Me and the Boys

Story

2010-03-09T07:32:00.003-06:00

Sorry that I have been absent from my blog for a very long time. School had started and I just stopped having free time to express my thoughts with everyone. Now I just walk around mumbling to myself! I am posting now so that I can share a story that my son (second grade) wrote for a creative writing team that he is in. They will compete with other schools in a couple of months and this is one of his practice stories. Just a warning. I have told Logan that this story is very creative (the teacher thought so too and gave him a 100!), but that from now on he cannot use the word fart or derivations of that word in any more school work! I left in all the misspellings for added punch.

The Stinkiest Planet
by Logan Higginbotham

Good day! My name is Stinky. I am an alien. I am as red as a cherry. I have five eyes. I am giant as the Iffiel tower. I smell really nasty.

My planit is called Smellville. When you are farting the planet gets gray. Toliets fall from the sky and they make good houses. Storms bring in toliet paper. We use the toliet paper to make side walks.

We travel on toliet brushes. We use our mind for ful. We like to eat a lot of meat and vegetables. So bring you air freshuner and com visit.
----------------------------------------------------------------

I think that is pretty good for second grade but I am really hoping for a different subject when he does the contest. I know his grandfather will be proud of the subject. It is one of his favorite things to talk about!

OOPS!

2009-08-17T15:59:00.000-05:00

It was pointed out to me that the link is not in the email you receive. You have to go to the actual blog to link with the referral. If you want to do it without a referral to me then you can just do a search for swagcodes and sign up for yourself without a referral. I will never know! Thanks Becky for pointing out my error!

Swagcodes

2009-08-16T20:32:00.004-05:00

I wouldn't normally put any advertisement on my blog because I am not into making any money off of my friends (well maybe some family members, LOL!). But this is a great deal and I want to share with everyone. Until about a month ago I used Google exclusively for all my searches. I found out about Swagcodes and now use them almost all the time. Why? About every 2-10 searches I get a Swagbuck. This earns me credits towards something in the Swagstore. Now, there really isn't anything I really want in this store, except one thing. Amazon.com promotion codes for $5 off your total order. It took 45 Swagbucks to get the $5 off. I hadn't shared this with anyone yet because I wanted to make sure it was legit. And it is! I just placed an order for some gift books with Amazon and got $5 deducted from the total. So not bad. You can earn codes other ways too, but you have to go out of your way. Searching is something I do anyways and they use Google and Ask for the search results. I have compared both Swagbucks and Google and they seem to be nearly identical on a few searches I tried.

So how do you sign up? Click on the banner on the right and register. Now here is the part where I do feel a little bit guilty. For those of you that register and search, I will get a matching Swagbuck for each of yours up to 100. I got this off of another blog and she is getting a match of each of my searches (but not my referrals searches). In another two or three weeks I will have maxed out her referral matching and she will have to find someone else. But so far I have $5 off for free and I am about two weeks away from getting another $5.

So for those of you who are now annoyed with me I am very sorry. For the rest, thank you and happy shopping!

Note: It was pointed out to me that the link is not in the email you receive. You have to go to the actual blog to link with the referral. If you want to do it without a referral to me then you can just do a search for swagcodes and sign up for yourself without a referral. I will never know! I think I will post this note to a new post so it can get to everyone's inbox! Thanks Becky for pointing out my error!

Health Insurance Is Killing Us All

2009-07-27T17:02:00.005-05:00

I have heard both sides and I have worked in the health industry most of my working years. I can officially say that it is starting to get out of hand. I live in a conservative area and work in an extremely conservative area. Very few that I have talked to want anything to change. They are very afraid of changing to a government run health-care system. But I can tell you that if we dont do something then none of us are going to be able to afford any health insurance. There has to be a happy medium between the two extremes.

I am ranting because I just got my health insurance renewal. The premium has increased by 25% per month. That turns out to be 510.48 more for the year and that is just for me. Logan has his own policy and Charles gets his from work. If just mine increases 25% for the next five years then my monthly premium will be over $650 a month. And I can tell you that I have not had a pay increase since 2006. The agency I used to work for full time had nearly gone belly up multiple times in the past 3 year so no raises. Now I work for myself and I am working a contracted rate that will probably not go up anytime soon. The company I had worked for had insurance that was $130 a month for my part but you could only go to certain doctors/hospitals affiliated with the parent company of this agency. The area residents call this hospital a death hospital (you only go there to die. Very bad reputation for a rural hospital). Charles' work wanted over $600/month to add just me to his policy and over $1100/month to add both me and Logan. That was laughable! On top of all that our current policies have a $5000 deductible for me and Logan and $1500 for Charles!

Another therapist I work with said he went to a patient's home and there was a lady sitting on the couch who was fine the other day and who obviously had a stroke in recent hours. She couldn't walk or talk well and had been like that over a day. She did not seek help because she doesn't have insurance. Now this person is not likely to ever work and will be a drain on the system for years and years. Now how dumb is that!

For all the naysayers out there I just have to say that there has got to be a better way. I think we are too big a country to have a completely government run health system. It would be too complicated and is not very practical. But there has to be some kind of regulation on the healthcare industry. They should not be able to raise premiums so high. I go to the doctor a few times a year for the usual checkups and sinus stuff. Since historically hospitals can charge $30 for an aspirin you have to think that someone somewhere is getting all this money. They need to investigate where all this money is going! They say that medical expenses are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy. I think in the near future that medical insurance premiums are going to be added to that list.

Okay, I am done ranting and I guess I will now go and pay the bills.

The Good Life

2009-07-24T07:30:00.001-05:00

Here is a short video I really liked on another blog I read.

Vacation in Vermont

2009-07-18T19:34:00.005-05:00

We went to the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT. My Dad has a timeshare there (that he is selling in case anyone is interested!). We have never been and it was beautiful. It was such a different scene from Texas and the weather was perfect. We went from very humid mid to upper 90's to 60's and 70's. It was pretty hard to come home from that. Charles just kept saying, "I want to stay!" We did lots of activities, outdoor and in. Lots of hiking, walking in the cute little town, car rides in the mountains, working out, yoga, hanging out, tennis, movies, eating, and on and on! Here are a few pictures...

Dad (Walt) and his wife, Nan

The Boys, Charles and Logan

Grandpa and Logan
Cute picture except that Dad won and Logan had a minor meltdown right there in the shop.

Logan

Me and Charles
I didn't realize that I didn't put on any makeup that day!

This is also the home of Ben and Jerry's famous (and delicious) ice cream.

Just hanging out in a very cold stream.

The view from our condo.

Climbing wall. Logan loves these!

A fun time was had by all and we are looking forward to our next getaway!
(No, nothing planned, just dreaming)

School Lunches

2009-06-30T11:24:00.007-05:00

I did meet with the director of Nutrition for Logan's school District. We talked for about 45 minutes and I had a few surprises. The biggest one is that the nutrition department's budget is not included in the School District's operating budget and gets none of the money from the government that goes to schools directly. They operate independently as a non profit organization. The money they get comes from sales of food, cash subsidies from the government, and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. In districts that serve at leas 60% free or reduced priced lunches (which Logan's school district does) get an extra two cents per meal served. Because much of the food that is served is from donated commodities, there is going to be a lot more soy, corn and wheat based products. The things that really put on the pounds! These very things are also given to big cow farms and chicken farms as surplus commodities with the sole purpose of a cheap way of fattening up the livestock so they can be brought to market quicker. The director of nutrition gave me lots of information including menus, ingredient lists and nutritional information for many of the lunches they serve. She has also tried to start a few programs in the classroom so that the curriculum is tied into what is current in the cafeteria. I told her that Logan came home one day and told me that he was learning the food pyramid and found out he is supposed to eat mostly grains! I was shocked because that is utterly false. The food pyramid has been changed to make fruits and veggies the biggest group. Unfortunately the grain lobbyists won when the new graphic was designed. Fruits and veggies were seperated into their own groups on the new pyramid so the grain slice is bigger than each one seperately. She wa also very disappointed to hear about all that. She agrees that she needs to work more with each school on the curriculum and training the teachers better on their programs.

After reviewing the information I think that they are doing a better job than many schools but think that a lot more can be done. The menu reads like a fast food menu and we are training the kids to eat these things every day. Even though the hot dogs are made from chicken and the hamburgers are 100% beef with no additives. The cheese pizza has half cheese and half imitation cheese (which is made mainly from soy and corn) so there is lots of room for improvement. The school follows the recommendations from the USDA. So the main thing is to change the rules that the USDA puts out. I sent out my letter to many people in government and at the school district. I have signed a few petitions to improve school food programs. There is a lot going on out there right now. Mostly because the old requirements expire this year and need to be renewed. Any changes in the program can only be made when the program is renewed. Also this turns out to be something that First Lady Michelle Obama is promoting right now. I hope to continue working with the school and writing to those in government to get better nutrition in the schools.

I also saw a great movie called Food Inc this weekend. It gives a lot of insight to where the current global food market is going. We saw the movie Saturday night and the national news showed many clips from the movie because of the recent e-coli thing. If you see the movie you will understand where the e-coli thing is coming from. Not good. I wont get into it here but check out the links.

Tomatoes

2009-06-30T10:42:00.005-05:00

Our garden is in full swing and we have many successes and of course losses! This big success are the tomatoes. We planted four varieties this year. Cherokee Purple (Charles' favorite), Black Krim (Looks Like a Cherokee Purple and we cant tell them apart!), Persimmons, and Costoluto. The Persimmons (picture left) is a pale orange and tastes fabulous! It has a really creamy texture and is not overly sweet. The Costoluto (picture right) is an old heirloom paste tomato and so far this is the only one that has made it. The bugs and the birds seem to really like them a lot. Not sure I will though. I started new seeds today of the two favorites for fall plants and hope to replace them as they get too big.

The cucumbers and squash did not make it. A combination of vine borer worms and fungus took care of them for good. We got a few cucumbers and squash but that was it. We had a good load of radishes and we have eaten half the carrots. Turns out that Mustard likes carrots. I pulled one up to see how big they were. I walked over to Mustard to pet him and he grabbed it out of my hand! He tried so hard to eat it! Who knew that dogs liked carrots.

I also have bunching onions and basil. The cilantro bolted very early and we didnt get much out of it. I think we are having a harder time becuase of the heat. We have had over a week of 100+ degrees and I'm getting a little tired of it! I have also discovered that the Kale doesnt like heat so it is gone! I think I will try it in a winter garden. They are supposed to be okay even in the snow! Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Leftovers

2009-06-30T10:36:00.003-05:00

Before putting in this year's veggie garden we found a few surprises. There were potatoes which we never harvested any because we thought they all died! And there were a few baby carrots. I think these are from seeds that didn't germinate (there were many!) and decided it was time when the weather warmed up a bit.

Posting Blitz!

2009-06-30T10:10:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted in a while and I have lots of material to talk about. I just haven't gotten myself to the computer to make it all happen. Logan is sick today and so I have some time. Logan has sore throat, headache, voice is hoarse and nauseous. Sounds like it could me many things including the Swine Flue except no fever yet. Waiting to see what happens! Meanwhile I am working on the new posts including downloading almost 200 pictures!

CSA Share

2009-05-23T17:08:00.003-05:00

Here is a picture of what we got in the share last week. Red potatoes, a zucchini, carrots, a few small but tasty tomatoes, salad greens, a very large onion, mushrooms, cucumber, radishes and kale.

The salad is done from our garden. The spinach never really came out good. I have taken it all out and planted red onions. The yellow squash is good but there are very few of them. I have had to resort to hand pollinating them. I have seen only one bee one time so far. The first tomatoes are about 1-2 inches big and should be ready in 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately we will be going on vacation about then. Our neighbor will hopefully be taking care of the garden and the animals and she may be the lucky recipient of the first tomatoes. We had a bunch of strawberries and they are really yummy. I expect only a week or two more of those. I picked the first blueberries this morning and may have a few more soon. We had my gluten free pancakes with strawberries and blueberries from the garden!

Letter about School Lunch Program

2009-05-09T18:06:00.004-05:00

I wrote a letter about the poor state of the school nutrition program and sent it to many, from my son's school staff/teachers/administration on up to Mr and Mrs Obama and everyone in between. I just wanted to share it with everyone else too!

So here it is:

I am a concerned parent of a first grader. I am also a home physical therapist who treats mostly medically complicated patients in their declining years. More than half of the people I treat have three things in common: obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. They wonder why their bodies are failing them as I look past them into their kitchen. I see discarded fast food wrappers, bags of chips, mountains of soda and loads of other high fat, high sugar and high starch foods.

Then I sat with my son at lunchtime at his school. My son brings his lunch because he is extremely picky. But I was appalled at what the other students were eating. Most of his class had the school lunch that day. It was chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, gray looking green beans, iceberg lettuce, and fruit salad. The kids get to pick what they want out of the line and can add “a la carte” items. There is no incentive to pick the more nutritious items. The child across from my son chose the chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, biscuit, and then paid extra for a bag of potato chips. Most of the other children chose nearly the same. Only three children in his class chose the fruit or vegetable. When you follow the diabetic food exchange plan this meal would equal one protein and four carb/starches. The child was a little overweight but did not look obese. A few years of eating this same diet will cause this child to be obese. The choices of healthy food available were milk, iceberg lettuce (very little nutritional value), green beans (undoubtedly canned and overcooked causing little nutrition or taste to remain) and a small portion of fruit salad. My son's school participates in a “virtual cafeteria” website that uses the actual menu to teach children about nutrition. You get a green light for picking healthy foods and a yellow light for picking not healthy foods. I checked the menu for several weeks and there was not one entrée offered that met the requirements to get a green light. Only a few questionably healthy sides were offered and some days only one at each lunch.

We are setting up our children to be obese. It was reported last year that children born in 2000 have a 1 in 3 chance of becoming obese adults. They are doomed to be fat because we don't give them better choices and we don't help them make better choices. I know the children are taught about nutrition but then we leave the choice all up to them. If given the same buffet menu as the children that day, how many of you would have skipped the mashed potatoes and biscuit and chose the green beans, fruit salad and salad? We all know what we should eat and most choose to eat the junk anyway. We need to give our children tasty, healthy food, help them make the best choice and then give them incentive to eat it! But the current system expects a seven year old to make the right choices and take all the responsibility for those choices.

The National School Lunch Program was started in 1946 to feed low income children, keep them from going hungry, and prevent malnutrition. Malnutrition should no longer be the goal of this program! As I started to research the program I was again appalled to discover that the funding for the program is tied to surpluses in the commodities markets. The program is serving the huge commercial wheat, corn and soybean farms, instead of our children. We are doing a disservice to our children and their futures. The times have changed and we should change the structure of the program so that we can serve healthier food. How about subsidizing broccoli farms? Funding should be tied to healthier foods and supporting local markets instead of the large commercial mega farms. Food preparation should be brought back to the schools instead of a factory 1500 miles away making frozen, re-heatable meals that containing three times more ingredients than normal because they need so many preservatives to keep them safe to eat.

I realize this means the schools need more money to do it the right way. Schools will need to hire chefs, nutritionists, train other workers to cook and not just reheat and serve. They will need to buy new equipment to prepare the food. Educating students in nutrition should take a bigger role in the curriculum. Don't just teach a food pyramid that supports eating large amounts of grain and think it has been covered. Integrate cooking and nutrition into science classes, arts and crafts, social studies and where ever else it can be incorporated. Give the children individual and class rewards tied directly to eating healthier at lunch time. Kids are competitive and respond to those types of challenges. It should be interactive but currently the system is too passive. Past efforts to cut out vending machines with soda and candy bars do not go nearly far enough.

The Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004 will expire this September 2009. This legislation includes all the Federal child nutrition programs, including the School Breakfast and the National School Lunch Programs, the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Please be a proactive voice in changing our school's nutritional standards. Please support legislative changes to overhaul our school lunch programs and provide funding to do so. Please support our children's future health and well being. Their lives depend on it!

CSA Shares Are Here

2009-04-24T18:47:00.002-05:00

What is a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a great way to eat more locally and support local businesses (mainly small farms). I love to buy stuff at the farmer's markets but they are all about 45-60 minutes away down in Houston. I found a way for the farmer's market to come to me (well near to me). There is a local farm in a small town 20 miles from here called Cleveland, TX. I actually work in and around this town doing home health. They produce all kinds of produce and normally sell at farmer's markets in Houston. But this year they have decided to start a CSA. You "buy" a share of the crop and you pick it up at a prearranged time for the period of the subscription. Our pick-up is about 7 miles away and we subscribed for 10 weeks. I bought a "half share" since Logan eats almost nothing and I didn't think that Charles and I could eat a whole share (although that would have been more economical). Our pickups are on Wednesday evenings. They do get a few things from other local farms when the share is small.

So our first share was really nice and as of today is already half eaten. We got 3 heads of broccoli, a large bag of lettuce greens, about 25 button mushrooms, curly leaf parsley, a bunch of green onions and a small box of micro arugula. I was surprised at the micro arugula. I never had it before (the micro type that is) and it was my favorite thing. A very wonderful taste that I thought would be hot like the full sized version but it was more "warm" and very tasty. I mixed it in the salad. I also don't typically use fresh parsley but again I found things to put it in that made the usual a bit different. That's great because I like trying new things and when it is sitting on the counter and your hungry, you find a way to use it. I am hoping that they have more surprises over the next 9 weeks. Yum! We will be away for one of those weeks and plan on giving it to a friend and they can pick it up. They are also supposed to have the usual garden veg like tomatoes and squash so it should be fun to see what we get.

You can find out what your local area has in the way of farmers markets, CSAs, and local farm stands at Local Harvest. I looked at many of your zip codes and found that there was something in everone's area, although some had lots more than others. Some had everything imaginable and others only had local honey. So go out and eat your vegetables!

And my garden is shaping up well. We have been eating kale, salad greens, spinach and radishes. The first blooms are out on the sugar snap peas. We are still a month off before cucumbers and squash and probably two months from tomatoes and peppers. We are still battling the squirrels for the strawberries and they are winning! The netting is hopefully coming out this weekend and I will finally get to eat some.

I am still recovering from my sinus infection and on my third antibiotic. The third is because I had a bad reaction to the second one. Levaquin. I will never take that one again! I hope to be doing more painting and organizing this next month. We will see. I am really behind! Hope everyone is doing well! Have a great weekend!

Early Spring Harvest

2009-04-05T20:46:00.003-05:00

We worked a lot in the garden today. Charles is building a new raised bed in the area he usually just plants rows in the ground. It is kind of a soggy area so the raised bed will make planting much better. But the best part of today was dinner. We had grilled bacon wrapped shrimp (yes we splurged!) and a salad made from baby lettuce greens and cherry bell radishes both picked from our garden. We may have some spinach ready in a week or two also. But everything else is at least a month or two away. The tomato and pepper transplants were planted in the ground today, but now we might get another late frost this week. Two late frosts? But I am prepared to protect my seedlings! Hope everyone has a great week!

We Have to Keep Up!

2009-04-01T19:46:00.004-05:00

This video was sent to me by a friend. It is really facinating thatour technology is progressing so fast. I can be a bit of a sarcastic person so I would have had a different ending. I would have ended it with this - "So then why is our air traffic control system still using 1960's radar technology?"

Garden Veggies

2009-03-24T07:59:00.003-05:00

I was asked about what is the easiest thing to grow. I think the cucumbers and the sugar snap peas are the easiest. Sugar snap or snow peas can be planted a few weeks before the last frost date for your area (I think you can plant anytime in April through beginning of May for northern Utah). The cucumbers and peas need something to climb on. Radishes are nice to grow because they grow really fast. This year we are planting rows of radishes with carrots planted in the same row in between each radish. The carrots grow slowly and the radishes are nearly done by the time the carrots start. This makes better use of space. We are trying spinach and leaf lettuce for the first time. I planted the seed about two and a half weeks ago and the leaves are already about an inch. It will probably be another 2-3 weeks before we harvest any of these. Tomatoes and peppers are by far the hardest. They are more labor intensive especially if you start from seed. For first timers buy the plants that are at least 6 inches tall. They need lots of fertilizer but the effort is well worth it. I have never liked tomatoes until I grew my own. They just aren't the same thing. My favorite meal last year was a salad of just tomato, cucumber and basil. Add a little red wine or balsamic vinegar and olive oil and voila! That meal is at least 2-3 months away for me though. We are also trying cilantro and green onions. I am thinking salsa! Okay, I am making myself hungry. Good luck!

It's About Time!

2009-03-19T19:34:00.007-05:00

Yeah, I have been away for awhile. Lots has happened but mainly we have been sick. I was sick a while back and when I finally got caught up, Charles got sick. Then I got sick again. After being out of commission for five days I went back to work yesterday but barely made it thought the day. Then Charles had LASIX surgery on his eyes this morning. It went well and we are now really behind. The azaleas are in full bloom along with the four foot high weeds standing next to the bushes. Logan is in day camp for spring break, starting soccer, and is generally bored while Charles and I are alternating being passed out on the couch with trying to catch up. The house is in complete disarray and I am procrastinating getting my drivers safety course started (did I mention I got a ticket for going out the "in" at a rural truck stop near one of my patients?).

I am also starting a campaign to improve the nutrition of my son's school lunch program. He wont eat the lunch except pizza day but I was appalled at the selection of food offered to students and staff. The day I visited was chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuit and choice of canned green beans, bowl of iceberg lettuce, or canned fruit. Most skipped the semi green veggies and fruit and paid extra for the potato chips. His school offers more types of ice cream you can buy a la carte than healthy food. The school district is even registered with a nutrition website that is a "virtual cafeteria" and lists the real menu. You get a green light for picking the good foods and a yellow light for picking the bad foods. Unfortunately the school doesn't even offer any green light items except canned fruit, iceberg lettuce, canned corn, and canned green beans. That is it for the whole weeks menu. Pretty sad I think. That is why so many kids in his school are overweight. The teachers wont even eat there because they are afraid of gaining weight!

I am also trying to get the garden started but I have a slow start. We are doing all the things we did before but now we have added strawberries, kale, onions, sugar snap peas (here's to you Karen!), peppers, radishes, carrots and cilantro. I have lots more to do in the garden and I am glad for the nice weather! And there will now be a vegetable garden at the White House! I will write again when I wake from my next coma and will hopefully have something interesting to say!

Free Quiznos Sub

2009-02-24T11:37:00.002-06:00

Found a link today to a free sub sandwich from Quiznos. Just make sure that after you click on "Get My Free Sub" that you keep that page open. Once you have your email confirmation (it took about 5 minutes) then go back to that page and under the "Get My Free Sub" button click on "opt out" so you don't get a bunch of marketing spam.

I cant eat the sub because of my gluten intolerance but Charles can. Hope he likes it! They are only doing one million and when I posted this they were only 25 % there.

Have a great day!

Catching Up!

2009-02-20T15:00:00.002-06:00

I am finally better. I had something that made it hard for me to talk and I just coughed all the time. I didn't really feel bad except for not sleeping because of all the coughing. I got a steroid shot to help with that but not sure it made much of a difference. Anyway, lots has happened. So a quick summary.

Logan has been to the ENT several times because he may have to have his tonsils and adenoids taken out. The doctor took another culture and even though the infection keeps coming back it looks we are going to wait at least until the summer. He doesn't have any of the other problems that usually come with this like sleep apnea, snoring, fever etc. So we are in a holding pattern for now. I am really glad about that.

Charles has been working hard. His boss has asked him to start working 50 hours a week so I am back to cooking all the meals. We usually split it. But this will work out okay too. He will just get to do more dishes!

A great nurse that I used to work with died last week from complications related to his cancer. I went to his funeral this past weekend with other past coworkers. He was also a Pentecostal preacher so it was quite a crowd! He will be missed dearly. I just called to check on his wife and the answering machine picked up with his voice on the recording. Now I am really sad. He was only 10 years older than me.

We started some seeds a few weeks ago and now I am ready to put them in some bigger pots until they are ready to transplant. It looks like spring is already here though! Lots of things around here are already blooming. I am just afraid that we are still in for some cold weather and it will kill everything off!

We sprang a surprize on my Dad for his 70th birthday. We are going to meet him this summer on vacation in Vermont. He was very surpised! We had to explain it all to him though - he didn't get the hints we gave.

Well that is a quick update. Hopefully I will get a few pictures up soon.

Sick

2009-02-11T19:37:00.002-06:00

Well, I'm sick with bronchitis. Finally, went to doctor today and took the day off of work because I can't communicate well with anyone. I am really behind in posting and so I will continue to be behind for now. When I have recovered I am just going to just pick up where I left off. Sorry! Have a great day!

Gratitude Week 4

2009-01-28T17:04:00.001-06:00

Oops! This was really supposed to be posted last week. I guess I clicked on "save" and not on "post" - Oh well! So I have it dated the day it was supposed to happen. (not that anyone really cares - this is more of a note to myself!)

1. Bought a new alarm clock. Mine died and I hate waking in the middle of the night not knowing what time it is!

2. Finished work early and had time to read lots of blogs.

3. Got lots of stuff done.

4. Got to sleep in!

5. Had a great evening playing games and reading with Logan.

6. Volunteered in Logan's class and talked about soil. I brought in samples of different things in soil. It was a lot of fun.

7. A peaceful day!

Gratitude Week 3

2009-01-21T15:00:00.000-06:00

1. I got my seed order today!

2. It's my do nothing day (after work of course!)

3. I got some paint to start a new project.

4. I finally got my trees!

5. I finished 6 patients in one day! That only happens when I can find people that will let me see them by 9am.

6. We have a new President! I could go on and on, but I won't here. I want this to be a peacefull blog and so I am leaving politics out of it. I have several friends and family who have very strong opinions on both sides of the issue and do not want to taint my personal (but public) journal with what could be a potentially volitle discussion. Thanks!

7. I got home from work early enough to catch up on my blog reading and writing.

Tree Sale

2009-01-18T16:24:00.004-06:00

Well lets just say that the tree sale sucked! Now it is pretty much my fault. We should have been there earlier. The sale was from 9-2pm and we got there at about 10am. There was a line and we finally got in at 10:45 and there was almost nothing left. I asked a volunteer person what happened to all the trees? And he said "You have to get here by 11 to get what you want." I told him that I still had 5 minutes if that was the case! There were a few things, but not what I wanted to get. It was quite disappointing. Then we went to Whole Foods to get lunch. The chicken roll wraps that I normally get are no longer gluten free. So there went lunch and I just got a salad. Then we went to the paint store and got some paint since we were going to be in that area. I wanted to try a new Benjamin Moore no VOC paint in our back room. I got the primer and some paint samples/chips. We got home and I started to look up stuff on another class I was going to go to today. It is on fruit trees (but not sure I was going to be in the mood since I did not get my fruit trees). It turns out they will have a fruit tree sale next week. Yippie! This place is an hour away, but I thought it would be worth it to go twice if I could just get my trees! So I went. And guess what? They were selling some of the fruit trees that would be at next weeks sale. They had 3 of the 4 trees I wanted to get. The other one was one Charles wanted (a pear tree). They didn't have many trees so I bought mine before the class. But that meant I did not get a seat in the class before they filled up. So I waited. They said they would do a second class since there were so many people that didn't get in. After all that I am now a happy camper. I sure wasn't for a while though. Now next week I can get ready to start some seeds for this springs veggie garden!

Gratitude Week 2

2009-01-14T21:00:00.001-06:00

1. Blue sky. The first after several days of doom and gloom.

2. I got my first two radishes out of the garden and yup, I already ate them! Yum!

3. I learned a lot at a class about fruit trees.

4. The fridge is now full! No more "there's nothing to eat in here!"

5. I found a new, very tasty side dish (or could be a good vegetarian entree).

6. I had a full day of work and stayed busy.

7. I got to read for an hour in bed, uninterrupted!

Quinoa and Roasted Vegetables

2009-01-11T18:12:00.005-06:00

I made a new dish today that just sounded good. I had no recipe but this is very easy, especially if you have a rice cooker. Quinoa (pronounced Keen-wa) is an ancient grain from the Incas but it is really a seed. It has a very mild taste and you can use it for many things. This one is my new favorite, but my favorite before today was to mix in a little milk and berries for breakfast. Yum! Quinoa is very high in fiber (5 g in a one cup serving) and is considered a "complete" food as it has the right proportions of carbs/fats/protein and has all eight of the essential amino acids. I used red quinoa but it can come in several different colors with a light beige color as the most common.

You cook it just like rice. One part quinoa to 2 parts water (or broth). I used a rice cooker but I have also cooked on the stove just like rice. I roasted some veggies that I had on hand - one red bell pepper, two carrots, a small onion, and about a small handful of asparagus spears. If I had remembered, I think garlic would have made it even better. I did a rough chop in the food processor, but you could use your knife to chop. I was being lazy and Charles is cleaning up tonight! I added it to the cooked quinoa and topped with parmasean cheese. Charles loved it. Logan made gagging sounds but he does that to almost everything new so I didn't take it personally!

Best Life Week: Your Money Plan 2009

2009-01-08T21:51:00.003-06:00

Oprah had Suze Orman on today to talk about money. I didn't get to finish all of the show but there are some people out there that just don't have a clue! She has a new book, Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan, out there that you can download for free for the next week. Luckily we are right on track with her plan. We still need to reanalyse things from time to time but we are right were we want to be (except winning the lottery of course!). We got our information several years ago from Dave Ramsey. It is very similar but there are some subtle differences. I think his plan is a bit more "dummy proof" and has better backups for oopses. They did a survey of the audience before the show and found that 225 people in the audience had credit card debt of almost 2.3 million dollars! That is crazy! Just glad I don't! Have a great day!

Gratitude

2009-01-07T19:34:00.000-06:00

As many of you know by now, I really like Oprah and her show. I tape, I mean record (Logan always asks me what it means to "tape" something?) her show everyday and watch it when I get the chance. She has always talked about keeping a gratitude journal and how it has changed many different aspects of her life. I have always wanted to do something like that but have resisted because I am not much for righting stuff down unless it is something I need to remember. But I think here is the perfect place to record my gratitude. This may be more for my benefit than for sharing our family news but you will just have to suffer with my new optimism. So I will try to post once a week a few things I was grateful for that week. I will try to write them for once each day, but I will probably not be perfect. Just a warning! So here it goes.

1. I had a day off work!

2. I got off work early! (uh, I am starting to see a pattern here)

3. It was a nice 80 degree day in January and I got to get some outdoor stuff done before the cold front came.

4. Charles helped me A LOT with the housework today. A slightly rare event!

5. Logan returned back to school. Okay that was my gratitude for the day but I am sure it was not his!

6. Leftovers 2 days in a row. I dont' have to cook!

7. Done with work stuff by bedtime. (Humm... that could be seen as a complaint, I will just call it a touch of sarcasm).

Your Real Age

2009-01-07T08:39:00.003-06:00

With Tuesday's Oprah show Dr Oz explains about your "Real Age" as apposed to your biological age. It calculates how close your life expectency is compared to the average. According to the test my calendar age is 39.8 but my Real Age is 41.3. Humm... thats a year and a half less. I would prefer to be five years extra. Well, that will probably be calculated into my goals somehow. Take the test and post your results in the comments!

"Live Your Best Life"

2009-01-06T21:28:00.007-06:00

Oprah started a new series this week about "Living your best life." She realized that 3 years ago she had made her goal weight and thought she had finally conquered her weight issue. Then this past year she found herself 40 pounds heavier again. She said she was so mad at herself because she thought she had put this all behind her. So she realized she was not alone, and that a lot of people are not paying attention to their bodies. So she started a new series today that addresses many aspects of life. Monday was about fitness. Tuesday is about your health and food. Wednesday is about spirit (not necessarily religion but it can be). Thursday is about money/finances/planning. And Friday is about relationships/sex. She is also going to do a 90 minute webcast next week every weekday about the same subjects in the evening. I read a many blogs and everyone is posting their "how I did on my goals on 2008" posts and other posts that say how they didn't do their goals and how they are going to change for 2009. Many are on the EXACT same subjects as this weeks Oprah shows (okay, I haven't read anyone posting goals about their sex life!). I haven't really put my goals together yet but they each touch on a similar subject that could use improvement.

**Some Oprah show links are now broken. Not sure why but hopefully they will have it fixed soon.

Recap

2009-01-03T08:19:00.005-06:00

There are many things that I am planning to do this year to improve my life, my family's life and my surroundings. My new goals are "evolving" as I said before and I don't have them quit defined yet. My previous goals

1. Improve our finances.
2. Spend more time having fun! (Got to have #1 to do #2)
3. Get in better physical shape. (I know - practice what you preach. I am a physical therapist after all!)
4. Be more organized.

Well there is The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!

The Good:
Our finances have greatly improved. Amazing in this economy. Our retirement funds and Logan's college fund did dive but there is more time for them to pop back up. Lots of time! We are completely debt free except the house. We still owe just over $100,000 on it. Charles' new job he got a year ago turned out to be a great thing. He has now become a permanent employee and has had two raises so far. He is also a foreman of the whole metal shop and the company is planning to expand in this year. It is a very stable company with booked contracts through 2010 and it also has no debt. The owner runs everything on profits. I have changed my working situation too. Since things were looking up I now work mainly as a contract physical therapist for many different home health agencies. That allowed me to close in my coverage area. I can get more visits done in an 8 hour day if I want to. But instead I have chosen to limit my hours so that I can put Logan on the school bus in the morning and be home when he gets off. I am also taking a day off every other week to volunteer in his class and take some time for myself. Now down to the numbers. With Charles working we have managed to save $25,000 this past year. We have it in a high interest savings account that earned 3.5% last year (just got my statement). That is our emergency fund and we don't plan on touching it unless one of us is unable to work. I think we did so well because we stuck to our budget and our best tool was to use cash for food, household stuff, and our remodeling. I also had a cash budget for Logan's clothes and haircuts. I did have to increase the food budget during the third quarter so we weren't eating pasta and rice all the time with the increase in food prices. We had enough left over at the end of the year that we bought a new TV (and of course I found a great deal). So our number one goal last year was to improve our finances. We have definitely done that. This year we will continue to save so that we are putting money in our retirement and college funds and the extra will go to some desperately needed remodeling (If you have seen my kitchen you know what I mean!).

And the fun part - we have mostly stayed at home for fun stuff. We watch DVDs that I get at the library. I just watched the Great Debators last night. Really good! We are reading more. We are spending more time in the garden working on the yard. We are trying to get more projects done. We did take some day trips this year to local happenings and parties. Nothing big, but we were never bored. This year we are planning to travel a bit which we have not done in a while.

The Bad

Getting organized. Well, in my defense we have gotten rid of a lot of stuff. I had made a few trips to drop of stuff at the thrift store and we finally cleaned out the "junk room" We plan on turning it into a loungeing room with a new futon for guests. Still working out the details on that. Overall it has improved since I have had a little more time to work on it, but here is still lots of room for improvement!

The REALLY Ugly

Getting in better shape. That hasn't gone as well. I go in spurts and do well for a few weeks then I fall off the wagon! I believe that this one is now going to the top of the list this year. I plan on making this my number one priority and will be working out a plan to do it over the coming weeks. You have to have a plan!

So now you know what I did last year. Soon I will post my new goals and will recap them as the year goes on.

Good luck to everyone in the new year!!

Change is Coming!

2009-01-02T19:55:00.002-06:00

There are not only changes around the world, but there are some changes in MY world! It's a new year so it is that time again to recap and look to the future. I am starting off slow and so far the blog is the first step. I was getting a little bored with the layout and wanted something a little wider. Hopefully you will like the changes. In the coming days I will update everyone on the new stuff. Don't get too excited though. It's not huge but it is an evolution. It has to do with blog, house, life, blah, blah, blah...

But first things first...

1. New blog layout.

More later.

Presents Galore!

2008-12-27T19:04:00.010-06:00

Twas the night before Christmas... Logan wore the Santa hat for nearly two weeks straight including to bed, but I would only let him wear it to school on the last day before vacation.

Santa has been here!

"I got more Hot Wheels than I can count but my Hot Wheels over the door organizer still isn't full!"

Notice that Santa ate all his milk and cookies!

And one of my favorite gifts... cold hard cash!

Are there more Hot Wheels in there?

Future West Virginia Student!

Logan got a letter in the mail from Santa a few days before Christmas. In it Santa said that he saw the elves working on a very special gift for him. Logan is convinced that a set of golf clubs is the best gift he could have ever gotten!

It was a great day. Charles and I gave each other some very practical gifts like a blender (to replace the two identical ones we have that barely work), a frying pan (when I said to a man in the store that I was going to give it to my husband, he was convinced that I was going to hit him over the head!) and we all got stainless steel water bottles so no more plastic bottles allowed!

It's Snowing!!!!!!

2008-12-10T20:18:00.007-06:00

Snow is a very rare thing here. The last time it snowed was Christmas Eve (yeah, perfect timing!) of 2003. It was very light and only lasted about an hour. We were out to eat when Dad and Nan were here. The cars were dusted and it was mostly gone by the time we got home. It was very exciting.

Well it has been snowing here since this afternoon, lightly but constant and we are expecting it to continue into the night! Now I am wondering about school tomorrow. This would be no big deal in most of the states but here it could be disastrous since the ground is wet and much of the area is expected to stay below freezing all night. Houston in general does not have resources to take care of snowy or icy roads.

Logan thinks this is the greatest thing ever!

When the bus pulled up the kids had all the windows down and stuck their arms and heads out when the bus stopped to let Logan off. They were very loud and having a great time!

Logan is collecting it off of my car and making ice balls to throw at Charles.

This is my car later in the evening. Crazy! Hard to believe it will be 75 this weekend!

THE NEXT MORNING - The snow on the ground was all gone, but on everything else it had all turned to ice. School is on time in our area but not in the areas I work in. We got 1" of snow and parts of Houston got 2.5"!! Traffic in Houston is a nightmare. Luckily I head the other way. But I have a light day and will probably start late just to avoid any sitting in traffic. They said we may do this all again next week!

Free Christmas Songs

2008-12-05T23:25:00.003-06:00

Check out Amazon for a free daily Christmas song download through Christmas Day! I was able to download all five songs listed as of today to iTunes.

We Like To Move It!

2008-12-04T09:12:00.003-06:00

This will make you smile!
(click the enlarge box to get the full effect.)

Soup Night!

2008-11-23T16:38:00.003-06:00

I have been feeling like soup lately. It has gotten cooler and I need to free up some freezer space for Holiday stuff. This is my favorite soup recipe and I make enough to freeze some and have at a later time.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

6 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 (6 inch) corn tortillas, coarsely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 onion, chopped
1 (29 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
3 bay leaves
6 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
5 boneless chicken breast halves, cooked

In a large stock pot heat oil. Add tortillas, garlic, cilantro and onion. Saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in tomatoes and bring to a boil. Add cumin, chili powder, bay leaves and chicken stock. Return to a boil, reduce heat to medium and add salt and cayenne. Simmer for 30 minutes remove bay leaves and stir in chicken. Heat through and serve.

Now, I used to cut up everything and it took forever, especially shredding the chicken. But with the food processor I got this summer this soup was much faster to make. I cut up the tortillas with a knife and threw in the pot. I put the onion, garlic and a couple handfuls of cilantro in the processor and zap... Done! Started to cook those while I threw in a big bag of thawed homegrown tomatoes into the processor and zap...into the pot. Then cut the chicken breasts into quarters and into the processor zap... Done. It was that quick. And I am sure it will be yummy!

Charles is outside starting to build our new arbor/patio. It should be wonderful. Now if we can just figure a way to get rid of the masses of mosquitoes, I might acturally get out there to use it!

Get Something For Nothing!

2008-11-12T20:06:00.002-06:00

Oprah had a special today about clutter. I recorded that one because I could use all the help I can get! Well they are giving away a free custom picture book from Snapfish.com. Go to this link then click on "Get your free book" to make your book. It is usually $30 and all you have to pay for is shipping! I have been wanting to redo our wedding album and this may be the best way to do it. But you only have till Friday to sign up and then have to upload the photos and purchase the book by Sunday. Not much time. And I have to scan all the pictures I want to use. But it might be worth it!

On My Soap Box

2008-10-24T14:32:00.011-05:00

I just finished watching The 11th Hour, a documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio about the energy crisis. It was similar to Al Gore's movie in that it provided a lot of statistics but it was definitely more interesting. Not just a power point presentation. A few things really stuck with me.

1. Is Global Warming true? One person in the movie clearly stated that if you look at all the facts (I won't go into the facts here, you can watch the movie or do your own research), there is a change in many areas of nature that are not flowing in natural patterns. By "not believing" in global warming you are treating it like people treat religion. You choose to believe or not believe in a particular religion. But the facts of our climate change are indisputable. Facts are facts whether they are believed or not.

2. Our population growth. I did not realize how fast the world population is really growing. In 1800 it was less than 1 billion, 1900 about 1.6 billion, 1950 about 2.5 billion, 2000 about 6 billion and 2005 it was 6.45 billion. At some point our population will outgrow our resources. And I don't just mean oil but food. We have already seen glimpses of food shortages in other parts of the world that have had little affect here.

3. Corporate economic globalization. Big corporations are only more important to the government because they collectively have more money than individuals. Corporations run government not the people. It's a greed thing. Enough said.

4. Property vs. person. Everything is either property or it is a person. You think that the air you breath and the rain falling from the sky is free. But in Colorado and in some other parts of the world it is not. The Colorado Constitution prohibits individuals from collecting rainwater because you are taking it away from someone who has water rights further down the line. I found this out when looking for rain barrel collectors at online stores and saw there were warnings to those who live in Colorado. Who do you want controlling our precious resources. People or corporations?

5. (This was not in the movie but is from my own research) The majority of our world's food supply is controlled by big private corporations that are heavily supported by our government. They produce genetically uniform crops that have been genetically altered to: produce terminator seeds (they cannot reproduce), have resistance to chemicals like weed killer so that petroleum based pesticides and herbicides can be sprayed on them, have DNA that have been patented so that if your crop is contaminated by pollen from their plants at a nearby farm, you can be sued for paten infringement (link). The other problem with less diversity is your are taking a risk of major crop failure. Remember the advice to diversify in economics? If one year a particular bug becomes resistant to the pesticides it could wipe out the entire crop where that bug lives. One American company controls about 90 percent of genetically engineered soy, cotton and canola seed markets and has a large piece of the corn seed market. They also provide seeds or have cooperation with seed providers in nearly every type of seed out there.

11the Hour Trailer

Link to a movie about that seed corporation. I didn't put it on the blog because it automatically loads (annoying!).

Free Tea or Coffee

2008-10-24T07:46:00.003-05:00

Check out this coupon for a free coffee, tea, latte, or cappuccino at Starbucks that are located inside Barnes and Nobles Bookstores!

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

2008-10-12T19:59:00.002-05:00

Beverly Hills Chihuahua turned out to be a really cute movie! Logan and I went while Charles went to a football game. I thought it would be an okay talking dog movie for kids but it really was a lot better than that. There were many stars in the movie and of course the dogs were really cute.

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes website: (it's late and I'm tired!)
In the Disney comedy, BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA, a pampered Beverly Hills Chihuahua named Chloe (voice of DREW BARRYMORE) finds herself accidentally lost in the mean streets of Mexico without a day spa or Rodeo Drive boutique anywhere in sight. Now alone for the first time in her spoiled life, she must rely on some unexpected new friends -- including a street-hardened German Shepherd named Delgado (voice of ANDY GARCIA) and an amorous pup named Papi (voice of GEORGE LOPEZ) -- to lend her a paw and help her to find her inner strength on their incredible journey back home.

Walt Disney Pictures presents BEVERLY HILLS CHIHUAHUA, directed by Raja Gosnell (“Scooby Doo”), screenplay by Analisa LaBianco from a story by Jeff Bushell and starring an all-star cast including Piper Perabo, Manolo Cardona and Jamie Lee Curtis with the voices of Andy Garcia, Plácido Domingo, George Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Paul Rodriguez, Cheech Marin and Drew Barrymore.

Now How Did We Get Here Again?

2008-10-07T15:37:00.004-05:00

One of the podcasts I listen to often is This American Life. This weeks story, called " is about credit default swaps. Never heard of them? Me neither. But it is one reason why we can't just turn this thing around without some serious government regulation of borrowing money and insurance on borrowing money. There are actually companies out there paying for insurance on other company's loans. The insurance is cheap with a modest return if your company makes good payments. The insurance price goes up with a great returns if your company is riskier. Does this sound a bit like gambling? That's why AIG had to be bailed out. They lost the bets and did not have the capital to pay out. There are regulations on house insurance for the average consumer but none on "credit default swaps" that are turning out to be the downfall of the economy. Crazy! You could say that episode it is Part 2 because they did another show, " a while back that explained how the mortgage mess got started. The recent one can still be downloaded for free until Sunday. The other you have to listen from the website or pay 0.95 to download it. Both are worth a listen (about an hour each).

As I am writing this the DOW closed today at 9,447.11. Wow! I have yet to contribute to our IRAs this year and it looks like now is the time to buy. It may go down further but since I have a long time to retirement this might give me a bit of a head start (and make up for what I am losing right now!)

The following is an email that has been bouncing around. Wouldn't that be a surprise if it really happened. Unfortunately it would cause way more problems than it would solve, because too many Americans are foolish and greedy when it comes to money. Isn't that the REAL reason we are in this mess?

The Birk Economic Recovery Plan:

I’m against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG. Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a “We Deserve It” dividend. To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+. Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a “We Deserve It” dividend. Of course, it would NOT be tax free. So let’s assume a tax rate of 30%. Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes. That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam. But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife has $595,000.00. What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.
Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads
Put away money for college - it’ll be there
Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.
Buy a new car - create jobs
Invest in the market - capital drives growth
Pay for you r parent’s medical insurance - health care improves
Enable Deadbeat Moms and Dads to come clean - or else

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we’re going to re-distribute wealth let’s really do it…instead of trickling out a puny $1000.00 ( ‘vote buy’ ) economic incentive that is being proposed by one of our candidates for President.

If we’re going to do an $85 billion bailout, let’s bail out every adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it. Sell off its parts. Let American General go back to being American General.
Sell off the real estate. Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up. Here’s my rationale. We deserve it and AIG doesn’t. Sure it’s a crazy idea that can ‘never work.’

But can you imagine the Coast-To-Coast Block Party! How do you spell Economic Boom? I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion “We Deserve It”dividend more than I do the geniuses at AIG or in Washington DC .
And remember, The Birk plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5 Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam. Ahhh…I feel so much better getting that off my chest.

Kindest personal regards,

T. J. Birkenmeier, A Creative Guy & Citizen of the Republic

PS: Feel free to pass this along to your pals as it’s either good for a laugh or a tear or a very sobering thought on how to best use $85 Billion!!

Too bad this guy didn't have a calculator!
That is only $425 per person! I'll take the $1000!

Fall Garden

2008-10-03T20:10:00.006-05:00

Tomorrow I hope to add to the fall garden. Hopefully carrots, garlic and mixed winter greens. We already have peppers on the jalapeño plant and the Cherokee Purple Tomato is already 8 inches tall. Both made it through Ike without any extra help from me. I also have some sage for fresh herbs to use in my holiday recipes. This winter I will go to the annual Urban Harvest fruit tree sale in January and will hopefully get some trees to provide more bounty to our fridge! I would love to get a satsuma tree, a lemon tree and an apple or pear tree.

I want to share a video. These people have a blog that I love and websites with lots of great gardening info.

It's hard to believe that they have property that is one fifth the size of ours and grow that much food. I am adding to ours slowly. But I am also trying to add things that do not require to be replanted every year. We shall see. Baby steps!

Sleep

2008-09-23T15:49:00.003-05:00

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime?

Vote!

2008-09-20T08:29:00.002-05:00

I stole this from my friend Karen's blog.

My Electricity Thanksgiving

2008-09-20T07:31:00.005-05:00

The electricity came on yesterday morning. A full one to two weeks earlier than it was supposed to. We have a deep freeze full of wonderful food that I would have been really sad to see go to waste, but luckily we had a propane generator. I have tomatoes that I grew in my own garden and blueberries that we picked this summer. We also shop every month at Sam's club and our freezer had lots of meat. Now it is only half full because we chose to eat the freezer stuff first instead of things in the pantry. We were prepared and never went hungry. And we never had to find a P.O.D. (Points of Distribution) for water, ice and MREs (Charles calls those "Meals that Refuse to Exit"). I might have actually gained weight since we were home and bored at times so we ate a little more. Charles went to work on Tuesday. I started back a half day on Friday. School is still closed and will reopen for students on Thursday next week. So he will probably go into daycare for three days. All of this because we had no electricity. We didn't go anywhere until yesterday because I didn't want to use any gas. For seven days Logan and I didn't leave our street and we were both going a little stir crazy. You still cant get gas in our town even though the power is back on. They are waiting for deliveries. That is hopefully something that FEMA will reevaluate. They need to stage more tankers next time. We even had a few stations that had generators and sold what they had but they shut down again because they couldn't get anything delivered. That seems a bit of a waste of a good generator to sit idle at a gas station. So we ventured out last night because Charles had to by some new boots for work. The town of Humble was mostly back to normal so we also decided to go out to eat at Chili's. Logan went a bit crazy! I'm sure he had low blood sugar at that point but he was so amped up about being out of our neighborhood that he couldn't stop smiling. It was really cute. But the stores closed at 8pm because the curfew was still in effect. So home we went. I am very glad we are back to normal. There are many people that lost everything and it will be a long time before they are back to normal. What is really heartbreaking is reading about the stories of people that moved here from NOLA when they lost everything in Katrina. And they show them cleaning up or loosing it all over again from Ike.

Ike Takes a Hike!

2008-09-18T19:26:00.003-05:00

Well, we made it through! This is just a quick one to let everyone know we are okay and so is the house. Our neighborhood fared pretty well. Others just a few miles away didn't do so well. And those near the coast lost everything. We are pretty lucky as I understand Ike had a severe impact all the way to Canada. We have the yard mostly cleaned up. We never lost phone or water thankfully and our hot water is powered by propane. Our neighbors have electric hot water heaters and several have showed up at our doorstep daily with bath towel and coffee maker in hand. We have a propane powered generator and have not had a problem keeping it running like others do trying to find gas to put in it. We are not expected to get electricity back until Sept 29-Oct 5 so we are in this for a while. I am starting back to work tomorrow and a neighbor is going to watch Logan. School will be out until they get power back and we were told it is closed "until further notice." Not sure if there was any damage there or not. I do work with people that had trees go through their house so things could have been a lot worse. Our area still does not have gas either so we have to drive into Humble (about 10 miles) to get what we need as they should be back up 100% by Monday.

Now about the storm itself. Charles insisted on staying and the government people encouraged people to stay if they were not under an evacuation order so that the roads would be clear for those that HAVE to leave. But lets just say that if it is a Cat 2 or more I will probably be going. That wasn't much fun. It was loud and a bit spooky. I asked a good friend here about how she did through the storm and she said that she would never do that again. I told her that I would be glad to evacuate with her! Our husbands can fend for themselves while we take our kids on a little vacation for a few days! They can call me when the electricity is back on! Charles and Logan slept through the whole thing. At about 5 am the wind stopped and I woke Charles up to go walk the dog. We knew that we should have strong winds until the afternoon so it was really the only chance. It lasted about an hour then it started all over again.

So I will blog some more when I am off generator or have a better system set up. Just wanted to let everyone know that all is well in New Caney TX. Just a little bored with living by flashlights!

I Feel Like I Am In A Cave

2008-09-11T21:32:00.003-05:00

Well, Ike will be here by tomorrow afternoon/evening and all the windows are boarded up. It's kind of depressing when you are in a pitch black house and you know there is sun on the other side of the windows! We have gotten a few calls and emails about whether or not we are evacuating. We are not in a low lying area and we are about 60-70 miles from the coast but it is expected that we will have winds in our area of 75-110 miles per hour and the eye is expected to whip straight over us. The Houston mayor has advised all those in sound structures who are not in an evacuation area or areas prone to flooding to stay put. His exact words in true Texas fashion were to "hunker down!" So that's what we are doing, and so are the majority of our neighbors. The hardest thing to figure out though is where to put our dog Mustard. He is an outside only dog and has only been inside our home once for a few minutes just after a bath and a vet visit. He chews everything he can get his mouth around so we are not sure what will be good. In the morning he is going on the front porch so he is a protected area, has access to use the facilities as needed and we have easy access to him. Maybe we can block him off in the kitchen somehow. Not sure but it should be fun. The cat is already in the garage and will stay there until Saturday afternoon. Charles actually has to go to work tomorrow but will hopefully get home really early. Then we will all be stuck in the house for at least 24 hours and not even able to look out the windows. Oh well. I am expecting to not have any electricity for possibly a week. When I get it back I will blog on the experience. It should be interesting!

My only pet peeve about the preparations is how unprepared people are. We have known it was heading to Texas for about 5 days and people were scrambling around today to buy everything they could including gas and water. Then they get upset that everything was gone. Hello people!!! Although I must confess, that I did go to the grocery store today. I discovered this morning that we only had two rolls of toilet paper in the house. I can live without electricity for a while but toilet paper?!! One can only take so much...

The BIG Post

2008-08-23T17:21:00.011-05:00

Well, lots has happened in the past month that I have not gotten around to post about. So here it goes!

Charles added a new raised bed to our backyard. It took the whole weekend and he did a great job.

You start with this...

and add this...

and you get this...

Those are blueberry bushes. I am going to order strawberry crowns and plant them in the middle and around the edges.

Then I harvested enough basil to make pesto all year long. This was about half the pile washed and trying to dry it a little.

This was all of it with the stems removed.
Then processed in the new food processor with olive oil.
I filled a few ice cube trays and popped them in the deep freeze. Now I have two bags of basil cubes. It only take one to make enough pesto for one dinner and some leftovers for spreading on toast for my lunches.

And lastly, Logan went to a local YMCA overnight camp for first time campers. It was from a Sunday afternoon to a Friday afternoon. From the moment he got up Sunday and every two minutes, he was asking if it was time to leave yet. He was so excited! After about two hours of "Is it time to go yet?" I got out the digital timer and set it to count down to the moment of departure. Then for the next five hours I heard, " Only 4 hours and 23 minutes until we leave." He wouldn't go play or do anything else except follow me around and announce the minutes to go every two minutes.

This is his bunk. We got to help him set it all up. Camp was a great motivator to get him to start doing things on his own. Like he would usually not take a shower without someone turning on the water and waiting until he got in and then you had to magically be there when he got out. I told him that if he didn't learn to do it himself that he would be the only one there with a Mommy in the bunkhouse. It also got him to start cutting his own pancakes and such. Worked like a charm!

These last two were added because Dad thought Logan looked a little worried. He was really jumping off the walls. The last ten minutes he was really quiet and didn't say anything.

Oh and I was also in a car accident. I was rear ended by a pickup truck and the driver had no insurance and no license! Luckily I have uninsured motorist and rental car on my policy. Hopefully I will get it back next week. No one was hurt at least!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2008-08-03T08:45:00.009-05:00

Animal, Vegetable , Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is my new favorite book. I don't get much chance to read a book through but I "listen" to them in the car while I drive all day for work. I had listened to this one earlier in the year and I just re-listened to the whole thing and I love it even more. This is one that got me motivated to do the garden. She is an award winning writer who decided to write about her family's experience homesteading and eating mostly local foods in western Virginia. They moved from Tucson where things don't grow easily to the lush mountains of Appalachia. They gave up things that they could not find locally like bananas and mostly ate what they grew themselves or bought from local sources. It took them about a year to get the resources set up and they started the next spring. They even raised their own chickens for eggs and meat and started a flock of heirloom turkeys for the meat. Parts of the book are very funny like when her turkey hen started to woo her husband since they imprinted on humans as their "family". It also explained the current politics and growing practices of the 99% of our current food supply. Most of which I already new was bad for the planet and for people. It turns out that the majority of food grown conventionally (with pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and herbivore meat animals forced to eat other animal remnants) is much, much less nutrient forcing us to take supplements to meet our nutritional needs. Like regular eggs have a lot of cholesterol and saturated fats. But free range (not the same as cage free, believe it or not) chickens produce eggs with more of the good cholesterol and unsaturated fats and are naturally high in omega 3 oils ( I used to wonder how they got those omega 3s into the egg with cartons labeled "higher in omega 3s").

I have to say that we are really enjoying our garden produce and are already planning for the fall garden. This book is well written as are all her books and was a big inspiration to getting out there and just doing it. My new prescription of Nasonex also helped since I don't have the side effects of allergies like I did last summer. I would even think of getting a few hens for the eggs but I think at this point that would be biting off more than I can chew. Maybe when I "really" go part time. She also has a nice little website with meal ideas and recipes.

Blogging Games

2008-07-18T19:57:00.006-05:00

Okay, my friend Karen is doing a blog "game" and I am joining in. She asked readers to post a memory of meeting her.

This is straight from her blog:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

New Matt Dancing Video

2008-07-16T07:22:00.005-05:00

I think I shared a video by email that showed a man dancing at different places in the world. Well he has a new video for 2008. The website also has an outtakes video that is almost better than the polished one. Check it out!

(To improve the resolution, click on the video after it starts to go to the YouTube website. Then click on "watch in high quality")

2008 video

Outtakes video

New Washing Machine

2008-07-06T08:14:00.005-05:00

Just before I got sick our washing machine died. It made a really awful noise when it ran. I paid the $65 dollars for the repair guy to come out and tell me it was the motor and some other thingamajig and it was going to be about $700 dollars to fix it! Well it was about seven years old and decided I would rather spend $700 on a new one, duh! So this is our new washer. It's a GE energy star and I have to say I like it much better than our old one. The clothes come out cleaner and it uses half as much water. I also use half as much detergent and that is important since I have to use the more expensive stuff due to allergies. The big thing that I notice is that when I dry the clothes there is almost no lint in the dryer. I guess that means my clothes will look less worn out over time (I hope). And we spent about $850 on it all together. I just hope it lasts more than 7 years!

I recently switched from Seventh Generation laundry soap to Charlie's Soap. No I didn't buy it because of the name! I was looking for something a little easier to find and a little cheaper. I have tried all kinds of detergents and even the dye and fragrance free stuff like All Free still makes me break out. The Seventh Generation is about $7-8 dollars and I have to drive 30 minutes to get it. And it's more concentrated and takes up less space and plastic. So if you make the plunge into the front load washers I think you will like it (except the extra cost!).

Good Eats!

2008-06-29T14:59:00.007-05:00

Last night we had a fabulous dinner! We had pasta and a Chicken/Apple sausage that was very tasty. It was a little heavy and would be great in the winter. Then we had a salad that was made almost completely from things in the garden: cucumbers, cherokee tomato, basil, salt, red wine vinegar, and olive oil. It was the best salad all summer! Then today I finally bought a food processor. The first thing I did was roast a whole bunch of left over veggies laying around and pulverized them. I mixed the mash (garlic, onions, red bell pepper, asparagus, carrot and tomato) with an equal part of low fat sour cream and a bit of salt. Viola a great chip dip. That was today's lunch. I probably should have eaten the dip with cucumber (we have plenty - can you roast cucumber?), but the chips really hit the spot. I will put a few spoonfuls of the stuff in the fritatta that I will make tonight and serve it with a salad. It should be pretty good. Then tomorrow I will be harvesting basil again. That was one of the reasons for getting the food processor. I used a blender last time to process the basil and olive oil. It took an hour and was quite a mess. The herbs were not heavy enough to get down to the blades in the blender and I'll never do that again! So in a few days I will have a ton of ice cube shaped blocks of basil and oil. Hopefully I will get a few more harvests and will have enough basil to last the year.

Bon Appetite!

Catching Up

2008-06-28T07:27:00.007-05:00

I'm finally getting back to doing all my usual things. I haven't written much this month, so here are some things I meant to post when I was sick.

For Memorial Day, we went to The Health Museum to see a new exhibit called "Grossology". It talked about all the gross things your body does, like farts and bugers. It's interactive and Logan thought it was a lot of fun. There is even a station where you name that smell! Just imagine stinky feet, armpits, bad breath and you guessed it, farts! It is a temporary exhibit just for the summer. Then we toured the rest of the museum that was more serious but I was really disappointed. About half of the interactions did not work and you were left wondering what it was all about. Here is a picture of Logan on the "blemish" climbing wall.

Here is Charles pulling nose hairs!

Then one early morning we went blueberry picking at Moorehead's Blueberry Farm about 10 miles away. We got 8 pounds at $1.50 per pound!

Logan and I can only take about one hour of picking then it gets way too hot. We go back and wait for Charles and eventually we have to call him on his cell phone to get him to give it up. So this year he went back on his own one morning and came back with eleven pounds! We ate some fresh for a few weeks, gave some away and froze the rest. We will have enough to last us till next picking season.

Then there is the garden. I really think we planted too much in this little space, so next year we will spread out a bit more. We are planning a few more beds and it will make it a little easier. Here is a picture of the garden earlier in June. And since then it is even bigger. The Cherokee Tomato is now much taller than me. We had to add extra support to the tomato cages. We had a good storm the other day and it caused all the vines that are standing nice and tall in the picture to bend back toward the ground over the cages. We may loose a few branches because of it. Next year we will probably not use the cages but build a tall frame and tie them to it.

Here are "Red Star" and "Cherokee Purple".

We have been picking about 20-30 cucumbers each week. Our co-workers love us!

Well that's it for today. I have a few more things to post about. But it will have to wait. Too much to do!

Sick!

2008-06-22T18:28:00.003-05:00

Uh, well... it's been a long time since I have posted. A lot has happened but the worst was that I was really sick with what I think was the flu. It really knocked me out and I was out of the game for five days. The past week was all about catching up on everything that I should have done. I plan on posting about several things that has happened in the past week that I want to post on but haven't gotten to. So... It will be coming this week. (I hope!)

Stumbles

2008-05-31T06:59:00.004-05:00

We had some bumps in the road this week. The first was that my garden is a little sick . It has a fungus. We had to pull out 6 of the 9 squash plants, a few cucumber plants and I should have pulled at least one of the tomato plants out but I am trying to see if it will live. I went to a local garden center that has a lot of organic solutions to your garden woes. I had a branch of my tomato plant in hand and after careful inspection with a magnifying glass the man there declared it was a fungus. So we now have this stuff to spray on it. Guess what it is? It's another fungus! Who would have thought. So far no more plants have died and hopefully the rest of the growth will be healthy. We are still getting a lot of cucumbers and since they don't freeze well we are giving most of them away. We have probably had almost 20 of them now. We have eaten all of the squash that was picked but the plants that are left have stopped producing. Hopefully that will change.

The other bummer this week was that someone siphoned nearly a full tank of gas out of Charles's truck. It happened sometime over Memorial Day weekend and right in our driveway. And he had even installed a driveway light a few weeks ago that comes on by itself at night. Go figure. So now he put some thingamajig in that will prevent a tube from going down in the tank. That will hopefully stop them!

So it is a new week and hopefully things will be better! Hope all is well for everyone else!

Garden update

2008-05-18T20:51:00.005-05:00

Well it seems I have grossly overestimated the amount of things I can grow in a 9ft x 9ft space. Things started to get a little wild and we had to take some quick action. Last year our garden was a complete wipe out due to too much rain and poor drainage in the back or our property. So we have started to make some raised gardens. With only one completed I wanted to make the most it. We never grew things organically before and just relied on the standard Miracle Grow to guide us through. We never grew plants this big before. The cucumber started to spread out to the grass so Charles made a trellis. The tomato plants that we bought (Cherokee Purple) just started to produce some tomatoes and they are already to the top of the tomato cages. And the squash leaves are crowding out the basil. Maybe next time I will learn. Things need a little more space. But what we have had so far has been pretty good! We did have a problem with fungus on the basil and it started to take the tomato plants. But I found that sprinkling corn meal on the ground and the leaves inhibits fungus growth. I also spray garlicky, soapy water on the leaves to repel bugs. But it does have to be done pretty often. So far I have not had anything devastating that I needed to go out and buy some chemicals to fix. I gave each plant a few handfuls of compost two weeks ago and within days everything had lots of extra growth. Next year I will plan a little better. But looking at all those seed packets made me hungry!

A New Earth

2008-05-18T07:20:00.003-05:00

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle is one of the first new age type books that I really connected with. And it would have not been as enlightening without the discussions that you can watch or listen to on Oprah's website or iTunes. The ideas that I learned in the book that at least partly influence my life now are:

1. I am less irritated by people. I now know why people complain or get upset about things that are not in their/my control. Most of the time I can step back and see that reacting to things only fuels the fire.

2. I have a better vision about what I want to do with my life. I have been doing the same exact job for over 9 years (home health physical therapist) and I love it. But to advance means that I have to do less patient care, so I have declined all "job" opportunities to advance. I now know that I will need to make my own parallel opportunities instead of moving up. I started this when I decided to write a book and I didn't put it together with this concept until I read this book.

3. I appreciate and look for more "stillness" in my life. Not so much the running around and to do lists where every moment is planned. Now it's okay if things don't get done when I planned. (Do they ever work out that way anyways?)

There has been an overwhelming amount of controversy about this book online that mostly comes from fundamentalist Christian's and I suspect very few of them have actually read the entire book. There are a few parts (very few) that discuss religion, Jesus, and the existence of other religions and their parallels with Christianity. Of course you can't please everyone all the time no matter what your opinion. But like with any instructional, self-help book, you have to take the parts that apply to you and leave the rest. The three big influences that I listed above can be applied to anyone and have nothing to do with religion.

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to make more peace in their life.

Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Sauce

2008-05-10T17:36:00.005-05:00

I made this one last week for the second time and still love it. I found this recipe in a magazine at a doctor's office. I don't remember which magazine. I had just enough time to scribble down the ingredients and make a few other notes and I made the rest up.

Sauce:
2 pounds of tomatillos, paper layer removed and sticky stuff washed off
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 cup of chopped onion
1/3 cup cilantro lightly packed
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Cut tomalillos in half and place on a baking sheet. Broil 7-9 minutes turning once until it starts to brown.
2. Saute onions in oil until translucent.
3. Blend all above ingredients in a blender except broth and cream.
4. Heat sauce in a sauce pan for about 5 minutes until hot, stirring frequently.
5. Add broth and cream and heat for 5 more minutes, stirring frequently.
6. Set aside.

Enchiladas:
12 corn tortillas
2 tablespoons of olive oil
3 cups of shredded cooked chicken (I do this before I make the sauce)
1 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cup of grated monterey jack cheese
1/2 cup of onion
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1. Mix chicken, half of the cheeses, onion, salt and 1/2 cup of the sauce together in a bowl.
2. Brush the tortillas with oil and heat in microwave until warm.
3. Put 1/3 of the remaining sauce in the bottom of a 9in.x13in pan.
4. Roll a couple spoonfuls of the chicken mixture in a tortilla and place in the pan. Do the same for all the tortillas.
5. Top the enchiladas with the remaining sauce and then the cheese.
6. Bake 20-30 minutes at 375 degrees.

They are supposed to come out as individual enchiladas, but for some reason the tortillas kind of falls apart and it turns out to be more of a casserole. Still tastes great! We usually eat half and freeze the other half for an easy dinner a few weeks later.

Have You Heard About the VA Pension?

2008-05-02T21:34:00.004-05:00

While doing research on the book, I have come across a little known benefit for veterans that served during a war. Click on the banner to get to one of the websites that explains the program. Unfortunately, I was not able to find much explanation about the program on the VA website. Another website called VetAssist also has very good information about the program.

This is a program for all eligible war veterans or their surviving spouses and pays a monthly pension. Click here to see maximum rates paid. Countable income is subtracted from the maximum rate to get your benefit. Be aware that if you already receive a military pension you may not be eligible. If you receive state benefits like Medicaid, food stamps or a provider service, this may jeopardize your eligibility for those programs depending on your state.

I have had a few patients apply and they are still waiting to be accepted. One co-worker's friend has been accepted and is receiving a monthly check.

I hope this helps someone. I posted this especially for my friends in home health near Fort Hood. Hope all is well guys!

The Garden is Growing!

2008-04-27T08:16:00.009-05:00

We planted the garden in a new spot this year after last year's spot got flooded and everything was lost. This time we have a raised bed and are trying to do it all in an organic way. This isn't so easy when you get fire ants but so far I have had some good luck using orange oil. It is a little more work but the ant hill came up right next to the plants and I really didn't want to spread ant poison inches away from the cucumbers!

So here is the garden before the seedlings were planted.

And here is the garden this morning. We have summer squash (front, left), cucumbers (front, right), sweet basil (down the middle), Cherokee Purple tomato (back left - we bought those already 10 inches tall), and San Marzano tomatoes (back right - from seeds and probably transplanted too early). In the pots on the left are blueberries that we will plant in a bed against the garage. In the pots on the right are plants that are supposed to repel mosquitos (not really effective).

The first squash blossom even opened this morning.

Here are some pictures I took last week of flowers in the front yard. They are all gone now except the weedy ones (the yellow flowers).

And here's one of three of the boys!

So if you happen to be around in about a month, drop by for dinner. We will probably be having pasta with a tomato basil sauce, sauted summer squash and a cucumber salad!

Free Shopping Tote

2008-04-22T20:58:00.004-05:00

There were many places you could get a free shopping tote bag in the past few days. I got a great one at Whole Foods that is 80% recycled and if it wears out they will replace it for free! I also just found out (but too late) that you could have gotten one at Walmart and Home Depot too. If you still want one you can take this quiz and get one from Earthbound Farm Organic. If you pass the quiz (I did!) then they will send you one. Yah, I know, If they mail it to you then they are using fuel to send them but I'm sure there is a balance there somewhere, I hope! You only have until the end of the month. Good luck! I have been using reusable shopping bags every week when I get my groceries. So far everyone "got it" except in the little rural town I work in. I had to do a little explaining there.

My First Gluten Free Bread Success

2008-04-20T18:36:00.007-05:00

I have recently found some new gluten free blogs that feature many recipes. I have been buying bread at a Whole Foods Market that is almost an hour away. With rising gas prices I have decided to try and make my own again. I tried my old recipe that at the time was the best one I could find. It flattened out too much to really be worth it. Now three years later I have found a fantastic bread recipe. I was looking for something that was a little healthier and had some more nutrition and fiber. I looked on the Celiac Message Board that I go to when I need some information and found some links to a few blogs. At Recipezaar and Gluten Free Mommy I found very similar recipes with rave reviews. Now to a person who can eat regular bread it might just taste like regular bread, but to someone who is gluten intolerant it TASTES LIKE REGULAR BREAD!! The texture is great and the taste is great. But there is one really big con. It is made of SEVEN different flours and there are many other ingredients. But I think it is worth it to work a system to make this one on a regular basis. My usual is to put all the dry ingredients together and make a "mix". I usually make at least three bags of pre-measured dry ingredients but for this I will probably make more. Then when I make them I will probably make at least two loaves at a time.

Here's the recipe with my substitutions and I used the one at Gluten Free Mommy:

1 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup quinoa flour

3/4 cup millet flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

1/3 cup sweet rice flour

1/4 cup flax seed meal

1 Tablespoon xantham gum

3 eggs

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 packet active dry yeast+ 1 tsp granulated sugar for proofing yeast

1 Tablespoon honey

3 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 Tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

1 1/4 cup of 120 degree water

DIRECTIONS:

All ingredients including eggs need to be at room temperature.

1. Grease and flour a 10 inch loaf pan. I only had a 9 inch pan so I also made three muffins with the rest of the batter.

2. Combine all dry ingredients except yeast.

3. Combine all wet ingredients except water in the bowl of a stand mixer.

4. Combine yeast and one teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl.

5. Heat the water to 120 degrees. Add 1/4 cup of the heated water to the yeast and let sit for 10 minutes. if it does not foam up after 10 minutes then start over with the yeast.

6. When the yeast is ready slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix together.

7. Then add the yeast and continue to mix.

8. Then slowly add the water until it gets to a stiff cake batter consistency.

9. Beat the dough for about 10 minutes.

10. Pour batter into pan(s) and cover with wax paper and a towel. Place in a warm place to rise for at least an hour. The dough should be to the top of the pan.

11. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees. The crust will be dark brown. The muffins I took out at about 20 minutes and they were a light golden color.

12. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes then on a drying rack until cool.

I think it would be possible to make other things with this recipe like hamburger buns. I cut it up and froze it so we shall see how it tastes as a sandwich tomorrow.

I still had to go to Whole Foods to get two of the flours that I did not have, but I think I will be able to order these pretty easily.

New Pictures

2008-04-05T08:19:00.002-05:00

Here is a slide show of some new pictures we took. You can look at bigger ones or download the album at the family album link on the side.

I was Glutened!

2008-03-27T18:17:00.006-05:00

I was really dumb and ate something that I was pretty sure was not safe, but it seemed such a minuscule amount of gluten that I didn't think it would be a big deal. I had some CORN tortilla chips at a mexican restaurant. Normally they are okay from a bag of tortilla chips that are made in a factory, since that is the only thing fried in that oil. But in a restaurant they usually have one or two fryers that everything gets fried in. Gluten items included. So I had to have the salsa. This place has out of this world salsa! But I needed some way to get it into my mouth. I thought about the spoon, but thought it would not be setting a good example for Logan. So I grabbed a total of only THREE chips with loads of salsa. The next two days I had a headache. A very good sign that I had some gluten. But then I did something that I could not have foreseen the outcome. I took some Advil and with in minutes my tummy was on fire. No, the Advil is gluten free but I think the gluten damage caused in my intestines was intensified by the caustic effects of ibuprofen. It lasted for almost two days and I couldn't eat anything but rice and chicken broth. I am still having problems but hopefully it will be better tomorrow since it is my birthday. We are not officially celebrating it until Saturday. So the moral of the story is... If you are gluten intolerant eat the salsa from a spoon!

I'm writing a book!

2008-03-15T07:27:00.005-05:00

I know, like I didn't already have enough to do! Well this surly won't be a page turning thriller but I'm writing it out of frustration. With my job I see people everyday who say "If I had only known!" Well now I'm going to tell all! It's going to be a resource book for people with less mobility and their caregivers. I will hopefully explain things about medical equipment, senior advocacy, when to get help, loosing independence, local and national resources, etc. I am hoping to have it done in a year and publish it myself with a print on demand service. So if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it! I have looked all over to find a single resource for my patients to explain the basics of these things and have not found one single thing I can point my patients and caregivers to. So hopefully I will write something useful that people will want. Let me know what you think!

And... today Logan and I are going to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to see Brad Paisley in concert with my friend from work and her daughter. It should be fun. Then tomorrow we are going to start getting our garden going. Ya, I know a little late here but thats the beauty of it. We actually have two planting seasons for summer plants because it is really too hot in July and August for many vegetables.

Start of Book List

2008-03-01T21:52:00.004-06:00

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to read, but I have been trying to fit it in a little every day. I feel like I'm missing out with so many great books out there. I really like the self help/motivational type books. Please share your favorites with a review in the comments!

My current read is A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. It's the new Oprah book club book and she is starting an online "class" with it starting March 3. So far I have read the first four chapters and it really makes you think about the way we live our lives day to day. It changes your focus from the mundane things we do to fill our time that are negative to a more positive energy.

Charles has started The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be, a book I bought for myself, but I'm already reading A New Earth. I'm not a fast reader and this is a thick book. I did not want to try and read them both at the same time. I am really surprised he started this one so quickly because he has a stack of books he has bought in the past year but hasn't gotten to. You see Charles buys books then lays on the couch after everyone has gone to bed, has the tv on and tries to read. He always falls asleep in about 29 seconds. After reading the first chapter (there are many chapters and most of them are pretty short.), he has made an effort nearly every morning to read some of it, and for the past two weekends he has woken up at 5:30am to read it. I was wondering how this book started because it has really gotten him motivated to read it when he is awake rather than by "osmosis." The first chapter is called "Take 100% Responsibility For Your Life." I'm not sure how that hooked him but it did and I have seen a big change already. So without even reading the book, I can say I recommend it!

February Recap

2008-03-01T17:48:00.007-06:00

Wow, it is March already! We haven't had much fun this past month. Logan and I have been sick on and off. Today it's Logan's turn. He was sick and I took him in - It's strep! Now another round of antibiotics. The pharmacist at Target is getting to know me pretty well. Then the insurance card was declined. Just another phone call I need to make to get it all straightened out. Luckily it was one of Target's cheap cash medicines. if the insurance worked I would have paid a $10 copay. But Target sells this one for $6 cash. Unfortunately, Logan missed his first soccer game with the big kids.

Financially, this month seemed even better than last even though we spent close to our $500 on food and extra medical bills that we rarely have. We actually spent less that $3000 this month! I think it has been before Logan that we have spent so little. I haven't opened the new savings account. Life has gotten in the way of some things so that is next on the list for this week. I have a big rummage sale next week at work to raise some money for one of our nurses who has tongue cancer. That will be a big job so I cant wait until that one is behind me.

Lemons Anyone?

2008-02-21T17:16:00.003-06:00

I am still sick but doing better. Sinus infection turned into bronchitis and now on my third antibiotic and have a referral to an ENT on Monday. Should be loads of fun!

Okay, warning! This video is a little gross. But if you don't want to ruin your love of lemons in your water at restaurants then, well, don't watch the video. Sorry but I had to share this one. I found it on the blog Wise Bread.

Sorry - No New Posts

2008-02-16T07:13:00.004-06:00

I have been sick for the past week and also had internet problems that I didn't really feel like dealing with. I am now on the mend and hopefully I have made my last call to my DSL provider for a while. But it may be a week before I can catch up on everything so I will continue this next week. Thanks!

January Recap

2008-02-06T20:34:00.000-06:00

The January budget held up good. Before I did a budget I thought about what did I want to spend on a few categories like food and household stuff. We decided $500 for each for the month. I took out $500 cash for each and put them in their own envelopes and guess what? We spent only $350 on the food category and $325 on the household category. That blew my mind. But what really got me was looking back in Quicken to see what we averaged per month last year. We spent and average of over $700 per month on food last year. And over $1000 a month on household stuff (this category includes things like dog food and meds, the new rug in our front room, tools and fixing the lawnmower). It could just be a fluke. February might not be as good. In fact I know it wont be as good. I just bought some vitamins that I only buy every few months and I will be making a run to Whole Foods to buy my special gluten free bread. This might be a $500 month. We are well stocked though and feel like if we really want to stick to a $500 limit it shouldn't be a problem. It might mean a few creative meals though!

We were also talking about what to do with the "extra" money left over at the end of the month. The two options we came up with were to roll it over to the next month or put all the extra into an extra spending fund. (I think the TV is on the way out - You can't really read anything printed in small writing anymore and it takes about 15 seconds to "come on" when you turn it on. I'm thinking we will need a new one in about a year) If we roll it over then we really aren't keeping to spending the same every month. I dont want to get used to splurging just because there is extra. So we are going to go with hording the extra to spend on something that we need/want that is not in the budget and to have a plan for the extra. No spur of the moment buys. So all in all I think January was productive financially.

I also got all our retirement/college accounts organized and on Quicken. I had lost passwords and account numbers changed and I just had not bothered to get it all together. Now its all straightened out. Turns out I had made many deposits that had been sitting there in cash for the past year. I hadn't bought any mutual funds with them yet. So now I am slowly buying funds so the money isnt just sitting there. I will also be opening a high(er) interest savings account with an online bank so my savings will make more than the 0.71% it makes now. Duh!! I will give more details about that when I get it done this weekend.

Now to exercise. Well lets just say I'm doing a lot better than I was before which was nearly nothing, but I know I could do better. It really is hard to make time when you are falling asleep before 9pm. I don't like to choose between exercise and reading with Logan. I should be able to do both but sometimes is doesn't work out.

Exercise Just Might Be Good For You

2008-01-28T21:06:00.000-06:00

I knew it all along. Just because I didn't do anything about it doesn't mean anything. Maybe I was trying to keep a secret! Well there, my secrets out and now I have to actually do it. It was on the news even! Charlie Gibson said so on ABC News. Just in case you don't believe me here is the article about it.

ABC link

Even though I haven't done much the past few days, I have at least been consistent and found time to do something. And I only counted real exercise and not vacuuming. Well time to go to bed. Maybe I will do 11 minutes tomorrow!

Our Progress This Week

2008-01-26T13:36:00.000-06:00

It's been a great week! Charles finished his second week at his new job at Byrne Metals, Corp. He works in the shop, bending and cutting sheet metal into parts for buildings. We got his first paycheck and he sold the 1999 Toyota Corolla for $500. I also got paid so it was a good day toward our financial goals. When this month is over I will look at how we did sticking to our budget. So far it is looking good.

As for getting organized, we are making a good effort to declutter. If you look at what is gone by weight then I think we are well on our way by getting rid of the car! To keep it we would have had to spend about $700 next month on registration, inspection, tires, windshield and of course insurance. Now there is less stuff covering our very muddy driveway (it rained all last week!).

And today I started my exercise log. I am putting it on a Google calendar and you can see my progress (or lack of) by clicking on the link at the side. I thought about what would be the best way to stick to an exercise routine. Well nothing like public accountability.

I hope everyone is doing well. We are glad to have our first mostly dry and warmer day (60 degrees for the high). Yeah!

A New Year - New Goals!

2008-01-20T18:24:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I know the same old goals! But hey, I could say that resolutions will never work and then I would be right were I am now. Not that it is a bad place to be but I know I could do better. So here it goes.

1. Improve our finances.
2. Spend more time having fun! (Got to have #1 to do #2)
3. Get in better physical shape. (I know - practice what you preach. I am a physical therapist after all!)
4. Be more organized.

Maybe a little ambitious but I think each one has something to do with the others. We had spent the majority of the past two years trying to have a baby. Not successfully as most of you know, but we are looking at the positives, and there are many. It includes not spending as much money on a second child for his/her lifetime (and ongoing infertility treatments), more time for Logan, be empty nester's sooner (this is important at my age!). Logan is six years old and will soon be at an age where he will travel easier. I have spent a lot of time the past year finding the important tools to learn about how to improve in each of these areas. Now I am working on fine tuning each one.

First Charles spent the past year starting a business that has not yet made it. It's a great idea and he does have a great product but we are both lacking the business experience to make it really work. So he is still going to work on it on the weekends but he started back to the work grind last week with a new job very close to home. He works 7-3 and will be home in time for the bus so Logan doesn't have to go to day care except for holidays and the summer. We have made it on what I make but don't have any to put into the business and nothing has been put in savings this past year. I don't want to make that a habit!

For #2 it will have to be local inexpensive stuff for the first year until we have met goal #1. We are hoping to make a couple trips for 2009.

For #3 well - that just needs to be done. I know what to do. I have another goal for further down the road once I can go part time. I want to get my pilates certification and it could take a year or more. But the issue comes down to the fact that it you want to teach all those exercises then you have to be able to DO them! Not the same as teaching people to walk again.

Then on to #4. Getting organized. Our first challenge is to declutter. We had one garage sale last fall and we are doing a benefit garage sale for one of our nurses at work in about a month. And somehow I am in charge of ORGANIZING it. Silly people! How hard could it be? Okay stop laughing!

So I plan on posting my challenges and achievements on my resolutions. Nothing like a little accountability. I think if I write about it I push myself a little further with it. If there is anyone who would like to join me you can post your updates in the comments!! I would love some company!

My first motivation was to watch this video on time management. I know, snoozeville! But really, this one is great. If you have the "time" it's great to watch.

Watch Video

Monster Jam 2008!

2008-01-10T20:19:00.000-06:00

We did it again! This was Logan's fifth trip to see Monster Jam in Houston. He loved it! We got to hear the ROAR and smell the fuel and eat junk food. This time we used the pit pass to get an up close look at the trucks and Logan even got to have two of drivers sign his flag and program. Really cool. I could have had a better time except that I was a little sick. But no problem that a little Advil and throat lozenges couldn't help... Until the next day. I felt like I got run over by a monster truck. I ended up missing two days of work and probably had the flu. Yuck. I don't recommend it!

He is a slide show of the pictures I posted in my photo gallery.

Vacations Days Are Great!

2007-12-29T12:36:00.000-06:00

Well, Dad and Nan just left this morning and it has been a very relaxing Christmas break for me. I took the week off of work and for several days I did nearly NOTHING! That ROCKS! I am using this weekend before going back to work to do some things I should have found time to do during the week (pay bills, balance checkbook, blog, organize, laundry, blah, blah...)

So While we had guests we ate lots of good food and sweets, and went to a couple of cool places. We first went to George Ranch Historical Park. It is like an indoor/outdoor museum with demonstrations of ranching, blacksmithing and the like. There were a couple of house tours of how the rich people in those days lived. Very interesting and I am grateful for indoor plumbing and central heat/air conditioning! There was a bench with a couple of cute statues ready for picture taking.

It looks like they joined a new family! Logan liked riding on the cart pulled by the tractor. He wasn't too keen on the house tours though.

We had a wonderful Christmas morning with lots of presents. Just outside the window Logan got to see another gift Santa left him.

Santa told us that he found it at a garage sale down the street for only $10 and spent a couple of nights up late painting it! Go Santa!

Logan had fun opening up lots of good stuff from Santa and Grandma and Grandpa.

The day after Christmas we did what half of all other Americans were doing, Shopping! We went to Ikea which is one of my all time favorite stores. If you dont have one in your area then I am really sorry. They have modern furnishings and housewares at really good prices. Several pieces of our furniture are from there and when we get to remodleing the Kitchen we will probably get the Ikea cabinets. They are a great deal and are really pretty. It's a humongous store and you could spend many hours in there (and we have!). They thought of everything. There is a cafeteria and a secured, kids only play area where you can leave the rugrats while you shop! Then we went to Fry's Electronics store and looked at all the great stuff that we may someday be able to buy (when we win the lottery).

Then I spent two days doing almost nothing. I did make a couple meals, emptied the dishwasher a few times and I might have done a load of laundry. I really enjoy my "time off!"

I hope everyone had a faboulus Christmas and we wish all a Wonderful New Year!

Basketball is Here

2007-12-11T15:06:00.000-06:00

Logan has played soccer for the past three spring/fall seasons. He finally wanted to try something else. So for the winter season he is trying basketball. I think Charles has waited a long time for him to pick basketball since he has been talking about coaching for a while now. We have a new YMCA in our area and I think membership is still a little slow.There were only 9 kids that showed up from age 3 to 7. Not enough to have a few age related teams. So Charles and two other coaches are having a "basketball clinic" two days a week and the kids can come out to as many as they want. Honestly, I think Charles had more fun than the kids! For a few more pictures check out the link on the right to our photo album.

I Figured It Out!

2007-12-04T20:24:00.000-06:00

So now I have this big orange SUBSCRIBE button on the right. You can click it and pick a "reader" of your choice. You will have to register with that reader, but you can use it for all your blogs, news, etcetera that you subscribe to. If your homepage is something like MSN, Yahoo, AOL, or Google then you can register with that one and it will come up on your homepage. If they don't list your current reader you can ask them to add it if you want. Or you can just type in the blogs URL feed to your own reader to subscribe. Thanks for being patient. It took me a really long time to figure it out!! And I think it was more by accident because I sure couldn't do it again!

Subscription Feeds

2007-12-02T13:40:00.000-06:00

I'm still trying to figure this all out, but I know you can subscribe through the link at the bottom of the blog and it requires you have a Google account. Google bought Blogger and so they have it set up to automatically do everything through Google. I looked into Feedburner and it turns out Google just bought them too.

I did a little more research and found there are many other RSS feed readers out there for free. You do have to sign up for them though. Here are a few:
Feedburner
Bloglines
Rojo
My Yahoo
- go to personalize this page and then click add RSS feed
Google Reader

Then when it asks for the URL type in this web address.

http://meandtheboys4.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

I will hopefully figure out how to add buttons on the sidebar so you can add with one click. There sure is a lot to learn. Now I really need to get some work done!!

Great Holiday Movie

2007-12-01T09:22:00.000-06:00

The first day that Charles' sister and her family were here, they wanted to go horseback riding. I knew Logan wouldn't want to go so I offered an alternate activity in case there were any others who didn't want to ride. So when they were riding horses while a thunderstorm was approaching, I took Logan and Spencer, Logan's cousin, to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Wow! it was really a fun movie even for adults. Logan and Spencer loved it and we kept dry! It stars Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman (from Star Wars), and Jason Bateman (Silver Spoons). It's about a magical toy store that gets a little grumpy and crazy things happen. Dustin Hoffman plays a crazy old man really well. And Jason Bateman is all grown up! We are the same age and it's hard to believe he looks so mature and adult-like! I wonder if I look adult-like yet! Although it isnt a Christmas movie, it will definitely get you in the spirit. I hope everyone is doing great and getting ready for the holidays! We haven't even got our stuff out of the shed yet because we are still remodleing the front room (where the Christmas tree goes). Hopefully we will get it done before Dad and Nan show up!

Why Start a Blog?

2007-11-24T22:01:00.000-06:00

I've actually been wanting to do this for a long time. It's just finding the time to get it going and figure it all out. My main intension is to be able to share family pictures and news with all our friends and family. As most of you know we have been really bad about sending pictures, birthday cards and keeping up with who did we tell what. I'm hoping that this gives you a lot more information and interaction with us. It may turn into more than just that, but that's where I am starting! If you have any ideas or suggestions on how to make what you see better leave me a comment.

It really hit home this Thanksgiving. Charles' sister Carrie and her family visited us for a few days this week. I can't believe how long it has been since we have all been together! The last time I saw Carrie and her family was when Logan was a baby. Her kids have really grown and I am afraid the clothes I bought them for Christmas were all too small! Charles and Logan made two other trips to West Virginia without me in the past couple of years. And I have made trips with Logan to see my family without Charles. It is sometimes just too expensive to fly and take off of work.

I hope to be able to work on the blog at least once a week. My first priority is adding some pictures so everyone can see what we look like now. (Pictures may be too scary for you the first time here! LOL) Logan recently had his 6th birthday and Carrie and family were here for Thanksgiving. I should be able to get those up within a week. You can also sign up for the RSS feed so you can be notified when I actually post something. That way you don't have to check it all the time to see if I am still alive! Some other things I want to do is share information about Celiac Disease and gluten intolerance with links and recipes. There is other stuff I want to share,but I'll save it for later so the hole I am digging myself isn't so deep! This will be a public blog so I can find others who share my interests. Thanks for reading!