Crabby Housewife

You Can Help Your Kids with Homework and Teach Them at the Same Time

March 25, 2016 September 11, 2015 By Crabby Housewife Leave a Comment

Recently, my youngest daughter came to me upset because she wasn’t doing well in one of her first college courses as a freshman. She misunderstood what the professor wanted and she had one of “those” professors who are very specific in what they want and how they want it. She’d messed up.

She was stressed and in tears. It reminded me of a few times throughout my girls’ school careers when they’ve felt completely overwhelmed because they were struggling with this or that topic. While both of my daughters are smart, everyone struggles from time to time and feels like this.

Whether your child just started kindergarten or is in college like my girls, you will likely be faced with this situation at some point. It’s tough. Sometimes your child is completely overwhelmed and in tears or panic mode. She probably wants you to step in and rescue her, but what does she really learn if you do the work for her? Nothing, that is what she learns. She learns that she doesn’t have to learn because you’ll do the work for her.

Become a Team

Think about the times in your life when you’ve learned the most. It is likely when you’ve worked alongside a kind mentor. Perhaps your grandmother let you help her cook and now you’re a brilliant baker. Helping kids through rough patches at school is exactly like that. If you’ve gone through something similar successfully, then you know the tools needed to do the task. Come alongside your child as a teammate and help her.

Read Over the Requirements

The first thing I knew that my daughter needed to do was to read very carefully over the requirements. However, she was pretty hysterical when I suggested it and kept insisting she’d read the syllabus. For a younger child, this might simply be the directions at the top of a worksheet.

So, I asked her to bring them to me and I sat with her and began reading them. As I read, I pointed out different specifics offered right there in print. She realized she’d missed a few things. My daughter has always been a kinetic learner, so I encouraged her to underline the specific requirements. This made it a hands-on method for her.

Since she is older, I also told her she needs to do this for all her courses.

Encourage Fixes

Once your child understands the assignments, encourage her to fix issues. Even if you aren’t turning the assignment back in, fix it together so she’ll know for the big test or the future. This part of the process requires a lot of praise. Your child is already feeling vulnerable. My daughter came right out and said she must be stupid or having a learning disability. I don’t believe she has a disability. She is definitely not stupid, but is very bright.

So, during the time she pulled up her papers and prepared to submit them the correct way, I told her things like:

See? This is easy. You’ve got this.
Now that you fixed this, you shouldn’t have any more trouble.
You’re smart. You’ll figure this out. The first semester of college is always difficult. It will get easier.
Some professors are pickier about how things are handed in than others. The key is to figure out what each professor wants and do it that way for that class. Most will tell you right in the syllabus.
I’m right here and I’ll sit with you as you make sure each assignment is right and help you understand anything you need.
You’re lucky. This is a topic I’m great in (or your grandpa is great in, etc.). I can help!

Keep Helping

My daughter expressed concern about how turning in her papers the incorrect way was going to impact her grade and if she was on the right track with her paper. I offered to come alongside her and help. While I will not do the work for her (that would not only be cheating, but she wouldn’t learn anything), I did offer her some constructive feedback. For example, I explained how she was making her topic too broad and gave her an example of a different topic and how I’d narrow that. This allows her to see how you narrow a topic without me actually narrowing that topic for her. She still has to do the work, but hopefully understands it better.

So, if you are helping your child with math, explain the overall concept with the problem she is working on and then use different examples to show her how they are worked. Finally, ask her to try to rework that problem and see if she gets the concept. It is far more important that she understands how to add a positive and negative number than that she only knows how to work a problem like 3 + -10.

I assured my daughter that I would take the time to look over her work and offer her suggestions. That she should also listen to her peers as this professor has time built in for peer feedback. If she does these things and fixes any issues she finds, she should get pretty decent grades in this 100 level course.

Share the Big Picture

My daughter wanted a 4.0 her first semester. I thought this might be a little unrealistic when she told me, but I don’t want to discourage her either. It is just tough your first semester sometimes. It’s a big adjustment. One thing she kept saying when she was crying her heart out was that her 4.0 was messed up.

I told her that it was fine. She could still get a good grade and she could always retake the class if she wanted to (over the summer or even next semester) and improve her grade. I also told her that in life she is going to face difficult situations and that the key is to figure out how to make the best you can out of them. However, there is usually an out. For example, drop the class and retake it later, or take it again to replace the grade.

I don’t always handle every situation perfectly. However, I do think I handled this minor bump pretty well today. My daughter feels confident she can turn things around now and she’s learned a valuable lesson about carefully reading instructions and that college professors aren’t going to walk you through every step of the process. I suspect she won’t run into this issue again.

I hope that these tips help you the next time there is a homework meltdown in your home. Do you have any other tips for helping your child in these situations?

Cheap Way to Clean Your Garbage Disposal

March 25, 2016 September 10, 2015 By Crabby Housewife Leave a Comment

Even the best of garbage disposals start smelling downright nasty from time to time. Food sticks to the blades and doesn’t get washed down the drain properly and before you know it, you have a nose curling stench on your hands.

Fortunately, it is very easy and very inexpensive to clean your garbage disposal. There is a simple, three step-process that will work to get most food broken up and get rid of most nasty smells.

You’ll Need:

Ice
1 box baking soda
2 cups of vinegar
2 sliced lemons

Step 1

Ice cubes are excellent for breaking up some of the grime on the blades. They are very hard, which makes a horrible sound when they hit the blades, but that roughness starts to break up stuck on food. For the best results, start the blades whirring with a small, steady stream of cool water. Add ice cubes a cup at a time.

Allow the blades to completely breakup the cup of ice cubes until the blades are again running smoothly without making that horrid ice crunching sound. Repeat two or three times.

Step 2

Now, you want to disinfect the disposal. Turn the blades off and the faucet off.

Pour a container of baking soda into the disposal. Pour 2 cups of white vinegar in the disposal.

Allow this mixture to bubble and froth for a while. You can even walk away and do some other stuff.

When you return, stream hot water into the disposal and give it a whir for a minute.

Step 3

Your final step adds some lovely scent to the disposal while also killing any leftover smells. Slice up two lemons and feed them into the running disposal with cool water running. Keep the blades going until the lemons are fully cut up and rinsed down the drain.

A Few Notes

As with any time you use the disposal, keep clear of the opening so you don’t come to harm. If you want to keep your disposal from getting smelly, you can repeat this process once a week to prevent grimy buildup.

This isn’t a pretty job, but somebody has to do it. As far as cleaning tasks go, it is fairly quick and painless, too.

Recipe for State Fair Grilled Corn

February 16, 2018 September 9, 2015 By Crabby Housewife Leave a Comment

The buttery grilled taste of state fair corn is something that people look forward to all year. But, what if you could recreate that fair taste for a fraction of the cost, at home, anytime you wanted?

Corn was on sale for .25 an ear, so I picked some up to figure out this recipe. I knew I wanted to grill them, but was trying to figure out a way to grill them without making a big mess or the kernels getting burned.

Since I had some heavy duty aluminum foil on hand, I pulled it down and measured out separate sheets for each ear of corn. I also recently picked up some Land O’ Lakes European butter via my work as a BzzAgent. Since this butter is very rich and creamy, I thought it was the perfect complement to this recipe.

Recipe for State Fair Grilled Corn

Author: Crabby Housewife

Ingredients

6 ears of corn
6 Tablespoons Land O' Lakes European butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
6 sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil

Instructions

Tear off 6 sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil.
Tear husks and silks off ears of corn.
Lay one ear of corn in the center of each piece of aluminum foil.
Cut one tablespoon of butter into four long slices and place across top of ear of corn.
Salt and pepper corn.
Pull the sides of the foil up and roll them together to form a tent. Pull the two shorter sides up and roll them together.
Your corn is now in a pocket of aluminum foil.
Place foil packets on grill for 20-25 minutes.

The result was pure summer deliciousness. The corn turned out tender, buttery and flavorful.

Just Like Texas Roadhouse Grilled Steaks at Home

January 11, 2019 September 8, 2015 By Crabby Housewife 2 Comments

Making a steak at home can be a challenge on a lot of levels. Getting that restaurant quality taste isn’t easy. On top of that, the cost of purchasing a good cut of steak can be almost as much as going out and ordering one from a restaurant. Still, there are times when you just want to grill a steak at home, find a great deal on steaks, or feel you are up to the challenge of recreating that Texas Roadhouse type taste.

Cut of Steak

One of the most important things in making a great steak at home is buying a good cut of steak. Personally, I like ribeye the best both for value and tenderness. Look for meat that is a nice red with some marbling through it.

I’ve tried sirloin many times and you can make it okay but it comes up much tougher than ribeye.

There are, of course, many other cuts of steak, but they are so expensive most of the time that I don’t even consider going there.

Ribeye is often on sale at Kroger, which is where I tend to shop most of the time. You can also find good deals at Sam’s Club. If you’re lucky, you may even have someone near you who sales steak from grass fed cows.

Recipe for Texas Roadhouse Steak

Do you love the seasoning at Texas Roadhouse? Me, too. If you want your life to be super easy, you can buy their steak seasoning. They even have a Texas Roadhouse online store where you can easily purchase the seasoning and other items, such as rib seasoning and steak sauce.

If you’re like me, then you probably want to throw together your own like-Texas Roadhouse seasoning. I am a big believer is adding some coarse salt to steak, too, as it can help really bring out the taste. So, any recipe I create for steak has to have some salt in it. Here is what I threw together and it was utterly delicious. It tasted very similar to Texas Roadhouse. Honestly, I think it might have been better.

Texas Roadhouse Steak Seasoning Recipe

Author: Crabby Housewife

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons sea salt or coarse salt
1 Tablespoon light brown sugar
1 teaspoon black ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon ancho chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2-3 Tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire yes, this brand, it tastes best and is worth the money
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard brand does not matter, buy cheapest

Instructions

Mix together all the dry ingredients thoroughly
Add Worcestershire and stir until it makes a thick sauce. You may need to add a little more Worcestershire.
Stir Dijon mustard into the sauce.
Rub the sauce on both sides of the steak and allow steak to warm slightly on the counter while you heat the grill. Allow to sit in sauce for at least 30 minutes.
Grill on low heat on grill for about 8 minutes on each side.

Your cooking time for the steaks may vary, depending on how well done you like your steak. We prefer a medium temperature.

Do It Yourself (DIY) Meal Replacement Diet Plan

March 25, 2016 September 4, 2015 By Crabby Housewife 2 Comments

I’m going to confess something, dear readers. I am fat. Call it pleasantly plump, or whatever you want, but the fact remains that I have way more weight on me than I should and it is dangerous for my health.

I’ve struggled for years to lose some weight I picked up easily and can’t seem to drop. While I had a lot of success a year ago with Atkins, it’s been very difficult to stick to strictly low carb in a household where no one else eats that way. Still, for my health (diabetes runs in my family and I was testing in the pre-diabetic range before going on Atkins) and more shallow reasons, I really want to drop another 30-40 pounds. That will put me within my ideal weight range, which is better for my blood sugar, my bones, my joints, and my ego.

I’ve been looking at some of the diet programs out there for a while now and trying to decide what is doable for me at this point in my life. One of my cousins dropped a lot of weight with New Directions. A friend lost weight on Weight Watchers. It seems all around me are success stories. I really like the Nutri-System model. My mom did that years ago when it was called something else and had centers near us. I like the amino acids approach they use.

Ultimately, I decided Medifast or Nutrisystem would be a good fit for me because they were mindless, I could take meal replacements with me anywhere, I liked that they were lower glycemic plans because of the diabetes issues, and I knew people who had succeeded with both programs.

The problem? Both programs are crazy expensive. Nutrisytem costs at least $300/month and that is for the basic plan. Medifast, too, is about $75 a week for the most basic program.

I also felt there was another drawback with Medifast that I really didn’t like. They want you to work with a “coach.” I’m a writer, I’m a loner. I don’t like making small talk, dealing with new people, or having to report to someone about what I’m doing. Yes, I understand that statistically people do better with a coach or someone to answer to, but I’m not most people and it just stressed me out. I suspect other introverts out there feel the same way.

One of the reasons I’ve started Weight Watchers about 8 times and not succeeded is that when I have a bad week I will just quit because I can’t stand the whole weigh in process and someone else knowing my business. I hate failing at things and especially hate someone else knowing I went off the deep end and ate four boxes of cookies that week.

Okay, I may be a little weird, but there it is. It doesn’t work for me. Experience has proven it doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to deal with a coach or really anyone. Let me order online or buy in a store and be on my way. I am the same way about exercise. If I can do it at home, I’ll do it. Make me go to a gym and I just quit.

The Plan

I decided to start researching DIY weight loss plans. I Googled terms like “DIY Nutrisystem,” “Medifast at home,” and “Meal Replacement Diet.” After reading for about three days on different options and realizing I could save a bundle, I narrowed down my choices to three:

Wonderslim from Diet Direct (about 30-40% less than Nutrisystem)
Lean Cuisine style meals (I don’t like all the sodium and funk in these meals, plus they don’t always taste so good)
DIY Meal Replacement similar to Medifast and subbed with real food at one or two meals

I am a grazer and I knew I needed something that offered me food every few hours or I’d get hungry and cheat. Whatever plan I came up with had to have five or six meals a day spaced two or three hours apart.

I’m by no means a medical professional and you should definitely consult with your doctor before going on any diet plan. This is the plan I’ve chosen to create and follow based on many years of failed diets and knowing what does and doesn’t work for me. It may or may not be successful, but if you want to join me on this journey, I will be updating this site with how it is going and any tweaks I make along the way.

You can download a free printable of the DIY at home Medifast type program I am following as of today. I created this printable for myself and also for my daughter, who is going to do this plan with me. I hope it is helpful to others as well. Again, please, please consult with your doctor before starting any diet plan. You may have health issues that I don’t have and your doctor may need to tweak your diet plan or put you on something else entirely. Be smart. It isn’t worth getting ill to lose a couple of pounds.

DIY Medifast-like Diet Printable

I had some NOW sports protein shakes here already and I also had some Syntrax to-go packs. On top of that, I am also going to use Atkins shakes (a little higher in calories, but super low in carbs) for breakfast and Atkins bars for a few other times during the day.

I think the key with this plan is going to be the convenience. I don’t have to cook a ton of meals every day since there is only one whole food meal. I can easily take shakes and bars with me on the road. I also can adapt this if we are eating out. You can get a meal that is low in carbs and high in veggies at just about any restaurant. Even at McDonald’s you can order a grilled chicken salad. Watch the dressing, though!

I have also learned that for me I need to know that I can eat whatever I want at some point. So, I’ve built in one cheat meal a week into the plan. This way, I can have pizza one night, or I can have that dessert I’ve been craving. The key is to keep it to one meal and not a week full of cheat meals. You may find that a cheat meal throws you off the deep end. Be honest with yourself and decide whether you want to use this or not.

So, that is my plan. I hope you’ll stick around and see my updates. I have a wedding to go to in January. I’d love to be to my goal weight by then, but I’m not going to put a time limit on it. The main reason I am still working on losing weight and getting fitter is for my health. Any appearance improvements are just a bonus.