"No friends or family members were harmed during this episode of EXTREME volunteerism."

This week I rather impulsively entered into what could be seen as some extreme volunteering.  It made for quite a challenging week demanding high energy, uber-organizational hutzpah, good friends coming to the rescue and more.  

Our little jewel of an elementary school - Pittsfield Elementary - took on the daunting task of sorting a mountain of items donated to the A2 PTO Thrift Shop over the waning months of 2009.  And all because I decided that we could, should, would take on the challenge.  An event like this had not been done before but I figured, how hard can it be? Impulsive or not, I signed us up officially at their board meeting last Thursday night to do a major pilot event - a multi-donation drive "sort" - of somewhere between 500 and 700 bags and boxes full of donated, gently-used "stuff".

Well, what's done is done. And there was nothing left to do but get it done. I already had a sense of who was available to help with this thanks to an earlier feeler on what day of the week works best so I sent out another call to the my Pittsfield "peeps", as my teenager is a fond of calling them. My husband's term for us is the "PTO Mafia". It's a term of great respect and betrays, perhaps, just a slight trace of fear. He claims that the term fits us well: we gather over food, wine, and together we plan things... loudly. Then, we execute our plans - with precision, gusto and flair. Yes, I'd say there's a little fear there.

The gang, as always, came through - and how! I had a crew of 12 volunteers lined up for a variety of shifts to help throughout the school day. Mums and dads volunteered on their one day off, before their job started, after their job ended, or on their noon-hours. And all of us, our first jobs being parents, volunteered while our kids were in school for the day. It was a 9-to-3:30 day for us and we got as many hours out of it as we could.  


Unfortunately, one day was NOT enough to dig ourselves out from under all that stuff. It was a veritable mountain, overwhelming us when we first arrived. The room was full of piles upon piles of bags and boxes. A warehouse of chaos. Where to start was the question looming front and center. Whether we'd finish was the one lingering in the back of all of our minds. But with another full day with a handful of die-hards (you know who you are) and couple of drop-ins from other schools, our trusty band of rag-tag volunteers got the job under control. This morning, four of us arrived for a quick sprint to the finish and, in no time, the job was done. Mission accomplished. Order established. We did it.

It was all "sorted" by good friends, good neighbors - great community. Well done all!

My hope now is that we did as right by the Thrift with this "sort" as they have done by us over the late fall and winter with the fundraising opportunities for our PTO. We shall see what they think of our work.

In the meantime, we all survived. Me, my friends and fellow volunteers, even my family. Check out my post-sort, last-minute meals on annarbor.com to find out just how well they survived my extreme volunteer commitments this week... They were far from suffering.

New post on annarbor.com, more A2 PTO Thrift Shop quests

Here is my annarbor.com blog on the budget-stretching I attempted yesterday chez le Thrift...  I am still on the hunt for the French casserole there.  Anybody who would pay full price for a new one of these is truly just ill.  Sorry, but they are.  These pots are gorgeous but get serious.   I can only cook with the pot.  I can't eat it or live in it.  So, somebody's hand-me-down Le Creuset will suit me very nicely.  And if I saw an authentic copper cataplana there too, I would probably snap it up in a heartbeat and hang it on the kitchen wall.  No storage space?  Stick a hook in the wall and hang it up.

I'm starting to think that this may just turn into the continuing adventures of Ann at the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop.  It really is a near-perfect environment.   Community based, helping the schools, great people.  Constantly changing inventory, low prices, clean and upbeat atmosphere.

When I was in yesterday and shopped after volunteering, I was enjoying the music they were playing to such an extent, I was often singing (quietly) aloud as I browsed.  It was not something I own or would buy but it was Elvis.  How could I not be singing along.  They could stream their musical selections and it would make great AOR on-line.  Lots of classics appealing to those of a similar vintage to mine.  There is always something good on the stereo to keep me humming.  Next time you are into the shop, listen while you look.  I wonder if they have the playlist on the Facebook group page?  Hmmm...

Tonight, I stretch that January paycheque (which is actually from December 23rd) even further.  We will have 15-bean and vegetable soup for dinner.  It's not my usual vegetarian variety - I made chicken stock on Monday night to use in another soup.  I originally wanted to make an Italian egg-drop soup with it.  Stracciatella - so simple, so good.  Never got around to that though so I had to use it up here.

I soaked 2 cups of 15-bean variety in cold water overnight in my slow cooker on Monday.  Then drained and cooked them in fresh water in the slow cooker while out on Tuesday.  I cooked up the soup on Tuesday night on the stove top while my lasagne was baking in the oven.   I made a quickie version of the classic Italian comfort food post-swim lessons with my Barilla no-boil noodles, ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses with eggs and leftover Italian meat sauce from the weekend.

I like almost everything better if it has sat overnight in the fridge - it all just tastes more complete.  Today, the soup is ready to go because it was made ahead - also good for a busy activities night when one of them came home early, claiming a sick stomach.  Yes, my life is glamorous.

Thankfully, I am just heating up this dinner to serve with salad and some bread.  The soup itself, aside from the soaked, cooked 15-bean mix, consists of my homemade stock (made with the bones and unused meat from a roast chicken, 1 T of salt, 1 tsp whole peppercorns and covered in cold water to cook overnight in the slow cooker/crock pot), chopped potato, some long-in-the-tooth grape tomatoes, frozen chopped spinach along with the basic onion and celery starter.

I threw in the last of our chicken gravy from our Sunday dinner too.  It makes of a tasty addition but, alas, it's a meaty addition since it is the giblet and wine gravy that my kids love.   I will likely throw in some green beans just before serving but I'm not sure the soup needs it.  Green beans are my teenager's favorite vegetable so it would be to make her happier coming in the door after along day.  But it looks - and tastes - just right as it is.

Hope you enjoy your dinner too!  Tomorrow, the left-over lasagne with left-over soup as a starter.  Another non-cooking day to look forward to.

My Friday morning benefits package

This is what I got out of all the crepe-making action here.  It made for a lovely Friday morning for the mother of the house.

My job may not pay anything, but the benefits have always been second to none.

Somebody made them again this morning...  Are they reading this blog?  Whatever the reason, it was a yummy brunch for mummy before the gang all went to Vet's Park to skate for a couple of hours.

Tonight, we celebrate the first birthday of a special little girl.  Big shout out to little Immy!  Happy first birthday!

Prepping a DIY crepe lunch. Cause I'm a "bad, bad mummy"

My daughter was singing today at school.  She was singing in honor of me, in fact.

This particular custom-reworked classic is sung to the tune of The Ballad of Buster Baxter by Art Garfunkle - you can hear it at around 2:40 on this YouTube clip.  It's from an episode of Arthur on PBS Kids from long, long ago when we regularly watched such things.


It goes like this.  "She's a bad, bad mummy.  A bad, bad mummy.  Life isn't funny when you gotta bad, bad mummy."  Yes, it's about me.  And, yes, this gets sung whenever I mess up.  It's a familiar tune to my children - it used to be sung quite often.  I must be doing a better job.  I hadn't heard it for a while.

Today, however, was one of those days when the song could be heard.  It was heard at school.  At her table.  In the lunchroom.  Oh, the shame of it all.

Seems I forgot to pack a hot lunch in a thermos for my 10 year-old so she very nearly went without.  Gasp!  And when I said I would bring it before the noon hour, I didn't come through with it.  Faint!  But at the 11th hour - actually, with 6 minutes left in the lunch period - this same mummy raced home, quickly scrambled up some eggs, popped out some whole wheat toast and poured out some frozen peas (she loves em) to go with it.  Today, it really paid off to live so darn close to the school!

In order to ensure this doesn't happen again tomorrow, E and I decided to plan ahead tonight.  Everyone needs to do this to be successful, we agreed.  Mothers, students, teachers, business owners, pilots...  you get the picture.  It became a life lesson in preparedness.

And a delicious one, at that.  E decided to make crepes for her lunch.  She will cook them on her own in the morning but made the batter "to order" tonight.  It's a solo job.  With floor space that's around 6 ft x 6 ft, there's only room for one cook at a time in this tiny kitchen.

After showering up for the night, E wrapped up her hair and went to work.  She bases her crepes on a recipe found on page 134 of a classic Canadian small-town cookbook Company's Coming by Jean Pare.

E's recipe included:

4 eggs
1 cup water
1 cup milk
1 tsp of vanilla (E does it "to taste")
a dash of salt
sugar "to taste".  In her case, it's usually 1 tsp per egg used.  This made for 4 tsp tonight.
2 cups of "premium all-purpose" flour.

As we are from Canada, we can't really deal with US all-purpose.  We just like the familiarity of dealing with flour from harder wheat.  It's what we are used to.  It's predictable.

I watched her beat the eggs first with a fork.  Then she measured out the milk, water, and vanilla.  All were combined with the eggs and beaten again with a large whisk.  She added salt, sugar and finally combined it all with the flour.  A quick beating left a loose and slightly lumpy batter which went into the fridge to sit overnight.

She will use a soup ladle in the morning to scoop out batter for the crepes she cooks on a non-stick pan lightly wiped with canola oil or butter.  She has been cooking these up since she was 7 so she pretty much knows how to get them just right in the pan.

This will be her Friday lunch - and probably breakfast too.  This prep will hopefully mean she will be singing a very different tune tomorrow.

With the crepe batter stowed safely in the fridge until morning, there still remained the issue of a bed-time snack for the girls.  With the thought of those sweet crepes on her mind, once again E took the initiative and made herself something.  Something a little out of the ordinary.

Now, I love that my kids are independent and comfortable in the kitchen.  They fix themselves a snack before bed each night freeing me up to do something else while I enjoy my evening coffee.  Tonight, this is how it went.  They were fixing snack and I was plunking away on the computer, entering the piece on the crepes.  I was feeling I had redeemed myself somewhat in my daughter's eyes tonight.

Then, as the kettle whistled it's readiness for my French press decaf 45 minutes ago, I walked into the kitchen and saw this on her plate.  And there had been four others like these - all of them covered in whipped cream - already eaten.  Such bed-time snack decadence!

I'm not feeling too badly for her anymore but not really sure how to score this one for myself either.  I do know that she was hardly suffering by the end of the day.

I think I can close this one out tonight with a fairly clear conscience.  And with The Ballad of Buster Baxter still ringing in my head.

The blogs: "desperate" in the Year of the Tiger

I just posted a new item to the local "paper" on their website - a follow-up to a Facebook post about my desperation at Bed Bath and Beyond on Monday.  Check it out with this link to annarbor.com.  I have a link to the general blog on the sidebar too.  I'm enjoying blogging for them and hope it won't end now that the holidays are "officially" over and all the trees sit at the curb, week-long cast-offs now.

My tree is still up and will probably be until the end of January, just around the time of Chinese New Year.  We will mark it again this year by going out for special feast with friends at Great Lake Chinese Seafood Restaurant just around the corner and down the road from us on Carpenter Road.  We are regulars there - my kids and I especially love it.  The girls have a 2010 wall-scroll calendar from them featuring the Chinese zodiac.  This year will be the Year of the Tiger.

If I am going to pay for a meal out, it has to be fresh, delicious and something I can't make myself without enormous effort, expense and timely trial-and-error.  Dim sum - here are some on-line opinions of Great Lake's spread - is one of those few meals which fit the bill perfectly.  And it's something I'm often quite desperate for in the middle of the day, ironically.   Much more so than those appliances.  Fortunately, many of our friends love dim sum too.  I think it's one of those meals best shared with a group.  Very social.  Very delicious.

I l-o-v-e the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop!

It's true.  This year I revived a love affair with something I have long been passionately involved with in city after city after city.  Obsessively, compulsively, over the course of my entire adult life, I have loved... the Thrift.

And so, beginning this fall, it's been the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop which has me under it's spell.  It's the place to be for deal-hunters and do-gooders of all kinds - especially those who support Ann Arbor Public Schools.  You'll find me there quite often.

There are lots of reasons for me to love the Thrift:  the great deals of resale shopping; the turnover and variety of items; the lovely clean store (I'm picky about this so I also like to volunteer there to help keep it that way); and my perfect fit with their "more-with-less" philosophy.  The funding support for enrichment earned over this fall and early winter will be a great shot in the arm for my neighborhood elementary school.  I want to do more fundraising with them for our schools.  And just when I think it can't get better, it does...

Not only have my kids schools PTO and PTSO been raising money and receiving grants from the Thrift  but there was EXTRA love at the end of 2009.  Each received a kind of bonus cheque (yes, I'm Canadian and this is how I spell it).  This is a wonderful end-of-the-year gift to each to be used to benefit kids with enrichment opportunities.  And it's not just my schools getting these - it's your AAPS schools too if you participate in fundraising activities with this great organization.  Does your school have an Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop rep?  If not, now is a great time to start.  Check out their website, contact the shop, and sign up to be the rep for your school.  It takes as much or as little time and effort as you have to offer.  And I am really enjoying organizing the group activities and earning funds for my kids schools.  It couldn't be more rewarding all the way around.

So, a big thank you to the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop for their incredible support of AAPS enrichment!  Ask your PTO or PTSO about this - and say thanks to the A2 PTO Thrift Shop too.

Some Scarlett Fundraising - Dining for Dollar$

With the budget crunch in the district, I'm extra aware of all variety of fundraising activities for the schools.  Here's something that caught my eye - sent by Natalie.   And I saw a pretty good review on Yelp.com for it too.

It's a restaurant night at Noodles and Co. at Arborland on Wednesday, January 13th from 2 to 9 pm.  Mention Scarlett Middle School when you dine-in or take out between those times and Noodles and Co. will give 25% of sales  to help fund enrichment at that school.  Their number is 743-477-5700.

Great idea to support the schools!  Thank you, Natalie.

Dining like kings!

Fantastic meal tonight - so worth the wait!  My family gobbled it up.  We certainly dined like kings but didn't have to spend like them.  More like French peasants.  And that works for me.  Later this week, it's coq au vin!

A tasty, thrifty dinner inspired by friends - real, cinematic, and legendary

I made boeuf bourguignon from Julia Child's recipe last night, in the late evening.

Over the holidays we were invited to dinner by a friend who made an entire French meal inspired by the grande dame of American cooks, Julia Child.  Eileen and her daughter had been to see the movie Julie & Julia.  My girls and I had taken her daughter KT with us when it first came out and we all left the theatre that day actually sensing, smelling the boeuf bourguignon prepared in the film.

It was such a wonderful thing to experience with the kids.  It turned my little one completely onto more cooking - she's the one who goes to her friends' house for a sleepover and makes them crepes from memory, tasting and guessing at the adjustment of ingredients.  That's my girl!

Eileen's meal was, as always, spectacular and it left the girls and I wanting more.  Particularly more boeuf!

I picked the stewing beef up Friday for a great price at Whole Foods and that was it.  Off and running.  The only thing I didn't have to make it was a chunk of bacon (I have used salt pork before but I was planning to follow Madame's recipe so it had to be bacon) and the mushrooms.

Then, to the cooking.  So tempting, so torturous for my family.  They went out to a UofM gymnastics meet with their dad and friends last night and came home to find mother searing beef in bacon fat.  Can you imagine?

Then they tried to watch Night At The Museum 2 as I finished cooking the dish and put my pan in the oven to a low simmer for 3 hours.  Up for snacks every 10 minutes.  The teenager at two bowls of salad, a large turkey sandwich on Italian loaf.  The snacking went on and on and on.

All went to bed.  All snacked again before going to bed.  One snacked on a large helping of leftover mashed potatoes!  They were hungry all night and still likely dreamed of beef.  Clearly, there are no vegetarians in our house.

Finally, it was done.  I pulled it out - still just barely bubbling - at just before 1 am, I think.  I let it sit to cool on top of the stove for a bit and started to clean up the kitchen.  With all that done and dishwasher loaded and running, the pan was still a bit warm yet so to the laundry I turned for a spell.  And so I put the glorious meal - tasting no more than a tiny, tender morsel - into the fridge.  It will be heated up slowly today for dinner and served with some herb steamed yukon golds, sauteed carrots and French green beans from Whole Foods.   Salad with vinaigrette to follow.

It's just stew but with incredible French flair.  C'est magnifique!

The Maiden Voyage

The new year and a new blog!  Testing it out.  For color and size.  Just to see what it might look like...  Big thanks to Orsi for all her help.  

Next, it's on to the website.  I need the kids help for that.  Luckily, my tech crew works for food and clean laundry.  Bargain!