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Carla said...
how do you freeze melons?
July 27, 2008 8:11 PM

I say:
I scrub them clean, then peel them, then cut I cut each one in half and scoop out the seeds. Then I cut each half in half and then cut each quarter into slices. Then I put them on a rimmed baking pan (formerly known as a cookie sheet to me) in one and 1/2 layers and stick them in the freezer until they are hard (usually overnight or two). When the are frozen I take the pans out and set them on the counter to thaw for a bit so it's easier to separate them. After they have thawed enough so that my hands don't stick to the pans, I take them off the trays and put them into 1-gallon freezer bags and store them in the freezer for use over the next year.
YUM!

gone gone gone I've been gone so long

Name that song and artist and I'll send you a prize.

I just got back this afternoon from a trip to Houston, thus the lack of posts since Sunday. Too bad too since I was on a roll on posts, wasn't I? Oh well.
I'll give details about the trip in other posts; I really just wanted to let you know that I'm back and the posts will start coming again.

Sunday Seven

Sunday 7 #24
Seven things that I am thankful for the week ending 7/26/08

1 - That the people at the church we tried out were VERY nice and welcoming.
2 - That Giselle got to do another study at the UT Children's Research Lab.
3 - That I exercised great control and didn't purchase any Doctor Who action figures when I saw them in the store. I mean really, what do I need a Martha Jones doll for?
4 - That Hurricane Dolly lost it's power once it hit land.
5 - That Marie called from Sweden and I was available to talk with her.
6 - That I got a case of melons to freeze up for eating in the winter.
7 - That our friends who've been on vacation for the last 6 weeks will be back NEXT SUNDAY!

Of course, thankful for the spouse of 2o years (next month) and the 2 great kids! And my many friends!
Not thankful that I forgot to use my 10% owner appreciation coupon when I shopped at Wheatsville on Monday.

Kid Pics Carnival #1

It's the inaugural edition of Kid Pics Carnival! I'm a day late but just back off!



Two from Giselle

And two from Paul

Are you inspired? Then join in by posting your kid's pictures on your blog then post your name and the link to your carnival ride (post) HERE <- this is a link to the main carnival page for this week and it's where all the participants are listed.

Hiking

This week we went for a hike in the front 25. Paul didn't listen to me when I told him that he needed to wear socks with his cowboy boots so he got blisters. The socks are to protect from blisters and the boots are to protect from snakes. I wore my rain boots since my Ropers still aren't broken in all the way - they're ONLY 15 years old. We had fun, except for the blisters, and the plants that we picked are still alive in water.
Yesterday we went on another hike, this time at the park. It was just a short one to check if the creek had retained any water from the Dolly rain. It hadn't. The rocks were wet on the bottom but the tops were already dried out and flaky with dried mud. It was so much fun last year playing in the flooded creek each week that we really wish it could be full again.

I gotta unpack the produce from The Market and take care of this case of Costa Rican Indian melon. Gayla brought me her last pound of ground pork so now I can make another batch of meatballs - Giselle is delighted since she LOVES my meatballs.

Scary statistic!

According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies:
Almost 4 BILLION prescriptions are filled each year.
More than 50 MILLION medication errors are made each year.
More than 1.5 MILLION injuries happen each year due to those medication errors.
More than 7 THOUSAND deaths each year are caused by those prescription errors.

Make sure your doctor is writing your prescription correctly and make sure that your pharmacist is filling it correctly.

Thanks

OH NO! Here's another post that didn't get published when it was supposed to. This one is from January 27, 2008 at 3:36 pm. I'm sure to find some more since I've never before thought to look at my list of posts to check that they published instead of just saving to draft.



The kid's grandparents left on Tuesday and all of us at Casa De Galletti just want to say to them again:



Thanks for visiting us! We had a lot of fun and we want to do it again SOON! We love you both very much and we all really enjoyed getting to play and hang out with y'all. We started missing y'all the moment that you drove away from our house on Monday night! We're looking forward to your next visit, whenever it may be.

We love you!

Joe, Natalie, Giselle & Paul

Palm Centro

I just came across this post that never got posted back on May 2, 2008 at 12:01 pm so I'm posting it now.


I returned my Palm Centro (in a most beautiful shade of pink) to the Sprint store yesterday. It just wasn't the phone that best serves my needs. In order to use the miniature full qwerty keypad I needed to keep my fingernails long and that's just plain hazardous when you've got small kids around. Since it's a non-flip phone it was more complicated to end a call one handed. I really felt that it was a kid unfriendly phone since there were so many buttons that could be accidently touched when they were using it. And while the keypad lock is pretty easy to undo, that just makes it easier for it to get undone while in my purse. I REALLY liked the ringtone options but that's not enough of a reason to keep a phone. The Sprint store didn't have the replacement phone that I wanted (a pink Sanyo flip phone) so I just got my old phone re-activated until I can get ahold of the new pink Sanyo I want.

I said "Hello Dolly!"

These are from earlier today. SOOC and all that, well, I did shrink the size of some of them but other than that...

Up until yesterday and today we haven't had many clouds this summer so seeing this up in the sky was a sure sign of Hurricane Dolly on the way.













Oh, and don't worry for us. We are WAY too far inland for hurricanes to do anything other than give us a little rain.

Well Hello Dolly!

10:49 am CDT Wed Jul 23 2008

This hazardous weather outlook is for south central texas.

Day one...today and tonight.
Hurricane dolly will make landfall this afternoon near and just north of Brownsville. Dolly is then forecast to move west northwest across the lower Rio Grande valley this afternoon and evening...and to northeast Mexico

Tonight and Thursday.
Showers and thunderstorms will increase this afternoon and tonight as the outer bands of dolly move westward across the area. Locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds around 30 to 35 mph can be expected mainly along and to the south of a line from Giddings and Schulenburg to near new Braunfels and san Antonio...then west to near Uvalde and Del Rio. This thunderstorm activity could move further north to the Austin area and parts of the hill country later this afternoon and during the evening hours today. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are possible today. Rain that is heavy at times could cause some flooding on low lying streets and roads or at low water crossings that are easily subject to flooding.

In addition...a tornado watch has been issued through 7 pm CDT today for Lavaca...Dewitt...Gonzales...Karnes... and Wilson counties. As thunderstorms on some of the stronger outer bands of dolly sweep across these counties...isolated tornadoes...hail to one half of an inch in diameter and strong...damaging winds are possible.

I love a good book

So, after Joe went to bed at 1 I continued to stay up. Silly me decided to pick up the book that Giselle was reading - the diary of a girl captured by Lenape Indians in 1763. I finished the book shortly before 4 am. 8 am seemed to come awfully quickly today so I stayed in bed until 9. Giselle finished the book this morning before school.

If you have a little girl that is about 7 to 12 years old then y'all should get ahold of these books. Actually, there are some about boys too so your son would enjoy them too I think. They are published by Scholastic Books and the series is called Dear America. These books will really help bring history to life for Giselle, similar to Story Of The World.

Blueberry Pancakes

So the other day I got an email newsletter from Cook's Illustrated and it had a video recipe for blueberry pancakes listed. I watched it with the kids and they immediately decided that we'd (I) would be making them for breakfast the next day. So Monday morning I made the BEST blueberry pancakes that I've ever made. We ate them naked for breakfast and lunch (the pancakes, not us). The next time that I make them, which will be soon, I'll add some cinnamon into the batter and maybe a touch more sugar.

Oh, and if you ever need to make substitute buttermilk because you don't have any on hand and choose to make it using 1 TBS of lemon juice in 2 cups of milk. Well, don't use lime juice instead if you don't have any lemon juice. Trust me on this, I know. The milk didn't thicken like it was supposed to so the cooked pancakes were a little thinner than the should have been. I bought plenty of pure lemon juice when I was at Wheatsville on Monday so this won't be happening ever again. I'm sure you're thinking "Why can't you just get one of those big green bottles from HEB?" Well, HEB doesn't carry the Santa Cruz Organic Lemon Juice that I use. They don't even carry another brand of organic lemon juice and I had used up all of mine during the liver cleanse that I did last month. But it's all OK now!

Forgot One

and one more book - it was in my purse to read to them while we ate dinner out on the way home that same night - The Railway Children by E. Nesbit.

And Giselle is already half-way through the book of the diary of the girl taken captive by Indians in 1763. I see lots of trips to the library in our future!

Half-Price Books

We finally made the trek to North-Central Austin to check out the giant-sized Half-Price Books Monday afternoon. Here is what we walked out of there with:

Roald Dahl & Quentin Blake - Roald Dahl's Even More Revolting Recipes.
Ruyard Kipling - The Jungle Book - this edition is annotated so we'll be using this for school.
The American Girls Collection - Kirsten's Craft Book - crafts from 1854.
Predators Sticker-Pedia - includes a CD-ROM with over 224 clip art images!
Dover Game and Puzzle Activity Books - Knock Knock Jokes.
Decide Your Destiny Series - Doctor Who - The Spaceship Graveyard.
Patricia MacLachlan - Sarah, Plain and Simple.
Patricia MacLachlan - Skylark - the sequal to the above book.
John R Erickson - Hank the Cowdog.
John R Erickson - The Further Adventures of Hank the Cowdog.
Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals.
Laura Lee Hope - The Bobbsey Twins In Volcano Land.
Uncle John's Wild & Woolly Bathroom Reader for Kids Only - wacky facts about amazing animals!
Gertrude Chandler Warner - The Boxcar Children.
Gertrude Chandler Warner - The Boxcar Children Surprise Island.
Gertrude Chandler Warner - The Boxcar Children The Yellow House Mystery.
Scholastic - Li'l Book O' Big Laughs.
Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden.
Joy Adamson - Living Free - I'll try to get Born Free before we get around to reading this.
Walter Farley - The Black Stallion and the Girl.
JM Barrie - Peter Pan: The Original Story.
Roger Lea MacBride - Little House on Rocky Ridge - the continuation of the stories that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote.
Roger Lea MacBride - Little Farm in the Ozarks - #2 of the above.
Roger Lea MacBride - In the Land of the Big Red Apple - #3 of above.
Roger Lea MacBride - On the Other Side of the Hill - #4 of above.
Scholastic Series Dear America - The Captive Diary of Catharine Cary Logan 1763.
Scholastic Series Dear America - The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell 1847.
Scholastic Series Dear America - The Diary of Teresa Angelino Viscardi 1883.
Scholastic Series Dear America - The Diary of Libby West 1868.
Scholastic Series Dear America - The Great Depression Diary of Minnie Swift 1932.

I have no idea where we're starting with these books although most of them are for Giselle to read by herself in the mornings before school.

Sunday School

So, what do YOU look for in a good Sunday School for your kids?

I'm unhappy with the program that my kids are attending at our regular church so we're on a quest to find a better one. I gotta get back to school right now but I'll expand on this later.

Sunday Seven #23

Sunday Seven
Seven Things That I am Thankful for this past week ending 7/19/08

1 - That our head colds were going away by the time I had to lead the West meetings.
2 - That our food and service at Maudie's Milagro was just right.
3 - That the starter in my car died while it was in my driveway in the morning, not while in a parking lot in the middle of the day.
4 - 3 other friends showing up for Park Day.
5 - Summer School continuing to go well.
6 - Pokemon action figures being such a well received reward.
7 - Having so many churches nearby for us to choose from since I'm not satisfied with the Sunday School at our current church.

And family and kids and friends, of course.


Leave a link to your Sunday Seven in the comments!

Photography Fun

Karen at Life in the Crazy Lane is starting a Toddler Photo thing and I'm going to join in. Any others of you that let your kids get a hold of the camera every once in a while, feel free to join in on her Carnival that she's starting This Coming Friday Night. It's guaranteed to be fun viewing!

Paul's perspective of leftover pizza


A 50 year-old German stacking toy

A flower arrangement of Giselle's

The Sun-Moon-and Stars in our bedroom. The stars glow. And yes, that IS an Elvis doll up on that top shelf.

Pork and Pipian

I made the pork shoulder/pipian squash thing for dinner again and I remembered to take some pictures while I cooked it. I'll post them after dinner or tomorrow. I haven't cooked the onions yet and I'm sure that the kids will revolt if I don't make them so I better get back to cooking.

Dinner Calendar - January 2008

Wow, I'm totally on a roll on these!
Thomas moved out this month so dinner was back down to usually being for just the kids, somewhat for me and occasionally for Joe. Actually, he went back on Adkins with the new year so he started eating chicken breasts at home for dinner more often. But we switched chicken, previously I always cooked up fajita-seasoned chicken breasts to order in the cast-iron skillet. Now, with the microwave oven installed, I was buying the pre-cooked breasts and Joe waves them himself whenever he wants them. With Thomas not being here regularly, Big Dinners started to include both him and his best friend/house-mate Bobby and they both have a big liking for the Tamaleo tamales so that's what we usually have for the Big Dinners.

So here is the dinner calendar for January 2008:

1 - Salmon, tortellini, black-eyed peas, rice
2 - Black-eyed peas & rice w/ turkey gravy, tortellini & ravioli w/ sauce
3 - Ate out at Satellite Cafe
4 - Hot dogs w/ buns, broccoli
5 - Tortellini, seaweed salad
6 - Spaghetti w/ sauce, broccoli, Joe had salmon & brisket
7 - Ravioli w/ meatballs & sauce
8 - Hot dogs w/ chili
9 - Macaroni & Cheese w/ mixed veggies & ground beef mixed in
10 - Leftover Mac & Cheese, spaghetti & ravioli
11 - Pizza bites
12 - Ravioli w/ sauce
13 - Ate out at Trudy's
14 - Baked potato soup (doctored a fresh-ingredient kit from HEB)
15 - Ate out at The Cheesecake Factory
16 - Homemade veal dumplings (the Asian kind not the Bisquick kind), smoked oysters
17 - Smoked sausage, cheese
18 - Asian noodle soup, veal dumplings
19 - Pigeon peas w/ rice
20 - Big Dinner - King Ranch casserole (see my archives for the recipe) and Bumbleberry Blossoms (berry tarts from Costco)
21 - Ate out at Satellite Cafe
22 - Leftover King Ranch Casserole for Paul, Vegetable broth for Giselle
23 - Chili w/ hot dogs, mixed veggies
24 - Ham & cheese sandwich - Giselle, yogurt w/ bananas - Paul, homemade cinnamon sugar cookies
25 - oops, forgot to write it down
26 - Ate out-in - Domino's Pizza
27 - Meatfest on the Grill 2008 - cube steak, fajita-seasoned chicken breasts & thighs, pork shoulder steak, okra & tomatoes, pasta & pesto, mixed veggies, smores (I told you that it's charcoal grill weather year-round here)
28 - Spaghetti w/ meatballs & sauce
29 - Lo Mien w/ veggies and veal dumpling insides
30 - Tortellini & ravioli w/ sauce
31 - Ham & cheese tortilla roll-ups

Dinner Calendar - December 2007

I'm on a bit of a roll with these, mainly because I wanted to get 2007 over and done with so I could file the calendar away. Thomas was still with us so he was joining in on meals whenever he was home at dinner time. Joe ate out most nights, and I continued with my 'grazing through dinner' meal plan. So, this is really a list of what the KIDS ate every night for dinner, unless there were veggies involved or soup because THOSE I join in on. I love me some soup! Just last week (July '08) I made some FANTASTIC chicken noodle soup; Joe even loved it and he usually only likes soup if he's sick.

'Mixed Veggies' means either a half or full 16 oz bag of frozen Central Market Organic brand mixed peas, carrots, corn and green beans. 'Big Dinner' means that we had more than just our family of 4 eating the meal, anywhere from one more person up to 4 more people.

So, without further delay, here is the dinner calendar for December 2007:
1 - Ate out-in from Burger King, leftover black-eyed peas thing
2 - Fresh meatballs (ground pork & ground Jersey bull) w/ homemade sauce, mushroom ravioli
3 - Big Dinner - Salmon, scallops, pizza bites
4 - Pasta (foot-long ziti) w/ white bean sauce (maybe from Everyday Food?)
5 - Macaroni & Cheese w/ mixed veggies, grilled hot dogs, smores (we must have just gotten the charcoal grill 2 days before - it was end of the season clearance. I know you're saying "End of season clearance? But it's December! I think the grilling season ended a while ago." But see, in December we still regularly have daily highs in the 70's (80's in the sun) so grilling out is really a year-round thing here)
6 - Big Dinner (Lisa was in town) - Tamales, broccoli, guacamole & chips, still-in-season-at-the-farmers-market bell peppers & dip, pepper & tomato soup w/ rice
7 - Macaroni & Cheese w/ ground beef and veggies mixed in
8 - Oops, forgot to write it down
9 - Pasta (star shaped) w/ sauce
10 - Pizza bites
11 - Big Dinner - Salmon, scallops, home-made Lo Mien
12 - Hot dogs w/ chili & rice
13 - Tortellini w/ sauce & meatballs, green beans
14 - Ate out-in - Summer Sausage & cheese from North Carolina (thanks Cea & Charlie), Domino's pizza (our standard order is double black olives, double mushrooms on a hand-tossed crust, Joe's is green pepper, onion, pepperoni on thin crust)
15 - Ate out at a dinner/Christmas party at a friend's house
16 - Tortellini w/ mixed veggies
17 - Hot dogs w/ chili & rice
18 - Ate out at Kerby Lane Cafe
19 - Ravioli w/ edamame
20 - Tamales
21 - Macaroni & Cheese w/ ground beef & mixed veggies mixed in
22 - Tortellini w/ meatballs and sauce
23 - Ravioli w/ meatballs and sauce
24 - Home-made black olive pizza, tortellini w/ fresh meatballs & sauce
25 - Christmas - Big Dinner - Wild turkey (the poultry not the bourbon), mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans, steamed carrots, dressing, King Hawaiian rolls, gravy, chocolate cherry cheesecake (from Aunt Nita at the Farmers Market)
26 - Leftovers from last night except we had brisket (thank you Christian) instead of turkey
27 - Leftovers from last night minus the beans and the rolls
28 - Ate out at Dynasty Buffet
29 - Tortellini & ravioli w/ meatballs and sauce
30 - Macaroni & Cheese w/ mixed veggies and ground beef
31 - Ate out-in - Domino's Pizza