 5 lb Rice Bag Baby

They completed four out of five assignments and quit for the night. Since the fifth assignment isn't due until next week I thought it was fine to wait until tomorrow to work on it. Friend's mother came to collect her, Butterfly took a shower and got ready for bed. I'm very pleased that Butterfly has finished most of her assignments for this week ahead of time. Friend has made my life so very much easier and I am most grateful to her.

Uphill climb

This semester I'm determined to stay on top of Butterfly's school assignments to make certain that she actually does them and gets them turned in. Allowing her to be in charge of her own homework has been disastrous for her grade-wise. She procrastinates everything until past the due dates and then we go the rounds over her failing grades. Now she views me as the mean mother that doesn't love her because I make her do her homework ahead of time.

(I keep all the school assignments logged in the Cozi Calendar. It's meant that I don't have to remember what Butterfly needs to do and when the assignments are due. Hopefully, this family calendar will help me keep on top of all the family assignments and appointments. I appreciate every helpful tool I can find.)

Mom, the ogre

I've never felt that I needed to be my children's friend. I felt that I was the parent and needed to make certain that the kids were guided, coached, trained, and disciplined when needed. Those things typically meant that I wasn't popular around home, but the kids stayed out of trouble, grades were decent, they learned to work and become responsible, and learned manners for civilized interaction with polite society. I'm now good friends with the older kids. Butterfly is the last child at home and I find that I'm more tired and less certain of how to deal with a sometimes defiant teenager. Perhaps one day, when she has children of her own, she'll realize that her mother loved her enough to be the bad guy in order to help her succeed in school.

Please let us both survive high school!

Chicken Noodle Soup recipe

 I'm thoroughly enjoying my week off from school and clinic. I've been doing one of the things I enjoy most - cooking.

Today I used up the rest of the rotisserie chicken that I bought from Foodland. Some of the chicken went into last night's Monterey Chicken Tortilla Casserole (which was so good that we've eaten it all up), some Butterfly just picked off the bird as a snack, and the rest went into the soup pot this evening. That's two meals from the casserole, at least three meals from the soup, and Butterfly's snack, all from one chicken - not too shabby! Now I feel a little better about way over-spending on that precooked chicken to begin with.

You can scale the number of servings for the soup up or down. Use more water and vegetables for more servings and less of both for fewer servings. I like to make lots and then put the leftovers in the freezer for quick meals when I either come home late from school/clinic or when I have too much homework to cook (not to mention when I'm just too pooped).

Chicken Noodle Soup

Chicken carcass from a store-bought rotisserie chicken (with some meat still attached)
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
1 recipe Homemade Noodles

1. In a large pot of water, cover the chicken carcass with water. Add the bay leaves and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 1 or 2 hours; the longer the better.
2. Strain the soup; separate out meat from the bones. Chop any large pieces of chicken meat and place back into the soup.
3. Add the vegetables; cook until tender.
4. Re-season the soup.
5. Add the noodles and cook until al dente.
6. Serve with French bread and a salad.

Monterey Chicken Tortilla Casserole recipe

Today was a busy day - laundry, ironing, house cleaning, cutting the material to make bedroom curtains, making TWO dinners. It's been very pleasant to feel relaxed while I get things done. School starts up again next week Saturday. Gotta get things done while I can...

About those dinners; I had leftover ham from Christmas (it had been frozen and brought out again) so I made White Beans and Ham Soup. This will go in the freezer for some future dinner. The other dinner was an easy chicken casserole recipe that I have to share. It's incredibly easy and very tasty.

I started with a store-bought roasted chicken. Everything else either came from a bag, can, or bottle. I realize that this isn't home cooking but it's quick to make and very yummy.

Monterey Chicken Tortilla Casserole

Active Time:  15 Minutes Total Time:  55 Minutes Yield:  4 An easy version of a south-of-the-border classic "chilaquiles" this dish uses leftover tortilla chips layered with chicken, Pace® Picante, corn, olives and cheese. RECIPE INGREDIENTS 1 cup coarsely crumbled tortilla chips 2 cups cubed cooked chicken or turkey 1 can (about 15 ounces) cream-style corn 3/4 cup Pace® Picante Sauce 1/2 cup sliced pitted ripe olives 2 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese (about 1/2 cup) Chopped green or red pepper Tortilla chips

DIRECTIONS Layer the crumbled chips, chicken, corn and picante sauce in a 1-quart casserole. Top with the olives and cheese. Bake at 350°F. for 30 minutes or until the mixture is hot and bubbling. Top with the pepper. Serve with the chips.

Motivating a Non-Academically-Inclined Teenager

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. One of the things I want to do is find a way to motivate Butterfly to get better grades in school.

Butterfly has a marvelous gift of easily making friends. She is a caring, kind person that attracts boys (I'm really not very comfortable with this aspect of her gift...) and girls into friendships fairly easily. The negative side of this gift is that Butterfly would much rather talk with her friends via phone or chat messaging than do her homework. She'd much rather spend time hanging out and laughing with friends than come home early enough to get her homework done. And she'd much rather think about school social drama than do complete work on any given assignment.

We go through the same routine every quarter: Butterfly starts off getting A's in all her classes, then she'll skip a few assignments and her grades rapidly begin dropping to C's and worse. I lecture her, she gets grounded, we're both grouchy, she gets sullen and rude, she frantically begins trying to catch up and ends up doing less than stellar work, I yell at her, she cries and tells me I don't understand ... you get the picture - it's ugly.

Paying her for good grades hasn't been much of an incentive. I think that 3 months has been too long for her to wait to receive a reward for good grades.

For those of you that think good grades should be their own reward, you obviously haven't worked with a non-academically inclined child. For this child, good grades are just something that makes the parent happy; for MY child, grades are simply immaterial.

I'm tired of yelling about grades. It doesn't make Butterfly WANT to get better grades, it makes us both feel terrible, and it simply isn't working for either of us.

However, since friends are a big deal for Butterfly, and she has said that her friends have treated her to fast food when they've been out together, here's the new plan: I've purchased a few gift cards from the local fast food joints and she can choose one of them when her grades are posted on edline with nothing lower than A's and B's. That should take two weeks or so. She and a friend have decorated a poster with the gift cards attached and have tacked it to the wall in front of the bathroom door. Butterfly will see the cards every time she leaves the bathroom. I'm hoping that two weeks will be a short enough time period for her to keep doing homework before the reward kicks in. As she earns them I'll use cards from different fast food restaurants to replace them. Please let this work!

I've also purchased a purse that Butterfly picked out from the website JustFab.com as another incentive. This  purse will also hang on the wall for her to see and caress while she continues to get her homework done on time. We will wait until progress reports come out before rewarding the purse for grades of only A's and B's. Butterfly asked what would happen if she DIDN'T get only A's and B's on her progress report. I said that the purse would continue to hang on the wall for her to work toward.

I'm running out of ideas. How do you get a teenager to WANT to learn? How do you get that teenager to WANT to do well in school?  How do you get that same teenager to CARE about her education?

Do YOU have any ideas that worked for you?

New Year 2013

Happy New Year Everyone!  Happy Year of the Snake!

Goodness, it's been a very long time since I've written in this blog! I've finished my first semester of acupuncture school and have a whole week off with no school, no clinic, and no work, so I have time to restart writing in MotherNatureSays.

Keeping with the new year tradition, I've come up with my 2013 resolutions. Last year I didn't make any resolutions at all; a first for me. I must have been in a funk last year, or something... This year, since I'm in school full-time, I'll have to become more organized in order to accomplish everything I want.

#1. Foremost, this year I want to become a more tolerant person. Getting back into academia was something I really wanted, but it was more difficult than I anticipated to go into a completely alien cultural environment. I'm going to a Taoist acupuncture school. They just do things differently; traditional Chinese medicine requires an entirely different mindset from Western scientific methods. Asking questions isn't exactly encouraged. The Master is always right (even when she isn't). I had major difficulty wrapping my head around the acupuncture points. AND it IS harder for me now that I'm older, to memorize and retain the information, especially when it didn't seem to make any sense to me to begin with.

Anyway, I'd get really wound up, frustrated, agitated, irritated, torqued, how many ways can you say "bent out of shape"? I even considered quitting and going to another school. BUT, I've made friends (and that's not an easy thing for me to do), I really like some of my instructors, and I love my clinical supervisor even though she is a really tough cookie to please.

SO, my number one goal this year is to relax over perfection. I don't have to know everything right now. It's okay if I don't learn as quickly as some of my younger classmates. It's okay to let go. To paraphrase a wise friend, 'C still equals diploma'.

#2. I'm going to practice anticipating my boss's needs. I work part-time as an IT person at my school. I've gotten into spats with my employer because I thought she wanted me to read her mind. At least that was my perception. She DOES want me to figure things out for myself and I've "figured it out" in ways that she didn't appreciate. I was asked, if she had to tell me what to do, what did she need me for? Since I love my job and I don't want another panic attack at work, I will utilize my #1 goal. I've also decided that a more productive frame of mind was to view this interaction with my employer as "anticipating her needs". Putting this into practice last work day resulted in a happy boss and a pleasant day of employment for me. It just required a different way of looking at things.

#3. Blog more regularly. That means that my posts may be much shorter. They might contain weird things about what I'm learning at school, or my ideas for another home business venture, or stuff about my tribulations with juice fasting, or my frustrations with teenage Butterfly, or any number of other non-related subjects. This ties in with the parallel goal of "write everyday". I may not blog every day, but I do want to write everyday.

#4. Juice very day. I was given a Hurom juicer for Christmas! I am sooooo very happy to get it. I had been blending my veggies/fruit, then putting the stuff through a fine-mesh strainer, then putting the resulting juice through a micro-fiber cloth to strain it again. The whole process took so much time that it wasn't feasible to do it on the mornings I needed to leave the house less than an hour after waking up. Now juicing only takes a few minutes and the result makes a marvelous breakfast.

#5. Create a more organized home. I've discovered the FlyLady. Her motto is: 

"Clutter cannot be organized. It can only be eliminated! Get rid of clutter and you will find the time that you need to bless yourself and your family." ~FlyLady  

My home is never really messy but I've definitely developed spots that need decluttering. I'm working on the 15_minutes_at_a_time theory, i.e. you can do anything for 15 minutes. Which leads to my next goal -->

#6. Exercise for 15 minutes per day. If I can master this, then perhaps I can work up to more.

That is my list of goals for this year. Now, if I could just make some academic goals for Butterfly...

Happy New Year to all of you! I wish you prosperity, joy, good health, and love! May this year be better than the last!