freshly squeezed

caulking DONE!

2011-03-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

You need to use your imagination when you view these pictures, because they are sideways and I"m too lazy to rotate them...

The first picture shows a portion of an uncaulked section of kitchen wall. You can see the wall part is yellow with white crown molding to it's right and the ceiling is white. The black hole is a cut-out in the wall. You can kinda see the gap in the bottom of the molding where it doesn't meet the wall and gappy areas above the molding where it doesn't meet the ceiling and paint tried to bridge the gap. Very bad looking. Painting the trim white emphasized all the flaws! So, painter beware! I finally got around to caulking the gaps. I had to do ALL the molding. Lucky it's a small kitchen. this is the before shot...

This is the after... Can you see the difference? It makes a HUGE difference. It looks like it should. Before, it screamed at you when you entered the room.

My current project is the kitchen sink. The garbage disposal finally went kaput, and the sink was a rusty nasty black pit, so I'm trying to take advantage to put in a little bling. But there's always something... We went to Lowe's and bought a sink, faucet set and disposal plus their installation. There was a great sale so we got bucks knocked off, plus a military discount (applies to retirees), plus the installation means no sales tax! Still expensive, but a bargain is a bargain. The plumber came yesterday to install. The disposal was not new because it was missing parts and had a hair in it!! Yuck! The exchange was easy in theory, but all the discounts made for tricky maneuvering by the cashier/manager. Got back home in time for the plumber to inform us of problem #2. The sink doesn't fit. We HAD a self-rimming sink and bought a drop-in. Apparantly even though these are both top mount, they are not different names for the same thing. Drop-ins use clips, therefore they need a bigger hole. (even though the basins are smaller!) Ugh. So, I'm trying to get a countertop company to call me back and get this done. All we need is a half inch off in width and 1/2 in. off in length of our granite. WHICH we found out the back piece was cracked. which may or may not cause a minor headache. Here is the hole.

Here is my sink and faucet waiting to be installed, laying on my dining room floor.

I'm learining to expect the unexpected.

On the plus side, my parents are visiting and helping to fill in the slack and dad is working like crazy. He's dug out some vine roots and has worked hard to eradicate the squeaks in our steps. He's done well! It's like having our own personal handyman. Except he's leaving tomorrow. :-( I'm trying to be his shadow and learn. I'm sure he's tired of my questions!

lots of painting done in kitchen, picture heavy...

2011-01-04T07:12:00.001-08:00

The kitchen walls and cabinets are finished! Hooray! Well, finished is a temporary word. I'm thinking about adding a glaze to the cabinets, I dunno, something seems - off - and it doesn't seem to be jelling yet.

I painted the kitchen walls the Sherwin Williams Friendly Yellow (made using Pittsburgh Paints) that I got from mom and dad. This is the color they have over most of their house. I don't think this photo fairly shows the brightness of the yellow. It's not a creamy or golden yellow, it's a true yellow and very clear and bright. But not a bad bright. I chose to post this picture because you can see how close the family room is and how it's important that the colors at least don't clash with each other. I'm still not totally sold, but the paint was free and each color, in it's own room, is nice. At least it's not beige or tan! LOL!

I reallly need to take some good pictures after we get moved in. I had chosen this picture because it shows all the peeling paint on the windows, but it doesn't seem to be showing up so well. It peeled off when I removed the blue painters tape. Which peeled because the dodo head who caulked used silicone caulk and not paintable caulk. I think they must have gotten a boatload free because it's EVERYWHERE. I have got loads of windows to scrape paint, remove caulk, recaulk and repaint. *SIGH*

I had spent a lot of time, in the house hunting phase, looking at painted kitchen cabinets and had fallen in love with kitchens with multiple colored cabinets. When we bought this house and I hated the two toned dark wood cabinets, I knew I'd paint. I saw this large pantry cabinet and thought this would be the best place to do the alternate color, since our fridge is huge and white and I thought it'd be white overload on one wall. I think the color is great for a cabinet and would look great with some antiquing glaze, but the crown is too starkly white and I'm not so sure about the yellow next to it. The yellow is the least of my concerns at the moment, because the fridge will break most of that yellow/green connect. I'm wondering if I should go up further with the green, at least to the bottom portion of the crown molding. Or maybe it'll be better if I hang some tiles or plates up there?

This is a picture of the painted kitchen cabinets. We changed the shiney brass hinges, knobs and pulls to a matte black. (gotta get the shiney brass infestation out of here!) Excuse the mess. It's painting supplies, hardware packages, shelf liner backing, etc. etc. Eventually we want to change out the ceiling fan. The fan pull was pulled out, so it's not functional as a fan, and really, do you want such a huge fan right over the cooking space? A small personal fan would cool the cook without cooling the food. Also on my to-do list is to pretty up the interior of the glass doors. I'll get one of my artists paintbrushes and paint a nice thick line of white paint on the interior of the door glass. The paint didn't go on smoothly inside due to the caulking used to hold the glass in place. An easy fix, but it's something that I have to make time for and remember. I wish I could do something pretty and colorful with the backsplash, but that's beyond our diy skills and I think would go beyond the worth of the house and neighborhood. I might look into what I can do to those beige diamond tiles. I think you can paint them, but I've also read that it's not a good idea to do since they need to be wipe-able. (how often do you clean a backsplash?)

This is the rest of our small kitchen. Remember, the big white fridge (which I LOVE) will be blocking most of that green cabinet. We'll be replacing the microwave with a convection/microwave to give me added oven space. Eventually we'll take out the oven and put in one of those cool double oven ranges. We will need to hire someone to work on the cabinets, and probably the granite and electrical. Plus we are investigating running the propane to the oven and making the cooktop propane. I think it can be as good as gas, but I'm not quite sure on that yet. But that's well into the future.

This is just a view of the kitchen from down in the family room. BTW, the hole on the left of the stove area is a little hallway that leads to a small pantry closet and the laundry room. Beyond that is another doorway that leads to our master bedroom. I'm going to have to remember to keep that door closed!!

This is a picture of the family room, in it's painted and carpeted glory! We really need to do something with the skimpy mantel. That's on the to-do list. It seems to be very common to have bookshelves flanking a fireplace. We'll have to see how the furniture pans out. I don't know if we want to just beef up the mantel or do a whole surround? Do we keep it white or go natural wood? I like brick but hate the shiney brass (curse the shiney brass!) I think a layered stone would be pretty, but again, I think that would be an expense better used elsewhere. Brick is not bad. At least it's not an ugly pink or beige brick. It's a good normal brick.

I thought I had taken a picture of the laundry room in the it's Dill Pickle glory, but I didn't. I'll do that. It looks good.

big reveal of the final paint choice

2010-12-11T19:24:00.001-08:00

First, I have a short story to share. If anyone is reading this blog, you might have noticed that I got an actual comment!! From someone from Benjamin Moore. I was a little skeptical, because there are all kinds of kooks on the internet, but I shot an email out to her. She sent me 4 paint color suggestions. They were: 2147-50 pale sea mist , 2145-40 fernwood green, 431 central park and 430 landscape. (plus promised to send a gift card, bonus!)

I had originally tried pale sea mist at the same time I had tested the dill pickle. I thought it was very pastel-y (and also did not see yellow, I thought it looked like a mint, or old lady color - JMO!! I'm sure it's lovely) I already had a strip with the fernwood green but rejected it because it was an even paler, murkier and more yellow than the dill pickle. Note that I did not buy a paint sample, so I don't know what it would actually look like. The paint chips for the other two were not available at my store, but he did have the fan book thingy and I looked at them and selected the central park to sample. While there, I also got a sample of Sherwood Green HC-118. I have a friend on Facebook who showed me a picture of her dining room where she had Kittery Point Green HC-119 which is one lighter and I thought my room needed a darker shade.

So that puts the sample count at two, if you got lost in this long winded short story... Central Park and Sherwood Green. This time I got smart and painted my portable samples on foam core poster board - so they stood up nice and flat, better than regular poster board. I also did the usual big splotches on various walls. I loved them both. The Central Park was exciting and fresh but scared me to death. The Sherwood was nice and "safe" but not the fresh feeling I wanted.

On the second coat, I had poured much too much of the Central Park in the little bucket, so I decided to paint some in the laundry room. Yee-ikes! Can you say Kermit the Frog?! It was sooo bright! But it looked so good in the family room. I must say that test sample swayed our decision. Plus Gary preferred the Sherwood. So we chose the Sherwood Green.

Here are pictures of the results. It just got painted on today, and required only 1 coat.

It looks much greener in this last picture that what I see in real life. I would say it's got a lot of blue going on in the color. It is somewhat like a doctor's scrub - not the blue, but the blue/green. Maybe scrubs are not the right thing, but definitely reminds me of a hospital or medical related color. But we are not medical people, so it doesn't bother us. And it sometimes looks a bit pastel-y - but not minty. It's got a nice calming vibe. Not really old lady - or so I hope not. When you first paint it on and it's still wet, it's shockingly old lady pastel! Both of them were! I thought I was being punked! But it dries darker and very nice.

while my painter was doing his magic in this room (which, BTW, is done! he finished the white too, so we can get the carpet laid) I was painting the laundry room. I decided to use up the rest of the dill pickle in there. I had a tad more than a half gallon left over. It's a small room and the lighting is very different in there. I want cheery when I do drudgery work. And the dill pickle delivers! It glows! It glows green! A bright vibrant green. I love it. This simply isn't a color for my living room, but great in the laundry room. It had a yukky tan on it before, so I need a second coat to ensure that grossness doesn't seep through. I tried to take pictures, but it just doesn't justify the feel you get.

Today's progress - pictures! carpet and tile

2010-12-01T17:27:00.001-08:00

Jake enjoying the new smartstrand carpet. It is so soft!!

(I forgot these post in reverse order, and since I'm lazy, this will be "backwards day!")

This is a shot of the final product, you can see the worker is buffing off the haze, and the green patchwork walls in the family room where the carpet has been ripped out. The stripes is really just the sun shining through the balcony spindles from our west facing room.

Close up of the tile and grout after the grout has dried. There is still a haze, and these photos were taken from my phone camera. 18X18" tiles.

A shot with the kitchen cabinets. They chipped up my new paint job in several places. this is before they replaced the quarter rounds. My painter is paid by the hour, so he won't mind fixing it. The cabinets are white, not yellow or cream like it looks here.

Tile with grout still wet. I kinda like the darker grout, but the lighter is fine with me too!

This is the dry rot they found underneath a second layer of vinyl. I knew there had been a dishwasher leak, but who knew it would be so rotten?? They took out a large rectangle of floor down to the joists and found several cracked joists. The floor had sunk and so they put in a support beam and jacks to level it out. Thankfully, the granite had seams so it did not crack when they jacked it up.

See what I meant about drama? Drama comes with a hefty price tag too!

the promised pictures...

2010-11-29T18:43:00.001-08:00

Let's start off with photos of the offending green. The first is my favorite. I'm standing in the foyer and the chartreuse on the left and green to the right of it are the same wall, same number of coats of paint, same paint color, same room. Weird. The green is lovely, the chartreuse is not.

This is the same green looking up to the balcony. Looks more olive green. But this is in a darker region of a room. I think the olive is fine. At least it's green! Don't mind the paneling. It's just primed. It'll be beautiful when it's done.

This is looking toward the kitchen and it's yet another green, but still green. Again, it's in a darker portion of the room. But I can't keep the room dark! I need light! And light means chartreuse. *sigh* It makes me so sad.

I'm so exhausted and the green is making it worse. But I must get the paint color pinned down this week. This week the kitchen flooring is going in (which has already started out with drama and added money) and my painter is off doing another job. So I supposedly have time to pick out a new paint. But let me talk about the BM dill pickle. It's the magical morphing color!

I made my paint sample on poster board, painted blocks on all 4 of the walls and looked at it in all kinds of light situations. When the painter first put it on, I was so excited, because it was covering blah white walls, and it was the evening (which is when it looks best). I also knew that it took me 3 coats of paint on my samples to bring it up to full color. So I was forgiving.

I walked in the next morning and it was glowing! and not in a good way. You saw the picture. 2nd coat didn't make it glow any less. I asked for a 3rd coat, due to my testing experience. Now remember, this is benjamin moore paint. It's not cheap. and it takes 1+ gallons to do 1 coat. yeah, you can add that up.

So fast forward to current day. I've got three test coats of new greens on. One is one suggested by the BM guy and two are what I picked from Sherwin Williams. I do not love or even like them. The BM guy suggested a sage. But it looks brownish gold. The SW sage I chose is bluish gray, and the other SW color is bluish green and kinda childish looking. *sigh* The BM guy felt bad for me, so that sample didn't cost, but the 2 SW samples set me back $12. Oh, and these colors did look green on the sample boards.

I went home for Thanksgiving and my parents gave me 3 gallons of the paint they use in their home. (They went all yellow, one is a yellowish cream) So I'm used to looking at an all yellow house. Yellow goes with everything. Tonight I got the big rollers out and rolled on some honkin big swatches of the two yellows. I vetoed the cream when I saw the posterboard sample I painted. Too bland. yellow is a safe choice. But is it enough color? I've had all the 70's wood paneling painted white, is there enough contrast? It is cheerful, that is for sure and that is what I want. Sage is too stately, formal and somber. But in the back of my mind I really believe that green is the color for that room. I came close with the dill pickle, when the color/lighting cooperates. *sigh*

Why does this have to be so hard??

Back to the dill pickle and all the details, and I'll never talk about it again (the story is getting so old). The painter swiped a small stroke of the paint he was using on my poster sample and when it dried, I swear you can see yellow that is not on the sample. Yes, you have to hold it in the sunlight, but it's there. The guy at the store said it's probably the difference in mixing a pint and a gallon. *sigh* How are we supposed to trust the sample if it's not the same as the gallon? This is a huge deal! I'd like answers from the powers-that-be at Benjamin Moore. And not the corporate "it's a close approximation" disclaimer. Really. How are we supposed to make a decision on false premises? Seems like a reasonable question to me.

I'm not sure if I'm ready to post about the kitchen flooring - especially since it's still in the demo mode. Maybe after it's all laid and I'm smiling again...

sneak peek on a paint problem

2010-11-28T19:44:00.001-08:00

It's late and this thing is driving me crazy!

Anyway, I'll just give you a teaser as to my problems with green. The photo will be the tell-all. Does this look green to you? Not to me!

It's Benjamin Moore Dill Pickle. let this be a warning... I'll post more tomorrow. It's simply too late to write any more, but it involves lighting and a color challenged room...

Fast Forward...

2010-11-23T19:19:00.001-08:00

to two days before Thanksgiving. We have bought a house, but have not moved in. I'm so stressed. This house should have come with a user's manual - we are always discovering something new. Guess what? Our sprinkler system is working off a well. That's what that odd 3 spigot thing is. Guess what? The little dog run has a disabled eletric fence. Guess what? There's a sprinkler system, but where did they plug it in and how do you make it work?? These are all things that should have been disclosed. The eletrical in the house is weird - and I'm no expert.

This house also will not let you rest. Not for a moment. There is ivy all over the back yard, and there was a vine growing all over a wall in the front. (we eradicated that, almost, need to get the roots out) I'll post pictures later. There is the pool, which naturally needs attention. The trees and bushes are wild. The man who did the landscaping put in some nice plants, but he left his wife and she just could not take care of it all on her own. He also did a lot of DIY (and it shows) and did the addition all by himself. I kinda wish I knew that little tidbit. The exterior of the house is covered in mildew, so it needs a good scrubdown. The deck was slick with mildew, which Gary powerwash. So it needs to be sanded and sealed now. Plus there are a few rotten planks that need replacing.

Well, I don't want to make this an all downer post. I think the house has potential, but it'll take a LOT of sweat equity. I also think I hugely underestimated the amount of work and money required. But the work is made more difficult because we are not living there. The driving back and forth is tough, plus not being able to work on supper throughout the day means I have to prepare quickie meals when I'm the most exhausted and hungry and cRANKY! Cleaning two places is hard, and laundry is hard too. And don't let me start on the lack of exercise.

The house is large, on a large lot with a pool (albeit ugly-ish, it could use a prettier liner and some more creative decking), the wood deck is amazing and there are some beautiful trees. There is an amazing large master on the main floor, a master upstairs (which we will use as a rec room because it has a pool table which we negotiated into the deal), two other bedrooms, a FROG and an office upstairs. The kitchen is disappointingly small - (why did I choose this house?) The house is in a sweet neighborhood, not the ritzy-est, and is probably one of the bigger houses in this 'hood (so probably not a smart buy). It's near the school the boys are attending, so it's good they don't have to transition again. A boy in their class lives 2 houses down, so this is a huge plus. He seems to be a good kid.

right now we are going to change the kitchen floors from vinyl to tile and the cabinets are being painted white. All the carpet is being changed to fresh carpet. So painting is happening. Painting, don't get me started on that. The living room is giving me fits. I'll make my next post about it.

I'll post pictures.

A lot is going on!

2010-09-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

In a good way. Since I've last posted, Gary did get a job. He's still doing basically the same thing, but he's a civilian now. He retired last month from the Army, after 24+ years. We have moved to Columbia, SC, because he is working at Ft. Jackson. Which is where his Army career started through basic training. He later had his first job as a commissioned officer at Ft. Jackson - so now we are completing the circle by having his first civilian job at Ft. Jackson. Lots of firsts. Oh, one more - he was working here when we got married, so we spent our first 2 months of marriage here, then we left so he could go to law school.

Anyway, our household goods are in storage and we are living in an apartment until we buy a house. We are one step closer to that goal in that we just submitted an offer on a house. OUR FIRST HOUSE! Yes, we are property virgins. I'm shaking in my boots. We offered a bit lower than what they were asking, but I think that should be expected in this economy. Unlike what HGTV would have you believe, a house that is on the market for 60 days is still "fresh" on the market. Frankly, the housing market here is not rock bottom like it is in the Atlanta area. There are some really great houses on big plots of land in GA for dirt cheap. And no buyers! Here, they are building, for crying out loud! Ridiculous!

So, I may start posting more regular about my new house and the odyssey of making it ours. Having rented or lived in military housing for 22 years, I am SICK of off-white walls and beige carpet. I want hardwood/tile floors and COLOR on the walls! I don't know WHAT color, but it will be something. This house we made an offer on has a really dark kitchen, so I am investigating painting the cabinets. Plus I'm investigating a "whole house color scheme". I want the rooms to flow. Not necessarily be one color, but at least complimentary. I have no clue what I'm doing, but we'll get there.

I'll try to document with pictures. But let's get a house bought first!

still here in Georgia

2010-03-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

and I haven't fallen off of the face of the internet either. I'm just not doing the blogging thing lately. I'm one of the many that has gotten caught up in Facebook! And life.

Gary had an interesting interview in January and we thought for sure he would get the job, but after several weeks we found out that he didn't get it. So it's back to the drawing board. I'm sure the right job is out there, somewhere.

My boys are going to do the Arrow of Light ceremony on Sunday. That means they will "graduate" from cubscouts (webelos II). They will still hang with the cubscout group until the end of the school year, but they do have a campout with the boyscouts next month. Very exciting. I think it may still be too cold at night for me to join. Gary can handle it without me, he's done it before.

Since I've been reporting my cholesterol, I'll update. I had a cholesterol test done in January and it was abysmal. I'm now on Crestor. I guess I've passed that "your still young, we'll wait" age. In other words, I'm old!

I've been seeing a dermatologist. This guy loves the prescriptions. I've got a foam for my hands, a different foam for my feet, a gel for my rosacea, and a gel for my lips (keratosis). He's frozen a lot of spots on my face, and has removed a mole from my back. He sees all kinds of things wrong with me!! I think he's really appalled by how dry I am (that's why the two different foams). I don't think I'm THAT dry, I guess I'm just used to it! LOL! Although, I hate that itch you get in the center of your back when you lay down at night - in the winter. Do I sound like a crusty ogre yet?

Am I doing another food related new year's resolution? No. However, I need to get a grip on my eating before my next cholesterol test. Seeing how I just ate a spoon of peanut butter, I'm not doing so hot. I do want to cook a meatless main dinner meal at least once a week. Last weeks was a nut loaf that I found on the internet. It was tolerable, but not tastey. The boys hated it. I've got a black bean burger that I found in one of my mom's cookbooks (or was it a Southern Living?) that I will try sometime this week. A rainy day, when I'm not tempted to grill.

This is a busy week and I'm trying to kick a cold. Plus, the ING marathon is in less than 2 weeks. Am I prepared, yes but I don't feel it. My feet are a mess. Brooks changed my shoes! I don't like it and it's too late to experiment with other brands. I have a toe that is crooked and it never bothered me before, but these shoes tweeks it. I'd rather find another shoe than see a doctor, but I may have to see a doctor. Or stop walking. Nah, can't do that! Pray for me. I'm nervous about the hills and the time limit. The honolulu marathon didn't have a time limit, so I always had confidence I could finish. Now I'm not so sure. *sigh* I need a boost of confidence.

I'm still here!

2009-12-18T18:47:00.000-08:00

I'm just so rebellious about posting these stinkin' TT's! I've had some interesting ones! This past week I dubbed "the most terrifying tuesday so far".

Anyway, I'll will try to recap, at the very least after the new year when school is back in session. The boys are out of school now and I am still nowhere near done Christmas shopping. Plus I need to learn how to skype so we can talk to my brother and his kids on Christmas day. I have skype, but he uses a different software, so I don't think it'll work. AND I'm training for that ING marathon. It takes a lot of energy to talk myself into stepping outside the door every time I do it. The cold is very draining. Not to mention that I have my cholesterol looming over my head like a vulture. I go back at the end of January to get it retested. have I been working to improve it? No. But I do think about it a lot. Too bad that doesn't count.

On to what this blog is supposed to be about. Gary had a telephone interview this past week. Whether or not he gets the job is in God's hands, but in the meantime, he's getting valuable job seeking experience. We have until 2014 when the Army will get tired of him and give him the old heave ho.

The boys are doing well in school and have made a few really nice friends. We are finally getting established with doctors and dentists. And we seem to have settled on a church. So things are going well. Not perfect, but nice.

We still haven't completely unpacked. Which is a bit shocking. We have opened all the boxes. I guess we have a lot of junk that has no good place to go (except maybe Goodwill!).

Terrifying Tuesdays: thanksgiving and cauliflower and bonus!

2009-11-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

I'm two weeks behind. So a quick round up and some bonus recipe reviews!

Last week I made Vegan Dad's Mini Pot Pies. Of course I served it with turkey, being an omnivore family and all... It was delicious!! But, the recipe goes totally against the rules of TT - in that there's no way it could have been low fat. The only thing I deviated on was that I used store bought puff pastry. And I really enjoyed buying little ramekins... it's always fun to shop for new things. Okay, so the boys weren't wild about it - because it was loaded with vegetables. Gary and I thought it was better once we put some chopped up turkey pieces in it. I think, if you were to stick with the veg. theme, it'd be better with some faux meat. I guess I just need that meaty "chew" factor.

This week I chose a roasted cauliflower recipe from "The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen" cookbook by Peter Berley. I'll post the recipe since I've seen it online with some modifications.

Spicy Roasted Cauliflower with Sweet Peppers and Cumin

3 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp hot red pepper flakes
1 cauliflower, cored and separated into florets
1 lg. red bell pepper, halved, seeded and sliced into 1" strips
1 lg. yellow bell pepper, halved, seeded and sliced into 1" strips
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1. Preheat the oven to 450* F. 2. In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, oil, salt, ground cumin and red pepper flakes. Whisk to combine. 3. Add the cauliflower and bell peppers and toss well. 4. Spread the vegetables in a baking dish and roast for 45 minutes. Stir every 15 minutes for even browning. 5. Transfer the vegetables to a serving dish, garnish with fresh cilantro leaves, and serve.

It's vegetables, so the boys didn't like it. I loved it and finished it off for lunch today - yum!! The peppers really took the sourness of the lemon juice, so that was the only thing I wasn't wild about. I was so paranoid roasting the peppers and cauliflower together, since they are different densities. But if you stir it every so often, it turns out fine. I will definitely be making this again, either with or without the peppers, and even if it's only for me. Gary liked the peppers but not the cauliflower. It seemed like a lot to have cumin AND cumin seeds, but it turned out fine.

Next is a picture of a bread I made last week. I'll be making it again and again until the dough is used. I had read in the newspaper about a new cookbook that has come out. It's Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Don't be mislead by the name. It takes longer than 5 minutes. What it is, you make a gigantic batch of dough that lasts 2 weeks in the fridge. You take out a hunk of dough and bake it when you want, but the catch is it has to rest for 90 minutes before baking. Still, it's easier than making fresh dough every time. It's no knead too! And healthy. Bonus!

It's pretty good, but it cries out for something to be spread on it. Makes a good sandwich bread. (note the leftover yucky halloween candy and the lovely gecko trivet my friend Jenny made for me)

I've already told y'all about my obsession with the BBCA tv show You Are What You Eat. So I finally made one of her recipes. The one for salmon with spinach and leeks. First off, I had to do some conversions from metric to regular. What on earth is gas mark 6?! I poked around on some conversion charts and poked around for other recipes and found one that said 400degrees F. One recipe said cook for 25 minutes, another said cook for 10 minutes! It took at LEAST 30 minutes for it to get done to my preference (um, that would be cooked throughout). It was easy to assemble and smelled lovely, but I just don't care for baked fish. I think it's a mental block rather than anything else. It's fine, but I'd rather eat my fish grilled and my spinach fresh or boiled (without the fish drippings). oh, another conversion was with the spinach. It called for 500gr. What? It turns out the bags of baby spinach you get at the grocery store are only 170 gr. (IIRC). That was more than plenty. No need to be wasteful.

I have 2 leftover leeks I need to do something with. I have no clue.

TT catchup

2009-11-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

I'm behind 3. Really, we've been doing Terrifying Tuesdays at home, but I just can't motivate myself to write about it. So here we go in one fell swoop. (I'm not sure I can even remember what we've had!)

I've made Sweet Potato and apple soup when my mother in law was here visiting. She and I liked it (I loved it), but the rest didn't fancy it.

Then I made Vegan Dad's Baked Chimichangas. We've never had chimichangas before, for better or worse. I believe it helped to not have something to compare to. Thumbs up, but there was a bit of a bitter taste. I do believe it was from the refried beans, because we've eaten canned refried beans (either veg. or fat free) and I remember thinking it needed something like cheese or salsa to cut it. The kids didn't like it so much, and I think it's due to the refried beans. So, we need to tweak it. Now, I've got to say, the "meat"mixture (which uses TVP) is good, but again, Vegan Dad likes to put in unusual spices - I halved the cinnamon and left out the anise - could have done altogether without the cinnamon. If you make these, set aside a good bit of time for the assembling of the chimis. It takes a little while. This recipe makes a LOT. I had leftover stuff, so I just threw the leftover "meat", rice, beans, salsa, etc. in a bowl, heated up and it made great leftovers with corn chips.

Last week I made Cajun Tempah over Brown Rice from Tal Ronnin's new cookbook, The Conscious Cook. I won't post the recipe since the book is new. This took a bit of time to cook, and I had to search for ingredients, but it was really good. Frankly, the tempah itself was to die for! This was my first attempt at tempah that was really good. I hate that it's fried, but that crispy exterior is really nice. I may have to see if it can be oven fried to lessen amount of oil that's absorbed.

While I'm on this cookbook, I'll tell you about what I made yesterday. His Whole Wheat Penne with San Marzano Tomatoes. Yumm! It had fennel and swiss chard. I'd never had fennel before, and it smelled awful - so much like black licorice. It also had white wine and green olives in the recipe. I told my husband that this is probably one of those things where you throw together a bunch of horrible things and it turns out brilliantly - and it did. The fennel lost it's licorice.

Let's see, I've also made a Dean Ornish (Art Smith) soup, but I think I posted that already. It's to die for. I'm doing another soup tomorrow and a vegan dad recipe on Tuesday.

Gotta run to get supper!

my next marathon...

2009-10-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

Yep. That's my announcement. I just sent in the application for the next marathon I'm gonna do. The Atlanta ING marathon. It's in March. I'm very nervous about it because this marathon has a time limit, not like the Honolulu Marathon which has no time limit. In theory, I should be able to finish in plenty of time, but it's hilly here! That slows me down quite a bit. However, I'll be training on the hills, so hopefully I'll get faster on them. Also the cold has be worried. I dont' know what the weather will be like in March, and I don't know how to dress in this weather, and I don't know how I'll be able to consistantly train in the winter and during the holidays. Living here near family, we are obligated to visit for extended periods. So I'll have to carve in the time to walk, plus I'll have to figure out walking routes.

On my other two marathons, I've not had a doubt I could do them. Now I have doubts. i'm even unsure about my shoes. I've not been happy with my usual shoes, not cushy enough. So I just bought a new pair and I'm not sure about them. And you shouldn't be fooling around with that during training. I need to get properly fitted.

This will really bring me to my knees in prayer! It's good to challenge oneself.

nothing much...my current obsessions...

2009-10-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I'm late in posting anything. TT has been happening, but I just haven't felt like posting about it. However, I WILL, later. I've been doing a lot of interesting cooking lately. I even bought another cookbook. Can you believe it?! Just call me a sheep. I heard about Oprah's latest Best show, and saw that she had the Best Vegan Chef - so of course I had to read all about it. I went to Target and saw his (Tal Ronnen) cookbook - and against my own best judgement, I bought it. I KNOW I shouldn't have, because gourmet cooking is not my thing. I don't like to eat it or do it. But I saw 2 recipes that caught my eye and HAD to have it. I HATE that he's got recipes with alcohol in them without a substitution suggestion (curse gourmet cooks!). But now I want a Vitamix blender. gulp. I can't afford that for a blender! Although my Oster is in abysmal shape. I've been reading about Vitamix's for a couple of years now. It's on the top of my kitchen gadget want list. Anyway, he's got some interesting soup recipes that call for cashew cream. Remember my attempts at almond milk? It looks like the same thing. Very watery. But I have high hopes that the cashew will come out with some substance. (LOL! I really fool myself)

In the middle of my online surfing, I discovered that 7th day adventists are typically vegetarian or vegan. So I was trying to poke around for their cookbooks or recipes. I figure these are regular folks with families they have to cook for. Not the usual teenage to young adult crowd that only has to fend for themselves that you find online.

No, I don't know what my obsession is, but it's gotten stronger lately. I really don't think I could actually commit, but it fascinates me. Actually, cutting out a whole food group goes against the grain for me. It doesn't seem right. But I kinda think it might be best for my body.

Anyway - I can really see myself actually becoming a vegetarian - at least by the time I'm 60 I'll be ready to take the plunge. And maybe switch over to veganism by the time I'm 80. If I care about my cholesterol at that age. Maybe by the time I'm 80 I'll start drinking and smoking and frying all my food! All bacon, all the time! Woo-hoo!

I need to go to bed now, but I do have an announcement that my probably only remaining reader already knows. And I'll get those TT's in before another Tuesday rolls by.

Tah!

Terrifying Tuesday - 2 week edition...

2009-10-07T10:09:00.000-07:00

First, I have to say I'm so bummed that Guiding Light has gone off the air. That was one of my favorite "stories".

Last week was not a thrilling TT. We tried pomegranate. I did a little demo on how to get to the seeds, a hands on demo. Gary helped. The boys are too old, they were underwhelmed. Anyway, we all deem it pretty good, but the seed - do you spit or swallow? (I'm sorry that's raunchy) I eventually decided to just swallow the things because it became too tedious to pick the seeds out of my mouth.

This week we tried Brussels Sprouts! I cannot remember where the recipe came from, I'm pretty sure it's either from someone's blog, or a cookbook of mine. I just didn't document it.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Roasted Red Peppers

2 tablespoons Grapeseed oil (use this as it is wonderful at a high heat!)
2 cups shredded Brussels Sprouts (chop or use a grater)
1/4 cup coarsely chopped purple onions
1/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup coarsely chopped roasted red peppers (homemade or from the jar)
1 tablespoon white Balsamic vinegar
Garnish: Chopped walnuts

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add Brussels sprouts, onions, and walnuts. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are tender and sprouts are bright green, about 5 minutes. Stir in peppers and vinegar. Continue cooking until heated through, about 2 minutes. Place on serving platter and garnish with chopped walnuts if desired.
Yield: 4 servings

notes:

I didn't use grapeseed oil, but I did splurge and buy the white balsamic. Um, using a grater is just ridiculous. I coarsely chopped the sprouts.

This recipe was pretty good. It got a thumbs down from Jake, but a half thumb for both Gary and Ryan. I thought it was so-so at first, but the more I ate it, the more I liked it. It's pretty too. I wasn't wild about the red pepper or vinegar part. But anything with nuts is always a winner! I had a few sprouts leftover so I'm going to steal Kath's recipe of roasting them with maple syrup tonight. Or maybe something different since I'm making bbq chicken and I think that's too many sweet things on a plate...

This was the first time I've ever had brussels sprouts and I'm glad I tried them. They are supposed to be very high in lots of nutritious stuff and be good cancer fighters.

Speaking of cancer... I had my yearly mammogram and it went very well. Yay! Another year down!

Terrifying Tuesdays - we got a good one! Red Lentil Soup

2009-09-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

I finally hit upon a recipe that I like. The boys, not so much, but they are barbarians. It has been raining cats and dogs for a whole week straight (you may have heard of the flooding in downtown Atlanta) and it's been wet and cool - perfect soup weather. Wouldn't you know, yesterday the sun came out and it was decidedly NOT soup weather any more!

Okay, first on to the lentils. Our Krogers has revamped it's store and put all the organic/health foods in it's own section. Plus they've added bulk bins. (I wish the bins had grains, but that's probably wishing for too much) So I bought a few scoops of the most interesting thing I saw - red lentils. Have you seen these things?? Here's a picture:

Aren't they beautiful? I've only made lentils one other time and wasn't wild about the bay leaf in it. I'm not a bay leaf kind of person. This recipe does not call for any bay leaves! Hooray!

I got the recipe online, I can't find the exact blog that convinced me to make it, but everyone (it seems) who does the Red Lentil Soup with Lemon online refers to the same new york times recipe that I also used. Notice that the lentils turn yellowish. The little orange specks are carrots. It said to blend half the soup, but I just stuck my immersion blender in the pot and didn't have any chunks left after that! (I would have liked chunks, but it's good this way too) I did not put any olive oil on top - there was enough oil in the soup. I did not sprinkle on more chili powder. I did stir in the cilantro (although I think the original recipe calls for mint?) The cilantro has a strong presence. (I love cilantro) I think it could have benefitted with a little more lemon. Maybe my lemon was too small or dry. But I think the soup was lovely.

I couldn't remember if you were supposed to rinse the lentils beforehand, so I did quickly, and when I went to dump them in the soup, they all stuck together! I think they were afraid! But they broke up quickly as I stirred them. Another recipe note, I opted for chicken stock. So I'm not sure how it would taste with vegetable stock.

The next picture is an experiment. I saw a bag of TVP in the same health food section of Kroger and wanted to try it. So I went to my favorite vegan blog Vegan Dad and found a hot dog chili recipe using TVP. In the picture above you can see I grilled hotdogs and asked Gary to try at least a little bit on his dog. (I went out last night so I didn't eat any hotdogs) He asked if there was any orange in it. No, no orange. But he must be thinking that because some of the spices in this stuff are the same that go into Russian Tea. Allspice, cloves, cinnamon. Yeah. Weird. Below is a picture of the end result. The texture didn't bother Gary at all. So I think if I can get a recipe that is actually similar to a chili dog sauce, then it'd be worth trying again. I'm definitely going to try other TVP recipes!

pictures

2009-09-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

I'm just now posting pictures for last week's TT. I already have photos ready for this weeks and will post that next (actually, you'll see those first...)

The french fried rutabegas, before baking:

my cute new chicken timer and my spongebob bandaid on my cut finger:

the baked rutabegas after we've eaten a few (not too impressive):

The cookies and cream ice we made in the Donvier. I later made a peanut butter ice cream that I like so much better:

Terrifying Tuesdays: Rutabega

2009-09-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

These TT's are taking a decidedly old-fashioned turn. I chose rutabega's thanks to my mom. You know my parents visited this weekend - my dad went to the Atlanta Falcon vs Miami Dolphins game with the men=folk. Mom sung the rutabega's praises, so I had to try it.

She said that she loves them oven -roasted. She said she used to put oil and salt on them, but likes them plain. They are a sweet vegetable. So that's what I tried. I purused the internet to get guidance on how long to cook them.

Most people on the net cubed them when they roasted them. I found one that cut them into "fries" and baked them for 15 minutes on 425 degrees. So that's what I tried. Let me give a little warning: rutabegas are a little bit firmer than potatoes, so use a little caution when cutting them. My knife slipped on the rounded surface and caught my ring finger fingernail. Just a tiny bit of blood - could have been much worse. It's going to be the dickens when that nail grows out. It's going to catch on everything before it grows out enough to cut. Ugh.

So there's the warning for you. I think it's too firm a veg to use the mandolin on. (another finger slicing machine!)

I did manage to get them roasted. I arranged them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. No oil, no Pam, no salt, nothing. They weren't bad. They just weren't as cravable and good as potatoes. They have a slightly sweetish flavor. Nothing reallly offensive. Mild. I also tried them raw, didn't taste a whole lot different when cooked. Not bad.

Anyway, the people weren't wild about it.

At least we tried it!

I also made homemade ice cream last night. I used my Donvier. Finally! Now that I've got my big freezer, I can store the cannister and made icecream when I want. The recipe is just too sweet though. It was half and half, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, and you take that basic recipe and add stuff to it. I added crushed Newman's Own oreo type cookie.
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We are sick here. I'm suspecting swine flu, but just because that makes it seem more dramatic.

Jake has been sick for a few days with cough and sniffles and then suddenly came down with a high fever last night.
Yesterday I woke up with that first feeling of a cold, full sinus on one side and my nose dripping like a faucet. So I went to CVS, bought some zycam with echinacea, cough drops with echinacea and a neti pot. Let me tell you, that neti pot experience is weird. It doesn't work so hot when your nose is stopped up. If it's blocked, it can't pour. I cleared my sinuses right before bed and was able to sleep for about an hour before my nose got completely clogged again. I went downstairs and slept in the recliner. THE recliner. (no, we haven't thrown it out yet) It's good sleeping though. Jake still had his fever, so he's here home with me. I took a nap (it's not even noon yet!) and feel like I might get a fever, but my temp is still normal.
Gary has a cough, he's at the end of his cold. I'm calling him ground zero - the typhoid mary.
Ryan is fine.

We've been here almost 3 months. This is my 2nd cold. Georgia is going to kill me.

Terrifying Tuesdays: Okra!

2009-09-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

This was one of those that really terrified me. I've not had a good experience with okra, and only very limited experiences too. Plus I've been frightened by all the reports of sliminess of okra. This is the one thing my dad refuses to eat. But I've been inspired by Kath at Kath Eats Real Food - who touts that oven roasted okra is da bomb. I had checked a cookbook out of the library called "Grub" that has a grilled okra recipe, so that's what I used. I halved the marinade since I wasn't bold enough to use the full amount of okra that I bought. The marinade contains evoo, fresh squeezed lemon juice, sea salt, cayenne pepper, and black pepper. The recipe calls for you to kabob the okra, but I had peppers and onions to grill too, so I slapped it all on the vegetable rack I have.

I found it pretty decent. Not slimy at all. And the cayenne added a nice little bit of heat. Just a little to add interest. So I gave it a surprising thumbs up. Gary gave it a half thumb. He's not an okra fan, so he was surprised that he didn't gag (his own words). Jake gave it a thumbs down, but he only gave it a half tooth bite. Ryan gave it a half thumb. He said it was not bad, but then said it didn't have a good aftertaste. I'm not sure what he was tasting. He might not have liked the pepper since he's not fond of heat.

So, I may not make it again, but I may. If reports come out that okra has amazing health properties, then I'll gladly chow down.
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My parents are coming this weekend. Gary had bought Atlanta Falcon tickets for this weekend and I thought it'd be a good idea to give my dad my ticket. I think he would enjoy it more than me, plus I'd go out shopping with mom and we could bond a little. (not that we need more bonding!) I just think it's time I do a little inviting and not just be the invitee.

So I'm busy cleaning and getting the house in order. You know how it is when moms visit. Plus I need to get up the dust and pet hair. We don't have pets, but the people before us did. Every time I sweep, there is cat hair in the dust pan. I don't get it. Anyway, I've got to dehair as best I can because my folks are allergic.

Our dining room has been serving as a storage room, and I just can't see us finding other space for our junk. This house has a lot of wasted space. It should have room for all our stuff, but it doesn't. The upstairs has a very wide hall (wasted space) plus it's missing a big chunk because they opted for the soaring entryway. Not only is that wasted space, the light and sound from downstairs wafts upstairs, and vice versa. At least I know that this is not a feature I want in my forever house.

Anyway, the reason I bring up the dining room is because the topic of Thanksgiving has been brought up. I just don't see us hosting family get togethers, not without a dining room. We dont' have a dining room table anyway. *sigh* I think Gary has something totally different in mind for turkey day. Gonna have to break it to the folks. Well, they get us for christmas...

Birthday and Terrifying Tuesdays

2009-09-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today is my boys' 10th birthdays. *sniff* I cannot believe they are 10 already. Double digits. Approaching puberty and teenagerhood and adulthood. Yikes! No way! Don't grow any more!! At least not once you finally figure out how to tie your shoes (you know who you are...)

Notice that there are two cakes. And very different cakes at that. Jake wanted a really decadent chocolate cake. He had seen one that was entitled "Death by Chocolate" that he wanted, but the store didn't have one, so I got the "1001 chocolate chip cake". Ryan requested a plain yellow or white type cake with yellow icing. I saw this fun sun one and thought it was perfect for him - but forgot that red icing is always bitter (why do they even bother with red icing??). We ate cake, now we're all feeling sick. (from overindulging) So I'm going to put half of each in the big freezer and save it until the following weekend when my parents come for a visit. I'm not sure that's a good idea since my dad was recently diagnosed with diabetes and he loves sweets.

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On to Terrifying Tuesdays. Very late. My facebook friends know what we had. FISH TACOS!!

I got the whole process/recipes from You Tube. Supposedly the original fish taco from Rubio's. Here's the link: Fish Taco You have to also view a couple other short videos to get the marinade and sauce recipes.

Recipe notes: I did what he said to do to the tortillas. It didn't work out so well for us. The top two and bottom two tortillas stuck hopelessly to each other (Gary liked it though) and the rest stuck together too but were able to be peeled apart - they were quite steamy and wet and super hot. There is probably a better way to heat the tortillas.

It was really surprisingly good. It didn't come off as a big hit though, and I think that's because the fish was fishy. I used a frozen mahi-mahi, and when I opened the thawed package, it smelled fishy. It's not supposed to smell like anything. Mahi is not a fishy tasting fish, it's really good and meaty, so this was not a good batch. Note that this is my second bad package of frozen fish. I guess you have to be really picky about what brand you use, or stick to fresh.

I want to try it again, as long as the natives don't rebel. I don't understand how they could like those nasty catfish sloppy joes, yet not like these tacos. Seriously, it's just grilled fish in a tortilla with a really good sauce.

Terrifying Tuesday: recipes!

2009-08-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

I tried a few new recipes yesterday, so I thought I'd share them.

Kath Eats Real Food is a blog I like to visit and I have it in my favorites. It always comes up on the page that has her BBQ tofu. I've been wanting to make this for about a year now. So I finally made it yesterday for lunch. I made it exactly as she described. It's a little bit sweet. Little bit, lotta bit. I still have 1/2 slab of tofu, so later this week I'll try it with the leftover KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce that I have in the fridge. Oops. I'm making BBQ chicken tonight - so I'll figure out a different way to make the tofu. No biggie.

For supper I made a new recipe that is family/kid friendly. I get these Betty Crocker Dinner Made Easy emails and they sent this recipe - Healthified Mexican Pasta Skillet. It's kinda like a hamburger helper (blech) deal. Ground beef (or ground turkey), salsa, tomato sauce, water, macaroni noodles. Super easy. Really. And tastey. I used whole grain macaroni, 93% ground beef and everything else they say, just not the specific name brands.

Good stuff. I need stovetop recipes for when grill season comes to an end. This will work.

Now, for Terrifying Tuesday. I made Artichoke Toasts. The recipe came from a cookbook I got from the library. It's called Sneaky Veggies by Chris Fisk. This book came out right before the Desperately Delicious and The Sneaky Chef books came out (but not as widely publicized). This cookbook isn't full of purees. It has some interesting recipes in it that I'm looking forward to trying. The artichoke toast recipe could not be any easier.

2 slices whole grain bread, toasted
1 4oz jar marinated artichoke hearts, drained
2 Tbsp grated parmesan

I used my hand blender to puree the hearts. Divide evenly and spread on the toasts. Sprinkle with the parm and broil for a minute or so.

It did not get met with the best reception. An acquired taste. I think the marinade was a bit too sour for our palates. I guess the marinade is supposed to be like an italian dressing or something. Maybe a different brand would taste better, or different. It's worth experimenting, I think. I will not give up on artichokes. This was our first foray into this vegetable. It's high in fiber. It deserves another shot or two.

I've got a bunch of recipes flagged in this book. I'm gonna try a few before it's due back in the library. I'll keep you posted on what does/doesn't work!
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As you know, vegetarian/vegan blogs are a favorite of mine. Also, weight loss television is a favorite too. I discovered a show on BBC America called "You are what you eat". Fascinating - but she does talk about poo, so you may not want to eat while you watch it, depending on how sensitive you are. I really perked up at some of the foods she gets them to eat. She mentioned some smoothies concoctions and something called "haricot bean loaf". What is a haricot bean? Turns out it's navy beans. The guy tasted it and said it was tastey. This was before he started her regimin - so it must actually be good. So I started cruising the handy dandy internet and found several websites that feature her and her books/recipes. Her name is Gillian McKeith. I was getting all excited until I started reading book reviews and looked at her recipes. She puts them on a basically vegan/macrobiotic diet. Really strict. It amazes me that the people can go from one extreme to the other and really stick to it. But it seems they do! I don't think I have that will power. One of her smoothies called for 6 pieces of whole fruit - 1 to 2 servings! I'm not talking about berries, I'm talking pears and mango and such. Big fruit. Sounds pricey. Plus some recipes were for quinioa (plain, just made with bullion) for breakfast. Blech. Anyway, it was hugely interesting and the show is great.

I'm gonna try that haricot bean loaf. LOL! Really. We may have to follow up with a trip to McDonald's (gasp). :-)

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One last bit of food talk. I've been keen on trying some new fish recipes. I cannot stand baked fish or stews or soups. I like it grilled or fried. Not fishy. So I'm gunning for a fish taco recipe. I found an interesting one on you tube. By a chef in a restaurant. It looks simple and tastey. I hope it works. I don't know how else fish can be fixed, so I feel a bit desperate. I really want to try to get to that two servings of fish a week. I'm open to ideas!!

Terrifying Tuesdays: Ranch Dressing

2009-08-19T06:18:00.000-07:00

You may be thinking, what's so terrifying about Ranch Dressing? Not much. But this is homemade, and is supposed to be vegan if you follow the recipe. I got the recipe from the book "Skinny **itch in the Kitch" and since I made a few alterations, I'll put the recipe here.
Makes about 2 cups
1 cup vegan sour cream (I used low fat sour cream)
1/2 cup soy milk
1/4 cup safflower oil (I used canola)
1 Tbsp agave nectar (for real? I used honey)
1 Tbsp granulated garlic powder
2 tsp chopped dill
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp cider vinegar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp tamari or soy sauce (I used low sodium shoyu)

In a blender or a food processor, combine all ingredients and process until smooth. Set aside in the refrigerator overnight to allow the flavors to bloom. Store refrigerated for up to 1 week.

Gary said it was mild, but he gave it a thumbs up, as did I. The boys did not. It has a bit of a bite to it if you get a good dose of it. I think it must be the dijon. But it's good.
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Rats. I forgot what I was going to post. I'm sure it was good. LOL!

Oh, I guess I'll talk about making friends and this new move. You know, I've lived with myself all my life (duh) so I know me. But how much and when do you reveal stuff to new people? In Hawaii, bc happened to me there. It just kinda was made known. You go in for multiple surgeries and organize a Komen walking group, people figure it out. (the one flat side was a huge givaway! LOL) But it's different now. I went in to the doctor last week for my cough and began answering the nurse's questions (basic medical history). She asked me to list the surgeries I've had as an adult. I look at her like "brace yourself" and started rattling them off (the gist of them really). When I finish I'm like "that's basically it" and she says "that's a lot". Which surprised me a bit because she's a nurse and I figure nurses hear it all. Really, it sounded ridiculous to me too as I was listing them.

I dunno. I'm sure it's all moot. As the topics come up, things will come out naturally.

When I first got diagnosed with bc, I wanted to wear the pink ribbon type shirts. But I don't any more. But the other day I ordered a SPI belt that was a Komen edition. It's black with two pink ribbons embroidered on it. Is it weird that I want it out there, but in a subtle way? Not as a badge of honor or anything. Because I know that I got off so easy. But I don't want to talk about boob jobs and I don't want anyone to be taken by surprise if I get a recurrence. (I'm still waiting for that other shoe to drop)

I'm finding it hard to concentrate with the tv on right now, so I'll leave off right here. Weird blog I know.

UPDATE! I went to Walmart today and guess what I stumbled upon? Agave Nectar! It's expensive, but I bought a little squeeze bottle of the stuff. Who would've thunk?

feeling better

2009-08-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

I've not been in the best of health lately, but I'm taking a turn for the better. I think it's my lungs needing to adjust to the Atlanta air. Hawaii air is so pure and clean, my lungs have been on a 3 year vacation! Now it's back to work. Actually, I feel pretty good today. I've walked for an hour, did the Wii Active, vacuumed, mopped, scrubbed toilets, cleaned windows - yeah, I'd say I'm doing pretty good - a little tuckered, but good! And I still have an hour before the boys come home.

Let's see, on the school front - busy, busy. The homework is not very stressful so far. It's still early though. But they keep coming home with papers and they want to join EVERYTHING! They have the opportunity to join band and the boys want to. There is also an after-school art club that Jake wants to join. See, if they do band, then they will miss art classes during school. Plus, there is a reading invitational, and the boys are so good at reading that I think they should try. wow. And this doesn't even include cubscouts or anything else. They really want to do a sport. So I have to figure that in somewhere.

We still haven't settled on a church. I had a good online chat with a friend and she helped on that front. I think we need to just pick one and give it a good shot.

This is fantasy football draft weekend. Gary is heading out to Williamsburg tomorrow and spending the weekend there picking players for his team. Then he comes home and Sunday night he's in a phone conference picking players for his other team.

I miss Hawaii. Even our little ghetto house. I'm trying hard to settle in here - but I can't help but miss certain things and people. I can tell I'm trying to recreate the same life here, but it's just not the right fit. I need to find a new way of being. One that fits here. I don't want to, but I think that's how it's gonna have to be. Isn't it always? You'd think I'd be used to this...

school starts tomorrow!

2009-08-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

I finallly finished filling out all the papers, signing all the forms, writing all the checks - basically selling my soul to the school and the PTO. My boys backpacks are stuffed with shiney new school supplies. All that's left is making lunches and picking out tomorrow's outfits.

The bus picks them up at the bus stop at 7 am. Ack! That's early. We are early risers, but that's early to get it all together. The good news is that gets me out and about early.

PLUS! School lets out later. So mama's got a little extra time every day.

I wonder if I'll still get that lonely feeling that comes with the first day of school? Hmmm. I doubt it, because I have plans to SHOP! It'll be the first time in a LONG time. Mama needs some clothes!

Off to find the camera...

Terrifying Tuesdays/marathon and moving musings

2009-08-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's TT was dedicated to my mom. Technically, it doesn't fall under the guidelines of TT in that my mom fixed this dish for me and the boys - but Gary hadn't had it and frankly, I haven't unearthed my TT recipes at that point. It's a very simple stir-fry of cabbage. You simply shred cabbage, heat up a large fry pan and put some oil in it, about a tablespoon, you can probably use less. And throw in the cabbage, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. It's yummy! If you can get a little brown on the cabbage, then that's even yummier! It's just better than boiled cabbage.

Of course, no one else liked it. But who cares? All the more for me!! :0)
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I am considering signing up for the Nashville Country Music marathon. It's supposed to be walker friendly, not too far away, and it's not until April, so I have time to get back in shape. I can't wait for next week to come so I can get back into the walking groove!
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Yesterday I finally got the boys registered for school. We had their school screening at the health department in the morning and then ran right to the center to get them registered. There was a line out the door! I was so surprised! The line got even longer after we got there. It took a good hour and a half - mostly waiting. Then we stopped by the school and dropped off paperwork and they will assign the boys teachers. This is the first school to give us the option of whether or not to put them in the same class. I asked for different teachers, but the same team (so their homework would be the same). I think they would just behave better and pay attention better without each as a distraction to the other.

Tomorrow we "meet the teachers" and get all signed up for stuff and find out the bus schedule and lunch money business. The fun stuff.

These boys need school to start. *I* need school to start. They are fighting a lot, getting sassy with me, and they miss their old buds. While we were waiting in line yesterday, I just started reviewing the times tables with them - I reallly wasn't going to do but one, just for grins, but when Jake couldn't give me the answer, I started firing more at him and then spelling words. Boy, they've really lost a lot over the summer. I really , reallly need to work with them on their handwriting. It's just awful. I had bought one of those summer bridge workbooks, but just never got started beyond 2 worksheets.

*sigh* bad mama
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We have not got the house put together yet. It's come a long way, but we're not there. Gary's philosophy is "get it out of the box". If you do that, then you can declare yourself unpacked. So he opens up box after box and pulls stuff out and just sets the stuff down within reach. MY philosophy is "it's neater in boxes than laying out everywhere". I like to unpack and put away as I unpack - one box at a time. The visual clutter of what the unpacking has created is so chaotic to me. I get so overwhelmed. Needless to say, while I'm doing my thing, Gary did his thing. He got all the boxes open on the second day. (we had over 300) I can't work in this mess! I don't know where to begin. But, to his credit, Gary has a very good work ethic and is a hard worker. he can get more done in one day than I can do in a week. So we should be able to get this knocked out in a few more weekends.

Terrifying Tuesdays is back! Black bean burgers

2009-07-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

I got today's recipe from a Taste of Home Magazine that had been in storage. I had recieved the magazine for several years and collected them - I just hate to throw away things like that. And they were waiting for me in storage. Here I am without cookbooks and not much to do for entertainment - so I scoured the magazines for their healthy recipes and found this gem.

I must say it fell in the catagory of easy to make. I have very limited resources at the moment. So I was able to make them with what I've got. I gotta say, it's not fun cooking with camping gear - I've not got proper lids! I've got a gas stove, so I'm terrified that I'm going to catch my potholder on fire when I grab the plate off of the pot.

Anyway, it tasted fine. I think it would be tastier if I had my arsenol of spices available. The cheese got lost in the bun - could not taste it at all. To me, if you can't taste the cheese then you might as well not have it - wasted calories. I like to taste my cheese. I think some sort of different bun or no bun would have been better.

The boys gave it an immediate thumbs down, but as they ate more (we made them eat more) it went from thumbs down to middle thumbs. And it grew on Gary too.

I had read the opinions online and most of them warned how messy the mix was and to add breadcrumbs for binding. So I had a mini chopper and made breadcrumbs from an end piece of wheat bread and added it to the mix. I added powdered garlic also. I also baked the patties at 350 for 35 minutes as suggested by one reviewer. I hate frying, so it worked for me. As a warning, the mix is pretty wet and sloppy, so you scoop it up in a 1/2 cup measuring cup and mound it on the cookie sheet and flatten it out. I flipped the burgers halfway through cooking.

The recipe calls for an egg and calls for the burger to be topped with cheese and a sour cream/salsa mixture - so ymmv as far as your vegetarian/vegan needs.

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a couple of weeks ago I perused a health food store and found a bag of dried figs and that's what we did for TT. Those dark wrinkly things terrified me, but they taste like fig newtons! Duh! So it wasn't too bad. Days later I went after the bag to eat some as a snack, but I had not refrigerated them and they had a fermented smell and were fuzzy. Oh, well.

the pool

2009-07-15T13:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I took the boys to the neighborhood swimming pool. There were only a few people there. I overheard a lady telling someone she was doing therapy with kids, and then later, someone commented to her about the little toddler she was working with. He was just a-bawlin'. She said he had sensory overload. And that brought it all back to me. I sat there in the shade and reminisced about Ryan at that age and how far he has come. His first swimming lesson he couldn't even do because he refused to even sit beside the pool, much less put his feet in the water. They gladly refunded me - it was just shy of us being kicked out really. So his first lesson he didn't even get a toe wet. The second lesson (2 years later) he did put his feet in, but he screamed in terror the entire time. He practically got private lessons. That poor instructor. He would carry Ryan around in the water while Ry screamed in his ear. The guy persevered and even offered private lessons!

I have not taken them to swim lessons since then. They did get a lot of swim time at hotel pools and friends' houses and the ocean. No, they can't swim pretty, but they can get by in the water. In fact, Jake and Ryan will race each other. Jake does a rough crawl complete with lots of splashing and not going very far. Ryan does a doggie paddle and goes quite fast! I really need to get them lessons so Jake can refine his style and get somewhere and learn to breathe and Ryan can do a real stroke.

Anyway, I was watching this little boy, shrieking in terror. The therapist was very gentle and calm and I could see her patiently distracting the little boy into calmness. She was fabulous. Some people are just born for their jobs. And then I was looking at Ryan doing cannon balls and trying to dive. wow, he's come a long way.

ps. There's a deer in our back yard!

we have a house!

2009-06-29T04:55:00.001-07:00

Just a quick report to say we have a house. It's 4 br 2.5 bath, big yard. We didn't get the pool we wanted, but it's in a community with a pool and tennis courts and a lake we can fish at. Looks like good sidewalks/bike paths so we can step out of the house and run/walk. The schools are reportedly good. Today we get a refrigerator delivered. We had to buy one. But that's okay, we can take it with us when we move and our next move may be for retirement. It's one of those fridges that are french door on top and freezer drawer on bottom.

Also today we make the phone calls for gas, electric, water, etc. We are also going to try to schedule getting our storage goods delivered. If they can do it by Wednesday, then that's what we'll do. Otherwise we'll get it delivered next week. We have this hotel room until Wednesday and then we go pick up the boys and drive to NC to visit the other grandma. If they can't deliver this week, then we leave here early. I miss my boys!

My mom kept my boys and the other 3 grandkids all last week and it nearly killed her. The other grandkids are 3, 5 and 8. The little ones ran her ragged and drove her crazy not eating at meals but wanting snacks all day long and constantly changing their minds. Me and Gary tried to model for her how to be firm and not cave, but she was so worried that they'd starve and she would take it personally. Plus the older girl had a sassy mouth. That did not go over well. She would argue with mom, and mom is not one to back down from an argument. Not a screaming kind of argument, but a disagreement "I'm always right" kind of argument. Personally, I was more concerned about the tone my niece took rather than what she was saying. But mom gets drawn in by the words and the tone of voice puts her on the defensive. I don't think she could see that. Now, how to convey that to mom without getting the lecture. Well, I'll probably get the lecture which I'll have to grin and bear, just so I can get my observation in there. Mom has got to learn to deal with this better or she's not going to have a good relationship with these kids. My mom usually loves to hug and kiss and giggle with her grandkids, but apparantly she does better on a one on one basis. And I can relate to that. I think it was just overwhelming - plus she doesn't do good delegating. She likes to be in charge, so she put all that responsibility on her shoulders and it stressed her too much. She said she lost 7 pounds!

Right now Gary is on the horn getting the utilities set up. Then we make a call to the landlord. The downstairs airconditioning wasn't working, plus two plugs in the kitchen weren't working and we can't find the key to the gas fireplace. So, as you can see, it's just some details that have to be worked out.

The other thing we will eventually have to work out is the room situation. The boys say they want separate bedrooms, but I want to be convinced before we put in furniture and paint. Yes, paint. We've been given the okay to paint! Yahoo! This house is already painted with good colors, but one room is white. Jake wants orange, and Ryan wants yellow. Hah! I'm thinking I can put Jake in the green room and paint the white room yellow for Ryan. I'm not keen on painting any room orange. He can get orange bedding. I'm so glad for colors. I really hate renters white/off white/yellowy.

last time at the north shore

2009-06-20T22:57:00.001-07:00

Matsumoto's shave ice in Haleiwa. The people behind us are waiting in line. Yes, it's that popular and worth the wait. We stood in the rain to get ours.

Me and Ryan at sunset beach

Supper at Kua aina Burger.

the house is empty

2009-06-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

It was the fastest move in the history of military moves - okay, not including single soldiers who can fit all their wordly goods in the back seat of a Mini Cooper. Two days, and not even those long, well into the night days. They packed EVERYTHING. So I'm imagining a few claims in our future. That 1/4 full bottle of Clorox bleach will not remain in the bottle, I'm sure. And while that Karo syrup will be broken and covered with ants, the ants will be dead because the tiny bottle of ant poison would have done them in. (not to mention soaked into the salt waiting to kill us sprinkle by sprinkle...)

Well, we'll see what really happens in 6 weeks. It'll be a big surprise when we open up the crates. Until then, there's no need to fret about it. We are having a good giggle and getting all kinds of moving horror stories told to us.

Hello? Did you hear about the airline pilot who died yesterday? Not the kind of news that we need to hear right about now!

You know all those hours I spent looking at all those houses online? Most of them are GONE! I can find only ONE house left with a pool - I'm sure it'll be gone tomorrow. But God has always provided us with a place to live - so I won't fret about it. (she says...)

We are staying at the Lodge on the Marine Corps base. It's pretty decent. We've got a refrigerator, sink, microwave, two queen sized beds, internet connection and breakfast in the a.m.

Gary is currently finishing up the last of his out-processing, then he'll drop the van off for shipping and we go pick him up in our tricked out rental SUV. It's so embarrassing - the tires are huge and have these shiney wheel covers. Then we are heading to the hospital to visit a friend who had emergency surgery yesterday. Then off to the north shore - the main goal there is to see the sun set - but hopefully we'll get a dinner and maybe some "last time" shave ice.

I let in the guy today to clean our carpets. We'll have to check the mail at least until we leave to make sure they have stopped delivering it. I was so sad last night when I went to pick up the mail. What I need is a good cry. I started to cry, but then got distracted - nothing like having a good cry interrupted! I need some alone time!

The boys have a party to go to tomorrow - well, the kid we are visiting today in the hospital is the brother of the birthday boy, so technically, the party was cancelled. But another mom has a pool and she's inviting a bunch of kids over for a "not Ricky's official birthday party" party. So we'll give him our presents then.

Nothing much else planned except for some clothes washing and suitcase packing. We fly out on Sunday and will get there by sunrise on Monday. Let's give a big cheer for jet lag! Hoorah!

Packing day!

2009-06-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

The packers are here, so this note is going to be brief. Pack out today, tomorrow and movers load up wednesday - however this move has started out strangely. They sent out three guys today (usually it's an old man and two girls) and they are dismanteling furniture first and loading them into crates. So it seems to be backwards. Anyway, I"ll not have time to post or read. If I get online it'll be to just check emails and look for houses.

I've got the boys in a "daycare" program for the next 3 days. So at least they'll get social interaction with other kids, exercise and not be underfoot. There is a fieldtrip on Wednesday to the zoo - so that'll be fun for them. Me, I'm hanging out back on our lanai. I've already painted my toenails and have been reading Harry Potter. Gary has paid bills and called up places to close accounts, like electric., water, etc.

We have got our suitcases packed - overstuffed is more like it. I think we'll have to box up some things and mail it. No one is willing to compromise and leave some things for the packers. Oh well. We had checked Delta's luggage policy, and it says that if you are military and moving then you can bring 10 suitcases, no charge! We won't have that many because we'd have to haul that stuff around and our rental car won't be big enough. But it's good to know.

Pineapple: the Final Chapter

2009-06-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

We have harvested and digested the pineapple. It was wonderful. In honor of little Pineappley, I will pay homage to it with a photo recap of it's short life.

January - first appearance

February - covered in flowers

April - getting bigger! looks like a real pineapple

May - emerald green, beautiful

June 8 - starting to get a suntan! almost time to harvest!

Comparing with a store bought pineapple - my guy is little

The next day - all gold, yet the presence of ants made me decide it was time to harvest. Isn't it beautiful?

June 12 - stored it in fridge until we were ready to eat it. (had to finish off the big one first) Looks just like a real pineapple inside! (in miniature)

I cut it using the fancy cut they taught me at the Dole Plantation. (it's the only way I cut pineapple - nothing is too fancy for my family)

We had homemade pizza along with our (organic, pesticide-free, free range) pineapple boat.

ONO!

Terrifying Tuesday and moving full panic mode

2009-06-10T01:02:00.000-07:00

I've moved out of the denial stage and am fullly into panic mode. I had a little freak out tonight. The packers come in a few days and we have to be ready. We have to be done! If we aren't ready, then it will be triple-wrapped and stuffed in a box before I even realize it. I can't think straight. I made Gary sit down with me and give me specific tasks so I can have things to focus on - instead of the nebulous "get the house ready".

I was pretty busy today - spent hours picking up medical records. I know the parking at Tripler can be a bear at certain times of the day, so we waited until 10:30 and by the time we got there, there were spots to be had. Picked up the boys' records, my records and my films. They put mri films on cd, which take a little time to do, so we ate at the cafeteria. Not what I had planned for lunch, but it was $6 for the 3 of us - not bad. Then we drove downtown to get records from my dermatologist, then went home.

I was so tired I immediately laid down for a nap. I've not been able to make myself go to bed before 11 lately, at waking up at 5:45 - it's just not enough sleep. So I've taken "power naps" every day for at least 2 weeks now.

I remembered that I forgot about my eye doctor, so I'll call her tomorrow and hope that she'll mail the records to me. I really don't want to have to drive downtown again.

Then I did some more random move readiness stuff - magazine subscriptions and such. and some cooking. Which leads us to todays Terrifying Tuesday.

I had a package of raw almonds just waiting to be used. So I decided to whip up some almond milk. I soaked a cup of almonds overnight, rinsed, drained and set out to dry off a bit. Stuck them in the fridge until I was ready to make it. You can find this recipe all over the internet. Blend 1 cup of soaked raw almonds and 3 cups of water. Blend, blend, blend. It gets all frothy. Then you strain it. I had to throw out the almond pulp because this just isn't the time to be trying to figure out how to use it. Then you put the liquid back in the blender, add 2 or 3 dates (I added 3, tasted then added a 4th). I added vanilla and regret it. I don't have a vanilla bean or alcohol free vanilla. I could really taste the alcohol and didn't like it. And that's it.

I gave everyone a small taste. We all gave it a thumbs down. However, I did save the rest so I could make a smoothie in the morning with it. I've got lots of frozen fruit in the freezer to use. I hate to waste. Plus I want to give it a second chance.

Okay, so here's my take on it. The videos I'd been watching on youtube make you think that it's so rich and creamy. And it looks all pretty and frothy. Well, it's watery. It has an almond flavor which is nice, but it's not rich. At all. It's very lacking. I guess if you were adjusted to eating a vegan diet, then you would be used to that. It just made me sad. I don't think it should be called almond milk or mylk. It doesn't even compare to milk - even skim milk. It's almond water.

Oh, my pineapple! It's all pretty and golden. I'll have to post pictures, but I'll wait until we cut into it. I decided to harvest it tonight. I saw ants crawling all over it and that freaked me out. (tonight's theme: freaking out) I have the store bought one that we have to finish eating first. (it's really a beautiful pineapple - just a perfect flavor) Which is a lot of pressure for my little guy to compete against. I just hope the ants didn't ruin it. I will take pictures of what it looks like inside and report on the taste. It'll be fine sitting on my counter for a while.

final thought for the day: I don't have to vacuum anymore if I don't want to! In fact, Gary told me to not bother with it.

discoveries amongst the rubble...

2009-06-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

The rubble that is the junk my children bring home from school. Monday is the last day of school and the kids have already brought home most of their junk.

I always sort through it and toss the junk and box up the treasures in a bankers box. One for each year, but not one for each kid - they have to share. (this puts a defined cap on my pack ratty ways)

I'm doing it right now. One of the best things about this chore is reading their writing notebooks. Ryan hasn't brought his home yet, but I found a couple of gems in Jake's. One page he wrote about his favorite meal - pizza. "I like cheese the best, and my mom's homemade pizza is good. It beats mass produced pizza any day!"

His last entry was about May Day. (may day is a big deal in Hawaii and the schools put on these big productions) He did a good job describing it and his feelings of nervousness before his performance. At the very end he wrote "I loved it! Too bad I have to move."

He also wrote a sweet letter to his dad about why he admired him, and he wrote a wonderful paragraph about his best friend, Ricky.

I'm so glad the teachers make them do this stuff, otherwise I'd never know.

dressing room mirrors are awful! - rant

2009-06-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

(disclaimer: the following probably has TMI and is not a sweet fun read)

Way too truthful.

So I went bra shopping today. I've gained a few pounds making my current bras a bit uncomfortable. Bra shopping is horrible anyway, and even worse when you're fat. You just can't hide from yourself in those mirrors! What a shocker. It wasn't even a three way mirror, just the one mirror. But my stomach was shocking! And then there's the miss-matched girls issue. I was just horrified. Remember, I've got the magic mirror in our bathroom. I look pretty good in it - and my hair doesn't even look nearly as gray! But this mirror showed the real me. My foob is changing - and not for the good. I caught a view of it from a different angle. The mx scar looks like it's tightening or adhering - I'm getting indented in that area. Plus, I've been doing pushups - it's been a goal of mine to regain some strength there and get over that uncomfortable feeling. It looks like my pec muscle is developing a little bit - not a lot, I'm still a weakling - but I'm a little fuller on the topside, which exacerbates the odd shape I'm developing. Plus, in the mirror it looked like that side was barely an A cup and my natural side (esp. with weight gain) is marching towards a C cup. So you can imagine that this shopping expedition was depressing, demoralizing, unfruitful and really made me angry at my plastic surgeons! How can they not see the freakish nature of this show? And I'm stuck with it!

On top of it all, my good side has been driving me crazy. I don't know if I'm drinking too much caffeine or have gained too much weight - but it hurts so bad when I try to run. I have to hold it down! (remember, I'm not big busted) I can't wear a tighter sports bra because that bothers my other side too much. My lumps are still there and they are starting to bother me when I run - I can FEEL one of them rattling around when I run. Yeah, stop running. I know what you are thinking - but this lump has been biopsied, mammogramed, ultrasounded and mri'd. So I'm fine - as far modern science can tell me. But I'm contemplating mx'ing it. No, not just because it's tender. I've been thinking about this a long long time. It may be time. (in the near future) I'm going to start saving the coins that are laying around the house so I can get a tummy tuck too. (a girl can dream)

I'm just fed up with it all.

I think I'll just have to buy one of the extender things to gain comfort in the bras that I currently own . Rats, I had a package in my hand but laid it down and forgot about it.
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Am I alone in wanting to take some scissors to Kate's hair? I have no interest in the gossip and rumors of affairs - but I can't help but see John and Kate every 5 seconds on t.v. and those long heavy one-sided bangs drive me crazy. Let's just get a few wispy layers in there to balance it out and make it look feminine, shall we?

going crazy and Terrifying Tuesday

2009-06-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's still tuesday and I'm posting about TT! Imagine that!

Gary is out of town, so I decided to go really easy on the boys. We picked out nectarines at the grocery store and that was our TT item tonight. They were soooooo good! I've eaten nectarines before, so this didn't fall into the rules of TT, but the boys had not had them, so that was good enough for me. Right now, I've got a bunch of yummy, different fruits in my fridge. I've got fresh pineapple, mango, cherries, nectarines and the usual orange, apple, grapes and banana.

Thumbs up all around.

Going crazy, well I was going to write about how I'm driving myself crazy with the house looking on the internet - it's true, I am. I think it's more a curse than a blessing to have this sort of access!! Or maybe it's just that my personality might be a little obsessive? I had a nice house picked out that had a beautiful pool and fell in our price range and within our distance parameters - but now it's gone! Of course it is. Houses that nice get snatched up asap. Really, I know it will all work out - God has something in store for us - it may not have a pool, but it will be just right for us. I need to refocus myself on getting this house ready!

It doesn't help that it's so doggone hot. It's 9:30pm and it's 85 degrees in the house. It's 90 during the heat of the day. Plus they are working on the stinking sewer and it stinks to high heaven at the school and just down the street. Luckily, we are up wind from that mess so I don't smell it at our house. However, one of my really good friends just bought a house right in front of where they are working! Poor thing. She has to wear noise blocking earphones just to function in her house.

blah, blah, blah, blather blather blather. I just wiped out what I had written. I went off on these bravo tv shows and I can't post it. I just can't. I hate talking mean about people. Lets just hope the housewives shows straighten out and the ny prep show goes off the air immediately. That's all I'm gonna say. If you've seen the shows, you know what I'm talking about!

Terrifying Tuesday and our hold baggage packout

2009-05-26T23:58:00.000-07:00

So a quick rundown on TT. I forgot to take pictures, I really wanted to.

Today's recipe was a raw vegan recipe from the Ani Phyo website: Pecan Pie Cookies You really need to go to the Washington Post website, because for some reason, she lopped off the amounts.

Super easy recipe. Only 4 ingredients that you can find in any grocery store. Pulse them in your food processor and mash into balls and flatten. Viola'. Of course, "cookies" is a loose use of the word. Cookie shaped sweet thing. Oh, but you can eat the "dough" without getting sick. Bonus!

Thumbs up for me and Gary. Thumbs down for Jake - but in a surprising turn of events, and half thumb from Ryan. I think Ryan didn't realize it had nuts in it. Because he's been poo-poo'ing nuts. See, he's very proud of not liking chocolate to the point that I think he's more proud of the fact than actually being a chocolate hater. And I see that he's becoming that way with nuts.

I gave them a thumbs up, but these are not craveable. Not yet at least. Maybe after eating a few more they will be. Plus, it's one of those "one is enough" situations. But they keep in the freezer - so it's easy enough to just pull out one for a sweet snack. It would be great with some hot tea.

Anyway, as you know, I've been reading vegan/vegetarian blogs for ages now, so I'm glad I finally took the plunge and tried a recipe. I really wanted to make the donuts, but I've not been able to find the dried pineapple with no added sugar.
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So, on to moving stuff. Our "hold baggage" went out today. We get to send a 1000 pounds of stuff out early that will hopefully get there early enough to be useful until our household goods arrive. We didn't even approach 1000 pounds. But I think we did good in selecting things. Gary took today off and worked like a demon. He has such a good work ethic. We did a lot to get ready for the move. All the junk in the garage was cleaned off and sorted. He took two loads to the dump. He washed and waxed the car that we've been borrowing. We'll return the car Thursday.

The ladies who are going to clean the house after we are packed out did a walk-through. So that's another thing checked off the list.

Ryan started begging for a cell phone so he can call his friends. I told him he can use the computer and skype his friends. It's free plus you can see them. Ryan hasn't cried for the last few days. They are both still acting like pills... I'm trying to make an effort to stop and pay attention to them and spend some one on one time with them. I'm re-reading the book about the 5 Love Languages. This one is about discovering your children's love language. I'm hoping to figure it out so I can really keep their love tanks full because I think they're gonna need it. It's gonna be really hard moving from here.

On the housing front, I'm still looking for rentals online - I'm getting burnt out, but yet I persist. It's in God's hands. He's always put us in the right situation - maybe not the most stylish or beautiful home, but just right for us. I think we've always had the BEST neighbors. So, I may not get the pool I want so badly, but we'll land where we need to land.

Gary's job is to find a new car. He's really been researching what he wants. I'm pushing for a hybrid - or at least not a gas guzzler. He's always been attracted to big cars or trucks. i.e. gas guzzlers. We're definitely getting used. We have a budget. So I think it's good for him to have a boundary -even if it is a loose boundary. He's going to do some test driving while he's in Charlottesville next week.

so that's where we are so far.

Terrifying Tuesdays: Wednesday edition

2009-05-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

(again, I'm late posting this. sorry!) We postponed TT for one day because Ryan had a stomach ache and I had a huge headache.

I chose Asian-Style Greens with Sesame Seeds from my cookbook "The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen" page 136. (By "my" cookbook, I mean the one I own) I had already bought tons of baby bok choy for the dish, so I HAD to make it - despite all the whining. I don't know if Ryan had the stomach ache due to stress from the upcoming move, or was just trying to get out of TT. Or both.

The stress of the move has really been coming out in Ryan - poor guy. The moving has really not affected the boys before, but this time it's bad. He's had nightmares about the plane crashing (thanks to Discovery channel detailing the crash of the hudson river flight), and he's worried about his stuff making it. We haven't hit upon the loss of friends yet. I so dread dealing with that.

So, anyway, on to the dish. None of us have had bok choy before. Not bad. The dish called for adding rice vinegar "to taste" at the end, but I didn't do it to taste. I just added what the recipe called for. I wish I hadn't. I had tasted it before adding the vinegar and liked it better that way. The vinegar adds just a tad of sour taste. So next time I'll leave it out.

We pretty much liked it. Ryan, being the pickiest, gave it a half thumb. And Jake gave it a half thumb. I think that's pretty hopeful for kids! Actually, I've made collards similar to this before, it's just that this recipe has you add toasted sesame seeds and ginger. I was excited to get to use my sesame seed toaster thingy. It's like a little pan with a hinged screen for the top, since sesame seeds pop when you toast them. I got it at the Marukai. I'll definitely make it again with less oil and I'll experiment with different greens. It would probably be good doing green beans like this. I remember one chinese buffet that served long green beans that tasted like this. Yum! Now I'm getting hungry thinking about that!

One tip, you can't find those chinese buffets here like you can on the Mainland. You can find chinese food, but just not that big ole "stuff yourself silly and top it off with soft serve ice cream and fortune cookie" place.

my pineapple today...

2009-05-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post a picture of my pineapple baby as it is today. I fed it some miracle grow yesterday in hopes of helping it along. Fertilizing a plant, what a concept. That may be why I have such a black thumb, I don't really feed or water my plants! Okay, so I do water them on occasion.

Terrifying Tuesday: Biggest Loser Edition

2009-05-19T15:04:00.001-07:00

In honor of the finale of The Biggest Loser, last week I made a recipe that caught my attention on the last Biggest Loser - you know, the one with Heba and Ed? They showed Ed making a Thai Turkey wrap. Well, I found a recipe for it online. This is one of the many places online you can find it: http://www.dietsinreview.com/recipes/eds-thai-turkey-wraps/

I made it pretty true to the recipe. Except I used my exceptional (bwa-ha-ha-ha) Thai flavor balancing skills when I added the lime juice. 4 juiced limes is a LOT of juice. I started out with 3 juiced limes and it was too limey. I ended up added some fish sauce to help balance it out. (the recipe does not call for fish sauce, and I happen to have some on hand!)

My grocery didn't have Boston lettuce, so I used green leaf lettuce. I would like to find another lettuce that would cup better. The filling was falling all over the place. The spine was most uncooperative!

Oh, another thing I added was some somen. I had a 3rd of a package left in the pantry, so I cooked it up and had it on the side to add to the individual wraps.

The results were surprisingly good. I was very skeptical, because this family is not big on vegetables, and I didn't think the lettuce as a wrap would go over well. But Jake gave it a big thumbs up and went for 2nds. Gary ended up eating his with a fork (and maybe just a little lettuce and extra peanuts). Ryan just took a nibble and ended up eating the leftover 1/2 sandwich from lunch.

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Okay, so I'm a week late on this report! I've spent most of my pc time looking at houses online. Yes, I see the same houses every time hoping that the perfect one will pop up. I did see a couple of houses that I'm crazy about, but Gary thinks the location may be a bit too far away.

I saw my derm. for the last time, just a follow up. He said it looks good, and he wrote down the name of two derms. in Atlanta that do the MOH's procedure. He says they are very good, and they have an empire down there, so if I need them, then I should be able to find a nearby office.

The Honolulu Marathon is having their early sign up. I got two emails about it. It makes me sad. So I went online to find Atlanta's ING marathon and they have started early registration, but it's $70!! I have to register by the end of Aug. The Honolulu Marathon is only $30 (early registration).

Today I'm working on one of the junk rooms. It houses my scrapbook stuff. I haven't scrapbooked much since I got here - so it's all junky and dusty. I'm trying to let go of my packrat ways and I'm throwing away a whole boatload of scrapbook magazines. I mean really? Why am I hanging on to magazines? They just stress me out when I read them. And it's clutter. Clutter creates stress too. Of course, while I"m going through this stuff, I look at all the pictures and pretty papers and makes me want to stop and do some pages. Must - resist - temptation!

more steps to the move...

2009-05-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

I've spent the last week glued to this dumb laptop trying to find the perfect hotel to stay in during our house hunting week. There is no perfect hotel, btw. And Atlanta has a LOT of choices - too many! So I had to make a list of priorities - free high speed internet access became the number one priority. Followed closely by fridge/microwave, exercise room, breakfast and free parking (who knew you'd have to pay for parking at some places?). So I finally narrowed it down and the winner was the one with the best deal. AAA had great rates and our military status gave us great rates. But you've got to check them all! So, that's one task down.

Tomorrow I can start calling about getting a cabin on K-bay for our last few days here.

We are also going to box up 2 air mattresses to send to my parents since they are keeping the boys during our house hunting trip.

Gary is working on getting the car sold. A co-worker expressed interest in it, test drove it, and even took it to a mechanic. The mechanic scared the poo out of them saying the timing belt needs to be changed because "it's time". Not that it looked bad or anything. He told them horror stories and said that would cost $1000. Great. We have the car marked at rock bottom prices already. So they have to "think about it". We are willing to drop the price even further just to get rid of it! Otherwise we have to get it detailed and put it on the lemon lot and entertain calls and test drives. Blah. I'm beginning to think we should ship it.

Today is my birthday. Gary just got back home (he took today off) so we are going to head out to Moe's for lunch! We have a babysitter for tonight to go to Buzz's and watch the sun set.

Terrifying Tuesday: Carrot Cake

2009-05-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

Yay! Dessert!

Yesterday was boy's day, so I decided to do a fun recipe. I had chosen this recipe for Gary, since he likes carrot cake and I had initially wanted to do this for his birthday - but I may not be doing TT during the move. We'll see how that works.

I got the recipe from the emails I get from Dr. Andrew Wiel. I also found the recipe on his website, free to the public, so I feel free to post it here.

Carrot Cake

Description
Carrot cake is a perennial favorite, but it is often loaded with vegetable oil and laden with a cream cheese frosting. Our version is healthier, using a small amount of olive oil, a full cup of honey for moistness and flavor, and a combination of whole wheat pastry and unbleached flours. The crunchy walnuts even add a bit of omega-3 fats to this sweet treat. With a cup of hot green tea, this cake will make you forget about cream cheese frosting. Enjoy!

Ingredients
2 cups firmly packed finely grated carrots
Juice of 1 large orange
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup light olive oil
1 cup honey, liquefied in microwave (30 seconds)
1/2 cup crushed or chopped pineapple, drained
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
3/4 cup walnuts, chopped

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a mixing bowl, stir together the carrots, orange juice, vanilla, olive oil, honey, and pineapple until well blended.
3. In another bowl, stir together the flours, baking soda, and spices. Mix in the walnuts.
4. Blend the dry ingredients into the carrot mixture, stirring until just mixed.
5. Pour the batter into a nonstick 8-inch-square baking pan and bake for 45-60 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, let cool slightly, and remove from pan.

My notes:
I made this exactly as described, except I used a different size pan. There was a lot of batter. I don't have a 9X9 pan, but I do have a 7X11, so that's what I used.

My pan is glass, not non-stick, so I also used some Pam on it.

I cooked it for 45 minutes and it was plenty done - it actually had a slightly burnt taste although it didn't look burned.

I got to use my food processor to shred the carrots. Yipee! I love my fp. It's fun and quiet. I don't like washing the parts and I don't have the counter space - but I will soon!

It got thumbs up all around except for Ryan. I was really surprised Ryan didn't like it. Maybe because it had nuts. I think he's wanting to decide he doesn't like nuts. I'm fighting it with all my heart!

I would make this again, but I need to adjust the time on it.

Another note about this recipe - while it is made with healthy oils and whole wheat flour and no eggs, all that good stuff - it is high in calories. But so is regular carrot cake with cream cheese frosting! Plus he calculated serving size based on 9 servings. I got at least 12-15 (I can't remember how many squares I cut).

This time I was smart and just left out a few pieces and froze the rest. Otherwise I'd eat them all!
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for boy's day I got my guys each a disposable camera, a camelback waterbottle, a candy lei and a 6 month subscription to Club Penguin. I find that last one hilarious. Here are two boys, almost 10 years old. They played on Club Penguin last year and had totally dropped it. But now they're all back into it and the free membership is just not enough. Hey, if it will keep them young and innocent for a little bit longer - I'm all for it! Those teenage years are just around the corner. Yikes!

Terrifying Tuesday: Yemiser Wat

2009-04-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

First I need to conduct a little business here. I'm going to take a blog link off the side. I'm not sure why, but whenever I exit Megan's Munchies and try to get into another blog, I get thrown into this weird Internet Explorer loop. I don't even use Explorer! I use the AOL software! So I'm gonna take down her link. I'm a little scared to visit her site, and that's sad because it's a neat blog. But I need to figure it out before my laptop explodes.

Okay, so last night we went international. I got this recipe through a regular on Weight Watcher's. Who got this recipe from another regular, who got this recipe from a vegan website who got this recipe from a vegan cookbook. LOL!

This is the link to the recipe. http://www.fatfreevegan.com/beans/yemiser.shtml As you can see, it's Ethiopian. Which sounds so exotic!

This is the link to the lady who created the recipe: http://www.bryannaclarkgrogan.com/page/page/579094.htm I will post more about that after I review the recipe.

recipe notes:
First, don't be intimidated by the list of ingredients. They are mostly spices. I practically had to pull out all the spices out of my cabinet - or at least a whole lot of them! Second, the recipe called for you to saute the onions in a non-stick pan. The pan I used was not non-stick, so I opted to add some canola oil. And thirdly, the recipe has a flaw - it doesn't tell you what to do with the lentils after you boil them! So I drained them, and then added them when I added the tomatoes and broth.

verdict:
One thumbs up (me), two thumbs down (the kids), and a 1/2 thumb which turned into a 3/4 thumb from the hubby. It actually is pretty tastey, oddly sweet (but I think that's due to the spices like nutmeg and ginger). Gary gave it a better rating after he tasted it with the brown rice (like the recipe calls for). I think the kids didn't like it because they are kids. It makes a huge amount. It was fairly easy to make and not hot at all. (I only used a 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes) Actually, the more I ate it, the more I like it. But I didn't have the leftovers for lunch today because I had other leftovers to eat. We'll see tomorrow...

I don't know how filling it would be as a meal itself. Because I fixed it with pork chops. Is that wrong? To fix a vegan recipe with grilled pork chops? Shhhhhh. Don't tell anyone!

I am so very fascinated with the vegan/vegetarian thing. I love the look of some of the recipes, but often wonder if they would fill me. Sometimes I fix stuff with the fake meat, or with beans or tofu (which I love), but it just does not satisfy. If you add a little meat, then wah-lah, satisfaction. Yeah, I've been reading about umami - the "fifth taste". I dunno.

Anyway, I spend too much time on the internet reading vegan/vegetarian blogs - wondering what it would be like to eat like that all the time. I get stuck on the practicality aspect. It just doesn't seem to translate into MY life. And causes me stress just thinking about it. Plus I don't have the convictions against eating meat. BUT, if I get one more cancer - I swear something has to change. Drastically. (I do not think meat causes cancer, but I do need to eat more nutritious foods)

Meanwhile, I continue to experiment with meatless recipes. I also eat meatless breakfasts and lunches (for the most part).

One side benefit that I did not anticipate - Gary's reactions to the foods. He's pretty picky. There aren't a whole lot of fruits and vegetables that he eats. He's a meat and rice man. NOT potatoes! Before Terrifying Tuesdays, he MIGHT taste something that I made that was not normal. And then pick out the offending bits. But now, he WILL taste the recipe. He realizes that the boys really emulate him, so he doesn't complain or make faces or segregate bits out of his food. And he takes an honest taste test. And I believe he's loosening up a little. The man has the pallette of a child, but maybe we'll grown him up a little. :-) I don't know if I can wait for his taste buds to dull with age.

walking again

2009-04-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Boy am I out of shape! For my "sport". My exercise of choice. Walking.

I have been wanting to do one of my routes for the longest time, but Saturdays have been too busy - so I chose to do it today. I wasn't really sure of the distance (didn't check it) but I knew I'd need to carry water. I'm glad I did because Mr. Sun decided to pay a visit and it turned out to be a two hour walk. It was 8.2 miles. So I guess my time wasn't all that bad considering I haven't done much walking in the last 4+ months. After about an hour my legs told me they were going to take a nap. Yeah, it's wierd how my legs talk to me. At 1 hour 40 minutes they woke up briefly. I really felt my stride - then lost it again when I was in sight of my house.

Yeah, go figure you can get out of shape for walking. I've reallly not given myself enough credit for what good shape I was in. But now I know. Plus, I was a lot thinner than I thought I was. Because when I put on the water belt - yikes it was tight!

But I'm back in the saddle. I have that want and drive to get back in shape. It's very self-esteem boosting to feel strong and fit. I will not let my stomach pooch get in my way. I cannot allow myself to think about it. You have to work out regardless of how you look (or SMELL!).

I came home starving and tired. I had planned to drink a chocolate milk (recovery food of champions!) - but I saw the tiramisu in the fridge and ate some of that instead. Yikes!

Took a shower and had to lay down before I could dry my hair. I was tired and crampy. Finally worked up the energy to dry my hair and tried to move to the kitchen to fix lunch but I was still satisfied from the tiramisu and took a nap. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Then I made a salad and had a little leftover white chicken chili.

I really need to be reviewing the recipe for tonights terrifying dish. And I really need another haircut.

BTW, my scar is almost invisible. It's just a little raised, but not red at all. It's really quite amazing. Especially considering my history with keloids. You can see that the rash is all gone. I'm still numb above the scar line and tender at the scar.

There's the bad hair cut to deal with. My new hairdresser only works 2 days a week - so I need to get on the ball and call her. But it's time to go pick the boys up at school. I'll try later...

my new present and the end of the movie

2009-04-26T01:39:00.000-07:00

This is my beautiful new (and early) mother's day/birthday/anniversary present! Yippee! I talked Gary into buying it for me tonight. I knew he was going to get me one (I've been wanting one for years) and have been torn between the KitchenAid and Cuisinart. I'm sure they are both equally stellar products, but the KitchenAid comes in colors and we found this one in RED tonight. Had to snatch it up. Why wait? I'll just get to enjoy it now rather than later. My first attempt I think will be hummus. Hummus is reallly hard to make in a blender. Frankly, everything is hard to make in a blender that is not liquidy.

Today I took my kids to a birthday party and saw a movie by myself. Gary was planted in front of the tv because of "The Sporting Event of the Year". The NFL draft. *yawn* The kids went on the Atlantis, which is a "submarine" ride where you can view the wonders of the ocean right off the shores of Waikiki. Very cool, they saw a shark.

Anyway, to the movie part. I went to the Nicholas Cage movie "Knowing". I made the mistake of getting a large Diet Coke. I HAD to leave the movie at the very end. I just could NOT hold it in any longer. I missed the last 5 minutes. If ANYONE saw the movie and is willing to share the ending, PLEASE DO!!!! I left after the kids "departed" and Cage was driving through the city through the chaos. No major event had happened. Did anything happen??? I NEEEEEED to know.

Terrifying Tuesdays: BBQ Salmon

2009-04-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Recipe:

BBQ Salmon
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. salmon
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. grated orange rind
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 lg. garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. pepper

Put the salmon in a large baking dish. Whisk the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl and pour them over the salmon. Marinate at room temperature for 45 minutes or in the fridge for 2 hours. Grill or broil the salmon for about 8 minutes a swide, or until it's as done as you like it. Serve immediately.

This recipe is from the cookbook "One bite won't kill you!" by Ann Hodgman. Love the title, don't you?!

We all loved it - but we all love grilled salmon anyway - yes, even the boys. Forget that fishstick business. But, but, but...... you couldn't really taste the marinade. So, what's the point? I usually just put a ready-made rub on my salmon and a squirt of lemon which is a thousand times easier. (probably could do without the rub too!)

We also had a new french fry, it's by Alexia and is organic and no trans fats. They were good. And since I don't do the french fry thing much, it's worth the higher cost. I had read in someone's blog that the tater tots were good, but the commissary didn't have any.

And, to feed into my cookbook addiction, I went to Target today and bought the new "Hungry Girl 200 under 200" book. I'm not sure why I bought it, since there is the website, and a lot of the food is "fake". But sometimes you just need a fast to fix recipe that isn't fattening. It takes time to make everything fresh and sometimes you run out of fresh stuff at the end of the week. (I'm trying to justify buying yet another cookbook!)
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I go to get my stitches out tomorrow. I'll be glad. I think he did a great job and it'll heal up beautifully. The rash on the other hand, it's a mess. You can literally see the rectangular area where the bandage was. This picture was taken just now. So it's 6 days after the surgery. Oh, well. You can also see where they cut my hair. LOL! not a big deal. could've been much worse.

moving dates and still itching...

2009-04-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

First the whining. So I called the derm. office - I knew the doc was out of town. Well, the nurse said that I didn't need to wear a bandage anymore - I'm not! Then, get this gem of wisdom, "use vaseline, maybe it will help soothe the itching". I take it she's never had an itch before. Then she said something about not being able to ask the doc since he was out of town for the week. ?? Don't you think the doctor would want to know when the patient is having problems? Of course, I didn't say that to her. I can't afford to alienate the person who is going to pull my stitches. She asked me who my dermatologist was (weird question since her boss is my derm!) - oh, she wanted to know who did the biopsy. My pcm. So I'm supposed to call my pcm. Not likely. Every time I think about what I'm going to say, it just sounds ridiculous. Hello? My derm. nurse asked me to call YOU to help with a derm problem. Yeah, dumb. So, I'm not doing anything. I've been putting on benedryl cream when the itching is unreal, and I may take benedryl after lunch. If I don't touch it, and pin my hair back so it doesn't tickle it, then I'm okay. That's about all I did for my itchies from my other surgeries. But I expect better info from the people who specialize in skin ailments!

vaseline, unreal!
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Now to the fun/sad stuff. Gary had his transportation appointment yesterday and we have dates. Packers come June 15/16 and moving day is the 17th. We fly out the 21st. We have the few days in there to say our goodbyes, clean the house and ship off the van. They estimate our household goods arriving in Atlanta on Aug. 13. So the boys might have started school by the time our stuff gets there.

It's becoming more real. Hard to keep denying it. I need to do something with my friends so we can say a good "goodbye" and not let the date come and go. I don't have any ideas yet.

Itching, chore charts and wedding memorabilia

2009-04-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

Augh!!!!

I totallly forgot about my adhesive allergy and so I didn't mention it to the doctor. So naturally, by Saturday night the itching began. Just a little bit. By this morning, the itching started to be sincere. I took the bandage off before my shower. I itched all through church. You can see how red my ear is in the picture. The bandage was stuck to that little corner of my ear and it's paying the price. The rectangular perimeter where the sticky parts stuck are the itchy parts. It's also raised and bumpy. You can kinda see that in the picture. Looks like I have an acne outbreak (I've never had an acne outbreak like this!) I've been putting on some benedryl cream. I don't know if that's okay, but I've used it before for itchiness from adhesives. It kinda temporarily halts the major itching frenzy. I'm going to call them in the morning to find out what he recommends. So anyway, you can see what the stitching looks like.

I have to think of a good story to go with it. We ate at a little place we go to fairly often and the waiter asked me about the stitches and I just sat there speechless. I'm not fast on my feet and I was trying to think of something appropriate for the general public. I didn't want to say it was skin cancer, Gary suggested I say I had a little something removed - ew, that sounds gross. I'm thinking either a tragic surfing accident or an encounter with a shark. Make it outlandish enough that it's intentionally unbelievable. I figure a good laugh would alleviate any awkwardness.

Do you see those two pictures (to the left of my huge nose) that are kinda wonky? Yes, those are the same two pictures I showed here over 2 years ago when the earthquake hit and made those pictures crooked. I keep them like that just as a reminder. That earthquake happened the day before my mastectomy.
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We have set up a chore chart for the boys. They have been begging for an allowance, and it's my philosophy that they need to do chores to earn it. They sorted through books today - a keep and a 'get rid of' pile. We might have a yard sale and they will keep the proceeds on them. The living room looks a lot better! Why didn't we think of this before?
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Also in the process of sorting and tossing, I went through a bunch of old wedding stuff. I read all the cards we got and read some of the letters I wrote to Gary before the wedding. We had a long distance relationship the 2 years before we got married. (dated 3 years total - 1 year of that was engaged) I feel like a stalker because I wrote him every week. I think he wrote me every week too though. His letters to me are stored somewhere else.

I finally gave myself permission to throw some things away. Gasp! I threw away the index cards I had made that listed a name/address/gift/thank you date on each. I threw away the little gift tags. And I threw away the rsvp cards. That's a lot! Particularly for this pack rat. But we've been married almost 21 years and really, I'm not keeping tabs on who gave us what. I thanked everyone, and have used everything to death. It has all been appreciated. The guest registries are there to list who attended what and that should be enough. I kept everything that had a personal note or was from someone special.

Everything made me smile. That's why I hold on to a lot of stuff. But really, those index cards did not make me smile. All it made me think of was writing those thank you notes! Good riddance!
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edited to add for Pam's sake that on Friday, my dermatologist also called my spot a tumor! At least I had prior warning by you, so I wasn't shocked.

Pictures! pineapple and other...

2009-04-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

This is the latest photo of my little plump beauty. Very exciting!

I've included a picture that is set back a bit so you can see the whole thing. It's tilting at a severe angle because of all the winds we've had the past couple of months. One time I found the base OUT of the dirt, so I just piled some more dirt on top. It seems to be okay. I assume it'll be okay since I assume pineapples were designed to thrive in this weather.

Warning: exit now, ye of squemish heart.

I'm posting the pics I promised. Really, they aren't bad - the grey hair is quite horrible. And yes I have spotty, sun damaged skin along with the skin cancer.

Okay, first picture is a closeup. This is not a bad pic. It's practically healed compared to how it looked in January. Back then it was a bloody, crusty painful mess. You can see the cancer is the red round patch. That is the face of cancer. Remember it. Don't ignore it if you see the same on yourself or a loved one. The brown speckles are nothing.

This next picture is just there to give you reference as to size and location.

I had the procedure this morning. It didn't take long at all. They numbed me up really good, for which I am grateful. I didn't feel a thing. I had to wait about 20 minutes and then they came back and numbed me up for the next step (and cut more hair! yikes!). He said that he got it all the first time, so he was going to close me up. He had to make another cut in the "crows feet" line (I don't have crows feet!) (okay, I have one, I see it up in the previous photo) I was told that there'd be swelling and bruising and I have to come back in a week to get the stitches out. He said he disagrees with my squamous cell carcinoma diagnosis. He said he saw baso-squamous cell carcinoma. Which he said was like a hybrid of the two. But mostly basal. Which is good, because he can say the surgery cures the basal, while with squamous I'd still have a 5% chance of recurrence or spreading. At least that was my understanding.

So anyway, this is what I look like now with the bandage. I can see a little blue poofiness beside my eye - so that will become an ugly bruise.

The funny thing was when I walked out of the office, I had to go potty and I wanted to check things out. It felt funny, like my eyebrow was being dragged down by the bandage. Well, that's exactly what it looked like! It was so odd. I couldn't raise my left eyebrow because it had been numbed up. I always wanted to be one of those people who could raise one eyebrow! I feel much more normal now. But it's starting to ache a little. I refused a narcotics prescription and took a tylenol about an hour ago. I might just regret refusing that later on tonight. Hmmm. I might have some prescription strength tylenol left over from other surgeries. I'll need to dig through my cabinets.

Lordy, I need a haircut and color - can't do that anytime soon!

Terrifying Tuesday: East Coast Lasagna

2009-04-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

I'm so lazy, this is so late. The good news is that we found a winner. Almost.

First, I'll start with the recipes. I got the recipes from "Skinny B**** in the Kitch". (Lord only knows what possessed me to pick up a cookbook, much less any book, that has a swear word in the title and then followed by thousands throughout the book - totally tacky and classless - can't believe I gave these women my money) I'm going to copy and paste these recipes in here, and my justification for that (since I haven't been doing it) is because there is a flaw in the recipe that I want to discuss and there are changes I made. So these are not exact copies of the recipes, at least the red sauce is not exact. And I'll discuss that too. I just want you to know that the recipes below may vary from what's in the book.

East Coast Lasagna

6 qts. water
about 3 tbsp. fine sea salt
1 lb. whole wheat or brown rice lasagna noodles
5 cups Basic Red Sauce (see recipe)
4 cups Tofu "Ricotta" (see recipe)
12 - 14 oz vegan ground beef (if frozen, no need to thaw)
10 oz vegan mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350* F.

In an 8-10 qt stockpot over high heat, combine the water with about 3 tbs. salt. Bring the water to a boil, add the noodles, and cook according to the pkg directions. When the pasta is done, drain it, briefly rinse it (just to make it cool enough to handle), and drain it again. Separate the noodles and lay them on foil, waxed paper or parchment paper to keep them from sticking together.

Spread 1/2 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a 13X9 Inch pan. Top the sauce with some of the lasagna noodles, overlapping them slightly. Top the noodles with 1/3 of the Ricotta, 1/3 of the ground beef, and 1/3 of the cheese, spreading each layer of ingredients out evenly. Repeat the noodles, ricotta, beef and cheese layers 2 more times (you may not need all the pasta).

Place the pan of lasagna on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until the tip of a knife inserted in the center of the lasagna comes out piping hot, 60 to 75 min. (check on it periodically to make sure the cheese isn't burning. If it seems like it might, cover with foil unitl the final 15 minutes)
Remove the lasagna from the oven and let it sit 10 to 15 min. before cutting and serving.

Basic Red Sauce

2 tbsp. oil
1 onion, cut into 1/4" dice
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
2 (28 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
1/4 cup fruity red wine (optional)
2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh basil
1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. hot sauce, like Tabasco (optional)
1 Tbsp. agave nectar (optional)

Heat the oil in a 4-6 qt stockpot over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender. 6-8 minutes (adjust heat, if necessary, to avoid browning). Add the garlic and cook stirring occasionally, 1 minute. Stir in the tomatoes and tomato paste, increse the heat to high, and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the wine, if using, along with the basil, oregano, salt and hot sauce (if using). taste, and if the sauce is too acidic, stir in the agave. Use immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week or freeze for up to 2 months.

Tofu "Ricotta"

14 to 16 oz extra firm tofu, crumbled
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh oregano or 1 tsp. dried oregano
3/4 tsp fine sea salt

In a food processor, combine the tofu, garlic, olive oil, oregano and salt and pulse to puree. Use immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
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Recipe notes:

The Skinny B gals like to use refined coconut oil, and they give their arguments for it. I'm not quite sold on the idea, nor do I wish to experiment with my health since I do have high cholesterol and can somewhat control it through careful watch on my diet. So on the red sauce recipe where I have "oil", they call for the coconut oil. Where there is evoo on the ricotta, they call for evoo.
On the lasagna assembly portion of the recipe, they only call for the use of the sauce one time, in the beginning before you put down the first layer of noodles. Obviously this is a mistake, since the recipe calls for 5 cups of sauce and lasagna needs it's sauce. So, you need to remember to include a layer of sauce each time. This is the one recipe mistake that I caught.
I used white lasagna noodles because I don't have access to whole grain noodles
I used regular part skim mozzarella cheese because we are not vegan and soy cheese just doesn't melt or taste as good as real dairy cheese. Why mess up a good lasagna?
The mistake I made when I typed out the recipe is that I forgot to include the vegan ground beef. I didn't realize that until it was time to cook. I happened to have a 1/2 pound of ground beef and just 1 Amy's hamburger patty - so I nuked the beef, thawed the patty and made do with that.
I used canola oil to saute the onions
8-10 cloves of garlic is a LOT, it's good, but be warned that it's an odor that will be hard to shake
We don't drink so I didn't use wine
I didn't have fresh oregano, so I used dry, 1 tsp
I used Cholula hot sauce because that's what we had
I used sugar because that's what my mama uses! (instead of the agave)
the tofu they sell around here comes in 12 oz tubs, so I bought two and used 1 and 1/4 pkgs.

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The results were really good. Thumbs up all around. I do want to make it sometime with just the faux hamburger. Next time I will give myself more time to make it. It took about an hour of hustling (before baking). Either I need to make the elements ahead of time, or start earlier. Also, I need to remember to check it earlier to make sure the cheese doesn't get overcooked. And be more generous with the sauce. It was a little on the dry side. When I assembled, I did not measure out 5 cups, so I don't know how much I used.

While I am not a big fan of this cookbook for personal reasons, they do have an excellent pizza sauce recipe.
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And so you won't think that Tuesday is the only day I experiment with food, I made a quinoa recipe on Monday that I saw in the newspaper. I couldn't resist. It was okay, could have done without the orange segments in it.
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Tomorrow is the day I go in for my little surgery to remove that spot on the side of my face. I've become quite the spokesperson for sunblock ever since I was diagnosed with skin cancer! I've already offended a couple of people, I do believe! Not that I mean to, but you'd be surprised how resistant folks are to the idea of using sunblock. But this is the tropics and the sun is very serious here. That reminds me, I want to take before and after pictures. At least a before picture, now that it's not gross and bloody. It's just red. It would be educational.

Terrifying Tuesday: Pecan Crusted Fish with peppers and squash

2009-04-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

We finely have a winner folks! Something edible! I'm not sure where I got this recipe, so I'll post it anyway.

Pecan Crusted Fish with Peppers and Squash

12 oz. fresh or frozen catfish,
whitefish, orange roughy
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp. onion salt
1/4 cup a-p flour
1/4 tsp ground red pepper
1 egg
2 sm. red/orange sweet peppers, quartered
1 med. zucchini, bias-sliced 1/2" thick
1 med. yellow summer squash,bias-sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/4 tsp seasoned salt

1. Line a 15X10X1 inch baking pan with foil. Lightly spray; set aside. Thaw fish, if frozen. Rinse fish; pat dry. Cut fish into 4 serving-size pieces; set aside. 2. In a shallow dish combine pecans, cornmeal, and onion salt. In another shallow dish combine flour and ground red pepper. In a small mixing bowl whisk together egg and 1 tbsp water. Dip each piece of fish in flour mixture to lightloy coat, shaking off any excess. Dip fish in egg mixture, then in pecan mixture to coat. Place coated fish in the prepared baking pan, tucking under thin edges. 3. In a large bowl combine sweet peppers, zucchini, and sqash. Add 1 tbsp. olive oil and seasoned salt; toss to coat. Arrange peppers and squash around fish, overlapping vegetables as needed to fit into pan. 4. Bake, uncovered, in a 425 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork and vegetables are tender.

per serving:
302 cal, 15g total fat (2g sat fat), 98 mg chol., 367 mg sodium, 21g carbo., 3g fiber, 21g pro.

I pretty much made this recipe as stated. I used catfish. I wanted to use orange roughy, but the commissary didn't have any. I'm not a big fan of vegetables cooked with fish, but I did it anyway. Next time I'll grill the vegetables or cook them somehow, but separately. The vegatables got a little burned and the squashes were downright slimey. Yuck. But the fish was great. I'm sure you could use any nut. It's not a recipe that's far out there, but it's something I haven't yet tried on the family.

It got 3 thumbs up (Gary gave it a 3/4 thumbs up) and 1 thumbs down. Ryan ate it up anyway. The only other things on his plate were the vegetables and purple sweet potato. He had to eat something!
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On the food front, our commissary finally got that Truvia stuff. I've been dying to try it, so I snatched up a box Sunday. I dunno. This stuff tastes more fake than the fake stuff, to me. If you take a little taste of it straight out of the package, I get hit with what I think is going to be bitter, but then it disappears. It's kinda weird. Almost like how the sugar alcohols disappear on you - you know in those sugar free hard candies. Since it said that one packet was the equivalent of 2 tsp of sugar, I put one packet in my hot tea. Just not quite sweet enough. Hey, I usually like 2 packets of splenda in my tea, so I guess I like it pretty sweet. I've been using 1 packet in my oatmeal - I'm still not sure about the bitterness factor. Too reminiscent of sacchrin - yuck! So this stuff is still up in the air for me.

I'm not sure why I want to change anyway. You hear all those negative nellies going on and on about the evils of Equal and Splenda - I like them! I don't think either have aftertaste and they haven't affected me physically, as far as I can tell. But I'm really not the one who can say, "I've been doing it all my life and I'm fine!" Because I've had too many major illnesses to get away with that. I've NOT been fine. Maybe it's my water bottles, maybe it's my toothpaste, maybe it's because I was bottle fed. Who knows? But I like me sweets.

We are making small motions towards our move. Gary's got to do some car stuff - I've made arrangements for dental records to be sent to me. I still need to call my eye doctor. My medical records will stay at the hospital until the bitter end, and then I will hand carry everything with me. This is VITAL. You've got to hand carry all your xrays, mammograms, EVERYTHING! Don't trust it to the mail.

I'm getting kinda sad about the move. I can see changes happening already. One of my good friend's has placed a bid on a house and is in escrow - it has a pool, so we'll miss out on many good pool parties. The neighborhood has become a reconstruction zone - they are doing new sewer lines. It's horrible. Our sweet, quiet neighborhood. There are a couple of other school moms who are moving this summer. One mom is currently having her house packed out. So things will be different here anyway. I won't be leaving the same place.

I've had a cold for over a week now. I've been sleeping on the infamous recliner. I keep hoping the moist night air will heal my cough. Plus I can't stand the thought of disturbing Gary's sleep with my coughing. I just want to breathe!

Terrifying Tuesday: Barley with Curry, Carrots and Almonds

2009-04-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

(obviously I'm not a food stylist -sorry!)

I'll post the recipe for this one. It's pretty simple. I got if from a cookbook of mine "Superfoods, Cook Your Way to Health" by Jyl Steinback.

Barley with Curry, Carrots and Almonds

1 1/2 cups nonfat chicken broth
1/2 cup water
2/3 cup quick-cooking barley
3/4 cup chopped carrot
2 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp curry powder
1 Tbsp. sliced almonds, toasted

Combine chicken broth, water, barley carrot, onion powder and curry in medium saucepan; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 12 to 15 minutes until barely is tender. Remove lid and cook 3 to 5 minutes; stir in toasted almonds and serve.

Serves 4
calories: 153
total fat: 1g
dietary fiber: 6g
sodium: 361 mg

my adjustments:
I don't have or know where to get quick cooking barley. I had pearled barley, so I increased the simmering time to 35 minutes. I had slivered almonds on hand, instead of sliced and I dumped in the rest of what we had which was just over a tablespoon. The more the merrier! Everything else I kept the same.

The results: 3 thumbs up, 1 thumbs down from Ryan. I think this was Ryan's first time with the curry flavor, so it will take him a while to adjust. We will deem this one a keeper. Maybe not a regular, but I'll definitely make it again.

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In other news... today I had an MRI - my follow-up from my abnormal mammogram. Ugh! It had been a couple of years from my last one, and I'm already dreading next years! I did fine, but near the end I was getting close to a freak-out. I started getting warm and was breathing warm air. I was starting to sweat. Sweating will make you claustrophobic for sure! No, the closed in-ness didn't bother me a bit. It's the not being able to move for over an hour that gets you. Everywhere there was a pressure point, it hurt. My forehead, my right shin - well, those were the only two that bothered me. Then my left shoulder - oy! I was about to scream about that! They had me laying there in a superman pose - with my arms stretched out front. Which was fine for the first half hour. When they finally got me out of the tube, my shoulders were frozen. It was hard to get up. Our bodies just weren't designed to stay in one position like that. We are designed to MOVE!

Before the MRI I prayed that I would be given calmness, and He was faithful. I actually almost fell asleep a couple of times. But then the noises would start up or would change and almost startle me. I really don't know how long the thing took, but it was at least an hour. Let's see, I was changing clothes and looked at my watch and it was 10:38, and then after I walked out of the MRI place to the bathroom it was 12:18. You have to factor in a little time for waiting, not much, time to change clothes and time to get the i.v. and then get all situated. So I think that leaves at least a full hour for scan time.

Today I put the boys into a spring break "program" at the school, so I would have plenty of childcare time without worrying about them. They were going on a field trip to one of those places that has all those big blowup bouncy things. I'm sure they are having fun and I will pick them up in about an hour or so.

I have a dentist appointment this month (plus Ryan needs to get a filling) and also have the "thing" cut off my face on the 17th. Medical month. Blah. What I really need is to get my hair cut again.

***** edited to say my doc just called with MRI results - hey I wasn't supposed to get those for 3-4 days! this is same day! everything is normal - I've got simple cysts - yeah, we knew that - and my implant is intact! *whew* big sigh of relief! Next!

some Kauai pictures

2009-03-31T00:28:00.001-07:00

Just a few pictures from our Kauai trip. Yes, I'm wearing spf 50 and covered up as much as I could. Had to take off the shades for pictures, you know!

(ignore the poochy stomach, yes it's really my stomach and not just the shirt)

Gary and the boys at a lookout on the Waimea Canyon drive. I made them all sit because ever since I had my babies, I get terrified when they (or me) gets close to the edge of anything. It makes me dizzy. I can't even stand to see them get near the 2nd story railing in the mall! My head just starts spinning. My friend Jenny says she's been that way since she had her boys too.

Me and Gary in front of the Hanapepe Swinging Bridge sign. Pam will appreciate this bridge.

See?! This thing is suspended and bounces and swings as you walk, and the wind really gets it swinging! It was a windy day. See those people behind my family? Well, I started to head out there and they started to head back my way and that jerk man was really walking side to side and laughing at me as I was clutching the edges. Some people are just born jerks.

This is us after our helicopter ride and that's our helicopter. The other couple who flew with us took the picture. I don't know why I look so unhappy in this picture - bad timing I guess. The yellow packs are our life vests.

Jake and Gary in the back.

Ryan and our pilot Kurt. We rode up front. They assigned seats by weight. Yes! They weigh you!! But they keep it secret. (except Ryan said that the flight roster had our weights - and the pilot taped it up front on the dash - so your weight can be seen by the initiated) I was glad I got to ride up front, but I tried my best not to gloat.

a windblown picture of me at Kilauea lighthouse. The whole trip was very windy.

I'm sorry I don't have a better picture of this waterfall. It's the waterfall you see in Fantasy Island (da plane! da plane!) - Wailua Falls.

Chickens are everywhere on this islands. And all the roosters are gorgeous like this one! They just run around wild - I saw a shirt that said "Kauai's native un-endangered species".

These pictures are a little out of order. This is a shot of Waimea canyon. (the grand canyon of the pacific) This really isn't a good photo and does not do the canyon justice.

Terrifying Tuesday Vacation Edition

2009-03-26T22:56:00.001-07:00

We just got back last night from 4 days on Kauai. There was no way I was going to the bother of forcing another abominable dish on my family on our lovely vacation.

So I did a little experimenting on myself.

I ordered vegetarian when I could, when it was available.

So here's what I/we got, in case you ever go to Kauai and you want to know where to go (or not). Mind you, we did NOT hit ANY fancy digs. We basically used the book "Kauai Revealed" as our main guidebook. Each of the islands have a "revealed" book, which I do recommend. Locals hate these books because they reveal all the hidden gems. Hey, we hate that the tourists have discovered Kailua beach and Lanikai! (the beaches near us) So there is that little moral delimma going on.

*sigh* I can't find the book right now - you know how it is when you get home and the suitcases explode... So I'm winging it by memory - ha!ha!ha!

We arrived Sunday around lunchtime and we decided to let Ryan pick out lunch - well, he had already spotted a restaurant in the book that he wanted to go to, so why not. It's called Brick Oven Pizza, and was rated Ono (delicious) by the book. However, the pizza is not baked in a brick oven. rats. The pizza is very expensive, and we didn't think their large would feed us all, so I ordered a sandwich for myself. I ordered the veggie sandwich. It had mushrooms, onion, peppers, olives, lettuce, tomato, cheese and pizza sauce - on a great french bread-like bun. It was good (despite me not liking olives or mushrooms) but the flavor too much of the same old, same old. It needed something on the side, like some pineapple slices or well, anything. BTW, we had two slices left over, so the large would have fed us all after all.

Sunday night we made sandwiches.

We stayed in a condo, so we fixed our own breakfasts. Sorry, I know breakfast can be the best meal.

Monday lunch we ate out at a place that was featured on Anthony Bordain - Puka Dog. www.pukadog.com You gotta check out the menu. Puka is Hawaiian for hole. The bun is like a loaf which they poke a hole in (jam it on a hot spike to toast the inside), squirt in the sauces and slide in the dog. The relishes and secret sauce and lilikoi mustard makes the dogs unique and fun. BTW, relish is a misnomer. If you read the reviews online it's true, the relishes are more like a syrup. I actually like the sweet and salty mixture. My order: the veggie dog with spicy secret sauce, mango relish and lilikoi mustard. You get two veggie dogs stuffed in the bun. If you order the polish dog, it's big enough for one in the bun. It dripped and oozed. The bun was soft and white bread, so all the sweet syrup on it kind of made it like a dessert along with the dog. Yum! Oh, the spicy sauce was NOT hot. The barest hint of spice. And I have a kinda tender tongue. So other lilly livered people can order spicy without fear.

The rest of my party ordered so plain it's not even worth writing about. Ryan and Gary had theirs plain and Jake had ketchup on his.

Monday afternoon we went on a helicopter tour. It's a "must do" in Kauai. We went on Blue Hawaiin Helicopters and our pilot was Kurt. He was cute and had that nice local way of talking. The tour was breathtaking.

Monday night we grilled steak, but went out for ice cream at Lappert's. Yum!

Tuesday we went to Waimea canyon and on the way back we ate lunch at a little deli called Kalaheo Cafe and Coffee Co. www.kalaheo.com It all smelled so good. I don't drink coffee, but sometimes you go to places that you wish you did. I ordered the cajun tofu and eggplant wrap. It was good, but very drippy. I wish they had sliced the tofu thinner to absorb more of the cajun sauce and wish they had sliced the eggplant thinner, just because I'm not a fan of eggplant. But I gobbled it up. Ryan ordered the grilled cheese which was just beautiful. You can see on the menu I had a few vegetarian options to choose from. It was a hard choice.

For supper we had pizza in Poipu at Pizzeti (IIRC). We got half cheese/half pepperoni. It was alright. We ordered thin crust, but I would not call it thin crust. More like a regular crust. (same for the other pizza joint) I like my thin crusts crunchy, cracker-like. (it makes it easier to over-indulge!) We had more ice cream for dessert.

Wednesday lunch was our last meal there. I really did some fast talking to get the people to agree to eat where we did. We had decided to drive up the north shore way, hoping to get a last glimpse of whales at the lighthouse, and I was scrambling through the book to find a place to eat. We ended up at a gas station (of all things!) in Princeville ( a very hoity-toity area). It was the Chevron in Princeville Station (IIRC) the restaurant was called North Shore Grindz. They boasted a burger called Bubbas BBQ burger which had bbq sauce and onion rings - the beef is locally raised/grown beef. Gary said it was good - the onion rings were a little larger than he likes and it was drippy good. The boys had pizza which looked and smelled so good. Nothing like what you would find at any other gas station (or 7-11), so get that out of your head. I ordered the "mean veggie" which was the veggie burger. It was a falafel, which I'd never had before, so I was dying to try it. It was fried, huge and crunchy. It didn't taste bad, but it was intimidating in size. And definitely not good for you since it was fried. Our burgers came with fries, nice and salty. A strange mix of skinny straight ones and fat crinkly ones. I guess they ran out of the fat ones. There are a few places to sit outside with the ambiance of cars and diesel.

One thing I've got to add about this whole thing. Hawaii in general is remote. Oahu is the main island, population-wise. So the outer islands are doubly remote. That is why I was so pleasantly surprised by what I saw in the grocery stores and even that Chevron as far as selection. Wow. Even better than the commissary. Well you gotta keep in mind that Hawaii is very hippy dippy, crunchy granola, close to the earth, tree hugging, you get my drift. So imagine my surprise to see gluten free cookies and organic goodies at the Chevron. There is a little grocery store in Poipu that has a great Asian section - specifically it had a LOT of the secret/mysterious ingredients we needed for our Thai cooking class. That was spooky weird, because it was quite hard finding the ingredients here! Made me think the owner had taken our class! There is even a vegan restaurant that I didn't make it to. It would have been a hard sell to the family. Oh, I even found Lara bars at the Times Market - I've read about these on blogs, but have yet seen them. So I snatched up 3. They were pricey. I bought a cherry one that I would cut up half into my morning oatmeal. Yummy! Just picking out oatmeal was an ordeal. The selection was huge. At the commissary (here) the only oatmeal brand is Quaker, and maybe a few generics. And they've been out of the plain instant oatmeal for weeks. At the Times, there was a staggering selection of brands and styles. The prices were staggering too. I just couldn't bring myself to pay $7 for a box of plain instant oatmeal, so I opted for the more generic version at $6.19. Ack! But there were all kinds of flavored, organic, steel cuts, flax seed added, yadda, yadda. I saw the Lara bars right beside them.

Anyway, this is hugely long. So I'll sign off. I hope this helps somebody, anybody, when they decide to go to Kauai.

Terrifying Tuesday: Apple Turkey Picadillo

2009-03-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

This recipe I got from a popular website - popular if you are a weight watchers fan. It's by a member that has collected recipes and the recipes are "core" - of course, the core plan no longer exists...at least not by that name. She gave credit to Eating Well magazine.

Here's the link I just found: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/apple_turkey_picadillo.html

The recipe suggested tucking it in a tortilla. So that's what I did, I rolled it up in one of the high fiber, low carb wheat tortillas.

What did we think? Jake gave it a thumbs up, but he didn't finish his tortilla. Ryan gave it a thumbs down, but he agreed to finish a half a tortilla (which is huge in ryan's world). Me and Gary thought it was so-so. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. It was edible. But not craveable.

I didn't mind the mix of apple and ground turkey, but the flavorings was just blah, despite having a variety of spices in it. I didn't like the vinegar and worchestershire sauce flavors in it.

It also involved a LOT of chopping.

I deem it a waste of good food.

*sigh* can't one of these recipes be a good'un?
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Yesterday I had my dermatology appointment. I was there for about 5 minutes - long enough for them to tell me they were referring me out to a dermatologist in town that does a special surgical technique called Mohs. It's a skin sparing technique. They take thin slices and look at it under the slide immediately to determine if there are still cancer cells - they are able to take out exactly the amount of skin they need to take and no more. And this is good for cancers on the face. I tell you, I was imagining them cutting out a large chunk and when they suture it, it pulling my eye tight - where I can't close my eye!

Anyway, when I got to the appointment, I was told I was going to see a PA. As I was waiting I was stewing in my juices, all angry that they'd put me with a PA and not a Derm. No way I'd have her cut into my face! As you can tell, I got worked up for nothing.

While there I asked about the time frame of all this, because of our move this summer. She stressed that I should tell them that when I have the appointment and maybe they'd be able to work it in. The doctor is retired military, so he understands. My worry is not the doctor so much as my insurance. Military medicine is like socialized medicine.

In the meanwhile, I emailed a friend and she assured me that this doctor was the best. (her DH is a derm.)

Okay, get this: shocker of all time. I got a call this morning as I'm walking the boys to school. Before 8 am. From the dermatologist in town! To make an appointment for Friday! woo-hoo!

So now I'm worried about WHY this is happening so fast? (I wouldn't be me if I didn't worry about something...)

Terrifying Tuesday: Smothered Beans

2009-03-11T12:52:00.000-07:00

I got this recipe from The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen by Peter Berley.

Listen to his description: "I like to imagine that up in heaven the saints all order this dish at a club where Louis Armstrong is leading the band. It is that delicious." How could I resist?!

Again, I won't post the recipe, but it involves dried Great Northern beans, pinto beans, leeks and collards. And braising. Ever braised before? I hadn't. I found out in an article in today's paper that that is one of the top 10 cooking trends for 2009! I feel so current!

I also used this recipe to get a new pot. It calls for a heavy flameproof casserole. The only casserole dishes I have are Pyrex, which I don't think you can use stovetop. I found this calphalon pan - I just so happen to be trying to convert all my pots and pans to calphalon, one piece at a time. It's just like my 12" pan, except for the handle deal. I would never be able to fit my 12" pan in the oven with it's long handle.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I do not have a good track record with cooking dried beans. I always use the overnight soak method, and the beans yesterday got soaked at least 12 hours. This time it was hit or miss. There were some crunchy beans and some cooked beans.

The collards and leeks take up a lot of fridge space.

The verdict: 3 thumbs down and 1 thumbs up. I LOVED it! And goody, I get all the leftovers for my lunches this week. My kids gave it a thumbs down because they are kids, and it was vegetables, blech, blech. Gary gave it a thumbs down because he could taste the collards. He did say it had good flavors. Maybe I could find another leafy green to use.

I think I will cook this recipe for my parents sometime.

As far as ease, it was not a hard recipe, but it's a recipe that requires planning ahead. You have to soak the beans. Leeks and collards are not vegetables I have on hand. You have to do a little boiling, then saute'ing, assembly and then the braising (which takes up the oven for a while).

Obviously the nutrition is good with all the vegetables. And it was tastey and filling, so it was satisfying for a main dish. The recipe called for 3 tablespoons of olive oil, which seems like a lot, but this is going to spread out into a lot of servings for me - so I should be okay.

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But I want to mention an uber-easy tastey recipe that a friend told me about that I made Monday. Super, super easy. Chicken stuffed manicotti. I think it's a betty crocker recipe. Take the dry manicotti shell, stuff in a raw chicken tenderloin (or cut up chicken breast into strips) that has been sprinkled with garlic salt. Mix 3/4 c water with a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce. Spread a little sauce in the bottom of your casserole dish, lay out the stuffed shells, spread on the rest of the sauce covering all the shells and bake, covered at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Uncover and top with cheese and bake for a few more minutes until melted.

As you can tell, you can make as much or as little as you want at a time.

**edited to add a picture of the smothered beans (today's lunch)

quick biopsy update...

2009-03-06T18:53:00.001-08:00

Not good news. But not the worst. Just got a call saying that it's squamous cell carcinoma. I have no idea what this is, so I'm out to google and scare myself to death. Actually, I think it's not a bad thing, the doc says it's easily treatable. Anyway, I haven't told Gary yet.

It's probably a good thing we are moving out of the tropics with my fair skin...

Terrifying Tuesday: Catfish Sloppy Joes

2009-03-04T19:29:00.000-08:00

Yep folks, it's about as yummy as it sounds.

Ooops! Didn't mean to start with the conclusion!

I saw these on the Oprah show. Gayle went around the country in search of the best sandwiches. Oprah rated this one a 6 on a scale of 1 to 5. Should be good, right? Ha!

Let me just say that I do like fish, but I don't like fish to taste fishy - or to smell fishy. I bought frozen catfish fillets and thawed them in the fridge, but when I opened the bag, I got a whiff of fish. Isn't that supposed to be a bad sign? I dunno. The fish odor went away, so I supposed they were fine.

This is a link to the recipes. http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/recipes/catfish-sloppy-joes-44092908 You can google and find it in several places, but not all of them have the bbq sauce recipe. I decided at the spur of the moment to be authentic and make the bbq sauce (sans clam sauce).

I think this would be a pretty good sandwich if it didn't taste fishy. But I don't think I'd rave about it. I think Oprah has been on her low carb diet for way too long, so anything with bread and sugar would taste good to her.

Not only does the fishy get a thumbs down, the fat content gets a thumbs down. I didn't realize how much oil is in this recipe. A whole hunkin lot! I didn't even put in as much as it called for and thought it was swimming in oil. I didn't butter the buns either. You don't need to butter buns to toast them - listen up restaurants! We don't want that unnecesary hidden fat!

If I had used bottled bbq sauce, then the recipe would fit into the easy/fast category. (Not that real sloppy joes are difficult to make)

As far as the family vote goes: 2 thumbs down from the adults, and 2 thumbs up from the kids.

Go figure.

I'm thinking next week better be a good one or the family will definitely start revolting. This week was supposed to be good. (at least I had tater tots as a side dish)
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On a more positive note, my Thai cooking class is going well. Only two more classes to go. Plus Gary has requested that I make Evil Jungle Prince. I'm trying to gather the ingredients - but I haven't scored the red curry paste yet.

This coming weekend we are making summer rolls, Tom Yum soup, and Chieng Mai Beef or Chicken Salad (also called a bunch of other names, including Laab). We buy our own groceries, which is a task in and of itself. I've been trying to find Sweet Chili Paste and Tom Yum Paste. I may have to find time to visit Chinatown again. (I need to go to get the curry pastes). I've found Chili Paste and Sweet Chili Sauce, but not sweet chili paste. LOL! The instructor is also going to show us how to make sticky rice. I haven't had it, but people rave about it.

On another good note, I googled and found out that Atlanta has some Asian markets. So that's promising. I'd hate to lose all my Thai cooking experience!
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Today I took Jake to get a phrenectomy (or some such). The dentist cut (using a laser) his frenulum - which is the little piece of skin that you see when you lift your upper lip. His connects way down at tooth level - while it normally would be a bit higher. This is important since we are going through all this trouble to give him nice teeth and this extra skin would prevent his front two teeth from coming together. We really don't want the David Letterman look. (although, Gary has it to a lesser degree) Really, it was Gary's idea - I didn't have an opinion about it.

Jake is doing well. But we'll see how he feels in the morning. The dental assistant gave him a warm washcloth that was infused with lavender and Jake has been hanging on to the thing. I've already reheated it for him once.

Oh, Jake lost his 3rd tooth in 2 weeks this morning when he was brushing. The tooth fairy will visit tonight!
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The boys have been going to the local community center to practice basketball on Mondays and Wednesdays and today was their first game. It was fast paced and hard hitting! Whew! They got a really good workout. I expect they will sleep well tonight.

I think they will get good experience from this, even though it lasts only a few more weeks. Knowing how to play basketball with agressive people will be good for them when they play with their friends when they get older.

It was funny watching the girls play against them. They were tall like trees compare to our short team! Ryan had a ball plucked from his hands by one girl - he was holding the ball above his head and she walked up and took it! LOL!
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The side of my face is still ugly looking. And I haven't been able to make my MRI appointment yet. I called Tuesday like they said, but it hadn't been signed off yet by a doctor so they said call back today. Today has been wicked busy, so I'll do it tomorrow. I guess I do that while I'm hunting down Thai ingredients! So busy!

Busy is good though, at times.

taking charge, and feeling a little blue

2009-03-03T15:00:00.000-08:00

I said in my last post that you really have to take charge of you own health. You must be proactive and you must follow through - no one will do it for you. I really mean it.

For example, yesterday I called to make an appointment for my MRI. Remember back in September I had a bad mammogram? They said to come back in 6 months for an MRI. I called and the orders weren't in my records. Ugh! That made me so upset. But I screwed up my courage, fought back the tears, and called the radiology department. Talked to a very sweet lady who said it was written in my records but the request (or whatever the correct terminology is - I think I need a brain MRI!) was not there. So she got a tech to do it. Voila'! Look how close I came to throwing in the towel?! So I have to call back this afternoon and schedule the appointment. Wish me luck that I don't get any grief!

Another example, last week was the two week mark when I was to call the doc if that spot on my face had not healed. It had healed considerably, but still not all the way. I even asked a friend what she thought. Don't you just hate being in that position - should I or shouldn't I? I didn't want to self diagnose, so I ended up leaving a message with the doc describing what I saw. She called back making an appointment with me for today. I just got back from there. I could have easily blown it off. Anyway, the upshot of today's appointment, she took a scrape and will send it to the lab. She gave me 3 choices: freeze it again, take the scrape biopsy, go directly to a dermatologist. So now I have this ugly wound on my temple. But at least I will have peace of mind that I will KNOW.

The C word has been in my vocabulary too much in my lifetime. Hate it.
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Oh, the sad part? The other night I took some pictures of my progress. I thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of what I look like in a t-shirt - au natural. It was awful! My bit is higher and wide right - you can tell there's an oddity at 30 paces! Egads! Good thing I don't ever plan to go braless! I swear it was a shock to me. You see, my bathroom mirror is a magical mirror. When I look in there I don't see my wrinkles or gray hair and my you-know-whats are front and center. The camera is an awful, awful thing. I don't know why, but it never pictures me the same as what I see in the mirror. Weird. I guess it's like your voice. You hear one thing, but everyone else hears something different.
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It's been rainy and chilly all day. It's been chilly for at least a week now. I know, it's snowing like gangbusters on the mainland - well, we're getting paradise's version of winter. Brrrrr.

I made a really good lunch today. It's black beans and rice with pumpkin vinaigrette that I got from the blog Megan's Munchies. Never fear. It doesn't taste like pumpkin at all. And it's mellow, despite the balsamic vinegar. But I think I would cut back on the oil in the future. I like easy meatless lunches. Tastey too!

I have an interesting main dish up my sleeve for TT tonight! The report will come tomorrow.

testing this patient's patience...

2009-02-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

Seriously? Do I stink or something?

Just kidding - my hair smells like apples and my body smells like pomegranates, so it's not that. But this whole breast cancer thing - even the light edition that I had - is a sloooooooooooooow process. Truly a test of my patience.

Today I went to the doc to have him check out my latest surgery to see if it's healed enough to start the tattoo process. My next-door-neighbor doc. Yeah, the horror!

So I go, change into the paper top, he comes in and informs me that the nurse that is/was the tattoo specialist has PCS'd. (she moved) *sigh* Really? Seriously? Are you kidding me? I should have seen it coming.

So he set out my options. At best, before this fiasco, there was just enough time to squeak in all the tattoo sessions to get done before I moved, but now there is no way it will be complete before June. I've taken the logical choice of waiting for the move and finding someone who will do it all from start to finish in Atlanta.

BTW, I didn't have to show my goods to the doc. What's the point? Whew. So that was a good thing!

Let's review the delays and changes that I've encountered from the beginning, shall we?

June 2006 - the start of it all, abnormal mammogram, 1 week before move to Hawaii (not a smart idea to have your well woman right before a move)
took a couple of months to find house, move in, get new PCM and sweet talk the radiology department to re-mammogram/biopsy me without the referral of my new local PCM
after the usual biopsies and blah, blah, blahs I'm set for mastectomy when I find out that my surgeon (who was a reservist) was through with her obligation and heading back home just a week before my scheduled surgery so a total stranger did it. (Oct 06)
surgery delayed due to horrendous cold I caught.
a few expander fills delayed due to surgeon out of country, but it got done (obviously)
got implant (may 07) and 9 months later (Jan 08) got 2nd implant - long delay due to surgeon travel? marathon? I can't remember
stage 2 delayed because surgeon wanted scar to heal more
finally went in to schedule stage 2 and surgeon decides to retire - meet PS #2
met new ps and stage 2 scheduled for the new year after the marathon
1 week delay on surgery (Jan 09)
ps #2 announces he is deploying for 6 months
met with ps #3 (next door neighbor)
ready to schedule tattoo - tattoo artist has moved! tattoo will be delayed until move and then I'll have to get referral/insurance approval and find someone qualified to do it.

Almost a 3 year process so far. There's no one to blame. It's just been a process of changes and delays due to a multitude of circumstances. That's just the way it is. It needs to be evaluated and lessons need to be learned. One lesson is you have got to take charge of your own health. No one else will manage it for you. I'm also trying to find the joy in this. Trying to be thankful. Give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (she sings out loud) Who knows? Maybe I'll find a fantastic tattoo artist?

I'm a little nervous about the upcoming move after my talk to the ps. The closest big bases with decent sized hospitals are Ft. Benning and Ft. Gordon - much too far a drive for me to go to those. I'm worried about what kind of health care I'll find. If I can work tricare so I'll get civilian health care, that should be good. I just don't feel confident about my health. I mean, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape, but not good at the same time. It's not blatantly bad, but bad things crop up - I've had cancer (albeit stage 0), I have hypertension/high cholesterol, suspicious areas on my skin, my eyesight is horrendous - yet I completed two marathons, I have lots of energy, I eat both really good and really bad, I exercise regularly, haven't had a cold in ages, etc. etc.

There - that was my worry moment. No use carrying that worry around. "Put a pin in it."

No need to harsh my mellow. :-D

Terrifying Tuesdays - catchup edition

2009-02-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

Sorry I forgot to post about last week. It's been busy (yeah, like who isn't busy?) Last week was a delight, but yesterday terrified me to pieces - so I'll report on that first! (it's a bit of a PSA)

Yesterday I decided to make Kasha for the first time. I've had a bag of it (that I got from the local health food store) in my pantry for a couple months now and have been dying to try it. Remember, last fall I tried a bunch of new whole grains - barley, bulgur, quinoa. So kasha was the next natural attempt. I got the recipe from emails I get from Dr. Andrew Weil. It's called "kasha with vegetables".

First off, let me say that kasha is a confusing grain, if you are trying to learn anything about it off the internet. That's probably my problem. the internet. You get dribs and drabs of tips about how the grain needs to be toasted, and you need to coat it with egg whites so it won't get mushy, blah, blah, blah. That sounds easy, but execution was not pretty. Ick. So I need a little hands-on kasha 101.

secondly, if you like mushrooms, then you will like this recipe. It calls for 2 ounces of dried mushrooms. Doesn't sound like a lot, does it? I bought the prettiest bag of dried shiitakes, but only 1 ounce. It still looked like a good amount. The recipe calls for you to soak them, of course. WARNING: Dried mushrooms stink! I mean, really really stink! And since I'm not a fan of mushrooms, I tried to dice them instead of just slicing them. I ended up throwing out about 1/3 of them. One of them had become so HUGE it really creeped me out. Out that one goes.

At this point I had to light a cinnamon candle. It was a pathetic attempt to cover up the stench.

Here's a doozy - and a major part of the PSA - the recipe calls for you to use the mushroom soaking water. Just disregard that - unless you are wild about mushrooms and want to taste that smell. I was leary of this point of the recipe, so I had to veer from it. I used just a half cup of it, then a cup of chicken broth and the rest water. The total liquid was to equal 3 cups (and it did not call for chicken broth, that was my attempt to add a good flavor over the mushroom water). Lord have mercy. Don't use the mushroom liquid.

So the recipe is: toast the kasha, soak the mushrooms, boil the mushroom water, add the kasha, add the shrooms, add a sliced carrot and add chopped onion. And don't forget the salt. (yes, to top a horrifying dish off, I forgot the salt) Cook until water is absorbed.

I did the kasha wrong. It was absolute mush. Horrible. Bland because I forgot the salt. and stinky, because of you-know-what.

It goes without saying that it was a thumbs down all around.

It will be a long while before I cook kasha again. I shudder at the thought.
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So on to more pleasant topics. Last week's terrifying tuesday offering. It was a success. Thumbs up all around. It was a good thing...

A Martha Stewart Living recipe. Roasted carrots with lemon dressing. Yummy.
Roasted carrots alone are good, but the family prefers it with the dressing. It's easy so I'm adding it to the regular rotation.

(I'm not posting these recipes because they are easily found on the internet.)
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On to non-food topics! gas keeps creeping up: $2.27 /gal.

Jake has lost 2 teeth in 2 days. He has another tooth that is very wiggly and I wouldn't be surprised if he lost it today. ryan hasn't lost a tooth in over a year and non are wiggly. Yeah, twins, go figure!

I spend way too much time on the internet looking at rental houses.

Two weeks ago I had two spots frozen. One on my neck and one of the side of my face. The one on my neck is gone, the other is not. Not at all! So I need to leave a message with my PCM and she'll put in a referral to a dermatologist and he'll probably do a biopsy. I'm very fair skinned and I've spent a lot of my youth getting sunburned.

I'm supposed to be making an appointment to get an MRI in March. I don't know about you, but I can only handle one doctor appointment at a time. I've got an appointment on Friday to have my next door neighbor (the horror!) look at my, uh, surgical site, and deem it healed so I can start the tattooing process.

AND we hope to take a trip to Kauai during spring break. I need to avoid the dates when I'm making my appointments, because Gary's window of opportunities keeps shrinking. He's very busy at work. We hope to take a whale watching cruise (just a few hours) this weekend. Need to see them before they swim back to Alaska.

playground construction - working with Marines...

2009-02-17T18:47:00.001-08:00

Our playground is coming right along. It's not done, and there is quite a bit of work yet to be done, but it looks awesome! If you are ever a part of a community playground build, not only do you need people and money, you need GOOD tools and lots of them.

Saturday Gary and the boys worked, while I was at my Thai cooking class. I'll have to post about that later. Then that afternoon I took the boys with me to paint a tile ($50 fundraiser) which will be forever stuck on the playground. (Gary had to go in to work)

Sunday was church, cubscouts and the sleepover - so we didn't participate. Monday afternoon we went to the school and helped with the build. Let's just say, me and Gary were close to coming to blows! Not a couples project! We need to work on our communication skills. LOL! I broke away, since the boys were getting in the way and I needed to cook chili for the chili cookoff supper. Then me and the boys helped serve food, and then I stayed to help with cleanup.

Today I had to run errands (still waiting for a call back from the doctors office - grrrr) but I did put in a few hours. I got tasked to a miserable job and was assigned two marines. Can I say how young these fellows are? We were tasked to nail a rubber mat around a plank of "wood" to make a bumper. The rubber was so stiff and impossible to bend and clamp down. But my guys were determined. We got our one bumper done and they took off saying where I could find them if I needed them. The construction leader asked me to do 6 more - or 4 or 2 or even just 1. He admitted that the rubber stuff was not what he usually used. So I dove into a sea of Marines (who all look alike!) trying to find my guys. One of them popped his head up and came willingly over. He's so cute. And about 12 so don't get any ideas! That guy went at the next bumper with dogged determination. Honestly, I saw it as a worthless task and was ready to give up, but not him. Not only was he getting it done, he wanted it to look good. He even said that he knew the kids wouldn't care and wouldn't see it, but he wanted it done right. *sniff* I'm so proud of him. His mama should be doggone proud. She raised this boy right. Oh, his name is Bill - so mom, if you are curious about how your young Marine son Bill is doing - he is doing wonderful. You've raised a fine young man. He was sweet and polite too. (even after hammering his thumb twice) All the Marines were polite and hard working (not to mention terribly thin).

Anyway, I had to abandon the project after we got those two done, because school was letting out and I was going to watch some kids while their moms worked. But Bill the Marine said he was going to continue the project. I Bill - LOL!

Oh, I need to mention that the build was scheduled for Friday thru Monday - so the guys who worked today were working on their own time. How generous is that?!

sleepover tonight!

2009-02-15T19:04:00.001-08:00

We're going to have 3 of Jake and Ryan's best friends over tonight for a sleepover. Their moms are going to run the Great Aloha Run (I'm so jealous!), so I had volunteered to have the boys over so they can get up early and escape to the run. It turns out their husbands are home this weekend, so I practically had to beg to keep the sleepover on. I owe both of them, plus I really want my boys to have some fun memories of their friends at OUR house.

We've spent the past WEEK cleaning house. Well, last weekend I scrubbed the boys room down. And then it's been a general picking up throughout the week. I just finished the final scrubdown. I know the kids won't care if it's clean, but they will notice if it's dirty nasty. It's gets so dirty so quickly here when you live with open windows.

This Christmas I got a new vacuum. It's a bagless one. You cannot believe the amount of filth I pick up. I just vacuumed two days ago. Nasty. Today, just as nasty. It picks up a big pile, and then I beat out just as big a pile or larger out of the filter. Yucko.

They are at cubscouts right now with Gary. He'll bring home two of the boys and the other one is coming at 6pm. We're going to make our own pizzas, have pineapple and vegetables with ranch dip for supper. I picked up a stick of the sugar cookie dough to cut and bake for dessert. And frozen toaster waffles for breakfast in the a.m. Tomorrow afternoon me and the boys are heading to the playground to help serve food.

So it will be a busy couple of days. :-)

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!

Double Whammy Wednesday - and the drama of picky eaters

2009-02-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

We didn't do Terrifying Tuesday because our school had a fundraiser, asking us to eat at Mama's Island Pizza and Baskin Robbins. Our school playground is so close to it's monetary mark but not there yet, and the construction has already begun! Yesterday we were blessed to have our Representative Cynthia Theilan's son donate an auger and recruit the Hawaii job corp to dig post holes using the auger. How awesome is that?!! Plus they used leftover lumber from our boardwalk to construct work tables (very green) and did a lot of other stuff in preparation for the build.

So, yesterday we had double whammy wednesday. Double whammy because I made the planned Valentine's dessert and then I made a recipe I found on the internet. Where to start? With the food or with the drama that accompanied the food? Let's start with the food. I have pictures today! (not good pictures...)

For dinner I made a recipe I found on the Vegan Dad blog http://vegandad.blogspot.com/. I'm going to post the recipe because I have some comments on changes I made and such.

INGREDIENTS
- 5 cups water
- 1 1/2 cup basmati rice
- 5 green cardamom pods
- 1/2 tsp tumeric
- 1 cinnamon stick, broken in two
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 cloves
- 2 tbsp oil
- 3 onions, sliced
- 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1" piece ginger, minced
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp coriander
- juice of 1 lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
- 3-4 tomatoes, thickly sliced
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 2/3 cup plain soy yogurt
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 1/2 cup golden raisins
- 2/3 cup hot water
METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a casserole dish. Get water boiling in a pot. Add rice, cardamom, tumeric, cinnamon, salt and cloves. Parboil for 3 mins, drain, then return to pot and cover to keep warm.
2. While water is boiling, heat oil in a large frying pan. Dry onions for 8-10 mins, until a deep golden brown. Add chickpeas, spices, lemon juice, and season to taste. Fry for 3-4 mins, until heated through.
3. Place chickpea mixture in the prepared casserole dish and top with cilantro. Top with enough sliced tomatoes to cover the chickpeas. Spread yogurt over the tomatoes, then top with cashews and raisins. Top that with rice, and pour water evenly over the top.
4. Cover and bake for 60-65 mins, until liquid is all absorbed and rice is cooked. Serve topped with more chopped cilantro.

My notes:

1. I don't have white rice in my house any more, so I had to figure out how to parboil brown rice. (what is parboil anyway??) So, I boiled my jasmine brown rice for 15 minutes, drained it and left it in the pot until I was ready for it.

2. I also picked out the cloves and cinnamon stick. They didn't specify that in the recipe, but who wants that surprise?

3. ground cardamom costs $13 for a 2 oz jar! cardamom pods cost $10 a jar! I chose just the ground cardamom and guessed at how much to use instead of the pods. I had all the other spices.

4. the recipe calls for sliced onions. I think it would be better to quarter the slices, because they were big and unwieldy and hung out together in the casserole (it was hard to get them evenly distributed)

5. I used regular dairy fat free plain yogurt. So that makes my version not vegan.

6. I wouldn't know where to find raw cashews, so I used planters lightly salted.

7. don't be intimidated by the ingredient list. It's mostly spices.

Here are the pictures. I forgot to take them before we served ourselves, so excuse the carnage. (yes, my dishes are Buttercups on Blue - I meet lots of people who have Poppies on Blue)

My comments about this dish.

I was afraid the rice wouldn't cook, but it did. In my serving, there were 4-5 hard rice pieces - so I guess they all didn't cook.
This smelled soooooo good when I was cooking the chickpeas. Even my kids commented about how good it smelled.
I liked it, with the exception of the tomatoes. I thought for sure the tomatoes would be great - but they tasted sour. ?? How weird is that?
new addition: last night I thought it was the tomatoes for sure that were sour tasting, but maybe it was the maui onions I used? I'm eating it for lunch right now and trying to pick it apart - I'm confused...
Plus the yogurt seemed to coagulate in clumps on the tomatoes. Yuck. I think it probably should be stirred into the chickpea mixture.
I would be tempted to make the whole thing without the tomatoes, but I bet they add a lot of the moisture which cooks the rice. So maybe completely cook the two elements separately and just layer on the plate? I dunno.

The family reaction? Thumbs down from the kids and a so-so from Gary. I will be eating a lot of leftovers. I pulled out the tomatoes and packed up a baggie for the freezer. I think this recipe is worth tweaking and I welcome suggestions.

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Now on to the big drama. The dessert. I chose a recipe from my Pink Ribbon Special edition BH&G checkerboard cookbook. It's called Berry Clafouti and I even bought cute little quiche dishes. I won't duplicate the recipe (because I'm lazy and would have to type it out...) but it's just a layer of berries covered with a light batter and bake. I used blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. (I couldn't commit to just one kind!) It smelled like heaven!

Again, I forgot to take a picture before I started eating it so excuse the carnage and bluriness!

It was wonderful. I think we all agreed that the raspberries were the strongest in tartness - so if tart is not your thing, you might not like it.

The drama: Ryan's first bite he said he liked. But I think the bite was the size of a microbe. He started to refuse to eat any more, which is frustrating since he said he liked it! Then he started crying!

I should have seen it coming because he had been harrassing me about supper ever since school got out. I can tell he had built it up in his mind that he was not going to like it, all he had to do was eat one bite and be done with it. This child can go a long time on very little food. Of course, I had been putting up with attitude all day, and I had specifically chosen a non-chocolate recipe for him, so I was quite upset by this time.

I wont' go into all the details, but I suppose you could call me an ogre for wanting him to eat his dessert! I gave him all the lectures a mom gives. He's heard them all before. This kid has had eating issues from the get-go. Some of it is physical - it certainly started that way. But there is also the mental aspect. If you think it's going to taste bad, then it will. I've got to hand it to him, he's quite brave when he does try new foods. Eating a grape to him is as scarey as eating a bowl of worms.

Anyway, I resorted to my usual "you must eat x number of good sized bites" (he can't handle being told to "eat it all") and we ended it with a hug and cuddle. No one was hurt during the exchange, but I certainly felt like bashing my head against the wall.

Ryan is a super good kid. This is the ONLY area we struggle with. It hurts my heart sometimes because feeding my family is my favorite way to show my love. I have to remind myself that he doesn't mean to hurt me, it's not personal. I also have to remind myself that over a LONG period of time and after thousands of "just one bites", he does sometime come around. He has come a long way, and maybe by the time he is an adult he'll be eating vegetables and fruit. (I apologize in advance to his future wife)

Okay, before this turns into a novel, my final parting thoughts. I've approached TT with a attitude of mystery. I thought that would add to the fun. But I need to rethink that. It seems to have added to the stress for Ryan. I'm torn between thinking that if he knows what we are going to have he'll have time to decide to dislike it, and thinking that if he doesn't know then he'll work himself up into a tizzy of worry. And my other thought is that 2 mystery dishes was just too much. One at a time from now on.

pineapple progression pictures and playground stuff

2009-02-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

I really hope you can see these pictures. Last month, look what I discovered!

Let me start from the beginning. After we first moved here, we visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation (a must see) and I learned how to cut up a pineapple and how to plant a pineapple. I think I have an old post on how to buy a pineapple that I learned too. Well, I planted two pineapples. Because they say it takes 1 1/2 years to produce. Those two were duds. I killed them, probably with neglect. But then, I saw that my next door neighbor had some really cool looking plants. They were pineapple plants - in planters! I didn't think about planting some just for decorative purposes. So I tried again - never thinking anything much of it. As you can see, that green topper can grow into some huge pokey leaves. Kinda cool.

I've had this plant for about a year or so - I can't remember. It got half blown out of the pot with the big wind storm in January. So I was very surprised when I saw this:
What?? Is that what I think it is? A baby pineapple? I don't know if you can read the date, but it says 1/19/09.

You can see it's progressing. This date reads 2/3/09

I took this picture today 2/9. Really starting to take shape. I can see the green topper and there are little purple flowers around the base.

If you don't know how a pineapple grows - I won't tell you. I'll let the pictures surprise you. I think I'll have to get my boys to name it. I hope, hope, hope that we can eat it before we move - but I'm not sure how long they take to mature. I bet it's a long time. Does that sound horrible that I want to name it AND eat it?

We eat fresh pineapple every week. You can't get these tastey beauties on the mainland. I'm going to miss it.

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Playground news. The big build is this weekend! Our school held a rummage sale Saturday and raised $2700! I donated some Rescue Heroes and books and bought a few books and a game. I like to think my $3 helped. LOL!

Gary has to go in to work off and on this weekend - even though it's a 4 day break. So I'm not sure how he's going to work in a day of labor. I will be helping out as much as I can while I try to keep my two 9 year olds out of trouble and busy. I heard that they got 300 Marines to volunteer each day of the build. They are so awesome! The school is right outside the back gate of the Kaneohe Bay base - MCBH (Marine Corps Base Hawaii) and they support us in many ways.

This is the link to our playground website http://www.aikahitroop228.org/playgrd/playground.html

It's gonna be awesome - a volcano with a lava slide, outrigger canoe, slidey things, jumpy things, swingy ring things. And green - made out of some recycled materials, and will have some handicap friendly areas. I'll take pictures of course.

hike to Ka'ena Point - with pictures

2009-02-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

We went with the cubscouts on Saturday on a hike to Ka'ena Point. You drive on the leeward side past Waianae for as far as the road goes - park your car and pray that it doesn't get broken into (better yet, leave it unlocked so the thieves don't have to bust the window) and walk to the end of the island. It's sunny and hot, so bring your water and spf 10,000. I believe it's the northwestern most point of Oahu.
(please excuse the mess. I'm just not used to puting pictures and text together in this blog)

this is a look at the type of road the hike was on. hike is a fancy word for long hot walk. The road was utterly undrivable in many parts. Gary is in the dark blue shirt on the right.

I just thought this was a nice picture. It's looking back towards Waianae. Thank goodness for those clouds, because it was hot without them.

This is the arch that the boys headed down to - not mama!

Oops! Picture out of order. I just like how blue the ocean looks here.

These are the brave ones who climbed down to the arch. I couldn't look! My babies!

There they are!

There is a bird sanctuary at Ka'ena Point. This big fellow is an albatross. He came to greet us - he lumbered towards us like a penguin. He's huge! There were a bunch there nesting. No dogs allowed on the trail! $300 fine!

This is Ricky and Ryan. Ricky is a good friend of Jake and Ryan's.

I tried to look for a map, but gave up quickly. However, I did find this excellent photo journal someone took of their hike. They took better pictures than I did, so I highly recommend it. It looks exactly like what we saw.

http://www.fmschmitt.com/travels/Hawaii/Kaena-Point/index.html

my cooking date - mysterious monday?

2009-02-03T00:02:00.000-08:00

I had my cooking date with my vegetarian friend- finally! She gave me a list of possible options - which all sounded so yummy. It was very hard to decide - but she had one thing on there that she had not made before and was going to make sometime this week for her family - so I chose that, since I wanted her to have fun too, and have me not feel like a total taker. It was a pasta dish. She bought all the ingredients. Really, it didn't require much. Pasta, shallots, tempeh, goat cheese and some various ingredients for a marinade.

I actually found the recipe online here:http://voices.washingtonpost.com/mighty-appetite/2008/10/meatless_monday_hooray_for_tem.html

I have to give my family a big high five for even trying it. They all gave it a thumbs up, to my surprise. I think we all agreed that the tempeh would probably be better if it were crumbled instead of cut into 1 inch cubes. I guess we all have a thing about the texture. It's just something you have to get used to. Very different from anything else we've ever eaten. It was also the first time for goat cheese. There was something in that recipe that was just not right in the taste. It wasn't horrible, but it prevented it from being cravable. I will try tempeh again, but I will not make this recipe again. Mainly because I don't like to fry foods. It's not healthy, it messes up the kitchen and stinks up the house. I have to say the caramelized shallots were heavenly. They were totally lost in the strong flavors in this recipe and deserve another shot somewhere, somehow. I must find a way to make them again in a dish that will not overwhelm them.

My friend has had a very interesting life. We are both pretty quiet people, so it wasn't a rollicking good time, but I'm getting to know her better. I did have fun. I hope there will be a next time.

So, there will not be a terrifying Tuesday tomorrow, since we did it today. However, I do have a mango in the fridge just calling out for some special treatment...

stitches are out!

2009-01-28T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I freaked out this morning when I saw a spot more of blood - so I called the clinic and they took me as soon as I could get in. My doc is in the process of out-processing, so he was kind to take the time to see me. He probably thinks I'm hysterical, because he didn't see any problem! But I'd rather be considered hysterical than actually ill. Huge relief. He took out stitches and cleaned everything up and rebandaged. The new bit looks really good. It's nice and pink and healthy looking - if a little bit tall! It should shrink about 60%, so that's good. In a month I will see a doctor - possibly the next door neighbor or possibly my last doc if he's working yet. I just need the okay to go on to the tattoo stage.

The diet is going well. The numbers are going down on the scale. I still have cravings and the afternoons are really hard - but it helps if I stay busy. Last night's mexican chicken soup was really good.

Tonight's soup was greek fish soup. I like fish, but in a soup just is not appealing to me. But I forged ahead. I made it and ate most of it. I ended up picking out the fish and throwing it away. It's not that it tasted bad, I just couldn't get past the 'ick' factor. So I will not be eating that recipe again. I rewarded myself, just for trying, with a weight watchers giant fudge bar. It's the only "treat" I've had this week so far. Boy did it taste good.

I have done some self analysis, and I've discovered that a lot of my overeating is me trying to recapture that yum moment. Like, I'll eat popcorn at the movies. The yummiest pieces are the salty ones, and they aren't all salty. So I keep eating, hoping to hit the yummy salty one. That's just one example. So, now that I'm aware of this, I need to be aware of when I'm doing this and take charge. The good side of this mentality is that I do the same thing with healthy foods. So I'll sit there and eat a whole serving of broccoli that only tastes mediocre because I'm searching for that yummy bite. Weird, it's like I'm eating a memory rather than what's in front of me.

not so terrifying...

2009-01-27T14:27:00.000-08:00

PSA: terrifying Tuesday has been cancelled for this week, due to the absence of an important family member. We must suffer together!

Gary is in Kansas until Friday. So I'm taking advantage of this time. I'm feeding the boys junk while I suffer through the "amazing soup diet". It will be a week of terror for me. Right now my tongue has been assaulted by lunch - between the balsamic vinegar and the firey 3 pepper hummus. I do not feel done, so I'm heating up some soup - good thing it's cold today.

I made the gargantuan vat of soup yesterday. Half is in the freezer and half is taking over the fridge. What you do is you take two cups of the soup and add things to it to make it different. Yesterday was minestrone, tonight is mexican chicken. AND, you can have just the plain soup as a snack if you get hungry during the day. Yeah, just thinking about having that as a snack makes you really think twice about whether or not you are hungry! So see, it works!

Here is the link to the recipes: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/diet/soup-diet-basic-recipe-1007
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okay, if you don't like medical talk, then this is the time to stop reading... seriously TMI

On the health front... I'm a total hypochondriac. Today I noticed a spot on my incision that looked a little bloody and indented. It's been almost 2 weeks, so it shouldn't be bleeding. I took my shower and it's all gone. I think it was dried blood. Anyway, I'm keeping an eye on it. About 20 times a day.

(big quease factor here)
I went bra shopping today and accidentally yanked on a stitch that's hanging off the end of one of my incisions. Ouch! Second time that's happened. These stitches are supposed to dissolve. I guess not any time soon. The first time I thought it was a hair caught under the tape, so I deliberately pulled - until I realized... I'm giving myself the shivers here!

Terrifying Tuesdays #3 - the burning has finally stopped

2009-01-21T17:53:00.000-08:00

Heh, heh, heh. No pictures again this time.

The dish: Cajun Stew
so yeah, you expect spicy. But yowza! Let me start by telling you about the dish. It has tofu, and it has a sausage-like faux product. Boca sausage links. And veggies and stuff. Spices. I should have known. I did. Actually, it called for 1 tsp crushed red pepper and 1 tsp. cayenne pepper and thought, wow! that's a lot! So I put in 1/2 tsps. Really, I should have started with just 1/8 or 1/4 tsp and tasted then added more if necessary. I cannot imagine how hot it would have been with the full amount.

I think it's a recipe worth tweaking. I chose the Boca breakfast sausage links. While the recipe just called for a soy product sausage links, I'm thinking breakfast sausages were the wrong choice. Do they make a soy based andouille? (sp?)

So the verdict is a no - not as is. Gary gave it a 3/4 thumbs up. No one gave it a total thumbs down. Anywhere between halfway and 3/4 down.

Tonight we are having flank steak to make up for last night. :-)
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I just finished watching Dr. Phil and his topic was posting private info on the internet. And I do wonder about journaling on such a public place. Especially weird stuff like the fembot post. Why be so personal? But I think back to the beginning of when I got diagnosed with BC and how important it was for me to link up with other warriors. How those who had gone before me had shared their experiences and prepared me for what was to come and getting/giving support from others who were fighting alongside me. So yeah, I have some odd/personal posts, but I'd like to think that some of those just might help somebody else. And if I make some friends along the way, then that's a bonus!

Yeah baby!

2009-01-20T18:31:00.001-08:00

I'm having a total Fembot moment. The, ah, product, came in just now and has been deployed.

the saying is true

2009-01-15T14:22:00.001-08:00

necessity IS the mother of invention. Okay, so yesterday I was complaining about the loose bandaging. My first instinct was to tape it up. But I'm sensitive to tape and it really didn't work well, unless I wanted to wrap myself in it. Not! Then I thought that wearing a tank top would be close enough to the body, yet not tight, that everything would stay together. Well, that was a good start. This morning I wanted to put a bra on top of all this, but I think that would cause too much rubbing on the new bit. Then it hit me. Brilliant. A stretchy reflector belt. All I needed was something to hold the works up, and if I put this thing around my upper waist, it works! Who cares what I look like - nobody is going to see me. So that problem is solved. For now.

One of my online friends who had this procedure said her doc gave her this product http://www.medela.com/ISBD/breastfeeding/products/shields.php so I just ordered two. I don't what the doc will say tomorrow - but he mentioned something about cutting down a syringe and taping it over my bit. So far, though, it looks good. It's pink, but it's also black. The black is probably dried blood and stitches.

I'm feeling so much better today. I hope you can tell by the tone of my post. By supper last night I was feeling so much better. I guess the heavy drugs were wearing off pretty good. I slept in my good ole recliner, and slept really well. I was woken up several times by the wind noises. We are having some strong gusts, the surf is big but not "organized" for a big Eddie Aikau surf contest, and they are predicting the power will go out again. Ugh. Please say it isn't so. On this island, when an area goes out, it just dominoes over the island. And it takes hours to get it back up. It's happened with the big earthquake that happened the day before my mastectomy, and then a few weeks ago when we had lightening. Yeah, we don't get lightening much, so when it strikes - well, let's just say it's like southerners driving in 1 inch of snow. LOL! I can say that because I'm one of them!

This has been a long day.

Terrifying Tuesday #2 and how I'm doing

2009-01-14T21:43:00.000-08:00

Last night's recipe was for Sweet Potato Fritters. I got it out of Heart Healthy Mediterranian Diet cookbook I have (can't remember the title right off the top). Let's cut to the chase - thumbs down all around. And let's face it, it's fried! How heart smart is that? Yucko.

Today was my surgery, I'm home and fine. I've only thrown up 3 or is it 4 times. I don't understand - I always tell them about the throwing up, and sometimes it helps and sometimes not. Whenever I move, like sitting up from a lying down position, I get nauseaus. So, I'm sitting up until bedtime. I won't take pain meds until bedtime, so I won't have the need to lie down until then. What really ticks me off is this dressing they sent me home in. They piled on the fluffy gauzy stuff and then wound it around very loosely. Too loosely because I have to hold it up when I walk around. My new bit is not staying covered. I know he doesn't want it mashed, but still! I have to wear this bulky getup until Friday. The worst part is that my scar repair side has been hurting like the dickens to I peeked under the gauze, after a chunk fell out, and saw that some of the tape, about 2 inches, that is on my incision area, was stuck to the gauze. I freaked out! I had to call in Gary to hold a mirror while I cut the tape. (he was too freaked to cut) The loose wrapping is inconvenient, the tape incident is disappointing.

But otherwise, I'm fine. The new bit looks gorey, but healthy. I'm just worried about the placement. I won't be able to judge that until I can wear normal clothes again. Not that anything can be done about it. It seems a little to the side, but he said that he got it as close to the center as he could. I was involved in the marking process. He would measure and mark and then take a picture and show me and we would discuss.

Anyway, doc is being deployed next week, not in 2 weeks. That's the Army for you. I don't know what's going to happen. We'll see. I just hope I make it to Friday. Somehow I have to coordinate childcare and such. I'm not being seen in public! I'm picking those kids up in my car!

bad memory and moving talk

2009-01-13T15:25:00.001-08:00

Before I forget, I added a new blog link to the side called Carrots N Cake. I'm a nut for recipes, so that's the sort of blogs I'm listing there. Don't take it wrong that I'm not listing the blogs I actually read for friendship. I'm keeping tabs on you!

Speaking of memory and forgetting, I've got to post what ridiculousness I just went through.

I went into the kitchen to refill my water bottle so I could take some vitamins.
forgot to take vitamins
instead went to bedroom to fold clothes
remembered that I forgot to take vitamins
walked to kitchen, forgetting my water
headed back to bedroom, got water
bypassed kitchen to get laundry basket
did a u-turn because I remembered my vitamins (only because the water was in my hand)
FINALLY took my vitamins
went to get laundry - dryer was empty!
loaded wet clothes into dryer LOL!

I think I need to start on memory enhancing vitamins - what do you think? LOL! This is just a taste of my future...

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moving news... Gary emailed me in a little bit of a panic yesterday. The people who schedule the movers and packers wanted a date. The move is 5 months out - we haven't even begun to talk about that. So he's been busy plotting and planning the best dates to move. It will be sometime mid to late June. He needs to think about how much time he needs to outprocess. His report date is July 15. We need to find a house between leaving the island and reporting to work. We have decided to rent. Ft. McPherson is definitely closing in 2011. So it's just not wise to buy a house for 2 years. (although, the housing market is absolutely saturated there, we could get a great house for a good price) From the searching I've done, we can RENT a great house (twice the size of what we're living in) for well within our housing allowance. Shhhh, don't say that too loud or they'll reduce it.

Our considerations are schools, of course, safety and commute. One of the areas I'm looking at is Peachtree City. It's a planned community. A "golf cart" community. Lots of golf cart paths, like 80 miles of them. It's an affluent area and pretty self contained. I have visions of Stepford Wives, ya know. I'm both fascinated and wierded out. Gary's sponsor lives there and he says the commute is between 35 and 45 minutes, depending how early he leaves. I'm not wild about a 45 minute commute, but that's probably not bad for Atlanta. And I'm actually not wild about living in an affluent area. I'm a relaxed person and I imagine I won't be able to meet many women because they overschedule their kids. (that sounds pretty judgemental, eh?) But the paths fascinate me. I can imagine that I could easily find long, safe walking routes, and we could walk or ride bikes to school. I love living in the country, but country roads are not safe to walk on! I guess that's what they make gyms for. Plus we need a house that has guest rooms. I don't think that will be a problem.

The boys started school today. Ryan has been so upset. He was crying last night. See, he forgot to bring home his reading log notebook, and he was required to read every day during winter break. He's done this before and so the teacher "flips" him (behavior chart) when he forgets. He's afraid of how many times she's going to flip him. He's been writing his reading responses on notebook paper, even though he knows he'll get flipped. He was a basket case at the beginning of break when he first realized he forgot it. I hope it wasn't too harsh for him today. He worked so hard on it and was very faithful to read - even though he knew he would be in trouble. I'm proud of him. It would be so easy to just say "forget it, it's not worth it".

I leave in 5 minutes to pick them up!

the first Terrifying Tuesday and pre-op appt.

2009-01-07T00:29:00.001-08:00

Boy, it came fast! Well, today was the first terrifying tuesday so I decided to take it easy on them and prepare one of the safer looking recipes. I chose Barbecued Raspberry-Hoisin Chicken. I got the recipe off the weight-watchers website. I'm not sure if there is some sort of copyright infringement to posting other people's recipes, so I won't do it unless I know it's okay. Let's just say this recipe is a winner, and it's pretty heart healthy. The hoisin is the most suspect item, but the sauce really is only a light coating, so it couldn't be too bad.

The reason this recipe was chosen is because I grill a LOT and need some more inventive grilling recipes. I'm kinda on a "mix fruit with different items" kick. Plus my boys don't do Chinese food. So this exposes them to Chinese flavors. Hopefully we can start going to Chinese restaurants as a family!

I served the chicken with brown rice and salad.

The verdict: well, it was very tastey. Everyone gave it a thumbs up. It was fairly easy to prepare - you have to prepare in advance so it marinates. I think cutting the chicken and putting it on the skewers is the most taxing part, if you want to call it taxing. LOL! Chicken thighs are such a weird part of the chicken. The recipe will be put in the keeper file.

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yesterday I went to my doc for a pre-op appointment. I can't believe I'm finally getting near the end of this long recon process. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. My doc, yes, you can feel it coming can't you, is going to be deployed for 6 months, starting 2 weeks after my surgery! Can you believe it? I've only met him a couple of times! I'll barely be recovered! And I'll be moved before he returns. He wasn't happy about that. He told me he'd give me his email so I can send pictures if there is a problem. IF he's somewhere that allows email. Yeah, like they'd even allow partially nude pictures, even for medical purposes. (not like it's a real boob or anything) I guess it's that or see my next door neighbor! The horror! LOL! Yeah, so pray for good healing! He's more worried about the scar revision than the other procedure. Especially since I'm allergic to tape and it's in the line of the bra band. He said no running or exercises that rub for 6 weeks. Ugh. I really need to exercise to keep control of my weight. So I'll be on a quest to find out what I can do. It sounds like biking.

Anyway, he wanted to take pictures. This is normal. Yes, the humiliations never ends, but it's normal. When I first stood there, he said, "Dr. xxxx did a good job matching the size." So that made me feel good. It's not a perfect match, but it's good to know that you got an acceptable result. There are always doubts, and I can see every flaw.

There is a lot to post about this process, but it's getting late, and the subject is a bit awkward. So I'll sign off for now! Aloha!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-04T18:31:00.000-08:00

I've been buried under a pile of recipes and have emerged alive, 28 recipes later. I will add more as time goes by, but this will give me a good start. Plus, there will be a break during the move, so I won't need 52. And as a bonus, a friend of mine, who is a vegetarian, offered to have me over to her house and us cook together! She'll pull out one of her cookbooks, we'll pick a recipe and cook up a double batch. I'm so curious to see what's in her pantry and fridge (shhh, don't tell her!).

In the midst of my recipe quest, I've visited quite a few food blogs. It's quite amazing how many people out there document photographically every bite of food they take. I think that's an awful lot of work and time. The blog I linked on the side, Kath Eats Real Food, is one such blog. But it's really interesting to see just what a trim, fit person eats regularly.

I've also done a lot of tossing. Throwing away, finally letting go of some junk, and finally sorting through some piles of stuff. It's all in the quest to prepare for the move. So I"ve got a good start on my new years resolutions.

I have also just enrolled my boys in twice a week basketball. It's free and at the local community park. Not a competitive thing. Mostly learning skills and rules and such. I'm also hoping to enroll myself in the Thai cooking class. I talked about this last year. This is my last chance to take this class. Ironically, Gary will be in Thailand during the first class. So I need to line up a babysitter for a few hours.

New Years Eve. It's always a spectacle here in Hawaii. This year was no exception. We have some neighbors a few houses in front of us (we live at the top of a T intersection), who go crazy with the fireworks. We had bought a large package and some special individual fireworks. When we had run through ours, and had cleaned up our mess, the neighbors came over bearing a big load of fireworks. He said they had 3 truckfulls, so we could get more if we wanted. He gave us about 5 packages of the strung together firecrackers (you may not have them where you are - they are quite popular here and LOUD!), a big box of the poppers that you throw on the ground that are fun for the little kids, and about 3 big packs of big fountains and other stuff. I don't know where he got them from, and I wasn't going to ask! It took another hour to light all he gave us. A lot of pickup trucks and cars kept coming to his house. He had iced down drinks in a cooler. At midnight I dragged Gary out to listen to it and watch the neighbors instead of watching the ball drop on tv. This is a tradition in Hawaii. I'm actually going to miss being smoked out of my house! It rained off and on, so I didn't hear any firetrucks. We were laying in bed at 12:40 and it was still going on and then the wind kicked up and the rain poured and silence reigned.

This is the view from our front door looking towards our neighbors house at midnight. It's the firework finale, I guess they just made a big bonfire and threw everything in - at least that's what it seemed like! I was a little scared there because the fire got so big and it was in the middle of the street. But I guess there weren't any cars nearby. The fireworks were going off like crazy, but it wasn't any louder than anyone else across the island. You could hear loud, deep booms and see the sky flash from way far away, not to mention all the noise from our side of the island and our town! I'm sure O'bama was reliving his youth, remembering the craziness.

2009 Resolutions

2008-12-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the new year's resolutions and I've come up with a few.

Last year I resolved to read the Bible through in a year. I did good until a few weeks before christmas, then I just stopped. I gave myself permission to put it off until after the holidays. So I will finish that up in January. I still want to read the bible daily, I just won't follow such a hard schedule. I find that I'm missing it and I can tell by my attitude that I haven't been reading it.

Also, the usual eat right, exercise resolutions will be there, but with a twist. A fun twist.

And then there is the matter of the upcoming move.

Let's just get to the list:
1. Read the Bible daily. Pick a book and read a chapter a day. Much more flexible and doable schedule.
2. Eat healthier. This is the fun one. I've already introduced the idea to the family and they are on board. My plan is to fix one new recipe - healthy, quick and hopefully tastey(but not guaranteed) - a week. We've chosen Tuesday. We will call it Terrifying Tuesdays or something like that. Everyone has to take at least one sincere bite. I'm already working on assembling the recipes. I've got dozens of cookbooks and I get emails and I have dozens of websites at hand. I'm choosing some vegetarian, some heart smart, some weird, some normal but made over - but all of them are to be touted as healthy and fairly easy to make. The goal is to discover new foods and to add new dishes to our regular repetiour (sp?), so we will be more apt to stay home and eat. My hope is to post the recipe, pictures and the results. Stay tuned. It starts next week! p.s. I only have 5 recipes selected so far - if you know of any really goofy good ones, let me know!
3. Exercise. I need to incorporate strength training into my routine. I don't have a plan set yet.
4. Survive the move. I need to start weeding out and throwing away junk. Gary said that we should choose one room a week to concentrate on. I think there are some rooms that would take several weeks! We have got a lot of toys, books and clothes to either sell or give away. I'm tempted to just give away.
5. Work the budget. Put the budget together so we can clearly see what we can afford for a house. We probably won't buy in Atlanta, at least not when we first get there. But we will be buying in the near future.

Christmas at the beach!

2008-12-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

This is what we did today, after the present opening frenzy. (try to ignore the wild gray hair) The water was brown, yucky, wild and on the cold side. And it was cloudy and windy. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. It was wonderful! I had a great time boogie boarding. Jake did a little and dug around in the sand. Ryan pouted the whole time. He did NOT want to be there. All he wanted to do was play the Wii. We were there for about an hour when my friend Susan came and her family and they set up a little tree. We decorated it with seaweed and beach debris.

The finished product:

Something bumped my leg twice, so I got the heck outta there!

That's me!

gearing up for Thursday

2008-12-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

The boys have sorted and counted the presents under the tree, and I have been informed that Jake has 7 and Ryan has 6 (from us) - so I need to go out and rectify that situation. They did this on Saturday and pulled out their Webkins and commenced to playing with the gifts. What was I thinking buying them presents? All they need are boxes! (these are 9 year olds I'm talking about, not 3 year olds) They built structures, oil rigs to be exact, and assigned jobs to each of their Webkins. This has gone on for several days. My boys create businesses quite a bit in their play. We have also created a business of baking snickerdoodles and have named the business (which I will not reveal here, because I wouldn't want anyone to snatch it because we will surely actually create a business and need to register the name - LOL!). We also daydream about being candymakers and brainstorm different exciting candies. That's just a couple of examples.

Two large boxes from the in-laws arrived tonight, so that was big excitement. The boys have asked if they could open a present tomorrow morning. We have a tradition that we can open 1 present each on Christmas Eve. But it's usually later in the day. The boys are about to bust!

Tomorrow evening there is a candlelight service at the church. This past Sunday our church held a live nativity. I helped in the kitchen with the cookies. Right before it all began, someone came in to ask us to pray because the animals were stranded on the side of the road. The trailer had broken down. The police was with them. So we prayed. That trailer of animals showed up just when the opening hula began. (yes, this is Hawaii, so hula is a must at any and all activities)

Another tradition in our family, that I started and I'm sure I mention every year, is to make a birthday cake for Jesus. This is the celebration of his birth, so I think a birthday cake is appropriate. This year I want something different. So I have selected a gingerbread cake recipe - a heart healthy one of course. We'll see how it turns out. I'll take pictures.

As far as food goes, I'm making a breakfast "pizza" involving sausage and eggs and crescent rolls. Not at all healthy. My plan is for Christmas morning, but it may be for supper tomorrow night and pancakes for breakfast instead. We'll see. I need to poll the peeps. I have steaks to grill for Christmas supper, brown rice and green beans will round it out. During the lunch hour we will hit the beach and blow off steam. My friend Susan has invited us to join her family. She has a tradition of hauling a Christmas tree to the beach and decorating it with stuff found on the beach. And then surfing and playing in the water. and of course taking pictures to drive the mainlander friends wild with envy. LOL!

The next big thing going on is our school is putting in a new playground. Scratch that, the PTSA/parents and community is putting in the playground. The DOE tore out our awesome playground suddenly, traumatically and unexpectedly this fall the first week that school was in session. I'm sure I wrote all about it. We have raised $120,000 so far and need to raise a little bit more, but the new playground will involve cool stuff like a volcano... It's been designed by Leathers and Associates. So, the build will be January 7-11. But I'm going to help on Sunday by providing some food for 50 volunteers (it's a group of us providing the food). I guess they are part of the demolition, which looks like the demo is complete... Maybe they need to smooth out the dirt or something? Dig up old buried tires?

Our school has no budget. It's a great school, but the DOE has decided to take money from the schools instead of themselves. So, as it is, we have a half time librarian, no music, no art, no reading specialists and will lose a teacher or two next year. Because our teachers are so awesome, our school does well on the standardized tests and we are not classified as a no-child-left-behind school and do not get extra monies. We have a large military population, and the monies we get from that has been slashed, and it doesn't help that we had a very disruptive 5th grade the year before and lost a huge number of students. Good school, but big money problems and other issues.

Well, I didn't mean for this to go into a diatribe about the school situation.

If I don't get on here again until after Thursday, then Merry Christmas!!

the unofficial Honolulu Marathon 2008 post

2008-12-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

(I'll post for real when I get some pictures!) But in the meantime, here's a picture that a friend took of us, posted on facebook and I swiped. I'm the munchkin holding up the shirt, BTW. You may recognize Jenny from the Pokemom's Komen team just a few posts back.

This was Jenny's first marathon and I'm surprised she's smiling here. j/k She did great! I did great!

As a refresher, last year's time was 6 hours 32 minutes. This year's time was 6 hours 7 minutes! yeah baby! I shaved a whole minute per mile average off my last year time. And this with some really bad pain in one knee and both feet. But I'll get to that in my official post...

I read in the paper today that a player for the Red Sox ran it and came in at 6 hours 9 minutes. Wooosh. Did you feel my breeze as I swept past you? LOL! j/k Gotta have as much fun with it as I can. Trust me, there were 80 year olds passing me.

Noah! Start building the ark!

2008-12-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

The rain has finally stopped, but it's still cloudy. I woke up last night at 1 am and it was pouring down rain and windy. It carried on all night and all day until about 1pm. Why is this a big deal? It doesn't rain like this very often. Rain usually comes in little 1-5 minute sprinkles (with the exception of the marathon last year, thank you very much). Sure, there are harder rains, but this was bad. I've got pictures, of course...

This first picture is of the water in my back yard, coming up on the lanai. I have a concrete backyard. Don't ask me why the owners wanted so much concrete... But, to let you know, this is a covered lanai. Oh, and this is my outdoor furniture finally with the repainting done. I like the black.

This picture shows just how close to the house it got. That's our back sliding doors on the left.

This is a shot out of our front door.

This is the octopus tree on the side of the house. At least 5 large branches broke off. I had to drag them all the way around the house and out to the front.

These are all the branches out front. You can see the single string of icicles I hung, all by myself. Hee-hee. It's so redneck.

As you can see, it didn't pare down the tree a whole lot. That's it looming over the house behind the garage. We are so blessed that it didn't damage our roof or the neighbor's house.

These are the cups I set out to catch the drips from our leaking roof. Ghetto house.

This the area at the tree after my branch cleanup.

While it was raining I managed to get all my wrapping done. Yay! Now I need to scrounge up boxes for the shipping.

The Verdict is in...

2008-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

We have been assigned to ..................................

drumroll please......................................................................

Hot-lanta!! um, Atlanta!!

He'll be working at FORSCOM (Forces Command).

Uh, I just got an email saying it's not official. Pretty much set though. Well, that's the Army for you. Why say anything if it's not a done deal?

So, has anyone lived there before or currently?? Any opinions on areas to avoid or good schools? Anything, I'll take anything! Names of good churches - I need that too. Where are good places to run or walk? Should we live in close or should we live near the train stations? Buy or rent?

Great. Now how am I supposed to wrap presents when now I want to obsess??

how's the new look?

2008-12-08T18:03:00.000-08:00

I was digging around the blog land out there, mainly I was looking at blogs by people who read Lyn's blog - and came across some info on how to put backgrounds on your blog. Which led me to the site "the cutest blog on the block". They have some free backgrounds, and they have some things that are not free. What I have here is free. I did have another background, but it was dark and you couldn't read the text. I put the link to them on my sidebar there >>.

Cute, no? Yeah.

Gary called and left a message. I was out grocery shopping. Bummer. I also got a call that my plastic surgery surgery date was moved. Did I mention that I had a date scheduled? It was for January 6, but now it's the 14th. bummer again. In case I forgot to mention it, it's for scar repair and, uh, you know, the little bump that makes a girl just a little bit more girly and less Barbie. But maybe the date change will mean we can take a quick outer-island trip during the winter break.

But I don't have time to be goofing off like I am. I took the boys out Saturday and we went on a wild shopping spree and got all the Christmas shopping done. Well, it's never done done. But mostly done. I should be wrapping presents and boxing them up for shipping. I'm still in recovery from the shopping. The boys did really well considering the torture I put them through. I did splurge on a trip to McDonald's and an order of the mini cinnamon things.

I weighed in today and am shocked at how much I've gained!! So after the marathon, I'm getting serious again. Weight watchers has renamed their program - I've read up on some of it and don't see much change, other than terminology. No change that rocks my world. Stopping eating the junk will rock my world enough... I'd hate to see my cholesterol now.

ants, trees and marathon

2008-12-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

Let's start with the pleasant things... Like our tree! Having lived in Hawaii before, we knew of the housing situation - as in SMALL. So we left the non-essentials, like the fake Christmas tree. We do have a tiny Spongebob tree and a small table top tree that were supposed to suffice during our stint here. Yeah, right. This year I insisted on a real tree. Which means we had to buy a tree holder, lights and ornaments. It just has not felt like Christmas for the past 2 years - mostly due to the weather, but also due to the woeful lack of ornamentation in our house. Not that I'm a superstar designer or anything. But a tree adds that umphf.

Gary is currently in Japan, but before he left, we went to the local lot and picked us out a nice 5 1/2 footer. The 1/2 foot is a tall stalk on top, which is perfect for our star tree topper. It took us a week, but we found time and bought some cheapie ornaments and it doesn't look half bad! A little sparse, but that's okay. I actually thought it'd look tacky, but the cheapie ornaments you can find nowadays are slightly more sophisticated. The tinsil garland is still tacky, but at least the color coordinates. It's a bit breezy tonight, so it's durability is being tested.

It now proudly sits out on the back lanai, right on the other side of our sliding glass doors, so we can enjoy it inside or out. I'm glad to have it.

Now, to clean the house and get the rest of the stuff put out...
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I can't believe it's the 5th and we have not started our Christmas advent readings.
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Marathon news. I've walked my last long walk this morning. Last weekend I walked 20 miles and felt awful for several days. My shins have been in pain for a few weeks which alters how I walk which makes other body parts start aching. So my schedule called for short 3 mile walks this week and I think that has really helped with healing. today's walk was torture for the first 3.5 miles, but then I loosened up and hit my stride, finished the 10 miles and felt great all day long. (with the exception of one toe)

Tapering for real begins. And then the marathon. It's on the 14th. I'm excited for it to come. I love the energy that comes with it. All these people who have trained so hard and for so long. Everyone is full of energy and life and excitement. I'm a little bit dreading the pain that I know will come, and the port-o-potties. I still gag when I think about them. It really traumatized me!

Gary will not be here, so that makes me sad. I had a friend who was going to take the boys, same as last year, and be my en-route support person and cheerleader, but she had to go to the mainland and do a Thelma and Louise cross-country with a friend who is dying. Her husband is sweet enough to agree to keep the boys as planned. Since she is gone, the boys will be a good distraction for their son. But I don't anticipate him bringing the kids to a point somewhere on the route to cheer me on. (and carry supplies that I might need) So I don't imagine I'll have any pictures of this race. :-(

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Ants. I'm being invaded. I've seen them in the kitchen here and there for over a week now. I made fudge and merangues on Wednesday and the ants swarmed the bits that I missed in clean up. So I had to get them. I was given a local tip on what works, went to the store and immediately put out a few drops of the "bait". The ants practically stampeded to get to the stuff! And let me tell you. While I saw only 10-20 at a time before, gazillions came to get to this stuff. Where have they all been hiding? Scratch that. I don't want to know. They ran (because these ants aren't walkers, they are frenetic runners) back and forth for hours. The stampede has diminished significantly, finally, but a few are still at it. I just hope they took the poison to the nest and now the million-gazillion are D-E-A-D.

Did you ever see that movie Ants! (IIRC) I guess it was made in the late 70's early 80's. I swear, if these ants start forming words on the walls, I'm outta here.

Happy Thanksgiving a day early!

2008-11-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

So, is everyone ready?? Are you having a big feast with lots of family or doing something adventurous with your own little clan, or inviting someone to join you? Or, like us, just having a nice little dinner with just us, watch football, put up Christmas lights and spend time together. Gary is leaving Sunday for Japan for a few weeks - yes, the crucial shopping days before Christmas. (not to mention shipping days) Ugh, don't even get me started on Christmas cards. Last years aren't even done! I'm going to take the easy way out and do picture cards. I already have a picture picked out.

Gary asked me to keep it simple. He didn't want me slaving for hours in the kitchen. So here is our menu: I'm going to bag a small-ish turkey (cooks much faster); sweet potatoes with crushed pineapples, walnuts and cinnamon; brown rice; jarred gravy; and some easy rolls that a friend gave me the recipe to. We tried to make these last year, but they kinda flopped. So I begged her for the recipe and I'm going to try again. I need to stick in a green vegetable - but why bother? I'd be the only one who eat it. For dessert, I'm picking up a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake that they sell at Foodland.

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So I was looking at last years posts, to get a feel of when we they told us our assignment. It was around the first week of December - so hopefully we'll know something soon. The job that Gary wanted most is not going to be available, he just found out. I guess the guy is going to stay there. Anyway, I was reading the post and I had said I was getting teary-eyed at the thought of leaving here. Well, I've got to say, last week we went to a movie.... Back the train, I have to explain this part. At Consolidated Theaters, they have this intro clip. Very dramatic. Starts out dark, and you hear the blowing of the conch shell, you see native Hawaiian paddlers and hear the chants, some hula, etc. LOVE IT! I get goose bumps every time. They were showing this clip when we lived here 10 years ago. Goodness knows how long ago they filmed it. Back to the story, at the movies, and the clip comes on. Guess who tears up? You got it. I'm such a sentimental sap. But I couldn't help but think that I would never see it again in just a few short months. Such a totally Hawaiian thing.

it must be fall!

2008-11-24T23:03:00.001-08:00

even though it doesn't feel like it. Because I made soup! It was yummy. I also made bread using the recipe I posted many moons ago. I'm going to have to label my recipe threads. Here is the recipe I used, I got it off the weight watcher chat boards. I made a few changes as you'll see in the notes beneath the recipe.

Beef Barley Lentil Soup
1 pound lean ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups cubed red potatoes ( ¼ inch pieces)
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup dry lentils, rinsed
½ cup medium pearl barley
8 cups water
2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
2 cans (14 Â½ ounces each) stewed tomatoes

In a non-stick skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a 5-qt. slow cooker (crock pot). Layer with the potatoes, celery, carrots, lentils and barley. Combine the water, bouillon, salt and lemon-pepper; pour over vegetables. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours or until vegetables and barley are tender. Add the tomatoes; cook 2 hours longer.

Yield 10 servings.

Notes: I used stew meat and trimmed off all the visible fat. I browned the meat and onions, but I'm sure you could get away with not doing that. I only had 1 can of stewed tomatoes (which I blended with a hand blender) so I added a can of rotel tomatoes. The cooking time - well, I didn't need 8 hours! Very yummy.

I'm sorry I haven't posted all week. I had a very unpleasant day Wednesday and it's affected me for a long time. I wish people were more aware of how their words can really hurt. Even when they mean to hurt you (at the moment) - it really, really hurts. Probably more than intended.

I've got some pictures to post. We had a huge rain this weekend, and while we were driving past the Koolaus on the H3, I hung my phone out the window and took pictures of the waterfalls cascading in between the folds of the mountains. I need some time to resize them for internet posting.

reminiscing...

2008-11-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

This time last year I was posting about bad news that Gary got passed over for promotion. Well, deja vu - it happened again this year. There is no "next time". In rereading those posts, I relied on I Thess. 5:18 - and curiously enough, that exact verse is what I've relied on this time. We just did it in our after-school Bible class. I even made a "give thanks" cake, because this means we are going to embark on something different in our family. And God always has the most interesting stuff planned.

So we have to face the future. That means I'm going to start digging into our finances and figure out how much house we can afford! Woop-te-do. I'm so not looking forward to it. Househunting - yes, I look forward to that. Being in debt, no. We are a frugal family and have no debts. A couple of years ago I swiped a book from my parents, one of those For Dummies books about buying a house. I'm going to fill out the charts and learn all about the intricate world of mortgages and negotiating.

So anyway, we have to move this summer. Gary talked to the placement people and we have a few possibilities. Notice I didn't say choice. It's never our choice. Hah! (gotta push the bitterness down) We're looking at 2 jobs a Ft. Monroe, VA (very near where we lived last time), Charlottesville VA at the JAG school, Atlanta, and Ft. Sam Houston San Antonio. Of course, I've been spending my time online researching schools and houses. The list needs to be narrowed down more, because these are just too many areas to research fully.

Oh, and if he finds a job and wants to retire? They need 9 months notice. How fair is that? What employer is going to wait 9 months for a new hire?

So, to lighten the mood, I decided to post a picture of me when I was 13 and in braces. Give me a break folks, I was 13 and this was the 70's! LOL!

back to the usual routine...

2008-11-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

First off, I'm going to post Halloween pictures.

Jake as a gangster (I need to talk to him about not pointing weapons at people!) and Ryan is a forensic crime investigator (in other words, a CSI, but I dare not call him that in his range of hearing) Basically, they are cops and robbers.

These are some friends they went trick or treating with. We went to a little party beforehand where we attempted to ply our children with goulish yet healthy foods before the candy frenzy.

It seems like there has been very little school the past month or so. First, there was the week of fall break, then a week and a half of half-days due to parent/teacher conferences. BTW, they went very well. The boys are doing great except their handwriting is atrocious. It's going to start affecting their grades, and I told the teachers to do whatever they needed to do to drive the point home that they needed to take the time to write neatly. It's bad folks. It would be unreadable if I weren't the mama.

Oh, we had off monday and tuesday for waiver day and election day. Then they get Veterans day off and two days for Thanksgiving. Not to mention we get 3 weeks for winter break which is coming up way too soon. Christmas shopping? It's so hard to even think about when it's in the 80's. The room I'm sitting in right now reads 88.

I'm about to scream. My printer is flaking on me. I just bought a new ink cartridge and now nothing is printing. Oh, there's ink in that thing all right. Can we not manufacture a printer or pc that actually works?? This is so frustrating. We seem to buy new ones every other year! That's just not green people! If I had a shotgun I'd rip this thing a new one, ya know.

Okay, in this no politics zone, I must mention that I'm glad the elections are over. I may not agree with the politics of the president-elect, but it is wonderful to see a black man going to the office. Let's face it, race is important in this race. It may not be what the race was about (for some I'm absolutely sure it was), but it is a major earmark for this particular election. I fear for some of the changes that will be coming, but I do embrace the change that having a black man in office will incur (is that a word?). This is huge folks. Huge. It will be normal for the newest generations for a person of color to occupy the highest office in the country. An office of respect. I think this is a turning of the tide for greater gains in race relations. (of course, I pray he does a great job and doesn't pass bad legislation) I love that this will be the norm (as it should be) for my kids. When I think back again to that book "Elijah of Buxton" - how it reminded me that slaves were treated as animals, or really less than animals - possessions, not even prized possessions. This is a good day. Maybe not so politically, but a good day morally.

Gosh, I wonder if this will end up being another post I have to unsave...

pictures from today and more race pics

2008-10-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

First, I took a couple of pictures on my walk today with my camera phone. It rained for half my walk, so it's really cloudy, and well, the quality and composition are just not great. But I wanted to share what I get to see on my walks. The ocean was really roaring this morning.

The first two are along the ocean, actually looking across the top of Kailua Bay. You can see the Mokes in the distance (the two tiny little humps on the left - the other big humps are part of Oahu) in the second picture; and the little island in the first picture is dubbed "bird poop island". It's usually shining white - with, well, you know. They seem really far away in these pics, but they are larger IRL.

Had I left 15 minutes earlier and were it not cloudy, there would be a spectacular sunrise. I want to get that photo.

This next picture is alongside the stinky pond I walk around. It's stinky for a few reasons. It's right next to a water treatment facility, and the flow of water in and out is limited. I hear it's very briney. I love to watch the fish jump when they are feeling frisky. The crater in the background is on the Marine Corp base. I walk along the base of that crater. That's enough hill for me without having to go straight up it!

This is team Pokemoms - the ones who attended the race who are female, that is. Disclaimer, Jenny, the tall one, is not a deranged killer. She didn't want me to post this photo, but then later gave me permission. I guess it was early and she had too much coffee. Just kidding!

This is my favorite photo. Heh, heh. Job recruiters, please don't hold it against him! I made him do it!

regrets...

2008-10-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

I "unpublished" that last posting. When I was typing it up, I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but I just wanted to get it off my chest. I'm so totally over it. I just use this place to blow off steam, and it usually works - unfortunately, this is such a public forum, casualties are bound to happen. I really didn't want to confront you Krisanne, so that's why I didn't. I figure that the 3 readers I have don't know you and I didn't name names, so it wasn't really a big deal in my mind. Unload and move on. I'm passive-agressive I guess - big shocker there. LOL!

On an interesting side note, the school had a kids vote on Friday. My boys' votes cancelled each other out. Gary is shocked - because he was the one who explained to them the differences between Obama and McCain. He, of course, expected them to fall in line. He shouldn't be shocked, this is Obama country. Ryan said the kids in his class were making fun of McCain's age.

Meanwhile, I'm saving up a big vent about HFCS and a related article I read in the newspaper. I have a little pantry research to do first. (this whole this is a form of procrastinating my FRG duties) Exciting, I know...

more Komen photos - all pre-race

2008-10-20T00:15:00.000-07:00

somehow, didn't get post race photos, that's all for the best I'm sure, but the lei I got was really pretty.

Komen race for the cure

2008-10-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

This is what I did this morning ...

Excuse the gray hair and glasses, after all, it was 5:30 in the morning! This doesn't even begin to show what I looked like at the end of the race. Imagine bright pink shoelaces on my serious running shoes, and energizer bunny ears atop my bright pink cap - and a lei. Like my t-shirt? Had I known there was a t-shirt contest I would have bought another one to enter. But we know in our hearts that we won that contest. (no one was willing to strip off theirs to enter it) Ryan and I won door prizes. I won a Chevron pink car (toy), a team Chevron t-shirt and a Komen candle. Ryan won a pink Chevron car and a pink folding chair. Our team raised $390.

cryin, but not about me

2008-10-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

I've cried out all my tears about me. That's done with. But now I'm bawling. I just finished the book "Elijah of Buxton" that I mentioned briefly before. It's a book that Jake is reading. It's a MUST READ. It's easy to read, yet hard to read. But I think it's important. I'm glad that my child is reading it, to get just a taste of the ramifications of slavery in America. I think the further and further we get away from those times, it becomes unreal - just an aside in history. That would be a shame to forget or minimize.

Jake asked me this morning, when we were walking to school, "would you rather be dead or a slave?". I couldn't answer him. Think about it. It's a hard, hard question.

I'm just so sorry that such a horrible thing as slavery existed, and even more horrible, it still exists in the world and the prejudices still linger here.

I can't help but be reminded that people are capable of anything. Usually rotten things. I'm not one of those who think people are basically good. That never flew with me. *sigh* oh how we need Jesus.

Creamy Salad Dressing recipe

2008-10-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd change it up and do something fun today. A recipe!! Recipes are always fun. And this one is good and easy. I made it last night for the first time.

I have to give credit where credit is due, I get recipes sent to my email by Dr. Andrew Weil. I think I got hooked up with these emails by poking around Jillian's (from the Biggest Loser) website. He's got good recipes if you are wanting healthy ones.

Creamy Salad Dressing

8 servings This delicious and easy soy-based dressing can stand head to head with everyone's favorite – ranch dressing. Look for silken tofu in shelf-stable cardboard containers. It has a different texture than regular tofu and is good for dressings and desserts. This dressing is good on a tossed green salad (remember to pick dark green salad greens), but equally at home on a baked potato or as a dip for raw vegetables. Add a bit of fragrant bleu cheese if you like.

Ingredients:
6 ounces silken tofu (or soft tofu, drained)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons cider vinegar

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender container. Blend until well mixed.

Nutritional Information:
Per serving:
33 calories
3 g total fat (0 g sat)
0 mg cholesterol
1 g carbohydrate
2 g protein
0 g fiber
134 mg sodium

another wednesday - WW vent

2008-10-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah, lame title. Just a little of this and a little of that.

Weight Watchers is driving me nuts. They did something to the planner so now it's not working properly for us on the Core plan. It's been this way for a WEEK!! With no message or notice to those of us on the plan. Finally, 2 days ago, customer service posted a message on the core board telling us of a workaround. Pretty lame workaround if you ask me. If you can believe what you read on the message boards, the responses people have been getting when they call WW is pretty unbelievable. From not knowing there is a problem, to saying it'll be fixed in a few hours. Heh, heh. Last week. Oh, and my personal favorite "well you know what foods are core, so it shouldn't be a problem, just roll with it". And then, you have the people on the core board who don't use the planner, so they are sick of us posting about it and they are being ugly. It's only a few, but enough to irritate. People like that like to post often and everywhere.

Corbies already feel like the red-headed stepchild. There are already a few bugs with the planner that we've been living with. But this new problem renders the whole planner useless. If you can't eat a banana without using points, you may as well be on the Flex plan.

So I sent a message to customer service. It took two days, but I heard back - I'm getting credited a week. I guess if this problem persists, I'll have to periodically send messages to get credit or just cancel. The planner is everything to me. I need to keep a journal to keep me honest and mindful of how much I'm eating. And this planner is fast and easy. I've tried other free food journals online and they are so slow and/or not flexible. Plus, I like the core plan. Remember how good it is for my cholesterol?
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I picked up the race packets for my Komen team - Pokemoms. Yahoo! Our little team has earned $365 already. I need to distribute, but they didn't include the race instructions and maps for everyone so I'm trying to make copies. My printer is flaking out on me.
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This morning I went on my 3 mile walk. I've been feeling cocky about my jogging (I jogged 2.8 sunday night), so I thought I'd jog a couple of miles. Bonk! My shins were hurting so bad and I was just not feeling good in general. Couldn't do it. I maybe made a mile. In spurts. The rest I walked. But it's all good. Today is just supposed to be a 3 mile walk on my schedule. The reason my shins are sore is because I did 2 minute fast walk intervals on my 4.4 mile walk yesterday. I need to stretch them out good. The vog is here again. Kona winds. That doesn't help one bit.
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The house is a mess and I need to shower before school lets out. Another Good News Club today - pray that the children are calmer. I'm hoping the fall break gave them some stress relief and now they are ready to behave. Wishful thinking...
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We got the boys their halloween costumes this weekend. Jake is going to be a gangster and Ryan is going to be a crime scene investigator.
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The boys got their latest book order in yesterday. They both have already read 1 book each. Ryan read a Goosebumps book, and Jake has read that new 39 Clues book. I'm eager to read that one myself. They've done a lot of reading lately. Ryan is working on finishing The City of Ember. As soon as he's done, we're going to see the movie. Jake and I have already read the book. I've read the movie review and see that they changed the story a bit. That sort of thing ticks me off, because it's a good book - ready to be made a movie if you ask me. But screen writers seem to think they haven't done their job if they haven't changed the story. It was like that for Spiderwick Chronicles - oh and countless others. I remember when the first Harry Potter came out and the kids were raving about how it was just like the book and the critics were criticizing because it was just like the book. Now that just doesn't make sense to me. I figure the author spent years writing and planning a book and a screen writer spends maybe a few weeks or so (if even). They usually miss the big picture vision and the nuances that are charming in the books.
I'm still trying to read the books that the boys bring home to read. It's hard to keep up, since Jake is such a fast reader and the books are bigger. Jake is reading Elijah of Buxton and I'm just charmed by it (there's that word again) and hope I can finish it before he has to leave it at school. I'm tempted to tell him to leave it home for a whole day so I can get more time in.
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I'm working on trying out more whole grain recipes. I did one the other day that was barley in the rice cooker. Gary liked it. I didn't. Too strong. It tasted like Spanish rice, of which I'm not a fan. When I find some good ones, I'll post them. It's fascinating though, the recipes out there that you can make in the rice cooker. Google "rice cooker recipes".

tada! the reveal...

2008-10-09T20:38:00.001-07:00

This is the long-awaited design. Cute, isn't it? I hope you can see it. I will tweak the size if it doesn't show up large enough. The little words on the bottom say "early detection saves lives". I will take a picture of the team and post it after the race. I can't wait until the shirts get here. We all ordered tank tops. Crossing fingers that they are decent quality and not too tight!

First post here

2008-10-08T20:17:00.001-07:00

This is going to be one of those loser throwaway posts. I just want something to show up. It's gonna be a fun holiday season figuring this business out. I promise, my next post will be that awesome t-shirt I designed for my Pokemom's Komen team.

toodles!

t-shirt design

2008-10-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've got a good design in the works! My teammates approve - actually they encourage me to make it BIGGER. I guess when it comes to all things chest, the bigger the better... LOL! I had gone out and bought some software - did a bonehead thing and bought something that wasn't Vista, I thought it was. Looked online and they have a patch to make it compatible - so I got to work right away. The girls want to do a screenprint - which makes it limiting in colors. We want to keep it down to 3 colors. I don't know if that would look better than an iron on. Considered cafe press, but it would be pricey, and the selection of shirts are limited and I doubt it would be delivered in time although I bet they would have the best results.

To answer your question Trish, they gave me a couple of options. There are two other plastic surgeons for me to choose from, but one is my next door neighbor - so it's a 'no' on him. The other guy I will meet in two weeks - I have an appointment to meet him and he'll administer the shots I'm getting in my scar to help reduce it. (keloid) My PS is said to be coming back a couple of days a week starting in November to finish up some of his current patients - I fall in this category. At this point, I think it's too late to do any surgery, no matter how minor, until the marathon. So I'm looking at mid-December regardless who I choose. Plus I'm not sure how follow-up care would work. What if something goes wrong? It's just one procedure though - supposedly a simple one. I don't want to break in a new surgeon!! Ugh. I hate this situation. So unless this new guy is a real moron, I'll probably go with him. I briefly met him - he was one of the crowd at my last appointment. He didn't say a word. He seemed a bit homorless - which would be polar opposite of my current guy. I guess that doesn't matter if he's good.

my doctor flew the coop!

2008-10-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm so upset. My plastic surgeon is on terminal leave, as of Monday. Terminal leave means he's getting out of the service. Rumor has it he's leaving plastic surgery too. I can either see him to finish up (supposedly he'll be coming in a couple of days a week starting in November to finish up some of his patients) or get a new doctor. I'm so confused on what to do.

yes, I'm still here...

2008-10-02T16:09:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten I had a private journal, so I just finished saving all that stuff on my pc. It was kind of a fun trip back in time. It started in August of 05. I was complaining about gas being $2.53, and saw a week later it jumped up to $3. So funny because today it's $4.04 and I'm happy about that, because that is way down from this summer!! Meanwhile, my parents are on a trip and say that there is a gas shortage in NC, and my brother in IL says they are practically giving gas away for something like $3.75.

Thankfully the entries were short and few. It would have taken all day to copy over, but this went fairly quickly.

I just ran out and bought some cheap design software. Not the fancy Photoshop stuff, not photo software, but just some stuff that lets you mess around with fonts and clipart and pictures. hopefully I can figure it out quickly (if I can find time) and design that t-shirt. Times a-wastin'!