Hi, I'm Elle. Just a wanna be June trying not to lose my mind while raising a son.
As you know I received the packet of papers that told us what Galina and the director of Mirnoe Children’s Home purchased. Oh wait, I didn’t tell you that part. That’s right, I put it in the monthly Sweet Hope newsletter and posted something on Facebook. You should totally subscribe (here*). Included in that were thanks from the Slavyanka women’s society and from the orphanage and all of the receipts from the purchases. We also received photos. Technically I’m not supposed to post photos of the children, but I’m going to break the rules a little.
Anyway, the orphanage purchased warm clothing, shoes, medical equipment (including a new stethoscope for the doctor and nebulizers), a vacuum cleaner, candy and a digital camera. In addition, the Slavyanka women purchased a small photo album for each of the children in the house so they can keep photos of birthdays, holidays and their friends. Even more, Slavyanka has taken patronage of the orphanage and is appealing to the people of the territory for support. They will work to make repairs on the building and ensure these children are looked after.
All of this is thanks to you and your generous support. You provided a light to the world of children who would have otherwise been forgotten.
Tuesday afternoon I received a card in the mail from Galina with the newspaper article about the work that is being done in Mirnoe. I know a man at our church who used to work for the US embassy in Moscow and speaks and reads Russian. He served as our translator for the last packet of papers we received and I had planned on asking him again if he would translate this article. However, you know me and my “gotta have it right now.” I thought surely the internets would have something that could translate this for me. Ahh teh googles knows (most) all.
I found an OCR (optical character recognition) program that reads cyrillic. Only it doesn’t translate it. I had to use a separate site for that. The other challenge was the article was long so I had to break it into bits so that I could find the line breaks and what not. That way the translator could read most of the text.
Now we all know that an online translator doesn’t work that well, but it works well enough to get the gist of what an article is trying to say. An hour later I had the article.
The reporter interviewed Galina and she talks about how traditionally she helps us arrange a “sweet” Christmas for the children, but this year plans abruptly changed. She mentions how she talked with the regional official and wanted to find children who desperately needed the help. The governor said that Mirnoe would be happy to accept your help.
The part that I love is the article says:
You are not confused, the New Year has already passed. It turns out that it is not important what day it is, but the occasion can always be found.
The article goes on to talk about the conversations between me and Galina about my confusion over where Mirnoe was and the trouble we had in getting the money there. Since the New Year holiday had passed Slavyanka “disposed” of the money differently. The purchased a vacuum cleaner, supplies for a medical cabinet, clothing and shoes.
The article concludes – We had the opportunity to remove these children from our memory, but the women of Slavyanka [and you] have given them a place to preserve their memories. They will help them with building repairs. We shall help.
This article is a reminder of the generous work all of our Sweet Hope patrons have provided. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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*in the box on the sidebar
Do you know what day it is? Why it’s corned beef day! Ahh you thought it was St. Patrick’s Day didn’t you? In keeping with our theme of totally bizarre holidays I thought I’d rename it corned beef day.
I’ve written about St. Pat’s before (here, here and there’s a recipe here) so there isn’t anything earth shattering. We are having friends over per usual and adding an informal whiskey tasting this time around. This way I don’t have to do wine club and St. Pat’s in the same month. I am sure a good time will be had by all.
Happy St. Pat’s to you all.
Tuesday Night Supper is was a regular feature at Sprouting Off. I’m working on Sprouting Off, really I am. The purpose of Tuesday Night Supper was to give dinner recipes that were easy to make and that used fresh in season vegetables. The reason that this particular post is showing up here and not there is because… well it doesn’t contain any vegetables.
I lent out my book The Gluten Free Gourmet and as soon as I did I wanted to start eating gluten free again. Oh well. One mom was telling me about a recipe for chicken tenders made with corn flakes. I’m pretty sure it was the preschool director, but I’m not 100% sure. Anyway, I decided to give them a try since it sounded good. Here’s what I did and it’s not gluten free because I was lazy. The boy also helped make dinner so commentary on small child with sensory issue commentary is included.
Cornflake Chicken
Disclaimer: we don’t eat large quantities of meat and the place we buy chicken breasts from happens to sell very large ones so a 1/2 breast feeds all 3 of us.
1 - 1/2 breast boneless skinless chicken cut into strips
2 cups cornflakes
1/4 cup flour
1/2 t. season salt
1/2 t. chicken bouillon
1/4 t. black pepper
2 eggs
cooking spray
Place the cornflakes in a zip top bag and give to a small child to obliterate into corn flake bits. While he is doing that cut the chicken and remind him every 2 minutes that he need to keep crushing the corn flakes and that he can help with something else in a minute. Pour crushed flake bits into a shallow dish (pie plate or soup plate works) and have child add flour, season salt, bouillon and pepper.
Have small child assist with the cracking of the eggs. Be sure to allow extra time for hand washing in between egg cracking should any egg residue happen to fall upon the child’s hands in the likely event that he crushes the egg against the countertop. Whisk eggs while child is washing his hands.
Line a small baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray for good measure. Have child dip the chicken in the egg and then cornflake mixture and then place the coated chicken on the baking sheet. You may want to pour yourself a glass of wine prior to this especially if your child has sensory issues and insists on flicking the egg corn flake goo all over the kitchen walls. Repeat with all chicken strips.
Spray the tops of the chicken with a little cooking spray and place in a 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. In the meantime explain to the child that he is now finished in the kitchen and that he should vacate the space. Pour yourself another glass of wine because of the following whine-fest about not letting him help with anything.
When chicken is cooked praise child for a job well done and serve with other various dinner side dishes.
Around this house we celebrate the unconventional holidays. I don’t care for holidays like New Years (unless you count this new years) or 4th of July (another stay up late for no reason holiday). I do like Christmas and mah birthday (for the presents). The best holidays in this house are the not so normal ones.
The first day of the hockey season is called Hockey Day (we couldn’t come up with a better name). The boy and I make a cake.
February 1st is Elle survived January so we can cut back on our booze bill Day (I don’t think that name will catch on either). We don’t really do anything special except celebrate with a shot of Vodka… what was that about cutting back on the booze bill?
The beginning of Daylight Savings Time is also a holiday around here. We call it the end of SAD season. Most people bitch about the time change. Me? I lurve it. It might be dark when I wake up, but last night… I walked the dog in the daylight. For the first time (ok that’s not true, but it was my first evening walk with her in daylight). We celebrated that day with a steak dinner.
Later up this week is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m telling you this is the best week ever. We are having a few friends over, doing an informal whiskey tasting and the dog is getting fixed the day before so she’ll be nice and doped up with all of the people here. I’m starting to feel semi normal.
I’ll throw this out there that I’m writing this post on Wednesday, but you are reading it on Friday. That whole post-dating stuff thing.
The trusty husband scheduled us for hair cuts today (Wednesday). Yesterday I was all excited about it. I haven’t had a haircut since August. Then this morning the boy climbed in bed with me and started to pet the cat. I was mostly asleep and didn’t notice. When I woke up I got distracted by making the boy’s lunch and forgot to take my allergy medication first thing. That path always leads to disaster. By the time I remembered to take my medicine it was too late.
All day long I’ve been in either a drug induced stupor or sneezing my head off. I’m pretty sure that I have worn off about 8 layers of skin off of my nose.
What does an allergy attack have to do with getting my hair cut? Nothing much really. Just that they happened in the same day and I had taken so much allergy medication that I nearly fell asleep in the chair.
Now if I were feeling better I would totally take a picture of my hair and show you how cute it is. Picture this:
Yeah… I’m hott like that. Keep picturing that I look like Jessica Alba and not rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Ok, my hair is not that blonde, but rather mostly my natural color with gold, blonde and red highlights with a little wash out purple underneath. It’s also a little shorter and I totally look like Jessica Alba.
