Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Who Says You Can't Buy Happiness?

Back in May I wrote about my change jar, and how absentmindedly dropping in spare change accumulates into about $100 every five months.


In ten months I'll have $200, and in a year I'll save around $240. Not bad for really doing nothing but emptying out my pockets.

But what should I buy with my easily gotten gains? Well, I just discovered that $240 is exactly the amount of money it takes to buy a corrective surgery for a child born with a cleft lip or a cleft palate. Here's a video of what Operation Smile can do:



Sold!



Funny thing is, I'm the one who can't stop smiling.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Don't Mix Them Up

As seen at the Monson family reunion picnic:


Neither bottle was ours, but I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Restaurant Review: No Place Like Home Edition

One of my favorite things about living in Des Moines is how many great Mexican restaurants we have. Mexican restaurants are colorful and loud, their food tastes great, and I can't compliment more how quickly the food arrives to our table. As a parent of a three year old, they are all I can ask from a restaurant.

El Mariachi, El Aguila Real Mexican, Monterrey Mexican , El Rodeo, Isla Cozumel, Old West Mexican... (the list goes on) are all equal in my book. If you want it simple, visit Tasty Tacos. Want a little elegance? Go to Dos Rios.

Abelardo's, a Mexican restaurant that recently opened near our neighborhood, has caught my curiosity.


My only hesitation was that Albelardo's prominently advertises their "drive-thru". For me, Mexican food + drive-thru = Taco John's or even worse, Taco Bell. Those places are fine when you're in the mood for what they sell, but you're not getting a sizzling plate of fajitas or carnitas when you "think outside the bun". 

A few days ago we were short on time and dinner plans, so I took a chance and drove through Albelardo's drive-thru. I ordered the #14 carnitas plate, and Daphne went with a chicken burrito plate (#6). The seven minute wait at the drive up window was longer than I'm used to, but the heavy, Styrofoam containers given to me were hot, and they smelled great.

But what was inside?



Oh. My. Goodness.

Score!

Underneath that bed of fried and roasted pork is a layer of lettuce, cilantro, diced onions, diced tomatoes, and guacamole. The accompanying tortilla was huge and expertly browned, and the hot sauces that came in small containers appeared to be from house recipes. Never has such good Mexican food been served in my dining room.

Daphne's chicken burrito plate was equally impressive. After two bites she exclaimed, "This burrito is amazing. There are huge chunks of chicken in here!"


Unfortunately, Charlotte was in a mood, and she wouldn't even try her cheese quesadilla. In fact, she became really crabby and had a bit of a meltdown. Luckily, we weren't in the middle of a busy restaurant when she blew up. We were at home where she could throw her fit in private. Eventually some apple sauce calmed her down, and we all had a nice meal.

Thank you, Albelardo's.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

You'll Need Stitches if You Buy This

As seen at the Encore Thrift Store:


Let's zoom in:


Is that blood?

This looks like a something you'd see during Shark Week. Ack! I better move my thumb.




Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Iowa State Fair 2013: Stick Your Head in There Edition

In a lot of ways, this year's trip to the fair was like our previous visits to the fair.

We stopped by Ye Old Mill to see our fair brick.



The girls shared a pork chop on a stick. And like last year, I didn't share mine.


They shared a funnel cake, and I stayed out of it. The only nonmeat items I eat at the fair are the cheese curds.


And we tried some new foods on a stick. A lot was made of the shrimp corn dog, but the bacon-wrapped rib won me over. Man, I hope this makes a comeback for next year.


Here's my rib, and yes, I did share it with Daphne. She got a bite.


The big difference with this visit to the fairgrounds was Charlotte herself. I'm sure it's just a phase, but she was too scared to do most of the things we enjoyed last last year. Clifford the Big Red Dog was terrifying. She was sure she'd be eaten by the tunnel at Ye Old Mill. And although we were among the 94,705 people who slid down the Giant Slide in 2012, Char was having none of it this year. She told me she wanted to go, but she ran away after I bought her a ticket to ride.

So, I went by myself.


The only ride she'd try was the Sky Ride, and I suspect that was because she could sit next to mom the whole time.


The big hit for Char were the wooden and fabric stand-ins that you can put your face through. She was all over those. 











Daphne doesn't have a clue why Char got such a kick out of posing with these stand-ins, but I have a suspicion.


My confession will come later.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Take a Food Tour of the Iowa State Fair...

...circa 1973. Here.
I'm a sucker for loose meat sandwich recipes (called a "Made Right" in this clip), and I'm gonna try to scale her recipe down for my family.
Verbal recipe from the clip:

Combine:
10 pounds of ground beef
1/4 cup of vinegar
1/4 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of salt
1 cup of minced onion
1 cup of water
In a large pot, heat mixture until it's all "cooked up", and then stir in:
1 and 1/3 cup oatmeal to absorb the extra juice for a few minutes more.

If it was good enough for the Iowa State Fair, then it's good enough for me. I'm really curious about using the oatmeal.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Unhappiness is... An Iowa State Unfair

We spied this sign while walking through the Iowa State Fair on Thursday. At first glance, this looked awesome. Then we read the fine print.


Shame on you, Community Choice Credit Union. You broke our hearts, and we'll never unbank with you now.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Finding Needles

I'm not sure where she got the idea to have her cremated remains inserted into a firework and launched towards the heavens, but my mother-in-law was very excited when she told us that was what she wanted us to do with her body after she died. 

That was about five years ago, and to be honest I thought it was going to be a fun, but passing thought. I was wrong. Deb never lost her enthusiasm for lighting up the night sky. 

The problem we faced when she died in July was how were we supposed to do it? Yes, she had already reached stage four lung cancer when she found out she was sick, and we all knew where her road was leading her, but the chemo treatments were doing their job. She was in the hospital for an infection when her brain began to hemorrhage. Her death was truly unexpected. 

Because it was so unexpected, no one had ever asked Deb how she had planned to get herself inside a July rocket. Seriously, how do you start that conversation when your mom is fighting nausea tooth and nail from the confines of a hospital bed? We didn't.

After Deb's funeral, the girls started digging through their mom's files looking for something pertaining to a firework company. They found nothing. Funeral file? Nope. Cremation instructions? Again, negative. I'm not sure how she noticed it, but Daphne spied this short notation in a small notebook, "800-648-3890 J&M".  A Google search lead to J&M Displays. Daphne gave them a call, and she was told, "Yep, we can do that. We do funeral shells." Well, all right. Not only is this going to be possible (and legal), there even was a legitimate name for the service. Funeral Shells.

The next event J&M was working was the National Balloon Classic in Indianola, Iowa. We decided to go with their second show on August 3. On that day in the early afternoon, Daphne and Phaedra drove to Indianola and through a huge, open field to meet with Jason from J&M.

Here's the funeral shell (see, it even says so on the label). It's important to note that this is a five inch shell, and that it's the only shell of this size that was going into the display on Saturday night.


The top of the funeral shell screws open, and the cremains can be poured in.


Since the shell was covered in brown paper, each girl took the opportunity to write an inscription to their mom.



Daphne wired the shell.


Phaedra placed the shell in the launching tube.


The final step was connect the red and black wires to the launching cart. The gals shared connecting duties. 


Here's Deb armed and dangerous.


We got to the Balloon Classic around 6:30. Charlotte was pretty impressed with the huge balloon launch, but she was more excited about playing in the inflatable bounce house. 

Around 9:00 Daph and Phaedra left to meet up with Jason again.  J&M was going to let them both push the button that launched their mother's shell. That's is very cool. (I have to mention that Daphne was so impressed with how nice everyone from J&M was.) 

If you're wondering how everyone else was going to know which firework was Deb's, you're not alone. Jason's solution was to shoot off a "cake", and then pause for ten seconds before the flip the switch. Although they didn't know it, a crowd of a few thousand people were about to attend my mother-in-law's second funeral.

Here's a video of the event given to us by a good friend. The pause begins at the 30 second mark, and Deb comes on ten seconds later.


You might think this story ends with a boom and a flash and a puff of smoke, but it doesn't.

After the display ended, Daphne and Phaedra returned to our camp of chairs and blankets flush from the excitement of standing beneath an explosive umbrella of fire and sparks. As the family was hugging and wiping away tears, the lights across the field were being extinguished. Then a figure appeared out of the dark with hands full.

It was Jason, "I found your mom's shell. I thought you might like to have it." We knew he found the right shell. Like I said earlier, it was the only five inch one used that night.

The shell's case was split into two equal parts, like the last slice of dessert two sisters are forced to share.


I would think finding just one half of this shell in the light of day would be quite a feat, but finding both sides in the pitch dark? How does that happen?

But then again, I don't know how Jason even found us. I wasn't joking when I said there were thousands of people there. How do you walk across an open field in the ink of night, and within minutes find the right group of people who are folding up blankets and chairs like hundreds of others? How does that happen?

Drawers and drawers of files. Acres and acres of field. Hills and hills of people.

So many haystacks.

You'd have to have an angel on your shoulder to successfully navigate them all...

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

You Get What You Deserve

As seen on a billboard along Douglas Ave:


If I did something that earned me a can of Busch Light, then I didn't do something very well.

Monday, August 5, 2013