Leave my almonds alone!!

Joe may complain sometimes that my frozen raw almonds taste like they are wrapped in brown paper bags (it's the skin on them) but neither of us have had a problem with them that would warrent them being 'outlawed' as the USDA is currently trying to do/ has already done. Read all about it, get angry, and demand to be allowed to control your own food choices.

Sunday Seven #10

Seven things I’m thankful for this last week ending 5/26/07
1 – Garden Ridge having EVERYTHING anyone could ever need for a birthday party and Party Pig for having the rest.
2 – The thrift store having lots of party dresses for Giselle to choose from.
3 – Thursday noonday free music at a church downtown.
4 – Jim Jim’s.
5 – The ability of Parents to come and visit.
6 – Joe being thankful for me.
7 – Remembering to buy fertilizer at The Farmers Market, now I have to remember to apply it to the lawn and my plants.

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and check out other Sunday Seven participants here: Sunday Seven

Some folks need to calm down about their lawns

And I thought that the guy around the corner from us was uptight about how his lawn looks but check out what this mean old man did!

Alasandra always has interesting links like this on her site.

Sunday Seven #9

Seven things I’m thankful for this last week ending 5/19/07
1 – My new stove/oven getting installed by Joe on Sunday morning in time to cook a great Mothers Day dinner.
2 – Having a chance to meet with my wonderful LLL co-leaders even though no one else showed up for our nighttime meeting.
3 – My first try on the chicken enchilada casserole turning out to be even more than just edible.
4 – Edgar not being mad at Paul for breaking 3 goose eggs and 3 turkey eggs, especially since only one was on purpose.
5 – A local creek for us to play in during the wet season.
6 – Our new Betta, Captain America, surviving his first week in our house.
7 – Olympus returning my camera to me, brand spankin’ new!

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friday friends dinner

It was pot luck again and this time I made chicken enchilada casserole and it was incredible! I kind of combined two recipes and changed things up to fit my own style of food making. I'll update this post later with the full details. I didn't take any pictures in case it was no good (ha, like I'd make something that didn't taste good! But I was following untested recipes so I couldn't be sure.) and also I didn't think about it until I was already halfway through the prep. But it's sure to be one of my staples from now on so I'll take pictures next time, I promise.

We did make it to the park today, but only for about an hour.

going back in time

Last night for dinner I used up the cooked whole wheat fusilli pasta (half of a 1 lb uncooked package). I heated up another piece of Buddy's Natural Chicken Sausage, peeled and sliced it. Then I put the cold pasta in the pan, poured my homecanned sauce on top and added in the sausage. The kids ate all their's up and Joe ate all the leftovers after they went to bed.
Here's the kicker - I actually used the microwave oven to reheat Joe's portion. Now I will probably never use it on any of my food, but since Joe went to the effort to install the thing I figure that I should at least use it from time to time on his food. Oh, using the correct settings for the auto-cook function it took just as long to reheat the pasta in the microwave as it would have taken on the stove. So the only time saved was the time it would have taken me to clean the pot I would have had to use if I reheated it on the stove. But that IS better than it taking longer than using the stove.

Itzbeen Timer

I saw this for the first time today, it looks interesting and I can see the need for this by some people, especially a stay-at-home-dad or a nanny. I would like this if they had one to use for older kids - time watching tv/playing on the computer, time since last food, time working on homework, etc. It's called the Itzbeen Timer and it's for a caregiver to keep track of when diapers were changed and babies were fed.

I do like the intent of the whole website, why there is even an interview with Joe McDermott on the home page!

yay Olympus

The camera is back and they not only gave me a new battery but it's a brand new camera! Same model but new - it still has the stickers on it. They took the serial number off of the old one and put it on the new one. I think that for $50 I'm going to go ahead and get the additional 2 year warranty. I'm bummed for Suzanne that she had a bad time with her Olympus repairs but I'm WAY glad that it went well for me. I'm charging the battery now and then I'll have to set all the preferences on the camera, so it'll be another day before I'm taking pictures again.

Speaking of pictures, there is an incredible blog that I'm reading and the author, Ree, takes the most fabulous pictures! Check it out for yourself at www.thepioneerwoman.com

food today

We had cereal with milk and frozen blueberries (from last year's crop) for breakfast this morning.
Lunch was quesadillas made with fresh tortillas, smashed garbanzo beans and green peas, salt & pepper, and mozzarella cheese with sour cream on the side. My quesadilla was made with cottage cheese, cilantro and tomatilla sauce.
Dinner was whiting fillets with Old Bay seasoning and butter, tater tots baked with the fish, and the leftover risotto with broccoli added in.
After the kids went to bed I made Joe a big bowl of chicken fajita meat for his dinner.

Dinner last night on the new stove

To make dinner last night I used the new stove for the first time.
I know, you're saying "What, why did you have to make dinner? It's Mothers Day, you're not supposed to have to cook." And to that I respond "Having worked in the food service industry I know for a fact that Mothers Day is the BUSIEST restaurant day of the year. I am NOT going to subject myself and my family to having to deal with that when we can eat a perfectly good high quality meal quietly (well, it's quieter than at a restaurant) at home." We'll go out later this week, probably use one of our 5 gift certificates for the Satellite Cafe.

Our Menus for Mothers Day:
Breakfast
Cereal w/ milk followed by cookies from the Farmers Market
Lunch
Leftover refried beans mixed with salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, and diced nopalitos (that's prickly pear cactus for you folks not near Mexico)
Fresh cottage cheese
Dinner
Sauteed green beans (butter, Spike, salt & pepper)
Risotto (brown rice, milk, water, fresh basil, fresh oregano, sweet onion slices, garlic/basil cream cheese, garlic juice, Parmesan cheese, salt & pepper)
Beef cutlets (Lawry's salt, salt, fresh ground pepper)

Farmers Market food at every meal

Sunday Seven #8

Seven things I’m thankful for this last week ending 5/12/07
1 – The ability to give blood to possibly save others’ lives.
2 – Shade at The Farmers Market.
3 – Joe picking up my Mothers Day present (the install will be on next week’s list).
4 – Dinner at Marie’s after my first trip ever to Costco.
5 – Another successful La Leche League meeting.
6 – My brand new lavender Crocs – Happy Mothers Day to me.
7 – My wonderful family!


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Why no Park Day yesterday

I had just finished doing all the bills (because before we go to the park and play all day we have to have our chores done) - envelopes sealed but not stamped - and I left them on the kitchen table with the kids. Giselle was doing her schoolwork and Paul was sitting and being 3. I went into the office to shred a folder full of paperwork. I was doing the last piece of paper when Giselle comes in and says to me "Paul and I were playing and we accidentally tore up some of your papers" "WHAT papers?" "The envelopes with the pieces of blue paper in them." And then she and Paul ran and hid in the bedroom closet. I went into the kitchen and saw the torn checks (the previously mentioned pieces of blue paper), payment slips and envelopes laying about on the table. After assessing the damage, I went into the bedroom, opened the closet door and calmly said "You will not get to go to the park today." And so that's why we weren't there. It wasn't a miserable day but we all would have rather been at the park!

New Addition To The Family

We got a new Betta today. He's a red, white and blue Crown Tail Betta so we have named him Captain America, Captain for short. Olympus shipped my camera this morning so I'll have a picture posted of him in a few days. He's just a baby, probably about 3 months old, so he should be around for a few years.
When we got him home, the first thing that we did was put him into the water pot that the variegated ginger pot sits in. It's chock full of mosquito larvae, or at least was until I caught most of them and fed them to the guppies (which have been multiplying like guppies - 12 to 15 live fry every 28 days and able to reproduce at 2 months), so he was in fish heaven for the first 30 min here. He ate until he was stuffed and then took a nap. Then he gently swam into the net for transport into the big 3 gallon community bowl. He's spry enough that any new guppy babies will be easily caught and eaten by him - nothing like natural population control. The next batch of guppy fry is due in another 7 days and I think that some of the older ones are going to have to move out of the 1/2 gallon supplemental bowl and into our neighbor's backyard fish pond.

Oh, and we got 3 new butterfly/water creature nets today too!

Giselle's been doing really well on her money lessons in school these past 3 days so she'll be a real help tomorrow at The Market - she's really looking forward to it.

And I got a call from the Central Texas Blood Bank this afternoon - a 7 year old girl is getting surgery on Monday and they need some fresh B Positive for her - so we'll be headed over there to donate a pint after we finish up at The Market. I love being able to give blood - it's such a cool feeling to know that something that my body makes can be the gift of life for someone else, someone that I don't even know. I guess that'll go on my Sunday Seven!

Did I mention that we got more crawfish on Monday when we did our weekly shopping? Well we did and they are currently living happily in the crawfish pool. I'll be evicting them this weekend.

What we did this past Sunday

Click here for pictures from the KLRU Open House that we went to on Sunday. Unfortunately there are none of us on the set of Central Texas Gardener chatting with Tom Spencer and Linda Lehmusvirta but of course there are pictures of us with the Biscuit Brothers.

mini update

The camera is en route to Olympus for seal servicing.
My waterproof camera leaked while we were in a swimming pool one week into the trip and it took 2 days for the lenses to uncloud. Unfortunately it started fogging over the day after the leak right when my sister was taking pictures of Paul and me riding a camel at the Jacksonville Zoo. The battery only holds a charge for one day now - I sent it in to Olympus on May 2nd for new seals (it's under a year old so it'll be free). I totally freaked when on it's second day of recovery it tried to make me reformat my memory card. After removing the battery and rubbing the contacts on my shirt it stopped giving the format prompt. I have 250 pictures from the trip and I would be SO pissed if I lost them!
The suitcase is unpacked and in the laundry room waiting to be put back up into the attic.
All the sod that I installed before I left is doing great.
After being no TV for 2 weeks on vacation we are continuing to not watch it while back home.
Things are back to normal around here.
The new stove will be brought home and installed in the next few days.
I'm enjoying reading other's blogs more than I've been inspired to add to my own, thus the dearth of posting by me.

One fish less

Charlie was found dead at the bottom of his bowl this morning and this time he wasn't faking it like he was yesterday. He was 3 years old - we got him when he was a few months old in the summer of 2004. He's burried in the front garden on the hill and we'll make him a tombstone later this week. Joe is most glad that Charlie waited until I got home to die so he wouldn't feel like it was his fault.

I'm back, kind of

I just returned from visiting some of my family in Jacksonville Florida. I'm still getting back into the swing of things and I'll start returning emails, voicemails and blogging again early next week.