As Ben got off the bus the other day, the bus driver opened her window and poked her head out. Not a good sign, since she usually just smiles and waves. Sure enough, she said, "Ben said a bad word on the bus today."
As we walked up the driveway, I asked Ben what bad word he said.
"The f-word," he replied, with a little guilty laugh.
Inward gasp from me, as I tried to stay calm and images of Ralphie in A Christmas Story flashed through my head.
"Really? Do you even know what the f-word is?" I managed to squeak out.
He pulled me down and whispered in my ear, "f***"
Yep. He knows what it is. "Where'd you hear that word?"
"From one of Nathan's songs on his ipod when we were in the car the other day." Great, it gets even better! I'm gonna break his ipod! I thought.
"Well, why did you say it?"
"I don't know. The kids on the bus said I didn't know what the f-word was and I told them I did. Then I just said it."
Of course he has no idea what the word means, but I talked to him about how it was a really bad word and that he should never say it again. I told him I was going to talk to Brad about it and then the gravity of the situation set in. He was really upset and sorry.
So that evening I talked to Brad and he talked to Ben. Brad told him how that was a really dirty word and if he said it again he would have to have his mouth washed out with soap. Ben said he understood. Later that night I was getting the kids ready for bed, and Brad was off playing soccer. Ben was brushing his teeth and making funny sounds, the most prevalent being "fff...." Then he asked, "what letters make the ffff sound?" I told him "ph" and "f". He kept making the noise, "ffff...." and then it slipped out, "f***"
Immediately he clapped his hand over his mouth and said, "Don't tell dad! It was an accident." I told him I had to tell dad, and he was really upset. He begged and begged and kept saying he was sorry. I felt really terrible because I knew it was an accident, but I wasn't going to not tell Brad. Brad didn't get home until after Ben fell asleep, so the first thing Ben asked when he woke up in the morning was, "Did you tell dad?" When I said, "Yes," he started to cry and begged me not to let him get his mouth washed out. Getting ready for school was miserable for both of us.
When he got off the bus after school, he said, "Can we just get this over with?" So I called Brad and asked if it would be OK if I did the deed. He said, "If you don't go easy on him." He knows me so well! He told me what he was planning to do, and asked if I could handle it. I said I could.
I got out the liquid hand soap, squirted a blob on my finger, and swished it around in Ben's mouth. Immediately he started screaming and crying and spitting. I gave him cup after cup of water; the bubbles coming out of his mouth were crazy! And then a few cups of milk when he was crying that it burned his throat. And then I called Brad and held the phone up so he could hear how much Ben was screaming and crying. I felt so terrible.
When Brad got home, he asked Ben if he learned his lesson. Ben said, "Well, kind of." Brad asked what he meant, and Ben said, "I don't think I should have been punished because it was an accident that I said it." Great! But I think it made a big impression on him and hopefully he'll be able to control himself in the future.
And yes, I did talk to Nathan about the song on his ipod. He said when he heard the song on the radio, it didn't have the word in it. He liked the song so he bought it and put it on his ipod, but hadn't listened to it all the way through until the day he was driving Jill and Ben somewhere. I told him he needed to delete it and he said it would. Now I need to wash his ears out!
July 2015
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Voyage #11--Point White to Fort Ward
My last kayaking post, claiming "We're Back!" was a little premature. That was three months ago! Three months without kayaking was way too long, let me tell you! But today, I'm pretty sure it's for real. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. OK, except for the fact that Mariann had school today and couldn't join us, that wasn't so perfect. The rest of us felt terrible to go without her (honestly, we did!) but just couldn't pass up the clear blue skies, warm sun, total lack of wind, and current running in the right direction.
We started at the Point White dock, and made our way through Rich Passage to Fort Ward. I was a little nervous about this stretch. I'd heard from several people about the strong current, and the Bremerton ferry runs through this narrow passage a few times an hour.
As we approached the tip of Point White, we could see the current swirling. After a few minutes debate on whether we should go through near the shore or try to avoid it by going around the marker, we sent Gretchen through first to test it out. She made it through with no problems, so Brooke and I followed. It really was no big deal and was actually quite fun!
The rest of the way was easy, with only one spot where the paddling felt slow and we had to put some muscle into it. The Bremerton ferry passed us twice, one going to Bremerton and one going to Seattle. At one point we could see Mt. Rainer, the ferry and Blake Island, all framed in a perfect shot (which I tried to capture, but didn't do it justice). And we said over and over again, "WE LIVE HERE!"
The warm sun felt wonderful! I took off my jacket, rolled up my pants, and tried to get some color on my extremely white legs. We finished paddling in about an hour, but couldn't bring ourselves to go to shore, so we drifted for a while. It felt too good to be back on the water, enjoying the peace, the sun, and the friendship. We're definitely back!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Bean-o, Anyone?
A few months ago I planned a Relief Society activity all about using dried beans. It turned out really well and I thought I had discovered several new recipes to use all those dried beans in my food storage. One of the discoveries I made was that it's possible to put dried beans in a jar, fill it with water, and then pressure cook/can it so you have your own canned beans. With the multitude of #10 cans of dried beans in my food storage, this really excited me!
Thursday and Friday of last week Ben was home sick, so I decided to finally learn how to use the pressure cooker my mother in law gave me for Christmas. I started with beans. First, I read the directions for the pressure cooker and even did a little test with water to see how it works. It was very exciting to watch the pressure build on the pressure gauge, then see the little rocker thingy on the top start rocking when it got up to 15 lbs. pressure. It rocked away for several minutes and kept the pressure steady without blowing up! Success!
Then I got out the recipe for canning dried beans and set to work. The beans are supposed to cook at 15 lbs. pressure for 75 minutes. By the time the pressure built up, the 75 mins. passed, and the cool down process was complete, it took about 2 1/2 hours. A lot faster than soaking beans over night, then cooking them for a few hours! But when I took them out of the canner, they looked like mush, or refried beans! Not the texture I was hoping for. And three of the six jars didn't seal, which was a huge disappointment. I've never had problems with sealing jars when I use the boiling water bath method of canning.
I talked to a friend about why they didn't seal and she walked me through the process of canning with a pressure cooker. Apparently, you have to cover the jars with water, just like in a boiling water bath. In the recipe I had, it said, "Add water to the depth of 1" for small canners and 2" for large canners." To me, a novice pressure-cookerer, I thought this meant add 2" of water. I guess not! When I re-read the directions that came with the pressure cooker, it said to add three quarts of water. So that's way more than 2"! I don't know if that will solve the problem of the mushy beans, but I'll give it a try if I ever have another day stuck at home.
So what to do with six pint jars of mushy beans? Try out some of the bean recipes I discovered for the Relief Society activity!
Black Bean Brownies were first on my list. I remember them being delicious and not much different than regular brownies. Wrong. At least the ones I made. First of all, don't eat them right out of the oven! The bean flavor is overpowering. When they cooled, the flavor was much better, but they definitely had a strange after taste. On the plus side, they are gluten and dairy free, so if you have those issues, you might not think they're that bad. I passed them on to my lactose-intolerant sister, via my mom, so I don't know what she thought of them.
Applesauce Spice Pinto Bean Cake was next. This also tasted fabulous at the RS activity. It's full of good things: honey, wheat flour, raisins, walnuts, applesauce, and oh yeah, pinto beans! Ben was my only child who would even try it (I didn't even tell any of them that it had beans in it and they still wouldn't try it, it looks that nasty!) and he said, "The flavor is OK, but the texture is confusing my taste buds." I couldn't agree more!
I still want to try Harvest Pumpkin Bars, which use white bean puree, but shouldn't I have learned my lesson by now?
Thursday and Friday of last week Ben was home sick, so I decided to finally learn how to use the pressure cooker my mother in law gave me for Christmas. I started with beans. First, I read the directions for the pressure cooker and even did a little test with water to see how it works. It was very exciting to watch the pressure build on the pressure gauge, then see the little rocker thingy on the top start rocking when it got up to 15 lbs. pressure. It rocked away for several minutes and kept the pressure steady without blowing up! Success!
Then I got out the recipe for canning dried beans and set to work. The beans are supposed to cook at 15 lbs. pressure for 75 minutes. By the time the pressure built up, the 75 mins. passed, and the cool down process was complete, it took about 2 1/2 hours. A lot faster than soaking beans over night, then cooking them for a few hours! But when I took them out of the canner, they looked like mush, or refried beans! Not the texture I was hoping for. And three of the six jars didn't seal, which was a huge disappointment. I've never had problems with sealing jars when I use the boiling water bath method of canning.
I talked to a friend about why they didn't seal and she walked me through the process of canning with a pressure cooker. Apparently, you have to cover the jars with water, just like in a boiling water bath. In the recipe I had, it said, "Add water to the depth of 1" for small canners and 2" for large canners." To me, a novice pressure-cookerer, I thought this meant add 2" of water. I guess not! When I re-read the directions that came with the pressure cooker, it said to add three quarts of water. So that's way more than 2"! I don't know if that will solve the problem of the mushy beans, but I'll give it a try if I ever have another day stuck at home.
So what to do with six pint jars of mushy beans? Try out some of the bean recipes I discovered for the Relief Society activity!
Black Bean Brownies were first on my list. I remember them being delicious and not much different than regular brownies. Wrong. At least the ones I made. First of all, don't eat them right out of the oven! The bean flavor is overpowering. When they cooled, the flavor was much better, but they definitely had a strange after taste. On the plus side, they are gluten and dairy free, so if you have those issues, you might not think they're that bad. I passed them on to my lactose-intolerant sister, via my mom, so I don't know what she thought of them.
Applesauce Spice Pinto Bean Cake was next. This also tasted fabulous at the RS activity. It's full of good things: honey, wheat flour, raisins, walnuts, applesauce, and oh yeah, pinto beans! Ben was my only child who would even try it (I didn't even tell any of them that it had beans in it and they still wouldn't try it, it looks that nasty!) and he said, "The flavor is OK, but the texture is confusing my taste buds." I couldn't agree more!
I still want to try Harvest Pumpkin Bars, which use white bean puree, but shouldn't I have learned my lesson by now?
Saturday, May 1, 2010
R.I.P. Frontier Bank
Frontier Bank, Brad's employer, ceased to exist at 6:00 yesterday evening. Reborn at 6:01 as Union Bank, thanks to the FDIC, it feels a little bit like the government believes in reincarnation. Think about it: one moment a struggling, local community bank gasps for breath, making every conceivable attempt to save itself, and the next it's suddenly part of a huge, multi-billion dollar, interstate financial corporation with ties to Tokyo.
OK, maybe that's not technically reincarnation. I don't think the Buddhists believe that one soul is merged with a larger, more powerful soul to become someone exponentially greater. But you can see how it feels a little like a reincarnation, can't you?
Now Brad is an "interim employee" of Union Bank for around 90 days while he waits to see if he's offered a permanent position. Fortunately his salary will stay the same for now, but he'll have no vacation or sick time. We should hear about health insurance in a conference call today.
To be honest, we're both glad this finally happened. Ever since the "great recession" began, banks have been either bailed out or forced out. Frontier did not receive any money from T.A.R.P. so we knew a bail out wasn't going to happen. It's been a waiting game ever since, always with the hope that an investor would step in, but with the growing suspicion that a take over was imminent.
Now that episode of the waiting game is over, and hopefully the next will be short. I'm really not that worried, maybe because I try not to think about it too much, but I know we've always made it in the past. Brad's very smart and good at what he does and he's always been able to provide for our family. We know that we're doing what we need to on our end, paying tithing, serving, trying to be good parents, preparing for the future, all that good stuff, so as long as we do our best, the rest is in God's hands (or Union Bank's, hopefully with some divine intervention!).
OK, maybe that's not technically reincarnation. I don't think the Buddhists believe that one soul is merged with a larger, more powerful soul to become someone exponentially greater. But you can see how it feels a little like a reincarnation, can't you?
Now Brad is an "interim employee" of Union Bank for around 90 days while he waits to see if he's offered a permanent position. Fortunately his salary will stay the same for now, but he'll have no vacation or sick time. We should hear about health insurance in a conference call today.
To be honest, we're both glad this finally happened. Ever since the "great recession" began, banks have been either bailed out or forced out. Frontier did not receive any money from T.A.R.P. so we knew a bail out wasn't going to happen. It's been a waiting game ever since, always with the hope that an investor would step in, but with the growing suspicion that a take over was imminent.
Now that episode of the waiting game is over, and hopefully the next will be short. I'm really not that worried, maybe because I try not to think about it too much, but I know we've always made it in the past. Brad's very smart and good at what he does and he's always been able to provide for our family. We know that we're doing what we need to on our end, paying tithing, serving, trying to be good parents, preparing for the future, all that good stuff, so as long as we do our best, the rest is in God's hands (or Union Bank's, hopefully with some divine intervention!).
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