Adoption Tuesday

A few facts from Adopt US Kids about kids in the foster care system:

Meet the Children
Children in foster care are regular children who, through no fault of their own, had to be removed from their families due to abusive or neglectful situations.

More than 250,000 children in the U.S. enter the foster care system every year. While more than half of these children will return to their parents, the remainder will stay in the system. Most of these children are living with foster families, but some also live in group facilities.

The Number of Waiting Children
Each year more than 20,000 children age out of the foster care without being adopted. Today there are 107,000 children in foster care waiting to be adopted ranging in age from less than a year old to 21.

The race and ethnicity of children waiting to be adopted vary from State to State and City to City. However, the most recent national report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System shows the majority of children waiting to be adopted are Caucasian (39 percent) or African American (29 percent). Children of Hispanic origin account for 22 percent of those waiting to be adopted.

How Adoption Changes a Child’s Life
Being taken away and moved from placement to placement can make children in foster care feel like they can never count on anyone again.

Think about fostering. Think about adopting.



Oh wow. A fellow blogger, Sam from My Barefoot Farm, wrote a post just last night about fostering.

I loved what she had to say:

Now I like to think of myself as pro-life. I believe life begins at conception. I do not like abortions, they kill living babies. I know many, many people preach the pro-life stance.

Consider this. Doesn't pro-life go beyond saving an unborn child? You can rejoice all day that a young, un-wed mother decided to not abort and to instead keep her baby. Pat yourself on the back too, if you wish. Consider it a noble thing done.
But WHO will be there 3 or even 10 years later when that same mother can't care for her child. When that child goes into the foster system. Who's pro-life then?


Love it, Sam. Great point!





Image courtesy: fostercarecouncil.org

Mirth Monday - Conan O'Brien

“Rev. Pat Robertson says that if more states legalize gay marriage, God will destroy America. He did say that afterwards, gays will come in and do a beautiful renovation.”

“Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, "Jesus! This cup is expensive!”

“A study in the Washington Post says that women have
better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the
authors of that study: 'Duh.”

"Presidential candidate Rick Santorum is under fire for a remark he made in Iowa about black people. The remark has sparked outrage among Iowa's black community, otherwise known as Steve."




Chuckle. Click.



Quotes courtesy:
Goodreads.com
About.com

Image courtesy: rantocracy.blogspot.com

Sunday Social - Nick

Next one down on my siggy line...

Anne,
Wife of Fred for 23 years
Mom of:
Patrick (16)
James (16)
Rosie (14)
Bella(14)
Julie (13)
Daniel (12)
My children around the world:
Milly in Taiwan
Eun Hae in South Korea
Felice in Hong Kong
Nadya in Germany
Obrin in New York
And our critters Blue, Sunny, Cindy-Lou, Annabelle, Fiona, and Sophie; Mamfy, Mali, Milky and Punkin; Nick; Frog 1; Charlie and Dizzy; Minnie and Alice; Elfie, Frex, Crope, Tibbit and Ozzy; Genevieve, Pippin and Finnegan; and a dozen or so chooks.

I'd like to ask God why He allows
hunger, poverty, and injustice
in the world,but I'd be afraid
He'd ask me the same thing ...


Is Nick.


Nick is Daniel's cockatiel, but because I have 8 kids to feed this morning, I shall cut and paste a post about him that I wrote some time ago, instead of writin' up something new. Please forgive.




I finally got up the nerve this morning to tackle trimming the nails of Daniel's cockatiel Nick. He used to be a sweet bird, honest. He would ride around on Daniel's shoulder and perch on his head. But we've ruined him. Now he's a nasty little SOB, hence me putting off this long overdue task. To be sure of what I was doing, I got out our cockatiel book and reviewed the section entitled "Grooming Your Cockatiel". Follow along with me, won't you?

"Fortunately, cockatiels are relatively easy to care for when it comes to grooming."
Oh good, because I really don't have a whole lot of time this morning.

"You may want to enlist the aid of a helper while clipping your bird's nails."
Oh shoot. They're all at work/school. That's OK, I'll be fine on my own.

"When the bird is secure, use a sharp clipper to cut the excess nail off"
OK, now we've got a problem. "When the bird is secure". How does one secure a fiesty, scrappy, cussin', flailin' cockatiel with the wingspan of a condor?

"Trim only the tip of the nail where it is hooked."
From this I can only assume the author has only trimmed dead cockatiels.

"The main concern with clipping the nails is that you avoid the quick - the blood vessel deep within the nail."
Oh sh--.

Now I've got a bleeding screaming cockatiel who keeps twisting out of the old t-shirt I've got him wrapped in. Everytime I try to get a look at his claws (sorry, nails) to see if I've gotten them all, he hides his feet with his wings or his beak or twists around some more and calls me an ugly name. I'm pretty sure he's only got 6 (maybe 8) toes or whatever they are, but at times I'm sure I'm counting 20.

I finally decide it's good enough and get him back in his cage, relieved that the job is behind me. But then Nick's mood switches from seething anger to the indignant depression of a martyr. Instead of sitting pertly on his bar, he slumps morosely on the floor of his cage. He fluffs his feathers, trembles slightly. I start to worry. He doesn't look good. His talon (sorry, nail) is still bleeding.

My left arm for a styptic pencil!

I know, I thought. I'll give him his millet spray. This bird would walk over hot coals for millet spray.
I hang it in his cage but he doesn't even look at it. He fluffs his feathers some more.

Instead of going about my business and checking off the things on my To-Do list, I find busy work where I can watch him. He's unchanged, so I scurry to the other room to Google cockatiels to find out how I've killed him and if he can still be saved. All the while I'm wondering to myself if, when Nick dies, I will have time to purchase an identical cockatiel and teach it Nick's full repertoire of whistles before Daniel arrives home from school. Not finding the help I need from the computer, I sneak back to the other room and peek in on him. The bastard is eating his millet, but when he sees me he retreats to the corner and fluffs his feathers.

"I'm on to you!" I scream in my empty house.

I think I need to get out more.





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What's For Breakfast?

So last week I wrote a post about trying to cook more from scratch, and making things that are yummy and let's not forget about easy on the wallet.

First thing I cooked after posting that (for Sat morning breakfast) was PW's Breakfast Burritos.

From, you know, Pioneer Woman. Ree Drummond.
(I'm going to marry her someday)

Anyway, I will admit I don't get a pass on the "whole foods" thing, b/c I used frozen hash browns instead of making the potatoes from scratch. I also used bagged shredded cheese. I did not make my own cheese, I did not buy a big block of cheap cheese and then grate it. I used bags (2 cups per bag)I bought on sale for about $1.00 a bag. Cheap, yes. Whole/organic, no.

Took me about 1/2 hour to make, so this is definitely something I could make on a school morning. Also, I could shave that morning time down if I did some prep work the night before, like chop the peppers, mix up the eggs, cook the sausage. For that matter, I could make the whole mess the night before and then heat them up in the oven if I wanted.

Who am I fooling, I would never do that.

If you click her link you can see the whole recipe, step by step, with beautiful photographs. You're not going to get that from me, but in a nutshell I:
Browned the sausage with the diced pepper and onion.
Beat the eggs in a bowl and added some milk and the cheese and some salt and pepper.
Added the hash browns to the sausage and cooked them till the potatoes began to brown.
Added the egg mixture to the pan with the sausage and patatoes. Cooked till eggs were set.
Heated totillas in m/w.
Heaped big spoonfuls of the whole mess into a tortilla and folded up burrito-style.
Yelled "BREAKFAST!!!!!"
Got out of the way.


I'm trying to think how much they cost to make.

$1.50 (?) 8 count tortillas
$4.00 1 lb breakfast sausage
$1.00 2 cups shredded cheese
$0.50 (approx)1 pepper (though Ree used 2 in her recipe)
$0.50 (approx) 1 onion (Ree didn't call for any, but she uses onions in her brkfst potatoes)
$1.25 1/2 bag frozen hash brown potatoes
$1.75 Dozen eggs (I get eggs from my chooks, but this is a fair price, right?)


So that's roughly $10.00, more or less. Not the cheapest breakfast I've ever made, but very filling with eggs and cheese and potatoes and sausage. Fed about 8 people. And yummy? Oh yeah.

Anyway, PW's Breakfast Burritos. They're what's for breakfast.




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Photo courtesy: Pioneer Woman's website

Farm Friday - Cutting Out the Middle Man

We have a puppy.

She is a chewer extraordinaire.

Though our Lab Sunny has her beat in the dollar-value of things chewed, Fiona has left her in the dust for sheer volume.

And she's starting to get creative now. And clever.

She has decided she shall henceforth eliminate the middle man .

Rather than chew socks (or toys or retainers or insert any item here), which we have to replace by spending money, she has now moved on to chewing up money directly.

Last week she pulled a twenty out of my purse, chewed on it for a bit, then neatly ripped it in half. For good measure, she also ate one corner of the bill. It is now, quite literally, dog-eared.

How mangled can a bill be and still get accepted?

I'm going to try to find out....






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