“Being bored is an insult to oneself.” –Jules Renard

This afternoon I made such a long status update on Facebook that I joked it should really be a blog post. So, I decided to convert it into one! (albeit not particularly fascinating or relevant to my blog’s theme. Perhaps I need to remember that Busy is Boring!) I think the abrupt shift in local weather from horrendously hot to near-fall-like crispness has rejuvenated me and we just had a great day today. This morning I went for a walk in the woods with the boys to scout locations for “real life Minecraft.” We also investigated the yard barn shed in our field for rehabilitation possibilities into a cool clubhouse. Then, we had a mini Pinterest Day making baked mozzarella bites and healthy chocolate chip muffins. I gave the kids applesauce with cinnamon for a snack which was met with genuine exclamations of, “this is the best day ever!” (hmm. If that’s all it takes, should break out the applesauce more often!). Also, the doctor finally called back and Zander’s arm is NOT broken (more about this in a minute). We’re finally on a roll with school and Z did 18 worksheets this morning, plus Lann is clicking with things too. On the less productive side, at 2:00 when I made said status update I was still in my pajamas (yes, even on the woods walk and clubhouse scout) and hadn’t taken a shower, let alone finished prepping for Friday’s class. I did get checked in with my online students this morning while still in bed using the miracles of iPad goodness. And, as it turned out, later in the afternoon when the kids went to visit my parents I did finish my prep for Friday’s class after all. What was just delightful about today is that we spent most of the day having fun and enjoying each others’ company—something that sometimes seems not to go hand in hand with productivity! ;-D

Okay, now for the mini-Pinterest Day verdict…

The mozzarella bites were just cut up string cheese dipped in milk and then in bread crumbs which I doctored up with Italian seasoning, pepper, onion and garlic powder. (They were originally inspired by this blog post.)

They were fun to make with kids, tasted great (I recommended my doctored bread crumbs version), and were easy.

Our next Pinterest Day project was to make some delightfully healthy double chocolate muffins…

I changed the recipe somewhat from the original and this is what I ended up with:

Double Chocolate Muffins (flourless!)

Ingredients:

1 3/4 c. oats
3 eggs
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 c. applesauce
dash vanilla extract
1/2 c. plain Greek yogurt
1-1/2 TB vinegar
1-1/2 ts baking powder
1-1/2 ts baking soda
1/4 ts salt
1 c. hot water
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2, 12-cup muffin pans. In a food processor, mix all of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips. Blend until oats are ground and mixture is smooth. Gently stir in the chocolate chips (or, if you forget like I did, sprinkle them generously over the top–they kind of sink in and make a gooey center). Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pans. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

My kids said these muffins were too “intense” after the first one…they’re pretty gooey/rich seeming and they actually thought they were too sweet. I think I’ll cut back the sugar next time–I think 2/3 c. would have been more than enough.

I totally loved them though! They taste like nice squishy brownies! (The kids shaped up later in the day and ate more of them, no longer complaining about being too intense.) As of right now, there are two of the 24 we made left in the house…

Okay, and remember the non-broken arm? Last Thursday we spent a lovely playgroup at the river…

As we were leaving the river, the boys wanted to stop and play on the playground by the parking lot. Lann tried to swing across on the monkey bars type thing (with a slidey handle deal) and fell off and hurt his tailbone. Rather than learn from this experience, Zander instead decided to see if HE could slide across with only one arm. When he fell off, he fell with arm under him. I saw him go down and my first thought was, he broke his arm! But, after some tears and snuggles, he seemed okay—the arm had full range of motion, etc. However, that night he woke up crying three times in the night because his arm hurt too bad to sleep. We did arnica and healing salve and then tylenol. In the morning, he was cheerful and playing like usual, but I noticed he wasn’t using his arm at all and I started to get worried. He held it up close to his body at a weird angle and was often holding it with his other hand. Then, he mentioned to me that it hurt too bad to push down the soap dispenser in the bathroom. So, I became 99% sure that it was fractured somewhere (somewhere, like on the underside, that didn’t impact his range of motion). The bottom of his forearm also felt really hot to the touch, almost feverish. So, we packed up and went to the urgent care clinic sort of place in town:

After an x-ray, they put a splint and sling on it “just in case,” saying they did not see a fracture in the x-ray, but that they would send it to radiology for a million dollars (j/k) and they might be able to see a very fine one there.

It then took until today to get the radiology report which was “negative.” So, sling is now off, arm seems normal, I expect to receive an unpleasantly hefty bill (we have sucky, “catastrophic only” insurance–when Mark cut his leg with the chainsaw earlier this year it cost us about $2000 out-of-pocket), and yet I do still feel like I made the right call in taking him in.

And, there you have it. Facebook status turned blog post. See why I’m just not cut out for Twitter?!