Giving thanks where thanks are due

So, yeah, I'm thankful for my wonderful husband and children. I'm thankful for the rest of my family: parents, brother, aunts, uncles and cousins. I'm thankful that all of us are in good health and we all have jobs and roofs over our heads. I'm thankful that Mr. EM and I are able to provide comfortably for our family and that we have a good marriage. I'm thankful that I live in a free country. I'm thankful that I have a fantastic group of friends who are not only a strong support system, but also are freakin' hilarious.

Blah, blah, blah.

Not that those aren't important things, because they really, truly are. But most things you read and see and hear about around Thanksgiving are like this...thankful for the same old things everyone else is thankful for. What about the other stuff? The stuff that I technically could, but don't want to, live without?

For instance...


Burt's Bees beeswax lip balm- I truly don't know how I managed to have smooth, soft lips before this wonderful invention came into existence. Best. Shit. Ever. I keep a tube on my dresser, one in my purse and one in my desk at work. I've tried other varieties in the Burt's Bees line. I've tried other brands, expensive and not. Nothing works nearly as well. Burt's Bees? Thank you.



Coffee- Since my last post was all about my affection for coffee, I really don't feel like anything more needs to be said. Coffee? Thank you.


The cast of Glee- How do I love Glee? Let me count the ways. 1. It's awesome. 2. See #1. I know, the storyline is going nowhere and the acting is "meh" and high school is so totally NOT like that and...shut up, will you? Who cares? It's a mini-musical every week on TV. Glee time is Zen time in the Land of Earth Muffin. I get to be all by myself in a quiet living room, watching cute twenty-somethings mash together songs like "Don't Stand So Close To Me" and "Young Girl". Cast of Glee? Thank you.


Alexander Skarsgard- Could this man been more beautiful? And, looks aside (no, seriously.), no one could play the role of Eric Northman better than he does. He's nice eye-candy, to be sure, but he also IS Eric Northman. He is EXACTLY as I pictured the character when I read the books. True Blood would have been a great vampire soap opera anyway, but he makes it that much better. Alexander Skarsgard? Thank you.


Triscuits- Have I expressed my love for Triscuits on my blog yet? If not, allow me to do so now. There are no better crackers in the universe. I love how salty they are. I love how crunchy they are. I love all the flavor varieties, especially the roasted garlic ones. They are wonderful when paired with cheese or dips. They are wonderful by themselves. They are just wonderful. Triscuits? Thank you.


Neutrogena Rainbath- When I was a poor college student, this was a once-in-a-while purchase when I had a few extra bucks to spend on bath products. Now, it's a necessity. It smells sooooooooooooooooo good and it leaves my skin feeling soft and smooth. Neutrogena Rainbath? Thank you.

I could go on for a very long time. I'm thankful for our local library, my awesome green hoodie and Snapple peach iced tea. I'm thankful for JJ Grey and Mofro and every episode of Big Bang Theory. I'm thankful for Target, Kohl's and St. Louis Bread Company. I'm thankful for you, gentle readers. You say nice things in your comments and you make me laugh with your own great posts. And of course, most of all, I really am thankful for my wonderful husband and my sweet children. Really. I am.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Variations on a theme of coffee

Hello, my name is Earth Muffin and I'm a coffee snob.

I am not ashamed of this. My husband is a coffee snob too. We freely admit it and we're proud of it. We can both drink tap water, cheap wine, generic soda and juice. We're picky about beer too, but we don't drink it often enough to truly qualify us as beer snobs. Just don't try passing off any store-brand coffee or any of that Maxwell House shit on us. We'll put you in your place, baby.

(Actually, we'll drink it graciously, thank you for it and then stop at a Starbucks on our way home from your place, because we don't want to be rude.)

I'm not sure when this coffee snobbery started. I know that when we met, we were both buying store-brand coffee and we functioned just fine. I know that when we moved in together we were buying store-brand coffee most of the time, Maxwell House Bold Roast if it was on sale, or if we were entertaining. If I had to pick the watershed moment, it would probably be around Christmas 2 years ago when most of the staff at Mr. EM's school gave him coffee as a gift.

He came home that day with about 6 pounds of different coffees. Some were flavored, neither of us roll that way, so those were promptly re-gifted. The others were a variety of Starbucks flavors and we rather enjoyed trying them out deciding which was our favorite. It was unanimous...the Sumatran. (Cue angels singing from the heavens...)



Mmmm...Sumatran coffee. So dark, so bold, so earthy, so delicious. No, no cream or sugar for us, we like it black and we like it strong, thankyouverymuch. (Though I will sometimes sprinkle a little cinnamon on my grounds before brewing them when Mr. EM isn't home.) We mentioned how good it was at the annual Granola family New Year's Eve party that year and the coordinator of our food cooperative said that there was a coffee we could order through the coop that had a dark Sumatran blend we might want to try. Um, yes, please! So, we ordered four pounds of it...at $9.00 a pound, cough...and thus began our coffee snobbery.

We joined the natural food coop in order to better feed our family at a cost we could afford. $36.00 every other month on coffee was putting a bit of a dent in that budget...we didn't care. We still bought cases of tofu-noodle soup and organic fruit leather for the boys. We just cut back on the organic bread and green tea. We weren't addicted to the organic, fair-trade, whole-bean dark Sumatran coffee...we could quit any time we wanted. This was a CHOICE, people!

And then...dun-dun-DUH...the coop was no more. This past August was our last pick-up, no more ordering Cafe Altura at wholesale any more. What's a coffee snob to do? We trolled the internet for a connection, to no avail. If we were going to continue drinking that particular brand, we were going to be paying at least $2 more a pound and we just couldn't afford that, not the way we go through it. Something had to give.

Target's Archer Farms has a decent selection of coffee. We tried their Italian roast, it was ok. We can buy Starbuck's Sumatran at our local grocery store. It's fine. But it's not the same and both of those brands are still $8 a pound, unless they're on sale or we have a coupon and, again, at the rate we go through coffee we'd be blowing through the kids' savings accounts to feed our habit. Not cool. We figured it was time to drink a little less coffee...sniff, single tear rolling down my cheek. We'd each have a cup at home in the morning and take a travel mug to work, but that would be it. No more gigantic thermos for Mr. EM, no more making just one more cup to drink while waiting for Little M.'s bus for me, no more making half a pot to sip on when we get home from work. It was the end of an era, gentle readers.

Until now...on our anniversary we stopped in a grocery store for something sweet to take back to our hotel room. We passed by an endcap featuring varieties of Eight O'Clock Coffee. We recognized the red bag-regular, the green bag-decaf (and, seriously, what's the point of that?!), the yellow bag-hazelnut (um, yuck,), but what was that purple bag? DARK ITALIAN ROAST?! (Again, cue angels singing down from the heavens...perhaps a little less enthusiastically than when we discovered the Sumatran.)

Now, our favorite blend is Sumatran. We also enjoy a nice, dark Ethiopian roast. My parents brought us some chicory from New Orleans last spring that we liked. Any time my cousin is home from Hawaii, he brings us some Kona, and we like that. We've tried several different Mexican and South American blends that we did not like. They are just not quite bold enough for our taste. However, we can also get into a nice Italian roast, IF the flavor is bold and espresso-y. So, we bought a small purple bag to see what Eight O'Clock Coffee had to offer.

Ta-da!

We now keep a bag of Starbuck's Sumatran in the freezer for our weekend consumption, but we drink Eight O'Clock Coffee's Italian Roast in the purple bag during the week. It's not organic Sumatran, but it'll do. Mr. EM gets to have his gigantic thermos-full, I get my extra cup while waiting for Little M.'s bus and, if we choose, we can make ourselves a little to have in the afternoons, all without breaking the bank. It's an affordable solution to a problem we do realize we made a much bigger deal of then necessary. You're probably wondering right now why I dedicated a whole post to coffee. Well, friends, that's just how much it means to us. It's a coffee thing...you might not understand. (But I know that Daisy, OC, EBM and probably even Maria do!)

And so, I leave you with a scene from the movie Pulp Fiction...one that Mr. EM and I jokingly reenact often in our kitchen as we brew our liquid gold:

[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie's kitchen]
Jules: Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster's Choice right, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?
Jimmie: Knock it off, Julie.
Jules: [pause] What?
Jimmie: I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.

Fortunately, there's no one dead in our garage that we have to deal with. We're way too busy enjoying our expensive coffee to deal with something like that!

(p.s.- Jamaican Blue Mountain is awesome too. Incredibly, ridiculously expensive because the beans only grow on one side of this one mountain in Jamaica, but DAMN, it's some good coffee.)

A conversation between Big M. and his dad

Big M. has a list of chores to do for which he earns a meager allowance. Most of these chores are pretty quick and easy for him to do and he is, for the most part, pretty good-natured about doing them.

Except for the yard work.

Oh, how he hates to do yard work: the weeding, the watering, the picking up of sticks and outside toys, the sweeping of the porch, the picking up of dog poop. Worst of all, he hates the raking. He finds it rather infuriating that there are so many leaves in our yard, considering that we have only one small tree. Our neighbor has a gigantic, old oak tree in her front yard that overlooks our yard. In Mr. EM's and my opinion, picking up the acorns and raking the leaves from that tree is a small price to pay for the shade it provides in the summer and the sheer beauty of it all the time. Big M. disagrees.

Every weekend is a never-ending litany of complaints from him about yard work, but it's ten-fold in the fall. Grumbling, groaning, whining, complaining, arguing and even crying on occasion...to no avail. We make him do it anyway and, for crying out loud, he gets paid to do it. All the drama he brings to this chore drives Mr. EM up one wall and down another and there have been many front yard battles over it in the past. It's taken a lot of restraint on Mr. EM's part, but he has finally realized that ignoring the drama is the best way to handle it, as Big M. drops it much sooner if he's not getting attention for it.

So, this morning, there they are in the front yard raking and raking and raking and raking and so on and so forth. We are finally experiencing Indian summer here along the Mississippi and our windows are open. As I'm cleaning up in the living room, I witness the following conversation:

Big M.: "Gawd, I hate this. I wish there was some kind of big vacuum that would just suck up all the leaves in a few seconds. Then they'd already be in a bag and you could just put it on the curb and be done with it."

Mr. EM: "Well, you're smart. Why don't you invent something like that? Then you'd be rich because a lot of people would buy it."

Big M. chews on this idea for a little while, then says, "Yeah. That's a good idea. Then I'd hire you to do my yard work."

Pretty clever, no?

(Little M., by the way, loves to "help" his daddy with yard work, and he especially LOVES to "rake" the leaves. Sure, he wields his little toy rake like it's a Samurai sword and makes more work for his dad and brother, rather than less, but he's enthusiastic nonetheless. To his brother's endless complaining, he can often be heard shouting, "Shut up, Pantyhose!" Now, we do get on him about the "shut up"...but, "Pantyhose"? No idea where he got that from or why he considers it an insult, but he does. In his four-year-old opinion, it is the lowest of the low.)

I've been dissed by my kids

Last April the trailer for the Where the Wild Things Are movie started circling the internet. I can remember all 4 of us huddled together around the computer watching it, loving every precious second of it and wishing it were just a little bit longer. I even had tears in my eyes, because it looked like someone had finally done a beloved children's book justice on the big screen. We watched it a second time and talked about how we couldn't wait for October when it would finally be in theaters. Throughout the summer, every now and then, one or both of the boys would ask, "Can we watch the Where the Wild Things Are trailer?" Actually, Little M. would ask to see the "movie", he doesn't get the whole movie-trailer concept, he just knew it was beautiful and mesmerizing and he wanted to see it again.

I took them to see Up at the theater this summer (which was excellent, by the way) and the WTWTA trailer was shown before that movie, which re-ignited our excitement. To see it on the big screen rather than our little computer monitor was so cool. As we drove home that day, Big M. asked if we could see it right away on October 16th, the day it opened. I declined, saying the crowds would be too big, and that I wanted to read some reviews and make sure it wasn't too scary for Little M.* We'd wait just a little while and then we'd go as a family to see what was sure to be one of our favorite family movies ever.

Fast forward to this October and life in the Land of Earth Muffin is a study in chaos. Football games every weekend, practices 3 nights a week, plus Big M. took up an instrument in the school orchestra, which he has to practice every day. Little M. took ice skating lessons for 3 Saturdays before deciding he hated them, but dropping that did little to free up our schedule. We had a few different fall/Halloween activities keeping us on the go and I was involved in a few things at the community theater, plus the general day-to-day family stuff going on. Looking at our calendar for October, there were three days out of that month that we didn't have something to do and they were all before the movie even came out. Seeing a movie together was just not in the cards for us.

Until today...

Big M. had a football game today at noon that ended (they won in overtime...HOLLA!) around 2:00. The movie was playing at a theater about 20 minutes away at 4:40. SCORE! We got home, all of us in good spirits from the outcome of the game and I said, "Do I have some boys who'd like to go see Where the Wild Things Are this afternoon?" Little M. screeched, "Yes!" Big M. and Mr. EM both kind of stared blankely at me. Mr. EM had his heart set on watching the Packers/Vikings game...ok, fine. I don't mind taking them by myself. Big M., however, just wanted to invite his friend over to play for the afternoon. He didn't feel like seeing a movie and would rather just wait for it to come out on DVD. Once Big M. vetoed the idea, Little M. jumped on that bandwagon and suddenly, the movie we all were waiting on pins and needles to see didn't rate as a fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

Sigh.

This may seem like an overreaction to you, but I was devastated. I calmly said, "This really is about the only time we're going to have to see it. I don't know how much longer it'll be in theaters." That was not a big deal to them. "Ok, but keep in mind that this movie is not going to look or sound as good on DVD as it will in the theater." They didn't care, well, Big M. didn't care so Little M. decided he didn't care either. I shrugged my shoulders, kicked off my shoes and headed upstairs to change into comfy sweats for an afternoon at home. I didn't cry, but I almost did. That may seem silly to you, but damn. I'd just been blown off by my kids. Mr. EM not wanting to go didn't bother me at all. He's lukewarm at best about kids' movies, though he did think this one looked pretty cool. However, NFL football is his favorite thing in the world and something about Bret Favre playing in Green Bay and blah blah blah. Besides, as much as I love my husband, this was a movie I wanted to experience with my children. I wanted to sit between them with a big tub of popcorn on my lap that I would eventually have to pass to Big M. because Little M. would get tired of his seat and want to snuggle with me. I wanted us to marvel at the beauty of the Wild Things alive on the big screen. I wanted to talk about the fleshed-out storyline on the way home. I wanted to do something fun with my boys this afternoon.

They just didn't want to do anything with me.

More than likely, I could have talked Little M. into tagging along with me. More than likely, I could have guilted Big M. into going. As Mr. EM pointed out, I could have gone by myself and it would have been quieter and cheaper. But none of those options really appealed to me. This wasn't something I wanted to MAKE them do, I wanted them to want to go as much as I wanted to go. And, Mr. EM is right, going by myself would have been both cheaper and quieter and I have no qualms about going to movies by myself, I've done it before and I'll do it again...just not this movie. This was a movie I wanted to share with my boys, just as we've shared the book countless time throughout both of their lives.

Really, this is probably not the last chance we have to see WTWTA at the theater. It's doing very well, so next weekend could still be an option. Looking at the calendar for November, I see that we are free on both Wednesday and Friday of this week, so there are two options as well. If they blow me off again, I probably will go see it by myself because I know that it will be better on the big screen than on DVD, whether my kids believe me or not. It's just that their rejection today stings. I got my first dose of my very-near future, a future where more often than not the M.'s are going to find better things to do than spend time with me.

I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that.

"Please don't go...we'll eat you up, we love you so."




*And, yes, I did read dozens of reviews and, yes, most of them said that it was for children ages 8 and up, and, yes, Little M. is only 4. However, he watches Harry Potter movies without being scared and from what I've read this movie sounds to be on par with those, as far as the fright factor goes. We are somewhat liberal on what we allow our kids to see, as long as we're watching it with them. Little M. actually has a pretty firm foot in reality and while he might be a little scared of the Wild Things, he knows they're not real. I really doubt they'll haunt him for nights to come.

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, I have seen the light!

Happy Halloween from the Land of Earth Muffin! If we happen to stop by your house, please put some plain white toast, 4 fried chickens and a Coke in Jake and Elwood's bags, ok?

Autumn in the Land of Earth Muffin: a photographic essay

Big M.'s first (and only, so far) winning football game


My brother came to visit for the Octoberfest and took in his nephew's football game


A gigantic sweet potato from our community garden


Trip to the pumpkin farm with Little M.'s preschool class


Eating tofu hot dogs, cooked on the bonfire at the "Enchanted Forest"...a party at a local nature preserve.

Lots going on around here lately, been too busy to blog. Football has been a great experience for Big M., but it will be nice when the season is over so things can slow down a little bit. Work is crazy, but still going well...fingers crossed! The weather has been awfully temperamental lately, freakishly cold and way too rainy more days than not. I hear we have sunshine in our weekend forecast, but I'll believe it when I see it. I can't believe we're nearing the end of October already! Next time I post pictures, I have a feeling they will be of the M.'s in their awesome Halloween costumes. No hints, you'll just have to wait and see!

I hope fall is treating you nicely. Drink some hot cider, eat a caramel apple, carve a pumpkin and take in the crisp air...in Earth Muffin's opinion, this is the most wonderful time of the year.

Things my boys said at my grandma's visitation and funeral

Big M.: "Huh...for some reason I thought she'd be behind glass or something." (as we stood in front of the casket, very near all of my dad's side of the family)

"So, what are you going to want Little M. and me to dress you in when you die? Because I don't really know what's in your closet, Mom. Do you think you could write it down for us?" (after asking why Great-Grandma was so dressed up even though she was dead)

Little M.: "(big sigh) How come there's no fun stuff here?" (after being told that we would be staying at the funeral home for a little while longer)

"What's the bwood of Chwist?" (VERY loudly in a Catholic church during the funeral...I had forgotten just how great the acoustics are in that place.)

Mr. EM: "You look really hot in that dress." (After witnessing plenty of ugly-crying from me all week long, dressing himself and the kids in acceptable clothing and driving in the rain to the funeral home, standing in line for a good 30 minutes to get to the receiving line of my relatives, shaking all their hands and answering the 30 million questions the boys had about death and church so that I wouldn't have to. Is he awesome or what?)

And, by the way, I did look pretty good in that dress...