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Disney is AWESOME, Take Two

On By LynnIn TurtleHead8 Comments

So, the Captain has food allergies. Plus, eating fast food for a week is not our idea of a good time. So we were not interested in the Disney meal plan.

Although, let me interrupt myself here to say that Disney does try very hard to accomodate different diets. If you do have allergies or sensitivities or issues with gluten, you can just call their allergy line for help. They’ll send you a list of the different foods they carry for special diets, and where to buy them. In general, you can buy allergy-safe products at one place in each park — so it’s a little inconvenient in that you have to get to that one place in the park, and also, you probably only have one or two choices at most for every single meal, but still, it’s nice to know that if you are out in the park and need food, there will be something, at least, to eat.

Anyway!

First of all, we got ourselves a suite at Disney — a two bedroom apartment with a full kitchen. Ours was at Kidani Village at Animal Kingdom, and I think this whole idea of having a kitchen to cook in is becoming more popular, because Disney has a bunch of new towers and “villas” and such where you can get your own full kitchen. It’s expensive — we would only be able to afford a suite like this in the off season, and only if they have a good sale on, which they did.

But SO WORTH IT.

First, let’s talk cost. I have no idea what the Disney meal plans cost, but our family of five ate for around $300 – total – for the whole week. Actually, I didn’t think of that before, but maybe it helps justify the extra cost of the suite given the savings in food. Hm.

Second, let’s talk about where it came from. One of the big benefits to us of staying on the Disney site was that we did not have to rent a car, and we didn’t have to take three car seats with us on the plane. Our original plan was to take a taxi from the hotel, once we got there, to a grocery store in nearby Lake Buena Vista to shop, but we heard that the resort was actually quite a ways out. Even from the Animal Kingdom, which is the closest to civilization, it’d be a 20 minute plus cab ride — out and then back again — and that would be pretty pricey, not to mention annoying and inconvenient.

So we decided to have our groceries delivered, and it worked out great!

We used NetGrocer,com for all of our non-perishables. (Disclosure: NetGrocer is giving me BUBKIS to mention them.) NetGrocer has a huge inventory of products and we were able to find the critical items — Sunbutter and Rice Dream rice milk — right there on the site. We ordered stuff like cereal, crackers, raisins, pretzels, bread, and bagels from them — basically everything we could, because we liked being able to pick out exactly what we wanted by brand name and size.

We placed the order about a month ahead of time and I emailed them directly to let them know that we were coming from Canada and needed the food to be delivered to the park on a specific date. Also, I should mention that NetGrocer will not accept Canadian credit cards on their website, but you can pay with PayPal, which is what we did.

I also called our Disney resort directly (not the main line, but the hotel’s specific line) to tell them to expect the delivery, and they said they’d have no problem accepting it and holding it for us until we arrived. Disney = awesome.

NetGrocer filled the order about a week before our arrival date. They emailed me with a couple of things that they were out of, suggesting substitutions, which were quite acceptable. Then they sent the groceries (three boxes’ worth) by FedEx to Disney and they actually arrived several days before we did. Yay! Total NetGrocer stuff was about $130 in groceries, $30 delivery fee, $160 total.

I also made an online order from Divvies.com. (Disclosure: Divvies is giving me NADA to mention them.) Divvies is a company that makes sweets — cupcakes, cookies, and candy — that is all egg-free, milk-free, and nut-free. Don’t you want some, NOW? Unfortunately, Divvies does not deliver to Canada and does not sell anywhere in Canada. But if you are going to DisneyWorld, they DO deliver there. OH YEAH, BABY.

So we made an order there of treats for the Captain — some to eat the week we were there, but most just to bring home to freeze for him to have on special occasions. I emailed them after placing my order to let them know it was for Disney and it should be delivered on such-and-such a date, and they were totally cool with that. And again, our order arrived for us at the hotel a few days before we did. Yay! I forget how much the Divvies stuff was, but most of it came home with us, so say we spent $10 or so for the cookies that the Captain actually ate during the week there.

Oh, and I should mention that you’ll need the address of your hotel to fill out these orders, but you can get it from the Disney site.

Lastly, we still needed milk, produce, and meats for the week. We got these from WeGoShop.com. (Disclosure: WeGoShop is giving me ZIP for mentioning them.) WeGoShop is really just an umbrella organization for a bunch of local franchisees. In the Orlando/Disney area, the franchisee is Marge Peck, and when you place your order on their site, it goes to her (also, she asks that you call her after placing your order to confirm your delivery time — her number is there on the order page).

Marge is a total doll, and I love her. She is a woman who cares, let me tell you. We asked for delivery at 7:30 on the evening we arrived — we hoped to be at the hotel by 5, but just in case of bad weather/delayed flights/whatever, we decided to build in a bit of a cushion. But we actually got to the hotel around 4:30, and while we were waiting for Marge, she called us like, four times to ask us questions. Which brand would be best? Would it be okay if she swapped x for y? Did we mean cheese block or cheese slices? You could tell that she wanted us to have exactly what we asked for, and she totally shopped for us as if buying her own groceries. She was just so awesome! Total cost of our fresh groceries was around $83, plus $22 delivery charge, plus a tip (tip of 10-15% is expected). We ended up giving her $120 in cash (we weren’t sure if she would take a Canadian credit card, so I just estimated the cost of our order using Canadian equivalents — I was within $5 — and brought enough cash).

Sooooo much could have gone wrong with this plan, but it all worked out pretty well. The only glitch was with the NetGrocer order, but it was not their fault — the problem was FedEx. FedEx delivered the order to the wrong address — instead of sending it to Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village, they dropped it at Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House, which is the hotel next door. We had a very stressful hour after arrival when we were there, but our groceries were not there, until a very nice man named Earl (LOVE YOU, EARL) found them over at Jambo and had them brought directly to our room. I should add that I prepared extensively for this possibility by having a list in my carry all of all relevant information — phone numbers for NetGrocer and FedEx, confirmation and tracking numbers for both, and Marge’s contact info should I have to call her and add more to our order before she came out to deliver to us. It was a phone call to FedEx that revealed that the boxes were actually delivered to the wrong address. But in the end we got our boxes and it was all good.

And on top of all this, we also brought about a half-suitcase worth of food — three dozen muffins I had made at home and some bread that was safe for the Captain; the pre-mixed dry half of things like pancakes and biscuits, to be used for some of our dinners; small amounts of things like sugar, tea bags, and rice vinegar that I’d need for cooking that I didn’t want to order a great big package of.

And voila! We had groceries for the entire week, and never had to leave the resort.

Every morning we’d have breakfast in our suite, and then we’d pack lunch (sandwiches or cheese and bagels) and snacks for the park. We quickly learned to pack a LOT of food for the park — we’d leave the hotel by 8 a.m,, the kids would want a snack by 9:30, lunch by 11 at the latest, and then another snack around 1. We’d pack lots of fruit and veggies because it’s so easy to get dehydrated from all the walking in the sun, the kids ate way more produce than usual (awesomesauce!). We also brought juice boxes for the kids every day (thanks, NetGrocer!) and Sir Monkeypants and I drank water from the refillable bottles we carried around with us. We’d usually be back at the hotel around 2 p.m. so the Little Miss could rest or nap; some days we’d swim then make dinner and have an early bedtime, and other days we’d eat “dinner” at 4 p.m. then go back to the park for two or three hours (bringing along more snacks and water) until 7 or so.

I think that families with older kids would not find that this plan works for them as well. They’d probably be able to go for longer at the park — I know that when Sir Monkeypants’ sister takes her kids, they usually head over to the park around 11 a.m. and then stay right through until close. So I’m not sure that making dinner at your suite every night makes sense for families on that schedule, but it sure did work for us. We were so happy to be able to feed the Captain his usual food, and Sir Monkeypants and I really appreciated both the savings and not having to eat the same fried foods every day for the duration of our stay. It didn’t really take much time out of our day to go back to the suite and eat, then return — we were going to do it anyway, so the kids could have a break. I really can’t recommend this solution enough.

I also wanted to mention that we did eat out for dinner one night. We wanted to try it, to see how it would go if we came back to Disney and didn’t get a suite. We chose the Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom, because it was close and because it had a lot of kid-friendly items on the menu. They were great there — the chef himself came out to talk to us and ended up making a special dish just for the Captain that wasn’t on the menu. But despite the great service, it was not a great experience and we wouldn’t go back. It’s very loud in there, with the animals and the water and the storms and whatnot, and the Little Miss spent the whole time whining and whining and covering her ears. Meanwhile, Gal Smiley and the Captain declared their food to be gross, and in the end all three of them basically had french fries for dinner. Sir Monkeypants and I took turns gobbling down our food while trying to comfort the Little Miss and cajole the bigger two into eating something meaningful, and in the end, we paid close to $100 for what was a very stressful experience full of very hard work.

When we go back again, we’ll definitely be eating all our meals in our suite. At the most, I think we’d maybe try to get pizza from room service (there’s one hotel with an in-house pizzaria — I think it is Fort Wilderness?) or maybe try eating at the fast food/take out style restaurants in our hotel. Having a special dinner off site just is not worth it to us.

So the fact that all our food arrived on schedule, and we ate well, and (amazingly!!!) we had almost exactly the right amount of food to eat it all up by the last day, made Disney all the more awesome. Awesome!

Disney is AWESOME, Take One

On By LynnIn TurtleHead8 Comments

You know what’s weird? I usually get five to ten emails a day offering me penis implants or dates with girls from Russia, but while we were away in Florida, nothing. And then this morning, a regular return to spamming. How did they know I was away? Eerie.

Anyway! Disney was SO AWESOME. We had a great time and the kids asked many times if we could just abandon our house and lives in Ottawa and move into the castle. Seriously, they did not want to come home. Neither did we!

I must take a minute here to sing the praises of going to Disney on the off-season. I know not everyone can do this — it’s called the off-season for a reason! — but if you can afford to take the kids out of school for a week, go in January. We rarely waited more than five minutes for any ride. In the first hour of the park opening, we could walk onto any ride we chose, and if we really liked it, we’d run out the exit and in the entrance and hop right back on. We didn’t need to queue for shows hours in advance; showing up five minutes before start time was enough to get us a seat (15 minutes before showtime would get us front row).

And, I never waited for a bathroom. EVER.

All that meant that we were able to see everything we wanted to in the parks, and I mean every little thing, all without having to push the kids beyond their limits. There was always time for as many pee breaks as they needed. We could always take a time out to sit and have a snack or just look around and enjoy the atmosphere, because we were never rushing to get anywhere or stuck standing in a line.

So really, that’s what made the trip so great, and if we were to go back (which we TOTALLY ARE), we’ll choose off season again.

The other thing that really made our trip amazing was the way we handled the food, but I am going to save the details on that for a whole other post. Since the Captain has food allergies this was one of our biggest worries, but it all turned out great and I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

I’d advise anyone who is thinking of going to invest in a good guidebook (we used Fodor’s Walt Disney World With Kids and it was good). You’ll get the most out of your visit if you read up ahead of time and have a good plan going in.

In addition, here are some of my tips off the top of my head — things that worked really well for us.

1. Have a day-by-day plan in mind. Don’t arrive at the park and get a map and then try to figure out what you’re doing — you’ll waste so much time planning and debating, especially during the early hours when the line ups are smallest. Now, I am the most Anal McPlanner on the planet, so I’m not sure you have to go to the lengths I did, but here was my approach: a) read up on all the attractions at the various parks in the guide book; b) make a list of what we wanted to visit at each park; c) decide based on this list how many days at each park (we did one at Hollywood, two and a half at Magic Kingdom, and two at Animal Kingdom — we skipped Epcot altogether). I planned out which park we’d visit on which day based on which park had extended Magic hours — these are early opening/late closing days for people who are staying on the park, and we took full advantage of all these special days. (You can see the park hours, including the Magic Hours, for the week you are going on their website.)

We got copies of maps of all the parks from our neighbours who had been just a couple months ago, but you can print the maps from their website too, and you should. Then you can prioritize — our guidebook suggests picking four top-priority items per day when travelling with little kids, although we were able to do much more thanks to minimal lineups — and plot your route for each day. I actually did this detail planning once we were at the park — after the kids were in bed, I’d look at the map for the park we were going to the next day, and I’d look at my list of things we wanted to do at that park. I’d pick which attraction we wanted to do first (the busiest ones), then use the map to plot our route for the day. Worked awesome!

One thing you can’t really figure out until you get there is when and where to meet characters, and when to see the shows. As you enter the park you can pick up a single-sheet schedule that tells you which characters will be where that day, and what times the shows are at. So you might have to do a little tweaking of the plan when you arrive to work it all in.

2. Pack a LOT of snacks. Even if you are on the Disney meal plan, you’ll need extra. Walking around all day makes everyone hungrier than usual, and you can amuse your kids in line by giving them a baggie of pretzels or raisins. Also, bring some empty refillable water bottles, and fill them up whenever you see a drinking fountain. These also come in handy at the airport — you can’t take any liquids through security, so once on the other side, you can fill up your empty bottles at a drinking fountain and have water for your family on the plane.

3. Get a stroller. Even the Captain, at age 6 1/2, could not handle walking around the parks all day, and I’ve heard it’s even harder on kids in the summer when it’s super hot. I’d say, any kid age 5 and under will definitely need a stroller full time; a kid age 8 and under might want to ride sometimes (and it’s useful to have them riding when you’re sprinting across the park to make a show). We rented a double stroller every day (if you pay up front for multiple days, you’ll save money, so be sure to do that!). Most of the time, the Little Miss and Gal Smiley rode, but sometimes we’d let the Captain have a turn and we’d carry the Little Miss, especially when we were in a bit of a rush or had a long walk across the whole park.

We really debated a long, long time about whether or not to bring a stroller from home. Our guide book suggested that any kid under age 3 would need a stroller just to get from their hotel room out to the buses area — a lot of the hotels are huge complexes and it’s quite a hike with a little one in your arms at the end of the day. We lucked out and got a main floor room that was only steps from the bus stop (I’m not sure if you can request this, but if you can, do so!), and it was convenient not to have to push two strollers at the park (we knew we’d have to rent one for Gal Smiley no matter what), so it worked out for us. Still, we did carry the Little Miss around a lot and both Sir Monkeypants and I have pretty tired arms — plus, the trains inside the Magic Kingdom were useless to us, as you can’t take your rented stroller on board. It’s a tough call, but if you do decide to bring one from home, make sure it’s a very small umbrella-style stroller, so you’re not shut out of crowded buses because your stroller won’t fit.

4. Don’t forget that your hotel is a fun place, too. We worked one “rest” day into our schedule, where we wouldn’t go to any parks. We used this day to go to Downtown Disney but it totally wasn’t worth it. We were staying at Animal Kingdom, which is the farthest from Downtown Disney, which meant it took us almost an hour to get there by bus, each way. Plus, Downtown doesn’t open until 10am or so, so combined with the long commute, we ended up blowing almost the whole day just to do a little shopping. Instead, we really wish we had just stayed at the hotel — the kids LOVED the pool (which had an awesome water slide and water activity centre), and all during the day there were Disney-themed parties, games, movies, and kid-based activities. This is one of our few regrets — that we made the Downtown Disney Epic Journey and so missed out on a lot of our hotel-based fun.

5. Don’t be afraid to split up. We did most things as a family, and certainly almost everything at Disney is fun for everyone. But after a day or two, we realized that the Little Miss was getting a bit bombarded by noise and colour and action, and needed to take things at a slower pace. So occasionally Sir Monkeypants would take the big kids on an extra big-kid ride, while the Little Miss and I just hung out, having a snack, taking some photos, or standing in line to meet a character (which the Little Miss pretty much uniformly despised, but we kept trying!). We were always worried when we split up that we’d never see each other again, but we did manage to find each other, and the big kids had a great time on some of the more thrilling rides. On the morning we had to leave, both of the girls were feeling crappy with a cold, so they stayed home and watched TV while Sir Monkeypants took the Captain over to the Magic Kingdom for one last ride on Space Mountain (and in an hour, they went on Space Mountain four times and the Buzz Lightyear ride three times, because OFF SEASON RULES).

That’s all I can think of for now…tomorrow, more on food!

I am SO not pregnant!

On By LynnIn TurtleHead6 Comments

Time for the big news! I’m sorry if I got you all riled up over what is really a very minor announcement, but here it is: we went to DisneyWorld last week. I’ve even mentioned it before on the blog, but in the weeks leading up to our trip, Sir Monkeypants started to worry that if I announced the exact dates that we’d be away, my internet stalkers would break into the house. I tried to reassure him that my internet stalkers are all very nice people who would surely put everything back where they found it, after they came over and sniffed everything, but I just couldn’t convince him.

It pretty much killed me not to blog about the trip in January, because I spent hours and hours packing and planning, and I had so much to share with the world. It seemed as though Sir Monkeypants and I would have a major strategy and planning session every evening. So I hope to go back now and revisit some of the bigger challenges, and how we handled them.

That’ll have to wait for tomorrow, though. For now, we are home, and happy.

Seven

On By LynnIn TurtleHead8 Comments

The fabulous and hilarious Bibliomama tagged me for a meme, what was it, like, a hundred years ago? So I figure I should do it, because Bibliomama is AWESOME. Seriously, she is number one on my list of Blogs You Will Later Kick Yourself For Not Reading Earlier. Check her out!

Anyway. Meme. I am supposed to list seven things you don’t know about me. But that’s so hard. I mean, how do I know what you know, you know? So instead, I present:

The Top Seven Most Bad-Ass Things I Have Ever Done

Stop laughing, Sir Monkeypants.

1. One time when I was in Grade 8 or so, I lost a book from the public library. The library kept calling to say that it was overdue, and I swore up and down that I had returned it (I really thought I had), so my mom went toe-to-toe with them over it. The library was all tough, though, so eventually my mom ponied up the fine, which was something like $25 at this point, a small fortune to my poor single mother. Then, about a year later, we found the book in the basement behind some boxes. Oops. To this day, my mother is still the proud owner of “20 Most Infamous Murder Cases.”

2. I was a real goody-goody in high school, and this one time, my mother was going out for the evening and Footloose was on TV. I really wanted to see this movie, but it was rated AA. So I asked my mother if I could watch it while she was out, and she said, “I don’t know this movie, what do you think?” and I said, “Well, I haven’t seen it either but it’s rated AA, so I guess that means something,” and she said, “Well, it’s up to you, but I guess you shouldn’t watch it,” AND SO I DIDN’T.

Obviously, that is not the badass part.

So a few months later, my older sister, her best friend Claudia, and I were watching movies in the basement. We did not have a VCR, so sometimes for a special treat my mother would rent a laserdisc player and a few movies for the weekend. We were watching Flashdance, which my mother had rented for us because we all took dancing lessons and she thought we would like it. However, there was a scene in it set in a strip club, in which topless women were visible. BOOBIES. And instead of running upstairs to tell my mom all about it, with my eyes shielded from the horror, I just watched it. And then we rewound and rewatched that scene, like, 15 times.

BAD. ASS.

3. Once I was in a bar with some friends at Halloween — I was dressed as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course, because she is the patron saint of badass. I got up to dance, and while I was shaking my booty my friends gave up the table we had been sitting at and moved to a small elevated platform that was behind the table area, overlooking the dance floor. When I came back, I spotted them on the platform and instead of walking around the tables area and using the stairs, duh, I got up on one of the tables and walked across the table tops, until I could climb over the railing and get onto the plaform. Along the way I spilled at least a half dozen drinks and almost flipped off a table, but did I care? No, because stairs are for sissies, and I am one non-sissy badass. Funny that the waitstaff at the bar did not quite see it that way.

4. Natural freakin’ childbirth. Bad. Ass.

5. One time I was at the Superstore and I didn’t pay for the flat of pop that I had at the very bottom of the cart. By the time I realized my mistake, I was out in the parking lot in the rain, with all three kids already buckled into their car seats. So I loaded the Diet Pepsi in the van and drove on home, because you guessed it…I am badass.

6. In university, there was a huge scavenger hunt every term called the SCUNT. Most of the action took place around Waterloo, but there were always at least one or two road trips as well. One year I did the road trip to Toronto, and my friend BarkyShark and I took the segment of questions/challlenges that were all on the Toronto subway. We were totally rocking the list, completing everything with ease, and were on our way to the check-in point with just one item left. The last remaining thing was to get a poster that said, “Elvis is alive,” which was an obvious reference to a common subway ad at the time for Caramilk bars. As luck would have it, such a poster was directly over our heads as we made the final trip to the check-in, so I gingerly stood on my seat and tried to pull it down.

(The whole while, by the way, BarkyShark was warning me that this was a really, really bad idea, because she is so NOT badass.)

So I pulled down the poster, and as it turned out, we were in the same car as the whistle-blowing/door closing guy, and he came storming out of his little office there and told us he had CALLED THE COPS, and we were SHAKING IN OUR BOOTS. But then he got some sort of call on the radio that the train that the subway cops were delayed and the train had to move on, and so he just took our poster and kicked us off the train, and I think it’s safe to say that we both PEED OUR PANTS.

Plus, we left the SCUNT list on the subway in our haste to run away, and had to recreate it completely from memory at the check-in point, which we did, because, of course, BADASS.

7. One time when I was 16, I talked my mother into letting me go to an overnight party in Toronto with a bunch of girl and guy friends, and looking back now, what the HELL was my mother thinking? Anyway, one of my 17-year-old friends borrowed her dad’s sports car to drive us there, and it had a sunroof on it. While we were on the highway she opened the sunroof and I thought it would totally rock if I stood up in the back seat and stuck my head out and whooped a bit, so I did. It turns out it was raining slightly, and when raindrops hit your face at 100 clicks, they hurt rather a lot. But did I pull my head back in? No, no I did not. Because sticking heads out of sunroofs is cool, and badass chicks do not let a little thing like potentially losing an eye interfere with their coolness. You’d know that, if you were badass like me.

Challenge: Name seven badass moments of your own, and just TRY to outdo me. Except for you, Meanie — you’ll kick my ass!

HB FT

On By LynnIn TurtleHead9 Comments

I have a few things that I do that remind me strongly of certain people. For example, wearing an apron always makes me think of my Aunt Kath, while eating Bran Flakes makes me think of my friend SmokingToaster.

However, there’s no one thing I could associate with my sister FameThrowa. I’ve spent uncountable hours with her, just hanging out, talking and talking and talking. She’s got my back. She’s influenced my life and personality in so many ways.

So in honour of her birthday today, I present thirty-five things that remind me of FameThrowa:

1. Putting on lip balm.

2. Emptying the kitchen garbage.

3. Trying on clothes, especially sweaters.

4. Straightening my hair.

5. Hot rolling my hair.

6. “I know what you are…you’re a gas pump jockey!”

7. Barbie dolls.

8. The song Allentown by Billy Joel.

9. Tina Fey.

10. Courteney Cox.

11. The movie Moonstruck.

12. Drinking bottled water.

13. Eating lobster.

14. Orange-flavoured cake.

15. Wearing rings.

16. The song Head On by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

17. Gasping in reaction to a play, TV show, or movie.

18. Playing in the sand.

19. Peep and the Big Wide World.

20. Dancing.

21. Singing.

22. She-Ra, Princess of Power.

23. Twin Peaks.

24. Concert t-shirts.

25. Mixed tapes.

26. The song Obscurity Knocks by the Trash Can Sinatras.

27. Folding a hand in poker that would have won.

28. Cheesy souvenirs from faraway places.

29. Jackets.

30. Pillsbury sugar cookies.

31. A bear called Jeremy.

32. High thread-count sheets.

33. Watching White Christmas on Christmas Eve.

34. Laughing.

35. Home.

Happy birthday, little sistah!

Five Things Putting A Spring In My Step Today

On By LynnIn TurtleHead5 Comments

1. The way Little Miss Sunshine says, “Whoa whoa whoa, little missy!” when I’m trying to get her dressed to pick up the big kids from school.

2. That Kristen Chenoweth, who I love, was on American Idol last week, with Simon Cowell, whom I also love, and they did not like each other, leading to all kinds of fantasies in which my coolness and hipness and powers as a hostess bring them together in peace.

3. That my new pie cookbook arrived, and it is AWESOME, and I want to make everything in it right now, and do you KNOW how fat I’m getting?

4. Right now, it’s gloriously warm and spring-like outside, and I took the kids for a bit of a puddle-jump-splash fest, and it was just like Spring. But when it does turn cold and wintery again, we have a new sled that all three kids can fit on that we all are excited about. So it’s win-win weather-wise.

5. That Neil Patrick Harris might appear on Glee later this year, in an episode directed by Joss Whedon. And now, I have to go lie down, because that is just TOO exciting.

Chocolate Creme Pie

On By LynnIn TurtleHead10 Comments

Good heavens. Making pie really should not be this hard, should it?

So this week I made a chocolate cream pie for Sir Monkeypants’ poker buddies. This was my first experience with baking the pie crust alone, and then adding a filling that needed to chill to set.

My first attempt at the pie crust part seemed to go well. I was happy with the rolling — actually almost even circular! — and the crust in the pie plate looked good.

Then I baked it, and this is what I got:

First Attempt

Notice around the edges? It shrunk! It pulled in from the sides, and also, the bottom lifted up. I took this picture as soon as it came out of the oven, but as the crust cooled, it got smaller and smaller.

To the internet! The internet is full of pie-making snobs, let me tell you. I’m grateful for them, though. One of them had this to say on a message board: “A proper pie crust isn’t so much a recipe as it’s a spiritual quest for perfection in an imperfect world.” I feel like my quest so far has moved me farther from nirvana, not closer, but I persist. A pie samurai, I will be!

Anyway, the internet suggested that some shrinking always happens, but you can minimize it by weighing down the crust by filling it with rice or beans; properly crimping the sides, so they are stuck down to the pie plate; and being sure to prick it well all over.

I hemmed and hawed for a while, before I finally decided to chuck the first crust and try again. After all, the second one could hardly be worse, and this whole thing is supposed to be a learning process, and more practice equals more learning, right? (Naturally I ate most of the discarded crust. It was pretty good… another B+ at least.)

So here is my second version:

Second Attempt

This one was a bugger to roll out — too wet and nowhere near round — so there was mondo patching. You can still see holes in the bottom where I didn’t quite get it stuck together. On the good side, however, I feel like I had a fluting breakthrough.

Now THAT’S what I’m calling my new rock band — Fluting Breakthrough. Eat that, Coldplay!

I also baked this one with a bunch of mung beans encased in tin foil in the middle to hold it down, which worked very well to prevent bubbling and shrinking, but on the other hand, stuck to the bottom (see: too wet). I had to peel them out very carefully but even then, it kind of ripped the pastry a bit and left it looking pretty ratty.

But who cares, when you’re going to fill it with this:

CHOCOLATE.

CHOCOLATE.

And overall? Okay, I think you have to admit that this is one good looking pie:

slice of heaven?

However, it is not exactly a good tasting pie. In the first place, the first crust I made was better. This second one was overhandled and too doughy. As for the filling, it is basically store-bought vanilla pie filling with melted chocolate chips in it, and it’s too sweet, too chocolately (I never thought there could be such a thing), and has a funny fake-rum type aftertaste which I did not enjoy. I think this is the first pie I’ve made that I did not actually like, the first one that I don’t think I will make again. It’s the recipe’s fault, though, not mine.

During the First Crust Attempt Crisis, I was really ready to throw in the towel on pie. I wanted my Mommy. But I got back up on the pie horse, and I’m happy I made the second crust, even if the pie isn’t my favourite. Sir Monkeypants just left with 7/8ths of a pie — hope the poker boys are enjoying it.

So I guess I’ll be back next week. I seem to have committed on Twitter to hosting a pie tasting party when I hit 50 weeks (it’s all Crafty Mom‘s idea)…so I really need the practice!

Putting the S in ISFJ

On By LynnIn TurtleHead16 Comments

Part One: Where The Heck Have I Been?

It’s been four days since I blogged, read blogs, commented on blogs, or even answered any email. I’ve dropped off the grid. I’ve gone deep underground. ROGUE BLOGGER.

What happened is this. A friend of mine who is a writer — let’s call her JellyAnn — just updated her website and asked me for any thoughts or feedback I might have. At first I just had a few suggestions about formatting and layout, and pointed out a few broken links. Then I noticed that her menuing system and navigation were all messed up and not working right, so I offered to go in there and make a few HTML fixes. Then I started to get frustrated because she was not using a style sheet or Javascript to generate her menu. Plus, her layout and graphics were dated.

So I got a little overexcited and started on a complete redesign. That was about five days ago, and I have thought of nothing else since. I have spent almost every waking hour either feeding my kids, or sending them upstairs to play so Mommy Can Code. And my oh my, have I ever enjoyed myself.

Plus, the new site looks AMAZING. It should be ready to go in a few days — I’ll post a link when it’s up so you can all oooh and aaah.

It’s been a very informative few days, personally speaking. When the Little Miss starts school in a year and a half, I feel like I should maybe start doing some work again. Like all stay-at-home moms, I dream of a job where I can work from home, work for myself, and have completely flexible hours.

I had thought of trying to do some freelance writing — magazine articles and the like — and I’ll probably still pursue that. But apparently, my mind is really cut out for website design. I loved working on the site, and I’m so proud of the results. It was actually fun, while writing anything other than blog posts feels like work.

Food for thought, anyway.

Part Two: You People Are Nuts

I cannot believe the number of people who responded to my last post about the thermostat, saying that they kept their houses at insane temperatures like 16 or 18 degrees. You people are crazy, but I really admire you. I resolve to find some footie pyjamas and turn down the thermostat at night, at the very least.

The fact that so many people seem to live quite happily with their houses at 18 degrees makes me wonder if we have some sort of insulation problem here. Our house is not very old, but I still find it drafty. Are all houses like that in Ottawa in the winter? Or should we do something about it? Our kitchen hood fan, in particular, is always freezing cold and I’ve always thought that maybe it isn’t hooked up properly.

I’m off to google kitchen hood fan installation. Saving the world, one google at a time!

As for our green bin, for those who asked, it’s full of food, paper products like tissues (allowed in Ottawa, at least, I double checked) and some food-contaminated cardboard, and a few layers of crushed up newspaper (recommended in Ottawa to prevent wet foods from freezing to the bin and preventing it from being emptied properly). I’m very interested in using newspaper to line our little bin, but I couldn’t make the origami thing work with the free papers (they’re smaller than the Citizen, which, by the way, I hear is in financial jeopardy, so we may all be out bin liners in the near future). Right now I’m using simple brown paper lunch bags to line the bin — I like this solution because the bags are smaller and I can fill one for emptying every day.

Don’t you think it’s so weird now to look at your garbage and see nothing in there but plastic? It makes me shudder now to throw away a great big bag of nothing but plastic, stuff that is going to live in the landfill for a million zillion years. Ugh. I’m wondering, does anyone have any tips on how to cut down on plastic garbage? In particular, does anyone have any creative uses for milk bags, both the little ones and the big ones? My mother used to save the little clear milk bags to use as cake decorating bags, but I don’t decorate that many cakes.

Or maybe, I could. New business idea: Turtlehead’s Website Design and Cake Decorating! It’s a winner.

Part Three: Kid Update

They’re still alive! That’s good, right?

Since school started up again, the Captain has been cranky and whiny and complains constantly that he is not getting enough to eat. Gal Smiley has been cranky and sulky and complains constantly that she hates food and never wants to eat anything ever again, ever. Little Miss Sunshine has been cranky and screamy as she is finally cutting her bottom incisors (heaven help us when she finally decides to cut a molar). So it’s the usual mayhem.

Speaking of the Little Miss…it seems we have our first sleepwalker! Just when you think you know all there is to know about parenting, the kids throw something new at you. She’s skipping her afternoon nap about half the time now. On nights when she hasn’t napped, she goes to bed and falls asleep instantly, but then an hour or two later we find her asleep on the landing, or on the floor of our room. We move her back to the bed and an hour or so later, she’s back sleeping on the floor of the landing. Often in the middle of the night, she’ll come wandering into our room — not responding to us at all when we talk to her — and she’ll lie down on our floor and go right back to sleep. Or she’ll get up and completely empty her toy bin, crying that she “can’t find it, can’t find it” and then when we put her back in the bed, she’s completely asleep again.

FREAKY.

For now we are just making sure we always have the gate closed at the top of the stairs, and keep putting her back in her bed when we find her on her travels. Hopefully this phase passes soon, because it’s weirding me out.

Part Four: Magical Mystery Project

I really hate it when bloggers are all, "Oh, I have big news, but I can't share it! So I'm just going to blog about how excited I am about this thing I can't tell you about!" However, I am totally going to go and BE THAT BLOGGER and say, we have a big project on the go around here, but Sir Monkeypants has asked that I don't blog about it right now for privacy reasons. It's filling up every free second I have, thought, that isn't devoted to website design, or pie making, or planning for a bloggy guest speaker and social evening (haven't forgotten about you, XUP!), so I likely won't be around much for a couple of weeks. But after that, all the news that's fit to print, I promise!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a website to design. WHEE!

This Post Is Green

On By LynnIn TurtleHead14 Comments

Today was our first day of green bin pickup — we are the last neighbourhood in Ottawa to take their turn. I drove around a bit this morning and it looks like we’re getting a 40-50% participation rate. At first I was disappointed, but the more I think about it, the more I think, not that bad. It’s the first week, and maybe people are just getting used to the idea, wanting to check out what their neighbours are doing first. Considering the trepidation I felt when we got our own green bin, I can understand people taking a little time to warm up to the idea. I hope by next green bin pickup day, I see a lot more houses taking part.

Our own green bin process is going fine so far. We have these super giant green bins here, like those big recycling bins with lids that you see in apartment buildings, and ours was pretty much full to the top. So I’m happy about that.

However, we still put out just as much garbage as we usually do, or at least it seemed so, and I can’t figure out what that means. Did we produce a lot of extra garbage this week? Was it just not packed as densely without the food waste to weigh it down? I’m not sure. I thought my goal for this year — to get our family down to one bag of garbage a week — would be snap, given the green bins and the impending toilet training of Gal Smiley. However, it seems like so far composting isn’t making a huge difference to our output. I’ll have to give it a few months to see if I can figure out what’s up.

In other environmental news, we’ve been experimenting with lowering the thermostat this year. I used to read a blog called Crunchy Chicken but I had to give it up. Her ideas on reducing her footprint on this Earth are awesome and amazing, but I am just not ready for things like grey water recycling and it was freaking me out and making me feel guilty all the time. Anyway, every winter on her blog she has “Freeze Yer Buns Off” challenge, in which she turns her thermostat down to something ridiculous like 16 degrees, and dares her readers to do the same. I KNOW.

Still, it was inspiring, so this year we went down to 20 degrees during the day, and 19 at night (I’m not willing to go colder at night right now as Gal Smiley still sleeps with no blankets and no socks, and LORDY, those are some cold toes that come crying at 4 a.m. when the heat is not on. We’re working on that for this year.)

I have to say, 20 degrees feels a LOT colder than 21. I know it’s only one degree, but for some reason, my body says, 21 happy, 20 NOT HAPPY. And then I read on the gas company’s site that lowering your thermostat by 1 degree means you’ll save 2% on your heating bill, which for us is like, $30 over the course of the whole winter. So for the sake of $30, I was freezing my ass off in my own home all the time? Why?

But MyFriendJen thought that it was worth it and talked me into trying it for a few months, so I dug out some really ugly fleece sweaters and my slippers and sucked it up.

The kids, by the way, are totally fine, they are all running around in shorts right now. FREAKS.

I do have a point here! I really do!

So my point is that…we saved a bundle. Our bill for December, which arrived in the second week of January, is about half of our bill from last year. HALF. That is like, $150 in savings.

SO WORTH IT.

And, I’m saving the planet, too! Bonus.

Peach Blueberry Lattice-Top Pie

On By LynnIn TurtleHead11 Comments

Guess what I did yesterday! I baked a pie!

I was going to make a mixed berry pie, because I found a recipe that called for frozen fruit. But when I got to the store, the only bag they had of frozen mixed berries weighed about 15 pounds and cost as much as a Yaris. I remembered that the recipe opposite the mixed berry pie, in the cookbook, was for peach-blueberry pie, so I bought frozen peaches and frozen blueberries.

Then I got home and saw it was really for peach-raspberry pie. But close enough, right?

Here it is:

Peach-Blueberry Pie

It’s not a total failure, but not a total success. The big problem here is that I did not thaw the peaches quite enough before baking. As a result, some of the peaches are a little…snappy. A little too much backbone left, if you will.

The pastry part is okay. Not as perfect as last week’s, but you can taste the improvement. I think I did not roll it out thin enough — I left it in the fridge for too long before rolling and it was pretty hard to roll it without cracking, so I quit early. The lattice part was finicky but no more so than the usual pastry nonsense. Overall, kind of a B+ crust.

Still, I kind of love this pie.

Last night I had a very contentious PTA meeting. I didn’t eat enough dinner and my low blood sugar caused me to get a little over emotional as I yelled at people. Not pretty.

Then I came home to yummy, yummy pie, and all was well in the world.

Two slices are already eaten, and I’m going to keep two more (just in case of future PTA emergencies). I’m going to throw the remaining four to the internet. Anyone want some slightly undercooked peach-blueberry?