One Run Purple Racehorse

When I’m running out of the house for a gallon of milk and eggs and one of my kids says, “Oh, Mom, we also need peanut butter,” they are used to me responding with “One run purple racehorse…”

My ex-father-in-law taught me this memory trick over 20 years ago, and I still use it almost daily. He told me he learned it at a Dale Carnegie workshop, and I believe him, but any search I come up with on the web doesn’t mention purple racehorses, so I’m going to tell you the way I do it.

I think the easiest way to tell it would be by example. Let’s say you have to run for the store for five items, and you don’t want to make a written list for just five items. Those items are eggs, milk, toilet paper, ground beef, and laundry detergent.  The first thing you have to do is link each item with its number on the list.  First, we have one, which rhymes with run, so we picture a purple racehorse. You want to picture something kind of outrageous, so it’ll stick in your memory (you also want to keep the base memory, or “peg”, in this case the purple racehorse, the same every time you use the method). Make it vivid and with movement and sound, if you can. Now picture that purple race with eggs. Maybe it’s running on eggs, making a mess as its hooves hit the eggs and yolk and white splatter everywhere. Hear the pounding of the hooves almost, but not quite, drowning out the crack of the egg shells. Got a good visual? Good.

Now we’ll move on to number two. Two rhymes with zoo, so we’ll picture a bunch of monkeys. The second item on our list is milk, so we’ll picture the monkeys playing with gallons of milk. They are throwing them around their monkey cage, and some are breaking open, spilling milk everywhere! Take a second to implant this in your memory, and move on.

Three rhymes with tree. Now, I picture a big, picturesque apple tree sort of tree, but you could use a Christmas tree if you prefer. I would picture the tree as if someone had TP’d it, even wrapping the trunk with it. It’s almost completely covered with toilet paper, with just a few bits of green peeking out here and there. And now that is set in my memory.

Four rhymes with door, and I picture a big, rough-hewn dungeon door, although any door that is distinct enough for you would work. Now I visualize the ground beef getting stuck in the door, and oozing out underneath. It’s really yucky, but I’m not going to forget it!

Five rhymes with hive, so I visualize a bunch of bees flying, each carrying the item in question (unless the item itself suggests some other action than carrying).  In this case, I picture them carrying big ol’ jugs of laundry detergent, and I hear them buzzing with the strain, their little cartoon-like bee faces turning red.

Now, the cool part of this is it takes just a few minutes to permanently memorize the rhyming “peg” for the number. After that, you can use this any time, anywhere, and it only takes as long as it takes to list the items to memorize them. And it works in both directions – if you asked me, “What number was toilet paper?” I’d immediately picture the tp wrapped around the tree and know it was number three. If you said, “What was number 2?” those monkeys come immediately to mind and I know that #2 is milk.

Here are the rest of the numbers, up to 9. I know it can be done up to 21, but I never learned past 9, and honestly, if I need to remember 10 things, it’s time to get out an index card and write them down.

One: run: purple racehorse

Two: zoo: a bunch of monkeys

Three: tree

Four: door

Five: hive: a bunch of bees

Six: Stick: a big, sticky stick

Seven: Heaven: golden stairs and pearly gates

Eight: Gate: a rusty, squeaky gate

Nine: wine: a romantic table setting

I hope this trick helps someone else. It’s been an absolute wonder in my life, and it really works for me.

This post is linked to:  Works for Me Wednesday

Menu Plan for Feb. 1 through Feb. 7

I am (sorta, kinda) on a diet. Well, at least I’m trying to watch calories.  So my menu is a little less full of fat than usual.

Dinners:

Monday: (Attempting) Lower-fat Spaghetti con Sugo di Tonno (I’ll let you know how it comes out)

Tuesday: Black bean burritos

Wednesday: Spiced chicken with yogurt sauce (will post recipe)

Thursday: Fend for yourelf (I’m at pool league)

Friday: I’ll have lentils and rice – kIds are at their dad’s

Saturday: I’ll have fish and rice – kids are at their dad’s

Sunday: Roast chicken with roasted potatoes (will post recipe)

Lunches:

Quesadillas, sandwiches, beans and wienies, tuna salad.

Breakfasts:

Farina, Oatmeal with fruit, cold cereal, frozen waffles.

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday. Go check out what everyone else is making this week!

You might also like:

Learning to Sew

I took Home Ec in junior high. It was a one semester class; the first quarter we were taught sewing, and the second, cooking. I passed the class, but only because of the cooking section. I never even cut out a pattern or threaded a sewing machine during the first quarter — I’m not sure how I spent my time, but I assume I was socializing.

My mom is a fantastic seamstress, and over the years, she’d make my kids a Halloween costume or a dress for me, but I’ve toyed with the idea of learning to sew.

Exciting Field Trip – International Towne

We are very excited. Today is the second day of training for International Towne!

One of our favorite yearly experiences in our homeschool is participating in Young Ameritowne. We’ve done Ameritowne for four years now, but this will be our first time at International Towne.

I feel incredibly lucky to live in a city that offers such a neat resource. Ameritowne and International Towne are usually offered to public school kids, but the organization who hosts them, Young Americans Center for Financial Education, is happy to work with homeschool groups, too.

At Ameritowne, the kids each have a job (police officer, bank teller, delivery person, disc jockey, etc.) in different businesses (the bank, the college, the warehouse, etc.) to help make the Towne run. The setup at the location is adorable and really cool. The kids also have to write checks, make deposits, buy stamps, and learn about money management, supply and demand, and other financial and civic concepts.

A huge curriculum is made available to teachers (and, of course, homeschool parents). Teachers at a school can use this curriculum over the course of the school year, leading up to Ameritowne as the culminating experience. In our homeschool groups, each parent makes the decision how much they want to teach beforehand, but we have two training sessions in the two weeks prior to the event, in which we have the elections, learn about some of the concepts (supply and demand, advertising), have job interviews and get training for the individual jobs, and learn to fill out a check and keep a check register.  When the day arrives, the kids are excited and ready to buckle down and work! You’d be amazed at how hard even 6 or 7 year-old kids will work.

International Towne is different – it’s aimed at older kids, and the emphasis is on global economics. Instead of different businesses, the kids will each work in different countries. They will be working with exchange rates, international trade, cultural awareness, currency exchange. It’s still got a cute setup, and I’ll be sure to take pictures next week when we go for the actual event.

Last week, we had our first training, and the kids got to be interviewed (I got to be one of the interviewers – I love that part). They also did an international taste test, learned about some of the countries, and did a paper craft. This week, they’ll find out what their jobs and countries are and train for those. And next week is the big day, when we go to International Towne.  If it’s even half as cool as Ameritowne, it’s going to be an amazing experience – and we hear from other homeschooling friends who have done both that it’s even cooler.

If you live in Colorado and you homeschool, please look into taking your kids to Young Ameritowne or International Towne. If you live in Colorado and you public school, find out if your school participates in one of these programs – and if they don’t, ask them to! It really is that awesome.

Plums!

Big, red bowl of plums

The plums are finally ripe on our plum tree, and I harvested an entire big bowl-full off of  one branch, and there are still that many plums still on the branch – not to mention the rest of the tree!

The kids helped, and we’ll harvest some more over the next few days. I’ve invited some friends over on Saturday to get the rest of them!

Plums

Plums from in my backyard today

I have a gorgeous plum tree in my backyard and this year it produced a whole bunch of gorgeous plums. I’ve lived here for two years, but last year the tree didn’t produce any fruit. This year, it’s covered in beautiful purple plums.

I am starting to despair, though, that they will ever ripen. I keep hearing from other people about how their plums are ripe and they are off making wonderful things with them. They have looked pretty much the same for a couple weeks now.

Menu Plan for April 11-17 and Tuscan Soup Recipe

Dinners

Sunday Tuscan Soup (Recipe below)

Monday Black Bean Burritos

Tuesday Breakfast for Dinner

Wednesday Chicken breasts with balsamic pan sauce

Thursday Leftovers

Friday Farfalle with Tuna and Capers in White Wine Sauce (from Simply Recipes)

Saturday Fish, brown rice, and brussel sprouts

Breakfasts: Oatmeal pancakes with blueberry sauce, oatmeal with fruit, cold cereal

Lunches: Quesadillas, leftovers, smoothies, sandwiches

I am madly in love with the Zuppa Toscana at Olive Garden. I think that it and the tiramisu are the only reasons to eat at Olive Garden.

This week is “make the most of what you’ve got” week for us (meaning it’s not strictly “eat from the pantry and freezer”, but the less I can buy to round out what I’ve got, the better). I have been meaning to try my hand at a soup inspired by, but not entirely copied from (that’s no fun!) the Olive Garden soup. I had Italian sausage in the freezer, and I had spinach — I had planned kale in this, but spinach was what I had. And that worked out just fine.

This is what I came up with, and MAN was it yummy.

1 lb bulk Italian sausage
2 Tbs shallots, diced
3 clove garlic, minced
1 cup dry white wine
3 15oz. cans chicken broth (fat free)
2 cup water
1 potato, diced
1 cup spinach, chopped
3 Tbs basil, chopped
1 cup fat-free evaporated milk

Fry sausage in a large sauce pan, breaking it up as it cooks. Drain on paper towels. In the same pan, cook shallot and garlic until translucent. Add wine and deglaze pan. Add broth and water and turn heat to medium. Add sausage back to pan and add potato. Cook until potato is done, then add the spinach. Finish with the evaporated milk and serve.

Servings: 12

Nutrition Facts
Nutrition (per serving, according to Living Cookbook): 180 calories, 109 calories from fat, 12.1g total fat, 29.6mg cholesterol, 741.1mg sodium, 304.4mg potassium, 6.2g carbohydrates, <1g fiber, 2.8g sugar, 8g protein.

And now we have 2 more meals’ worth of this tasty soup in the freezer!

I also served homemade bread sticks. I used Lynn’s 40-minute Rolls recipe, but I cut it in half — I used a whole egg, and added a little extra flour to compensate for the extra liquid in the egg. I shaped them into snake-shapes by rolling balls of dough between my palms, like you would with play dough, and then baked them. After they were done, I sprayed them lightly with butter-flavor nonstick spray, and sprinkled them with a little bit of garlic salt. They were fantastic!

Everyone except my pickiest eater loved this soup (and that pickiest eater doesn’t like ANY soup). We will definitely be having this again!