Because Really Everyone Needs A Pig-Shaped Jello Mold, Right?

Why, you might ask, do I now have a beautiful radiant copper mold in the shape of a pig? To this, I retort, "Why don't you?"

This weekend we stopped by our church rummage sale on the way to a waffle breakfast. The breakfast was put on in order to raise money for the local schools to buy Xerox copy paper, which, I promise, is necessary, since last February I received a work email stating that at the current rate of copying, we would run out of paper by spring break, and entreating us to , in some unknown way, stop needing to copy things for our students to work on. The rummage sale next door was put on in order to raise funds for the replacement of our church signage.

Unfortunately for us, Mikalh (my six year-old) was in tow. He is remarkably cute, even for a child of an age typically distinguished by great charm, and, alone among all my children, has a real fixation on the acquisition of material goods. While my older two children, at his age, were known to request for Christmas "green presents" and to spend all day happily playing with two sticks, Mikalh has, at all times, a growing mental list of items which he really "needs". Having him at a rummage sale is something of a disaster. After my mother had purchased him castle blocks, a gyroscope and an iDog at sharply discounted rates, he continued to be interested in various items which we encountered, and to feel that it was only good and right that he be allowed to have these at once. We managed to escape without purchasing anything else but only with a very firm approach and the promise of waffles.

However, when we returned the next day to attend Sunday service, a wealth of rummage items remained to be sold at very low cost, and , from these, my husband selected cross country skis and poles at a dollar each and loaded them happily into our van. Mikalh was getting himself buckled in when I noticed that he had acquired a copper pig-emblazoned pan, which he had settled next to him in the car. When questioned, he pointed out congenially that this item was only two dollars. So we just bought it. (My friend, Robyn, who put the sale together, suggested that I might use it make an aspic or, perhaps, a large pate'. Her faith in my general level of acculturation is reassuring but misplaced. I do, however, think that it may prove useful if we want to set a pig-shaped Jell-O for any reason, perhaps, as part of a barnyard-themed birthday party. Mike thinks we could add in either bacon or ham. Yummmm.)

Initially, I couldn't really imagine what use we might find for this item, but now that we have installed it above my kitchen sink, I have to say that "it really ties the room together".

I will not add any more detail to the story of how I spent my weekend, lest it come up that, despite having a crushing migraine on and off all the time and Mike's suffering from a cold, we bought and set up a small greenhouse, and afterward purchased multiple accessory items, such as soil, brick pavers for thermal mass, planting containers etc. to accommodate the fact that Mikalh had, without asking, selected four packages of seeds which he intended to plant immediately despite the imminent onset of winter. He is engaged in a project-based learning unit on gardening at school and this has fired his imagination to such a degree that one rather felt that refusing to purchase these seeds and attempt to create suitable growing conditions for them would have been tantamount to canceling Christmas.


So look out for our bacon-flecked pig-shaped cherry Jell-O at the next church potluck, and perhaps, if we are lucky, a nice dish of roasted beets, carrots and radishes tended and harvested by our little maharajah.
Recipes to follow.