In Which I Claim the Title of Homemade Queen

I am the Homemade Queen. As I mentioned previously, I'm about half-way through my No-Spend Month Lite. My focus has been to buy as few groceries as possible, digging through the cupboards and the far reaches of the refrigerator to put together meals.

So today I made Taco Salad - ground turkey from our freezer (G don't do red meat); taco seasoning made from what I had with this recipe; tomatoes from our garden; tortilla chips from baked tortillas out of our freezer; homemade 1000 island dressing from this recipe (I like ranch but G loves the ketchup-mayo-relish stuff).

The only thing I bought was lettuce.

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He's got the fever....Olympic fever! A. is thrilled with the Olympics, especially because we let him stay up late to watch the games with us. Ben is not thrilled by this...he wails every night, "Why do only 3-year-olds go to bed now? I hate my room. It's stupid. I don't want to sleep. No! Never!" - his latest thing is to shout "No! Never!" when he doesn't want to do something which always cracks me up because it's usually about really mundane things like, "Put on your socks." "No! Never!" But I digress....

I'm surprised at how much A. picks up. "Beach volleyball, running, swimming and men's volleyball tonight! Go USA!" He listens to the announcers and tells me what they said if I missed it. Right now he's got a little notebook with a page dedicated to each sport: "suimeen, beech boleebol, jimnastics, runeen." He keeps score, sort of, on each page as he watches.

Then he asks something stupid like, "Beijing? Where's Beijing? Why do they keep saying Beijing? It's in China?"

Some random and useless thoughts:

So I can't help but wonder about the difference between the uniforms for the women's beach volleyball:



and the men's beach volleyball:


So the chicks are all exposed and we get to see them brush sand off their tight tummies after they dive for the ball, and the guys are all schlubby like this? I mean, fine, no one wants to see them in Speedos and nothing else. Well, I shouldn't speak for everyone, but it would be a little much for me. C'mon guys, the chicks have to get sand all over them. Would it kill you to at least take off your shirts? I understand how it can be a little daunting at first but you'll get used to it. Throw your female viewers a bone here.

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It bugged me how, after USA won the 400 free relay, the announcers kept talking about how, rather than pulling out an amazing win over France, mostly, Lezak "kept Michale Phelps' dream alive." I almost expected Phelps to stand on the podium by himself, with the other guys saying, "Oh, no, really, don't mind us. We only did it for Michael."

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Enough has been said about NBC delaying things they could show live out here on the West Coast (like the above race). But I remember the Summer Olympics being on ALL DAY when I was a kid. They showed everything - even medal ceremonies that weren't :::gasp::: won by Americans. Go Mongolia!

Well, they might not have shown fencing or archery. Still.

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Don't you think they should take pollution into consideration when they choose an host city? Nothing against Beijing, which, it seems has done a great job so far, but it seems to me there's a reason they don't hold the competitions in a smoky bar.

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I like Mary Carillo. I liked her even more when I read the wiki on her and found she responded to a question from a reporter about losing a tennis match by saying, "I blame society."