Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Quicker Than Take-out Homemade Lo Mien

Ok, I actually wrote this post after the other one but in order for it to read properly on the blog I had to re-do the time of the post to be 10 min earlier than the first post.

Last night was the rescheduled seafood night here at Casa De Galletti which this week meant that the kids, Thomas and I were going to share 1 pound of bay scallops and Thomas was going to have not quite a 1/2 pound sockeye salmon fillet. We would be sharing some fresh broccoli too. Giselle remarked that she was in the mood for Asian food.

***Well, not so much remarked more like demanded. See we were at her friend Grace's house and we had to leave at 5 so that Marie could go get her hair cut. As we were leaving, Giselle informs me that she wants to spend the night there that night. I said no but that Marie and I would try to come up with a night before Christmas for them to do another sleep-over. As we pulled into our driveway (a mere 2 minutes later) Giselle tells me that since she couldn't eat dinner at Grace's and since she couldn't spend the night there either that she wants to go out to eat Asian food either at Dynasty Buffet or at Buffet Palace or some new place that she hasn't ever been to before. I said no, that we were eating at home. She said to me "How come Daddy gets to eat out tonight but WE don't?!" and I responded "Because Daddy works hard for his money and he can eat where ever he wants to. I've already bought the food for our dinner this evening and that's what we will be eating." She then said "Fine, but I don't want Asian noodle soup, I want something else like we get at the restaurants!"***

So the wheels start turning in my head and I realize that I have all the makings for Lo Mien. I cleared the menu item with the girl and set about making dinner. The scallops were rinsed and drained, then doused with Old Bay Seasoning and sauteed with butter over med-high heat for 3 minutes, flipped then cooked for 1 additional minute. They were removed from the pan, leaving the juice in there for poaching the salmon (7 minutes on med-high heat, covered). The broccoli was cooked in a big pot with a bit of water and loads of salt on it but it was a bust - too tough/old - none of us liked it so I pitched it into the trash.

The Lo Mien - everyone had seconds!
I put about 4 cups of water into a 3 quart sauce pan over high heat.
I poured in about 1/4 cup of Lee Kum Kee Panda Brand Oyster Flavored Sauce (BTW, the kids tried tinned smoked oysters for the first time last week and they liked them - Giselle ate 4 of them and Paul stopped after 1.5).
When this came to a boil I added a 6 oz package of Caravelle Chuka Soba (wheat soba/ramen noodles).
After 3 minutes, I skimmed the noodles out of the pan and put them aside in a medium bowl.
I then added a 16 oz package of Central Market frozen mixed vegetables to the boiling broth/water.
After 5 minutes I drained out the broth/water and dumped the veggies into the bowl with the noodles.
I returned the empty pan to the stove, lowered the heat to medium-high and poured in several tablespoons of Spectrum Naturals Organic High Heat Sunflower Oil.
While the oil heated I poured about a quarter cup of San-J Organic Whole Soybean Shoyu (naturally brewed soy sauce) over the noodles & veggies in the bowl.
When the oil was fry-hot I dumped the bowl of veggies, noodles & soy sauce into the pan and stir-fried it long enough to evenly coat all the veggies and noodles with the soy sauce and warm it all back up.
When everything is coated, take it off the stove, dump it back into the bowl used before, set it on the table and watch it disappear.
15 minutes from start to finish if you include the 5 min that it took for the water to come to a boil (I use the double filtered water from the refrigerator so it takes a little longer to come to a boil).

wow, no post yesterday!

How did that slip by me?
We schooled in the morning, the kids played around the house for an hour after lunch, then we headed over to Marie's house until 5. After dinner there was more playing, then one chapter of Charlotte's Web and then lights out for the kids. I'm not sure how I filled the night hours but it wasn't doing blog stuff or wrapping gifts or watching TV. Oh, I was helping Joe with an Excel spreadsheet for a while and doing some eBay searching.
Back to school and I've got to help Paul find his missing Playmobil prince from his Advent Calendar. Oh, I need to upload those pictures!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Attic Space

Since the attic got cleaned out some (most of the contents are still stacked up in the laundry room) and re-floored there is currently loads of room up there. Absolutely perfect for storing unwrapped and wrapped Christmas gifts. I just have to be sure to remember to get it all down on Christmas Eve to stick it under the tree.

Speaking of the tree, did I mention that, thanks to Paul asking for it, we have a train going around the base of the tree this year. It's either James or Percy going around on a Thomas track with a generic second engine and two box cars in tow but it works for all of us. Fortunately we have plenty of AA batteries to keep him running.

I just need to remember to unplug the outside lights before bed each night. I can't put them on a timer since the extension cord that plugs into the inside socket is a 3-prong plug and non of the timers that we have in stock are 3-prong timers. I guess I could go buy one since I'm sure that I'd use it for many years to come. I'll add it to my list.

rain delay

It was too cold and wet for me to get motivated to finish the outside lights today! But I did win 2 Jane West and 1 Josie West dolls for Giselle and me to play with. Now to keep trying to get a horse for a reasonable price.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Half Done

The tree is up and decorated. I got most of the lights up on the outside of the house. The kids' advent calendars finally came in the mail on Friday so this morning before, during and after Sunday School I was putting all the little Play Mobil toys together that go into the little boxes that I had to make. They are now hanging on the living room wall. I plan on getting the rest of the decorations and lights done tomorrow so that I'll be ready to post pictures for Boo Mama's Tour of Homes - see the button in the sidebar.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

tired

I don't want to post, I want to go to bed.
Up at 8, at The Market at 9, back home at 1:30, at the birthday party at 1:40, home from the birthday party at 10:00, helped pull a tooth at 10:15, checked email at 10:30, checked ebay at 10:40, checked blogs at 11, logging off at 11:21. Good night.

Friday, December 07, 2007

GI Joe

Thanks to EBay Paul'll be getting 4 GI Joe's for his birthday in January!

It's Soup Day

It's A Soup-Tacular!

Even though it'll be in the 80's here today, here is a recipe for a hearty winter soup -

Vegan Split Pea Soup
makes 9 2-cup servings

4 C Vegetable Broth
12 C water
1 C lentils
4 C split peas
1/2 lb diced carrots
1/2 C chopped green onions
2 tsp Spike seasoning
fresh ground pepper - 1/2 on fine and 1/2 on medium
4 - 5 medium/large cloves of garlic - pressed
1-inch chunk of fresh ginger minced

Bring broth to boil. Add all other ingredients. Bring to 2nd boil stirring almost constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 to 4 hours - until the soup is the texture that you like. Pour 2-cup portions into containers that will fit into your smallest sauce pan (square ones aren't good nor are the tall skinny sour cream containers). Flash freeze overnight then pop them out of the containers and tfer into a big freezer bag. When reheating, add 1 C water for each 2-cup portion as the soup really thickens up after the first cooking.


Since I'm no longer vegan, I now add bacon ends at the beginning and some diced ham. I make it a little differently every time, sometimes adding more carrots nearer the end, sometimes adding potatoes if I'm not going to freeze it, sometimes throwing in some basil or cilantro.

windy

wow, it's a bit windy tonight!

shh, I'm going to bed RIGHT NOW!

Park Day today - I hope we get there before 2!
Market tomorrow - Giselle is staying home!
Birthday Party tomorrow afternoon - I better get those presents wrapped!
Church in 2 days - I get to wear my new shoes again!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Best Of The West

OK, so my next door neighbors and I had these action dolls when we were kids. They were the Best Of The West dolls. In doing research on whether or not I can still get them I found out that they were based on the TV show Best Of The West. I never knew that!
I wish that I still had my Princess Wildflower and my horses from this. I'm looking for them now for the kids (and me too). Wish me luck!

It's A Soup-Tacular

It's A Soup-Tacular!

Boomama's got this going tomorrow
Join in!

Freezing green beans

In response to a question of mine, Garden Gnome @ http://www.momskitchencooking.blogspot.com/ posted instructions on canning beans. Unfortunately I don't have a pressure canner so instead I'm freezing the 7 or so pounds of fresh green beans that I got at the market this last week. Per my friend Gayla's instructions I blanched them for 1 minute in boiling salted water and then put them in a cold water bath. Once they had cooled I put them out on a cookie sheet and stuck it in the freezer to flash freeze. Once they are frozen I will transfer them into gallon freezer bags and stuff them into the big freezer. And we'll have fresh green beans for Christmas dinner. Oh, I've got to remember to make a turkey sign for Gayla for The Market.

Still up

Still got some shopping to do so I'm doing some of it now. Actually, I'm taking a break right now. The kids are getting restless in the bedroom so I better wind things up soon.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Wednesday

We were finally going to get to play with Marie and the kids today but she woke up this morning with a mild case of what her family has had for the last week.

Last night I built the grill finally - it rode around in the car with us for several weeks and it's been sitting in the box on the back porch for the last month. Tonight I built a fire in it, using the charcoal that I've been carrying around in the back of the car since the day that I bought the grill. And after our dinner of mac & cheese with mixed veggies stirred in we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Then I roasted two hot dogs. After they finished off the dogs they went to bed and I washed dishes. After the dishes were done I headed out to Target for their sale. I was there from 9 to 10:30 and got the rest of the shopping done for the kids. Got some for me and Joe.
I'm going to Google for them but does anyone know where I can find some GI Joes? My Joe says that they are too politically incorrect and that I won't find them anywhere. I said "There's a war going on, how can GI Joe be politically incorrect?" He said "This war is politically incorrect." I said "Vietnam was a politically incorrect war and that's when we all had OUR GI Joes." So what gives? Why no GI Joe at Target?

Schnitzelbank

Our latest favorite song is Schnitzelbank, courtesy of The Biscuit Brothers. Listen to a clip here http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/bicuitbros3-06.m3u and then buy it at their next live show or buy it on CDBaby. This version is great, firstly because it's by The Biscuit Brothers and secondly because it's in English so it's easy for the kids to learn it and make up their own lyrics.

Monday, December 03, 2007

I won!

I actually won in a blog contest! No, my blog didn't win anything, I won a contest on someone else's blog. www.countrydoctorswife.com
I'm going to keep the prize for myself since the kids won't be willing to share. Maybe we need to make our annual trip to Garden Ridge for them to pick out their own new ornaments soon.

Target is having a sale on their Our Generation dolls AND HORSES! Their horses are said to be superior to the American Girl horses according to www.justmagicdolls.com. While the dolls are not AG quality, they are great if your daughter likes to take her dolls outdoors to actually play with them. And you can't beat the sale price - $20 for the horses and most of the dolls. I need to get a sitter so that I can shop without the kids!

no more canning for this winter

at least no more tomatoes. Just before we left for ballet this afternoon I finished canning the full case of tomatoes that I got on Saturday. 18 1-pint wide-mouth jars. I bought 2 cases of jars while the kids were in Sunday School yesterday since I had already used up (by canning pasta sauce) the 24 jars that I had previously bought. My cabinet will be full and I have enough to last until next year.

Yesterday, after church, we spent the whole day working on the yard over at the new house. All the scratches that I got on my hands while trimming the lantana were screaming from the tomato juice this morning. Then we rushed home at 5, made meatballs, then ate fresh meatballs and homemade pasta sauce over mushroom ravioli, then headed off to see the live Nativity presentation at our neighbor's church. It was the 20th year they've been doing it - the church not my neighbors.

I don't remember posting on Saturday but the big news of that day is/was ...... I finally got my shoes!!!!!! On Thomas' recommendation I went to DSW. He had been dragged (drug?) there a few weeks ago by his girlfriend and afterwards he told me that they had some shoes that meet my specifications. He was correct! The kids did great, they were trying on more shoes than I was. We went to PayLess afterwards to look for new church shoes for Giselle but we found none so we went next door to WalMart where we found not just 2 pair of church shoes but also a pair of great dress-up shoes - pink jellies that look like princess slippers (no heels!).

Gotta go, Joe's already started watching part 2 of "Tin Man" and he won't pause it for me to go pee if I don't promise to watch it on the sofa with him.

Friday, November 30, 2007

I'm going to bed

It's 10:30 and I'm going to bed NOW!
Tomorrow we've got the market and then I might go shopping at DSW since it's right next to the market and my feet will be sufficiently enlarged from standing on them non-stop for the previous 5 hours. I might go to Academy to get a new fleece jacket since the zipper broke on my old one last week.
Or I might rush home so that I can shave my legs so that we can go to the pool.

July Dinner Calendar - a chronilogical listing of what I served for dinner in the month of July 2007

1 - Hot dogs w/ buns, homemade cheese cornbread, peas
2 - Chicken breast, cornbread, raw veggies, squash
3 - Shrimp, summer sausage, mixed veggies
4 - Neighborhood cookout party - I brought hot dogs, marinated cucumbers and raw baby carrots
5 - Hot dogs
6 - Hot dogs
7 - Cheese tortellini
8 - Black bean tamales, mixed veggies, raw veggies
9 - Lunch - Freshly made meatballs
Dinner - Ate out at Trudy's Restaurant - had crab enchiladas and bean & cheese nachos
10 - Left over Taco Bell
11 - Left over Taco Bell
12 - Cheese tortellini w/ meatballs, pizza
13 - Hot dogs w/ buns
14 - Ratatouille, Asian noodle soup
15 - Cheese tortellini w/ meatballs
16 - Roasted chicken (from Sam's), mixed veggies
17 - Mushroom ravioli w/ meatballs
18 - Cheese tortellini, mixed veggies
19 - Asian noodle soup w/ bay scallops
20 - Canned mushroom barley soup (Sorry Cheryl, it was a Friday night and we'd been at the park all day...)
21 - Korv Stroganoff
22 - Leftover korv stroganoff
23 - Tuna steaks, mixed veggies, homemade ice cream
24 - Fried eggs, bacon, pipian squash
25 - Cereal maybe, I couldn't remember at the time
26 - Ratatouille, cheese tortellini w/ meatballs w/ no sauce, mushroom ravioli w/ meatballs w/ sauce
27 - Hot dogs, ratatouille
28 - Aduki beans, rice, mixed veggies
29 - Cheese tortellini w/ no sauce, scrambled eggs
30 - Beans, rice, raw veggies
31 - Broiled golden trout, mixed veggies

Good bye ELO

I'm taking off ELO "Hold On Tight To Your Dreams".
I don't have a replacement in mind yet.

whew

Out of the house by 9:30
Closed on the house by 11
Trench for water pipe done by 1
New water pipe installed by 2
School finished by 3:15
Toilet fixed by 3:30
Golf cart ride done by 3:45
At the park by 4
Probably home by 5:30
no idea on what or when for dinner
Charlotte's Web by 7:30
Lights off by 8

Thursday, November 29, 2007

closing tomorrow

As usual, the mortgage dance is going until the last seconds. I've never known one to not close on time so I'm not sweating it but it IS frustrating to sit on the sidelines knowing what is going to happen but being powerless to do anything about it. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion except that you know that the cars are actually going to miss each other and no one will get hurt but it doesn't make it any easier to watch.
And the kids are not making it any easier. Giselle has been getting school completely done every day but the effort that it's been taking has been a little higher than I like. And then there's that little boy...

Monday, November 26, 2007

2007 Beaujolais Nouveau

Wow, I actually spelled that correctly on the FIRST try!
So I opened a bottle of the 2007 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau for Thanksgiving and I have to say that I'm not happy with it this year. It didn't taste good with the turkey, it didn't taste good with the dressing, it didn't taste good with the cranberry sauce. It didn't taste good after dinner with nothing else.
I actually dumped the last third of the bottle down the drain. Yes, it was that bad!
I did buy 2 bottles - one for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas - so maybe it'll taste better with ham (I'm thinking of having ham for Christmas dinner this year).

less meat please

Last night at dinner the two kids both commented that they are really tired of all the meat that we've been eating lately and they requested that I stop cooking meat so often, please, effective immediately. Well, as soon as they were done eating the pork roast that I just served them. Although this afternoon Paul asked for deli-sliced chicken (meaning turkey) on his quesadilla, he only ate half of it. Giselle wanted cheese only.
So today at HEB I only bought salmon for Joe & Thomas, no shrimp or mahi mahi for the kids. I even double checked with Paul and he said "No more meat!" Tonight for dinner I cooked the salmon for Thomas while I heated up leftover dressing, leftover mashed potatoes and new mixed veggies with the leftover green beans added in. I called the kids for dinner and they whined "But we didn't want leftovers! Except for the stuffing, oh, and the green beans, oh and the peas-carrots-corn that we asked for." Paul didn't want his stuffing and Giselle didn't want her potatoes. The dog wanted it all; she got all the the plate leftovers and the skin from the salmon so she was happy. Joe didn't want any of it so he went out to eat with one of his friends. Thomas was full from the lunch he didn't want so he could only eat his salmon. That meant that I had to finish off the last of the dressing - too bad!
Tomorrow the dog gets the gravy and leftover turkey for breakfast.
I need to give her her pee pill, actually it's her no-pee pill, and go to bed.
See ya!

busy updating

We got school done today.
Marie left town this morning for 5 days - I only got to see her once in the past 2 weeks - wah!
I spent my blog time this evening updating my sidebar list of all the blogs that I read daily.
I got ANOTHER lame checkout clerk at HEB this afternoon! I need to conduct a training class for them and show them how to do their job CORRECTLY! Maybe that's what I'll do in my spare time.
Closing on Friday is on schedule.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

cold and wet, wet and cold

It was so cold and wet at The Market! It was miserable weather but the company was good so we actually enjoyed ourselves. We've been home for 2 hours and my toes are still thawing out. I might be making turkey soup tonight for dinner to warm us to our toes.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Sunday Seven Thankful Thursday Thirteen

I'm thankful for:
1 - My husband, Joe.
2 - My kids, Giselle and Paul.
3 - My Mom & Dad and 6 sisters and 3 brothers, Suzanne, Angie, Cea, Joan, Carol and Mary, JJ, Dan and Vlad, and their spouses and kids.
4 - My BFsF, Marie and Gayla.
5 - My friends from grade school that I'm still friends with, Betsy and others.
6 - My health.
7 - My friends from LLL, Paige, Cathy, Bridget, Kelly and others.
8 - My friends from CHEACT park day, Susan, Teresa, Kathleen, Ruth, Leslee and others
9 - My neighbors.
10 - My other friends from other places, Mary, Rhonda and others.
11 - My ability to stay at home and take care of my kids and husband and household.
12 - My husband's kind family.
13 - My wonderful life!
I guess I could have just listed number 13 as number 1 and been done with it all.

Sunday Seven - the Thanksgiving Edition

I'll be posting my Thanksgiving edition of Sunday Seven later today. Maybe it should be called Thursday Thirteen - the Thanksgiving Edition instead. Or maybe just Things I'm Thankful For This Year.
Whatever, it'll be up later today.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Give the gift of blood

Your local blood bank always runs low on holidays, especially between Thanksgiving and New Years. I'll be giving blood on Friday, what about you?
Blood is a resource that your body makes so you can donate as often as every 8 weeks. Every pint that you donate could make the difference between life and death for someone in need. I never donated expressed milk (I was too lazy) but by donating blood I can help even more people.
Donating blood is easy and it's a gift that will cost you nothing give.

Growing Up

Tanya posted the most wonderful post today that I had to pass it on so that you are sure to read it in case you aren't already reading her blog daily like I am.

I had to add to her list of things to be treasured forever regarding our growing children.
And the touch of their sweet little un-calloused hand on your cheek. And the way that their little hand squeezes yours when you hold it. And the sound of their giggles when you nuzzle their neck with kisses. And how they hug your neck so tightly that they choke you.
Their enthusiasm for EVERYTHING (almost) is truly a wonder to behold and I will cherish every moment of their innocent childhood for the rest of my life.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

wasted my time

It's time for me to go to bed but I used up all of my blog-writing time reading other people's blogs. I was looking for inspiration and affirmation and I pretty much got what I was looking for. Over the past few days I've found some new blogs to read and I'm still looking for more.

The day started miserably and it wasn't until dinnertime (7 pm) that it fully recovered. I dropped by Sonic on the way home from HEB and the kids ate grilled cheese and chicken strips while I steamed up the clams that I had bought at the store. They liked how they pop open when they are done cooking but didn't like how they tasted. They are TOTALLY enjoying playing with the now empty and cleaned clam shells! See, Paul has been going around for the last week playing with an old oyster shell that he has named Clammy. He found the shell on the beach this spring when we were in Jacksonville. So Clammy inspired me to buy some real clams and give Clammy a friend.
We joined Costco today.
That's about all I want to say about today. Joe will have to get an update some other way - oh, that's right, he was here to hear it all this morning so he doesn't need an update.
School is double tomorrow since we did close to none today and won't be doing any on Thanksgiving.

That Martha, she ought to write a book or have a show!

Check THIS out for an EXCELLENT idea!!!!!! Who would have ever thought of a SHELF OVER THE BATHROOM DOOR?! What a great use of wasted/forgotten/unknown space! Joe's comment was "Not everyone has bathrooms as small as ours so who else would care about that?" Gosh, half of NY City lives in an apartment smaller than our house and half of old Austin is in houses smaller than ours so I think that actually a LOT of people will be as excited about this as I am. I'm going out and buying the supplies for that as soon as Thanksgiving is over.

Hmm, what color should I paint it? The bathroom is the faintest light blue, it's from the 'Touch Of Color' series that Glidden? did about 12 years ago. Should it be a bright blue, or the same blue, or hot pink?

Go to bed Natalie!!!

funny joke

This is once again going around the homeschool email lists. It's funny but also pretty true and the author is unknown.


"How does a homeschooler change a light bulb?"
First, Mom checks three books on electricity out of the library, then the kids make models of light bulbs, read a biography of Thomas Edison and do a skit based on his life.
Next, everyone studies the history of lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles.
Next, everyone takes a trip to the store where they compare types of light bulbs as well as prices and figure out how much change they'll get if they buy two bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five dollar bill.
On the way home, a discussion develops over the history of money and also Abraham Lincoln, as his picture is on the five dollar bill.
Finally, after building a homemade ladder out of branches dragged in from the woods, the light bulb is installed, and there is light.

sorry and recipe for Asian Noodle Soup

no chance to post on Saturday day or night - We spent all morning and early afternoon at the Farmers Market and then we spent the rest of the afternoon over at my friend Ruth's place. She just had baby #4 and her husband & other kids were gone for the weekend so we went over to bring her some fresh produce from the market and to keep her company. Saturday night Paul woke up at 10:30 to throw-up all over himself and the bed. 3 hours and 2 more throw-ups later the three of us were back in bed asleep. Paul broke his fever during the night.

We skipped church on Sunday - I have a 'no throw-ups for 24 hours before you can go anywhere' rule - and Sunday afternoon Giselle threw-up. Paul was feeling fine so it was a struggle to get him to relax on the sofa. We didn't eat dinner but Giselle threw-up for the second time at 7:30 so that ruled out ballet lessons for her (and grocery shopping for me) on Monday. Since they hadn't really done anything all day that would tire them out, I read The Long Winter to them for an hour until 8:45 and then made them go to sleep. Her fever broke at about 3 or 4 am on Monday.

So today we had the spelling test that we didn't do yesterday, we completed 4 pages from Connect With Words (we usually do only 3 a day but there's that holiday on Thursday to contend with), wrote a sentence each for this week's spelling words, read 2 chapters from Story Of The World (17 & 18) and completed 5 pages from Total Math.

And I got another 1/2 case of tomatoes sauced up and canned today. The kids said that it tasted as good as the Prego Organic sauce that I buy and that's quite a compliment coming from Giselle since she WAY prefers the store-bought sauce over the homemade sauce that I canned up last year. But in my defense, those 2 batches were the very first time that I had ever tried canning anything and I hadn't ever made sauce entirely from scratch (using fresh tomatoes instead of canned) either. Once again, Paul was angry at me for using up all of the big tomatoes but he was a little happier when I reminded him about the 8 lb bowl of grape tomatoes sitting on the table. And I got the 2 lbs of fajita chicken breasts frozen individually for future use. I've got a ton (not literally) of pipian and ayote squash to take care of. I'll turn some into a side dish for Thanksgiving and the rest will have to go into the freezer. I've got something like 8 gallons of it in the freezer already so it's a good thing that I throw it into almost every meal that I cook.
For instance, I diced-large/chopped-small half of an ayote squash and put it into our Asian noodle soup for dinner tonight.
ASIAN NOODLE SOUP RECIPE
Kyoto brand organic soba noodles & soup mix prepared with 4 to 6 cups of water with a cup of mixed frozen veggies, some Wakami seaweed, the ayote squash and some oyster sauce all cooked together for a quick and nutritious dinner. I usually add more mixed veggies and sometimes some more soba noodles but since the kids' stomachs might have still been tender I wanted this soup to be more broth than solids.

Tomorrow we've got to get that pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping done AND join Costco AND get school done AND take some fresh produce over to Marie AND clean the house some more (I vacuumed the living room this afternoon during a commercial/bathroom break). I better get off of here and get to bed. After I bookmark some items that I want to buy on Amazon.

BTW, I never got a chance to use ANY of my B&N coupons!!

Friday, November 16, 2007

tivo

Can't blog - we're watching Scrubs and My Name Is Earl from last night on TiVo.

stats and a test

We all seem to be in the mood to increase our site's stats so I thought that I'd help out some other bloggers by directing my 13 daily readers to their sites. I'm going to do this the complicated way so that everyone in the chain gets a hit on their site.

Country Doctor's Wife (go to her site through the link on my sidebar) has written a post (titled Private Parts or Tats on My Stats) about how much her stats have changed since she placed an ad on Confessions of a Pioneer Woman (go to her site through the link on my sidebar). In the comments for Country Doctor's Wife's post Kelly Jean tells about a neat site that will tell you what reading & comprehension level your blog is written on. You have to go to KellyJean's site (Laughing Always Helps) and read her post titled "I's juss not that smart..." to get to the link of her friend's blog that has the link to The Blog Readability Test on it. There, you enter the url of a blog or myspace page and it will tell you the readability level of that blog. It's fun. Go try it out for yourself!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

They are the Biscuit Brothers, welcome to their show

We went to Central Market Central this evening to see the Biscuit Brothers play two sets and buy their two new CDs - Family Favorites and Have a Merry Musical Christmas. As usual, we had a great time, the kids and I both sang along to all the songs that we knew and Giselle danced so much that her feet hurt. She took off her boots once we finally got to the car. If you have kids aged 8 and under you really need to own these guys' CDs and if your local PBS station doesn't carry their show then start sending letters until they do. If your PBS station DOES Carry their show then start watching it! This is American Music Appreciation at it's best!

After the show we played on the playground for about 20 minutes then we headed inside to see if they had any turkey parts worthy of buying. They didn't but we got some snacks for the drive home and headed to the car.
We didn't make it to the shoe store today and tomorrow we've got 1 - school, 2 - grocery shopping for a friend who just had baby #4 and needs a helping hand, 3 - a meeting with a leader applicant and then 4 - the monthly nighttime La Leche League meeting.

We got a lot of school done today but I forgot to read today's Story Of The World chapter. For that matter, I haven't used any of my B&N coupons yet either! Could someone else please lead tomorrow night's meeting for me?

I wore a different pair of earrings tonight - big silver butterflies that I've owned for over 25 years. I took them out when I got home but I didn't put any others in to fill the holes. PLEASE don't let me forget to put some in before I leave the house tomorrow. Leaving home without earrings in is just as bad a leaving the house with no makeup on, something else that I never do if I can help it. Ugh, naked ears!

I'm going to watch some TV, drink a few liters of water and then go to bed. Hopefully all before 11 pm.

I'm really going to bed now!

I stayed up too late looking at shoes on www.Shoemall.com . Yes, I still haven't bought any BUT Thomas was at DSW with his girlfriend this weekend and said that they have some shoes that looked like what I'm interested in. So I might drag the kids there tomorrow after we are done with school. Or I may be super nice and leave them at Marie's house while I go shop ALONE! Mmmm, no. Paul is still my little pee-boy. (Sorry Joe, I'm just telling the truth or as PW would say "Just Keepin' It Real". BTW, is there anyone out there NOT reading Pioneer Woman?) Oh, but since Paul isn't consistent in his continence I'm not leaving him at anybody's house without me staying with him, so I guess that he'll go shopping with me. He seems to enjoy it for now so I don't mind it too much either.

I'm drinking a liter of water and then I'm done for the night.
See you in the daylight!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Slacking Off - June dinner calendar

So I'm supposed to be researching prices on replacement toner for our HP Color LaserJet 2840. Well, the answer is EXPENSIVE!

So, now that my work is done (on hold for 20 minutes) I'm going to post our dinner calendar for the month of June instead of doing the dishes.

June
1 - Broiled whiting fish w/ ranch dressing, mixed veggies
2 - Veggie patties on tortillas, tomatoes
3 - Ate out at The Village Inn - Joe's parents were in town
4 - Pork tacos with all the trimmings
5 - Black bean tamales, mixed veggies
6 - Baked chicken, mixed veggies
7 - Ate out at Sonic with Joe's parents
8 - Hot dogs
9 - Pork dumplings, Asian noodle soup
10 - Stewed black-eyed peas w/ okra & tomatoes & bacon & onions & garlic & sour cream
11 - Ate out at Dynasty Buffet
12 - Shrimp linguine
13 - Mixed Veggies w/ rice
14 - Ate out at Satellite Cafe with Marie, Roland and their kids
15 - Forgot to write it down and when I did I had forgotten what I made
16 - Cheese tortellini & mushroom ravioli with a chuck-steak-strips meat sauce
17 - Tortellini leftovers for Joe and black bean tamales for the kids, mixed veggies for everyone
18 - Ate dinner at Marie's - pork tacos with all the trimmings
19 - Cheese tortellini, shrimp
20 - Beef quesadillas
21 - Paul & I ate out at Taco Bell, Joe & Giselle ate out at Satellite Cafe
22 - Cheese tortellini w/ meat sauce
23 - Black bean, pork and chicken tamales
24 - Ate raw veggies at Marie's, ate corn on the cob at home
25 - Ate dinner at Marie's - ratatouille for the adults, cheese tortellini for the kids, raw veggies for all
26 - Asian noodle soup
27 - Cheese tortellini, raw veggies
28 - Black beans w/ rice
29 - Turkey sandwiches, raw veggies, apple sauce, yogurt
30 - Asian noodle soup

musica

Good bye Dee-Lite "Groove Is In The Heart"
Hello Electric Light Orchestra "Hold On Tight To Your Dreams"

yummm

A bottle of Zima mixed with a bottle of sangria flavored soda!

Due to mortgage dancing, we just finished the Indians of Texas book today. But tonight at bedtime, due to finishing dinner early, we read 3 whole chapters of The Long Winter. Giselle and I really wanted to keep reading - since we never get snow it's very exciting to read about them enduring those South Dakota winters. That took so much determination to survive those winters. I would have told DH to move us the Heck out of there and take us to somewhere WARM! For that matter, I wouldn't have let us move there in the first place. That first move from the Big Woods would have been down to Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas if it had been our family!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Monday

Tonight for dinner I made Seafood Fettuccine from Mom's Cafe. The family loved it even though I used spaghetti noodles instead of fettuccine noodles.
That means that I actually got to go grocery shopping this week! The thing I find the most exciting about that is the fact that I have enough food in my fridge, freezer and pantry to keep us fed for a minimum of 2 weeks. Had the big boys not needed any store-bought milk for their cereal and had I not used up all of our sliced cheese the first week, I really wouldn't have had to go today either. Now that's not to say that those are the only things I bought at the grocery. Oh, I bought a whole lot more than that!
Our 'new' HEB didn't have the uncooked flour tortillas that we love. They had them the last 10 times that I've bought them, where did they go? I didn't remember the brand name so I couldn't ask anyone there what happened to them. Also I was doing my 'I gotta rush so that I'm not late to pick up Giselle' shopping so I didn't have time to ask anyone either.

Sorry for such a lame post, I don't really feel up to it tonight.

But camping went well - and I was the one too uncomfortable to stay out the whole night. Our cover blanket was 6 inches too short for me so I couldn't stretch out straight (we should have used the sleeping bags) so at 4:30 the kids and the dog and I all moved back inside and slept soundly until 8 am when we got woken up by Thomas shouting from his room about getting bit by a fire ant in his bed. And no, he wasn't really screaming like a little girl. If he was I would have said that in the first place. And so my day began...

Sunday, November 11, 2007

camping WEATHER

I admire my friend Suzanne and her family's ability to camp anywhere, I really do. I wish we camped a lot more than we do. As it is, the only camping I've done in the past 7 years has been in my backyard. But, it's close to all the comforts of home when the kids and I get uncomfortable at 5 am and I can stay up watching TV while they start the night without me. I love camping in this time of year because we don't get too hot in the tent and, since it gets dark early, the kids go to sleep at the usual time instead of staying up until 10 pm.

So that's what we are doing tonight, camping out in the backyard. I got the tent up and mattress inflated before dark and right after dinner they went on out and started playing with their glowing sticks and settled down to sleep after about 20 minutes. It probably doesn't help that we were out at our group dinner friend's house until 11pm last night. It was one of their son's 10th birthday party last night. A good time was had by all but the kids were tired all day so they needed an early night tonight. For that matter, so do I. I really am going to join them out there as soon as I'm done with this post.

I canned up another batch of tomatoes today, only 5 jars this time - it wasn't many tomatoes and I didn't add any from my frozen stash. The chickens down the street really liked the cores and seeds and skins that were leftover.

Goodnight!

Friday, November 09, 2007

Special offer until Nov 18

Barnes & Noble has a coupon valid through November 18 that gives you an additional 25% off the purchase of any one item. So buy some books using your 20% Educator Discount Card (if you are a homeschooler or a public or private school teacher you can get one of these at your local B&N) and you will receive (using the coupon) an extra 25% off of the most expensive book! You can also use the coupon on-line. Here is the link to the coupon. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/email/nav.asp?r=1&r=1&PID=20421

The best thing to do if there is a store near to you is to use the coupon once on-line and then use 1 a day at the store for the next week. Realistically, you can get a 45% discount on 10 books between now next Sunday when the coupons expire.

Hmm, I'll get the other volumes of Story Of The World (3 more), the new book by DK publishing on ALL the sports in the world, What Your 2nd Grader Needs To Know, and I'm not sure what else. Darn, I just compared Amazon's prices to B&N prices and Amazon beats B&N prices even when using the Educator Discount. I'd HAVE to use the 25% coupon to make it cheaper!

What will you buy with your coupon?

Thursday, November 08, 2007

self control

I've lost 4 pounds since Halloween but I so badly want to dive into the back-stock bag hidden in the pantry. I'm going to stay away though, I'm not even going to finish off my once-giant bag of dried cranberries. Maybe I'll have some baby carrots, oh but that might freak out the dog. Then again maybe not, she did go for a run around the block this evening with Thomas, Paul and me so maybe she'll be a bit calmer than she has been lately.


In writing that last sentence I noticed a 'Frequently Misused Word' that was NOT listed in Giselle's school work for this week - the words THAN and THEN (this week in our schoolbook we learned the proper usage for many misused words).
Here's a mini lesson for y'all right off the top of my head.

Use THAN when you are comparing items.
Examples: I would rather read blogs THAN fold the laundry. Park Day is more important to me THAN going out to dinner.

Use THEN when you are talking about what comes next.
Examples: I'm going to read some blogs THEN I'm going to watch this week's episode of ER. Giselle ate dinner THEN she went to play at Jessie's house.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

I cursed it

Remember on Sunday when I made up the lesson plans for the next 3 weeks? Well, with all of this mortgage dancing we are now 1.75 days behind.
Yep, I cursed it and now I'll have a mess of colored arrows drawn all over my lesson book for the reassignments.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

It's almost DECEMBER!!!

So I was looking at my blog tracker a few minutes ago and I saw that someone came to visit my blog because it came up in their Google search for the Trail Of Lights 5K 2007. Then I realized that the 2007 Trail of Lights 5K is in ONE MONTH!!!!!!!!!
Joe mentioned earlier in the year (January) that he wanted to go to the Trail Of Lights with us this year but I have a strong suspicion that he wasn't referring to the 5K. SO, do I do both the 5K and the regular Trail or just the regular Trail? If we don't do the 5K then we won't have a commemorative shirt for 2007!

Here's the info for anyone else looking to find out about the 5K

For the 14th consecutive year, a nighttime fun run will feature a premiere viewing of the Trail of Lights.
The Trail of Lights 5K will be held on Saturday, December 8th, at 6:30pm.
The course runs through Zilker Park and the awesome Trail of Lights, with more than 180,000 lights. The entry fee also includes a "Trail of Lights 5K" long sleeve t-shirt.
This event is co-sponsored by the local running outfitter RunTex and the Austin Parks and Recreation Department. The 3.2 mile run will start under the Zilker Tree, wind through the south side of Zilker Park, go through the Trail of Lights and finish back at the Zilker Tree.
Only registered participants will be allowed access to the Trail for this event.
Parking for the race is available in Zilker Park by entering the park from MoPac.
Register at RunTex on Riverside Drive on Friday, December 7th (11am-6pm) and Saturday, December 8th (11am-2pm).
Online registration information will be available soon.
Entry Fee Entry fee will be $22 if received on or before Wednesday, December 5th, $25 if received on or after Thursday, December 6th. $17 for children 11 & under.
Packet Pick-Up and Late Registration will be at RunTex Riverside
The hours for packet pick-up will be:
Friday, December 7th (11 a.m. - 6 p.m.)
Saturday, December 8th (11 a.m. - 2 p.m.)
Additional Packet pickup will be available on site in Zilker Park at Moonlight Tower starting Saturday at 3pm
http://www.runtex.com/web/2-1693.asp

If you register on-line there is an additional fee of some high amount - $3 or $5 per person!

Shhh!

Don't tell anyone but I'm still up reading other people's blogs. I SWEAR that I'm gonna go to bed any second! Shhhh! You'll wake the dog!
I think I'll make banana milk for the kids tomorrow.

Monday, November 05, 2007

another whew

Got up at 7:15 because Paul got busted for drawing on the playroom door frame. Helped him clean that up.
7:30 Swept all the sawdust off of the back porch and cleaned up all the plywood pieces - Joe spent the last several days making and installing a floor in the attic, Thomas helped.
8:00 Got breakfast for the kids, they took it outside to eat while I watered some VERY parched potted plants.
8:45 Came inside and worked on some mortgage stuff.
9:30 Moderated a fight between the kids.
10:00 Gave Giselle her spelling test, she got a 100%.
10:05 Giselle worked on some simple math while Paul stayed in the bedroom while I worked on more mortgage stuff.
12:30 Fed the kids lunch - yogurt for Paul and quesadilla for Giselle and half a loaf of Whole Wheat Walnut & Raisin bread for Joe and leftover soup for me.
1 pm The kids played while I worked on more mortgage stuff.
2:45 Giselle got ready for ballet while Paul cleaned the playroom and Joe broke a toe.
3:15 Joe took Giselle to ballet while I worked on more mortgage stuff.
4:15 I picked Giselle up from ballet and took care of mortgage stuff at the same time.
5:15 I dropped Giselle off to play at Jessie's house while I worked on more mortgage stuff and Paul watched Bindi the Jungle Girl.
6 pm I started on dinner while Thomas washed the dishes and Paul watched more Bindi.
6:20 I picked up Giselle (good thing I brought the flashlight cause it was really dark!) and came home to finish making dinner.
6:39 We ate dinner.
7:10 The kids and I went to Marie's to celebrate Luke's birthday for 2 hours until 9.
9:10 I put the kids to bed and went back to work on mortgage stuff.
9:30 Took a break to watch Rules of Engagement on TiVo with Joe.
9:50 Went back to work on mortgage stuff.
10:30 Finally stopped working on mortgage stuff and started reading blogs.
11:30 About to go to bed.
11:34 Grossed myself out on leftover chocolate icing from Luke's cupcakes.

Tomorrow is another day!
I'll empty all the trash cans if the garbage men haven't come yet, water the plants on the back porch, moderate a fight, work on mortgage stuff off and on all day, conduct some school, feed some people 3 meals, maybe do the grocery shopping, finish the laundry from Sunday and today, vacuum the house, clean the bathrooms, maybe take a break over at Marie's in the late afternoon, get the kids to bed by 7 pm (with daylight savings they're getting up at 7 am again and they need at least 11.5 hours of sleep a night), oh, and I really need to take care of my mending pile!

11:45 REALLY going to bed now! Well, after spellcheck and publishing.
Good Night!

Sunday, November 04, 2007

whew

I just finished most of the lesson plan for the next 3 weeks. Now because I did it this far in advance most surely something will go amiss and half of it will be scratched out and moved to subsequent days, I'm sure of it.

We are going to take a one week break from Story Of The World so that we can read Indians Who Lived in Texas by Betsy Warren for the next 5 days. Since we went to the State Pow Wow yesterday it seemed fitting to read that book at this time. In SOTW (as people tend to call it) we just read about King Tut tonight - we are on Volume 1: Ancient Times. Both the kids and I are really enjoying these books and we look forward to our daily chapter. I've yet to pick up the other volumes but that's only because our local B&N only had Volume 1 in stock. I really like getting the Educator Discount on all of our purchases.

Our spelling words for this week will be Brought, Carry, Check, Could and Covered. Giselle now has fewer words each week but instead of just writing each word 2 or 3 times each day, she now has to write a sentence for each word every day. She has to come up with the sentence herself and if she doesn't know how to spell a word she figures out the first part and uses the Children's Dictionary to find out the rest. The first day she gets the words, we look them up in the dictionary to read their definitions and we underline the word, as we do with any word that we look up to see what it means. Any words that she looks up for spelling purposes are highlighted with a yellow highlighter.

Two months into the school year we are now in a pretty good rhythm and both of our attitudes are doing well. The house isn't as clean as it was before, the laundry takes a few days to get put away and the dishes now get washed during my free time at night instead of during the day but what's more important?

I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I've got laundry in the early morning, school in the mid morning until lunch, ballet and shopping at 3 until 5. Somewhere in there we're supposed to go see Luke for his birthday. I think that we'll have the rest of the spaghetti & meatballs and fresh green beans for dinner instead of the usual fish. The fish can wait until Tuesday.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Headache

I have a rare-for-me headache right now. It's not from eating candy - I haven't had any today. It's not from needing dinner - I had homemade Asian Noodle Soup and some sliced bell peppers w/ dip. It's not from needing water - I drank a liter 40 min ago and it's still here. I took some homeopathic drops for it and it helped for about 15 min but it's back full force now. Oh well, I'll drink some more water and tough on through it - I've had it since about 5 this evening.

As soon as I put Giselle to bed at 8:04 I turned all the clocks in the house back an hour so it would REALLY feel like the kids went to bed at 7 PM. Paul actually chose to go to bed rather than finish his supper a half hour earlier so he was already asleep when Giselle went in. He was beat. In addition to our usual hard-work-at-the-market Saturday, we also went to the annual Indian Pow Wow immediately afterwards for 2 hours. Lots of walking after lots of working makes for tired kids. They'll need that extra hour tonight and, once again, thank goodness for blackout curtains on the bedroom windows!

I've got a bag of okra that needs to be cut up and frozen as well as 25 pounds of Ayote squash - both before I go to bed. No extra tomatoes for me this week but I've been assured that there will be plenty next week. So no canning this week.

I still haven't watched ER on TiVo yet.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Halloween

here are the pictures

And yes, they are inside of the pumpkins. It's a silly tradition that I started at Giselle's first Halloween and I have every intention of keeping it up until they are too big to fit inside and then I'll put the pumpkins over their heads, a la Ichabod Crane.


Like ghosts, these two pictures have disappeared.

The eyes have it!

There is something so cool about eyes.





Last night I was up until 2:30 working on mortgages and tonight I'm up until 11 working on pictures. Go To Bed!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

semi-done




I got the tomatoes canned up today. I decided that I would can into the 1 pint jars instead of the 1 quart jars that I used last year. I usually mix my homemade sauce with storebought sauce so using the pint size makes it a little easier to do. Silly me forgot to sample the sauce before I canned it but judging by the smell, I think that I am pretty close. I may be short on salt but that can be added when I actually use the sauce - I've found that it's better to be under on a seasoning rather than over. I cooked the sauce down pretty far so the half case of tomatoes (plus a gallon bag of whole heirloom tomatoes that I had frozen up last year) only yeilded 9 pints of sauce. I'm hoping to get more seconds at the market next week so that I can can some more. I'd love to give a recipe but I didn't use one. Here's what I used though:

1/2 case of hybrid tomatoes skinned and seeded
aprox 5 lbs of heriloom tomatoes skinned and seeded
several tablespoons of minced garlic
6 bay leaves
aprox 2 tablespoons of mixed oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil and marjoram
about 1 tablespoon of sea salt
and I cooked it down for 3, maybe 4, hours.





I haven't taken the pesto out of the freezer yet but since I covered the ice cube trays with Glad Wrap there is no pesto smell permeating the refrigerator (hooray!)


I'm planning on carving the pumpkins in the am and doing the caramel apples in the early afternoon.


Oh, I didn't use a recipe for the pesto either. Again, here's a list of what I put into it:

6 large bunches of sweet italian basil
1/4 cup arugula
12 medium to large cloves of garlic
at least 8 oz of Parmesan cheese, probably more
1/2 to 3/4 cup of EVOO
1/2 to 1 cup of cold water
2 teaspoons of sea salt
1/4 cup of raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup of raw sunflower seeds
1/4 cup of some other seed that wasn't pine nuts
1/2 cup of fresh oregano
all wizzed together in the food processor until it was smooth and almost pourable.

Monday, October 29, 2007

not done yet

I got all the pesto made - it's now freezing in ice cube trays in the kitchen freezer - 42 cubes in all.
I got the tomatoes all cored and halved but didn't have enough time to cook and can them - I'll do that tomorrow morning/afternoon.
We still have to do the caramel apples tomorrow.
We won't carve the pumpkins until Wednesday morning but I did get the outdoor decorations up this evening while Giselle was at a friend's house. I put out the spooky ghost candy dish that Joe can't stand. It's got a light sensor in it that makes it make an electronic sound whenever you walk by and it drives Joe nuts! He'll be happier with it when it's filled with candy corn and m&m's on Wednesday.

I wonder if he ever found the mini boxes of Dots and Junior Mints that I put in his pocket a few hours ago?

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Sunday event

We went to the Zilker Halloween festival this afternoon where the kids got some candy, we all got some Jim-Jim's (large pina colada for me, medium sour apple for Giselle and a small mango for Paul) and we all got to see Joe McDermott and The Biscuit Brothers perform. It was the second time in 3 days that we got to see Joe McDermott - we really like him and we missed not seeing him more often this past summer.

Farmers Market Booty II


6 quarts of raw milk for us to drink this week.





1/2 case of tomatoes for canning on Monday or Tuesday.








35 paletas for us to eat over the next several months - kept in the LOCKED freezer.





The decorated pumpkin made by Giselle.







The decorated then un-decorated pumpkin made by Paul.







We were disappointed this week as far as cucumbers were concerned - at 9 am the first customer of the day bought EVERY SINGLE cucumber that Edgar & Gayla had brought to The Market! I forgot to get eggplants even though this week might have been the end of them due to the unseasonably cold nighttime temps that we've been having. It's definitely the end of basil due to the cold but the greens are soon to come in.

Farmers Market Booty


Here are some fresh green beans, orange and red bell peppers, and okra to be used for meals this week.




Two packages of beef short ribs that I got for the lucky dog to eat this week.








6 bunches of basil and 1/4 lb of arugula for making pesto on Monday or Tuesday to freeze up for the next year and a HUGE bunch of baby bok choi for Green Juice this week.




2 ayote squash in summer form and 2 pipian squash to be chopped and frozen for winter/spring use.







A xl bag of cameo apples to make caramel apples with on Monday or Tuesday.

Friday, October 26, 2007

this time I mean it

I'm going to bed now! Really!
I'll be getting basil and arugula at the market tomorrow so that I can replenish my stash of frozen pesto. With nighttime lows like they've been lately I better get the basil while it's still alive. But with the approaching end of basil season, this means that it will soon be cilantro season.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Who?

With the windows open at night I can hear our neighborhood owl whoo whoo whooing all evening. I really like that!

followup

Donna from Quiet Life asked in reference to my post on October 11 about the dinner party menu:
What an amazing menu! It sounds wonderful. Do you always prepare that much food for a party? How is the soda with Splenda? I know nutrasweet is not good for me.

and my response is:
I am a believer in "you can't really have too much food at a gathering" so I like to keep lots of stuff on hand to quickly fill out an otherwise adequate spread. And when we go to friends' houses for food I'm always sure to bring extra food along to round things out there too - some chips & dip or some hot dogs or some vegetable side dish or dessert. Like the meal that I brought to my friend with the new baby - a bit overkill but better that than not enough food!

I don't drink any of the sodas - DH started on them back when he did Adkins - and he prefers the Splenda over any of the other sweeteners.

The bull that got Edgar


I don't remember how much detail I gave here but 2 months ago my friend Edgar got attacked by his Jersey bull. He survived with a cracked pelvis, a broken collar bone, a shoulder blade broken into 4 pieces, 2 broken ribs and a punctured lung (from the broken ribs). The bull had no horns otherwise he would have been dead. A rooster saved Edgar's life - Edgar had collapsed on the ground from the attack and just as the bull was going in for the kill a Phoenix rooster jumped on the bull's back and started attacking HIM! This distracted the bull enough for Edgar to crawl to safety. The bull has since been turned into ground meat - the meat I used for the tortellini the other night - but this is a picture of him from back in January. He was so mean even then that we dared not get any closer than 20 feet to the fence.
Edgar is almost completely healed now with the exception of his collar bone - that's healing slowly.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Just a picture


This is a shot from inside of the Texas State Capitol. It's pointing straight up from almost the center of the building. Click on it and zoom in - this is a clear shot and you can even see the shadow that the letters cast in the word TEXAS. I'm rather pleased with this shot. I took it on a cloudy day, I wonder how the light would have been different if it had been a sunny day.

ditching more emails

I WAS going to go to bed shortly after putting Giselle down at 8. OBVIOUSLY that didn't happen! I'm going soon I promise! But I did get a lot more emails read and deleted so at least I was productive.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

no time

Sorry, busy getting rid of the back-log of emails while watching "Transformers", which by the way is a really good movie! No blood, no sex but lots of action!

Monday, October 22, 2007

blog, blog, blog

I thought that I had nothing to say but I just saw a commercial for the new HEB Chase Visa Rewards card. We'll have to think seriously about getting one of those - you get double rewards when you use it at HEB.
School went well today - we started the 3rd grade spelling words and instead of writing 10 words 2 or 3 times daily each week she is now writing a sentence a day for each of 5 words weekly.
Well, that's it for me. Go click on all my favorites for better reading.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

sunday but no seven ... yet

We slept until 8. I showered and got dressed right away so that as soon as one of the men woke up I could leave BOTH KIDS in their care (previously an unheard of event) while I went to the thing at B&N. Unfortunately both men slept in until 9 so by the time I got to B&N at 9:10 the event was over. I still shopped SOLO for an hour and got plenty of books with the discount - I saved over 25 dollars! Then I came home to find that the menfolk had gotten the kids fed, washed and dressed. The kids were ready a half hour before we needed to leave for church - it's amazing what they will do for the opportunity to watch TV before lunchtime.
After church we went to HEB to pick up the meat and a few of the veggies that I was missing for my friend's dinner. Then I cooked and prepped all afternoon. The roast was done at 5, we were pulling out of the driveway by 5:11 and pulled up at their house at 5:34. We hung out for a half hour and I got to hold the baby for a tiny bit - she had just woken up and was hungry so she didn't like me for long. When we got home I made cheese tortellini with ground beef sauce. The ground beef had been thawing in the fridge waiting for inspiration on my part. It's from the Jersey Bull that had attacked Edgar 2 months ago - they turned him into ground meat and are selling him for $10 for 3 1 lb packages. He tasted good! The meat is some of the reddest ground meat that I have ever seen - it truly is a deep blood-red color - and not a bit of fat in it at all!

We finished dinner early enough for me to finish reading White Fang to the kids tonight. Tomorrow we will pick back up with the Little House series, I think that our next one is The Long Winter. After that we'll read Charlotte's Web and then go back to Little House. Have any of y'all read the Boxcar Kids books? I saw them today at B&N and they looked interesting in a Bobbsy Twins kind of way.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

I love to cook!

A friend of mine gave birth to child number 6 at the beginning of the month and tomorrow is my day to bring the family food. By the way, if you know of anyone about to need some food tending then check out this neat site http://www.CareCalendar.org . It's an online calendar that you can use to meal plan for someone.
But back to tomorrow. My friend loves collards but this baby, while still inside her, refused to let collards pass her momma's lips. So I'm doing a big batch of collards (fresh frozen from back in the early summer) with a smoked turkey leg for seasoning (they don't do pork so no bacon ends or ham will be used for seasoning). The rest of the meal entails rolls of some kind (I'm not sure if I'll buy some King Hawaiian rolls or make some biscuits), Pot Roast with carrots, potatoes, onions & garlic (I was going to do chicken but they are a bit 'done' on chicken), some fruit - either grapes or apples, and some raw veggies with dip (red bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower & celery). I'm going to bring a whole young ayote squash, uncooked, for them to have with some lasagna later in the week. Is that enough? Should I make extra pot roast so that they have leftovers? Yea, I'd rather they have too much food than not enough.

I love cooking for other people! And I love cooking at other people's houses, but I have to bring my own seasonings since I can't depend on other folks keeping on hand my seasoning staples. Spike Seasoning, cumin, oregano, ginger, garlic, onions, Old Bay Seasoning, fresh ground pepper, pesto.

Now to plan tomorrow so that the roast is done at the right time. I think that I'll use one of those Reynolds Brown-in-Bags. Tomorrow is the Homeschool Educator Reception at Barnes & Noble at 8 AM - 25% discount for those with a educator discount card - and then there's church - Giselle wants to go to both Sunday School classes - and grocery shopping and cooking and the 30 min drive to my friend's house.

Friday, October 19, 2007

All moms HAVE to listen to this song!

Oh my! I just listened to this video/song written and sung by Rechelle at Country Doctor's Wife and it made me cry. Go listen and tell her how much you love it!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LLejY_fak8

thanks

Thanks Marie for sharing your cake with me - I ate most of it for dinner. The kids enjoyed the brownies. They each ate one before dinner, then ate a bowl of mac & cheese, then they ate the rest of the cake that I couldn't finish and Giselle ate her 2nd brownie. Paul couldn't even finish his piece of cake because he was as grossed out by all the chocolate and sugar as I was. Good boy! Our thanks to you for giving them to us and our thanks to Fran for making them. Our thanks to Costco for making the cake that grossed us all out for the rest of the night. Joe can have Paul's second brownie if he didn't already gross out on desserts when going out to lunch and dinner with his friends today.

Dogs

Is there anything that just totally freaks out your dog? Tell me about it please!!!!!

Our dog is afraid of fireworks which is a fairly common fear. She is also afraid of guns being discharged which is similar in sound to fireworks. She is also afraid of the sound of those bubble wrap bubbles being popped since they sound like fireworks. She is made a bit uneasy by thunder because it sounds like fireworks (notice a pattern here?) but that fear is 'cured' by giving her some Rescue Remedy. In the last year she has become afraid of people chewing gum because they blow bubbles that pop and that (say it with me) sounds like fireworks.
So the latest is that she runs and hides in the other room whenever I eat carrots. "Carrots?" you say "Why would a dog be afraid of carrots?". Think about it, if you don't have your lips closed when you bite a baby carrot in half it makes a loud popping noise that (yes, you know the routine now) SOUNDS LIKE FIREWORKS! I can't believe it!
She was never this bad before and I've been eating baby carrots for the entire 12 years that we've owned her. I've ALWAYS popped my gum and she didn't freak out before. I blame it entirely on Joe and his habit of letting her into his room when it storms - he's feeding her fears by telling her it's OK. He needs to stop mocking Cesar Milan and start watching The Dog Whisperer more!
Chicken Dog!

Happy Birthday Joe

My gift to you for your birthday is to change the blog song from Juanes "Camisa Negra" to DeeLite "Groove Is In The Heart" because I remember how much you liked this song when it came out. Sorry, but you know that I will never play some of your other favorites here so your'e going to have to take what you can get. Maybe next month I'll put on FatBoy Slim or Beck or SugarRay for you.
Love you!

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Marie

Happy Birthday Marie!
Be sure to bring the leftover cake to the park!

Paul and I went to Nordstrom to look for shoes this evening. They don't have any wides in store, just mediums, so the search continues. Next I'll try Dillards.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A Breast Cancer Fact

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month I will pass on some information that I learned today.
If you have had breast cancer previously, walking at a moderate pace for just 30 minutes DAILY can decrease your chance of recurrence by 25%!!
WOW!

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Yuck!

I actually stayed inside ALL DAY! With the exception of 15 min that we played outside this evening - we all ran 10 laps around the front yard and I got the mail from the mailbox. It looked rainy all day even though it never really did and the temperature was rather cool. When I put the kids to bed I opened the bedroom windows up a few inches - I absolutely LOVE to smell and hear the outdoors while I sleep. I think that I'll open some windows up right now!

Ahh, I just opened one of the front windows and put the vertical fan in front of it and opened the back door up. I have to actually leave the AC on because if I turn it off and forget to turn it back on then somebody (not me) will wake up hot and cranky in the middle of the night. Hmm, maybe we'll all have open windows except for AC man - he can just use the window unit in his bedroom if he gets hot.

I ordered several more school books today since we're already halfway through Giselle's 1st grade complete curriculum book. I'll use these other books to flesh out all the stuff that they usually just breeze over in school. The second half of the school year will find us at the library a lot. Giselle's reading is getting better by the day so soon she'll be able to enjoy our trips there even more. I haven't decided what day will be 'Library Day' each week but I've got until Jan to figure that out.

I gotta go help Joe with the billing.

Monday, October 15, 2007

blog action day

Today is/was blog action day - a day on which all participating bloggers (over 15,000) posted about ecology and the environment and how important it all is.

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

Today in my neighborhood it was recycling day, as it is every Monday. I put out my blue bin filled with empty glass and plastic (only 1 & 2 here) bottles last night. Here's what it had in it: 1 Charles Shaw Cabernet Savingnon bottle, MANY Ozarka Spring Water bottles, 1 Zima bottle, 1 Pace Organic Picante Sauce Mild jar, Many Diet Coke w/ Splenda cans, a few root beer cans, 2 La Croix flavored water cans - one berry and one grapefruit, several baby food jars, and some assorted plastic lids. I had no yard waste to pickup, well, actually I did but I haven't put it in my reusable bin (I refuse to use those silly brown paper bags). I could have put out my brown paper bag of paper recycling but I didn't think that it was all the way full so I didn't. We had no cardboard bundled up so none of that went out either.

We did our monthly Wheatsville Co-Op shopping today and I used my own reusable canvas bags that I over stuffed to save room. At HEB I overstuffed our bags again (paper inside of plastic) so that I used fewer bags. Those bags get reused as kitchen trash bags in our house.

I condense all of my shopping and errands into one day so that I don't use the car everyday to run just one errand. Today we left the house around 11 and we: went to the post office to pick up new priority mail boxes, went to Target to get underpants and some tooth gifts, went to Sam's to get water, batteries and pretzels, went to Bark N Purr to get dog food, went to Wheatsville to get some groceries and lunch, went to Barton Creek Animal Clinic to get some Proin, went to the bank to deposit some LLL money, went to HEB to get gas, went to ballet lessons to drop Giselle off, went to HEB to do the rest of our grocery shopping and buy a grill, went back to ballet lessons to pick up Giselle, went back to HEB to get $2.88 for a coupon that the checkout guy forgot to ring up, and then came home. Tomorrow is Tuesday and we will go NO WHERE. On Wednesday we will go NO WHERE, actually this week I have a LLL Toddler Meeting so I'll do one trip that day. On Thursday this week I have a LLL PM Meeting, it's the semi-annual Couples' Meeting to go to but that's it. Friday I'll drive to the park.

Oh, my 11 year old car just turned over 100,000 miles today! In the 8 years that I've owned it I've put 64,000 miles on it with the last few years only driving about 6,000 miles a year.

I think that my carbon footprint is ok.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Sunday Seven will have to wait

I'm sitting here typing on the iMac Snowball so I don't have access to my Outlook Calendar. I can't do a proper Sunday Seven without looking at that. I'll post it tomorrow morning before our whirlwind shopping in the early part of the day, hopefully finishing it all while Giselle is at ballet.

the price of fun

We are all cleaned up with clean and conditioned hair after our bath & shower this morning. Now we are about to head to Dick Nichols Pool to get covered with public pool water that will strip all the oil from our skin and hair.
See Ya!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

dirt and grime

Dirt & Grime
OK, the kids didn't get a bath before the market. Sad to say but I think that most of the dirt rubbed off in the bed during the night. And today at The Market we only got grimier so they are close to gross now and I'm not too far behind. Actually they just look like kids who have fun getting dirty. Unfortunately I took too long to get off of the sofa to make dinner so we ate at 7 and I sent them to bed without bathing AGAIN! Well, tomorrow is church and since we now go to the late service we will have plenty of time for all three of us to bathe and shower. Good thing that tomorrow is laundry day too so those sheets will get cleaned before we go to bed.
I'll have to get that done in the morning so that when we get home from church we can quickly leave for the pool - it's open from 1 to 4 on the weekends. Hopefully Roland and the kids will meet us there like last week and maybe we'll even see The J's too!

Bedtime
There's a new episode of Torchwood being recorded right now on TiVo but I can't watch it without Joe and he's out at the Georgetown Saturday Night Car Show. Maybe I'll just drink my liter of water (number 4 for the day) and my Zima (number 1 for the month), read some blogs and head to bed early tonight. These days anything earlier than midnight is early for me. Although the kids and I sleep until 7:30 and then they let me have an extra 30 alone in bed so I do get 8 hours of sleep every night, which isn't bad at all. Especially since I don't get woken up every 2 hours to nurse someone anymore - just once a night is what we are down to.

Halloween
After The Market today we went to Party City (formerly Party Pig) to get Giselle's Halloween costume, remember that we got Paul's there last Saturday. She decided to be Cinderella again this year. So so far she has been .5 - a clown, 1.5 - a flower, 2.5 - a flower, 3.5 - a fairy, 4.5 - a fairy queen, 5.5 - Cinderella and this year at 6.5 Cinderella again. So when we got home, after she did her spelling words for the day, she and Paul got to put on their costumes and play for a bit. Gosh, her costume spreads glitter EVERYWHERE! I guess that it's time for me to start buying the candy since it's only 2 weeks away. Joe, if you have any special requests you better let me know before shopping day on Monday. And yes, I'll be sure to get you some Dots! OH NO, we still haven't gotten our pumpkins! I guess that will have to be put on the master list of things to do for this coming week.

Food
Dinner last night was a horrendous hot dogs and pizza bites and tonight wasn't any better - pizza rolls, tortellini and mixed veggies. Tomorrow should be better, maybe I'll make the Beef Stroganoff then. Yeah, that's what I'll do. I'll go take the sirloin out of the freezer now so that it's thawed in time.

See you tomorrow!

October 15 - Blog For The Environment Day

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

It's on Monday!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Park Day

Charles, Sara & Saul left this morning - we had a lot of fun in a short amount of time and we will miss them. I would enjoy it if they lived closer.
Giselle got an 85% on her test.
We didn't get to the park until 2.
We left the park about 6:20.
Dinner and bed, the baths will have to wait until tomorrow before The Market.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

dinner party menu

Dinner for 6 adults (4 men and 2 women) and 2 kids with additional snacking on the chips and grapes by 2 more adults and 3 more kids.

2.5 lbs Sockeye Salmon - broiled, seasoned with Old Bay Seasoning, served with melted butter
.25 lb Yellowfin Tuna - broiled, seasoned with Old Bay, served with melted butter
1.5 lbs Fresh (never frozen) Jumbo Gulf shrimp - peeled then boiled with Old Bay, served with homemade cocktail sauce
White corn tortilla chips
Jardine's smoked tomato medium salsa (thanks Chris!)
Pace Organic mild picante sauce
Tamaleo tamales - black bean, pork & chicken - steamed, served with Daisy sour cream
Some other brand hot pork tamales - steamed, served with Daisy sour cream
Central Market Organics mixed vegetables - steamed/boiled, seasoned with Spike seasoning and butter
Big round loaf of sourdough bread served with French cream butter (thanks Chris!)
Pickled okra
Pickled carrots
Pickled beets
Charles Shaw Cabernet Savingon (thanks Charles!)
Diet Coke with Splenda
Hansen's Diet Root Beer with Splenda
Frozen and refrigerated black and red organic seedless grapes

Everyone loved the food and I sent Chris home with some leftovers of the black-eyed peas and okra that I made the other night. Thomas is out of town but if he had been here there would have been enough for him too. Oh, and I forgot to put the Organic Spring Mix salad that I had in the fridge out on the table until I was getting out the grapes for dessert so that didn't get eaten at all.

Blurrrrrrry day

7:20 wake up
8 get out of bed & get dressed
8:15 eat breakfast
8:45 get everything together for LLL meeting
9 get schoolwork together for Giselle
9:20 take schoolwork to Giselle
9:30 take Paul to LLL meeting with me
9:45 to 12:45 conduct LLL meeting
12:50 pick up Giselle
1 eat lunch
2 mow lawn while kids watch TV
2:30 watch TV with kids while cooling off from mowing the lawn
3 review schoolwork for the week with Giselle to prep for her Friday test
4 write Giselle's test for tomorrow
5 start on dinner prep for 6:30 dinner party
6:15 to 11:15 guests over for dinner party
11:45 blog for the day
midnight - go to bed

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

a 7th and a 1st

Giselle lost her 7th tooth today. She's been working on it for a while and it was really starting to bug her - she couldn't eat her cereal this am because it kept getting in the way. This afternoon we were on our way home from the new Auditorium Shores Water Fountain Park which we were exploring with Sara & Saul when we stopped at Taco Bell for lunch (at 2:30 pm). Giselle said to only get her the cheesy fiesta potatoes, refried beans and rice but not the 7-layer burrito because of her tooth. So I place our order, drive up to the window and I'm about to pay the guy when Giselle shouts "My tooth came out, my tooth came out!". I said to her "I guess that you want that 7-layer burrito after all, huh?" and she said "Of course I do!". So we added it on and she devoured as soon as we got home.

This evening I watched Marie's kids while she went out and celebrated one of her brothers' birthday. They got home early - 8:40 - and the kids were all still up so I continued reading Farmer Boy to them. Then Grace asked her mom if Giselle could spend the night since they were already in their pajamas. Marie said yes since I was planning on bringing Giselle over in the morning to do school together. I called Joe and he said yes, so Giselle is currently at her very first sleep-over! She's spending her first night away from me EVER! We HAVE slept in separate beds before while on vacations but always in the same room, never in different rooms and never in different houses. It'll be just me and Paul in the big king bed - I might go to bed early just so that I can enjoy it for longer.

I'll miss her in the morning, breakfast won't be the same without her!

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

An hour ahead of the deadline

Sleep
School
Vacuuming
More School
Post Office
Bank
Dinner at Chuy's
Bed

Monday, October 08, 2007

just in the nick of time

Ha! I did get a post in today!
the next few days will be full and it'll be a race to see if I can post in time but I'm going to do it.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Thomas and more

Did I mention that our WONDERFUL nephew Thomas is living with us currently? The kids love him, the dog loves him, we all love him. The fish don't love him since they all died the week before he moved in back at the beginning of September but he has a Betta of his own that he left in Houston with his girlfriend so if ours had stayed alive I bet that they would have loved him too. We are totally enjoying him staying with us! He is enduring Paul the Feather-Weight Kick-Boxing Champion quite well, he's only cried twice (Thomas, not Paul - Paul cries several times a day).

And this week we have new guests joining us - Charles from San Jose and his family are staying with us for a few days this week. Charles is really from Longview Texas but his blood has thinned from living in CA and he now thinks it's too hot here.

Time to buy more toilet paper, and not that cheap 2-ply double-roll Makers Mark stuff from Sam's but the Cottonelle Ultra that we fell in love with at my parent's in Florida! Wow that's some nice toilet paper!

Did I really just gush about toilet paper? If Joe hadn't reacted the same way after he tried it the first time I'd think that I needed to get out a little more. Ahh, it's the simple things that tie a couple together.

candy or at least an attempt at making candy

So, using a verbal receipe from Gayla, I attempted to make Ayote squash candy this evening. I have NEVER even tried to make any kind of candy so this was totally new to me. I guess that I didn't cook it for quite long enough because even after cooling it's still not firm. It's thicker than apple sauce but thinner than jelly in it's consistency. BUT it tastes GREAT!!! It tastes like pumpkin filling and I'm going to either get fat eating it this week or I'm going to freeze it up to make pumpkin/squash pie this winter or, oh I know, I'll put it into my next batch of ice cream! I'll make vanilla with a candied squash swirl in it! MMMMM, I can just taste it now. Seriously, after I post this I'm going to have another spoonful of the squash and then go to bed.

I used 2 or 3 lbs of ayote squash cut into large chunks, enough water to almost cover the squash. I cooked it until it was fork-tender then added in a 24 oz bag of brown sugar and stirred the whole thing until it was thick. I guess that it should have been thicker but I was tired of stirring and the kids were almost done with dinner (hot dogs with chili) by that time. I poured it into a 15 x10 baking pan lined with Glad Wrap to cool and then put it in the fridge. Oh well, at least it doesn't taste bad!

Sunday Seven #21 NOW

I'm too tired to write up a Sunday Seven right now. NOPE change that , I'm going to do one on the fly, without even opening up my Outlook Calendar to jog my memory!
Things I'm thankful for this past week ending Saturday Oct 6 2007
1 - Getting to the pool TWICE this week.
2 - Finding where the Clif bars are located at the HEB that I now shop at.
3 - Giselle getting a 97% on her Friday test.
4 - Paul learning to write the letter 'P'.
5 - My Friend Susan giving birth to child #6, another girl and big too!
6 - A wonderful birthday party for a fellow homeschool mom who ACTUALLY LIVES NEXT DOOR that I attended with the kids.
7 - A great Park Day that lasted for ever!

Bonus - Thankful for Thomas tolerating Paul accidentally racking him every other day.
Oh, and don't worry Joe, I'm always thankful for you!

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Uh Oh

I just realized that it's been a month since I last posted a Sunday Seven (would that be a month of Sundays?). Don't get me wrong, there have been plenty of things to be thankful for but Sunday afternoons have been busier since we switched the time that we go to church (back at the beginning of September) and I just haven't gotten around to writing them up each week and posting them. Hopefully in this month of daily posts I will get back into the habit of posting my Sunday Sevens again, starting with tomorrow.

hanging in there

Not me, I mean, I'm doing just fine; it's Giselle's tooth that I'm talking about here. It's tooth number 7 - her right top incisor. And while the new tooth is pushing this one out (you can actually see the new tooth) and you can even stick a fingernail into the gap between the tooth and gum in the front; the gum on the back of the tooth and quite possibly the nerve are still firmly attached. She had me trying to pry it out tonight before bed, being sure to numb it with Nighttime Baby Ora-Gel (it's cherry flavored and she likes that more than the mint flavor of the higher strength adult version). It's not coming out yet. We'll be working on it tomorrow morning before church since afterwards we are going to the pool for the afternoon and she doesn't want it falling out while she is there. You make think "That's silly" but it's not. Her friend Kayla had one of her front teeth fall out on Thursday night while we were all at the pool and it truly did fall out in the pool and it's LOST! Maybe not a big deal for those kids who surrender their teeth to the Tooth Fairy but here we keep all the old teeth in a special box so that she can look at them whenever she wants. And she gets a small gift on the kitchen table the next morning - she gets to keep the tooth AND she gets a present!

I brought my latest favorite dip to the neighbors' birthday party this evening. It's a package of Good Seasons Garlic and Herb oil and vinegar salad dressing mix mixed into 26 ounces of Daisy Sour Cream. Oooh, it's GOOOOOD! Especially when you dip fresh California Wonder Red and Orange Bell Pepper slices into it. I've not met a kid yet that can resist the combination.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Park Day

The kids did great this morning - no playroom messes and a 97% on the Friday test - so once we were done with watching all the Schoolhouse Rock DVD we headed to the park. We stayed until 7 along with 2 other homeschool families and the kids didn't want to leave. As Suzanne said earlier this evening, there was the usual 5 and 6 yr old drama going on but at least we were out of the house for the whole day and that alone is reason to celebrate.
Dinner was fairly quick chicken fajitas for the 3 kids and a tortilla and grapes for me.
Tomorrow we have The Market in the morning, costume shopping in the afternoon, pool later in the afternoon, and a neighbor's birthday party in the evening.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

pool

We made it to the pool this evening for the second time this week . At least this time I got to go inside the gate but I still couldn't go in the pool since I was the Paul monitor. Maybe next time Paul won't take an hour to clean up his mess in the playroom and he'll get to actually go into the pool. I have hope!
Park day tomorrow!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

dinner

I was about to post but then realized that I don't have dinner arranged yet. Giselle got involved and we are now having tater tot casserole Natalie-style for dinner. That's assuming that I've got some ancient bags of tater tots at the bottom of the freezer and we all know what happens when we assume!

Well, the freezer list shows that I've got 4 bags of tots in the freezer so tater tot casserole it is!
Tater tots
sliced smoked sausage
sour cream
cheese
seasonings
milk
and a bag of mixed veggies

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Poison Oak

Suzannne, I forgot to show you my tiny patches of poison ivy this evening!

The hillside between our house and the one next-door is filled with live oaks and yucca and nandina and primrose jasmine and wild grapes and cedar and poison oak. Every several years I go on a weeding binge and pull out ALL the poison oak that I can find on that hillside. I did it 6 years ago when I was 41 weeks pregnant with Giselle, I did it 3 years ago when Paul was 4 months old and I'm doing it now over the next few weeks. I pulled out a garbage bag-full last week and that's not even half of it. And when I'm done with that I'll be pulling out TONS of English ivy that's growing there as ground cover.
Now personally, I can't stand English ivy but it makes an OK ground cover in the shade. But I make it my mission to keep it all in the neighbor's yard and out of my yard. The problems are that it's gotten overgrown on the ground surrounding the neighbor's house so all the pathways are overgrown and it's growing up the trunks of the live oaks. I got a good portion of the pathways cleared last week but getting it out of the trees is going to be tricky since it actually grows into the tree. English ivy is parasitic so I can't just cut it off at the ground like I do with the wild grapes and I can't get in there to take care of that until all the poison oak is gone.
And now I'm totally paranoid about every itch that I get, especially on my face. But today I double-washed my hands and arms so I'm pretty confident that I got it all off of my skin.

Monday, October 01, 2007

update

Still haven't bought any shoes - still looking.
Been reading parenting and teaching books in my spare time instead of blogging.
Today was shopping day so tonight was seafood night.
Working on tying up loose ends before the end of the year.
This month I'm going to make at least one post a day, even if it's tiny like this one.