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!!

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!

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!

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

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...

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!