Things are always kind of funky on a holiday week. But this past one has just taken the cake.

Hubby went to the doctor with a sinus infection late last week, and the doctor gave him some antibiotics. All well and good. Then on Sunday Pumpkin’s stomach started hurting her really badly. She was in tears at one point, and we almost took her to the emergency room. But the pain subsided somewhat, and it wasn’t in her side, so I decided just to take her to the doctor on Monday.

I sent her to school, only to get a call around 1:30 from her teacher. Her stomach was hurting again, so I went and picked her up. Her appointment was a few hours later, and I took her in. She said the only thing abnormal she could find was a lot of gas, and told me to give her half of a chewable Mylanta as needed. But she also told me to make a follow-up appointment for 2 or 3 weeks later, and if she was still having problems she would refer her to someone else.

I thought I was done with the doctor for a while, but I was wrong. Hubby woke up on Wednesday with his sinuses much worse than they had been, he was weak, he had the runs and his back was hurting. The first thing that crossed my mind was the F word: that’s right, flu. He refused to miss work to go to his doctor, so I called the urgent care place where my and Pumpkin’s doctor is working now and made him an appointment for after work. And of course I had to pick him up from work and take him up there so I could help him with the paperwork.

Fortunately it wasn’t the flu. The doctor said that he needed different antibiotics for his sinuses, because those weren’t doing the job and they were probably causing the stomach and back problems he was having.

All of that combined with only one day of school this week (one snow day and three days out for Thanksgiving) has not been conducive to me getting any work done. Once again I’m behind. But I’m only half a report away from getting caught up, so I guess I can’t complain too much. I’m doing better than usual I suppose.

Oh, one more thing: I’m going to be having some giveaways very soon. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve been blessed with some stuff to give away to some lucky readers. So stay tuned!

I haven’t been able to make the time to blog much lately, but when it comes to an issue as important as violence against women, I manage. You may have seen my last two posts on UNIFEM’s Say No to Violence Campaign (if not, click the links and have a look). Well, the signature drive will be ending on November 24th, so if you haven’t added your name yet, I urge you to take a minute and do so.

Over 900,000 people have added their names as of the time I’m writing this, so their goal of one million names is within reach. If you believe that this is as important an issue as I do, please help them get there.

I hope you found the Nicole Kidman videos in my last post about UNIFEM useful and informative. UNIFEM has released three more videos of Kidman talking about the campaign and violence against women. Here they are:

If you’d like to subscribe to this podcast via iTunes or iPod, you can do so at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295972193. And if you have a blog, Twitter account, email newsletter, or any other way of getting the word out, please do. Let people know that they can help the cause, even if they are unable to donate or volunteer.

So much for my hopes that winter would start late this year. It appears that it has already arrived.

Temperatures haven’t gotten out of the 40s for most of the past week, and according to the forecast, they won’t for the next week, either. And it’s been intermittently windy. School was closed on Tuesday due to snow (which we didn’t get much of, but they didn’t bother doing much if anything to the roads, and they were slick in places).

It has been interesting trying to keep enough wood to keep us warm. We have two respectable piles outside, and they should last us a while. The problem is getting it cut up and busted into pieces small enough to fit in our tiny stove. Hubby has had to work on it when he gets home from work, and by then it is dark. For the past week or two we’ve just been busting up enough to make it through that night and the next day and carrying it in. Then lather, rinse, repeat the next evening. I hope he will get to work on it this weekend and get us enough ready to burn for a week or so. Then we won’t have to worry about it so much.

I want summer back! It gets hot around here, especially when you don’t have air conditioning, but I rarely complain about it. When I feel like it, I just think about the cold winters and get over it.

The deadline for online signatures on UNIFEM’s petition to the U.N. to fight violence against women is fast approaching- it’s November 24th to be exact. They’re already over halfway to their goal of one million signatures, but they still need a lot more. If you haven’t already, please take a moment to add your name.

UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman has been working with the organization to help get the word out, and she has traveled to some of the areas where women face the most violence to see what they go through firsthand. Here are a few clips in which she answers some questions about UNIFEM’s campaign.

If you’d like to hear more from Nicole Kidman on UNIFEM and the Say No to Violence Campaign, you can subscribe to this podcast.

To learn more about violence against women, take the Violence Against Women Quiz and visit the UNIFEM website. And please don’t forget to add your signature to help the cause!

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably seen my previous posts about Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and their self-esteem workshops. If you haven’t, please take the time to take a look. As the mother of a young daughter, this is a subject I’m very passionate about.

One of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund’s most recent projects has been a study entitled Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem. It revealed some alarming statistics that point to the existence of a self-esteem crisis among young girls. Here are a few of the findings:

• 7 in 10 girls feel that they do not measure up in some way, whether in looks, school performance, or relationships.
• 75% of girls with low self-esteem said they engaged in negative behaviors, including such things as smoking, drinking, cutting themselves, bullying and disordered eating.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have purposely injured themselves.
• 25% of teen girls with low self-esteem have engaged in some form of disordered eating.

The study also found that the older girls get, the less likely they are to talk to their parents when they feel badly about themselves. That means that it’s never too early to start fostering good self-esteem.

These statistics are frightening for any parent of a teen or preteen girl. Isn’t it time we did something to turn it around? Dove has been on a mission to do just that. It is their goal to reach five million girls around the world with self-esteem programming by the year 2010. In addition to their self-esteem workshops and advertising campaigns, they offer a wealth of online tools for girls, moms and mentors on their Campaign for Real Beauty website. There you’ll find booklets, interactive exercises, and even tools that can help you hold your own self-esteem workshop.

I’ve had several people ask me about where they can attend Dove’s self-esteem workshops. I finally found a page where you can sign up to receive alerts about workshops in your area. I’ll leave you with another short film produced by Dove that sums up a few of the reasons behind the self-esteem crisis.

My daughter always loves it when I make cards on the computer. Not only for her, but for other people, too. I always make it a point to put her name on the back in the “Made Just for You by” section along with mine, just because it makes her so happy.

There’s just something about having your name on something without having to write it that kids love. I always had a hard time finding anything that was already personalized with my name spelled correctly when I was young, but I kept hoping someone would give me a personalized gift. While I don’t think I ever got anything with “Kristy” printed on it, I did get something pretty awesome once: My mom’s friend called me her little sugar lump, and one day when she came to visit she brought me a quilt she had made me with a cool clown on it and “My Sugar Lump” embroidered at the top. I always treasured it- as a matter of fact, I still have it.

Knowing how a little personalization makes things extra special, I was thrilled when I got a chance to review one of the personalized books that Frecklebox sells. They have two kinds: story books and coloring books. I got one of the coloring books for Pumpkin.

When it arrived, she kept asking what it was. I told her not to be so nosy, took it in the bedroom and closed the door. I opened it up, and I was thoroughly impressed. The quality was excellent! It had her name on the front, and on every page in a different ornate font with designs in many of them to color. I had thought about holding onto it for her for Christmas, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I went back to the living room, coloring book behind my back, and told her I had something for her. Of course she came running full speed ahead. I presented it to her, and her jaw dropped. She asked me if I had made it. I laughed and told her no, that that was what came in the mail. Then she said, “How did they know my name?” I explained that I had told them her name, but by that point she was flipping through the pages, amazed that her name was on each and every page. And then she finally put it down long enough to give me a ginormous bear hug.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, she loved it. If this big grin doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

Frecklebox makes all kinds of great stuff for kids. They have personalized party favors, growth charts, posters and more. So if you want to put a smile on your child’s (or niece’s, nephew’s or just some special kid’s) face, take a look at what they have to offer. The quality is great, and the products are lots of fun.

I got my George Foreman G-broil grill last week, and now I’m finally getting around to doing my review. I’ve been cooking up a storm with it, just haven’t had the time to pull a review together until now. Without further ado, here’s my video. But don’t forget to read on afterward for a more thorough analysis.

I’ve wanted a Foreman grill for many years, not only because it makes healthy cooking a breeze, but because I think food just plain tastes better without all that grease. Sure, it needs a little fat in it to give it some flavor, but it shouldn’t be swimming in it! The grill’s sloped design and grease catcher thingie eliminate virtually all excess fat.

And over the past two years, I’ve found two more reasons to want one: Hubby and Pumpkin. Both of them have stomach problems, and if they eat too much grease, they get awful stomachaches. So you could say I was an eager beaver about the opportunity to try a George Foreman grill.

Putting It to the Test

As soon as I opened the box, the first thing that struck me was what a fine-looking little appliance this was. Mine has a nice stainless steel finish, and the design is oh so sleek. But kitchen gadgets are more about function than form, right? So I started cooking with it in short order.

The first thing I cooked on it was frozen hamburgers. That didn’t go so well, but it was my fault. I was so excited to try it out that I didn’t read the directions, which plainly stated that it cooks much more quickly than a standard frying pan. So I kind of burned them. You can be sure that I read the instructions before trying again.

The steaks (shown in the video) turned out much better. I cooked them for around 6 or 7 minutes, and they were scrumptious. Even with the quick cooking and lack of fat, they turned out quite tender. They even had that grilled taste, minus the gas or charcoal flavor.

I even did something that I never do: I cooked something other than a grilled cheese or microwave meal for my lunch. I put a frozen chicken breast in the fridge to thaw the night before, doused it with barbeque sauce, and slapped it on the grill. Add some bagged salad, and you have a delicious home-cooked meal for one in minutes.

Features

The G-broil is a newer model, and it comes with lots of awesome features. Including:

• An on/off switch. It sounds simple enough, but the older Foreman grills didn’t have them. They just came on when you plugged them up. As a person who is jumpy about little electrical sparks, I greatly appreciate this.
• A timer. I still haven’t gotten brave enough to put the food in, set the timer and walk away until it beeps, but this is a great feature. It comes in handy for the five-minute warm-up time, if nothing else. And once I get more accustomed to how long it takes to cook things, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of mileage out of it.
• Removable non-stick grilling plates. This is probably my favorite feature. The plates come off easily, and they’re even easier to get clean. They are dishwasher safe (for those of you who have a dishwasher that works, unlike me), and you can wash them off by hand in no time flat.
• Hinge-lock lid. This is wonderful for cooking large foods, or for melting the cheese on your burger without scorching it. And if you want to make a dainty little grilled cheese on sandwich bread, this will keep it from getting flattened. Just remember that you’ll have to turn it over, because it won’t be in contact with the top plate to cook on both sides like everything else.

Darn Near Perfect

There’s not much I would change about the G-broil. It cooks food quickly and deliciously, and it is wonderful for those who are into healthy living (or those of us who just hate grease). The only thing I can think of that I would change would be to add temperature control, since I’m so accustomed to it. But with a little practice, I think I’ll manage just fine without it.

If you need to lose weight or watch your fat intake, I highly recommend this beauty. It makes eating the foods you love a possibility even if you are on a strict diet. And did I mention that everything I’ve tried on it (except maybe the burnt burgers) tasted great?

I’ve never liked the idea of heating with wood. But when we bought this place, we had to figure out what kind of heat we would put in it. It had an ancient oil furnace that I didn’t trust. My heat source of choice, a heat pump, was out of the budget, especially since there is no ductwork. And with oil prices far from cheap and predictable, neither of us really wanted to go that route. There was a good sturdy chimney in place, so Hubby finally talked me into going with wood heat.

His parents gave us a cast iron coal stove to use. It’s tall and narrow with a small door, but otherwise there’s little difference between it and a wood stove. He put it in shortly after Pumpkin’s birthday, and I’ve hated it worse by the day every since. Why, you ask? Let me make a list:

• When Hubby gets a fire going in it, it stays way too hot in here. He had it up to nearly 90 degrees the other night! I’d rather for it to be slightly chilly than that hot.
• It’s messy. I hate emptying out the ash pan and trying to keep all the debris up out of the floor. Way too much hassle, especially when you’re accustomed to no-maintenance heat (except for changing the filter every three months). And then there’s the pile of wood that Hubby insists on keeping in the front yard, and the sawdust created when he saws it up into smaller pieces.
• It’s a lot of work. We don’t have the money to buy fuel right now, so I shouldn’t be complaining about this, but it is. Hubby brings wood home from work or cuts down trees on his days off, and we all pitch in to get it cut up and busted into pieces small enough to work in the heater. That keeps Hubby tired all the time, and it cuts into my work sometimes.
• It stinks. I hate the smell of burning wood.
• I can’t build a fire to save my life, or even keep one going for that matter. I know the fact that the wood is not seasoned has a lot to do with it, but Hubby can get it going (even if it does take some persistence at times). I can stand in front of the thing for an hour, throwing in paper and cardboard, stirring the coals, and adding the driest wood I can find, and it refuses to burn. I don’t have time for that when I’m trying to work.
• I’m afraid I’m going to get frustrated and throw something in the heater that I shouldn’t by accident. I grabbed a box a couple of days ago and almost tossed it in whole before I realized that my digital frame was still in it.
• I worry about it. I dread the thought of having to keep a fire going at night during the winter to keep it warm enough in here. I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep one all night, either, as small as that heater is.

I could probably think of a few more reasons if I tried. But I guess we’re stuck with it, at least this winter. Maybe by next winter we’ll be able to put something else in.

I got a call from my big sister yesterday. That’s a very rare occasion, and at first I thought maybe there was something wrong. But no, she just wanted to talk to me about my ADD diagnosis.

She said she had suspected that she had ADD for several years now. She asked her gynecologist about it a few years ago, because that’s the only doctor she goes to since she doesn’t have insurance and is healthy overall. But the gyno told her that she would have to go to a psychiatrist to find out.

I told her that she either go to a family doctor or ask her gyno about it again, because I didn’t have to see a psychiatrist. Then we got to talking about the medicine I was on, and how one of the side effects was weight loss. She didn’t like the sound of that much. But if I were her size, I might not either. She’s never been one to need to go on a diet or take fat burners.

She did say one thing that makes a whole lot of sense: We probably inherited ADD from our dad. He was one of those people who was always on the go, could never sit still for long. He was forever starting projects, and sometimes they would get finished, but often they wouldn’t. Our mom, on the other hand, usually follows through on things. So does our brother.

My big bro always did have more in common with mom. Big sis was more like Dad, and I was the oddball of the bunch. But I guess I probably get at least a portion of my oddness from my dad.

Cell phone reception is seriously spotty here in the mountains. We’re very fortunate to get a good signal where we’re living now. I had the long distance cut off because we get free long distance with our plans, and we have enough rollover minutes to talk until doomsday.

It’s kind of ironic. Rural areas are where one needs a cell phone the most, in my opinion anyway. I guess if I was in a really bad neighborhood in the city I’d want one in case I had car trouble or something, but otherwise you can get to a phone pretty easily. But breaking down on one of these isolated back roads can be pretty scary. Yet in the places you need them the most, it seems that there’s no signal.

I remember one year when my mom and brother and his family came down for Pumpkin’s birthday. I told them to call if they needed further directions. But they ended up being a half hour or so late. They said they missed a turn and had trouble getting back on track. When I asked why they didn’t call one of us, Bro said they hadn’t gotten a signal on their fancy unlocked cell phones the whole way down here. They couldn’t even get one at the park where we were, yet our phones had good signals.

Maybe it has to do with the network or something. I can pick up intermittently around here, but once I get across the state line when I’m going up to visit them, it’s all over but the crying until I’m almost there. But I can pick up in town up there. I wonder why?