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Saturday, February 1, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One with Bits and Pieces.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One With Downtown Chicago
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Breakfast these days takes grits and hard-boiled determination. |
While I don't subscribe to the no ketchup on hot dog |
Saturday, January 11, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One That Got Post Dated
I had big plans for the Team Saturdazzle segment in 2025.
First, I was going to post content for the segment to be published each Saturday of the new year.
Then, I would attempt to generate a little readership for it by linking it through the blogosphere via other established blogs , memes, and various Social networking sites.
After a while, I would gauge interest in making it one of those segments that others could link their content to.
All these plans were contingent on stringing a number of Weekly Saturdazzle posts together.
the Jan 5th edition went fine, in the sense that there was a Jan 5th edition. I had a few ideas for this edition.
One idea came to me when I took my waiting with my Mom on one of her recent doctor appointments. She kept on talking about going to get cookies. My Mom often brings cookies up to her room which she gets from the dining room at the place where she and my Dad stay. Instead of eating her desserts in the dining room she brings them up to her room and puts them in her refrigerator aka the place where desserts go to die.
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This was made on Christmas by my youngest daughter and my Mom. Left to my mom’s devices it would have stayed in her fridge until the 15th anniversary of Covid. |
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Giving the aged with sharp objects supervision |
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Obligatory Baking Picture (OBP) #1 |
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OBP #2 |
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OBP #3 |
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Finished Product: Happy Parents |
Overall the event was highly successful. My Dad kept on saying he didn't remember the last time someone came over to bake for him. We left a good amount of cookies in a tupperware on the table and took the rest home so none would be subjected to the refrigerator where desserts go to die.
The first comment of the year
To many. comments are the currency of the blogging world. To some, it's page views, but having someone stop by and write about your content is a gratifying thing. I blog for me. I would like to have a large readership, but it doesn't matter that I don't have much of one.
I post on other people's blogs and participate in their blogging events in part so either people will see and comment on my blog. But even when they don't I still like to post content here and comment on their content there.
SO it wasn't surprising on January 8th that I still did not have one single comment on any of my posts since last year. I was glad that I got 3 comments in somewhat rapid succession the next day. I work both my jobs in Wednesday and and in between them I stopped at McDonalsd for a snack knowing I wouldn't be eating dinner until 9:30. I got one of my favorite snacks, a deconstructed root beer float. That's my name for an ice cream cone and a glass of root beer,
While eating it, I remembered there is a way to post my content by sending an e-mail and did that. I posted it on here, and linked it to the Wordless Wednesday page of Comedy Plus. On Thursday Morning I received this nice comment from Sandee the proprietor of Comedy Plus. I received two more a few minutes later from another one of my posts.
Well that's it for this weeks installment of Team Saturdazzle. Next time I hope to actually release it on Satuday and not fix it in post.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Team Saturdazzle: The One With a New Title?
Team Saturdazzle
Welcome to the 1st 2024 Iteration of Team Sturdazzle, a hopefully weekly postpourri of random thoughts and regular segments.
Occasionally I will try to curate ideas from my FB pages and share some of the comments here. Today was supposed to be one of those occasions. On Thursday night I posted the following on both my personal FB page and the FB page for my blog:
Am approaching the 16th anniversary of my blog. On Jan 6th 2009 I published the first post there http://dave-homeschooldad.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-we-home-school.html A few years ago I changed the name from Home School Dad to Leap of Dave. I’m considering changing the name once again. Here are some ideas I have for a new name:
1. Sustainable Bedlam
2. Toaster Pastries w/o A Toaster
3. Blogging, People Still Do That?
4. A Hat, A Brooch, A Pterodactyl
Let me know which one you like, or If I should stick with Leap of Dave, or perhaps make a title suggestion of your own. I'll post results and suggestions in my next Team Saturdazzle post.
As of 11:30 Friday night I had no comments on either page. I did ask 3 members of my family the same question over a rousing game of Catopoly, which I am winning. The results were mixed: my wife Amy prefers Sustainable Bedlam, my daughter Emma is a fan of Toaster Pastries w/o a Toaster, my daughter Lucy likes Blogging, people still do that?, and I am fond of A Hat, A Brooch, A Pterodactyl. Certainly, there is no consensus on the nonsensical.
I will put this post on both my FB pages again and see if I can get more votes. If you happen to be reading this, please leave a comment with which one you prefer or a suggestion of your own.
The Mountain Dew Code Red of Trailers
Days before the March 22 release date The Unbreakable Boy was pulled from its release schedule with little to no explanation. Fast forward to yesterday, January 3, 2025 when I was working at my movie theatre 3 years from the date of my original post. I was patrolling the theatre and ensuring all the movies started successfully when I saw this new trailer for The Unbreakable Boy:
Apparently, Lionsgate has a February 21st 2025 release date. I'll believe it when I see it.
Team Saturdazzle At The Movies
Powered by Box Office Mojo
Top 25 Films 2024
25. The Fall Guy 92.9 M 24. Red One 96.81 M 23. Bob Marley, One Love 96.89 M
22. Alien Romulus 105.31 M 21. IF 111.15 M 20. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 113.38 M
19. Mufasa: The Lion King 128.14 M 18. A Quiet Place: Day One 138.93 M
17. Venom: The Last Dance 137.73M 16. The Wild Robot 143.19 M 15. It Ends With Us 148.51 M
14. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 151.56M 13. Gladiator II 164.55 M
12. Kingdom of the Planet pf the Apes 171.13 M 11. Bad Boys: Ride or Die 193.57 M
10. Kung Fu Panda 4 193.59 M 9. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire 196.35 M 8. Twisters 267.76 M
7. Dune: Part Two 282.14 M 6. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 294.1 M 5. Despicable Me 4 361 M
4. Moana 2 404.02 M 3. Wicked 432.94 M 2. Deadpool & Wolverine 636.75 M
1. Inside Out 2 652.98 M (Movies I watched are in bold)
10 highest-grossing movies I watched this year by rank on Box Office Mojo
90. Here 70. Cabrini 68. Unsung Hero 53. The Forge 52. Reagan 51. The Boys in the Boat 27. Wonka and the aforementioned The Wild Robot (16), Twisters (8), and Wicked (3).
Top 10 Films December 2024
10. Interstellar 2024 Re-release
9. Kraven The Hunter
8. Red One - Down 3 from November
7. A Complete Unknown
6. Nosefartu
5. Gladiator II - Down 2 from November
4. Mufasa: The Lion King
3. Sonic The Hedgehog 3
2. Wicked Down 1 from November
1. Moana 2 - Up 1 from November
Top 5 Films for 2025
5. Wicked
4. Nosferatu
3. Moana 2
2. Sonic The Hedgehog 3
1. Mufasa The Lion King
That's all I have today, for your weekly dose of Saturdazzle. Please comment especially about changing the blog's name or anything else that struck your fancy today.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
A to Z 2024: R is for R R R Very Funny. if You think I'm going to respect Lima Beans.
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For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate. Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day. I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge. At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter. At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify. Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.
April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day.
I do not need an entire day to respect lima beans. For me a minute would be too much time. To misquote Snoopy in Your A Good man Charlie Brown: I am a Lima Bean hater, a Lima Bean despiser and a Lima Bean loather. Or to misquote Greg Brady in the Brady Bunch episode," My sister Benedict Arnold": Lima beans are on the top of my bad vegetable list, the bottom of my bad vegetable list and every bad vegetable in-between.
I grew up in the 70's and we were all members of the clear your plate club. If my parents served it we ate it, or we hid it, or we fed it to the dog. I've always been a big fan of food, and there's hardly a food I don't enjoy. Growing up, I was not really big on most vegetables, I could eat corn or carrots but anything else was a stretch for me. But the worse of the worst was the lima bean.
I absolutely hate lima beans. I would not eat it on a bet. As I've got older I've learned to enjoy most vegetables and tolerate the ones I don't enjoy. I am actually a big fan of most beans black, pinto, kidney, garbanzo. Generally I lead the league in legumes. But I can not bring myself to eat a single lima bean. It is probably the only food I won't eat. I have strong preferences against some food like olives, but in a pinch I can eat one. Luckily my wife loves olives, so it never comes to that.
My hate for lima beans is legendary in my family. Just like my kids grew up knowing that I love The White Sox, Randy Stonehill, Libraries, and diving off the high dive, they also discovered I hate lima beans. So each Christmas for several years I could always count on that they would wrap up a can of lima beans for me.
I'm not sure why April 20th is National Lima Bean Respect Day. If it were up to me I'd ban the Holiday all together. If I can't do that I would just make it 19 day earlier. Because a day honoring lima beans has to be some sort of April Fools Joke.
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The song of the day Is Road to Zion by Petra
Here is a snippet of the song performed live ...
Here is the entire song ...
The A to Z mix tape now contains 18 songs.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Friday, January 22, 2021
Ski Lodge Lunch
Lunch was kind of a hodgepodge today. We had some leftover chicken taco meat in the fridge and a can of cream corn and some beans. So I whipped up something chili like and had it with apple cider. I felt like I was at a ski lodge! Yummmm!
Thursday, April 2, 2015
B is for Bibimbap (Thing)
Day 2 of nouns. Did a person yesterday. Today a thing is on the docket. Tomorrow, we will do a place, but after that it will be up for grabs. We might go place, place, thing, person, place, person. Who knows? All I know is that there will be nouns and there will be plenty of them.
Today's thing is bimimbap. Which up until a few minutes ago, I had never typed, or printed, or wrote in cursive. I had eaten it. Boy, had I eaten it. Bibimbap is a Korean dish and looks like this ...
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Turtle Cake is Best a HSD Rewind (Sort of)
Since the post was in draft it did not count in my post count. So this old post is actually # 600. 600 posts and I even brought a cake!
Spider Droid's Cub Scout Pack had a cake walk Friday Tonight. Each Cub Scout was to design and help make a cake according to a theme. I did not tell Spider Droid all the themes. There was an "other" theme which meant decorate the cake any way you want. I neglected to mention that one to Him. Otherwise it would have been A Star Wars Cake all the way. There is a limit to how much Star Wars stuff a guy can take, so I said nothing.
One of the themes was wildlife and SD decided to make a cake based on his favorite animal, the turtle. Here is how it turned out.
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Meanwhile back in 2012 - Spider Droid is no longer doing scouts but he still likes turtles.
I promised that I would wrap up the HSBA today. If you check out my pages you will see a HSBA 2011 page. In it I have revealed all my voting for the awards and also highlighted all the winning blogs and shared a sample post from each.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
A JJ Heller Style birthday
Since then I found out that J.J. Heller and I have a lot in common . . .
1. Her daughter has the same real name as Puppy.
2. She has a husband named Dave. I am a husband named Dave.
3. She blogs. I blog.
4. She made her daughter rainbow cupcakes for her recent birthday. We made Puppy rainbow cupcakes for her birthday.
5. She has a lovely singing voice. I
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Wednesday, November 23, 2011
HSD Rewind: Pilgrim Hat Cookies
We are making Pilgrim Hat Cookies for Thanksgiving again this year. Here is a HSD Rewind to tell you all about how to do it.
Original Airdate November 2010
Here is what you need . . .
Fudge Striped Cookies Cream Cheese Frosting Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Orange Frosting Tube
Step 1. Set Fudge Striped Cookies Stripe side down on cookie sheetStep 2 spread frosting on top of peanut butter cup .
Step 3 affix peanut butter cup on cookie. Enough frosting will run over to make brim for hat.
Step 4 with orange frosting, make belt buckle on side of hat.
Step 5. Voila.
Meanwhile back in 2011 . . .
I guess if you take off the buckle you could also call them Ringmaster Hat cookies. That is just a clunky segue to remind you in the Chicagoland area that there are just 3 more days to see the Ringling Brothers Circus perform Fully Charged at the United Center. They will not be performing tomorrow but have 8 big beautiful shows between Friday and Sunday. If you use the keyword MOM you can still save $4.00 per ticket.
Next Time: Thankful for a Random Wife
Saturday, September 10, 2011
The Good Fruit, and the Ugly
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For more Six Word Saturday, head on over to Show My Face dot com.
Monday, July 18, 2011
HSD Rewind: Newspaper Fried Chicken
Original Air Date: June 30th, 2009
I have asked my lovely wife to contribute one of my favorite recipes for this special themed edition of WFMW. This dish works for us as a dish to pass at summer cookouts but also makes a great family dinner. Here is the lovely and Talented Mrs. Dad . . .
This is called "newspaper chicken" because we got the recipe from the newspaper. Creative huh.
**NOTE: This is a two-day affair, but well worth it!
Here's how I make it, but there are any number of variations you can make to make it your own. I take 5 lbs of boneless chicken breasts and cut them into small strips or chunks (I get the bag-o-frozen chicken from Aldi.) I cover them in water in a large tupperware bowl and add 1 cup of salt. Yes, one entire cup of salt. I put the cover on it, and shake it a few times, and refrigerate it overnight. Sometimes during the night, if I happen to get up, I shake it a few more times. In the morning, I dump out the salt water and rinse the chicken well. Really well. This brining isn't for flavoring. Then, using the same bowl while the chicken is on a plate or drainer, I put 2 cups of milk (I use skim) in the bowl and 2 tablespoons of vinegar and stir that up (handy dandy buttermilk.) Then return the chicken to the bowl and make sure the chicken is covered. If not, add more milk. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. I like to double dip my chicken because it comes out so crunchy, really good. I put 2 cups of flour, along with 1 tsp of the following: salt, garlic powder, chili powder, and 1/2 tsp of pepper and dry mustard. Mix it really well in a large ziplock bag (I've tried doing it in a bowl, but doesn't work as well.) So you take chicken out of buttermilk and save the buttermilk! Put chicken on a plate. Then with a pair of tongs or "grabbers" put a few pieces of chicken in the flour mixture to coat, then grab with grabbers, drop in buttermilk, and then back into flour mixture.
Place coated chicken on a tray (I use my pampered chef "stackable cooling rack" laid on top of a cookie sheet.) Once all chicken is double coated, let the tray sit in the fridge for another hour. This ensures the coating will stick to the chicken. **Sometimes I do have to make another bag of flour mixture. This double coating is messy, but it really makes for nice, crunchy chicken. After an hour, get a frying pan ready with enough oil to be 1/2 way up the sides of the chicken. I fry it over medium high heat. Once the oil is hot, place a few pieces of chicken in the oil. If you're doing it right, as the hot oil is cooking the food, the salt water is coming out of the chicken, therefore, making it a nongreasy affair. Love it. So you fry it on one side for about 4 minutes (try to leave it alone here, don't check it a bunch of times), and the other side for about 4 minutes more. This, of course, varies according to size. Using bone-in chicken will take longer. Now, this is important: do not try to keep the chicken warm to try to serve in an hour or so. Either serve immediately, or allow to cool and either serve cold, or microwave to warm it up. If you try to keep it warm in the oven, it gets gooey, and nobody likes gooey chicken! This chicken also freezes quite well. I usually have enough for a meal right away, leftovers in the fridge, and then some in the freezer for a later meal.
Ingredients at a Glance:
5 lbs boneless chicken breasts
1 cup salt, water to cover chicken
2 cups milk plus 2 TBLS vinegar (or buttermilk if you have it)
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt, garlic powder, chili powder
1/2 tsp pepper and dried mustard
oil for frying
Thanks Amy. She also does a great impression of Jimmy Stewart saying chicken. She is certainly a woman of many talents.
Meanwhile back in 2011. Amy is still a woman of many talents. Today she got a job that she neither applied for nor interviewed for. She merely told some people she wanted it, and bam, it was hers. It's actually her same job just in a different school, one much closer to our house.
So she will be able to get home quicker and make this fantastic chicken. We still love it and hope you will too. If I repost this in ten years time I might have to remind people what a newspaper was.
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As with last time I shared this recipe, I am sharing this @ We Are That Family for Works for me Wednesday because (wait for it) Newspaper Chicken works for me. click here to see what works for others who may not have chicken on their mind and be so easily defined.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Raising the Bar on Fractions
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We used our own chocolate bars and placed them over each page of the book.
The kids took turns reading the book, placing the chocolate and even taking the pictures I am sharing here.
I like these pages because it gives a strong reinforcement that 12 twelfths is the same as one whole.
We really weren't able to stack the pieces exactly like in the book. But the kids got the idea.
Note: To put chocolate on each page as we did, you will need at least 3 candy bars.
The Carnival of Homeschooling is at Why Homeschool this week. Click here to check out all the fine entries in the Memorial Day Edition.
A Quote to Start Things Off
Snow Kidding!
These "kids" now range from 19 to 25
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