Presents Galore!

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!!!!!!

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

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!

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

Soup Night!

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!

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

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

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

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... 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?

One of the podcasts I listen to often is This American Life. This weeks story, called "365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy" 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, "355: The Giant Pool of Money", 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

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

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

Vote!

I stole this from my friend Karen's blog.

My Electricity Thanksgiving

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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?

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!

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

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!