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College Application Angst - It's Not What You Think

Truth Thursday

Click! That’s the sound of the send button on my son’s computer (and of my credit card getting a workout.) Four out of seven college applications have now been sent. 

He’s been a marvel, my son, during this dreadful season – the season of the application mania. He’s been working hand in glove with his guidance counselor since last spring, making sure he is thinking about the right things when choosing the schools to which he is going to apply. He has gotten all the transcript paperwork in, hocked us over the summer to make sure we submitted our “essay” to the guidance counselor that will help her formulate her recommendation, and has been working on his own essay with his grandpa the English teacher for months.

Turns out that he really needs three or four or five essays, or “personal statements,” as they’re called on the applications. That was a bit of curveball. But he has persevered, and in mid-October, he is more than halfway through his application process, and my husband and I have done very little except be supportive when he’ll let us. I am proud of his ability to manage this very complicated application process with little input from us - we're his final proofreaders, and have helped him think through his choices, but that's about it. 

Tricks for Treats

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: dcjohn

October 31st. Such a magical night for children and their parents. Until the bags of candy are brought home and the gorging begins. Then, parents become the "bad cops" when they try to put a stop to the candy consuming frenzy.

How do you balance the joy and spirit of the holiday with being mindful of overindulgence and health? Quite a narrow tightrope to walk!

Like most things, it all comes down to the preparation and expectations that are set in advance. For older children, if the habit after many years is a binge-fest, expect push-back if you try to make a change. For younger children, who don't have memories of Halloween etched in their minds, setting up rules this week should be sufficient.

Some ideas:

-Pick an amount of candy for the first night that can be eaten (one way to do this is based upon your child's age). An example: on Halloween night, a 6 year old can expect no more than 6 pieces of candy to eat. Each subsequent night can be one piece fewer.

-Talk about (in advance) when candy can be eaten. You might want to make sure that nothing gets eaten while trick or treating.

-Have your kids sort through their candy once they return home and separate it into piles of "favorites", "likes", and "dislikes".

-Donate some to charity. Many neighborhoods put together an after-Halloween drive to send leftover candy to our Troops overseas.

Halloween, like many holidays, offers the opportunity to use it as a teachable moment: from a health standpoint, a charity standpoint, and being able to teach values.

I hope that everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween!

Just Like Someone's Mom Used to Make -- a New Way to do Meatloaf

Meal Monday

My own mother would never be caught dead serving meatloaf, for her it falls into the barfy-tuna-casserole-with-potato-sticks-on-top category, but I'm sure there are lots of people out there for whom meatloaf is a comfort food and reminds one of home. Or of some sort of Norman Rockwellian idyllic image and memory of home.

Not what I've got going on over here, but that's fine. However, I do make meatloaf and I'm proud of it. In the spirit of preparing healthy, satisfying and tasty meals that are EASY, I've developed this recipe over the years for Pesto Meatloaf. (I told you I use pesto for lots and lots of things).

Originally inspired by an herbed meatloaf recipe in The Silver Palate Cookbook, this one is now a staple in our house and pleases just about everyone. I recommend serving it with a spicy ketchup (mix ketchup with sweet chili sauce) or mustard, and a quinoa or lentil side dish.

Binders Full of Women

Truth Thursday

I have to admit, I was a little too tired to stay up and watch the second presidential debate on Tuesday night, as I am one of the tens of thousands of women you can find in a certain challenger’s binders who actually works outside the home and still manages to come home and cook dinner for my family.

Thankfully, Facebook and Twitter have allowed me to enjoy every minute of what was clearly a rollicking debate, one in which President Obama and Mitt Romney were truer to their true colors than had shone through in the previous debate.

I love the internet memes that popped up in the hours during and after – a photo of Patrick Swayze with the line “No one puts Baby in a binder” underneath; a photo of Romney with the caption: “Want to discuss an assault weapon ban? First of all, a man and woman should be married before they have a baby”; and perhaps most telling of the zeitgeist, a Facebook page I can already friend called “Binders Full of Women,” with posts about the some of the most pressing issues in the lives of women today – jobs, pay equity, child care and reproductive rights.

Let’s face it – anyone who knows me, or spends five minutes with me, knows where I stand politically, and knows for whom I will be voting.  It’s no secret – I was born and bred in a fiercely Democratic house, one in which there were political buttons dating back for several generations of campaigns, starting with FDR and Stevenson. The day I fell and cut my chin open when I was five years old, my parents were at the ‘68 march on Washington. And one of my most special possessions is a Planned Parenthood suffragette-style sash I wore at a pro-choice rally and march on DC that I attended with my mom a couple of years before she died.

My Facebook page is filled with nuggets from the debate, all of my friends and acquaintances chiming in on the moments that most frustrated, or thrilled them, when our President stood up for what he believed and thwarted the challenger’s rude and inaccurate performance (although lest we feel smug in our clever memes, I am sure that the Facebook pages of Republicans and Romney supporters show similarly-tracked moments of glee from that side of the aisle.)

Chicken for a Crowd: Delicious, Easy and Prepared in Advance

Meal Monday

We recently hosted a small luncheon that came together rather quickly: read, not much time to plan or prepare. We invited two families; one of whom brought a set of grandparents with them. In addition, our nephew was able to join us at the last minute. 

The more, the merrier, to be sure, but what to feed them all? Because this was a weekday luncheon after a religious holiday service, I did not have the usual benefit of time at home before the guests arrived, let alone the luxury of running out to the store at the last minute if necessary. I had to be ready.